May 09

Today’s News 9th May 2021

  • Three Shot In Times Square Including Four-Year-Old Girl
    Three Shot In Times Square Including Four-Year-Old Girl

    New York’s Times Square was temporarily cordoned off on Saturday after at least three people were injured in a shooting, according to NBC News, citing police. The suspect, pictured below, was caught on camera.

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    The victims, a four-year-old girl, a 23-year-old and a 43-year-old received non-fatal wounds after one of four men involved in an altercation drew a gun around 5 p.m. and opened fire. All of the victims were bystanders, while the little girl underwent surgery and is expected to survive.

    “Two shots. They was bleeding the toddler was bleeding and the mom was crying,” said one Times Square vendor.

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    It is unclear what the dispute was over which led to the shooting. No suspects have been detained. The shooting came just one hour before a scheduled rally in memory of Daunte Wright, a black man who was fatally shot by a police officer in Minnesota in early April. Police have not linked the shooting to the event at this time.

    There have been 416 shootings in New York City through May 2 of this year, up 83% from this time last year when everyone was locked down, accordsing to police data.

    “A child in one of the top tourist spots in the world on a spring Saturday isn’t safe from this nation’s gun violence epidemic,” said local TV reporter Steve Keeley of Fox29.

    The shooting comes amid a spate of attacks against asians committed primarily by black suspects. Last Sunday, two Asian women were assaulted by a black woman wielding a hammer – leading to one of the victims, a 31-year-old Taiwanese woman, being hospitalized with a head wound.

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    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/08/2021 – 23:45

  • Kauai Real Estate In Total Frenzy As Buyers Snap Up Multi-Million Dollar Homes Sight-Unseen
    Kauai Real Estate In Total Frenzy As Buyers Snap Up Multi-Million Dollar Homes Sight-Unseen

    Real estate on the no-longer sleepy island of Kauai has gotten so hot that people are buying multi-million dollar homes sight-unseen, as the pandemic-fueled housing boom continues seemingly unabated.

    Canadian entrepreneur Brent Naylor and his wife, Gayle Naylor, are selling their North Shore Kauai property for $22.75 million. David Tonnes/Panaviz Photography

    According to the Wall Street Journal, luxury properties on Kauai – with a population of 72,000 permanent residents – start at $3 million, while just 3% of the island’s 550 square miles are open to development, meaning that housing stock in all categories is scarce. And according to the report, Californians looking for primary and secondary homes are squeezing prices even higher.

    Ms. Cook, 46, a former commercial real-estate broker, and her husband, 51, a lawyer, had considered looking for a new home in the suburbs north of San Francisco, but were reluctant to test their luck in a seller’s market, where all-cash deals and multiple bidders had become the rule.

    “I looked at him,” says Ms. Cook, “And I said, ‘OK, great, when are we leaving?’ ”

    The Cooks made an offer of $1.8 million, sight unseen, on a furnished three-bedroom, three-bathroom bungalow located on Kauai’s North Shore, which is known for its verdant mountains and beautiful beaches. The 2,200-square-foot house, with a great room that opens to the outdoors, is on a ¼-acre lot that is a five-minute drive from the ocean. The couple and their two boys, now 4 and 5 years old, moved in time for Thanksgiving. -WSJ

    Kauai, once a sleepy and very rainy destination, has become the state’s prime destination for luxury-minded homeowners – with Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan having snapped up 1,400 contiguous acres – including approximately 600 acres just purchased in March, according to a family spokesman.

    Matthew G. Beall, CEO of Hawai’i Life real-estate, says the island’s residential sales above $3 million went from 23 in 2019 to 38 last year, and that 2020’s top sale on the island (and all of Hawaii in fact), was a 1.7 acre waterfront compound on Hanelai Bay on the North Shore of Kauai.

    The home has eight bedrooms and 10 bathrooms spread across three structures. It sold for $36.7 million last April in an all-cash deal to an undisclosed buyer. The agent on the sale, Neal Normal of Hawai’i Life’s luxury platform, says that more buyers are making pandemic-era offers without a viewing. Last year, he said that of the 30 or so residential sales he handled with an average price of around $10 million, six were sold sight unseen. In his previous 30 years as an agent, just one listing was bought without a viewing.

    Despite some 80 inches of rain per year (and 360 inches at the center of the island at Mount Awialeale – over 5,000 feet above sea level), Kauai’s North Shore has become the island nation’s most expensive market, according to the Big Island’s Rebecca Keliihoomalu – VP of Corcoran Pacific Properties.

    Last year, there were six residential sales on the island north of $10 million, compared to just two in the Wailea-Makena area of southwest Maui, and three above Honolulu.

    That said, buying properties on Kauai is not without risks.

    “Every year we have two or three floods,” said Kauai landscaper Brandon Miranda, a third-generation islander, whose home-care and landscaping business looks after high-end estates for second-home owners.

    “Everyone wants to be on the beach,” says Miranda. “But this is a tropical environment and all that moisture causes problems,” which affect everything from electrical outlets to AC units – on top of the flooding.

    This spring, Kauai and other islands were hit by torrential rains and isolated flooding. A resulting mud slide has impeded access to Hanalei. Mr. Miranda says local Hanalei owners can expect problems for months to come.

    What Mr. Miranda calls super-high-maintenance homes sit on what Hawai’i Life’s Mr. Beall calls “one of the most incredibly beautiful places on the planet.” -WSJ

    Just months ago, one Hanalei oceanfront five-bedroom house sitting on 1.11 acres went on the market for an asking price of $24.75 million.

    Another home on the market belongs to Canadian entrepreneur Brent Naylor, 75, and his wife Gayle, 74. They bought an empty 4/5 of an acre lot perched above Hanelai for $1.6 million, then proceeded to spend around $18 million to construct an 8,200 sqft four-bedroom house, which includes an outdoor kitchen and a 1,200 sqft master suite with a fireplace and private terrace.

    It’s been listed for sale for over 200 days at $22.75 million – so perhaps even Hawaii’s hottest market has limits.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/08/2021 – 23:30

  • Turn Over Routers Or Face Subpoenas, Arizona Lawmakers Tell Maricopa County
    Turn Over Routers Or Face Subpoenas, Arizona Lawmakers Tell Maricopa County

    Submitted by Zachary Stieber

    Votes are counted by staff at the Maricopa County Elections Department office in Phoenix, Ariz., on Nov. 5, 2020.

    Legislators in Arizona and officials in the state’s largest county clashed anew this week over election audit subpoenas, with county officials refusing to hand over routers and claiming they do not have passwords to access administrative control functions of election machines.

    Arizona’s Senate told Maricopa County on Friday that it would issue subpoenas for live testimony from the county’s Board of Supervisors unless it received the materials that are being withheld. “We’ve been asked to relay that the Senate views the County’s explanations on the router and passwords issues as inadequate and potentially incorrect,” a lawyer for the Senate said in an email to county officials.

    The Arizona Senate subpoenaed a slew of election materials, such as ballots, following the 2020 election. Lawmakers also issued subpoenas for election machines, passwords, and other technology.

    Maricopa County alleged in a lawsuit that the request for materials was overly broad and threatened voter privacy. A judge, though, ruled that they were “the equivalent of a Court order.” But the county said this week it is not turning over routers or router images, claiming that doing so poses a significant security risk to law enforcement.

    The county has also informed the Senate’s audit liaison, former Republican Secretary of State Ken Bennett, that it does not have passwords to access administrative functions on Dominion Voting Systems machines that were used to scan ballots during the election.

    “They’ve told us that they don’t have that second password, or that they’ve given us all the passwords they have. They’ve also told us that they now can’t, as they promised a couple weeks ago, provide our subcontractors with the virtual access to the routers and hubs and other things at the Maricopa County tabulation and election center, as was part of the subpoenas,” Bennett told One America News at the site of the audit in Phoenix.

    John Brakey, a Democrat who is serving as an assistant to Bennett, told the broadcaster that he was “blown away” by the password development.

    “It’s like leasing a car and they refuse to give you the keys. They’re supposed to be running the election. You know what’s wrong? Sometimes these vendors have too much power, and we’re voting on secret software, and that’s why this recount down here is very important,” he added.

    Jack Sellers, the Republican chairman of the Maricopa County board, said Friday that he is angered by allegations of corruption and would not address every allegation, but would speak to the password issue.

    “The specific password and security tokens Ken Bennett referenced this week provide access to proprietary firmware and source code. Elections administrators do not need to access this information to hold an election, and we do not have it in our custody,” he said in a statement.

    Contractors working for Florida-based company, Cyber Ninjas, which was hired by the Arizona Senate, audit ballots at Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, Ariz., on May 6, 2021.

    The county board called an emergency meeting later on Friday. The board was going to consider legal advice and litigation regarding its non-compliance with the Senate subpoenas.

    In a response to the Senate’s lawyer, Allister Adel, Maricopa County’s attorney, said that the county has “already produced every password and security key for the tabulators that is [sic] within the County’s possession.”

    “It does not have any others,” Adel added. The county is working to figure out if there is “a safe manner” to get the Senate information from the routers without risking non-election data.

    Dominion, whose machines are used in about half of U.S. states, did not respond to a request for comment. The company has said it supports forensic audits by federally-accredited laboratories and that Cyber Ninjas, which is leading the Arizona audit, is not verified. Both Dominion and Sellers noted that Maricopa County contracted its own audits, one for machines and another for ballots.

    But Brakey, the assistant Senate liaison, has called the description of those audits misleading. The ballot batches were picked beforehand and auditors only analyzed a small percentage of the ballots cast in the election, he said, while the machine testing could only determine whether the technology was working well at the time of the review.

    “They claim that’s an audit. I call it fatally flawed,” he told One America News.

    Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone, meanwhile, joined other county officials in decrying the Senate’s attempt to obtain the routers.

    “Its most recent demands jeopardize the entire mission of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office,” he said in a statement.

    “We are talking about confidential, sensitive, and highly-classified law enforcement data and equipment that will be permanently compromised. The current course is mind-numbingly reckless and irresponsible. I look forward to briefing them on the horrendous consequences of this demand and the breadth of its negative impact on the public safety in this County.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/08/2021 – 23:00

  • Justice Dept. Proposes New Rule To Serialize "Ghost Gun" Kits 
    Justice Dept. Proposes New Rule To Serialize “Ghost Gun” Kits 

    President Biden has promised to defeat the National Rifle Association and wage war on ghost guns in his first hundred days. He appears to be making good on both, as the Justice Department on Friday released a proposed rule that changes the definition of a firearm to require 80% lower kits to include serial numbers, according to AP News. 

    The proposed rule change comes as President Biden has declared war on “ghost guns.” These weapons have unserialized lower receivers (the regulated part of a gun) that can be easily bought in a kit form online or at a gun store (without a background check), and in a few hours, with some drilling and additional fabrication, can be transformed into a fully functional weapon after the upper receiver (unregulated part of the gun) is attached. 

    The federal government is terrified as the popularity of ghost guns has increased over the years. Anyone can buy 80% lower kits online and watch a few YouTube videos, and have a working lower receiver after trigger parts are installed, totally untraceable to the government. These weapons have become popular with gangs and other criminals and have been turning up in more violent crimes across the country.

    Between 2016 to 2020, the DoJ estimates about 23,000 ghost guns were seized by law enforcement agencies across the country, and some were identified to be connected with homicides or attempted homicides.

    A senior Justice Department official told AP the proposed rule sets forth several factors in determining whether the unfinished lower receiver could be easily convertible into a working firearm. The official said if the lower receiver meets that criteria, manufacturers will be required to include a serial number. The rule would also require serial numbers attached to un-serialized weapons traded in or turned into federal firearms dealers.

    “Criminals and others barred from owning a gun should not be able to exploit a loophole to evade background checks and to escape detection by law enforcement,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “This proposed rule would help keep guns out of the wrong hands and make it easier for law enforcement to trace guns used to commit violent crimes, while protecting the rights of law-abiding Americans.”

    There was no mention of 3D-printed ghost guns that can be entirely manufactured at home. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco recently reinstated a Trump administration order that authorized removing ghost guns from the State Department’s Munitions List. This allowed untraceable 3D-printed gun blueprints to be shared online. 

    Regulating 80% lower kits might be an easy task for the Biden administration. They will have a near-impossible time regulating 3D-printed guns that can be entirely printed at home. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/08/2021 – 22:30

  • Beijing's Elusive Bid For Pricing Power On Rare Earths
    Beijing’s Elusive Bid For Pricing Power On Rare Earths

    Authored by Damien Ma via MacroPolo.org,

    From ventilator and chip shortages to what kind of ships traverses through which canals, the linkages and nodes of the global economy have rarely been in the spotlight as much as they have over the last 12 months. Many of these disruptions are short-term ones, but they have also brought attention to longstanding challenges of supply chain resilience and dependence.   

    One of those challenges is that of China’s grip on rare earth elements (REEs), a key input in permanent magnets that are in everything from smart phones and wind turbines to electric vehicles and missile guidance systems.   

    Figure 1. REE Demand for Permanent Magnets by Application, 2010-2025  

    Source: Statista estimates; Quest Rare Minerals.  

    This is not the first time these 17 elements that sit at the bottom of the periodic table have raised alarm from Tokyo to Washington. Back in 2010, Beijing was roundly accused of embargoing REE exports to Japan as Sino-Japan relations soured.  

    At the time, China was responsible for some 90%-plus of REE supplies globally, even though its estimated reserves are around just 25%-33% of the global total. Given the wide belief in Japan and the United States—which also happen to be the largest importers of REEs—that China could weaponize this resource, its supply monopoly raised hackles and intensified calls for diversification. 

    A decade since, has much changed? I had trekked to Inner Mongolia’s Baotou Rare Earth Hi-Tech Zone back in 2010 to gain more insight into China’s designs on the REE industry and how that affected the global market. It’s worth revisiting this industry now to understand how its dynamics shaped Beijing’s thinking and intent on managing this resource.  

    “Selling gold for the price of radishes”  

    China has long viewed REEs as a strategic resource, with the industry’s development spurred by a quip supposedly attributed to Deng Xiaoping: “The Middle East has oil, but China has rare earths.”  

    Yet as China became the dominant supplier of REEs over subsequent decades, it saw the price of REEs plummet, hardly the price-setting influence that an OPEC exerted on oil prices. That frustrated the economic nationalists in Beijing, grumbling that China was essentially “selling gold at the price of radishes.”   

    Much of that frustration stemmed from the government’s inability to regulate a wild industry that was rife with smuggling. At one point in 2011, it was estimated that there was a gap of 120% between REE volumes that China officially exported and what other countries imported. Meanwhile, REE mining was also exacting a hefty environmental toll.  

    The Chinese government decided it needed to consolidate the REE industry. Beijing thought it could clean up the illegal business, while also receiving some of that price-setting power that has long eluded it. What’s more, the move also dovetailed with rolling out the original “strategic emerging industries” initiative, the start of China’s effort to indigenize supply chains and move up the value chain.  

    In other words, why export this resource for pennies when China should keep more of it for its own tech industries of the future?  

    This is where Baotou comes into play. Part of the industry restructuring was intended as a “resource for technology” play. That is, instead of exporting REEs, China did what it knows best: set up zones to attract high-tech manufacturing investment in exchange for easy access to critical materials. Baotou, of course, was and still is China’s largest production base of REEs.   

    Did the strategy work?  

    Although economic nationalist in orientation, China’s REE policy was a far cry from banning exports (see Figure 2). The stringent export quotas in the 2011-2012 period certainly drove a spike in prices, but that was short-lived. By 2014, it became apparent that China was ramping up exports rather than reducing them, and prices quickly corrected and have remained relatively low since. The reality reflects Beijing’s perennial struggle in imposing its will on a fragmented, messy, and profit-driven industry.  

    Figure 2. China’s REE Exports Have Not Declined Over Last Decade 

    Source: Wind. 

    It is also not entirely clear whether an actual embargo took place in 2011 or whether it was the result of Beijing’s export quotas. But whatever the judgment in hindsight, the damage has already been done to China as a reliable supplier of REEs, leading to gradual resource diversification. China is now just under 60% of global REE production (see Figure 3).  

    Figure 3. Global Share of REE Production (in tons)

    Source: US Geological Survey.

    The relative abundance of REE reserves globally, it turns out, means that China’s bid for price-setting power rested on faulty assumptions of its leverage. Despite national security hawks’ continued pitch for exercising pricing power, Beijing seems to have recognized that it no longer has a monopoly on production.  

    Instead of obsessing over what’s in the ground and how much to sell it for, China appears to have shifted tactic to redouble its effort on developing the midstream REE processing industry and downstream end products like magnets.  

    A clear indication of that focus was President Xi Jinping’s recent visit to Jiangxi—a major hub of REE production. Rather than a mining operation, Xi toured JL Mag, a downstream company that supplies magnets to the likes of Goldwind and BYD. We will look further at the midstream and downstream dynamics of the REE industry in future analysis. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/08/2021 – 22:00

  • NATO Allies "Take Over" Black Sea For Military Exercises
    NATO Allies “Take Over” Black Sea For Military Exercises

    Authored by Rick Rozoff via AntiWar.com,

    The title is courtesy of the Hungary-based Transylvania Now news site. The Pentagon’s Special Operations Command Europe kicked off the Trojan Footprint 21 exercise on May 3; what is identified as its premier special operations forces drills.

    The war games will be held until May 14 in five Black Sea and Balkans nations: Bulgaria, Georgia, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Romania. Special forces from the U.S. – all branches of the armed forces including Green Berets – the five host nations, Britain, Germany, Spain and Ukraine are involved. With the exception of Turkey, all Black Sea littoral states but Russia are participating.

    Prior Black Sea naval maneuvers, file image

    The exercise is designed for “enhancing interoperability between NATO allies” to prepare for “counter[ing] myriad threats.” Though there aren’t a thousand… only one threat. Russia.

    Just as it is all-service so it is “all-domain” with air, land and sea forces engaged in combating an unnamed adversary in the Black Sea. One which has a fleet based in Sevastopol in Crimea.

    “While the exercise is focused on improving the ability of SOF to counter a myriad of threats, it also increases integration with conventional forces and enhances interoperability with our NATO allies and European partners,” Col. Marc V. LaRoche, Deputy Commander, U.S. Special Operations Command Europe described in a statement. “Most importantly, Trojan Footprint fortifies military readiness, cultivates trust, and develops lasting relationships which promote peace and stability throughout Europe.”

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    Trojan Footprint 21 is occurring simultaneously with the massive DEFENDER-Europe 21 war games in the same area and ahead of the Steadfast Defender exercise, also to be held in the Black Sea region.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/08/2021 – 21:00

  • Chinese Military Discussed Weaponizing COVID In 2015 'To Cause Enemy's Medical System To Collapse'
    Chinese Military Discussed Weaponizing COVID In 2015 ‘To Cause Enemy’s Medical System To Collapse’

    In 2015, Chinese military scientists discussed how to weaponze SARS coronaviruses, five years before the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in Wuhan, China – where CCP scientists were collaborating with a US-funded NGO on so-called ‘gain of function’ research to make bat coronaviruses infect humans more easily.

    In a 263-page document, written by People’s Liberation Army scientists and senior Chinese public health officials and obtained by the US State Department during its investigation into the origins of COVID-19, PLA scientists note how a sudden surge of patients requiring hospitalization during a bioweapon attack “could cause the enemy’s medical system to collapse,” according to The Weekend Australian (a subsidiary of News Corp).

    It suggests that SARS coronaviruses could herald a “new era of genetic weapons,” and noted that they can be “artificially manipulated into an emerging human ­disease virus, then weaponized and unleashed in a way never seen before.”

    The chairmen of the British and Australian foreign affairs and intelligence committees, Tom ­Tugendhat and James Paterson, say the document raises major concerns about China’s lack of transparency over the origins of COVID-19.

    The Chinese-language paper, titled The Unnatural Origin of SARS and New Species of Man-Made Viruses as Genetic Bioweapons, outlines China’s progress in the research field of biowarfare.

    “Following developments in other scientific fields, there have been major advances in the delivery of biological agents,” it states.

    “For example, the new-found ability to freeze-dry micro-organisms has made it possible to store biological agents and aerosolise them during attacks.”

    Ten of the authors are scientists and weapons experts affiliated with the Air Force Medical ­University in Xi’an, ranked “very high-risk” for its level of defence research, including its work on medical and psychological sciences, according to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s ­Defence Universities Tracker.

    The Air Force Medical University, also known as the Fourth Medical University, was placed under the command of the PLA under President Xi Jinping’s military reforms in 2017. The editor-in-chief of the paper, Xu Dezhong, reported to the top leadership of the Chinese Military Commission and Ministry of Health during the SARS epidemic of 2003, briefing them 24 times and preparing three reports, according to his online ­biography. -The Australian

    The editor-in-chief of the paper, Xu Dezhong, reported to the top leadership of the Chinese Military Commission and Ministry of Health during the SARS epidemic of 2003. (via The Australian)

    “We were able to verify its ­authenticity as a document authored by the particular PLA ­researchers and scientists,” according to Robert Potter, a digital forensics specialist who has worked for the US, Australian and Canadian governments – and has previously analyzed leaked Chinese government documents, according to the report. “We were able to locate its genesis on the Chinese internet.”

    Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his chief China adviser, Miles Yu, referenced the document in a February op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, writing that “A 2015 PLA study treated the 2003 SARS coronavirus outbreak as a ‘contemporary genetic weapon’ launched by foreign forces.”

    And according to Peter Jennings, executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, “There is no clear distinction for research capability because whether it’s used offensively or defensively is not a decision these scientists would take,” adding “If you are building skills ostensibly to protect your military from a biological attack, you’re at the same time giving your military a capacity to use these weapons ­offensively. You can’t separate the two.”

    The study also examines the optimum conditions under which to release a bioweapon. “Bioweapon attacks are best conducted during dawn, dusk, night or cloudy weather because intense sunlight can damage the pathogens,” it states. “Biological agents should be released during dry weather. Rain or snow can cause the aerosol particles to precipitate.

    “A stable wind direction is ­desirable so that the aerosol can float into the target area.”

    Among the most bizarre claims by the military scientists is their theory that SARS-CoV-1, the virus that caused the SARS epidemic of 2003, was a man-made bioweapon, deliberately unleashed on China by “terrorists”. -The Australian

    News of the document follows a May 3 report that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was working with the Chinese government in a team which comprised five military and civil experts, “who conducted research at WIV labs, military labs, and other civil labs leading to “the discovery of animal pathogens [biological agents that causes disease] in wild animals,” according to the Epoch Times.

    And as we noted in March, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) – headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci, “had funded a number of projects that involved WIV scientists, including much of the Wuhan lab’s work with bat coronaviruses.”

    In 2017, Fauci’s agency resumed funding a controversial grant to genetically modify bat coronaviruses in Wuhan, China without the approval of a government oversight body, according to the Daily Caller. For context, in 2014, the Obama administration temporarily suspended federal funding for gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses. Four months prior to that decision, the NIH effectively shifted this research to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) via a grant to nonprofit group EcoHealth Alliance, headed by Peter Daszak.

    Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance

    The NIH’s first $666,442 installment of EcoHealth’s $3.7 million grant was paid in June 2014, with similar annual payments through May 2019 under the “Understanding The Risk Of Bat Coronavirus Emergence” project.

    Notably, the WIV “had openly participated in gain-of-function research in partnership with U.S. universities and institutions” for years under the leadership of Dr. Shi ‘Batwoman’ Zhengli, according to the Washington Post‘s Josh Rogin.

    EcoHealth Alliance president Peter Daszak toasts with WIV’s ‘Batwoman’ Shi Zhengli

    So now we have a 2015 document from the Chinese military describing using COVID as a bioweapon – four years before the COVID-19 pandemic breaks out just miles away from a Chinese lab working to make bat COVID more transmissible to humans, and you’re a conspiracy theorist peddling ‘debunked lies’ if you think they might be related.

    And for those who say ‘COVID-19 couldn’t be man-made because a laboratory-created virus would have tell-tale signs of manipulation’ – au contraire. As Nicholas Wade noted three days ago in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “newer methods, called “no-see-um” or “seamless” approaches, leave no defining marks. Nor do other methods for manipulating viruses such as serial passage, the repeated transfer of viruses from one culture of cells to another. If a virus has been manipulated, whether with a seamless method or by serial passage, there is no way of knowing that this is the case. “

    It’s as if the painfully obvious answer was right in front of us, only to be shrouded in propaganda by China-friendly politicians, big tech, and news outlets running cover for what should be the easiest game of connect-the-dots on the planet. Luckily, what was taboo as recently as a year ago will soon be exposed for the world to see, thanks to The Bulletin Of Atomic Scientists which earlier this week dared to open The Wuhan Virus “Pandora’s Box“…

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/08/2021 – 21:00

  • Dollar Stores Dominate US Retail Store Openings 
    Dollar Stores Dominate US Retail Store Openings 

    The wildly uneven US economic recovery since the virus pandemic began in early 2020 has given rise to dangerous levels of inequality, otherwise known as the “K-shaped” recovery. The “K” represents an immediate recovery for the rich but continued economic hardships for the working poor. Payrolls are still millions of jobs short of pre-COVID levels, and millions of others continue collecting stimulus checks. Corporate America understands this souring picture and has found a way to capitalize on an increasingly larger population of working poor Americans by opening a flurry of dollar stores across the country. 

    Coresight Research, a firm that focuses on retail & technology companies, reports about 45% of the 3,597 store openings of large chains in the US this year are from Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and Family Dollar. 

    The pandemic resulted in millions of Americans who instantly fell into poverty and will remain there as the economy is short 8 million jobs from pre-COVID levels. Many of these folks enjoy the high-life, collecting Biden stimulus checks with minimal incentive to find a job. 

    Corporate America understands the dynamics at play as failed fiscal and monetary policies could not lift all boats. Anyone who owned stocks, bonds, real estate, classic cars, fine art, wine, and anything else of value saw incredible valuation gains over the past year as those without assets (working poor) saw very little financial improvements besides a few government stimulus checks. 

    This means that millions of folks in a pre-Covid world who shopped at middle to upper-class shops can no longer afford and have migrated to low-income dollar stores for survival. Corporate America is capitalizing on this trend by expanding these stores at a very fast clip. 

    “We’ve seen a bifurcation in the economy,” said Ken Fenyo, the president and head of advisory and research at Coresight. “So while the wealthy have done well and continue to do well since the Great Recession, there’s certainly a lot of the population that has not done as well. The dollar stores appeal strongly to that segment of the population. That’s probably the overriding reason we see for the growth in the format.”

    The recent surge of new dollar stores across the country is indicative not of a robust recovery but one that is extremely uneven, benefiting a handful at the expense of the many, with deep residual scarring that may last a generation. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/08/2021 – 20:30

  • New York Baseball Stadiums To Seat Fans in Separate Vaccinated And Unvaccinated Sections
    New York Baseball Stadiums To Seat Fans in Separate Vaccinated And Unvaccinated Sections

    By Zachary Stieber of The Epoch Times

    The Houston Astros play the New York Yankees during the third inning of a baseball game in New York on May 4, 2021

    People who have not received a COVID-19 vaccine will be seated separately from those who have in two major baseball stadiums in New York, officials announced this week. The segregation will be enforced at Fans at Citi Field and Yankee Stadium, home to Major League Baseball’s New York Mets and New York Yankees.

    “There are going to be separate sections for those who are vaccinated,” Randy Levine, president of the Yankees, told a May 5 briefing he joined with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

    “As we sell tickets on an individual basis, they will go into one of those two areas, either unvaccinated or vaccinated because we will have some inventory in both types of location,” added Sandy Alderson, the president of the Mets.

    The details of how the new policy will be enforced are still being developed.

    Sections with people who are vaccinated against the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which causes COVID-19, can be full, with no capacity restrictions. But in sections with unvaccinated people, fans will need to be spaced apart six feet. All fans, regardless of their status, must wear a mask, even though the games are played outdoors.

    “For baseball reopening, May 19th. Two different categories. Not Yankees/Mets. Vaccinated/Unvaccinated,” Cuomo, a Democrat who has refused calls to resign over sexual assault allegations and his administration hiding the number of elderly New Yorkers who died from COVID-19, told the briefing.

    “I want to thank the Mets and the Yankees from the bottom of my heart. It’s a pain in the neck for them to operate this vaccinated and unvaccinated. The gentlemen who run the stadiums are here. It’s not easy to do this. Nobody’s done this before. Nobody’s done any of this before, let’s be honest,” he added.

    Cuomo insisted the new plan is legal.

    Fans stand during the playing of the national anthem before a baseball game between the New York Yankees and the Houston Astros in New York on May 4, 2021. (Frank Franklin II/AP Photo)

    Fans will be able to use the Excelsior Pass, an application, to show proof of vaccination when entering one of the stadiums, or proof of a negative COVID-19 test. The app was developed by IBM in partnership with the state. It was tested earlier this year at NBA and NHL games before being rolled out officially in March.

    The Yankees reported 10,850 fans at their stadium on Tuesday night. That’s the most they can have under current restrictions. In a bid to get more New Yorkers vaccinated, the teams are offering people who get a shot at a stadium a free ticket.

    “Basically you come to the game … you take a vaccine shot, you get a voucher, you can go to that game. If that game’s sold out, you can go tomorrow night and go to a game of your choice,” Levine said. Officials at Citi Field said approximately 2,000 people are getting vaccinated there each day.

    Also at the briefing, Dr. Howard Zucker, the state’s health commissioner, refused to comment on a report that said Cuomo’s senior aides delayed the release of an audit on nursing home deaths for months.

    “This is an ongoing investigation, so I won’t answer any questions at this point,” he said.

    Cuomo called the pressure on state officials regarding the shielding of death numbers political. The shielding is being probed by the Department of Justice. He also denied that his administration withheld the numbers because of fear the data would be used against them. One of Cuomo’s top aides, Melissa DeRosa, said as much in a conference call with state Democratic lawmakers earlier this year.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/08/2021 – 20:00

  • Ethereum Soars To Record High Above $3,800 As JPMorgan Lays Out 6 Reasons Why Explosive Move Will Continue
    Ethereum Soars To Record High Above $3,800 As JPMorgan Lays Out 6 Reasons Why Explosive Move Will Continue

    Back on April 25, we quoted a prominent billionaire VC who said that “Ethereum is the world’s most interesting trade right now” and we predicted that “Ethereum Is About To Make An Epic Breakout Over Bitcoin.“

    That’s exactly what happened: two weeks later, and one report from FundStrat’s Tom Lee putting out a $10,500 price target on Ethereum (and $100,000 on bitcoin)..

    … and ethereum has returned 66% to bitcoin’s paltry 16%, a 4x outperformance which even to the most jaded traders constitutes an “epic breakout.”

    More importantly, as bitcoin has languished in the $50-$60K range over the past month, ETH has nearly doubled and moments ago traded at an all time high above $3,800.

    Meanwhile, the ratio of ETH/BTC finally broke out above its recent highs..

    … and as we said two weeks ago “once the recent high is taken out, there is much more room to go… In fact, should ETHBTC hit its historical high, Ethereum would be above $5,000.” We are now just $1,200 away which at the current pace of ascent, may be reached some time next week.

    While there are many reasons for the renewed investor fascination in Ethereum, including the launch of four ethereum ETFs, the application by VanEck for the first US Ethereum ETF, the exploding demand for NFTs, interest in DeFi and generally the realization that while Bitcoin is just a token, Ethereum is an entire digital platform (not to mention the most obvious one: relentless upside momentum which in the case of bitcoin, appears to have tapered for now).

    It’s perhaps why two days after we said to brace for an “epic” ethereum breakout, JPMorgan published a note on April 27 from one of its most respected rates and fixed income (!) strategists, Joshua Young, explaining “why ETH is outperforming” in which it gave yet another reason for ethereum’s stunning outperformance compared to bitcoin: ETH valuations may be less dependent on levered  demand than BTC, a technical but occasionally important tailwind going forward.

    Of course, one can’t also discount the rabid frenzy to all things crypto in recent days as Elon Musk is set to appear on SNL on Saturday night and pitch the “joke” crypto, Dogecoin, whose returns have blown everything else out of the water.

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    So yes, there is a risk that after Saturday night, the crypto space and especially Doge, will be hit as some take profits, but as JPMorgan writes in a new note published late on Friday and authored by its versatile cross-asset quant Nick Panagirtzoglou whose job is to cover everything from retail interest in stocks to calculating the “fair value” of bitcoin and ethereum (yes, really), the move higher in ethereum has been far more striking than the one in bitcoin, and is likely to continue.

    As the JPM quant writes in a section discussing “ethereum’s ascent”, the crypto market expanded sharply in recent weeks led by ethereum and other smaller cryptocurrencies, despite bitcoin still hovering below $60k, with Panigirtzoglou admitting that “the rise in ethereum in particular has been striking”, which he attributes to a combination of factors:

    1. The European Investment Bank (EIB) used the ethereum blockchain to issue €100mn in two-year zero-coupon digital notes last week, its first ever digital bond. The transaction involved a series of bond tokens on the ethereum blockchain, where investors purchase and pay for the security tokens using traditional fiat. The EIB digital bond is surely very significant as it represents the endorsement of the ethereum blockchain by a major official institution.
    2. The first ethereum ETF (ETHH) was launched on April 20th by Purpose Investments in Canada and three more ethereum ETFs launches followed during the same month.
    3. The structural decline in ethereum supply from the pending introduction of protocol EIP1559 in the summer. EIP 1559‘s objective is to make transaction fees on the ethereum blockchain more predictable by introducing an automatically calculated base fee for all transactions depending on network activity. Once paid with ethereum, this fee would be immediately burned, implying reduced supply of ethereum in the future. Ethereum’s theoretically unlimited supply had been a concern in the past, with ethereum in circulation rising by 5% per year over the past three years. Via burning ethereum through base fees, EIP1559 could potentially reduce the annual change of ethereum in circulation to 1-2% per year.
    4. The greater focus by investors on ESG has shifted attention away from the energy intensive bitcoin blockchain to the ethereum blockchain, which in anticipation of Ethereum 2.0 is expected to become a lot more energy efficient by the end of 2022. Ethereum 2.0 involves a shift from an energy intensive Proof-of-Work validation mechanism to a much less intensive Proof-of-Stake validation mechanism. As a result, less computational power and energy consumption would be needed to maintain the ethereum network.
    5. The sharp growth of NFTs and stablecoins in recent months are increasing the usage of the ethereum which is already dominating the DeFi ecosystem.
    6. The rise in bond yields and the eventual normalization of monetary policy is putting downward pressure on bitcoin as a form of digital gold, the same way higher real yields have been putting downward pressure on traditional gold. With ethereum deriving its value from its applications, ranging from DeFi to gaming to NFTs and stablecoins, it appears less susceptible than bitcoin to higher real yields.

    Indeed, JPM concedes that both retail and institutional demand indicators accelerated in recent weeks and months, while JPM’s position proxy based on CME ethereum futures, shown in Figure 6 more than tripled during April pointing to significant, around $250mn, of institutional buying in Etherem.

    The flow trajectory for ethereum funds got boosted in April from the launch of four ETFs, pointing to a mix of institutional and retail impulse (Figure 7 and Figure 8).

    These flow metrics look even more impressive if one compares them to the equivalent for bitcoin as shown in Figure 9 and Figure 10.

    The surge in interest is translating into rapidly accelerating activity on the ethereum network, similarly implying rising demand.

    And while we were quite surprise by the JPM’s bullish take on ethereum at least as compared with its persistent bearishness on bitcoin, it is not surprising that the bank’s quant concluded his report with a warning, noting that “the past weeks have not only seen a large expansion of the market cap of ethereum but also of other coins such as Binance Coin, Dogecoin, Litecoin, Ethereum Classic, and others. This expansion has shifted the market cap of cryptocurrencies excluding Bitcoin and Ethereum and as well as stablecoins to a staggering $800bn with the share of bitcoin in the total crypto market falling steeply from around 60% to 45% over the past month.”

    Of course, the JPM strategist has to admit that a big part of this decline has been helped by increased institutional interest in ethereum (the same ethereum whose “striking” move higher he believes will continue). But to the extent it is driven by a rally in other cryptocurrencies driven more by retail demand, Panigirtzoglou writes that “it carries some echoes of the froth that was evident in December 2017 when the share of bitcoin had fallen from around 55% to below 35%.”

    Of course, those who actually traded through the crash of 2018 know that it had little to do with retail participation and everything to do with the Fed’s ongoing tightening, with the Fed hiking rates three times in 2017 and then another 4 in 2018. So while there may be similarities, there is one giant difference, namely that for now the Fed has little intention to taper QE let alone hike rates. In fact, if one goes according to comparisons to the Fed’s last rate hike cycle, ethereum, bitcoin, and other cryptos, will peak some time in late 2024, one year after the Fed will have started its latest (failed) tightening cycle. The only question is how many tens (or hundreds) of thousands of dollars one ethereum token will cost then.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/08/2021 – 19:35

  • US Troops Accused Of Pillaging Syrian Grain Silos As Russia Warns Of Increased Occupation
    US Troops Accused Of Pillaging Syrian Grain Silos As Russia Warns Of Increased Occupation

    Syrian and Russian state sources are reporting late this week that Russia’s Defense Ministry is expressing anger over what it described as noticeably increased American military activity in Syria’s northeast region, particularly an uptick in military equipment and troop deployments to the al-Jazeera area.

    The Russian Coordination Center in Hmeimim cited the increased air and land transport of American military hardware as part of the continuing violation of Syria’s sovereignty intended to block the Syrian population from its own vital resources, including wheat and energy.

    The Russian statement said “such military mobilization, synchronized with the economic and social situation resulting from the US blockade damages opportunities for a political solution to the crisis in Syria.”

    The most recent estimates of US troop numbers in the country put the Pentagon’s presence at around 1,000 troops – with many of these being special forces. In prior years it was believed to be anywhere from 2,000 to 3,000 – but these estimates have long likely shielded the true numbers of US personnel, including US intelligence and security contractors. 

    Days ago Damascus accused US troops of pillaging grain silos in an occupied area of the Hasaka countryside. 

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    “US occupation forces brought out a new batch of Syrian wheat stolen from Tal Alou silos in Hasaka countryside to the north of Iraq,” state-run SANA reported Wednesday.

    “Local sources in al-Sweidia village in al-Ya’arubia area told SANA reporter that a convoy of 35 trucks laden with wheat stolen from Tal Alou silos left under a protection of an armed group affiliated to US occupation –backed QSD militia through al-Waleed illegitimate crossing heading for north Iraq,” the report said.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/08/2021 – 19:30

  • The Dynamics Behind America's Ugly Amount Of Empty Office Space
    The Dynamics Behind America’s Ugly Amount Of Empty Office Space

    Authored by Wolf Richter via WolfStreet.com,

    This sort of sudden structural collapse in demand for office space raises some existential questions for landlords…

    Companies are not massively defaulting on their office leases, and that’s the good thing. But they have put a historic amount of vacant office space on the sublease market, while continuing to pay rent to the landlord. They decided they no longer need that much space, now that some form of flexible work, or hybrid work-from-home, or even permanent work-from-anywhere is being integrated into office real estate plans, cost cutting efforts, and footprint-reduction strategies.

    Now, 14 months into the Pandemic, office occupancy – workers actually showing up at the office – is still dreadfully low. As of the end of April, office occupancy in the 10 largest metros averaged only 26.5% of where it had been just before the Pandemic, according to Kastle Systems today, whose electronic access systems secure thousands of office buildings around the country. In other words, the number of people entering these offices was still down by 73.5% from pre-pandemic levels and has barely made headway in recent months:

    The epicenters of work-from-home show the biggest drops in office occupancy rates, according to Kastle’s “Back to Work Barometer” at the end of April: in San Francisco, the occupancy rate was at 14.8% of the pre-Pandemic level, in New York City at 16.2%, and in San Jose at 18.0%.

    Among tech companies, 95% expect remote work for at least a few days a week; 9% said that they will never return to the office at all; another 47% said that they will need less office space; only 13% said they would need more office space, according to a survey by Savills.

    A survey of Californian residents found that 82% of the employees who now work at home want to continue working at home at least some of the time. Only 18% don’t want to work at home at all.

    But even at the top end of office occupancy, working remotely is still king. In Dallas, office occupancy is at 41.2% of where it was pre-Pandemic, and in Austin at 40.2% (click on the chart to enlarge):

    How exactly this will shake out for office real estate is getting complicated, as they say, with everyone involved having different ideas as to what they want.

    A survey by Accenture of 400 North American financial-services companies found that 80% of the executives would like for workers to spend four or five days in the office post-Pandemic. Many of them think that working at home makes training younger employees more difficult and is hurting company culture.

    But employees are looking for flexibility, now that they have proven that they can be productive at home.

    “You’ve seen the senior executives sitting in their office and there’s nobody behind them,” Laurie McGraw, head of Accenture’s capital markets industry team in North America, told Bloomberg. “And then you see the entry-level folks starved for in-person interaction because they need to be coached on a more regular basis. And then there’s the vast middle that’s content to be home.”

    The work-from-home year 2020 generated record profits for banks, proving that work-from-home can be managed, and many employees question the need to commute every day. According to Rob Dicks, Accenture’s talent and organization head for capital markets, employees are likely to push back against a full-time return.

    Despite whatever executives would like, the reality of the cost-cutting aspects of working from home has already set in. According to Accenture’s survey, of the same executives:

    • Nearly two-thirds expect to cut their office footprint by 11% to 40% over the next nine months.

    • Over half are planning to relocate employees to new lower-cost locations.

    • 9% said they’ll close their headquarters in a major market.

    Financial firms have been all over the place with their plans.

    Goldman Sachs, in an internal memo seen by Bloomberg, told its US employees that they should be prepared to report to the office by June 14, according to an internal memo seen by Bloomberg.

    Vanguard Group, which employs about 17,300 people, is planning a hybrid model for most of its staff, with many employees able to work from home on Mondays and Fridays.

    Bridgewater Associates is going for the hybrid model as well and will allow their employees to work from home at least part of the time.

    Deutsche Bank, which employs about 8,000 people in the US, is planning to let its staff work from home for up to three days a week. Separately, the bank had said that it wanted to reduce its office foot print to cut costs.

    Deutsche Bank is offering “flexibility” as an inducement for hiring and retention. A survey had found that 90% of its employees wanted the opportunity to work from home at least part of the time after the Pandemic. Office space will be reconfigured to accommodate the hybrid model.

    JPMorgan Chase told its employees in a memo to report back to the office by early July on a “consistent rotational schedule” that would allow staff some flexibility.

    For landlords, these are existential questions as an enormous amount of office space is now vacant and available for lease in the US, and more office towers are in the process of being built, and nothing could have prepared the commercial real estate industry for this sort of sudden structural collapse in demand.

    *  *  *

    Enjoy reading WOLF STREET and want to support it? Using ad blockers – I totally get why – but want to support the site? You can donate. I appreciate it immensely. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/08/2021 – 19:00

  • "Will Of The Country": Huge Victory For Scottish Nationalists Sets Up Next Independence Clash With UK
    “Will Of The Country”: Huge Victory For Scottish Nationalists Sets Up Next Independence Clash With UK

    The last hugely controversial Scottish referendum on independence took place in September 2014 and showed that the Scottish population’s desire to leave its three-centuries old union with England and Wales was gaining momentum. At that time it was approaching half – with the 2014 result being 55% voting to remain with 45% in favor of independence.

    It’s now widely believed that if the UK allowed another vote today, that margin would be much narrower, and it looks like that showdown will now come sooner than thought after Saturday’s decisive election victory by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s Scottish National Party (SNP). Sturgeon’s first declaration was aimed squarely at London and Boris Johnson, as she called another independence referendum the “will of the country”.

    Nicola Sturgeon, via The Herald

    Her SNP won an unprecedented 64 seats in the Scottish Parliament, which falls just one seat short of a majority, marking a slight increase even over 2016, which ensures a legal and constitutional battle for the future of the United Kingdom will be sparked once again.

    Given that the pro-independence Scottish Greens also made huge gains in what’s widely considered their best performance ever, the result is a firm pro-independence majority.

    Sturgeon quickly put London on notice…

    An independence referendum was pledged in the manifesto of both the SNP and the Scottish Greens, and Ms Sturgeon declared: “It is a commitment made to the people by a majority of the MSPs have been elected to our national parliament.”

    “It is the will of the country.”

    “Given that outcome, there is simply no democratic justification whatsoever for Boris Johnson or anyone else seeking to block the right of the people of Scotland to choose our future.”

    If the request is rejected, Ms Sturgeon said, “it will demonstrate conclusively that the UK is not a partnership of equals and that – astonishingly – Westminster no longer sees the UK as a voluntary union of nations”.

    She added: “That in itself would be a very powerful argument for independence.”

    Sturgeon further explained the vote result is a clear and urgent mandate for Scotland to push ahead with preparing for a second independence referendum to be held as soon as the COVID-19 pandemic is over. 

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    Rabobank noted the significance of this weekend as follows:

    The Scottish regional election on May 6 is potentially shaping up to have a big impact on the future of Scotland and the UK, as independence has returned to the top of the agenda. The Scottish National Party looks set to win by a considerable margin, and is then likely to claim to have gained a new mandate for a referendum. The Conservative Party, officially the Conservative and Unionist Party, will in turn continue to make the case for the union. But even when prime minister Johnson denies Scotland a second independence referendum, or employs more heavy-handed tactics to suppress ‘Scoxit’ sentiments, the rift between Scotland and England looks set to widen. The Scottish regional election should be viewed entirely through this prism.

    In the meantime Sturgeon told her supporters that it’s time to “patiently persuade our fellow citizens” of the case for an independent Scotland.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/08/2021 – 18:30

  • "This Was a Massacre": Brazilian Police Kill Two Dozen In Deadliest Favela Raid In Rio's History
    “This Was a Massacre”: Brazilian Police Kill Two Dozen In Deadliest Favela Raid In Rio’s History

    Authored by Jake Johnson via CommonDreams.org,

    More than 100 heavily armed Brazilian police officers stormed a sprawling Rio de Janeiro favela (a shanty town or slum) Thursday and killed at least two dozen people, a raid that human rights activists, researchers, and journalists described as the deadliest such police atrocity in the city’s history.

    The hours-long operation, purportedly aimed at drug traffickers in the poverty-stricken Jacarezinho favela, ultimately left at least 25 people dead, including one police officer. Horrific video footage and images posted to social media in the wake of the raid—which was carried out despite a court order against such incursions during the Covid-19 pandemic—show favela residents surveying rooms, hallways, and alleys streaked with blood. “It’s extermination—there’s no other way to describe it,” Pedro Paulo Santos Silva, a researcher at Rio’s Center for Studies on Public Security and Citizenship, told The Guardian. “This was a massacre.”

    Via The Guardian

    “Really grim moment in Brazil,” Robert Muggah, co-founder of the Igarapé Institute, a Rio-based think tank, said in an interview with the Washington Post. “These shootings are obviously routine in Rio de Janeiro, but this is unprecedented, in that it’s the operation that has generated the largest number of deaths, ever.”

    Brazilian lawmaker David Miranda, who grew up in Jacarezinho, called the deadly police raid “a tragedy, a slaughter authorized by Cláudio Castro,” Rio’s governor. “Jacarezinho is my origin, it is the favela that created me,” said Miranda. “No person born outside the favela can know what that is. Brazilian institutions insist on disrespecting and marginalizing the favela.”

    Journalist Glenn Greenwald, Miranda’s husband, wrote on Twitter that he has “seen probably two dozen videos that are way too horrifying to publish: police enter homes with full force and violence, and then execute people as they lay on the ground, shooting them 10-15 times each in the head.”

    “It’s an atrocity what happened today,” Greenwald added.

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    Brazil suffers one of the highest rates of police killings in the world, and the nation is currently led by a far-right president who campaigned on the promise to “give the police carte blanche to kill.” According to Human Rights Watch, Rio law enforcement officers killed 453 people during the first three months of 2021.

    “They say there is no death sentence in Brazil. Except if you live in a favela,” said Marilia Corrêa, a Latin America historian and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan’s Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies. “In this case, the police can just march in, kill dozens of people, and call it a day. This is appalling, revolting, outrageous. They have no right.”

    (Warning: the following footage is disturbing)

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    Jurema Werneck, executive director of Amnesty International Brazil, said in a statement Thursday that “the number of people killed in this police operation is reprehensible, as is the fact that, once again, this massacre took place in a favela.”

    “It’s completely unacceptable that security forces keep committing grave human rights violations such as those that occurred in Jacarezinho today against residents of the favelas, who are mostly Black and live in poverty,” said Werneck. “Even if the victims were suspected of criminal association, which has not been proven, summary executions of this kind are entirely unjustifiable.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/08/2021 – 18:00

  • Hedge Funds Are The 'Most Short' Junk Debt Since Lehman
    Hedge Funds Are The ‘Most Short’ Junk Debt Since Lehman

    A month ago we warned that The Fed’s incessant intervention had put distressed investors out of business as the remarkable rally in even the lowest quality junk debt (‘CCC or triple hooks’) had created party time for zombie companies everywhere as “high yield” is now officially “low yield.”

    And, while the party can and will go on as long as there are greater fools, one look at the fundamentals…

    … confirms that the party will only last as long as central banks keep injecting hundreds of billions into the market each and every month.

    “People aren’t investing, they’re just chasing.”

    That is the ominous, ponzi-like warning from Adam Cohen, Caspian Capital’s managing partner as the distressed debt investor has chosen to return some money to investors because the rewards don’t justify the high risks anymore.

    He’s right. Despite soaring debt levels and forward economic uncertainty, US HY debt risk spreads are 100bps tighter than pre-COVID levels…

    And all that has sparked a resurgence in hedge funds betting against this farce continuing.

    In fact, as Bloomberg reports, global high-yield bonds worth as much as $55 billion are on loan to traders seeking to profit if prices drop, according to data from IHS Markit.

    That is the largest balance since the fall of 2008, and compares with about $35 billion at the start of the year.

    “I would expect that to get bigger as spreads tighten and/or people get worried about rates rising,” said Tim Winstone, a portfolio manager at Janus Henderson, which oversees 294 billion pounds ($409 billion).

    “At these levels of valuations, I’m not surprised more people, such as hedge funds, are setting shorts.”

    And we are starting to see the impact of this drop in bullish/momo-chasing malarkey in the performance of deals in the secondary market. Almost one out of four high-yield bonds sold this year is indicated below the price it was issued at, based on data compiled by Bloomberg.

    With The ECB already hinting at scaling back its asset-purchases, and BoE having already done so, The Fed continues to ignore talk of its own tapering, but between HY shorts, and deleveraging, investors are starting to signal the build-up of defenses against a potential scaling back of central-bank support.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/08/2021 – 17:39

  • Bill Gates-Funded Company Releases Genetically Modified Mosquitoes In US
    Bill Gates-Funded Company Releases Genetically Modified Mosquitoes In US

    Submitted by Epoch Times

    Genetically modified mosquitoes have been released for the first time in the United States as part of an experiment to combat insect-borne diseases such as Dengue fever, yellow fever, and the Zika virus.

    UK-based biotechnology firm Oxitec, which is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said it released the mosquitoes in six locations in Monroe County’s Florida Keys: two on Cudjoe Key, one on Ramrod Key, and three on Vaca Key. It’s part of an effort to help tackle a disease-transmitting invasive mosquito population—the Aedes aegypti mosquito species—that’s responsible for “virtually all mosquito-borne diseases transmitted to humans,” according to the company.

    These mosquitoes make up about 4 percent of the mosquito population in the Keys, and transmit dengue, Zika, yellow fever, and other human diseases, as well as heartworm and other potentially deadly diseases to pets and other animals.

    The experiment is in collaboration with the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District (FKMCD), and was approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and an independent advisory board.

    Over the next 12 weeks, fewer than 12,000 mosquitoes are expected to emerge each week, for approximately 12 weeks. Untreated comparison sites will be monitored with mosquito traps on Key Colony Beach, Little Torch Key, and Summerland Key. If successful, some 20 million additional genetically modified mosquitoes will be released later in the year.

    “We really started looking at this about a decade ago, because we were in the middle of a dengue fever outbreak here in the Florida Keys,” FKMCD Executive Director Andrea Leal said during a video news conference. “So we’re just very excited to move forward with this partnership, working both with Oxitec and members of the community.”

    The insects released by the biotechnology firm are all male, so they don’t bite. They’re expected to mate with the local biting female mosquitoes, and in doing so, they will pass on a lethal gene that will ensure their female offspring die before reaching maturity.

    According to Quartz, areas including Malaysia, Brazil, the Cayman Islands, and Panama, where similar experiments have been carried out, have seen mosquito populations drop by as much as 90 percent.

    The project has faced backlash from residents, who say their consent was not sought for the experiment.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/08/2021 – 17:14

  • Credit Suisse Hires Former Prime Brokerage Head To Restore Business After Archegos Blowup
    Credit Suisse Hires Former Prime Brokerage Head To Restore Business After Archegos Blowup

    After firing a raft of senior employees including its head of risk, Lara Warner, Credit Suisse has been struggling to move past a series of major risk-management failures that together could cost the bank $10 billion, or more, though the final tally of losses from the Archegos blowup isn’t yet known as the bank weighs whether it should cover some client losses associated with the “low risk” trade-finance funds that collapsed earlier this year.

    Following reports that the bank took in only $17.5MM in fees from servicing the trade that led to the collapse of highly-levered Archegos Capital, the hedge fund that used highly leveraged $20 billion to more than $100 billion via a string of bets with various prime brokers to amplify its bets on ViacomCBS and a host of other tech and media stocks (many Chinese ADRs) while skirting reporting requirements, it has become apparent the bank’s leadership in that division is sorely lacking (both of the co-heads of the division were both sacked in the aftermath of the Archegos implosion).

    So, Bloomberg reports that, in order to reorganize and “clean up” the bank’s prime brokerage business, it’s bringing back a familiar face: Indrajit Bardhan, a former head of the unit who left the bank three years ago in what BBG described as a “leadership shakeup”. Bardhan will return as a consultant to offer the bank some guidance as it seeks to reconstitute the potentially lucrative (but risky) business of serving hedge funds and family offices.

    The Swiss bank hired Bardhan as a consultant, according to people with knowledge of the arrangement, who asked not to be identified because the matter is private. He was among a number of high-profile executives to exit in 2018. He relinquished his role as global head of prime services to Paul Galietto, who later rose to head of equities and then left last month after the bank posted $5.5 billion in losses tied to Archegos.

    As BBG points out, the unusual decision to enlist a veteran of the bank (and one who apparently ran afoul of the leadership under former CEO Tidjane Thiam) reflects the desperate position Switzerland’s second-largest lender has found itself in. Bardhan was among a number of high-profile executives to exit in 2018. He relinquished his role as global head of prime services to Paul Galietto, who later rose to head of equities before being canned last month.

    The unusual decision to enlist a veteran underscores the challenge the Zurich-based bank faces in rebuilding the potentially lucrative but risky business of catering to hedge funds and other sophisticated investors. It pared a number of experienced staffers years ago. And more recently the firm saw another raft of senior departures after the Archegos debacle, including the co-heads of the prime brokerage unit.

    So far, Archegos alone has wiped out one year of profit for Credit Suisse, and with the Archegos situation not yet fully resolved, investors have started to question everything, from CEO Thomas Gottstein’s ability to manage the bank, to the board’s ability to supervise him. In another unusual move, the board sacked one of its own in the face of growing shareholder pressure ahead of its annual meeting.

    We can’t help but wonder: Will CS bring back Tidjane Thiam to help offer some guidance to Gottstein?

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/08/2021 – 15:31

  • Why Californians Have Sky-High Electricity Bills
    Why Californians Have Sky-High Electricity Bills

    Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,

    Californians pay for some of the most expensive electricity in the United States. They also live in one of the greenest states, at least from an energy perspective. California is only going to get greener. Meanwhile, electricity bills are expected to continue their rise. Some deny there is a link between the two.

    The facts show otherwise.

    A paper by the California Public Utilities Commission released earlier this year identified the state’s plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by adopting more renewable energy as one big factor for bigger utility bills and expectations for further increases in electricity rates in the coming years.

    The report said that while the state’s plans to reduce emissions will negatively affect electricity bills, a concerted switch to what the authors call “all electric homes and electric vehicles” could lead to a substantial drop in monthly bills. However, this would require a large upfront investment, which would be impossible to shoulder by medium- and lower-income households.

    “In the absence of subsidies and low-cost financing options, this could create equity concerns for low- to moderate-income households and exacerbate existing disparities in electricity affordability,” the report said.

    But funding such a hypothetical move to “all electric homes and electric vehicles” is only part of the problem. Another part, ironically, is distributed energy systems.

    A March report in CalMatters summarized the reasons for Californians’ high electricity bills as follows: first, the size and geography of the state make the fixed costs associated with the maintenance of its grid higher than in most other states; second, households with rooftop solar installations don’t pay for these fixed costs even if they use the grid. And all this is deepening the divide between wealthy and not-so-wealthy Californians, making electricity increasingly less affordable for the latter.

    Distributed solar installations appear to be only affordable for the wealthier citizens of the state. They can afford the upfront costs and then benefit from lower electricity bills, according to one of the authors of a UC Berkeley’s Haas Business School study that CalMatters cited in its report.

    Solar power is regularly touted as cheaper and cheaper, even exceeding the affordability of fossil fuels. The truth, however, is that the cost declines that have been celebrated by renewable power lobbies only concern the PV panels. Granted, any cost decline in solar is good news, but what most reports forget to mention is that it’s not just panels that make solar farms or even rooftop installations.

    Besides panels, solar power installations also involve other components—whose costs are not falling—and there is the cost of installation. Taken together, all these make up a rather hefty sum, which explains why it is wealthy Californians who are the ones taking advantage of the state’s programs aimed at encouraging the adoption of low-carbon energy sources. They are also the ones reaping the benefits at the expense of poorer Californians.

    California has something called a net energy metering (NEM) program that basically pays owners of solar installations for feeding electricity into the grid. An analysis of the system between 2017 and 2019, Utility Dive reported recently, shows that the costs of the program stood at $9.46 billion while the benefits stood at $7.96 billion. Another study of the program, focusing on customer bills, found that the benefits of the program came in at $7.58 billion while costs were as high as $20.58 billion and much of that was shouldered by the people who couldn’t afford to buy a rooftop solar installation.

    And yet, California is forging ahead with its electrification plans as the only presumably viable way of reducing emissions. Meanwhile, the state’s utilities are preparing for another hot summer with possible blackouts on the menu. According to the new chief operating officer of CAISO, California will see additional generation—and crucially storage—capacity come online this year, but supply will remain tight because of the retirement of gas-fired plants and one nuclear power plant.

    These retired facilities are being replaced with renewables, much of it solar. Last summer, solar was one of the culprits behind California’s blackouts as the output of solar farms declines exactly when demand for electricity increases, in the evening, and storage capacity was nowhere near sufficient to handle the discrepancy. This summer, as CAISO’s COO, Mark Rothleder, “we will ensure storage resource providers understand how we expect them to operate the system so that storage is available when needed to meet the challenging net peak demand in the stressed summer conditions.” 

    California’s government certainly has its emission-reduction work cut out for it. On the one hand, electricity bills are rising along with renewable power capacity and the retirement of fossil fuel power plants. On the other, grid reliability leaves a lot to be desired. Dealing with the bills will require a massive investment because the people most affected by electricity rate trends simply cannot afford to shoulder that bill, too. Dealing with grid reliability will require investment, too. It would be nothing short of a transformation of the state’s grid that will involve lots and lots of energy storage capacity. On the bright side, however, California’s emissions have fallen considerably since 2000.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/08/2021 – 15:04

  • And Now Rents Are Soaring Too
    And Now Rents Are Soaring Too

    With BofA predicting that the US is facing a period of “transitory hyperinflation” as a result of soaring commodity prices in everything from metals to food…

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

    …. and beyond, in what increasingly more warn is a stagflationary burst right out of the 1970s playbook…

    … it makes sense that home prices are also surging thanks to trillions in stimmy checks, near-record low mortgage rates and an exodus away from cities, and as we noted two weeks ago that’s precisely what they are doing, with Redfin reporting an 18% jump in median home sale prices to an all time high…

    … as a record 58% of all houses sell within two weeks of listing, of which 45% sell for more than their listing price, also a record.

    Amid this dismal “transitorily hyperinflationary” landscape, where those whose incomes aren’t similarly hyperinflating find themselves at risk of being unable to afford a roof above their head, there was one ray of hope: renting, with rent prices tumbling in recent months and according to the BLS’ monthly CPI metric, rent inflation had just dropped to the lowest in a decade, just below 2.0% annually…

    … which due to the way the CPI basket is weighted acted as a key anchor on overall CPI rates, and served to distort the broader inflationary picture. In short, the Fed would look at the relatively tame core CPI which was only tame thanks to “tumbling” rents and would conclude that there is nothing to worry about.

    Only it now appears that not only was the government misrepresenting the actual data in hopes of extracting as much stimulus from the Biden regime by pretending inflation is low and “contained”, but that rents are in fact soaring once again.

    On Thursday, American Homes 4 Rent, which owns 54,000 houses, increased rents 11% on vacant properties in April, the company reported in a statement:

    … Continued to experience record demand with a Same-Home portfolio Average Occupied Days Percentage of 97.3% in the first quarter of 2021, while achieving 10.0% rental rate growth on new leases, which accelerated further in April to an Average Occupied Days Percentage in the high 97% range while achieving over 11% rental rate growth on new leases.

    Invitation Homes, the largest landlord in the industry, also boosted rents by similar amount, an executive said on a recent conference call. Or, as Bloomberg puts it, record occupancy rates are emboldening single-family landlords to hike rents aggressively, testing the limits of booming demand for suburban rentals.

    While soaring housing costs had put homeownership out of reach for most Americans, rents had been relatively tame for much of 2020. But in recent months, rents have also soared as vaccines fuel optimism about a rebound from the pandemic, and a reversal in the city-to-suburbs exodus.  The increases, as Bloomberg so eloquently puts it, “may add to concerns about inflation pressures.” Mmmk.

    “Companies are trying to figure out how hard they can push before they start losing people,” said Jeffrey Langbaum, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “And they seem to be of the opinion they can push as far as they want.”

    Why the change? Well, in the early months of the pandemic, the big single-family rental companies slowed rent hikes amid an exodus of renters fleeing the big cities as a result of militant BLM protests and covid, preferring to maximize occupancy during an uncertain time for the economy. But now, widespread vacancies are giving them pricing power.

    What is remarkable is that this price hike is likely to stick: Invitation Homes reported an occupancy rate of more than 98% during the first quarter, freeing the company to raise prices by more than 10% on vacant houses in April. Invitation Homes is targeting increases of as much as 8% for tenants seeking to renew leases in coming months, an executive said on a recent conference call.

    Single-family landlords have had the upper hand over apartment owners in the age of remote work, but those advantages might dissipate as employers summon workers back to the office.

    “How much of the demand is temporary?” said Langbaum. “I do believe some component of it will revert back to urban markets.”

    So as rent rebound with a vengeance, and the CPI basket’s all important Shelter and Rent inflation series (which also serves as a bseline for the Owner Equivalent Rent series) jerks higher, how much longer can the Fed pretend that the vastly overheating US economy is not in a “transitory hyperinflation“, or at least on the verge of stagflation.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/08/2021 – 14:18

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May 08

Today’s News 8th May 2021

  • Webb: This Biden Proposal Could Make The US A "Digital Dictatorship"
    Webb: This Biden Proposal Could Make The US A “Digital Dictatorship”

    Authored by Whitney Webb via UnlimitedHangout.com,

    A “new” proposal by the Biden administration to create a health-focused federal agency modeled after DARPA is not what it appears to be. Promoted as a way to “end cancer,” this resuscitated “health DARPA” conceals a dangerous agenda.

    Oura Ring biometric tracker.

    Last Wednesday, President Biden was widely praised in mainstream and health-care–focused media for his call to create a “new biomedical research agency” modeled after the US military’s “high-risk, high-reward” Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. As touted by the president, the agency would seek to develop “innovative” and “breakthrough” treatments for cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and diabetes, with a call to “end cancer as we know it.”  

    Far from “ending cancer” in the way most Americans might envision it, the proposed agency would merge “national security” with “health security” in such as way as to use both physical and mental health “warning signs” to prevent outbreaks of disease or violence before they occur. Such a system is a recipe for a technocratic “pre-crime” organization with the potential to criminalize both mental and physical illness as well as “wrongthink.”

    The Biden administration has asked Congress for $6.5 billion to fund the agency, which would be largely guided by Biden’s recently confirmed top science adviser, Eric Lander. Lander, formerly the head of the Silicon Valley–dominated Broad Institute, has been controversial for his ties to eugenicist and child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and his relatively recent praise for James Watson, an overtly racist eugenicist. Despite that, Lander is set to be confirmed by the Senate and Congress and is reportedly significantly enthusiastic about the proposed new “health DARPA.”

    This new agency, set to be called ARPA-H or HARPA, would be housed within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and would raise the NIH budget to over $51 billion. Unlike other agencies at NIH, ARPA-H would differ in that the projects it funds would not be peer reviewed prior to approval; instead hand-picked program managers would make all funding decisions. Funding would also take the form of milestone-driven payments instead of the more traditional multiyear grants.

    ARPA-H will likely heavily fund and promote mRNA vaccines as one of the “breakthroughs” that will cure cancer. Some of the mRNA vaccine manufacturers that have produced some of the most widely used COVID-19 vaccines, such as the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, stated just last month that “cancer is the next problem to tackle with mRNA tech” post-COVID. BioNTech has been developing mRNA gene therapies for cancer for years and is collaborating with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to create mRNA-based treatments for tuberculosis and HIV.

    Other “innovative” technologies that will be a focus of this agency are less well known to the public and arguably more concerning.

    The Long Road to ARPA-H

    ARPA-H is not a new and exclusive Biden administration idea; there was a previous attempt to create a “health DARPA” during the Trump administration in late 2019. Biden began to promote the idea during his presidential campaign as early as June 2019, albeit using a very different justification for the agency than what had been pitched by its advocates to Trump. In 2019, the same foundation and individuals currently backing Biden’s ARPA-H had urged then president Trump to create “HARPA,” not for the main purpose of researching treatments for cancer and Alzheimer’s, but to stop mass shootings before they happen through the monitoring of Americans for “neuropsychiatric” warning signs.

    Still from HARPA’s video “The Patients Are Waiting: How HARPA Will Change Lives Now”, Source: http://harpa.org

    For the last few years, one man has been the driving force behind HARPA—former vice chair of General Electric and former president of NBCUniversal, Robert Wright. Through the Suzanne Wright Foundation (named for his late wife), Wright has spent years lobbying for an agency that “would develop biomedical capabilities—detection tools, treatments, medical devices, cures, etc.—for the millions of Americans who are not benefitting from the current system.” While he, like Biden, has cloaked the agency’s actual purpose by claiming it will be mainly focused on treating cancer, Wright’s 2019 proposal to his personal friend Donald Trump revealed its underlying ambitions.

    As first proposed by Wright in 2019, the flagship program of HARPA would be SAFE HOME, short for Stopping Aberrant Fatal Events by Helping Overcome Mental Extremes. SAFE HOME would suck up masses of private data from “Apple Watches, Fitbits, Amazon Echo, and Google Home” and other consumer electronic devices, as well as information from health-care providers to determine if an individual might be likely to commit a crime. The data would be analyzed by artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms “for early diagnosis of neuropsychiatric violence.”

    The Department of Justice’s pre-crime approach known as DEEP was activated just months before Trump left office; it was also justified as a way to “stop mass shootings before they happen.” Soon after Biden’s inauguration, the new administration began using information from social media to make pre-crime arrests as part of its approach toward combatting “domestic terror.” Given the history of Silicon Valley companies collaborating with the government on matters of warrantless surveillance, it appears that aspects of SAFE HOME may already be covertly active under Biden, only waiting for the formalization of ARPA-H/HARPA to be legitimized as public policy. 

    The national-security applications of Robert Wright’s HARPA are also illustrated by the man who was its lead scientific adviser—former head of DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office Geoffrey Ling. Not only is Ling the main scientific adviser of HARPA, but the original proposal by Wright would have Ling both personally design HARPA and lead it once it was established. Ling’s work at DARPA can be summarized by BTO’s stated mission, which is to work toward merging “biology, engineering, and computer science to harness the power of natural systems for national security.” BTO-favored technologies are also poised to be the mainstays of HARPA, which plans to specifically use “advancements in biotechnology, supercomputing, big data, and artificial intelligence” to accomplish its goals.

    The direct DARPA connection to HARPA underscores that the agenda behind this coming agency dates back to the failed Bio-Surveillance project of DARPA’s Total Information Awareness program, which was launched after the events of September 11, 2001. TIA’s Bio-Surveillance project sought to develop the “necessary information technologies and resulting prototype capable of detecting the covert release of a biological pathogen automatically, and significantly earlier than traditional approaches,” accomplishing this “by monitoring non-traditional data sources” including “pre-diagnostic medical data” and “behavioral indicators.” 

    While nominally focused on “bioterrorist attacks,” TIA’s Bio-Surveillance project also sought to acquire early detection capabilities for “normal” disease outbreaks. Bio-Surveillance and related DARPA projects at the time, such as LifeLog, sought to harvest data through the mass use of some sort of wearable or handheld technology. These DARPA programs were ultimately shut down due to the controversy over claims they would be used to profile domestic dissidents and eliminate privacy for all Americans in the US. 

    That DARPA’s past total surveillance dragnet is coming back to life under a supposedly separate health-focused agency, and one that emulates its organizational model no less, confirms that many TIA-related programs were merely distanced from the Department of Defense when officially shut down. By separating the military from the public image of such technologies and programs, it made them more palatable to the masses, despite the military remaining heavily involved behind the scenes. As Unlimited Hangout has recently reported, major aspects of TIA were merely privatized, giving rise to companies such as Facebook and Palantir, which resulted in such DARPA projects being widely used and accepted. Now, under the guise of the proposed ARPA-H, DARPA’s original TIA would essentially be making a comeback for all intents and purposes as its own spin-off.

    Silicon Valley, the Military and the Wearable “Revolution” 

    This most recent effort to create ARPA-H/HARPA combines well with the coordinated push of Silicon Valley companies into the field of health care, specifically Silicon Valley companies that double as contractors to US intelligence and/or the military (e.g., Microsoft, Google, and Amazon). During the COVID-19 crisis, this trend toward Silicon Valley dominance of the health-care sector has accelerated considerably due to a top-down push toward digitalization with telemedicine, remote monitoring, and the like. 

    One interesting example is Amazon, which launched a wearable last year that purports to not only use biometrics to monitor people’s physical health and fitness but to track their emotional state as well. The previous year, Amazon acquired the online pharmacy PillPack, and it is not hard to imagine a scenario in which data from Amazon’s Halo wellness band is used to offer treatment recommendations that are then supplied by Amazon-owned PillPack.

    Companies such as Amazon, Palantir, and Google are set to be intimately involved in ARPA-H’s activities. In particular, Google, which launched numerous health-tech initiatives in 2020, is set to have a major role in this new agency due to its long-standing ties to the Obama administration when Biden was vice president and to President Biden’s top science adviser, Eric Lander.

    As mentioned, Lander is poised to play a major role in ARPA-H/HARPA if and when it materializes. Before becoming the top scientist in the country, Lander was president and founding director of the Broad Institute. While advertised as a partnership between MIT and Harvard, the Broad Institute is heavily influenced by Silicon Valley, with two former Google executives on its board, a partner of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Greylock Partners, and the former CEO of IBM, as well as some of its top endowments coming from prominent tech executives. 

    The Broad Institute, Source: https://www.broadinstitute.org

    Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who was intimately involved with Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign and who is close to the Democratic Party in general, chairs the Broad Institute as of this April. In March, Schmidt gave the institute $150 million to “connect biology and machine learning for understanding programs of life.” During his time on the Broad Institute board, Schmidt also chaired the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, a group of mostly Silicon Valley, intelligence, and military operatives who have now charted the direction of the US government’s policies on emerging tech and AI. Schmidt was also pitched as potential head of a tech-industry task force by the Biden administration.

    Earlier, in January, the Broad Institute announced that its health-research platform, Terra, which was built with Google subsidiary Verily, would partner with Microsoft. As a result, Terra now allows Google and Microsoft to access a vast trove of genomic data that is poured into the platform by academics and research institutions from around the world.

    In addition, last September, Google teamed up with the Department of Defense as part of a new AI-driven “predictive health” program that also has links to the US intelligence community. While initially focused on predicting cancer cases, this initiative clearly plans to expand to predicting the onset of other diseases before symptoms appear, including COVID-19. As noted by Unlimited Hangout at the time, one of the ulterior motives for the program, from Google’s perspective, was for Google to gain access to “the largest repository of disease- and cancer-related medical data in the world,” which is held by the Defense Health Agency. Having exclusive access to this data is a huge boon for Google in its effort to develop and expand its growing suite of AI health-care products.

    The military is currently being used to pilot COVID-19–related biometric wearables for “returning to work safely.” Last December, it was announced that Hill Air Force Base in Utah would make biometric wearables a mandatory part of the uniform for some squadrons. For example, the airmen of the Air Force’s 649th Munitions Squadron must now wear a smart watch made by Garmin and a smart ring made by Oura as part of their uniform. 

    According to the Air Force, these devices detect biometric indicators that are then analyzed for 165 different biomarkers by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency/Philips Healthcare AI algorithm that “attempts to recognize an infection or virus around 48 hours before the onset of symptoms.” The development of that algorithm began well before the COVID-19 crisis and is a recent iteration of a series of military research projects that appear to have begun under the 2007 DARPA Predicting Health and Disease (PHD) project.

    While of interest to the military, these wearables are primarily intended for mass use—a big step toward the infrastructure needed for the resurrection of a bio-surveillance program to be run by the national-security state. Starting first with the military makes sense from the national-security apparatus’s perspective, as the ability to monitor biometric data, including emotions, has obvious appeal for those managing the recently expanded “insider threat” programs in the military and the Department of Homeland Security.

    One indicator of the push for mass use is that the same Oura smart ring being used by the Air Force was also recently utilized by the NBA to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks among basketball players. Prior to COVID-19, it was promoted for consumer use by members of the British Royal family and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey for improving sleep. As recently as last Monday, Oura’s CEO, Harpeet Rai, said that the entire future of wearable health tech will soon be “proactive rather than reactive” because it will focus on predicting disease based on biometric data obtained from wearables in real time.

    Another wearable tied to the military that is creeping into mass use is the BioButton and its predecessor the BioSticker. Produced by the company BioIntelliSense, the sleek new BioButton is advertised as a wearable system that is “a scalable and cost-effective solution for COVID-19 symptom monitoring at school, home and work.” BioIntelliSense received $2.8 million from the Pentagon last December to develop the BioButton and BioSticker wearables for COVID-19. 

    BioIntelliSense CEO James Mault poses with the company’s BioSticker wearable. Source: https://biointellisense.com

    BioIntelliSense, cofounded and led by former Microsoft HealthVault developer James Mault, now has its wearable sensors being rolled out for widespread use on some college campuses and at some US hospitals. In some of those instances, the company’s wearables are being used to specifically monitor the side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine as opposed to symptoms of COVID-19 itself. BioIntelliSense is currently running a study, partnered with Philips Healthcare and the University of Colorado, on the use of its wearables for early COVID-19 detection, which is entirely funded by the US military.

    While the use of these wearables is currently “encouraged but optional” at these pilot locations, could there come a time when they are mandated in a workplace or by a government? It would not be unheard of, as several countries have already required foreign arrivals to be monitored through use of a wearable during a mandatory quarantine period. Saint Lucia is currently using BioButton for this purpose. Singapore, which seeks to be among the first “smart nations” in the world, has given every single one of its residents a wearable called a “TraceTogether token” for its contact-tracing program. Either the wearable token or the TraceTogether smartphone app is mandatory for all workplaces, shopping malls, hotels, schools, health-care facilities, grocery stores, and hair salons. Those without access to a smartphone are expected to use the “free” government-issued wearable token.

    The Era of Digital Dictatorships Is Nearly Here

    Making mandatory wearables the new normal not just for COVID-19 prevention but for monitoring health in general would institutionalize quarantining people who have no symptoms of an illness but only an opaque algorithm’s determination that vital signs indicate “abnormal” activity. 

    Given that no AI is 100 percent accurate and that AI is only as good as the data it is trained on, such a system would be guaranteed to make regular errors: the question is how many. One AI algorithm being used to “predict COVID-19 outbreaks” in Israel and some US states is marketed by Diagnostic Robotics; the (likely inflated) accuracy rate the company provides for its product is only 73 percent. That means, by the company’s own admission, their AI is wrong 27 percent of the time. Probably, it is even less accurate, as the 73 percent figure has never been independently verified.

    Adoption of these technologies has benefitted from the COVID-19 crisis, as supporters are seizing the opportunity to accelerate their introduction. As a result, their use will soon become ubiquitous if this advancing agenda continues unimpeded. 

    Though this push for wearables is obvious now, signs of this agenda were visible several years ago. In 2018, for instance, insurer John Hancock announced that it would replace its life insurance offerings with “interactive policies” that involve individuals having their health monitored by commercial health wearables. Prior to that announcement, John Hancock and other insurers such as Aetna, Cigna, and UnitedHealthcare offered various rewards for policyholders who wore a fitness wearable and shared that data with their insurance company.

    In another pre-COVID example, the Journal of the American Medical Association published an article in August 2019 that claimed that wearables “encourage healthy behaviors and empower individuals to participate in their health.” The authors of the article, who are affiliated with Harvard, further claimed that “incentivizing use of these devices [wearables] by integrating them in insurance policies” may be an “attractive” policy approach. The use of wearables for policyholders has since been heavily promoted by the insurance industry, both prior to and after COVID-19, and some speculate that health insurers could soon mandate their use in certain cases or as a broader policy.

    These biometric “fitness” devices—such as Amazon’s Halo—can monitor more than your physical vital signs, however, as they can also monitor your emotional state. ARPA-H/HARPA’s flagship SAFE HOME program reveals that the ability to monitor thoughts and feelings is an already existing goal of those seeking to establish this new agency. 

    According to World Economic Forum luminary and historian Yuval Noah Harari, the transition to “digital dictatorships” will have a “big watershed” moment once governments “start monitoring and surveying what is happening inside your body and inside your brain.” He says that the mass adoption of such technology would make human beings “hackable animals,” while those who abstain from having this technology on or in their bodies would become part of a new “useless” class. Harari has also asserted that biometric wearables will someday be used by governments to target individuals who have the “wrong” emotional reactions to government leaders. 

    Unsurprisingly, one of Harari’s biggest fans, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, has recently led his company into the development of a comprehensive biometric and “neural” wearable based on technology from a “neural interface” start-up that Facebook acquired in 2019. Per Facebook, the wearable “will integrate with AR [augmented reality], VR [virtual reality], and human neural signals” and is set to become commercially available soon. Facebook also notably owns the VR company Oculus Rift, whose founder, Palmer Luckey, now runs the US military AI contractor Anduril. 

    As recently reported, Facebook was shaped in its early days to be a private-sector replacement for DARPA’s controversial LifeLog program, which sought to both “humanize” AI and build profiles on domestic dissidents and terror suspects. LifeLog was also promoted by DARPA as “supporting medical research and the early detection of an emerging pandemic.”

    It appears that current trends and events show that DARPA’s decades-long effort to merge “health security” and “national security” have now advanced further than ever before. This may partially be because Bill Gates, who has wielded significant influence over health policy globally in the last year, is a long-time advocate of fusing health security and national security to thwart both pandemics and “bioterrorists” before they can strike, as can be heard in his 2017 speech delivered at that year’s Munich Security Conference. That same year, Gates also publicly urged the US military to “focus more training on preparing to fight a global pandemic or bioterror attack.”

    In the merging of “national security” and “health security,” any decision or mandate promulgated as a public health measure could be justified as necessary for “national security,” much in the same way that the mass abuses and war crimes that occurred during the post-9/11 “war on terror” were similarly justified by “national security” with little to no oversight. Yet, in this case, instead of only losing our civil liberties and control over our external lives, we stand to lose sovereignty over our individual bodies.

    The NIH, which would house this new ARPA-H/HARPA, has spent hundreds of millions of dollars experimenting with the use of wearables since 2015, not only for detecting disease symptoms but also for monitoring individuals’ diets and illegal drug consumption. Biden played a key part in that project, known as the Precision Medicine initiative, and separately highlighted the use of wearables in cancer patients as part of the Obama administration’s related Cancer Moonshot program. The third Obama-era health-research project was the NIH’s BRAIN initiative, which was launched, among other things, to “develop tools to record, mark, and manipulate precisely defined neurons in the living brain” that are determined to be linked to an “abnormal” function or a neurological disease. These initiatives took place at a time when Eric Lander was the cochair of Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology while still leading the Broad Institute. It is hardly a coincidence that Eric Lander is now Biden’s top science adviser, elevated to a new cabinet-level position and set to guide the course of ARPA-H/HARPA.

    Thus, Biden’s newly announced agency, if approved by Congress, would integrate those past Obama-era initiatives with Orwellian applications under one roof, but with even less oversight than before. It would also seek to expand and mainstream the uses of these technologies and potentially move toward developing policies that would mandate their use.

    If ARPA-H/HARPA is approved by Congress and ultimately established, it will be used to resurrect dangerous and long-standing agendas of the national-security state and its Silicon Valley contractors, creating a “digital dictatorship” that threatens human freedom, human society, and potentially the very definition of what it means to be human. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/07/2021 – 23:40

  • When Will Lab-Grown Meat Become Cheap Enough To Buy?
    When Will Lab-Grown Meat Become Cheap Enough To Buy?

    Lab-grown meat consumes less energy and water and emits significantly fewer greenhouse gases than farm-raised meat. Bioengineering meat products in labs are part of the new food supply chain that we’re all going to eat after the global green reset is over. 

    Dozens of start-ups have been making cultured or in vitro meats for a number of years. Production costs are expensive and are about a decade away from parity with traditional meat prices. 

    Israeli start-up Future Meat, whose backers include Archer Daniels Midland, Tyson Foods, and S2G, has halved production costs in just a few months for its lab-grown chicken – a big move towards commercial viability, according to Financial Times.

    Future meat can produce a 110-gram chicken breast for just under $4, down from $7.50 announced at the start of the year. 

    Rom Kshuk, the chief executive, expects the piece of meat could fall below $2 in the next 12-18 months. 

    There are more than 50 companies worldwide working on getting lab-grown meat into supermarkets. Kshuk said his company is focused on obtaining regulatory approval for commercialization from the USDA and the FDA in 2022.

    “We will launch a product in the US market in the next 18 months that will have a commercially viable price,” he told FT.

    From chicken nuggets to lobster, companies are working towards a more sustainable approach for future food. 

    There’s also been a push for plant-based meat and an increasing acceptance of plant-based products. This could be great news for lab-grown meat as it appears global elites want to crush livestock farming because they believe it significantly contributes to greenhouse emissions. 

    So the question we are all asking ourselves – when does lab-grown meat become commercially viable where the average consumer can afford it? According to FT, sometime in the early 2030s. 

    It’s becoming more evident how the global reset and elites behind it are restructuring the global economy towards their eventual goals of a net-zero carbon emissions economy by the 2040-2060 timeframe. 

    … but like anything spewing from government or the non-elected officials who attempt to dictate the future – they’re often wrong in timing or the outcome as a whole. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/07/2021 – 23:20

  • Existential Economic Threats: How US States Can Survive Without Federal Money
    Existential Economic Threats: How US States Can Survive Without Federal Money

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

    We all knew it was coming; the alternative economic media has been warning about it for years. Eventually, monetary intervention and bailout after bailout by central banks always leads to devaluation of the currency and inflation in prices. Helicopter money always ends in disaster and at no point in history has it ever produced positive long-term results for a society.

    The federal reserve has generated trillions in fiat dollars over the course of a single year (on top of the tens of trillions created in the past decade), all in the name of offsetting deflation. This deflation was NOT caused by the pandemic, it was caused by the government response to the pandemic.  On top of that, the shutdowns of “non-essential businesses” and the lockdowns in general ended up being useless in slowing the spread of COVID-19.

    All the information, all the facts and all the science supports the anti-lockdown crowd. Conservative run states that removed lockdowns and mandates months ago are seeing falling infection and death numbers and local businesses are on the mend. The problem is, government authorities don’t seem to care about this. It appears that their intention is to double down and continue demanding restrictions stay in place for the long haul.

    In other words, they are going to FIND an excuse to keep the mandates going. If no reason exists, they will create a reason. Consider for a moment the fact that COVID-19 is mutating constantly, and like any other virus there are new strains that pop up every year. Just as we have a seasonal flu, we will probably now have seasonal COVID.

    Since viruses also tend to evolve into less deadly forms of their original iteration it is unlikely that new COVID mutations will be any more dangerous than they were in the past. But each new strain creates a new rationale for the federal government to proclaim a national emergency and possibly enforce new lockdowns.

    This puts a lot of state governments in a difficult position. If they ever shut down again simply because federal authorities demand it, they will be angering their citizens and harming their region’s cash flow and production. Small businesses will go bankrupt by the thousands and the public will be on the verge of rebellion.

    On the other hand, if states defy the federal government (many are already passing laws blocking draconian vaccine passports), there is a good chance that the feds will respond by cutting off taxpayer funds and stimulus dollars to those states. With the combined threats of price inflation and federal financial retaliation, some states may cave and submit to more lockdowns or other mandates. And, by extension, their economies will begin to die once again.

    It’s a Catch-22, but it doesn’t have to be this way. There are measures that states and communities can take to diminish inflation and reduce dependency on federal dollars at the same time.

    Taking Back Resource Management

    The most important action states and counties can pursue in my view is taking back control of resource management within their own borders. For decades the federal government through agencies like the EPA and the Bureau of Land Management have dictated how states can utilize natural resources. Entire industries have faded in the U.S. because of this, whether it be oil production, coal production, steel production, lumber production, etc.

    If the federal government tries to punish states that refuse to comply with fiscally damaging pandemic restrictions by taking away stimulus payments and tax dollars, those states should reclaim control of their resources and ignore federal agencies. They should also take away federally controlled lands within their borders to make up for the loss of tax dollars. It’s only fair.

    With resource production back in the hands of the states and their local businesses, these economies will have a chance to become more independent and the need for federal money will diminish.

    Incentives For Local Manufacturing

    Aggressive taxation along with overpowered labor unions have made manufacturing businesses difficult to maintain in the U.S., but states have the power to change this.

    If we define price inflation as too many dollars chasing too few goods (I realize this is only one aspect of inflation, but it is important), then increased production of raw materials and manufactured goods should help to decrease inflation pressures. Why is production in the U.S. continuing to stagnate when it should be quickly expanding?

    Many of the products Americans purchase are made overseas, and with continued dollar devaluation, this means that prices will keep rising. A weaker dollar translates to higher costs in exchange for foreign made goods. So, why not make those goods here?

    Availability reduces price increases, localized manufacturing reduces dependency on foreign goods and increases employment. But how can states bring manufacturing back?  I suspect it is more simple than many economists realize: Just offer protection from federal taxation to any manufacturer that is willing to open up shop within your state. If the government is going to try to punish you anyway just for refusing to comply with pandemic rules, then you might as well take it to the next level and punish the government back.

    This should create ample incentive for new businesses in particular to start production within certain states as profits would be MUCH higher. Their ability to compete with major corporations (which get unlimited special treatment from the federal government through stimulus measures) would also grow.

    Create A Commodity-Backed Currency System

    While labor and wages are a sensitive issue, the market, if left to flow naturally, will determine what fair wages and fair prices should be. That said, in the midst of a monetary crisis such as hyperinflation or stagflation, the most likely response by the federal government would be price controls as well as wage controls and rationing of goods. The last vestiges of the free market would be eradicated.

    As long as states rely on the dollar, and the dollar’s value is determined by the whims of central bankers that do not actually answer to the public, there is no way to fight inflationary damage. However, if states were to offer an alternative currency or scrip that was NOT fiat, that was backed by a tangible resource or commodity that helps to limit money creation, then they could save themselves.

    Such a move would have to be undertaken by a state-run bank, much like the bank that North Dakota utilizes to aid industry and agriculture. As long as issuance of the currency is backed by a commodity or precious metal like gold (or with inherent intrinsic value like the Morgan silver dollar). A backed currency’s value would be preserved even as the dollar sinks. Commodity-backed currencies would flourish as citizens and investors (even international investors) search for safe havens.

    Essentially, states and communities would be decentralizing their economies so they are no longer slaves to the demands of people that answer to no one and do not have our best interests at heart.

    There is, of course, the issue of aggression against states that take these measures, but we should remember that this is exactly what the Founding Fathers did in the years leading up to the American Revolution. They did not simply declare their independence, they made themselves independent through localized economic tactics.

    Without economic independence, no other freedoms are possible. I believe it is time for Americans and free-minded states to once again focus on localization. The future of liberty in our nation depends on it.

    *  *  *

    After 10 long years of ultra-loose monetary policy from the Federal Reserve, it’s no secret that inflation is primed to soar. If your IRA or 401(k) is exposed to this threat, it’s critical to act now! That’s why thousands of Americans are moving their retirement into a Gold IRA. Learn how you can too with a free info kit on gold from Birch Gold Group. It reveals the little-known IRS Tax Law to move your IRA or 401(k) into gold. Click here to get your free Info Kit on Gold.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/07/2021 – 23:00

  • Dream Chaser Spaceplane Cleared To Resupply Space Station 
    Dream Chaser Spaceplane Cleared To Resupply Space Station 

    The Dream Chaser spaceplane entered into a Use Agreement for Space Florida’s Launch and Landing Facility (LLF) to land after resupply missions to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2022. 

    The uncrewed, robotic spaceplane will be catapulted into low Earth orbit via the Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rockets from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The first resupply mission is slated for the first half of 2022. 

    Once the Dream Chaser docks and delivers cargo to the ISS – the ship will return to LLF, formerly known as the space shuttle runway. The spaceplane needs a 10,000-foot runway or wherever a commercial jet land.

    “This is a monumental step for both Dream Chaser and the future of space travel,” said Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) CEO Fatih Ozmen. SNC was tasked with developing the spaceplane. “To have a commercial vehicle return from the International Space Station to a runway landing for the first time since NASA’s space shuttle program ended a decade ago will be a historic achievement,” he said.

    Janet Kavandi, executive vice president of SNC’s Space Systems business area, said Dream Chaser is “hands-down the best way home,” adding that “a runway landing is an optimum solution for both humans and science.” 

    This is opposed to SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule that splashes down in the ocean upon return. 

    Sierra Nevada won $2 billion in NASA contracts to develop Dream Chaser as a reusable cargo vessel. As early as spring 2022, the company could start the first of seven cargo trips to ISS. 

    ISS is expected to wind down operations by the end of this decade. Russia is set to withdraw from the space station by 2025. 

    Sierra Nevada executives believe Dream Chaser can carry people someday and be more appealing to space tourists. The company appears to be taking advantage of the increasing interest in commercial space investments.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/07/2021 – 22:40

  • Bovard: The Coming IRS Reign Of Terror
    Bovard: The Coming IRS Reign Of Terror

    Authored by James Bovard,

    The power to tax has long conferred the power to destroy political opponents. But in the glorious era of President Joe Biden, all previous cases of government abuse of power are being expunged, at least by the media and Biden supporters. That is why it is supposedly safe to vastly increase the power of perhaps the most feared federal agency, the Internal Revenue Service.

    After announcing his endless wish list for new federal spending, Biden told Congress last week: “I’ve made clear that we can do it without increasing deficits.” Biden believes he has found a goose that will lay golden eggs for federal revenue – a new army of IRS agents to hound Americans and corporations to pay far more taxes.

    The Washington Post reported that “the single biggest source of new revenue in the plan comes from dramatically expanding the clout of the nation’s tax agency.” Slate reported, “Biden wants to fund a massive upgrade to the American welfare state by making the IRS great at audits again.”

    But the agency Biden seeks to expand and unleash has an appalling record.

    As author David Burnham noted in “A Law Unto Itself: The IRS and the Abuse of Power” (1990), “In almost every administration since the IRS’s inception the information and power of the tax agency have been mobilized for explicitly political purposes.”

    President Franklin Roosevelt used the IRS to harass newspaper publishers who were opposed to the New Deal, including William Randolph Hearst. FDR also dropped the IRS hammer on political rivals such as the populist firebrand Huey Long and radio agitator Father Coughlin, and prominent Republicans such as former Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon. President John F. Kennedy spurred the IRS to launch the Ideological Organizations Audit Project, which targeted right-leaning groups, including the Christian Anti-Communist Crusade, the American Enterprise Institute and the Foundation for Economic Education. Nixon Administration officials gave the IRS a list of official enemies to, in the words of presidential assistant John Dean, “use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.” Congress enacted legislation to severely restrict political contacts between the White House and the IRS.

    But the power of IRS agents continued to increase decade by decade. In 1988, then-Sen. David Pryor, a moderate Democrat from Arkansas, warned that the IRS “operates a near totalitarian system.” Pryor complained that the IRS had encouraged a “bounty-hunter mentality among revenue officers” and called for reforms to assure that the IRS “operates on the basis of public respect rather than fear.” Congress enacted a so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights but it failed to curb the revenuers.

    The Clinton administration, like many of its predecessors, exploited the IRS to punish its political enemies. In 1995, the White House and the Democratic National Committee produced a 331-page report entitled “Communication Stream of Conspiracy Commerce” that attacked magazines, think tanks, and other entities and individuals who had criticized President Bill Clinton. In the subsequent years, many organizations mentioned in the White House report were hit by IRS audits. More than 20 conservative organizations — including the Heritage Foundation and the American Spectator magazine — and almost a dozen individual high-profile Clinton accusers, such as Paula Jones and Gennifer Flowers, were audited.

    Members of Congress also routinely exploited their power to send the secret financial police against their enemies. The Associated Press reported in 1999 that “members of both parties in Congress have prompted hundreds of audits of political opponents in the 1990s,” including “personal demands for audits from members of Congress.” Audit requests from congressmen were marked “expedite” or “hot politically” and IRS officials were obliged to respond within 15 days. Because the abuse was bipartisan, there was little enthusiasm on Capitol Hill for an investigation.

    In the Obama era, the IRS again became a political hit squad. The IRS demanded donor lists from 24 conservative nonprofits and proceeded to audit 10% of their donors — an audit rate ten times higher than average for the country. A 2013 Inspector General report confirmed that IRS employees had devoted far more scrutiny to nonprofit applications that used the terms “tea party” or “patriot” or that criticized government spending or federal deficits. In 2017, the IRS formally apologized to scores of conservative groups that it had wrongfully targeted in tax audits.

    The hubbub over Obama IRS machinations overshadowed similar appalling abuses on Capitol Hill. In 2014, the Center for Competitive Politics (since renamed as the Institute for Free Speech) filed a complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee charging that senators had personally intervened to demand IRS audits against conservative organizations. The senators “pressured the IRS to undertake income-tax investigations of specific organizations, to find that specific organizations were in violation of the law, to reach predetermined results pertaining to pending applications by individual organizations for nonprofit status.”

    Democratic New York Sen. Charles Schumer, lamenting the Republican takeover over the House of Representatives in 2010, declared that “there are many things that can be done by the IRS.” In a March 12, 2012 letter to the IRS, Schumer “urged the service to investigate various groups identified through reference to news articles,” a Wall Street Journal oped noted. On December 16, 2014, the Senate Ethics Committee dismissed the complaint from the Center for Competitive Politics, claiming that senators “have broad discretion to comment on matters of public policy in communications with agencies.” Perhaps the committee also presumed senators had a sacred prerogative to exploit the IRS to assail their enemies.

    While political abuses of the IRS have received most of the headlines, routine day to day outrages have continued unabated for decades. In the 1990s, IRS agents were indoctrinated to see taxpayers as liars and class enemies.

    IRS agents were trained with a game called “Culture Bingo.” That game taught the doctrine: “Taxpayers seem to live better than I do” to maximize resentment of taxpayers being audited. The American Institute for Certified Public Examiners complained of the course materials: “Every ethical issue presented finds the ethical result to be pro-IRS and anti-taxpayer. There is not one scenario where an IRS agent might act unethically against a taxpayer’s interest.”

    “Culture Bingo” spurred IRS agents to audit the lifestyles of taxpayers instead of simply their tax returns. IRS agents showed up unannounced to inspect people’s homes and demand to know what people kept in their bedroom drawers.

    Former Republican Sen. Bill Roth exposed stunning IRS abuses in Senate hearings in the late 1990s. Former IRS district chief David Patnoe testified: “More tax is collected by fear and intimidation than by the law. People are afraid of the IRS.”

    One confidential IRS document uncovered in 1997 revealed that IRS auditors in the San Francisco region were expected to assess at least $1,012 in additional taxes for each hour they spend auditing a taxpayer’s return. An IRS instructor in the Arkansas-Oklahoma district was caught on videotape lecturing collection agents on how to treat taxpayers: “Make them cry. We don’t give points around here for being good scouts. The word is enforced. If that’s not tattooed on your forehead, or somewhere else, then you need to get it. Enforcement. Seizure and sales…. Enforce collection until they come to their knees.”

    Congress passed reform legislation, but it did little to curb the vast arbitrary power possessed by IRS agents. Consider IRS depredations under the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, which required banks to file a federal report for any cash transaction exceeding $10,000. The IRS “enforced” the law by presuming that anyone who deposited slightly less than $10,000 was a criminal. The IRS seized a quarter billion dollars because it disapproved of how businesses and individuals structured their bank deposits and withdrawals. IRS bureaucrats don’t even need to file a criminal charge before snaring citizens’ life savings.

    Between 2005 and 2012, the number of IRS seizures rose more than fivefold, but the vast majority of victims were never criminally prosecuted for structuring offenses. “One-third of those cases involved nothing more than making a series of sub-$10,000 cash transactions,” the Institute for Justice reported. A 2017 Inspector General report found no evidence in 91% of the forfeiture cases that the money came from illegal activities. IRS investigators simply looked at banking records and then confiscated  the accounts of hundreds of people. Most of the victims were “legal businesses such as jewelry stores, restaurant owners, gas station owners, scrap metal dealers, and others.”

    The IRS targeted businesses with legal sources of income because “the Department of Justice had encouraged task forces to engage in ‘quick hits,’ where property was more quickly seized… rather than pursuing cases with other criminal activity (such as drug trafficking and money laundering), which are more time-consuming,” the Inspector General reported.

    The one certainty is that the new powers Biden bestows on the IRS will be horrendously abused, and that most members of Congress won’t give a damn.

    Instead, they will pile on to further oppress American citizens and political activists. In 1967, a federal appeals court decision proclaimed, “The court will not place its stamp of approval upon a witch-hunt, a crusade to rid society of unorthodox thinkers and actors by using the federal income tax laws” to silence them.

    Unfortunately, such lofty sentiments are far more likely to be found in musty judicial compilations than in today’s Washington.

    *  *  *

    James Bovard is the author of “Attention Deficit Democracy,” “The Bush Betrayal,” “Terrorism and Tyranny,” and other books. Bovard is on the USA Today Board of Contributors. He is on Twitter at @jimbovard. His website is at www.jimbovard.com

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/07/2021 – 22:20

  • East Bay Area Homes Selling $1 Million Over Asking Price 
    East Bay Area Homes Selling $1 Million Over Asking Price 

    The housing boom sparked by the Federal Reserve during the virus pandemic was built on historically low mortgage rates and record low inventory as city-dwellers moved to rural areas amid remote-work phenomenon. 

    According to San Francisco Chronicle, the East Bay area or the eastern region of the San Francisco Bay Area has been an area of extreme housing market euphoria as some homes are selling more than $1 million over the list price. 

    Josh Dickinson, the founder of real estate agency Zip Code East Bay, said it’s pretty common to see a home go $1 million over list price. “When my clients see a house for $1.9 million, they’re almost conditioned to think it’ll go over $3 million in Piedmont or North Berkeley,” he said. 

    This year, Dickinson said, a fierce bidding war between “frantic” buyers is absolutely crazy. Buyers are becoming super aggressive in how they submit offers, he added. 

    “I think I could pull up the MLS and pull up a dozen [listings] that went more than a million over this year so far,” he said. “Most of them had the ‘it factor,’ but some of them were just in the right place at the right time.”

    Dickinson said people are searching for amazing views and a spacious backyard in a post-COVID environment. More importantly, there needs to be enough space for at least two home offices. 

    “Even we don’t know as savvy agents. We don’t know when the thing is going to go bonkers,” he said. “We just try to let the market do its thing.”

    Record-low inventory, low mortgage rates, and urban flight have been the perfect cocktail for the East Bay boom. 

    In April, a five-bedroom home in the Elmwood neighborhood of Berkeley sold for $3.15 million, in an all-cash deal, with a listing price of $1.995 million. Since March, at least 20 properties have sold for more than $800,000 over the listing price, and six of those went for $1 million or more over the asking price three in Berkeley, three in Oakland, one in Piedmont.

    Redfin real estate agent Ena Everett said the East Bay market is becoming a lot more competitive. “In Oakland and Berkeley … people could expect homes to go 20% over asking on a pretty regular basis,” she said. “Now that the supply is a lot smaller, instead of 20% over, it’s common to see houses go for 10 to 40% over asking or more.”

    Overall, Bay Area home prices increased by 6% as compared to the same time last year.

    We noted not too long ago, an uninhabitable shack in the Bay Area was listed for $575k. 

    This year, housing prices have been so absurd that Case-Shiller, US home prices in 20 major cities are up a shocking 11.10% year-over-year.

    This is the fastest YoY rise since March 2014.

    Away from the 20 major cities, prices are rising even faster, up 11.22% – the fastest YoY price appreciation since Feb 2006…

    … but as we all know, manias don’t last forever and today’s housing boom may have just had a wake-up call from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who said (but has since walked back) interest rates might have to rise to prevent any significant inflationary impact. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/07/2021 – 22:00

  • The Rise Of Bitcoin
    The Rise Of Bitcoin

    Authored by William Luther via The American Institute for Economic Research,

    In hindsight, the rise of cryptocurrencies appears to have begun with the introduction of bitcoin in 2009. Earlier cryptocurrencies had been launched in the 1990s, but they failed to take hold. David Chaum’s DigiCash is widely thought to have been ahead of its time. Chaum founded his company at the start of the decade, well before the rise of e-commerce. By 1998, it had filed for bankruptcy. More generally, early “digital-cash firms made a fatal miscalculation,” Julia Pitta wrote for Forbes in 1999. “They figured, wrongly it turns out, that consumers would be leery of using credit cards on the Web and would demand tight security and ironclad privacy.”

    It was not clear, at first, that bitcoin would be any different. Perhaps fearing the fate of e-gold creator Douglas Jackson, bitcoin’s designer(s) adopted a pseudonym––the now-famous Satoshi Nakamoto––and shared the upstart open source project in email to the Cryptography Mailing List on January 8, 2009. Nakamoto had circulated a white paper explaining the technical details a few months before. Congratulatory replies soon followed, but there was little indication that bitcoin would quickly become a household name. It was little more than a novelty discussed by a handful of programmers on the Internet.

    Over the nine months that followed, bitcoin was basically worthless. Transactions consisted of mere test spends by the few programmers interested in bitcoin at the time in order to work out bugs in the protocol. No one was handing over valuable goods or services for bitcoin. There were no market exchange rates with the dollar, euro, or other currencies. Indeed, there were no exchanges to facilitate currency exchange.

    The first positive-price transaction for bitcoin appears to have occurred in early October 2009. On October 5, a user employing the username New Liberty Standard estimated that it cost roughly $1 to produce 1,309.03 bitcoin. Seven days later, he purchased 5,050 bitcoin from Martti Malmi for $5.05, settling the transaction via PayPal. The price of bitcoin, in other words, stood at just $0.0010. 

    Prior to March 2010, users interested in exchanging traditional currencies for bitcoin were limited to ad hoc exchanges, typically organized via message boards. Then, on March 16, The Bitcoin Market became operational, providing a central location on the Internet to exchange bitcoin for dollars. The first posted bid, submitted by the site-creator dwdollar, put the price of bitcoin at $0.0067.

    In addition to helping users acquire or offload bitcoin, the new exchange also made it easier to assess the exchange value of bitcoin. If you know, for example, that a host of users are willing to pay $0.50 to $0.75 for 100 bitcoin, you can use that information to figure out how much other goods and services routinely priced in dollars are worth in terms of bitcoin. The new exchange, therefore, makes it easier for users to buy and sell goods and services with bitcoin.

    On May 22, 2010, a Jacksonville, FL-based programmer named Laszlo Hanyecz made what many believe to be the first purchase of goods or services with bitcoin. In a post to the BitcoinTalk forum on May 18, Hanyecz offered to purchase two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoin. The implicit exchange rate was generous. The Bitcoin Market valued 10,000 bitcoin at around $41 at the time. But, initially, there were no takers. “I just think it would be interesting if I could say that I paid for a pizza in bitcoins,” Hanyecz posted on May 21. The following day, he posted photos of two large pizzas from Papa John’s. Together, he and a user named jercos, who had facilitated the transaction, showed that bitcoin could be used to acquire goods and services in the real world.

    As word of the upstart cryptocurrency spread, so too did its value. A Slashdot article published on July 11 introduced bitcoin to a host of new users. The exchange rate increased from $0.008 on July 12 to $0.080 on July 17. On July 18, Jed McCaleb launched the popular exchange site MtGox and, by November 6, one bitcoin was trading for $0.50 on the site. Keir Thomas profiled bitcoin for PC World on December 10. “Bitcoins are worth taking a look at,” he wrote. In the years that followed, many people did. On December 3, 2013, one bitcoin was worth $1,078.

    Today, there are few people who have not heard about bitcoin. And, yet, just as few people seem to understand how it works.

    Perhaps that is to be expected.

    The way in which the bitcoin protocol processes transactions is new and fundamentally different from traditional payment mechanisms. Whereas traditional payment mechanisms employ decentralized or centralized clearing mechanisms, bitcoin transactions are processed via a distributed clearing mechanism.

    Consider a cash transaction. When you pay for a Coke with cash, the transaction is cleared by you and the merchant. You debit your account by removing the dollar from your wallet and handing it to the merchant. The merchant credits her account by accepting the dollar from you and placing it in the cash register. Since cash is physical, and no longer in your possession, you cannot spend that dollar again. That dollar now belongs to the merchant, who can spend it as she sees fit.

    Cash, in other words, is processed using a decentralized clearing mechanism.  A decentralized payment is cleared by the parties to the exchange. No trusted third party is required to process the transaction. Indeed, no one other than the parties to the transaction even needs to know that the transaction occurred.

    Suppose, instead, you were to purchase that Coke by writing a check or swiping your debit card. In this case, your bank will debit your account and transfer the funds to the merchant’s bank. The merchant’s bank will credit her account. The funds, in this case, are digital. Unlike physical cash, digital balances could be duplicated and spent again. However, the banking system generally prevents that from happening. Once funds have been transferred, they are considered final––meaning the sender no longer has access to the funds.

    Checks and debit card payments are processed using a centralized clearing mechanism. A bank or other financial institution acts as a trusted third party to process the transaction. Indeed, such transactions often involve multiple levels of centralized clearing. The transaction between your bank and the merchant’s bank, for example, might be cleared by the Federal Reserve’s FedWire. The Fed debits your bank’s account and credits the account of the merchant’s bank. Centralized clearing requires routing the transaction––and, hence, information about the transaction––through one or more trusted third parties. As such, they tend to offer less financial privacy than other payment mechanisms.

    Bitcoin employs neither a decentralized nor centralized clearing mechanism. Instead, it processes transactions using a distributed clearing mechanism. With distributed clearing, payments are processed by the network as a whole. Typically, distributed networks amount to a shared ledger, which denotes who owns what, and a protocol for updating that ledger. In many cases, any individual user is capable of debiting and crediting accounts on the ledger. Changes to the ledger are only recognized as legitimate, however, when they have been confirmed by the network of users in accordance with the protocol.

    If you were to pay for that Coke with bitcoin, you would announce the transaction to the network by signing a balance of bitcoin with your private key, thereby confirming ownership, and identifying the merchant by her public key. In practice, this often amounts to scanning a QR code with a bitcoin wallet mobile app. Your transaction is then bundled together with other recent transactions and the computers running the bitcoin protocol race to process the entire block of transaction. Once the block of transactions has been processed, the ledger is updated to reflect the various debits and credits required by the transactions in the block. The shared ledger is known as a blockchain because each block of transactions is chained to the previous block, producing a long chain of transaction blocks corresponding to all of the transactions that have been made and certified as legitimate up until that point.

    While it is convenient to think about a single shared ledger, or blockchain, indicating how much bitcoin is in each account, there are in fact multiple versions of that shared ledger at any point in time. The bitcoin protocol resolves this issue by recognizing the longest blockchain as legitimate. As a result, those running the bitcoin protocol will typically abandon shorter blockchains in order to build on the longest blockchain. Any transaction that has been included in a shorter blockchain but not in the longer, legitimate blockchain is added to a subsequent block of transactions to be processed.

    Recall that, with cash, one need not worry about a balance being spent more than once since spending requires relinquishing ownership of the physical asset; with checks and debit cards, a bank or banking system ensures that ownership of the digital asset is relinquished when spent. Two features of the bitcoin protocol combine to prevent double spending. First, it is computationally difficult to process transactions. In order to add a block of transactions to the blockchain, a computer must be the first to solve for the input corresponding to the given hashed output. Since a brute force approach is the best any computer can do, each computer  effectively has a random chance of being the first to process a batch of transactions proportionate to its share of the bitcoin system’s computing power. Second, as noted above, the bitcoin protocol recognizes the longest blockchain as legitimate. In order to execute a double spend, therefore, one would not only need to pass an illegitimate transaction as legitimate; he would also have to continue processing transactions at a faster rate than than the rest of the network in order to ensure the blockchain supporting his illegitimate transaction remained the longest. Unless a user enjoys a majority of the computing power on the system, such a feat would be incredibly unlikely. Knowing this in advance leaves little incentive to attempt a double spend attack in the first place. 

    The blockchain technology at bitcoin’s core provides a new and fundamentally different way to process payments. It relies on neither decentralized nor centralized clearing. Instead, it processes transactions over a distributed network. And, by solving the double spending problem without recourse to a trusted third party, it has the potential to offer a degree of financial privacy comparable to decentralized payment mechanisms like cash. For these reasons, bitcoin has gained much support. Whether bitcoin will become routine in retail transactions, remain limited to niche uses, or be abandoned altogether remains to be seen.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/07/2021 – 21:40

  • Demand For Ass Implants Booms During Pandemic 
    Demand For Ass Implants Booms During Pandemic 

    In the early days of the virus pandemic, things didn’t look so hot for the field of plastic survey. Hospitals were overrun with COVID-19 infections and banned all elective procedures, limiting plastic surgeries. But sometime after, when the economy reopened, and hospitals allowed elective surgeries, demand for butt implants soared. 

    Bloomberg, citing data from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), says there were broad declines for minimally invasive and surgical cosmetic procedures during 2020. Botox and soft-tissue fillers remained popular with consumers. But it was buttock augmentation, or butt implants were a massive hit among consumers. Cosmetic procedures for the implants last year were up 22%, from 970 to 1,179. 

    Dermatologist Ava Shamban said the lockdowns likely triggered those with flat buttocks to receive implants after spending their days surfing Instagram and seeing influencers and models with “higher, tighter rounder assets. “

    The typical butt implant is not cheap, costing more than $5,000, and has a durability life of approximately ten years. ASPS doesn’t provide data on the average age or gender of those who received buttock augmentation during 2020, but we would assume it was bored millennials who still had a job. Unless stimulus checks were spent on ass implants, there are no data points supporting this. 

    Here are some examples of before and after buttock augmentations: 

    ASPS said one of the most significant declines in cosmetic procedures during the pandemic were hair transplants, down 60% last year. 

    Dr. Lisa Cassileth of Cassileth Plastic Surgery and Skincare told Bloomberg since implants have a shelf life and will eventually fail, an eventual replacement or removal will be needed. 

    “The population of aging implants is getting greater every year, so part of this is just a reflection of the boom we have had in implants over the years,” Cassileth said. 

    So if it’s wanting to look like an Instagram influencer or removal of old implants – ASPS doesn’t specify – all we do know is that cosmetic surgical procedures for ass implants soared during the pandemic.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/07/2021 – 21:20

  • New Image Shows Mars Helicopter Completing 5th Flight
    New Image Shows Mars Helicopter Completing 5th Flight

    Update (2105ET): NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said Ingenuity Mars helicopter “completed its 1st one-way trip and 5th flight on Mars. It touched down at its new location, kicking off a new demo phase where we test this new tech and see how it can aid future missions on Mars and other worlds.”

    * * * 

    NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter is preparing to explore a new region of the Red Planet today on its fifth scheduled flight (3:26 p.m. EDT, or 12:26 p.m. PDT), with flight data coming in around 7:31 p.m. EDT (4:31 p.m. PDT). 

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

    If all goes well, the 4-pound helicopter will climb 16 feet, then retrace flight four, heading south 423 feet. But instead of heading back to home base, the aircraft will soar to an altitude, a new height record, of 33 feet, where it will take color (as well as black-and-white) photos of the Red Planet. This flight is expected to last about 110 seconds and will be a one-way trip. 

    “But instead of turning around and heading back, we’ll actually climb to a new height record of 33 feet (10 meters), where we can take some color (as well as black-and-white) images of the area,” Josh Ravich, Ingenuity mechanical engineering lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, wrote in a blog post Thursday. 

    “After a total flight time of about 110 seconds, Ingenuity will land, completing its first one-way trip,” Ravich added. “When it touches down at its new location, we will embark on a new demonstration phase — one where we exhibit what this new technology can do to assist other missions down the road.”

    Ingenuity landed with NASA’s Perseverance rover on Feb. 18 and deployed two months later from the belly of the land-based robot. The helicopter has already completed four flights in three weeks and plans more daring flights as an aerial exploration scout. 

    More developments will come this evening when NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory will announce how the flight went on its Twitter account. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/07/2021 – 21:06

  • Texas Senate Approves Permitless Carry Of Handguns
    Texas Senate Approves Permitless Carry Of Handguns

    Authored by Janita Kan via The Epoch Times,

    The Texas Senate approved a bill on May 5 that would allow eligible residents 21 years and older to carry a holstered handgun, openly or concealed, without a permit, also known as constitutional carry.

    House Bill 1927 passed the Republican-led Senate in an 18–13 vote following a lengthy debate and will now head back to the House to debate amendments and settle differences between the two chambers’ versions. The House had passed the measure in mid-April.

    Gov. Greg Abbott has previously signaled that he’s supportive of such a measure and told WBAP’s Rick Roberts last week that he was willing to sign it.

    “Once the Senate passes it out, the House and Senate will convene and work out any differences and get it to my desk and I’ll be signing it,” Abbott said.

    Under current Texas law, residents are required to obtain a permit to carry handguns. To obtain the permit, applicants must complete classroom training, pass a written exam, submit fingerprints, and pass a proficiency demonstration.

    Republicans say the proposed law will help remove some barriers for Lone Star State residents to carry a handgun and hence save them time and money.

    State Sen. Charles Schwertner previously defended the bill at a committee meeting following the House’s passage of the measure.

    “Right now, we have the license to carry—the LTC—and it is a hurdle for some individuals to avail themselves of their constitutional right to keep and bear arms, and I think that is a hurdle that should be removed. That’s what this bill does,” he said.

    Opponents of the law, including state Democrats, have expressed concerns that the proposed bill would allow individuals to obtain a handgun without appropriate training or background checks. Some members of law enforcement have also expressed concerns about the bill.

    Austin Police Interim Chief Joseph Chacon said at a press conference last week that he believes the proposed law would “make our streets less safe and will make law enforcement’s jobs harder.”

    “Guns are easier to obtain than ever before, and it has become more common for people to use them. Weakening training regulations and effectively eliminating training requirements is not the direction that we should be going right now,” Chacon said.

    Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who previously expressed worry that the Senate lacked the votes to pass the measure, issued a statement on May 5 welcoming the passage.

    “I am proud that the Texas Senate passed House Bill 1927 today, the Constitutional Carry bill, which affirms every Texan’s right to self-defense and our state’s strong support for our Second Amendment right to bear arms. In the Lone Star State, the Constitution is our permit to carry,” Patrick said.

    The National Rifle Association had previously expressed support for the measure, saying in a statement that “it’s time for Texas to join the 20 other states that have legalized this personal protection option.”

    Infographic: Which States Allow the Permitless Carry of Guns? | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Last month, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed into law his state’s version of a permitless carry measure.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/07/2021 – 21:00

  • China Plans To Build Giant Wind Farm Next To USAF Base In Texas 
    China Plans To Build Giant Wind Farm Next To USAF Base In Texas 

    Texas lawmakers have launched an all-out effort to block a Chinese billionaire from building a massive wind farm near Laughlin Air Force base in southwest Texas. The wind farm’s close proximity to the military base has raised concerns about potential spying and attacks on the energy grid by China. 

    The Chinese-backed project called Blue Hills Wind, which could house up to 40 turbines in Val Verde County, Texas, is being managed by GH America Energy, the US subsidiary of the Chinese Guanghui Energy Company. The project sits on approximately 140,000 acres of land located about 70 miles from Laughlin. 

    According to American Military News, Guanghui is owned by Chinese billionaire Sun Guangxin, who reportedly has close relations with the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

    The legislation called the “Protecting Military Installations and Ranges Act,” was passed last month by a handful of lawmakers, Congressman Tony Gonzales (TX-23) today with Senators Cruz (R-TX) and Rubio (R-FL), and Congressmen Ronny Jackson (TX-13) and Pat Fallon (TX-04), to prevent foreign enemies from acquiring land near military bases.

    Lawmaker’s behind the bill are attempting to stop the Chinese billionaire from hooking into the Texas power grid and potentially spying for China. 

    “Our greatest concern is the long-term implications this will have on the Air Force’s mission of pilot training not with a single application, but rather a cumulative strategy that cannot be evaluated in the first filing,” Val Verde County Judge Lewis G. Owens Jr. and Del Rio Mayor Bruno Lozano wrote in a letter obtained by Foreign Policy. “We believe that this project and all future projects of a similar nature will result in unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States.”

    Meanwhile, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) authorized GH America Energy’s Texas wind farm project in 2020. However, the lawmakers in the state are making sure the project is stopped. 

    Whatever the outcome is in Texas will certainly be a testament to the deteriorating Sino-US relations, even under a new US administration.

    Last week, President Biden made his first public address to Congress. Speaking to the chamber, he frequently said his expansive domestic policy agenda is a call to confront Beijing in a battle of “democracy versus autocracy.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/07/2021 – 20:40

  • Rising Bond Yields Threaten Financial Market Stability
    Rising Bond Yields Threaten Financial Market Stability

    Authored by Alasdair Macleod via GoldMoney.com,

    There is a growing recognition in financial circles that price inflation will increase significantly in the near future, and official estimates that it will be a temporary phenomenon limited to an average of 2% are overly optimistic. There is, therefore, increasing speculation about the need for interest rates to rise.

    The bond yield on 10-year US Treasuries has already more than doubled over the last year. It is in the nature of market cycles for equity and other financial assets to continue to rise in value during an initial increase in bond yields. It is the second increase that can be expected to turn bullish optimism about the economic outlook into the beginning of a bear market. Financial markets, already dislocated from fundamental realities, appear to be acutely vulnerable to such a change in sentiment.

    This article points out that equity markets are driven more by money flows rather than perceived economic prospects. Bank credit for industry is contracting, commodity prices are soaring, and supply chains remain disrupted. Fuelled by earlier expansions of money supply and further expansions to come, the world faces a far larger increase in price inflation than currently contemplated, and therefore far higher interest rates, threatening to destabilise both financial markets and fiat currencies.

    Introduction

    There is a rustling in the undergrowth, disturbing the sylvan setting where we complacently enjoy the dappled sunlight, innocently unaware of the prowling bear. The bear heralds another rise in bond yields as we grapple with the inflationary consequences of recent and current events.

    Public participation in equity markets is at an all-time high, not just through direct holdings — amateurish speculation is rife — but through passive index tracking funds and the like. With respect to these, the underlying assumption financial advisors make and tell their innocent clients is that trackers are risk free, because exposure to individual corporate failures is so diluted as to be immaterial. And over time, markets always rise, captured by investing in these funds. But this is deception, ignoring market cycles and systemic risks. Ignorance of the inevitable cyclical switch from greed for profits to fear of loss that defines the divide between bull and bear markets invalidates the permabulls’ advice.

    Without doubt, the prowling bear in our so far untroubled scene is bond yields. Unnoticed, they have begun to rise as shown in the chart heading this article. With increasing urgency, it is time to consider the effect on market relationships. Over many investing cycles it has been observed that bond prices conventionally top out before equities. It is one of the most reliable warning signs, which, despite its track record is routinely dismissed by wishful thinkers until it is too late.

    Instead, it is a commonplace to argue that prospects for corporate profits have improved at this stage of the economic cycle because of the growing certainty of a better economic outlook. And now that this time the civilised world is emerging from lockdowns, every analyst in the mainstream media delivers this message. For them, the rise in bond yields confirms that improving business conditions are in place to justify yet higher equity prices. But it is all a cycle, having little to do with economic prospects.

    Today, we see that the relationship between declining bond prices and rising equities, and all the sentiment and commentary around them, are as we should expect.. But beware the bear lurking in the woods. It’s the second rise in bond yields that often slays the equity bull. I vividly recall meeting an industrialist the autumn of 1972, who told me that his business was the best it ever had been. He then paraded his ignorance of financial matters by telling me that it was wholly irresponsible for the London Stock Exchange to permit the FT 30 share index to have halved in the previous fifteen months. Following that conversation, the FT 30 halved again after interest rates were jacked up in October 1973, creating the infamous secondary banking crisis and losing 70% from its peak in May 1972 by January 1975. And the last I heard of the unfortunate industrialist his business had gone bust and he had committed suicide.

    It is a mistake to take opinions or evidence of economic conditions as the principal reason to invest in equities. It is more important to follow the money, specifically the cycle of bank credit. While amateur investors are buying into equity market tops, bankers begin to see that the early signs of rising interest rates are disrupting business plans and will lead inevitably to corporate failures. This comes at a time when their own balance sheets are most highly leveraged. With this credit cycle, there are some additional features specific to it. Even though the ending of pandemic restrictions is expected to lead to a substantial recovery in economic activity, these extra features are extreme, and the bear case is therefore strong.

    Banks have begun to withdraw credit from non-financial sector borrowers, meaning they will lack the finance to process and deliver goods to meet increasing demand. Banks are also over-leveraged as they usually are at this stage of the credit cycle, but they have never been more so than they are this time around. The transition from banking greed to banking fear always leads to a substantial cut in bank lending, with the potential outcome of banks being forced to liquidate collateral into falling markets. Unthinkable? It would have happened every credit cycle without central banks taking action to avoid it — which they have achieved every time so far since the 1930s. And consider interest rates, which are already at zero, and negative in euros, yen and Swiss francs. Where can they go to rescue a global economy failing for lack of bank credit?

    The stand-out indicator is always bond yields. The chart at the head of this article strongly suggests to us that after the current pause they are heading higher — probably much higher. This article explains why, and what will be the consequences for financial markets. And why, despite higher bond yields, the purchasing power of fiat currencies have not only started to fall at an accelerating pace but will almost certainly continue to do so.

    Why bond yields are rising

    The 10-year US Treasury yield fell to only 0.48% in March 2020, when deflationary fears were mounting. The S&P 500 index had fallen by 32% in just five weeks as China’s covid crisis was followed by the prospect of other jurisdictions going into pandemic lockdowns. Commodity prices were collapsing. The Fed then did what it always does in these conditions. It cut interest rates to the minimum possible (zero this time) and it flooded markets with money ($120bn in QE every month) along with some other market fixes to cap corporate bond yields from rising to reflect lending risks.

    Immediately, almost everything began to recover with the exception of bond prices. But the initial increase in their yields can be justified on the basis that they were previously depressed by fears of deflation ahead of the spreading pandemic, and that with the worst fears of deflation had now passed a state of normality had returned. In the year following, equity markets recovered fully and have gone on to new highs. Commodity prices are now rising strongly, which so far is believed by market optimists to indicate recovering demand and therefore confirmation of economic recovery. Having some time ago changed the inflation target from 2% to an average of 2% over time, only last week the Fed saw no reason to expect a rise in price inflation to be more than a temporary phenomenon.

    Officially, it’s a case of seeing no evil. But already the establishment consensus is testing more bearish ground. Infrastructure investment plans, not just in the US, but supporting green agendas everywhere are expected to drive oil and copper prices higher, along with a raft of other commodities. As well as state-induced infrastructure spending, in anticipation of strong post-pandemic demand manufacturers are bidding up commodity and raw material prices as well as the cost of the logistics to deliver them. Key industries, particularly agriculture, are suffering acute labour shortages. In many cases, skilled workers are not available. Even the most irresponsibly inflationist economists and commentators are beginning to point out that interest rates will probably have to rise because prices risk spinning out of control.

    Fuelling it all is the expansion of base money by central banks. The St Louis Fed’s FRED chart below showing the Fed’s monetary base illustrates the point and is a proxy for the global picture, because the dollar is the reserve currency and the pricing medium for all commodities.

    From the beginning of March 2020, which was the month the Fed announced virtually unlimited monetary expansion, base money has grown by 69%. It is this rapid growth in central bank money which is undoubtedly behind rising commodity prices, or put more accurately, is why the purchasing power of the dollar in international markets is falling.

    When the outlook for the purchasing power of a fiat currency falls, all holders expect compensation in the form of higher interest rates. Partly, it is due to time preference — the fact that an owner of the currency has parted with the use of it for a period of time. And partly it is due to the expectation that when returned, the currency will buy less than it does today. Official forecasts of the CPI state that the dollar’s purchasing power will probably sink to 97.5 cents on the dollar, then the yield on the ten-year UST should be at least 2.56% (2.5%/0.97), otherwise new buyers face immediate losses. The official expectation that the rise in the rate of price inflation will be temporary is immaterial to an investment decision today, because the yield can be expected to evolve over time in the light of events.

    This is before adding something to the yield for time preference (admittedly minimal in a freely traded bond), plus something for currency risk relative to an investor’s base currency and plus something for creditor risk. Stripped of these other considerations, on the basis of expected inflation alone a current yield of 1.61 appears to be far too low, and a yield target of at minimum of 2.5% appears more appropriate.

    Apologists for the dollar argue that the deeper the crisis, the greater is the desire for dollars. It is true that many holders of dollars accord to it a safe-haven status compared with their own currencies. But that is fundamentally an argument that applies to short-term liquidity more than to any other reason to hold dollars, with the exception, perhaps, of holders whose base currencies are minor and systemically weak. But with the dollar’s trade weighted index sinking itself since March 2020 that is not true of the wider currency universe. With the dollar falling against other currencies and non-Governmental foreign ownership of dollar financial assets over-owned to the point which exceeds US GDP, the safe haven argument for the dollar lacks credibility.

    The Fed’s apparently optimistic assumptions about the dollar’s stability appear to play to its own vested interest. Naturally, there is a reluctance to admit to a greater erosion of its prospective exchange rate, which consequently might require a change in interest rate policy. But commodity prices are soaring, and as locked-up consumer and business spending is unleashed, the supply of goods will be limited, partly due to a lack of domestic capital resources due to the commercial banks restricting bank credit, and partly due to continuing chaos in the supply chains. Instead of a price inflation rate at 2.5%, we should look for a significantly higher rate with which to discount the future purchasing power of the dollar.

    It is likely to be only a brief matter of time before holders of all fiat currencies address this issue soberly without the bullish sentiment currently pervading in markets. However, the advanced signs of one final fling for financial assets were visible to those who understand money in March 2020, when the Fed cut its funds rate to zero and announced QE of $120bn per month. It has been a theme of these articles ever since.

    Since then, commodities have soared in price along with other inflation hedges, such as cryptocurrencies, equities and residential property. Other than the purchasing power of currencies, the fallers are fixed interest bonds as their yields have risen.

    The first class of dollar holder to be affected is foreigners. Some of them are businesses which don’t really need dollars, given they will end up holding even more by exporting to the US. They must be learning it is better to have stockpiled the raw materials for production.

    Some of them are investors based in other currencies, diversifying their portfolios, ephemeral holders of financial assets who will sell them when bond yields rise further. This liquidation potential in foreign hands is a major consideration because of the enormous quantities involved. The splits between official and private sector holders (Others) are shown in Table 1 below.

    It should be noted that American holdings of foreign currencies are minimal becaause lending to foreigners is overwhelmingly in dollars instead of foreign currencies, and America’s massive trade deficit ensures that while dollars accumulate in foreign hands, foreign currencies do not accumulate in American hands. This makes the figures in Table 1 as a dollar crisis waiting to happen all too real.

    Once non-official holders awaken to what is happening to their dollars and to the consequences of increasing bond yields for the wider classes of financial assets, they will almost certainly reduce their holdings of nearly $23 trillion. Holdings of all dollar-denominated financial assets will be at risk, and where they go, financial assets denominated in all other currencies naturally follow. We can expect the dollar to continue its fall against other currencies as well, in part driven by President Biden’s highly inflationary spending plans. Irrespective of the domestic economic conditions, the Fed will then have no practical alternative to raising interest rates to stabilise the dollar against other currencies. But we can be sure the Fed will be extremely reluctant to do so.

    The latent primacy of markets over monetary policy

    Without doubt, there were urgent reasons for the Fed to rescue stocks and other markets in March 2020. For several decades successive Fed chairmen from Alan Greenspan onwards have openly admitted that a rising stock market is central to monetary policy, because of its roles for wealth creation and the enhancement of economic confidence. But the market rescue fourteen months ago also confirmed, if confirmation was needed, that the Fed would always address any financial and economic crisis by inflationary means. This has not yet led to the inflationary crisis that will eventually occur.

    As the much-vaunted post-lockdown consumer spending is unleashed, the lack of available production supply together with supply chain chaos can only result in consumer prices rising significantly above the Fed’s average target of 2%. Not only will this naturally lead to higher bond yields, but the valuation basis for equity markets will shift, undermining prices. Even if the Fed tries to offset it by increasing QE to feed more cash into bonds and equities, it will be impossible to offset the valuation effect. Equities will almost certainly succumb to an interest rate shock. At the same time, the increase in bond yields will undermine government finances. The prospect of increasing losses on portfolio investments will inevitably lead to the foreign liquidation described above, causing a weaker dollar and yet higher bond yields.

    In these conditions the Fed will be trapped. It cannot let bond and equity prices slide and risk commercial banks accelerating the contraction of bank credit, leading inexorably to the liquidation of loan collateral. Investment sentiment would turn deeply negative. Nor can it stand back and let markets sort themselves out, because of the record levels of corporate and other debt which would become impossible to refinance. Nor can it just print money in order to rescue everything, because the dollar will be further undermined. That leaves it with only one alternative left to pursue, albeit with the greatest reluctance. And that is to raise interest rates — substantially.

    Neo-Keynesians, who appear to subscribe to the belief that interest is usuary and savers must be denied returns for the benefit of everyone else, are embedded in central banks and are certain to denounce this attempt at a remedy. But the experience of the 1970s confirms that central banks will raise rates, too little too late, before eventually deciding to kill market expectations of higher interest rates by pre-empting them. Famously, this is what Paul Volcker did in 1979-81. What is less remembered is that despite prime rates hitting 20%, money supply growth continued, so that the interest cost was covered by inflationary means. This is illustrated in the chart below.

    From this earlier precedent, we can conclude that in the choice between ceasing to print money and raising interest rates, the Fed will raise interest rates. This adds to the growth of money supply, as can be detected by the increased rate of climb from 1979 onwards. But what would be the effect of such a policy today?

    In the 1970s, the build-up of domestic debt beyond that required to genuinely finance production had yet to occur, and the financialisation of the US economy did not happen until the mid-1980s. The increase in debt was mainly sovereign as US banks recycled oil dollars to Latin America. The only significant domestic casualty from high interest rates was the Savings & Loan industry.

    Today, the US and other economies are loaded up with debt, much of which is unproductive. A sharp rise in interest rates to contain price inflation would drive the world’s economy into an humungous debt-induced slump. And while that is exactly what is needed to clear out all the zombie deadwood, it is not within the Fed’s remit to take such action. Furthermore, with government borrowing already out of control, the US Government would be forced to curtail its spending dramatically at a time of rapidly escalating welfare obligations.

    But we are previewing the end of the road, describing events which logically procede from the dangers before us today. But for now, the consequences of rising bond yields are that they will bring a rapid shift from overtly bullish assumptions to a more considered bearish outlook, bringing with it a wholly different perspective. Instead of bad and inflationary policies being tolerated or even demanded by investors, their thinking turns on a dime to a fear of anything and everything. Under bearish circumstances, every turn of the central management of economic outcomes only makes things worse, when before it appeared to resolve them. Greenspan and the Fed chairmen who followed him were correct about the psychology of improving markets, while they kept quiet about the negative psychology of bear markets. Suddenly, we will find that Charon is waiting to ferry the bodies of the bulls over the river Styx.

    Such is the violence of market imbalances that when they are unleashed from the Fed’s control, not only will financial markets face rapid value destruction, but fiat currencies will also be undermined by the need to accelerate the pace of monetary inflation. The emphasis for inflationary policies will shift from financing governments by debauching the money to debauching the money in order to rescue the wider economy. The Fed and its sister central banks will seek to supplement contracting bank credit, make capital freely available to businesses which would otherwise collapse, continue with helicopter drops of money to consumers, and compensate for supply chain disruption. The policy planners are likely to be so confused and the task so enormous that they will end up robbing Peter to pay… who else but Peter himself.

    The relevant precedent for this madness comes from 1720, when John Law in France, who among other things was appointed Controller General of Finance, printed unbacked livres to inflate and then support the collapsing Mississippi bubble. His venture lived on to fight Clive in India, but the livre became worthless within seven months. Today, some contemporary corporations will survive, as did Law’s Mississippi venture, but by tying the bubble to the currency, the currency failed completely and is almost certain to do so again today.

    Gold and rising interest rates

    As a consequence of current events, the failure of fiat currencies is increasingly assured. Unlike the runaway inflation in the 1970s which followed the ending of the Bretton Woods Agreement, debt levels are now so high and state intervention in markets so great that hiking interest rates in the manner deployed by Paul Volcker would simply prick the everything bubble. Debt defaults would be overwhelming. Nevertheless, as the purchasing power of fiat currencies continues to slide, higher and higher interest rates become inevitable as markets try to discount yet further declines towards their ultimate valuelessness.

    There is a common misconception that does not accord with the facts: that higher interest rates are bad for the gold price. It is assumed by those promoting this nonsense that gold does not have an interest rate and is therefore at a disadvantage compared with fiat money. This is only true of both physical gold and fiat cash to hand, when neither folding notes nor gold pay interest. But both can be loaned and leased to borrowers for interest. It’s just that the interest on ephemeral fiat tends to be higher than on physical gold, because gold is the more stable form of money with no issuer risk.

    That rising interest rates on fiat currencies are no deterrent to a rising gold price is confirmed in the chart below, which shows how these relationships evolved in the 1970s.

    Not only did the decade commence with the yield on the 1-year US Treasury bond at less than six per cent, ending at more than double that, but the gold price rose from $35 to $524 by the end of the decade. Furthermore, the chart shows that from 1972 onwards, gold tended to rise with the yield on the bond and fall with it, defying those who fail to grasp the true relationship.

    All this assumes that the collapse of fiat currencies’ purchasing power will take some time. But the truth of the matter is we do not know either the timing or how long it will take. It is unlikely to echo the great European inflations of the 1920s, because to a large degree commerce subsisted on the alternative of gold-backed dollars, instead of local currencies. Today, the collapse of the dollar will mean there is unlikely to be any alternative currency available, because they are all tied to the dollar.

    A collapse of financial asset values taking the currencies down with them appears to be more in common with a repetition of John Law’s bubble and subsequent collapse, which incidentally was a forerunner of Keynesianism in action. But a fiat currency going to zero today could take less time, given instantaneous modern communications. In that event, anyone who does not plan to get hold of some physical gold and silver with a high degree of urgency could end up sinking with nothing but valueless fiat currencies.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/07/2021 – 20:20

  • Screw Lumber, Just 3D-Print Your Next Home 
    Screw Lumber, Just 3D-Print Your Next Home 

    With lumber prices up 67% since the start of this year and up 340% from a year ago, according to Random Lengths, a wood products industry tracking firm, adding tens of thousands of dollars to new residential builds, there is a viable new option to construct a home (lumber free) through machine-printed clay. 

    Machine-printed clay homes are lumber-free and mitigate the ecological impacts of construction could soon become a viable option for affordable housing. 

    The push for 3D-printed homes could already be underway due to the historic rise in lumber prices. The National Association of Home Builders recently said lumber costs for a new single-family home had risen $36,000 in the past year. Lumber is found in framing, roofing, flooring, windows, cabinets, railings, and the list goes on and on. 

    Now there’s a new way to completely circumvent lumber via the Italian 3D printing company, WASP, who built a prototype of a 3D-printed home that looks like Lars homestead from Star Wars. 

    WASP works with Milan-based architectural firm, Mario Cucinella Architect, to develop one-of-a-kind clay homes that are entirely 3D printed out of clay. 

    “From the shapeless earth to the earth as house-shaped. Today we have the knowledge to build with no impact in a simple click,” said Massimo Moretti, the founder of WASP. 

    The WASP printer can print 538 square feet of living space and, therefore, make it possible to build independent living modules, of any shape, in a few days. Multiple printers can be linked together and create a more elaborate home.

    Instead of clay, Apis Cor, 3D printing specialists based in Russia and San Francisco, are printing homes with a concrete solution in under 24 hours. 

    The disruptive nature of 3D printing allows homes to be constructed lumberless. Given today’s market conditions, we could see an uptick in interest as people seek other methods and or materials to build houses. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/07/2021 – 20:00

  • Blinken Demands WHO Invite Taiwan Into Decision-Making Body Over Chinese Objections
    Blinken Demands WHO Invite Taiwan Into Decision-Making Body Over Chinese Objections

    Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday issued a statement that’s sure to once again provoke Beijing, urging the World Health Organization (WHO) to formally invite Taiwan’s participation in the global body which works alongside the UN.

    China has long seen such a proposal as an “illegal” violation of the longstanding One China policy, which both the UN and WHO have thus far upheld. Ignoring this, Blinken called on the WHO to facilitate Taiwan’s participation in the upcoming World Health Assembly meeting which is set for the last week of May in Geneva.

    Left: one of China’s top foreign policy officials, Yang Jiechi

    “There is no reasonable justification for Taiwan’s continued exclusion from this forum, and the United States calls upon the WHO Director-General to invite Taiwan to participate as an observer at the WHA – as it has in previous years, prior to objections registered by the government of the People’s Republic of China,” Blinken said in a statement Friday.

    China has consistently blocked Taiwan’s participation even as an ‘observer’ going back to 2016. 

    Blinken argued that Taiwan is a “reliable partner” and a “vibrant democracy,” saying that—

    “We urge Taiwan’s immediate invitation to the World Health Assembly.”

    He said the urgency of stopping the global pandemic means “political disputes” must not get in the way, given the virus knowns no boundaries or conflicts over autonomy. 

    “Global health and global health security challenges do not respect borders nor recognize political disputes,” Blinken’s statement continues.

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    “Taiwan offers valuable contributions and lessons learned from its approach to these issues, and WHO leadership and all responsible nations should recognize that excluding the interests of 24 million people at the WHA serves only to imperil, not advance, our shared global health objectives.”

    The fresh Friday statements echoed similar statements of US officials at the G-7 meeting in London at the start of this week. China’s Foreign Ministry has vehemently fought Taiwan’s WHA entry on the basis that Taipei and its backers refuse to “recognize that both sides of [the Taiwan Strait] belong to one and the same China.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/07/2021 – 19:40

  • South Carolina To Add Death-By-Firing-Squad As Execution Method 
    South Carolina To Add Death-By-Firing-Squad As Execution Method 

    South Carolina House members voted Wednesday to add execution by firing squad amid a lack of lethal injection drugs, according to local newspaper The State. 

    State lawmakers voted 66-43 Wednesday for a bill that would add death by firing squad to the default method of execution from lethal injection to the electric chair. The state is one of nine that still use the electric chair and will become the fourth to use firing squads. 

    The state Senate approved the bill in March but conducted another procedural vote after some minor modifications. The bill now heads to the desk of Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, who is expected to sign it. 

    “We are one step closer to providing victims’ families and loved ones with the justice and closure they are owed by law. I will sign this legislation as soon as it gets to my desk,” McMaster tweeted after the bill’s passage. 

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    Supporters say execution by firing squad will deliver justice. Opponents say the form of execution could lead to an innocent person’s death. 

    Once McMaster signs the bill into law. It will end South Carolina’s 10-year dry streak on executions. Current law states inmates have the option of death by the electric chair or lethal injection. But due to a nationwide shortage of drugs, death by firing squad is set to become a quick, cheap, and easy way to execute criminals. 

    “Getting the death penalty back on the track will be positive for the criminal justice system, I know it will be for the victims in those cases, unfortunately, I have victims in those cases that I’ve helped that are waiting too,” Rep. Tommy Pope, R-York, who is also a prosecutor, told local news WIS. 

    Meanwhile, Democrats are concerned the law would lead to the death of potentially innocent people.

    “It would not sit well on my conscience,” said Rep. Jermaine Johnson, D-Richland, about the vote. “Especially in a state where we claim to be pro-life, and we claim to believe in individuals and their rights to live and survive, but we are literally talking about a bill today that if this stuff passes we are literally signing their death certificates,” he said.

    Utah, Mississippi, and Oklahoma are the only other states that allow death by firing squad. As soon as McMaster signs the bill into law, South Carolina will be added to the list. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/07/2021 – 19:20

  • Joe Biden's Offshore Wind Energy Mirage
    Joe Biden’s Offshore Wind Energy Mirage

    Authored by Craig Rucker via RealClearEnergy.com,

    President Biden recently announced ambitious plans to install huge offshore industrial wind facilities along America’s Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and Pacific coasts. His goal is to churn out 30 gigawatts (30,000 megawatts) of wind capacity by 2030, ensuring the U.S. “leads by example” in fighting the “climate crisis.”

    Granted “30 by 2030” is clever PR. But what are the realities?

    The only existing U.S. offshore wind operation features five 6-MW turbines off Rhode Island. Their combined capacity (what they could generate if they worked full-bore, round the clock 24/7) is 30 MW. Mr. Biden is planning 1,000 times more offshore electricity, perhaps split three ways: 10,000 MW for each coast.

    While that might sound impressive, it isn’t.  It means total wind capacity for the entire Atlantic coast, under Biden’s plan, would only meet three-fourths of the peak summertime electricity needed to power New York City.  Again, this assumes the blades are fully spinning 24/7. In reality, such turbines would be lucky to be operating a top capacity half the time. Even less as storms and salt spray corrode the turbines, year after year.

    The reason why is there is often minimal or no wind in the Atlantic – especially on the hottest days. Ditto for the Gulf of Mexico. No wind means no electricity – right when you need it most.

    Of course, too little wind isn’t the only issue. Other times, there’s too much wind – as when a hurricane roars up the coast. That’s more likely in the Gulf of Mexico. But the Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944 had Category 4 winds in Virginia, Category 3 intensity off Cape Hatteras (NC), Long Island and Rhode Island, and Category 2 when it reached Maine. It sank four U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships.

    When storms or hurricanes hit, turbines can be destroyed. Repairing or replacing hundreds of offshore turbines could take years.

    If the White House is planning to generate all that power using common 6-MW turbines, our coastlines would need a hefty 5,000 of the 600-foot tall monsters dotting them. The Washington Monument is 655 feet tall.

    Going instead with 12-MW turbines, like the 850-foot-tall GE Haliade-X turbines Virginia is planning to install off its coast, America would still need 2,500 of the behemoths – just to complete Phase One of Biden’s plan. 30,000 megawatts by 2030.  Even if these were all plopped in the Atlantic, it still would not be enough to meet New York State’s current electricity needs.

    And what about the environment?

    How many millions of tons of steel, copper, lithium, cobalt, rare earth elements, concrete, petroleum-based composites (for turbine blades) and other raw materials would be required to manufacture and install the turbines and undersea electrical cables, especially where deep-water turbines are involved? 

    How many billions of tons of ore would have to be mined, crushed, processed and refined – considering that it takes 125,000 tons of average ore for every 1,000 tons of pure copper metal?

    Not only would nearly all of this mining and manufacturing require fossil fuels, but much of it would be done in China, or in other countries by Chinese-owned companies. Haliade-X turbines are also manufactured in China. And much of the mining and processing is done under horrid workplace safety and environmental conditions, often with near-slave and child labor.

    More turbines will also kill countless birds and bats. Turbine infrasound and other noise have been implicated in disorienting and stranding whales and dolphins. The numbers, height and low-frequency turbine noise also interferes with surface ships, submarines, aircraft and radar.

    Nuclear power or billions of batteries (or retained fossil fuel power plants) will have to back up every megawatt of intermittent, unreliable wind power, so that society can function every time the wind fails. That means more raw materials, transmission lines and costs.

    Even with massive taxpayer subsidies, electricity generated by offshore turbines will cost many times what we are paying today, even in New York and California. That will have especially heavy impacts on energy-intensive industries, hospitals, and poor, middle-class, minority and fixed-income families.

    Economic, environmental and climate justice reviews must fully, carefully and honestly assess every one of these factors. No “expedited” or “climate emergency” shortcuts should be permitted.

    President Biden likes to say offshore wind energy is clean, green, renewable and sustainable. Wind itself certainly is. But harnessing the wind (or sun), to meet the needs of modern civilization is not – especially in ocean environments.

    Claiming otherwise is a mirage – a scam. Maybe that’s why the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management already canceled two wind projects off Long Island. The costs and impacts are enormous, and local opposition was high. Do climate activists in and out of the Biden Administration expect otherwise anywhere else?

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/07/2021 – 19:00

  • Nearly 50% Of Americans Believe Social Distancing Will Become Permanent
    Nearly 50% Of Americans Believe Social Distancing Will Become Permanent

    The persistent question over the past months as more of the US population has had access to COVID-19 vaccines has remained: “when will it all end?” A new poll has found that nearly half of Americans believe some form of social distancing measures will now become permanent, according to a study by Signs.com. 

    The majority, however, at 64% believe that their local and state governments will loosen up restrictions like caps on attending public venues or being in places like bars or restaurants, even should national policies remain in place, at some point within the next three months. 

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    The recent study on Americans’ views of distancing measures was published as it’s becoming increasingly clear that large states like Texas have not suffered a resurgence in the virus even after it “opened 100%” at the start of March.

    The extensive polling data was also released just as a major MIT study challenged many social distancing guidelines, including the effectiveness of mask-wearing. The study found that “one is no safer from airborne pathogens at 60 feet than 6 feet.”

    “We need scientific information conveyed to the public in a way that is not just fearmongering but is actually based in analysis,” the MIT scientists said.

    Yet Americans now fear that many of these policies previously forced on the population like the “6 foot rule” (even as they were anything but “established science”) will now become permanent.

    Below are some of the key takeaways from the survey, which was published Friday:

    • 45.4 percent of respondents disliked the “new normal” of social interactions during COVID-19
    • 43.1 percent believe the world would go back to normal, just as it used to be 
    • 41.3 percent thought that some social distancing measures would remain permanently, even after the pandemic ends
    • 57.6 percent said they are uncomfortable visiting the gym, while 54.4 percent said the same about restaurants and 45.2 percent said the same about hospitals. 
    • 72.6 percent said they felt most comfortable going to places like parks (72.6 percent), grocery stores (59 percent) and pharmacies (57.9 percent) in person. 
    • 54.8 percent listed one-way aisles in stores as the most annoying social distancing measure
    • 22.9 percent confirmed they were following social distancing rules more strictly now than at the beginning of the pandemic compared with 27.7 percent who had decreased their efforts in following the previously adopted practices. 

    Via Signs.com study…

    And there was this interesting line from the study: “53.7% of baby boomers believed some social distancing measures would remain in place permanently.”

    Ultimately, the survey concluded, “43.1% of respondents believed that the world would go back to normal, just as it used to be” while in contrast “41.3% thought that some social distancing measures would remain permanently, even after the pandemic ends.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/07/2021 – 18:40

  • Stephen Moore: "Something Is Very Fishy" About The Biden Census Bureau Data
    Stephen Moore: “Something Is Very Fishy” About The Biden Census Bureau Data

    Authored by Stephen Moore, op-ed via The Epoch Times,

    Why Did Biden Census Bureau Add 2.5 Million More Residents to Blue-State Population Count?

    There is something very fishy about the new 2020 Census Bureau data determining which states picked up seats and which states lost seats.

    Most all of the revisions to the original estimates have moved in one direction: Population gains were added to blue states, and population losses were subtracted from red states.

    The December revisions in population estimates under the Biden Census Bureau added some 2.5 million blue-state residents and subtracted more than 500,000 red-state residents. These population estimates determine how many electoral votes each state receives for presidential elections and the number of congressional seats in each state.

    Is this a mere coincidence?

    These population estimates determine how many electoral votes each state receives for presidential elections and the number of congressional seats in each state.

    Remember, the House of Representatives is razor-thin today, with the Democrats sporting just a six-seat majority with five seats currently vacant. So, a switch in a handful of seats in 2022 elections could flip the House and take the gavel from current Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats. A shift of 3 million in population is the equivalent of four seats moving from Republican to Democrat.

    The original projections for Census reapportionment had New York losing two seats, Rhode Island losing a seat, and Illinois perhaps losing two seats. Instead, New York and Illinois only lost one seat, and Rhode Island lost no seats. Meanwhile, Texas was expected to gain three seats, Florida two seats, and Arizona one seat. Instead, Texas gained only two seats, Florida only one, and Arizona none.

    Was the Census Bureau count rigged? Was it manipulated by the Biden team to hand more seats to the Democrats and to get more money—federal spending is often allocated based on population—for the blue states?

    The evidence is now only circumstantial, but when errors or revisions are almost all only in one direction, the alarm bells appropriately go off.

    Here are some of the strange outcomes in the Census revisions just released:

    No. 1: New York—We’ve been tracking the annual population/migration changes between states since the last census in 2010. Over the past decade, New York LOST about 1.3 million residents on net to other states. (This does not include immigration, births, and deaths.) Still, this is a population loss that is the equivalent of two, maybe three, lost congressional seats. But the final numbers ADDED approximately 860,000. That’s roughly twice the population of Buffalo and Rochester—combined. This is the state that has lost by far the largest population over the past decade.

    No. 2: Many deep-blue states had 2020 Census numbers significantly revised upward from their December estimates: Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

    No. 3: Many red states had 2020 Census numbers lower than their 2020 estimates: Arizona, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

    No. 4: Going back to the 2010 Census, the final headcount in every state was within 0.4 percent of the original estimate, and 30 of them were within 0.2 percent. This time around, 19 states were more than 1 percent off, 7 were more than 2 percent off, New York was more than 3.8 percent off, and New Jersey was more than 4.5 percent off.

    No. 5: Virtually every one of the large deviations from the estimates favored Democrats. Just five states in the 2020 Census were within the same margin (0.41 percent) that all states were within from the 2010 census.

    Maybe the 2010 estimates were abnormally accurate, or maybe the 2020 estimates were abnormally inaccurate. The Census Bureau needs to tell Congress why these revisions under former President Barack Obama were so much larger than normal and so weighted in one direction: toward the blue states.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/07/2021 – 18:20

  • Developer Pivots Luxury Brooklyn High-Rise Condo To Rentals 
    Developer Pivots Luxury Brooklyn High-Rise Condo To Rentals 

    A high-end condominium glut in Brooklyn forced one developer to reconstruct its entire business model from condos to rentals for one of its new luxury highrises. 

    Avery Hall Investments announced Monday the commencement of leasing at One Boerum Place located at Brooklyn Heights and Boerum Hill. Bloomberg notes the building was never intended for rentals, but a glut of condos in the borough and citywide forced the developer to change paths. 

    Avi Fisher, a founding partner of Avery Hall, told Bloomberg that One Boerum Place “was very much envisioned as a condo.” At the time of construction, which began around 2016, the condo market in the borough was “roaring, and all signs were pointing to continued growth, and in our company’s history, this was the culmination of the condo pipeline we’d amassed,” he said. 

    In all, Fisher said his firm spent about $250 million on building costs. When 2019 came along, the condo market began to deteriorate. A year later, during the pandemic, the condo market plunged as city dwellers moved to suburban areas and rural communities to escape the socio-economic collapse of the liberal-run city. 

    Sales of One Boerum Place were to begin in late 2020, but Fisher and his team began to evaluate the oversupplied condo market. That’s when they decided to flip the business model from selling condos to high-end rentals. 

    “What solidified the fate of this building was ultimately the pandemic,” Fisher said. “The condo market deteriorated to the point where the decision was clear to us.”

    To change course, Fished received approval from lenders and partners. The press release today outlines “pre-leasing commences” at the luxury building. 

    “One Boerum Place will now become luxury rentals, with prices ranging from $8,500 a month for a roughly 1,200-square-foot three-bedroom to $12,000 a month for a roughly 3,120-square-foot four-bedroom. There are also, the developer says, “not many” one-bedroom apartments which will start in “the low $4,000s,” and a few two-bedroom apartments that will rent for just under $6,000,” Bloomberg said. 

    Fisher said his company made the right move:

    “As an organization, we felt the right move for us and our investors and partners was to [create] a rental portfolio,” he said, “because we believe it will stand the test of time.”

    Fisher explained the “exodus in Manhattan” resulted in a “large number of [those] people came to Brooklyn.” He believes his building could be in a perfect spot to capture the outflow of Manhattanites.

    He added: “We don’t have to sell this asset now, and the best way we can help participate in the recovery of New York and capitalize on that [recovery] is to execute a rental plan.”

    Brooklyn’s rental glut may get worse as new supply via One Boerum Place has just hit the market. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/07/2021 – 18:00

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May 07

Today’s News 7th May 2021

  • Social Unrest Fears Mount As World Food Prices Soar In April
    Social Unrest Fears Mount As World Food Prices Soar In April

    Global inflation is headed into overdrive as the leading food price indicator that is the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization’s food price index increased for an 11th consecutive month in April, hitting levels not seen since May 2014, with sugar prices leading the rise in the main index. 

    The Rome-based FAO released data Thursday showing the food price index, which measures monthly changes for a basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy products, meat, and sugar, surged 2 points from 118.9 points in March to 120.9 in April. 

    That is a 30.7% YoY jump – the fastest rise since 2011…

    The April surge was primarily led by price increases of sugar, oils, meat, dairy, and cereals. 

    FAO’s cereal price index moved up 1.2% in April M/M and 26% Y/Y. Drought conditions in Argentina, Brazil, and the US increased corn prices by 5.7% last month, while wheat prices were flat. Global rice prices slipped last month. 

    FAO’s vegetable oil price index rose 1.8% last month because of increasing soy, rapeseed, and palm oil prices, which offset lower sunflower oil prices.

    Milk prices increased 1.2%, with surging demand from Asia, while the meat index rose 1.7%. FAO said there was “solid demand” for bovine and ovine meat in East Asia. 

    The idiots at the Marriner Eccles building seemingly have no interest in reading the extensive literature in connecting higher food prices to periods of social unrest.  Indeed, you’ll notice from the chart below that the last big surge from the middle of 2010 to early 2011 coincided with the start of the Arab Spring, for which food inflation is regarded as a contributing factor.

    While this is hardly new – we discussed it in “Why Albert Edwards Is Starting To Panic About Soaring Food Prices” and in “We Are Edging Closer To A Biblical Commodity Price Increase Scenario.”

    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.

    Inflation is always a monetary phenomenon, and this time is no different. Central bankers call transitory effects, but we beg to differ.  

     

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/07/2021 – 02:45

  • NATO's Southeastern Spearhead: Turkey's Military Aggression In Iraq, Syria, Yemen, & Caucasus Signals Proxy Conflict With Iran
    NATO’s Southeastern Spearhead: Turkey’s Military Aggression In Iraq, Syria, Yemen, & Caucasus Signals Proxy Conflict With Iran

    Authored by Rick Rozoff via Anti-Bellum,

    The past week has witnessed reports of increased Turkish military activity in Iraq and Syria as well as its intruding itself deeper into the war in Yemen. In all three cases Ankara has pitted itself against forces that are or can be seen to be pro-Iranian: Shiite parties in northern Iraq, the government of Syria and the Houthi-led government in Yemen.

    Direct tensions between Turkey and Iran have been increasing since last year over the above three nations as well as the Turkish-directed attack on Nagorno-Karabakh by Azerbaijan (Turkey and Azerbaijan identify themselves as “one nation, two states’) and its aftermath.

    Each time the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has rushed to Turkey’s defense over the past eighteen years – holding Article Four consultations four times (one time to “protect” it against Iraq, three times against Syria), maintaining three Patriot anti-ballistic missile batteries since 2013 – it has referred to the nation as NATO’s southeastern border. In addition to Turkey having the largest population and the largest military of any NATO member state except for the U.S., it is also the only member of the military bloc to border countries in the Middle East and the Caucasus: Iraq, Iran, Syria, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Turkey has invaded the first and third and participated in a near-invasion against the fourth. (Last September a Turkish F-16 shot down an Armenian SU-25, killing its pilot.)

    The U.S. maintains B61 nuclear bombs in Turkey under a NATO nuclear sharing/burden sharing arrangement which mandates that the host country provide aircraft to deliver the bombs. NATO also has its Joint Command Southeast and Allied Air Component Command headquarters in Turkey. It moved its Allied Land Command to Turkey in 2012. In the same year it installed a Forward-Based X-Band Transportable anti-missile radar facility with a range of 2,900 miles. This year it handed over the command of its Very High Readiness Joint Task Force to Turkey.

    Nothing Turkey does in the Middle East, the Caucasus, North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean can be seen aside from its status as a NATO member. Nothing it has done and is doing in those locations has ever been criticized by NATO.

    On April 23 Turkey’s military launched Operations Claw-Lightning and Claw-Thunderbolt in northern Iraq, claiming to have destroyed over 500 targets in attacks that included strikes from warplanes, drones and artillery and airdropping paratroopers and commandos from Chinook and Black Hawk helicopters.

    On May 1 Turkey’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu announced that Turkey will construct a military base in Iraq, ostensibly to combat the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), stating, “Just like we did in Syria, we will establish bases and control the area.”

    The leader of the al-Nahj al-Watani party in the Iraqi parliament, Ammar Ta’meh, denounced Turkey’s “expansionist plans,” stating they would further vitiate already strained relations between the two countries and “bring harm and loss to everyone.”

    In addition to the PKK, Turkish military forces in northern Iraq have increasingly come into conflict with pro-Iranian Shiite groups, leading to direct engagements as well as to worsening the antagonism between Ankara and Tehran.

    In February the Iranian Foreign Ministry summoned the Turkish ambassador to Iran, Derya Örs, to express grave concerns over the Turkish interior minister accusing Iran of harboring PKK fighters. Iran condemned the remark as being “unacceptable” and a violation of protocols befitting cooperation and good relations between nations.

    The Foreign Ministry also communicated objections to comments by Turkey’s ambassador to Iraq (see below), with the government news agency adding, “the territorial integrity and national sovereignty of countries were stressed as the fortifying base of international relations.”

    Later the same month Turkey summoned the Iranian ambassador to condemn remarks by Tehran’s ambassador to Iraq, Iraj Masjedi, accusing Turkey of violating Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity – which is the simple truth – with ongoing cross-border military operations. His words were: “We reject military intervention in Iraq and Turkish forces should not pose a threat to violate Iraqi soil.”

    Turkey’s ambassador to Iraq, Fatih Yildiz, responded in a tweet with: “Ambassador of Iran would be the last person to lecture Turkey about respecting borders of Iraq.”

    The Turkish accusations against Iran center in part on claims that Iranian units of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PNF) were in some – truly convoluted – manner affiliated with PKK fighters in northern Iraq. And on the contention of Turkish Foreign Minister Soylu, as seen above, that Iran was harboring “525 terrorists.” He didn’t indicate how he had determined the exact figure.

    Almost two months before the current Turkish offensive in Iraq, Iraqi news reports stated that Popular Mobilization Forces militias were deploying three brigades in the Sinjar district of the Nineveh Governorate in northern Iraq to confront Turkish incursions. It was also reported that “the PMF has deployed 15,000 fighters and built new bases in Sinjar to counter any Turkish military threat.”

    Another proxy conflict between Turkey and Iran is in Yemen. Recently Abdul Wahab Al-Mahbashi, member of the Supreme Political Council in Yemen, the executive body of the Houthi-led government based in Sanaa, warned Turkey against further military involvement in his nation. He predicted that Turkey, like its new ally Saudi Arabia, would be defeated in any attempt to do so, stating, “If Turkish soldiers enter Yemen they will have a fate worse than that of the aggressors who preceded them.”

    Recent reports claim that Turkey has unloaded twenty armored vehicles and equipment at Somali ports to be shipped to the Yemeni port of Qena for Saudi-backed Islah militias.

    From the beginning of the horrific catastrophe inflicted on the Yemeni people by Saudi Arabia, the U.S. and their allies, the perception has existed that at root the crisis there was in part a Saudi-Iranian proxy war. Turkey has now entered that conflict on behalf of Saudi Arabia and against Iran.

    In a recent report by the Middle East Monitor based on regional press accounts it was suggested that Turkey will replicate in Yemen what has proven effective for it in Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh. A two-pronged strategy of drone warfare and importing Islamist mercenaries. The Shaam Times reported that 300 Syrian fighters have joined the ranks of the Islah militia in Marib, the last stronghold of Saudi-backed forces in the north of Yemen.

    Turkish drones were used extensively in Libya and against Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia, and Turkey has now provided Bayraktar TB2 drones to Ukraine for the war in the Donbass. The Middle East Monitor feature indicates that Turkish drones have already been used in Yemen.

    Abdul Wahab Al-Mahbashi, the above-cited Yemeni official, warned that Turkey could deploy troops to his country, in which case “Invading Yemen will not have a happy ending for Erdogan himself as well as the country’s government and military,” or could repeat what it did in Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh by deploying mercenaries.

    During last year’s war by Azerbaijan and Turkey against Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenian, Syrian and Russian officials and other sources warned of Turkey deploying thousands of Syrian and other mercenaries, as many as 4,000, to Nagorno-Karabakh.

    Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of Armenia as an independent nation in 1991, Iran has had no closer or more reliable ally in the world. The Azerbaijani-Turkish war against Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia last year was then also a message to Iran. In two ways. First, its closest ally was attacked and humiliated. Second, a war to “liberate” ethnic Azeris was a warning to Iran itself, where as many as 18 million ethnic Azeris reside.

    Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was the guest of honor at the postwar victory parade in the capital of Azerbaijan on December 10, where among other matters he praised Enver Pasha, one of the key architects of the Armenian genocide of the last century, and read a poem condemning the “division of Azerbaijani territory” between Iran and Russia in the 1800s.

    As a result of Erdoğan’s incitement in Baku, the Iranian Foreign Ministry summoned Turkey’s ambassador to Tehran. “The Turkish ambassador was informed that the era of territorial claims and expansionist empires is over,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry said on its website.

    “Iran does not allow anyone to meddle in its territorial integrity.”

    In addition to Turkey’s proxy wars with Iran in Iraq, Yemen and the Caucasus, there is also that in Syria. As the Turkish interior minister acknowledged above, Turkey has troops and bases in the north of the country. Its military incursions have displaced tens if not hundreds of thousands of Syrian civilians. In the past week Syrian news sources have reported that:

    The governor of Raqqa, Abdul Razzaq Khalifa, accused Turkey of reducing the water supply from the Euphrates River to Syria from 500 to 200 cubic meters per second, contrary to a 1987 agreement not to reduce the rate to under the first level, “which prevented the operation of the turbines from generating electricity produced in the Euphrates Dam, in addition to reducing irrigation and drinking water.”

    Syrian Arab News Agency places the event in the context of continued military attacks by Turkey and mercenaries under Turkish control.

    An explosive device was triggered in the city of Ras al-Ayn “where Turkish occupation forces and their terrorist mercenaries” operate.

    The Turkish military and its mercenary allies fired a barrage of rocket and artillery shells against several villages in the northern Aleppo countryside and near the Meng Military Airport.

    Two pro-Turkish fighters were killed in internecine fighting in the city of Jarablus.

    By expanding military attacks against Iran’s few allies in the world – in Iraq, in Yemen, in Armenia, in Syria – Turkey is spearheading the West’s campaign to isolate, contain and confront Iran.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/07/2021 – 02:00

  • Are Americans Becoming Sovietized?
    Are Americans Becoming Sovietized?

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson, op-ed via The Epoch Times,

    What ultimately ended the nihilist Soviet system?

    Was it not that Russians finally tired of the Kremlin’s lies and hypocrisies that permeated every facet of their falsified lives?

    Here are 10 symptoms of Sovietism.

    Ask yourself whether we are headed down this same road to perdition.

    1. There was no escape from ideological indoctrination—anywhere. A job in the bureaucracy or a military assignment hinged not so much on merit, expertise, or past achievement. What mattered was loud enthusiasm for the Soviet system.

    Wokeness is becoming our new Soviet-like state religion. Careerists assert that America was always and still is a systemically racist country, without ever producing proof or a sustained argument.

    2. The Soviets fused their press with the government. Pravda, or “Truth,” was the official megaphone of state-sanctioned lies. Journalists simply regurgitated the talking points of their Communist Party partners.

    In 2017, a Harvard study found that over 90 percent of the major TV news networks’ coverage of the Trump administration’s first 100 days was negative.

    3. The Soviet surveillance state enlisted apparatchiks and lackeys to ferret out ideological dissidents.

    Recently, we learned that the Department of Defense is reviewing its rosters to spot extremist sentiments. The U.S. Postal Service recently admitted it uses tracking programs to monitor the social media postings of Americans.

    CNN recently alleged that the Biden administration’s Department of Homeland Security is considering partnering with private surveillance firms to get around government prohibitions on scrutinizing Americans’ online activity.

    4. The Soviet educational system sought not to enlighten but to indoctrinate young minds in proper government-approved thought.

    Currently, cash-strapped universities nationwide are hiring thousands of diversity, equity, and inclusion staffers and administrators. Their chief task is to scan the admissions, hiring, curriculum, and administration at universities. Like good commissars, our diversity czars oversee compliance with the official narrative that a flawed America must confess, apologize for, and renounce its evil foundations.

    5. The Soviet Union was run by a pampered elite, exempt from the ramifications of their own radical ideologies.

    Now, woke Silicon Valley billionaires talk socialistically but live royally. Coke and Delta Airlines CEOs who hector Americans about their illiberality make millions of dollars a year.

    What unites current woke activists such as Oprah Winfrey, LeBron James, Mark Zuckerberg, and the Obamas are their huge estates and their multimillion-dollar wealth. Just as the select few of the old Soviet nomenklatura had their Black Sea dachas, America’s loudest top-down revolutionaries prefer living in Martha’s Vineyard, Beverly Hills, Montecito, and Malibu.

    6. The Soviets mastered Trotskyization, or the rewriting and airbrushing away of history to fabricate present reality.

    Are Americans any different when they indulge in a frenzy of name-changing, statue-toppling, monument-defacing, book-banning, and cancel-culturing?

    7. The Soviets created a climate of fear and rewarded stool pigeons for rooting out all potential enemies of the people.

    Since when did Americans encourage co-workers to turn in others for an ill-considered word in a private conversation? Why do thousands now scour the internet to find any past incorrect expression of a rival? Why are there now new thought criminals supposedly guilty of climate racism, immigration racism, or vaccination racism?

    8. Soviet prosecutors and courts were weaponized according to ideology.

    In America, where and for what reason you riot determines whether you face any legal consequences. Politically correct sanctuary cities defy the law with impunity. Jury members are terrified of being doxxed and hunted down for an incorrect verdict. The CIA and FBI are becoming as ideological as the old KGB.

    9. The Soviets doled out prizes on the basis of correct Soviet thought.

    In modern America, the Pulitzer Prizes and the Emmys, Grammys, Tonys, and Oscars don’t necessarily reflect the year’s best work, but often the most politically correct work from the most woke.

    10. The Soviets offered no apologies for extinguishing freedom. Instead, they boasted that they were advocates for equity, champions of the underclass, enemies of privilege—and therefore could terminate anyone or anything they pleased.

    Our wokists are similarly defending their thought-control efforts, forced re-education sessions, scripted confessionals, mandatory apologies, and cancel culture on the pretense that we need long-overdue “fundamental transformation.”

    So if they destroy people in the name of equity, their nihilism is justified.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/07/2021 – 00:10

  • Super Rich Gobble Up "Trophy Trees" For Their Mansions 
    Super Rich Gobble Up “Trophy Trees” For Their Mansions 

    The “trophy wife” “trophy tree” has become a new status symbol for America’s super-rich during the virus pandemic, according to WSJ. In a culture where things are “on-demand,” the rich aren’t waiting around for seedlings to transform into large trees with lush canopies – they’re calling tree brokers to find the perfect tree. 

    Walter Acree, owner of landscaping business Green Integrity’s in South Florida, is part of a lucrative business: helping the super-rich find a trophy tree for their multi-million dollar estates. 

    “I’m kind of unique,” said Acree. “Not a lot of people do what I do.”

    Acree, 61, an exotic tree broker, hunts for the perfect trees for residential and commercial clients. A client of his recently was quoted at $250,000 to purchase a tree from a private owner and move it to a new site. 

    Trees On The Move

    Source: Carmel Brantley 

    Acree’s business has been steadily growing over the last five years, but with everyone fleeing Northeast cities for warm South Florida markets. He said his business had been absolutely on fire since the pandemic. 

    Source: Carmel Brantley 

    “It’s the busiest the business has ever been, and we’re doing things at a scale that is just remarkable,” Tim Johnson, a partner at Fernando Wong Outdoor Living Design in Miami. He said the wealthy are demanding nondisclosure agreements to keep their horticultural endeavors super secret. 

    Source: Carmel Brantley 

    Johnson said several wealthy clients bought properties next store to demolish the home and extend their gardens.  

    A few years back, he said one of his clients was in a bidding war with basketball star Michael Jordan over a 45-foot canopied oak tree. 

    Cash-strapped elites don’t want to wait two decades to see a tree grow, and this is primarily why many of them are purchasing trees with a price range of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on the species of the tree and, of course, appearance. 

    Michael Chen, a Los Angeles real estate developer, told WSJ he spent 18 months searching for the perfect tree to install in the middle of his $65 million Beverly Hills mansion. The 150-year-old, 15-foot olive tree that was imported from Tuscany, which he calls the “tree of life.” 

    Source Joe Bryant

    For the super-rich, it’s not just about the trophy wife and owning a 1960s Ferrari – but also owning a piece of nature as they push their horticultural ambitions towards trophy trees. At least these virtue-signaling elites can point to their tree and the good things they’re doing in life to solve climate change right as they step into their private jet.  

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/06/2021 – 23:50

  • Space Force Chief Scientist Says Developing Augmented 'Super Soldiers' Is "Imperative" 
    Space Force Chief Scientist Says Developing Augmented ‘Super Soldiers’ Is “Imperative” 

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    The top scientist in the US Space Force said last week that human augmentation should be embraced and that it is “imperative” for the US military to start working on such technology that could create a type of super-soldier.

    “In our business of national defense, it’s imperative that we embrace this new age, lest we fall behind our strategic competitors,” Dr. Joel Mozer said at an event at the Air Force Research Laboratory. Mozer said augmentation technology could produce a “superhuman workforce” that uses technologies like “augmented reality, virtual reality, and nerve stimulation.”

    From the movie, “Universal Soldier”. via Popular Mechanics/Getty Images

    “You could put [an] individual into a state of flow, where learning is optimized, and retention is maximized,” he said. “This individual could be shaped into somebody with very high-performing potential.”

    Mozer said that there will be “unimaginable” advances in this type of technology, as well as artificial intelligence (AI). He said AI could create “autonomous” programs that commanders can use to devise military strategies that “no human could.”

    “This will extend to the battlefield, where commanders and decision-makers will have at their disposal multiple autonomous agents, each able to control the execution of things like reconnaissance, or fire control, or attack,” he said.

    US military leaders have called for increased investments in hi-tech weapons to compete with countries like Russia and China. While there’s no evidence Russia or China are working on super-soldiers, a baseless claim about China and such technology was made last December by former Director of National intelligence John Ratcliffe.

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

    In an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, Ratcliffe said, “US intelligence shows that China has even conducted human testing on members of the People’s Liberation Army in hope of developing soldiers with biologically enhanced capabilities.”

    That one sentence from Ratcliffe spread like wildfire through Western media. Even though Ratcliffe never provided evidence for the claim, it was repeated as fact by many outlets. A few days after Ratcliffe’s op-ed was published, the French military was given the green light to begin research on “enhanced soldiers,” which was met with much less fanfare.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/06/2021 – 23:30

  • April Payrolls Preview: It Will Be A Blowout Number But Will It Be "Too Blowout"
    April Payrolls Preview: It Will Be A Blowout Number But Will It Be “Too Blowout”

    What follows is our traditional payrolls preview post which looks at how Wall Street has established its latest consensus for the April print, but ahead of tomorrow’s jobs report – which could indeed be rather consequential if it is a significant outlier – the only question is what number would scare investors, one which we answered yesterday when we quoted Std Chartered’s Steven Englander who said that 2 million+ April job additions are needed for investors to see risk that the Fed changes its stance; Meanwhile, the widely expected whisper range of 1.0-1.5 million jobs “may not be enough for the Fed to shift, even if jobs exceed the 1mn consensus.”

    Of course there is also the risk of a downside surprise: only 2 of 79 forecasts are below 800,000, so the consensus of 1 million could generate a modest bond rally and 650,000 or lower, quite a move down. Given the volatility of labor-market data, such a print might not extinguish optimism, but it would raise the possibility that the market is wrong in its hawkishness and the Fed is right in its dovish stance.

    With that in mind, here is what Wall Street expects tomorrow, courtesy of Newsquawk:

    Summary: Fed officials want to see a “string” of strong jobs reports before they begin the conversation on when to taper asset purchases. While the exact meaning of “string” is yet to be explicitly defined, one would assume that this entails a consecutive run of quite a few solid jobs reports since there are, after all, almost 8.5 mln Americans that remain out of work compared to the pre-pandemic period, as officials remind us frequently. Accordingly, analysts say that in the months ahead, insight on how the economy is eroding slack may be better evidenced in the participation rate, employment/population ratio, and underemployment rate metrics, rather than the headline unemployment rate. On price pressures, the Fed has warned us that inflation is expected to run above target in the near-term, due to pandemic base effects, crude prices, and some pent-up demand; however, this is not expected to be seen in the average hourly earnings metrics in April, which may in fact tilt negative; recall, this time last year, the wages measures actually rose as lower-paid employees fell out of the survey sample – this dynamic is expected to reverse as lower-paid Americans return. Labor market proxies have generally had a constructive tilt: initial jobless claims and continuing claims data fell in the survey window; business surveys were mixed, but noted tightening labor market conditions and challenges in attracting staff; ADP payrolls fell short of expectations, but still showed healthy gains, and has tended to underreport the NFP data in recent months; announced job cuts have declined significantly.

    Consensus Expectations:

    • Non-farm Payrolls (exp. 998k, prev. 916k);
    • Private Payrolls (exp. 925k, prev. 780k);
    • Manufacturing Payrolls (prev. 55k, prev. 53k);
    • Government Payrolls (prev. 136k);
    • Unemployment Rate (exp. 5.8%, prev. 6.0%);
    • Participation Rate (prev. 61.5%);
    • U6 Underemployment (prev. 10.7%);
    • EPOP (prev. 57.8%);
    • Average Earnings M /M (exp. 0.0%, prev. -0.1%);
    • Average Earnings Y/Y (exp. -0.4%, prev. 4.2%);
    • Average Workweek Hours (exp. 34.9 hrs, prev. 34.9hrs).

    Payrolls: While consensus expects a 1 million print (with a handful of forecasts as high as 2 million or just above), Goldman believes that tomorrow’s number will be 1.3 million as mass vaccinations and the easing of business restrictions supported rapid job growth in virus-sensitive industries, including leisure and hospitality, retail, and education (public and private). Additionally, Big Data signals generally indicate job gains of 1mn or more in the month.

    Unemployment Rate: The Fed has signaled that it will continue purchases of Treasuries and mortgage bonds at a rate of $120bln/month until “substantial further progress” has been made toward its maximum-employment and price stability goals. Officials have also been cautious in using the unemployment rate as a proxy for the level of slack in the economy, with many suggesting that the ‘real’ rate of joblessness is closer to the 10.0% mark, rather than the 6.0% headline unemployment rate. Accordingly, the focus will likely be on the U6 measure of “underemployment” (which stood at 10.7% in March), and the participation metrics; the latter is becoming increasingly important to judge the progress of slack erosion, and may offer better insight than the headline unemployment rate. In the March report, participation rose by one-tenth of a percent point to 61.5%, still off the 63.2% pre-pandemic level seen in February 2020. It is also worth paying attention to the little-reported Employment/Population ratio, which some Fed officials have recently referenced; that ratio stood at 57.8% in March, still 3.3ppts beneath the pre-pandemic level of 61.1%.

    Average Hourly Earnings: Some warn that the Y/Y metrics may be dragged into negative territory in April. Recall, a year ago, as the pandemic began to bite and economies were shuttered, lower-wage workers were the first to be benched, and fell out of the data sample; this artificially buoyed the earnings metrics (pushing them higher), and the unwinding of this effect is expected to exert influence this month. The consensus therefore expects the Y/Y average hourly earnings measure to be negative for the first time on record. However, some desks are hopeful that not only will this return to positive territory quickly, but also that wages could begin rising as many surveys have alluded to: the Fed’s April Beige book noted that wages increased further over the reporting period, with employers in sectors that reported difficulties in attracting and retaining workers also highlighting tight wage competition, especially for hourly workers; the report also cited some employers lifting salaries in order to attract more workers (it points out that the ability to attract and hire employees varied considerably among contacts, depending on the industry).

    ADP Payrolls: ADP payrolls disappointed expectations, printing 742k against an expected 800k; some made the point that this was better than was implied by the Homebase employment data, which tends to focus on smaller businesses, and suggests that big companies have been proactive in reopening e-forts. As always, caveat that ADP’s data has understated that of the official BLS numbers in recent months, so desks were not revising down their NFP forecasts in wake of the release.

    Initial Jobless Claims: In the BLS survey period that coincides with the weekly unemployment claims data, initial jobless claims fell from 678.75k to 655.75k, while continuing claims declined from 3.71mln to 3.68mln, boding well for the April BLS data.

    Business Surveys: The ISM surveys gave a mixed assessment of the labor market, with the Employment subindex falling 4.5 points in the manufacturing report, to 55.1, remaining in expansion for the fifth consecutive month; however, panelists continued to note significant difficulties in attracting and retaining labor at their companies’ and suppliers’ facilities. The employment sub-index in the services report saw a rise of 1.6 points to 58.8, the fourth straight month in expansion, and the highest level since September 2018. The services report also noted the competition for labor as more restaurants began easing restrictions and returning to normal levels of activity, and all levels of the business were increasing personnel.

    Challenger Job Cuts: Challenger reported that job cut announcements fell from 30,603 in March to 22,913 in April, the lowest monthly figure since June 2000, and -96.6% Y/Y. Challenger said that, so far this year, employers have announced plans to cut 167,599 jobs from their payrolls, down 84% from the 1,017,812 jobs eliminated through the same period last year. The report said that employers were no longer undergoing massive cuts, and consumers were beginning to feel safe traveling and spending, and the number of job openings is edging higher. However, the report also noted a labor shortage despite the millions of Americans remaining out of work. Challenger added that the ongoing impact of increased vaccinations and the American Rescue Plan will be reflected in the April job numbers, with a likely decline in both the unemployment rate and weekly initial jobless claims and an increase in job openings.

    Arguing for a better-than-expected report:

    • Reopening. Despite flattish case counts, US fatalities continued to trend down in the spring. And more importantly from the perspective of tomorrow’s report, the severity of business restrictions eased further between the March and April survey period. Reflecting this, restaurant seatings on OpenTable rebounded to -24% in April from -32% in March, albeit with a lull in the week following the payroll survey period.

    • Big Data. High-frequency data on the labor market generally indicate accelerating employment in April, with four of the six measures Goldman tracks indicating job gains of 1 mn or higher, and generally stronger gains among the more reliable datasets.

    • Employer surveys. The employment components of both our services (+3.8pt to 55.9) and manufacturing (+1.7pt to 59.9) survey trackers increased to the highest level since 2018.
    • Job availability. The Conference Board labor differential—the difference between nthe percent of respondents saying jobs are plentiful and those saying jobs are hard to get — surged to +24.7 in April (from +8.0 in March) and is now at 2018 levels.
    • Job cuts. Announced layoffs reported by Challenger, Gray & Christmas fell by 22% in April after declining by 25% in March (mom, SA by GS). Layoffs were at the lowest level since 2000.
    • Jobless claims. Initial jobless claims declined during the April payroll month, averaging 656k per week vs. 752k in March. Across all employee programs including emergency benefits, continuing claims fell by 1.3mn between the payroll survey weeks.

    Neutral/mixed factors:

    • ADP. Private sector employment in the ADP report increased by 742k in April, below consensus expectations but above the pace in March. As usual, the ADP panel methodology likely undercounted workers returning to their previous employers, and this would argue for a larger gain in tomorrow’s report.

    Market Reaction: Observing the handful of data releases seen in the month of May, Rabobank’s analysts note that yields rose in wake of a weak ADP report, which might indicate a shift in the market reaction function that we have been accustomed to in recent months; now, weak data is providing a negative impulse for bonds, which Rabo says is a function of the market interpreting that the bad data implies centrist Democrat lawmakers would be less likely to try and water down President Biden’s stimulus plans (while resistance is more likely to rise if the data tone improves, which would reduce the need for any bumper fiscal spending). Rabo also notes that Eurodollar futures’ reaction supported the ‘bad news is bad news’ playbook, with the rationale being that, as the market assigns a greater probability to fiscal stimulus, it must therefore give a greater chance that the Fed will scale back its support too.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/06/2021 – 23:10

  • Chinese Flights Through Taiwan's Air Defense Zone Have Doubled
    Chinese Flights Through Taiwan’s Air Defense Zone Have Doubled

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    According to numbers released by Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense, Chinese military flights through Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) doubled in April compared to the previous two months, which coincides with increased US military activity in the region.

    While there is much hype surrounding these flights, the ADIZ is not Taiwanese air space, and the Chinese planes usually pass through the southwest corner of the ADIZ, far from the island of Taiwan. An ADIZ is an airspace where a country requires foreign aircraft to identify themselves. The ADIZ concept is not covered under any international treaties and has no international regulations.

    The US created the first ADIZs in the 1950s and established Taiwan’s ADIZ, as well as ones for Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines. Taiwan now claims an ADIZ that covers parts of mainland China, although the Defense Ministry does not publicize flights from China’s People’s Liberation Army on the Chinese sign of the median line, which separates the Taiwan Strait. China created an ADIZ in 2013 over the East China Sea, which the US has challenged with B-52 bombers.

    Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said there were 117 incidents of Chinese warplanes flying through Taiwan’s ADIZ in April, which more than doubled the totals from February and March. The previous high was in January, which saw 81 ADIZ sorties, which fell to 40 in February and 54 in March.

    Because the Chinese planes almost always fly through the southwest of the ADIZ, it’s likely they are going to or returning from drills in the South China Sea, where the US has significantly stepped its military presence in recent years. President Biden has stepped up provocations in the region even more. China said that since Biden came into office, operations had increased by more than 20 percent for US warships and 40 percent for military aircraft in waters claimed by Beijing.

    The US is also boosting diplomatic ties with Taiwan as part of its strategy to counter China. In April, the Biden administration announced a new policy to “encourage” contacts between US and Taiwanese officials.

    Last Friday, the top US and Taiwanese diplomats in France held a public lunch meeting, drawing sharp condemnation from Beijing.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/06/2021 – 22:50

  • Iran Releases Video Threatening Strike On Israel's Dimona Nuclear Reactor
    Iran Releases Video Threatening Strike On Israel’s Dimona Nuclear Reactor

    Iranian state media has again put out a hugely provocative clip depicting an imagined attack on its foreign enemies, which is clearly intended as a threat and “warning”. On Wednesday we detailed that just days earlier a propaganda video set to Iranian patriotic music featured Iran’s military launching a missile on Washington D.C., which resulted in an imagined direct hit on the Capitol Building. The clip briefly showed shocking footage of the Capitol bursting into flames as the lyrics praised the “avengers” who will “liberate Jerusalem” and defeat the Islamic Republic’s enemies.

    And now on Thursday state-controlled Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (or IRIB) has issued another similar video, this time depicting an aerial missile strike on Dimona nuclear reactor in southern Israel.

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

    The brief clip simulates the vantage point of a fighter jet or a drone hovering over what clearly appears to be the large Dimona facility, after which a missile is fired down upon it, but then the footage cuts to an hour glass, suggesting time is “running out” for Israel. 

    Interestingly, just weeks ago on April 22 (in the overnight hours) what was widely described as an “errant” Syrian missile (as Damascus defenses had been responding to an Israeli raid) had fallen close to the Dimona nuclear reactor facility. 

    “A Syrian missile exploded in southern Israel on Thursday, the Israeli military said, in an incident that triggered warning sirens near the secretive Dimona nuclear reactor and an Israeli strike in Syria,” Reuters had reported at the time. 

    The Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center, commonly referred to as the Dimona complex:

    The whole incident had been somewhat mysterious, given the length the missile traveled to within the general vicinity of one of Israel’s most secure and sensitive sites, leaving many to speculate that the “errant” surface missile fired from Syria was actually an intentional “message” to the Israelis. 

    Below is the IRGC propaganda clip which had been released this past weekend…

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

    Perhaps seizing on this capability of Iran or its regional allies to potentially hit an Israeli nuclear rector, which would cause untold severe damage to the whole surrounding area in southern Israel, Tehran appears to be putting Israel “on notice” over the latest string of Israeli covert sabotage incidents, most notably the April 11 Natanz attack which damaged Iranian centrifuges. 

    This latest clip was issued on the occasion of Quds Day, which is an Iranian Islamic holiday that specifically commemorates the expected “liberation of Jerusalem” and which falls every year on the last Friday of Ramadan.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/06/2021 – 22:30

  • Slap On The Wrist: Honeywell Fined For Sharing F-35, Other Secrets To China
    Slap On The Wrist: Honeywell Fined For Sharing F-35, Other Secrets To China

    Via South Front,

    On May 5th, the US State Department announced that it had reached a $13 million settlement with defense contractor Honeywell.

    The settlement is over allegations it exported technical drawings of parts for the F-35 fighters and other weapons platforms to China, Taiwan, Canada and Ireland, according to the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs’ charging document.

    “Honeywell voluntarily disclosed to the Department the alleged violations that are resolved under this settlement.  Honeywell also acknowledged the serious nature of the alleged violations, cooperated with the Department’s review, and instituted a number of compliance program improvements during the course of the Department’s review.  For these reasons, the Department has determined that it is not appropriate to administratively debar Honeywell at this time.”

    The State Department alleged some of the transmissions harmed national security, which Honeywell acknowledges with the caveat that the technology involved “is commercially available throughout the world. No detailed manufacturing or engineering expertise was shared.”

    Overall, the materials pertained to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the B-1B Lancer long-range strategic bomber, the F-22 fighter, the C-130 transport aircraft, the A-7H Corsair aircraft, the A-10 Warthog aircraft, the Apache Longbow helicopter, the M1A1 Abrams tank, the tactical Tomahawk missile; the F/A-18 Hornet fighter, and the F135, F414, T55 and CTS800 turboshaft engines.

    Honeywell would only pay its fine, essentially, and keep working for the US government, because it voluntarily admitted to violating national security.

    Between 2011 and 2015, Honeywell allegedly used a file-sharing platform to inappropriately transmit engineering prints showing layouts, dimensions and geometries for manufacturing castings and finished parts for multiple aircraft, military electronics and gas turbine engines. Its first disclosure of violations to the government came in 2015.

    “The U.S. Government reviewed copies of the 71 drawings and determined that exports to and retransfers in the PRC [People’s Republic of China] of drawings for certain parts and components for the engine platforms for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, B-1B Lancer Long-Range Strategic Bomber, and the F-22 Fighter Aircraft harmed U.S. national security,” the charging document read.

    In a statement, Honeywell said it has since taken steps to ensure there are no repeat incidents.

    “Under an agreement reached with the State Department to resolve these issues, Honeywell will pay a fine, engage an external compliance officer to oversee the Consent Agreement for a minimum of 18 months, and will conduct an external audit of our compliance program,” Honeywell’s statement on the matter reads in part.

    “Since Honeywell voluntarily self-reported these disclosures, we have taken several actions to ensure there are no repeat incidents. These actions included enhancing export security, investing in additional compliance personnel, and increasing compliance training.”

    Interesting enough, the US was concerned that the F-35 flying disaster’s secrets would be shared through Turkey’s purchase of an S-400 missile defense system.

    Turns out, a US corporation simply sold the secrets to China and others, simply for profit.

    But it is all well, since it apologized after the fact, reinforcing the notion that it is much simpler to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/06/2021 – 22:10

  • South Carolina Follows Montana In Ending All Supplemental Unemployment Benefit Programs
    South Carolina Follows Montana In Ending All Supplemental Unemployment Benefit Programs

    It appears we were overly cynical when we said just an hour ago that we won’t be holding our breath to find out if any other state will join Montana in ending many unemployment benefits in response to the unprecedented worker shortage.

    Just moments after we published that post, perhaps emboldened by the daring example set by his republicans peers in Montana, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster today became the second state to end the people’s addition to government handouts, and directed the S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce to terminate South Carolina’s participation in all federal, pandemic-related unemployment benefit programs, effective June 30, 2021.

    Governor McMaster directed the agency to take the action in a letter to DEW Executive Director Dan Ellzey.

    “South Carolina’s businesses have borne the brunt of the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Those businesses that have survived – both large and small, and including those in the hospitality, tourism, manufacturing, and healthcare sectors – now face an unprecedented labor shortage,” governor McMaster wrote.

    “This labor shortage is being created in large part by the supplemental unemployment payments that the federal government provides claimants on top of their state unemployment benefits. In many instances, these payments are greater than the worker’s previous pay checks. What was intended to be a short-term financial assistance for the vulnerable and displaced during the height of the pandemic has turned into a dangerous federal entitlement, incentivizing and paying workers to stay at home rather than encouraging them to return to the workplace.”

    In a memo to Governor McMaster, Executive Director Ellzey outlined existing federal unemployment programs and what will change when the governor’s directive goes into effect on June 30.

    Those programs include the following:

    • Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA)
    • Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC)
    • Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (EPUC)
    • Mixed Earners Unemployment Compensation (MEUC)
    • Emergency Unemployment Relief for Governmental Entities and Nonprofit Organizations
    • Temporary Federal Funding of the First Week of Compensable Regular Unemployment for States with No Waiting Week

    In conclusion, McMaster says that following termination of participation in these federal programs, DEW shall return to normal operation of the State’s unemployment insurance program, including enforcing the requirement that claimants demonstrate active efforts to seek employment in order to remain eligible for benefits.

    In response, Dan Ellzey wrote that “at the current time, there are 81,684 open positions in the state of South Carolina. The hotel and food service industries have employee shortages that threaten their sustainability. However, no area of the economy has been spared from the pain of a labor shortage.”

    The Director of the S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce Director continued: “While the federal funds supported our unemployed workers during the peak of COVID-19, we fully agree that reemployment is the best recovery plan for South Carolinians and the economic health of the state. Last week’s initial claims numbers were the lowest since the pandemic began, and employers around the state are eager to hire and anxious to get South Carolina back to business.”

    With 2 states down and 48 to go, or 49 – we are not sure if Washington D.C. is now officially part of the USSA – one can only hope that more states will follow in this example, although as with all things, we expect that the final breakdown will be by party lines with people in red states working and while people in blue state are paid to smoke pot and do nothing.

    McMaster’s full note below (pdf link):

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/06/2021 – 21:50

  • CNN Host Says People Who Don't Take The Vaccine Should Be Socially Ostracized By Friends & Family
    CNN Host Says People Who Don’t Take The Vaccine Should Be Socially Ostracized By Friends & Family

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

    CNN’s Michael Smerconish says that people who don’t take the vaccine should be socially ostracized and shunned by their friends and family.

    During a segment on his show, Smerconish discussed a suggestion made by prosecutor Michael Stern in a USA Today opinion piece about vaccination uptake.

    “We’ve gotta shun folks, we’ve gotta shun people into getting vaccinated,” said Smerconish, agreeing that businesses should make getting the vaccine mandatory as a condition of employment.

    However, he also asserted that family members and friends should socially ostracize those who choose not to take the vaccine.

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

    Continuing to quote Stern’s article, Smerconish stated, “People should require friends to be vaccinated to attend the barbeques and birthday parties they host – friends don’t let friends spread COVID.”

    Smerconish then proudly revealed the results of a poll on his website which found that 73% of respondents thought it was “time to shun.”

    “Doesn’t @Smerconish realise we absolutely want to be shunned by people like him and his viewers,” remarked Raheem Kassam.

    “That’s literally the dream.”

    “This isn’t going to end well,” commented Donald Trump Jr.

    Smerconish and his ilk are not encouraging others to shun “anti-vaxxers” because they care that much about incentivizing more people to take the vaccine (take up rates are already very high), they’re shaming them so as to legitimize the brutal discrimination that will be metered out later on down the line to those who don’t take it.

    Meanwhile, the ‘sane’ people who insist everyone must take the vaccine are walking around behaving like this…

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

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/06/2021 – 21:30

  • Air Force Aborts ICBM Test Flight Just Before Launch For Unknown Reasons
    Air Force Aborts ICBM Test Flight Just Before Launch For Unknown Reasons

    On Wednesday the US Air Force was moments away from a planned test of an unarmed nuclear Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile but aborted prior to launch, according to an official statement. 

    It was supposed to happen in the early morning hours at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, but “experienced a ground abort prior to launch,” the Air Force Global Strike Command said. No further explanation was given as to why the test launch was shut down, other than the service indicating that the “cause of the ground abort is currently under investigation.”

    Via ABC News

    The news release did however note that ballistic missiles are only launched when “all safety parameters with the test range and missile are met,” according to the news release. The launch is expected to be rescheduled pending the results of the investigation. 

    As a report in The Hill highlights, a debate is currently raging on Capitol Hill and in the halls of the Pentagon over the near-future viability of the program. “The failed test comes as lawmakers debate whether to proceed with the program to replace the aging Minuteman III missiles or try to extend the life of the missiles,” The Hill writes.

    Currently some 400 three-state Minuteman III missiles form the critical land-based ‘last defense’ element in the US nuclear triad, and were first deployed in 1970 with an initial expected 10-year service life. But after undergoing multiple life extensions the Air Force has long argued for their complete replacement, but this would come at a hefty $1.2 trillion or more price tag.

    Prior LGM-30G Minuteman III test launch, via US Air Force

    US Strategic Command chief Adm. Charles Richard, who oversees America’s nuclear arsenal, has been pushing for the Ground-based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) program to immediately replace the ageing systems.

    “We simply cannot continue to indefinitely life-extend Cold War leftover systems,” Richard told Congress last month. “I do not see an operational reason to even attempt to do that.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/06/2021 – 21:10

  • Atlas Is Shrugging: Forget 'The Great Reset', Here Comes 'The Great Reject'
    Atlas Is Shrugging: Forget ‘The Great Reset’, Here Comes ‘The Great Reject’

    Authored by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower.com,

    The Jackpot Chronicles Scenario #4: Atlas Shrugged

    Never mind The Great Reset. Here comes The Great Reject.

    It occurred to me that I never did finish the final instalment of last summer’s Jackpot Chronicles, wherein I posited four possible post-Covid scenarios.

    For a quick refresher, The Jackpot is concept I cribbed from William Gibson. It’s a term he uses across a few of his near-future cyberpunk novels that describes a series of rolling global catastrophes that set in sometime around 2016 (his stories span multiverses, and timelines, but the common theme is that somewhere around 2016, some kind of irrevocable glitch in the matrix occurred that put a permanent end to normalcy as it has been understood up until that point).

    If there was a Jackpot, whatever it was, it could arguably have happened at many points throughout the 20th century, or if we wanted to confine our speculation to the 21st century then, 9/11 or the GFC would do. Everything after that being symptomatic as opposed to causal.

    And then… 2020 and COVID hit. That’s when the fabric of time cleaves us into the before times and The Jackpot.

    The other post-pandemic scenarios from the rest of my Jackpot series were:

    1. Force Majeure: The wheels come off completely and the system comes unglued. Mad Max.

    2. Tin Foil Hat: It really is one Big Conspiracy and we’re into a New World Order.

    3. The Great Bifurcation: The middle class gets wiped out and we get a two-tier society

    I had thought the fourth scenario would be the one themed Deglobalization, and to a certain extent it still is. In the original outline I described that Deglobalization:

    “Is where multi-national corporations, so shaken from this Near Death Experience, realizing their error of betting the farm on just-in-time supply chains, labour cost arbitrage and having zero buffers, begin pulling manufacturing back home.

    The smart ones start building cushions and shock absorbers into their business logic, and they begin to eschew leverage after being on the wrong side of a series of cascading liquidity implosions. In other words, businesses begin to transition themselves into what I called “Transition Companies” as posited in the inaugural posting for [this blog]”.

    I also went on to say that I considered this one most desirable yet least likely. My view on this scenario has changed somewhat, and I also think that the staggering government ineptitude and duplicity at all levels in all jurisdictions (with few notable exceptions) has made our regeared “4th scenario” more likely given that it’s in progress. Mass demonstrations, mass exoduses, crypto-currencies are symptoms of a Great Reject, or as I’ve renamed this scenario “Atlas Shrugged“.

    The TL,DR of the novel, Atlas Shrugged is that once the institutional sclerosis of the ruling class was understood to be both incorrigible and irreversible, the only other option was a global opt-out. There was no Great Reset in Atlas Shrugged. They got The Great Reject instead.

    Under the Atlas Shrugged scenario, deglobalization is just one of numerous motivating factors, but it’s mainly an outcome of a larger dynamic where all non-ruling factions in society lose faith in the prevailing structure of Neoliberal Globalism (a.k.a “Mr. Global”). With Mr. Global’s viability in question, people begin to look for the exits.

    This begins to occur on two fronts. What Vilfredo Pareto called “the non-governing elites” begin to realize that the system which used to accommodate them, even rely on their tacit support, is now becoming hostile toward them. At the very least, the ruling elites are undermining their interests. This is part of the dynamic of Peter Turchin’s “elite overpopulation” that we looked at recently.

    The other front is the comparatively powerless underclass, which, in pace with Pareto’s Theory of Elite Cycles, lose their moorings and standing within the system they are expected to adhere to. The social contract no longer seems to be a matter of middle-class protections and living standards but instead becomes starkly authoritarian and one-sided. What is clear is that the existing institutions are now functioning to defend the position of the overclass, not to uphold the rights and liberties of the underclass.

    The culmination of multiple super-cycles (Pareto’s Elite Cycles, Turchin’s long term dynamics of sociopolitical instability, debt, a Fourth Turning, and a Maunder Minimum for good measure) combined with an accelerated onslaught of technological innovation: Internet, crypto-currencies …biotech? Nanotech? Micro nuke? Fusion? Quantum computing? We have all the necessary components for a complete breakdown of existing institutions and the total loss of legitimacy of the current governing elite class.

    So it goes in our Atlas Shrugged scenario. Various interests of many forms and myriad factions, from dissident states (like Florida), to decentralized and virtual companies, emergent DAO’s, all the way to individuals and cultural tribes all begin to experience these moments of clarity in their own way. From there they will act in their own rational self-interests and cooperate with others doing the same in order to navigate the breakdown of Mr. Global.

    In spite of this, Mr. Global’s prevailing policymakers and governance structures will frantically maneuver and spin narratives of fear and fantasy in order to keep the existing system on the rails.

    They walked back the second one, but not the first one.

    That is what The Great Reset really is: it’s an attempt at a zeitgeist-level rationalization that doubles-down on institutional failure on the part of the entire governance structure of Mr. Global, and gives them a new lease on life to remain in charge. Reimagined by the Davos crew, amplified by the mainstream media, lubricated by Big Tech.

    The antidote to all of this are crypto-currencies, smart contracts and decentralization.

    That antidote also brings significant upside regardless of which one of our four possible scenarios plays out.

    When I listen to people who are complete denial about crypto, I realize that there is a common thread in their objections (what made me think about all this today was listening to Michael Pento’s criticisms of Bitcoin on George Gammon’s Rebel Capitalist. Pento’s 2012 book on the inevitable bursting of the bond bubble is a must read. That book helped be form the basis on what I think is the funds flow that is actually putting a floor under crypto. I don’t begrudge Pento for not seeing it, because as I’ll explain, he’s looking at it through the wrong lens)

    We could go on for hours about how most of these people haven’t really delved into the technology or what it means, how their criticisms at the defects around Bitcoin apply even more accurately to US dollars (“backed by nothing”, “infinite supply”, “uses too much energy”, et al). But what they all have in common is that they all posit that whether Bitcoin and cryptos succeed or fail is premised on whether the existing establishment will permit it.

    What will the Fed do? What if the government bans it? Won’t the World Bank just create their own CBDC?

    This is completely inverted. They have it backwards. It’s not up to the existing system, because the existing system is over. That’s the part they don’t get.

    The existing system should be looking for its place in the new reality of network states, not pontificating how it will run the new landscape. The coming system will be multipolar in not just the geopolitical dimension, but across cyberspace and the network dimensions as well.

    Instead, the incumbent system is busy banning menthol cigarettes, imposing negative interest rates and undergoing mass conversion to a peculiar new religion called Wokeness.

    It won’t work, and it brings to mind a particularly vivid example I once heard about a balloon disaster that still makes me cringe when I think of it:

    A group of people were embarking on a balloon ride and as they were just a foot or two off the ground, the burner erupted into flames. The balloon pilot realized immediately what this meant and he leapt from the gondola which was still only a few feet off the ground.

    One or two of the passengers were quick witted enough to realize what this meant and followed him. This set off a feedback loop: as the fire expanded, its hot air forcing the balloon higher, combined with the weight reductions as the first few people bailed out, the situation very quickly escalated past a point of no return.

    The balloon had accelerated very rapidly to heights from which it was no longer possible to leap safely. The unfortunates who had hesitated and were trapped in a gondola being propelled higher by a fireball, to their inevitable doom.

    That’s what our entire situation feels like today. The balloon is still hanging a foot or so above the ground, the canopy is on fire, and the people who have figured out what this means are bailing out while they can and in doing so they are accelerating the ultimate burn-then-crash of the entire system.

    In Rand’s book they went to a hidden valley called “Galt’s Gulch” and used their skills and their resources to restore new communities while the old systems imploded. If this scenario plays out we’d be looking for people creating a decentralized, network of gulches. Seeking each other out who are pursuing this same goals, creating open protocols to to rebuild civil societies and autonomous communities built on the ageless principles of free markets, liberty and prosperity.

    *  *  *

    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
    Thu, 05/06/2021 – 20:50

  • China Pollutes More Than US And All Developed Countries Combined: Report
    China Pollutes More Than US And All Developed Countries Combined: Report

    China’s 2019 greenhouse gas emissions exceeded those of the United States and the rest of the developed world combined, according to CNBC, citing a Thursday report by the Rhodium Group – a New York-based advisory group founded in 2003 by China expert Daniel H. Rosen.

    According to the study co-authored by a former Obama admin climate policy official, energy modelers and emissions experts (just go with it), China is now responsible for 27% of total global emissions – more than the combined total produced by the United States (11%), India (6.6%) and the 27 EU member nations together (6.4%).

    In 2019, China’s emissions not only eclipsed that of the US—the world’s second-largest emitter at 11% of the global total—but also, for the first time, surpassed the emissions of all developed countries combined (Figure 2). When added together, GHG emissions from all members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), as well as all 27 EU member states, reached 14,057 MMt CO2e in 2019, about 36 MMt CO2e short of China’s total. -Rhodium Group

    In short, Chinese President Xi Jinping stole Greta Thunberg’s childhood.

    That said, the Rhodium Group also gives China somewhat of a pass for their climate sins – noting that since it’s home to over 1.4 billion people, they’re not quite so evil per capita.

    To date, China’s size has meant that its per capita emissions have remained considerably lower than those in the developed world. In 2019, China’s per capita emissions reached 10.1 tons, nearly tripling over the past two decades (Figure 3). This comes in just below average levels across the OECD bloc (10.5 tons/capita) in 2019, but still significantly lower than the US, which has the highest per capita emissions in the world at 17.6 tons/capita. While final global data for 2020 is not yet available, we expect China’s per capita emissions exceeded the OECD average in 2020, as China’s net GHG emissions grew around 1.7% while emissions from almost all other nations declined sharply in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    …

    While China exceeded all developed countries combined in terms of annual emissions and came very close to matching per capita emissions in 2019, China’s history as a major emitter is relatively short compared to developed countries, many of which had more than a century head start. A large share of the CO2 emitted into the atmosphere each year hangs around for hundreds of years. As a result, current global warming is the result of emissions from both the recent and more distant past. Since 1750, members of the OECD bloc have emitted four times more CO2 on a cumulative basis than China (Figure 4). This overstates the relative role of OECD emissions in the more than 1 degree Celsius increase in global temperatures that has occurred since before the industrial revolution because a large share of annual CO2 emissions is absorbed in the earth’s carbon cycle in the decades after release. But China still has a way to go before surpassing the OECD on a cumulative contribution basis.

    So of course, historically speaking, China has polluted far less – a point we’re still trying to understand.

    As CNBC notes, “The findings come after a climate summit President Joe Biden hosted last month, during which Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated his pledge to make sure the nation’s emissions peak by 2030. He also repeated China’s commitment to reach net-zero emissions by midcentury and urged countries to work together to combat the climate crisis.”

    “We must be committed to multilateralism,” said Xi during brief remarks at the summit. “China looks forward to working with the international community, including the United States, to jointly advance global environmental governance.”

    Xi also said that it would ‘control its coal-fired generation projects and limit increases in coal consumption over the next five years.’

    As we noted on Tuesday, this means China needs to shutter 600 coal plants to meet its emissions goals of net zero greenhouse emissions by 2060. If they don’t meet that goal, we’re sure the virtuous masters of the universe will surely refuse to conduct further business with Beijing.

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

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/06/2021 – 20:30

  • Why Masks Are Still Mandatory
    Why Masks Are Still Mandatory

    Authored by Alex Hamilton via AmericanThinker.com,

    Joe Biden is in a pickle.  

    He wants to continue to convince Americans they should get the experimental biological agent (AKA “the vaccine”), but, as Tucker Carlson pointed out last week, the administration and the CDC have offered no explanation as to why you need to continue to wear a mask after you have taken “the vaccine.” 

     Why would they want us to doubt the efficacy of the vaccine?  Why would any sane person who is not in a high-risk group contemplate becoming a lab experiment subject if you are not allowed (yes, our rights are now derived from government and will be doled out based on compliance) to burn your mask and return to a pre-pandemic way of life?  

    That’s just bad salesmanship…until you think about the alternative.

    Think about what would happen if they allowed (there’s that word again) people not to wear masks after being vaccinated.  

    Here’s a typical scenario.  

    The vaccinated test subject enters the supermarket.  

    The vigilante mob of leftists can’t wait to accost and demand compliance to their edict, using physical violence if necessary.  

    The test subject then proclaims that he has put his mask in his pocket.  

    A short time later, the test subject hears the man claim the same immunity.

    In this fictional example, you can begin to see what the ramifications of this policy would be.  

    Within weeks, the majority of Americans would stop wearing masks.  

    (Along with social distancing, and lockdowns, and getting the vaccine).  

    People would actually begin to associate non-masking people with safety, while mask-wearing people would signal danger.  The danger of the unvaccinated.

    The government has just lost all control.  

    Do you really think these people will give up their newfound power so easily?  I’m afraid not.  

    I imagine that their Big Tech partners are working furiously building a mandatory vaccine passport system as you read this.  

    Until that is up and running, you can expect the regime to continue requiring all people to wear masks, especially those who have been “vaccinated.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/06/2021 – 20:10

  • Why Have Bond Yields Gone Nowhere In The Past Month Despite Blowout Macro Data: Here Is Goldman's Answer
    Why Have Bond Yields Gone Nowhere In The Past Month Despite Blowout Macro Data: Here Is Goldman’s Answer

    After a turbulent start to the year for the treasury market, which posted its worst quarterly total return since 1980 as 10y Treasury yields rose more than 80bp, leaving markets to consider just how much further yields might move once the expected economic acceleration went from forecast to fact, Treasuries have found themselves stuck in a very narrow range, gripped by an eerie calm even as the US economy continues to power ahead and is on pace for the strongest expansion in GDP since the record Q3 of last year.

    However, hile one can analyze CTA flows, extrapolate Japanese pension positioning and even speculate about stealth central bank intervention in seeking an answer for the recent bond market calm, there may be a far simpler reason why bond moves have fizzled out even as economic surprises continue coming hot and heavy: as Goldman’s William Marshall writes, yield sensitivity to data surprises tends to decline at higher levels of forecast uncertainty – a key feature of the macro environment since the onset of the pandemic. As a result, until there is some convergence in projections, “yield responses to data releases may remain muted by historical standards.”

    Let’s back up.

    As Marshall notes, after a torrid first three months of 2021, and despite a continuation of positive surprises across a range of significant releases last month – including payrolls, CPI, and retail sales – US yields finished the month lower on net, with yield responses to the data surprises ranging from muted to puzzling. A feature of data releases since the COVID shock has been and remains the high degree of forecast dispersion, which at this point likely reflects the range of views on both timing and magnitude of the acceleration.

    This week brings the first look at April data, with economists projecting even stronger job gains (consensus is now just around 1 million new jobs) Goldman takes a look at the likely responsiveness of US rates to data surprises in this environment.

    In tracking the evolution of data surprises, the standard approach is to normalize individual releases by some measure of historical forecast error. This approach helps in providing historical grounding for the magnitude of a given surprise. However, in periods where data is somewhat more volatile than normal — such as at present —using realized forecast errors may significantly under-represent the degree of uncertainty around individual releases. For markets, identifying the level of perceived noise around economic data is useful in gauging how much of a signal a given data point can provide. To this end, using forecast dispersion to normalize data surprises(rather than historical forecast errors) may provide a better picture of the information content in a particular release for markets by directly capturing the level of uncertainty surrounding the print. In general, both approaches (the more standard normalization by historical errors or normalizing each surprise by Bloomberg forecast standard deviation) produce highly correlated results until 2020; however, the last year or so and to a lesser extent the period around the GFC stand out as notable exceptions as shown in the chart below.

    Intuitively this makes sense: if the underlying data volatility is orders of magnitude higher than some “calm” baseline, the information value of every outlier print is reduced exponentially as the very next month we may see a sharp reversal.

    To gauge how markets respond to data surprises in different forecast uncertainty regimes, Goldman regressed daily yield changes on daily surprise scores, splitting the sample into regimes of forecast dispersion using the series shown in Chart 1. Pre-COVID (2000-2019) evidence suggests that when forecast dispersion is relatively high, the beta of yields to data surprises normalized by historical forecast errors is somewhat lower than in periods where forecast dispersion is low.

    Meanwhile, the relationship between yield sensitivity to surprises and the level of forecast uncertainty is less apparent when scaling surprises by forecast dispersion. An interpretation of this initial observation is that periods of higher forecast uncertainty tend to be associated with lower sensitivity of yields to data by historical standards. Expanding the sample to include the last year firmly reinforces this pattern.

    So what does this mean? Here is some more analysis from Goldman guaranteed to make your brian bleed as it tries to put in scientific terms what is ultimately a very simple concept:

    There is a clearer negative relationship between forecast uncertainty yield sensitivity to data surprises normalized by historical standard errors, particularly when forecast dispersion is in the top decile. Normalizing by forecast standard deviation, meanwhile, generates somewhat more stable sensitivities across forecast dispersion regimes, suggesting that the impact of a given data surprise on yields is more reliably informed by the level of uncertainty around any given release — what may be a market-movingsurprise in the context of low levels of dispersion among forecasters is little more than noise when said dispersion is high.

    Got all that – it certainly is a smarter way to say that data no longer matters…

    Anyway, the simple implication of all this is that for now – until the data volatility returns to normal –  it’s likely that yield sensitivity to data will be muted by historical standards, owing to the wide range of expectations (e.g., the standard deviations of forecasts for April non-farm payrolls is more than 3x its historical average).

    That is not to say that data won’t matter — US rates rallied on the back of the softer than expected ISM manufacturing earlier this week, and in the accumulation of better than consensus data will take yields higher into mid-year (and vice versa). However, it likely means that more historically “normal” yield responses to data will require some amount of convergence among forecasters, instead of the prevailing “throw a dart at the wall” chaos.

    It’s reasonable to expect that convergence to occur later this year, though that may take place in the context of less volatility in the data itself. In other words, don’t be surprised if we get an absolute blowout beat (or miss) tomorrow, and the 10Y does… nothing.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/06/2021 – 19:50

  • Gen Z Is Anything But Politically Ill-Informed
    Gen Z Is Anything But Politically Ill-Informed

    Authored by Samuel J. Abrams via RealClearPublicAffairs,

    I have had the privilege of teaching politics and history to college students for well over a decade, and I noticed a significant change among my students in the past few years: their interest in politics and political engagement is far greater than when I began. My first group of students were Millennials, and while some were deeply interested in politics and the socio-historical world, this was the exception, not the norm. Today, my Gen Z students are deeply passionate about political change and not politically dogmatic. The 2020 election revealed their significant level of turnout, potentially setting the stage for a more vibrant polity going forward.

    Despite high voter turnout, countless reports bemoan political ignorance and a lack of historical understanding among younger generations. Many observers lament the loss of civics education in schools and the rise of social media and celebrity politics, leading to questions about the civic capacity of younger Americans. Thanks to a national survey commissioned in 2019 by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) and NORC at the University of Chicago, we now know better. Gen Zers are not far out of line with older generations in terms of their political and civic literacy. In fact, the data shows that my impressions are correct: Gen Zers possess greater levels of civic knowledge than Millennials, who are the least politically literate generation today.

    The survey presented 15 questions on political history and civics, asking the identity of the current the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court to noting the historical fact that the 13th Amendment ended slavery, not Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Overall, 75 percent of the respondents correctly answered 10 of 15 items, although the average number of correct responses was 8, a bit over half.

    When the data is broken down by generation, Gen Z is not an outlier. Members of the Silent Generation are the most knowledgeable, with an average of 8.8 correct answers, while Millennials are the least knowledgeable at only 6.7 correct answers on average. Gen Z is comparable to Gen X at around 7.5 correct answers, marginally lower than the national average.

    Digging deeper, there were cases where Gen Z was notably better compared to their grandparents. Consider the question of what Harriet Tubman was best known for. Respondents were given a selection of choices, including serving as a Civil War medic, organizing marches on Washington and various boycotts, and guiding slaves through the Underground Railroad, the correct answer. Tubman undertook at least 13 missions that rescued over 70 enslaved people via the Underground Railroad. In aggregate, 78 percent of the population knew this fact; 77 percent of Gen Zers knew this, compared to 65 percent of Silents.

    When asked about what government action guaranteed women the right to vote, Gen Zers were not off the average. Fourty-five percent of the overall sample selected the correct answer of the 19th Amendment, though a sizable portion of Americans – 30 percent – believed this right was guaranteed by the Equal Rights Amendment, an idea that has been around for almost a century but has never been adopted by Congress. Nevertheless, 47 percent of those in the Silent Generation and 49 percent of Boomers answered this question correctly. Fifty-four percent of Gen Zers answered this correctly, compared to just 41 percent of Millennials. Clearly, the youngest cohort is more aware of voting rights than both their grandparents and their immediately preceding cohort.

    Of course, there are examples where Gen Z could benefit from a deeper understanding of history. For instance, one question covered who the architect of the New Deal was; overall responses were split. Fifty-five percent of the total sample replied Franklin D. Roosevelt – the correct choice – but the next greatest percentage picked Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at 18 percent. Seventy percent of the Silent Generation knew the answer was FDR, and just 11 percent answered AOC. In contrast, only 43 percent of Millennials answered FDR with 22 percent thinking that the correct answer was AOC. Gen Z was notably better, with 60 percent correctly answering FDR and just 12 percent choosing AOC. While AOC has been talking about a Green New Deal, younger Americans should certainly know that her ideas were cribbed from the FDR-initiated New Deal.

    In short, the data supports what I saw in my classroom and seminars: Gen Zers are indeed more politically knowledgeable than older Millennials. While the overall level of political and historical knowledge in the nation should be better, Gen Z does not lag far behind older cohorts. Our various institutions – schools, families, and community organizations – should do more to improve civic literacy. It would be a mistake to assume that Gen Z is simply ignorant of politics and history; Millennials are far more disconnected. Politicos and parties would be wise to cultivate this youngest generational cohort and not speak past them, as they are already aware of American history and how our republic functions.  

    Samuel J. Abrams is professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/06/2021 – 19:30

  • Montana Is First State To Cancel Unemployment Benefits In Response To Unprecedented Worker Shortage
    Montana Is First State To Cancel Unemployment Benefits In Response To Unprecedented Worker Shortage

    Three weeks ago, when looking at the unprecedented labor shortage that is crippling the US economy (even with some 100 million Americans not in the labor force)…

    …we said that there is a simple reason for this paradoxical phenomenon: trillions in Biden stimulus are now incentivizing potential workers not to seek gainful employment, but to sit back and collect the next stimmy check for doing absolutely nothing in what is becoming the world’s greatest “under the radar” experiment in Universal Basic Income.

    Consider the following striking anecdotes from Bloomberg:

    • Early in the Covid-19 pandemic, Melissa Anderson laid off all three full-time employees of her jewelry-making company, Silver Chest Creations in Burkesville, Ky. She tried to rehire one of them in September and another in January as business recovered, but they refused to come back, she says. “They’re not looking for work.”
    • Sierra Pacific Industries, which manufactures doors, windows, and millwork, is so desperate to fill openings that it’s offering hiring bonuses of up to $1,500 at its factories in California, Washington, and Wisconsin. In rural Northern California, the Red Bluff Job Training Center is trying to lure young people with extra-large pizzas in the hope that some who stop by can be persuaded to fill out a job application. “We’re trying to get inside their head and help them find employment. Businesses would be so eager to train them,” says Kathy Garcia, the business services and marketing manager. “There are absolutely no job seekers.”

    Even more amazing: a stunning 91% of small businesses surveyed by the NFIB said they had few or no qualified applicants for job openings in the past three months, tied for the third highest since that question was added to the NFIB survey in 1993.

    But what is most striking is the context on these figures: recall that just one year ago, the unemployment rate was a depression-era 14.8%. And while it has since dropped to 6%, it remains well above the 3.5% rate of February 2020, before the pandemic. So judging from the jobless rate – which the Federal Reserve tracks closely – there’s still plenty of slack in the labor market.

    Only… if one goes by the complete lack of workers, there isn’t.

    This was confirmed by the results of the latest, April, NFIB Small Business survey, which found that a record 42% of companies reported job openings that could not be filled.

    The key quote from NFIB Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg was “Main Street is doing better as state and local restrictions are eased, but finding qualified labour is a critical issue for small businesses nationwide.” And the explicit admission that BIden’s “trillions” in stimulus are behind this predicament:

    “Small business owners are competing with the pandemic and increased unemployment benefits that are keeping some workers out of the labor force.”

    As if it wasn’t clear, the NFIB added that “finding eligible workers to fill open positions will become increasingly difficult for small business owners.”

    Seven percent of owners cited labor costs as their top business problem and 24% said that labor quality was their top business problem. Finding eligible workers to fill open positions will become increasingly difficult for small business owners.

    Illinois-based Portillo’s Hot Dogs LLC boosted hourly wages in markets including Arizona, Michigan and Florida, and is offering $250 hiring bonuses. The chain has hired social-media influencers and built a van called the “beef bus” to help recruit. Still, many of the chain’s 63 restaurants remain understaffed, said Jodi Roeske, Portillo’s vice president of talent.

    “We are absolutely struggling to get people to even show up for interviews,” Ms. Roeske said.

    To be sure, it’s not just entry level places that can’t find workers: full-service and high-end restaurants like Wolfgang Puck’s Spago Beverly Hills, where servers can earn $100,000 a year with tips, also are struggling to recruit workers. Puck said in an interview with the WSJ that expanded unemployment benefits and new options like personal chef gigs are contributing to staffing shortages at Spago and his other restaurants.

    “I don’t think we should pay people to stay home and not work if there are jobs available,” he said.

    Summarizing the data, Rabobank’s Michael Every wrote that Biden’s generous unemployment benefits are “ironically helping to push up wages, at least temporarily – which I am sure nobody intended, but underlines just how radical policy has to get in the US to make it happen.” His conclusion: ”the problem is that small businesses trying to get past Covid are least well placed to lead this socio-economic charge; and if this points to a wage-price spiral –which is still unlikely– then the bond market will soon be pointing its finger at the Fed.”

    Well if it is unemployment benefits that is causing the labor shortage why not do away with said benefits?

    Of course, that is far easier said than done: once Americans are used to collecting money for doing nothing, they would be extremely displeased – to put it mildly – once the money is gone. This is not lost on politicians who know that they would be the immediate target of popular ire.

    And yet, one state is taking the much needed, if extremely unpopular step, of breaking this addition to stimmy handouts which has also led to this historic labor shortage.

    According to Yahoo, Montana plans to stop some of its federally-funded unemployment benefits to address “the state’s severe workforce shortage,” according to its labor department, which will leave many out-of-work residents without any support at all.

    “Nearly every sector in our economy faces a labor shortage,” Governor Greg Gianforte, a Republican, said in a statement on Tuesday, echoing what we said last month, namely that “The vast expansion of federal unemployment benefits is now doing more harm than good.”

    Instead, the state will do the correct thing and begin offering return-to-work bonuses to help employers looking to hire.

    Starting June 27, Montanans will lose access to the extra $300 in weekly unemployment benefits, but maintain their regular benefits. Contractors, gig workers, and others will also lose access to the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program, meaning those workers won’t get any benefits.

    Montana Republican Congressman Greg Gianforte

    Those relying on the DOL’s Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) program, which gives additional weeks of unemployment benefits to workers, will stop receiving benefits. The state also plans to reinstate the requirement that stipulates workers must be actively searching for a job to qualify for unemployment benefits.

    Predictably, the decision sparked howls of outrage from those already habituated to Biden’s Universal Basic Income regime:

    “Montana’s move to end these fully federally-funded UI programs, along with their COVID-19 exceptions, is cruel, ill-informed, and disproportionately harms Black and Indigenous People of Color and women,” Alexa Tapia, unemployment insurance campaign coordinator at the National Employment Law Project, told Yahoo Money, basically slamming the decision as both racist and sexist. “Ending these programs would leave 22,459 people unable to support their families and hurt thousands more.”

    Alternatively, those 22,459 people can find a job.

    Montana’s unemployment rate was 3.8% in March, down from its 11.9% pandemic peak in April 2020, according to data by the Labor Department.

    The federally-funded unemployment programs run through September 6 nationwide. Montana’s cancellation would cost workers at least $3,000 per worker in supplement benefits if they couldn’t find work through the program expiration. Workers on PUA and PEUC would lose at least $4,500 in benefits because they no longer will be eligible for the base unemployment benefit.

    Liberal economists were also outrage, claiming that Universal Basic Income is a wonderful creation (it hasn’t worked out that great in any socialist nation where it has become a staple of social welfare, but whatever), with studies from such liberal bastions as the National Bureau of Economic Research all the way to Yale University claiming that the extra $600 in benefits distributed earlier in the pandemic had limited labor supply effects and likely didn’t disincentivize work. (narrator: they disincentivize work, just see Wolfgang Puck’s quote above).

    “The 100% federally-paid unemployment benefits have boosted spending and contributed to the strong economic recovery,” Andrew Stettner, an unemployment insurance expert and senior fellow at the Century Foundation, told Yahoo Money. “It’s shortsighted for the state to sacrifice that economic stimulus based on the anecdotal labor shortages concerns of a few employers, especially given the limited evidence of work disincentives from unemployment pay during the pandemic.”

    What he forgot to mention is that the artificial spending created by stimulus has led to soaring prices and out of control “transitory” inflation, which will lower the standard of living for everyone, not just those on the government’s dole, but again anything that goes contrary to the liberal mantra of “bigger government is always better” is anathema and must be crushed immediately.

    So far, Montana is the first and only state to fully opt out of the federal unemployment benefit programs enacted in the pandemic and currently extended by the American Rescue Plan signed into law in March. As a way to incentivize workers to return to work, the state is offering a one-time return-to-work payment of $1,200, using money from the American Rescue Plan to fund the program. Only those who complete four weeks of work would receive the payment.

    “Incentives matter,” Gianforte said. “Our return-to-work bonus and the return to pre-pandemic unemployment programs will help get more Montanans back to work.”

    One can only hope that more states follow Gianforte’s extremely unpopular, if extremely prudent decision, before the US is mired in 1970s style hyperinflation.

    We won’t be holding our breath.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/06/2021 – 19:10

  • Voting With Your Feet
    Voting With Your Feet

    Authored by Walter Block via InternationalMan.com,

    Voting with your feet is a crucially important indicator of what is really going on, regarding the political economy. No, this does not refer to taking off your shoes and socks, entering the polling booth, pressing a button with your big toe instead of your thumb or index finger.

    Rather, it denotes migration patterns as the best way to determine human welfare.

    The island government 90 miles off the Florida shore can brag all it wants about its health care and educational systems that have “made Cuba great.” But massive numbers of people have rejected that sorry system as demonstrated by their migration away from it, often at great bodily risk, to enter our country. Yes, there might have been a Bernie fan or two who moved in the opposite direction (Senator Sanders spent his honeymoon not in Russia, but in the USSR), but these are the exceptions that prove the rule.

    Were there any Jews attempting to enter Nazi Germany? Who knows; again, maybe one or two. But the virtual one-way traffic was in the very opposite direct. Ditto for the Berlin wall. In which way was the immense movement there? To ask this question is to answer it.

    The U.S is a racist country that grinds down blacks? Then we ought to see large numbers of African Americans attempting to leave for greener pastures elsewhere, and observe very few people from sub Saharan Africa headed in the U.S. direction. But this does not occur. Indeed, the very opposite takes place. There is no better refutation to the claims of the Black Lives Matter Marxist movement. All the statistics about African American unemployment rates falling and a poverty rate of intact black families falling to single digits (before Covid) pales into insignificance compared to the primordial fact of migration patterns. Or, rather, lack of same.

    What is the reaction of the governments from which migrants are fleeing? Some act responsibly, morally, justly: they do not try to shoot or incarcerate emigrants as they depart. Mexico is certainly an example of this, and ought to be congratulated for such civilized behavior. Similar accolades must be awarded to Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe (formally Rhodesia) and Mozambique. They did not violently prevent their residents from entering even apartheid South Africa.

    But others act in the opposite direction, and reveal themselves to be in effect, gigantic jail cells. The cases in point are too numerous to mention, but the following are certainly examples:

    • All too many Cubans have resorted to making the passage to Florida on rafts supported by inner tube tires and were shot at or arrested by authorities of that nation.

    • East and West Germany and the infamous Berlin Wall; in which direction were the feet voters headed!!!

    • The traffic in the Korean peninsula eight decades ago, and even in the modern era, was from North to South, not in the opposite direction

    • Recent headlines blare: “Hong Kong Residents Formally Arrested.” Their “crime?” They were caught attempting to escape to Taiwan. So much for the “One Country, Two Systems” agreed upon in a treaty signed by both countries when Brittain in 1997 turned this island community over to the tender mercies of the People’s Republic of China. So far, no Uighurs have been imprisoned for fleeing, but it does not take too much imagination to suppose that if they had a prayer of succeeding in such a venture, they would also dearly love to do so.

    Let us close with a U.S. example. In the 1930s, there was a strong pattern of African Americans leaving Alabama, Mississippi, and other Jim Crow southern states for Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago, and other more receptive environs. Did the donor states attempt to in any way prevent this migration pattern? No. So they also garner honor roll mention in the litany of political jurisdictions that have eschewed the title of vast penitentiaries.

    *  *  *

    The political and economic climate is constantly changing… and not always for the better. Obtaining the political diversification benefits of a second passport is crucial to ensuring you won’t fall victim to a desperate government. That’s why Doug Casey and his team just released a new complementary report, “The Easiest Way to a Second Passport.” It contains all the details about one of the easiest countries to obtain a second passport from. Click here to download it now.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/06/2021 – 18:50

Digest powered by RSS Digest

May 06

Today’s News 6th May 2021

  • Where The EU Exports Its Waste
    Where The EU Exports Its Waste

    The European Union exported 32.7 million tonnes of waste in 2020, according to Eurostat, a 75 percent increase since 2004.

    As Statista’s Niall McCarthy points out, Turkey was the primary destination country for EU waste last year with some 13.7 million tonnes sent there – three times as much as in 2004.

    Infographic: Where The EU Exports Its Waste | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    India received the second highest quantity of EU waste last year with some 2.9 million tonnes.

    It was followed by two European countries – the UK and Switzerland – with 1.8 and 1.6 million tonnes, respectively.

    Eurostat reported that the volume of waste being sent from the EU to China has fallen noticeably in recent years, declining from a peak of 10.1 million tonnes in 2009 to 0.6 million tonnes in 2020.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/06/2021 – 02:45

  • Russia Is Prepared To Disconnect From SWIFT Payment System: Foreign Ministry
    Russia Is Prepared To Disconnect From SWIFT Payment System: Foreign Ministry

    Via South Front,

    Russia is preparing to depart from the international payment system SWIFT, Maria Zakharova, Russia’s Defense Ministry spokeswoman said, in an interview with RT.

    According to her, disconnecting from SWIFT was “hypothetical” currently, but not at all impossible.

    “The possibility of being disconnected from SWIFT is still considered as hypothetical. Nevertheless, inter-minsistry work is underway to minimize the risks and economic damage if our country’s access to the usual international financial instruments and payment mechanisms is limited. The Financial Messaging System of the Bank of Russia is an example of such alternative instruments. At the moment, options for its pairing with foreign counterparts – European SEPA, Iranian SEPAM, Chinese CUP and CIPS, are being discussed,” she said.

    Zakharova pointed out that cooperation between the Russian payment system “MIR” and foreign counterparts, in particular, the Chinese UnionPay, the Japanese JCB and the international Maestro are developing.

    These payments providers operate both in Russia and abroad. However, it is too early to talk about the specific timing for the completion of a comprehensive national toolkit for payment transactions and its promotion to international markets, as this is a lengthy and time-consuming process.

    “In parallel, Russia is actively exploring the opportunities provided by modern digital technologies, the potential of their use to increase the stability and independence of the national financial system and means of payment, with the clear understanding that digital money can in the future become the foundation of the updated international financial system and cross-border settlement operations,” the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman concluded.

    “Similar co-branding cards work both in Russia and abroad. In particular, various operations on them are already available in Armenia, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkey,” she said.

    According to her, this is a rather long-term and time-consuming process. Zakharova noted that “it is too early to talk about any specific terms in terms of completing the creation of a comprehensive national toolkit in the implementation of payment transactions and its promotion to international markets.”

    Andrei Krutskikh, Director of the Department of International Information Security of the Russian Foreign Ministry, said that the Russian side is ready to respond if it is disconnected from the international payment system SWIFT.

    Russia has been attempting to push its Mir payment system since 2019, with Russian lawmakers backing the international use of a Russian alternative system for the global financial messaging network SWIFT designed by Moscow to eliminate the risk of Western sanctions.

    Back then, Russia held talks with China, India, Iran and Turkey about joint use of Russia’s financial messaging system, said Anatoly Aksakov, who heads the Russian Banking Association and a financial committee with the lower house of parliament.

    “As the system has proved to be viable and efficient, it draws interest from both Russian and foreign players, it is proposed to give any legal entities, Russian and foreign, the possibility to use it,” Aksakov said.

    This is becoming increasingly likely, as the sanctions the US, and also the EU pushes on Russia and China are making the two countries move ever closer.

    Most recently, China’s foreign ministry said that US sanctions on Russia amounted to bullying at this point.

    “US announced new sanctions on Russia. Wanton use or threat of use of unilateral sanctions in international relations is nothing but power politics&bullying,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Twitter.

    She added: “China firmly rejects such behavior.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/06/2021 – 02:00

  • China "Indefinitely" Suspends Economic Dialogue With Australia As Relations Continue To Deteriorate
    China “Indefinitely” Suspends Economic Dialogue With Australia As Relations Continue To Deteriorate

    China on Thursday announced the “indefinite” suspension of all activity under a China-Australia Strategic Economic Dialogue amid strained relations between the two countries, its state economic planner said on Thursday.

    The news caused the Aussie Dollar to fall sharply, dropping as low as 0.7701 vs the US dollar vs. Wednesday’s $0.7747.

    “Recently, some Australian Commonwealth Government officials launched a series of measures to disrupt the normal exchanges and cooperation between China and Australia out of Cold War mindset and ideological discrimination,” said China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) regarding the decision.

    According to CNBC, trouble in paradise began in 2018 when Australia became the first country to publicly ban Chinese tech giant Huawei from its 5G network – citing national security grounds over companies that were “likely to be subject to extrajudicial directions from a foreign government.” The move followed similar action by the Trump administration over espionage concerns.

    Under Chinese law, companies must cooperate with intelligence services, according to the BBC.

    Relations were further strained in 2018 after Australia officially called for an independent investigation into the origin of the COVID-19, resulting in an ongoing spat which included Beijing targeting exports, and Australia canceling two deals struck between the state of Victoria and China on its Belt and Road Initiative, causing the Chinese embassy to issue a warning over bilateral ties.

    More recently, China accused Australia of giving a “free pass” to terror-sympathizers over accusations that Aussie politicians are backing Uighur activists and providing external support to Muslim fundamentalists in Xinjiang – which came just weeks after a senior Australian official warned that the “drums of war” are “beating” as relations continue to sour.

    “In a world of perpetual tension and dread, the drums of war beat — sometimes faintly and distantly, and at other times more loudly and ever closer,” said Australia’s Department of Home Affairs Secretary Mike Pezzullo in comments that were made public late last month.

    “Today, as free nations again hear the beating drums and watch worryingly the militarization of issues that we had, until recent years, thought unlikely to be catalysts for war, let us continue to search unceasingly for the chance for peace while bracing again, yet again, for the curse of war,” he said.

    Australian Home Affairs Secretary Mike Pezzullo, via ABC

    As we noted at the time, While Pezzullo didn’t mention China in the remarks that were published, it’s clear he was referencing tensions with Beijing in the Indo-Pacific. Australia has followed the US in its military provocations against China and is a member of the Quad, a group that is seen as a possible foundation for an anti-China NATO-style alliance in Asia.

    Days earlier, Australia’s defense minister said the possibility of a war erupting over Taiwan should not be “discounted” and warned of regional tensions. “People need to be realistic about the activity,” Defense Minister Peter Dutton said. “There is militarization of bases across the region. Obviously, there is a significant amount of activity and there is an animosity between Taiwan and China.”

    Beijing responded to Dutton’s comments on Monday. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said China hoped Australia would “fully recognize the high sensitivity of the Taiwan issue” and refrain from “sending any false signals to the separatist forces of ‘Taiwan independence.'”

    The last meeting under the China-Australia Strategic Economic Dialogue was in 2017.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/06/2021 – 01:00

  • Aldous Huxley Foresaw Our Despots – Fauci, Gates, & The Vaccine Crusaders
    Aldous Huxley Foresaw Our Despots – Fauci, Gates, & The Vaccine Crusaders

    Authored by Patricia McCarthy via AmericanThinker.com,

    In 1949, sometime after the publication of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, Aldous Huxley, the author of Brave New World (1931), who was then living in California, wrote to Orwell.  Huxley had briefly taught French to Orwell as a student in high school at Eton.

    Huxley generally praises Orwell’s novel, which to many seemed very similar to Brave New World in its dystopian view of a possible future.  Huxley politely voices his opinion that his own version of what might come to pass would be truer than Orwell’s.  Huxley observed that the philosophy of the ruling minority in Nineteen Eighty-Four is sadism, whereas his own version is more likely, that controlling an ignorant and unsuspecting public would be less arduous, less wasteful by other means.  Huxley’s masses are seduced by a mind-numbing drug, Orwell’s with sadism and fear. 

    The most powerful quote In Huxley’s letter to Orwell is this: 

    Within the next generation I believe that the world’s rulers will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience.


    Aldous Huxley.

    Could Huxley have more prescient?  What do we see around us?  

    Masses of people dependent upon drugs, legal and illegal.  The majority of advertisements that air on television seem to be for prescription drugs, some of them miraculous but most of them unnecessary.  Then comes COVID, a quite possibly weaponized virus from the Fauci-funded-with-taxpayer-dollars lab in Wuhan, China.  The powers that be tragically deferred to the malevolent Fauci who had long been hoping for just such an opportunity.  Suddenly, there was an opportunity to test the mRNA vaccines that had been in the works for nearly twenty years.  They could be authorized as an emergency measure but were still highly experimental.  These jabs are not really vaccines at all, but a form of gene therapy.  There are potential disastrous consequences down the road.  Government experiments on the public are nothing new.

    Since there have been no actual, long-term trials, no one who contributed to this massive drug experiment knows what the long-term consequences might be.  There have been countless adverse injuries and deaths already for which the government-funded vaccine producers will suffer no liability.  With each passing day, new side-effects have begun to appear: blood clots, seizures, heart failure.

    As new adverse reactions become known despite the censorship employed by most media outlets, the more the Biden administration is pushing the vaccine, urging private corporations to make it mandatory for all employees.  Colleges are making them mandatory for all students returning to campus.

    The leftmedia are advocating the “shunning” of the unvaccinated.  The self-appointed virtue-signaling Democrats are furious at anyone and everyone who declines the jab.  Why?  If they are protected, why do they care?  That is the question.  Same goes for the ridiculous mask requirements.  They protect no one but for those in operating rooms with their insides exposed, yet even the vaccinated are supposed to wear them!

    Months ago, herd immunity was near.  Now Fauci and the CDC say it will never be achieved?  Now the Pfizer shot will necessitate yearly booster shots.  Pfizer expects to make $21B this year from its COVID vaccine!  Anyone who thinks this isn’t about money is a fool.  It is all about money, which is why Fauci, Gates, et al. were so determined to convince the public that HCQ and ivermectin, both of which are effective, prophylactically and as treatment, were not only useless, but dangerous.  Both of those drugs are tried, true, and inexpensive.  Many of those thousands of N.Y. nursing home fatalities might have been prevented with the use of one or both of those drugs.  Those deaths are on the hands of Cuomo and his like-minded tyrants drunk on power.

    Months ago, Fauci, et al. agreed that children were at little or no risk of getting COVID, of transmitting it, least of all dying from it.  Now Fauci is demanding that all teens be vaccinated by the end of the year!  Why?  They are no more in danger of contracting it now than they were a year ago.  Why are parents around this country not standing up to prevent their kids from being guinea pigs in this monstrous medical experiment?  And now they are “experimenting” on infants.  Needless to say, some have died.  There is no reason on Earth for teens, children, and infants to be vaccinated.  Not one. 

    Huxley also wrote this:

    “The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone.  To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior ‘righteous indignation’ — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.” 

    – Crome Yellow

    Perhaps this explains the left’s hysterical impulse to force these untested shots on those of us who have made the decision to go without it.  If they’ve decided that it is the thing to do, then all of us must submit to their whims.  If we decide otherwise, it gives them the righteous right to smear all of us whom they already deplore.

    As C.J. Hopkins has written, the left means to criminalize dissent.  Those of us who are vaccine-resistant are soon to be outcasts, deprived of jobs and entry into everyday businesses.  This kind of discrimination should remind everyone of …oh, Germany three quarters of a century ago.  Huxley also wrote, “The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.”  That is precisely what the left is up to, what BLM is planning, what Critical Race Theory is all about. 

    Tal Zaks, Moderna’s chief medical officer, said these new vaccines are “hacking the software of life.”  Vaccine-promoters claim he never said this, but he did.  Bill Gates called the vaccines “an operating system” to the horror of those promoting it, a Kinsley gaffe.  Whether it is or isn’t hardly matters at this point, but these statements by those behind the vaccines are a clue to what they have in mind. 

    There will be in the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it.

    This is exactly what the left is working so hard to effect: a pharmacologically compromised population happy to be taken care of by a massive state machine.  And while millions of people around the world have surrendered to the vaccine and mask hysteria, millions more, about 1.3 billion, want no part of this government vaccine mania.

    In his letter to Orwell, Huxley ended with the quote cited above and again here because it is so profound:

    Within the next generation I believe that the world’s rulers will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience.

    Huxley nailed the left more than seventy years ago, perhaps because leftists have never changed throughout the ages. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/06/2021 – 00:10

  • Record High Lumber Prices Send "Portable Sawmill" Searches To The Moon
    Record High Lumber Prices Send “Portable Sawmill” Searches To The Moon

    Humans readily respond to changing market conditions in various ways when it comes to soaring commodity prices. For instance, as random length lumber futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange hit a record $1,640 on Wednesday, there has been a multi-month explosion of internet searches for people who want to learn how to make lumber. 

    Genius right? Bypass Weyerhaeuser Co., Georgia-Pacific LLC, West Fraser Timber Co., Ltd., among others, and who cares about the low-end wood sold at home improvement retailers, such as Home Depot and Lowes. 

    Amid a lumber price storm, people are becoming their lumberjacks in the pursuit of cheap wood. Google searchers for “portable sawmill” have exploded to record highs in the last couple of months, coinciding with lumber prices. 

    So what is a portable sawmill? Just like it sounds – it’s a portable saw on a trailer that is large enough to cut logs into lumber. The same lumber that Home Depot and Lowes are charging an arm and a leg. 

    Before the pandemic, any discussions of lumber prices were painfully dull, but now it has become the talk of the town. And maybe ordinary folks are buying these machines to save money on new home builds or capitalize on soaring prices. 

    Soon, lumber contracts are going to outpace gold futures. 

    The lumber situation is very relatable to ammunition – as shortages appeared and prices jumped, people learned how to make their own ammo

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/05/2021 – 23:50

  • The Curious Case Of The Asian-American Victim
    The Curious Case Of The Asian-American Victim

    Authored by Richard Bernstein, RealClearInvestigations,

    The mass shooting in Atlanta on March 16, which took the lives of six Asian women among the eight victims, appears to be a one-off event – the violent act of a deeply troubled 21-year-old man who, according to what he told the police, was trying to wipe away sexual temptation, in the form of massage parlors that he felt guilty patronizing.

    But that’s not how the incident was treated by the Asian American commentariat. Instead, a consensus quickly formed among journalists, scholars, and cultural figures writing op-eds and giving broadcast interviews that the shooting represented a pervasive, historical victimization by Asian people at the hands of the white majority. It was almost as if shootings of Asian women by white gunmen were an everyday occurrence, rather than a singular, exceedingly rare event.

    Bee Nguyen, the first Asian woman to be elected to the George state assembly, declared at a rally four days after the shooting that the incident requires us “to demand justice not only for these victims but for all victims of white supremacy.” The Asian-American Association of Massachusetts, a supposedly nonpartisan group established by the state legislature, issued a statement blaming the attack on “misogyny, white supremacy, and the historical portrayal of Asians as the ‘Yellow Peril.’”

    The Korean American novelist R.O. Kwon wrote a “letter to my fellow Asian women whose hearts are breaking,” published in Vanity Fair, saying that the Atlanta murders represented “the passing of women shot for what they looked like, killed by a racist gunman and by this country’s white supremacy.”

    Two days after the attack, the page one headline in The New York Times read, “How Racism and Sexism Intertwine to Torment Asian-American Women,” with the article quoting several women excoriating the Atlanta police for even thinking that the massage parlor shootings may not have been racially motivated. There were no views on the other side of the issue in the Times coverage. Similarly in a New York Times podcast, the poet and essayist Cathy Park Hong said, “We have also been victims to systemic racism throughout history,” except, she continued, “we have been conditioned to pretend that it doesn’t exist.”

    “I think that came from the white supremacist system that we live in,” she added.

    The country may be used to this sort of narrative, with its intersectionality vocabulary of racial oppression and sexism. Looked at historically, these terms do contain kernels of truth when applied to Asian Americans, who have experienced plenty of both exclusion and violence in the past.

    Still, the prevailing narrative for Asian peoples in America over the last quarter-century and longer has told a success story. Asians may experience a certain residual bigotry, but they have overcome it, the story goes, turning themselves into the “model minority.” The values of hard work, studiousness, and the postponement of gratification won them a disproportionate number of slots at the country’s most coveted schools and helped them become the wealthiest large ethnic group in America.

    But that all was ignored in the wake of the Atlanta shooting, with commentary turning instead to a narrative of victimization at the hands of the same supposedly white supremacist America that has, in what seems a contradiction, welcomed them as immigrants and allowed them to prosper.

    This is significant. It signals the ever-growing expansion into the mainstream of a set of ideas once considered the province of a radical political and academic fringe. Asian Americans — or at least the Asian Americans paid attention to by the mainstream media — apparently have adopted a version of critical race theory, the notion that America is divided into white oppressors and the non-white oppressed, and that history consists of the effort of the former to maintain the “structures of oppression” that ensure its dominance over the latter. Through this lens, the triumphalist narrative of Asian success is a patronizing expression of racism.

    “The dangerous and racist ideology” of the “model minority” is “a means to really minimize and silence and erase the diverse, rich Asian experience in order to reinforce and maintain systemic racism and oppression,” Anastasia Kim, an associate professor of psychology at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, California, said in a colloquium on the Atlanta murders.

    In many ways, the growing embrace of this narrative of systemic racism and white supremacy, at least among the intelligentsia, represents the continued assimilation of Asian Americans – like other groups, they too are embracing their victimhood. They, too, are highlighting discriminatory events from the past. But the effort is fraught not only because of the broad success that many millions of Asian Americans have enjoyed in supposedly white supremacist America, but also because of the complex politics of race itself.

    The very term Asian American is an arbitrary construct, one that throws together people from more than 20 countries and regions that in many cases have no more to do with each other culturally or racially than they do with Africa or Europe.

    Conditions vary considerably among them. Indian Americans have the highest average household incomes in America; people originating in Cambodia, Bhutan, and Bangladesh are less prosperous. There are Hmong refugees and other tribal groups from Laos; the descendants of Vietnam boat people who escaped South Vietnam after the communist takeover there in 1975; rich ethnic Chinese tycoons and ethnic Chinese and Korean workers in nail salons, dry cleaners and restaurants. Almost nothing, except the mania for creating ethnic groupings and contrasting them with the supposedly dominant whites, justifies putting them into the same category.

    Apples and oranges? Lumping together diverse people as “Asian American” seems problematic. Pew Research Center

    In that sense, what’s called anti-Asian violence has really mostly been violence against Chinese Americans or other people who are mistaken for them, carried out by people angry over the “China virus.”

    According to the group Stop AAPI Hate (AAPI standing for Asian-American Pacific Islanders) there have been some 3800 reported assaults against Asians since the early days of the COVID pandemic, a sharp increase from previous years — with the race or ethnicity of the victimizers often not described. Citing this figure and the Atlanta-area shootings, the Senate last month passed a bill by a 94-1 vote titled “The COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act.”

    “To me it’s pretty shocking, because I know that it’s not something new,” Min Zhou, the director of the Asian American ethnic studies program at UCLA, said in a Zoom interview. “Historically Asians were discriminated against. It’s on and off, and when I say ‘off’ I mean it’s just less visible. It has been there all along, but it gets heightened, and the impact has been profound on me personally.”

    It is understandable, especially given this history of anti-Asian discrimination, that many Asians and others would feel this way. The attacks have evoked memories of incidents, like the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, and 1982 killing of Vincent Chin, a Chinese American beaten to death by two white autoworkers enraged by competition from Japan – they mistakenly thought Chin was Japanese.

    Still, there are major differences between the past violence and exclusion and the current spike in violence, which major media seem largely to ignore. The country has officially repudiated the internment of Japanese Americans; President Reagan in 1988 formally apologized to them, and each surviving internee received a reparations payment of $20,000. The killing of Vincent Chin seems similar to the spike in anti-Asian violence, one related to fury over losses of jobs because of Japanese competition; the other an irrational fury at Chinese falsely supposed to be responsible for the COVID epidemic.

    Neither case, though, demonstrates some continuing, pervasive racial hatred of Asians much less some effort by white supremacy to keep Asians down. Nor does the spike in anti-Asian violence, however horrifying. Almost 90% of the incidents have been verbal or involve acts of shunning, and many of them appear to have come from mentally disturbed, often homeless people. A substantial number of the reported attacks have been carried out by other minority group members, especially blacks, though commentators cited in the media attribute even this to white supremacy.

    The public radio station in San Francisco, KQED, for example, interviewed Sherry Wang, a professor of counseling for Santa Clara County, on the reluctance of some victims to report on attacks against them for fear of encouraging anti-black feelings. Wang said that “these concerns about reporting racist incidents are reflections of the wider effect that white supremacy has on both Asian American communities and black communities.”

    In other words, when a black person knocks down an Asian woman and kicks her in the head, the fault lies with white people, a notion that the journalists at KQED approvingly reported.

    To point this out is not to minimize the shocking nature of the violence. In fact, one of the most vicious attacks, shown on security camera video, was of a man on a Manhattan street repeatedly kicking a 65-year-old Filipino woman in the head while shouting, “You don’t belong here.” This understandably had a powerful impact, especially on Asian women who are a large majority of the reported victims.

    Most reported incidents of anti-Asian hate over the last year were verbal and non-violent. Stop AAPI Hate

     But even among scholars, at least in recent public comments, there seems to be little effort to put the past history into context, or to acknowledge how much things have changed.

    Since the mid-1960s, 14 million Asian immigrants have arrived in the country.

    Different subgroups have had different outcomes, but the average household incomes of Indian Americans, Korean Americans, and Chinese Americans are substantially higher than whites, despite the latter’s supposed efforts to maintain their dominance.

    Lawsuits have been filed against Harvard and Yale by groups representing Asian students, claiming that they are held to a higher standard than other students in admissions decisions. Still, even with that higher standard, 20%-30% of the student bodies and a great deal of the faculties of the most exclusive universities in the land are of Asian descent. At the California Institute of Technology, which does not strive for racial balance in admissions, the number is 43%.

    Asian Americans have achieved greater prosperity than whites, challenging the victimization narrative. Economic Policy Institute

    And yet, the Asian American commentariat seems determined to have Asian Americans identified as a group victimized by white supremacy. One reason clearly is that, in the wake of the death of George Floyd and the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement, doing so has become fashionable. Liberal Asian Americans working in elite institutions wish, as do white liberals, to show solidarity with blacks, and one way to do that is to express a common victimization. 

    “There’s definitely a cool factor, especially for young people,” said Kenny Xu, a writer on these topics and author of the forthcoming book, “An Inconvenient Minority: The Attack on Asian American Excellence and the Fight for Meritocracy.” “Look at Hassan Minaj and his tirade in favor of affirmative action.” The reference was to the popular Indian American stand-up comic who a couple of years ago inaugurated a Netflix series, “Patriot Act,” by ridiculing the lawsuit brought by some Asian students against Harvard for allegedly discriminating against them in admissions.

    “I find it hilarious,” Minaj said, “that this is the hill we’re willing to die on.”

    But the tropes of critical race theory long predate recent events. The academic world, especially the ethnic studies departments, have been preparing this ground for decades, promoting the idea that white supremacy is at the heart of the American experience, and the constant repetition of that notion has gradually transformed it from a theory to established, indisputable fact.

    Scott Kurashige, chair of the Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies Department at Texas Christian University, for example, put it this way in an interview with Vox: “What we need to realize is that there’s this timeless structure in which there’s always one group on top and another at the bottom. … This country has had a white supremacist ruling class since the beginning.”

    Lok Siu, an associate professor of Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies at UC-Berkeley, told the New York Times that anti-Asian violence is “built into the structure and built into the way we think of Asians and the way we insert Asians into society.”

    Asked to elaborate on this idea, she spoke of the long history of exclusion of Asians, going back to the ban on the immigration of Chinese women in 1875, followed by the ban on virtually all Asian immigration that lasted from 1925 to 1965, the murderous anti-Chinese riots in California and other places in the 19th century, the laws forbidding marriage between Asian men and white women, and even bans on land ownership by Asians. There’s no question that for many decades America did treat Asians with systemic, legally enforced, exclusionary racism.

    “When you have these laws about who belongs and who doesn’t belong, you’re creating an ideology of distrust, that these people don’t really belong here,” Siu said in a Zoom interview. “There’s a bamboo ceiling that prevents Asian Americans from actually achieving full equity with white Americans, and that is still an issue. It’s not written into law, but you can see can see how it functions, making Asians the perpetual foreigner, the yellow peril.”

    By no means do all Asian Americans agree with that analysis, or with the adoption of the critical race theory narrative. On contentious issues like affirmative action, there are bitter divides among Asian groups and between some of them. In the election last year, voters in California defeated by a 67% majority Proposition 16, which would have ended a state ban on racial preferences in state college admissions. Groups made up largely of ethnic Chinese played prominent roles on both sides of that issue.

    “Asians are caught in the crossfire of a culture war, with the progressive side seeking to inject traces of white supremacy into every situation to confirm their ideology,” said Wenyuan Wu, the executive director of Californians for Equal Rights, one of the groups that opposed Proposition 16.

    There are also aspects of the Asian American discourse that will be controversial among both Asians and non-Asians. Among the demands made by Stop AAPI Hate, the group reporting on the incidents of anti-Asian attacks, is that the United States discontinue the China Initiative, the Justice Department program to investigate technology theft by China and its agents in the country. The program, according to a letter the group sent to President Biden, “has led to the wrongful targeting and persecution of Chinese scientists.”

    One element in this picture, also originating in the academic world, is a concerted attack on the idea of the model minority, pejoratively called the Model Minority Myth by its detractors. The criticism, which has been made for at least a quarter-century, has been that it creates a misleading stereotype of the smart but nerdy Asian student, which leaves out Asians who don’t fit the stereotype and need help.

    But in recent years, the attack against the model minority idea has been portrayed in CRT terms — as an element in an insidious conspiracy to maintain white supremacy, because implicit in the notion of Asian success is assumption that if Blacks changed their behavior, they could do just as well, and it’s their fault if they don’t.

    “Why Be a ‘Model Minority’ When You Could Dismantle White Supremacy?” was the headline in a recent article in The Nation, written by Dae Shik Kim, a community organizer in Seattle.

    “Asian Americans have long been used as a tool by white supremacists to justify systemic racism against black people,” the author writes, voicing an argument and the vocabulary used by many others.

    A related notion, also with roots in academia, is what’s called “adjacent whiteness” or “honorary whiteness” or “conditional whiteness.” It’s the idea that the system of white supremacy has accorded Asians some of the presumed privileges of being white as a way of deterring solidarity among the supposedly oppressed groups.

    “Conditional whiteness … weaponizes people of color against their own communities by making individuals complicit in perpetuating racism and exhibiting dominance over other non-white bodies,” one writer, Dorothy He, said in the online journal Reappropriate.

    That seemingly radical statement has gone mainstream. In the ethnic studies curriculum recently adopted by the California Board of Education, one of the sample lessons is “Asian American Pacific Islanders and the Model Minority Myth.”

    According to the curriculum guidelines, students in that class “will understand how this label for AAPIs becomes a hindrance to expanding democratic structures and support and, at worst, how it creates a division among the AAPI community and places a wedge between them and other oppressed groups.”

    In other words, from now on, when it comes to describing the Asian American experience in California schools, the ideas of critical race theory will be treated as accepted truths. The California curriculum was devised as a model for the rest of the country, and other states are likely to follow it.

    Asian Americans diverge from elites on affirmative action, as with California’s failed Prop 16.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/05/2021 – 23:30

  • Kansas City Follows West Coast Progressives In Building Village For Homeless 
    Kansas City Follows West Coast Progressives In Building Village For Homeless 

    Progress politicians have been pitching free public housing for years as a cure for housing, wealth, and all sorts of other inequalities. Several West Coast cities have implemented housing first initiatives, with taxpayers shelling out more than one billion dollars in the last half-decade. Years later, the attempt to break the homeless in perpetuity hasn’t worked out exactly as politicians promised. 

    Ignoring the failures on the West Coast, Kansas City leaders have been exploring a similar housing first initiative for residents experiencing homelessness.

    According to The Kansas City Star, Kansas City officials are considering a “150-bed village” almost like the “Hoovervilles” of the 1930s Great Depression. If built, maybe the village should be called “Bidenville.” 

    Here’s an example of one of the tiny homes classy sheds. 

    Local officials have yet to decide on the exact location of the new homeless village and provided limited details about the construction.

    Last week, Mayor Quinton Lucas said the homeless village would support Kansas City’s homeless population by allowing them “a sense of dignity and pride in housing options.” 

    “We’ve recognized for too long — for years, for generations — we have not done enough,” Lucas said. “We have not done enough to be creative. We have not done enough to help people get back on their feet.”

    “Kansas City is not looking the other way anymore,” the mayor added.

    We’ve seen this story before. West Coast politicians, especially in San Francisco and Los Angeles, have made grand announcements about solving homelessness through housing first initiatives, but none seem to be working. 

    Touted by influential political leaders, activists, and media outlets in Los Angeles, the simple solution was to build more housing for the homeless. Five years later, a billion dollars down the drain, the project has been plagued by construction delays, massive cost overruns, and accusations of corruption. 

    Meanwhile, unsheltered homelessness jumped 41%, vastly outpacing the construction of new supportive housing units. Streets are also becoming more dangerous, drug use is skyrocketing, and public disorder is out of control. 

    Without acknowledging success, Los Angeles recently called for more shelters for the entire homeless population of skid row by October. A similar story is also playing out in San Francisco. 

    So back to Kansas City, as if officials there have yet to publicly acknowledge the failures of the housing first initiatives on the West Coast – it appears they are diving headfirst into a destructive policy. 

    But again, none of that matters when City Manager Brian Platt said the housing project would be partially funded with federal stimulus. 

    Platt said, “This is a big part of that recovery and relief for people in the city.”  

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    On top of the funding for the homeless village, the federal government is also paying people not to work. This is not a recovery – this is the nation diving into socialism. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/05/2021 – 23:10

  • Losing Texas Candidate Issues Warning: 2022 "Could Be Major Setback" For Democrats
    Losing Texas Candidate Issues Warning: 2022 “Could Be Major Setback” For Democrats

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

    A Democratic candidate who lost her bid during last weekend’s Texas congressional special election sounded the alarm that the 2022 midterms “could be a major setback” for the Democratic Party.

    During the special election, two Republicans – and no Democrats – advanced in the runoff as the top two vote-getters in the race for Texas’s 6th Congressional District, after no one in the 23-candidate field won an outright majority of votes on May 1.

    Republicans Susan Wright, wife of the late Rep. Ron Wright, finished with 19 percent of the vote, while Jake Ellzey garnered 14 percent. Democrat Jana Lynne Sanchez finished third with 13 percent and conceded on May 2.

    “On Saturday, Republican candidates got 62 percent of the vote to 38 percent for Democrats (R+25). All the things I thought would motivate Democrats, such as the attempted violent overthrow of a legitimate election result, along with Snowmaggedeon … failed to get our voters out,” Sanchez wrote on Monday after conceding defeat.

    “I’m sounding the alarm bell: If Democrats don’t organize and prepare, 2022 could be a major setback to our gains of recent years,” she said.

    Wright, notably, was endorsed by former President Donald Trump, who on Monday championed his endorsement.

    “Please explain to the Democrats and RINOs that the reason Texas-06 completely shut out Democrats in Saturday’s Jungle Primary is because of my Endorsement of Susan Wright, who surged last week after receiving it,” the former president said in a statement on Monday.

    “RINO,” or “Republican in name only,” is a term used against Republicans who seemingly embrace progressive or Democratic politics.

    The fact that no Democrats advanced can also be seen as a blow to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) quest to keep her majority after 2022. Generally, the party of the president loses seats during midterm elections, and in 2018, Democrats were able to reclaim the House majority after Trump’s 2016 victory.

    The House, meanwhile, is currently split at 218 Democrats to 212 Republicans with five vacancies, which means that Pelosi can only lose two votes to pass legislation. If there is a tie in the House, the bill won’t pass.

    During an interview last week, however, Pelosi struck an optimistic tone and asserted that Democrats would prevail during the midterms. The reason why, she said, is because of recent census results.

    “I feel very confident that the Democrats will hold the majority after the next election,” she told CBS News in late April. “I think that we’re—for all the huffing and puffing the Republicans are doing, these numbers were not as good for them as they had hoped. They wanted three in Texas, two in Florida, and the rest.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/05/2021 – 22:50

  • Number Of Seniors Tapping Social Security Plummets As "Excess Deaths" Spike During Pandemic
    Number Of Seniors Tapping Social Security Plummets As “Excess Deaths” Spike During Pandemic

    The rate of seniors collecting Social Security benefits has plunged to the lowest level in a decade, which Bloomberg suggests may be due to the disproportionate number of COVID-19 deaths among the elderly.

    According to the Social Security Administration, the number of people who took retirement benefits rose by just 900,000 to 46.4 million in March, the smallest year-over-year gain since April 2009.

    More via Bloomberg:

    While the Office of the Chief Actuary at the government agency said it is still too early to assess the impact from Covid-19, the year-over-year change appears to reflect excess deaths. About 447,000 people who died from the virus were 65 or older, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or about 80% of total deaths.

    The number of Social Security beneficiaries has risen in the past decade as baby boomers — the large cohort born between 1946 and 1964 — started to reach retirement age. Usually, during economic downturns, many are forced into retirement due to job losses, which adds to the retiree pool.

    According to the CDC, there were 660,200 excess deaths from all causes between January 26, 2020 and February 27, 2021, mostly associated with COVID. 

    Bloomberg notes that other factors ‘can’ have an impact on Social Security numbers – for example, “In the early 2000s, the bump in beneficiaries was likely tied to the Senior Citizens’ Freedom to Work Act signed into law in April 2000,” which reduced penalties for beneficiaries who continued to work. That said, there’s nothing of the sort going on which could explain the current dropoff.

    Life expectancy in the United State plunged by a full year in the first half of 2020 – the biggest drop since WWII – to 77.8 years from 78.8 in 2019 according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

     

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/05/2021 – 22:30

  • Bulletin Of Atomic Scientists Opens The Wuhan Virus Pandora's Box
    Bulletin Of Atomic Scientists Opens The Wuhan Virus Pandora’s Box

    Authored by Nicholas Wade via the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (emphasis ours),

    The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted lives the world over for more than a year. Its death toll will soon reach three million people. Yet the origin of pandemic remains uncertain: The political agendas of governments and scientists have generated thick clouds of obfuscation, which the mainstream press seems helpless to dispel.

    In what follows I will sort through the available scientific facts, which hold many clues as to what happened, and provide readers with the evidence to make their own judgments. I will then try to assess the complex issue of blame, which starts with, but extends far beyond, the government of China.

    By the end of this article, you may have learned a lot about the molecular biology of viruses. I will try to keep this process as painless as possible. But the science cannot be avoided because for now, and probably for a long time hence, it offers the only sure thread through the maze.

    Members of the World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of the COVID-19 coronavirus arrive by car at the Wuhan Institute of Virology on February 3. (Photo by HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images)

    The virus that caused the pandemic is known officially as SARS-CoV-2, but can be called SARS2 for short. As many people know, there are two main theories about its origin. One is that it jumped naturally from wildlife to people. The other is that the virus was under study in a lab, from which it escaped. It matters a great deal which is the case if we hope to prevent a second such occurrence.

    I’ll describe the two theories, explain why each is plausible, and then ask which provides the better explanation of the available facts. It’s important to note that so far there is no direct evidence for either theory. Each depends on a set of reasonable conjectures but so far lacks proof. So I have only clues, not conclusions, to offer. But those clues point in a specific direction. And having inferred that direction, I’m going to delineate some of the strands in this tangled skein of disaster.

    A tale of two theories. After the pandemic first broke out in December 2019, Chinese authorities reported that many cases had occurred in the wet market — a place selling wild animals for meat — in Wuhan. This reminded experts of the SARS1 epidemic of 2002, in which a bat virus had spread first to civets, an animal sold in wet markets, and from civets to people. A similar bat virus caused a second epidemic, known as MERS, in 2012. This time the intermediary host animal was camels.

    The decoding of the virus’s genome showed it belonged a viral family known as beta-coronaviruses, to which the SARS1 and MERS viruses also belong. The relationship supported the idea that, like them, it was a natural virus that had managed to jump from bats, via another animal host, to people. The wet market connection, the major point of similarity with the SARS1 and MERS epidemics, was soon broken: Chinese researchers found earlier cases in Wuhan with no link to the wet market. But that seemed not to matter when so much further evidence in support of natural emergence was expected shortly.

    Wuhan, however, is home of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a leading world center for research on coronaviruses. So the possibility that the SARS2 virus had escaped from the lab could not be ruled out. Two reasonable scenarios of origin were on the table.

    From early on, public and media perceptions were shaped in favor of the natural emergence scenario by strong statements from two scientific groups. These statements were not at first examined as critically as they should have been.

    “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin,” a group of virologists and others wrote in the Lancet on February 19, 2020, when it was really far too soon for anyone to be sure what had happened. Scientists “overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife,” they said, with a stirring rallying call for readers to stand with Chinese colleagues on the frontline of fighting the disease.

    Contrary to the letter writers’ assertion, the idea that the virus might have escaped from a lab invoked accident, not conspiracy. It surely needed to be explored, not rejected out of hand. A defining mark of good scientists is that they go to great pains to distinguish between what they know and what they don’t know. By this criterion, the signatories of the Lancet letter were behaving as poor scientists: They were assuring the public of facts they could not know for sure were true.

    It later turned out that the Lancet letter had been organized and drafted by Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance of New York. Daszak’s organization funded coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. If the SARS2 virus had indeed escaped from research he funded, Daszak would be potentially culpable. This acute conflict of interest was not declared to the Lancet’s readers. To the contrary, the letter concluded, “We declare no competing interests.”

    Peter Daszak, a member of the World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of the COVID-19 coronavirus, talks on his cellphone at the Hilton Wuhan Optics Valley in Wuhan. (Photo by HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images)

    Virologists like Daszak had much at stake in the assigning of blame for the pandemic. For 20 years, mostly beneath the public’s attention, they had been playing a dangerous game. In their laboratories they routinely created viruses more dangerous than those that exist in nature. They argued that they could do so safely, and that by getting ahead of nature they could predict and prevent natural “spillovers,” the cross-over of viruses from an animal host to people. If SARS2 had indeed escaped from such a laboratory experiment, a savage blowback could be expected, and the storm of public indignation would affect virologists everywhere, not just in China. “It would shatter the scientific edifice top to bottom,” an MIT Technology Review editor, Antonio Regalado, said in March 2020.

    A second statement that had enormous influence in shaping public attitudes was a letter (in other words an opinion piece, not a scientific article) published on 17 March 2020 in the journal Nature Medicine. Its authors were a group of virologists led by Kristian G. Andersen of the Scripps Research Institute. “Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus,” the five virologists declared in the second paragraph of their letter.

    Unfortunately, this was another case of poor science, in the sense defined above. True, some older methods of cutting and pasting viral genomes retain tell-tale signs of manipulation. But newer methods, called “no-see-um” or “seamless” approaches, leave no defining marks. Nor do other methods for manipulating viruses such as serial passage, the repeated transfer of viruses from one culture of cells to another. If a virus has been manipulated, whether with a seamless method or by serial passage, there is no way of knowing that this is the case. Andersen and his colleagues were assuring their readers of something they could not know.

    The discussion part of their letter begins, “It is improbable that SARS-CoV-2 emerged through laboratory manipulation of a related SARS-CoV-like coronavirus.” But wait, didn’t the lead say the virus had clearly not been manipulated? The authors’ degree of certainty seemed to slip several notches when it came to laying out their reasoning.

    The reason for the slippage is clear once the technical language has been penetrated. The two reasons the authors give for supposing manipulation to be improbable are decidedly inconclusive.

    First, they say that the spike protein of SARS2 binds very well to its target, the human ACE2 receptor, but does so in a different way from that which physical calculations suggest would be the best fit. Therefore the virus must have arisen by natural selection, not manipulation.

    If this argument seems hard to grasp, it’s because it’s so strained. The authors’ basic assumption, not spelt out, is that anyone trying to make a bat virus bind to human cells could do so in only one way. First they would calculate the strongest possible fit between the human ACE2 receptor and the spike protein with which the virus latches onto it. They would then design the spike protein accordingly (by selecting the right string of amino acid units that compose it). Since the SARS2 spike protein is not of this calculated best design, the Andersen paper says, therefore it can’t have been manipulated.

    But this ignores the way that virologists do in fact get spike proteins to bind to chosen targets, which is not by calculation but by splicing in spike protein genes from other viruses or by serial passage. With serial passage, each time the virus’s progeny are transferred to new cell cultures or animals, the more successful are selected until one emerges that makes a really tight bind to human cells. Natural selection has done all the heavy lifting. The Andersen paper’s speculation about designing a viral spike protein through calculation has no bearing on whether or not the virus was manipulated by one of the other two methods.

    The authors’ second argument against manipulation is even more contrived. Although most living things use DNA as their hereditary material, a number of viruses use RNA, DNA’s close chemical cousin. But RNA is difficult to manipulate, so researchers working on coronaviruses, which are RNA-based, will first convert the RNA genome to DNA. They manipulate the DNA version, whether by adding or altering genes, and then arrange for the manipulated DNA genome to be converted back into infectious RNA.

    Only a certain number of these DNA backbones have been described in the scientific literature. Anyone manipulating the SARS2 virus “would probably” have used one of these known backbones, the Andersen group writes, and since SARS2 is not derived from any of them, therefore it was not manipulated. But the argument is conspicuously inconclusive. DNA backbones are quite easy to make, so it’s obviously possible that SARS2 was manipulated using an unpublished DNA backbone.

    And that’s it. These are the two arguments made by the Andersen group in support of their declaration that the SARS2 virus was clearly not manipulated. And this conclusion, grounded in nothing but two inconclusive speculations, convinced the world’s press that SARS2 could not have escaped from a lab. A technical critique of the Andersen letter takes it down in harsher words.

    Science is supposedly a self-correcting community of experts who constantly check each other’s work. So why didn’t other virologists point out that the Andersen group’s argument was full of absurdly large holes? Perhaps because in today’s universities speech can be very costly. Careers can be destroyed for stepping out of line. Any virologist who challenges the community’s declared view risks having his next grant application turned down by the panel of fellow virologists that advises the government grant distribution agency.

    The Daszak and Andersen letters were really political, not scientific, statements, yet were amazingly effective. Articles in the mainstream press repeatedly stated that a consensus of experts had ruled lab escape out of the question or extremely unlikely. Their authors relied for the most part on the Daszak and Andersen letters, failing to understand the yawning gaps in their arguments. Mainstream newspapers all have science journalists on their staff, as do the major networks, and these specialist reporters are supposed to be able to question scientists and check their assertions. But the Daszak and Andersen assertions went largely unchallenged.

    Doubts about natural emergence. Natural emergence was the media’s preferred theory until around February 2021 and the visit by a World Health Organization (WHO) commission to China. The commission’s composition and access were heavily controlled by the Chinese authorities. Its members, who included the ubiquitous Daszak, kept asserting before, during, and after their visit that lab escape was extremely unlikely. But this was not quite the propaganda victory the Chinese authorities may have been hoping for. What became clear was that the Chinese had no evidence to offer the commission in support of the natural emergence theory.

    This was surprising because both the SARS1 and MERS viruses had left copious traces in the environment. The intermediary host species of SARS1 was identified within four months of the epidemic’s outbreak, and the host of MERS within nine months. Yet some 15 months after the SARS2 pandemic began, and after a presumably intensive search, Chinese researchers had failed to find either the original bat population, or the intermediate species to which SARS2 might have jumped, or any serological evidence that any Chinese population, including that of Wuhan, had ever been exposed to the virus prior to December 2019. Natural emergence remained a conjecture which, however plausible to begin with, had gained not a shred of supporting evidence in over a year.

    And as long as that remains the case, it’s logical to pay serious attention to the alternative conjecture, that SARS2 escaped from a lab.

    Why would anyone want to create a novel virus capable of causing a pandemic? Ever since virologists gained the tools for manipulating a virus’s genes, they have argued they could get ahead of a potential pandemic by exploring how close a given animal virus might be to making the jump to humans. And that justified lab experiments in enhancing the ability of dangerous animal viruses to infect people, virologists asserted.

    With this rationale, they have recreated the 1918 flu virus, shown how the almost extinct polio virus can be synthesized from its published DNA sequence, and introduced a smallpox gene into a related virus.

    These enhancements of viral capabilities are known blandly as gain-of-function experiments. With coronaviruses, there was particular interest in the spike proteins, which jut out all around the spherical surface of the virus and pretty much determine which species of animal it will target. In 2000 Dutch researchers, for instance, earned the gratitude of rodents everywhere by genetically engineering the spike protein of a mouse coronavirus so that it would attack only cats.

    The spike proteins on the coronavirus’s surface determine which animal it can infect. Image credit: CDC.gov

    Virologists started studying bat coronaviruses in earnest after these turned out to be the source of both the SARS1 and MERS epidemics. In particular, researchers wanted to understand what changes needed to occur in a bat virus’s spike proteins before it could infect people.

    Researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, led by China’s leading expert on bat viruses, Shi Zheng-li or “Bat Lady,” mounted frequent expeditions to the bat-infested caves of Yunnan in southern China and collected around a hundred different bat coronaviruses.

    Shi then teamed up with Ralph S. Baric, an eminent coronavirus researcher at the University of North Carolina. Their work focused on enhancing the ability of bat viruses to attack humans so as to “examine the emergence potential (that is, the potential to infect humans) of circulating bat CoVs [coronaviruses].” In pursuit of this aim, in November 2015 they created a novel virus by taking the backbone of the SARS1 virus and replacing its spike protein with one from a bat virus (known as SHC014-CoV). This manufactured virus was able to infect the cells of the human airway, at least when tested against a lab culture of such cells.

    The SHC014-CoV/SARS1 virus is known as a chimera because its genome contains genetic material from two strains of virus. If the SARS2 virus were to have been cooked up in Shi’s lab, then its direct prototype would have been the SHC014-CoV/SARS1 chimera, the potential danger of which concerned many observers and prompted intense discussion.

    “If the virus escaped, nobody could predict the trajectory,” said Simon Wain-Hobson, a virologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris.

    Baric and Shi referred to the obvious risks in their paper but argued they should be weighed against the benefit of foreshadowing future spillovers. Scientific review panels, they wrote, “may deem similar studies building chimeric viruses based on circulating strains too risky to pursue.” Given various restrictions being placed on gain-of function (GOF) research, matters had arrived in their view at “a crossroads of GOF research concerns; the potential to prepare for and mitigate future outbreaks must be weighed against the risk of creating more dangerous pathogens. In developing policies moving forward, it is important to consider the value of the data generated by these studies and whether these types of chimeric virus studies warrant further investigation versus the inherent risks involved.”

    That statement was made in 2015. From the hindsight of 2021, one can say that the value of gain-of-function studies in preventing the SARS2 epidemic was zero. The risk was catastrophic, if indeed the SARS2 virus was generated in a gain-of-function experiment.

    Inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Baric had developed, and taught Shi, a general method for engineering bat coronaviruses to attack other species. The specific targets were human cells grown in cultures and humanized mice. These laboratory mice, a cheap and ethical stand-in for human subjects, are genetically engineered to carry the human version of a protein called ACE2 that studs the surface of cells that line the airways.

    Shi returned to her lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and resumed the work she had started on genetically engineering coronaviruses to attack human cells. How can we be so sure?

    A May 20, 2020, photo of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, where research on bat coronaviruses was conducted. (Photo by Kyodo News via Getty Images)

    Because, by a strange twist in the story, her work was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a part of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). And grant proposals that funded her work, which are a matter of public record, specify exactly what she planned to do with the money.

    The grants were assigned to the prime contractor, Daszak of the EcoHealth Alliance, who subcontracted them to Shi. Here are extracts from the grants for fiscal years 2018 and 2019. (“CoV” stands for coronavirus and “S protein” refers to the virus’s spike protein.)

    “Test predictions of CoV inter-species transmission. Predictive models of host range (i.e. emergence potential) will be tested experimentally using reverse genetics, pseudovirus and receptor binding assays, and virus infection experiments across a range of cell cultures from different species and humanized mice.”

    “We will use S protein sequence data, infectious clone technology, in vitro and in vivo infection experiments and analysis of receptor binding to test the hypothesis that % divergence thresholds in S protein sequences predict spillover potential.”

    What this means, in non-technical language, is that Shi set out to create novel coronaviruses with the highest possible infectivity for human cells. Her plan was to take genes that coded for spike proteins possessing a variety of measured affinities for human cells, ranging from high to low. She would insert these spike genes one by one into the backbone of a number of viral genomes (“reverse genetics” and “infectious clone technology”), creating a series of chimeric viruses. These chimeric viruses would then be tested for their ability to attack human cell cultures (“in vitro”) and humanized mice (“in vivo”). And this information would help predict the likelihood of “spillover,” the jump of a coronavirus from bats to people.

    The methodical approach was designed to find the best combination of coronavirus backbone and spike protein for infecting human cells. The approach could have generated SARS2-like viruses, and indeed may have created the SARS2 virus itself with the right combination of virus backbone and spike protein.

    It cannot yet be stated that Shi did or did not generate SARS2 in her lab because her records have been sealed, but it seems she was certainly on the right track to have done so. “It is clear that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was systematically constructing novel chimeric coronaviruses and was assessing their ability to infect human cells and human-ACE2-expressing mice,” says Richard H. Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University and leading expert on biosafety.

    “It is also clear,” Ebright said, “that, depending on the constant genomic contexts chosen for analysis, this work could have produced SARS-CoV-2 or a proximal progenitor of SARS-CoV-2.” “Genomic context” refers to the particular viral backbone used as the testbed for the spike protein.

    The lab escape scenario for the origin of the SARS2 virus, as should by now be evident, is not mere hand-waving in the direction of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It is a detailed proposal, based on the specific project being funded there by the NIAID.

    Even if the grant required the work plan described above, how can we be sure that the plan was in fact carried out? For that we can rely on the word of Daszak, who has been much protesting for the last 15 months that lab escape was a ludicrous conspiracy theory invented by China-bashers.

    On December 9, 2019, before the outbreak of the pandemic became generally known, Daszak gave an interview in which he talked in glowing terms of how researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been reprogramming the spike protein and generating chimeric coronaviruses capable of infecting humanized mice.

    “And we have now found, you know, after 6 or 7 years of doing this, over 100 new SARS-related coronaviruses, very close to SARS,” Daszak says around minute 28 of the interview. “Some of them get into human cells in the lab, some of them can cause SARS disease in humanized mice models and are untreatable with therapeutic monoclonals and you can’t vaccinate against them with a vaccine. So, these are a clear and present danger….

    “Interviewer: You say these are diverse coronaviruses and you can’t vaccinate against them, and no anti-virals — so what do we do?

    “Daszak: Well I think…coronaviruses — you can manipulate them in the lab pretty easily. Spike protein drives a lot of what happen with coronavirus, in zoonotic risk. So you can get the sequence, you can build the protein, and we work a lot with Ralph Baric at UNC to do this. Insert into the backbone of another virus and do some work in the lab. So you can get more predictive when you find a sequence. You’ve got this diversity. Now the logical progression for vaccines is, if you are going to develop a vaccine for SARS, people are going to use pandemic SARS, but let’s insert some of these other things and get a better vaccine.” The insertions he referred to perhaps included an element called the furin cleavage site, discussed below, which greatly increases viral infectivity for human cells.

    In disjointed style, Daszak is referring to the fact that once you have generated a novel coronavirus that can attack human cells, you can take the spike protein and make it the basis for a vaccine.

    One can only imagine Daszak’s reaction when he heard of the outbreak of the epidemic in Wuhan a few days later. He would have known better than anyone the Wuhan Institute’s goal of making bat coronaviruses infectious to humans, as well as the weaknesses in the institute’s defense against their own researchers becoming infected.

    But instead of providing public health authorities with the plentiful information at his disposal, he immediately launched a public relations campaign to persuade the world that the epidemic couldn’t possibly have been caused by one of the institute’s souped-up viruses. “The idea that this virus escaped from a lab is just pure baloney. It’s simply not true,” he declared in an April 2020 interview.

    The safety arrangements at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Daszak was possibly unaware of, or perhaps he knew all too well, the long history of viruses escaping from even the best run laboratories. The smallpox virus escaped three times from labs in England in the 1960’s and 1970’s, causing 80 cases and 3 deaths. Dangerous viruses have leaked out of labs almost every year since. Coming to more recent times, the SARS1 virus has proved a true escape artist, leaking from laboratories in Singapore, Taiwan, and no less than four times from the Chinese National Institute of Virology in Beijing.

    One reason for SARS1 being so hard to handle is that there were no vaccines available to protect laboratory workers. As Daszak mentioned in the December 19 interview quoted above, the Wuhan researchers too had been unable to develop vaccines against the coronaviruses they had designed to infect human cells. They would have been as defenseless against the SARS2 virus, if it were generated in their lab, as their Beijing colleagues were against SARS1.

    A second reason for the severe danger of novel coronaviruses has to do with the required levels of lab safety. There are four degrees of safety, designated BSL1 to BSL4, with BSL4 being the most restrictive and designed for deadly pathogens like the Ebola virus.

    The Wuhan Institute of Virology had a new BSL4 lab, but its state of readiness considerably alarmed the State Department inspectors who visited it from the Beijing embassy in 2018. “The new lab has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory,” the inspectors wrote in a cable of January 19, 2018.

    The real problem, however, was not the unsafe state of the Wuhan BSL4 lab but the fact that virologists worldwide don’t like working in BSL4 conditions. You have to wear a space suit, do operations in closed cabinets, and accept that everything will take twice as long. So the rules assigning each kind of virus to a given safety level were laxer than some might think was prudent.

    Before 2020, the rules followed by virologists in China and elsewhere required that experiments with the SARS1 and MERS viruses be conducted in BSL3 conditions. But all other bat coronaviruses could be studied in BSL2, the next level down. BSL2 requires taking fairly minimal safety precautions, such as wearing lab coats and gloves, not sucking up liquids in a pipette, and putting up biohazard warning signs. Yet a gain-of-function experiment conducted in BSL2 might produce an agent more infectious than either SARS1 or MERS. And if it did, then lab workers would stand a high chance of infection, especially if unvaccinated.

    Much of Shi’s work on gain-of-function in coronaviruses was performed at the BSL2 safety level, as is stated in her publications and other documents. She has said in an interview with Science magazine that “[t]he coronavirus research in our laboratory is conducted in BSL-2 or BSL-3 laboratories.”

    “It is clear that some or all of this work was being performed using a biosafety standard — biosafety level 2, the biosafety level of a standard US dentist’s office — that would pose an unacceptably high risk of infection of laboratory staff upon contact with a virus having the transmission properties of SARS-CoV-2,” Ebright says.

    “It also is clear,” he adds, “that this work never should have been funded and never should have been performed.”

    This is a view he holds regardless of whether or not the SARS2 virus ever saw the inside of a lab.

    Concern about safety conditions at the Wuhan lab was not, it seems, misplaced. According to a fact sheet issued by the State Department on January 21, 2021, “The U.S. government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses.”

    David Asher, a fellow of the Hudson Institute and former consultant to the State Department, provided more detail about the incident at a seminar. Knowledge of the incident came from a mix of public information and “some high end information collected by our intelligence community,” he said. Three people working at a BSL3 lab at the institute fell sick within a week of each other with severe symptoms that required hospitalization. This was “the first known cluster that we’re aware of, of victims of what we believe to be COVID-19.” Influenza could not completely be ruled out but seemed unlikely in the circumstances, he said.

    Comparing the rival scenarios of SARS2 origin. The evidence above adds up to a serious case that the SARS2 virus could have been created in a lab, from which it then escaped. But the case, however substantial, falls short of proof. Proof would consist of evidence from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, or related labs in Wuhan, that SARS2 or a predecessor virus was under development there. For lack of access to such records, another approach is to take certain salient facts about the SARS2 virus and ask how well each is explained by the two rival scenarios of origin, those of natural emergence and lab escape. Here are four tests of the two hypotheses. A couple have some technical detail, but these are among the most persuasive for those who may care to follow the argument.

    1) The place of origin. Start with geography. The two closest known relatives of the SARS2 virus were collected from bats living in caves in Yunnan, a province of southern China. If the SARS2 virus had first infected people living around the Yunnan caves, that would strongly support the idea that the virus had spilled over to people naturally. But this isn’t what happened. The pandemic broke out 1,500 kilometers away, in Wuhan.

    Beta-coronaviruses, the family of bat viruses to which SARS2 belongs, infect the horseshoe bat Rhinolophus affinis, which ranges across southern China. The bats’ range is 50 kilometers, so it’s unlikely that any made it to Wuhan. In any case, the first cases of the COVID-19 pandemic probably occurred in September, when temperatures in Hubei province are already cold enough to send bats into hibernation.

    What if the bat viruses infected some intermediate host first? You would need a longstanding population of bats in frequent proximity with an intermediate host, which in turn must often cross paths with people. All these exchanges of virus must take place somewhere outside Wuhan, a busy metropolis which so far as is known is not a natural habitat of Rhinolophus bat colonies. The infected person (or animal) carrying this highly transmissible virus must have traveled to Wuhan without infecting anyone else. No one in his or her family got sick. If the person jumped on a train to Wuhan, no fellow passengers fell ill.

    It’s a stretch, in other words, to get the pandemic to break out naturally outside Wuhan and then, without leaving any trace, to make its first appearance there.

    For the lab escape scenario, a Wuhan origin for the virus is a no-brainer. Wuhan is home to China’s leading center of coronavirus research where, as noted above, researchers were genetically engineering bat coronaviruses to attack human cells. They were doing so under the minimal safety conditions of a BSL2 lab. If a virus with the unexpected infectiousness of SARS2 had been generated there, its escape would be no surprise.

    2) Natural history and evolution. The initial location of the pandemic is a small part of a larger problem, that of its natural history. Viruses don’t just make one time jumps from one species to another. The coronavirus spike protein, adapted to attack bat cells, needs repeated jumps to another species, most of which fail, before it gains a lucky mutation. Mutation — a change in one of its RNA units — causes a different amino acid unit to be incorporated into its spike protein and makes the spike protein better able to attack the cells of some other species.

    Through several more such mutation-driven adjustments, the virus adapts to its new host, say some animal with which bats are in frequent contact. The whole process then resumes as the virus moves from this intermediate host to people.

    In the case of SARS1, researchers have documented the successive changes in its spike protein as the virus evolved step by step into a dangerous pathogen. After it had gotten from bats into civets, there were six further changes in its spike protein before it became a mild pathogen in people. After a further 14 changes, the virus was much better adapted to humans, and with a further four, the epidemic took off.

    But when you look for the fingerprints of a similar transition in SARS2, a strange surprise awaits. The virus has changed hardly at all, at least until recently. From its very first appearance, it was well adapted to human cells. Researchers led by Alina Chan of the Broad Institute compared SARS2 with late stage SARS1, which by then was well adapted to human cells, and found that the two viruses were similarly well adapted. “By the time SARS-CoV-2 was first detected in late 2019, it was already pre-adapted to human transmission to an extent similar to late epidemic SARS-CoV,” they wrote.

    Even those who think lab origin unlikely agree that SARS2 genomes are remarkably uniform. Baric writes that “early strains identified in Wuhan, China, showed limited genetic diversity, which suggests that the virus may have been introduced from a single source.”

    A single source would of course be compatible with lab escape, less so with the massive variation and selection which is evolution’s hallmark way of doing business.

    The uniform structure of SARS2 genomes gives no hint of any passage through an intermediate animal host, and no such host has been identified in nature.

    Proponents of natural emergence suggest that SARS2 incubated in a yet-to-be found human population before gaining its special properties. Or that it jumped to a host animal outside China.

    All these conjectures are possible, but strained. Proponents of a lab leak have a simpler explanation. SARS2 was adapted to human cells from the start because it was grown in humanized mice or in lab cultures of human cells, just as described in Daszak’s grant proposal. Its genome shows little diversity because the hallmark of lab cultures is uniformity.

    Proponents of laboratory escape joke that of course the SARS2 virus infected an intermediary host species before spreading to people, and that they have identified it — a humanized mouse from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

    3) The furin cleavage site. The furin cleavage site is a minute part of the virus’s anatomy but one that exerts great influence on its infectivity. It sits in the middle of the SARS2 spike protein. It also lies at the heart of the puzzle of where the virus came from.

    The spike protein has two sub-units with different roles. The first, called S1, recognizes the virus’s target, a protein called angiotensin converting enzyme-2 (or ACE2) which studs the surface of cells lining the human airways. The second, S2, helps the virus, once anchored to the cell, to fuse with the cell’s membrane. After the virus’s outer membrane has coalesced with that of the stricken cell, the viral genome is injected into the cell, hijacks its protein-making machinery and forces it to generate new viruses.

    But this invasion cannot begin until the S1 and S2 subunits have been cut apart. And there, right at the S1/S2 junction, is the furin cleavage site that ensures the spike protein will be cleaved in exactly the right place.

    The virus, a model of economic design, does not carry its own cleaver. It relies on the cell to do the cleaving for it. Human cells have a protein cutting tool on their surface known as furin. Furin will cut any protein chain that carries its signature target cutting site. This is the sequence of amino acid units proline-arginine-arginine-alanine, or PRRA in the code that refers to each amino acid by a letter of the alphabet. PRRA is the amino acid sequence at the core of SARS2’s furin cleavage site.

    Viruses have all kinds of clever tricks, so why does the furin cleavage site stand out? Because of all known SARS-related beta-coronaviruses, only SARS2 possesses a furin cleavage site. All the other viruses have their S2 unit cleaved at a different site and by a different mechanism.

    How then did SARS2 acquire its furin cleavage site? Either the site evolved naturally, or it was inserted by researchers at the S1/S2 junction in a gain-of-function experiment.

    Consider natural origin first. Two ways viruses evolve are by mutation and by recombination. Mutation is the process of random change in DNA (or RNA for coronaviruses) that usually results in one amino acid in a protein chain being switched for another. Many of these changes harm the virus but natural selection retains the few that do something useful. Mutation is the process by which the SARS1 spike protein gradually switched its preferred target cells from those of bats to civets, and then to humans.

    Mutation seems a less likely way for SARS2’s furin cleavage site to be generated, even though it can’t completely be ruled out. The site’s four amino acid units are all together, and all at just the right place in the S1/S2 junction. Mutation is a random process triggered by copying errors (when new viral genomes are being generated) or by chemical decay of genomic units. So it typically affects single amino acids at different spots in a protein chain. A string of amino acids like that of the furin cleavage site is much more likely to be acquired all together through a quite different process known as recombination.

    Recombination is an inadvertent swapping of genomic material that occurs when two viruses happen to invade the same cell, and their progeny are assembled with bits and pieces of RNA belonging to the other. Beta-coronaviruses will only combine with other beta-coronaviruses but can acquire, by recombination, almost any genetic element present in the collective genomic pool. What they cannot acquire is an element the pool does not possess. And no known SARS-related beta-coronavirus, the class to which SARS2 belongs, possesses a furin cleavage site.

    Proponents of natural emergence say SARS2 could have picked up the site from some as yet unknown beta-coronavirus. But bat SARS-related beta-coronaviruses evidently don’t need a furin cleavage site to infect bat cells, so there’s no great likelihood that any in fact possesses one, and indeed none has been found so far.

    The proponents’ next argument is that SARS2 acquired its furin cleavage site from people. A predecessor of SARS2 could have been circulating in the human population for months or years until at some point it acquired a furin cleavage site from human cells. It would then have been ready to break out as a pandemic.

    If this is what happened, there should be traces in hospital surveillance records of the people infected by the slowly evolving virus. But none has so far come to light. According to the WHO report on the origins of the virus, the sentinel hospitals in Hubei province, home of Wuhan, routinely monitor influenza-like illnesses and “no evidence to suggest substantial SARSCoV-2 transmission in the months preceding the outbreak in December was observed.”

    So it’s hard to explain how the SARS2 virus picked up its furin cleavage site naturally, whether by mutation or recombination.

    That leaves a gain-of-function experiment. For those who think SARS2 may have escaped from a lab, explaining the furin cleavage site is no problem at all. “Since 1992 the virology community has known that the one sure way to make a virus deadlier is to give it a furin cleavage site at the S1/S2 junction in the laboratory,” writes Steven Quay, a biotech entrepreneur interested in the origins of SARS2. “At least 11 gain-of-function experiments, adding a furin site to make a virus more infective, are published in the open literature, including [by] Dr. Zhengli Shi, head of coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”

    4) A question of codons. There’s another aspect of the furin cleavage site that narrows the path for a natural emergence origin even further.

    As everyone knows (or may at least recall from high school), the genetic code uses three units of DNA to specify each amino acid unit of a protein chain. When read in groups of 3, the 4 different kinds of DNA can specify 4 x 4 x 4 or 64 different triplets, or codons as they are called. Since there are only 20 kinds of amino acid, there are more than enough codons to go around, allowing some amino acids to be specified by more than one codon. The amino acid arginine, for instance, can be designated by any of the six codons CGU, CGC, CGA, CGG, AGA or AGG, where A, U, G and C stand for the four different kinds of unit in RNA.

    Here’s where it gets interesting. Different organisms have different codon preferences. Human cells like to designate arginine with the codons CGT, CGC or CGG. But CGG is coronavirus’s least popular codon for arginine. Keep that in mind when looking at how the amino acids in the furin cleavage site are encoded in the SARS2 genome.

    Now the functional reason why SARS2 has a furin cleavage site, and its cousin viruses don’t, can be seen by lining up (in a computer) the string of nearly 30,000 nucleotides in its genome with those of its cousin coronaviruses, of which the closest so far known is one called RaTG13. Compared with RaTG13, SARS2 has a 12-nucleotide insert right at the S1/S2 junction. The insert is the sequence T-CCT-CGG-CGG-GC. The CCT codes for proline, the two CGG’s for two arginines, and the GC is the beginning of a GCA codon that codes for alanine.

    There are several curious features about this insert but the oddest is that of the two side-by-side CGG codons. Only 5 percent of SARS2’s arginine codons are CGG, and the double codon CGG-CGG has not been found in any other beta-coronavirus. So how did SARS2 acquire a pair of arginine codons that are favored by human cells but not by coronaviruses?

    Proponents of natural emergence have an up-hill task to explain all the features of SARS2’s furin cleavage site. They have to postulate a recombination event at a site on the virus’s genome where recombinations are rare, and the insertion of a 12-nucleotide sequence with a double arginine codon unknown in the beta-coronavirus repertoire, at the only site in the genome that would significantly expand the virus’s infectivity.

    “Yes, but your wording makes this sound unlikely — viruses are specialists at unusual events,” is the riposte of David L. Robertson, a virologist at the University of Glasgow who regards lab escape as a conspiracy theory. “Recombination is naturally very, very frequent in these viruses, there are recombination breakpoints in the spike protein and these codons appear unusual exactly because we’ve not sampled enough.”

    Robertson is correct that evolution is always producing results that may seem unlikely but in fact are not. Viruses can generate untold numbers of variants but we see only the one-in-a-billion that natural selection picks for survival. But this argument could be pushed too far. For instance, any result of a gain-of-function experiment could be explained as one that evolution would have arrived at in time. And the numbers game can be played the other way. For the furin cleavage site to arise naturally in SARS2, a chain of events has to happen, each of which is quite unlikely for the reasons given above. A long chain with several improbable steps is unlikely to ever be completed.

    For the lab escape scenario, the double CGG codon is no surprise. The human-preferred codon is routinely used in labs. So anyone who wanted to insert a furin cleavage site into the virus’s genome would synthesize the PRRA-making sequence in the lab and would be likely to use CGG codons to do so.

    A third scenario of origin. There’s a variation on the natural emergence scenario that’s worth considering. This is the idea that SARS2 jumped directly from bats to humans, without going through an intermediate host as SARS1 and MERS did. A leading advocate is the virologist David Robertson who notes that SARS2 can attack several other species besides humans. He believes the virus evolved a generalist capability while still in bats. Because the bats it infects are widely distributed in southern and central China, the virus had ample opportunity to jump to people, even though it seems to have done so on only one known occasion. Robertson’s thesis explains why no one has so far found a trace of SARS2 in any intermediate host or in human populations surveilled before December 2019. It would also explain the puzzling fact that SARS2 has not changed since it first appeared in humans — it didn’t need to because it could already attack human cells efficiently.

    One problem with this idea, though, is that if SARS2 jumped from bats to people in a single leap and hasn’t changed much since, it should still be good at infecting bats. And it seems it isn’t.

    “Tested bat species are poorly infected by SARS-CoV-2 and they are therefore unlikely to be the direct source for human infection,” write a scientific group skeptical of natural emergence.

    Still, Robertson may be onto something. The bat coronaviruses of the Yunnan caves can infect people directly. In April 2012 six miners clearing bat guano from the Mojiang mine contracted severe pneumonia with COVID-19-like symptoms and three eventually died. A virus isolated from the Mojiang mine, called RaTG13, is still the closest known relative of SARS2. Much mystery surrounds the origin, reporting and strangely low affinity of RaTG13 for bat cells, as well as the nature of 8 similar viruses that Shi reports she collected at the same time but has not yet published despite their great relevance to the ancestry of SARS2. But all that is a story for another time. The point here is that bat viruses can infect people directly, though only in special conditions.

    So who else, besides miners excavating bat guano, comes into particularly close contact with bat coronaviruses? Well, coronavirus researchers do. Shi says she and her group collected more than 1,300 bat samples during some eight visits to the Mojiang cave between 2012 and 2015, and there were doubtless many expeditions to other Yunnan caves.

    Imagine the researchers making frequent trips from Wuhan to Yunnan and back, stirring up bat guano in dark caves and mines, and now you begin to see a possible missing link between the two places. Researchers could have gotten infected during their collecting trips, or while working with the new viruses at the Wuhan Institute of Technology. The virus that escaped from the lab would have been a natural virus, not one cooked up by gain of function.

    The direct-from-bats thesis is a chimera between the natural emergence and lab escape scenarios. It’s a possibility that can’t be dismissed. But against it are the facts that 1) both SARS2 and RaTG13 seem to have only feeble affinity for bat cells, so one can’t be fully confident that either ever saw the inside of a bat; and 2) the theory is no better than the natural emergence scenario at explaining how SARS2 gained its furin cleavage site, or why the furin cleavage site is determined by human-preferred arginine codons instead of by the bat-preferred codons.

    Where we are so far. Neither the natural emergence nor the lab escape hypothesis can yet be ruled out. There is still no direct evidence for either. So no definitive conclusion can be reached.

    That said, the available evidence leans more strongly in one direction than the other. Readers will form their own opinion. But it seems to me that proponents of lab escape can explain all the available facts about SARS2 considerably more easily than can those who favor natural emergence.

    It’s documented that researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were doing gain-of-function experiments designed to make coronaviruses infect human cells and humanized mice. This is exactly the kind of experiment from which a SARS2-like virus could have emerged. The researchers were not vaccinated against the viruses under study, and they were working in the minimal safety conditions of a BSL2 laboratory. So escape of a virus would not be at all surprising. In all of China, the pandemic broke out on the doorstep of the Wuhan institute. The virus was already well adapted to humans, as expected for a virus grown in humanized mice. It possessed an unusual enhancement, a furin cleavage site, which is not possessed by any other known SARS-related beta-coronavirus, and this site included a double arginine codon also unknown among beta-coronaviruses. What more evidence could you want, aside from the presently unobtainable lab records documenting SARS2’s creation?

    Proponents of natural emergence have a rather harder story to tell. The plausibility of their case rests on a single surmise, the expected parallel between the emergence of SARS2 and that of SARS1 and MERS. But none of the evidence expected in support of such a parallel history has yet emerged. No one has found the bat population that was the source of SARS2, if indeed it ever infected bats. No intermediate host has presented itself, despite an intensive search by Chinese authorities that included the testing of 80,000 animals. There is no evidence of the virus making multiple independent jumps from its intermediate host to people, as both the SARS1 and MERS viruses did. There is no evidence from hospital surveillance records of the epidemic gathering strength in the population as the virus evolved. There is no explanation of why a natural epidemic should break out in Wuhan and nowhere else. There is no good explanation of how the virus acquired its furin cleavage site, which no other SARS-related beta-coronavirus possesses, nor why the site is composed of human-preferred codons. The natural emergence theory battles a bristling array of implausibilities.

    The records of the Wuhan Institute of Virology certainly hold much relevant information. But Chinese authorities seem unlikely to release them given the substantial chance that they incriminate the regime in the creation of the pandemic. Absent the efforts of some courageous Chinese whistle-blower, we may already have at hand just about all of the relevant information we are likely to get for a while.

    So it’s worth trying to assess responsibility for the pandemic, at least in a provisional way, because the paramount goal remains to prevent another one. Even those who aren’t persuaded that lab escape is the more likely origin of the SARS2 virus may see reason for concern about the present state of regulation governing gain-of-function research. There are two obvious levels of responsibility: the first, for allowing virologists to perform gain-of-function experiments, offering minimal gain and vast risk; the second, if indeed SARS2 was generated in a lab, for allowing the virus to escape and unleash a world-wide pandemic. Here are the players who seem most likely to deserve blame.

    1. Chinese virologists. First and foremost, Chinese virologists are to blame for performing gain-of-function experiments in mostly BSL2-level safety conditions which were far too lax to contain a virus of unexpected infectiousness like SARS2. If the virus did indeed escape from their lab, they deserve the world’s censure for a foreseeable accident that has already caused the deaths of three  million people. True, Shi was trained by French virologists, worked closely with American virologists and was following international rules for the containment of coronaviruses. But she could and should have made her own assessment of the risks she was running. She and her colleagues bear the responsibility for their actions.

    I have been using the Wuhan Institute of Virology as a shorthand for all virological activities in Wuhan. It’s possible that SARS2 was generated in some other Wuhan lab, perhaps in an attempt to make a vaccine that worked against all coronaviruses. But until the role of other Chinese virologists is clarified, Shi is the public face of Chinese work on coronaviruses, and provisionally she and her colleagues will stand first in line for opprobrium.

    2. Chinese authorities. China’s central authorities did not generate SARS2, but they sure did their utmost to conceal the nature of the tragedy and China’s responsibility for it. They suppressed all records at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and closed down its virus databases. They released a trickle of information, much of which may have been outright false or designed to misdirect and mislead. They did their best to manipulate the WHO’s inquiry into the virus’s origins, and led the commission’s members on a fruitless run-around. So far they have proved far more interested in deflecting blame than in taking the steps necessary to prevent a second pandemic.

    3. The worldwide community of virologists. Virologists around the world are a loose-knit professional community. They write articles in the same journals. They attend the same conferences. They have common interests in seeking funds from governments and in not being overburdened with safety regulations.

    Virologists knew better than anyone the dangers of gain-of-function research. But the power to create new viruses, and the research funding obtainable by doing so, was too tempting. They pushed ahead with gain-of-function experiments. They lobbied against the moratorium imposed on Federal funding for gain-of-function research in 2014, and it was raised in 2017.

    The benefits of the research in preventing future epidemics have so far been nil, the risks vast. If research on the SARS1 and MERS viruses could only be done at the BSL3 safety level, it was surely illogical to allow any work with novel coronaviruses at the lesser level of BSL2. Whether or not SARS2 escaped from a lab, virologists around the world have been playing with fire.

    Their behavior has long alarmed other biologists. In 2014 scientists calling themselves the Cambridge Working Group urged caution on creating new viruses. In prescient words, they specified the risk of creating a SARS2-like virus. “Accident risks with newly created ‘potential pandemic pathogens’ raise grave new concerns,” they wrote. “Laboratory creation of highly transmissible, novel strains of dangerous viruses, especially but not limited to influenza, poses substantially increased risks. An accidental infection in such a setting could trigger outbreaks that would be difficult or impossible to control.”

    When molecular biologists discovered a technique for moving genes from one organism to another, they held a public conference at Asilomar in 1975 to discuss the possible risks. Despite much internal opposition, they drew up a list of stringent safety measures that could be relaxed in future — and duly were — when the possible hazards had been better assessed.

    When the CRISPR technique for editing genes was invented, biologists convened a joint report by the US, UK and Chinese national academies of science to urge restraint on making heritable changes to the human genome. Biologists who invented gene drives have also been open about the dangers of their work and have sought to involve the public.

    You might think the SARS2 pandemic would spur virologists to re-evaluate the benefits of gain-of-function research, even to engage the public in their deliberations. But no. Many virologists deride lab escape as a conspiracy theory, and others say nothing. They have barricaded themselves behind a Chinese wall of silence which so far is working well to allay, or at least postpone, journalists’ curiosity and the public’s wrath. Professions that cannot regulate themselves deserve to get regulated by others, and this would seem to be the future that virologists are choosing for themselves.

    4. The US role in funding the Wuhan Institute of Virology. From June 2014 to May 2019, Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance had a grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, to do gain-of-function research with coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Whether or not SARS2 is the product of that research, it seems a questionable policy to farm out high-risk research to unsafe foreign labs using minimal safety precautions. And if the SARS2 virus did indeed escape from the Wuhan institute, then the NIH will find itself in the terrible position of having funded a disastrous experiment that led to death of more than 3 million worldwide, including more than half a million of its own citizens.

    The responsibility of the NIAID and NIH is even more acute because for the first three years of the grant to EcoHealth Alliance, there was a moratorium on funding gain-of-function research. Why didn’t the two agencies therefore halt the federal funding, as apparently required to do so by law? Because someone wrote a loophole into the moratorium.

    The moratorium specifically barred funding any gain-of-function research that increased the pathogenicity of the flu, MERS, or SARS viruses. But then a footnote on page 2 of the moratorium document states that “[a]n exception from the research pause may be obtained if the head of the USG funding agency determines that the research is urgently necessary to protect the public health or national security.”

    This seems to mean that either the director of the NIAID, Anthony Fauci, or the director of the NIH, Francis Collins, or maybe both, would have invoked the footnote in order to keep the money flowing to Shi’s gain-of-function research.

    “Unfortunately, the NIAID director and the NIH director exploited this loophole to issue exemptions to projects subject to the Pause—preposterously asserting the exempted research was ‘urgently necessary to protect public health or national security’ — thereby nullifying the Pause,” Ebright said in an interview with Independent Science News.

    When the moratorium was ended in 2017, it didn’t just vanish but was replaced by a reporting system, the Potential Pandemic Pathogens Control and Oversight (P3CO) Framework, which required agencies to report for review any dangerous gain-of-function work they wished to fund.

    According to Ebright, both Collins and Fauci “have declined to flag and forward proposals for risk-benefit review, thereby nullifying the P3CO Framework.”

    In his view, the two officials, in dealing with the moratorium and the ensuing reporting system, “have systematically thwarted efforts by the White House, the Congress, scientists, and science policy specialists to regulate GoF [gain-of-function] research of concern.”

    Possibly the two officials had to take into account matters not evident in the public record, such as issues of national security. Perhaps funding the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is believed to have ties with Chinese military virologists, provided a window into Chinese biowarfare research. But whatever other considerations may have been involved, the bottom line is that the National Institutes of Health was supporting gain-of-function research, of a kind that could have generated the SARS2 virus, in an unsupervised foreign lab that was doing work in BSL2 biosafety conditions. The prudence of this decision can be questioned, whether or not SARS2 and the death of 3 million people were the result of it, which emphasizes the need for some better system of control.

    In conclusion. If the case that SARS2 originated in a lab is so substantial, why isn’t this more widely known? As may now be obvious, there are many people who have reason not to talk about it. The list is led, of course, by the Chinese authorities. But virologists in the United States and Europe have no great interest in igniting a public debate about the gain-of-function experiments that their community has been pursuing for years.

    Nor have other scientists stepped forward to raise the issue. Government research funds are distributed on the advice of committees of scientific experts drawn from universities. Anyone who rocks the boat by raising awkward political issues runs the risk that their grant will not be renewed and their research career will be ended. Maybe good behavior is rewarded with the many perks that slosh around the distribution system. And if you thought that Andersen and Daszak might have blotted their reputation for scientific objectivity after their partisan attacks on the lab escape scenario, look at the second and third names on this list of recipients of an $82 million grant announced by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in August 2020.

    The US government shares a strange common interest with the Chinese authorities: Neither is keen on drawing attention to the fact that Shi’s coronavirus work was funded by the US National Institutes of Health. One can imagine the behind-the-scenes conversation in which the Chinese government says, “If this research was so dangerous, why did you fund it, and on our territory too?” To which the US side might reply, “Looks like it was you who let it escape. But do we really need to have this discussion in public?”

    Fauci is a longtime public servant who served with integrity under President Trump and has resumed leadership in the Biden Administration in handling the COVID-19 epidemic. Congress, no doubt understandably, may have little appetite for hauling him over the coals for the apparent lapse of judgment in funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan.

    To these serried walls of silence must be added that of the mainstream media. To my knowledge, no major newspaper or television network has yet provided readers with an in-depth news story of the lab escape scenario, such as the one you have just read, although some have run brief editorials or opinion pieces. One might think that any plausible origin of a virus that has killed three million people would merit a serious investigation. Or that the wisdom of continuing gain-of-function research, regardless of the virus’s origin, would be worth some probing. Or that the funding of gain-of-function research by the NIH and NIAID during a moratorium on such research would bear investigation. What accounts for the media’s apparent lack of curiosity?

    The virologists’ omertà is one reason. Science reporters, unlike political reporters, have little innate skepticism of their sources’ motives; most see their role largely as purveying the wisdom of scientists to the unwashed masses. So when their sources won’t help, these journalists are at a loss.

    Another reason, perhaps, is the migration of much of the media toward the left of the political spectrum. Because President Trump said the virus had escaped from a Wuhan lab, editors gave the idea little credence. They joined the virologists in regarding lab escape as a dismissible conspiracy theory. During the Trump administration, they had no trouble in rejecting the position of the intelligence services that lab escape could not be ruled out. But when Avril Haines, President Biden’s director of national intelligence, said the same thing, she too was largely ignored. This is not to argue that editors should have endorsed the lab escape scenario, merely that they should have explored the possibility fully and fairly.

    People round the world who have been pretty much confined to their homes for the last year might like a better answer than their media are giving them. Perhaps one will emerge in time. After all, the more months pass without the natural emergence theory gaining a shred of supporting evidence, the less plausible it may seem. Perhaps the international community of virologists will come to be seen as a false and self-interested guide. The common sense perception that a pandemic breaking out in Wuhan might have something to do with a Wuhan lab cooking up novel viruses of maximal danger in unsafe conditions could eventually displace the ideological insistence that whatever Trump said can’t be true.

    And then let the reckoning begin.

    Acknowledgements

    The first person to take a serious look at the origins of the SARS2 virus was Yuri Deigin, a biotech entrepreneur in Russia and Canada. In a long and brilliant essay, he dissected the molecular biology of the SARS2 virus and raised, without endorsing, the possibility that it had been manipulated. The essay, published on April 22, 2020, provided a roadmap for anyone seeking to understand the virus’s origins. Deigin packed so much information and analysis into his essay that some have doubted it could be the work of a single individual and suggested some intelligence agency must have authored it. But the essay is written with greater lightness and humor than I suspect are ever found in CIA or KGB reports, and I see no reason to doubt that Deigin is its very capable sole author.

    In Deigin’s wake have followed several other skeptics of the virologists’ orthodoxy. Nikolai Petrovsky calculated how tightly the SARS2 virus binds to the ACE2 receptors of various species and found to his surprise that it seemed optimized for the human receptor, leading him to infer the virus might have been generated in a laboratory. Alina Chan published a paper showing that SARS2 from its first appearance was very well adapted to human cells.

    One of the very few establishment scientists to have questioned the virologists’ absolute rejection of lab escape is Richard Ebright, who has long warned against the dangers of gain-of-function research. Another is David A. Relman of Stanford University. “Even though strong opinions abound, none of these scenarios can be confidently ruled in or ruled out with currently available facts,” he wrote. Kudos too to Robert Redfield, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who told CNN on March 26, 2021 that the “most likely” cause of the epidemic was “from a laboratory,” because he doubted that a bat virus could become an extreme human pathogen overnight, without taking time to evolve, as seemed to be the case with SARS2.

    Steven Quay, a physician-researcher, has applied statistical and bioinformatic tools to ingenious explorations of the virus’s origin, showing for instance how the hospitals receiving the early patients are clustered along the Wuhan №2 subway line which connects the Institute of Virology at one end with the international airport at the other, the perfect conveyor belt for distributing the virus from lab to globe.

    In June 2020 Milton Leitenberg published an early survey of the evidence favoring lab escape from gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

    Many others have contributed significant pieces of the puzzle. “Truth is the daughter,” said Francis Bacon, “not of authority but time.” The efforts of people such as those named above are what makes it so.

    Nicholas Wade is a science writer, editor, and author who has worked on the staff of Nature, Science, and, for many years, the New York Times

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/05/2021 – 22:10

  • Watch: Thousands Of Ford Pickups Sit Idle In Kentucky Lots, Awaiting Semi Chip-Related Components
    Watch: Thousands Of Ford Pickups Sit Idle In Kentucky Lots, Awaiting Semi Chip-Related Components

    Alongside Interstate 71, there sits thousands of Ford Super Duty trucks, parked in rows and waiting on parts.

    The scene is the latest sign of an ongoing semiconductor crisis that has stung not only the entire auto industry – but Ford specifically, who was the latest auto manufacturer to slash its expectations for full year production as a result of the shortage.

    As a result, “thousands” of America’s best selling pickup trucks can be seen sitting along the highway near Sparta, Kentucky. There were 22,000 vehicles awaiting installation of chip related components, the Detroit Free Press reported this week.

    Kelli Felker, Ford global manufacturing and labor communications manager said this week: “Ford will build and hold the vehicles for a number of weeks, then ship the vehicles to dealers once the modules are available and comprehensive quality checks are complete.”

    “The semiconductor shortage and the impact to production will get worse before it gets better,” Ford CEO Jim Farley said during the company’s earnings call last week. 

    Wall Street has been, and will continue to “pay attention” to the lots, and specifically America’s best selling pickup truck apparently hitting a full-on production stand still. 

    Ford claims its shortage is no different than many other domestic manufacturers. “All automakers will be dramatically impacted by the chip shortage so it sure seems off that Ford got punished for its transparent honesty,” one analyst commented, supporting that view. Jennifer Flake, executive director of global product communications, said: “The global semiconductor shortage is affecting automakers around the world — as well as other industries, including consumer electronics companies.” 

    The Detroit Free Press estimates that lost vehicle production globally this year has been projected to be:

    • Ford, 362,663 fewer vehicles
    • General Motors, 326,651
    • Renault Nissan Mitsubishi, 284,948
    • Volkswagen, 207,521
    • Stellantis, 202,486
    • Toyota, 113,555
    • Honda, 82,482

    Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions, concluded: “This is a growing concern. Like COVID last year, from the beginning it seemed like it would go away in the near term but as the months go by, it’s growing into a bigger and bigger issue.”

    He continued: “It takes so long to get a plant up and running that’s dedicated to these particular chips. With the increased computerization of vehicles, these chips are the lifeblood. They operate the powertrain control unit, the infotainment. You can drive a car without the infotainment system but you can’t sell a car without an infotainment system. You can’t run an engine without certain chips. They’re the nerve center of different sections of the vehicle.”

    “Estimates project the full recovery of the auto chip supply will stretch into the fourth quarter of this year and possibly even into 2022, making industry volume recovery in the second half of the year even more challenging,” Farley concluded. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/05/2021 – 21:50

  • "An American Tragedy": Restaurants Ready to Hire, But Government Payments Keep Workers Home
    “An American Tragedy”: Restaurants Ready to Hire, But Government Payments Keep Workers Home

    Authored by Bowen Xiao via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    As more and more states start easing pandemic restrictions, restaurants large and small are grappling with a widespread problem: hiring employees.

    Mark Fox, owner of The Ragtrader & Bo Peep Cocktail and Highball Store in New York City on April 29, 2021. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

    Owners and managers from New York, California, Washington, and Chicago told The Epoch Times hiring woes have become a nightmare amid a litany of other challenges like indoor occupancy rules. They say the federal unemployment bonuses handed out during the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic incentivized people to stay home instead of working.

    Now, restaurants are starting the long, hard, and costly climb back to profitability. The lockdowns imposed across the country a year ago have since put out of business over 110,000 eateries, some of them permanently.

    It’s become so dire that one McDonald’s location in Florida started paying $50 to anyone who would show up for a job interview. Other franchises like Taco Bell, which needs at least 5,000 new employees, are holding hiring events in parking lots.

    Hiring difficulties have long existed in the service industry, even before the pandemic. But Hudson Riehle, the senior vice president for research at the National Restaurant Association said it’s reaching unprecedented levels.

    “When it comes to recruiting workforce, in January, 7 percent of restaurant operators rated recruitment and retention of workforce as their top challenge; by April that number had risen to 57 percent,” Riehle told The Epoch Times.

    “With fewer people in the workforce, the stimulus supports still in place, worker safety concerns, the need for caregivers to remain at home, and much greater competition with other industries for workers, operators are returning to pre-pandemic recruitment techniques for hiring,” he said.

    ‘An American Tragedy’

    Mark Fox, a Dublin native who lives in New York City, owns four restaurants in the Big Apple. While business is now finally starting to pick up, hiring troubles have slowed down the momentum.

    “We have difficulty hiring hourly workers, bartenders, servers, bar-backs, busboys, runners, overnight cleaning staff,” Fox told The Epoch Times inside his flagship restaurant, The Ragtrader & Bo Peep Cocktail and Highball Store.

    “We are probably 60 employees short,” he said. “I have one restaurant in Greenwich Village that I haven’t reopened yet because they don’t have the manpower.”

    Mark Fox, owner of The Ragtrader & Bo Peep Cocktail and Highball Store in New York City on April 29, 2021. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

    The Ragtrader & Bo Peep Cocktail and Highball Store in New York City on April 29, 2021. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

    The Ragtrader, a 300-seat restaurant in its fourth week of reopening, was hit hard last year. Fox said he lost a “devastating” amount of money. He said revenue levels currently are half of what he made in 2019 but that the needle is “moving in the right direction.”

    According to Fox, the biggest factor behind the difficulty in hiring is the enhanced unemployment benefits, which now extend until the beginning of September. While he stressed it was necessary earlier in the pandemic, he believes the federal government has continued it for too long.

    “It’s not financially beneficial for [people] to return to work,” he said. “So we’re in a real crisis with respect to labor shortfall.”

    As Fox told his story, he described the emotional struggle he dealt with as he was forced to lay off workers on a long-term basis. At the time, they had no other resources to pull money from and Fox felt powerless to help them.

    While he is an advocate of responsible social distancing and hygiene practices, Fox believes the lockdown restrictions in the city were arbitrary and not based on evidence.

    “I think there was a distrust from the state government. A lot of people lost their businesses and lost their livelihoods and their dreams because of it,” he said. “And I think it’s an American tragedy, to be perfectly honest with you.”

    New York City and New York state had different restrictions last year. Fox pointed out one that made him scratch his head: guests were not allowed to sit at the bar counter in New York City but they were in New York State. Restaurants in New York City tend to be smaller and the rule made it impossible for a lot of places to stay open.

    And while New York state has been allowed a 50 percent occupancy right through to today, New York City closed down twice and restaurants were given 25 percent occupancy mandates for many months. Fox described how he had to pay tens of thousands of dollars to bring in protective equipment, sanitizing equipment, temperature checkers, and more.

    The Ragtrader & Bo Peep Cocktail and Highball Store in New York City on April 29, 2021. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

    The Ragtrader & Bo Peep Cocktail and Highball Store in New York City on April 29, 2021. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

    People spent money they didn’t have, and ended up closed again, he said. He also called the 10 p.m. curfew “ridiculous.”

    “I believe our state and city leaders didn’t do their job,” he said. “I think that they made arbitrary decisions based on hunches. I hope that they’re held to account for it.”

    Andrew Rigie the executive director at the NYC Hospitality Alliance, a nonprofit association representing eating and drinking establishments, said restaurants are facing a “complex labor shortage” on top of an economic crisis.

    “We need a plan and policies to help get more people back to work,” Rigie told The Epoch Times via email.

    Unemployment Checks

    Jim Walker, a local restauranteur in California and former president of the Newport Beach Restaurant Association, said the entire industry has been thrown into disarray.

    “There is a huge shortage in back-of-the-house kitchen staff, and those who are available are dictating what they want to be paid,” Walker told The Epoch Times. “Finding hostesses and bartenders is our biggest ongoing challenge.”

    Because of this, Walker is now offering bonuses for new hires who stay on for a certain length of time and offering existing staff referral bonuses. He owns three restaurants—Bungalow Restaurant, Cedar Creek, Domenico’s Pizza—and is set to open another in July.

    While business is coming back for him, costs are “rising significantly,” he said noting that cattle breeders have cut back on their herds due to a lack of demand and that in one week, meat costs for a bone-in ribeye went up $7 per pound.

    On top of that, Walker pays $100,000 per year in credit card fees. Unemployment benefits, he said, are also discouraging people from working.

    “People are staying home because they can make more money from stimulus extension than if they go back to work,” he said.

    The outside of the Bungalow Restaurant in Corona del Mar, Calif. (Photo courtesy of Bungalow Restaurant)

    “Those coming across the border who might normally immediately become part of the labor market are not doing so because of all the government aid currently being handed out,” he added. “They are not motivated or desperate to get a job once they are in the U.S.”

    New York City, for example, has set aside $2.1 billion in funds from the state budget to pay illegal immigrants who lost work during the pandemic.

    Walker’s wife recently went to a restaurant in San Juan Capistrano. When the bill came there was a 4 percent “Kitchen Appreciation Fee.” Some restaurants, according to Walker, are now charging a “COVID Recovery Fee” as well, and many consumers are not even noticing the extra charges.

    One chef and owner of a seafood restaurant franchise in California summed up the dismal situation in a now-viral Twitter post.

    “There are no employees available in California,” Andrew Gruel wrote on April 29. “We are paying dishwashers $21 to start. The two main reasons people tell me they won’t work: They are making enough on unemployment and would rather not work; 2. With schools closed, they can’t pay someone to watch their children.”

    Gruel added in a follow-up post that not a single person he spoke to said they were scared of the virus.

    Out of Options

    Keisha Rucke, owner of The Soul Shack, said her restaurant is short-staffed and she is always on the lookout for new hires.

    Rucke told The Epoch Times she needs four more servers, a line person for the day and one for the evening, and another cleaning crew. Her cooking staff, however, have stayed with her through everything over the last two years since they opened.

    “I just hired two cashiers. I couldn’t get cashiers for a month,” she said. “I literally had people here multitasking. I was cashiering, I actually had to hire my daughter to come in.”

    Two of her friends who own restaurants in the area told her they had to adjust their hours for dine-in because of a lack of servers. Rucke said she now is paying a higher hourly rate for her own servers in order to entice them into work.

    Keisha Rucker at her Soul Shack restaurant in Chicago, on April 30, 2021. (Cara Ding/The Epoch Times)

    Marty Cunningham, a cook at the Soul Shack restaurant in Chicago, on April 30, 2021. (Cara Ding/The Epoch Times)

    She believes there are multiple reasons why hiring is hard, including that people are still taking in unemployment checks that are probably higher than the paychecks they would get from working, or they are still afraid of coming out due to the pandemic.

    “I don’t know what is that we can do,” she said. “I see so many signs where people are looking for servers and line persons and cashiers that I don’t think it’s only a restaurant industry thing at this point.”

    Unpredictability

    Eric St. Clair, manager at Proper 21, a bar located in Washington, said the hardest part of hiring for them was the unpredictability. One day they would be super busy all day, and then the next they would be understaffed.

    They closed entirely for 3 months last year, and while they had a few former employees come back, some went to other industries like beauty and construction. While hiring is a factor, the biggest issue the bar is facing now is the restaurant restrictions imposed by Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser.

    “It’s just kind of crippling restaurants now,” he told The Epoch Times. “They are still keeping us at 25 percent when other states have lifted outdoor masks and Virginia is going back to bar seating.”

    “I wish she would open it up,” he said. “A bunch of bars have sent her letters recommending opening back up, but she’s just not budging right now.”

    St. Clair noted that smaller restaurants were hurt much harder than corporate restaurants or chains. He described how for the longest time, their restaurants would just have one manager and one bartender doing everything.

    Emel Akan, Cara Ding, and Lynn Hackman contributed to this report 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/05/2021 – 21:30

  • Bond Shorts Shake-Out Paves Way For Higher Yields In May
    Bond Shorts Shake-Out Paves Way For Higher Yields In May

    Authored by Anchalee Worrachate. Bloomberg Reports and Markets Live Commentator

    Last month’s bull run in bonds despite strong economic data may not continue after short positions were greatly reduced and seasonal demand from Japanese buyers dissipated. This means there is no barrier for yields to move higher if data continues to surprise to the upside.

    Last month’s rally that pushed 10-year Treasury yields lower by as much as 20 basis points was driven partly by demand from Japanese investors such as pension funds switching from foreign stocks into foreign bonds in April, the first month of their fiscal year.

    Japanese holders had purchased $30 billion of overseas bonds as of April 23, the most since November. That re-balancing is likely to have completed.

    There was also talk of buying from momentum-based investors such as CTAs. This means the market is probably no longer very short, confirmed by proprietary indicators from major market players including Jefferies and JPMorgan.

    With bond underweights’ froth shaken off, data is likely to drive yields. The re-opening of the economy, supply constraints, pent-up consumer demand, excess savings and base effects should boost growth and inflation numbers in the near term. No wonder few analysts who contribute to Bloomberg yield forecasts revised their estimates lower in April. In fact, they boosted them, now expecting 10-year Treasury yields to be at 1.71% by the end of 2Q.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/05/2021 – 21:10

  • CIA Embraces Left-Wing Ideology, Leftists Deny That This Is Happening
    CIA Embraces Left-Wing Ideology, Leftists Deny That This Is Happening

    Authored by Michael Tracy via mtracey.substack.com,

    In a mind-blowing marketing video first published on March 25, but which had escaped widespread notice until recent days, the CIA enthusiastically endorsed several key tenets of what has now indisputably become a hegemonic left/liberal ideological and rhetorical construct:

    “I am a woman of color,” the video’s protagonist, an unnamed CIA officer, triumphantly proclaims. “I am a cisgender millennial who’s been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. I am intersectional, but my existence is not a box-checking exercise.” 

    She continues, “I used to struggle with imposter syndrome. But at 36, I refuse to internalize misguided patriarchal ideas of what a woman can or should be. I am tired of feeling like I’m supposed to apologize for the space I occupy.” 

    Screengrab from the CIA’s empowering new “intersectionality” video

    The video is a quick tour de force of the tropes and quirks most closely associated with contemporary “Woke Ideology,” such as: 

    • A direct reference to “intersectionality” doctrine — arguably the ideology’s core operating premise, taken to mean that a broad range of identity-based oppressions “intersect” and must be overturned

    • Invocation of the term “cisgender,” which is intended to signify the CIA’s inclusiveness of non-gender normative people, i.e. Trans

    • A denunciation of “patriarchy,” one of the most abhorred identity-based systems of oppression

    • Weird pride in one’s self-reported diagnosis of mental illness, as though it’s just another identity trait to be advertised and embraced, rather than a debilitating ailment to be cured

    • The now-ubiquitous use of the noun “space” in reference not to any physical location, but rather to the vague metaphysical force one purportedly brings to bear in life… or something like that. (“Know your worth. Command your space,” the woman further adds) 

    “Woke Ideology” is an imprecise, amorphous term for a wide-ranging set of beliefs and practices; adherents to the ideology will often deny that such a thing even exists. And yet, everyone who hasn’t been living under a rock knows approximately what the term means, recognizes the rhetorical style by which it is expressed, and immediately understands that this video is an instantiation of it. Sort of like how one can identify instantiations of “communism” or “libertarianism” notwithstanding the perpetual debates about the precise definition of those ideological designations. 

    While the video was produced by the CIA, it could’ve just as easily been produced by any Fortune 500 company or foundation-funded activist organization, all of which are now reading from more-or-less the same script. 

    The CIA video is actually just one installment in a running series called “Humans of the CIA,” a title possibly intended to be reminiscent of the Humans of New York social media craze, wherein ordinary citizens are “humanized” with schmaltzy and touchingly relatable stories. Just as the CIA has at least attempted to do with this series.

    Another “Humans of the CIA” video features a man narrating his Journey™ with the following quote: “Growing up gay in a small Southern town, I was lucky to have a wonderful and accepting family. I always struggled with the idea that I might not be able to discuss my personal life at work. Imagine my surprise when I was taking my oath at CIA, and I noticed a rainbow on then-director Brennan’s lanyard.”

    The Gay CIA officer who was really excited to see the rainbow lanyard

    “Inclusion is a core value here,” the man who Grew Up Gay continues. “Officers from the top down work hard to ensure that every single person — whatever their gender, gender identity, race, disability, or sexual orientation — can bring their entire self to work every day.”

    John Brennan, the former CIA Director under Barack Obama (and a main character in the CIA-generated Trump/Russia saga) happens to feature in both of these videos as a man who seeks to ensure that CIA agents can “bring their entire self to work every day,” as opposed to only part of their selves, like just a few limbs. There he is, smiling alongside the Latina Woman as a symbol of CIA leadership’s commitment to equity and inclusion. Also making a cameo appearance is one of Brennan’s successors, Gina Haspel, whose appointment was heralded by the Trump Administration as a victory for “women’s empowerment.” Clearly, there’s nothing partisan about the Agency’s newfound passionate devotion to these identity-related values!

    John Brennan’s special guest appearance in the “intersectionality” video

    Though it’s possible that the CIA marketing department’s zeal to adopt this lingo intensified with the onset of a new Democratic administration, the PR scheme appears to have predated the inauguration of Joe Biden. On January 4, 2021, a video was posted in which another unnamed agent touts his experience as a “chief of corporate strategy and education for diversity and inclusion” as wonderful preparation for a career in the CIA. 

    One struggles to imagine Donald Trump personally authorizing such a marketing campaign (although, who knows). Either way, the CIA’s role in left/liberal political activism reached a certain crescendo under the presidency of Trump. Brennan was personally integral in launching the narrative that Trump had “colluded” with the Russian government in order to subvert American democracy, and this narrative became an object of furious fixation on the liberal/left — in part due to Brennan’s constant agitation on Twitter and his perch in corporate media: 

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

    (For anyone who denies that segments of “the left” were invested in the Trump/Russia narrative, please take a look at the organizations which sponsored rallies in defense of Special Counsel Robert Mueller throughout 2017 and 2018. They include the Working Families Party, Progressive Democrats of America, People for the American Way, Indivisible, and others. It wasn’t just wishy-washy “liberals” or “centrists” doing this.) 

    So, the CIA’s latest rhetorical overture could be understood as a continuation of the trend whereby the CIA’s prerogatives increasingly align with the prerogatives of the foundation-funded left/liberal nonprofit complex and activist class. Perhaps not coincidentally, former (or “former”) CIA agents comprised a significant share of Democrats’ incoming freshmen when the Party won control of the House of Representatives in 2018.

    Whenever they are confronted with the reality that their rhetorical stylings are being aped across the entire country’s power centers, now including the Intelligence Community, left-wing activists and journalists tend to angrily disclaim any culpability. The CIA’s decision to institutionally pronounce itself a wellspring of “intersectionality,” they’ll insist, is all fake and cynical co-optation. 

    However, this isn’t so much a “co-optation” as it is a natural evolution of Woke Ideology’s imperatives. The CIA can easily adopt something approximating an “intersectional” attitude toward racial, gender, gender identity-related oppressions and continue on with its ordinary mission. In fact, the adoption of this rhetoric could enhance its mission by strengthening its domestic cultural cachet. Say John Brennan is a true believer in intersectionality doctrine — which definitely is not out of the question — and truly believes the CIA can help carry out its goals. What then?

    Asserting some discontinuity between these concepts’ newfound universal popularity and left-wing activism makes no sense. Is there any more potent left-wing belief in circulation at the moment than that of “intersectional” oppressions, and their all-pervasive, defining influence on American life? All the CIA is doing is signaling its eagerness to partake in the ideological project of dismantling these alleged oppressions. In a way, this is a true victory for the Activist Left — the potency of whose beliefs are gaining purchase at a spellbinding pace, probably never more rapidly than in the past year.

    But instead of interrogating why it is that the rhetorical and ideological paradigm they’ve relentlessly promoted fits so easily within the country’s most powerful institutions, from Wall Street banks to the Big Tech monopolies to the CIA, left-wing activists and journalists will often petulantly change the subject. After I commented on the “Woke CIA” video yesterday via Twitter, hardcore radical Rage Against the Machine frontman Tom Morello came out of nowhere to accuse me of denying the “evils” of past CIA actions — such as assassinations and coups — and acting like the “real problem” with the CIA is their sudden practice of distributing so-called “woke pamphlets.”

    I’m reading a very illuminating book right now (not a pamphlet) that details numerous largely-forgotten brutal CIA transgressions, such as a covert 1958 mission which resulted in the bombing of a market and a church on Ambon Island, Indonesia, obliterating civilians. Anyone unfamiliar with this and other chapters in CIA history should “educate” themselves, and perhaps that will help them understand what the boldly subversive left-wing guitar player evidently doesn’t — which is that “Woke Ideology” is perfectly compatible with the CIA’s institutional prerogative to further entrench its own power. 

    That history makes it doubly absurd for liberals (and, albeit more tacitly, leftists) to have been so tolerant of CIA interventions into domestic political affairs because their short-term political objectives (disabling and ousting Trump) happened to align. Now, they seem angrier with those who point out the self-evident absurdity of this CIA marketing tactic than with the tactic itself. Maybe that’s because they’ve been prime movers in creating the political conditions under which adopting such tactics is considered shrewd.

    (Last summer Morello professed himself a huge fan of Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility, one of the worst books ever written and a main source of the insane “anti-racist” precepts being adopted across corporate America. So that gives some insight into where he’s coming from.)

    Liberals and leftists have to constantly run around disclaiming that their beliefs, aesthetics, and speech codes have become hegemonic because posturing as beleaguered, noble outsiders is fundamental to their self-conception. As one Twitter commenter put it to me, “My view is that the CIA has looked at the beliefs of those coming out of elite schools and decided this is how they have to pitch to them.” Well… yeah.

    Many don’t find it interesting or worthy of comment that ideological prescriptions and rhetorical formulations once largely relegated to Tumblr and obscure academic circles have migrated to the highest levels of the US intelligence apparatus within a matter of years. They should feel free to keep screeching into the void online, while others attempt to critically evaluate this culture-upheaving phenomenon.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/05/2021 – 20:50

  • How Bezos Got Revenge Against The Tabloids For Exposing His Relationship With Lauren Sanchez
    How Bezos Got Revenge Against The Tabloids For Exposing His Relationship With Lauren Sanchez

    As Bill and Melinda Gates divorce shocks corporate America, even capturing the attention of main street given their status as a preeminent global power couple, many observers have been looking for parallels between the Gates split and the “de-coupling” of Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos. Ultimately, MacKenzie agreed to walk with $38 billion, the biggest divorce settlement ever. It’s widely expected that Melinda Gates could walk away with even more.

    As the world scrutinizes the Gates situation for similarities and differences with the Bezos split as (however the couple’s assets are divided could have an impact on the share price of numerous companies) Bloomberg on Wednesday published an excerpt from a new book by Brad Stone, the tech writer and author known for his coverage of Amazon.

    In his new book, Stone reminds the world just how dramatic the Bezos divorce saga was. Almost from the beginning, tabloid stories about Bezos’ relationship with Lauren Sanchez, triggered a PR battle that pitted Bezos against a suite of adversaries, including President Trump, National Enquirer publisher AMI, and the Saudi Royal Family (and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman) who were miffed about The Bezos-owned Washington Post’s coverage of the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a former WaPo opinion contributor.

    But as Stone reports, while Bezos came out on top in the affair, successfully portraying himself as the victim of a lurid plot to embarrass him by exposing his personal life, he largely has only himself to blame for how it all started.

    The Bloomberg excerpt starts with Bezos addressing the tabloid reports about his divorce and relationship with Sanchez. As has been previously reported, Bezos and his wife grew apart when he started attending glitzy Hollywood events. Sanchez, the wife of a prominent venture capitalist, was more than willing to accompany Bezos on the red carpet. One source described her as “basically the opposite of MacKenzie”.

    Now, facing Amazon’s leadership group, the S-team, Bezos addressed the elephant in the room. “The story is completely wrong and out of order,” he said. “MacKenzie and I have had good, healthy, adult conversations about it. She is fine. The kids are fine. The media is having a field day.” Then he tried to refocus the conversation on the matter at hand: personnel projections for the current year. “All of this is very distracting, so thank you for being focused on the business,” he said.

    News of the affair came as “a shock” to many Amazon executives. But some couldn’t help but wonder about his motivations when he started pushing the board to consider a proposal to introduce a new class of shares that would help Bezos amplify his control of the company, something that would help him cement his dominance of the board even after giving up some of his stake.

    By 2018, a year before the divorce, Bezos and Sanchez were seeing each other more or less openly. Bezos would occasionally be seen squirering Sanchez to the Washington Post’s printing press, or to visits at Amazon headquarters in Seattle, or elsewhere around his vast empire.

    At some point, Bezos grew comfortable “sexting” with Sanchez, she was, unbeknownst to him, sharing his sexts and some of his texts with her brother, Michael Sanchez, who would later leak them to tabloids and emerge as one of Bezos’ chief antagonists in the drama, along with President Trump, the Saudi Royal Family (chiefly Crown Prince MbS) and the National Enquirer.

    In the end, Sanchez sold out his sister and her boyfriend to AMI, the publisher of the National Enquirer and other tabloids, for a $200,000 payout, among the highest sums ever paid by the company for exclusive celebrity photos.

    Even after paying, AMI sat on the story for weeks as it mulled whether publishing would be a smart move for the business. The company had just inked a non-prosecution agreement for killing negative stories about President Trump during the campaign, and the prospect of being sued by the world’s richest man made AMI publisher David Pecker extremely nervous, even as he praised a draft of the story as the “best piece of journalism” the magazine had ever published.

    Sanchez helped the Enquirer shape the story for months.

    For the rest of that fall, the Enquirer worked on the story with Michael Sanchez’s help. He emailed the paper more photographs and text messages and tipped off editors to the couple’s travel plans. When he had dinner with Bezos and his sister at the Felix Trattoria restaurant in Venice, Calif., on Nov. 30, two reporters were stationed at tables nearby as photographers clicked away surreptitiously. On the promised explicit selfie, though, Sanchez seemed to equivocate. He arranged to share it with Howard in L.A. in early November, then canceled the meeting. A few weeks later, on Nov. 21, after Enquirer editors kept hounding him, he finally agreed to show it to Simpson while Howard and Robertson watched via FaceTime from New York.

    Amusingly, he has developed a detailed rationalization for why none of this constitutes “selling out” his sister – and that by cooperating with the tabloids, he was actually helping Bezos,

    None of this, Sanchez claims, was a betrayal of his sister. She and Bezos were conducting their relationship out in the open, and it was only a matter of time before their families and the larger world discovered it. “Everything I did protected Jeff, Lauren, and my family,” Sanchez later said in an email. “I would never sell out anyone.” He also believed, naively, that his source agreement with AMI precluded the media company from using the most embarrassing material he had provided them.

    On one issue, at least, it appears that Sanchez didn’t betray his sister. He later told FBI investigators that he never actually had an explicit photograph of Bezos in his possession. In the FaceTime meeting on Nov. 21, Sanchez didn’t show a picture of Bezos at all. It was a random photograph of male genitalia that he’d captured from an escort website called Rent.Men.

    According to Bloomberg, the rumored Bezos “dick pick” is actually a fraud. As for the involvement of Saudi Arabia and Trump, we already know that MbS was spying on Bezos after hacking his phone with a phishing text. But while the National Enquirer did try to pressure Bezos to make a statement saying their coverage wasn’t politically motivated, any links to Saudi Arabia were murky, at best. It all culminated with Bezos shocking Medium post, published in February 2019, where he shared copies of his correspondence with the Enquirer. This forced the tabloid to back down since it raised the possibility of political and legal blowback.

    Bloomberg’s excerpt ends with a glimpse of the megayacht that many suspect is being built outside Rotterdam for Bezos.

    Employees now had even more reasons to wonder. What did the future hold for their founder? At least part of the answer to that could be found in the shipyards of the Dutch custom yacht builder Oceanco. There, outside Rotterdam, a new creation was secretly taking shape: a 127-meter-long, three-mast schooner about which practically nothing was known, even in the whispering confines of luxury boat builders—except that upon completion, it will be one of the finest sailing yachts in existence. Oceanco was also building Bezos an accompanying support yacht, which had been expressly commissioned and designed to include—you guessed it—a helipad.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/05/2021 – 20:30

  • BlackRock ESG Hypocrisy Exposed: Firm Backs Palm Oil Producer With History Of Abuses
    BlackRock ESG Hypocrisy Exposed: Firm Backs Palm Oil Producer With History Of Abuses

    BlackRock made a big stink about Warren Buffett’s resistance to a pair of shareholder proposals to mandate ESG and diversity reporting standards across Berkshire Hathaway’s vast business holdings. Buffett ultimately prevailed, as he has in past years, but the backlash this year was more vocal, with a team of Reuters reporters writing that Buffett’s ESG “snub” “risks alienating Wall Street.”

    While some insist that ESG is the way of the future, others contend that it’s more of a fad. Some purveyors of tradeable carbon credits have been accused of selling “worthless” offsets, revealing that the system is actually pretty complicated, and auditing whether these credits are actually behaving as advertised could be a resource-intense endeavor.

    But while BlackRock makes a fuss about reporting standards that, more likely than not, would have little real-world impact, a report published Wednesday by the Financial Times laid bare the ETF giant’s hypocrisy when it comes to enforcing its new ESG “standards”.

    The world’s biggest asset manager, with nearly $9 trillion in assets, has been accused of being inconsistent for supporting a shareholder protest against Procter & Gamble’s sourcing of palm oil from an Indonesian company called Astra Agro Lestari, a subsidiary of the Astra International conglomerate based in Indonesia. The company has been accused of stealing land from local farmers, and other ESG abuses. The company’s product enters the US supply chain via a relationship with Singapore-based Wilmar International, which P&G has since asked to investigate its suppliers.

    But as it happens, BlackRock owns a stake both in Astra International, as well as a small direct stake in its subsidiary. And what has BlackRock done to push reform? Nothing substantial, activists conclude.

    Rights groups and sustainable investment advocates have now turned their attention to BlackRock, which is a significant shareholder in Astra International. According to Bloomberg data, the US fund group is Astra International’s third-largest investor, with a holding worth almost $350m. It also has a small direct holding in Astra Agro Lestari.

    Green finance groups said BlackRock had been inconsistent in its approach to ESG considerations by not openly pressing Astra over its environmental record. The $8.7tn fund house has come under increasing pressure to live up to its 2020 pledges regarding ESG and sustainable investing.

    “It’s incoherent that BlackRock is pushing P&G to clean up its value chain while simultaneously continuing to profit from this same value chain,” said Lara Cuvelier, sustainable investments campaigner at Reclaim Finance, an investor lobby group.

    BlackRock should “make time-bound and detailed requests to the company…and commit to divesting if the requisite changes are not forthcoming,” Cuvelier added.

    BlackRock has long argued that behind-the-scenes conversations with board directors will drive change, but critics argue that companies often only listen to the “ultimate sanction” of divestment.

    Astra International is majority-owned by Hong Kong trading house Jardine Matheson through its Singapore-listed unit, Jardine Cycle and Carriage. BlackRock’s holdings, which have gradually increased over nine years, are mostly held through mutual funds and ETFs. And that’s the problem. While the company can vote against board proposals, BR’s index investing model makes it difficult to threaten divestiture, which activists say is typically the only threat that ESG abusers will take seriously.

    BlackRock said it was “well aware” of the concerns and was “continuously engaged” with companies over sustainability concerns. “Where we believe companies are not moving with sufficient speed and urgency, our most frequent course of action will be to hold directors accountable by voting against their re-election,” it said. At Astra International’s 2020 annual meeting, BlackRock voted against a motion regarding board changes and director remuneration over disclosure issues.

    Circling back to the Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett said over the weekend that he opposed the ESG measures (one of which would have required annual reports about what Berkshire companies were doing to confront climate change, as well as updates on “diversity and inclusion”) because he doesn’t like making “moral judgments” on businesses.

    Buffett isn’t alone: ValueAct’s Jeff Ubben, who once praised BlackRock for its commitment to make ESG and fighting a climate change a priority, recently criticized the fund giant’s measures as misguided.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/05/2021 – 20:10

  • Arkansas Boots Critical Race Theory From State Agency Educational Materials
    Arkansas Boots Critical Race Theory From State Agency Educational Materials

    Arkansas has joined the growing opposition to Critical Race Theory – which posits that white supremacy and systemic racism is embedded in every facet of American life, must be actively corrected by re-engineering society, and anyone who denies this is guilty of ‘white complicity’ and racist themselves.

    As Isabel van Brugen of the Epoch Times recently described it, “CRT has gradually proliferated in recent decades through academia, government structures, school systems, and the corporate world. It redefines human history as a struggle between the “oppressors” (white people) and the “oppressed” (everybody else), similarly to Marxism’s reduction of history to a struggle between the “bourgeois” and the “proletariat.” It labels institutions that emerged in majority-white societies as racist and “white supremacist.”

    On Monday, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) allowed legislation (SB 627) to become law – without endorsing or vetoing it – which effectively ends Critical Race Theory education within state agencies. The bill is described as “an act to prohibit the propagation of divisive concepts” and “to review state entity training materials.”

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    The law, which takes effect in 2022, does not apply to local governments, law enforcement training, or public education according to the Associated Press.

    Arkansas joins Oaklahoma, Idaho, Florida and Texas in various forms of pushback against CRT – with Oklahoma’s House voting last Thursday to ban public schools and universities from teaching the concept, and Texas GOP legislators, who introduced a bill do the same. –

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    Critics of Critical Race Theory have pushed back – insisting that is teaches white children to hate themselves and causes racism.

    More:

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    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/05/2021 – 19:50

  • '50 Cent' Flees New York For Texas After Complaining About COVID Restrictions, High Taxes
    ’50 Cent’ Flees New York For Texas After Complaining About COVID Restrictions, High Taxes

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

    Rapper Curtis ’50 Cent’ Jackson has joined the wave of Americans fleeing New York, announcing that he had moved to Texas after complaining about draconian COVID-19 restrictions and high taxes.

    “I love New York, but I live in Houston now,” 50 Cent told his social media followers. “I’ll explain later.”

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    However, the hip hop star had already made it clear why he was planning to leave the Big Apple in March by responding to Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s vow to lift mask mandates and other lockdown restrictions with the remark, “I’m headed to Texas fuck this.”

     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

    A post shared by 50 Cent (@50cent)

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    The actor and producer is also notorious for flouting COVID rules, having hosted a huge party in an aircraft hangar in St. Petersburg, Florida back in February, putting himself at risk of a massive fine.

    In October last year, Jackson also said he was voting for Trump in an attempt to avoid Joe Biden’s punishing tax policies, which would have taken 62% of his earnings.

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    “I don’t care [if] Trump doesn’t like black people,” 50 Cent said. “62% – are you out of ya f**king mind?”

    50 Cent follows Elon Musk and Joe Rogan in fleeing from a liberal coastal city to low tax Texas, but many ordinary Americans are also making the move.

    A survey conducted in September 2020 found that two in five New Yorkers wanted to leave the city, with the reasons cited being crime and public safety as well as the anemic post-COVID economic recovery.

    Moving trucks became a common sight on the streets, with 2020 showing a 44% increase in home sales in the suburbs compared to the same time period in 2019 as people flee for bigger homes in safer areas.

    As we highlighted yesterday, judging by the supposedly ‘busy’ rush hour traffic in Manhattan, it may take years for New York to recover from draconian lockdown measures.

    *  *  *

    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
    Wed, 05/05/2021 – 19:30

  • Bill Gates Transfers $1.8 Billion In Stocks To Melinda Amid Divorce
    Bill Gates Transfers $1.8 Billion In Stocks To Melinda Amid Divorce

    As reporters look for clues about how Bill and Melinda Gates plan to divide up their fortune (as a reminder, here’s everything we have learned so far) focus is shifting to Cascade, the Gates family office set up with the proceeds from selling Gates’ Microsoft shares, as well as his investment dividends. The family office has long been seen as a piggy bank for the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.

    And according to an SEC filing, Cascade transferred $1.8 billion (14.1MM shares) in Canadian National Railway stock to Melinda French Gates on May 3. Cascade also transferred 2.94 million shares in AutoNation, worth $309M.

    The move makes Ms. Gates the sixth-biggest shareholder in CN, Canada’s largest railway, however, Cascade (controlled by Bill Gates) remains thee largest shareholder, with more than 101M shares worth roughly $11 billion)

    CN is the biggest investment held by Cascade, representing 24.4% of its holdings. Waste disposal company Republic Services is Cascade’s second-largest stake at 23.9%, while heavy equipment make Deere and  is third, at 18%.

    Through Cascade, Gates has interests in real estate, energy and hospitality as well as stakes in dozens of public companies, including Deere & Co. and Republic Services. The couple are also among the largest landowners in America.

    Other investments Gates owners via Cascade include:

    • Berkshire Hathaway Class B $1.69 billion
    • AutoNation $1.9 Billion
    • Ecolab Inc. $6.9 Billion
    • Liberty Global PLC $235.6 Million
    • Waste Management $2.3 Billion

    Gates lists himself as the sole member of Cascade Investment and makes clear that the stocks that he and Melinda own jointly through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust are completely separate from his direct ownership of what’s in his family office hedge fund, Cascade Investment, which operates out of Kirkland, Washington.

    We’re still waiting for more clues about the Gates’ “separation agreement”, as well as any settlement talks.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/05/2021 – 19:10

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May 05

Today’s News 5th May 2021

  • Europe's Vaccine Rollout Relies Heavily On Pfizer/BioNTech
    Europe’s Vaccine Rollout Relies Heavily On Pfizer/BioNTech

    As Europe’s vaccine rollout is picking up pace, Statista’s Felix Richter reports that the European Commission is doubling down on its use of mRNA vaccines, with the Pfizer/BioNTech shot central to its inoculation efforts. According to a statement, the European Commission is about to sign a deal with Pfizer/BioNTech for the delivery of 1.8 billion doses between 2021 and 2023, which would cement the drug’s central role in Europe’s vaccination campaign.

    According to the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 80 million doses of Comirnaty – that’s the official name of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine – had been administered across the EU, Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland by April 18, accounting for 70 percent of all doses administered by that time.

    Infographic: Europe's Vaccine Rollout Relies Heavily on Pfizer/BioNTech | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Following a brief period in which the drug’s share of weekly shots administered dropped below 60 percent as the rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine began, Pfizer’s share of jabs given across Europe has risen back to 67 percent over the past few weeks.

    The blood clot incidents associated with AstraZeneca’s vaccine as well as the company’s failure to meet delivery agreements have led the European Commission to prioritize mRNA vaccines going forward, with the new Pfizer/BioNTech deal a critical step in that direction.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/05/2021 – 02:45

  • Leaked Docs Expose Chinese Leader Xi Jinping's Plan To Control The Global Internet
    Leaked Docs Expose Chinese Leader Xi Jinping’s Plan To Control The Global Internet

    Authored by Nicole Hao and Cathy Ye via The Epoch Times,

    Chinese leader Xi Jinping personally directed the communist regime to focus its efforts to control the global internet, displacing the influential role of the United States, according to internal government documents recently obtained by The Epoch Times.

    In a January 2017 speech, Xi said the “power to control the internet” had become the “new focal point of [China’s] national strategic contest,” and singled out the United States as a “rival force” standing in the way of the regime’s ambitions.

    The ultimate goal was for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to control all content on the global internet, so the regime could wield what Xi described as “discourse power” over communications and discussions on the world stage.

    Xi articulated a vision of “using technology to rule the internet” to achieve total control over every part of the online ecosystem—over applications, content, quality, capital, and manpower.

    His remarks were made at the fourth leadership meeting of the regime’s top internet regulator, the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission, in Beijing on Jan. 4, 2017, and detailed in internal documents issued by the Liaoning Provincial Government in China’s southeast.

    The statements confirm efforts made by Beijing in the past few years to promote its own authoritarian version of the internet as a model for the world.

    In another speech given in April 2016, detailed in an internal document by the Anshan City Government in Liaoning Province, Xi confidently proclaimed that in the “struggle” to control the internet, the CCP has transformed from playing “passive defense” to playing both “attack and defense” at the same time.

    Having successfully built the world’s most sprawling and sophisticated online censorship and surveillance apparatus, known as the Great Firewall, the CCP under Xi is turning outwards, championing a Chinese internet whose values run counter to the open model advocated by the West. Rather than prioritizing the free flow of information, the CCP’s system centers on giving the state the ability to censor, spy on, and control internet data.

    Countering the US

    The Chinese leader acknowledged the regime lagged behind its rival the United States—the dominant player in this field—in key areas such as technology, investments, and talent.

    To realize its ambitions, Xi emphasized the need to “manage internet relations with the United States,” while “making preparations for fighting a hard war” with the country in this area.

    American companies should be used by the regime to reach its goal, Xi said, without elaborating on how this would be done.

    He also directed the regime to increase its cooperation with Europe, developing countries, and member states of Beijing’s “Belt and Road Initiative,” to form a “strategic counterbalance” against the United States.

    The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a massive infrastructure investment project launched by Beijing to connect Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East through a network of rail, sea, and road linkages. The plan has been criticized by the United States and other Western countries as a conduit for Beijing to increase its political and commercial interests in member states while saddling developing countries with heavy debt burdens.

    The BRI has also pushed countries to sign up to “digital silk road” projects—those involving information and communications technology infrastructure. At least 16 countries have signed memoranda of understanding with the regime to work in this area.

    Three-pronged Strategy

    Xi ordered the regime to focus on three “critical” areas in its pursuit of controlling the global internet.

    • First, Beijing needs to be able to “set the rules” governing the international system.

    • Second, it should install CCP surrogates in important positions in global internet organizations.

    • Third, the regime should gain control over the infrastructure that underlies the internet, such as root servers, Xi said.

    Domain Name System (DNS) root servers are key to internet communications around the world. It directs users to websites they intend to visit. There are more than 1,300 root servers in the world, about 20 of which are located in China while the United States has about 10 times that, according to the website root-servers.org.

    If the Chinese regime were to gain control over more root servers, they could then redirect traffic to wherever they want, Gary Miliefsky, cybersecurity expert and publisher of Cyber Defense Magazine, told The Epoch Times. For example, if a user wants to go to a news article about a topic deemed sensitive by Beijing, then the regime’s DNS server could route the user to a fake page saying the article is no longer online.

    “The minute you control the root, you can spoof or fake anything,” he said.

    “You can control what people see, what people don’t see.”

    In recent years, the regime has made headway in advancing Xi’s strategy.

    In 2019, Chinese telecom giant Huawei first proposed the idea for an entirely new internet, called New IP (internet protocol), to replace the half-century-old infrastructure underpinning the web. New IP is touted to be faster, more efficient, flexible, and secure than the current internet, and will be built by the Chinese.

    While New IP may indeed bring about an improved global network, Miliefsky said, “the price for that is freedom.”

    “There’s going to be no free speech. And there’s going to be eavesdropping in real-time, all the time, on everyone,” he said.

    “Everyone who joins it is going to be eavesdropped by a single government.”

    The proposal was made at a September 2019 meeting held at the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a U.N. agency responsible for setting standards for computing and communications issues that is currently headed by Chinese national Zhao Houlin. New IP is set to be formally debated at the ITU World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly to be held in March 2022.

    Miliefsky said the plan is unlikely to gain widespread support among countries, but may be adopted by like-minded authoritarian states such as North Korea, and later by countries that signed onto BRI and are struggling to repay its loans to China.

    This would accelerate a bifurcation of the internet, what analysts such as former Google CEO Eric Schmidt have dubbed the “splinternet,” Miliefsky said. “The communist net and the rest of the world.”

    The Epoch Times has reached out to Huawei for comment.

    Importing Talent

    According to the document, Xi ordered the CCP regime to set up “three ecosystems”—technology, industry, and policy—to develop core internet technologies.

    Having skilled workers was key to this plan, with Xi directing that talent should be hired from around the globe. This would be done through Chinese companies, Xi prescribed.

    He told Chinese firms to “proactively” invite foreign “high-end talents,” and to set up research centers overseas and hire leading ethnic Chinese and foreign specialists to work for them.

    Meanwhile, Xi asked the regime to set up a professional training system in China, which can systematically develop a highly skilled workforce in the long run.

    He also directed officials in each level of government to guide Chinese companies to develop their business plans to align with the regime’s strategic goals, and encourage capable enterprises to take the lead in developing innovations in core technologies.

    Enterprises were to be educated in having “national awareness and safeguarding national interests,” Xi said. Only then should the regime support and encourage their expansion.

    Because talent and critical technology are concentrated overseas, the Chinese leader also ordered authorities to support the development of a group of multinational internet companies that can have global influence.

    Turning the Internet Red

    Xi, in his 2016 speech, described all online content as falling into three categories: “red zone, black zone, and gray zone.”

    “Red zone” content refers to discourse aligned with the CCP’s propaganda requirements, while “black zone” material falls foul of these rules. “Gray zone” content lies in the middle.

    “We must consolidate and expand the red zone and expand its influence in society,” Xi said in a leaked speech in August 2013.

    “We must bravely enter into the black zone [and fight hard] to gradually get it to change its color. We must launch large-scale actions targeting the gray zone to accelerate its conversion to the red zone and prevent it from turning into the black zone.”

    Inside China, the CCP has a stranglehold on online content and discussion through the Great Firewall, a massive internet censorship apparatus that blockades foreign websites and censors content deemed unacceptable to the party. It also hires a massive online troll army, dubbed the “50-cent army,” to manipulate online discussion. A recent report found that the CCP engages 2 million paid internet commentators and draws on a network of 20 million part-time volunteers to carry out online trolling.

    Freedom House, in its 2020 annual internet freedom report, labeled China as the world’s worst abuser of online freedom for the sixth straight year. Chinese citizens have been arrested for using software to circumvent the Great Firewall and punished for posting comments online unfavorable to the Chinese regime. In a now-notorious incident during the early stages of the pandemic, whistleblower doctor Li Wenliang was reprimanded by police for “rumor-mongering” after warning colleagues in a social media chat group about a SARS-like virus in Wuhan City.

    In the 2017 remarks, Xi told the regime to develop a larger group of “red” online influencers to shape users’ perceptions of the CCP. He also called for an expansion of the 50 cent army to operate both inside and outside of China’s internet.

    Since the pandemic, the CCP has sharply escalated its efforts to influence online opinion overseas. Using large networks of troll accounts on Twitter and Facebook, the regime has been able to propagate and amplify propaganda and disinformation on topics such as the pandemic, racial tensions in the United States, and the regime’s oppression of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/05/2021 – 02:00

  • Saudi Arabia Poised To Mend Relations With Assad In Major First Since War Began
    Saudi Arabia Poised To Mend Relations With Assad In Major First Since War Began

    Multiple international reports on Tuesday revealed that Saudi Arabia’s powerful intelligence chief traveled to Damascus Monday to meet with his Syrian counterpart in what’s being seen as a major step toward detente. The two broke off relations since near the start of the war in 2011, especially as it became clear the Saudis were a key part of the Western allied push for regime change, through covert support to anti-Assad insurgents and jihadists which included regular weapons shipments.

    Gen Khalid Humaidan, the head of Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Directorate, led a delegation where they were received by Syrian government officials in Damascus. According to The Guardian, Riyadh is currently preparing for a “normalization of relations” – expected to come immediately after the Muslim holiday of Ramadan next week. 

    Central Damascus, file image

    One unnamed Saudi official was cited in The Guardian as saying “It’s been planned for a while, but nothing has moved.” He explained that “Events have shifted regionally and that provided the opening.”

    “The Saudi delegation was led by Gen Khalid Humaidan, the head of the country’s General Intelligence Directorate,” the report details. “He was received by Syria’s Gen Ali Mamlouk, the architect of the push to crush the early years of the anti-Assad revolution and the key interlocutor with Russian forces, which took a significant stake in the conflict from September 2015.” The Saudis had shuttered their embassy in Damascus by 2012 and simultaneously expelled Syria’s ambassador from Riyadh.

    The news could serve to ease the pressure on Damascus, which is desperately attempting to hold things together economically amid severe and far-reaching US-led sanctions, runaway inflation, an American occupation in the northeast which has severed valuable domestic energy resources, and an increasing lack of basic imports and staples for the population.

    It also comes amid significant rumors of indirect attempts of the Iranians and Saudis to ease tensions and de-escalate proxy wars in places like Yemen and Iraq.

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    Interestingly The Guardian and other Western mainstream outlets are now openly acknowledging the proxy war and regime change war nature of the conflict – despite for years the same outlets choosing to only describe it as a “popular uprising” that was an outgrowth of the Arab Spring.

    The publication now belatedly writes that “Two years earlier, Riyadh had been central to a plan to oust Assad by arming anti-Assad forces near Damascus and encouraging defections to nearby Jordan, from where the Saudi leadership had expected Barack Obama to launch a push by US proxies to take the Syrian capital.”

    Assad emerged victorious, which was pretty much guaranteed after Russia’s 2015 intervention in support of government forces, despite much of the country being in ruins and the economy now suffocating under a sanctions chokehold. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/05/2021 – 01:00

  • Escobar: The Brave New Cancel Culture World
    Escobar: The Brave New Cancel Culture World

    Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,

    If we need a date when the West started to go seriously wrong, let’s start with Rome in the early 5th century…

    In 2020, we saw the enshrinement of techno-feudalism – one of the overarching themes of my latest book, Raging Twenties.

    In lightning speed, the techno-feudalism virus is metastasizing into an even more lethal, wilderness of mirrors variant, where cancel culture is enforced by Big Tech all across the spectrum, science is routinely debased as fake news in social media, and the average citizen is discombobulated to the point of lobotomy.

    Giorgio Agamben has defined it as a new totalitarianism.

    Top political analyst Alastair Crooke has attempted a sharp breakdown of the broader configuration.

    Geopolitically, the Hegemon would even resort to 5G war to maintain its primacy, while seeking moral legitimization via the woke revolution, duly exported to its Western satrapies.

    The woke revolution is a culture war – in symbiosis with Big Tech and Big Business – that has smashed the real thing: class war. The atomized working classes, struggling to barely survive, have been left to wallow in anomie.

    The great panacea, actually the ultimate “opportunity” offered by Covid-19, is the Great Reset advanced by Herr Schwab of Davos: essentially the replacement of a dwindling manufacturing base by automation, in tandem with a reset of the financial system.

    The concomitant wishful thinking envisages a world economy that will “move closer to a cleaner capitalist model”. One of its features is a delightfully benign Council for Inclusive Capitalism in partnership with the Catholic Church.

    As much as the pandemic – the “opportunity” for the Reset – was somewhat rehearsed by Event 201 in October 2019, additional strategies are already in place for the next steps, such as Cyber Polygon, which warns against the “key risks of digitalization”. Don’t miss their “technical exercise” on July 9th, when “participants will hone their practical skills in mitigating a targeted supply chain attack on a corporate ecosystem in real time.”

    A New Concert of Powers?

    Sovereignty is a lethal threat to the ongoing cultural revolution. That concerns the role of the European Union institutions – especially the European Commission – going no holds barred to dissolve the national interests of nation states. And that largely explains the weaponizing, in varying degrees, of Russophobia, Sinophobia and Iranophobia.

    The anchoring essay in Raging Twenties analyzes the stakes in Eurasia exactly in terms of the Hegemon pitted against the Three Sovereigns – which are Russia, China and Iran.

    It’s under this framework, for instance, that a massive, 270-plus page bill, the Strategic Competition Act , has been recently passed at the US Senate. That goes way beyond geopolitical competition, charting a road map to fight China across the full spectrum. It’s bound to become law, as Sinophobia is a bipartisan sport in D.C.

    Hegemon oracles such as the perennial Henry Kissinger at least are taking a pause from their customary Divide and Rule shenanigans to warn that the escalation of “endless” competition may derail into hot war – especially considering AI and the latest generations of smart weapons.

    On the incandescent US-Russia front, where Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov sees the lack of mutual trust, no to mention respect, as much worse than during the Cold War, analyst Glenn Diesen notes how the Hegemon “strives to convert the security dependence of the Europeans into geoeconomic loyalty”.

    That’s at the heart of a make-or-break saga: Nord Stream 2. The Hegemon uses every weapon – including cultural war, where convicted crook Navalny is a major pawn – to derail an energy deal that is essential for Germany’s industrial interests. Simultaneously, pressure increases against Europe buying Chinese technology.

    Meanwhile, NATO – which lords over the EU – keeps being built up as a global Robocop, via the NATO 2030 project – even after turning Libya into a militia-ridden wasteland and having its collective behind humiliatingly spanked in Afghanistan.

    For all the sound and fury of sanction hysteria and declinations of cultural war, the Hegemon establishment is not exactly blind to the West “losing not only its material dominance but also its ideological sway”.

    So the Council on Foreign Relations – in a sort of Bismarckian hangover – is now proposing a New Concert of Powers to deal with “angry populism” and “illiberal temptations”, conducted of course by those malign actors such as “pugnacious Russia” who dare to “challenge the West’s authority”.

    As much as this geopolitical proposal may be couched in benign rhetoric, the endgame remains the same: to “restore US leadership”, under US terms. Damn those “illiberals” Russia, China and Iran.

    Crooke evokes exactly a Russian and a Chinese example to illustrate where the woke cultural revolution may lead to.

    In the case of the Chinese cultural revolution, the end result was chaos, fomented by the Red Guards, which started to wreak their own particular havoc independent of the Communist Party leadership.

    And then there’s Dostoevsky in The Possessed, which showed how the secular Russian liberals of the 1840s created the conditions for the emergence of the 1860s generation: ideological radicals bent on burning down the house.

    No question: “revolutions” always eat their children. It usually starts with a ruling elite imposing their newfound Platonic Forms on others. Remember Robespierre. He formulated his politics in a very Platonic way – “the peaceful enjoyment of liberty and equality, the reign of eternal justice” with laws “engraved in the hearts of all men”.

    Well, when others disagreed with Robespierre’s vision of Virtue, we all know what happened: the Terror. Just like Plato, incidentally, recommended in Laws. So it’s fair to expect that the children of the woke revolution will eventually be eaten alive by their zeal.

    Canceling freedom of speech

    As it stands, it’s fair to argue when the “West” started to go seriously wrong – in a cancel culture sense. Allow me to offer the Cynic/Stoic point of view of a 21st century global nomad.

    If we need a date, let’s start with Rome – the epitome of the West – in the early 5th century. Follow the money. That’s the time when income from properties owned by temples were transferred to the Catholic Church – thus boosting its economic power. By the end of the century, even gifts to temples were forbidden.

    In parallel, a destruction overdrive was in progress – fueled by Christian iconoclasm, ranging from crosses carved in pagan statues to bathhouses converted into churches. Bathing naked? Quelle horreur!

    The devastation was quite something. One of the very few survivors was the fabulous bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius on horseback, in the Campidoglio/ Capitoline Hill (today it’s housed in the museum). The statue survived only because the pious mobs thought the emperor was Constantine.

    The very urban fabric of Rome was destroyed: rituals, the sense of community, singin’ and dancin’. We should remember that people still lower their voices when entering a church.

    For centuries we did not hear the voices of the dispossessed. A glaring exception is to be found in an early 6th century text by an Athenian philosopher, quoted by Ramsay MacMullen in Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eight Centuries.

    The Greek philosopher wrote that Christians are “a race dissolved in every passion, destroyed by controlled self-indulgence, cringing and womanish in its thinking, close to cowardice, wallowing in all swinishness, debased, content with servitude in security.”

    If that sounds like a proto-definition of 21st century Western cancel culture, that’s because it is.

    Things were also pretty bad in Alexandria. A Christian mob killed and dismembered the alluring Hypatia, mathematician and philosopher. That de facto ended the era of great Greek mathematics. No wonder Gibbon turned the assassination of Hypatia into a remarkable set piece in Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (“In the bloom of beauty, and in the maturity of wisdom, the modest maid refused her lovers and instructed her disciples; the persons most illustrious for their rank or merit were impatient to visit the female philosopher”).

    Under Justinian – emperor from 527 to 565 – cancel culture went after paganism no holds barred. One of his laws ended imperial toleration of all religions, which was in effect since Constantine in 313.

    If you were a pagan, you’d better get ready for the death penalty. Pagan teachers – especially philosophers – were banned. They lost their parrhesia: their license to teach (here is Foucault’s brilliant analysis).

    Parrhesia – loosely translated as “frank criticism” – is a tremendously serious issue: for no less than a thousand years, this was the definition of freedom of speech (italics mine).

    There you go: first half of the 6th century. This was when freedom of speech was canceled in the West.

    The last Egyptian temple – to Isis, in an island in southern Egypt – was shut down in 526. The legendary Plato’s Academy – with no less than 900 years of teaching in its curriculum – was shut down in Athens in 529.

    Guess where the Greek philosophers chose to go into exile: Persia.

    Those were the days – in the early 2nd century – when the greatest Stoic, Epictetus, a freed slave from Phrygia, admirer of both Socrates and Diogenes, was consulted by an emperor, Hadrian; and became the role model of another emperor, Marcus Aurelius.

    History tells us that the Greek intellectual tradition simply did not fade away in the West. It was a target of cancel culture.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/05/2021 – 00:05

  • Top Australian General's Leaked Classified Briefing Says War With China A "High Likelihood"
    Top Australian General’s Leaked Classified Briefing Says War With China A “High Likelihood”

    The leaked content of a fiery anti-China speech and secretive briefing to elite military personnel by one of Australia’s top generals has landed on the front pages of major newspapers from Sydney to Melbourne to London on Tuesday. The confidential address issued by Major-General Adam Findlay, who was then commander of Australia’s special forces and currently advises the Australian Defense Force, had focused on a coming war with China which he said is a “high likelihood”. Publication of the speech’s full key controversial contents is now threatening to plunge China-Australia relations past breaking point.

    The April 2020 briefing given to the country’s most elite special forces units was obtained and first published by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, and quickly spread to the front page of London’s The Times. The general’s words were leaked by anonymous sources. He had detailed that China is now engaged in “grey zone” covert operations against Australian and Western allied interests and that Aussie defense forces must prepare for the “high likelihood” of this turning into direct war.

    Major-General Adam Findlay

    Major-General Findlay was heard in the leaked briefing saying:

    “Who do you reckon the main (regional) threat is?” General Findlay asked his troops and officers before answering: “China.”

    He continued: “OK, so if China is a threat, how many special forces brigades in China? You should know there are 26,000 Chinese SOF (Special Operations Forces) personnel.”

    The revelation comes at a moment of hardened and tense relations with Beijing on trade, diplomatic, and even military fronts, despite China long being Australia’s biggest single trading partner.

    The Sydney Morning Herald summarized further of the leaked briefing’s contents as follows:

    They say General Findlay told his troops that, if the threat of conflict was realised, the ADF needed to rely not only on traditional air, land and sea capabilities but also on Australia’s ability to use cyber and space warfare.

    He also highlighted the need for the ADF to reassert its presence and play “first grade” in south-east Asia and the south-west Pacific, describing how the military had uncovered information showing China was seeking to exploit “our [Australia’s] absence” in the region.

    “We need to make sure we don’t lose momentum… get back in the region,” General Findlay said, highlighting Australia’s close ties to Indonesia.

    In words sure to add more fuel to the fire of Chinese officials’ outrage, Findlay was further described as saying China knew “Western democracies have peace, and then, when they cross a line, we get really angry.”

    “Then we start bombing people. China said, let’s be smarter. Let’s just play below the threshold, before it goes to war,” The Sydney Morning Herald quoted him as saying.

    Image source: Royal Australian Navy

    And more:

    General Findlay said that to “stop war from breaking out” Australia’s military must compete against the “coercive constraints” imposed on Australia by China. In undertaking its own grey zone missions, Australia’s aim was to “put the adversary at a disadvantage, put us at an advantage” and avoid war.

    He’s certainly not the first top Aussie official to strongly suggest that a near-future war is coming, but it’s being viewed as more serious given it was a classified briefing to special forces commanders, and thus can’t be chalked up to a politician expressing opinion or speculation, however provocative. 

    For example just the day before the leaked contents were exposed Tuesday, Senator Jim Molan wrote in an op-ed in The Australian newspaper that he believes a war is “likely”…

    It wouldn’t start as a direct war between Australia and China, but would more likely be a war that Australia could find itself fighting on behalf of its most powerful ally, Senator Molan said.

    “Many ordinary Australians, not just those who have personally experienced global conflict, are awakening to the sombre reality that war is not just possible in our region, but likely,” he wrote.

    “Armed to the teeth, adversaries are maneuvering ships and planes around each other, intimidating and threatening, loaded with real weapons of war, forging alliances.”

    He said Australia would be making a mistake if leaders do not act now to strengthen a military that is not capable of winning a war against “a peer opponent”.

    Of course, the “most powerful ally” being referenced here is the United States, revealing the apparent increased anxiety in Canberra that the confrontational attitude between Washington and Beijing being played out even on the ground in places like the South China Sea will inevitably drag Australia into the mix.

    There’s also the distinct possibility that all of this “drums of war” rhetoric of late coming out of Australian officials’ mouths and pens may be part of a coordinated effort at drastically increasing defense spending and psychologically preparing the public for a more confrontational bit of muscle-flexing with Beijing.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/04/2021 – 23:45

  • From Mind Control To Viruses: How The Government Keeps Experimenting On Its Citizens
    From Mind Control To Viruses: How The Government Keeps Experimenting On Its Citizens

    Authored by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

    “They were monsters with human faces, in crisp uniforms, marching in lockstep, so banal you don’t recognize them for what they are until it’s too late.”

    – Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

    The U.S. government, in its pursuit of so-called monsters, has itself become a monster.

    This is not a new development, nor is it a revelation.

    This is a government that has in recent decades unleashed untold horrors upon the world—including its own citizenry—in the name of global conquest, the acquisition of greater wealth, scientific experimentation, and technological advances, all packaged in the guise of the greater good.

    Mind you, there is no greater good when the government is involved. There is only greater greed for money and power.

    Unfortunately, the public has become so easily distracted by the political spectacle out of Washington, DC, that they are altogether oblivious to the grisly experiments, barbaric behavior and inhumane conditions that have become synonymous with the U.S. government.

    These horrors have been meted out against humans and animals alike.

    For all intents and purposes, “we the people” have become lab rats in the government’s secret experiments.

    Fifty years from now, we may well find out the whole sordid truth behind this COVID-19 pandemic. However, this isn’t intended to be a debate over whether COVID-19 is a legitimate health crisis or a manufactured threat. It is merely to acknowledge that such crises can—and are—manipulated by governments in order to expand their powers.

    As we have learned, it is entirely possible for something to be both a genuine menace to the nation’s health and security and a menace to freedom.

    This is a road the United States has been traveling for many years now. Indeed, grisly experiments, barbaric behavior and inhumane conditions have become synonymous with the U.S. government, which has meted out untold horrors against humans and animals alike.

    For instance, did you know that the U.S. government has been buying hundreds of dogs and cats from “Asian meat markets” as part of a gruesome experiment into food-borne illnesses? The cannibalistic experiments involve killing cats and dogs purchased from Colombia, Brazil, Vietnam, China and Ethiopia, and then feeding the dead remains to laboratory kittens, bred in government laboratories for the express purpose of being infected with a disease and then killed.

    It gets more gruesome.

    The Department of Veterans Affairs has been removing parts of dogs’ brains to see how it affects their breathing; applying electrodes to dogs’ spinal cords (before and after severing them) to see how it impacts their cough reflexes; and implanting pacemakers in dogs’ hearts and then inducing them to have heart attacks (before draining their blood). All of the laboratory dogs are killed during the course of these experiments.

    It’s not just animals that are being treated like lab rats by government agencies.

    “We the people” have also become the police state’s guinea pigs: to be caged, branded, experimented upon without our knowledge or consent, and then conveniently discarded and left to suffer from the after-effects.

    Back in 2017, FEMA “inadvertently” exposed nearly 10,000 firefighters, paramedics and other responders to a deadly form of ricin during simulated bioterrorism response sessions. In 2015, it was discovered that an Army lab had been “mistakenly” shipping deadly anthrax to labs and defense contractors for a decade.

    While these particular incidents have been dismissed as “accidents,” you don’t have to dig very deep or go very back in the nation’s history to uncover numerous cases in which the government deliberately conducted secret experiments on an unsuspecting populace—citizens and noncitizens alike—making healthy people sick by spraying them with chemicals, injecting them with infectious diseases and exposing them to airborne toxins.

    At the time, the government reasoned that it was legitimate to experiment on people who did not have full rights in society such as prisoners, mental patients, and poor blacks.

    In Alabama, for example, 600 black men with syphilis were allowed to suffer without proper medical treatment in order to study the natural progression of untreated syphilis. In California, older prisoners had testicles from livestock and from recently executed convicts implanted in them to test their virility. In Connecticut, mental patients were injected with hepatitis.

    In Maryland, sleeping prisoners had a pandemic flu virus sprayed up their noses. In Georgia, two dozen “volunteering” prison inmates had gonorrhea bacteria pumped directly into their urinary tracts through the penis. In Michigan, male patients at an insane asylum were exposed to the flu after first being injected with an experimental flu vaccine. In Minnesota, 11 public service employee “volunteers” were injected with malaria, then starved for five days.

    As the Associated Press reports, “The late 1940s and 1950s saw huge growth in the U.S. pharmaceutical and health care industries, accompanied by a boom in prisoner experiments funded by both the government and corporations. By the 1960s, at least half the states allowed prisoners to be used as medical guinea pigs … because they were cheaper than chimpanzees.”

    Moreover, “Some of these studies, mostly from the 1940s to the ’60s, apparently were never covered by news media. Others were reported at the time, but the focus was on the promise of enduring new cures, while glossing over how test subjects were treated.”

    Media blackouts, propaganda, spin. Sound familiar?

    How many government incursions into our freedoms have been blacked out, buried under “entertainment” news headlines, or spun in such a way as to suggest that anyone voicing a word of caution is paranoid or conspiratorial?

    Unfortunately, these incidents are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the atrocities the government has inflicted on an unsuspecting populace in the name of secret experimentation.

    For instance, there was the U.S. military’s secret race-based testing of mustard gas on more than 60,000 enlisted men. As NPR reports, “All of the World War II experiments with mustard gas were done in secret and weren’t recorded on the subjects’ official military records. Most do not have proof of what they went through. They received no follow-up health care or monitoring of any kind. And they were sworn to secrecy about the tests under threat of dishonorable discharge and military prison time, leaving some unable to receive adequate medical treatment for their injuries, because they couldn’t tell doctors what happened to them.”

    And then there was the CIA’s MKULTRA program in which hundreds of unsuspecting American civilians and military personnel were dosed with LSD, some having the hallucinogenic drug slipped into their drinks at the beach, in city bars, at restaurants. As Time reports, “before the documentation and other facts of the program were made public, those who talked of it were frequently dismissed as being psychotic.”

    Now one might argue that this is all ancient history and that the government today is different from the government of yesteryear, but has the U.S. government really changed?

    Has the government become any more humane, any more respectful of the rights of the citizenry? Has it become any more transparent or willing to abide by the rule of law? Has it become any more truthful about its activities? Has it become any more cognizant of its appointed role as a guardian of our rights?

    Or has the government simply hunkered down and hidden its nefarious acts and dastardly experiments under layers of secrecy, legalism and obfuscations? Has it not become wilier, more slippery, more difficult to pin down?

    Having mastered the Orwellian art of Doublespeak and followed the Huxleyan blueprint for distraction and diversion, are we not dealing with a government that is simply craftier and more conniving that it used to be?

    Consider this: after revelations about the government’s experiments spanning the 20th century spawned outrage, the government began looking for human guinea pigs in other countries, where “clinical trials could be done more cheaply and with fewer rules.”

    In Guatemala, prisoners and patients at a mental hospital were infected with syphilis, “apparently to test whether penicillin could prevent some sexually transmitted disease.” In Uganda, U.S.-funded doctors “failed to give the AIDS drug AZT to all the HIV-infected pregnant women in a study… even though it would have protected their newborns.” Meanwhile, in Nigeria, children with meningitis were used to test an antibiotic named Trovan. Eleven children died and many others were left disabled.

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

    Case in point: back in 2016, it was announced that scientists working for the Department of Homeland Security would begin releasing various gases and particles on crowded subway platforms as part of an experiment aimed at testing bioterror airflow in New York subways.

    The government insisted that the gases released into the subways by the DHS were nontoxic and did not pose a health risk. It’s in our best interests, they said, to understand how quickly a chemical or biological terrorist attack might spread. And look how cool the technology is—said the government cheerleaders—that scientists can use something called DNATrax to track the movement of microscopic substances in air and food. (Imagine the kinds of surveillance that could be carried out by the government using trackable airborne microscopic substances you breathe in or ingest.)

    Mind you, this is the same government that in 1949 sprayed bacteria into the Pentagon’s air handling system, then the world’s largest office building. In 1950, special ops forces sprayed bacteria from Navy ships off the coast of Norfolk and San Francisco, in the latter case exposing all of the city’s 800,000 residents.

    In 1953, government operatives staged “mock” anthrax attacks on St. Louis, Minneapolis, and Winnipeg using generators placed on top of cars. Local governments were reportedly told that “‘invisible smokescreen[s]’ were being deployed to mask the city on enemy radar.” Later experiments covered territories as wide-ranging as Ohio to Texas and Michigan to Kansas.

    In 1965, the government’s experiments in bioterror took aim at Washington’s National Airport, followed by a 1966 experiment in which army scientists exposed a million subway NYC passengers to airborne bacteria that causes food poisoning.

    And this is the same government that has taken every bit of technology sold to us as being in our best interests—GPS devices, surveillance, nonlethal weapons, etc.—and used it against us, to track, control and trap us.

    So, no, I don’t think the government’s ethics have changed much over the years. It’s just taken its nefarious programs undercover.

    The question remains: why is the government doing this? The answer is always the same: money, power and total domination.

    It’s the same answer no matter which totalitarian regime is in power.

    The mindset driving these programs has, appropriately, been likened to that of Nazi doctors experimenting on Jews. As the Holocaust Museum recounts, Nazi physicians “conducted painful and often deadly experiments on thousands of concentration camp prisoners without their consent.”

    The Nazi’s unethical experiments ran the gamut from freezing experiments using prisoners to find an effective treatment for hypothermia, tests to determine the maximum altitude for parachuting out of a plane, injecting prisoners with malaria, typhus, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, yellow fever, and infectious hepatitis, exposing prisoners to phosgene and mustard gas, and mass sterilization experiments.

    The horrors being meted out against the American people can be traced back, in a direct line, to the horrors meted out in Nazi laboratories. In fact, following the second World War, the U.S. government recruited many of Hitler’s employees, adopted his protocols, embraced his mindset about law and order and experimentation, and implemented his tactics in incremental steps.

    Sounds far-fetched, you say? Read on. It’s all documented.

    As historian Robert Gellately recounts, the Nazi police state was initially so admired for its efficiency and order by the world powers of the day that J. Edgar Hoover, then-head of the FBI, actually sent one of his right-hand men, Edmund Patrick Coffey, to Berlin in January 1938 at the invitation of Germany’s secret police, the Gestapo.

    The FBI was so impressed with the Nazi regime that, according to the New York Times, in the decades after World War II, the FBI, along with other government agencies, aggressively recruited at least a thousand Nazis, including some of Hitler’s highest henchmen.

    All told, thousands of Nazi collaborators—including the head of a Nazi concentration camp, among others—were given secret visas and brought to America by way of Project Paperclip. Subsequently, they were hired on as spies, informants and scientific advisers, and then camouflaged to ensure that their true identities and ties to Hitler’s holocaust machine would remain unknown. All the while, thousands of Jewish refugees were refused entry visas to the U.S. on the grounds that it could threaten national security.

    Adding further insult to injury, American taxpayers have been paying to keep these ex-Nazis on the U.S. government’s payroll ever since. And in true Gestapo fashion, anyone who has dared to blow the whistle on the FBI’s illicit Nazi ties has found himself spied upon, intimidated, harassed and labeled a threat to national security.

    As if the government’s covert, taxpayer-funded employment of Nazis after World War II wasn’t bad enough, U.S. government agencies—the FBI, CIA and the military—have since fully embraced many of the Nazi’s well-honed policing tactics, and have used them repeatedly against American citizens.

    It’s certainly easy to denounce the full-frontal horrors carried out by the scientific and medical community within a despotic regime such as Nazi Germany, but what do you do when it’s your own government that claims to be a champion of human rights all the while allowing its agents to engage in the foulest, bases and most despicable acts of torture, abuse and experimentation?

    When all is said and done, this is not a government that has our best interests at heart.

    This is not a government that values us.

    Perhaps the answer lies in The Third Man, Carol Reed’s influential 1949 film starring Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles. In the film, set in a post-WW II Vienna, rogue war profiteer Harry Lime has come to view human carnage with a callous indifference, unconcerned that the diluted penicillin he’s been trafficking underground has resulted in the tortured deaths of young children.

    Challenged by his old friend Holly Martins to consider the consequences of his actions, Lime responds, “In these days, old man, nobody thinks in terms of human beings. Governments don’t, so why should we?”

    “Have you ever seen any of your victims?” asks Martins.

    “Victims?” responds Limes, as he looks down from the top of a Ferris wheel onto a populace reduced to mere dots on the ground. “Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax — the only way you can save money nowadays.”

    This is how the U.S. government sees us, too, when it looks down upon us from its lofty perch.

    To the powers-that-be, the rest of us are insignificant specks, faceless dots on the ground.

    To the architects of the American police state, we are not worthy or vested with inherent rights. This is how the government can justify treating us like economic units to be bought and sold and traded, or caged rats to be experimented upon and discarded when we’ve outgrown our usefulness.

    To those who call the shots in the halls of government, “we the people” are merely the means to an end.

    “We the people”—who think, who reason, who take a stand, who resist, who demand to be treated with dignity and care, who believe in freedom and justice for all—have become obsolete, undervalued citizens of a totalitarian state that, in the words of Rod Serling, “has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. It has refinements, technological advances, and a more sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom.”

    In this sense, we are all Romney Wordsworth, the condemned man in Serling’s Twilight Zone episode “The Obsolete Man.”

    “The Obsolete Man” speaks to the dangers of a government that views people as expendable once they have outgrown their usefulness to the State. Yet—and here’s the kicker—this is where the government through its monstrous inhumanity also becomes obsolete. As Serling noted in his original script for “The Obsolete Man,” “Any state, any entity, any ideology which fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of Man…that state is obsolete.”

    How do you defeat a monster?

    As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, you start by recognizing the monster for what it is.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/04/2021 – 23:25

  • China Must Shutter 600 Coal Plants To Meet Its Emissions Goals, New Analysis Finds
    China Must Shutter 600 Coal Plants To Meet Its Emissions Goals, New Analysis Finds

    China has proclaimed bold goals of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2060. 

    But if the country is to meet its climate goals, it is going to have to shut down 600 coal fired power plants and replace them with renewable energy, a new article from The Guardian points out.

    A company called TransitionZero performed an analysis that the switch to renewables like wind and solar could also save $1.6 trillion over the time period, since renewables are now cheaper than coal.

    China’s coal consumption has long been in focus of the rest of the world. Despite its proclaimed goals, China “has ramped up plans for new coal-fired power stations in an effort to spur economic growth after the recession caused by the coronavirus pandemic,” the report notes.

    Global climate “experts” are afraid that, despite the long term goals, China’s next 10 years of coal power will overdraw the world’s global carbon budget (which we guess is an actual thing?)

    Matthew Gray, the co-chief executive of TransitionZero, commented: “If China fails on coal, the rest of the world will fail on containing dangerous climate change. But the stars are now somewhat aligning on breaking China’s addiction to coal.”

    He also says the transition could be tough, as coal is “deeply embedded” in China’s economy and society. But Gray says renewables could create as many jobs as would be lost from shuttering the country’s coal plants. “Moving to net zero will be jobs intensive,” he said.

    Al Gore, who wrote a forward to the analysis (of course), stated: “This shows that not only can China meet their climate goals, the country and its leaders can accelerate them rapidly. The economic opportunity presented by a transition from coal to clean energy shows that climate action and economic growth go hand in hand.”

    UN Secretary General António Guterres has also “urged” the country to move away from coal. China has plans to submit a new climate plan under the 2015 Paris Climate Accord this November.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/04/2021 – 23:05

  • Fact-Checkers Missed Stealth Edits To Abrams' Op-Ed
    Fact-Checkers Missed Stealth Edits To Abrams’ Op-Ed

    Authored by John Hirschauer & Chandler Lasch via RealClearPolitics (emphasis ours),

    In the internet age, articles can be revised after publication almost without a trace. “Stealth editing,” the practice of revising a published piece without disclosing that is has been edited, poses an interesting challenge to fact-checking outlets and the integrity of their investigations. Last month, fact-checkers relied on an op-ed in USA Today written by Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams to evaluate critics’ claims about Abrams’ position on recent Georgia boycotts. However, they didn’t know the piece had been stealth-edited after a key development in the story.

    ​

    On March 31, USA Today published Abrams’ op-ed assessing the merits of business boycotts after Gov. Brian Kemp signed what she described as a “racist, classist [election] bill” into law. While Abrams cautioned that she did not think a boycott was necessary “yet,” she added that until “we hear clear, unequivocal statements that show Georgia-based companies get what’s at stake, I can’t argue with an individual’s choice to opt for their competition.”

    Three days later, Major League Baseball announced that it would be pulling the All-Star Game out of Atlanta due to Georgia’s alleged infringement on its citizens’ voting rights. USA Today allowed Abrams to update the op-ed on April 6 in the aftermath of MLB’s decision. The resulting op-ed was substantially different from the March 31 version. For example, the paragraph in which Abrams originally declared that she couldn’t “argue with an individual’s choice to opt for” certain Georgia-based companies’ competitors had been revised to appear much less sympathetic to boycotts. It now read this way:

    The impassioned (and understandable) response to the racist, classist bill that is now the law of Georgia is to boycott in order to achieve change. Events that can bring millions of dollars to struggling families hang in the balance. Major League Baseball pulled both its All-Star Game and its draft from Georgia, which could cost our state nearly $100 million in lost revenue.

    Abrams also added a paragraph emphasizing that boycotts “cost jobs” and that the costs of a boycott “must be shared rather than borne by those who are least resilient.” For more than two weeks after the piece was revised, USA Today let the op-ed sit on its website without an editor’s note. An archived version of the op-ed from April 21 does not show the editor’s note, which only appeared a day or two later. A version from April 23 included a note that read, “This column was originally published before the MLB moved the All-Star Game out of Atlanta. It was updated after that decision.”

    On April 27, a spokesperson for Gannett, USA Today’s parent company, issued a statement that said, “We regret the oversight in updating the Stacey Abrams column. As soon as we recognized there was no editor’s note, we added it to the page to reflect her changes. We have reviewed our procedures to ensure this does not occur again.”

    The next day, following criticism of USA Today by numerous outlets, the op-ed was again updated with a new editor’s note and a link to the archived version. The note currently states, “This column originally published online on March 31. On April 2, the MLB announced it was moving the 2021 All-Star Game out of Atlanta. In advance of running the column in print editions, USA TODAY asked Stacey Abrams to update her piece to reflect that news.”

    The stealth edits went unnoticed by some fact-checkers, who cited the USA Today piece prior to the addition of the editor’s note. In an April 21 essay called “What Joe Biden, Stacey Abrams and Georgia senators said about a MLB boycott,” PolitiFact’s Amy Sherman criticized Kemp and conservative commentator Ben Shapiro for claiming that Abrams initially supported boycotts in Georgia and later changed her mind. “But Abrams repeatedly spoke against boycotts before and after Major League Baseball’s decision to pull the All-Star Game from Georgia,” Sherman wrote.

    As evidence, PolitiFact cited Abrams’ USA Today op-ed, and quoted her revised assertions in the stealth version: “Boycotts invariably also cost jobs. To be sustainable, the pain of deprivation must be shared rather than borne by those who are least resilient. They also require a long-term commitment to action.”

    Sherman initially failed to recognize that these comments did not exist in the original op-ed. On April 27, after a RealClearPolitics reporter reached out for comment, PolitiFact added an editor’s note and a disclaimer following the above quote, noting, “Abrams originally wrote the op-ed March 31, but it was updated to include those comments days after MLB’s announcement. Her initial op-ed also raised concerns about boycotts.”

    Twitter also used the revised version of Abrams’s op-ed to dismiss claims that she had supported the Georgia boycotts. In a curated item that ran on the site on April 22, Twitter asserted that Abrams had “expressed opposition to a financial boycott of” Georgia “according to journalists and fact-checkers.” Twitter included a quote from Abrams’ altered USA Today column that did not appear in the original version without noting the revision. It also included a tweet from PolitiFact linking to Sherman’s fact check, which, at that point, still did not have an editor’s note appended to it acknowledging that USA Today had revised the piece.

    Both PolitiFact and Twitter cited claims made by Abrams after the MLB’s decision and presented them as though they had occurred before the league pulled the All-Star Game out of Atlanta. The moral of this story is that stealth-editing represents a whole new degree of difficulty for fact-checkers, who have now been put on notice that they must be on guard against such deceptive practices as they pursue their mission of holding politicians accountable to the truth.

    John Hirschauer is a staff writer for RealClearFoundation.

    Chandler Lasch is the editor of RealClearReligion. She is a graduate of Hillsdale College and a resident of Southern California.

     

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/04/2021 – 22:45

  • Australia Boomerangs On 'Racist' India Flight Ban After Backlash
    Australia Boomerangs On ‘Racist’ India Flight Ban After Backlash

    Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has majorly backtracked from statements made by treasurer Josh Frydenberg – who said last week that citizens trying to return home from COVID-stricken India will face fines and jail time, after two Australian cricketers circumvented a travel ban after traveling from India to Qatar before returning home, despite the government banning all direct flights from India.

    “I think the likelihood of any of that occurring is pretty much zero,” Morrison said on Tuesday, adding that it was “highly unlikely” that anyone would be jailed for skirting the ban, according to AFP (via Yahoo).

    There are approximately 9,000 Australians believed to be in India right now, which has been reporting hundreds of thousands of new COVID-19 cases per day as the death toll soars.

    Among those trapped are some of Australia’s most high profile sporting stars — cricketers playing in the lucrative Indian Premier League.

    Commentator and former Test cricket star Michael Slater was among those who pilloried Morrison’s decision, saying it was a “disgrace”.

    “Blood on your hands PM. How dare you treat us like this,” he tweeted. “If our Government cared for the safety of Aussies they would allow us to get home.” -AFP

    Morrison rejected the notion that he had blood on his hands, calling it “absurd,” and saying “The buck stops here when it comes to these decisions, and I’m going to take decisions that I believe are going to protect Australia from a third wave.”

    “I’m working to bring them home safely,” he added, indicating that repatriation flights could begin soon after May 15.

    Prominent civil rights groups denounced the government flight ban, including Sky News commentator Andrew Bolt who said it “stinks of racism.”

    At present, there is a blanket ban on travel to-and-from the country unless travelers secure an exemption.

    Non-residents are mostly banned from entering and anyone who does come into the country must carry out a mandatory 14-day hotel quarantine.

    But that system has come under increasing strain as the virus has jumped from quarantine facilities and caused a series of outbreaks in the largely unvaccinated community.

    The conservative prime minister faces reelection in the next 12 months, and had hoped Australia’s relatively successful handling of the pandemic would propel him to victory. -AFP

    In short, ‘nevermind.’

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

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/04/2021 – 22:25

  • Biden Admin Drops Dozens Of Charges Against Violent Protesters In Portland
    Biden Admin Drops Dozens Of Charges Against Violent Protesters In Portland

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    We recently discussed how the plea agreement with a BLM protester (who tried to cut the brake lines on a police vehicle) may indicate a significant shift from the Trump Administration in prosecuting violent protesters.  New figures out of Portland would indicate that there is such a major shift occurring. The Justice Department are dropping 58 of the 97 criminal charges brought after the Portland riots, including assaults on officers.

    I previously criticized the federalization of these protest cases. Local police were clearly relying on the federal government – as opposed to their own local prosecutors – to address violent protesters. Yet I was also critical of the role of local officials in dismissing and even in some cases fueling such violence with their rhetoric or inaction. 

    There is clearly a reluctance by many local officials to prosecute violent protesters. Indeed, cities like Atlanta have dropped charges against protesters.

    Most of the charges brought for violent protests in the wake of the killing of George Floyd were dismissed.

    One of those defendants who saw their charges dropped in Portland was David Bouchard who admitted that he put a Customs and Border Protection officer in a chokehold.

    Likewise, the Justice Department dismissed the charge against Charles Comfort who was indicted by a grand jury of civil disorder for twice charging at Portland Police Bureau officers and hitting them with a makeshift shield and kicking a third officer.

    Once again, I remain opposed to using federal charges in many of these local cases, but the decision was to pursue these individuals in the federal system. Now they will walk without any prosecution. There are reportedly 31 deferred resolution agreements (DRA) signed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Portland, including 19 charged with felonies and some involving alleged assaults on federal officers.

    We recently saw a belated change in the rhetoric of some leaders like Portland’s Mayor Ted Wheeler finally condemning anarchists (though he avoided specifically mentioning Portland’s homegrown Antifa group). While such leaders previously blamed the Trump Administration for the protests, they have continued unabated after the election, including continued rioting in Portland.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/04/2021 – 22:05

  • How Media Consumption Has Changed Over The Last Decade
    How Media Consumption Has Changed Over The Last Decade

    There are a wide array of apps and life hacks out there designed to help regulate personal internet use and media consumption, but, as Visual Capitalist’s Aran Ali notes, the data suggests they haven’t been working.

    Today, we consume more media than at any point in time in the last decade.

     

    This data from Recode looks at how many minutes U.S. adults spend on various forms of media, comparing mobile, desktop, radio, television, and magazines.

    How Many Minutes are Spent on Media?

    In 2021, collective media consumption continues its upward trajectory, and is set to be at the highest it’s ever been. In 2021, overall media consumption among U.S. adults is estimated to be around 666 minutes per day, or 11.1 hours—a 20.2% increase from 2011.

    Although media consumption has grown overall, this is predominantly driven by mobile usage. In fact, every category with the exception of mobile has shrunk from their respective peaks. Mobile on the other hand, has grown a whopping 460% in 10 years, from an average daily use of 45 minutes to a staggering 252 minutes.

    Consumption by Generation

    Disparities in media consumption have a generational aspect that’s worth noting, as well. For instance, older Americans like Baby Boomers still consume media routinely through television. On the other hand, younger cohorts like Millennials and Gen Z tend to consume more through mobile.

    Increasing internet use has come with criticism, and is said to be partially responsible for our waning attention spans. With only 1,440 minutes in a day, it remains unknown exactly how many minutes we will continue to direct towards mobile use. But with figures growing 9% last year, we may not have yet reached the peak.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/04/2021 – 21:45

  • Rockets Rain Over US Bases In Iraq
    Rockets Rain Over US Bases In Iraq

    Submitted by South Front,

    Military bases of the United States in Iraq are suffering from poor weather conditions, as it would seem it’s raining rockets in the first days of May and late April.

    Late on May 2nd, the US Camp Victory in Iraq came under rocket fire. Two rockets hit the site near the Baghdad airport. The third shell was reportedly intercepted by the C-RAM anti-aircraft system.

    It was the second attack on Camp Victory in the last 10 days.

    Not too long after, on May 3d, the Balad Air Base in the Salah al-Din province that houses Iraqi forces and US contractors was targeted by another rocket attack. The commander of the base, Div. Gen. Sahi Abdul Ameri, said that a total of 9-10 explosions were heard, but only three self-made rockets exploded on the territory of the base.

    The rockets reportedly were 107mm Katyushas. Alleged photos show that the launchers were labeled with photos of assassinated Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and Popular Mobilization Units commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

    Still, the Pentagon said the increasing frequency of attacks against US forces in Iraq does not mean that effective measures are not taken to protect them, adding that the targeted base only hosted only by Iraqi troops and contractors working for an American company.

    Alongside this, almost daily IED attacks target convoys moving logistic supplies and equipment for the US-led coalition all over Iraq. Most recently, on May 2nd, two separate convoys were targeted. Pro-Iranian groups are suspected of carrying out the attacks.

    The recent strikes may be in response to explosions at a large chemical plant located near the city of Qom in central Iran, on May 2nd.

    A spokesman for the Qom Fire Department told the semi-official ISNA news agency that the fire had been prevented from reaching nearby alcohol tanks which would have caused a “very large accident” if they had caught fire.

    There is no official release of what caused the explosion, but it did happen just as there were some reports that some progress had been made in Vienna in negotiations to salvage the Iranian Nuclear Deal. On May 1st, Iran revealed that the US had agreed to lift some sanctions in order to revive the 2015 deal.

    Tel Aviv has been attempting to hinder the talks between the US and Iran for a while.

    Last month, an act of sabotage targeted Iran’s uranium enrichment facility in Natanz. Israeli intelligence was blamed for this.

    The vicious cycle that is the situation around the Iran Nuclear Deal continues, and it is likely that the situation could deteriorate further if Washington and Tehran reach a deal Tel Aviv is unsatisfied with.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/04/2021 – 21:25

  • California's 2021 Fire Season Could Be "Like Armageddon," Officials Warn 
    California’s 2021 Fire Season Could Be “Like Armageddon,” Officials Warn 

    La Nina, the cooling of the equatorial Pacific waters that creates volatile weather worldwide, has produced dryness for California and contributed to a record-setting year of wildfires in the state in 2020. This week, Red Flag Warnings have been posted in the Bay Area, an ominous warning of things to come, according to local news ABC7. 

    California’s top fire officials warn conditions are already ripe for wildfires – way ahead of schedule – and could quickly transpire into the worst wildfire season on record – even outpacing last year, where 9,639 fires burned 4,397,809 acres, more than 4% of the state’s 100 million acres of land.

    “Every acre in California can and will burn someday,” said CAL FIRE Director Thom Porter. “I need not say here in the Bay Area how devastating it is when you’re hillsides are on fire, some of your communities are on fire, and you’re deep in smoke that looks like Armageddon for a week on end.”

    New concerns come as La Nina continues to produce dryness for the state and other surrounding states. Droughts in California, Southwest states, and Texas are some of the worst on record.  

    The latest warning comes months after the worst wildfire season on record. 

    “Since it was such a monumental fire year last year, we saw 32 counties fall under a major presidential disaster declaration,” said CAL Office of Emergency Services Director Mark Ghilarducci.

    With an extremely sparse rainy season and temperatures above 90 degrees, there’s concern this upcoming fire season could be pulled forward much earlier, with risks of the peak fire season in June. 

    “There are millions of dying trees and all of those pose hazards across California for all of us,” said Robert Baird, chief for the U.S. Forest Service Pacific Southwest Region.

    CALFIRE is already preparing for what could be a fiery year. The fire department is ramping up personnel and added five new helicopters. 

    If the 2021 fire season is anything like last year – then watch out; the gates of hell could be opening up this summer.

    Would a more intense fire season drive out more Californians to live in other states?

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/04/2021 – 21:05

  • Biden Versus Biden On "Is America A Racist Country?"
    Biden Versus Biden On “Is America A Racist Country?”

    Authored by Pat Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

    “Hear me clearly: America is not a racist country.”

    So declared Sen. Tim Scott, a Black Republican, in his televised rebuttal to Joe Biden’s address to Congress.

    Asked the next day what he thought of Scott’s statement, Biden said he agrees.

    “No, I don’t think the American people are racist.”

    Vice President Kamala Harris also agreed with Scott,

    “No, I don’t think America is a racist country.”

    What makes these rejections of the charge of racism against America significant is that Biden and Harris both seemed to say the opposite after Derek Chauvin was convicted.

    Biden had called George Floyd’s death:

    “a murder (that) ripped the blinders off for the whole world to see the systemic racism… that is a stain on our nation’s soul.”

    Harris had said much the same:

    “America has a long history of systemic racism. Black Americans — and Black men, in particular — have been treated throughout the course of our history as less than human.”

    But which is the predominant view of Biden and Harris about the moral character of the country they were elected to lead?

    Is it a vicious slander, as Scott implied, to call America a “racist country”? Or is America’s soul, as Biden and Harris said, so stained by “systemic racism” that this country has treated Black Americans “as less than human” for the 400 years of her existence.

    Has America been a curse for the 40 million Black people whose numbers have multiplied 10-fold since the abolition of slavery in 1865, and whose freedoms and material prosperity have grown accordingly?

    Or has America been a blessing to Black people?

    This is not just a gotcha question.

    For the clashing commentaries of Biden and Harris reflect an ideological divide within their own coalition over a most basic issue: Is America a good country?

    We have been on this terrain before.

    Between LBJ’s landslide in 1964 and the breaking of his presidency in 1968, the Democratic Party had split into three factions, all at war with one another.

    There was the Lyndon Johnson-Hubert Humphrey establishment that controlled the presidency and the party machinery. There was the Robert Kennedy-Gene McCarthy-George McGovern anti-establishment and anti-war left.

    And there was the populist-right George Wallace bloc, containing millions of flag-waving blue-collar Democrats in northern industrial states and Southern Dixiecrats who detested the leftist radicals on cultural and patriotic grounds.

    That Democratic Party disintegrated in the convention hall and the streets of Chicago in August of 1968, opening the door to the GOP era of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

    Today’s Democratic Party encompasses three similar blocs.

    1. There is the Biden liberal establishment that controls the media, the academy, the Congress, the administration.

    2. There is the Bernie Sanders-Elizabeth Warren-AOC progressive-socialist wing.

    3. And there is, today, a new militant and radical third force.

    Included in its ranks are Black Lives Matter, antifa and protesters who burn Old Glory, tear down statues, monuments and memorials, assault cops, smash and loot stores and riot at will.

    This is the “Abolish Ice!” and “Defund the Police!” faction of the party that detests the old America and favors open borders to alter it forever. This anarchic element is rendered moral sanction by journalists and politicians who share its malignant view of American history.

    The Biden-Harris statements on the conviction of Chauvin were tailored to pander to this crowd.

    Yet, in his address to Congress, Biden also made a statement that sounded like a Biden plagiarism of Trumpian nationalism:

    “All the investments in the American Jobs Plan will be guided by one principle: ‘Buy American.’ American tax dollars are going to be used to buy American products made in America that create American jobs.”

    Biden is scrambling to keep one foot in every camp in his coalition by appearing to agree, at times, with them all.

    The problem: While one part of his party believes America is a good and great country deserving of loyalty and love, another believes America is racist in its soul — a land whose character is defined, as it has ever been, by white supremacy, white privilege and white rule of people of color.

    This leftist rage, however, is partly rooted in urban myth.

    Consider. Last year, in D.C., our nation’s capital, there were 200 homicides and 980 people shot, mostly Blacks.

    How many were the victims of rogue cops or Proud Boys?

    Can you lead a country about whose history you profess shame?

    And how long will Americans follow leaders who appear to agree with those who hate what America was and, yes, what America is?

    In 2020, Trump united the Democrats. But with Trump gone, Biden must do the uniting of his disparate party himself.

    And his need to behave, at times, like a believer in the racial indictment of the America he grew up in is probably not something Joe Biden can credibly and indefinitely pull off.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/04/2021 – 20:45

  • Double-Parked Tesla In Sydney Goes Viral, Draws Rage Of Other Drivers
    Double-Parked Tesla In Sydney Goes Viral, Draws Rage Of Other Drivers

    A Tesla owner in Sydney drew the ire of other drivers after parking across two spots in the Bondi Beach Woolworths car park.

    As a result of the park job, the Model 3’s driver came back to a note on their windshield which read: “Did your fancy car park itself like this, or are you just an inconsiderate c**t?”

    The photo was then shared on the Bondi Local Loop Facebook group, according to the NZ Herald. 

    And while some commenters defended the driver, leaving comments like “Seriously who cares … People are starving and all you care about is white lines”, others shared in the rage. “Should get a ticket for this,” one comment read.

    Another comment said: “Why is it that every fancy car I see is driven by someone who absolutely cannot drive (or park)? It’s literally like they got their licence out of a Cornflakes packet.”

    “That’s how a**holes park, so that no one else can park next to their precious car,” another woman commented.

    The owner of the car has yet to come forward. We can’t imagine why…

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/04/2021 – 20:25

  • McMaken: Vaccine Passports Are Just A Way For The Regime To Expand Its Power
    McMaken: Vaccine Passports Are Just A Way For The Regime To Expand Its Power

    Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

    Earlier this month, the conservative magazine known as The Spectator published an article with the absurd title “The Libertarian Case for Vaccine Passports.” The online version now bears the title “Vaccine Passports Are a Ticket to Freedom,” but the physical print version is perhaps more descriptive of what the author is trying to do.

    The author, a Conservative politician named Matthew Parrish, apparently believes that the forever lockdowns are an inescapable feature of reality, and that the only way around them is for the regime to enact a vaccine passport scheme.

    For Parrish, covid lockdowns are just a force of nature, like gravity. Now, if only we could find a way to get around these nature-imposed lockdowns!

    By now the flaw in Parrish’s logic should be clear. There is nothing natural or inescapable about lockdowns. They are an invention of the state. They are so unnatural, in fact, that they require the use of the state’s police powers to enforce them. They require policemen, handcuffs, courts, prisons, and fines to ensure they are followed. Those who ignore this supposed “force of nature”—and these scofflaws are many—must be punished.

    All of this escapes Parrish’s notice, however.

    For example, his article begins this way:

    In principle I’m in favour of vaccination passports, and don’t understand how—again in principle—anyone could be against the theory….

    In other words, Parrish’s position—in his mind, at least—is so correct and so commonsensical that he can’t even comprehend how someone would disagree with him.

    This, of course, is always a highly suspect way to begin an article. Any intellectually serious political commentator, if he tries a bit, can at least imagine why others might disagree with him. After decades in government, however, Parrish is so enamored of the idea that the regime ought to control your every move that any another option is apparently beyond the pale of rational thinking.

    Parrish goes on:

    To me it seems not just sensible and fair but obvious that access to jobs or spaces where there is an enhanced risk of viral transmission might be restricted to people who could demonstrate a high degree of immunity.

    There is absolutely nothing libertarian about delaying the lifting of lockdown for everybody, just because it wouldn’t be safe for somebody.

    Again, note the core assumption: the regime must tell you where you are allowed to go and what you are allowed to do. It is those dastardly libertarians who are the ones “delaying the lifting of lockdowns.” For Parrish, politicians have been working hard to find a way that society can be set free. These noble policymakers discovered vaccine passports. At long last, people can be allowed to leave their homes. But those libertarians now stand in the way!

    Unlike those libertarians, Parrish assures us he is in favor of people leaving their homes and visiting each other in public gathering places. It’s just that his hands were tied before. There were no options available to him other than keeping you locked up. Now, dear taxpayer, won’t you let Parrish and his friends set you free? They want you to be free. It’s just that there’s nothing they can do until you embrace vaccine passports!

    If you’re noticing that Parrish sounds a bit like an abusive husband, you wouldn’t be far off. Just as an abuser tells his wife, “See what you made me do!” after he punches her in the face for burning the toast, we see a similar attitude from the vaccine passport crowd: “You see what you’re making me do? I want to let you out of your house, but you refuse to submit to our oh-so-libertarian passport system!”

    Yet Parrish is not alone in this sort of thinking. Many others continue to advocate for vaccine passports as some sort of profreedom scheme. Passports are being framed as an “easing of restrictions.”

    But, as epidemiologist Martin Kulldorff and Stanford physician Jay Bhattacharya pointed out this month in the Wall Street Journal, there is nothing in the passport scheme that is geared toward lessening regime control of our daily lives. On the contrary, it is all about extending and increasing regime power. Kulldorff and Bhattacharya write:

    The idea is simple: Once you’ve received your shots, you get a document or phone app, which you flash to gain entry to previously locked-down venues—restaurants, theaters, sports arenas, offices, schools.

    It sounds like a way of easing coercive lockdown restrictions, but it’s the opposite. To see why, consider dining. Restaurants in most parts of the U.S. have already reopened, at limited capacity in some places. A vaccine passport would prohibit entry by potential customers who haven’t received their shots….

    Planes and trains, which have continued to operate throughout the pandemic, would suddenly be off-limits to the unvaccinated….

    The vaccine passport should therefore be understood not as an easing of restrictions but as a coercive scheme to encourage vaccination….

    Naturally, the regime claims this is all “required” by “science,” but

    [t]he idea that everybody needs to be vaccinated is as scientifically baseless as the idea that nobody does. Covid vaccines are essential for older, high-risk people and their caretakers and advisable for many others. But those who’ve been infected are already immune. The young are at low risk, and children—for whom no vaccine has been approved anyway—are at far less risk of death than from the flu. If authorities mandate vaccination of those who don’t need it, the public will start questioning vaccines in general.

    “Science” mandates nothing as a matter of public policy. Rather, it is policymakers—backed by the violent power of the state—who impose mandates. These are policy choices, not forces of nature. Moreover, as Kulldorff and Bhattacharya note, these aren’t even prudent policy choices, and are based on questionable conclusions wrought from scientific data. The authors continue:

    Most of those endorsing the idea belong to the laptop class—privileged professionals who worked safely and comfortably at home during the epidemic. Millions of Americans did essential jobs at their usual workplaces and became immune the hard way. Now they would be forced to risk adverse reactions from a vaccine they don’t need. Passports would entice young, low-risk professionals, in the West and the developing world, to get the vaccine before older, higher-risk but less affluent members of society. Many unnecessary deaths would result.

    But we know how the regime will justify mandatory vaccine policies to themselves should some be injured by adverse reactions.

    “We had no choice!” the politicians will insist. “Science forced our hand!”

    This is a convenient way for politicians to weasel out of responsibility for forcing much of the population—much of it a low-risk population—into submitting to certain state-mandated medical procedures. But lest we take too cynical a view, it’s entirely possible these people are true believers. Like Parrish, the policymakers forcing these policies on citizens and taxpayers might not be able to comprehend any other course of action. This level of moral certitude is a certain privilege of the ruling class, and it certainly has nothing to do with “science.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/04/2021 – 20:05

  • Pandora Jewelry Sparkles With Lab-Grown Diamonds In ESG Push 
    Pandora Jewelry Sparkles With Lab-Grown Diamonds In ESG Push 

    The sparkling rise of eco-friendly lab-grown diamonds has been fully embraced by the world’s biggest jewelry maker, Pandora A/S, in a broader strategy towards suitability versus unethical production methods of open-pit mining. 

    According to Bloomberg, Pandora has decided to stop using mined diamonds that involve rock blasting and open pits to extract precious stones. These methods destroy ecosystems and exploit human workers in low-income countries. 

    Pandor is jumping on the Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) movement with lab-grown diamonds that come with zero baggage as they’re made in labs. To create one of these fake diamonds, all it takes is a lot of energy and lab equipment, and presto a lab-grown diamond is made. 

    The jewelry maker said the first collection of lab-grown stones would be shortly released in the UK and other markets in 2022. 

    “Pandora’s lab-made diamonds are grown from carbon with more than 60% renewable energy on average, a ratio that’s set to rise to 100% next year. The decision to shun mined diamonds comes less than a year after Pandora pledged to stop relying on newly mined gold and silver in its jewelry. By 2025, its entire production will use only recycled precious metals as part of a plan to ensure its operations are carbon neutral within four years,” Bloomberg said. 

    Besides sustainability, the company has also crafted the narrative that lab-grown stones are cheaper than mined diamonds and will make jewelry more affordable. But more importantly, these fake diamonds will drive higher profits for Pandora. 

    After years of weakening global diamond sales, Pandora lifted its full-year guidance for sales growth on Monday after reopening its stores. It estimates organic growth in sales over 12%, compared with its previous forecast of 8%, and expects its margin on earnings before interest and tax at above 22%, compared with its earlier forecast of 21%. 

    Shares of Pandora jumped on Tuesday, up more than 7%.

    So, where exactly are these lab-grown diamonds going to be made? 

     A couple of years back, we noted China was set to be a large supplier of synthetic gems and could reshape the entire global diamond industry. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/04/2021 – 19:45

  • Historic Reversal: For The First Time Ever Ether Options Trading Volume Surpasses Bitcoin's
    Historic Reversal: For The First Time Ever Ether Options Trading Volume Surpasses Bitcoin’s

    The world is gradually realizing that whereas bitcoin is a one-trick pony (one which may or may not be replaced by central bank digital currencies), it is ethereum that is the truly revolutionary architecture powering the new digital realm. We saw this on Monday when not only did ethereum soar as bitcoin prices stagnated, but that’s also when Crypto derivatives exchange Deribit experienced an unusual trend for the first time ever: its ether (ETH) options trading volume (which we previewed here last week) surpassed that of bitcoin’s (BTC’s).

    According to The Block Crypto, while total trading volume for bitcoin options was $879.5 million on Monday, ether’s was $1.32 billion, which is 50% more. Options are derivatives contracts that give their holders the right to buy or sell an underlying asset at a stated price within a specified period.

    On a monthly basis, BTC options’ trading volume on Deribit remains four times higher than ETH’s, although the lead is shrinking fast. In April, the exchange saw around $33 billion in BTC options trading volume, while around $8 billion in ETH options. Deribit is the largest bitcoin options exchange, having a market share of over 85%, according to The Block’s Data Dashboard.

    While Deribit said it has no opinion on the flip of the trade, the likely reason is that ETH has significantly outperformed BTC in price over the past several months. ETH’s price has gained over 1,400% over the past year, while bitcoin’s has gained about 550%.

    This confirms what we wrote on April 25 in “Ethereum About To Make An Epic Breakout Over Bitcoin” – just 8 days later, Ethereum has outperformed Bitcoin by 35%…

    … and with attention increasingly shifting to ethereum, its outperformance is only just starting. As a reminder, as we showed on April 25, the outperformance of ETH over BTC is unlikely to stop until the previous ETH/BTC record of 0.1 is taken out.

    Should ETHBTC hit its historical high, Ethereum would be well above $5,000, and if Tom Lee is correct, we may be looking at a $10,000+ print.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/04/2021 – 19:25

  • Chauvin Seeks New Trial, Alleges Prosecutorial & Jury Misconduct
    Chauvin Seeks New Trial, Alleges Prosecutorial & Jury Misconduct

    In what will likely come as no surprise to many – especially given the judge’s own remarks during closing arguments – Derek Chauvin’s lawyer filed a motion on Tuesday in Hennepin County, Minnesota, for a new trial on multiple grounds including jury misconduct and in the “interest of justice.”

    Eric Nelson, Mr. Chauvin’s attorney, requested a hearing to impeach the verdict on the grounds that:

    “…the jury committed misconduct, felt threatened or intimidated, felt race based pressure during the proceedings, and/or failed to adhere to instructions during deliberations, in violation of Mr. Chauvin’s constitutional rights to due process and a fair trial.”

    “The Court abused its discretion when it denied Defendant’s motion for a new trial on the grounds that publicity during the proceedings threaten[ed] the fairness of the trial,” the filing said.

    “The State committed pervasive, prejudicial prosecutorial misconduct, which deprived Mr. Chauvin of his constitutional rights to due process and a fair trial, including but not limited to: disparaging the Defense; improper vouching; and failing to adequately prepare its witnesses,” the motion concluded.

    The decision to seek a new trial comes after the trial judge warned, after millionaire south-central LA congresswoman Maxine Waters incited violence and questioned the US judicial system, that “Congresswoman Waters may have given you something on appeal that may result in this whole trial being overturned.”

    The judge continued with a scorching message for Rep. Waters and other elected officials who have engaged in what he slams as “abhorrent” behavior disrespecting the rule of law and giving their opinion in a way that is inconsistent with their oath to the Constitution: (emphasis ours)

    I’m aware of the media reports. I’m aware that Congresswoman Waters was talking specifically about this trial and about the unacceptability of anything less than a murder conviction and talking about being confrontational, but can you submit the press articles about that.

    This goes back to what I’ve been saying from the beginning. I wish elected officials would stop talking about this case, especially in a manner that is disrespectful to the rule of law and to the judicial branch and our function.

    I think if they want to give their opinions, they should do so in a respectful and in a manner that is consistent with their oath to the Constitution, to respect the co-equal branch of government.

    Their failure to do so I think is abhorrent, but I don’t think it’s prejudiced us with additional material that would prejudice this jury. They have been told not to watch the news. I trust they are following those instructions and that there is not in any way a prejudice to the defendant beyond the articles that were talking specifically about the facts of this case.

    Ultimately saying he trusted jurors to follow his instructions to them, the judge denied the defense’s motion for mistrial, adding “a congresswoman’s opinion really doesn’t matter a whole lot.”

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    However, the conviction was then undermined further this week after the previously anonymous Juror #52 went public with interviews to discuss his experience on the jury and support the movement to curtail police abuse. Brandon Mitchell, a 31-year-old high school basketball coach who has identified himself, told news outlets in Minneapolis that on Aug. 28 last year, he attended a march in Washington where Floyd’s siblings were present.

    A photograph from the event showed Mitchell wearing a black T-shirt with a picture of Martin Luther King Jr. emblazoned with the words “Get your knee off our necks,” and “BLM,” which stands for Black Lives Matter, as well as a baseball cap that says “Black Lives Matter.”

    There is, of course, nothing wrong with the photo and it reflected the pride of his uncle when they went to march in Washington to commemorate MLK’s famous 1963 “I have a dream” speech. The march emphasized the campaign against police abuse and obviously many protested the killing of Floyd. Mitchell insists that he did not go to protest the Floyd killing.

    But, as Jonathan Turley explains, the issue is really how Mitchell answered the voir dire questions.  For example, Mitchell answers in the negative to two questions:

    “Did you, or someone close to you, participate in any of the demonstrations or marches against police brutality that took place in Minneapolis after George Floyd’s death?” one question read, according to the newspaper.

    “Other than what you have already described above, have you, or anyone close to you, participated in protests about police use of force or police brutality?”

    On March 15, Mitchell was also asked by the judge on March 15  if he was aware of the Chauvin case and George Floyd. He responded by saying that he’d heard “some basic info about trial dates, etc from the news”, but not the sort of information “that would keep him from serving as an impartial juror.”

    The controversy is strikingly similar to discoveries made about Juror 1261 in the trial of Trump associate Roger Stone.

    It is still not clear the extent of any bias in the case of Mitchell. Some reports indicate that he may have done podcasts on police brutality and the George Floyd case.  That would be particularly serious, though we saw in the Stone trial the lengths that courts will go to avoid the obvious.

    The defense will have the same uphill battle in the Chauvin appeal and the question is whether there is anything in addition to to photo. It will also have to be prepared to answer, as in the Stone case, why it did not perform a full Internet search on prospective jurors.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/04/2021 – 19:07

Digest powered by RSS Digest

May 04

Today’s News 4th May 2021

  • World's Most Powerful Tidal Turbine Deployed Off Scotland's Coast 
    World’s Most Powerful Tidal Turbine Deployed Off Scotland’s Coast 

    Bank of America equity strategist Haim Israel recently told clients by 2030, Europe will generate about 85% of its electricity from renewable sources. Solar and wind have stolen the spotlight in the green energy transition. But there’s one Scottish company called Orbital Marine Power (OMP) that is creating a lot of buzz in tidal turbines. 

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    OMP has designed the world’s most powerful Tidal Turbine, called Orbital O2, measuring 236ft-long and weighing 680 tons. The tidal turbine was assembled at the port of Dundee in the United Kingdom over the last 18 months. 

    Orbital O2 has been towed to the Orkney Islands, where it will undergo commissioning before being connected to the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC). The 2MW tidal turbine will produce enough electricity to power more than 2,000 homes. 

    Tidal turbines are essentially an underwater version of wind turbines, operating the same way. Instead of wind turning the turbine, the propellers turn with tidal shifts and generate power. 

     Here’s how it works:

    As climate transition to a low-carbon economy heats up, Israel provides BofA clients with a chart explaining net-zero emissions targets for the US, China, and Europe. So far, the US doesn’t have specific data, but China is around 2060, and Europe is 2050. 

    Countries worldwide are racing to deploy renewable energy, such as hydrogen, wind, solar, battery, nuclear, and now tidal. 

    … and how attainable are the net-zero targets really? 

    Well, as Europe admits, it can’t go net-zero without natural gas… 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/04/2021 – 02:45

  • China Is Trying To Break Up The Five Eyes Intelligence Network
    China Is Trying To Break Up The Five Eyes Intelligence Network

    Authored by Con Coughlin via The Gatestone Institute,

    China is making a deliberate attempt to create divisions within the elite “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing alliance by forging closer relations with the left-wing government of New Zealand premier Jacinda Ardern.

    The Five Eyes alliance, comprising the US, Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand, dates back to the Second World War, when a number of key allies decided to share intelligence in their bid to defeat Nazi Germany and Japan.

    Today, maintaining intelligence-sharing cooperation between the five Anglophone nations is deemed essential to combating the threat posed by autocratic states, such as Russia and Communist China.

    The survival of the alliance in its current form, though, is under threat after Ms Ardern’s administration announced that it was making improved trade relations with Beijing its priority, rather than maintaining its support for Five Eyes.

    Announcing the decision to seek improved trade ties with Beijing earlier this month, Nanaia Mahuta, New Zealand’s foreign minister, declared that her country was “uncomfortable” with the Five Eyes alliance pressuring China over its appalling human rights record, and wanted instead to pursue its own bilateral relationship.

    Ms Mahuta, 50, was responding to a decision taken last year by the defence ministers of Britain, America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand to endorse an expanded role for the alliance, with a public commitment not only to meet shared security challenges but “to advance their shared values of democracy, freedom and respect for human rights”.

    In this context, the alliance has issued communiqués criticising China’s brutal suppression of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, as well as Beijing’s repression of its Uyghur Muslim minority.

    The statement prompted a fierce response from Beijing, which warned the alliance against involving itself in Hong Kong’s affairs.

    Zhao Lijian, the spokesman for China’s foreign minister, said:

    “No matter if they have five eyes or ten eyes, as soon as they dare to harm China’s sovereignty, security or development interests, they should be careful lest their eyes be poked blind.”

    On the other hand, China praised Ms Mahuta and played up possible cracks in the Five Eyes’ bond. The Global Times, a Communist Party mouthpiece, wrote:

    “In sharp contrast with Australia, which tied itself to the U.S.’ chariot, New Zealand has maintained a relatively independent approach on foreign policies, paving the way for the country to pursue policies that benefit its own economy and citizens.”

    Despite signing up to the new Five Eyes diplomatic initiative, New Zealand, which relies heavily on its trade links with Beijing, has now decided that it no longer wants to support the Five Eyes initiative, and wants instead to pursue its own dialogue with China’s communist rulers.

    “It’s a matter that we have raised with Five Eyes partners, that we are uncomfortable with expanding the remit of the Five Eyes relationship, that we would much rather prefer looking for multilateral opportunities to express our interests on a number of issues,” explained Ms Mahuta in address to the New Zealand China Council on April 19.

    New Zealand’s naive approach to the threat posed by Beijing not only poses a threat to the future of the alliance itself. There is a distinct possibility that Wellington could find itself being expelled from the alliance over its pro-Beijing stance.

    New Zealand, whose geographical location makes it an ideal listening post for the Pacific region, has long been regarded as the weak link in the alliance. In 2003, its access to intelligence was down-graded after Helen Clark, the country’s then left-wing Labour prime minister, opposed the Iraq war.

    The restrictions placed on New Zealand were eventually lifted when Barack Obama became president. The country, however, now faces having its status reviewed again, especially as its latest effort to cosy up to Beijing has infuriated neighbouring Australia, which is in the midst of an increasingly bitter trade war with Beijing.

    As a senior Western intelligence official recently commented about New Zealand’s continued membership of the alliance, the country was now “on the edge of viability as a member” of the alliance because of its “supine” attitude to China and its “compromised political system”.

    New Zealand’s socialist government may believe that it is a good idea to throw in their lot with China’s communist rulers. But by doing so, they risk sacrificing their future to domination by China’s despots.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/04/2021 – 02:00

  • Conrad Black: A Turning In The American Political Road Is Almost At Hand
    Conrad Black: A Turning In The American Political Road Is Almost At Hand

    Authored by Conrad Black, op-ed via The Epoch Times,

    The only way to make any sense of the fierce crosscurrents sweeping over American political life now is to watch two trends that are only slightly connected.

    First is the continuing great national sense of relief that the chaos and pandemonium of the Trump era is over.

    There are not nightly cascades of provocative and frequently outrageous tweets and the days are not filled with confrontations in which the president’s enemies assault him like picadors, and he rises to every challenge like a compulsive single combat warrior.

    To Trump’s scores of millions of admirers, he was merely returning fire from those who attacked him unfairly. To Trump’s enemies, his opponents were only doing their duty to assist in retarding the progress and hastening the departure of the Great Ogre.

    To the independent voters, a beleaguered minority in the Trump era, it was Trump’s America, regardless of blame, and to the majority of Americans, the indignity inflicted upon the presidency and the strain of the constant din of needless and often witless combat became insufferable and had to end, whatever the policy consequences.

    At its most acidulous, this was the Trump-hate vote, more benignly, it was the Trump-abatement vote. But the majority of people, including probably a majority of Trump voters, didn’t like it and simply could not stand the tumult of the Trump presidency.

    Even thoughtful Americans who do not have confidence in Joe Biden and don’t approve of most of what he is doing, are still deeply grateful to be relieved of the nerve-racking cacophony of the Trump presidency.

    This is what is chiefly supporting the Biden honeymoon 100 days into his presidency. Most of the polls remain politicized, inaccurate, and largely unprofessional, as they were in the late presidential election of ineradicable and horrifying memory (and result).

    But the average of them seems to give this president approximately a 53 percent approval rating to about 42 percent negative. This is a solid and respectable result and a better showing than President Trump had any point in his term.

    Though given that he was the subject of a completely unprecedented consistency and intensity of media and celebrity assault, his performance in the almost uniformly nasty and stacked polls entitles him to a special achievement award for carrying nearly 48 percent of the vote and probably forcing the Democrats to steal the Electoral College with harvested ballots in Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and for producing so taut a political crisis that the Supreme Court ducked it (in the Texas challenge supported by 18 other states), assumedly under the mistaken assumption that that would spare them the threatened effort to pack the high court.

    This total, the anti-Trump share of the honeymoon approval rate, as in all presidential honeymoons, is slowly declining. But it is also more vulnerable than other presidential honeymoon poll results, because it is not really based on any enthusiasm for Biden, but rather on the passage of something that has gone and is not threatening to return imminently.

    The last time we saw anything of this kind was in the first year of President Nixon as the antiwar and race riots of the late Lyndon Johnson era faded, and in the Ford and early Carter years, when there was no longer any reason to think of Watergate.

    The second indicator of political opinion is the independent policy areas where the new administration’s performance is measured. Here, the sands are running out in the hour-clock for the Biden administration’s attempt to smoke far-left legislation through on the threadbare flying carpet of anti-Trumpism.

    The vulnerability of President Biden’s position is underscored by the fact that apart from his handling of the coronavirus and related problems, the majority disapprove of his performance in all other areas, most markedly the southern border and immigration, but also including the economy, foreign policy, and law and order and public security.

    Approximately 90 percent of Americans believe that there should be a border and a process to entering the country; over 80 percent unconditionally oppose violent demonstrations and riots, the overwhelming majority support adequate police protection, if with more sophisticated rules in armed confrontations, and there is little enthusiasm for increased taxes or profligate spending.

    The principal anti-Trump television networks seem to have lost about 50 percent of their viewers and the public clearly is not much interested in an indefinite continuation of mudslinging and defamation against the former president, either as a substitute for the new administration presenting and executing its policies, or for the national political media restoring a substantial element of professional reporting where for the previous four years it had self-righteously substituted Trump-hate.

    It is of the nature of polling that unpleasant memories of former presidents recede and the prestigious fact of them having been presidents and in many cases the highlights of their presidencies remain comparatively well fixed in the public mind.

    Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon were generally reviled when they left office, but after some years they came again to be recognized as outstanding figures of American public life. President Trump was not generally a quick learner in the art of public relations while he was president, but it must be said that he has played his hand skillfully these last three months.

    The initial post-inaugural efforts to torment him endlessly, portray him as an advocate of insurrection and to suborn and extort evidence against him in all manner of ubiquitously alleged imminent proceedings while pretending there was some comparison to be made between Jan. 6 and 9/11, has been a complete failure.

    All the headlines and television news introductions that the Trump mob had killed capitol police officer Brian Sicknick have been exposed as pure fabrication, a campaign of outright lies. All the allegations against the Trump campaign organization of incitement of the vandalism at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 have proved to be unfounded.

    And throughout these three months the former president has issued press releases without hyperbole and has given relatively few interviews and only one major speech and on every occasion he has been judicious.

    Joe Biden does well with the public as an apparently amiable personality, and he probably deserves credit for at least bringing to serious consideration a far more radically left agenda than the public would approve of, in a way that has not squandered the general perception of him as a likable person.

    But we are almost at the point where this administration’s attempt to revolutionize American elections by practically abolishing any verification process for ballots and turning election day into a weeks-long orgy of ballot-harvesting, while packing the Senate and the Supreme Court and gagging congressional minorities, will collide with public opposition to all of these measures.

    In those circumstances, the Supreme Court, its attempt at appeasement of the Democrats by abdicating as head of a co-equal third branch of government having failed, might also reassert the legitimacy of the Constitution.

    A turning in the road is almost at hand.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/04/2021 – 00:00

  • Earth Helpless Against Giant Asteroids As NASA Simulation Ends In Doom
    Earth Helpless Against Giant Asteroids As NASA Simulation Ends In Doom

    According to simulations conducted by leading space agencies, Earth lacks the technology to stop a massive asteroid from wiping out Europe, according to the Independent.

    The week-long exercise led by Nasa concluded that catastrophe would be unavoidable, even given six months to prepare.

    The hypothetical impact scenario, which took place during a planetary defence conference hosted by the United Nations, proved that governments are woefully unprepared for this kind of disaster. -Independent

    “If confronted with the scenario in real life, we would not be able to launch any spacecraft on such short notice with current capabilities,” said the participants.

    According to the report, the only thing humanity could do in such an event is to evacuate the area before the asteroid hit – though the scenario’s impact zone was across a large swath of North Africa and Europe.

    “Each time we participate in exercises of this nature, we learn more about who the key players are in a disaster event, and who needs to know what information and when,” said NASA Planetary Defense Officer, Lindley Johnson.

    “These exercises ultimately help the planetary defence community communicate with each other and with our governments to ensure we are all coordinated should a potential impact threat be identified in the future.”

    Responding to the news of the failure, SpaceX boss Elon Musk said the lack of solution was “one of many reasons why we need larger and more advanced rockets”.

     

    SpaceX recently secured a $2.89 billion contract with Nasa to develop its next-generation Starship spacecraft, which is being built to transport people and cargo around the Solar System.

    According to SpaceX, Starship combined with its Super Heavy rocket booster will be “the world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever developed,” and could theoretically alter the trajectory of an Earth-bound asteroid.

    Meanwhile, NASA is already working on technology to deflect asteroids – and will launch a test mission of its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) system later this year before reaching the asteroid Dimorphos next autumn. The test aims to change the orbit of the asteroid in the hopes of proving that such a system would be a viable defense against near-Earth objects (NEO) in the future.

    “DART will be the first test for planetary defence, and the data returned after it impacts Dimorphos will help scientists better understand one way we might mitigate a potentially hazardous NEO discovered in the future,” said DART program executive, Andrea Riley. “While the asteroid DART impacts poses no threat to Earth, it is in a perfect location for us to perform this test of the technology before it may actually be needed.”

    At present, NASA is discovering around 30 new NEOs per week, on top of the roughly 25,000 the agency is currently tracking.

    Or, they could just call Bruce Willis…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 23:40

  • The Criminalization Of Dissent
    The Criminalization Of Dissent

    Authored (somewhat satirically) by CJ Hopkins via The Consent Factory,

    One of the hallmarks of totalitarian systems is the criminalization of dissent.

    Not just the stigmatization of dissent or the demonization of dissent, but the formal criminalization of dissent, and any other type of opposition to the official ideology of the totalitarian system. Global capitalism has been inching its way toward this step for quite some time, and now, apparently, it is ready to take it.

    Germany has been leading the way. For over a year, anyone questioning or protesting the “Covid emergency measures” or the official Covid-19 narrative has been demonized by the government and the media, and, sadly, but not completely unexpectedly, the majority of the German public. And now such dissent is officially “extremism.”

    Yes, that’s right, in “New Normal” Germany, if you dissent from the official state ideology, you are now officially a dangerous “extremist.” The German Intelligence agency (the “BfV”) has even invented a new category of “extremists” in order to allow themselves to legally monitor anyone suspected of being “anti-democratic and/or delegitimizing the state in a way that endangers security,” like … you know, non-violently protesting, or speaking out against, or criticizing, or satirizing, the so-called “New Normal.”

    Naturally, I’m a little worried, as I have engaged in most of these “extremist” activities. My thoughtcrimes are just sitting there on the Internet waiting to be scrutinized by the BfV. They’re probably Google-translating this column right now, compiling a list of all the people reading it, and their Facebook friends and Twitter followers, and professional associates, and family members, and anyone any of the aforementioned people have potentially met with, or casually mentioned, who might have engaged in similar thoughtcrimes.

    You probably think I’m joking, don’t you? I’m not joking. Not even slightly.

    The Federal Office for Protection of the Constitution (“Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz”) is actively monitoring anyone questioning or challenging the official “New Normal” ideology … the “Covid Deniers,” the “conspiracy theorists,” the “anti-vaxxers,” the dreaded “Querdenkers” (i.e., people who “think outside the box”), and anyone else they feel like monitoring who has refused to join the Covidian Cult. We’re now official enemies of the state, no different than any other “terrorists” … or, OK, technically, a little different.

    As The New York Times reported last week (German Intelligence Puts Coronavirus Deniers Under Surveillance), “the danger from coronavirus deniers and conspiracy theorists does not fit the mold posed by the usual politically driven groups, including those on the far left and right, or by Islamic extremists.” Still, according to the German Interior Ministry, we diabolical “Covid deniers,” “conspiracy theorists,” and “anti-vaxxers” have “targeted the state itself, its leaders, businesses, the press, and globalism,” and have “attacked police officers” and “defied civil authorities.”

    Moreover, back in August of 2020, in a dress rehearsal for the “Storming of the Capitol,” “Covid-denying” insurrectionists “scaled the steps of Parliament” (i.e., the Reichstag). Naturally, The Times neglects to mention that this so-called “Storming of the Reichstag” was performed by a small sub-group of protesters to whom the German authorities had granted a permit to assemble (apart from the main demonstration, which was massive and completely peaceful) on the steps of the Reichstag, which the German police had, for some reason, left totally unguarded. In light of the background of the person the German authorities issued this “Steps-of-the-Reichstag” protest permit to — a known former-NPD functionary, in other words, a neo-Nazi — well, the whole thing seemed a bit questionable to me … but what do I know? I’m just a “conspiracy theorist.”

    According to Al Jazeera, the German Interior Ministry explained that these querdenking “extremists encourage supporters to ignore official orders and challenge the state monopoly on the use of force.” Seriously, can you imagine anything more dangerous? Mindlessly following orders and complying with the state’s monopoly on the use of force are the very cornerstones of modern democracy … or some sort of political system, anyway.

    But, see, there I go, again “being anti-democratic” and “delegitimizing the state,” not to mention “relativizing the Holocaust” (also a criminal offense in Germany) by comparing one totalitarian system to another, as I have done repeatedly on social media, and in a column I published in November of 2020, when the parliament passed the “Infection Protection Act,” which bears no comparison whatsoever to the “Enabling Act of 1933.”

    This isn’t just a German story, of course. As I reported in a column in February, The “New Normal” War on Domestic Terror is a global war, and it’s just getting started. According to a Department of Homeland Security “National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin” (and the “liberal” corporate-media propaganda machine), “democracy” remains under imminent threat from these “ideologically-motivated violent extremists with objections to the exercise of governmental authority” and other such “grievances fueled by false narratives” including “anger over Covid-19 restrictions.”

    These Covid-denying “violent extremists” have apparently joined forces with the “white-supremacist, Russia-backed, Trump-loving “Putin-Nazis” that terrorized “democracy” for the past four years, and almost overthrew the US government by sauntering around inside the US Capitol Building without permission, scuffling with police, attacking furniture, and generally acting rude and unruly. No, they didn’t actually kill anyone, as the corporate media all reported they did, but trespassing in a government building and putting your feet up on politicians’ desks is pretty much exactly the same as “terrorism.”

    Or whatever. It’s not like the truth actually matters, not when you are whipping up mass hysteria over imaginary “Russian assets,” “white-supremacist militias,” “Covid-denying extremists,” “anti-vax terrrorists,” and “apocalyptic plagues.” When you’re rolling out a new official ideology — a pathologized-totalitarian ideology — and criminalizing all dissent, the point is not to appear to be factual. The point is just to terrorize the shit out of people.

    As Hermann Goering famously explained regarding how to lead a country to war (and the principle holds true for any big transition, like the one we are experiencing currently):

    “[T]he people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.”

    Go back and read those quotes from the German Interior Ministry and the DHS again slowly. The message they are sending is unmistakeably clear. It might not seem all that new, but it is. Yes, they have been telling us “we are being attacked” and denouncing critics, protesters, and dissidents for twenty years (i.e., since the War on Terror was launched in 2001, and for the last four years in their War on Populism), but this is a whole new level of it … a fusion of official narratives and their respective official enemies into a singular, aggregate official narrative in which dissent will no longer be permitted.

    Instead, it will be criminalized, or it will be pathologized.

    Seriously, go back and read those quotes again. Global capitalist governments and their corporate media mouthpieces are telling us, in no uncertain terms, that “objection to their authority” will no longer be tolerated, nor will dissent from their official narratives. Such dissent will be deemed “dangerous” and above all “false.” It will not be engaged with or rationally debated. It will be erased from public view. There will be an inviolable, official “reality.” Any deviation from official “reality” or defiance of the “civil authorities” will be labelled “extremism,” and dealt with accordingly.

    This is the essence of totalitarianism, the establishment of an inviolable official ideology and the criminalization of dissent. And that is what is happening, right now. A new official ideology is being established. Not a state ideology. A global ideology. The “New Normal” is that official ideology. Technically, it is an official post-ideology, an official “reality,” an axiomatic “fact,” which only “criminals” and “psychopaths” would deny or challenge.

    I’ll be digging deeper into “New Normal” ideology and “pathologized totalitarianism” in my future columns, and … sorry, they probably won’t be very funny. For now I’ll leave you with two more quotes. The emphasis is mine, as ever.

    Here’s California State Senator Richard Pan, author of an op-ed in the Washington Post: “Anti-vax extremism is akin to domestic terrorism,” quoted in the Los Angeles Times:

    “These extremists have not yet been held accountable, so they continue to escalate violence against the body public … We must now summon the political will to demand that domestic terrorists face consequences for their words and actions. Our democracy and our lives depend on it … They’ve been building alliances with white supremacists, conspiracy theorists and [others] on the far right …”

    And here’s Peter Hotez in Nature magazine:

    “The United Nations and the highest levels of governments must take direct, even confrontational, approaches with Russia, and move to dismantle anti-vaccine groups in the United States. Efforts must expand into the realm of cyber security, law enforcement, public education and international relations. A high-level inter-agency task force reporting to the UN secretary-general could assess the full impact of anti-vaccine aggression, and propose tough, balanced measures. The task force should include experts who have tackled complex global threats such as terrorism, cyber attacks and nuclear armament, because anti-science is now approaching similar levels of peril. It is becoming increasingly clear that advancing immunization requires a counter-offensive.”

    We’ll be hearing a lot more rhetoric like this as this new, more totalitarian structure of global capitalism gradually develops. Probably a good idea to listen carefully, and assume they mean exactly what they say.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 23:20

  • China Accuses Australia Of "Colluding With Terrorists" In Row Over Uygher Rights Group
    China Accuses Australia Of “Colluding With Terrorists” In Row Over Uygher Rights Group

    In the latest from their ongoing and increasingly nasty geopolitical row, China is accusing Australia giving a “free pass” to terror-sympathizers over accusations that Aussie politicians are backing Uighur activists and providing external support to Muslim fundamentalists in Xinjiang. 

    This latest diplomatic fight started when as news.au.com describes Chinese state media “seized on an article, published by fringe political group the Australian Citizens Party, criticizing local politicians’ support for the East Turkistan Australian Association (ETAA), a Uyghur advocacy group. The article claimed the ETAA supported terror groups in Xinjiang.”

    It was specifically Australia’s Defense Minister Andrew Hastie and independent Senator Rex Patrick who were called out by Chinese media for supporting the ETAA activists, which Canberra later called “disinformation”.

    China’s foreign ministry was quick to respond fiercely, pointing the finger Australian officials for “colluding with terrorists” and warning Canberra will surely be “burned” by the Uyghur groups it’s backing. Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin additionally described “lies and smears” which target Xinjiang and China broadly.

    “As some Western media are awash with lies and smears targeting Xinjiang, such objective and rational voices shows that justice will eventually prevail,” Wenbin said. “We urge certain Australian politicians not to stand on the wrong side of history and to stop endorsing anti-China separatist activities and terrorist organizations to avoid getting burned itself.”

    Apparently the Australian political advocacy group which is at the center of the controversy does not have a wide following or much prominence in the Australian media landscape, yet as has happened with other countries and with similarly related issues, China seized upon the article in question to make it somehow representative of Australia’s official stance. 

    Beijing was particularly angered at the article’s language describing Xinjiang as “currently under the brutal occupation of the Chinese Communist Government.”

    Widely shared image on social media purporting to show a group of detainees in Xinjiang.

    The aforementioned Senator Patrick in return charged that Beijing was merely seizing on “disinformation” and that the whole row is “not immediately helpful” in terms of improving the plight of China’s Muslim minority community.

    “The focus of my attention has been to support those members of the Uyghur community in Adelaide and across Australia whose families are suffering the Chinese Communist Party directed genocide and oppression in Xinjiang,” the Australian politician said in a statement.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 23:00

  • Corporate News Outlets Again "Confirm" The Same False Story, While Many Refuse To Correct It
    Corporate News Outlets Again “Confirm” The Same False Story, While Many Refuse To Correct It

    Authored by Glenn Greenwald via greenwald.substack.com

    Rudy Giuliani appeared before the Michigan House Oversight Committee in Lansing, Michigan on December 2, 2020 (Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY / AFP) (Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images)

    One of the primary plagues of corporate journalism, which I have documented more times than I can count, just reared its ugly head again to deceive millions of people with fake news. When one large news outlet publishes a false story based on whispers from anonymous security state agents with the CIA or FBI, other news outlets quickly purport that they have “independently confirmed” the false story, in order to bolster its credibility (oh, it must be true since other outlets have also confirmed it).

    This is an obvious scam — they have not “independently confirmed” anything but rather merely acted as servants to the same lying security state agents who planted the original false story — but they do it over and over, creating the deceitful perception that a fake story has been “confirmed” by multiple outlets, thus bolstering its credibility in the public mind. It was the favored tactic for spreading debunked Russiagate frauds and is still used. One of the most vivid examples occurred in December, 2017, when CNN falsely reported what it hyped as “a major bombshell”: that Donald Trump, Jr. had advance access to the WikiLeaks archive. Within an hour, NBC News’ Ken Dilanian and CBS News both claimed they had “independently confirmed” this fairy tale. When it turned out that it was a complete lie, all based on a false date on an email to Trump Jr., these outlets embarrassingly corrected it hours later and then simply moved on as if it never happened, never explaining how multiple outlets could possibly have all “independently confirmed” the same blatant falsehood.

    On Thursday night, The Washington Post, citing anonymous sources (of course), claimed that the FBI gave a “defensive briefing” to Rudy Giuliani in 2019, before he traveled to Ukraine, that he was being targeted by a Russian disinformation campaign to hurt Joe Biden’s candidacy, yet he ignored the FBI’s warnings and went anyway. The Post also claimed that the right-wing news outlet OANN was similarly briefed. The claim about Giuliani not only predictably ricocheted all over social media and cable news — where, as usual, it was uncritically treated as Truth — but it was shortly thereafter “independently confirmed” by both NBC News’ de facto CIA spokesman Ken Dilanian along with The New York Times.

    What was the problem with this story? It was totally false. The FBI never briefed Giuliani on any such thing. As a result, The Washington Post had to append this “correction” — meaning a retraction — to the top of its viral story:

    The Washington Post, May 1, 2021

    At first, The New York Times attempted to quietly change the story to delete the false claims without noting they were doing so. But upon being pressured, they finally faced up to what they did and posted their own retraction at the very bottom of the story that reads: “Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated whether Rudolph W. Giuliani received a formal warning from the F.B.I. about Russian disinformation. Mr. Giuliani did not receive such a so-called defensive briefing.” In their self-glorifying jargon, the Paper of Record did not spread Fake News — perish the thought — but merely “misstated” the truth. Meanwhile, NBC News, at the top of its false story, posted this explanation for why Dilanian got the story completely wrong:

    An earlier version of this article included an incorrect report that Rudolph Giuliani had received a defensive briefing from the FBI in 2019 warning him that he was being targeted by a Russian influence operation. The report was based on a source familiar with the matter, but a second source now says the briefing was only prepared for Giuliani and not delivered to him, in part over concerns it might complicate the criminal investigation of Giuliani. As a result, the premise and headline of the article below have been changed to reflect the corrected information.

    This credibility carnage was so glaring that even CNN acknowledged that “the corrections are black eyes to the newsrooms which have aggressively reported on Giuliani’s contacts with Ukrainians in his attempts to dig up dirt on then-presidential candidate Joe Biden.” But there have been so many similar “black eyes” like this one, indeed far worse ones, over the last five years, and they never change anything that causes these “black eyes” because they want to do this: spreading disinformation is their function. Indeed, as I have asked almost every time these debacles happen: how is it possible that these same outlets keep “confirming” one another’s false stories?

    And the answer is obvious: they all serve as mouthpieces for the same propagandists and disinformation agents of the CIA, FBI and other security state agencies. In this capacity, they dutifully write down and vouch for what they are told by those agencies to publish without any investigative scrutiny or confirmation. The most amazing part of it all is that when they try to malign independent journalists for not doing “real reporting” — real reporting like these corporate outlets do — this is what they mean by real reporting: getting a call from the CIA or FBI and being told what to say. And that is why they so often mislead and deceive the public with blatant disinformation in unison.

    It is hard to overstate how far and wide this false story about the FBI’s briefing to Giuliani spread, how many millions of people it deceived. The two liberal cable outlets, MSNBC and CNN, instantly convened panels to analyze the grave implications of this revelation, accusing Giuliani of knowingly spreading Russian disinformation (by which they meant, as usual, truthful information that reflects poorly on Democratic Party leaders) even though he was told not to keep doing so by the FBI.

    As usual, the MSNBC program of Nicolle Wallace — who has magically transformed from a disinformation agent for the Bush/Cheney White House into an identical disinformation agent but now for the DNC — was one of the leaders in spreading this lie. She brought on former FBI agent and current MSNBC analyst Clint Watts to do just that (just as Wallace dramatized how Brian Sicknick died by falsely claiming that “they beat a Capitol Police Officer to death with a fire extinguisher” and repeatedly glorified Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) as a great and truthful leader on COVID):

    This is all par for the course. But in this case, dozens of journalists for NBC News, MSNBC, CNN and The Washington Post — the very outlets that purported to “confirm” the false story — as well as activists and scholars who purport to combat “disinformation,” spread it all over Twitter and, days later, have left it up, even knowing the story is false, while not even telling their followers that the story was false and has been retracted.

    In preparation for writing this article, I spent the day notifying close to a dozen of these media luminaries that their false tweet remained up and asked whether they intend to take it down and/or correct the false tweet. Only one — NBC White House Correspondent Geoff Bennett — responded. He did so by blocking me on Twitter, while leaving the false tweet up, uncorrected. Put another way, this NBC News journalist is well aware that he lied to close to 200,000 followers when he falsely told them that “Rudy Giuliani and Sen. Ron Johnson were warned in late 2019 that they were targets of a Russian operation intended to damage Joe Biden politically” — a story (as it pertains to Giuliani) which even his own outlet has retracted — but simply refuses to note that it was false or to remove the false posting. This NBC News reporter is knowingly spreading Fake News all over Twitter.

    Tweet to NBC News’ Geoff Bennett advising him that his false tweet remains up and uncorrected, followed by his immediate block.

    The number of journalists with major outlets who spread this fake news and never corrected it is too high to comprehensively chronicle. But even when you tell them that the story they spread is false and that they never corrected it or deleted the false tweet, they just leave it up anyway: knowingly spreading lies.

    Basically as an experiment to measure how willing they are to knowingly lie even when caught, I sent a large number of them inquiries similar to the one I sent to NBC’s Bennett. With the exception of NBC‘s Bennett — who blocked me but left up the lying claim — virtually all just left their false tweets up with no notation to the people they lied to that the story was retracted. Here, for instance, are my similar interactions with Washington Post reporter Dan Zak, frequent Russia analyst for CNN and The Daily Beast Michael Weiss, CNN‘s Senior Global Affairs analyst Bianna Golodryga, and Bloomberg columnist Tim O’Brien, all of whom spread this story and have left it up uncorrected:

    Here is just a random sampling of five more people or sites who spread this lie all over the internet and refuse to take it down or tell their followers the tweet was false: MSNBC‘s ex-FBI agent Clint Watts, Washington Post reporter Greg Jaffe, Center for American Progress’ Max Bergmann who runs the liberal think tank’s “Moscow Project,” Nina Jankowicz: who says she “studies disinformation”(!) for the Wilson Center, and the liberal “news” site Raw Story:

    Meanwhile, MSNBC‘s Chris Hayes’ show, All In, has left up its tweet with the false story and refuses to take it down (though, after I shamed them for it, they finally noted in a subsequent tweet an hour or so ago that the story was retracted), while MSNBC‘s viral tweet with the false story also remains up:

    Perhaps the most extraordinary example is The Washington Post‘s Glenn Kessler. He is held out by that paper as its official “fact-checker”: the person responsible for decreeing what is true and what is false. Not only did he post the fake claim about Giuliani’s briefing, and not only did he never delete it or note that it was false even after his own paper retracted it and even after I advised him of this, but — just two days ago! — he endorsed a denunciation by CNN‘s Jake Tapper of an RNC official who tweeted out a story that turned out to be false (namely, that DHS was providing copies of Kamala Harris’ book to migrant children).

    “Says quite a bit that this tweet is still up even after the story was proven a lie,” the CNN anchor reasonably said. Yet while Kessler endorsed that lecture, he himself did exactly the same thing: let stand a retracted story without removing the tweet or telling his audience that it was false:

    As I indicated, this is just a small sampling of journalists and activists who spread this false story and simply left the lie standing and uncorrected even after being advised. The list of shame also includes MSNBC’s second-favorite neocon (after Bill Kristol) Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post. And while the false articles from the three outlets went viral, the tweets and other notations addressing the retractions were noted by only a tiny fraction who spread the original claim.

    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 for various official factions. And when a journalist spreads a false story and knows they have done so, but still refuses to correct it or remove it — as is the case for many of the above examples — then they are just tawdry liars who should be driven out of journalism. But they are not driven out and will not be because the reality is that their job is to spread disinformation as long as it is in servitude to the right factions (the CIA, FBI and DNC) and against those who are ideologically disfavored.

    Again we see the core truth of U.S. corporate journalism. The outlets that most vocally claim to condemn disinformation and fake news — to the point of agitating in favor of corporate and online censorship of their critics and competitors in the name of combating it — are the most prolific, aggressive and destructive disseminators of disinformation. Their refusal to remove the fake news here even after I explicitly notified them of it just makes this latest example a particularly vivid one.

    Update, May 3, 2021, 20:20 pm. ET: Subsequent to publication of this article, The Washington Post‘s Glenn Kessler posted a correction to Twitter:

    This is not hard to do. It’s what anyone with even minimal journalistic integrity would do. It is astonishing and grotesque how many of them simply refuse. 

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

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 22:40

  • Patients Stricken By Vaccine Blood Clots Seek Payout From Government Fund
    Patients Stricken By Vaccine Blood Clots Seek Payout From Government Fund

    Though they represent a tiny fraction of all patients who receive the various COVID-19 vaccines, those who have severe, even life-threatening, reactions to the J&J COVID-19 jab face a difficult path to compensation since US law shields producers of the various COVID-19 vaccines from lawsuits. Instead, as Bloomberg explains in a story published Monday, patients are left to file claim with an obscure federal fund that – as BBG explains – “a program with a history of rejecting claims and a relatively high bar for recovering costs.”

    The Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program, run by an obscure office within the Department of Health and Human Services, covers medical costs and lost wages not paid by insurance. Some 445 claims had been filed for Covid-related adverse reactions as of April 26, according to the Health Resources and Services Administration, which runs the program. However, only a small number of those claims are related to vaccines.

    Bloomberg also offered some insight into what happens to patients who experience severe reactions to vaccines. It starts with the story of Emma Burkey, who was hosptialized after having a seizure caused by blood clots in her brain. An ambulance took Burkey to the local southern Nevada hospital, where doctors realized her reaction was similar to others reported from the J&J shot. Having grasped the severity of the situation, she was airlifted to a neural treatment unit at Loma Linda Hospital in San Bernardino, California. The family is counting on most costs to be covered by insurance, but they learned of the compensation program during a call from Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s office, one of the two senators from their home state of Nevada. Members of the senators staff are ensuring the family “gets the support they deserve.”

    High school senior Emma Burkey received her “one and done” Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine on March 20, and within two weeks was in an induced coma following seizures and clotting in her brain.

    She’s making a slow recovery, having recently been transfered from the hospital to a rehabilitation center, and the first round of bills totaled $513,000. The 18-year-old’s family friends in the Las Vegas area started a GoFundMe account to help with medical expenses from the very rare vaccine reaction.

    “We don’t know what’s going to happen with Emma, how long it will it take for her to return to a normal life,” said Bret Johnson, the family’s minister, who’s acting as spokesman for the Burkeys. He said the family believes her condition is linked to the vaccine but hasn’t yet been contacted by the company or U.S. health regulators, and that a connection hasn’t been independently confirmed.

    So far, of the roughly 450 claims filed with the compensation program, only about 25% of the COVID-linked reactions have been linked to vaccines, while more than half were from various other treatments, according to HRSA. These include ventilators, convalescent plasma, and hydroxychloroquine. In total, the claims include more than 50 deaths from insufficient care.

    Unfortunately for those who have filed, there have been no payouts so far in COVID cases, which the HRSA says is because it hasn’t received all the information it needs to make disbursements. Required medical records still haven’t been received from the applicant in the first claim, which was filed in September over an adverse reaction to convalescent plasma, the agency said.

    Some critics say the countermeasures program isn’t the best way to handle the vaccine claims. Even once processing of the claims begins, historically, the fund has been pretty stingy. Only 39 of almost 500 claims have been found to be eligible for compensation (mostly for reactions to the H1N1 vaccine) and the fund has paid out only about $6 million in 29 cases.

    Instead, these critics believe compensation requests should go through a decades-old program within the same agency called the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, known informally as the “vaccine court.” However, the CDC insists that COVID-19 vaccinations aren’t eligible to be heard by the court – though Congress might move to change this. The vaccine court was created in the late 1980s, when vaccine-makers threatened to pull out of the market over the high costs of litigation.

    Fortunately for Burkey, her health-care costs – which will likely mount into the millions of dollars – will be borne by her health insurer. But one shouldn’t assume that every one of the women who suffered blood clots due to the J&J jab will be so lucky.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 22:20

  • Former BLM Movement Leader Arrested For Interfering In Homicide Probe
    Former BLM Movement Leader Arrested For Interfering In Homicide Probe

    Authored by Isabel Van Brugen via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A former leader of a movement in Iowa City that identifies with the ideals of Black Lives Matter has been arrested for allegedly interfering in a homicide investigation, police said.

    In this file photo, a protester is holding a ‘defund the police’ sign at a Black Lives Matter protest in Manhattan, New York City on July 13, 2020. (Chung I Ho/file/The Epoch Times)

    Mazin M. Mohamedali, 20, was arrested Saturday, and faces one count of accessory after the fact, an aggravated misdemeanor, according to a criminal complaint filed in Johnson County District Court.

    His arrest follows a fatal shooting during a suspected robbery at his Iowa residence in February.

    Police say he failed to immediately call emergency services after the incident. He also later lied to investigators about the shooting’s circumstances and provided false descriptions of people involved, according to an affidavit filed by an officer.

    According to court documents, the 20-year-old also deleted his mobile phone’s call history and the mobile phone application Snapchat, and in doing so, hid information from police that would have led them more quickly to the suspect in the shooting death, Sammy Hamed.

    Mohamedali has identified himself as a former leader of the Iowa Freedom Riders—which describes itself as a racial justice and liberation group that believes in the ideals of Black Lives Matter. Iowa Freedom Riders also says it collectively works to “envision and realize a world where we treat each other with care & compassion instead of subscribing to the white supremacist, punitive system that is the prison industrial complex.”

    He was previously arrested on charges stemming from the initial homicide probe. After conducting a search warrant at Mohamedali’s apartment on Feb. 24, police discovered 56.13 grams of marijuana and 42.5 ecstasy pills. He was arrested on two counts each of a controlled substance violation and Iowa drug tax stamp violation, and one count of keeping a drug house.

    The 20-year-old is scheduled to go to trial for those charges on Aug. 24.

    Mohamedali was also arrested last year during a Black Lives Matter riot, for which he faced six charges, including unlawful assembly, disorderly conduct, criminal mischief, and trespassing. He pleaded guilty to one simple misdemeanor—disorderly conduct—and the other charges were dismissed.

    He was released shortly after being booked at the Johnson County Jail, according to jail records.

    A September 2020 social media post from Mohamedali shows an image of Breonna Taylor, who was shot to death during a police raid of her home in March 2020, with her death later becoming a rallying cry for Black Lives Matter protests and riots last year.

    In the image, the initials BLM, which stand for Black Lives Matter, are spray painted on the ground.

    “#justiceforbreonnataylor that’s all we need. Real indictments real respect keep the [expletive],” the Instagram photo’s caption reads.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 22:00

  • Biden: "Anybody Making Less Than $400,000 Will Not Pay A Single Penny In Taxes"
    Biden: “Anybody Making Less Than $400,000 Will Not Pay A Single Penny In Taxes”

    Want to see “objective” fact checkers like Snopes, Politifact or Newsguard explode? Just send them this clip of whisper-mode Joe and ask them if it’s true…

    Read my lips…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 21:40

  • BofA: "Transitory Hyperinflation Ahead"
    BofA: “Transitory Hyperinflation Ahead”

    Last week, when discussing the latest earnings call commentary, Bank of America said “Buckle up! Inflation is here”, and showed a chart of the number of mentions of “inflation” during earnings calls which exploded, more than tripling YoY per company so far, the and the biggest jump in history since BofA started keeping records in 2004.

    Who knew that just one week later BofA would need a bigger chart… a much bigger chart.

    As BofA’s Savita Subramanian writes, after the third week of earnings. mentions of “inflation” have now quadrupled YoY; and after last week, mentions have jumped nearly 800% YoY!

    While the implications are obvious, we leave it to Bank of America to explain what this means:

    On an absolute basis, [inflation] mentions skyrocketed to near record highs from 2011, pointing to at the very least, “transitory” hyper-inflation ahead.

    Yes… really:

    Because if there is one thing hyperinflation is, it’s “transitory.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 21:20

  • US Launching Five Digital Dollar Pilot Programs
    US Launching Five Digital Dollar Pilot Programs

    By now it’s common knowledge that China is leaps and bounds ahead of all other central banks in launching a CBDC, or Central Bank Digital Currency (which Beijing vows is not a challenge to the reserve status of the US Dollar, but is precisely that), however the US is doing everything it can to keep up. And while one wouldn’t get the sense of urgency if one listened to either the Fed chair or the NY Fed president today…

    • POWELL SAYS HAVE NOT DECIDED WHETHER TO ISSUE A DIGITAL CURRENCY
    • WILLIAMS SAYS FED IS STUDYING CENTRAL BANK DIGITAL CURRENCIES ACTIVELY AND IS NOT IN A RACE

    … on Monday, the nonprofit organization Digital Dollar Project said it will launch five pilot programs over the next 12 months to test the potential uses of a U.S. central bank digital currency, the first effort of its kind in the United States.

    According to Reuters, the private-sector pilots which hope to recreate similar tests held in China last year, will initially be funded by Accenture and involve financial firms, retailers and NGOs, among others. The aim is simple: to generate data that could help U.S. policymakers develop a digital dollar.

    Why Accenture, formerly known as Arthur Andersen of Enron fame? Because a partnership between Accenture and the Digital Dollar Foundation, the Digital Dollar Project was created last year to promote research into a U.S. central bank digital currency (CBDC).

    “There are conferences and papers coming out every week around the world on CBDCs based on data from other countries,” said Christopher Giancarlo, former chair of the CFTC and co-founder of the Digital Dollar Foundation.

    “What there is not, is any real data and testing from the United States to inform that debate. We’re seeking to generate that real-world data,” Giancarlo added.

    This means that over the next 12 months, a select group of Americans will have the “honor” of transacting with the next evolutionary US currency – the digital dollar.

    As discussed here extensively in recent years, CBDCs are the digital equivalent of banknotes and coins, giving holders a direct digital claim on the central bank and allowing them to make instant electronic payments. On the other hand, digital currencies allow central banks to track every single transaction in real-time, to identify the holder of the currency and – when the time comes – to “expire” it.

    As a reminder, last month we reported that China’s digiral yuan “is programmable. Beijing has tested expiration dates to encourage users to spend it quickly, for times when the economy needs a jump start.” The Fed’s digital dollar will have this functionality too, as well as many more, most notably allowing the central bank to deposit digital dollar in any bank account of its choosing to create targeted inflation by selectively funding those who are most likely to spend rather than save (hence the relentless campaign to convince the US population that minorities deserve reparations).

    A few quick words on how CBDCs differ from other traditional payment methods: While debit cards or payment apps are a form of digital cash, those transactions are created by commercial banks based on money central banks credit to those banks’ accounts. They are not fully government-backed, can take days to settle, and often incur fees. Cryptocurrencies, meanwhile, are controlled by private actors, and have been soaring in recent years in response to the unprecedented debasement of fiat currencies.

    Central banks around the world, including in China and Europe, are revving up CBDC projects to fend off threats from cryptocurrencies and improve payment systems.

    Unlike Beijing, the U.S. Federal Reserve has said it wants to move more cautiously. It has been working with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to build a technology platform for a hypothetical digital dollar, but chair Jerome Powell said last week that it is “far more important” to get a digital dollar right than it is to be fast. However, it now appears that speed is emerging as a key variable as well.

    Giancarlo said Powell was correct to be cautious but that as China pushes ahead, the United States must drive a discussion on incorporating U.S. values such as privacy and freedom of commerce and speech into the development of CBDCs. “It’s vital that the U.S. asserts leadership as it has in previous technological innovations,” Giancarlo added.

    Giancarlo also gave the trite BS reason why the US “needs” a digital currency, as it could also boost financial inclusion in the United States, where transaction fees impede the access of many Americans to mainstream financial services. Because so many Americans lament their inability to the dollar as it stands now due to high “transaction fees.”

    The pilot programs, three of which will launch in the next two months, will complement the Fed’s MIT project by generating data on the functional, sociological, business uses, benefits and other facets, of a digital dollar. The data is due to be released publicly. 

    According to Reuters, Accenture has previously worked on a number of CBDC projects including in Canada, Singapore and France. David Treat, a senior managing director at Accenture, said CBDCs would exist alongside other forms of physical and electronic money, rather than replace them.

    “It’s not a panacea for all money,” Treat said. “We will be using physical cash and coin for some time.”

    Sure we will… until one day the government pulls an FDR executive order 6102 and confiscates all non-digital currencies.

     

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 21:00

  • An Open Letter To Swarthmore President Valerie Smith
    An Open Letter To Swarthmore President Valerie Smith

    Submitted by Peter Berkowitz, the Tad and Dianne Taube senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His writings are posted at PeterBerkowitz.com and he can be followed on Twitter @BerkowitzPeter.

    Dear President Smith,

    Thank you for your “Reflections on Yesterday’s Verdict,” which you sent to Swarthmore students, alumni, faculty, and staff on April 21 and posted on the college’s website. Prompted by the announcement that Derek Chauvin had been found guilty of murdering George Floyd, you offered brief thoughts on the connection between liberal education and racial justice, social movements, and political change. As a Swarthmore graduate grateful for the long-ago introduction that the college provided me to liberal education, and as an observer of American politics troubled by the nation’s widening schisms, I read your message with great interest.

    In the spirit of my Swarthmore studies, your reflections have left me with a number of questions. They revolve around the relation between politics and liberal education.

    Your message asserts that “[a]lthough the verdict can never truly bring justice for Mr. Floyd and his family, it signals the impact of a powerful social movement.” You summon us to join in that social movement, stating, “We must dedicate ourselves anew to the struggle for lasting, meaningful change” in America to bring about “a more just, equitable, and safe society.”

    You envisage a distinctive role for colleges and universities. “As an institution of higher learning, Swarthmore College is committed to contributing to that change — by continuing to foster an environment in which students can engage in deep, thoughtful, and frank conversations about the challenges facing our society,” you write. “This shared and vital work can and will continue to ensure we provide a transformative liberal arts education grounded in fearless intellectual inquiry.”

    I certainly believe that liberal education serves America’s interest in sustaining a society that safeguards citizens’ fundamental freedoms and basic rights. Whether that comports with your understanding turns on what you mean by “a more just, equitable, and safe society” and how you conceive of “a transformative liberal arts education.”

    If by “a transformative liberal arts education” you intend one that refines and elevates students’ minds by transmitting knowledge and cultivating independent thought so that they are better able to exercise their rights, respect the rights of others, and do their part to uphold the nation’s constitutional form of government, then we are in full agreement. But for Swarthmore to offer such an education — the same goes for any institution of higher learning — the college must avoid, to the extent possible, taking sides in current political debates and legal controversies. Only by staying out of the political fray as an institution can the college provide a community that genuinely encourages students to energetically and rigorously explore the many sides of hard political questions.

    If, however, by “a transformative liberal arts education” you mean an education that aims to instill in students a specific conception of social justice, that brings institutional pressure to bear on students to embrace a college-proclaimed orthodoxy on political issues that divide the nation, and that trains students to exclusively advance one partisan reform agenda, then I fear that Swarthmore will hasten the demise of liberal education. For how can students “engage in deep, thoughtful, and frank conversations about the challenges facing our society” if the college itself takes a firm and public stance on the proper response to those challenges? All that would remain is for students to debate the means for implementing Swarthmore-approved moral judgments and political priorities.

    In my view, the college is entirely justified — obligated, even — to champion the principles of individual freedom and human equality. These, after all, are the moral premises that underlie our constitutional order. They also inspire liberal education, the governing purpose of which is to prepare students to enjoy the rights and assume the responsibilities of freedom.

    But regarding, say, the conservative and progressive interpretations of freedom’s imperatives in particular political disputes, the college has no business taking a stand and organizing students for political action. That goes for professors in the classroom as well as for administrators in Parrish Hall. The proselytizing and partisan mission subverts the educational mission.

    The creation of an environment hospitable to the exchange of opinions and the careful examination of rival analyses and assessments is a hallmark of liberal education. The promulgation of opinions and ideas insulated from critical examination, the stigmatizing and silencing of nonconformist voices, and the rallying of members of the campus community around a political cause are distinguishing features of indoctrination.

    Whether Swarthmore and colleges and universities across the country are devoted to liberal education or indoctrination is, in my mind, the crux of the matter.

    To better understand your views on politics and liberal education, it would be helpful to know more about your thinking on two issues that have generated considerable controversy over the last few years: free speech and the content of the curriculum.

    Free speech is a pillar of liberal education. By exposing students to competing ideas and opinions, liberal education develops their ability to break free from one-sidedness and special pleading. The encounter with a diversity of viewpoints also teaches students to respect fellow citizens who see the world differently. These days, it has become fashionable to dismiss free speech as a ruse by which the “oppressors” in the United States control the “oppressed.” Yet that contention flies in the face of historical realities: In democracies, free speech has always been an indispensable ally of minorities seeking to vindicate their rights, dissenters challenging the conventional wisdom, and innovators opening new vistas of inquiry and action.

    The 2015 Report of the Committee on Freedom of Expression at the University of Chicago provides both an eloquent explanation, and rousing defense, of free speech and liberal education. To show that Swarthmore College cherishes free speech because it sustains liberal education, wouldn’t it be useful to join with 81 other colleges and universities — as of March of this year, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education — in endorsing the Chicago principles?

    One way Swarthmore models its conception of free speech is through the distinguished figures it invites to campus. On May 6, the President’s Fund for Racial Justice and the Social Responsibility Committee of the Board of Managers are sponsoring what is bound to be a fascinating and timely event, “An Evening With Eric Holder: Voting Rights, Leadership, and Social Justice.” Wouldn’t Swarthmore demonstrate its commitment to, in your words, “deep, thoughtful, and frank conversations about the challenges facing our society” by following up the discussion of voting rights with former President Barack Obama’s attorney general by inviting to campus William Barr, attorney general under former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Donald Trump, to hear his thoughts on voting rights? 

    A well-designed curriculum is another crucial component of liberal education. According to the college website, at Swarthmore “[s]tudents generally spend their first two years exploring, taking courses in a range of disciplines across the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences.”  After students “encounter new ways of thinking” they focus in their final two years on their majors. But isn’t it also incumbent on the college to ensure that all students share a common foundation of basic knowledge about the nation and the civilization of which they are part? If, for example, students have not studied the sweep of American political ideas — from the nation’s founding to progressivism and conservatism today — how can they seriously evaluate and intelligently discuss the competing views of former attorneys general Holder and Barr? Yet, near as I can tell, Swarthmore’s political science department does not offer such a course.

    I hope we have the chance to continue the important conversation you launched about politics and liberal education.

    Respectfully,

    Peter Berkowitz
    Swarthmore College, ’81

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 20:40

  • States Offer Beer, Cash Incentives As Vaccine Demand Softens
    States Offer Beer, Cash Incentives As Vaccine Demand Softens

    Just as more states project that they have reached peak levels of vaccine demand, and governors like Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer come up with subtle ways to encourage reluctant adults to acquiesce, multiple states are experimenting with offering carrots, even a monetary reward.

    Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan on Monday offered a $100 financial incentive to state employees who receive the vaccine.

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    To receive the incentive, employees must provide their HR office with proof of vaccination, and agree to receive all subsequent CDC recommended booster vaccinations within 18 months of being fully vaccinated. The incentive is retroactive, so that all state employees who have already been fully vaccinated will also receive the $100 incentive payment.

    “With this incentive program, we are further encouraging state employees to get vaccinated to help keep themselves, their families, and their communities healthy and safe,” said Governor Hogan. “Incentives like this are another way to reinforce the importance of getting vaccinated, and we strongly encourage businesses across the state to consider offering incentives to their workers as well. These vaccines are safe and effective, they’re free, and they’re readily available with or without an appointment.”

    To receive the incentive, employees must provide their HR office with proof of vaccination, and agree to receive all subsequent CDC recommended booster vaccinations within 18 months of being fully vaccinated. The incentive is retroactive, so that all state employees who have already been fully vaccinated will also receive the $100 incentive payment.

    And in order to ensure those who participate in the program follow through with all subsequent appointments, the state will require anyone who doesn’t receive their booster or any future doses required to fend off mutant strains to repay the $100.

    To Maryland’s northern flank, New Jersey has offered its own take on enticements by offering adults who are 21+ a free beer (at any participating brewery) by displaying proof that they had been vaccinated.

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    the cash incentive for state employees isn’t the only strategy being used in Maryland. The city of Baltimore elicited laughter nationwide when it unveiled a new advertising campaign intended to encourage young adults to get the vaccine.

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    The message, that adults should be vaccinated before they start socializing again, was mocked because the ad resembles a poster for a woman’s refuge, as if the “Debra” character in the ad was embroiled in a domestic abuse situation with her boyfriend.

    Others slammed the ad as idiotic.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsAfter peaking north of 4 million a day in early April, the number of doses being administered per day has fallen by almost half, to just north of 2 million per day as of early May.

    Source: Bloomberg

    As we wait to see whether more states will follow in Maryland’s footsteps, we would like to know whether this will apply retroactively to state employees who have already been fully vaccinated?

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 20:20

  • D'Souza: Abolish The FBI
    D’Souza: Abolish The FBI

    Authored by Dinesh D’Souza, op-ed via The Epoch Times,

    For a long time, the FBI has stood as the admirable symbol of a police agency of government, implacably going after the bad guys and neutrally enforcing the laws. This is the FBI of the movie “The Untouchables,” in which special agent Eliot Ness leads his devoted crew of armed agents in a heroic battle against the forces of organized crime.

    Well, forget about the Untouchables. Today’s FBI has quite obviously been corrupted from the top. This is a process that seems to have begun under President Barack Obama, endured during the Donald Trump years, and has now reached its unfortunate nadir under President Joe Biden. It’s time for conservatives and Republicans to start thinking about getting rid of the FBI.

    I want to highlight two sets of contrasting episodes that give us a window into how biased and partisan this once-respected agency has now become.

    Contrast the treatment the FBI has given to Jan. 6 activists with that it has afforded to Antifa and Black Lives Matter protesters.

    The FBI has unrelentingly hunted down Jan. 6 protesters, in many cases confronting Trump supporters who were merely in Washington at the time, or at the mall rally but not involved in entering the Capitol. Those who have been arrested have been treated like domestic terrorists, captured in raids involving drawn weapons, even though the charges against most of them amount to little more than trespassing or entering a government facility without proper permission. Nonviolent offenders have been given the same brutal treatment as violent ones. And to this day the FBI promulgates images—a grandma here, a teenager there—asking the public to help them track down still-at-large individuals who had something, anything, to do with the events of Jan. 6.

    Contrast this concentrated effort with the lackadaisical, even disinterested, approach of the FBI to the Antifa and Black Lives Matter activists. Over a period of many months, those activists have proven far more violent. They have killed a number of people, in contrast to the Trump activists who killed nobody. (The only person killed on Jan. 6 was Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter shot in the neck by a Capitol police officer.) They have looted businesses, burned churches, assaulted police officers, attacked and harassed ordinary citizens eating in restaurants or going about their normal lives—and all with impunity. No FBI raids, no systematic arrests, no dissemination of “Wanted” images on social media.

    Now I turn to my second contrast: the recent FBI raid on Rudy Giuliani’s home and office, while there has been no raid on the home or office of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Start with Giuliani: The ostensible justification for the raid was to look for evidence Giuliani violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

    Giuliani pointed out in a statement released by his lawyer, however, that he offered to sit down with the FBI and the Biden Department of Justice (DOJ) and show them to their satisfaction that there had been no violation of law. Moreover, Giuliani had for several months been offering the FBI clear evidence, corroborated by texts and emails, that Hunter Biden not only allegedly failed to register as a foreign agent, but also that he was allegedly involved in child pornography, money laundering, and an elaborate Biden family scheme to sell their political access in exchange for millions of dollars in personal gain.

    Both the FBI and the DOJ showed no interest in any of that. Consequently, Giuliani seems warranted in concluding that the agency’s conduct is a “clear example of a corrupt double standard”: “One for high-level Democrats whose blatant crimes are ignored, such as Hillary Clinton, Hunter Biden, and Joe Biden” and quite another for “Republicans who are prominent supporters and defender of President Trump.”

    Giuliani further revealed that the FBI and DOJ had in late 2019 obtained access to his email database without notifying him. This means that while Giuliani was advising his client Donald Trump during the impeachment process—a relationship fully protected by attorney–client privilege—the FBI violated the law while supposedly investigating Giuliani and Trump’s possible violations of law.

    Here, again, the FBI’s extreme diligence in going after Giuliani can be contrasted with the FBI’s failure to act in the case of Gov. Cuomo. Cuomo is currently involved in two separate scandals, one involving multiple women who have accused him of sexual harassment, and another involving his direct involvement in a cover-up scheme to hide the magnitude of nursing home deaths caused by his own policies.

    According to the New York Times, the Cuomo administration was far more culpable than previously known in deliberately undercounting nursing home deaths over a period of five months. Let’s recall that these deaths need not have occurred. At the direction of the Trump administration, the U.S. Navy dispatched a hospital ship Comfort to New York to accept non-coronavirus patients and thus lessen the burden on New York hospitals.

    Gov. Cuomo, however, turned the ship away to spite the Trump administration and instead ordered New York nursing homes to accept the overflow of COVID-19 patients, helping the virus to spread among vulnerable nursing home populations and thus causing thousands of unnecessary deaths.

    Then, when the Trump administration inquired about the nursing home data in New York, Cuomo instructed his state health officials, including the health commissioner Howard Zucker, not to release the true death toll to the federal government, state officials, or the general public. Cuomo also suppressed a research paper that revealed the data and blocked two letters by Zucker’s department from being sent to state legislators.

    While Giuliani’s offense remains unclear, Cuomo is guilty of obvious abuses of power—actions that have not only put people in their graves but also amounted, in a statistical sense, to “hiding the bodies.” Again, the FBI is nowhere to be found, and the reason for its absence appears to be that Cuomo is a Democratic governor who seemingly enjoys immunity as far as today’s FBI and Biden’s DOJ are concerned.

    Enough is enough! When justice no longer involves the neutral or equal application of the laws, it ceases to be justice. I realize, of course, that there will be no FBI reform under Biden. Therefore, I strongly urge the Republican Party to make abolition of the FBI—shutting down the agency and then reconstructing it from the ground up—key provisions of its campaigns both in 2022 and 2024.

    *  *  *

    Dinesh D’Souza is an author, filmmaker, and daily host of the Dinesh D’Souza podcast.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 20:00

  • Tanker Truck Driver Shortage May Fuel Higher Gas Prices This Summer
    Tanker Truck Driver Shortage May Fuel Higher Gas Prices This Summer

    The National Tank Truck Carriers (NTTC) industry trade group warns that a worsening semi-truck driver shortage may spark higher fuel prices and gas shortages this summer. 

    CNN reported that industry group said about a quarter of tanker trucks aren’t on the road ahead of the busy summer driving season as there’s a shortage in qualified drivers available. Before the pandemic, about 10% of the tanker trucks were idled for similar reasons. 

    “We’ve been dealing with a driver shortage for a while, but the pandemic took that issue and metastasized it,” said Ryan Streblow, the executive vice president of the NTTC. “It certainly has grown exponentially.”

    The shortage intensified last year when lockdowns forced Americans to stay home, collapsing fuel demand. This meant tanker drivers weren’t getting enough routes, and some chose to leave the business.

    “We were even hauling boxes for Amazon just to keep our drivers busy,” said Holly McCormick, vice president in charge of driver recruitment and retention at Groendyke Transport, an Oklahoma tanker company.

    “A lot of drivers didn’t want to do the safety protocols. We’re also working with an aging workforce. Many said, ‘I might as well take it as a cue to retire.'”

    Adding to the challenges is the job requires not just a Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) but also a separate Tanker certification and a Hazardous Materials (HazMat) certification, which requires many written tests and would mean adding new drivers to increase capacity might not be in the cards ahead of the summer season. 

    “I’ve talked to retailers. They say there could be places where there are brief outages,” Jeff Lenard, a spokesman at the National Association of Convenience Stores, told CNN.

    “If they have no fuel, they have no business. People aren’t going to stop in for a sandwich if you don’t have fuel.”

    Tom Kloza, a chief oil analyst for the Oil Price Information Service, warned if only a few gas stations run out of gas and become national headlines, it could trigger a panic hoarding, sort of like what happens with toilet paper in the early days of the pandemic. 

    Currently, the national average of regular gasoline is around $2.89 a gallon, up more than 60% from a year ago. With demand on the upswing as the economy reopens, Kloza believes the national average could catapult over $3 by summer. 

    For other reasons, gas stations in Las Vegas Valley are experiencing fuel shortages and price spikes, a redux for babyboomers who lived through the 1970s energy crisis. 

    All of these supply chain woes have culminated into one thing: higher fuel prices. 

    The latest inflation data shows Americans are experiencing some of the fastest consumer price increases in more than a decade. The fuel oil index has increased 20.2% over the last 12 months. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 19:40

  • Is The US Economy A Virtual Reality?
    Is The US Economy A Virtual Reality?

    Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The American Institute for Economic Research,

    An owner of the bar explained to me that he has been closed for a full year and yet miraculously still survives, thanks to vast infusions of government money to cover his rent and upkeep and sustain essential employees. He is looking forward to reopening but is having a hard time finding employees. Many have moved to Florida. Others, he said, “are happy to live off government money rather than work.”

    His main puzzle is how it can be true that the government has the resources to sustain so many businesses in a full year of lockdowns. The money is falling like manna from heaven. 

    “From all my years in business, every instinct tells me that this can’t be right. It might work for a little while but someone has to pay these bills. There is no magic money tree out there to achieve such things.”

    The tree might not be magic but it does exist.

    It’s called the Federal Reserve.

    Here is the alarming chart of the broadest definition of national money, which reveals an unprecedented increase in the money supply over the last year. 

    The effects of such a thing can be difficult to trace. And much depends on factors outside the Fed’s control. Even the attempt to reign in the long-run effects could fail. Even so, the short-term effects, combined with unprecedented increases in government spending, have been to create the appearance of near full recovery. 

    By the aggregated data alone, the US economy seems almost back to normal. Gross Domestic Product is higher now than pre-pandemic and poised to roar much higher.

    “What’s amazing,” writes the Wall Street Journal, “is that U.S. output is nearly what it was in the fourth-quarter of 2019 even with payrolls being about 5% smaller. 

    Consumer spending on durable goods is through the roof with a 41% increase for the quarter. 

    Private residential investment, which is to say consumer spending on housing, has blown past the point at which the last housing bubble blew up. 

    Is Valhalla really around the corner? New riches? What’s the downside? 

    Following a lockdown collapse in prices, the consumer price index is pointing toward inflationary signs. The Everyday Price Index is climbing at an annualized double-digit rates. 

    No question that much of this “growth” is fueled by historically high increases in government spending, producing charts we’ve never seen before. 

    These increases were not paid out of some resource reserve sitting in DC. They are paid by astronomical increases in borrowing. Here are the increases in the public debt to GDP ratio. 

    What all this aggregate data misses is the huge dislocations, distortions, and outright destruction that occurred because of the unprecedented use of extreme lockdowns in 2020. The New York Times provides a helpful analysis of existing sectors relative to what might have happened outside the pandemic lockdowns. 

    Thus are some sectors of the US economy booming to new highs, while others are still in deep depression. The sectors that were locked down (entertainment, art, food, hotels, recreation), and those other sectors indirectly affected by lockdowns (exports, transportation, energy) are still wallowing in misery, having been battered by compulsory shutdowns that wrecked so many business models or otherwise forced them onto the government dole. 

    One of the figures that fascinates me is the one on health care. It is still down 5.9% from what it might have been without the pandemic. Historians of the future will surely be amazed by such data. In a pandemic with such tremendous sickness and death, one would expect spending on health care to rocket higher than ever before. 

    Instead, what we see in health care is a collapse of fully 18% in the worst months of the pandemic, a statement that sounds ridiculous in the saying. 

    What this illustrates is one of the least-talked-about aspects of government policy over the past year: state government’s interventions in the medical system that essentially reserved most if not all hospital space for Covid patients. Routine medical care and “elective surgery” was put on hold. Dentistry services collapsed a year ago by 70%. 

    This meant missed cancer screenings, routine checkups, and normal doctor’s visits, not only because people were afraid but also because medical services faced a brutal form of central planning that had never previously happened. Thus do we get the most perverse results one can imagine: a collapse of spending on health care during a pandemic. It’s hard to isolate one piece of data that best captures the folly of government pandemic policy but perhaps this one is it. 

    It’s impossible to know precisely what the future portends for all these unprecedented policy shocks over the last year, from money supply and spending bonanzas to lockdowns to sky-high debt accumulation. But because a thing called cause-and-effect still operates in this world – we do not live in virtual reality – it seems wise to look at the seemingly great aggregate data with a gravely skeptical eye. We might be in the midst of the calm before the real storm hits. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 19:20

  • Philippines' Top Diplomat Tells China To 'GET THE F*CK OUT' Of Their Territory
    Philippines’ Top Diplomat Tells China To ‘GET THE F*CK OUT’ Of Their Territory

    The Phillipines’ top diplomat, foreign minister Teodoro Locsin, demanded in a Monday tweet that China “GET THE FUCK OUT” of their territorial waters.

    In response to the ‘illegal’ presence of hundreds of Chinese boats parked inside the Philippines 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), Locsin tweeted:

    “China, my friend, how politely can I put it? Let me see… O…GET THE FUCK OUT. What are you doing to our friendship? You. Not us. We’re trying. You.”

    Locsin’s screed then veers into a strange analogy involving a uterus and giving birth to a ball of crap.

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    China’s embassy in Manila did not respond to a Reuters request for comment, but officials have previously said the vessels parked at the disputed Whitsun Reef were fishing boats taking refuge from rough seas.

    China claims almost the entire South China Sea, through which about $3 trillion of ship-borne trade passes each year. In 2016, an arbitration tribunal in The Hague ruled the claim, which Beijing bases on its old maps, was inconsistent with international law.

    In a statement on Monday, the Philippine foreign ministry accused China’s coast guard of “shadowing, blocking, dangerous manoeuvres, and radio challenges of the Philippine coast guard vessels.” -Reuters

    Locsin defended his comments, saying “I get things done, my point across crystal.”

    On Sunday, the Phillipines announced that it would continue maritime exercises in its EEZ despite a Chinese demand that it stop actions which could ‘escalate disputes.’

    Meanwhile, the Phillipines has filed 78 diplomatic protests to China since President Rodrigo Duterte took office in 2016, according to Reuters, citing foreign ministry data.

    “Our statements are stronger too because of the more brazen nature of the activities, the number, frequency and proximity of intrusions,” Marie Yvette Banzon-Abalos, executive director for strategic communications at the foreign ministry, said.

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    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 19:00

  • The Supreme Court Case That Could Change Everything For US Pipelines
    The Supreme Court Case That Could Change Everything For US Pipelines

    Authored by Charles Kennedy via OilPrice.com,

    A Supreme Court hearing began this week that could seal the future fate of gas pipelines across the United States. It could also change the balance of power between federal and state authorities in a way that federal authorities would hardly like. The case involves the proposed PennEast pipeline, a 120-mile, 1-billion-cu-m piece of infrastructure that will take natural gas from the Marcellus shale across Pennsylvania and New Jersey. New Jersey is opposing the pipeline. PennEast and FERC want to use eminent domain to condemn the state and private land they need to build the infrastructure.

    On the face of it, it is a simple case—just another pipeline dispute of the sort that has been enjoying growing popularity among environmentalist groups and politicians in the past few years. In this case, the politicians want to stop PennEast from receiving easements for 40 parcels of federal land. The only way for PennEast to receive these easements, then, is to sue New Jersey. What makes this case different is that its outcome could have major implications for the industry.

    As Forbes’ Christopher Hellman explained in an article from earlier this week, the argument of the New Jersey political pipeline opponents is that under the 11th Amendment to the Constitution, states have sovereign immunity against lawsuits brought against them by private parties such as companies. In other words, PennEast simply has no right, under the Constitution of the United States, to sue New Jersey’s politicians on the pipeline issue.

    A counter-argument, used by a district court in 2018 to rule in favor of the natural gas project, is that PennEast is not acting on its own with its plans to carry 1 billion cubic meters of natural gas across two states. It is acting, the court ruled, under the auspices of a government authority: the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

    Forbes’ Hellman notes this was not a first, either: since the passing of the Natural Gas Act in 1938, FERC has on more than one occasion delegated its powers to invoke eminent domain to energy companies. From PennEast’s perspective, then, since federal power supersedes state power and since FERC has approved the New Jersey pipeline, it has every right to sue the state for that land.

    New Jersey appealed the district court ruling, and the appeals court found in its favor. It said that the state had sovereign immunity against lawsuits brought against it by private entities such as PennEast, noting that the power to invoke eminent domain as delegated to it by FERC was a completely different matter from its right to sue a state.

    “Thus, the federal government’s ability to condemn State land … is, in fact, the function of two separate powers: the government’s eminent domain power and its exemption from Eleventh Amendment immunity,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit said in its decision.

    “A delegation of the former must not be confused for, or conflated with, a delegation of the latter.”

    And this is what makes this case so fascinating and so important for the industry.

    • If the Supreme Court sides with PennEast, it would mean that the power to invoke eminent domain supersedes states’ sovereign immunity.

    • But if it sides with New Jersey, it would be very bad news for energy companies because it would mean that pipeline projects—federally approved projects, no less—will be banned left and right on the grounds of sovereign immunity from lawsuits seeking to clear the way for eminent domain.

    In truth, New Jersey has conceded in its brief to the Supreme Court that the federal government has the constitutional power to seize state property such as land. However, it has been argued that the federal government does not have the right to delegate that power to private parties. According to PennEast, however, this is not true.

    “It was well-established at the founding that the sovereign eminent-domain authority was delegable. Thus, conceding federal eminent-domain power but contesting its delegability is not a valid option,” the company said in its own brief to SCOTUS.

    It is still in the early days. But for now, the Supreme Court appears to be equally open to hearing both sides of the story. According to media reports, some see a 70-percent chance for the court siding with PennEast, citing one Supreme Court Judge, Stephen Breyer, as saying that gas pipelines had a decades-long history and he was wondering whether a ruling in favor of New Jersey would cause disruption to this existing infrastructure.

    Chief Justice John Roberts, however, sees things differently, according to a report by the Engineering News-Record. According to him, based on a previous SCOTUS ruling that corporations are people, New Jersey’s argument that it has sovereign immunity from private party lawsuits has a solid standing: PennEast is registered in Delaware and the 11th Amendment, on which New Jersey’s argument hinges, says that states cannot be sued by citizens of other states.

    Things will only get more interesting as court hearings progress. The ruling is expected in mid-summer.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 18:40

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May 03

Today’s News 3rd May 2021

  • "Monster-Size Lava Fountain" Erupts In Iceland 
    “Monster-Size Lava Fountain” Erupts In Iceland 

    An Icelandic resident uploaded a stunning video on YouTube of a new volcanic eruption early Sunday morning. 

    YouTube “Sigfús Steindórsson“ has been following a new fissure vent that opened a couple of weeks ago and is visible from Reykjavík, the capital of Iceland. 

    The latest development from the fissure was a “monster-size lava fountain, the biggest since the eruption started,” said Steindórsson. They said the eruption occurred around midnight local time and was filmed around 0200 Sunday. 

    Twitter handle “the 3D Podcast” caught a similar view of the eruption early Sunday morning. 

    We’ve noted the Reykjanes Peninsula has been dormant for a number of years, and volcanic activity sprung back to life in March after tens of thousands of earthquakes were recorded. 

    Here’s the current map of active volcanoes around the world. 

    There’s no telling when volcanic activity in Iceland will simmer down. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 02:45

  • Turkey: How Erdogan's Pledge For Reform Collapsed In Five Months
    Turkey: How Erdogan’s Pledge For Reform Collapsed In Five Months

    Authored by Burak Bekdil via The Gatestone Institute,

    His critics often joke that when President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pledges democratic reforms, one should run away immediately. His latest charm offensive in November, aimed at repairing Turkey’s badly-strained ties with the West and Western institutions, has proven that the joke still holds value.

    “We don’t see ourselves elsewhere but in Europe,” Erdoğan said on November 21.

    “We envisage building our future together with Europe.”

    Two days later, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar described NATO as the “cornerstone of our defense and security policy” and said that Turkey was looking forward to cooperating with the incoming administration under Joe Biden in the United States. Erdoğan also promised a bold package of democratic reforms.

    Less than five months later, Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Draghi had to call Erdoğan a “dictator.”

    That was not because an experienced European politician wanted to insult a Muslim head of state.

    According to Turkish news site Gazete Duvar, a total of 128,872 people have been indicted in the past six years for insulting Erdoğan. Of those, 27,824 had to stand trial and 9,556 were convicted. By comparison, only 11 Turks had been convicted for insulting Ahmet Necdet Sezer, president between 2000 and 2007.

    After Erdoğan’s latest reform pledge, on March 21, Turkish authorities arrested a pro-Kurdish opposition MP who had refused to leave parliament for several days after his seat was revoked. Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu “was brought out by force while he was in pyjamas and slippers” by “nearly 100 police officers,” the leftist Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) said in a statement.

    On March 17, the Supreme Court Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office filed a lawsuit against HDP for its closure on the grounds that it has links with “terror acts.” On April 14, state prosecutors asked for the removal of the parliamentary immunity of main opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and nine MPs from his Republican People’s Party (CHP). Apparently, Erdoğan wants a democratic system without opposition.

    This month, Europe’s top human rights court ruled that the right to liberty and freedom of expression of Turkish journalist and author Ahmet Altan had been violated due to his detention and imprisonment on charges related to a 2016 coup attempt. Altan, 71, has been in prison since September 2016, when he was detained over allegations that, during a TV program, he disseminated “subliminal messages” related to the coup attempt, as well as for articles he had written criticizing the government. Shortly after that ruling, the Turkish Court of Appeals released Altan. In other words, Altan had been unlawfully imprisoned for 55 months, nearly five years.

    That was “normal” in a country where an army of pro-government judges has the habit of announcing rulings in defiance of rulings from superior Turkish courts, including the Constitutional Court, and from the European Court of Human Rights. Those judges who dare make “undesirable verdicts” are probed and often get disciplinary punishments. Erdoğan’s coalition partner and staunchest political ally, ultra-nationalist leader Devlet Bahçeli, has called for the closure of the country’s top judicial institution, the Constitutional Court.

    On April 5, Turkish prosecutors detained 10 retired admirals over their public criticism of Erdoğan’s multi billion-dollar Istanbul canal project, which will create a new artificial waterway from the Black Sea to the Marmara Sea, to complement the Bosporus Strait. The arrest warrants came a day after a group of 104 former senior navy officials signed an open letter warning that the proposed canal could harm Turkish security by invalidating an 85-year-old international treaty (the Montreux Convention) designed to prevent militarization of the Black Sea. Pro-Erdoğan officials and prosecutors interpreted the statement as a direct challenge from the military to the civilian government, “echoing coup times.”

    The prosecutors’ move is in direct breach of the Article 26 of the Turkish Constitution:

    “Everyone has the right to express and disseminate his/her thoughts and opinions by speech, in writing or in pictures or through other media, individually or collectively. This freedom includes the liberty of receiving or imparting information or ideas without interference by official authorities. This provision shall not preclude subjecting transmission by radio, television, cinema, or similar means to a system of licensing.”

    But who cares about the Constitution in a country where the governing bloc is proposing to close down even the Constitutional Court, in addition to banning opposition parties?

    All these autocratic measures occurred in the less than half-year since Erdoğan pledged democratic reforms. But no story would be completely Turkish without an element of black humor: Where is the $128 billion?

    That sum refers to the US dollars sold by state banks to support the Turkish lira in foreign exchange markets. The policy began around the time of the March 2019 municipal elections and was ramped up in 2020, when the pandemic laid bare the lira’s vulnerability and Turkey’s reliance on external funding. Bankers have calculated that the sales totaled $128.3 billion in 2019-20.

    As government officials remain mute on the question, the main opposition CHP recently launched a campaign to embarrass Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) by hanging huge posters on CHP party buildings across the country with the simple question: Where is the $128 billion? Not one more word. Not one single comment or insult. Just a question, though annoying especially at a time of economic crisis.

    Turkish police started to rip down those posters without court orders. As one prosecutor confessed in a letter to a governor, “We cannot find a legal pretext to declare the posters illegal. You must rip them down citing administrative reasons.”

    In protest, a CHP MP hung the same poster outside his office office window in the parliament building. Parliament’s administrative directors had to send a fire truck to rip down the poster. The MP said he would hang it again.

    Erdoğan’s effort to hang onto power is taking uglier shapes every new day. A few years ago, then Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu had vehemently denied claims that Turkey was a second-class democracy. He was right. Turkey has since remained a third-class democracy.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 02:00

  • The Fourth Turning: Why America's "Crisis" May Last Until 2030
    The Fourth Turning: Why America’s “Crisis” May Last Until 2030

    Authored by ‘FreeSpeechFan’ via TheDuran.com,

    It is comforting that the Fourth turning is part of a natural cycle but also very disturbing that it is a period of crisis. As we know from previous cycles, many people suffer and die during a fourth turning.  However, I think we all know that a crisis is upon us as the corruption, collusion, scheming, propaganda, and self interest reaches its peak. 

    The worst of the baby boomers, Biden, Kerry, Pelosi, Bill Gates, are at their worst.  We don’t yet know what will take their place, but their chaos and selfishness will be swept aside as order, rules, truth, and structure takes its place. 

    The movement will be from Yin to Yang, Chaos to Order, Freedom to Self Control, Self Interest to the Collective, Corruption to Honor, Secular to Faith. 

    There will be a “New World Order” but not the one chosen for us by the Bush Cabal or the CCP Cabal or the Globalist Cabal.  They are the cause of the crisis but not the solution.  Gen X will help smooth the path of the crisis, but only the millennials hold the answer to the question of what will the New World Order look like. 

    I hope they choose well, as it does not have to be communism, fascism, or socialism. It won’t be!  These are tired old doctrines that don’t work, they are being used as facades for the corrupt to hide their true motives behind.  They will be swept away, too!

    *  *  *

    The Fourth Turning: Why American ‘Crisis’ May Last Until 2030

    Editor’s Note: Below is a 14-minute video narrated by Hedgeye Demography Sector Head Neil Howe describing the generational theory put forth in his 1997 classic “The Fourth Turning,” co-authored with William Strauss.

    Also below is a brief essay originally published on 3/11/19 by Neil discussing the typical progression of each “Turning”. It remains more relevant than ever amidst our current zeitgeist. Neil’s work has influenced politicians from Newt Gingrich to Al Gore and all of it culminates in a grand theory advanced in The Fourth Turning which he elaborates on in the video and text below.

    NH: We live in a tumultuous time in American history.

    The 2008 financial crisis and all its hardships, was the catalyst that tipped us into this age of uncertainty. It marked the start of a generation-long era of secular upheaval that will continue to run its course over the next decade or so. This is the generational theory I laid out in “The Fourth Turning,” a book I co-authored with William Strauss in 1997.

    The Fourth Turning explains the rise of a figure like President Trump. In Trump’s Inauguration Day speech, he painted a bleak picture of “American carnage,” of “rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation” with “mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities.”

    Looking abroad, it’s unclear whether America will turn inward and fall prey to nativism or maintain it’s nearly seventy year role as leader of the Free World. Other countries are becoming similarly insular. Britain voted to exit the European Union and we’ve heard anti-E.U. rumblings echoed throughout Europe from France to the Netherlands.

    Other nations and peoples around the world are looking to either fill the vacuum in global leadership or exploit it to advance their own ambitions. We’ve seen the thunderous rise of Chinese economic clout, the calculating geopolitical maneuvering of a resurgent Russia, and the barbarous chaos wrought by the so-called Islamic State.

    In many ways, this era of uncertainty follows the natural order of things. Like Nature’s four seasons, the cycles of history follow a natural rhythm or pattern. Over the past five centuries, Anglo-American society has entered a new era – a new turning – every two decades or so.

    At the start of each turning, people change how they feel about themselves, the culture, the nation, and the future. Turnings come in cycles of four. Each cycle spans the length of a long human life, roughly eighty to one hundred years, or a unit of time the ancients called the saeculum.

    THE FIRST TURNING IS CALLED A HIGH.

    This is an era when institutions are strong and individualism is weak. Society is confident about where it wants to go collectively, even if those outside the majoritarian center feel stifled by the conformity.

    America’s most recent First Turning was the post-World War II American High, beginning in 1946 and ending with the assassination of John Kennedy in 1963, a key lifecycle marker for today’s older Americans.

    THE SECOND TURNING IS AN AWAKENING.

    This is an era when institutions are attacked in the name of personal and spiritual autonomy. Just when society is reaching its high tide of public progress, people suddenly tire of social discipline and want to recapture a sense of personal authenticity. Young activists and spiritualists look back at the previous High as an era of cultural poverty.

    America’s most recent Awakening was the “Consciousness Revolution,” which spanned from the campus and inner-city revolts of the mid 1960s to the tax revolts of the early ‘80s.

    THE THIRD TURNING IS AN UNRAVELLING.

    The mood of this era is in many ways the opposite of a High. Institutions are weak and distrusted, while individualism is strong and flourishing. Highs follow Crises, which teach the lesson that society must coalesce and build. Unravelings follow Awakenings, which teach the lesson that society must atomize and enjoy.

    America’s most recent Unraveling was the Long Boom and Culture Wars, beginning in the early 1980s and probably ending in 2008. The era opened with triumphant “Morning in America” individualism and drifted toward a pervasive distrust of institutions and leaders, an edgy popular culture, and the splitting of national consensus into competing “values” camps.

    AND FINALLY WE ENTER THE FOURTH TURNING, WHICH IS A CRISIS.

    This is an era in which America’s institutional life is torn down and rebuilt from the ground up—always in response to a perceived threat to the nation’s very survival. Civic authority revives, cultural expression finds a community purpose, and people begin to locate themselves as members of a larger group.

    In every instance, Fourth Turnings have eventually become new “founding moments” in America’s history, refreshing and redefining the national identity. Currently, this period began in 2008, with the Global Financial Crisis and the deepening of the War on Terror, and will extend to around 2030. If the past is any prelude to what is to come, as we contend, consider the prior Fourth Turning which was kicked off by the stock market crash of 1929 and climaxed with World War II.

    Just as a Second Turning reshapes our inner world (of values, culture and religion), a Fourth Turning reshapes our outer world (of politics, economy and empire).

    To be clear, the road ahead for America will be rough. But I take comfort in the idea that history cycles back and that the past offers us a guide to what we can expect in the future. Like Nature’s four seasons, the cycles of history follow a natural rhythm or pattern.

    Make no mistake. Winter is coming. How mild or harsh it will be is anyone’s guess but the basic progression is as natural as counting down the days, weeks and months until Spring. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/02/2021 – 23:40

  • Something Fishy Happening In Miami As Thousands Of Koi Suddenly Die 
    Something Fishy Happening In Miami As Thousands Of Koi Suddenly Die 

    Something fishy is happening in Miami as thousands of pricy koi fish have turned up dead at several homes and a city park. It’s more than fish, birds, plants, and wild raccoons are mysterious dying, according to local news WPLG Local 10. 

    The epicenter of the thousands of dead koi is happening in Coconut Grove, a shoreline neighborhood in Miami bordering Biscayne Bay. Homeowners in the community report thousands of their fish have “all of a sudden died.” 

    “We’re not talking about a couple of fish or even hundreds of fish. We’re talking about thousands of fish that, all of a sudden, have turned up dead,” said WPLG. 

    No one seems to know why the koi are suddenly dying. What’s troubling is the sudden death of the fish is happening across the neighborhood. 

    Resident Lee Marks woke up Saturday morning to koi and other exotic fish dead in his pond. 

    “All these beautiful coy fish and other fish just dead,” he said. “It’s just awful. It’s horrible.”

    Marks and other residents are demanding answers as to why their fish in backyard ponds are dying. 

    “They just all don’t die at once like that,” he said.

    Pond Doctors, a Miami-based company focused on maintaining private ponds, told WPLG their crews have responded to “devastating fish kills” at four homes in the Coconut Grove neighborhood in the last two weeks. 

    “Thousands of fish have turned up dead from one day to the next, all in the same area,” said Jen Wheeler, the owner of Pond Doctors.

    “To have them suddenly pass away for some unknown reason is really scary because you also start to think what else is this affecting,” Wheeler said. “Other than the fish that we are in love with.”

    WPLG adds it’s more than fish. Local wildfire is also mysterious dying, including birds, plants, and mammals. 

    Marks said a raccoon convulsed and died in his yard. 

    “It came up right up the driveway and turned on its side,” Marks said. “It looked like it might be playful, but it was convulsing and just died.”

    Wheeler said the oxygen levels in all the neighborhood ponds were normal and serviced regularly. 

    “To have so many animals affected by this, something is going on,” she said.

    Wheeler called Miami-Dade County to see if mosquito companies had recently sprayed in the area. The answer local government officials gave her was that spraying last occurred in 2017. 

    Dead fish have also turned up in Miami’s Simpson Park. The common theme with all these ponds is the source of water is connected to a local aquifer. 

    “We’re still trying to figure out what’s in the groundwater and what is causing it,” Wheeler said.

    The “canary in the coal mine” is the sudden death of koi and other animals and how something toxic could be lurking in the area’s aquifer.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/02/2021 – 23:15

  • Biden Admin Cancels Military-Funded Border Wall Projects
    Biden Admin Cancels Military-Funded Border Wall Projects

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

    The Department of Defense (DOD) announced it is canceling U.S.-Mexico border wall construction efforts that were paid with funds that were initially allocated for the military.

    Work is done on a new border wall being constructed in Jacumba, Calif., on Jan. 22, 2021. (Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images)

    Former President Donald Trump ordered the diversion of billions of dollars in military and defense funds toward building the wall, using his emergency executive powers.

    “The Department of Defense is proceeding with canceling all border barrier construction projects paid for with funds originally intended for other military missions and functions such as schools for military children, overseas military construction projects in partner nations, and the National Guard and Reserve equipment account,” said Jamal Brown, a spokesperson for the Pentagon, in a statement.

    Brown said the returned funds will now be used for deferred military construction projects.

    “DOD has begun taking all necessary actions to cancel border barrier projects and to coordinate with interagency partners. Today’s action reflects this Administration’s continued commitment to defending our nation and supporting our service members and their families,” he said.

    The Department of Homeland Security also announced on Friday that it would take steps to address “physical dangers resulting from the previous administration’s approach to border wall construction.”

    The decision is expected to draw criticism from Republicans.

    GOP Congress members have previously accused President Joe Biden of illegally halting congressionally approved border wall construction projects, while the Government Accountability Office is investigating whether the administration acted illegally.

    Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) described Friday’s move as a national security threat.

    “Having a secure, defined border is important to our national security & public health efforts. This is an ill-advised decision at best,” he wrote on Twitter.

    Illegal immigration has become an issue for Biden as his administration has dealt with a surge of illegal immigrants and unaccompanied minors along the southern border. Several weeks after taking office in January, Biden signed executive orders rescinding several of Trump’s policies, including the “remain in Mexico” initiative.

    Even some Democrats have faulted the president for his messaging, including Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), who said the president has not laid out a comprehensive immigration plan so far.

    “While I share President Biden’s urgency in fixing our broken immigration system, what I didn’t hear tonight was a plan to address the immediate crisis at the border,” he stated, referring to Biden’s speech to Congress on Wednesday. “And I will continue holding this administration accountable to deliver the resources and staffing necessary for a humane, orderly process.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/02/2021 – 22:50

  • Ethereum Surges Above $3,000; Now Bigger Than BofA & Disney
    Ethereum Surges Above $3,000; Now Bigger Than BofA & Disney

    In the immortal words of Ron Burgundy, “that escalated quickly.”

    In 15 calendar days, Ethereum has gone from sub-$2000 puke to being over $3000 ($3028 highs)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Ether has quadrupled year-to-date (dramatically outperforming bitcoin, which itself has put in a none-too-shabby double YTD)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    ETH is now at its strongest relative to BTC since Aug 2018…

    Source: Bloomberg

    As CoinTelegraph notes, the remarkable run has even prompted renewed speculation that Ethereum could “flippen” Bitcoin, overtaking BTC as the largest digital currency in the world.

    The first time we detailed Ethereum’s potential was in February 2017 (when ETH was at around $13)…

    “Because of its capacity for smart contracts — and other complicated computing capacities — Ethereum is viewed as more agile and adaptable than Bitcoin.”

    Ethereum is now bigger than Bank of America, Disney, and Home Depot:

    Source

    There are multiple catalysts behind Ethereum’s rise, as CoinTelegraph details:

    The first is an ongoing surge in activity on the chain, including from institutional entities: earlier in the week the European Investment Bank announced it would be issuing a two-year digital bond worth $121 million in collaboration with banking entities such as Goldman Sachs.

    Retail interest in DeFi has also been rising as of late, with total value locked numbers reaching astonishing highs above $100 billion.

    However, the “London” hardfork, which includes the EIP-1559 overhaul of Ethereum’s fee structure, as well as the subsequent looming ETH 2.0 transition to a proof-of-stake consensus model, may be the prime events investors are anticipating. These upgrades to the network are expected to significantly decrease fees, as well as reduce the amount of ETH rewarded to miners – which in turn is expected to decrease sell-side pressure on the asset.

    Billionaire Mark Cuban offered an interesting thread on the entire crypto-space this evening:

    Crypto succeeds when it’s a more productive implementation of it’s competition.

    BTC/Gold are both financial religions.

    BTC is easy to trade/store/create with no delivery issues. BTC also enables transfer of value locally and globally . Gold is a hassle.

    Just look at Ft Knox 

    Eth Smart Contracts are better, cheaper, faster at authenticating/buying/selling/delivering digital items than alternatives available. This makes it a viable currency and trading mechanism for all things digital. That’s powerful and will grow as applications are added 

    Eth Smart Contracts for De-Fi are better at enabling depositing/saving/trading of financial instruments than banks. One is automated and trustless and near immediate. The other is dependent on buildings full of people who add cost and friction to the same transactions 

    Where alt coins can offer rewards to their holders because they gain revenue for the more productive service they offer, they can succeed with enough users. It is VERY COMPETITIVE. Barriers to entry are minimal. Which is the risk to all participants. But rewards better solutions 

    Meme coins like Doge only work if they gain utility and users use them for that utility. As long as you can spend Doge , because we know it’s annual inflation rate is set at 5b coins, it can gain SOME value as the utility grows. It becomes like any other currency… 

    As long as more companies take doge for products/services, then Doge can be a usable currency because it MAY hold its purchasing value better than a $ in your bank. If interest rates skyrocket or the amount spent falls or stagnates, so will Doge. Yes, a joke is now legit 

    Crypto not just about being more productive and effective, but also no longer dependent on “trusted institutions” Ask PPP applicants how much they trust their big banks? Do you trust your health insurer?. Crypto is trustless and a better way to handle many transactions. 

    So when someone says they don’t get why crypto assets have value. Show them this.

    Between the enormous amount of activity on Ethereum, the economic improvements to Ether, and the promise of increased scalability with Ethereum 2.0, there is a lot for the Ethereum community to be excited about.

    Finally, we note that FundStrat’s Tom Lee maintains his $10,500 target for Ethereum as we detailed here (and suggests the possibility of a $35k target).

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/02/2021 – 22:25

  • FISA And The Still Too Secret Police
    FISA And The Still Too Secret Police

    Authored by James Bovard,

    The FBI continues to lawlessly use counterintelligence powers against American citizens…

    The Deep State Referee just admitted that the FBI continues to commit uncounted violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA).

    If you sought to report a crime to the FBI, an FBI agent may have illegally surveilled your email. Even if you merely volunteered for the  FBI “Citizens Academy” program, the FBI may have illegally tracked all your online activity.

    But the latest FBI offenses, like almost all prior FBI violations, are not a real problem, according to James Boasberg, presiding judge of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. That court, among other purposes, is supposed to safeguard Americans’ constitutional right to privacy under FISA. FISA was originally enacted to create a narrow niche for foreign intelligence investigations that could be conducted without a warrant from a regular federal court. But as time passed, FISA morphed into an uncontrolled yet officially sanctioned privacy-trampling monster. FISA judges unleash the nuclear bomb of searches, authorizing the FBI “to conduct, simultaneous telephone, microphone, cell phone, e-mail and computer surveillance of the U.S. person target’s home, workplace and vehicles,” as well as “physical searches of the target’s residence, office, vehicles, computer, safe deposit box and U.S. mails.”

    In 2008, after the George W. Bush administration’s pervasive illegal warrantless wiretaps were exposed, Congress responded by enacting FISA amendments that formally entitled the National Security Agency to vacuum up mass amounts of emails and other communication, a swath of which is provided to the FBI. In 2018, the FISA court slammed the FBI for abusing that database with warrantless searches that violated Americans’ rights. In lieu of obeying FISA, the FBI created a new Office of Internal Audit. Deja vu! Back in 2007, FBI agents were caught massively violating the Patriot Act by using National Security Letters to conduct thousands of illegal searches on Americans’ personal data. Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) declared that an Inspector General report on the abusive searches “confirms the American people’s worst fears about the Patriot Act.” FBI chief Robert Mueller responded by creating a new Office of Integrity and Compliance as “another important step toward ensuring we fulfill our mission with an unswerving commitment to the rule of law.” Be still my beating heart!

    The FBI’s promise to repent after the 2018 report sufficed for the FISA court to permit the FBI to continue plowing through the personal data it received from NSA. Monday’s disclosure—a delayed release of a report by the court last November—revealed that the FBI has conducted warrantless searches of the data trove for “domestic terrorism,” “public corruption and bribery,” “health care fraud,” and other targets—including people who notified the FBI of crimes and even repairmen entering FBI offices. As Spencer Ackerman wrote in the Daily Beast, “The FBI continues to perform warrantless searches through the NSA’s most sensitive databases for routine criminal investigations.” That type of search “potentially jeopardizes an accused person’s ability to have a fair trial since warrantlessly acquired information is supposed to be inadmissible. The FBI claimed to the court that none of the warrantlessly queried material ‘was used in a criminal or civil proceeding,’ but such usage at trial has happened before,” Ackerman noted. Some illicit FBI searches involve vast dragnets. As the New York Times reported, an FBI agent in 2019 conducted a database search “using the identifiers of about 16,000 people, even though only seven of them had connections to an investigation.”

    In the report released Monday, Judge Boasberg lamented “apparent widespread violations” of the legal restrictions for FBI searches. Regardless, Boasberg kept the illicit search party going: “The Court is willing to again conclude that the . . . [FBI’s] procedures meet statutory and Fourth Amendment requirements.” “Willing to again conclude” sounds better than “close enough for constitutional.”

    At this point, Americans know only the abuses that the FBI chose to disclose to FISA judges. We have no idea how many other perhaps worse abuses may have occurred. For a hundred years, the FBI has buttressed its power by keeping a lid on its crimes. Unfortunately, the FISA Court has become nothing but Deep State window dressing—a facade giving the illusion that government is under the law. Consider Boasberg’s recent ruling in the most brazen FISA abuse yet exposed. In December 2019, the Justice Department Inspector General reported that the FBI made “fundamental errors” and persistently deceived the FISA court to authorize surveilling a 2016 Trump presidential campaign official. The I.G. report said the FBI “drew almost entirely” from the Steele dossier to prove a “well-developed conspiracy” between Russians and the Trump campaign even though it was “unable to corroborate any of the specific substantive allegations against Carter Page” in that dossier, which was later debunked.

    A former FBI assistant general counsel, Kevin Clinesmith, admitted to falsifying key evidence to secure the FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. As a Wall Street Journal editorial noted, Clinesmith “changed an email confirming Mr. Page had been a CIA source to one that said the exact opposite, explicitly adding the words ‘not a source’ before he forwarded it.” A federal prosecutor declared that the “resulting harm is immeasurable” from Clinesmith’s action. But at the sentencing hearing, Boasberg gushed with sympathy, noting that Clinesmith “went from being an obscure government lawyer to standing in the eye of a media hurricane… Mr. Clinesmith has lost his job in government service—what has given his life much of its meaning.” Scorning the federal prosecutor’s recommendation for jail time, Boasberg gave Clinesmith a wrist slap—400 hours of community service and 12 months of probation.

    The FBI FISA frauds profoundly disrupted American politics for years and the din of belatedly debunked accusations of Trump colluding with Russia swayed plenty of votes in the 2018 midterms and the 2020 presidential election. But for the chief FISA judge, nothing matters except the plight of an FBI employee who lost his job after gross misconduct. This is the stark baseline Americans should remember when politicians, political appointees, and judges promise to protect them from future FBI abuses. The FISA court has been craven, almost beyond ridicule, perennially. Perhaps Boasberg was simply codifying a prerogative the FISA court previously awarded upon FBI officials. In 2005, after a deluge of false FBI claims in FISA warrants, FISA Presiding Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly proposed requiring FBI agents to swear to the accuracy of the information they presented. That never happened because it could have “slowed such investigations drastically,” the Washington Post reported. So, FBI agents continue to lie with impunity to the judges.

    The FISA court has gone from pretending that FBI violations don’t occur to pretending that violations don’t matter. Practically the only remaining task is for the FISA court to cease pretending Americans have any constitutional right to privacy. But if a sweeping new domestic terrorism law is passed, perhaps even that formal acknowledgement will be unnecessary. Beginning in 2006, the court rubber-stamped FBI requests that bizarrely claimed that the telephone records of all Americans were “relevant” to a terrorism investigation under the Patriot Act, thereby enabling NSA data seizures later denounced by a federal judge as “almost Orwellian.” FISA could become a peril to far more Americans if Congress formally creates a new domestic terrorism offense and a new category for expanding FISA searches.

    The backlash from Democrats after the January 6 clash at the Capitol showcased the demand for federal crackdowns on extremists who doubted Biden’s election, disparaged federal prerogatives, or otherwise earned congressional ire. If a domestic terrorism law is passed, the FBI will feel as little constrained by the details of the statute as it does about FISA’s technicalities. Will FBI agents conducting warrantless searches rely on the same harebrained standard the NSA used to target Americans: “someone searching the web for suspicious stuff”?  Unfortunately, unless an FBI whistleblower with the same courage as former NSA analyst Edward Snowden steps forward, we may never know the extent of FBI abuses.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/02/2021 – 22:00

  • "Enough Looting My People": Peru's Marxist Presidential Frontrunner Pledges To Seize Offshore Company Profits
    “Enough Looting My People”: Peru’s Marxist Presidential Frontrunner Pledges To Seize Offshore Company Profits

    US corporations are facing an increasingly tough run over the next few years: on one hand all their domestic profits are about to be taxed at much higher rates thanks to Bidenomics, on the other, they are facing an increasingly hostile socialist regime internationally, that seeks to confiscate most if not all of their offshore profits.

    Case in point, Peru, whose presidential front-runner, Marxist Pedro Castillo who favorably quotes Lenin and Castro, said he’ll do what leftists everywhere do, and intends to redistribute wealth – because socialism – by reviewing contracts with transnational companies in a move to increase onshore wealth.

    In a debate with Keiko Fujimori ahead of the June 6 runoff, Castillo said multinationals should expect to leave 70% of their profits in Peru. Which is just a little bit more than what leftist president Joe Biden proposes they leave in the US.

    “Enough of looting my people,” the 51-year-old school teacher said in his hometown region, Cajamarca.

    As part of his populist package, Bloomberg reports that Castillo will also seek to raise investment in education to 10% of gross domestic product. He also proposed lowering the pension age to 60 and cutting lawmakers’ wages by half, although it was unclear where he would find the money to fund the early retirement – probably just more wealth confiscation (he said he would decline compensation as president).

    Meanwhile, as Peru braces for the joys of socialism, Peruvian assets have fallen as the presidential election approaches with the sol touching record lows this week.

    Despite a modest drop in Castillo’s lead – he has of 44% the vote versus 34% for Fujimori, daughter of jailed former President Alberto Fujimori according to a poll released Friday by Datum – he will almost certainly be the next president especially since Fujimori had been confined to campaigning in Lima because she is the subject of a criminal investigation. A full 11% of voters remain undecided, and 11% plan to cast blank or invalidated ballots, the survey found.

    As the WSJ notes, Castillo’s thinking is frighteningly similar to that of the late Hugo Chávez, who ruled Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013. Chavismo strangled Venezuela’s democratic institutions, sent human capital fleeing, destroyed the economy, and generated widespread poverty. Venezuela was once one of the most advanced countries in the region. Today Venezuelans live primitively, often without running water, electricity or basic medical supplies.

    And in a few weeks, the miracle of socialism will strike its next target.

     

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/02/2021 – 21:35

  • Bitcoin & A Lesson In Electricity Markets
    Bitcoin & A Lesson In Electricity Markets

    Authored by Joakim Book via The American Institute for Economic Research,

    In their desperation to find a reason for why bitcoin is terrible-bad-destructive-awful and morally reprehensible, the crypto-obsessed authors of the Financial Times blog Alphaville – Jemima Kelly, Jamie Powell, Izabella Kaminska – are quickly running out of good choices.

    Their latest one is the “environmental FUD” – a classic in our world of environmentally obsessed elites, where anything remotely associated with The Climate ensures moral supremacy. If all else fails, guilt-by-association will not. So, complain away about the environmental impact from the energy used by the Bitcoin network’s nodes and miners. 

    What’s so strange about this objection is that first, that impact is globally small, and second – who cares? Somebody, somewhere, is using energy in ways that you disapprove of (shocking, I know), to which the only reasonable response must be “Yes, and?” 

    Few free(ish) societies run around policing the use of energy, letting woke Establishment journalists decide on what’s permissible use, what’s harmful, and what needs to go. People drive cars, sometimes just because they want to, and sometimes just to compete to see who’s fastest; people go on vacation, mostly because they want to; people buy stuff, ride stuff, build stuff, enjoy stuff, almost all of which use energy and almost never require permission slips from their morally superior overlords. Not yet at least. 

    Throwing bitcoin into the mix somehow changes everything. Somebody, somewhere, is running their specialized hardware to validate the network, when they could have used those components (microprocesses, flash memories, fans, storage facilities) to, I don’t know, run a server hall to host all your incredible Instagram pictures. What is it about Bitcoin’s energy requirement that really triggers these people? If you think Bitcoin is a terrible payment mechanism, a subpar currency, a destabilizing base money, or a grand financial fad, those are arguments on their own merits – what’s energy got to do with it?

    On a first-pass observation it’s a perfect “gotcha” argument: if you think Bitcoin’s value-add is zero, or negative – Kelly happily calls it “a destructive asset class” – any amount of energy would be a waste, a climate nightmare, an environmental catastrophe. After all, we often hear that this monetary scam consumes electricity on par with small– or medium-sized countries. When the New York Times uses words like “enormous farms” and “endless racks of computers” we know it must be bad. 

    As usual when journalists talk about Big Terrible Things, we must dig a little deeper and probe a little more: ask those annoying questions – how much? Is that a lot? Compared to what? 

    Estimates for electricity use by the full Bitcoin network are all over the place, partly because nobody really knows how many miners there are and what exact equipment they’re using (and for environmental concerns, what electricity source powers their facilities). Low estimates hover around 40 TWh per year – a little less than Massachusetts used in 2019 – while high estimates report as much as 100 TWh per year – roughly the electricity generation of South Carolina or Louisiana. Let’s take the worst case and conveniently round number of 100 TWh. 

    That’s 2.5% of the 4,000 TWh of electricity that was used in America’s record year of 2018, or less than 0.4% of world electricity generation in 2019. Besides, if global electricity use fell by 1% last year because of the pandemic measures, the “savings” could power the entire Bitcoin network’s current use until 2024 (or 2028 at the lower estimate). If Bitcoin had not existed, it’s safe to say that our Alphaville electricity police would have found some other miniscule electricity user to complain about – maybe Christmas lighting (7 TWh), ski resorts (2-5 TWh), or online gaming (75 TWh). Perhaps the global banking system’s ATM networks (at something like 25 TWh)?

    Remember that we’re still only on electricity use; the sleight-of-hand involved in the Alphavillers’ magical trick is to equate use with “really bad for the environment.” By this same metric, the electricity generation used to power said writers’ computers qualifies – as does definitely the heating of their apartments (fossil fuels?) and the electricity that brightens their dark homes and runs their home appliances. While minuscule in proportion to thousands and thousands of miners upholding a decentralized monetary network, the Alphaville value add is clearly less than zero and so definitely a horrible waste of electricity. 

    If you live in a world of averages and aggregates – like Kelly, when she writes that since most mining is in China where “two-thirds of all electricity is generated by coal power” – Bitcoin mining must indeed be dirty. 

    Bitcoin mining is a cutthroat business, almost entirely determined by local electricity prices (though funding costs and legal risks matter). Thus, bitcoin miners are superbly positioned to seek out and find stranded energy, energy that cannot find its way to market, energy that has no opportunity cost: natural gas that otherwise would have been flared; hydro capacity that would have been flushed; wind turbines that otherwise would have turned off or detached from the grid.

    When ARK Invest and Square recently released a report on the renewable energy prospects for bitcoin miners, they offered mining facilities next to stranded energy as a supplement to overcome the intermittency problem. “Intermittency,” snarked Kelly, ridiculing the authors for not understanding that bitcoin consumes electricity without later bringing it back: it’s not the storage mechanism that solves renewable energy’s unsolvable problem.  

    A brief reminder of the three basic problems of renewables:

    1. they don’t produce much electricity when we need it: nights, evenings, and in the Northern Hemisphere, winter;

    2. they produce a lot of electricity when we don’t need it very much: days and summer;

    3. they produce this electricity geographically far from where we need it: rural plains, offshore, islands.  

    For each of these problems, what we end up doing in electrical grids with plenty of solar and wind is to:

    1. Have expensive backup power – mostly natural gas or coal plants – at the ready to start producing electricity when the wind or sun won’t suffice. This is the reason that electricity costs go up – not down – when more renewables are added to the grid.

    2. When sun and wind power are about to blow out their grids from overproduction, one of two things usually happen: small countries like Denmark can export its electricity to larger neighbors like Germany and Sweden (offloading the problem to someone else) or the renewables just shut off. Last year, wholesale electricity prices even dipped below zero to desperately induce industrial consumers to take the surplus electricity from the producers. 

    3. Our transmission lines are filled to capacity: in the short term, we go back to turning off intermittent sources, and in the long term we crisscross our countryside with more aluminum lines to accommodate trans-Continental sharing of excess electricity. 

    Institutional Bitcoin proponents like Cathy Wood of ARK Invest or Jack Dorsey, against whom the Alphavillers direct their current environmental FUD, did not imagine these problems. Producers of stranded energy, like the oversized hydro plants in the four Chinese provinces where most mining apparently takes place, cannot bring their goods to market – but they can offset some of their fixed costs by selling it to reliable bitcoin miners. Did Wood, Dorsey, and Brett Winton (research director at ARK) argue the case in a clumsy fashion, implying that bitcoin could help solar energy power the entire electricity grid? Yes. Are they therefore wrong to say that shedding excess electricity to willing miners helps financing renewable (or nonrenewable) electricity generation? Not at all.  

    On the contrary: Nic Carter, the master of environmental FUD-busting, writes

    “[c]ompletely off-grid natural gas is entirely nonrival with household or commercial energy consumption. It was never going to be monetized, captured, consumed, or delivered to households. Its fate was simply to be combusted or vented.”

    If some of that excess electricity – of the wrong kind, in the wrong place, at the wrong time – can be used to mine bitcoin and finance the electricity provider’s operations, isn’t that an efficiency improvement? The global crew of bitcoin miners vacuum the unused, stranded, and wasted energy of the world, providing extra dough for the marginal electricity generator whether renewable or not. Sounds good to me.  

    We should indeed be skeptical of financial fads, of everything in the Everything Bubble. And we should argue over bitcoin’s many monetary attributes – mostly because we therefore highlight how other monetary regimes work. But the environmental accusations of Bitcoin’s mining operations is like hitting your head against brick walls – not a very useful thing to do.

    Like the great JP Koning concluded this week, “It’s not the energy needs of these products that is the problem.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/02/2021 – 21:10

  • Biden Prepares For Stealth Food Stamp Increase Of Up To 20% Without Congressional Approval
    Biden Prepares For Stealth Food Stamp Increase Of Up To 20% Without Congressional Approval

    The Biden administration is planning to use an obscure US Department of Agriculture instrument to lay the groundwork for a long-term increase in food aid for tens of millions of Americans.

    The instrument, known as the ‘market basket,’ is a shopping list used to determine food stamp benefits, and which can be adjusted without risking an impasse in Congress from Republican lawmakers, according to Bloomberg.

    A review of the so-called Thrifty Food Plan, ordered by Biden two days after he took office, could trigger an automatic increase in benefits as soon as Oct. 1, a day after expiration of a temporary 15% boost in food stamp payments that Biden included in his $1.9 trillion Covid-relief package.

    James Ziliak, director of the Center for Poverty Research at the University of Kentucky, said the re-evaluation “could result in an upward adjustment of 20% or more in the benefits.” That would amount to roughly a $136-a-month increase in the maximum benefit for a family of four, which was $680 before the temporary pandemic-related increase. -Bloomberg

    “This is really meaningful,” according to Harvard professor Jason Furman, who was chairman of former President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. “It’s one of the bigger things government can do for poverty without Congress.“

    According to Furman, the Obama administration didn’t adjust the market basket because Republicans then controlled both houses of Congress.

    “We made a pragmatic decision that it not only could be overridden by a Republican Congress, but they could put something worse in its place. So we decided not to poke the bear,” he said.

    The decision follows a years-long campaign by anti-hunger advocates, after the basket hasn’t been adjusted for six decades aside from inflation. According to the report, “The move is emblematic of a broad commitment to anti-poverty programs across the Biden administration … In April, the Agriculture Department extended a universal free school lunch program tied to pandemic relief through the entire 2021-22 school year.”

    President Biden has been telegraphing the move for months – frequently reading his speechwriters’ descriptions of cars lined up for miles outside food banks for boxes of groceries. Most recently Biden invoked the imagery last week during his first address to Congress.

    “I didn’t ever think I’d see that in America,” he said.

    Advocates argue that the $22-a-day food budget USDA currently sets for a family of four is woefully inadequate and relies on outdated, unrealistic assumptions. The market basket assumes a family eats more than five pounds of beans a week, for example. And outside studies have found that the food plan requires spending about two hours a day preparing meals, largely from scratch, at a time the average American family spends just a half hour on daily food preparation.

    SNAP benefits are calculated on a sliding scale based on income and the number and age of people in a household. Recipients are expected to spend 30% of their net income on food, with food stamps making up the deficit from the USDA food budget. Benefits can only be used to purchase groceries. -Bloomberg

    According to a 2011 study, over 25% of SNAP recipients exhaust their monthly benefit within one week of issuance, while over half exhaust it by the second week.

    We can’t imagine why.

    While historical reviews of the market basket – the most recent being in 2006 – aimed to keep costs constant, this time the USDA won’t require it to be cost-neutral according to official Stacy Dean, who’s leading the review on behalf of Agriculture Secretary Tom VIlsack.

    “A core goal of the secretary is to assure nutrition security, not just food security,” said Dean. “We want to make sure the benefits we are providing really and truly can support a nutritious and healthy diet.”

    And according to March comments from Vilsack, “It’s fair to say that the SNAP benefit is in many cases not adequate enough to provide the help and assistance that is needed,” adding “I suspect that we’re going to find that the foundation of that program doesn’t meet the activities of normal American families today, and that may result in some adjustment in terms of the benefit.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/02/2021 – 20:45

  • How This Inflation Plays Out Will Be Different From Anything That Has Come Before It
    How This Inflation Plays Out Will Be Different From Anything That Has Come Before It

    By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management

    For nearly a century, gold had been pegged at roughly $20.67/oz. Then in 1934, FDR banned private holdings, confiscated people’s gold, and set the value at $35/oz for use in international trade/settlement. It remained anchored at that price for decades. But fiscal pressures of the Vietnam war and Johnson’s Great Society project stressed the pegged system. Johnson’s war on poverty, Medicare, Medicaid, urban renewal programs and so many others were costly. As they stressed America’s finances, the system’s circuit breakers were overwhelmed.

    On August 15, 1971, Nixon abandoned the gold standard, froze wages and prices for 90-days, and imposed a 10% import surcharge. Unemployment was a painful 6.1%, inflation was 4.6% and 10yr yields were 6.58%. All sorts of unique things were happening in the world economy. They always are. Which is why no time is the same. Back then, the Bretton Woods system that had served the post-war economy so well had come under intense pressure. Aided by the Marshall Plan, the rest of the world had been rebuilt, and was starting to catch up in earnest.

    Joe Biden was sworn in as a 30-year-old freshman Senator in Jan 1973. Seems like half a century ago, because it was. In the 1.5yrs between Nixon leaving the gold standard and Biden’s inauguration, the gold price jumped from $35/oz to $65/oz (in that same period, the S&P 500 rose 20%, while CPI fell from 4.6% to 3.7%). No doubt that jump in gold seemed like a big move to people. Having traded between $20/oz and $35/oz over the previous 150yrs, people were mentally tethered to historical prices. Humans struggle to process rapid change.

    As fate had it, the S&P 500 peaked the month of Biden’s 1973 inauguration with 10yr bond yields at 6.46%. The price of gold and the value of stocks, which had both risen in the 1.5yrs following Nixon’s exit from the gold standard, diverged radically as inflation started to rise in earnest. CPI had started rising before the oil embargo of October 1973. It was lifted in March 1974, with oil prices having jumped from $3/barrel to nearly $12/barrel. By the end of 1974, gold hit $181/oz, the S&P 500 fell 48%, 10yr bond yields rose to 7.48%. CPI had jumped to 12.3%.

    Inflation remained volatile for another decade after that. Oil prices too. Commodities in general. Gold hit $850/oz in January 1980. Bond holders got destroyed. Equity holders too. Generally speaking, agricultural commodities did reasonably well on an inflation-adjusted basis in the 1970s. But the really big winners were gold and oil, each for unique reasons, both of which were amplified by that monetary debasement. To this day, most people are mentally anchored to that experience, so that when they worry about inflation they buy gold.

    There are more differences between the 1970s and the 2020s than there are similarities. Demographics, technology, global trade, union membership, consumption patterns, environmental stresses, geopolitics, and domestic politics are all different. There are substantial similarities too. But one thing is identical – this planet remains inhabited by humans. And we never change. We despise iniquity. When Biden entered politics in 1973, the rich/poor divide in America had halved since the late 1920s high. It has since doubled. Returning to those highs.
     
    Anecdote:

    How this inflation plays out will be different from anything that has come before it. It is always so. Naturally, some aspects will resemble the past. This inflation will inevitably be volatile, such periods of price changes typically are. And in the early stages, nearly everyone will persuade themselves that it is transitory.

    In the late stages, those same people will conclude that it is permanent. Throughout the process, each of us, individually, will see what we want to see, hear what we want to hear, and believe what we want to believe. Those things are always true, perhaps now more than ever. We will also find the period ahead deeply unsettling. Change is hard to process. And more things are changing now than at any time in our lives – such is today’s utterly unprecedented pace of innovation and disruption.

    In such a state, it is natural to cling to our anchors:

    • Our policymakers will point to the inflation metrics that they themselves have engineered in such a way to ensure stability, even if they long ago diverged from reality.
    • Bond investors will look to the spreads between overnight rates and two-year bonds, five-year, ten, thirty. And despite the reality that the government has run 15% deficits for two years, funded by the Fed which simply creates the money, they will cling to the anchors that have governed the well-behaved yield curve for the course of their careers.
    • Equity investors will hold tight to the relationships that anchor their value relative to bonds.
    • Not a solitary investor in the mainstream will be prepared to deviate from the benchmarks to which they have anchored their careers.

    And yet, all of us will begin to increasingly wonder, whether digital assets, which have no real history, no anchors, are the first to provide a glimpse of what lays beyond the horizon. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/02/2021 – 20:20

  • 1 In 5 EV Owners In California Are Switching Back To Gas Because Charging Is A "Hassle"
    1 In 5 EV Owners In California Are Switching Back To Gas Because Charging Is A “Hassle”

    When people are inconvenienced for just the slightest bit of time, the virtue signaling flies right out the window as though it never existed. It’s almost as if the “green” energy cult exists in a world of their own cognitive dissonance, surviving off of recruiting new entrants to their “ideology”, rather than actually practicing its tenets. 

    For example, about 20% of all “planet saving EV owning visionaries” in California are defecting from their EVs back to gas-powered vehicles, according to a new report by Business Insider. The switch back to gas comes as a result of charging being a “hassle”, the report found. 

    The report cites a new study published in the journal Nature Energy by University of California Davis researchers Scott Hardman and Gil Tal. They surveyed people in California who purchased EVs between 2012 and 2018.

    1 in 5 switched back to avoid dealing with the lengthy time it took for their vehicles to charge. (Wait until they find out how the electricity was being generated to charge their cars in the first place!)”

    70% of those who switched lacked access to Level 2 charging at home, which can charge vehicles in about twice the time as a normal Level 1 plug. Level 1 charging from a standard home outlet puts out about 120 volts of power. Level 2 is twice that, whereas Tesla’s SuperChargers can offer 480 volts. 

    “If you don’t have a Level 2, it’s almost impossible,” said Bloomberg automotive analyst Kevin Tynan. It took him six hours to charge his Chevy Volt back to 300 miles of range using a Level 2 charger. 

    Two thirds of those surveyed also said they didn’t use public charging stations. Good thing Joe Biden is rolling out trillions in EV “infrastructure” for more of these. 

    Hardman and Tal wrote: “It should not be assumed that once a consumer purchases a PEV they will continue owning one. What is clear is that this could slow PEV market growth and make reaching 100% PEV sales more difficult.”

    Tynan concluded: “For all those legacy automakers, that profit and loss piece does matter. And that’s why you’re getting this half effort on electrification.” 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/02/2021 – 19:55

  • 'Follow The Science' Fallacy Exposed – Teachers Union Exerted Influence Over CDC School Reopening Guidelines
    ‘Follow The Science’ Fallacy Exposed – Teachers Union Exerted Influence Over CDC School Reopening Guidelines

    Authored by Rick Moran via PJMedia.com,

    In the Biden administration, “follow the science” takes second place to “follow the campaign donations from teachers unions”…

    The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) was heavily lobbied by the nation’s second-largest teachers union on when to reopen America’s schools, emails obtained by the New York Post show. There was extensive communication between the American Federation of Teachers, the CDC, and the White House in the lead up to the release of school reopening guidelines in February.

    The documents were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the group Americans for Public Trust and provided to The Post.

    Anyone in the United States, any group, has a perfect right to lobby any federal agency they wish. But don’t you think it would have been nice to know that the CDC was being influenced by teachers in coming to the conclusion that schools should remain closed to in-person learning?

    The documents show a flurry of activity between CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, her top advisors and union officials — with Biden brass being looped in at the White House — in the days before the highly-anticipated Feb. 12 announcement on school-reopening guidelines.

    “Thank you again for Friday’s rich discussion about forthcoming CDC guidance and for your openness to the suggestions made by our president, Randi Weingarten, and the AFT,” wrote AFT senior director for health issues Kelly Trautner in a Feb 1 email — which described the union as the CDC’s “thought partner.”

    You can’t really say the teachers union was driving the discussion on when to open schools. Or can you?

    “We were able to review a copy of the draft guidance document over the weekend and were able to provide some initial feedback to several staff this morning about possible ways to strengthen the document,” Trautner continued. “… We believe our experiences on the ground can inform and enrich thinking around what is practicable and prudent in future guidance documents.”

    Emails show a call between Walensky and Weingarten — the former boss of New York City’s United Federation of Teachers — was arranged for Feb 7.

    The lobbying paid off.

    In at least two instances, language “suggestions” offered by the union were adopted nearly verbatim into the final text of the CDC document.

    And in case anyone is confused about whose interests the teachers union was looking out for, they made it plain when pushing for “special remote work concessions” from the CDC.

    The AFT also demanded special remote work concessions for teachers “who have documented high-risk conditions or who are at increased risk for … COVID-19,” and that similar arrangements should extend to “staff who have a household member” with similar risks. A lengthy provision for that made it into the text of the final guidance.

    There was apparently some pushback from people who wondered why CDC was ignoring the science and giving in to teachers’ demands when there was plenty of evidence that schools were not a primary source of infections as long as they followed common-sense rules.

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    The answer is plain and simple: politics.

    Dr. Monica Gandhi, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco who has written extensively on coronavirus, called the CDC-AFT emails “very, very troubling,”

    “What seems strange to me here is there would be this very intimate back and forth including phone calls where this political group gets to help formulate scientific guidance for our major public health organization in the United State,” Gandhi told The Post. “This is not how science-based guidelines should work or be put together.”

    This should be a major scandal. Outside of The Post and Fox News, however, no other major news outlet has bothered to report that government policy that should have been based on science, was in fact, based on recommendations from a bunch of political hacks.

    *  *  *
    ZH: Randi Weingarten has already tweeted her response to these ‘facts’ being exposed by FOIA-obtained emails… by gaslighting as aggressively as we’ve ever seen…

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    Social media were not about to let her get away with that bullshit…

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/02/2021 – 19:30

  • Boeing Fires 65 Employees, Disciplines 53 More For 'Racist And Hateful Conduct' Following George Floyd Death
    Boeing Fires 65 Employees, Disciplines 53 More For ‘Racist And Hateful Conduct’ Following George Floyd Death

    In the last 12 months, Boeing has fired 65 employees and disciplined 53 others over ‘racist, discriminatory and hateful behavior,’ according to the Daily Mail, citing a Friday ‘Equity, Diversity & Inclusion’ report from the Chicag-based company’s CEO, David Calhoun.

    Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun (pictured) says ‘There is no place for hate within our company, and we will keep expecting the best from everyone in their interactions with one another’

    “As we have witnessed horrific images in the news and heard heartbreaking stories from our people, our determination to advance equity, diversity and inclusion has only become stronger,” reads the statement – which follows the company’s June 2020 ‘zero-tolerance’ policy implemented in June 2020 following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer in Minneapolis.

    “There is no place for hate within our company, and we will keep expecting the best from everyone in their interactions with one another,” Calhoun continued.

    Meanwhile, the company outlined its diversity plans in its August 2020 “Racial Equity Action Plan.”

    Notably, of the company’s 140,000 employees, 66.8% are white, 6.4% are black, 14.2% are Asian, 7% are hispanic, and 3.6% are listed as ‘more.’

    According to Calhoun, the company will increase black representation to 20% by 2025, just 3.5 years from now. This means Boeing will hire over 19,000 black workers in either a massive expansion of headcount, or at the expense of workers of other races.

    “This work is a business imperative for us, because diversity and inclusion make us better in every way; when everyone has a voice, everyone is inspired to succeed together,” reads the report. “As we resolve to do better, the gaps we see in our representation show us where we must focus our efforts to address disparities.“

    Meanwhile, Boeing is currently being sued by a black employee claiming a hostile environment at a South Carolina plant because a supervisor assigned black employees to work in ‘undesirable’ and hazardous areas of a plant, while white employees were sent to more ‘desirable’ locations, according to Forbes.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/02/2021 – 19:05

  • Tesla, Revisiting The Issue Of What It's Worth
    Tesla, Revisiting The Issue Of What It’s Worth

    Authored by Bruce Wilds via Advancing Time blog,

    Now that Tesla’s most recent numbers are out it may be time to revisit what the company is worth. While the numbers came in solid and better than some analysts expected they did not blow the doors off the hinges and leave investors in awe. Lurking in the shadows are concerns at just how honest Tesla’s numbers really are. History has shown time and time again that markets can hide from reality for only so long. Tesla’s stock price continues to hang on but continuing signs of the company’s challenging path forward continue to leak out. 

    With over 100 different electric cars expected to hit the market by 2025, it is difficult for a realist to envision Tesla being able to remain in the position it is today. The rapid approach of real competition into the rather small Electric Vehicle market is occurring at a time when auto sales may be on the wane. This could translate into tight profit margins and a situation similar to what we witnessed in 2008 when the automobile industry fell off a cliff resulting in a government bailout of GM and Chrysler.  

    Needless to say, a great number of factors influence how a stock is valued. A huge part of the sugar high allowing Tesla’s valuation continues to be that climate change exists and the idea electric vehicles are a big part of the answer to halting it. It could be said that Elon Musk is the “Pied Piper” of  EVs leading society down a path that may eventually disappoint even his most loyal followers. Musk appears to have a great deal riding on government  favors paving Tesla’s way forward with generous subsidies. Whether EVs live up to their reputation of being environmentally friendly is a matter still being debated and many people have come to the conclusion that EVs do not live up to their promise. 

    Several other issues haunt Tesla, one has to do with China. A few days ago the video of a protestor at the Shanghai Auto Show “went viral” after he stood on top of a Tesla vehicle and decrying the car’s brakes. Shortly after the incident, a CCTV broadcaster has called for an investigation into Tesla’s brake failures, some people are taking this as a sign China’s love affair with Elon musk is coming to an end.

    Tesla Has Made China A Key Part Of Its Future

    This could have huge ramifications for the future of  both Musk and Tesla because of the huge investment the company has made in China. The notion that Chinese state media has turned negative and is looking for answers underscores the idea China may have initially embraced Tesla in order to steal its technology. 

    Also, issues concerning the overall quality of Tesla’s cars, or lack of it, have garnered a great deal of attention. While this has been brushed aside by the majority of Tesla lovers, Tesla’s US made vehicles are scoring in the cellar when it comes to quality. As Electrec reported earlier this year, Tesla ranked lowest on J.D. Power 2020 quality study, with 250 problems per 100 cars. The quality survey was based on roughly 1,250 Tesla owners with most of the respondents being the proud owners of a Model 3.

    Needless to say, much of the “aura” surrounding Tesla continues to flow from Musk himself. It appears many people view this man as almost god-like, a genius with superman qualities. Somehow they are able to overlook the fact the words coming out of his mouth often conflict with reality. Musk skeptics such as myself, are appalled at how so much of his empire has been grown from a foundation of government subsidies.  

    Government support is a major theme of all Elon Musk’s companies, and without it, none of them would exist. Woven into this is the issue of “corporate incest” and Tesla’s acquisition of ailing SolarCity in an all-stock $2.6 billion merger. At the time Musk owned 22% of SolarCity which was founded by his cousins. The merger was promoted on the idea that Tesla’s mission since its inception was part of Elon Musk’s overall “Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan” to expedite the world’s transition to sustainable energy and away from a fossil fuel economy.

    Tesla’s valuation remains a bit over the moon considering on Friday it closed with the stock at a whopping P/E ratio of 710 times earnings and a market cap of over 649.8 billion dollars. Those of us without a great love for Tesla or Elon Musk see this as the poster child of absurdity. By comparison, Volkswagen, which sold over 10 million vehicles last year has a market cap of $79 billion and auto giant Toyota around $246 billion.

    While valued as the most valuable car company in the world, recent earning for Tesla indicates its profits were based on $518 mm of regulatory credit sales and a $101 positive gain from its Bitcoin position and sales. Strip these out and it seems that Tesla lost $181mm selling cars. Still, it is difficult to deny another major factor keeping Tesla aloft is the promise of a shit load of government money flowing from Biden’s new $2 trillion infrastructure package. Many Tesla enthusiasts are counting on this transfer of wealth to move the company forward. 

    While Tesla sported a valuable advantage by being the first big player in the electric vehicle (EV) category it is not protected by a great number of patents. The big advantage Tesla has enjoyed with other manufacturers being slow to release EV cars is not expected to last. Much of Tesla’s technology is easy to replicate and most auto manufacturers have lines of EVs finally rolling off their production lines this year and next. Many of these cars will come at far cheaper prices and Tesla’s competitors will also be offering their customers service shops and trade-ins.

    Ford’s New F-150 Will Challenge Tesla

    This means Tesla’s first mover advantage may vanish overnight. A great deal will depend on how Tesla’s new pickup truck fairs against such rivals as Ford’s new electric F-150. Any sign of failure on the part of Tesla could result in a major fall from grace and bring into question Tesla’s staying power in the industry.

    Ironically up until now, Musk’s greatest strength may have been that so many investors doubt his ability to perform. This means that a slew of impatient clowns have shorted Tesla stock in search of quick profits. These bearish investors have continually shot themselves in the foot by constantly finding reasons to rush to the exits in short-covering panics. This not only invariably brings the share price back up but has created a self-feeding loop accounting for much of the companies success and oversized profile in the automobile sector.   

    When all is said and done, the 64,000 dollar question remains, what is Tesla worth? Still more important is, what will it be worth in the future. Sadly, this article is not about to predict a number considering Elon Musk has proved he has more lives than a cat. Time and time again reports of his demise have proven to be premature. It seems every week creates a slew of new articles about Tesla and what is occurring in the highly speculated electric vehicle sector. Like many people that are predisposed to discount hype from the media, you should color me skeptical about how well Tesla will deal with the coming onslaught of competition. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/02/2021 – 18:40

  • You Know It's Bad When… CNN Calls Out Biden Over Anti-Science Mask Use
    You Know It’s Bad When… CNN Calls Out Biden Over Anti-Science Mask Use

    President Biden is coming under fire from both sides of the aisle for constantly wearing a mask despite announcing that vaccinated people no longer require face coverings when outdoors. In other words, it’s simply virtue signaling at this point.

    As The Hill (!?) notes, days later after announcing the loosened guidelines from the CDC, “Biden was spotted with a mask while walking outside to Marine One with first lady Jill Biden, even though both have been vaccinated and no others were around.”

    The president again donned a mask at a Georgia drive-in rally while his wife spoke a few feet away, despite nobody else being on stage.

    Biden has strived to set an example for Americans by wearing a mask in public frequently during his first months in office, pleading with the public that it was a key tool to end the pandemic. But health experts say the country is reaching a tipping point where Biden now must alter his behavior to reflect how vaccines can lead to a return to normal. –The Hill

    “I actually think it would do so much good for the president to be modeling at this point the really critical times when people should be wearing a mask, and letting people know here is the benefit of the vaccine: You don’t need to be wearing a mask during these other times,” said ER physician and former Baltimore health commissioner, Leana Wen.

    Biden, however, can’t seem to quit masks.

    Biden made a point to walk away from the podium without a mask after outlining the new guidance, and White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the president and senior staff would abide by the CDC recommendations that no longer required masks outdoors for vaccinated individuals.

    But the president has been slow to put the updated recommendations into practice, as reflected by his trip to Georgia.

    Biden also wore a mask into and out of the House chamber for his speech to a joint session of Congress, despite most of those in attendance being distanced and vaccinated. -The Hill

    Now, even CNN‘s Jake Tapper is calling out the president for sending mixed signals over mask use while vaccinated.

    “Should the president start following these guidelines and stop wearing a mask outdoors, stop wearing a mask indoors when with small groups of other vaccinated Americans, to show the American people there is a benefit to getting the vaccine?” Tapper asked guest Anita Dunn – to which Dunn replied that Biden “has always taken his role as sending a signal to follow the science very seriously,” but that people should instead follow CDC guidelines.

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/02/2021 – 18:15

  • "This Time Is Indeed Different" – Why Morgan Stanley Sees No Housing Bubble
    “This Time Is Indeed Different” – Why Morgan Stanley Sees No Housing Bubble

    By Vishwanath Tirupattur, Managing Director in Credit Securitized Products Research and Strategy at Morgan Stanley

    US housing is on a hot streak. Home prices as measured by the S&P Case-Shiller Index rose 12.2%Y, with prices surging across all 20 of the metropolitan areas tracked by the Index. That amounts to an increase of $35,000 in the median selling price for homes from just a year ago and marks the fastest pace of increase since 2006.

    Unsurprisingly, any comparison to the 2006 boom in home prices brings unhappy memories, considering the bust that followed, which culminated in the global financial crisis (GFC) in 2008. However, we argue that this time is indeed different. Unlike 15 years ago, the euphoria in today’s home prices comes down to the logic of demand and supply, and we conclude that the sector is on a sustainably sturdy foundation. We are not at all suggesting that home price appreciation will maintain its current torrid pace. Home prices will continue to rise, but more gradually. We have strong conviction that we are not experiencing a bubble in US housing.

    Much has been written about the run-up to the pre-GFC housing bubble. We would boil it down to layers upon layers of leverage in the housing sector that led to a spectacularly painful bust. But contrary to the narrative that loose lending to people with lower credit scores – the ‘sub-prime’ borrowers – was central to the excesses, we think it was more about the type of credit they had access to. Mortgage credit risk consists of (1) borrower risk and (2) mortgage product risk. Borrower risk captures the metrics we typically use to assess the likelihood of default on a mortgage, such as credit score, loan-to-value, and debt-to-income. Product risk lies in giving a borrower a type of mortgage that has a higher risk of default, even controlling for those borrower characteristics. These so-called ‘affordability products’ included mortgages where the payment could vary significantly throughout the life of the loan. As James Egan, our US housing strategist has explained, product risk increased significantly more than borrower risk during the pre-GFC housing boom. The affordability products were inherently risky because they effectively required home prices to keep rising and lending standards to remain accommodative so that homeowners could refinance before their monthly payment became unaffordable. When home prices stopped climbing, these mortgages reset to payments that borrowers could not make, leading to delinquency and foreclosure. As foreclosures and the subsequent distressed sales piled up, home prices fell further, creating a vicious cycle.

    Affordability products made up almost 40% of all first lien mortgages from 2004 to 2006. Today their share is down to 2%. Furthermore, the Mortgage Bankers Association’s index of credit standards, which peaked at nearly 900 in 2006, has stayed well below 200 for almost a decade and fell further to the low 100s post-COVID-19. Not only are lending standards much tighter this time around, but the leverage in the system has also been reduced dramatically. Prior to the GFC, the total value of the US housing market peaked at $25.6 trillion in 2006, with total mortgage debt outstanding of $10.5 trillion for an estimated loan-to-value (LTV) of 41.2% for the entire housing market. Today, the value of the housing market has jumped to $33.3 trillion, while total mortgage debt has only increased to $11.5 trillion with an estimated aggregate LTV of just 34.5%. These changes give us confidence that the current system of housing finance is healthy and on a sustainable footing.

    Demand and supply factors remain a tailwind for home prices. Thanks to the demographic dividend, millennials continue to drive household formation at a rate 30-50% above the long-run rate of new household formation. Thus, demand for shelter is likely to remain robust for some time to come. As James points out in his latest Housing Tracker, affordability remains good despite sustained increases in home prices and mortgage rates inching higher. Monthly mortgage payments as a percentage of income remain near the most affordable levels in the last five years. Against this backdrop, there is a nationwide shortage of supply. The number of existing homes available for sale has plummeted to historical lows while the supply of new homes remains muted, hence the overall supply of homes sits near record lows.

    Robust demand and highly challenged supply along with tight mortgage lending standards augur well for home prices. Higher interest rates and post-pandemic moves will likely slow the pace of appreciation, but their upward trajectory remains on course.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/02/2021 – 17:50

  • "The Costs Are Up, Up, Up. We're Seeing Substantial Inflation" Admits A Surprised Warren Buffett As Powell, Yellen See Nothing
    “The Costs Are Up, Up, Up. We’re Seeing Substantial Inflation” Admits A Surprised Warren Buffett As Powell, Yellen See Nothing

    We already touched on two of the more colorful exchanges from Saturday’s Berkshire annual videoconference, both of which incidentally starred the traditionally far more outspoken Charlie Munger, who first crushed a generation’s monetary dreams saying that today’s Millennials will have “a hell of a time getting rich compared to our generation”, and then infuriated tens of millions of cryptofans and diamond hands (such as Dan Loeb) when he said that “the whole damn development” of crytpocurrencies “is disgusting and contrary to the interests of civilization.”

    Yet while those two incidents may prompt the most Monday morning watercooler talk, what was most relevant from a macro and markets standpoint was Buffett’s observation of something the Fed and Treasury are terrified to admit: that a tidal wave of inflation has been unleashed upon the US and it’s only getting worse.

    Speaking to Berkshire’s millions of shareholders on Saturday, Buffett said that he was surprised by the “red hot” US economic rebound and warned the company was being hit by inflationary pressures.

    “We’re seeing very substantial inflation,” the 90-year-old billionaire who apparently does not have a Fed charge card, said in his nearly 6 hour long address to investors. But it’s what he said that was especially ominous:  “It’s very interesting. We’re raising prices. People are raising prices to us and it’s being accepted.”

    Why does this matter? Because the ability to pass on price increases and have them stick, means the surge in prices will not be transitory, no matter how many times the Biden admin, the Fed or the Treasury lie and vow the opposite.

    Buffett’s comments came one day after the US revealed that household incomes rose by the most in recorded history in March as the latest round of Biden stimmies hit bank accounts.

    This has also pushed the total amount of government transfer payments to a record 34%. That’s right: a third of all US household income is now from the state. Marx would be proud.

    The surge in income which for now has resulted in record excess savings of roughly $2 trillion, has sent reverberations throughout financial markets, with investors’ inflation expectations over the next decade rising to an eight-year high.

    “It just won’t stop,” Buffett added. “People have money in their pocket and they’ll pay the higher prices…. There’s more inflation going on that people would have anticipated six months ago or thereabouts” he added.

    We urge readers to go over the full exchange because the world Buffett lives in and the one populated by the clueless career economists of the Fed are apparently totally different:

    BECKY QUICK: I will ask this question from Chris Freed from Philadelphia. And whoever wants to take this on stage, “From raw material purchases by Berkshire subsidiaries, are you seeing signs of inflation beginning to increase?”

    WARREN BUFFETT: Let me answer that, then Greg can get more into that. We’re seeing very substantial inflation – it’s very interesting. I mean, we’re raising prices. People are raising prices to us. And it’s being accepted. Take home-building. I mean, you know, the cost of– we’ve got nine home builders in addition to our manufactured housing operation, which is the largest in the country.

    So we really do a lot of housing. The costs are just up, up, up. Steel costs, you know, just every day, they’re going up. And there hasn’t yet been because the wage– the wage stuff follows. I mean, the– the UAW writes a three-year contract, we got a three-year contract.

    But if you’re buying steel at General Motors or someplace, you’re paying more every day. So it’s an economy, really– it’s red hot. I mean, and we weren’t expecting it. I mean, all our companies, when they thought when they were allowed to go back to work at, well, various operations, we closed the furniture stores, I mentioned.

    You know, they were closed for six weeks or so on average. And they didn’t know what was going to happen when they opened. And they can’t stop people from buying things. And we can’t deliver them. They say, well, that’s OK because nobody else can deliver them either, and we’ll wait for three months or something of the sort.

    The backlog grows, and then we thought it would end when the $600– the payments ended, and I think around August of last year, it just kept going. And it keeps going and it keeps going and it keeps going. And I get the figures. Every week, we go over, day by day, what happened at the three different stores in Chicago and Kansas City and Dallas.

    And it just won’t stop. People have money in their pocket, and they pay the higher prices. And when corporate prices go up in a month or two– and that was the price increase for April 1– our costs are going up, supply chain’s all screwed up for all kinds of people. But it’s a buy– it’s almost a buying frenzy, except certain areas, you can’t buy at.

    You know, you really can’t buy international air travel. And so the money is being diverted from a little– some piece of the economy into the rest. And everybody’s got more cash in their pocket than– except for, meanwhile, it’s a terrible situation for a percentage of the people.

    I haven’t worn a suit for a year, practically. And that means that the dry cleaners just went out of business. I mean, nobody’s bringing in suits to get dry cleaned, and nobody’s bringing in white shirts the place where my wife goes.

    The small business person, if you didn’t have takeout and delivery services for restaurants, you got killed. On the other hand, if you’ve got takeout facilities, then, same-store sales at Dairy Queen are up a whole lot, and they adapted. But it is not a price-sensitive economy right now in the least. And I don’t know exactly how– what shows up in different price indices. But there’s more inflation going on than– quite a bit more inflation going on than people would have anticipated just six months ago or thereabouts.

    CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, and there’s one very intelligent man who thinks it’s dangerous. And that’s just the start.

    WARREN BUFFETT: Greg, you probably are in a good position to comment.

    GREG ABEL: Yeah, well, Warren, I think you touched on it. When we look at steel prices, timber prices, any petroleum input, you know, fundamentally there’s pressure on those raw materials. I do think something you’ve touched someone, Warren, and it goes really back to the raw materials.

    There’s a scarcity of product right now, of certain raw materials. It’s impacting price and the ability to deliver the end product but, you know, that scarcity factor is also real out there right now, as our businesses address that challenge. And it may be the sum of that’s contribute– or arisen from the storm we previously discussed in Texas. When you take down that many petrochemical plants in one state that the rest of the country is very dependent upon it, we’re seeing it flow through both on price, but overall in scarcity of product, which obviously go together. But there’s challenges, that’s for sure.

    Buffett’s admission was also remarkable because it was in opposition to all the official manure spoon fed to the gullible peasants by the President and his economic henchmen (or is that sexist: perhaps henchpeople is more apt?). Case in point, today former Fed chair and current Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that Biden’s multi-trillion economic plan is unlikely to create inflation pressure in the U.S. because the boost to demand will be spread over a decade.

    “I don’t believe that inflation will be an issue. But if it becomes an issue, we have tools to address it,” Yellen said Sunday on NBC’s leftist Meet the Press show. “It’s spread out quite evenly over eight to 10 years. So, the boost to demand is moderate,” she said of the proposed spending.

    Yellen also said the U.S. has the “fiscal space” to make investments in its economy, with interest rates low and likely to remain so, but over the long haul, budget deficits need to be “contained.”

    In other words, all those soaring prices, including the Costco shrinkflation seeking to mask a 14% price increase with small offerings… well, just ignore that for a few more years until the “transitory” period ends. Assuming it ends, of course. It didn’t quite end in the 1970s when inflation was also supposed to be transitory.

    Yellen said on that while the administration needs “fiscal space to be able to address” emergencies like the pandemic, it needs to do so with a long-term plan in mind. “We don’t want to use up all of that fiscal space, and over the long run deficits need to be contained to keep our federal finances on a sustainable basis,” she said.

    Asked about the proposed tax increases that would come with Biden’s spending plan, Yellen focused on the U.S. proposal for a global minimum corporate tax, and efforts to clamp down on tax loopholes in the U.S. “An important way of paying for this is increasing tax compliance,” she said. “It’s estimated that underpayment of taxes that are really due is costing us, the federal government, about $7 trillion over a decade.”

    While Yellen touched on rising taxes, there were several other items she refused to touch upon:

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    It wasn’t just Yellen lying to the people: another top Biden administration economic adviser said inflation now apparent in certain pockets of the economy is “transitory” as the nation exits the pandemic. Cecilia Rouse, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said supply chain issues and labor market shortages are “bumps along the way” to recovery.

    There’s no sense for now that these price increases are becoming “de-anchored,” she said on “Fox News Sunday,” while promising to remain vigilant on inflation pressures.

    “For the time being we expect at most transitory inflation, that is what we expect coming out of a big recession,” she said. It wasn’t clear what would happen when her expectation was proven to be wrong.

    Yellen and Rouse spoke following last week’s unveiling of the latest economic plan from the Biden administration, which is proposing a combination of $1.8 trillion in spending and tax credits for areas such as education, child care and paid family and medical leave. This comes on top of almost $2.25 trillion in infrastructure, home health care and other outlays that the administration proposed at the end of March, not to mention the $5 trillion that the government has injected into the economy through the three pandemic relief packages passed by Congress during the past 14 months.

    In short, we are looking at $10 trillion in new government handouts in the coming years, give or take a few trillions.

    None of this matters to the “big man” himself – and no, not the nearly 80-year-old Biden, of course, who is merely a puppet for whoever writes the lines into his teleprompter – but Fed Chair Jerome Powell, who shrugged off such concerns last week, telling reporters that the reopening of the economy may lead to a single episode of price increases, but not a long-running bout of inflation.

    Which, of course, is a lie and for what is really coming please re-read “We Are At The Early Stage Of The Biggest Cobra Effect In The History Of Economics.“

    * * *

    Finally, for those who missed it, here are the main highlights from Berkshire’s nearly 6 hour Saturday tour de force annual meeting, (courtesy of Bloomberg):

    • SPACs, Robinhood and day trading. We got plenty of opinions from Buffett and Munger on these trends that have gripped the markets over the past year. Buffett called the SPAC boom a “killer” when it comes to creating more competition for Berkshire’s dealmaking desires. But he acknowledged that the stock market has become more of a casino with all the day trading and it creates its own reality for a while until it all blows up. On Robinhood, Buffett acknowledged that gambling isn’t bad but taking advantage of that instinct isn’t the most admirable part of society.
    • Buffett made some big moves last year, dumping airline stocks and paring back bank bets. He acknowledged today that airlines could have had a different outcome on federal relief if they had a super rich company as a top shareholder, but even then, he wouldn’t buy airlines given the slump in international travel.
    • Buffett admitted to a few missteps over the past year. Haven, the health care venture, failed eventually and Buffett said that they couldn’t really tackle the “tape worm” of health care. He added that last year, amid the airline sales, wasn’t Berkshire’s greatest moment. Plus, it was a mistake to sell some Apple stock last year, he added.
    • We only got a potential new clue about succession. At one point, Charlie Munger mentioned that Greg Abel would maintain the culture at Berkshire. Abel has been seen as the most likely successor — he’s younger and controls a lot of Berkshire businesses. But no successor has been publicly announced, so that little comment might be picked up by a few investors eager to know who will take over.
    • Two shareholder proposals — one on climate change and one on diversity — got a lot of attention ahead of the meeting with proxy advisers Glass Lewis and ISS pushing back against some of Berkshire’s views. But both of those ended up being voted down at the end of the meeting.

    And here is a detailed breakdown courtesy of @TheRationalWalk

    Starting a thread for the Berkshire Hathaway 2021 annual meeting which has just started. $BRKA $BRKB

    Abel and Jain are present on stage, although off to the side from Buffett and Munger.

    Buffett is spending a few minutes talking about Jain and Abel to introduce them to the shareholders.

    Very good to have all of them available for Q&A on the same stage.

    Buffett is pointing out how the accounting rule change a few years ago distorted quarterly (and annual) earnings by including unrealized gains and losses from investments in net income.

    This makes periodic earnings swing dramatically and misleads many investors.

    Buffett has a slide of the top 20 companies in the world by market cap, 5 of the top 6 U.S. based which led into a pep talk on the United States, which he does so well.

    “The system has worked unbelievably well.”

    Now Buffett puts up a slide of the top 20 companies in the world from 1989. None of the 20 from 30 years ago are on the present list. Zero. And 13 of the 20 were from Japan!

    The top company in 1989 had a market cap of $104 billion – Industrial Bank of Japan.

    Buffett is directing this very good history lesson at new investors, but most will just see an old man talking about Henry Ford and disregard his statements. Too bad for them.

    Buffett has a list of auto companies from the early 20th century that eventually went bust. Dozens of auto companies just starting with the letters “Ma”. Thousands of entrants. Incredible future. Most failed.

    “It’s not as easy at it sounds.”

    Referring to entering new and exciting markets that will change the world.

    First question asks why Buffett was defensive early in the pandemic. A lot of hindsight bias in that question. Of course it wasn’t the right call … given the history that played out.

    Buffett talks about his role controlling risk at Berkshire.

    Buffett implies that if Berkshire was still in the airlines, they might not have received the aid that they did. That’s very interesting. He’s implying that Berkshire’s exit from the airlines in some way facilitated the fact that government bailed them out.

    Next question is why Berkshire didn’t deploy more cash at the lows in March 2020. More hindsight bias in that question …

    Interestingly, Buffett notes that the $20 billion minimum cash balance is going to be increased given Berkshire’s current size.

    The day before the Fed acted, Buffett thinks that even Berkshire could not have issued debt. Markets were closed. He’s praising Powell for acting, praising Congress for acting. “It did the job.”

    Buffett did not think that it was a “sure thing” that government would act as they did. He was unwilling to COUNT on government acting as they did in March 2020. He won’t rely on the kindness of anyone. And that’s how I like it, and I suspect most shareholders agree.

    Munger says that the questioner is “out of their mind” to think that Berkshire could bottom tick the market in March 2020.

    Q: Should long term Berkshire shareholders diversify into an index fund?

    A: Munger prefers holding Berkshire to holding an index fund. Buffett recommends the S&P 500 index fund, has never recommended Berkshire to anyone.

    Buffett “likes Berkshire” but suggests that people who don’t know anything about stocks or no “special feelings” about Berkshire should buy the S&P 500 index.

    Buffett is going out of his way to not talk up Berkshire, which is fine, but I question the idea of suggesting the S&P 500 index at current valuations. I don’t think that does anyone any favors.

    In the context of dollar cost averaging into index over a long lifetime, S&P 500 is OK, but the question was from a longtime shareholder asking if he should diversify into an index. It would seem nuts to sell BRK to buy the S&P 500, in my opinion. Munger seems to agree.

    BREAKING: Munger would prefer to have a son-in-law who works at Chevron rather than as an English professor at Swarthmore.

    Buffett doesn’t use the word “asinine” often, but tears into the ESG proposals which I assume will be discussed more fully during the formal shareholder meeting when the matter comes up for a vote.

    “We don’t do things just because we have a department of this or a department of that … what’s important is what we are doing at BHE and the railroad…”

    Buffett is really fired up talking about renewables and how you can’t turn off the coal plant until you have transmission from wind power to where it is actually used.

    I can tell he’s pissed about Berkshire getting a bum rap on the environment.

    Buffett turns over the question to Abel who has slides prepared regarding Berkshire’s environmental record at the energy group. Goes back to a 2007 conference where he discussed climate change, policy, innovation, etc… These guys are prepared for the ESG proposals…

    Buffett asks “How many other energy companies were there” when Abel talks about a group of companies that made commitments regarding the Paris climate agreement. Abel says “none”.

    Buffett: “We’d spend $100 billion on infrastructure” referencing Biden’s speech on Wednesday stating that we need more infrastructure spending.

    If we get a 10% return, I’m all for it as well.

    Good question on prospects for insurance when Buffett and Jain are no longer involved. Should Berkshire then focus on short-tail lines?

    Jain talks about pricing for the unknowns unknowns – a good answer, but not really addressing succession.

    Buffett: “We are willing to lose $10 billion in a single event” if paid appropriately for taking on a risk.

    Sounds like a big number but not relative to Berkshire’s current size.

    “Warren and I don’t have to agree on every damn thing we do.”

    Charlie’s answer when asked about differences of opinion between him and Buffett on Costco and Wells Fargo.

    Having Jain and Abel on stage interacting with each other is quite valuable for shareholders.

    “In three more years, Charlie will be aging at 1% per year. No one is aging less than Charlie.”

    Very funny, Warren …

    Jain talking about GEICO and Progressive – very candid about Progressive as a formidable competitor and the relative advantages of GEICO and Progressive.

    I can tell Jain doesn’t engage in BS. At all.

    Buffett talking about $AAPL. Munger thought that Buffett selling a little was a mistake.

    Charlie: “Yes”

    Buffett is talking about how Apple products are indispensable to customers.

    He’s right about some people picking their phone over a car if they had to choose between the two.

    People are addicted to their damn phones.

    Buffett talking about how interest rates are like financial gravity when asked about stock valuations.

    Buffett looking for a clipping from a … paper WSJ … noting that the government sold 4 week t-bills at an average price of 100.000000. Free money for Uncle Sam.

    Buffett notes that there has been an incredible change in anything that produces money because the risk free rate is now zero.

    And of course he’s right. But for how long will this last? Is it “safe” to price stocks as if the risk free rate will be zero forever?

    “The most interesting movie we have ever seen.”

    Buffett characterizing the current economic environment.

    Buffett: Low interest rates reduce the value of float substantially but Berkshire has options for investing that others don’t have.

    As noted earlier today, Buffett shuns fixed income securities for this very reason.

    Buffett notes that most SPACs have a two year limit for deploying cash. If you have a gun to your head, then you’ll buy something.

    The meeting is half over and no Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Elon, or Crypto questions yet, unless I missed it.

    Buffett says that he has roughly $70-80 billion that he would love to put to work.

    $20 billion is not the minimum cash level anymore, as he alluded to earlier. It is probably double of that or more, but he has not specified.

    Charlie: “Bernie Sanders has won.” Referring to the millennials having trouble rising as far as earlier generations. Um….

    Buffett defends the logic of repurchases vs. dividends as a way of cashing out shareholders who want cash, leaving the rest of us alone to continue compounding.

    Tax efficiently, I might add.

    Munger: Critics are bonkers.

    Amen.

    I feel very good about not receiving a surprise dividend from Berkshire anytime soon.

    Which I suspect will remain the case as long as Buffett and Munger are around since they don’t want to pay the taxes any more than I do.

    Buffett stresses that he doesn’t speak for Berkshire when providing his personal views on taxes.

    He punts on tax questions. Although he certainly has spoken in the past on taxes at prior meetings.

    I like the new policy.

    Munger: “I wouldn’t move across the street to save my children $500 million in taxes.”

    But … “Who in the hell would drive out the rich people?”

    The government owns “Berkshire Class AA stock”. They can take a percentage of earnings without owning any of the company. Indeed.

    Buffett thinks that his wealth will accomplish more utility in private philanthropy run by smart people. It won’t make a “damn bit of difference” if it goes to the Federal government. I agree.

    I suspect (or at least hope) that Buffett has spoken to the President about tax policy, especially the folly of even thinking about thinking about taxing *unrealized* gains annually, one of the more bonkers ideas to ever be proposed in Washington. Truly nuts.

    Buffett: Valuation for Kansas City Southern deal would not be happening without interest rates at current levels. A combination would have a small impact on BNSF and Union Pacific.

    Buffett: Biggest single “risk factor” never appearing in a company filing is a CEO who is personable and everyone likes but doesn’t know what he or she is doing.

    CRYPTO/BITCOIN QUESTION!!!

    Buffett dodges the question. He doesn’t want 400,000 people mad at him and 2 people happy.

    Charlie: “You’re waving a red flag at a bull.” Rant follows on bitcoin and other things invented out of thin air … Disgusting, contrary to the interests of civilization…

    Q: Why is BRK’s proposal for TX grid better than Musk’s proposal?

    Abel: BRK’s proposal is the best they could come up with. If Elon’s proposal is better, then Texas should pursue it. Notes that battery solution isn’t as robust in terms of duration of power supplied.

    Buffett: We know what we can do for TX grid. If someone can provide a solution cheaper and faster, they should do it.

    Notes that Berkshire is backing proposal with $4 billion penalty if they fail to deliver.

    Q for Ajit: Would you underwrite an insurance policy for Elon Musk’s mission to Mars?

    “No thank you, I will pass.”

    Buffett: Depends on the premium. And on whether Elon is on the mission or not. Skin in the game.

    Ajit: “I would be very concerned about writing an insurance policy with Elon Musk on the other side.”

    Q: Why aren’t Ted and Todd available to answer questions?

    Buffett: Why would we make Ted and Todd available to talk stocks and share ideas with competitors?

    Munger is convinced that China will allow companies to flourish. They “changed communism” because they didn’t want to stay poor. A remarkable change coming from such a place. And it has worked like gangbusters. Munger very complimentary.

    This will trigger many people.

    Q:What happened to the joint health care initiative with Amazon and J.P. Morgan?

    Buffett: We learned more about health care in decentralized Berkshire subsidiaries and is one place where centralization could save some real money.

    Very hard to change the overall system.

    Buffett notes that when companies pay healthcare costs for employees, its an abstraction to employees. They don’t realize that they are really paying in the form of lower wages. And they like that.

    Munger: “No kidding”

    Buffett notes that U.S. pays 17% of GDP for healthcare while no other major country pays more than 11% yet we get poorer results.

    Rational Walk: “No kidding”

    Buffett on the failure of the joint healthcare initiative with J.P. Morgan and Amazon:

    “We were fighting a tapeworm, and the tapeworm won.”

    Question: What do Jain and Abel read on a daily basis?

    90% of Ajit’s reading is related to insurance. Abel focuses on the operating businesses he’s in charge of.

    Blocking and tackling.

    Buffett: Nothing illegal or immoral about gambling on Robinhood but you can’t build a society around it. Not admirable. Will read prospectus.

    Munger: “Waving a red flag at a bull.” Godawful. Deeply wrong. State lotteries: States pushed aside mafia in numbers game.

    Q: Signs of inflation in subsidiaries?

    Buffett: Very substantial. We are raising prices. People are raising prices to us. It’s being accepted. Take homebuilding. Cost up up up. Every day. cc @federalreserve

    Buffett is clearly seeing inflation pressure. Doesn’t sound like he thinks it is “transitory”.

    Who do you believe? Warren Buffett or Jay Powell and his army of phd economists?

    I am paraphrasing, but the transcript will be posted soon, the video will be available, and I’d encourage everyone to read his statements on cost pressures verbatim.

    “There’s more inflation going on that people would have anticipated six months ago or thereabouts.”

    Listening to that exchange just now makes me want to take out a large thirty year fixed rate mortgage as soon as possible even if I might be paying a high price for a property.

    Buffett notes that while rich people can change states relatively easily, a business with plants cannot change so quickly and must be very careful about the pension deficits in various jurisdictions.

    Q: Biggest lesson over the past year?

    Buffett: “Listen more to Charlie.”

    Munger: “We are in uncharted territory.”

    Buffett talks about the long term prospects for Berkshire over the next many decades, etc.

    No break between the 3 1/2 hour Q&A session and formal meeting. Buffett is 90. Munger is 97.

    The formal meeting is a foregone conclusion in terms of the outcome of the two shareholder proposals so I’ll conclude this thread here.

    The full annual meeting is here.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/02/2021 – 17:25

  • $70,000 For A Part-Time Driver
    $70,000 For A Part-Time Driver

    By John Kingston of Freightwaves,

    David Parker is the CEO of Covenant Logistics and he was blunt with analysts who follow the company on its earnings call Tuesday.

    “How do we get enough drivers?” he said in response to a question from Stephens analyst Jack Atkins. “I don’t know.”

    Parker then gave an overview of the situation facing Covenant, and by extension other companies, in trying to recruit drivers. One problem: With rates so high, companies are encountering the fact that a driver doesn’t need to work a full schedule to pull in a decent salary.

    “We’re finding out that just to get a driver, let’s say the numbers are $85,000 (per year),” Parker said, according to a transcript of the earnings call supplied by SeekingAlpha. “But a lot of these drivers are happy at $70,000. Now they’re not coming to work for me, unless it’s in the ($80,000s), because they’re happy making $70,000.”

    Seasonally adjusted long distance truck drivers. Source: BLS To learn more about FreightWaves SONAR, please go here.

    What’s happening, he said, is that drivers are looking at the fact that they can make $70,000 “and stay home a little more.”

    The result is a tightening of capacity. Parker said utilization in the first quarter at Covenant was three or four percentage points less than it would have as a result of that development. “It’s an interesting dynamic that none of us have calculated,” he said.

    To put the numbers in perspective, Todd Amen, the president of ATBS, which prepares taxes for mostly independent owner-operators, said in a recent interview with the FreightWaves Drilling Deep podcast that the average tax return his company prepared for drivers’ 2020 pay was $67,500. He also said his company prepared numerous 2020 returns with pay in excess of $100,000.

    Parker was firm that this was not a situation likely to change soon. “There’s nothing out there that tells me that drivers are going to readily be available over the medium [term in] one to two years,” he said. “And that’s where I’m at.”

    Paul Bunn, the company’s COO and senior executive vice president, echoed what other executives have said recently: Additional stimulus benefits are making the situation tighter. He said that while offering some hope that as the benefits roll off, “that might help a bit.”

    But what the government giveth the government can sometimes taketh away. Bunn expressed another familiar sentiment in the industry today, that an infrastructure bill adding to demand for workers would create more difficulty to put drivers behind the wheel. Construction, Bunn said, is “a monster competitor of our industry” and if the bill is approved, “that’s going to be a big pull.” 

    Labor is going to be a “capacity constraint” through the economy, Bunn said, while conceding that trucking is not unique in that.  And because of that labor squeeze, capacity in many fields is going to be limited. “The OEMs, the manufacturers are limited capacity,” Bunn said. “They’re not ramping up in a major, major way because of labor, because of commodity pricing, because of the costs.”

    All that means is that capacity growth is going to be “reasonable,” Bunn said. “It’s not going to be crazy, people growing fleets [by] significant amounts.”

    “It’s all you can do just to hold serve,” he added. 

    While the driver situation is tough, it didn’t notably hurt the first-quarter performance of Covenant. To open the call, Joey Hogan, Covenant’s co-president, highlighted some of the company’s first-quarter numbers: a 6% growth in operating revenue on a strategic reduction in the number of company tractors and the best first-quarter net income figure in its history. 

    Beyond the market for drivers, Parker said the freight market is “hot” and likely to stay that way.

    “We are at 7%, 8% GDP growth, that goes to 5%, well, probably, or it could stay 7% or 8%,” he said. “But it’s still going to be numbers that you and I have never sensed or felt from a freight standpoint. And so I don’t see that letting up, I see that a solid couple of years of being in that kind of environment.”

    Given that, Parker and other Covenant managers used the occasion of the earnings call to drive home with more detail a point the company made in its earnings statement a day earlier: It intends to get higher rates out of some of its Dedicated customers. While the company’s Expedited division saw its operating ratio improve to 91% from 102.3% a year earlier, the Dedicated division saw its OR remain above 100%. 

    The Dedicated division, Bunn said, has two types of customers. One is a group with high returns, “and we want more of those,” he said. “We’re going to go to the customers [where] we have that and say, ‘Can we have more of your business?’”

    The other are customers that Bunn referred to as “commoditized.” Those customers are going to need to “value” the Dedicated service provides “or we’re going to give those trucks to somebody who’s in the first bucket.”

    Trucks won’t just get “yanked” out, Bunn said. But “we’re not going to run Dedicated with a 98, 99 or 100 OR,” he added.

    But even though Covenant, like other carriers, has leverage in negotiations given the tight market for capacity, it does need to be handled with a certain degree of aplomb, Hogan said. Hogan was talking about the company’s Expedited division when he said that in price negotiations, a company needs to be “respectful” as prices get up to “that line where they say, ‘Well, I’m going to grow my own [transportation].’”

    Another possibility: rail. “When does the price push them to the rail?” he asked.

    However, the Expedited division is “in a good spot for at least a couple of years,” Hogan said. That’s aided by the fact that inventories are “stupid low” across the supply chain, he added. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/02/2021 – 17:00

Digest powered by RSS Digest

May 02

Today’s News 2nd May 2021

  • China Has A Grand Carbon Neutrality Target… But Where Is The Plan?
    China Has A Grand Carbon Neutrality Target… But Where Is The Plan?

    Authored by Alicia García-Herrero and Simone Tagliapietra, both Senior Fellows at Bruegel,

    China’s new long-term targets, to reach peak emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, are yet to be matched with a consistent short-term action plan…

    As the world’s largest greenhouse-gas emitter, China will make or break the global quest for climate neutrality by the middle of the century – the only way to limit the global average temperature increase to 1.5°C. Consequently, President Xi’s announcement in September 2020 of China’s new objective to peak CO2 emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 was broadly welcomed. But President Xi offered no detail on how China could turn this vision into reality, and an examination of China’s current plans shows clearly the goal will not be achieved without major changes.

    Following Xi’s announcement of the goals at the United Nations General Assembly, some details of how China might approach its targets were provided at the December 2020 Climate Ambition Summit. Here, Xi outlined preliminary elements of the new Nationally Determined Contribution that China is due to submit – like all other Paris Agreement signatories – ahead of COP26 in late 2021. Xi stated that China would aim by 2030 to cut carbon intensity per unit of GDP by more than 65% from 2005 levels (compared to the existing target of 60%-65% by 2030), and would increase the share of non-fossil fuels in energy consumption to 25% by 2030 (compared to the existing target of 20%).

    As a continuation of the progress already being made by China, rather than an acceleration, these preliminary targets raised doubts about the feasibility of China peaking its emissions before 2030 and securing carbon neutrality by 2060. China’s continued investments in coal, the primary component of the county’s energy mix, have reinforced those doubts (Figure 2).

    Instead of cutting its reliance on coal, China put 38 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-fired power capacity into operation in 2020, equal to the entire coal-fired power generation capacity currently installed in Germany. While one could argue that the pandemic made 2020 a difficult year for China to focus on climate, it remains to be seen when and how China will reveal how it intends to peak emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.

    The most obvious place to look for such information is China’s 14th Five Year Plan (FYP), which was announced at the National People’s Congress in March 2021. Five Year Plans are the main guiding force behind policy in China at all levels of government. Unfortunately, on climate measures, the 14th FYP falls short. It essentially outlines a continuation of existing trends, rather than an acceleration of climate action. Strongly focused on the development of the manufacturing sector (notably through strict targets on state-led innovation), the plan mentions neither a coal cap, nor an emissions cap (Table 1).

    The 14th FYP simply commits to reducing the carbon and energy intensity of China’s GDP growth. Current estimates are that China’s emissions will continue to rise every year, at a rate of 1% to 1.7% until 2025. It should also be noted that the 14th FYP makes several references to the development of coal, emphasising its “clean and efficient utilisation”. This is consistent with the broader structure of the plan, which is strongly oriented towards ensuring China’s self-sufficiency in the context of an increasingly hostile external environment and, in particular, US-China strategic competition. In other words, the 14th FYP does not include a coal-consumption reduction target, nor a clear target for emissions to peak by 2025. Interestingly, the plan also makes no reference to the target of 1,200 GW of solar and wind installed power capacity by 2030, mentioned by President Xi in December 2020.

    The lack of specific targets for the 2020-2025 period in the 14th FYP is worrisome, but does not mean President’s XI‘s commitment made at the UN is unachievable. It could still be achieved with much more stringent measures to cut emissions between 2025 and 2030, or with more stringent measures within the 14th FYP at central and local level, even if not imposed in the FYP. However, China’s recent economic history shows local government pushing for higher rather than lower growth, hampering progress in cutting carbon emissions.

    More detailed measures on energy, renewable energy, coal and electricity from the Ministry of Ecology and Environment are expected in late 2021/early 2022. It might be within these measures that we finally see a ‘coal cap’ for 2021-2025. As if this were not enough, both Chinese and international climate modelling studies state that China’s emissions should peak by 2025 at the latest for China to reach carbon neutrality by 2050 (see for example a December 2020 study coordinated by the Energy Foundation China and the University of Maryland, which highlighted the dangers of locking-in high-emission assets and the need for rapid action). If China’s emissions do not peak quickly, achieving carbon neutrality by 2060 will be challenging.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/01/2021 – 23:25

  • Guess Who's Testifying In Congress US Troops Must Stay In Afghanistan Forever?
    Guess Who’s Testifying In Congress US Troops Must Stay In Afghanistan Forever?

    When interventionists and national security deep state hawks need to prolong what’s already the longest war in in US history, who’re they gonna call?…

    “Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice told members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee they’re worried about President Biden’s plan to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, with Rice suggesting the US may need to go back,” Axios reports.

    The pair’s “expert” testimony was given over Zoom and appears to have been kept relatively quiet, given it was a ‘closed door’ members only call, until Axios learned of it.

    Rice of course infamously served as George Bush’s National Security Advisor during the initial invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq, and crucially helped make the case for war to the American public, later serving as Bush’s Secretary of State through 2009.

    Having helped start two failed wars, both of which have long remained deeply unpopular among the American public, naturally Condi Rice as a pre-eminent neocon voice would be consulted as a “stay the course” point of view. It’s also deeply revealing that there’s no foreign policy space in terms of viewpoint whatsoever between Rice and Clinton – latter who pushed for the US-NATO invasion of Libya and planned covert regime change in Syria against Assad.

    Little is known about precisely what Hillary testified, but it’s not difficult to imagine. Here are a few key insights via Axios:

    • “Condi Rice is like, ‘You know, we’re probably gonna have to go back,’” amid a potential surge in terrorism, the member said.

    • Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas), the top Republican on the committee, told Axios: “With the potential for an Islamic State, coupled with what they’re going to do to our contractors in Yemen and Afghanistan is, sadly, it’s going to be tragic there and we all see it coming.”

    • Another member of the committee confirmed both Clinton and Rice raised concerns about the potential fallout from a quick removal of all U.S. troops.

    • Both also expressed concerns about protecting U.S. diplomats on the ground following the withdrawal and what the move will mean for the global war on terrorism.

    One unnamed committee member told Axios further that “they both agreed we’re going to need to sustain a counterterrorism mission somehow outside of that country.”

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    Well of course!…there always needs to be a war going on somehow and somewhere – otherwise how would these warmongering ladies sleep at night?  

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/01/2021 – 23:00

  • Niall Ferguson: How Ike's 1950s America Beat The 'Asian Flu' With Science & Common Sense
    Niall Ferguson: How Ike’s 1950s America Beat The ‘Asian Flu’ With Science & Common Sense

    This essay is adapted from Mr. Ferguson’s new book, “Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe,” which will be published by Penguin Press on May 4. He is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

    In 1957, the U.S. rose to the challenge of the ‘Asian flu’ with stoicism and a high tolerance for risk, offering a stark contrast with today’s approach to Covid-19…

    “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,/But to be young was very heaven!” Wordsworth was talking about France in 1789, but the line applies better to the America of 1957. That summer, Elvis Presley topped the charts with “(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear.” But we tend to forget that 1957 also saw the outbreak of one of the biggest pandemics of the modern era. Not coincidentally, another hit of that year was “Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu” by Huey “Piano” Smith & the Clowns.

    When seeking historical analogies for Covid-19, commentators have referred more often to the catastrophic 1918-19 “Spanish influenza” than to the flu pandemic of 1957-58. Yet the later episode deserves to be much better known, not just because the public health threat was a closer match to our own but because American society at the time was better prepared—culturally, institutionally and politically—to deal with it.

    The “Asian flu”—as it was then uncontroversial to call a contagious disease that originated in Asia—was a novel strain (H2N2) of influenza A. It was first reported in Hong Kong in April 1957, having originated in mainland China two months before, and—like Covid-19—it swiftly went global.

    Like Covid-19, the Asian flu led to significant excess mortality. The most recent research concludes that between 700,000 and 1.5 million people worldwide died in the pandemic. A pre-Covid study of the 1957-58 pandemic concluded that if “a virus of similar severity” were to strike in our time, around 2.7 million deaths might be anticipated worldwide. The current Covid-19 death toll is 3 million, about the same percentage of world population as were killed in 1957–58 (0.04%, compared with 1.7% in 1918-19).

    True, excess mortality in the U.S.—now around 550,000—has been significantly higher in relative terms in 2020-21 than in 1957-58 (at most 116,000). Unlike Covid-19, however, the Asian flu killed appreciable numbers of young people. In terms of excess mortality relative to baseline expected mortality rates, the age groups that suffered the heaviest losses globally were 15- to 24-year-olds (34% above average mortality rates) followed by 5- to 14-year-olds (27% above average). In total years of life lost in the U.S., adjusted for population, Covid has been roughly 40% worse than the Asian flu.

    The Asian flu and Covid-19 are very different diseases, in other words. The Asian flu’s basic reproduction number—the average number of people that one person was likely to infect in a population without any immunity—was around 1.65. For Covid-19, it is likely higher, perhaps 2.5 or 3.0. Superspreader events probably played a bigger role in 2020 than in 1957: Covid has a lower dispersion factor—that is, a minority of carriers do most of the transmission. On the other hand, people had more reason to be afraid of a new strain of influenza in 1957 than of a novel coronavirus in 2020. The disastrous pandemic of 1918 was still within living memory, whereas neither SARS nor MERS had produced pandemics.

    High school students in Washington, D.C., September 1957. PHOTO: EVERETT COLLECTION

    The first cases of Asian flu in the U.S. occurred early in June 1957, among the crews of ships berthed at Newport, R.I. Cases also appeared among the 53,000 boys attending the Boy Scout Jamboree at Valley Forge, Penn. As Scout troops traveled around the country in July and August, they spread the flu. In July there was a massive outbreak in Tangipahoa Parish, La. By the end of the summer, cases had also appeared in California, Ohio, Kentucky and Utah.

    It was the start of the school year that made the Asian flu an epidemic. The Communicable Disease Center, as the CDC was then called, estimated that approximately 45 million people—about 25% of the population—became infected with the new virus in October and November 1957. Younger people experienced the highest infection rates, from school-age children up to adults age 35-40. Adults over 65 accounted for 60% of influenza deaths, an abnormally low share.

    Why were young Americans disproportionately vulnerable to the Asian flu? Part of the explanation is that they had not been as exposed as older Americans to earlier strains of influenza. But the scale and incidence of any contagion are functions of both the properties of the pathogen itself and the structure of the social network that it attacks. The year 1957 was in many ways the dawn of the American teenager. The first baby boomers born after the end of World War II turned 13 the following year. Summer camps, school buses and unprecedented social mingling after school ensured that between September 1957 and March 1958 the proportion of teenagers infected with the virus rose from 5% to 75%.

    The policy response of President Dwight Eisenhower could hardly have been more different from the response of 2020.

    Eisenhower did not declare a state of emergency. There were no state lockdowns and, despite the first wave of teenage illness, no school closures. Sick students simply stayed at home, as they usually did. Work continued more or less uninterrupted.

    With workplaces open, the Eisenhower administration saw no need to borrow to the hilt to fund transfers and loans to citizens and businesses. The president asked Congress for a mere $2.5 million ($23 million in today’s inflation-adjusted terms) to provide additional support to the Public Health Service. There was a recession that year, but it had little if anything to do with the pandemic. The Congressional Budget Office has described the Asian flu as an event that “might not be distinguishable from the normal variation in economic activity.”

    President Eisenhower’s decision to keep the country open in 1957-58 was based on expert advice. When the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) concluded in August 1957 that “there is no practical advantage in the closing of schools or the curtailment of public gatherings as it relates to the spread of this disease,” Eisenhower listened. As a CDC official later recalled:

    “Measures were generally not taken to close schools, restrict travel, close borders or recommend wearing masks….ASTHO encouraged home care for uncomplicated influenza cases to reduce the hospital burden and recommended limitations on hospital admissions to the sickest patients….Most were advised simply to stay home, rest and drink plenty of water and fruit juices.”

    Dr. Maurice Hilleman, seen here in the lab in 1963, played a key role in the development of a vaccine for the Asian flu in 1957. PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS

    This decision meant that the onus shifted entirely to pharmaceutical interventions. As in 2020, there was a race to find a vaccine. Unlike in 2020, however, the U.S. had no real competition, thanks to the acumen of one exceptionally talented and prescient scientist. From 1948 to 1957, Maurice Hilleman—born in Miles City, Mont., in 1919—was chief of the Department of Respiratory Diseases at the Army Medical Center (now the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research).

    Early in his career, Hilleman had discovered the genetic changes that occur when the influenza virus mutates, known as “shift and drift.” It was this work that enabled him to recognize, when reading reports in the press of “glassy-eyed children” in Hong Kong, that the outbreak had the potential to become a disastrous pandemic. He and a colleague worked nine 14-hour days to confirm that this was a new and potentially deadly strain of flu.

    Speed was of the essence, as in 2020. Hilleman was able to work directly with vaccine manufacturers, bypassing “the bureaucratic red tape,” as he put it. The Public Health Service released the first cultures of the Asian influenza virus to manufacturers even before Hilleman had finished his analysis. By the late summer, six companies were producing his vaccine.

    It has become commonplace to describe the speed with which vaccines were devised for Covid-19 as unprecedented. But it was not. The first New York Times report of the outbreak in Hong Kong—three paragraphs on page 3—was on April 17, 1957. By July 26, little more than three months later, doctors at Fort Ord, Calif., began to inoculate recruits to the military.

    Surgeon General Leroy Burney announced on August 15 that the vaccine was to be allocated to states according to population size but distributed by the manufacturers through their customary commercial networks. Approximately 4 million one-milliliter doses were released in August, 9 million in September and 17 million in October.

    This amounted to enough vaccine for just 17% of the population, and vaccine efficacy was found to range from 53% to 60%. But the net result of Hilleman’s rapid response to the Asian flu was to limit the excess mortality suffered in the U.S.

    A striking contrast between 1957 and the present is that Americans today appear to have a much lower tolerance for risk than their grandparents and great-grandparents. As one contemporary recalled,

    “For those who grew up in the 1930s and 1940s, there was nothing unusual about finding yourself threatened by contagious disease. Mumps, measles, chicken pox and German measles swept through entire schools and towns; I had all four….We took the Asian flu in stride. We said our prayers and took our chances.”

    D.A. Henderson, who as a young doctor was responsible for establishing the CDC Influenza Surveillance Unit, recalled a similar sangfroid in the medical profession:

    “From one watching the pandemic from very close range…it was a transiently disturbing event for the population, albeit stressful for schools and health clinics and disruptive to school football schedules.”

    Compare these stoical attitudes with the strange political bifurcation of reactions we saw last year, with Democrats embracing drastic restrictions on social and economic activity, while many Republicans acted as if the virus was a hoax. Perhaps a society with a stronger fabric of family life, community life and church life was better equipped to withstand the anguish of untimely deaths than a society that has, in so many ways, come apart.

    A further contrast between 1957 and 2020 is that the competence of government would appear to have diminished even as its size has expanded. The number of government employees in the U.S., including those in federal, state and local governments, numbered 7.8 million in November 1957 and reached around 22 million in 2020—a nearly threefold increase, compared with a doubling of the population. Federal net outlays were 16.2% of GDP in 1957 versus 20.8% in 2019.

    The Department of Health, Education and Welfare was just four years old in 1957. The CDC had been established in 1946, with the eradication of malaria as its principal objective. These relatively young institutions appear to have done what little was required of them in 1957, namely to reassure the public that the disastrous pandemic of 1918-19 was not about to be repeated, while helping the private sector to test, manufacture and distribute the vaccine. The contrast with the events of 2020 is once again striking.

    It was widely accepted last year that economic lockdowns—including shelter-in-place orders confining people to their homes—were warranted by the magnitude of the threat posed to healthcare systems. But the U.S. hospital system was not overwhelmed in 1957-58 for the simple reason that it had vastly more capacity than today. Hospital beds per thousand people were approaching their all-time high of 9.18 per 1,000 people in 1960, compared with 2.77 in 2016.

    In addition, the U.S. working population simply did not have the option to work from home in 1957. In the absence of a telecommunications infrastructure more sophisticated than the telephone (and a quarter of U.S. households still did not have a landline in 1957), the choice was between working at one’s workplace or not working at all.

    Last year, the combination of insufficient hospital capacity and abundant communications capacity made something both necessary and possible that would have been unthinkable two generations ago: a temporary shutdown of a substantial proportion of economic activity, offset by massive debt-financed government transfers to compensate for the loss of household income. That this approach will have a great many unintended adverse consequences already seems clear. We are fortunate indeed that the spirit of the vaccine king Maurice Hilleman has lived on at Moderna and Pfizer, because much else of the spirit of 1957 would appear to have vanished.

    Despite the pandemic, people thronged the beach and boardwalk at Coney Island in July 1957. PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS

    “To be young was very heaven” in 1957—even with a serious risk of infectious disease (and not just flu; there was also polio and much else). By contrast, to be young in 2020 was—for most American teenagers—rather hellish. Stuck indoors, struggling to concentrate on “distance learning” with irritable parents working from home in the next room, young people experienced at best frustration and at worst mental illness.

    We have done a great deal over the past year (not all of it effective) to protect the groups most vulnerable to Covid-19, which has overwhelmingly meant the elderly: 80.4% of U.S. Covid deaths, according to the CDC, have been among people 65 and older, compared with 0.2% among those under 25.

    But the economic and social costs, in terms of lost education and employment, have been disproportionately shouldered by the young.

    The novel that captured the ebullience of the Beat Generation was Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road,” another hit of 1957. It begins, “I had just gotten over a serious illness that I won’t bother to talk about.” Stand by for “Off the Road,” the novel that will sum up the despondency of the Beaten Generation. As we dare to hope that we have gotten over our own pandemic, someone out there must be writing it.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/01/2021 – 22:35

  • Biden Unveils New Strategy For North Korea & Wants You To Know It's "Not Trump's"
    Biden Unveils New Strategy For North Korea & Wants You To Know It’s “Not Trump’s”

    On Friday the Biden administration announced the completion of its major review of US policy toward North Korea, which revealed deep White House pessimism toward prior Trump efforts to strike a “grand bargain” with Pyongyang to persuade it to abandon its nuke program.

    Commenting on how “limited” the Biden admin sees its path forward with Kim Jong Un on this front, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday, “Our goal remains the complete de-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula with a clear understanding that the efforts of the past four administrations have not achieved this objective.”

    Psaki further said to reporters while traveling aboard Air Force One that “Our policy will not focus on achieving a grand bargain, nor will it rely on strategic patience,” and further emphasized Biden will take a “practical approach” looking for diplomatic openings with the North based on “practical progress”.

    The Washington Post summarized the Biden strategy based on the policy review as seeking to strike “a balance between President Donald Trump’s grand-bargain, leader-to-leader diplomacy and President Barack Obama’s arm’s-length approach to the crisis,” according to an admin official.

    Ironically enough, to gain insight into the only team that ever made diplomatic “progress” on a “practical” level with the Kim regime, the Biden administration has been consulting Trump officials, as The Associated Press notes:

    Biden administration officials have been consulting with Trump administration officials who took part in the Singapore talks between Kim and Trump in June 2018 as well as a second meeting in February 2019.

    The last face-to-face talks between senior officials from the two countries were held in Sweden in October 2019, and efforts by the Biden administration to resume a dialogue have been rebuffed.

    All of this appears to essentially translate to something like… we don’t actually have a path forward but we don’t want Trump’s path.

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    Meanwhile, officials in Seoul see things differently after the multiple historic breakthrough face-to-face summits under Trump…

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    Perhaps we’re simply about to witness a few years of Kamala Harris getting on the phone with Korean officials, as has been the case with other world leaders in the opening months of Harris Biden foreign policy messaging.

    And in the meantime the North will no doubt keep up its pressure and leverage in the form of ever bigger ballistic missile tests and accompanying bellicose threats.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/01/2021 – 22:10

  • Safe Spaces Are Creating A Generation Of "Snowflake Tyrants": Dr. Everett Piper
    Safe Spaces Are Creating A Generation Of “Snowflake Tyrants”: Dr. Everett Piper

    Authored by Tom Ozimek and Joshua Philipp via The Epoch Times,

    Dr. Everett Piper, author of “Grow Up: Life Isn’t Safe But It’s Good,” told Epoch TV’s “Crossroads” Program that cancel culture’s relentless demand for safe spaces is making America’s youth emotionally fragile, less able to cope with hardship, and more prone to advocating for an ever bigger government role in allaying insecurity and providing safety at the expense of liberty.

    Piper, who served as president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University for 17 years, said that his earlier warnings, that coddling America’s youth by acquiescing to demands for “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings” would lead to a sad and dangerous infantilization of the American spirit, are increasingly coming to pass.

    “The ‘snowflakes’ have graduated,” Piper said.

    “And they now have jobs at Google and Amazon and Apple and Twitter and even Major League Baseball, where they’re carrying their cancel culture, their demands for safety, into our country at large, and they’re silencing everyone who disagrees with them. This is ideological fascism, it is not intellectual freedom.”

    Piper’s complaint about “snowflakes” having a growing impact on the political tenor of major American corporations is part of what Republicans—and conservatives more broadly—have started to more vocally criticize as “woke capitalism,” or big business’s embrace of progressive positions on issues like LGBTQ and voting rights.

    Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), fumed in a Sunday op-ed in The New York Post that “corporate America eagerly dumps woke, toxic nonsense into our culture, and it’s only gotten more destructive with time,” adding, “today, corporate America routinely flexes its power to humiliate politicians if they dare support traditional values at all.”

    Ranking member Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) questions witnesses during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on Feb. 23, 2021. (Drew Angerer/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

    “Multinational firms threaten boycotts over pro-life legislation. Cowardly sports leagues pull events out of states that dare pass legislation they don’t like. Firms like Delta parrot woke talking points, even as they cut deals with China, lending Beijing legitimacy and funding as it commits genocide in Xinjiang,” Rubio wrote, referring to the atrocities committed against the Uyghur community by the Chinese Communist Party, and to Major League Baseball pulling an event out of Georgia in protest against the state’s new election integrity law.

    A lobbying and communications outfit with deep ties to GOP leadership argued in a memo in mid-March that the rise of “woke CEOs embracing avant-garde social agendas” is fueling a populist surge in the Republican Party that threatens to upend its longstanding pact with big business.

    “These campaigns will be met with the same strength that any other polluter should expect,” Rubio wrote, suggesting that “woke” corporations would face Republican backlash for their activism.

    Much in the same tone, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) on April 20 called for the Republican Party to reduce its financial dependence on big companies, while urging the breakup of some mega-corporations that exert too much power on American politics and seek “to run our democracy.” Already, Hawley has introduced the Bust Up Big Tech Act and the Trust-Busting for the Twenty-First Century Act, which would strengthen antitrust enforcement to pursue the breakup of dominant, anticompetitive firms.

    “A small group of woke mega-corporations control the products Americans can buy, the information Americans can receive, and the speech Americans can engage in. These monopoly powers control our speech, our economy, our country, and their control has only grown because Washington has aided and abetted their quest for endless power,” Hawley said in a statement.

    Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) looks on during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on voting rights on Capitol Hill in Washington on April 20, 2021. (Evelyn Kockstein/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

    Piper said that, at its core, corporate “woke-ism” was a phenomenon closely related to and fueled by the “demand to be comfortable rather than have your character built.”

    “This trigger warning ideology, this demand for safety in the academy rather than being challenged, this demand to be comfortable rather than have your character built. This is not a recipe for maturity. It’s a recipe for childishness and perpetual adolescence,” he said.

    “We’ve set aside the higher values, the higher ideas, the higher ideals of freedom and liberty,” Piper said. “We’ve allowed our freedom to be stolen from us because as children, we want to cower in the corner and demand that we be safe. And we’ve been willing to do that at the expense of essentially everything that the western civilization has stood for, and that is individual liberty.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/01/2021 – 21:45

  • Massive Chinese Rocket Will Make Uncontrolled Reentry Within Days 
    Massive Chinese Rocket Will Make Uncontrolled Reentry Within Days 

    China successfully launched a key module of a new space station Thursday using the latest version of the Long March 5B heavy-lift booster. After completing its mission, the core stage of the rocket is still in orbit and could make an uncontrolled re-entry in the near term, according to SpaceNews. 

    The Long March 5B uses a core stage and four side boosters to launch heavy payloads into low Earth orbit. The rocket carries the payload up to orbit instead of separating at a lower altitude. This means that the Long March 5B booster is now uncontrollably tumbling back to Earth. 

    US military radars have detected the object and classified the rocket body as “2021-035B.” It’s a massive rocket body measuring more than 30 meters long and 5 meters wide, weighing 21 metric tons. The speed of the object is traveling at more than seven kilometers per second.

    Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, suggested the rocket is not under control as it makes its way back to Earth. 

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    This is the second launch for the Long March 5B, and the first occurred on May 5, 2020. Back then, the booster orbited for six days then shortly after made an uncontrolled re-entry. 

    “Where and when the new Long March 5B stage will land is impossible to predict. The decay of its orbit will increase as atmospheric drag brings it down into more denser,” said SpaceNews. 

    So, for now, look out above as an uncontrolled re-entry of a massive rocket plummets back to Earth could occur in the coming days. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/01/2021 – 21:20

  • Biden Admin Interfering In Mexico's Efforts To Block Genetically Modified Corn
    Biden Admin Interfering In Mexico’s Efforts To Block Genetically Modified Corn

    Authored by Jessica Corbett via Common Dreams,

    A coalition of 80 US agricultural, consumer, environmental, public health, and worker groups sent a letter Thursday to key figures in the Biden administration calling for them to “respect Mexico’s sovereignty and refrain from interfering with its right to enact health-protective policies”—specifically, the phaseout of the herbicide glyphosate and the cultivation of genetically modified corn.

    “Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador quietly rocked the agribusiness world with his New Year’s Eve decree,” Timothy A. Wise of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (ITAP) noted earlier this year. “His administration sent an even stronger aftershock two weeks later, clarifying that the government would also phase out GM corn imports in three years and the ban would include not just corn for human consumption but yellow corn destined primarily for livestock.”

    AFP via Getty Images

    “Mexico imports about 30% of its corn each year, overwhelmingly from the United States,” Wise added. “Almost all of that is yellow corn for animal feed and industrial uses. López Obrador’s commitment to reducing and, by 2024, eliminating such imports reflects his administration’s plan to ramp up Mexican production as part of the campaign to increase self-sufficiency in corn and other key food crops.”

    The groups’ letter on the Mexican policies and U.S. interference—published in English (pdf) and Spanish (pdf)—is addressed to recently confirmed U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai. Its lead author is Kristin Schafer, executive director of Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA).

    “We call on Secretary Vilsack and Trade Representative Tai, as key leaders in the new administration, to respect Mexico’s decision to protect both public health and the integrity of Mexican farming,” Schafer said in a statement. “It is completely unacceptable for U.S. public agencies to be doing the bidding of pesticide corporations like Bayer, who are solely concerned with maintaining their bottom-line profits.”

    Fernando Bejarano, director of Pesticide Action Network in Mexico, explained that “we are part of the No Maize No Country Campaign, a broad coalition of peasant organizations, nonprofit NGOs, academics, and consumers which support the presidential decree and fight for food sovereignty with the agroecological transformation of agricultural systems that guarantee the right to produce and consume healthy, nutritious food, free of pesticides and transgenics.”

    “We reject the pressure from corporations such as Bayer-Monsanto—and their CropLife trade association—which are working in both the United States and Mexico to undermine the presidential decree that phases out the use of glyphosate and transgenic corn,” Bejarano said.

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    The letter highlights Guardian reporting on US government documents obtained by the Center for Biological Diversity through a Freedom of Information Act request. The documents revealed that CropLife America and Bayer AG—which acquired glyphosate-based herbicide developer Monsanto in 2018—worked with U.S. officials to lobby against Mexico’s plans.

    According to journalist Carey Gillam’s mid-February report:

    The emails reviewed by the Guardian come from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and other US agencies. They detail worry and frustration with Mexico’s position. One email makes a reference to staff within López Obrador’s administration as “vocal anti-biotechnology activists,” and another email states that Mexico’s health agency (Cofepris) is “becoming a big time problem.”

    Internal USTR communications lay out how the agrochemical industry is “pushing” for the U.S. to “fold this issue” into the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) trade deal that went into effect July 1. The records then show the USTR does exactly that, telling Mexico its actions on glyphosate and genetically engineered crops raise concerns “regarding compliance” with USMCA.

    Citing discussions with CropLife, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) joined in the effort, discussing in an inter-agency email “how we could use USMCA to work through these issues.”

    The Guardian also noted correspondence involving the Foreign Agricultural Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

    As the letter to Vilsack and Tai points out: “This interference and pressure from the agrochemical industry is continuing. On March 22nd, industry representatives sent a letter directed to your attention as leaders of USTR and USDA, identifying Mexico’s planned phaseout of glyphosate and genetically modified corn as a ‘leading concern’ for agribusiness interests and the pesticide industry (represented by the pesticide industry’s trade group, CropLife America).”

    “We strongly object to any interference by U.S. government officials or agribusiness interests in a sovereign state’s right to enact policy measures to protect the health and well-being of its people,” the letter states. “We urge your agencies to resist and reject these ongoing efforts.”

    “We welcome the administration’s stated commitment to listening to the science, improving public health, protecting the environment, and limiting exposure to dangerous chemicals and pesticides, while holding polluters accountable and prioritizing environmental justice, particularly for communities of color and low-income communities,” it adds. “We trust that these stated commitments, as well as your dedication to ‘fairness for farmers,’ extend equally to other countries and include respect for other nations’ and peoples’ rights to self-determination.”

    Other signatories to the letter include the American Sustainable Business Council, Beyond Pesticides, Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace USA, Indigenous Environmental Network, ITAP, and Organic Consumers Association.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/01/2021 – 20:55

  • Senate Intelligence Leaders Say Mystery 'Sonic Weapon' Attacks On US Officials Increasing
    Senate Intelligence Leaders Say Mystery ‘Sonic Weapon’ Attacks On US Officials Increasing

    After it was revealed Thursday that US intelligence is investigating at least two potential “directed energy” sonic attacks on White House personnel – one of which is alleged to have happened just off White House grounds – the US Senate Intelligence Committee weighed in on Friday, saying such mysterious incidents appear to be happening with greater frequency worldwide.

    Senators Mark Warner (D) and Marco Rubio (R) agreed that such microwave energy attacks have gone on for “nearly five years” and have targeted “US government personnel in Havana, Cuba and elsewhere around the world.” In a joint statement the two ranking members said, “This pattern of attacking our fellow citizens serving our government appears to be increasing. The Senate Intelligence Committee intends to get to the bottom of this,” according to Reuters. 

    As with the late 2016 into 2017 ‘Havana Syndrome’ attacks in which some 50 diplomatic personnel reported experiencing strange symptoms from vomiting to concussions to extreme nausea to chronic headaches, which was believed the result of some kind of undetected ‘directed energy’ weapon, the most recent incidents saw media reports speculate that Russia or China might be behind them. 

    It was starting last week that the mysterious incidents returned to national media spotlight after defense officials said they believe Russia is likely behind microwave energy weapon attacks on US troops in northeast Syria. Apparently some US troops occupying the country began reporting “flu-like symptoms” which caused the DoD to investigate possible linkage to microwave or directed energy weapons on the battlefield of Syria. Politico reported that “officials identified Russia as a likely culprit, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.”

    Despite instances of strange symptoms and even head injuries experienced by diplomatic personnel or troops abroad, no “energy weapon” has ever been found or uncovered that’s believed to have caused any of these alleged attacks. Most often US personnel report the symptoms enough time after the alleged attack took place for the “plot” and culprit to remain undetected. Naturally this has resulted in immense skepticism and pushback.

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    One deeply critical response to all the reporting late this week quipped: “Another day, another mostly anonymously sourced story about unidentified assailants supposedly assaulting U.S. government employees around the globe. This time, according to CNN, federal agencies are looking into something closer to home: symptoms suffered by a White House employee in Virginia and National Security Council staffer near the south lawn of the White House.”

    “Although a government report later concluded the most likely cause was instead some sort of ‘directed, pulsed radiofrequency energy’ (i.e. a microwave weapon), that conclusion was primarily based on a lack of evidence for other causes and received strong pushback from many others in the scientific community.”

    The commentary in Gizmodo pointed out further that “No hard evidence of any kind for the technology has ever been publicly presented by the US government. Reports citing government officials who suspect Russian intelligence to be involved have largely been anonymous and buoyed primarily by rumors the Russian government may have resumed Soviet-era research into experimental weapons.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/01/2021 – 20:30

  • McConnell Urges Biden Administration To Drop "Divisive, Radical" 1619 Project From Grant Programs
    McConnell Urges Biden Administration To Drop “Divisive, Radical” 1619 Project From Grant Programs

    Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

    Thirty-seven Republicans led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Thursday penned a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona urging him to remove the “1619 Project” from federal grant programs, arguing it skews American history for divisive political ends.

    “Our nation’s youth do not need activist indoctrination that fixates solely on past flaws and splits our nation into divided camps. Taxpayer-supported programs should emphasize the shared civic virtues that bring us together, not push radical agendas that tear us apart,” McConnell and his GOP colleagues wrote in the letter (pdf).

    The Republicans expressed concern that the Biden administration is seeking to prioritize funding educational programs that incorporate the ideas of the 1619 Project and critical race theory into their teaching of U.S. history and civics, reorienting bipartisan programs “away from their intended purposes toward a politicized and divisive agenda.”

    In a proposed new rule released April 19, the Education Department outlined new priority criteria for a $5.3 million American History and Civics Education grant, as well as exemplary materials for K-12 educators to use. Specifically, the Education Department cited the “1619 Project,” and critical race theorist Ibram X. Kendi’s “antiracism” as leading examples for the kind of content it wants to use taxpayer dollars to promote in history and civics classrooms across the country.

    The “1619 Project,” inaugurated with a special issue of The New York Times Magazine, attempts to cast the Atlantic slave trade as the dominant factor in the founding of America instead of ideals such as individual liberty and natural rights. The initiative has been widely panned by historians and political scientists, with some critics calling it a bid to rewrite U.S. history through a left-wing lens. Some historians have criticized the project over inaccuracies such as the American Revolution having been fought to preserve the institution of slavery rather than for seeking independence from Britain.

    “Families did not ask for this divisive nonsense. Voters did not vote for it. Americans never decided our children should be taught that our country is inherently evil,” McConnell and his colleagues wrote.

    The Pulitzer Center, an advocate of the “1619 Project,” provides a series of lesson plans for use in classrooms and says the project “challenges us to reframe U.S. history by marking the year when the first enslaved Africans arrived on Virginia soil as our nation’s foundational date,” referring to the date of 1619.

    That’s in contrast to the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the traditional date when the foundational principles of the United States were framed.

    Some of the activities for children include directing them to read an essay by New York Times writer Nikole Hannah-Jones, which contains the central assertion that “the year 1619 is as foundational to the American story as 1776 … black Americans, as much as those men cast in alabaster in the nation’s capital, are this nation’s true ‘founding fathers.’”

    The curriculum urges students to read the essay and consider such issues as, “What evidence can you see for how ‘some might argue that this nation was founded not as a democracy but as a slavocracy?’”

    Thomas Mackaman, a history professor at King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, told The Wall Street Journal that, in his view, the American Revolution didn’t establish a “slavocracy,” as Hannah-Jones suggests, but it instead “brought slavery in for questioning in a way that had never been done before” by “raising universal human equality as a fundamental principle.”

    In their letter, the Republicans characterized the “1619 Project” as “putting ill-informed advocacy ahead of historical accuracy,” arguing that it serves to “double down on divisive, radical, and historically-dubious buzzwords and propaganda.”

    “Actual, trained, credentialed historians with diverse political views have debunked the project’s many factual and historical errors, such as the bizarre and inaccurate notion that preserving slavery was a primary driver of the American Revolution,” the letter states.

    The Republicans concluded their letter with a call for the Education Department to “withdraw these Proposed Priorities and refocus on civic education and American history programs that will empower future generations of citizens to continue making our nation the greatest force for good in human history.”

    According to the Education Department, the reasoning behind its choices of examples is President Joe Biden’s executive order that aimed to advance “racial equity” and better support “underserved communities.”

    “The Department recognizes that COVID-19—with its disproportionate impact on communities of color—and the ongoing national reckoning with systemic racism have highlighted the urgency of improving racial equity throughout our society, including in our education system,” reads the Education Department document, which is undergoing a 30-day public review period in the Federal Register.

    The proposed rule marks the Biden administration’s latest move to teach American students that historical racism remains deeply embedded in today’s America. On his first day in the White House, Biden dissolved the Trump administration’s advisory 1776 Commission and tossed its first and last report, which called for a return to “patriotic education” focusing on how generations of Americans overcame racism to live up to the nation’s founding ideals.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/01/2021 – 20:05

  • "Bernie Sanders Has Won": Munger Says Millennials Will Have "A Hell Of A Time Getting Rich Compared To Our Generation"
    “Bernie Sanders Has Won”: Munger Says Millennials Will Have “A Hell Of A Time Getting Rich Compared To Our Generation”

    The Berkshire Hathaway Annual shareholder meeting which, saw a return of both Warren Buffett and his perpetual sidekick, Charlie Munger, to the podium after a one year covid hiatus, is over after almost six grueling hours of back and forth between the two billionaires, Becky Quick, and a cast of supporting characters, most of whom are probably also billionaires. We will do a full post-mortem shortly of all the highlights, but there were a handful of funny episodes (usually involving the traditionally outspoken Charlie Munger) as well as a selection of cringeworthy moments (also involving Munger).

    One of these involved a lengthy discussion of how investing has changed in the past year, specifically with the flood of new, young retail traders pursuing some extremely crappy stocks whose outperformance has blown away Berkshire A shares with their modest 19% return.

    However, instead of offering some support to these newly-hatched capitalists who dream of achieving Buffett’s success, however on a far more truncated timeframe, Charlie Munger had some stark words of discouragement when it comes to the next generation seeking to master the stock market.

    “Bernie Sanders has basically won,” the 97-year old said. “He did it by accident, but he won.”

    Munger then followed up with a sad truth which the largest US generation will hate to hear: “the millennial generation is going to have a hell of a time getting rich compared to our generation” the billionaire said, referring to its engagement with the stock market, where for now at least, millennials appear to be winning but Munger is confident that it will all end in tears.

    Munger then slammed the retail investing euphoria and froth seen across multiple assets, saying we have a lot to be ashamed of for current conditions. “It’s not just stupid, it’s shameful,” he says describing what’s going on.

    Buffett also piped up and countered that it’s not that shameful for the people who are doing it — gambling’s a human instinct, to which Munger then clarifies that he doesn’t mind the poor that gamble but he doesn’t like the professionals that push them into it.

    Buffett then quoted Keynes about speculators and bubbles, saying we’ve had a lot of people in the casino in the past year, where people are day trading and basically gambling (adding there’s nothing wrong with gamblers). The gambling impulse is very strong worldwide and sometimes it gets an enormous shove. But Buffett also warns that gambling “creates its own reality for a while and no one’s going to tell you when the clock strikes 12 and it all turns to pumpkin and mice.”

    Asked how Berkshire’s performance compares to some of the supernova stocks in the past year, the billionaire said that when the competition is playing foolishly with other peoples’ money or their own, they’re going to beat Berkshire… the implication of course being that when everything crashes, Buffett will eventually come out on top again.

    Watch a replay of the full shareholder meeting here. Considering the ages of the two hosts, it may well be the final one for either (or both) of them.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/01/2021 – 19:40

  • When Politicians Panicked
    When Politicians Panicked

    Authored by John Tamny via TheMarket.ch,

    Let’s travel back in time to March of 2020. It was then that predictions of mass death related to the new coronavirus started to gain currency. One study, conducted by Imperial College’s Neil Ferguson, indicated that U.S. deaths alone would exceed 2 million.

    The above number is often used as justification for the initial lockdowns. «We knew so little» is the excuse, and with so many deaths expected, can anyone blame local, state and national politicians for panicking? The answer is a resounding yes.

    To see why, imagine if Ferguson had predicted 30 million American deaths, and hundreds of millions more around the world. Imagine the global fear, which is precisely the point. The more threatening a virus is presumed to be, the more superfluous government force is. Really, who needs to be told to be careful if a failure to be could reasonably result in death?

    Death predictions aside, the other justification bruited in March of 2020 was that brief lockdowns would flatten the hospitalization curve. In this case, the taking of freedom allegedly made sense as a way of protecting hospitals from a massive inflow of sick patients that they wouldn’t have been able to handle, and that would have resulted in a public health catastrophe. Such a view similarly vandalizes reason. Think about it.

    Really, who needs to be forced to avoid behavior that might result in hospitalization? Better yet, who needs to be forced to avoid behavior that might result in hospitalization at a time when doctors and hospitals would be so short staffed as to not be able to take care of admitted patients?

    Translated for those who need it, the dire predictions made over a year ago about the corona-horrors that awaited us don’t justify the lockdowns; rather they should remind the mildly sentient among us of how cruel and pointless they were. The common sense that we’re to varying degrees born with, along with our genetic predisposition to survive, dictates that a fear of hospitalization or death would have caused us to take virus-avoidance precautions that would have well exceeded any rules foisted on us by politicians. Goodness, masks and hand sanitizers were selling out in Germany at a time when politicians were still downplaying the virus.

    Vital Signals Get Lost

    To which some will reply with something along the lines of «Not everyone has common sense. In truth, there are lots of dumb, low-information types out there who would have disregarded all the warnings. Lockdowns weren’t necessary for the wise among us; rather they were essential precisely because there are so many who aren’t wise.» Actually, such a response is the best argument of all against lockdowns.

    Indeed, it cannot be stressed enough that «low information» types are the most crucial people of all during periods of uncertainty. Precisely because they’ll be unaware of, misunderstand, or reject the warnings of the experts, their actions will produce essential information that the rule-followers never could. In not doing what the allegedly wise among us will, low information citizens will, by their contrarian actions, teach us what behavior is most associated with avoidance of sickness and death, and more important, what behavior is associated with it.

    One-size-fits-all decrees from politicians don’t enhance health outcomes as much as they blind us to the actions (or lack thereof) that would protect us the most, or not. Freedom on its own is a virtue, plus it produces crucial information.

    But wait, some will say, «how elitist to let some people act as Guinea Pigs for the rest of us.» Such a statement is naïve. Heroin and cocaine are illegal, but people still use both. Thank goodness they do. How could we know what threatens us, and what doesn’t, without the rebellious?

    Economic Growth Is the Best Medicine

    Still, there’s the question of «elitism,» or comment about it. The view here is that the lockdowns were the cruelest form of elitism, by far. The implied statement about the lockdowns was that those who had the temerity to have jobs that were destinations would have to lose them. The lockdowns destroyed tens of millions of destination jobs, destroyed or severely impaired millions of businesses, not to mention the hundreds of millions around the world who were rushed into starvation, poverty or both as a consequence of nail-biting politicians in rich countries that chose to take a break from reality. Talk about elitist actions, plus the very idea of wrecking the economy as a virus-mitigation strategy will go down in history as one of the most abjectly stupid policy responses the world has ever endured.

    That’s the case because economic growth is easily the biggest enemy death and disease have ever known, while poverty is easily the biggest killer. Economic growth produces the resources necessary so that doctors and scientists can come up with answers to what needlessly sickens us or shortens our lives altogether.

    If anyone doubts the above truth, it’s useful to travel back in time to the 19th century. A broken femur then brought with it a 1 out of 3 chance of death, while those lucky enough to survive the break had only one option: amputation. A child born in the 19th century had as good a chance of dying as living. A broken hip was a death sentence, cancer most certainly was, but most didn’t die of cancer because tuberculosis and pneumonia got them first.

    So what happened? Why don’t we get sick or die as easily as we used to? The answer is economic growth. Business titans like Johns Hopkins and John D. Rockefeller created enormous wealth, only to direct a lot of it toward medical science. What used to kill us became yesterday’s news.

    Even though freedom is its own wondrous virtue, even though freedom produces essential information that protects us, and even though free people produce the resources without which diseases kill with sickening rapidity, panicky politicians erased it in 2020 on the supposition that personal and economic desperation were the best solution for a spreading coronavirus. Historians will marvel at the abject stupidity of the political class in 2020.

    *  *  *

    John Tamny is Vice President at FreedomWorks, editor of RealClearMarkets, and author of the new book «When Politicians Panicked: The New Coronavirus, Expert Opinion, and a Tragic Lapse of Reason.»

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/01/2021 – 19:15

  • "Extremely Successful" – World's Largest Aircraft Hits Skies For Second Time 
    “Extremely Successful” – World’s Largest Aircraft Hits Skies For Second Time 

    Stratolaunch Systems Corporation, founded by the late billionaire Paul G. Allen, flew the world’s largest aircraft named ‘Roc’ on Thursday for a second time. 

    “Today’s flight, at first review, has appeared extremely successful,” Stratolaunch’s chief operating officer Zachary Krevor told reporters. “We accomplished all test points as desired, we have not seen anything anomalous, and we are very pleased with the condition of the aircraft upon landing.”

    The Roc is a dual fuselage design and has a 385 feet wingspan. The purpose of the aircraft is to air-launch rockets into low Earth orbit. 

    The second flight was initially scheduled for April 19 but was terminated due to unfavorable weather. The last time Roc flew was two years ago, in April 2019. Back then, the airplane flew for 2.5 hours, achieved a maximum speed of 189 mph, and soared to an altitude of 17,000 feet. The first flight allowed pilots to evaluate the airworthiness of the aircraft. 

    On Thursday’s test, Roc reached an altitude of 14,000 feet at a maximum speed of 199 mph before landing successfully back at the Mojave Air & Space Port in California. 

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    “We’re very pleased with how the Stratolaunch aircraft performed today, and we are equally excited about how much closer the aircraft is to launching its first hypersonic vehicle,” Krevor said. 

    If all goes well, the first air-launch test of a hypersonic vehicle named “Talon-A” could occur as early as next year. 

    Sratolaunch’s activities may soon be of interest to the US military. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/01/2021 – 18:50

  • Huge California Fire Last Year Was Arson Meant To Conceal Woman's Murder, Officials Say
    Huge California Fire Last Year Was Arson Meant To Conceal Woman’s Murder, Officials Say

    Authored by Elias Marat via TheMindUnleashed.com,

    A deadly 2020 wildfire in Northern California that killed two people and was one of the largest fires in state history was actually the work of a man who committed arson to conceal his murder of a woman, according to authorities.

    Victor Serriteno, 29, was arrested on Wednesday following an eight-month-long investigation by the Solano County Sheriff’s Office into the fire.

    Douglas Mai, 82, and Leon Bone, 64, were killed in the Markley Fire which began on August 18 near Lake Berryessa.

    Serriteno was arrested a month later and was held in jail without bail for the death of Priscilla Castro, 32, whose burned body was found on Sept. 2 near the same lake.

    Serriteno pleaded not guilty to her murder.

    Castro disappeared on Aug. 16 after she failed to return home following a date with Serriteno in Vacaville, according to authorities.

    The two met through an online dating app.

    An investigation by the Sheriff’s Office and CalFire officials has concluded that the fire was an arson and the deaths are now officially considered homicides.

    [ZH: So not ‘global warming’ then?]

    Within days, the Markley Fire merged with the Hennessey Fire and became a part of the LNU Lightning Complex Fire, the fifth-largest fire in state history.

    “Based on an extensive 8-month long investigation, we believe Serriteno deliberately set the Markley Fire in an attempt to conceal this crime,” said Solano County Sheriff Tom Ferrara at a news conference Wednesday.

    Serriteno will now face two additional counts of murder with special circumstances and arson charges, including committing arson during an official state of emergency.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/01/2021 – 18:25

  • "There Is No Shortage?" Train Loads Of Lumber Stacked As Far As The Eye Can See 
    “There Is No Shortage?” Train Loads Of Lumber Stacked As Far As The Eye Can See 

    One of the most important things we’ve learned over the past year is the vulnerability of global supply chains. Most notably, supply disruptions of lumber have catapulted prices to the moon. 

    The narrative touted in the public domain is that COVID-19 sparked a dramatic underestimate in capacity by sawmills early in the pandemic as the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates to zero, sparking a housing boom. The influx of demand outpaced supply and has caused lumber prices to jump 340% from a year ago, according to Random Lengths. 

    In terms of output, the lumber industry is controlled by just a handful of firms, including Weyerhaeuser Co., Georgia-Pacific LLC, West Fraser Timber Co., Ltd., among others, which makes it easier for capacity to be controlled. 

    Maybe there’s more to the lumber story that we’re not being told and should be investigated more in-depth by journalists. 

    YouTube account “Ken’s Karpentry” recently published a video of “huge quantities” of lumber sitting and not in lumberyards. The exact location of the video is not mentioned but could be near Lyndonville, Vermont. 

    The narrator in the video, perhaps it’s Ken, but we’re not sure, explains that a train depot has been transformed into a makeshift lumber yard. He said train loads of lumber coming out of Canada are offloaded here and then transported by tractor-trailer to lumberyards across the country.  

    He said, “I am astounded by how much lumber is here, and I am wondering why there is such a problem at lumber yards.” He added the facility stretches 3/8 of a mile. 

    The video has more than 300,000 views and over 1,300 comments in just a few weeks. 

    One person said, “Gee, could it be to keep the price gouging and profits up?? This whole excuse that “it’s due to covid” b*llsh!t has got to stop!” 

    “It’s too bad there are no investigative reporters left in the world. This lumber story needs to be investigated and exposed,” some else said. 

    Another person said:

    “This is what happens when a few companies own the entire market.” 

    And this person makes an interesting point:

    “There is no lumber shortage. It’s just Weyerhouse and GP wanting to drive up profits.” 

    So could the lumber industry, controlled just by a few players, be pulling the playbook straight out of the diamond industry to limit supply to drive up prices?

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/01/2021 – 18:00

  • Escaping Serfdom
    Escaping Serfdom

    Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

    The concept of government is that the people grant to a small group of individuals the ability to establish and maintain controls over them. The inherent flaw in such a concept is that any government will invariably and continually expand upon its controls, resulting in the ever-diminishing freedom of those who granted them the power.

    When I was a schoolboy, I was taught that the feudal system of the Middle Ages consisted of serfs tilling small plots of land that belonged to a king or lord.

    The serfs lived a meagre life of bare subsistence and were subject to the tyranny of the king or lord whose men would ride into their village periodically and take most of the few coins the serfs had earned by their toil.

    The lesson I was meant to learn from this was that I should be grateful that, in the modern world, I live in a state of freedom from tyranny, and as an adult, I would pay only that level of tax that could be described as “fair”.

    Later in life, I was to learn that, in the actual feudal system, some land was owned by noblemen, some by common men. The commoners typically farmed their own land, whilst the noblemen parcelled out their land to farmers, in trade for a portion of the product of their labours.

    As a part of that bargain, the nobleman would pay for an army of professional soldiers to protect both the farms and the farmers. Significantly, unlike today, no farmer was required to defend the land himself, as it was not his.

    There was no exact standard as to what the noblemen would charge a farmer under this agreement, but the general standard was “one day’s labour in ten”.

    This was not an amount imposed or regulated by any government. The nobleman could charge as much as he wished; however, if he raised his rate significantly, he would find that the farmers would leave and move to another nobleman’s farm. The 10% was, in essence, a rate that evolved over time through a free market.

    Modern Serfdom

    Today, of course, if most countries levied an income tax of a mere 10%, there would be dancing in the streets. And the days of one simple straightforward tax are long gone.

    Today, the average person may expect to pay property tax (even if he is a renter), sales tax, capital gains tax, value added tax, inheritance tax, and so on. The laundry list of taxes is so long and complex that it is no longer possible to compute what the total tax level actually is for anyone.

    And to this, we add the hidden tax of inflation. In the US, for example, the Federal Reserve has, over the last hundred years, devalued the dollar by 98%, a hefty tax indeed. And the US is not alone in this.

    Only 50 years ago, the average man might work a 40-hour week to support a wife who remained at home raising the children. He often had a mortgage on his home but might have it paid off in ten years. He paid cash for nearly everything else that he and his family owned or consumed.

    Today, both husband and wife generally must be employed full time. In spite of this, they can’t afford as many children as their parents could, and they generally remain in debt their entire lives, even after retirement. This is significant inflation by any measure.

    In contrast, in the Middle Ages, the cost of goods might remain the same throughout the entire lifetime of an individual.

    In light of the above, the 10% that was paid by the serfs is beginning to look very good indeed.

    However, the great majority of people in the First World are likely to say, “What can you do; it’s the same all over the world. You might as well get used to it.”

    Well, no, actually, it’s not.

    There are many governmental and economic systems out there and many are quite a bit more “serf friendly” than those in the major countries.

    Countries such as the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and the Bahamas have no income tax. Further, some have no property tax, sales tax, capital gains tax, value added tax, inheritance tax, and so on.

    So how is this possible?

    The OECD countries state that it is largely accomplished through money laundering, but this is not the case. In fact, low-tax jurisdictions are known to have some of the most stringent banking laws in the world.

    The success of these jurisdictions is actually quite simple. Most of them are small. They have small populations and therefore need only a small government. Yet each jurisdiction can accommodate large numbers of investors from overseas. This results in a very high level of income per capita.

    But unlike large countries, the money that is deposited or invested there is overseas money, so it is not captive. Investors can transfer it out overnight if need be.

    So, even if the politicians are no better than those in larger countries (generally, they are of the same ilk), they’re aware that, like the noblemen of old, if they attempt to impose taxation, the business will dry up quickly.

    In fact, such a free market dictates that the jurisdictions keep on their toes and keep trying to outdo their competitors by being more investment friendly.

    Therefore, the politicians in these countries, who might be only too happy to promise entitlements to their constituents, then tax them to the hilt in order to pay for the entitlements, are kept restrained by their own system.

    Are there downsides to living in a low-tax jurisdiction? Yes.

    As most of them are small but require a very high standard of living in order to attract investors, they must import virtually all goods needed by residents. This means a higher cost of all goods, as compared to the cost in a country that produces such goods. However, the wage level is also higher, which tends to balance out the equation.

    But there are also upsides.

    Those who move to such a jurisdiction find that after the first year there (when the basics such as cars, televisions, etc., have been paid for), all further income that has been saved from taxation is beginning to get deposited in the bank.

    At some point, the deposit level becomes great enough that investment becomes advisable. And as low-tax jurisdictions tend to be naturally prosperous, there is generally no limit to the opportunities for investment within the jurisdiction.

    There is a further benefit to living in a low-tax jurisdiction that tends to become apparent over time. Any government that depends on major investments from overseas parties must, of necessity, be non-intrusive and non-invasive. Such a government stays out of people’s business, eschews electronic monitoring and most certainly is not given to SWAT teams crashing down doors for imagined wrongdoing.

    Benjamin Franklin famously said, “Nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

    He was correct, but the level of tax can vary greatly from one country to the next. And just as important, the level of government intervention into the affairs of its citizenry varies considerably. In a country where the level of tax is low, the quality of life is generally correspondingly high.

    A thousand years ago, noblemen, from time to time, became overly confident in their ability to keep the serfs on the farmland and demanded taxes beyond the customary “one day’s labour in ten”. When they did, the serfs of old often voted with their feet and simply moved. Today, this is still possible.

    If the reader presently contributes more than one day’s labour in ten to his government, he may wish to consider voting with his feet.

    *  *  *

    The political and economic climate is constantly changing… and not always for the better. Obtaining the political diversification benefits of a second passport is crucial to ensuring you won’t fall victim to a desperate government. That’s why Doug Casey and his team just released a new complementary report, “The Easiest Way to a Second Passport.” It contains all the details about one of the easiest countries to obtain a second passport from. Click here to download it now.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/01/2021 – 17:35

  • How Costco Is Masking A 14% Price Jump With Shrinkflation
    How Costco Is Masking A 14% Price Jump With Shrinkflation

    The oldest trick in the retailer book is back.

    We have previously written about shrinkflation – the “creative” masking of higher prices whereby retailers sell a materially lower amount of products for the ‘same’ price, covering up what is often a significant price increase on a “per unit” basis (see “”Shrinkflation” – How Food Companies Implement Massive Price Hikes Without You Ever Noticing“, “Shrinkflation Hits The UK: Toblerone Shrinks By 10%, Price Stays The Same“, Shrinkflation Intensifies – Stealth Inflation As Thousands of Food Products Shrink In Size, Not Price), and we have a feeling that in light of the recent surge in commodity costs and food prices, we will be writing about it a whole lot more in the coming weeks.

    Take Costco, which as The Bear Traps report notes, is now charging the same price for paper towels but the roll has 20 fewer sheets. TBT refers to a recent post in a Red Flag Deals message board, where a member makes the following observation:

    Costco paper towels. Same price as the previous several times buying them. Now with 20 fewer sheets.

    140/160= .875

    The stealthy decline of 20 sheets per roll of towels from 160 to 140 for the “same price” is the functional equivalent of 14.3% inflation, and as TBT notes, “In our experience, only potato chip companies can get away with selling a half empty package.”

    Of course, once companies realize they can get away with such shrinkflation – and they will because as a RFD member responds…

    I tried telling the clerk at Costco about this, and they said “who cares, it’s just 20 sheets.”

    Will be the typical response.

    … the obvious next step will be to no longer bother with such attempts at masking double digit inflation, and to hike prices outright until there is an actual decline in supply, or as TBT predicts, “this is the precursor to real inflation next.” And sure enough, names from consumer giants from Kimberly-Clark to Clorox, Procter & Gamble, as well as food makers such as Hormel, JM Smucker, General Mills, Skippy and Hershey are already doing just that.

    But don’t worry, according to the Chairman, “it’s transitory.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/01/2021 – 17:10

  • Blighted San Francisco Diagnoses Its "Perilous Trifecta" …And Bungles The Cure
    Blighted San Francisco Diagnoses Its “Perilous Trifecta” …And Bungles The Cure

    Authored by Christopher Rufo via RealClearInvestigations.com,

    San Francisco is coming undone. In recent years, the city has manifested a series of visible and persistent inequalities, with a spoils-to-the-victor world for its technological elite, and a chaotic, brutalized world for its dispossessed. In the city’s Tenderloin district, men openly hawk drugs on the street corners, desperate addicts are crumpled across the sidewalks, and first responders dart through the chaos to revive overdose victims.

    The city has become a web of contradictions. There are thousands of new millionaires, and, by the latest estimates, 18,000 people in and out of homelessness. The headquarters of Uber, Twitter, and Square are blocks away from the open-air drug markets of the Tenderloin, Mid-Market, and SoMa. Wealthy families attending an art opening at the Civic Center have to cross through the tent encampments that line the sidewalks.

    Residents, property owners, and small businesses—who pay an enormous premium to live and work in San Francisco—have begun to erupt in frustration. Citizens tell pollsters that homelessness is the city’s most pressing issue and business owners tell pollsters that “conditions on [the] streets have progressively deteriorated.”

    Mayor London Breed of San Francisco: Trying to address the city’s problems by expanding institutions the chronically homeless keep cycling through.

    City Hall has begun coming to terms with the crisis. Mayor London Breed recently hired a director of mental health reform, Dr. Anton Nigusse Bland, who compiled a statistical summary of the problem. People have long known that San Francisco has a homelessness problem, but Nigusse Bland discovered a population-within-a-population—the so-called “perilous trifecta”: 

    4,000 men and women who are simultaneously homeless, psychotic, and addicted to alcohol, meth, or heroin.

    About 70 % of them have been on the streets for more than five years; 40% have been on the streets for more than 13 years.

    This is the city’s fundamental predicament.

    How do you help people in the grips of the perilous trifecta? What interventions could make progress? Where do social workers even start?

    It’s almost impossible to understate the depths of this challenge.

    Dr. Anton Nigusse Bland, city mental health director: Identified 4,000 suffering from the “perilous trifecta” of homelessness, mental illness, and addiction

    San Francisco’s current policy toward the perilous trifecta can be best described as compassionate neglect. Every year, the chronically homeless cycle through the institutions of the socialized state, from hospitals, jails, and shelters, to sobering centers, case management appointments, and 72-hour psychiatric holds. Local government provides enough to meet an outward standard of compassion, but not enough to alter the trajectories of the homeless. The result is a disaster, which has drawn criticism across the political spectrum. Progressives are demanding more funding for existing programs, while moderates are bewildered by the eternal recurrence of tents, needles, and feces in their neighborhoods.

    The current policy regime can be divided into three domains — the hospital, the jail, and the subsidized apartment.

    Together, these institutions represent the new orthodoxy of the modern urban approach: Homelessness is reduced to a set of social-scientific variables, to be manipulated through the intensive application of the medical and social sciences.

    As part of its medical system, San Francisco currently spends more than $255 million per year on mental health and substance abuse programs, many of which cater to the city’s homeless. In a recent audit of the behavioral health system, the city’s budget and legislative analyst found that 70% of all psychiatric emergency visits involved a homeless individual and that 66% of all visitors had co-occurring mental health and substance abuse disorders. In total, the top 5% of “super-users,” totaling 2,239 adults, the majority of whom fall into the perilous trifecta, accounted for 52% of total systemwide service use. Doctors at San Francisco General see the same set of patients so frequently that they have developed an entire vocabulary to describe the population that circles in and out of their doors.

    The jail system is next. According to the San Francisco County Jail, the homeless account for 40% of all inmates — despite being less than 1% of the city’s overall population, and even after San Francisco decriminalized many quality-of-life crimes associated with homelessness. Again, the perilous trifecta looms large. Inmates with co-occurring mental health and substance abuse disorders are more likely to be homeless and more likely to be charged with a violent crime compared to the general jail population. The pithy observation about deinstitutionalization is largely true: The people who might have once lived in the state mental hospital have simply been transferred to the county jail.

    Neither hospitals, jails, nor public housing have solved San Francisco’s homelessness epidemic.

    Finally, the public-housing complex is the new great hope, and fastest-growing public expenditure, for the homeless. Like many major West Coast cities, San Francisco has gone all in on “Housing First,” the theory that the municipal government must provide free housing for the homeless in perpetuity, with no expectations of sobriety, work, or participation in rehabilitation programs. For a city with a recurring homeless population of 18,000, this is an enormous expense. In 2019, San Francisco spent $285 million on shelters and “permanent supportive housing,” plus $65 million on traditional public housing, vouchers, and SRO units. At the same time, voters passed an additional $600 million bond to build “affordable housing.” But still, 67% of the Bay Area’s homeless are unsheltered.

    Even as they tout “evidence-based interventions,” “data-driven solutions,” and “best practices,” leaders in San Francisco have recognized the failure of the current system and proposed an ambitious reform agenda. However, in broad terms, this agenda only deepens its dependency on the social-scientific model and doubles-down on its worst assumptions. It can be summarized this way: deinstitutionalization, destigmatization, and decriminalization.

    In 2019, Mayor Breed and Supervisors Matt Haney and Hillary Ronen championed legislation for sweeping “mental health reform.” The plan would increase total spending on mental health and substance abuse to $500 million per year, and prioritize the homeless, create a central service center, and pressure private insurers to cover more costs. When it passed unanimously through the Board of Supervisors, Ronen celebrated it as a progressive milestone: “We just created the first universal mental health and substance use system in the country.”

    San Francisco’s homeless problem can be traced back to the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill after Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel and this subsequent film.

    But this universality is only a theoretical formulation. The legislation does not include a funding source and, more important, simply expands the existing behavioral health system rather than reforming it. For the perilous trifecta, the problem is often not access to services, but participation in services. According to the latest one-night count, only 17% of the homeless reported using mental health services and only 11% reported using substance abuse services. For the unsheltered population, these figures are almost certainly lower.

    The problem is that members of the perilous trifecta are the least likely to seek services. According to the Treatment Advocacy Center, approximately half the patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder suffer from anosognosia, which is the inability to understand their own disorder, often leading to a refusal to enter treatment and take medication. Adding a serious addiction to methamphetamine, which can cause paranoia, psychosis, hallucinations, and violent behavior, only compounds the problem.

    In the past, the solution to this paradox was compulsion. The state took custody of the “gravely disabled” and treated them in long-term residential institutions. However, with the exposure of civil rights abuses and the release of Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” the United States gradually dismantled its mental health system, reducing the number of mental health beds per capita by an astonishing 95% between 1955 and 2016. Today, California has fewer beds per capita than the national average, with San Francisco having only 219 adult psychiatric beds available at a given time — drastically insufficient for the number of people in need.

    Although Mayor Breed has tentatively moved towards a return to short-term “conservatorships,” a form of involuntary commitment for individuals who present a grave danger to themselves or others, the plan has neither the scope nor the force to significantly reduce the numbers of the perilous trifecta. Because of pressure from disability activists and the ACLU, which have called conservatorships “the greatest deprivation of civil liberties aside from the death penalty,” the plan is limited to individuals who have had eight or more involuntary psychiatric holds in the past year, which, in practice, would mean less than 100 people citywide.

    Mayor Breed did not return a request for comment.

    San Francisco’s progressive District Attorney faces recall efforts in response to rising crime.

    Many progressive socialists argue that there is too much force in the system, not too little. San Francisco’s district attorney, Chesa Boudin, took office in January 2020 pledging to substantially reduce the county jail population, end cash bail, and decriminalize quality-of-life crimes associated with homelessness, including public camping, drug consumption, prostitution, and public urination. Boudin contends that the criminal justice system in San Francisco is a domain of persistent inequalities – locking up a disproportionate number of poor and minority residents – and has become the dumping ground for the addicted and mentally ill. Rather than continue this system, Boudin argues, the city must “implement a comprehensive transformation of the criminal justice system to decriminalize and treat mental illness, housing instability, and substance use as public health issues rather than criminal justice issues.”

    Boudin’s formulation does align with a single-day snapshot of the San Francisco County Jail population from 2016, which found that 48% of inmates were African American, 70% self-reported substance abuse, and 10% were deemed to have a serious mental illness. However, the narrative that the city is somehow targeting non-violent drug offenders and “criminalizing homeless” is specious. The snapshot also shows that 68% of inmates were arrested for violence, weapons possession, and serious felonies. Contrary to progressive rhetoric, only 4% were arrested for drug crimes — a vanishingly small number of people for a city in the midst of a heroin and methamphetamine epidemic.

    Authorities have enabled massive open-air drug markets in neighborhoods like the Tenderloin.

    The hard reality is that the perilous trifecta has fueled a boom in property crime and public disorder. In 2019, at least 1,120 individuals in the trifecta spent time in the county jail. Although the homicide rate remained static during Boudin’s first year office, burglaries have soared in a city that already had one of the highest property crime rates in the nation, while authorities enabled massive open-air drug markets in neighborhoods like the Tenderloin, which is a central hub for the homeless population.

    The nexus between homelessness, addiction, and crime is clear: According to city and federal data, virtually all of the unsheltered homeless are unemployed, while at the same time, those with serious addictions spend an average of $1,256 to $1,834 a month on methamphetamine and heroin. With no legitimate source of income, many addicts support their habit through a “hustle,” which can include fraud, prostitution, car break-ins, burglaries of residences and business, and other forms of theft.

    Boudin’s plan to decriminalize such property offenses – the mirror opposite of the low-tolerance “broken windows” approach adopted in the late 1980s as crime rates began historic declines – has contributed to the sense that he is not holding criminals accountable. In 2019, the city had an incredible 25,667 “smash-and-grabs,” as thieves sought valuables and other property from cars to sell on the black market. The following year, rather than attempt to prevent or even disincentivize this crime, Boudin has proposed a $1.5 million fund to pay for auto glass repair, arguing that it “will help put money into San Francisco jobs and San Francisco businesses.” In literal terms, Boudin is subsidizing broken windows, under the notion that it can be transformed into a job-creation program.

    Boudin did not return a request for comment.

    Some San Franciscans are pushing back. Earlier this year, a group of residents and business owners launched a recall effort targeting Boudin, arguing that his policies have enabled crime and not done enough to protect victims.           

    The final plank of San Francisco’s policy platform is “destigmatization.” Public health experts in the city have gradually abandoned recovery and sobriety as the ideal outcome, preferring the limited goal of “harm reduction.” In a recent task force report on methamphetamine, the San Francisco Public Health Department noted that meth users “are likely to experience high levels of stigma and rejection in their personal and social lives,” which are “often reinforced by language and media portrayals depicting individuals who use alongside images of immorality, having chaotic lives, and perpetual use.”

    On the surface, this is a strange contention. If San Francisco’s perilous trifecta is any guide, methamphetamine use is heavily correlated with chaotic lives, perpetual drug abuse, crimes against others, and various transgressions against traditional morality. The harm reductionists’ argument, however, rests on the belief that addiction is an involuntary brain disease, akin to Alzheimer’s or dementia. In this view, addiction is better seen as a disability, and any stigma associated with it is therefore an act of ignorance and cruelty. According to the Department of Public Health, the goal of harm reduction policy is to reduce this unjustified stigma and focus public policy on “non-abstinence-based residential treatment programs,” “supervised injection services,” “trauma-informed sobering site[s],” and “training for staff on how to engage marginalized or vulnerable communities in ways that do not perpetuate trauma or stigma.”

    In practice, the task force recommendations would create an entire infrastructure to service addiction, rather than to reduce it. Although proponents of harm reduction claim the mantle of compassion, it’s a fatalistic theory. It assumes that most people cannot recover from serious addiction and, therefore, the social obligation is to provide the space and resources for addicts to pursue their own ends, which, for 40% of the perilous trifecta population, means 13 or more years in and out of homelessness. Activists have suggested that addicts can “reduce harms” by “[using] indoors instead of on the street,” “reducing how much [they are] using,” “transitioning from injecting to smoking,” and “continuing to use one type of drug but quitting another drug.” But in the face of the pathological overload of the perilous trifecta, these recommendations are negligently naïve, relegating a large portion of the homeless to a lifetime of chaos, sickness, and despair.

    In the long term, the real danger of destigmatization is that it would lead to the normalization of serious addiction and its consequences. In San Francisco, progressives have attempted to normalize the worst aspects of street homelessness, minimizing the drug use, toxic waste, psychotic episodes, and related crimes; they have blurred the lines between sickness and health, madness and sanity. Moreover, without a trace of irony, they have weaponized destigmatization itself, stigmatizing anyone who opposes the breakdown of public order as “fascists” and “homeless haters.” 

    An entire social media community has arisen documenting the descent of San Francisco’s streets. Twitter/homelessphilosopher/@PoopScoopSF/@sfstreets1/ @PowelMason415/@CleanUpWestSoma/@EsmeAlaki/@missmrm/@markdfabela

    The implicit wager of San Francisco’s policy is that the social-scientific apparatus can rescue people faster than the perilous trifecta expands its ranks. But the evidence suggests the opposite: that San Francisco has become a magnet for the troubled homeless. Methamphetamine deaths are up nearly 400% over the past five years; fentanyl overdoses doubled between 2019 and 2020. Meanwhile, the socialized state has reached a point of near exhaustion. First responders, police officers, and emergency room nurses are burning out. Psychiatrists at San Francisco General Hospital despair about the mass migration of out-of-state residents in search of the “San Francisco Special”: “housing, a psychiatrist, case manager, primary care provider, and transfer of Medicaid or general assistance.”

    The political class has insisted on greater control over the corporations, developers, and landlords, while deregulating life at the bottom. The result has been a deepening inequality, and an even more anarchic world for the poor. There is an entire social media community of mostly anonymous accounts who document the squalor of the encampments and psychotic episodes in the streets; they are the last resistance to the normalization of the perilous trifecta, and maintain their anonymity, it seems, out of fear of retribution. It’s a dark reality, but perhaps a warning of what’s to come.

    In the end, San Francisco finds itself fighting a monster. “Homelessness isn’t just a problem; it’s a symptom,” says its mayor. “The symptom of unaffordable housing, of income inequality, of institutional racism, of addiction, untreated illness, and decades of disinvestment. These are the problems. And if we’re going to fight homelessness, we’ve got to fight them all.” But this is part of the reason homelessness has become so intractable — —the political class has haunted its own world with abstractions; it has projected its own ideological premises onto the brutal reality of the streets.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/01/2021 – 17:01

  • "This Is A Game-Changer For Uranium Stocks"
    “This Is A Game-Changer For Uranium Stocks”

    Submitted by Larry McDonald of The Bear Traps Report

    The Uranium Bull Thesis

    Uranium names are moving higher, breaking the recent downtrend just like energy names.

    Our copper thesis has played out nicely. But from a Washington policy perspective Uranium is the next trade.

    Last week we learned that Uranium Participation will be bought by Sprott. This is a large deal, game changer. A lot of hedge funds in our chat are discussing. I think Uranium prices double over the next 12 months. High conviction. It’s the pure, centrist green energy play, Nuclear power.

    Plays – Nexgen, Denison, CCJ, URA ETF

    This is BIG news. 

    U Participation Corp, was a company that was buying U and sitting on it, the original yellow cake. The market will now have daily price discovery and a retail / family office / small asset manager speculation vehicle. Game changer.

    Denison CEO was reluctant, didn’t think he could increase the pounds per share, now we have a new team taking over (Sprott). Very bullish for uranium. 

    1. We are getting a US listed vehicle with a physical redemption. Like a GLD for uranium. Look at PSLV and PHYS, equivalent.
    2. A new mechanism for retail, institutional. An at the market facility. Technically a closed end fund, NOT a GLD.
    3. Pounds come in, don’t go out. They could do a buyback if the market provides that opportunity.
    4. U Participation is tough to buy, pink sheet. RobinHood crowd cannot buy!!! Now there will be a new liquidity vehicle. 
    5. Mgmt transition from Dennison to Sprott. Think Industry player to real asset mgr. 
    6. When there is large premium, new buyers are vulnerable. This has suppressed upside momentum. NOW there is a liquid vehicle, large buyers can come in with a liquidity work out. 
    7. Next, Sprott does a big offering, to bring in new pounds into the fund. There was too much inventory of uranium in the system, this vehicle will eliminate this problem. Substantially reduce the problem. New size buyers of the fund will quickly translate into spot buying!
    8. Think CME and oil, this could be a new real franchise / a liquidity central facility. 
    9. Management take over might take 2/3 months. Then the premium U Part will come in, was 16% today. In a month or so, Dan Loeb can come in and buy $100m without the premium risk. Pounds will permanently be removed from the mkt. NOT at ETF, its a closed end fund. A discount may develop in the shares, but new buyers are in a much better spot. 
    10. When a large hedge fund sells, they come back, stay in fund.
    11. Closed end fund, pounds come in, don’t go out. Pounds will stay in the vehicle. It’s not a create and redeem situation like an ETF. Big seller will just create a discount. 

    Uranium bulls in our chat are calling the bottom with conviction.

    Transformational deal. 

    CCJ Cameco Breaking Out

    CCJ Cameco Corp is a) breaking downtrend consolidation b) almost back in the BULL uptrend. We remain long a 2/3 position in CCJ and a 1/3 position in the URA Uranium ETF.

    Uranium Participation Corp In Agreement with Sprott Asset Management to Modernize Business Structure and Pursue U.S. Listing

    Entered into an arrangement agreement with Sprott Asset Management LP, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sprott Inc. (NYSE/TSX: SII), pursuant to which UPC shareholders will become unitholders of the Sprott Physical Uranium Trust a newly formed entity to be managed by Sprott Asset Management.

    * * *
    Uranium News of the day 

    Sprott Asset Management taking over management of Uranium Participation Corp will light this market on fire and ultimately help drive the price of uranium much higher and faster than most realize. Our friend Kevin Bambrough actually conceived of uranium participation corp back in the mid 2000’s (over a sushi lunch) in the year leading up to that lunch he had aggressively pitched Eric Sprott on going big in uranium stocks and predicted a move from $11/lb to $140/lb. think of $140/lb simply as the inflation-adjusted price from the 70’s uranium bull market and over that year players bought 20% of most uranium juniors and a decent chunk of Cameco. We also invested in a few privates and helped some shell companies acquire uranium assets. The uranium price had run up from the teens to the low 20’s around that time and the spot market was very thin much like today. Over the course of that lunch Kevin was ranting about how certain he was that the uranium price would be moving up soon. Our pal was certain that the thin market was ripe to be squeezed higher and that our stocks would all rip as the price moved up.  A few hedge funds had recently bought a little physical uranium and were storing it with Cameco or Denison as req by law/regs. The lunch ended with the declaration that Kevin was going to pitch Eric Sprott to let him launch an uranium hold co ETF and Kevin did that very afternoon and it was an easy sell.  One thing people loved most about working with Eric is that there was no fucking around.  He made quick decisions.  Only thing was he didn’t want was ‘wasting time’ on the ETF. They were running billions in hedge fund and equity funds and we think that year heading towards $100mm plus in incentive fees. Some years they hit $200mm of incentives. The fees from a uranium ETF would be small. They called Chris Roy at Cormark (Sprott securities then) and said let’s work on this idea together. Being a brokerage you can do the raises and get 5 percent. Or $5mm in fees on the first $100mm and Eric had blessed a $20mm lead order. Anyhow, long story short, they launched it and just the news of it coming sent the uranium price up several dollars. As orders for the ipo grew and uranium was purchased the price when up a few more.  Moved near $22 to 28.50/lb in a few months as the prospectus got filed. The vehicle came out and kept trading at a premium and issue after issue swallowed up millions of lbs of uranium. Utilities felt incredible pressure knowing the vehicle was gonna keep gobbling up supply and this forced them to scramble and start entering into long term contracts. The spot price moving up over $100/lb and with little to no spot available forced them to sign contracts to try to get a discount and deals with $75/lb floors became the rage for miners. Those that signed long term fixed deals sub $50 took a look of flack from investors. So one thing to understand is utilities or fuel buyers will always avoid buying spot prices and pushing them higher. They have zero interest in doing that.  All they want to do is secure long term contracts for supply. They prefer to sign deals with ceiling prices. They also try when possible to sign deals centered around a price like $45/lb (like they have with Cameco) but if the spot price goes up they only pay a portion of the increase.

    URPTF Uranium Participation Corp

    Uranium Participation Corp’s US ADR is broke out to the upside out of the recent wedge on Wednesday. The company is now pursuing a US listing, which in our view, will prompt front-running inflows.

    Uranium Market

    Oversupplied market like we’ve had meant they could point to a weak spot price and contract as such. Back then UPC (Uranium Participation Corp) wasn’t able to issue shares at the market and needed to trade at a decent premium in order to be able to justify paying issuance fees and accretively purchase more uranium. So here we are today. About a year off the bottom of the uranium market. Yellow cake did an issuance and some miners bought some lbs. Well the big dog in the space is upc by a country mile and it’s been notably quiet for months cause they were obviously working on this deal. In order to change to the trust format and be dual listed in Canada and the USA they needed a licensed money manager. Enter Sprott 2021 and the physical ETF powerhouse it’s become. UPC will become much like the Silver and Gold etfs and be able do ATM issuance. This is a complete game changer. It means both retail and institutional investors will be able to cause physical uranium to be purchased like never before.

    UPC shares will be issued with just a slight premium and uranium will be purchased as close to real time as possible. Many of us uranium investors have a very positive view on physical uranium but often shy away from buying upc or yellowcake at a premium knowing well that any day a deal could be announced and the premium gets crushed and you can lose a quick 5 or 10 percent. Totally kills it. Demand has in my mind been incredibly pent up as a result of the lack of a clean structure.   Also, many institutions will only allocate on a deal if that. Liquidity and lack of ability to get in or out near NAV is a big concern (as it should be). Well very soon that’s solved. Not only that but consider the various uranium etfs that also hold a piece of Uranium participation corp or Yellowcake. Those etfs continually issue shares and basket buy their holdings. We imagine often pushing the premium up on upc and likely cause other shareholders to sell. So once the transition is complete when uranium stock etfs get inflows and buy upc it will directly cause uranium lbs to be purchased. This improved liquidity may end up causing some etfs to increase there weighting in upc as a result. (Btw say good bye to yellowcakes premium. We doubt yellow cake will raise much more money unless they can issue ATM as well and we don’t know AIM rules.

    So, carrying on with upc. Having it NYSE listed will give it much better exposure and make it eligible for many USA based funds that either cant or don’t invest in Canada. The total size of USA market is around $50 trillion vs Canada $3.5 trillion. 13x bigger.

    UPC has not done an issuance yet in this uranium bull market.  It was trading at a discount last year and actually sold uranium and bought back stock because it was accretive to do so. So the North American markets have been ‘underserved’ for a year.

    Bulls will be buying UPC as soon as it has the ATM ability and they know their purchase will go to new uranium purchase. High conviction bulls feel the uranium price will be double in a few years or less… It’s the biggest no brainer safe trade you can find. If only a double in 10 years that’s 7 percent per annum. And it will double in 2 years or less, bulls say.

    Institutions, high net worth, and retail investors will flock to it. So as some will argue.. that’s just noise. It was gonna happen anyhow.  Well on to the next part… it’s not just about soaking up the spot market it’s about releasing this a new beast and what it does to the market psychologically. Fuel buyers / utilities are going to soon panic as they see the UPC doing volume every day and issuing shares. They will be following the spot market and wondering like all of us where the price will go next.  How many more marginal lbs are available in the spot market? Potential sellers of spot will likely decide to hang on and ‘see’ what happens. It’s a totally new dynamic and it’s effect shouldn’t be under estimated.

    In the past, just prior to an issuance by a upc or yellow cake they would put a call into a trader or Denison on behalf of upc.

    Transformational deal.

    Utilities will learn they overplayed their hand, now they will PAY up. We can’t tell you how many times we have said that in an asset class this mispriced things just happen to realize the value. And this is one of those things.

    This deal between Sprott and UPC is transformational. It has the potential to be immense.

    If run like their other commodity trusts, which we see no reason why not, it now puts a daily bid in the market. It allows for pure price speculation on a daily basis – which heretofore has  not existed. It doesn’t require establishment of storage agreements by investors. They can just express their view in the market every day. This will take UxC’s bullshit broker average price that shows up daily based on bullshit trader bids and asks and render it useless as the price will be the last traded price . And with flows into a trust that buys uranium – well. That is new to this market. A constant bid in the market. This is what happens when something is absurdly cheap – it attracts capital.

    Utilities with spot referred contracts – good luck. They may not figure it out right away. They will when investors have a vehicle to buy uranium every day.

    Also, we assume that they will correct some of the features of UPC that held it back. For example, we assume they will maintain an evergreen prospectus and tap overnight markets to be agile. And, also we assume they will remove the restriction that procurement can only happen at a premium to NAV while buying uranium at a significant discount to market. That was always stupid.

    Also the WMC guys are sharp. They will bring credibility to the investor marketing. And, assuming their liaison role extends to procurement and sales (building a small book to cover fees) they are quite familiar with the principles a fund needs to follow in these areas to maximize value for its investors (versus maximizing value for traders and utilities).

    A Decade after Fukushima, Japan Restarting Nuclear

    Japan; Governor has officially approved restart of 3 more nuclear reactors in Takahama-1 & 2 and Mihama-3. Minister says Japan “will use nuclear power sustainably into the future” – promising grants for further restarts.

    Meanwhile…

    Japan’s Coal Pipeline is Bare After Last Planned Project Axed – Link Here

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/01/2021 – 16:45

  • Aussies Trying To Return Home From India Face Up To $66,600 In Fines Or Five Years Imprisonment
    Aussies Trying To Return Home From India Face Up To $66,600 In Fines Or Five Years Imprisonment

    Australians trying desperately to return home from COVID-stricken India will face fines and jail time, according to treasurer Josh Frydenberg, who defended the hardline approach as “drastic” but necessary, and denied it’s “irresponsible” to leave fellow Australians stranded.

    “https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/apr/30/australian-gover…,” said Frydenberg, adding “We’ve acted on the medical advice.”

    “The situation in India is dire. It is very serious. More than 200,000 people have died and there are more than 300,000 new cases a day.”

    As The Guardian reports, the move comes after two Australian cricketers circumvented a travel ban after traveling from India to Qatar before returning home, after the government banning all direct flights from India.

    After Friday’s meeting of the national cabinet, the prime minister, Scott Morrison, issued a statement saying governments “noted the measures that have been put in place to restrict entry into Australia of people who have previously been in high-risk countries determined by the chief medical officer”.

    “National cabinet noted the chief medical officer’s assessment that India is the first country to meet the threshold of a high-risk country,” the statement said.

    It foreshadowed “further measures to mitigate risks of high-risk travellers entering Australia” but did not flag criminalising returns explicitly.

    Earlier in the day, Morrison told Sydney radio station 2GB a loophole whereby travellers could get around the India flight ban by transiting through a third country was closed on Wednesday evening. -The Guardian

    “That flight that those cricketers were on managed to get away just before that,” added Morrison. “We had information on Monday that that wasn’t possible.”

    Australian health minister, Greg Hunt, announced the strict measures late Friday night, adding that anyone attempting to sidestep the regulations would be hit with fines of up to $66,600 or five years in prison, or both.

    “The government does not make these decisions lightly,” said Hunt, invoking powers granted under the Biosecurity Act to introduce the measures. “However, it is critical the integrity of the Australian public health and quarantine systems is protected and the number of Covid-19 cases in quarantine facilities is reduced to a manageable level.”

    The new rule will take effect beginning Monday and will be reviewed on May 15.

    Biosecurity regulations invoked to manage public health during the pandemic already give government authorities sweeping powers.

    Biosecurity control orders currently allow authorities to require an individual to provide contact details, regularly update an officer of their health status, restrict movement by remaining at the individual’s place of residence for a specified period, undergo decontamination, provide body samples for diagnosis, undertake treatment or receive a vaccination, remain in Australia for up to 28 days, or be isolated at a medical facility.

    In addition to control orders, the regulations give the health minister scope to determine biosecurity emergencies. These powers allow the minister to “determine any requirement that he or she is satisfied is necessary” to prevent entry or spread of disease. -The Guardian

    Last week, Australia suspended direct commercial and government repatriation flights from India until mid-may, leaving around 9,000 Australian nationals who have registered with the Department of Foreign Affairs in limbo. According to the report, around 650 of them are considered vulnerable.

    Approximately 20,000 individuals have returned to Australia from India since March 2020.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 05/01/2021 – 16:20

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May 01

Today’s News 1st May 2021

  • Biden's Anti-Eurasian Green Delusion And America's Race To Irrelevance
    Biden’s Anti-Eurasian Green Delusion And America’s Race To Irrelevance

    Authored by Matthew Ehret via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    Many people couldn’t help but laugh when Biden told the Boris Johnson on March 26 that the USA and it’s NATO allies should create “an infrastructure plan to rival the Belt and Road Initiative” post haste. What would such a program look like? How would it be funded when the USA is so embarrassingly bankrupt? Who among the nations of the world would ever consider buying a ticket onto such a sinking ship?

    It took a few weeks for details to finally emerge, but by the end of the April 22-23 Climate Summit hosted by Biden, John Kerry and Anthony Blinken, it has become abysmally clear what delusions possessed the poor president.

    After having announced a 52% carbon reduction policy below 2005 levels by 2050, Biden swiftly committed the USA to what he called the most comprehensive infrastructure plan in history with a $2 trillion Green New Deal-like infrastructure program designed to revive the policy of America’s 32nd president Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mirroring FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps, Biden has even planned a Civilian Climate Corps, along with a Green Climate Bank to parallel FDR’s Reconstruction Finance Corporation.

    The catch? Biden’s version was written by the same financial technocrats that FDR went to war with 80 years ago and unlike FDR’s version, the modern green version of the New Deal will have the effect of destroying the productive industrial powers and living standards of the nation once green grids are built.

    A Comparison of Two New Deals

    Where FDR’s New Deal was premised on the removal of Wall Street’s hegemony over national sovereignty via the Pecora Commission, Glass-Steagall, and SEC; Biden’s Green New Deal is shaped by Central Bankers’ Climate Compacts and green finance strategies authored by the richest oligarchs on the planet like the Bloomberg-Carney Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures. In fact, it shouldn’t come as a coincidence that the first legislative effort to establish a Green New Deal, was not American at all, but was submitted by Britain’s Lord Adair Turner in 2009 while he was acting head regulator of the City of London which remains the nerve center of world finance today as it was a century ago. Up until 2019, Lord Turner was the chair of George Soros’ Institute for New Economic Thinking- an organization devoted to making Huxley’s Brave New World a practical reality and upon which he still serves as Senior Fellow.

    Where FDR created large scale infrastructure megaprojects like the Tennessee Valley Authority, Rural Electrification Project, Hoover Dam, Colorado River Basin programs, and St Lawrence Seaway which all had the effect of leap frogging to higher rates of industrial power than at any other time in history, Biden’s Green New Deal professes to do the opposite. Yes, jobs will be created in insulating a few million homes and building windmills and solar panels, however those jobs will be short lived. For once they are built there will be nothing left to do but maintain the solar panels with unionized squeegees in an imaginary world of no change and zero-technological growth that might look good in computer models, but has very little correspondence with humanity’s actual requirements for long term survival.

    It appears to be genuinely believed by ivory tower technocrats managing the Biden Administration that financing a green infrastructure program won’t be difficult. The 2020-21 pandemic showed the enlightened elite that money can always just be printed from thin air. The U.S. debt has already risen to 27 trillion, so what’s a few trillion more?

    Where that fails, just compensate by imposing Carbon Pricing onto all carbon sinners. Many nations have already gotten onboard that bandwagon with Sweden, Lichtenstein and Canada leading the race charging $129, $96, and $91 per ton of carbon emissions respectively. Coming out of Biden’s Climate Summit, Canada’s Justin Trudeau committed to raising this cost to $170/ton by 2030 while U.S. National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy announced will soon rise to $56/ton in the USA (a seven fold increase from the $1-7/ton price under Trump).

    Additionally, cap and trade schemes are always there for wealthy polluters to purchase unused carbon quotas from poorer polluters at home or abroad, so revenue can certainly be found that way. If all else fails, just raise taxes.

    In case poor nations of the world might feel like avoiding this sinking ship in order to work more closely with Russia and China, Biden was kind enough to announce a new international green finance strategy to assist the developing sector in their decarbonizing aspirations.

    The Problem with Green Energy

    For those who doubt the idea that the USA can or even should meet those 2035 carbon reduction targets, they might have solid reasons for their assumptions. For one thing, the USA currently relies upon 1,852 coal fired power plants which would mean that 11 plants would need to be shut down every month until 2035. What would compensate for this loss of capacity?

    Obviously not nuclear, since that has become politically-radioactive in the minds of most of Biden’s liberal constituency.

    Would it be green energy that fills the gap? Considering that green energy is magnitudes more costly, and unreliable relative to fossil fuels, hydro or nuclear power, that is also unlikely. The truth is, as Germany discovered recently, shutting down coal and nuclear at home, simply forces a nation to keep fossil fuel plants running as back up for the unreliable green energy grids while increasing imports of coal/natural gas-driven electricity from other countries. In Germany’s case, imports of nuclear and coal-generated electricity from Poland and the Czech Republic increased by 60% since the nation’s industrial base understood that green energy sources could never meet it’s needs. In the USA’s case, Mexico would most likely be the top supplier. Across the European Union where most nations have entirely submitted to pressure to “decarbonize” by 2050, coal, gas and crude oil imports now make up 2/3rds of all energy imports.

    While some advocates of the Green New Deal applaud the amazing breakthroughs in green energy tech over the past years which they say has reduced the price per kilowatt hour from an unreasonably high 35 cents to as low as 4 cents today… the truth is that the technology remains largely identical to the photovoltaic cells and windmills of yesterday with the only difference being the massively increased infusions of government subsidies given to private companies producing the green energy which the IMF calculated to be $5.2 trillion in 2017 alone (aka: 6.5% of the global GDP). And where do those subsidies come from? you guessed it. The tax payers.

    Lest we forget the oft-overlooked fuel source of bioethanol, over 40% of the USA’s corn production currently gets burned in the form of biodiesel and ethanol while billions starve and suffer food shortages around the world. The high cost of being green.

    Geopolitical Incompetence 101

    You might now be asking: Why would the USA which has admittedly chosen to define itself as an existential rival to Russia and China to the point of risking a full-scale nuclear war, be so intent on subverting its own economic foundations at a moment that both Russia and China (and over 136 nations of the world) have chosen to move on toward a diametrically opposing paradigm of large-scale infrastructure growth and scientific progress?

    If we take the old adage “whom the gods would destroy they first make mad” as a truism, then signs for a bright future for the Green New Dealing western community poor indeed.

    Since Biden’s first days as president of the USA, the entire fabric of U.S. governance from top to bottom was completely overhauled in the form of omnibus executive orders designed to make the global climate emergency the top priority for all branches and levels of government- economic, military, intelligence, health and beyond. Under this green geostrategic paradigm, vast starvation, migration patterns, and wars have much less to do with imperial abuse, and everything to do with global warming.

    Biden created new directorates of climate policy with offices in the White House, demanded that the Director of National Intelligence and State Department overhaul their governance around dealing with the climate crisis and even passed executive orders banning all oil and natural gas drilling and exploration projects on land or offshore where government land is held. Biden even went so far as to assert that 30% of the entire surface of the USA would be brought off limits to all development by 2030.

    Sustained vs Sustainable Development

    Compare this with China which has simultaneously committed to building green energy systems without deluding itself into thinking that fossil fuels, nuclear or hydro could be taken out of their energy baskets.

    In fact, the primary fuel sources driving the large-scale development corridors of the New Silk Road are considered “dirty” sources verboten by the west like coal, natural gas, oil, nuclear and hydro. This fact even drove a delusional Biden to attempt to pressure Xi Jinping to speed up their phase out of coal by 2030 to which the Chinese leader responded “no”.

    Biden had earlier described China as the primary climate offender of the world saying: “China is far and away the largest emitter of carbon in the world, and through its massive Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing is also annually financing billions of dollars of dirty fossil fuel energy projects across Asia and beyond.” He even demanded that leaders of the west “rally a united front of nations to hold China accountable to high environmental standards in its Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure projects, so that China can’t outsource pollution to other countries.”

    In his remarks at the Climate Summit, President Putin re-emphasized to the western puppet heads of state who were busy massaging each other and chanting “build back better” in unison, that “green growth” should not occur at the expense of “sustainable growth”. Simply put, Putin is committed to putting people before ivory tower energy policies that may demand human sacrifices at the alter of Gaia, and emphasized Russia’s commitment to nuclear power, raising its fertility rate, raising average life expectancy which has already grown from 56 years/male and 61/female in the mid-1990s to 70 years today and plans are to increase that to 78 years by 2030.

    The irony about all of this is that China and Russia are increasingly adopting a system of political economy which is fundamentally OPEN and driven by scientific and technological progress without any supposed limits on its potential for improvement. This paradigm is fundamentally in harmony with the original New Deal policy of Franklin D. Roosevelt who himself envisioned a post-imperial world of win-win cooperation (in opposition to a dystopic closed-system world envisioned by Winston Churchill). The USA on the other hand, which professes to be the heir to the New Deal reforms of Franklin Roosevelt has come to embody the worst aspects of the Malthusian elite managing the British Empire for centuries which FDR devoted his life to stop.

    It was this empire that considered it “scientifically necessary” to subjugate India, China, Ireland, Africa and every other rival to lives of poverty, war, famine and stupidification.

    This was the empire which the republican revolution of 1776 aimed at overthrowing- not only from the Americas, but internationally. It is this same empire which was nearly destroyed by the Russian-U.S. alliance that shaped much of the 19th century and which again arose during WW2 as FDR and Stalin recognized they had much more in common with each other than either had with arch-racist Churchill. The British Empire was always run as a “closed system”, scientifically managed intelligence operation following Malthusian principles and adherence to strict mathematical equilibrium. In this formula for domination, military forces have typically been less important than control of nerve centers of finance, narcotics and other levers of corruption mental and spiritual corruption than many people- even among the most educated historians realize.

    And so we have come full circle. The gods have certainly made those elites managing the west mad, but whether or not the entire world will have to pay the price of their insanity yet remains to be seen.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/30/2021 – 23:40

  • NYPD Puts Down Robot Dog After Backlash 
    NYPD Puts Down Robot Dog After Backlash 

    The New York Police Department (NYPD) will part ways with its controversial robotic dog after mounting uproar from the public and lawmakers. 

    John Miller, the NYPD deputy commissioner for intelligence and counterterrorism, told NYTimes that it ended a leasing contract with Boston Dynamics early for the four-legged robotic dog called “Digidog.” 

    A subpoena from City Councilman Ben Kallos and Council Speaker Corey Johnson revealed the NYPD’s leasing contract with Boston Dynamics, amounted to $94,000. The leasing agreement was terminated on April 22. The original lease agreement was through August.

    The termination of the lease was due to a series of incidents where the four-legged robot was deployed to a house invasion in the Bronx in February and a low-income housing project in Manhattan for patrol. Critics likened it to a surveillance robo-dog out of the dystopic TV series “Black Mirror.”

    Miller said the contract was terminated because the police force was improperly using the device to fuel heated discussions about race and surveillance. 

    “People had figured out the catchphrases and the language to make this evil somehow,” Miller said.

    He did not rule out the possibility of Digidog returning to the police force at some future date. 

    “But for now, this is a casualty of politics, bad information and cheap sound bytes,” he said. “We should have named it ‘Lassie.'”

    In February, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez denounced the robot, saying police officers were targeting low-income communities. She also had an issue with the funds spent to lease the device. 

    “Please ask yourself: when was the last time you saw next-generation, world-class technology for education, healthcare, housing, etc consistently prioritized for underserved communities like this?” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted at the time.

    Bill Neidhardt, a spokesman for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, said he was “glad the Digidog was put down.”

    A spokesperson for Boston Dynamics said Wednesday its robots are not designed to be used as weapons nor used to intimidate people. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/30/2021 – 23:20

  • Blighted San Francisco Diagnoses Its "Perilous Trifecta" …And Bungles The Cure
    Blighted San Francisco Diagnoses Its “Perilous Trifecta” …And Bungles The Cure

    Authored by Christopher Rufo via RealClearInvestigations.com,

    San Francisco is coming undone. In recent years, the city has manifested a series of visible and persistent inequalities, with a spoils-to-the-victor world for its technological elite, and a chaotic, brutalized world for its dispossessed. In the city’s Tenderloin district, men openly hawk drugs on the street corners, desperate addicts are crumpled across the sidewalks, and first responders dart through the chaos to revive overdose victims.

    The city has become a web of contradictions. There are thousands of new millionaires, and, by the latest estimates, 18,000 people in and out of homelessness. The headquarters of Uber, Twitter, and Square are blocks away from the open-air drug markets of the Tenderloin, Mid-Market, and SoMa. Wealthy families attending an art opening at the Civic Center have to cross through the tent encampments that line the sidewalks.

    Residents, property owners, and small businesses—who pay an enormous premium to live and work in San Francisco—have begun to erupt in frustration. Citizens tell pollsters that homelessness is the city’s most pressing issue and business owners tell pollsters that “conditions on [the] streets have progressively deteriorated.”

    Mayor London Breed of San Francisco: Trying to address the city’s problems by expanding institutions the chronically homeless keep cycling through.

    City Hall has begun coming to terms with the crisis. Mayor London Breed recently hired a director of mental health reform, Dr. Anton Nigusse Bland, who compiled a statistical summary of the problem. People have long known that San Francisco has a homelessness problem, but Nigusse Bland discovered a population-within-a-population—the so-called “perilous trifecta”: 

    4,000 men and women who are simultaneously homeless, psychotic, and addicted to alcohol, meth, or heroin.

    About 70 % of them have been on the streets for more than five years; 40% have been on the streets for more than 13 years.

    This is the city’s fundamental predicament.

    How do you help people in the grips of the perilous trifecta? What interventions could make progress? Where do social workers even start?

    It’s almost impossible to understate the depths of this challenge.

    Dr. Anton Nigusse Bland, city mental health director: Identified 4,000 suffering from the “perilous trifecta” of homelessness, mental illness, and addiction

    San Francisco’s current policy toward the perilous trifecta can be best described as compassionate neglect. Every year, the chronically homeless cycle through the institutions of the socialized state, from hospitals, jails, and shelters, to sobering centers, case management appointments, and 72-hour psychiatric holds. Local government provides enough to meet an outward standard of compassion, but not enough to alter the trajectories of the homeless. The result is a disaster, which has drawn criticism across the political spectrum. Progressives are demanding more funding for existing programs, while moderates are bewildered by the eternal recurrence of tents, needles, and feces in their neighborhoods.

    The current policy regime can be divided into three domains — the hospital, the jail, and the subsidized apartment.

    Together, these institutions represent the new orthodoxy of the modern urban approach: Homelessness is reduced to a set of social-scientific variables, to be manipulated through the intensive application of the medical and social sciences.

    As part of its medical system, San Francisco currently spends more than $255 million per year on mental health and substance abuse programs, many of which cater to the city’s homeless. In a recent audit of the behavioral health system, the city’s budget and legislative analyst found that 70% of all psychiatric emergency visits involved a homeless individual and that 66% of all visitors had co-occurring mental health and substance abuse disorders. In total, the top 5% of “super-users,” totaling 2,239 adults, the majority of whom fall into the perilous trifecta, accounted for 52% of total systemwide service use. Doctors at San Francisco General see the same set of patients so frequently that they have developed an entire vocabulary to describe the population that circles in and out of their doors.

    The jail system is next. According to the San Francisco County Jail, the homeless account for 40% of all inmates — despite being less than 1% of the city’s overall population, and even after San Francisco decriminalized many quality-of-life crimes associated with homelessness. Again, the perilous trifecta looms large. Inmates with co-occurring mental health and substance abuse disorders are more likely to be homeless and more likely to be charged with a violent crime compared to the general jail population. The pithy observation about deinstitutionalization is largely true: The people who might have once lived in the state mental hospital have simply been transferred to the county jail.

    Neither hospitals, jails, nor public housing have solved San Francisco’s homelessness epidemic.

    Finally, the public-housing complex is the new great hope, and fastest-growing public expenditure, for the homeless. Like many major West Coast cities, San Francisco has gone all in on “Housing First,” the theory that the municipal government must provide free housing for the homeless in perpetuity, with no expectations of sobriety, work, or participation in rehabilitation programs. For a city with a recurring homeless population of 18,000, this is an enormous expense. In 2019, San Francisco spent $285 million on shelters and “permanent supportive housing,” plus $65 million on traditional public housing, vouchers, and SRO units. At the same time, voters passed an additional $600 million bond to build “affordable housing.” But still, 67% of the Bay Area’s homeless are unsheltered.

    Even as they tout “evidence-based interventions,” “data-driven solutions,” and “best practices,” leaders in San Francisco have recognized the failure of the current system and proposed an ambitious reform agenda. However, in broad terms, this agenda only deepens its dependency on the social-scientific model and doubles-down on its worst assumptions. It can be summarized this way: deinstitutionalization, destigmatization, and decriminalization.

    In 2019, Mayor Breed and Supervisors Matt Haney and Hillary Ronen championed legislation for sweeping “mental health reform.” The plan would increase total spending on mental health and substance abuse to $500 million per year, and prioritize the homeless, create a central service center, and pressure private insurers to cover more costs. When it passed unanimously through the Board of Supervisors, Ronen celebrated it as a progressive milestone: “We just created the first universal mental health and substance use system in the country.”

    San Francisco’s homeless problem can be traced back to the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill after Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel and this subsequent film.

    But this universality is only a theoretical formulation. The legislation does not include a funding source and, more important, simply expands the existing behavioral health system rather than reforming it. For the perilous trifecta, the problem is often not access to services, but participation in services. According to the latest one-night count, only 17% of the homeless reported using mental health services and only 11% reported using substance abuse services. For the unsheltered population, these figures are almost certainly lower.

    The problem is that members of the perilous trifecta are the least likely to seek services. According to the Treatment Advocacy Center, approximately half the patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder suffer from anosognosia, which is the inability to understand their own disorder, often leading to a refusal to enter treatment and take medication. Adding a serious addiction to methamphetamine, which can cause paranoia, psychosis, hallucinations, and violent behavior, only compounds the problem.

    In the past, the solution to this paradox was compulsion. The state took custody of the “gravely disabled” and treated them in long-term residential institutions. However, with the exposure of civil rights abuses and the release of Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” the United States gradually dismantled its mental health system, reducing the number of mental health beds per capita by an astonishing 95% between 1955 and 2016. Today, California has fewer beds per capita than the national average, with San Francisco having only 219 adult psychiatric beds available at a given time — drastically insufficient for the number of people in need.

    Although Mayor Breed has tentatively moved towards a return to short-term “conservatorships,” a form of involuntary commitment for individuals who present a grave danger to themselves or others, the plan has neither the scope nor the force to significantly reduce the numbers of the perilous trifecta. Because of pressure from disability activists and the ACLU, which have called conservatorships “the greatest deprivation of civil liberties aside from the death penalty,” the plan is limited to individuals who have had eight or more involuntary psychiatric holds in the past year, which, in practice, would mean less than 100 people citywide.

    Mayor Breed did not return a request for comment.

    San Francisco’s progressive District Attorney faces recall efforts in response to rising crime.

    Many progressive socialists argue that there is too much force in the system, not too little. San Francisco’s district attorney, Chesa Boudin, took office in January 2020 pledging to substantially reduce the county jail population, end cash bail, and decriminalize quality-of-life crimes associated with homelessness, including public camping, drug consumption, prostitution, and public urination. Boudin contends that the criminal justice system in San Francisco is a domain of persistent inequalities – locking up a disproportionate number of poor and minority residents – and has become the dumping ground for the addicted and mentally ill. Rather than continue this system, Boudin argues, the city must “implement a comprehensive transformation of the criminal justice system to decriminalize and treat mental illness, housing instability, and substance use as public health issues rather than criminal justice issues.”

    Boudin’s formulation does align with a single-day snapshot of the San Francisco County Jail population from 2016, which found that 48% of inmates were African American, 70% self-reported substance abuse, and 10% were deemed to have a serious mental illness. However, the narrative that the city is somehow targeting non-violent drug offenders and “criminalizing homeless” is specious. The snapshot also shows that 68% of inmates were arrested for violence, weapons possession, and serious felonies. Contrary to progressive rhetoric, only 4% were arrested for drug crimes — a vanishingly small number of people for a city in the midst of a heroin and methamphetamine epidemic.

    Authorities have enabled massive open-air drug markets in neighborhoods like the Tenderloin.

    The hard reality is that the perilous trifecta has fueled a boom in property crime and public disorder. In 2019, at least 1,120 individuals in the trifecta spent time in the county jail. Although the homicide rate remained static during Boudin’s first year office, burglaries have soared in a city that already had one of the highest property crime rates in the nation, while authorities enabled massive open-air drug markets in neighborhoods like the Tenderloin, which is a central hub for the homeless population.

    The nexus between homelessness, addiction, and crime is clear: According to city and federal data, virtually all of the unsheltered homeless are unemployed, while at the same time, those with serious addictions spend an average of $1,256 to $1,834 a month on methamphetamine and heroin. With no legitimate source of income, many addicts support their habit through a “hustle,” which can include fraud, prostitution, car break-ins, burglaries of residences and business, and other forms of theft.

    Boudin’s plan to decriminalize such property offenses – the mirror opposite of the low-tolerance “broken windows” approach adopted in the late 1980s as crime rates began historic declines – has contributed to the sense that he is not holding criminals accountable. In 2019, the city had an incredible 25,667 “smash-and-grabs,” as thieves sought valuables and other property from cars to sell on the black market. The following year, rather than attempt to prevent or even disincentivize this crime, Boudin has proposed a $1.5 million fund to pay for auto glass repair, arguing that it “will help put money into San Francisco jobs and San Francisco businesses.” In literal terms, Boudin is subsidizing broken windows, under the notion that it can be transformed into a job-creation program.

    Boudin did not return a request for comment.

    Some San Franciscans are pushing back. Earlier this year, a group of residents and business owners launched a recall effort targeting Boudin, arguing that his policies have enabled crime and not done enough to protect victims.           

    The final plank of San Francisco’s policy platform is “destigmatization.” Public health experts in the city have gradually abandoned recovery and sobriety as the ideal outcome, preferring the limited goal of “harm reduction.” In a recent task force report on methamphetamine, the San Francisco Public Health Department noted that meth users “are likely to experience high levels of stigma and rejection in their personal and social lives,” which are “often reinforced by language and media portrayals depicting individuals who use alongside images of immorality, having chaotic lives, and perpetual use.”

    On the surface, this is a strange contention. If San Francisco’s perilous trifecta is any guide, methamphetamine use is heavily correlated with chaotic lives, perpetual drug abuse, crimes against others, and various transgressions against traditional morality. The harm reductionists’ argument, however, rests on the belief that addiction is an involuntary brain disease, akin to Alzheimer’s or dementia. In this view, addiction is better seen as a disability, and any stigma associated with it is therefore an act of ignorance and cruelty. According to the Department of Public Health, the goal of harm reduction policy is to reduce this unjustified stigma and focus public policy on “non-abstinence-based residential treatment programs,” “supervised injection services,” “trauma-informed sobering site[s],” and “training for staff on how to engage marginalized or vulnerable communities in ways that do not perpetuate trauma or stigma.”

    In practice, the task force recommendations would create an entire infrastructure to service addiction, rather than to reduce it. Although proponents of harm reduction claim the mantle of compassion, it’s a fatalistic theory. It assumes that most people cannot recover from serious addiction and, therefore, the social obligation is to provide the space and resources for addicts to pursue their own ends, which, for 40% of the perilous trifecta population, means 13 or more years in and out of homelessness. Activists have suggested that addicts can “reduce harms” by “[using] indoors instead of on the street,” “reducing how much [they are] using,” “transitioning from injecting to smoking,” and “continuing to use one type of drug but quitting another drug.” But in the face of the pathological overload of the perilous trifecta, these recommendations are negligently naïve, relegating a large portion of the homeless to a lifetime of chaos, sickness, and despair.

    In the long term, the real danger of destigmatization is that it would lead to the normalization of serious addiction and its consequences. In San Francisco, progressives have attempted to normalize the worst aspects of street homelessness, minimizing the drug use, toxic waste, psychotic episodes, and related crimes; they have blurred the lines between sickness and health, madness and sanity. Moreover, without a trace of irony, they have weaponized destigmatization itself, stigmatizing anyone who opposes the breakdown of public order as “fascists” and “homeless haters.” 

    An entire social media community has arisen documenting the descent of San Francisco’s streets. Twitter/homelessphilosopher/@PoopScoopSF/@sfstreets1/ @PowelMason415/@CleanUpWestSoma/@EsmeAlaki/@missmrm/@markdfabela

    The implicit wager of San Francisco’s policy is that the social-scientific apparatus can rescue people faster than the perilous trifecta expands its ranks. But the evidence suggests the opposite: that San Francisco has become a magnet for the troubled homeless. Methamphetamine deaths are up nearly 400% over the past five years; fentanyl overdoses doubled between 2019 and 2020. Meanwhile, the socialized state has reached a point of near exhaustion. First responders, police officers, and emergency room nurses are burning out. Psychiatrists at San Francisco General Hospital despair about the mass migration of out-of-state residents in search of the “San Francisco Special”: “housing, a psychiatrist, case manager, primary care provider, and transfer of Medicaid or general assistance.”

    The political class has insisted on greater control over the corporations, developers, and landlords, while deregulating life at the bottom. The result has been a deepening inequality, and an even more anarchic world for the poor. There is an entire social media community of mostly anonymous accounts who document the squalor of the encampments and psychotic episodes in the streets; they are the last resistance to the normalization of the perilous trifecta, and maintain their anonymity, it seems, out of fear of retribution. It’s a dark reality, but perhaps a warning of what’s to come.

    In the end, San Francisco finds itself fighting a monster. “Homelessness isn’t just a problem; it’s a symptom,” says its mayor. “The symptom of unaffordable housing, of income inequality, of institutional racism, of addiction, untreated illness, and decades of disinvestment. These are the problems. And if we’re going to fight homelessness, we’ve got to fight them all.” But this is part of the reason homelessness has become so intractable — —the political class has haunted its own world with abstractions; it has projected its own ideological premises onto the brutal reality of the streets.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/30/2021 – 23:00

  • Ammo And Primer Shortages Continue Into 2021 
    Ammo And Primer Shortages Continue Into 2021 

    Readers have been well informed about multiple shortages of ammunition and firearms in the last year due to a massive demand pull from frightened Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic, social unrest in cities around the US, and the prospect of an anti-gun Biden administration. Now another shortage has materialized: the lack of bullet primers, which is the device responsible for initiating the propellant combustion that pushes the bullet out of the barrel. 

    Besides the ammo shortage of last year, reloading components, like primers, and reloading tools, have become scarce. 

    “Primers are tough for reloaders to find, too, as more and more of them are being used in making factory ammo,” said gun website Wide Open Spaces. 

    Bullets are relatively easy to produce. Brass casings can be reused, and powder is still plentiful, but there’s a bottleneck in ammo production because of the lack of primers. 

    There are only four domestic manufacturers in the US: Federal, CCI, Remington, and Winchester. These firms supply primers to the military and law enforcement and the retail market. 

    So in 2020, when more than 7 million people became first-time gun buyers. They had to buy bullets too. And as a result of the unprecedented demand for ammo, selling out at Walmart, local gun shops, and online websites, the great primer shortage continues. 

    Gun owners are clearly frustrated with excessively high ammo and primer prices that have more than doubled the prices than pre-COVID times. 

    The fact is, ammo companies didn’t have enough capacity to meet demand last year. 

     President of ammunition for Vista Outdoors, Jason Vanderbrink, speaks more about the primer shortage. 

    Due to the ammo and primer shortage, the 3D-printed gun community develops electrical ignitions that replace primers due to the shortage. 

    There are no signs that ammo and primer shortages are abating anytime soon.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/30/2021 – 22:40

  • The American Right Is The New Target Of Washington's "War On Terror"
    The American Right Is The New Target Of Washington’s “War On Terror”

    Authored by Tho Bishop via The Mises Institute,

    The security walls around the US Capitol may be removed, but the federal response to the January 6 protests has only just begun. The Democrats in Washington are determined to treat the incident as on par with the events of September 11, which may explain a troubling report about the potential use of the famed No Fly List.

    Yesterday Nick Fuentes, a right-wing social media pundit who attended the January 6 protests in the capital, alleged that he has been placed on the federal no-fly list, preventing him from traveling to Florida for a political rally. While Mr. Fuentes shared on social media audio of an airline employee suggesting that his flying restriction did come from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), later that night Tucker Carlson informed his audience that his staff could neither confirm nor deny the report. While critics pointed to previous social media posts which documented his being removed from a plane for failing to comply with mask policies, Fuentes has noted that he had no problem flying to Washington in January.

    It is unclear whether federal authorities will be in any rush to clarify the situation, but there is no reason not to assume that federal authorities would attempt to use this war on terror tool against political opponents. From its inception, what originally began as sixteen names federal authorities had connected to potential future terrorist attacks quickly grew to over 1 million. As is the case with other surveillance tools handed over to the deep state, there is very little oversight or due process involved in how federal authorities handle potential “terrorist threats.”

    Since January there has been a concerted effort by Democrat leaders, former deep state officials, and America’s most despicable neoconservatives to push the Biden administration to utilize the power of the federal government against the supporters of Donald Trump. While the incidents at the Capitol on January 6 are used to justify these calls, the weaponization of federal power against political opponents goes back almost as long as the federal government itself. In more recent years, President Biden’s previous service in the White House saw a Democrat administration that used both the IRS and Department of Homeland Security to target conservatives.

    Another reason to expect escalation from the Biden administration against vocal figures like Fuentes is the unique critique of the current regime from the right. The majority of Republican voters do not simply oppose President Biden due to politics, but flatly reject his democratic legitimacy.

    As Murray Rothbard explained, it is precisely this sort of attack that the state fears most:

    The increasing use of scientific jargon has permitted the State’s intellectuals to weave obscurantist apologia for State rule that would have only met with derision by the populace of a simpler age. A robber who justified his theft by saying that he really helped his victims, by his spending giving a boost to retail trade, would find few converts; but when this theory is clothed in Keynesian equations and impressive references to the “multiplier effect,” it unfortunately carries more conviction. And so the assault on common sense proceeds, each age performing the task in its own ways.

    Thus, ideological support being vital to the State, it must unceasingly try to impress the public with its “legitimacy,” to distinguish its activities from those of mere brigands….

    The gravest crimes in the State’s lexicon are almost invariably not invasions of private person or property, but dangers to its own contentment, for example, treason, desertion of a soldier to the enemy, failure to register for the draft, subversion and subversive conspiracy, assassination of rulers and such economic crimes against the State as counterfeiting its money or evasion of its income tax. Or compare the degree of zeal devoted to pursuing the man who assaults a policeman, with the attention that the State pays to the assault of an ordinary citizen. Yet, curiously, the State’s openly assigned priority to its own defense against the public strikes few people as inconsistent with its presumed raison d’être.

    This perspective explains the disproportionate treatment that mostly peaceful protesters at the Capitol in January have received in contrast to those arrested during riots in American cities throughout the past year. The state will always treat those who seriously threaten its perceived legitimacy with greater zeal than those guilty of simply destroying the livelihoods of its citizens.

    This also highlights the self-defeating nature of the modern American conservative movement.

    For decades now, the same political party that often gives lip service to “federalism” has often been the party directly responsible for the growth of federal power. As noted earlier, it took exactly one administration before the Department of Homeland Security, created by the Bush administration, began to target the very voters who elected him to office. It was just two election cycles before the PATRIOT Act was used to target a Republican presidential campaign.

    The biggest question that now lies in American politics is whether conservatives are capable of learning from these examples. If the American right is capable of fully absorbing the reality that the greatest threat to their lives, liberty, and prosperity lies domestically—and not abroad—perhaps there is potential for a political rollback of the American empire.

    If not, American conservatives will come to understand how little constitutional rights truly mean in the face of a hostile state.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/30/2021 – 22:20

  • US Intelligence Tells Congress China's Nuclear Arsenal "On Track To Exceed Our Previous Projection"
    US Intelligence Tells Congress China’s Nuclear Arsenal “On Track To Exceed Our Previous Projection”

    A hearing held by the Senate Armed Services Committee this week on the range of threats the United States faces globally focused on China and Chinese leadership viewing US power as “declining” while Beijing is “rising” on the world stage.

    Most notable from the testimony is US intelligence’s view of China’s expanding nuclear arsenal, which is projected to at least double over the next decade. While currently the Department of Defense estimates China’s warhead stockpile to be in the low-200s, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, told the Senate hearing on Thursday that a rapid expansion of its stockpile is a top priority for Beijing. To the surprise of lawmakers, he strongly suggested that the DIA’s most resent projections actually underestimated China’s true nuclear expansion and ambitions.

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

    “In the span of capabilities that they have, the nuclear piece has been one component. It has been a priority for them,” Berrier told the lawmakers in response to a question by Sen. Tom Cotton, a well-known foremost China hawk. “And I think they have racked and stacked that in the things that they think that they need to get done by 2030 or 2035,” the DIA director followed with.

    Gen. Berrier explained that US defense intelligence now sees China as seeking to outpace even the earlier Pentagon projections. He said:

    “China is expanding and diversifying its nuclear arsenal… Last year, we assessed that China had a nuclear warhead stockpile in the low-200s and projected it to at least double over the next decade.

    Since then, Beijing has accelerated its nuclear expansion and is on track to exceed our previous projection. PLA nuclear forces are expected to continue to grow with their nuclear stockpile likely to at least double in size over this decade and increase the threat to the U.S. homeland.”

    And he further warned China is “probably” seeking to “match” many of America and Russia’s more advanced nuclear warhead capabilities and delivery platforms:

    China probably seeks to narrow, match, or in some areas exceed U.S. qualitative equivalency with new nuclear warheads and delivery platforms that at least equal the effectiveness, reliability, and/or survivability of some U.S. and Russian warheads and delivery platforms under development. The PLA continues to improve its pursuit of a nuclear triad, and increasing evidence indicates that Beijing seeks to keep a portion of its nuclear forces on a “launch-on-warning” posture.

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Berrier elsewhere in the testimony affirmed that China is “the long-term strategic competitor to the United States” and remains “as a pacing threat, [Beijing] poses a major security challenge.”

    Via Japan Times

    He said Beijing is focusing its defense technology efforts “almost certainly” toward holding” US and allied forces at greater risk and greater distances from the Chinese mainland.”

    In 2020 the Illinois-based Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists estimated that China possesses 350 nuclear warheads, a number far higher than the more conservative DoD estimate. In its report at the time the think tank wrote, “We estimate that China has a produced a stockpile of approximately 350 nuclear warheads, of which roughly 272 are for delivery by more than 240 operational land-based ballistic missiles, 48 sea-based ballistic missiles, and 20 nuclear gravity bombs assigned to bombers. The remaining 78 warheads are intended to arm additional land- and sea-based missiles that are in the process of being fielded.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/30/2021 – 22:00

  • Majority Of US Companies Will Require Workers To Provide Proof Of Vaccination
    Majority Of US Companies Will Require Workers To Provide Proof Of Vaccination

    It looks like American colleges won’t be alone in making vaccination mandatory for any students who want to return to campus next semester. Despite the White House’s determination that vaccination shouldn’t be mandatory by law, more than 60% of American companies are reportedly leaning toward requiring proof of vaccination from their employees.

    According to a new survey from the Rockefeller Foundation, 65% of businesses will offer some kind of incentive for employees to get vaccinated, while 63% said they will require proof of vaccination before workers can return to the office.

    Another 35% said disciplinary actions are on the table, including the possibility of termination, for those who refuse vaccines.

    The survey, released Thursday, represents the responses of 957 businesses across 24 industries. Most of the respondents were US businesses with 250 employees or more.

    Even after employees have returned to the office, testing will remain a critical piece of the safety plan provided by most employers.

    Looking ahead, roughly two-thirds of employers are planning to allow employees to work from home full-time through 2021, and 73% intend to offer flexible work arrangements when the pandemic is over. However, 73% of businesses want employees to work from the office at least 20 hours a week.

    “This is not just a bubble that goes back to ‘normal’, there will be some positive flexibility after the pandemic ends and we go back to in-person work,” said Mara G. Aspinall, a professor at Arizona State University’s College of Health Solutions and one of the authors of the survey.

    As far as employee concerns go, most workers said they’re mostly worried about their personal health, risk of infection and safety of the workplace. And when it comes to returning to the office, 38% of employees want to return eventually but not immediately and about one quarter said they are reluctant to return at all.

    “The pandemic has changed the traditional office environment in many ways, possibly forever, yet a majority of employers are indicating they see real value in employees continuing to interact face-to-face,” Nathaniel L. Wade, a co-author of the study who is also affiliated with ASU’s College of Health Solutions. “We really wanted to make sure we’re giving public information to help people make good decisions.”

    Most employees, about 51%, would prefer to wait until the government or health agencies allow them to return to work, and about 47% said they would return to in-person work when the entire workforce is vaccinated.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/30/2021 – 21:55

  • The New Economic World Order After COVID-19
    The New Economic World Order After COVID-19

    Authored by Fred Dunkley via SafeHaven.com,

    “Unless we change direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed.”

    – Chinese proverb.

    A few days ago, China’s President Xi Jinping issued a thinly-veiled attack on the United States, condemning its economic and military hegemony and calling for a new world order whereby “International affairs should be handled by everyone.” Although Xi did not explicitly name the U.S. in his 18-minute speech, he took aim at Washington’s efforts to decouple supply chains from China, specifically the Trump administration’s ban on American semiconductors and other high-tech goods from being sold to Chinese companies such as Huawei.

    Xi lamented the current unilateralism, saying the rules set by one or a few countries ‘‘should not give the whole world a rhythm.’’

    Interestingly, Xi made those comments just days after U.S. President Joe Biden and Japan’s prime minister Yoshihide Suga committed to work together to oppose Chinese coercion in the South and East China Seas. 

    Readers might be wondering which are these privileged economies that might be giving Xi hissy fits.

    Well, it’s mostly the usual suspects, apart from the usual exceptions.

    Whereas the Covid-19 pandemic has sent many economies into their worst economic recessions in recent history, the old world economic order remains mostly intact with the exception of a few notable changes. More importantly, the United States, China, Japan and Germany, in that order, still rank as the world’s largest economies.

    However, some countries have moved places as a result of the pandemic while others are no longer among elite company.

    The data is derived from CNBC, which compares nominal gross domestic product across countries provided in the IMF’s World Economic Outlook database.

    So what are the biggest developments in post-pandemic economic rankings?

    Here we go:

    Brazil drops off

    For starters, Brazil has dropped out of Top 10.

    The big news in the New World Order is that Brazil went from being the ninth largest economy in 2019 to the 12th largest last year. Indeed, the South American powerhouse was the only country to fall out of the top 10 ranking.

    Even worse news for BRIC investors: The IMF says Brazil’s time in the cold is likely to last until 2026 when it might return to the Top 10.

    That revelation is hardly surprising, considering that Brazil is currently afflicted by the world’s third-largest caseload of Covid-19 infections, with the health secretary recently warning of an imminent collapse by the country’s health system.

    On a brighter note, the IMF has forecast that Brazil’s economy will expand 3.7% in FY 2021 after contracting 4.1% in 2020.

    South Korea rising

    Naturally, there’s a new entrant to the Top 10, which happens to be South Korea.

    With Brazil dropping out of the world’s 10 biggest economies, South Korea moved up to 10th place with the IMF predicting that it might maintain that spot till 2026.

    South Korea has recorded some success against Covid-19 though cases have been surging again this month.

    However, strong semiconductor exports have been instrumental in limiting economic contraction to just 1% in 2020.

    A global shortage in semiconductor chips has been wreaking havoc on the tech sector, automotive industry, consumer electronics industry, and everything in between. After years of tepid demand, the COVID-19 pandemic spurred a huge tech buying spree with manufacturers of personal computers, tablets, laptops, and gaming consoles­ caught off guard. 

    Indeed, the PC industry has been enjoying a major revival thanks to the work-at-home phenomenon with computer sales in 2020 exceeding 302 million units, good for a 13% Y/Y increase and the most since 2014. At the same time, webcam sales surged almost 360% with video conferencing becoming the new buzzword of modern communication.

    The trade war between the United States and China has only served to make a bad situation worse.

    In a decision announced last fall, the U.S. Commerce Department declared Chinese chip manufacturer Semiconductor Manufacturing International or SMIC, persona non grata after determining the company supplies the Chinese military with chips thus making it a threat to national security. The federal government restricted SMIC from obtaining some U.S.-regulated chip-making equipment leading to U.S. buyers cutting back orders from the company. SMIC is one of the largest manufacturers of semiconductor chips, accounting for about 5% of global semiconductor supply.

    Luckily, South Korea’s chip manufacturers have largely remained in Washington’s good books.

    U.K. leapfrogs India

    Another piece of bad news for BRIC investors: India, the world’s fifth largest economy in 2019, slipped to sixth place after the U.K. leapfrogged it.

    Unlike Brazil though, the IMF says the South Asian country could regain fifth place as early as 2023. 

    India has struggled to contain the pandemic even amidst widespread lockdowns, with the IMF predicting that the economy contracted a whopping 8% in FY 2020 which ended in March 2021.

    On its part, the U.K. has rolled out the second-most most successful Covid-19 vaccination program after the U.S. In fact, businesses in the country are doing brisk business after lockdown reopening–another big plus for the economy.

    In the final analysis, the old order appears set to remain mostly unchanged especially at the top echelons. U.S. businesses remain eager to expand their operations in China after the Asian nation recorded 18.3% year-on-year economic growth in the first quarter of 2021 but are constrained by geopolitical tensions between the two nations remaining high with the Biden administration recently announcing that it will maintain most of the Trump-era tariffs. This is unlikely to change anytime soon.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/30/2021 – 21:40

  • Farm Robot Zaps Weeds With High-Powered Lasers, Eliminates Need For Toxic Herbicides
    Farm Robot Zaps Weeds With High-Powered Lasers, Eliminates Need For Toxic Herbicides

    In the same way, a self-driving car sees its surroundings on city streets, sensors that use machine learning technology allow farm robots to navigate fields. Automation is a growing presence in the farm industry, and a new generation of autonomous robots is helping farmers shape tomorrow’s crops.

    Crops that can be harvested with barely any or no herbicides would be beneficial not just to humans but also to the environment. An oddly-shaped autonomous farm tractor can eliminate the need for toxic herbicides by using high-powered lasers to weed about 20 acres per day to solve this dilemma. 

    Robotics company Carbon Robotics unveiled its newest weed elimination robot, Autonomous Weeder, which leverages artificial intelligence, sensors, and lasers to eliminate weeds on commercial farms.

    “Traditional chemicals used by farmers, such as herbicides, deteriorate soil health and are tied to health problems in humans and other mammals. A laser-powered, autonomous weed management solution reduces or eliminates farmers’ needs for herbicides,” Carbon Robotics’ website said. 

    Autonomous Weeder offers an economical path towards organic farming that is generally labor-intensive. The robot also reduces the highly variable cost of manual labor. 

    “AI and deep learning technology are creating efficiencies across a variety of industries, and we’re excited to apply it to agriculture,” said Carbon Robotics CEO and Founder Paul Mikesell. 

    Mikesell continued: “Farmers, and others in the global food supply chain, are innovating now more than ever to keep the world fed. Our goal at Carbon Robotics is to create tools that address their most challenging problems, including weed management and elimination.”

    Here’s a demo video of the farm robot zapping weeds in a field. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/30/2021 – 21:20

  • The Need To Regulate Big Tech – Part 2: Moral Hazards In Space
    The Need To Regulate Big Tech – Part 2: Moral Hazards In Space

    Authored by Bill Blain via MorningPorridge.com,

    Read Part 1 here…

    “Insufficient facts always invite danger.”

    Is it right to let a small number of very wealthy entrepreneurs fill Earth’s already crowded orbital space to establish non-terrestrial internet monopolies? What are the risks, and are the costs justified? Should orbital space be a public good?

    A few years ago I read a Sci-fi novel where the moon breaks into three parts. Everyone oohs and ahhs at the beauty of the new multiple moon system until it becomes apparent the new moons are colliding, creating hundred of smaller pieces. The pace of collisions increases chaotically towards a tipping point as the number of rocks increases, until the space debris starts bombarding the earth, wiping out life on the planet. Devasting stuff, and very unlikely.

    But there is a genuine scientific parallel.

    There are already millions of pieces of space junk orbiting the planet – ranging from broken satellites to discarded space gloves, some spanners and lots of flecks of paint that’s broken off spaceships. These orbit at stupendous speed. If they hit anything, they have the potential to cause enormous damage. If they destroy anything, then a single piece of debris can create a whole cloud of debris, each piece of which can cause similar damage, raising the potential of critical out of control chain reaction and a cloud of debris making space travel very dangerous.

    Scary… if you are spaceman.

    Many smart Tech investors consider the most valuable private company on the planet is Elon Musk’s Space X and his internet constellation Starlink. There are a host of other firms also shooting for space-based coms dominance; including the UK government’s recently acquired OneWeb, Jeff Bezos’ Project Kuiper (funded by Amazon), ViaSat and Telesat. All of them want to launch satellites into low-earth-orbit to win a share of space-based internet.

    Space X is doing a superb job transporting astronauts to the ISS. They are perfecting reusable rockets. I’m excited they may fly to the moon. I’ll be even happier if Musk gets his way and goes to Mars. I’ve written about the company a number of times: To the Stars, But Mars First, and Rocketmen and Viruses.

    Despite my admiration… I am not convinced we actually need the Starlink system. The risk it might destroy the viability of future space-based businesses is very small. But do we really need multiple competing space-based systems? And if not, should not Orbital Space be a public good regulated for the good of all, rather than the enrichment of the few?

    Wouldn’t it be better environmentally, at a much lower cost to simply continue to improve current terrestrial connectivity, rather than lob up hundreds of nasty big polluting rockets on the basis some Nutjob prepper in isolation in the Rockies will be able to post insane hatred on the internet? Maybe all these rockets could be used for obtaining resources from the solar system, or learning more about space based threats like asteroids or solar flares?

    Space based internet is a reality. It’s interesting to note the French have now taken a stake in OneWeb, where the UK holds the golden share.

    Today there may be 4000 satellites in orbit – a number that has nearly doubled in just a few years. That number is set to increase quadratically as all the new Satellite constellations go up.

    It was once fun to spot the occasional satellite traversing the sky, or streaking across a telescope viewfinder. Astronomers increasingly report trains of satellites are obscuring their stellar observations. The new Starlink satellites are 99% brighter than other “objects of all types currently in Earth Orbit”, said a US University of Michigan astronomer. There are around 9000 visible stars – but they are increasingly fazed by clouds of satellites “crawling” across the skies.

    Who cares about Astronomers when there is money to be made? Well… I do!

    The Low Earth Orbital (LEO) space will become increasingly crowded with potentially 30-40,000 new active satellites to be launched in the next few years. The lower their orbits, the more dense and more concentrated orbital risks become – but the advantage is shorter latency, the time delay caused by distance. LEO satellites latency should compare with pre-5G terrestrial internet in terms of speed of communication.

    But, as I said in the intro, space debris is a rising risk. A malfunctioning satellite is just a lump shooting round the planet at 25k mph looking for something else to hit. The denser the space becomes, the riskier it gets. For years space geeks have warned about debris circling the planet. The proverbial fleck of paint has enough momentum to destroy a satellite or puncture the International Space Station (ISS).

    The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is considering a request from Space X to lower the orbits of nearly 3000 licenced units from 1000 km to 550 km orbits, joining the 1400 Starlink birds already flying at 540-580 km. Jeff Bezos intends to layer his 3,236 unit Kuiper belt of satellites at 630km. Orbital Space is getting crowded.

    The UK’s OneWeb claim Space X had a near collision with its satellites in early April – which Space X says never happened.  A battle is underway – Kuiper and OneWeb are objecting to the lowered Starlink orbits, noting a collision would be like a “bomb” going off. Their argument makes sense – if satellites collide they break up into lots of smaller random pieces of debris, each a little bomb in its own right.

    Each little piece of debris has the potential to hit something else – a chain reaction creating more and more debris eventually obliterating all functional satellites in LEO, and potentially forming a barrier to future launches to higher orbits. It’s a doomsday scenario the boffins claim will happen.

    Of course, boffins always predict the worse. The sky may be full of junk, but collisions are very rare. During the last unpleasantness in Europe, there were multiple predictions that bomber streams raiding Germany in the dark would experience multiple collisions – which seldom happened. There are far more instances of bombers being hit by bombs dropped from above them.

    Musk also disagrees about the risks. His team say LEO is safer. Musk is very keen because he has identified that a vast constellation of LEO satellites covering the entire planet is his second road to riches. If he can charge $80 a month for access, he gets rich (see previous Morning Porridge:   He will also take a considerable subsidy from the US government ($20 bln over ten years) to provide rural internet services.

    But do we need to use satellites?

    The history of communications satellites goes back to Telstar in the 1960s. In the 1990s a host of telecoms companies including Globalstar and Iridium planned satellite coms networks, but with the rapid rollout and increasing speed of terrestrial internet and mobile phones left the ultra-expensive satellite systems floundering. They never found widespread adoption. (On the yacht I still have an Iridium phone – but I won’t renew any contract until I know I’m going to be miles offshore. A $89 Starlink connection might be a much better option.)

    LEO Starlink satellites will only stay in orbit 3-5 years and then need replaced before they burn up in the atmosphere. They are cheap and cheerful to manufacture – which makes them look a viable alternative to terrestrial internet. However, the apparent simplicity hides the reality. The biggest cost is launch – even Space X’s reusable Falcon rockets cost money. Generally, costs come in at $45-65K per kilogramme. Then there is the cost of Earth Station Antennas. The new sat firms all expect widespread adoption will bring down costs. Expectations are just another type of hope – which is never a good investment strategy!

    The bottom line is the evolving battle for Earth’s orbital space is another example where Tech is in danger of trumping common sense. Musk has first mover advantage, and he’s using his reusable rockets to establish himself as a monopoly supplier.

    I will admit… I find Musk…. distasteful. There is a great article on him in this morning’s WSJ: Elon Musk’s War on Regulators.  To quote: “Federal Agencies say he’s breaking the rules and endangering people.” The article sums him up well.. A toddler who will do anything to get his way. A narcissistic showman with a nasty streak – his appalling treatment and slander of a British cave-diver who laughed at his showboating plans to rescue stranded children in a cave demonstrated his contempt for others and sense of entitlement.

    I lost faith in Tesla around that time – it cost me the future stock upside when I dumped most of my position. I justify it because I ascribe to the view companies are part of society, and must follow social rules and conventions. Musk does not. He doesn’t do sorry, play by the rules or take responsibility for his actions. He gets away with it because he feels entitled to do so. He may or may not be a genius – that’s immaterial.

    What are the dangers? 2000 satellites per annum crashing back on to the planet? Crowded orbital space? Small. But would you trust the future to Musk? Is it right he’ll get to farm monopoly profits by taking away our view of the stars and future?

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/30/2021 – 21:00

  • Soaring Copper Prices Send Crippling Shockwaves Across China's Economy
    Soaring Copper Prices Send Crippling Shockwaves Across China’s Economy

    As if China didn’t have (soaring) debt, (shrinking) demographic and (pent up) default nightmares to struggle with every night (and realistically, every day) it can now add one more splitting headache to its rosters of economic challenges: soaring prices in the one commodity that is absolutely critical for China’s rapidly growing economy. Copper.

    While commodity and copper bulls have enjoyed a tremendous start to the year with the price of copper surpassing $10K earlier this week and set to make new all time highs, Copper’s eyewatering price – which Goldman expects to keep rising for years due to an unprecedented supply/demand imbalance – is causing ripples of stress for industrial consumers in China, the world’s largest market for the metal. As Bloomberg reports, “some Chinese manufacturers of electric wire have idled units and delayed deliveries or even defaulted on bank loans, according to a survey by the Shanghai Metals Market.” Meanwhile, end-users such as power grids and property developers have also been pushing back delivery times, unable to pay for the metal, while producers of copper rods and pipes saw orders slump this week, said the researcher.

    Copper’s rally – which is fueled by soaring global demand resulting from trillions in stimulus, near-zero interest rates and the global economic recovery from Covid-19 – sent the price above $10,000 a metric ton on Thursday for the first time in a decade, making it among the best performers in a scorching surge in metals prices.

    “Domestic copper users are feeling the pain right now after the recent surge caught them off guard,” said Fan Rui, an analyst at Guoyuan Futures Co. “Electric wire producers are being hit the most, with smaller plants keeping run rates low as the spike is seen slowing the pace of investment by power grids.”

    In a clear indication that the laws of supply and demand still work somewhere, as the price of copper exploded, Chinese spot purchases of copper have weakened significantly amid the copper rally…

    … while the latest Chinese manufacturing PMI index slipped in April and the services sector also weakened, suggesting the economy is still recovering but at a slower pace. And while China – the biggest end user of physical copper may be approaching its demand limit  – analysts at banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. are predicting further gains for the metal as the global economy picks up pace.

    To cynics who still remember Goldman’s $200 oil price target in the summer of 2008, Goldman’s copper euphoria is just a way to offload its own exposure to naive clients.

    Sure enough, Bloomberg notes that in a sign of potential weakness in Chinese physical demand, the spot contract traded at a discount of as much as 215 yuan a ton ($33) to Shanghai futures’ prices this week, the widest in about 10 months. The appetite for imports is also low, with the Yangshan copper premium, paid on top of benchmark LME prices, slumped to the lowest since data were first published in 2017.

    Furthermore, there is a precedent for demand destruction in China amid higher prices, according to BMO Capital Markets analyst Colin Hamilton. Hamilton pointed to 2006 where prices recorded the largest January-April gain on record and came amid a credit-fueled sudden acceleration in developed world demand.

    “2006 was the only year this century where annual Chinese copper consumption fell on a y/y basis, as marginal buyers simply stepped away,” Hamilton said in a note, hinting that 2021 may be the second such year unless copper prices don’t stabilize.

    Higher price levels also could see marginal buyers pull back in the near term and look to substitute in the medium term.

    “$10,000/t copper now is the biggest danger to future demand use, particularly in these nascent trends where material selection is still evolving,” said Hamilton. “There is no doubt copper may be best for electrical or heat transfer performance, but with the ratio to aluminium now well above the 3.5:1 level where we consider substitution accelerates, the risk is clear.”

    Copper fell 0.8% to $9,806 a ton on London Metal Exchange on Friday after reaching $10,008 on Thursday, the highest since February 2011. Aluminum also fell, while nickel rose.

    While physical demand may be reaching its limits, the financial demand for copper remains strong as speculators – who never plan to accept physical delivery – keep pushing the price higher on the back of generous leverage and trillions in central bank liquidity. The question is when does this artificial push higher reach its limits, and will the upcoming crash in copper be similar to the plunge in oil in the late summer of 2008, when brent collapsed from $150 to $30 right around the time of the Great Lehman Delevearging.

    Until then, we eagerly await for the new round of horror stories involving rehypothecated Chinese copper which as a reminder, is not only the most important commodity propping up China’s economy but also the key anchor behind hundreds of billions in Chinese Copper Financing Deals or CCFDs which we have discussed extensively in the past. One place we are closely watching is Chinese brokerage Dalu Futures which in late February amassed a $1 billion long position in copper contracts within just four days…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/30/2021 – 20:40

  • "The Social Contract Is Broken": Why Millennials Who Lack Rich Parents Feel Increasingly Hopeless
    “The Social Contract Is Broken”: Why Millennials Who Lack Rich Parents Feel Increasingly Hopeless

    The worsening precarity of the millennial generation has been a hot topic for the financial press over the last year, and it hasn’t failed to disappoint. Thinkpieces about crushing student loan debt, rising housing prices placing home-ownership further out of reach, and the soul-crushing intensity of formerly sought-after jobs in finance have abounded. And now, the Financial Times has launched a new series where it explores some of the biggest problems facing its millennial readers. And what the report discovered might come as a surprise to some. Picking up where that PowerPoint about the miserable working conditions of Goldman junior analysts left off, the FT reported that even millennials with strong resumes and “good jobs” who “did everything right” are “drowning in insecurity.”

    As the FT sees it, millennials’ fate will depend largely upon whether they’re the progeny of wealthy families, or not. Those who can depend on “the bank of mom and dad” for an interest-free loan (or a generous inheritance) will always have an advantage in procuring the best homes, jobs and school placement as entry to the upper echelon of society still largely depends on having access to the best schools and alumni networks. Millennials who don’t enjoy these advantages will be forced to compete in a market set up to cater to those who do.

    Source: FT

    But while that conclusion is relatively self-evident, an even more surprising detail from the FT’s report is that once-safe careers in investment banking and private equity no longer convey the same promise of long-term security. As an example of these phenomon, the FT introduces Akin Ogundele, who works in London’s financial sector, and lives in the city with his wife and young family. The fact that he’s struggling to pay his bills in a rental flat, with little hope of affording his own home any time soon, has given him a “sense that the social contract is broken for his generation…” something that’s shared by many young people “and not just in London.”

    Many of the story’s most striking examples are delivered with a quote. Here are a few of our favorites:

    • “If I carry on the way I am, I’m not sure what I’ll be able to pass down,” he says. “It can’t be good for the country — the disparities are just going to grow, the wealthy are going to grow wealthier and those that aren’t will get more and more removed.”

    • For Killian Mangan, who graduated during the pandemic last year and struggled to find a job, it feels as if “we are drowning in insecurity with no help in sight”. A twenty-something who works for a central bank says: “I sometimes have this feeling that we are edging towards a precipice, or falling in it already.”

    • A 30-something who works in private equity in the UK turns to collateralised debt obligations for a metaphor to describe the position of his generation. “The space I feel I occupy in the sociopolitical order is akin to being the first loss tranche in the debt stack,” he says. “Whenever anything bad happens I have no doubt that, because we lack political and economic clout, we will be left holding the bag.”

    • “At the moment, while the wealth is still held by older generations it shows up in the data as a difference between generations, but wealth doesn’t disappear, it’s going to flow down and [then] it moves on to being an issue about inequality within younger generations,” says David Sturrock, an IFS senior research economist. “It’s basically saying how much you stand to gain depends on who your parents are and the wealth they have.” Many developed countries share “a lot of the same dynamics”, he adds.

    • “I ate spaghetti for a month in 2009 because the company I worked for was owned by a private equity firm, which thought it best to cut me so it could buy out smaller competitors,” says Jim from California in the US. “They eventually hired me back for close to half the pay…way to develop talent, right?”

    • “After 30 or so rejections, I was chosen out of a pool of 2,500 applicants to undergo a psychometric test, followed by a video interview, followed by an assessment centre, followed by a week-long virtual scheme culminating in an interview before being offered a two-year training contract,” says Hadrien, a recent UK graduate. “We are competing with machines and bots, and an ever increasing population of skilled humans,” says another.

    But while some might dismiss these quotes as more whining from millennials who have nobody but themselves to blame for being duped into taking out hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt for a four-year liberal arts degree, the FT also peppered the story with data supporting this vision of a downwardly mobile fate.

    It started with data showing fewer millennials will out-earn their parents.

    Source: FT

    And how feelings of career insecurity are shared by young people around the world, in both developing and emerging economies.

    Source: FT

    Millennials, meanwhile, struggling with a stubbornly low share of household wealth (partly a factor of the wealth-draining impact of student loans).

    Source: FT

    According to an editor’s note, the story is merely the first in a series about the myriad problems facing the millennial generation. While we’re sure its audience will appreciate the FT’s attempt to court more youthful readers, we suspect it might come off as a tad whiny. After all, millennials just had the opportunity to get in on one of the greatest wealth-creation engines of all time (crypto) while boomer CEOs were mostly left scratching their heads.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/30/2021 – 20:22

  • "3 Or 4" Senators Will Run For President In 2024: McConnell
    “3 Or 4” Senators Will Run For President In 2024: McConnell

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

    Several current Republican senators will run for president in the next election cycle, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on Thursday.

    McConnell during a Fox News appearance responded to former President Donald Trump, a possible candidate who again criticized the longtime senator earlier in the day.

    “We need good leadership. Mitch McConnell has not done a great job. I think they should change Mitch McConnell,” Trump said.

    The relationship between the two Republicans has frayed for months.

    McConnell responded by saying that Republicans are “looking in the future, not the past.”

    He pointed to Sen. Tim Scott’s (R-S.C.) rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s speech on Wednesday night, saying Scott “is the future” of the GOP and laid out where the Republican Party has arrived.

    Trump also said, “100 percent I’m thinking about running,” noting that he drew some 12 million more votes in the 2020 election than he received in 2016.

    Then-President Donald Trump speaks to the media after signing a bill for border funding in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington on July 1, 2019. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

    McConnell affirmed on Fox that he will back whomever voters choose as the GOP nominee in 2024.

    “I’m going to support the nominee of the Republican Party,” McConnell said.

    “I do predict, however, there’s going to be a robust competition for the nomination. I’ve got three or four members of the Senate who are going to be running for president in 2024, once that all sorts itself out, as the Republican leader of the Senate, obviously, I’ll be supporting the Republican nominee for president in 2024.”

    McConnell did not name which senators he was referring to, but Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), and Scott are among the rumored potential candidates.

    Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) are also considered possible candidates. Both ran in 2016.

    Others who have been mentioned as potentially running on the Republican side include former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan.

    Trump on Thursday said he is considering DeSantis as his running mate if he does run.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/30/2021 – 20:20

  • When Murray Rothbard Predicted The Menthol Ban
    When Murray Rothbard Predicted The Menthol Ban

    Murray Rothbard wrote the following article in August 1994…

    Quick: Which is America’s Most Persecuted Minority? No, you’re wrong. (And it’s not Big Business either: one of Ayn Rand’s more ludicrous pronouncements.)

    All right, consider this: Which group has been increasingly illegalized, shamed and denigrated first by the Establishment, and then, following its lead, by society at large? Which group, far from coming out of the “closet,” has been literally forced back into the closet after centuries of walking proudly in the public square? And which group has tragically internalized the value-system of its oppressors, so that they are deeply ashamed and guilty about practicing their rites and customs? Which group is so brow-beaten that it never thinks of defending itself, any attempt at which is publicly condemned and ridiculed? Which group is considered such sinners that the use of doctored statistics against them is considered legitimate means in a worthy cause?

    I refer, of course, to that once proud race, tobacco-smokers, a group once revered and envied, but now there are none so poor as to do them reverence.

    So low has this group sunk in the public esteem that, in rushing to their defense, I am obliged to point out that I myself am not and never have been a smoker. Can you imagine having to put in such a disclaimer against special pleading in behalf of the rights of blacks, Jews, or gays against oppression?

    The crusade against smoking is only the currently most virulent example of one of the most malignant forces in American life: left neo-Puritanism. Puritanism was famously defined by my favorite writer, H.L. Mencken, as “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” The major problem with the Puritans is not so much that they were a dour lot, but that they were believers in the dangerous Christian heresy of “post-millennialism” that is, that it is man’s responsibility to establish a thousand-year (give or take a few centuries) Kingdom of God on Earth as a precondition of the Second Advent of Jesus Christ. Since the Kingdom is by definition a perfect society free of sin, this means that it is the theological duty of believers to establish a sin-free society. But establishing a sin-free society, of course, means taking stern measures to get rid of sinners, which is where the rub comes in.

    Now I recognize that in being obliged to depict the crusaders as neo-Puritans, I am in a deep sense not doing justice to the original Puritans. The original seventeenth-century New England Puritans were not so much crusaders as people who wanted to establish their own sin-free Kingdom in their own new settlements, their own “city on a hill.” The original Puritans, too, were Calvinists, who believed in Christianity and a Christian commonwealth as a strict code of Biblical and God-determined law. But over the years, the original Puritanism was replaced, especially by a wave of pietist revivalism in the late 1820s, by a far more crusading and hence menacing version of Protestant Christianity: what is technically known as “post-millennial evangelical pietism” (PMEP). This PMEP took particular root among the ethno-cultural descendants of the old Puritans, people who became known as “Yankees,” and who had migrated from New England to populate such areas as upstate New York, northern and eastern Ohio, northern Indiana, and northern Illinois. (No, “Yankees,” as in “damn Yankees,” did not mean simply “Northerners.”)

    This new, and malignant, form of PMEP, of neo-Puritanism, which literally dominated all the mainstream Protestant churches in the North for literally one hundred years, had the following traits: (1) Creed, or liturgy, is formalistic and unimportant. So long as you are a Protestant, it doesn’t matter what church you belong to. Churches don’t matter; the only thing that matters is the individual’s salvation. (2) To achieve salvation, the individual must believe and must be free from sin. (3) “Sin,” however, is very broadly defined as virtually any practice that is enjoyable, in particular, anything which might “cloud your mind” so that you might not achieve salvation: in particular, liquor (Demon Rum); any activity on the Sabbath except praying, reading the Bible, and going to church (and not the Roman Catholic Church, the instrument of the Antichrist in the Vatican); (4) Since each individual is weak and subject to temptation, his salvation must be aided by the government, whose theological duty it is to stamp out such occasions for sin as liquor, activity of any secular sort on the Sabbath, and the Catholic Church. As one historian aptly summed up the PMEP attitude toward the State: “Government is God’s major instrument of salvation.” After all, how are liquor or Catholics to be stamped out by persuasion alone? (5) (the crucial icing on the cake): You will not be saved unless you try your darndest to maximize everyone else’s salvation (i.e., get the government to stamp out sin).

    Armed with this five-point world-outlook, the neo-Puritan PMEP hurled himself (and herself, and how!) into a devilishly energetic, hopped-up, unrelenting crusade to stamp out these evils, and to set up paternalistic Big Government on the local, state, and national levels to crush sin and to usher in a perfect sin-less Kingdom. In politics, this meant a full century of crusading against liquor, and to keep the Sabbath Holy. (Do you know that in libertarian, anti-neo-Puritan Jacksonian America, the Post Office used to deliver the mail on Sundays?) But since it would be clearly unconstitutional to outlaw the Catholic Church, the PMEP substitute was to try to force all children into a network of public schools, the object of which was to inculcate obedience to the State and, in the popular slogan of the day, to “Christianize the Catholic” kids, since Catholic adults were clearly doomed.

    It took archetypical neo-Puritan Woodrow Wilson not only to bring Prohibition to America, and thereby fulfill the PMEP’s most cherished dreams, but also to take PMEP crusading on to a world scale. For after the Kingdom was established in America, the next holy step was to bring about a worldwide Kingdom. (The Prohibitionist crusaders, however, soon found their dreams of a liquor-free Europe dashed beyond repair.)

    The ethno-religious group that felt the most severe oppression from the fanatical harridans of the PMEP (for yes, the most fanatic crusaders were Yankee women, especially spinsters) were the German-American Catholics and High-Church Lutherans. Both of these groups imported into America the charming and admirable custom of going to church on Sundays with their family in their best finery, and then repairing to a beer garden in the afternoon, where they could drink beer and listen to their beloved oom-pah-pah bands. You can imagine the reaction when hordes of PMEP harridans descended upon them crying “Sin! Evil! Smash!” for committing what to the Germans was harmless, but what to the PMEPs was the grave double sin of drinking beer, and on Sundays! And, furthermore, both the Catholics and the German Lutherans wanted to bring up their kids in their own parochial schools, and not in the secularist (or rather, PMEP) public school system!

    The high-water mark of PMEP crusading was, of course, the outlawing of all liquor (and by constitutional amendment, no less!). The result used to be common knowledge in America; absolute disaster: tyranny, corruption, black markets and more alcoholism as people went underground to get more intense “fixes” such as hard liquor rather than beer before the cops could close in. And, of course, organized crime, which was almost non-existent before Prohibition. But now, only groups willing to be criminals were available to supply a much desired and demanded product.

    This grim lesson used to be known to all Americans, but it has been lost in the enthusiasm for recent neo-Puritan crusades; against drugs, and now against smoking. What is little realized is that the current reason for the crusade was also present during the old PMEP war against liquor. As the decades wore on, the neo-Puritans used both theological and medicinal arguments; liquor will not only send you to Hell, but would also ruin your temporal body, your liver, your body-as-a-temple. Liquor would cause you to beat your wives, have more accidents, and, a little later, injure yourself and others on the road. Increasingly, over the years, the PMEPs married theology and Science in their crusade.

    So what happened to the aggressively Christian features of neo-Puritanism, to the emphasis on salvation and on the Kingdom? Interestingly, over the decades, the Christian aspect gradually disappeared. After all, if as a Christian activist, your major focus is not on creed or liturgy but on using the government to shape everyone up and stamp out sin, eventually Christ fades out of the picture and government remains. The picture of the Kingdom of God on Earth becomes secularized or atheized, and, in the Marxist version, the secular sin-free Kingdom is brought about by the terrible swift sword of the “saints” of the Communist Party. We have arrived at the grisly land of Left Puritanism, of a Left Kingdom which proposes to bring about a perfect world free of tobacco, inequality, greed, and hate-thoughts. We have arrived, in short, in the land of The Enemy.

    And so, smokers! Are you mice or are you men? Smokers, rise up, be proud, throw off the guilt imposed on you by your oppressors! Stand tall, and smoke! Defend your rights! Do you really think that someone can get instant lung cancer by imbibing a bit of smoke from someone sitting twenty feet away in an outdoor arena? How do you explain the fact that millions of people have smoked all their lives without ill effect?

    And remember, if today they come for the smoker, tomorrow they will come for you. If today they grab your cigarette, tomorrow they will seize your junk food, your carbohydrates, your yummy but “empty” calories. And don’t think that your liquor is safe either; neo-Prohibitionism has been long on the march, what with “sin taxes” (revealing term, isn’t it?), outlawing of advertising, higher drinking ages, and the neo-Puritan harpies of MADD. Are you ready for the Left Nutritional Kingdom, with everyone forced to confine his food to yogurt and tofu and bean sprouts? Are you ready to be confined in a cage, to make sure that your diet is perfect, and that you get the prescribed Compulsory Exercise? All to be governed by a Hillary Clinton National Health Board?

    Smokers, if you have the guts to form a Smokers Defense League, I will be happy to join a Non-Smokers Auxiliary! How about smokers as one important mass base for a right-wing populist counterrevolution?

    This article originally appeared at the Ludwig von Mises Institute and The Libertarian Institute.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/30/2021 – 19:40

  • Toyota Is Building Its Own Autonomous City Next To Mount Fuji
    Toyota Is Building Its Own Autonomous City Next To Mount Fuji

    Many auto executives have said the “missing link” for autonomous success has been cities being wired to funnel data to cars for them to be able to meaningfully drive themselves. So Toyota, the world’s largest automaker, is now setting its sights on building an all-autonomous city. 

    Toyota President Akio Toyoda kicked off the idea by gathering with Shinto priests at the base of Mount Fuji and praying for success. At an area where the company recently shuttered a factory, the automaker’s focus has turned to the idea of a 175-acre community to test future technologies such as autonomous vehicles, according to Bloomberg.

    Toyoda said: “It’s a new chapter in our story and in our industry.”

    Toyota is calling it the “Woven City” and it’ll be located about a 2 hour drive from Tokyo. The city will hand pick its residents and will test not only autonomous vehicles, but autonomous deliveries and mobile shops. Construction is expected to be completed in 2024.

    Hiroki Kuriyama, senior vice president of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp., has said that cities feeding cars information will be the “the next big leap forward” for autonomous. His company is partnering with Toyota to develop the technology needed for the city. 

    Kuriyama notes that sensors and cameras built into infrastructure – and possibly even data from mobile phones – will make it easier to gather data that can then be “processed via optical networks” before being fed to cars, allowing them to navigate safely. 

    Toyota announced this week is was buying Lyft’s autonomous self-driving operations for $550 million. As a result of that deal, Toyota will take on 300 new employees and will ascertain tons of data that Lyft has already collected. 

    James Kuffner, Toyota’s chief digital officer and head of Woven Planet said the combination “can create a scalable solution that brings mobility beyond what we’re seeing today.” He continued: “Woven City will allow us to try out different city infrastructure. If cars and cities can communicate with each other in a smart way, I think we can build safer systems.”

    The city will also feature smart homes that take on their own trash and restock their own refrigerators. The city’s ecosystem will be powered by hydrogen. 

    Nakanishi Research Institute head Takaki Nakanishi said: “Mobility, living and cities are going to become connected, and control of that standardized software, that’s what everyone wants.”

    Kuriyama is confident the technology being used in the Woven City will be available within 5 to 10 years. “But what’s important is whether residents living in other cities will welcome those technologies,” he said. 

    Alexander Soley, an independent consultant focusing on autonomous vehicles, said: “When it comes to new technologies, you can’t just release them and expect them to get picked up, they need to sit with people for a good period of time.”

    “Elderly families are a group targeted to live in the city. How will they feel about stepping foot in a car without a driver? That’s what Toyota’s trying to figure out,” he continued.

    The town is going to house about 360 visiting scientists, Toyota employees, families and retirees. That number will eventually push into the thousands. The estimate costs is “upwards of a billion dollars” to build the city. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/30/2021 – 19:20

  • Oklahoma House Votes To Ban Teaching Of Critical Race Theory In Public Schools
    Oklahoma House Votes To Ban Teaching Of Critical Race Theory In Public Schools

    Authored by Isabel van Brugen via The Epoch Times,

    The Oklahoma House on Thursday voted to ban public schools and universities from teaching critical race theory in civics and history classes. After hours of discussion and debate, the GOP-controlled House voted 70-19 in favor of the bill, HB1775, which now heads to Gov. Kevin Stitt’s desk to be signed into law.

    It would prevent a number of topics, including that “one race or sex is inherently superior to another,” and that “an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive,” from being taught in the state.

    The sponsor of the bill, Republican state Rep. Kevin West said in a statement that students are being taught that because they’re a certain race or sex, they’re “inherently superior to others or should feel guilty for something that happened in the past.”

    “We’re trying to set boundaries that we as a state say will not be crossed when we’re teaching these kinds of subjects,” West said.

    Democrats argued that the bill was a waste of time and addressed a problem that doesn’t exist.

    “Instead of focusing on the real issues facing Oklahomans, the majority party continues their attack on anyone in Oklahoma who might not look, think, love, or act like them,” said state House Minority Leader Rep. Emily Virgin, a Democrat from Norman.

    Critical race theory has gradually proliferated in recent decades through academia, government structures, school systems, and the corporate world. It redefines human history as a struggle between the “oppressors” (white people) and the “oppressed” (everybody else), similarly to Marxism’s reduction of history to a struggle between the “bourgeois” and the “proletariat.”

    It labels institutions that emerged in majority-white societies as racist and “white supremacist.”

    Like Marxism, it advocates for the destruction of institutions, such as the Western justice system, free-market economy, and orthodox religions, while demanding that they be replaced with institutions compliant with the critical race theory ideology.

    In February, the Chinese American Citizens Alliance of Greater New York condemned critical race theory, describing it as an outgrowth of the European Marxist school of critical theory that interprets American social and political life through the lens of a power struggle between the race of the oppressor and that of the oppressed.

    Proponents of critical race theory have argued that the theory is merely “demonstrating how pervasive systemic racism truly is.”

    In one of his first executive actions in the White House, President Joe Biden rescinded his predecessor’s ban of critical race theory in federal workplaces. Former President Donald Trump’s September 2020 executive order declared that diversity and inclusion training for federal employees should not promote “un-American” and “divisive concepts.”

    Biden instead issued an executive order stating that the federal government must pursue “a comprehensive approach to advancing equity for all.”

    News of the Oklahoma vote comes days after Idado Gov. Brad Little signed into law a bill, H 377 (pdf), that would prevent the teaching of critical race theory in the Gem State’s public schools and universities.

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last month denounced critical race theory as hateful.

    “There’s no room in our classrooms for things like critical race theory,” he said, announcing that the state’s new civic curriculum will explicitly exclude critical race theory.

    “Teaching kids to hate their country and to hate each other is not worth one red cent of taxpayer money.”

    Elsewhere, Republican lawmakers in Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, New Hampshire, and West Virginia have said that they aim to ban the teaching of critical race theory in schools, workplaces, and government agencies.

    Gov. Stitt’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment by The Epoch Times.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/30/2021 – 19:00

  • Chlorine Prices Explode Just In Time For Peak Pool Season
    Chlorine Prices Explode Just In Time For Peak Pool Season

    Here’s another example of the butterfly effect.

    By now everyone knows that a March fire at a plant owned by Japanese chipmaker Renesas was the straw that broke the semiconductor camel’s back, and what were already stretched chip supply chains collapsed, forcing countless companies – from carmarkers to defense contractors – to put production on halt indefinitely until chip inventories had restocked.

    But did you know that a fire at a factor last summer could make operating a swimming pool this year prohibitively expensive?

    Late last summer, a massive fire broke out at a chemical plant in Lake Charles, LA after Hurricane Laura passed overhead. The chemical blaze was extinguished after three days, and was quickly forgotten… until this week, when Goldman reported that the August 2020 fire had sparked industry-wide chlorine shortages and price inflation.

    In recent weeks this story has received more widespread attention as media outlets nationwide have begun covering the severity of the problem, highlighting the possibility of a chlorine shortage during peak pool season in the summer months. Back in March, Goldman surveyed 11 regional pool retailers who at the time unanimously indicated that chlorine prices were on the rise, with most expressing uncertainty with regard to whether or not they will have enough chlorine to sell for the upcoming pool season.

    In retrospect, the answer was a resounding no: according to IHS Markit, chlorine prices were up ~37% YoY in March 2021, with prices expected to surge 58% from June to August this year.

    To address the fallout, Goldman surveyed 26 pool supply shops across the country, with most respondents located in pool-centric markets like TX, CA, NV, NM, and AZ. Of the 26 pool shops the bank spoke to, 15 expressed uncertainty or doubt when asked about whether they will have enough chlorine for pool season.

    As if that wasn’t enough, adding to the pressure created by the chlorine shortage, respondents called out a plastic bucket shortage, driven by COVID-related manufacturing slowdowns, which has made procuring certain volume sizes of chlorine more difficult for retailers, and has led suppliers to deliver chlorine in either bags or in buckets with different colored lids, according to respondents.

    One respondent noted that suppliers are slowing production of smaller-sized buckets of chlorine tabs (8-lb, 12-lb), with the focus shifting to larger 50-lb buckets. With customers buying up the smaller-sized buckets of chlorine, this particular store plans to only have 50-lb buckets left to sell within the next week, which are slightly more profitable, according to the respondent.

    When asked about whether the cost and availability of chlorine have improved in the last month or so, several respondents noted that while the supply of chlorine has improved somewhat, cost has not.

    Commentary from the industry’s main pool equipment supplier Pool Corp. on its recent earnings day underscores the severity of the chlorine shortage.

    “I mean overall, I would tell you the price on dichlor and trichlor [chlorine tablets], which is the product that was impacted by the shortage, they’re up about 60%. So if you think about how that’s going to shake out for the balance of the year, it will probably remain at elevated level because I believe that the industry is going to be short for the season,” Pool Corp CFO Mark Joslin told analysts on an April 22 earnings call.

    The shortage will likely lead to pool owners to get creative on pool sanitization, Joslin said quoted by Yahoo Finance.

    “Now that simply means that people are going to move their method of sanitization to another product, either a granular product or a liquid product. But there’s no shortage of ways to sanitize the pool. It just simply means at a certain point people will shift. We’ve also seen certain parts of the country accelerating the use of salt as a method of sanitization too,” Joslin added.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/30/2021 – 18:40

  • COVID-19 Means Good Times For The Pentagon
    COVID-19 Means Good Times For The Pentagon

    Authored by Mandy Smithberger via TomDispatch.com,

    In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Washington has initiated its largest spending binge in history. In the process, you might assume that the unparalleled spread of the disease would have led to a little rethinking when it came to all the trillions of dollars Congress has given the Pentagon in these years that have in no way made us safer from, or prepared us better to respond to, this predictable threat to American national security. As it happens, though, even if the rest of us remain in danger from the coronavirus, Congress has done a remarkably good job of vaccinating the Department of Defense and the weapons makers that rely on it financially.

    There is, of course, a striking history here. Washington’s reflexive prioritizing of the interests of defense contractors has meant paying remarkably little attention to, and significantly underfunding, public health. Now, Americans are paying the price. With these health and economic crises playing out before our eyes and the government’s response to it so visibly incompetent and inadequate, you would expect Congress to begin reconsidering its strategic approach to making Americans safer. No such luck, however. Washington continues to operate just as it always has, filling the coffers of the Pentagon as though “national security” were nothing but a matter of war and more war.

    Month by month, the cost of wasting so much money on weaponry and other military expenses grows higher, as defense contractor salaries continue to be fattened at taxpayer expense, while public health resources are robbed of financial support. Meanwhile, in Congress, both parties generally continue to defend excessive Pentagon budgets in the midst of a Covid-19-caused economic disaster of the first order. Such a business-as-usual approach means that the giant weapons makers will continue to take funds from agencies far better prepared to take the lead in addressing this crisis.

    There are a number of ways the Pentagon’s budget could be reduced to keep Americans safer and better protected against future pandemics. As the Center for International Policy’s Sustainable Defense Task Force has pointed out, the biggest challenges we now confront, globally speaking — including such pandemics — are not, in fact, military in nature. In truth, hundreds of billions of dollars could be cut with remarkable ease from U.S. military spending and Americans would be far safer.

    Recently, some members of Congress have started to focus on this very point. Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA), for instance, proposed diverting money from unnecessary intercontinental ballistic missile “modernization” into coronavirus and vaccine research. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has gone further, suggesting a 10% reduction in the Pentagon’s budget, while Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA), the only member of Congress to vote against the post-9/11 war resolution that led to the invasion of Afghanistan, has gone further yet, calling for the cutting of $350 billion from that budget.

    But count on one thing: they’ll meet a lot of resistance. There’s no way, in fact, to overstate just how powerfully the congressional committees overseeing such spending are indebted to and under the influence of the defense contractors that profit off the Pentagon budget. As Politico reported years ago (and little’s changed), members of the House Armed Services committee are the top recipients of defense industry campaign contributions. Even the chair of the House Foreign Affairs committee, which should be advocating for the strengthening of American diplomacy, has drawn criticism for the significant backing he receives from the defense industry.

    Focusing on Weaponry That Can’t Fight a Virus

    Defense contractors have consistently seen such investments pay off. As my colleague at the Project on Government Oversight, Dan Grazier, has pointed out, despite repeated warnings from independent watchdogs and medical professionals, even military healthcare has been significantly underfunded, while both the Pentagon and Congress continue to prioritize buying weapons over taking care of our men and women in uniform. Congress’s watchdog, the Government Accountability Office, warned in February 2018 that the health system of the Department of Defense (DOD) lacked the capacity to handle routine needs, no less the emergencies of wartime. As Pentagon spending has continued to escalate over the past 20 years, military healthcare funding has stayed largely flat.

    Under the circumstances, I doubt you’ll be surprised to learn that Congress has also written additional arms contractor giveaways into its coronavirus relief bills. Though its CARES Act authorized trillions of dollars in spending, ProPublica unearthed a provision in it (nearly identical to one proposed by industry groups) that allows defense contractors to bill the government for a range of costs meant to keep them in a “ready” state. The head of acquisition for the Pentagon, Ellen Lord, estimated (modestly indeed) that the provision would cost taxpayers in the low “double-digit billions.” Additional language offered in the House’s next relief bill, likely to survive whatever the Senate finally passes, would increase such profiteering further by including fees that such companies claim are related to the present crisis, including for executive compensation, marketing, and sales.

    In such a context, it was hardly surprising that, during a recent hearing at the House Armed Services Committee on how the DOD was responding to the Covid-19 crisis, the focus remained largely on ways that the global epidemic might diminish arms industry profits. Representatives Joe Courtney (D-CT) and Mac Thornberry (R-TX) both argued that the Pentagon would need yet more money to cover the costs of any number of charges that defense contractors claim are related to the pandemic.

    Most ludicrous is the idea that an agency slated to receive significantly more than $700 billion in 2020 can’t afford to lose a few billion dollars to the actual health of Americans. Of course, the Pentagon remained strategically mum earlier this year when, in an arguably unconstitutional manner, the White House diverted $7.2 billion from its funds to the building of the president’s “great, great wall” on our southern border. In fact, General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, even admitted that it wasn’t exactly a major blow for the government agency with the largest discretionary budget. “It was not a significant, immediate, strategic, negative impact to the overall defense of the United States of America,” he assured Congress. “It’s half of one percent of the overall budget, so I can’t in good conscience say that it’s significant, immediate, or the sky is falling.”

    A Chicken Little Congress, however, doesn’t consider taking more funds from the Pentagon budget to shore up the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) anywhere near as crucial as, for example, approving the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, a slush fund that will be part of this country’s new Cold War with China — starting with a modest $1.4 billion in seed money, while the homework is done to justify another $5.5 billion next year. Similarly, even in such an economically disastrous moment, who could resist buying yet more of Lockheed Martin’s eternally troubled and staggeringly expensive F-35 Joint Strike Fighters than the Pentagon requested? Comparable support exists, even among senators unwilling to fork over any more dollars to desperate out-of-work Americans, for the president’s Space Force, that new service now in the process of creating a separate set of rules for itself that should allow it free rein over future spending. That, of course, reveals its real mission: making it easier for contractors to profit off the taxpayer.

    If anything, the main congressional criticism of the Pentagon is that it’s been too slow to push money out the door. And yet, in an institution that has never been successfully audited, there are red flags galore, as a recent Government Accountability Office assessment of major weapons programs suggests. The costs of such new weapons systems have cumulatively soared by 54%, or $628 billion, from earlier GAO assessments. That, by the way, is almost 90 times this year’s budget request for the CDC.

    And that’s just the waste. The same report shows that any number of weapons systems continue to fail in other ways entirely. Of the 42 major programs examined, 35 had inadequate security to prevent cyber attacks. General Dynamics Electric Boat’s $126 billion nuclear submarine program has been plagued by faulty welding for two years. The new Ford class aircraft carrier, built by Huntington Ingalls for $13.2 billion, includes a General Atomics launch system that continues to fail to launch aircraft as designed. In addition, as Bloomberg first reported, the ship’s toilets clog frequently and can only be cleaned with specialized acids that cost about $400,000 a flush. As my colleague Mark Thompson has pointed out, “escalating costs, blown schedules, and weapons unable to perform as advertised” are the norm, not the exception for the Pentagon.

    That track record is troubling indeed, given that Congress is now turning to the Pentagon to help lead the way when it comes to this country’s pandemic response. Its record in America’s “forever wars” over the last nearly two decades should make anyone wonder about the very idea of positioning it as a lead agency in solving domestic public health crises or promoting this country’s economic recovery.

    Broken Oversight

    As the first wave of the pandemic continues and case numbers spike in a range of states, oversight structures designed to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse when it comes to defense spending are quite literally crumbling before our eyes. Combine weakened oversight, skewed priorities, and a Pentagon budget still rising and you’re potentially creating the perfect storm for squandering the resources needed to respond to our current crisis.

    The erosion of oversight of the Pentagon budget has been a slow-building disaster, administration by administration, particularly with the continual weakening of the authority of inspectors general. As independent federal watchdogs, IGs are supposed to oversee the executive branch and report their findings both to it and to Congress.

    In the Obama administration, however, their power was undermined when the Office of Legal Counsel, the legal expert for the White House, began to argue that accessing the “all” in “all records, reports, audits, reviews, documents, papers, recommendations, or other material” didn’t actually mean “all” when it came to inspectors general. Under President Donald Trump, the same office typically claimed that then-Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson did not have the authority to forward to the House and Senate Intelligence committees a concern that the president had improperly withheld aid to Ukraine.

    In fact, in the Trump years, such watchdogs have been purged in significant numbers. Shortly after Department of Defense principal Deputy Inspector General Glenn Fine was named to lead the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, for instance, the president removed him. Not only did that weaken the authority of the body overseeing trillions of dollars in spending across the federal government, but it jeopardized the independence and clout of the Pentagon’s watchdog when it came to billions already being spent by the DOD.

    In a similar fashion, the Trump administration has worked hard to stymie Congress’s ability to exercise its constitutional role in conducting oversight. A few months after the president entered the Oval Office, the White House temporarily ordered executive branch agencies to ignore oversight requests from congressional Democrats. Since then, the stonewalling of Congress has only increased. Mark Meadows, the president’s latest chief of staff, has, for example, reportedly implemented a new rule ensuring that executive branch witnesses cannot appear before Congress without his permission. In recent weeks, it was invoked to stop Secretary of State Mike Pompeo from appearing to justify his latest budget request or to answer questions about why his department’s inspector general was removed. (He was, among other things, reportedly investigating Pompeo himself.) Meanwhile, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley have both resisted calls from Congress to answer questions about the use of military force against peaceful protesters.

    Congress has a number of tools at its disposal to demand answers from the Pentagon. Unfortunately, the committees overseeing that agency have seldom demonstrated the will to exercise them. Last year, however, Congressman Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) added an amendment to a defense bill limiting funds for the secretary of defense’s travel until his department produced a report on disciplinary actions taken after U.S. troops were abushed in Niger in 2018 and four of them died.

    That tragic incident was also a reminder that Congress has taken little responsibility for the costs of the endless conflicts the U.S. military has engaged in across significant parts of the planet. Quite the opposite, it continues to leave untouched the 2001 authorization for use of military force, or AUMF, that has been abused by three administrations to justify waging wars ever since. The Congressional Research Service estimates that it has been used in that way at least 41 times in 19 countries. According to Brown University’s Costs of War project, that number should be 80 countries where the U.S. has been engaged in counterterror activities since 2001.

    And there are significantly more warning signs in this Covid-19 moment that congressional oversight, long missing in action, is needed more than ever. (Trump’s response, classically enough, was “I’ll be the oversight.”) Typically, among the trillions of dollars Congress put up in responding to the pandemic-induced economic collapse, $10.5 billion was set aside for the Pentagon to take a leading role in addressing the crisis. As the Washington Post reported, among the first places those funds went were golf course staffing, submarine missile tubes, and space launch facilities, which is par for the course for the DOD.

    Implementation of the Defense Production Act also betrayed a bizarre sense of priorities in these months. That law, passed in response to the Korean War, was designed to help fill shortfalls in goods in the midst of emergencies. In 2020, that should certainly have meant more masks and respirators. But as Defense One reported, that law was instead used to bail out defense contractors, some of whom weren’t even keeping their employees on staff. General Electric, which had laid off 25% of its workforce, received $20 million to expand its development of “advanced manufacturing techniques,” among things unrelated to the coronavirus. Spirit Aerosystems, which received $80 million to expand its domestic manufacturing, had similarly laid off or furloughed 900 workers.

    While Americans are overwhelmed by the pandemic, the Pentagon and its boosters are exploiting the emergency to feather their own nests. Far stronger protections against such behavior are needed and, of course, Congress should take back what rightfully belongs to it under the Constitution, including its ability to stop illegal wars and reclaim its power of the purse. It’s long past time for that body to cancel the blank check it’s given both the Pentagon and the White House. But don’t hold your breath.

    In the meantime, as Americans await a future Covid-19 vaccine, the military-industrial complex finds itself well vaccinated against this pandemic moment. Consider it a Pentagon miracle in terrible times.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/30/2021 – 18:20

  • Biden Mulls Vax Mandate For All US Military After Huge Numbers Refused
    Biden Mulls Vax Mandate For All US Military After Huge Numbers Refused

    President Biden told NBC News in an interview which broadcast Friday that he’s mulling ordering all US military personnel to get a COVID-19 vaccine as commander-in-chief. “I’m not saying I won’t” rule it out, he emphasized in the new interview.

    This would also mean that anyone wanting to enter military service would have to receive the jab as a requirement to get in, which would likely cause a blow to military recruitment in the near-term. However, he didn’t outright say he’s ready to pull the trigger on the policy, which if enacted would constitute the largest federal government-ordered mandate in terms of forcing the vaccine on some 1.3 million active duty service members, not to mention over one million more reserve personnel. 

    Describing the decision as a “tough call” he suggested it was being hotly debated. “I don’t know. I’m going to leave that to the military,” Biden told NBC News’s Craig Melvin.

    “I’m not saying I won’t. I think you’re going to see more and more of them getting it. And I think it’s going to be a tough call as to whether or not they should be required to have to get it in the military, because you’re in such close proximity with other military personnel.”

    In follow-up to Biden’s comments, national security advisor Jake Sullivan confirmed that a DoD-wide vaccine mandate is “something the Department of Defense is looking at in consultation with the interagency process and [I] don’t have anything to add on that subject today.”

    The whole debate was sparked in earnest when multiple headlines earlier this month took note of the large numbers of military members who were rejecting the vaccine. 

    For example, one recent USA Today report noted that nearly 40% of US Marines who have been offered a COVID-19 vaccine have refused to recieve it, according to Pentagon figures. And an earlier report in The Guardian described that “Reluctance to be vaccinated for Covid-19 is now rife in the US military, with about a third of troops on active duty or in the national guard refusing to be administered the vaccine.” 

    The Hill notes of the latest numbers as of this week that “Roughly 780,000 service members, or close to one-third of the total force, are partially or fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, according to the latest Department of Defense numbers.”

    The broad reluctance among America’s military members to receive the jab probably has a lot to do with the vast majority being young, fit, and healthy — obviously far above the average American. And it’s clear at this point that this health demographic tends to experience fewer or minor symptoms if they get infected, if any symptoms at all. 

    Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Terry Adirim earlier this month tried to combat this mentality among military ranks, however, calling the wealth of anecdotal evidence in the end “not true”. But so far it still looks like a large chunk of armed personnel are not convinced that the vaccine is worth getting, hence the Pentagon mulling the mandate.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/30/2021 – 18:00

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Apr 30

Today’s News 30th April 2021

  • UK Will Release Digital "Vaccine Passport" & "Green List" Of Travel Destinations Next Month
    UK Will Release Digital “Vaccine Passport” & “Green List” Of Travel Destinations Next Month

    The British government’s effort to create a digital “vaccine passport” app has officially been embraced by the UK’s former Continental partners.

    As the EU scrambles to implement a vaccine-passport system that will enable tourists from wealthy vaccinated countries (like the US and UK) to flock to beaches in Greece and Spain over the summer, British Transport Secretary Grant Shapps revealed in a TV interview Thursday that he will be able to give details on which countries have made it on to the UK’s “green list” “in the next couple of weeks”.

    The introduction of the UK’s “Green List” follows a series of US State Department Travel Advisories that placed 80% of the world’s countries on the highest level travel advisory. But while the US advisory carries no restrictions, the UK’s “green list” will feature all the countries where Britons can travel without being required to quarantine upon their return (though they will still need to be tested for COVID-19 upon their return).

    “…in the next couple of weeks, I’ll be able to tell you about which countries will have made it into the traffic light system and that ‘green’ list in particular are the countries where you’ll be able to go to without needing to quarantine on your return.

    “You will still need to take a pre-departure test and one test on your return.

    “I think people are getting very used to testing now, not least because we provide testing up to twice a week for everyone in the country right now. So I don’t think a test itself is a big deal.

    Shapps also confirmed an NHS app will be used to allow Britons to demonstrate whether they have had a COVID jab, or tested negative for the virus, before traveling abroad.

    “It will be the NHS app that is used for people when they book appointments with the NHS and so on, to be able to show you’ve had a vaccine or that you’ve had testing,” he added.

    “I’m working internationally with partners across the world to make sure that system can be internationally recognised.”

    Government sources clarified the app would not be the NHS COVID app – currently used to “check in” to venues such as pubs and restaurants for contact-tracing purposes – but would instead be the NHS app used to book general appointments.

    Shapps added that he was awaiting data from the government’s Joint Biosecurity Center, which is necessary to state which countries would be deemed “green”, “amber” or “red” under the traffic light system.

    He also reiterated that there was a need to be “very cautious” about allowing Britons to freely travel abroad again.

    “Beyond our shores we are seeing the highest levels of coronavirus that we have seen so far in the entire pandemic, right now,” he added.

    “So we do need to make sure we do this very, very carefully – we don’t want to throw away the lockdown, we don’t want to throw away our remarkable rollout in this country of the vaccination.

    Meanwhile, European nations are eager to welcome British tourists as they hope this summer will see a significant improvement over last year. Portugal’s ambassador to the UK, Manuel Lobo Antunes, told Sky News he was “hopeful” British travelers would be able to return to Portugal by the middle of next month.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/30/2021 – 02:45

  • Lavrov Calls Out Perfidious Albion In EU Diplomat Spat
    Lavrov Calls Out Perfidious Albion In EU Diplomat Spat

    Authored by Finian Cunningham via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    The British establishment likes to boast that they “punch above their weight” in terms of influence beyond their territorial size. It’s not hard to see how they manage such a feat. It’s called duplicity, intrigue, lies, and dividing and ruling.

    Britain is fomenting a diplomatic crisis between the European Union and Russia, according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Evidence and precedent indicate Lavrov has his sight well-trained.

    The British establishment’s notorious ability for machination and intrigue – hence the ancient moniker Perfidious Albion – can be seen as stirring the escalating row between the European Union and Russia in which diplomats are being expelled pell-mell.

    This week, Russia ordered the withdrawal of representatives from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Slovakia. That came in response to the expulsion of Russian diplomats from those countries. Russia has also ordered home more diplomats from the Czech Republic. Poland and Italy have also been caught up in diplomatic antagonism with Moscow.

    The row blew up last week when the Czech Republic accused Russian state agents of being responsible for twin explosions on its territory back in 2104. The blasts caused the deaths of two workers at an ammunition depot near the village of Vrbetice close to the border with Slovakia. Until recently, the Czech authorities had concluded that the explosions were an industrial accident.

    What prompted the Czechs to revise their ideas and to now blame Russia for sabotage is the interpolation of Britain in providing “new information”. Specifically, it was the MI6-sponsored media group Bellingcat (a so-called private investigatory agency) which appears to have furnished the disinformation which purports to show the involvement of Russian military intelligence (GRU). Incredibly, the British claim their “evidence” shows that two of the GRU agents were also the same individuals who were alleged to have been involved in poisoning the Russian traitor-spy Sergei Skripal in England in 2018. The British claim to have passport information to support their claims, but such methodology is rife with forgery – a black art that the British are all-too skilled at.

    On leveling the accusation against Russia, the Czech Republic then ordered the expulsion of 18 Russian diplomats. Moscow responded angrily, saying that the claims of sabotage were a “dirty fabrication” and pointing out that Prague did not provide any information for verification. Russia took swift reciprocal action by banishing 20 Czech diplomats from its territory.

    However, the row continues to flare with the Baltic states entering the fray by banning Russian officials in “solidarity” with the Czech Republic. The move by the Baltic states is predictable as they are supercharged by anti-Russian political sentiment. It’s a case of any excuse for them to inflame relations.

    The dispute comes at a fraught time when the European Union is discussing imposing more sanctions on Russia over wider concerns about the conflict in Ukraine, the imprisonment of blogger Alexei Navalny and a Russian security crackdown on Navalny’s shadowy Western-backed “opposition” network.

    The skirmishing over diplomats is a convenient way to further damage relations between the EU and Russia, especially as the strategically important Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline project nears completion – a project that Washington wants to eviscerate for its own selfish commercial reasons. Uncle Sam’s junior partner Britain may be obliging in that regard and thus trying to curry favor for garnering an American trade deal in the post-Brexit world.

    Certainly, Russia’s top diplomat Sergei Lavrov is clear about the stealthy British hand in recent events. In a media interview this week, Lavrov mentioned the United Kingdom in wary terms, saying: “As far as the relations between Russia and Europe are concerned, I still believe that the UK is playing an active and a very serious subversive role. It withdrew from the European Union, but we see no decrease in its activities on this track. On the contrary, they are trying to influence EU member states’ approaches to Russia to the maximum possible extent.”

    It should be recalled that Britain has played a starring duplicitous role in demonizing Russia and poisoning international relations.

    It was Bellingcat (MI6) that pushed the narrative that Russia was complicit in the shooting down of the Malaysian airliner in 2014 over Eastern Ukraine with the loss of nearly 300 lives. Based on British “evidence” (which has been debunked as fabrication), a Dutch investigation into the disaster has accused Russia. That affair has hardened European prejudices against Russia which has fomented the imposition of sanctions.

    It was a former British MI6 operative Christopher Steele who was instrumental in promoting the Russiagate dossier around 2016 which destroyed bilateral relations between the United States and Russia, and which continues to fuel fabrications about Moscow’s interference in American and European politics (even those Steele’s “dirty dossier” is a risible load of rubbish and has been debunked).

    And it was the Skripal saga in Salisbury in March 2018 which Britain hatched to further poison international relations with Russia. That saga – with no proof against Russia – has become a concocted “standard proof” for the subsequent saga of “poisoning” the blogger conman Alexei Navalny. Western governments and media refer to the “Kremlin plot” to kill Skripal as “evidence” for another “Kremlin plot” to assassinate Navalny. This is tantamount to one fiction being used to prove another fiction. The same saga is now feeding into the Czech explosion row. And it all comes back to the devious ingenuity of Perfidious Albion.

    Foreign Minister Lavrov added a further incisive comment on the role of Britain. He said:

    “At the same time, you know, they send us signals, they propose establishing contacts. This means, they do not shy away from communication [with Russia], but try to discourage others. Again, probably [this can be explained by] their desire to have a monopoly of these contacts and again prove that they are superior to others.”

    The British establishment likes to boast that they “punch above their weight” in terms of influence beyond their territorial size. It’s not hard to see how they manage such a feat. It’s called duplicity, intrigue, lies, and dividing and ruling. Perfidious Albion par excellence.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/30/2021 – 02:00

  • European Parliament Approves Resolution On Far-Reaching Sanctions For 'Russian Aggression'
    European Parliament Approves Resolution On Far-Reaching Sanctions For ‘Russian Aggression’

    On Thursday European Parliament passed a resolution that calls for far-reaching EU sanctions on a number of fronts against Russia, and which most notably seeks to require a Russian ban on access to the SWIFT payment system if there’s ever a future move against Ukrainian sovereignty.  

    The European Parliament “Demands that the EU should reduce its dependence on Russian energy, and urges the EU institutions and all Member States, therefore, to stop the completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and to demand a stop to the construction of controversial nuclear power plants built by Rosatom,” the now approved resolution says.

    569 members of the European Parliament voted for approval while there were 67 against the resolution’s adoption. As we explained previously, it appears a ‘preventative’ and threatening measure in the instance of any future scenario of another major Russian troop build-up in Crimea and along Ukraine’s border such as occurred over the last month.

    “Should military build-up lead to an invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the EU must make clear the consequences for such a violation of international law and norms would be severe, MEPs agreed,” a European Parliament press release stated. “Such a scenario must result in an immediate halt to EU imports of oil and gas from Russia, the exclusion of Russia from the SWIFT payment system and the freezing of assets and cancellation of visas for Europe of all oligarchs tied to the Russian authorities.”

    And further it underscored the EU member states must no longer be “welcoming places for Russian wealth and investments of unclear origin” as well as “the Kremlin’s strategic investments within the EU for the purposes of subversion.”

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    Needless to say, if the trigger were ever actually pulled on what are at this point these official threats to “require” immediate EU action in the face of “Russian aggression” – it would be all out economic and diplomatic war – or worse. 

    Previously the Kremlin warned that such a drastic move as cutting off Russia from SWIFT would indeed be considered an “act of war” – but this is precisely what officials in Kiev have been seeking to pressure Brussels to do.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/30/2021 – 01:00

  • Red States Are Fighting Back Against The Reset – What Does This Mean For The Future?
    Red States Are Fighting Back Against The Reset – What Does This Mean For The Future?

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

    The past year I have been writing extensively about what I call the “great conservative migration”; a shift in US demographics not seen since the Great Depression. Approximately 8.9 million Americans have relocated since the beginning of the covid lockdowns according to the US Postal service, and a large portion of these people are leaving left-leaning blue states for conservative red states in the west and the south. States like California, Illinois, New York and New Jersey were at the top of the list of states people wanted to escape.

    The response from leftist states has been amusing. California, for instance, has tried to obscure the data on population loss and has dismissed the existence of the migration. They claim that the state population is actually rising, but fail to mention that most of California’s population “gains” have been from babies born along with an increase in illegal immigration. This has not offset the 267,000 individuals and families that left the state in the last three months 2020 alone. That’s an entire city of people, gone in 90 days.

    And where are these people going? Places like Idaho, Texas, Tennessee, Florida, etc. ALL red states that are fighting back against draconian covid mandates and other unconstitutional measures. The only outlier seems to be Oregon, which also has seen a population spike, and this indeed appears to be a migration of Californians to the north.

    This leads some conservative groups to believe there is an “invasion” going on of liberals into red states. After looking at the data and meeting many people moving to my own area in Montana, I find the “liberal invasion” narrative to be fraudulent.

    Leftists don’t relocate to red states, at least not very often. They do not run away from their safe spaces. Rather, they relocate an hour or two from the cities they are addicted to. This is what the data from San Francisco shows. With over 80% of people moving from the city staying within California. In other words, some leftists want to get out of the cities, but they don’t want to move far from their beloved progressive Utopias and they certainly don’t plan on embedding in conservative strongholds and trying to “take over”.

    Why this theory persists is beyond me as it has no basis in reality.

    No, the people moving across state lines today are mostly conservatives, they are congregating en masse in red states, and the effects have been rather dramatic. Home prices have skyrocketed due to extreme demand. In Montana, people are buying real estate sight unseen, a lot of it raw land that they are trying to build on. Lumber prices have tripled, and anyone in the construction business is booked a year and a half out. There are new residents actually scouring the message boards looking for ANYONE that can do work for them. There is nobody available. No one I know has seen anything like it in their lifetime.

    Luckily, a lot of these people seem to be on the same page in terms of principles. Those I have met are all conservative and the majority of them are preppers. They moved here because they know what is coming and they want to be surrounded by like minded neighbors when the manure hits the fan. Specifically, they do not want to be caught isolated in a blue state where vaccine passports, masks and lockdowns become a regular part of life for them and their children. They want to remain free.

    On the other hand, I am also hearing rumors that the relatively small number of leftists that live in my county want to leave. Some have expressed the need to “get out” and vacation in places like Portland, Oregon, where they “feel safe” because “everyone wears masks”. And I say, good for them. Hopefully they will stay there. These types of people are miserable excuses for human beings and they make everyone else around them miserable by constantly whining about how “no one follows the rules”.

    As a point of reference, there have been only 17 deaths from covid in my county in well over a year. The death rate is non-existent, and the virus already swept through the area with almost everyone either infected or asymptomatic. No one in Montana is afraid of this virus except a handful of weak minded progressives.

    My suspicion is that when all is said and done by the end of 2021 the US will essentially be split into two distinct nations: A leftist Marxist nation that continues to degrade into tyranny, and a conservative nation that people want to escape to so they can keep their liberties. Leftists won’t want to live near us, and we certainly will not want to live near them. Hypothetically, it should be a win-win situation, but there are other factors to consider.

    We must also take into account red counties. For example, the blue state of Virginia is actually only blue in a handful of counties. The majority are conservative and have stood in defiance of attempts by gun grabbing governor Ralph Northam, saying they will ignore any new gun laws Northam and the state legislature passes. County governments and county sheriffs are in agreement; Northam has no power in these places.

    In Eastern Oregon and Northern California, there is a push by multiple counties to actually join Idaho and become a part of the conservative state. The majority of voters in these counties supported the transition. The idea being that this is not a secession, and so the move will be far easier to accomplish with less legal obstacles. The decision will be voted on by county residents in May, and of course there will be attempts by congress to obstruct if the outcome is favorable.

    Even if the movement is not successful, the fact that voters in red counties are unified in their goal to get away from leftist political control should be taken very seriously. This is not just about states defying federal dictates, it’s also about counties defying state governments that do not represent their values.

    The bottom line is this – The leftist ideology is collectivist and totalitarian in nature. It is completely incompatible with the conservative principles of liberty, self determination, meritocracy, limited government and free market economics.

    The social justice cult has gone so far into extremism that reason and logic are actually vilified by them. They openly support mass censorship, mass violence against innocent people, mob intimidation against the citizenry, they argue in favor of economic lockdowns and unconstitutional covid mandates, they support draconian vaccine passports, and they are partners with Big Tech corporations as well as globalists institutions like the Ford Foundation and the Open Society Foundation. They are diametrically opposed to everything that conservatives and lovers of liberty hold dear.

    Honestly, it is unlikely that we will be able to share the same land mass, let alone the same cities and states, but I’ll get to that in a moment…

    At the state level, there has been a dramatic push-back against constitutional trespasses by the federal government under Biden, and these include measures which are aggressively promoted by the World Economic Forum and other globalist institutions in the name of the “Great Reset”. Multiple red states have passed laws or executive orders making it illegal to require proof of vaccination (vaccine passports). Some blue states have also “claimed” they will not require vaccinations, but the devil is in the details when dealing with the political left.

    In Montana, the governor and the state legislature will not allow government enforcement of vaccine passports, AND, they also will not allow corporations to demand vaccine passports either. In blue states like Illinois, the government might keep its word on passports, it might not, but they don’t really need to enforce vaccinations; all they have to do is allow major corporations to do it for them.

    With colleges (public institutions posing as private), airlines, hotels, hospitals, and major retail chains requiring a vaccine passport for employment or to make purchases, the effect of medical tyranny will be the same.

    Without state legal protections in place to limit social engineering by corporate behemoths the establishment still has all the tools it needs to assert covid controls.

    These companies do not represent private business or free markets anymore. Instead, they are appendages of establishment power that receive billions in taxpayer dollars to finance their operations. They should no longer be treated as if they have the same rights as normal businesses.

    Another interesting development is the number of red states that are passing laws which prevent the enforcement of any new federal gun controls. In Montana, Greg Gianforte just signed a bill nullifying federal gun bans. Federal rules do not apply here and state law enforcement agencies are prohibited from helping federal agencies enforce such laws. Similar legislation has been passed or is being considered in other red states like Utah and Arizona.

    It is unclear what would happen if the ATF or FBI tried to make arrests within Montana based on federal gun restrictions. I suspect that without extra protection from local law enforcement these agencies would be much more vulnerable in their operations. If they met with stiff resistance, they would be on their own. I also would not be surprised if sheriffs in most Montana counties stood in their way.

    The mainstream media has been almost completely silent on these developments. They barely even acknowledge the conservative migration. I doubt they will speak of the separation at all until the latest census data and postal data is more thoroughly examined. However, the changes to our nation are going to have far reaching consequences, and the consequences will be obvious in the near term.

    The “Great Reset” is meant to be a global project; meaning, no one is allowed to opt out. Leftists and globalists are notoriously plantation-minded; they believe that society is involuntary, and their rules for society should apply to all people. Those who wish to leave are actually seen as traitors, because the very act of leaving suggests that the system is flawed, and doubt creates questions, and questions create demands, and demands lead to defiance, and defiance leads to rebellion.

    The progressive/globalist plantation becomes an exercise in antagonistic self affirmation – You cannot leave the system, because everything is fine, and if you left people might think something is wrong and then everything would not be fine, so why would you want to upset the balance and ruin what is already perfect?

    In my last article I noted that red states in the US are the ONLY places in the world where freedom from the Reset is ingrained and people have the means to fight back. I still stand by that assertion. Some conservatives assume countries like Russia are going to fight the Reset, yet Putin and the Russian government enforced extensive covid restrictions recommended by the World Economic Forum and the World Health Organization, just like every other government. The head of the Russian Parliament’s committee on public health, Dmitri Morozov, stated that vaccine passports were “very important and needed in Russia”.

    Let’s face it, no major government is coming to save us; these delusional fantasies of Russia or any other foreign nation fighting against the Reset need to stop. The bottom line is this: The American red states are probably the only regions in the world that are resisting the reset agenda while also having the arms to back their resolve. If a rebellion is going to start against the globalists, it will start here.

    What does this mean for the future? It means we are going to be targeted. This is how I see the situation playing out…

    I have no doubt that the first step by the federal government under Biden will be to start cutting off federal funds to red states while flooding blue states with stimulus money. The strategy being that blue states will have unlimited free goodies while red states languish in poverty. Biden will be betting that red state citizens reliant on government checks will become despondent or angry. Of course, these taxpayer backed funds belong to all the states, but that won’t matter to Biden or to leftists; they will claim we are getting what we deserve.

    The logical response by red states will be to stop paying taxes, and to take over federal lands and the resources within their borders. Red states and red counties could also negate all EPA and BLM restrictions on resource usage and launch an epic revitalization of industry. In my area, I believe the logging industry which has been stifled by the federal government will return in full force. With lumber prices nearing hyperinflationary levels, it makes perfect sense. This will enrage the feds.

    The next step would be to make travel to and from certain red states difficult in order to isolate them. The feds may shut down airline flights while proclaiming that red states are “havens for covid infection”. This will not go over well with conservatives, and we will start demolishing any checkpoints that are meant to keep us in. Leftist controlled states and counties will start checking license plates and ID and harassing or arresting anyone from a conservative area. Travel will stagnate as people will not know which places are safe and which are dangerous.

    There will also be attempts to use federal agencies to insert into conservative areas to make arrests based on federal laws that have already been nullified. The goal will be to make examples out of some people, and send a message that conservatives “are not safe”, even in their own states. Eventually, the shooting will start and federal agents will die. Biden will demand a martial law response.

    If everything develops as described, the question arises, how many people in the military are actually willing to die for Biden? My guess is not that many, but with the right excuses and rationalizations who knows? Conservatives have been demonized for many years now, there may be a large enough chunk of the military that believes the propaganda, but I am doubtful.

    It could take two full terms of Biden for these events to happen. It could take far less time. I would not hold my breath for a 2022 or 2024 election to defuse matters. I think most conservatives learned their lesson on the futility of politics the last four years. The best possible outcome right now is that conservatives congregate, unify and organize from the local level to the state level to the point that we act as a deterrent to future tyranny.

    We all know one day the establishment is going to come for us, and if so then we’ll greet them with a long range love letter (if you get my meaning). But at least we will know where we stand. At least we will be living among kindred spirits, and at least there will be a glimmer of hope for the world. Sometimes the greatest act of rebellion is to offer people an alternative, a place where the rules of tyrants hold no weight. Conservative states and counties are doing this today, and it is a beautiful thing.

    *  *  *

    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
    Thu, 04/29/2021 – 23:50

  • China Creates Countrywide 'No-Pig Zones' To Limit African Swine Fever 
    China Creates Countrywide ‘No-Pig Zones’ To Limit African Swine Fever 

    The African Swine Fever (ASF) decimated China’s hog population in 2018 and has since been brought under control as the country rebuilds its hog herd. China released a novel plan to reshape the entire hog industry to mitigate future spreading, according to Bloomberg. 

    The Chinese agriculture ministry recently announced that the country would split into five regions from May. Pigs in each region will not be transported into other areas to mitigate the potential threat of ASF spreading. 

    Source: Bloomberg 

    Senior analyst Lin Guofa at consultancy Bric Agriculture Group said approximately 20% of the country’s pigs, or about 140 million live animals, are transported across the country each year and increase the chances of spreading diseases. The main transportation route for farmers is from the northeast to the south to meet the large demand for fresh meat in metropolises. 

    With new guidelines expected to be in place in a matter of days, areas known for little or no pig farming will have to increase capacity. 

    “Some areas that used to call themselves no-pig counties or no-pig cities will have to build pig farms,” Guofa said. 

    Under the guidelines, the only way for pork to be transported across regions will have to be in frozen meat form, leading to an expansion of the cold-chain industry, added Guofa. 

    Pigs are a significant source of protein in China. According to data from the Dalian Commodity Exchange, the country is the world’s top consumer of pork, with annual sales of around $308 billion per year.

    Chinese consumers have caught a period of relief after nearly two years of elevated pork prices due to the culling of millions of pigs countrywide during the ASF outbreak. Wholesale pork prices are down 30% year-to-date. 

    Source: Bloomberg 

    “The controls will depress prices in the north in the short term and push them up in the south,” according to Wang Zhong, chief consultant at Systematic, Strategic & Soft Consulting Co. “That may eventually prompt big pork producers — including Muyuan Foodstuff Co., New Hope Liuhe Co. and Wens Foodstuff Group Co. — to build more hog farms in the south and more slaughtering facilities in the northeast and northwest,” Bloomberg said.

    The new guidelines are similar to ones in Brazil and Spain that limit farmers from transporting live animals around the country. Such a measure has been successful in eradicating ASF from both countries. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/29/2021 – 23:30

  • The Shaky Foundations Of LA's Housing "Entitlement" For The Homeless
    The Shaky Foundations Of LA’s Housing “Entitlement” For The Homeless

    Authored by Christopher Rufo via RealClearInvestigations.com,

    In 2016 influential political leaders, activists, and media outlets in Los Angeles said they had a simple solution to homelessness: build more housing. Echoing an argument heard across the country, they claimed that rising rents have thrown people onto the streets and that by directly providing free “permanent supportive housing,” cities can reduce the number of people on the streets and save costs on emergency services.

    In response, 77% of Los Angeles voters approved a $1.2 billion bond for the construction of 10,000 units for the city’s homeless. That commitment made Los Angeles the most significant testing ground for the “Housing First” approach that has become the dominant policy idea on homelessness for West Coast cities. Even before the passage of the bond, the concept’s creator, Sam Tsemberis, was lavished with praise by the national media. In 2015, the Washington Post wrote that Tsemberis had “all but solved chronic homelessness” and that his research “commands the support of most scholars.”

    Sam Tsemberis: He has been hailed by the Washington Post as having “all but solved homelessness.” But Los Angeles, above, challenges his “Housing First” model.

    In the years since, “Housing First” has taken even greater hold in California and the across the West. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti recently declared that “we need to have an entitlement to housing.” California Gov. Gavin Newsom went a step further, arguing that “doctors should be able to write prescriptions for housing the same way they do for insulin or antibiotics.”

    Five years in, the project has been plagued by construction delays, massive cost overruns, and accusations of corruption. The Los Angeles city controller issued a scathing report, “The High Cost of Homeless Housing,” which shows that some studio and one-bedroom apartments were costing taxpayers more than $700,000 each, with 40% of total costs devoted to consultants, lawyers, fees, and permitting. The project is a boon for real estate developers and a constellation of nonprofits and service providers, but a boondoggle for taxpayers. The physical apartment units are bare-bones — small square footage, cheap flooring, vinyl surfaces — but have construction costs similar to luxury condos in the fashionable parts of Los Angeles. Meanwhile, unsheltered homelessness has increased 41%, vastly outpacing the construction of new supportive housing units. Los Angeles magazine, which initially supported the measure, now wonders whether it has become “a historic public housing debacle.”

    Before completing a single housing unit, the city reduced its projected construction from 10,000 units to 5,873 units over 10 years, with the potential for further reductions in the future. But the long-term problem runs much deeper: Even if one accepts that permanent supportive housing is the solution, there are currently more than 66,000 homeless people in Los Angeles County. Under the best-case scenario, Proposition HHH will solve less than 10% of the problem over the course of a decade.

    Arrested development: Five years in, most of LA’s homeless projects are barely off the ground.

    Despite Housing First’s uncertainties, other West Coast cities desperate to solve homelessness, including Seattle and San Francisco, have been captured by its seductive messaging and promise of respite. As Los Angeles grapples with the unforeseen consequences of its big bet on “Housing First,” the federal, state, and local governments, especially in major metropolitan areas, are preparing to commit billions of dollars to the program, whose track record remains woefully underexamined.

    As Los Angeles’s “Housing First” program has failed to meet expectations, Mayor Eric Garcetti is now downplaying it as just one of several needed approaches to homelessness.

    Ever since clinical psychologist Tsemberis pioneered the model in New York City in the 1990s, political leaders, activists, and academics have insisted that Housing First is an “evidence-based” intervention that reduces homelessness, saves taxpayer money, and improves lives. Supporters frequently argue that the program reduced costs in a study of chronic alcoholics in Seattle, consistently demonstrates high retention rates in multiple academic surveys, and eliminated chronic homelessness in Utah. “We’re going to stem this crisis by building supportive housing in every neighborhood throughout Los Angeles,” City Council member Herb Wesson recently claimed.

    These studies, however, are not as persuasive as activists suggest. Although the study of chronic alcoholics in Seattle does show a net reduction in monthly social service costs of $2,449 per person, this figure does not include $11 million in capital and construction costs for the housing units themselves; in other words, Housing First saves money if the cost of housing is not included. Even on its own favorable terms, the study’s purported savings aren’t as dramatic as they appear: While the Housing First participants showed a 63% reduction in service costs over six months, a wait-listed control group that was not provided housing showed a 42% reduction in service costs over the same time period, raising questions about the specific effectiveness of the intervention.

    Claims that studies show one-year retention rates of roughly 80% for Housing First participants are open to question. In a meta-study of three best-in-class Housing First sites, researchers found that 43% remained in housing for the first 12 months, 41% were “intermittent stayers” who left and returned, and 16% abandoned the program or died within the first year. These findings challenge the argument that Housing First is a long-term solution to homelessness.

    Finally, advocates and the media have long touted Utah as the gold standard of Housing First. “The Daily Show” called the state’s program “mind-blowing,” the Los Angeles Times reported in 2015 that Utah “is winning the war on chronic homelessness,” and dozens of media outlets announced that the state “reduced chronic homelessness by 91%.” These miraculous results, however, were not the result of Housing First policies, but apparently clerical manipulation by state officials. According to the Deseret News and economist Kevin Corinth, “As much as 85% of Utah’s touted reductions in chronic homelessness … may have been due to changes in how the homeless were counted.” It’s not that all of the chronically homeless were housed; they were simply transposed onto a new spreadsheet. Moreover, between 2016 and 2018, the number of unsheltered homeless in Utah nearly doubled – hardly the victory that Housing First activists had declared.

    Media, including Comedy Central’s “Daily Show,” hailed “Housing First” in Utah. But stats were fudged.

    The recent debate surrounding Housing First has predominantly been focused on the physical and budgetary metrics of housing retention and cost reductions. But these surface-level concerns obscure a deeper question: What happens to the human beings in these programs? The results, according to the vast majority of studies, point to a grim conclusion: Housing First does not meaningfully improve human lives.

    Although housing programs are often an effective solution for families experiencing a temporary loss of shelter, Housing First programs do not have a strong track record improving the lives of the unsheltered homeless — the people in tents, cars, and on the streets — who often suffer from more severe challenges. According to research by the California Policy Lab, 75% of the unsheltered homeless have substance abuse condition, 78% have mental health conditions, and 84% have physical health conditions. In theory, Housing First would address these problems. In every program, residents are offered a wide range of services. At the Pathways to Housing program in New York City, a flagship program founded by Sam Tsemberis himself, residents are served by an “interdisciplinary team of professionals that includes social workers, nurses, psychiatrists, and vocational and substance abuse counselors who are available to assist consumers 7 days a week 24 hours a day.” However, despite this massive intervention, the Pathways program shows no reduction in substance abuse or psychiatric symptoms over time – in fact, those conditions often worsened.

    This basic finding is confirmed by a range of studies showing that residents of Housing First programs show no improvement regarding addiction and mental illness. They are housed but broken, wracked by the cruelest psychoses, compulsions, and torments – all under the guise of medical care.

    Los Angeles’s “Housing First” produces homes, but fails to address the problems of the once-homeless.

    A Housing First experiment in Ottawa, Canada, illustrates this paradoxical outcome in stark terms. Researchers divided the study into two populations: an “intervention” group that was provided Housing First and access to primary care, medically assisted treatment, social workers, and on-demand services; and a non-intervention “control” group that was not provided housing or services – they were simply left on the streets. To the shock of the researchers, after 24 months the non-intervention control group reported better results regarding substance abuse, mental health, quality of life, family relations, and mortality than the Housing First group. In other words, doing nothing resulted in superior human outcomes than providing Housing First with wraparound services.

    One explanation may be that Housing First programs are deliberately not oriented toward recovery, rehabilitation, and renewal. They operate on the “harm reduction” model, which allows residents to continue using drugs such as alcohol, heroin, and methamphetamine, and does not require mental health treatment as a condition of residency. In theory, this permissive policy would help “reduce harm” to the individual; in practice, however, it may create a community-level effect that makes it hard for any individual to find recovery. Here is the basic chain of events: Homeless individuals with substance abuse and psychiatric disorders are placed together in a residential facility where they are allowed to continue the way of life they had on the streets. Despite the availability of services, there is no incentive to use those services and no disincentive to the problematic behavior associated with street homelessness. Consequently, widespread addiction often becomes the norm within Housing First programs. 

    Preferring Homelessness

    This chain of events is not just a thought experiment. In Birmingham, Ala., researchers inadvertently created this exact problem when they put participants of two different programs – one “recovery” program and one “harm reduction” program – in the same apartment complex. Immediately after beginning the experiment, the recovery group “began abandoning the provided housing, complaining that their proximity to persons not required to remain abstinent (i.e., the other trial group) was detrimental to their recovery. They claimed that they preferred to return to homelessness rather than live near drug users.” The researchers quickly stopped and reorganized the trial, writing that “this unexpected reaction shows one possible risk to housing persons with active addiction.”

    Still, Housing First advocates insist that their policy is working. When reached for comment, Tsemberis insisted that the Washington Post headline declaring that he had “solved homelessness” is true. “The most effective way to end homelessness for people with mental health and addiction is to provide housing and wraparound support,” Tsemberis said. He points towards rates of “housing stability” as the key metric, while conceding that Housing First does not provide “a cure for mental illness and addiction.” This is a suggestion that policymakers have “solved homelessness” simply by bringing people indoors, no matter their addictions, mental illnesses, and human torments.

    Advocates portray Housing First as a science that transcends politics. The policy was first adopted by the George W. Bush administration and has gained support from Republicans and Democrats alike. As the Washington Post observed, it is “a model so simple children could grasp it, so cost-effective fiscal hawks loved it, so socially progressive liberals praised it.

    However, the real-world evidence from cities such as Los Angeles challenges this narrative. If Housing First has demonstrated anything, it is this: It provides a stable residential environment for the homeless to live out their pathologies, subsidized by the public and administered by the social-scientific sector. It does, not however, address addiction, mental illness and other factors that limit human potential and lead to homelessness.

    A defensive Garcetti: “Nobody embraces only housing. It’s got to be housing with services together.” 

    In Los Angeles, despite the insistence that Housing First is the answer, some uncertainty is creeping in. Mayor Garcetti is now on the defensive, as homelessness in Los Angeles continues to increase despite billions in spending. After the federal government released a study questioning the premises of Housing First, Garcetti backed away from the unidimensional approach, telling reporters with irritation in his voice: “Sometimes people parody Housing First as ‘only housing.’ Nobody embraces only housing. It’s got to be housing with services together.”

    In more bad news for public officials and supporters of Housing First, there is an emerging body of evidence that calls into question the “cost savings” of the program. A recent study in Massachusetts shows that Housing First does not reduce rehospitalization and service utilization, while another study in Chicago suggests that Housing First might increase overall costs. Furthermore, researchers have concluded that the purported cost savings in earlier Housing First studies would not apply to the 82% of the homeless population that is not chronically homeless.

    Ron Galperin: The Los Angeles controller has found the city’s housing program to be riddled with high costs and delays.

    In Los Angeles, this could spell disaster. In the most optimistic scenario laid out by the controller’s office, the city will build 5,873 supportive housing units at an initial cost of $1.2 billion, plus an estimated $88 million in annual service costs associated with the Housing First model. The recipients of this housing will not meaningfully improve their lives in terms of addiction, mental illness, and spiritual well-being — and there will still be 60,000 people on the streets across Los Angeles County. In other words, even under its own theoretical assumptions, Proposition HHH is doomed to fail.

    The City of Los Angeles did not return a request for comment.

    The potential silver living might be that a reconsideration of the Housing First approach could lead to a wider reckoning for policymakers and political leaders. At the end of the Housing First experiment in Los Angeles, the city will be responsible for thousands of wards of the state with little hope for recovery, as well as tens of thousands of campers in its public spaces. A few curious citizens will read through the academic literature and find a vast discrepancy between the ideological promises of Housing First and its real-world outcomes. They might then conclude that proponents should have known better.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/29/2021 – 23:10

  • "We've Seen Some Deaths" – StanChart Scrambles To Find Oxygen For COVID-Stricken Staffers In India
    “We’ve Seen Some Deaths” – StanChart Scrambles To Find Oxygen For COVID-Stricken Staffers In India

    If the last year has taught us anything, it’s that dealmaking doesn’t come to a stop just because of a once-in-a-century global pandemic. And although some have written the obituary for the SPAC boom, there’s clearly still enough dealmaking activity happening in India to warrant investment banks pushing ahead even as the second wave of the country’s COVID-19 pandemic leads to unprecedented devastation.

    And as banks work to ensure their employees can grind on regardless of the circumstances, Bloomberg reported that StanChart is attempting to buy medical grade oxygen for workers in its Indian offices who have become stricken with COVID-19.

    Chief Financial Officer Andy Halford says the London-based bank is “actively” attempting to find oxygen concentrators with hundreds of the company’s 20K-plus staff based in India infected.

    “I think we have got 800 cases currently of Covid and I think in total we have had some deaths among our employees in India to date,” Halford said in a phone interview after the bank published first-quarter earnings.

    “We are actively out there seeing what we can do make vaccine more available, and particularly offer more locations where staff can get it,” he said. However, he added the bank was reluctant to use “connections that would be inappropriate.”

    Standard Chartered is one of the biggest international banks operating in India. As well as providing banking and wealth management services in the country it also operates major back-office hubs in Bangalore and Chennai.

    StanChart CEO Bill Winters said that in reaction to the crisis, the bank is looking to transfer work away from India to service centers in Kuala Lumpur, Tianjian and Warsaw to help support employees within the country. “We are looking carefully at how we can rebalance loads,” Winters reportedly told the bank’s analysts on Thursday.

    “We have material case counts amongst our population, both in our services center and in the bank itself, consistent with what we are seeing across the country,” Winters said. “We’ve kept most of our branches open, banks are considered essential services, so we have had a disproportionate share of the cases in the branches’ staff, very unfortunately.”

    While most of the bank’s staffers are working from home, especially in hard-hit cities like Bangalore and Chennai, where the bank has thousands of employees, some 10% of front-office personnel are still working in the office at least part time.

    Their efforts helped the bank post an 18% jump in Q1 pre-tax profit as it cited the economic “recovery” seen in many of its key international markets (including India) as COVID-19 restrictions were loosened. To be sure, some of the bank’s strong quarterly performance was due to the bank dedicating less cash to offset feared loan losses, but trading, dealmaking and particularly strong performance in the bank’s wealth management business also contributed to the jump in profits.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/29/2021 – 22:50

  • "Election Panic" Coming In 2022, Martin Armstrong Warns "It's Going To Turn Violent"
    “Election Panic” Coming In 2022, Martin Armstrong Warns “It’s Going To Turn Violent”

    Via Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com,

    According to a recent poll, 51% of Americans think Joe Biden cheated to get into the White House.  The breakdown is 74% Republicans and an astounding 30% Democrats think cheating played at least a part of the 2020 Election outcome.  In Arizona, the 2020 Election ballots are finally being audited as court battles to stop it continue.  Legendary financial and geopolitical cycle analyst Martin Armstrong is predicting an election “panic in 2022.”  

    Armstrong explains, “It means extremely high volatility…”

    ”  Despite whatever they want to say, there is a large proportion of the population that do not believe the election.  Polls are saying it’s at 51%, but it’s probably close to 60% or 70%.  You are also seeing that 60% of Americans want a third party, and you are talking about Democrats and Republicans…

    I think because we have such a high number of people who do not trust the election results, I don’t think they are going to be able to get away with rigging the elections again.  It’s going to turn into violence.  There is no question about that.”

    Armstrong also sees Biden Administration tax plans on things like capital gains causing problems in the not-too-distant future.  Armstrong says,

    “If they raise capital gains, I don’t care if you are Republican or Democrat, you are going to have to sell.  Your accountant is going to say if you don’t sell, you going to pay twice or three times as much in taxes next year.  So, they can create a serious, serious collapse in the world economy.  This is in addition to all this Covid nonsense that they have created.”

    Armstrong has been saying for months that deflation would be the overarching theme in the economy.  Is that going to continue or has there been a change?  Armstrong says, “Deflation is now over…”

    ”  People have to understand.  It has nothing to do with the supply of money. . . . If you don’t see a bright rosy future, what do you do?  You save your money. . . . One of the number one selling objects in Europe is a safe.  People are storing cash. 

    Biden was the straw that broke the camel’s back.  People are now seeing that things are going to cost more in the future than they do today.  They have also created shortages because of these lockdowns.  The inflation is just beginning to start now.  It’s based on shortages, and it will continue going into about 2024.”

    The bottom line on the cause of inflation, according to Armstrong, is “a loss of confidence in government.”

    Armstrong also predicts,

    “We are looking at the prospect of a serious war between 2025 and 2027.  All this is completely because of this great reset nonsense.  They have been using the Corona Virus as an excuse to try and shut down the economy.  If you look at rents in New York City, they are in a freefall.  Real estate is going crazy outside of the urban centers.  In Florida, what was a $500,000 house last year is now more than $1 million.”

    On Trump, Armstrong says, “I don’t see him returning to office before 2024.”

    But, if massive ballot fraud is proven with the Arizona audit going on right now, Armstrong predicts, “The state legislature can recall a Senator” who won by election rigging.

    Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he goes One-on-One in this in-depth interview (60 mins. in length) with Martin Armstrong of ArmstrongEconomics.com.  (What is written above is a very small sample of the actual interview.)

    *  *  *

    To Donate to USAWatchdog.com Click Here

    Martin Armstrong also told me there are a number of events that could cause the stock market to sell-off quickly and plunge deeply.  So, stay on guard, and stay hedged and protected for unforeseen developments. There is some free information, analysis and articles on ArmstrongEconomics.com. To get a copy of Armstrong’s latest book “The Cycle of War and the Coronavirus,” click here. There is also a PDF version of “The Cycle of War and the Coronavirus” you can get by clicking here.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/29/2021 – 22:30

  • White House Says Afghanistan Troop Drawdown Has Officially Begun
    White House Says Afghanistan Troop Drawdown Has Officially Begun

    Following the earlier this month Biden-ordered full troop exit from Afghanistan slated to be completed by Sept.11 of this year, the White House on Thursday announced the military withdrawal has now officially begun. 

    While traveling aboard Air Force One, the deputy White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre confirmed to reporters that “A drawdown is underway,” but also added the caveat that, “While these actions will initially result in increased forces levels, we remain committed to having all of US military personnel out of Afghanistan by September 11, 2020.”

    Via Reuters

    “The President’s intent is clear, the US military departure from Afghanistan will not be rushed.… It will be delivered and conducted in a safe and responsible manner that ensures the protection of our forces,” Jean-Pierre explained.

    Previously Pentagon officials have described “increased forces levels” as constituting the security and personnel required to oversee a safe logistical exit from the country that includes a vast amount of military equipment and defense facilities that have accumulated over the course of the two-decade long war and occupation. 

    CNN details that “Fewer than 100 troops, along with military equipment, have been moved largely by aircraft to execute President Joe Biden’s order to begin the withdrawal process no later than May 1, according to several US defense officials.”

    “There have been about 2,500 US troops in Afghanistan that are openly acknowledged, plus several hundred additional special operations forces. All of them will depart under the President’s orders,” the report adds. NATO at the same time is signaling a full draw down within months.

    It’s likely these slew of new statements Thursday are intended to seek to assure the Taliban that an exit is indeed in motion. But Saturday could see a proverbial all hell breaking loose given May 1 is the deadline (from the Taliban’s perspective) based on the prior Trump admin-Taliban deal that was inked in February 2020.

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    The Taliban has vowed to strike at any American targets should troops remain in the country after that date. US leaders are now worried that the Taliban could hit hard just as the Pentagon is in the midst of its draw down; and in the medium to longer term it’s expected that entire major cities could once again fall to the hardline Islamic fundamentalist group.

    To protect the exiting US troops, over the past weeks the US has sent additional B-52 bombers to the region to safeguard the pullout, along with the presence in regional waters of the USS Eisenhower aircraft carrier. 

    Many pundits ultimately see this whole spectacle as just a recipe for continuing to stay far past Biden’s anticipated Sept.11 exit, given there’s a seeming endless number of ways this could go wrong. So it’s worth asking: will we still be seeing similar headlines of “drawdown has begun” a few years from now as the prior pattern has shown when it comes to America’s longest ever running war?

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/29/2021 – 22:10

  • Biden Erased Decades Of Historic Crimes In His Speech To Congress
    Biden Erased Decades Of Historic Crimes In His Speech To Congress

    Authored by Glenn Greenwald and Siraj Hashmi via Outside Voices Substack, (emphasis ours)

    Biden’s claim that the Capitol Riot was the “worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War” is ahistorical garbage…

    As President Biden wrapped up a 65-minute joint address to Congress to mark his administration’s first 100 days, what was shared in the lead-up to his speech sowed discord over the entire affair:

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    Sure enough, the President delivered on this. Opening his address, Biden stated, “I took the oath of office — lifted my hand off our family Bible — and inherited a nation in crisis. The worst pandemic in a century. The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.”

    Yes, the January 6th siege on the U.S. Capitol building, often alluded to as an “insurrection,” was an embarrassing day for our country. But to suggest that it was “the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War” is disingenuous at best. At worst, it’s a malicious attempt to whitewash the history of attacks carried out both by and on the government that have had much more catastrophic results.

    Apart from the September 11th terrorist attacks that targeted the country’s financial system, Al Qaeda terrorists attacked the defenders of our democracy when a hijacked American Airlines flight 77 flew into the Pentagon. Were it not for the heroes who resisted against the hijackers of United flight 93, Al Qaeda’s attempt to fly a commercial airline into the White House or U.S. Capitol building would have come to fruition. Despite being a horrific tragedy, 9/11 has been dismissed by some as being explicitly a “foreign attack,” not one from within.

    So, let’s explore attacks on our democracy from within.

    Following 9/11, the Bush administration, in conjunction with Congress, expedited the passage of the Patriot Act, a wide-sweeping national security law that infringed on the civil liberties of every American in the name of fighting terror. The Fourth Amendment became a relic of the past as the government’s power to surveil and spy on its own citizens reached its peak. Individuals who shared names with persons of interest or suspected terrorists, including U.S. citizens, landed on government no-fly lists, restricting their right to freely move about the country for dubious reasons and with no due process or recourse. And even worse, many had their right to due process eviscerated when they were detained by the newly-created Department of Homeland Security and found themselves at Guantanamo Bay without even being charged with a crime.

    Yet this is not the first time that American citizens, or even permanent residents for that matter, had their rights infringed upon by the government.

    As the FBI was formed in the early 20th century, Americans whose ideologies were at odds with the government’s interests were often targeted by the agency’s longest-serving director, J. Edgar Hoover. In the eyes of the FBI Director, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a suspected communist given his ties to Stanley Levison, whose suspected pro-communist activities were monitored by the FBI in the 1950s. Although Dr. King has been viewed as one of the most consequential leaders in American history due to his role in the civil rights movement, at the time, Hoover and many in the FBI viewed him as a threat to our democracy, ushering in communism under the guise of “civil rights.” The FBI infamously blackmailed Dr. King by sending him a letter advocating he commit suicide. 

    J Edgar Hoover (1895 -1972) points his finger while testifying before the House on Un-American Activities Committee, Washington, DC. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

    The Red Scare was so severe in the United States that the government actively sought to chip away at Americans’ First Amendment rights to prevent the spread of such ideas. And through the Lavender Scare in the early 1950s, thousands of people were forced out of government service for simply for being suspected of being homosexual. 

    When the United States entered the First World War, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Espionage Act of 1917 into law, which then gave way to the Sedition Act of 1918. These two laws worked in conjunction to strip away the First Amendment rights of every American and demand undying fealty towards the U.S. government. Expressing even the slightest bit of criticism of the U.S. or associating with groups like the Communist Party could result in, at the very least, a government wiretap, and, at worst, a hefty prison sentence and possible execution. In the same token that President Franklin Roosevelt interned approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II in fear that they might side with the Japanese Empire, the Espionage and Sedition Acts under President Wilson explicitly targeted German-born American residents during World War I, with over 2,000 arrested and sent to internment camps.

    While the FBI has had its fair share of attacking our democracy, its intelligence counterpart, the CIA, has interfered in the affairs of other countries countless times. As Americans decry countries like Russia, China, and Iran for interfering in our electoral process, the CIA has had a hand in interfering in the affairs of well over a dozen nations. For as many autocratic regimes as the CIA tried to topple in places like Cuba, Indonesia, and the Dominican Republic, the CIA had a hand in the overthrow of democracies as well in countries like Iran, Chile, and Guatemala.

    For decades, J. Edgar Hoover — the notorious FBI Director after whom the law enforcement’s DC headquarters continues to be named — assaulted democracy in every way imaginable. Hoover kept dossiers on political leaders to enforce his will over them. His agency tried to blackmail Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. into suicide with threats to expose alleged adultery. FBI agents routinely infiltrated anti-war and civil rights groups as part of its COINTELPRO program and other similar domestic spying activities. And the NSA notoriously spied on millions of American citizens without warrants.

    There is a strong argument to be made that the CIA is responsible for interfering in American democracy, too.

    The first impeachment of President Donald Trump in 2019 occurred when a whistleblower within the CIA filed a complaint after Trump had a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in which Trump asked his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate his political rival, Joe Biden, in exchange for $400 million in military aid.

    But it didn’t end there.

    The story of the Russian Bounty program on U.S. troops in Afghanistan that broke publicly in the summer of 2020 made a significant impact in tipping the scales during the 2020 presidential election. The CIA produced the initial intelligence assessment in 2019, which later broke publicly in the summer of 2020, further cementing the perception that Trump was in the pocket of Russian President Vladimir Putin––a claim that was exacerbated when then-President Trump dismissed the allegations outright, calling it “fake news.” However, in April 2021, Trump would be vindicated as the U.S. government revealed that the Intelligence Community had “low to moderate confidence” in the intelligence assessment. In other words, there was little evidence to prove that it was real.

    On top of these government abuses that took place on a wide scale impacting every American, there was a long-drawn-out period since the Civil War that impacted millions of Americans that has had consequences that last to this day: Jim Crow.

    Following the Civil War and Reconstruction, the implementation of Jim Crow laws in Southern former slave states not only segregated black people from the white population, but also barred them from fully participating in society as equal members. Through policies like poll taxes, literacy tests, and increased residency requirements, black people had their right to vote stripped away, essentially removing them from the political process, keeping them further ostracized from society. It was authoritarianism in the most sinister manner, targeting a racial group that was perceived to be subhuman to their white counterpart, all in the name of protecting democracy.

    A young boy drinks from the ‘colored’ water fountain on the county courthouse lawn, Hallifax, North Carolina, April 1938. (Photo by John Vacha/FPG/Getty Images)

    Despite all these examples in which our democracy––and the democracies of other nations––were attacked with our government playing the central antagonist, there were a half dozen times where the sitting U.S. president and, by extension, our democracy were attacked from within. Since the Civil War, four U.S. presidents were assassinated (Lincoln in 1865, Garfield in 1881, McKinley in 1901, and Kennedy in 1963) and two presidents were injured in assassination attempts (Roosevelt in 1912 and Reagan in 1981). These were six attacks on the duly elected leaders of the people of the United States. Not only does changing the leadership alter the trajectory for a nation, but due to its status, it has lasting effects for the rest of the world.

    If President Biden is to suggest that the siege on Capitol Hill on January 6th was “the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War,” then we should demand that our leaders be honest about what does and does not constitute an “attack on our democracy.” Attacks on our democracy aren’t just reserved for storming the U.S. Capitol and targeting U.S. lawmakers with historically low approval ratings. If that’s the case, that a certain set of rules only applies to the political elite and not the people, then it’s safe to say that we do not truly live in a democracy.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/29/2021 – 21:50

  • China PMIs Disappoint Again As Production, New Orders Slide
    China PMIs Disappoint Again As Production, New Orders Slide

    For the 4th time in the last 5 months, China’s Services and Manufacturing PMIs missed expectations in April.

    China’s official manufacturing purchasing managers index declined to 51.1 in April from 51.9 in March (and well below the 51.8 expectations), according to data released Friday by the National Bureau of Statistics.

    The non-manufacturing gauge, which measures activity in the construction and services sectors, dropped to 54.9 (from 56.3 in March), compared to 56.1 projected by economists.

    While the trend is not the friend of the Chinese economy, we do note that both PMIs remain above the 50-level demarcating an expansion in output. The reading has now remained in expansionary territory for 14 straight months.

    The subindex measuring production fell to 52.2 from 53.9 in March. Total new orders also dropped to 52 from 53.6 in March, and new export orders fell from 51.2 in March to 50.4, but stayed in the expansionary territory for two straight months.

    Surveyed manufacturers said chip shortages, international logistics jams and rising delivery costs have weighed on their operations, the statistics bureau said.

    The non-manufacturing PMI again outpaced manufacturing, supporting the view of the services sector is catching up and manufacturing activity peaking.

    The one potential silver lining, looking ahead, is that China’s economy could be about to get a boost as Deutsche Bank notes that from June onward, the credit impulse -on a YoY basis – should mechanically rebound thanks to base effects. More importantly, as the chart below shows, higher frequency leading indicators are also consistent with a recovery in the credit impulse.

    Indeed, recent easing of financial conditions suggests the credit impulse should converge towardsa zero. In turn, this would be consistent with stable PMI manufacturing new orders. And even more notably, for those paying attention to supply chain disruptions and inflationary impulses worldwide, a stabilization of China’s manufacturing is key given that it tends to lead global manufacturing and is a key driver of global inflation expectations.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/29/2021 – 21:38

  • Paris Mayor Backs Military Chiefs Who Threatened To Seize Control From Macron Over Inaction On Radical Islam
    Paris Mayor Backs Military Chiefs Who Threatened To Seize Control From Macron Over Inaction On Radical Islam

    A Paris Mayor who was raised in a devout Muslim household by Algerian immigrant parents threw her support behind a controversial letter by current and former military chiefs who said that if nothing is done about the “laxist” policies on radical Islam, it would require “the intervention of our comrades on active duty in a perilous mission of protection of our civilizational values.”

    Rachida Dati, mayor of Paris’ 7th arrondissement, said that the concerns expressed in the letter to Emmanuel Macron were valid.

    “What is written in this letter is a reality,” Mayor Rachida Dati of Paris’ 7th arrondissement told France Info radio. “When you have a country plagued by urban guerrilla warfare, when you have a constant and high terrorist threat, when you have increasingly glaring and flagrant inequalities … we cannot say that the country is doing well.“

    “The hour is grave, France is in peril,” reads the letter, adding that failure to act against the “suburban hordes” would lead to “civil war” and deaths “in the thousands.”

    The letter was signed by hundreds of retired soldiers, including 20 retired generals, as well as several active duty members of the military – 18 of whom are to be fired, the country’s armed forces chief confirmed on Thursday, according to the Daily Mail.

    Army Corps General Christian Piquemal, 80, was the lead signatory of the 20 retired generals who backed the letter. He is pictured at an anti-Islam rally in Calais in 2016.

    “The police have become a target for terrorists” said Dati, 55, who served as justice minister under Nicolas Sarkozy from 2007 to 2009. Her comments follow the fatal stabbing last week of a policewoman in the southwest Paris neighborhood of Rambouillet. The suspect, a Tunisian national, had been watching jihadist propaganda videos prior to the attack.

    “I am afraid that the police will break down one day,” Dati continued, adding “And if they crack, we go well beyond the disintegration of society.”

    Dati’s comments come as France’s Chief of Defense, François Lecointre, called the letter “absolutely revolting,” adding of the active-duty signatories: “I hope that their automatic retirement will be decided.”

    “This is an exceptional procedure, which we are launching immediately at the request of the Minister of the Armed Forces,” he added. “These general officers will each pass before a higher military council. At the end of this procedure, it is the President of the Republic who signs a decree expelling them.”

    President Macron’s government strongly condemned the letter, which was published on the 60th anniversary of a failed coup d’etat by generals opposed to France granting independence to Algeria, its former North African colony.

    Prime Minister Jean Castex said the letter by military figures was ‘against all of our republican principles, of honour and the duty of the army’.

    And Florence Parly, the Defence Minister, said: ‘This is unacceptable. There will be consequences, naturally.

    The soldiers behind the letter were all said to be anti-immigration activists with racist views and strong ties to the far-Right Rassemblement National (National Rally).

    The lead signatory was Christian Piquemal, 80, who commanded the French Foreign Legion before losing his privileges as a retired officer after being arrested while taking part in an anti-Islam demonstration in 2016. –Daily Mail

    Supporting the signatories was Marine Le Pen, the Rassemblement National leader, writing in response to the letter: “I invite you to join us in taking part in the coming battle, which is the battle of France.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/29/2021 – 21:30

  • China Population Still Growing… For Now
    China Population Still Growing… For Now

    Earlier this week, we highlighted an interesting article in the FT this according to which China’s population was set to decline for the first time since the 1950s when the national census data is released soon. However, in response to the report which prompted widespread speculation over implications of this demographic inflection point, the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) best known for faking every possible piece of data, released a statement this morning saying that the population continued to grow in 2020 ahead of the official release. Watch for 2016-19 revisions though.

    So although a decline was avoided, the NBS recently said that China’s demographics “has reached an important turning point”.

    Here Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid reminds us that using UN population forecasts, China’s population is predicted to peak in 2031 at around 2% above 2019 levels, so expectations were already that the population was plateauing. With normal margins of error the peak could come notably before (maybe even now) or indeed after. For the record, on the UN’s data, India’s population is expected to climb above China’s in 2027 – to be the largest in the world – and will be 17% above by 2050.

    More interestingly, the working-age population peaked in China around 2015 (2013 using NBS data) having surged in the globalization era. In the forty years to 2015 this increased c.97% but is predicted to fall c.-12% over the next 20 years.

    As Reid concludes, we can only speculate whether this changes the global inflation outlook. Over the last few decades the surge of global workers and the integration of originally very cheap Chinese labor into the global system has had a very depressing impact on inflation. But as workers become relatively more scarce across the world, including the now much higher-paid Chinese, not to mention with countless supply chains permanently frayed or broken, will there be more pricing power for labor in the years ahead?

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/29/2021 – 21:10

  • "Historic Moment!" – China Successfully Launches First Module Of Next-Gen Space Station 
    “Historic Moment!” – China Successfully Launches First Module Of Next-Gen Space Station 

    China successfully launched a key module of a new space station Thursday, a mission that shows the country’s ‘space dream’ of dominating low Earth orbit is quickly becoming a reality. 

    China National Space Administration announced Thursday morning that the Long March-5B Y2 rocket lifted off in the southern province of Hainan with the core capsule of the new Tiangong space station. 

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    The next-generation space station will take 18 months to build in low Earth orbit, with a completion year sometime in 2022. The space station is designed as a scientific research outpost for China through the end of the decade since it has been excluded from using the International Space Station (ISS). 

    When completed, the Tiangong space station will be approximately one-fifth the mass of the ISS and weigh about 90-metric-ton in the shape of a T. The size will be comparable to the Russian Mir space station, which operated from 1986 to 2000. 

    “We did not intend to compete with the ISS in terms of scale,” Gu Yidong, chief scientist of the China Manned Space program, was quoted by Scientific American as saying.

    The ISS recently celebrated its 20 years in operation with an end of lifespan by 2030. Already, the space station has shown signs of wear and tear amid a series of malfunctions, including air leaks. 

    In early April, Russia said it would pull out of the ISS in 2025 and build a space station by 2030 if Russian President Vladimir Putin provides funding. If not, Russia could soon find itself working with the Chinese in space.

    President Xi Jinping has touted China’s space dream as he was cited by state media as saying it’s the path to “national rejuvenation.” 

    China has recent made no secret of its space ambitions. From the moon to Mars, the country has recently landed multiple spacecraft on these extraterrestrial bodies.

    Meanwhile, the US is doing the same as a space race between both countries heats up. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/29/2021 – 20:50

  • America Has A Problem With Poorly-Trained Police Officers, Not "Systemic Racism"
    America Has A Problem With Poorly-Trained Police Officers, Not “Systemic Racism”

    Authored by Robert Bridge via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    In what just might be the most misguided attempt at ‘utopian’ living ever conceived, progressive Democrats continue to demand the defunding and disbanding of police forces in cities around the country. Yet, like a doctor that has made the wrong diagnosis on a patient, such a radical idea will not bring peace and security to America’s ailing neighborhoods. In fact, it will make them virtually unlivable.

    The United States desperately needs a national debate on the root causes of police violence, which the political left has prematurely and wrongly attributed to “systemic racism.” Missing from the bigger picture are questions pertaining to economic hardship, broken homes, drug abuse and street gangs – and perhaps most importantly of all, poorly trained police – as just a few of the contributing factors that have placed law enforcement between a rock and a hard place.

    For every Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer charged in the murder of George Floyd, there are dozens of cops like Nicholas Reardon, who was forced to make a split-second decision after a Black girl, Ma’Khia Bryant, 16, attempted to stab another teenager. Reardon, who shot and killed Bryant, has found himself something of a celebrity not for potentially saving the life of a young girl, but for being the fresh face of “white supremacy.”

    NBA star Lebron James led the charge against the cop when he unconscionably tweeted to his 46.5 followers a photograph of Nicholas Reardon with the caption, “YOU’RE NEXT, beside the emoji of an hourglass. Some people may consider that a threat.

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    In another incident, Kim Potter, a 26-year department veteran of the Minneapolis police force, shot and killed Daunte Wright, 20, just blocks away from where George Floyd was killed. The similarities don’t end there. As was the case with Floyd, Daunte Wright, for whom the police had an outstanding warrant, struggled with the police and even managed to make it back inside of his vehicle before being fatally shot. Potter, who appears to have mistaken her gun for a taser in the chaos that ensued, has been charged with second-degree manslaughter in Wright’s death.

    In yet another highly publicized incident, Adam Toledo, a 13-year-old Latino boy, was shot and killed last month by Chicago Police Department officer Eric Stillman following a foot chase down a dark alley. Footage from Stillman’s body cam appears to show Toledo dropping a handgun moments before turning and raising his hands, immediately prior to being killed.

    Is it fair to blame the phantom of “systemic racism” for these and other killings that occasionally occur between civilians and the police? That would seem ludicrous, yet that is how these tragic incidences are being framed in the media and by civil rights groups, like Black Lives Matter, who continue to bang the drum for disbanding the police. Would it not make more sense to fight not only for better training in the police ranks, but for getting the word out to the youth that resisting arrest is not the best strategy when confronted by a law enforcement officer? Yet such a rational plan of action would deprive the Democrats of the political points they receive every time a member of the minority gets killed during a run-in with the police. At the same time, it would dry up corporate donations to BLM, which has helped its co-founder and self-described Marxist, Patrisse Khan-Cullors, purchase four luxury homes in the United States alone.

    Getting back to the question of police training, why didn’t Nicholas Reardon opt to shoot a warning shot instead, or perhaps “aim low,” as a means to prevent Miss Bryant from stabbing that young lady? And why was Officer Stillman in pursuit of an individual down a dark alley in the West End of Chicago without any backup? And finally, how in the world was it possible for Kim Potter, a trained police officer, to confuse a weighty Glock-22 with a lightweight Taser? Brandon Tatum, a Black American political commentator and former police officer, offered as an alternative to the ‘systemic racism’ theory, the possibility that Potter was part of an affirmative action hiring program.

    “They are hiring people to meet quotas,” Tatum commented on his YouTube channel, “and they’re not hiring the best people for the job.”

    That is one possible theory to explain police violence that the mainstream media will not be entertaining anytime soon. The question is “why”? Why is the media, just like it is with so many major corporations, hyping and funding the idea of systemic racism as the source of police violence when there are many other far more plausible explanations? While the ultimate motivation for assuming such a dangerous position may never be known, it is clear that anyone who challenges the ‘racist’ narrative risks attracting the wrath of the woke brigade. This would include, perhaps more than anyone, the academics.

    In 2019, psychologists Joseph Cesario of Michigan State and David Johnson of the University of Maryland examined 917 fatal police shootings of civilians from 2015 to ask a simple question: did the race of the police officer or the civilian play any role in those tragic events? The answer: no they didn’t. Cesario and Johnson concluded there was “no significant evidence of antiblack disparity in the likelihood of being fatally shot by police.” Their findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a peer-reviewed journal. Would it surprise anyone to know that “citizen behavior,” i.e. resisting arrest, is the greatest determinate of police behavior?

    Perhaps equally unsurprising is the establishment came down hard on the two number crunchers, especially after their research was cited by author Heather MacDonald in an article for the Wall Street Journal entitled, The Myth of Systemic Police Racism.

    “It set off a firestorm at Michigan State,” MacDonald wrote. “The university’s Graduate Employees Union pressured the MSU press office to apologize for the “harm it caused” by mentioning my article in a newsletter. The union targeted physicist Steve Hsu, who had approved funding for Mr. Cesario’s research. MSU sacked Mr. Hsu from his administrative position. PNAS editorialized that Messrs. Cesario and Johnson had “poorly framed” their article—the one that got through the journal’s three levels of editorial and peer review.”

    As par for course, various student groups took up petitions to have Hsu fired, while the school profusely apologized. In the end, the mob declared yet another victory as Hsu finally stepped down from his position.

    The controversial paper’s co-author Cesario told WSJ that he feared the activists would continue “pushing for a narrowing of what kinds of topics people can talk about, or what kinds of conclusions people can come to.”

    It appears that Mr. Cesario’s fears have materialized faster than he could have realized as a wall of censorship has been constructed around the world of academia, the one place where the truth on “systemic racism” was being exposed for the lie it is. Now that there is no one left to tell the people, aside from a handful of rigidly regulated and censored truth-seeking publications, America can expect a future of artificially induced racial tensions as a number of good cops are forced to take the blame for a “systemic racism” that only exists on the pages of the mainstream media.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/29/2021 – 20:30

  • Manhattan Retail Rents Continue Slide As Recovery Narrative Falls Apart 
    Manhattan Retail Rents Continue Slide As Recovery Narrative Falls Apart 

    Manhattan’s “prime” retail real estate market remained under pressure in the first quarter even as COVID-19 vaccines became widely available and public health restrictions eased. 

    According to Bloomberg, citing a report by Cushman & Wakefield, SoHo, a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan known for designer boutiques, fancy chain stores, and high-end art galleries, experienced the worst slump in retail rents in the first quarter, down 20% from a year earlier to $279 a square foot. The latest surge in long-term leases barely put a dent in overhead supply that has been increasing since the beginning of the pandemic. About 30% of SoHo’s retail space is dormant and available for rent. 

    We noted in a piece titled “Manhattan Retail Rents Plunge In “Prime” Shopping Areas” that retail rents slid in the fourth quarter of last year. 

    Besides SoHo, Herald Square and Madison Ave.’s retail rents tumbled 19% over the same quarter last year. Madison Avenue had the most inventory available, with the availability rate at a whopping 40%.

    Source: Bloomberg 

    “The bad news is that first quarter of 2021 is showing the true impact of the pandemic on the market,” Steven Soutendijk, an executive managing director at Cushman & Wakefield, told Bloomberg. 

    Soutendijk continued: “The good news is that landlords are responding and adjusting rents even further downwards to spur leasing.”

    Mayor DeBlasio’s solution to mitigate the virus spread has doomed the city. A speedy economic recovery is now questionable.

    Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani recently said DeBlasio has “ruined” the metro area through strict public health orders crushing businesses and liberal policies that have made the area more dangerous. 

    “Now he’s consistently doing horrible things and destroying my city,” Giuliani said. “He’s ruining it all, he’s doing it in a flash of an eye.”

    To revive the city, DeBlasio will spend $30 million on a tourism campaign this summer to attract tourists. 

    “It’s critical that we deliver the message that New York City is open and welcoming visitors once again,” Fred Dixon, president and chief executive officer of NYC & Company, the city’s official tourism organization, told WSJ. 

    Tourism accounts for hundreds of thousands of jobs – for a sustainable recovery, there needs to be an influx of tourists to visit attractions, shop at retail shops, eat at restaurants, and stay in hotels. 

    An exodus of office workers, companies, and residents also adds to the city’s economic woes. Without the uptick in foot traffic on streets, the city should prepare for a new reality, one where its economic recovery lags the rest of the country. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/29/2021 – 20:10

  • The Need To Regulate Big Tech – Part 1: Protecting The People From Pernicious Manipulation
    The Need To Regulate Big Tech – Part 1: Protecting The People From Pernicious Manipulation

    Authored by Bill Blain via MorningPorridge.com,

    “Heaven is purpose and principle. Purgatory is paper and procedure. Hell is rules and regulation.”

    We had a slew of spectacular Big Tech results this week, but has the time come to regulate them more closely to avoid increasingly monopolistic behaviour, and to protect the population from the pernicious effect of the manipulation of big data? It’s as much an argument about the role of the state as it is about the success of companies. There will be winners and losers.

    As always there is lots going on in markets, but the run of superb Tech results has been truly spectacular. Many tech firms have successfully navigated the Pandemic, selling into bored WFH workers, and achieved staggering success. Let’s use the moment to ponder the difficult question of how should we value Tech, and should it be more thoroughly regulated?

    To the upside, new value and economic growth is created from new ideas creating new demand and markets. Invention leads to innovation – which is why everyone is so over-excited about the swift adoption potential of AI, Virtual Reality, 3-D printing, Meatless meat, Robotics, autonomous systems from drones to cars and all the other wonderful things we read about in the new tech space. The companies trade on extraordinary multiples based on their perceived potential – and is often exaggerated.

    In real reality, (as opposed to virtual), these ideas are often brilliant solutions in search of problems; they take time, effort, and travel many wrong paths on the road to monetisation. We see that repeatedly in the miserable negative profits generated by so many tech unicorns that promised so much. Some stuff works. Much doesn’t.

    There is nothing wrong with the Tech adoption process. The massive personal rewards Tech entrepreneurs can make for themselves is a major reason why the West is so innovative. Long may it be encouraged.

    On the downside, some Big Tech – most these most closely thriving off the back of the monetisation of data – have been massively profitable. Their success creates a completely different series of moral sentiment dilemmas, as Adam Smith may have put it.

    Where do limits on Big Tech need to come?

    It’s been said the goal of every entrepreneur is to become a monopoly and reap monopoly-like returns. The goal of legislators is to avoid it happening. Regulatory oversight of profits is not an attractive option for investors who’ve funded the entrepreneur on the basis they’ll get monopoly-like yields.

    Google’s results earlier this week were spectacular. So spectacular they have raised fears for the prospect of further government/interventions to rein back on Big Tech money making machines. Google’s success (nobody calls it Alphabet) came on the back of the pandemic spurring up user numbers, web advertising, YouTube and the stock rose to a new record on a $50 bln stock buyback plan – what else would a tech giant find to do with its money, aside from buying Waymo’s driverless car tech and building more data centres?

    Facebook posted a beat on earnings and $26 bln revenues on the back of a 30% rise in ad revenue, and an increase in the volume of ads. My Facebook pages are now 80% ads for leather desk mats, outdoor kitchens, light fittings, Scandinavian furniture, wine storage and all the other stuff She-who-is-Mrs-Blain and I have googled as we renovate the house. I barely use the thing any more. My kids don’t touch it. Facebook makes nearly $10 for every user from Ad revenue.

    Amazon reports later today, and its looking like another massive winner on the back of boosted pandemic sales, the lack of high street competition due to lockdowns, its increasing dominance, and the fleet of Imperial Star Destroyers it’s planning to use to host drone deliveries…. (Ok.. but soon..)

    Apple is different. It sells real stuff, and regular readers will know I’m an addict of its goods and services. Its results were stellar – double digit growth across the product range, revenues of $90 bln – half of which was iPhone sales, 42.5% margins and authorisation for a $90 bln stock buyback programme.

    However, Apple is under the regulatory cosh for the way in which it’s using its massively powerful App Store gateway to gouge profits from App Developers – the Fortnite maker Epic Games takes Apple to court next week. Apple can do that because iOS and Mac is its own ecosystem/tech-habitat, and if you want access to its Bright-Shiny-Things you play by their rules.

    The problem of Big Tech’s success is its sheer scale, and many firms have passed the innovation/inventive stage into the monetisation phase. That is when some of them will morph from moving society forward into a pure profit play as they seek monopoly status. They stop inventing stuff, and seek to make their stuff pay, becoming increasingly bureaucratic as they do so.

    I read recently Matt Stoller of the American Liberties Project pointing out:

    “What these firms are doing to get 20-30% returns is capturing market power, they are not creating wealth.”

    Many politicians now agree. They see Facebook, Amazon, Google et al as de-facto monopolies reaping unwarrantable windfall profits while creating untold harm to consumers and other firms from anti-competitive business policies. Its a factor legislators around the globe are determined to address. (Especially if it makes them look strong to voters.)

    The question is – how much should government intervene to regulate and licence big tech? The Libertarian right would say not at all. But Adam Smith would have recognised the dangers inherent in Big Tech’s control and use of big data. Information is a public good. Rather than allowing Big Tech to own and control it – should it be owned by the people and licenced by the state as a public good? That’s a question, btw, not a statement

    Investors will say no – they want the returns. But these companies now utterly dominate their space. They are no longer inventive tech companies expanding the limits of innovation – now they are monopolies milking their data streams.

    That’s why Apple’s new privacy controls are so interesting. This week they upgraded the operating system to stop Apps from tracking Apple User’s data. Google is also on board to kill the App tracking cookies. That’s terrifying news for Facebook which has been monetising that data to sell ads. The social media site is on the wires arguing its bad for smaller niche advertisers, and that its just Apple and Google looking to concentrate the data in their own hands.

    There is any amount of economic literature to explain why monopolies are such a bad idea. Monopolies that exploit the information revealed by internet users about themselves are perhaps even worse – inserting themselves virus-like into their victims and driving their spending decisions. Its wider than just trying to sell us stuff our browsing history has suggested we might like to buy.

    As the degree of polarisation in recent elections has shown, the rising problem of this modern age is that billions of voters think they have free will, but their every action and belief is now increasingly set according to the algorithms dictating what the read, see and buy. In the US, its been the subject of judicial hearings: Algorithms and Amplification: How Social Media Platforms Shape our Discourse and Our Minds.

    Regulation is never a great solution, but maybe it is time for greater government action over the windfall profits being made by Big Tech behemoths? If Amazon is swamping the high-street because it runs cheaper – even it out by taxing them higher! The logic is simple: Amazon’s success puts high streets out of business and causes additional social welfare, medical and other costs from the workers and businesses it displaces. You can make similar arguments for any Big Tech monopoly…

    Except, maybe Facebook. If I can think of any reason not to dump Facebook, I’ll be sure to let you know. Basically it’s just an advertising platform, and its primary advantage of targeted advertising to likely interested, motivate buyers, is about to get much weaker. Sell. There are plenty of other ways to advertise.

    I have some further points to make re the need to regulate Tech, looking at it from a slightly different perspective of when Tech is Good or Bad for the environment and ecosystem (not just from the perspective of climate change), but I will save that up for Part 2… It will be about the pros, cons, and potential costs of launching Low Earth Orbit coms satellites, and will ask about the perceived public need vs public good!

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/29/2021 – 19:50

  • Zarif-Gate Leak Causes Shake-Up In Iran's Presidential Office As FM Expresses 'Regret'
    Zarif-Gate Leak Causes Shake-Up In Iran’s Presidential Office As FM Expresses ‘Regret’

    This week’s ‘Zarif-Gate’ audio leak has caused a shake-up in Iran’s presidential office, reportedly leading to the resignation Hessameddin Ashena, head of the Strategic Studies Center (a think tank closely associated with the Iranian presidency), as he was present during the interview with Zarif. The top Iranian diplomat had essentially said it was the military leadership that sets policy.

    “Hesamodin Ashena of the Center for Strategic Studies resigned over ‘the theft’ of the three-hour tape of Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif being interviewed at the CSS,” AFP reports Thursday. “Ashena, who held the post of Iranian deputy intelligence minister in the 2000s, has headed the center since 2013 and also serves as adviser to President Hassan Rouhani.”

    But it’s not enough for Islamic hardliners representing the clerical and military establishment, who are now calling for Zarif to step down immediately, also given his remarks were taken as disparaging toward the late “national hero” Soleimani. 

    Iranian FM Javad Zarif, via AP

    The interview, which was reportedly captured months ago and was never meant to be made public, included Zarif speaking with surprising frankness and criticism toward the role of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in the Islamic Republic. He bluntly admitted, for example, that the powerful IRGC often overrides government decisions and that the late Quds Force chief Qassem Soleimani’s actions often harmed diplomacy. Even Iranian newspapers described the leak as a major “scandal” which embarrassed Iran on the world stage at a moment of “progress” at the Vienna nuclear talks. 

    In his first public comments since the scandal, Zarif said in an Instagram post that he’s committed to “protecting the interests” of the country and Iranian people. He expressed regret, but stopped short of a direct apology:

    “I am very sorry how a secret, theoretical discussion about the necessity of increasing cooperation between diplomacy and the field (the Guard) — in order for the next officials to use the valuable experiences of the last eight years –- became an internal conflict,” Zarif wrote.

    “I did not censor myself, because this is a betrayal of the people,” he added.

    “I have always been subject to the policies approved by the country and I have strongly defended them. But in expressing my expert opinion, I have considered seeking forgiveness, appeasement, and self-censorship as betrayal,” he said, essentially suggesting it was the leak itself that was a betrayal.

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    While the widespread international coverage of the leaked tapes triggered a firestorm of debate within Iran which in typical fashion pitted the Islamic hardliners against ‘moderates’ (Zarif and Rouhani are widely seen within the “moderate” camp that seeks engagement with the West), it appears the Iranian top diplomat’s job is safe, for now.

    There’s speculation that the leak was intended to sabotage Vienna talks, which is viewed by deep suspicion within the Iranian hardliner political camp – particularly represented in parliament and among the Shia clerical establishment. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/29/2021 – 19:30

  • The Mass Media Will Never Regain The Public's Trust
    The Mass Media Will Never Regain The Public’s Trust

    Authored by Caitlyn Johnstone,

    This year has marked the first time ever that trust in news media dropped below fifty percent in the United States, continuing a trend of decline that’s been ongoing for years.

    Mass media punditry is divided on where to assign the blame for the plummet in public opinion of their work, with some blaming it on Russia and others blaming it on Donald Trump. Others, like a recent Forbes article titled “Restoring Public Trust In Technology And Media Is Infrastructure Investment” blame it on the internet. Still others, like a Washington Post article earlier this month titled “Bad news for journalists: The public doesn’t share our values” blame it on the people themselves.

    The one thing they all seem to agree on is that it’s definitely not because the billionaire-controlled media are propaganda outlets which manipulate us constantly in conjunction with sociopathic government agencies to protect the oligarchic, imperialist status quo upon which the members of the billionaire class have built their respective kingdoms. It cannot possibly be because people sense that they are being lied to and are fed up with it.

    And actually it doesn’t ultimately matter what mainstream pundits and reporters believe is the cause of the public’s growing disgust with them, because there’s nothing they can do to fix it anyway. The mass media will never regain the public’s trust.

    They’ll never regain the public’s trust for a couple of reasons, the first of which is because they’ll never be able to become trustworthy. At no point will the mass media ever begin wowing the public with its journalistic integrity and causing people to re-evaluate their opinion of mainstream news reporters. At no point will people’s disdain for these outlets ever cease to be reinforced and confirmed by the manipulative and deceitful behaviors which caused that disdain in the first place.

    A propaganda outlet will never be anything other than a propaganda outlet. A lot of half-awake people with one eye open and one eye closed will notice how the news media don’t practice journalism and don’t report the facts, and they’ll assume that something went wrong at some point. “Just do your jobs and report the news!” they’ll shout in frustration.

    But nothing has gone wrong, and they are doing their jobs. They are doing their jobs extremely well.

    Telling the mass media to “just do their jobs” and report the news is like bursting into a shoe factory yelling “Just do your jobs and start manufacturing dentures!” Their job is not to report the news, their job is to manipulate public perception for the benefit of the media-owning class. And toward that end they’ve been immensely successful.

    There’s no point admonishing the mainstream press for the public’s plummeting trust in it, because a thing that has only ever existed to administer propaganda can’t suddenly become journalism. It’s like yelling at a rock for not being a tree.

    The mass media are completely and utterly irredeemable, and always have been. It’s a waste of energy to try and get plutocratic propaganda institutions to suddenly begin doing journalism; that’s not what they’re for. Instead, our energy is better spent teaching people to stop seeing them as journalistic outlets.

    The other reason the mass media will never regain the public’s trust is that humanity’s relationship with narrative is evolving too far beyond the level that once saw Americans gathered around the television listening with Bambi-eyed faith to the words of Walter Cronkite. That level of widespread blind credulity in the official stories of the day will never again exist.

    Our old relationship with narrative is crumbling, and people’s old ways of understanding what’s going on in the world just aren’t holding together anymore.

    As cold war tensions with Russia and China continue to mount while the US-centralized empire fights with increasing desperation to retain its dominance, we’re seeing propaganda hit white noise saturation levels to such an extent that we’ll likely soon find out how aggressively the collective consciousness can be pummelled with mass-scale psyops before it snaps.

    America just went through four years with a president whose words had no relationship with facts or reality, and who made no attempt to pretend otherwise.

    The mainstream public is becoming increasingly aware of the widespread nature of disinformation and propaganda.

    Deepfake technology means we soon won’t even be able to trust video anymore.

    Ordinary people are hurting financially while Wall Street is booming, a glaring plot hole in the story of the economy that’s only getting more pronounced.

    There are numerous different narratives about Covid-19 and the government responses to it running parallel to each other with everyone still to this day absolutely certain that their position is the only correct one.

    The entire media class is acting stranger and stranger, now routinely reporting bogus stories en masse like the Russian collusion narrative or the “Bountygate” narrative and then simply acting like it’s no big deal when those stories they’d fed us with such urgency are completely discredited.

    Now we’re even seeing headlines about UFOs in esteemed mainstream publications, not just once but regularly, which would have been unthinkable a few years ago.

    You can’t twist and shove the collective consciousness around like that without something snapping. Without people beginning to look at the thoughts in their heads with suspicion and beginning to question their sense of reality. Without people wondering if everything they believe is a lie.

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    We’ve been seeing signs that humanity is moving into a new relationship with narrative for some time now as people learn across all sectors of society that so many of the seemingly solid rules we once took so seriously are just empty thought fluff that we are free to rewrite at any time.

    Atheism and secularism, once fringe positions, are now mainstream as people have discovered that they don’t need to allow their lives to be controlled by words written by long-dead men in far off lands from cultural and historical contexts which have no relevance to our own circumstances.

    People are beginning to recognize that money is made up and we can collectively change the rules of how it works whenever we want, with the rising popularity of both socialism and cryptocurrencies capturing the public imagination of what’s possible.

    People are beginning to understand that what we call gender is a large network of conceptual constructs which we have overlaid upon human anatomy, and that we are free to disregard and re-author those conceptual constructs if that feels right to us.

    People are beginning to understand that romantic relationships don’t need to look the way they’ve been modeled for us across the centuries, with unmarried, same-sex, polyamorous, or other relationship models also being perfectly acceptable options.

    People are beginning to understand that “family” doesn’t need to refer to people to whom we are related by blood, with the concept of chosen family gaining in popularity.

    People are beginning to understand that the failed drug war is an immoral abuse and that we should be allowed to experiment with our own consciousness using whatever substances we see fit.

    These are all signs of a growing awareness that the “How It Is” narratives we’ve been fed by culture do not have the concrete reality to them that we once assumed they did. We’re beginning to see them as what they are: stories. Stories that we are free to ignore or re-write to whatever extent we find useful.

    For propagandists whose manipulations depend on their targets imbuing their narratives with a great degree of significance, this recent development is very problematic. If a ‘How It Is’ narrative isn’t taken seriously, it can’t be used to manipulate the way people think, behave, and vote. And this seriousness is exactly what we’re seeing deteriorate in humanity’s relationship with narrative.

    This could end up being a very, very good thing. All human destructiveness is ultimately caused by our taking thought seriously instead of simply using it as the tool it’s meant to be and setting it down when we’re done with it; look at any manifestation of human self-destructiveness, no matter how large or how small, and you’ll find a belief being taken too seriously underlying it. This shift in our relationship with narrative could end up being what saves us from our self-destructive patterns as a species.

    But it won’t lend itself to trust in the mainstream media. This too would be a very good thing.

    *  *  *

    I’m celebrating the hardback release of Woke: A Field Guide For Utopia Preppers by making a pay-as-you-feel PDF available.

    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, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, 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. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. 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.

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/29/2021 – 19:10

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