• Shellenberger: Why Anti-Police Activism Kills
  Shellenberger: Why Anti-Police Activism Kills

  Authored by Michael Shellenberger via Substack,

  In response to anti-police protests, many officers quit, resulting in shortages and a spike in avoidable deaths, from homicides to heart attacks, of innocents…

  

  Will Yurek with three of his four children including Drew (far right) who called 911 when his father suffered a heart attack. First responders say the city of Seattle failed to save Will’s life because of a police shortage.

  At 1:24pm on Nov. 2, 13-year-old Drew Yurek called 911 to report an emergency: his father Will didn’t feel well and needed help. Medics arrived six minutes later, but were told by dispatch to wait for the police before entering; there was a cautionary note that flagged the occupant of the address as being hostile to first responders. But the note was outdated, and referred to a previous tenant.

  Because of a shortage of police officers first reported by Seattle journalist Jason Rantz, the medics were left to wait outside the house until cops could arrive.

  At 1:37pm, Drew called 911 again, desperate. He needed help. Medics waited two more minutes before deciding to ignore the order and enter the building. They found Will and started to perform CPR and apply a defibrillator. But by then it was too late. Despite their best efforts, Will, 45 and a father of four, died of a heart attack as Drew looked on.

  The police did not arrive until 1:45pm.

  Now Drew’s mother, Meagan Petersen, is planning to sue the city of Seattle. “People need to know how the city let this happen,” said Meagan, who is divorced from Will and lives in Utah. “They could have saved Will if the system was working like it should.”

  Firefighters and police officers I spoke to said they believe they could have saved the man’s life had there not been a shortage of cops. By the end of 2020, 200 police officers had left the Seattle police force.

  What happened to Will Yurek and what his son had to suffer is a tragic but cautionary tale of what happens when activism and moral cowardice at the top of government destroys public safety and common sense in society. It has happened in Seattle, but many other parts of the country have also fallen victim — with many more in peril, too.

  Before a vaccine mandate took 100 police officers off the street in mid-October, the Seattle police department was short at least 400 police officers to be at the minimum considered necessary to protect public safety. Why is that?

  The overwhelming and unavoidable reason is anti-police protests by Black Lives Matter activists. This happened nationwide, but was worse in Seattle, where Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and progressive members of the Seattle City Council allowed anarchists to briefly take over the downtown Capitol Hill neighborhood in the summer of 2020. Durkan did so to show solidarity with anti-police protests in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis.

  The anti-police protests in Seattle were surprising because in 2018 the City Council had hired a black woman, Carmen Best, for the first time to serve as the city’s police chief. Best opened up for the first time about what happened last summer in an interview with me for my book, “San Fransicko,” earlier this year. Best is also one of the candidates NYC’s Mayor-Elect Eric Adams is considering for NYPD Commissioner.

  

  Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best, left, talks with activist Raz Simone, right front, and others near a plywood-covered and closed police precinct behind them on June 9, 2020.

  “I refuse to work for this socialist City Council and their political agenda,” said one officer. “It ultimately will destroy the fabric of this once fine city.” Another said the city’s progressive City Council “will be the downfall of the city of Seattle.” 

  Anti-police protests took a toll around the country. At least two dozen other police chiefs or senior officers resigned, retired, or took disability leave in America’s 50 biggest cities in 2020, while 3,700 beat officers left. Today there are fewer police officers per capita in America than at any time since 1992.

  In 2020, the homicide rate increased on average by more than one-third in America’s 57 largest cities. Homicides rose in 51 cities and declined in just six of them. Homicides rose 35 percent in Los Angeles, 31 percent in Oakland, 74 percent in Seattle, 63 percent in Portland, 60 percent in Chicago, and 47 percent in New York City. 

  Some blamed the coronavirus pandemic, and higher gun sales, which rose in March. But homicides in 2020 only started to rise in June, after Black Lives Matter protests, not March. And there had been a similar spike in homicides in 2015 when there was no coronavirus pandemic. 

  The lack of sufficient police may have made communities more vulnerable to the spikes in homicides seen in 2015 and 2020, as police were redirected to deal with anti-police protests. “When you have your officers and detectives every night on the front line dealing with demonstration after demonstration after demonstration,” said former police chief Best, “they are not engaging with community members. They are not talking to young people. All of that is not happening because the focus now is on the nightly demonstrations.”

   “When people believe the procedures of formal social control are unjust,” notes University of Missouri criminologist Richard Rosenfeld, whose research is relied upon by the Department of Justice, “they are less likely to obey the law.” 

  Counter to the claims of those who advocate defunding the police as a way to reduce violence, the evidence suggests that fewer cops may mean more police misconduct, because the remaining officers must work longer and more stressful hours. Research has found that fatigue predicts a rise in public complaints against cops: a 13-hour rather than 10-hour shift significantly boosts their prevalence, while back-to-back shifts quadruple their odds.

  The people who suffer most from anti-police activism are black. Nationally, 30 times more African Americans were killed by civilians than by police in 2019. Today, black Americans are seven to eight times more likely to die from homicide than white Americans.

  If anti-police protests increase homicides, why do groups like Black Lives Matter do it? Because they are after radical system change, not less violence. Radical thinkers, from anarchists to socialists, have for 200 years blamed our capitalist system for crime, and justified crime as a revolutionary act. Crime is a rational response to the high levels of inequality created by capitalism, they argue.

  

  For the most part, societies, including in Seattle, have dismissed these radical arguments. “The anarchists had always been a cosplay clown joke,” Seattle Police officer Christopher Young told me earlier this year. “On May Day they would come and fight the police and break some windows. We’d be like, ‘Okay guys, go back to your mother’s basement.’”

  But after the election of Donald Trump as president in 2016, the anarchists rebranded themselves as “anti-fascists,” said Young, and that increased their legitimacy in the eyes of Seattle’s progressive voters. “They said, ‘We’re here to fight the racists and fascists.’”

  “The community really wanted more cops,” she told me.

  “At least three City Council members campaigned on more cops. They wanted better response times.”

  They also wanted more racial and gender diversity and so, said Best, she created a plan “to have a lot more diversity with our hiring, for women and people of color both. We got to almost 40 percent of either minority or women representation as new hires.”

  But after the Floyd killing, Seattle anarchists started attacking the police.

  “Within that large group of people who were there peacefully protesting,” said Best, “there were groups there to create mayhem, throw rocks, bottles, and incendiary stuff, and point lasers at the officers.” 

  In June, somebody removed a police barricade that had prevented demonstrators from protesting in front of the East Precinct downtown. “It was decided,” said Best, “to remove the barricade and to allow the demonstrators to fill in the street in front of the precinct. We didn’t want to give up the precinct. I have to tell you it was not my decision.” 

  Progressive members of the Seattle City Council had pressured Mayor Durkan to order the police to abandon their precinct building. 

  “The next morning,” said Best, “there were these folks out there armed with long rifles, telling the officers who responded that it was their ‘sovereign land.’ ‘What sovereign property are they talking about?’” Best asked her colleagues. “Well, they’re talking about Twelfth Avenue.” She laughed. “We had never experienced anything like that.” 

  And therein began CHAZ, the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone.

  

  Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and Chief Carmen Best

  Later, the organizers would rename the area CHOP, for Capitol Hill Occupied Protest. The anarchist leaders invited hundreds of Seattle’s homeless residents to move into the occupied zone, and many did. When asked, Seattle’s mayor insisted that everything would work out fine. 

  “How long do you think Seattle and those few blocks [will] look like this?” CNN’s Chris Cuomo asked Seattle’s mayor.

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “We could have a summer of love!” 

  But soon after, said Best, “We were getting reports of rape, robbery, assault… I don’t know what the Wild West was like, but it couldn’t have been any worse than that.” 

  Armed residents at CHOP shot two teenage boys just before it was shut down. At least one of them could have been saved. But CHOP’s unelected leaders didn’t allow first responders in until hours later.

  The homicides led Chief Best to demand permission from the City Attorney to retake the neighborhood, which she did a few days later. 

  But then, in August 2020, a few weeks later, the Seattle City Council voted to cut the budget of the Seattle Police Department. “That means that all these new people that we hired who are black, people of color, and women will be the first ones to go,” Best told the City Council. “Because it’s first in, first out.” 

  The council said they wanted Best to go through and pick the people to fire. 

  “Let me get this straight,” she said she told the council. “You want me to pick the white people to go? Are you crazy?’ They were highly dismissive. It was the most bizarre thing that I had ever dealt with.” 

  Best criticized the City Council.

  “I said that they were being reckless and dangerous and that people are going to suffer for it,” she said. “The next day, one of the city councilors said, ‘We need to cut her salary by 40 percent.’ It wasn’t even on the agenda for them to talk about. It was highly punitive and retaliatory.”

  And so Best resigned.

  By the end of 2020, 200 police officers had left the Seattle police force. 

  In truth, much of what people believe about the police is wrong. Police killings of African Americans in our 58 largest cities declined from 217 per year in the 1970s to 157 per year in the 2010s. And there are no racial differences in police killings when accounting for whether or not the suspect was armed or a threat (“justified” vs “unjustified” shooting).

  Reducing homicides and other crimes will require more police, and that will require community and political leaders to educate voters, and publicly apologize for their role in unfairly demonizing police officers.

  Most of all, we should seek to make amends to the victims of anti-police activism, including the Yurek family, who are mourning the loss of a young father at Thanksgiving time. “Mr. Yurek’s young son acted quickly and competently. Unfortunately, the city of Seattle was neither quick nor competent,” said the family’s attorney, Mark Lindquist of the Herrmann Law Group.

  But Will Yurek’s death could gain new meaning if it helps us, as Americans, to view police officers as vital, if imperfect, public servants, and take the measures necessary to affirm their role, and recruit them back into our city police forces.

  *  *  *

  Michael Shellenberger is a Time Magazine “Hero of the Environment,”Green Book Award winner, and the founder and president of Environmental Progress. He is author of just launched book San Fransicko (Harper Collins) and the best-selling book, Apocalypse Never (Harper Collins June 30, 2020). Subscribe To Michael’s substack here

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/24/2021 – 23:30

• Beijing Furious After Biden Invites Taiwan To Global Democracy Summit, While China Left Off List
  Beijing Furious After Biden Invites Taiwan To Global Democracy Summit, While China Left Off List

  It was previously reported that the US intentionally kept China and Russia off the list of invitees for the Biden administration-sponsored “Summit for Democracy” set to be held next month in virtual format. The first ever US-sponsored event of its kind has a goal of restoring democracy and promoting human rights across the globe, based on Biden’s foreign policy agenda, and the US has invited at total of 110 countries to participate. 

  China on Wednesday is seething, issuing a scathing statement, after it’s been revealed the White House has invited Taiwan instead of China to the world gathering which runs from Dec.9 through Dec.10.

  A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson told a press conference in Beijing that it’s “firmly opposed” to the “mistake” of the US inviting Taiwan, given Taiwan remains “inalienable part of Chinese territory,” according to the statement.

  

  “U.S. actions only go to show democracy is just a cover and a tool for it to advance its geopolitical objectives, oppress other countries, divide the world and serve its own interests,” the statement added. 

  At the same time officials in Taipei are seeing it as a major diplomatic win – considering it advances Taiwan independence and self-rule on the world stage: 

  The island state would be represented by Digital Minister Audrey Tang and Hsiao Bi-khim, Taiwan’s de facto ambassador to the US, said Taiwan’s foreign ministry.

  “Our country’s invitation to participate in the ‘Summit for Democracy’ is an affirmation of Taiwan’s efforts to promote the values of democracy and human rights over the years,” the ministry said.

  Starting especially under the Trump administration, Washington began more frequently denouncing Beijing for egregious human rights violations, especially in Hong Kong and in Xinjiang, the latter which reportedly has a system of Communist ‘reeducation camps’ for Muslim Uyghurs. 

  US-China tensions have only continued despite last week’s virtual meeting between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and President Biden wherein Biden reaffirmed his commitment to the ‘one China’ policy as Xi reportedly laid out that Beijing sees Washington support to Taiwan – including weapons transfers – as “playing with fire”. State media reported Xi during the Nov.15 virtual meeting: “Such moves are extremely dangerous, just like playing with fire. Whoever plays with fire will get burnt.” Biden had said according to the White House summery of the virtual summit that his administration “strongly opposes unilateral efforts to change the status quo or undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait”. 

  Meanwhile, the Chinese and Russian militaries just this week pledged to expand their cooperation on the basis of “threats” emanating from the West, led by the United States.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/24/2021 – 23:00

• With Inflation So High, The Elites Have Some Suggestions For How You Can Save Money This Thanksgiving…
  With Inflation So High, The Elites Have Some Suggestions For How You Can Save Money This Thanksgiving…

  Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

  Normally, inflation is not a major theme on Thanksgiving.  Unfortunately, these are not normal times.  Thanks to Joe Biden and our other crooked politicians in Washington, we are facing an inflation crisis that is unlike anything that we have experienced since the 1970s.  Earlier this week, I discussed a new poll which showed that 88 percent of Americans are deeply concerned about inflation, and a different poll found that 67 percent of Americans disapprove of the way that Biden is handling rising prices.  Now Thanksgiving is nearly upon us, and most Americans are finding that their grocery dollars are not stretching as far as they once did.

  

  This is being hailed as “the most expensive Thanksgiving ever”, but don’t worry, because the elite are offering some suggestions for how you can save some money.

  For example, NBC News is telling us to “consider not buying a turkey” in order to save some cash.

  If that wasn’t offensive enough, they are also saying that “some people think turkey is overrated” and that an “Italian feast” might be a better alternative…

  “I know that is the staple of the Thanksgiving meal. However, some people think turkey is overrated, and so it tends to be the most expensive thing on the table. Maybe you do an Italian feast instead.”

  I love Italian food, but Americans have eaten turkey on Thanksgiving for generations.

  Sadly, many Americans won’t be having turkey this year because it has just gotten too expensive.

  Of course NBC has an answer for that too.  They are suggesting that if you tell those you have invited that there won’t be any turkey on the table “some guests may drop off the list, and that’s a way to cut costs too.”

  Seriously?

  That is what they actually think ordinary Americans should do?

  It just makes me sick how the elite talk down to us like this.

  The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis is being even more offensive.  A few days ago, they encouraged Americans to consider a “soybean-based dinner” because turkey is so much more expensive…

  “A Thanksgiving dinner serving of poultry costs $1.42. A soybean-based dinner serving with the same amount of calories costs 66 cents and provides almost twice as much protein”

  Yuck.

  Just yuck.

  Over the years, I have tried “alternative” soybean-based products from time to time, and to be frank all of them were disgusting.

  And I find it to be highly offensive for the people that actually created this inflation crisis to be pushing Americans toward less expensive and more “eco-friendly” alternatives.

  We wouldn’t be in this mess if the Federal Reserve had not created trillions upon trillions of dollars out of thin air over the past couple of years.

  And we wouldn’t be in this mess if NBC News and other media outlets had not endlessly promoted the corrupt politicians in Washington that just keep borrowing and spending money as if the future will never come.

  We didn’t get here by accident.

  What we are now experiencing is a perfect example of cause and effect.  Our insane leaders flooded the system with new money, and now a typical Thanksgiving dinner is 14 percent more expensive than it was last year…

  The cost of providing a traditional Thanksgiving turkey dinner to 10 people in 2021 is 14% higher than a year ago, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation’s annual survey.

  Thankfully, your income has gone up 14 percent over the past year as well, right?

  Sadly, most of you will not be able to answer that question affirmatively.

  The cost of turkey is rising at a particularly blazing pace.  At this point, the average price of a 16 pound turkey is $4.60 higher than it was at this time in 2020…

  Ranking the data this way lets us see that the increase in the cost of turkey is responsible for most of the year-over-year increase. Rising by $4.60 from 2020’s $19.39 to 2021’s $23.99 for a 16-pound bird, turkey alone accounts for nearly 72% of the year-over-year increase in the total cost for the meal.

  But at least soybean-based dinners are still affordable.

  Of maybe you could even eat bugs this year.

  The global elite would really love that.

  In addition to changing the menu, the elite are also giving us pointers for how to minimize the spread of COVID during our Thanksgiving celebrations.

  According to the New York Times, children should wear masks, eat as quickly as they can, and stay as far away from the adults as possible…

  I’m glad to hear that the children and all guests are vaccinated. As the kids will not be fully vaccinated until two weeks after their second shot, I think some care is warranted, especially because some attendees are 65 and older and thus at greater risk of more serious breakthrough infections. You could have the kids wear masks, eat quickly and stay away from the older adults when eating.

  So I guess that hugging grandma and grandpa is out of the question.

  These control freaks really do want to micromanage all of our lives, and those that obediently do whatever they say without thinking are part of the problem.

  The truth is that the vast majority of the “experts” that they put on television to tell us how to live our lives really aren’t “experts” at all.

  It is all a big con game, and it amazes me that there are still so many people out there that fall for it.

  Once you get a look behind the curtain and you realize what a giant fraud their entire system is, there is no going back.

  Unfortunately, much of the population is still under their spell, and so we need to work really hard to wake people up while there is still time to do so.

  Look, I really do hope that all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

  Eat lots of turkey, enjoy your family and friends, and try to smile.

  We should find joy in these moments while we still can, because soon everything will change.

  *  *  *

  It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/24/2021 – 22:30

• Lovers Of Canned Cranberries Beware: Expect Thanksgiving Shortages 
  Lovers Of Canned Cranberries Beware: Expect Thanksgiving Shortages 

  A Thanksgiving meal usually consists of roasted turkey, mashed potatoes, corn, and pumpkin pie. But we left out one crucial side that some Americans might not get to eat this year due to a can shortage, that is, jellied cranberry sauce from Ocean Spray. 

  Ocean Spray CEO Tom Hayes told Bloomberg Radio that consumers might have to make their own fresh cranberry sauce due to a can shortage and snarled supply chains that will leave some supermarket shelves that usually stock Ocean Spray items bare. 

  

  He said consumers who prefer “iconic cranberry jellied sauce in a can” may not get what they want. People may have to “make cranberry sauce from fresh berries,” Hayes said. 

  Hayes suggested that consumers should “plan early and make sure you get to the grocery store. It will be a happy Thanksgiving, but you have to demonstrate more flexibility than you have in the past.”

  Labor shortages, rising freight costs, upward pressure on wages, and port congestion add to the overall Thanksgiving dinner costs, up some 14% from a year ago amid soaring food inflation that shows no signs of abating. 

  It’s not just cranberries: turkey supplies in cold storage are at their lowest point in years ahead of Thursday’s holiday. This means Thanksgiving will be the most expensive ever. 

  

  And, of course, the monetary wonks at the St.Louis Fed have chimed in on this topic and advised everyone to switch from traditional poultry to plants to avoid soaring food costs. 

  From the FRED Blog: A Thanksgiving dinner serving of poultry costs $1.42. A soybean-based dinner serving with the same amount of calories costs 66 cents and provides almost twice as much protein https://t.co/qmyjwZd7aU pic.twitter.com/pHv3ZR9o6u

  — St. Louis Fed (@stlouisfed) November 20, 2021

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

  The CEO of Ocean Spray is right, “be flexible” this holiday season because everything that consumers once thought was readily available is not so much anymore due to supply chain woes. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/24/2021 – 22:00

• Bitcoin Is The Single Best Shot At Achieving Liberty In Our Lifetime
  Bitcoin Is The Single Best Shot At Achieving Liberty In Our Lifetime

  Authored by Dr. Wolf Von Laer via BictoinMagazine.com,

  How do Bitcoin’s properties present the best opportunity to seize liberty humanity has ever seen?

  

  What do you see when you switch on the TV or scroll through your news feed on your preferred social media platform?

  You see a failed war ended after 20 years, hundreds of thousands of people dead, billions of dollars squandered, and the same illiberal regime in charge as before.

  You also see inequality, rising prices and protests.

  And you see pushbacks for mandates.

  Bitcoiners regularly reply to all the troubles in the world by saying that “Bitcoin fixes this.” Hyperbole? No, Bitcoin is the only realistic pathway to the libertarian “bon mot,” our witty remark of “fix the money, fix the world.” Indeed, Bitcoin is the best shot libertarians have to shrink the size of government, fight inflation, curtail the debt from inflation, starve the military-industrial complex, and to avoid an ever-increasing scope for government.

  How does Bitcoin achieve this?

  Bitcoin is a savings technology that is nascent money. Money historically has three functions: it must serve as a store of value, a medium of exchange, and a unit of account. Bitcoin, despite its volatility, is certainly a store of value but is thus far less prevalent as a medium of exchange or unit of account.

  However, Bitcoin has only been around for 12 years, and its rate of adoption is already growing faster than the internet’s did. Money is the ultimate “network good,” which means that its value and usability increases with every user joining, and every user has the incentive to encourage others to take up bitcoin since it benefits them directly. As a result, within a short amount of time, Bitcoin has emerged from being a somewhat esoteric toy for cypherpunks, to being adopted by financial institutions and the country of El Salvador, as well as becoming the savings technology for tens of millions of people around the world (Bitcoin’s current user base is estimated to be around 120 million). This is absolutely remarkable.

  It does not matter why people use bitcoin. It might be because it is cheaper and faster than traditional cross-border payments. It might be because it is collapsing upward and growing in value by around 200% annually. It might be because some people speculate on it. Or, it might be because it saves lives and allows people to escape some of the worst environments possible. An example of this can be seen in some great articles written by Alex Gladstein, chief strategy officer at Human Rights Foundation, on bitcoin usage in Afghanistan, Cuba, or Palestine.

  Bitcoin already empowers millions, and not just the rich elites with existing access to banks, stock markets, and other financial technologies. Bitcoin empowers the billions of people who are unbanked and promises a future that takes control of money away from the government. Bitcoin appeals to millions of people and every person joining the Bitcoin network will have the incentive to attract more users.

  Bitcoin presents hope for millions and presents a viable plan B to holding fiat money, which melts in your hands due to the irresponsibility of monetary central planners. Right now, the most important reason why the government can grow beyond its mandate — beyond its income through taxation — is through the power of the government to print and force everyone to use their ever-value losing money.

  In just the last 24 months, the U.S. Federal Reserve has printed 40 percent of all dollars in existence. Naturally, this has translated into huge levels of inequality, since the people close to the government’s trough (such as banks) benefit from the higher purchasing power compared to the people at the bottom of the food chain (like fixed income recipients, students, etc.) who only see prices rise with diminishing real purchasing power. This is known as the Cantillon effect.

  The Federal Reserve Board is directly monetizing the debt that the government takes on, and the Fed provides infinite demand for government debt, which would not be able to grow at the astonishing pace it does without the power of the printing press to buy all of it up.

  The Bitcoin network itself and the personal owning of bitcoin is an act of peaceful rebellion against the fiat money system. Every day, when someone buys bitcoin, it moves money away from the fiat system and puts it into a store of value. It is put into a system that cannot be inflated. There will only ever be 21 million bitcoin issued. Bitcoin has been tested, Bitcoin has been attacked, and the protocol has remained robust against 12 years of adversaries trying to undermine it.

  Many of Bitcoin’s detractors fundamentally don’t understand Bitcoin’s value proposition. And it makes sense that they don’t. We have not seen a new type of money emerge in over five millennia. Moreover, Bitcoin’s roots lie in more atypical fields such as Austrian economics, game theory, cryptography, and economic history. Thus, the frameworks through which most economists and pundits analyze Bitcoin are highly inadequate.

  Another new aspect is that Bitcoin gives its users absolute control over their money. They can decide when to send money, how much, and how much they pay for a transaction. Nobody needs to be asked if you can send money to a nonprofit organization six thousand miles away, and nobody needs to confirm if you can send remittances to your family in other countries. No agency or bank can prevent this. Bitcoin allows you to become your own bank. This is incredibly empowering and such technology has not existed before.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/24/2021 – 21:30

• Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt Emerges As White Knight For NYC's Broke Princeton Club
  Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt Emerges As White Knight For NYC’s Broke Princeton Club

  One month after the Princeton Club in midtown Manhattan shut its door down indefinitely after defaulting on nearly $40 million in mortgage debt, the venue frequented by so many grads of the Ivy safety school may have found a savior in ex-Google CEO, billionaire Eric Schmidt.

  

  Schmidt (obviously a Princeton graduate) who has donated tens of millions to the Ivy League school in the past and who most recently played a crucial role in Hillary Clinton’s failed attempt to defeat Donald Trump for the 2016 election, has bid on the club’s loan through his family’s investment office, Bloomberg reports citing people familiar with the situation.

  

  If his bid wins, Schmidt would provide the funds to make improvements so the 10-story private club on West 43rd Street is more suitable as a co-working space, Bloomberg sources said. It’s not known how many other bidders Schmidt is competing with or if his current bid is the highest. The auction is scheduled to conclude Nov. 29.

  The storied club which was founded in 1866 and includes two restaurants, banquet space, squash courts and 58 guest rooms, ran out of cash after being closed for 15 months during the pandemic and losing about one-third of its 6,000 dues-paying members. After efforts to raise capital failed, lender Sterling National Bank put the club’s $39.3 million debt in default and enlisted Newmark Group to sell the note by the end of November.

  Unlike other Manhattan-based Ivy League clubs, some of which are supported financially by their associated schools, the Princeton club has no affiliation with Princeton University; that meant it was also the only one to default.

  Schmidt, 66, ranks 56th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with a net worth of $27.9 billion. The former Google chief executive officer’s family investment office is based in the same Menlo Park, California, building that also houses his philanthropic foundation, established in 2006 with his wife Wendy Schmidt, Bloomberg notes.

  A former trustee of Princeton University, Schmidt is also on the club’s member roster. His donations over the years to Princeton include $25 million in 2009 to support technology research, money to rebuild the school’s computer science department and $5 million last year to endow a professorship of indigenous studies.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/24/2021 – 21:00

• We Don't Get A Vote On The Woke Revolution
  We Don’t Get A Vote On The Woke Revolution

  Authored by J.Peder Zane via RealClearPolitics.com,

  You don’t get to vote on the revolution. That’s kind of the point. From the happy example of Colonial America to the terrors that mutilated and murdered innocents in France, Russia, and China, revolutionaries work outside the established system to impose a new order.

  

  So it is with today’s woke revolution. The potent cultural forces that have mainstreamed radical concepts such as “white privilege,” “microaggressions,” and “gender fluidity” are beyond the reach of American democracy.

  No one voted for any of it; it cannot be stopped at the ballot box. Electing anti-woke politicians in 2022 and 2024 will not turn the tide.

  The embrace of woke ideology by many prestigious news outlets – as symbolized by the New York Times’ 1619 Project, which recasts American society through the cramped lens of racism and oppression – is not subject to popular approval. Neither is the American Medical Association’s move to view health disparities between blacks and other Americans as the result of “systemic racism” (rather than biology, personal behavior, or cultural influences).

  We don’t get to vote on the decision by the National Institutes of Health, the nation’s largest funder of biomedical research, to commit $90 million in funding along with “every tool at our disposal to remediate the chronic problem of structural racism.” The same goes for the diktat in corporate America to mandate race and gender into their hiring decisions, or the woke-saturated culture that predominates at most American colleges and universities, where faculty applicants are asked to sign loyalty oaths to diversity and equity.

  Parental opposition to the influence of critical race theory in public schools shows that pushback is possible. School board meetings are one of the few public venues where ordinary Americans can voice their discontent to this ideology, which casts white kindergarteners as oppressors and non-white tots as victims. But these critics are labeled “domestic terrorists” for their efforts — and it’s still not clear what, if any, impact the parents will have on what and how children are taught.

  In fairness, broad swaths of the culture always operate and evolve outside of politics. The world of ideas and entertainment – the books we read, movies we watch, groups we join – must never be subject to electoral will. But the woke revolution feels different. First, it is an explicitly political ideology that is, at bottom, about power. Second, it is remarkably ambitious: It seeks a wholesale transformation of America’s past, present and future. Third, while some of its ideas resonate with plenty of people, it is a top-down movement that seeks to impose alien ways of thinking and being on everyone – hence the rise of cancel culture and other illiberal mechanisms to silence and punish those who fail to conform.

  One of the great paradoxes of the social justice movement is that even as it claims to fight inequality, it is itself a reflection of the growing inequality in America: both of wealth and culture. Like most revolutions, it is not led by the downtrodden but by the elites. It is not the person of color on the streets but the swells at the top (most of them white) who are imposing the new order.

  Although it might seem that the woke revolution erupted in 2020 with George Floyd’s murder, or with the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement following Michael Brown’s shooting in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014, its intellectual framework – which includes critical race theory, postmodernism, anti-colonialism, black power and queer/gender studies – emerged at America’s universities in the 1960s and 1970s. Heavily influenced by Marxism, leftist scholars suffered a crisis of confidence after communism was discredited 30 years ago as the Soviet Union collapsed. In response, activist academics essentially repackaged their old ideas. They still saw politics as a zero-sum battle between oppressors and the oppressed, with themselves in the moral vanguard, but they replaced the concept of class with new identity markers: racial and sexual identity. The struggle was no longer between capitalists and the proletariat, but privileged “cisgendered heteronormative” whites versus the rest of humanity.

  There was always a kernel of truth to this narrative – America, like every other nation, has unequal distributions of wealth and power (hierarchy is inevitable; even the communists, who pledged to create true equality, simply replaced the tsar’s hierarchy with their own, one dominated by party leaders and apparatchiks). But the expansion of rights and opportunities we’ve achieved over the last half-century – the fact that legions of people defined as “oppressed” enjoy status, respect, wealth and power only dreamed of in most corners of the globe – exposes the absurdity of the claim that race and gender determine one’s fate.

  Nevertheless, this narrative increasingly informs the education delivered at Western colleges and universities, especially at elite schools. The graduates of these institutions, in turn, become the professors, journalists, managers, administrators and other moral enforcers using their positions to advance the woke revolution from within.

  The key question – why would seemingly intelligent people commit to an ideology so at odds with reality? – requires a complex set of answers. The collapse of traditional social norms, the offshoring of the blue-collar sector, the baneful influence of social media, the realignment of legacy media into tribal factions, the creation of overeducated citizens saddled with crippling debt, rapidly rising living standards that create rising expectations — all this and more play a part. Radicalism is opportunistic, lying dormant for decades until the right combination of conditions presents itself.

  But a pivotal, if underappreciated, force is the rise of the information-based global economy, which has doubled the number of millionaires in the United States in just a decade, opening a chasm of envy between the haves and the super-haves. Statista reports that there were close to 6 million U.S. households with financial assets worth more than $1 million in 2019; more than double the number in 2008. At the same time, Pew reports that “as of 2016, the latest year for which data are available, the typical American family had a net worth of $101,800.”

  This growing inequality is not based on the false claim that the wealthy are benefiting at the expense of non-rich – they are, more accurately, getting a bigger slice of a growing pie in a world where living standards continue to rise. But this increase does make it easier for radicals to exploit the false argument, insistently advanced by prestigious news and information outlets, that the current system is unjust and that, given America’s history, today’s disparities stem from race.

  To buy peace, and peace of mind, many well-off Americans – especially the well-educated ones who now call the Democrat Party home – are happy to acquiesce to ideas that, as a practical matter, will have little immediate impact on their own comfortable lives: agreeing that the American Revolution was fought over slavery, that social justice requires reparations, that gender identities are malleable, that reality is socially constructed, that “silence is violence.” It costs them nothing to spout these slogans, which allow them to feel morally superior.

  In the long run, I hope, truth will out. But those who oppose the revolution should know they are battling powerful and entrenched forces that are, in significant ways, beyond their reach.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/24/2021 – 20:30

• Putin Says He Feels "Fine" After Taking Dose Of Experimental Russian Nasal Vaccine
  Putin Says He Feels “Fine” After Taking Dose Of Experimental Russian Nasal Vaccine

  Russian President Vladimir Putin says he’s feeling “fine” after taking an experimental nasal COVID jab earlier this week while also receiving a booster dose of the experimental “Sputnik V” jab as well.

  According to Bloomberg, Putin said late last week that the nasal version of the jab is still in trials and hasn’t been approved by regulators in Russia. But in a televised appearance announcing he’d taken the injected booster, Putin said he would also volunteer to participate in the testing of the nasal vaccine as well.

  

  Denis Logunov, deputy director of the Gamaleya National Research Center, which was responsible for developing Sputnik, said that taking the two vaccines together would help better protect Putin against infection in the upper respiratory tract.

  The long-serving Russian president, 69, said Logunov gave him the nasal version Monday. Putin told a government meeting that he was “feeling fine” after the boosters, and that he had exercised that day.

  Russia memorably claimed to be the first country to approve a COVID jab in the summer of 2020, but officials and scientists began getting the shots even before Sputnik V was registered. Putin, however, got his first two-dose inoculation only in March of this year.

  Gamaleya’s Logunov reportedly told Putin that workers at the center had also tried the nasal version of the jab, leaving it up to the president whether he would also like to try it. “That’s off-label and we’re testing it on staff as usual,” he explained to the press in a statement.

  Meanwhile, in a meeting with Putin on Wednesday, Russian PM Mikhail Mishustin said pre-clinical testing of the nasal inoculation “showed it was safe and effective” and that Phase 1 clinical trials in adult volunteers had been authorized, with initial results due back in 42 days.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/24/2021 – 20:00

• Fake It Till You Make It? Biden Energy Secretary Fumbles Two Simple Questions In One Day
  Fake It Till You Make It? Biden Energy Secretary Fumbles Two Simple Questions In One Day

  Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on Tuesday biffed two simple questions that anyone in her position should have been able to answer.

  Granholm – the former Democratic Governor of Michigan who has zero experience in the energy sector – was asked how many barrels of oil the US consumes in a day, to which she replied “I don’t have that number in front of me. Sorry.”

  REPORTER: “How many barrels of oil does the U.S. consume per day?”

  Energy Sec. Granholm: “I don’t have that number in front of me. I’m sorry.” pic.twitter.com/lToOjsLNLu

  — Townhall.com (@townhallcom) November 23, 2021

  Next, Granholm couldn’t provide an answer as to when Americans can expect gas prices to drop, and how long she might expect a drop to last, to which she replied: “Yeah, I’m not going to make a prediction about how much and how long.”

  Reporter: “Bottom line, how soon will Americans see prices at the pump drop, and how long do you expect that to last?”

  Energy @SecGranholm: “Yeah, I’m not going to make a prediction about how much and how long.” pic.twitter.com/KYrqwmmOyF

  — The Hill (@thehill) November 24, 2021

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

  hey, remember when you all pretended Rick Perry, the longest-serving chief executive of a gas- and oil-rich state, was in over his head at the department of energy? that was fun. https://t.co/RSlff4MZfw

  — tsar becket adams (@BecketAdams) November 24, 2021

  Nothing like faking it till you make it (or don’t)…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/24/2021 – 19:45

• COVID-19 Made Democracies More Authoritarian And Authoritarian Regimes Even Worse
  COVID-19 Made Democracies More Authoritarian And Authoritarian Regimes Even Worse

  By Eric Boehm, published originally in Reason,

  The COVID-19 pandemic is contributing to a significant decline in democratic values across the globe as many countries have taken aggressive and authoritarian steps to attempt to curb the virus.

  

  If you haven’t been living under a rock for the past two years, that’s probably not much of a surprise. Still, a new report from the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, a global nonprofit based in Sweden, offers a comprehensive look at the worrying trend of democratic erosion—a trend that has been helped along by the pandemic even though its roots go deeper.

  “The world is becoming more authoritarian as non-democratic regimes become even more brazen in their repression and many democratic governments suffer from backsliding by adopting their tactics of restricting free speech and weakening the rule of law, exacerbated by what threatens to become a ‘new normal’ of Covid-19 restrictions,” the IIDEA warns. The number of countries that are becoming “more authoritarian” by the group’s calculus is three times the number of countries that are moving toward democracy. This year is the fifth consecutive year in which the trend has been moving in that direction, the longest uninterrupted stretch of pro-authoritarian developments since the IIDEA started tracking these metrics in 1975.

  That trend predates the COVID-19 pandemic, of course, but governmental responses to the virus have made things worse.

  A number of democratic countries—the report specifically mentions the United States in this section—have implemented COVID measures “that were disproportionate, illegal, indefinite or unconnected to the nature of the emergency,” according to the IIDEA report. Those include travel restrictions and the use of “emergency powers that sometimes sidelined parliaments.”

  The last two years have indeed been littered with examples of previously unheard-of government powers on display in the U.S. That includes everything from statewide lockdowns in which governors decreed which businesses were “essential” to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with the backing of both the Trump and Biden administrations, making it nearly impossible for property owners to evict deadbeat tenants. It took until this month for the U.S. to reopen its border with Canada for supposedly “nonessential” travel, even though there was probably no good justification for closing the border in the first place.

  Outside the U.S., places like Austria and Australia continue to rachet up authoritarian restrictions on public interactions and economic behavior—even for people who have been vaccinated. According to the report, 69 countries have made violating COVID restrictions an imprisonable offense, with two-thirds of those countries being ones the group considers to be democracies. Albania and Mexico have the most punitive laws on the books, allowing prison sentences of 15 years and 12 years, respectively, for violating pandemic-related protocols.

  More than 20 percent of countries have used their militaries to enforce COVID controls, which the report warns could contribute to “the normalization of increasingly militarized civil life after the pandemic.” Meanwhile, 42 percent of countries have rolled out voluntary or compulsory apps used for contact tracing, which may be effective in curbing the spread of the virus but create concerning new opportunities for government surveillance in a post-pandemic world. Of particular concern to IIDEA are the eight non-democratic regimes (Azerbaijan, Bahrain, China, Kazakhstan, Qatar, Singapore, Thailand, and Turkey) where those apps have been made mandatory for all smartphone-using residents.

  Meanwhile, some public health officials in America are wishcasting for even more aggressive restrictions. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, recently praised the “really strict lockdowns” deployed by China—a country that no healthy democracy should be using as a model for good policy making.

  But while COVID-19 has been the acute cause of much democratic backsliding in the past two years, the IIDEA report indicates a more insidious threat that lurks behind the pandemic: “The rise of illiberal and populist parties in the last decade is a key explanatory factor in democratic backsliding and decline,” the report states. Those parties seek to obtain power so they can dismantle checks on government authority, including freedom of expression and policies meant to protect minority rights.

  Indeed, as Reason‘s Stephanie Slade has pointed out, some of the leading advocates of America’s turn towards illiberalism are now quite open about their embrace of authoritarianism. This tendency to embrace “will-to-power” politics amounts to declaring that “what matters above all else is ensuring that our tribe is dominant.” That’s not a good signal for democracy, or for the preservation of human freedom.

  The will-to-power also serves to paper over the nonsensical aspects of their ideas. Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.), for example, wants to give the Commerce Department more power to decide what products can be lawfully bought and sold in the United States—despite the fact that he voted against confirming Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. He literally wants to give more power to someone he believes is not qualified for the job. Similarly, left-wing efforts to abolish the filibuster in the Senate are easily exposed as nothing more than a power grab by asking advocates how a filibuster-less Senate would have worked during Donald Trump’s presidency—a tactic that Axios’ Jonathan Swan recently used to great effect in an interview with Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D–Mich.).

  In various forms and despite internal inconsistencies, these illiberal and populist sentiments seem to be growing stronger. Expanded governmental powers during the pandemic offer an even more tantalizing prize to politicians who would use the power of the state to direct society in the future.

  “As in many other aspects of life, the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated and magnified pre-existing political trends while adding a whole new plethora of unprecedented challenges to democracies that were already under pressure,” writes Kevin Casas-Zamore, IIDEA’s secretary-general, in the preface to the report. “The monumental human victory achieved when democracy became the predominant form of governance now hangs in the balance like never before.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/24/2021 – 19:40

• China Regulators Halt New Tencent Apps, Updates For Data Privacy Review 
  China Regulators Halt New Tencent Apps, Updates For Data Privacy Review 

  Tencent Holdings Ltd. shares in Hong Kong slid on Wednesday after Chinese regulators ordered the internet services giant based in Shenzhen to halt updating and publishing new apps. The regulator wanted to review existing apps to make sure they complied with new privacy laws. 

  Tencent shares slid 2% to 472.20 HKD. Shares are down 38% from the January high of 766.50 HKD. Shares have been dropping all year as Beijing ramped up regulatory crackdowns on big-tech. 

  

  According to Bloomberg, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) ordered Tencent to suspend updates of existing apps, but they can still be downloaded in app stores.

  The MIIT has ordered that all new apps and updates from Nov. 24 until the end of the year will need to undergo a review by the regulator before they are made available, state broadcaster CCTV reported without saying where it obtained the information. The reviews are expected to take about seven days. – Bloomberg

  Tencent, which owns WeChat and QQ messaging services, released a statement that said it was working to improve user protection features within its apps. The company is expected to stay in regular contact with MIIT to ensure compliance. 

  On Nov. 1, Bejing rolled out the Personal Information Protection Law to oversee how big tech handles user data. The passage of the new law resulted from months of Beijing cracking down over big tech’s power. Bloomberg noted, “Tencent has been targeted by the MIIT because nine of its products were found on four previous occasions to violate data protection rules, triggering the freeze.” 

  Earlier this year, Tencent halted new user registrations for WeChat, citing technical upgrades. That suspension lasted one week. 

  Institutional investors have been asking: Is it time to trim Indian equities and become more optimistic about China’s attractive valuations despite continued threats of regulatory crackdowns? 

  Yes. And No. 

  “Valuations are key right now,” Belinda Boa, head of active investments for the Asia Pacific at BlackRock Inc., said. “Because of the outperformance we’ve seen in India this year, on a relative basis, we are starting to take profits” and becoming more positive on Chinese growth stocks, she said. Blackrock is also getting ready to launch a new China tech ETF.

  

  But then there’s Ark Investment Management LLC’s founder Cathie Wood who is still waiting for the dust to settle after a year of regulator crackdowns. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/24/2021 – 19:20

• Support For More Gun Control Falls, But Partisan Divide Grows
  Support For More Gun Control Falls, But Partisan Divide Grows

  Authored by John Lott Jr., via RealClearPolitics.com,

  According to a new Gallup poll, support for stricter gun control has fallen by 15 percentage points in just the last five years.

  But, despite the drop being driven by independents’ changing views, Democrats aren’t likely to rethink their support for more gun control.

  The partisan divide on this issue has never been so large — 91% of Democrats and only 24% of Republicans support stricter laws.

  

  While Democrats claim they want “reasonable” or “common sense” laws, you get an idea of how stark the partisan differences are by considering the response to Gallup’s question about whether people support a complete ban on civilian ownership of handguns: 40% of Democrats like the idea compared to only 6% of Republicans.

  The recent election results in Virginia and New Jersey show Democrats are in real trouble with rural, working-class voters. Some pundits put part of the blame on the party’s constant push for gun control.

  You can see the opposing views in the reactions to the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict. Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul tweeted the lesson she took from it: “If there was any question about why we need strong gun safety laws, this is your answer. This should never have been allowed to happen in the first place.”

  Other Democrats see gun ownership in apocalyptic terms. “This entire tragedy [with Rittenhouse] makes the case that we should not allow our fellow Americans to own and use weapons that were originally designed for battlefield use,” said Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke. “That AR-15, that AK-47, has one single, solitary purpose and that is killing people as effectively, as efficiently, in as great a number, in as little time as possible. We saw that in Kenosha.”

  O’Rourke calls AR-15s “weapons of war,” but he appears unaware that these guns fire the same bullets, with the same rapidity, and do the same damage as a small caliber hunting rifle. They just look like military weapons.

  The New York Times ties the AR-15 that Rittenhouse used to the assault weapon ban lapsing in 2004 because Republicans “blocked its renewal.”  

  Meanwhile Republicans generally viewed the case as showing the benefit of guns for self-defense. They point out the person Kyle Rittenhouse wounded admitted on the witness stand that he was shot him only after he pointed a handgun directly at Rittenhouse. Another had struck Rittenhouse in the head with a skateboard and was going to do so again before Rittenhouse shot him.

  You can also see the partisan gap in a new Rasmussen survey. While Democrats support a national registration system by a 64% to 25% margin, Republican opposition is the mirror image (27% to 63%). Sixty-four percent of Republicans fear that registration would mean the government will “eventually confiscate all guns.” They need not be conspiracy theorists to believe that, as 40% of Democrats agree.

  The Washington Free Beacon obtained a leaked document this month showing that the Biden administration has already compiled the records of more than 54 million U.S. gun owners. They are also drastically changing Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) regulations to ensure the federal government collects all licensed dealer information on their customers.

  It isn’t hard to see why so many Americans fear that eventual confiscation is the end game. Under the label of “reasonable” gun control laws, Democrats keep pushing rules to end private firearm ownership.

  Do you think that is hyperbole?

  Look no further than Biden’s nominee to head the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Saule Omarova. She calls for “debanking” of what she claims are “socially sub-optimal industries.” It is a revival of the Obama administration’s “Operation Chokepoint,” where the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) pressured banks into closing businesses’ accounts. Try running a company without someone to handle credit cards, lines of credit, check cashing, and other things that financial institutions do.

  Or take President Biden’s “zero tolerance” policy toward what he calls “rogue” gun dealers. No policymaker wants dealers to secretly sell guns to criminals out of the back of their store. But that is not what Biden is going after. Even one mistake in paperwork, no matter how trivial and inconsequential, now means the loss of one’s license and the end of one’s business. When Biden talks about 5% of the gun dealers selling 90% of the guns found at crime scenes, he ignores the fact that 95% don’t.

  The one common feature of these and many other proposals is to make owning a gun more costly and less common — thus driving gun makers and sellers out of business.

  The Biden administration and other Democrats, even those in conservative states like Texas or Montana, show no intention of changing course. Republicans see Democrats releasing violent criminals on little or no bail, refusing to prosecute violent criminals, and defunding the police. The Democrats’ sole focus on gun control ignores that 92% of violent crime has nothing to do with guns.

  Republicans believe that Democrats either don’t understand what works or don’t really care about reducing crime.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/24/2021 – 19:00

• Over 600 Google Employees Sign Manifesto Against COVID Vaccine Mandate
  Over 600 Google Employees Sign Manifesto Against COVID Vaccine Mandate

  At least 600 Google employees have signed an internal manifesto calling for the Silicon Valley tech giant to rescind its Covid-19 vaccine mandate, according to CNBC, citing internal documents.

  

  The manifesto within Google, which has been signed by at least 600 Google employees, asks company leaders to retract the vaccine mandate and create a new one that is “inclusive of all Googlers,” arguing leadership’s decision will have outsize influence in corporate America. It also calls on employees to “oppose the mandate as a matter of principle” and tells employees to not let the policy alter their decision if they’ve already chosen not to get the Covid vaccine.

  Although only a tiny portion of Google’s overall workforce has signed the document, momentum could grow as the return-to-work deadline nears. Most of the company’s employees are expected to return to physical offices three days a week starting Jan. 10.

  The company has given its more than 150,000 US employees until Dec. 3 to report their vaccination status, and whether they prefer to work from home or not.

  Google’s mandate followed a ‘vax-or-test’ order by the Biden administration for companies with more than 100 employees. Moreover, the company says that all employees who work directly or indirectly with government contracts must get the jab, even if working from home.

  “Vaccines are key to our ability to enable a safe return to office for everyone and minimize the spread of Covid-19 in our communities,” wrote Google VP of security in an email sent near the end of last month, who added that the changes from Biden’s executive order were “minimal.” His email also gave employees until Nov. 12 to request exemptions based on religious beliefs or medical conditions, which would be granted on a case-by-case basis.

  A Google spokesperson said the company stands behind its policy.

  “As we’ve stated to all our employees and the author of this document, our vaccination requirements are one of the most important ways we can keep our workforce safe and keep our services running. We firmly stand behind our vaccination policy.”

  Maybe some of these employees saw the “died suddenly” spike in google trends.

  — Zr1Trader (@ZR1Trader) November 23, 2021

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

  Read the rest of the report here.

   

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/24/2021 – 18:40

• Tourists Are Flocking To Florida In Greater Numbers Than Before Pandemic
  Tourists Are Flocking To Florida In Greater Numbers Than Before Pandemic

  Authored by Nanette Holt via The Epoch Times,

  More than 32 million travelers poured into Florida in July, August, and September, exceeding the number of visitors during the same period in 2019 before the CCP virus pandemic.

  

  It was the second consecutive quarter of growth in domestic visitors, with 31.2 million Americans flocking to the Sunshine State in the third quarter of the year, according to Visit Florida, the state’s official tourism marketing corporation.

  That number was up from pre-pandemic numbers by almost 7 percent.

  Meanwhile across the country, the total number of domestic travel trips was expected to reach 85 percent of the 2019 level, according to the fall forecast of the United States Travel Association.

  And international arrivals to the U.S. overall were expected to reach only 27 percent of pre-pandemic levels.

  In 2019, U.S. domestic travel had increased 1.7 percent, with the number of trips taken reaching 2.3 billion, the report showed.

  Leisure travel accounted for 80 percent of all travel. International visits experienced a 0.7 percent downturn in 2019 but still accounted for 79 million trips.

  That year, domestic and international travelers spent $1.1 trillion in the U.S.

  The industry was supporting nine million jobs in 2019, and generated $277 billion in payroll and $180 billion in tax revenues for federal, state and local governments.

  Then COVID-19 struck, and tourism ground to a halt.

  Domestic trips across the nation are predicted to finally climb out of the slump caused by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus in 2023, and finish with growth three percent above pre-pandemic levels.

  International arrivals are not expected to recover to 2019 levels until 2025.

  But tourism is charging forward again in Florida. About 1.2 million visitors traveled to Florida from overseas, and 85,000 came from Canada during this year’s third quarter.

  That number of visitors represents a 597 percent increase from the same time in 2020, and a 16.1 percent increase from the second quarter of this year.

  While tourism in other states was practically paused, Florida aggressively marketed outside its borders for seven months and saw steady growth in visitor volume each quarter.

  “In 2020, the experts thought Florida’s economy would be among the most impacted in the nation, because of how important tourism is to our state,” said Gov. Ron DeSantis. “Instead, we are setting the pace for job creation and visitation in the U.S.

  “We have been able to set these records because, in Florida, we kept businesses open and made sure Floridians could keep working. In just 15 months, Florida’s visitation numbers have surpassed past pre-pandemic levels, helping drive revenue, job growth, and economic activity to all 67 counties in our state.”

  The influx of visitors “is a huge win for our state and has pushed the recovery of Florida’s tourism industry to new heights,” said Danny Gaekwad, owner of MGM Hotels and chair of the Visit Florida board of directors.

  “Florida regularly outperforms the nation in hotel occupancy, demand, and revenue, and is an undisputed leader in the U.S. travel sector,” Gaekwad said.

  “We are incredibly grateful for Gov. DeSantis for paving the way to this success and allowing our tourism community to thrive.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/24/2021 – 18:20

• China Says US "Playing With Fire" After Warship Conducts 11th Taiwan Strait Transit This Year 
  China Says US “Playing With Fire” After Warship Conducts 11th Taiwan Strait Transit This Year 

  China has blasted the latest US warship sail-through of the contested Taiwan Strait, which happened Tuesday, calling it an intentional “provocation” after a US Navy statement asserted “The United States military flies, sails, and operates anywhere international law allows.”

  The Navy’s Seventh Fleet had identified that the guided-missile destroyer USS Milius conducted the “routine” transit as part of the US “commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific”. This year the White House appears to have ordered such pass throughs of the strait on a monthly basis, given Tuesday’s event marked the 11th US warship transit of the Taiwan Strait this year, which is just under the record – in 2020 there were a total of 13. 

  

  Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian subsequently said, “The Chinese side was closely following and fully aware of the US military vessel’s passage through the Taiwan Strait.” He disputed the standard Pentagon description of maintaining freedom and openness of international navigation. 

  “The US warships have repeatedly flexed muscles, made provocations, and stirred up trouble in the Taiwan Strait in the name of ‘freedom of navigation.’ This is by no means commitment to freedom and openness, but rather a deliberate disruption and sabotage of regional peace and stability,” Zhao said.

  “China is firmly resolved in upholding national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Zhao continued. “The US side should immediately correct its mistakes, stop making provocations, challenging the bottom line and playing with fire, and play a more constructive role in regional peace and stability.” 

  Additionally the Chinese military’s Eastern Theater Command had revealed later on Tuesday that it had sent PLA naval and air forces to “conduct close-in tracking and monitoring” of the warship.

  During the past decade, the US Naval presence in the strait has steadily grown…

  

  US-China tensions have only continued despite last week’s virtual meeting between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and President Biden wherein Biden reaffirmed his commitment to the ‘one China’ policy as Xi reportedly laid out that Beijing sees Washington support to Taiwan – including weapons transfers – as “playing with fire”. State media reported Xi during the Nov.15 virtual meeting: “Such moves are extremely dangerous, just like playing with fire. Whoever plays with fire will get burnt.”

  Biden had said according to the White House summery of the virtual summit that his administration “strongly opposes unilateral efforts to change the status quo or undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait”.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/24/2021 – 18:00

• Five Trump-Russia 'Collusion' Corrections We Need From The Media Now
  Five Trump-Russia ‘Collusion’ Corrections We Need From The Media Now

  Authored by Aaron Maté via RealClearInvestigations.com,

  Five years after the Hillary Clinton campaign-funded collection of Trump-Russia conspiracy theories known as the Steele dossier was published by BuzzFeed, news outlets that amplified its false allegations have suffered major losses of credibility.

  The recent indictment of the dossier’s main source, Igor Danchenko, for allegedly lying to the FBI, has catalyzed a new reckoning.

  

  In response to what the news site Axios has called “one of the most egregious journalistic errors in modern history,” the Washington Post has re-edited at least a dozen stories related to Steele. For two of those, the Post removed entire sections, changed headlines, and added lengthy editor’s notes.

  Rosalind Helderman: Bylined reporter on two of the Post’s most corrected stories.

  

  Twitter/@PostRoz

  Tom Hamburger: Other bylined reporter on two of the Post’s most corrected stories.

  

  Twitter/@thamburger

  But the Post’s response also exhibits the limits of the media’s Steele-induced self-examination. First, the reporters bylined on those two articles, Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger, and their editors have declined to explain how and why they were so egregiously misled. Nor have they revealed the names of the anonymous sources responsible for deceiving them and the public over months and years.

  Perhaps more important, the Post, like other publications, has so far limited its Russiagate reckoning to work directly involving Steele – and only after a federal indictment forced its hand. But the Steele dossier has been widely discredited since at least April 2019, when Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller and his team of prosecutors and FBI agents were unable to find evidence in support of any of its claims.

  The dossier was also only one aspect of the Trump-Russia misinformation fed to the public. Even when not advancing Steele’s most lurid allegations, the nation’s most prominent news outlets nonetheless furthered his underlying narrative of a Trump-Russia conspiracy and a Kremlin-compromised White House.

  Along the way, some journalists won their profession’s highest distinction for this flawed coverage. While co-bylining stories that the Post has all but retracted, Helderman and Hamburger also share a now increasingly awkward honor along with more than a dozen other colleagues at the Post and New York Times: a Pulitzer Prize. In 2018, the Pulitzer awards committee honored the two papers for 20 articles it described as “deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage in the public interest that dramatically furthered the nation’s understanding of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connections to the Trump campaign, the President-elect’s transition team and his eventual administration.”

  

  Above, Washingon Post and New York Times reporters whose 2018 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting on the Trump-Russia affair is tainted by evidence in the public record that significant reporting was erroneous or misleading — reporting that still has not been corrected by their publications, even though the Post recently made numerous corrections regarding the long-discredited Steele dossier. Journalist identifications are here. (Credit: YouTube/The Pulitzer Prizes)

  Although neither newspaper has given any indication that it is returning the Pulitzer, the public record has long made clear that many of those stories – most of which had nothing to do with Steele – include falsehoods and distortions requiring significant corrections. Far from showing “deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage,” the Post’s and the Times’ reporting has the same problem as the Steele document that these same outlets are now distancing themselves from: a reliance on anonymous, deceptive, and almost certainly partisan sources for claims that proved to be false.

  Many other prestigious outlets published a barrage of similarly flawed articles. These include the report by Peter Stone and Greg Gordon of McClatchy that the Mueller team obtained evidence that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen had visited Prague in 2016; Jane Mayer’s fawning March 2018 profile of Steele in the New Yorker; the report by Jason Leopold and Anthony Cormier of BuzzFeed that President Trump instructed Cohen to lie to Congress — explicitly denied by Mueller at the time; and Luke Harding of The Guardian’s bizarre and evidence-free allegation that Julian Assange and Paul Manafort met in London’s Ecuadorian embassy.

  McClatchy and BuzzFeed have added editors’ notes to their stories but have not retracted them. 

  In this article, RealClearInvestigations has collected five instances of stories containing false or misleading claims, and thereby due for retraction or correction, that were either among the Post and Times’ Pulitzer-winning entries, or other work of reporters who shared that prize. Significantly, this analysis is not based on newly discovered information, but documents and other material long in the public domain. Remarkably, some of the material that should spark corrections has instead been held up by the Post and Times as vindication of their work.

  RCI sent detailed queries about these stories to the Post, the Times, and the journalists involved. The Post’s response has been incorporated into the relevant portion of this article. The Times did not respond to RCI’s queries by the time of publication.

  Falsehood No. 1: Michael Flynn Discussed Sanctions With Russia and Lied About It

  Flynn faces the press in his only White House Briefing Room remarks as national security adviser.

  

  YouTube/C-SPAN

  Officials say Flynn discussed sanctions
  By Greg Miller, Adam Entous and Ellen Nakashima
  Washington Post, February 9, 2017

  Less than a month after BuzzFeed published the Steele dossier, the Washington Post significantly advanced the then-growing narrative that the Trump White House was beholden to Russia.

  A Feb. 9, 2017, Post article claimed that National Security Adviser Michael Flynn “privately discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia” with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak “during the month before President Trump took office, contrary to public assertions by Trump officials.” The Post sourced its reporting to nine “current and former officials” who occupied “senior positions at multiple agencies at the time of the calls” between Flynn and Kislyak following the Nov. 8, 2016 election.

  The Post’s sources – who were revealing classified information, presumably from taps on Kislyak’s phone – left no room for doubt: “All of those officials said Flynn’s references to the election-related sanctions were explicit.” They also added their own spin to the meaning of the conversations: Flynn’s calls with Kislyak “were interpreted by some senior U.S. officials as an inappropriate and potentially illegal signal to the Kremlin that it could expect a reprieve from sanctions that were being imposed by the Obama administration in late December to punish Russia for its alleged interference in the 2016 election.”

  Adding some mind-reading to the narrative, a former official told the Post that Kislyak “was left with the impression that the sanctions would be revisited at a later time.”

  The Post and its sources fueled innuendo that Flynn had floated a payback for Russia’s alleged 2016 election help and lied to cover it up.

  Facing a barrage of anonymous officials contradicting him, Flynn walked back an initial denial and told the Post that “while he had no recollection of discussing sanctions, he couldn’t be certain that the topic never came up.” Four days later, he was forced to resign. The following December, Special Counsel Mueller seemingly vindicated the Post’s narrative when Flynn pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI, including about his discussion of sanctions with the Russian ambassador.

  Flynn would later backtrack and reverse that guilty plea, sparking a multi-year legal saga. When the transcripts of his calls with Kislyak were finally released in May 2020, they showed that Flynn had grounds to fight: It wasn’t Flynn who made a false statement about discussing sanctions with Kislyak; it was all nine of the Post’s sources — and, later, the Mueller team — who had misled the public.

  Sergei Kislyak: Transcripts of Flynn’s calls with the Russian Ambassador do not square with the Washington Post’s reporting.

  

  AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File

  In all of Flynn’s multiple conversations with Kislyak in December 2016 and January 2017, the issue of sanctions only gets one fleeting mention – by Kislyak. The Russian ambassador tells Flynn that he is concerned that sanctions will hurt U.S.-Russia cooperation on fighting jihadist insurgents in Syria. The sum total of Flynn’s response on the matter: “Yeah, yeah.”

  The pair did have a longer discussion about a separate action Obama had ordered at the time: the expulsion of 35 Russian officials living in the United States. The expulsions, which were carried out by the State Department, were a distinct action from the sanctions, which targeted nine Russian entities and individuals under a presidential executive order.

  In discussing the expulsions, Flynn never addressed what Trump might do; his only request was that the Kremlin’s response be “reciprocal” and “even-keeled” so that “cool heads” can “prevail.”

  “[D]on’t go any further than you have to,” Flynn told Kislyak. “Because I don’t want us to get into something that has to escalate, on a, you know, on a tit for tat.”

  In its rendering of the call, the Mueller team cited these comments from Flynn – but inaccurately claimed that he had made them about sanctions. The Special Counsel’s Office appeared to be following the lead of the Post’s sources, who had claimed, falsely, that Flynn’s references to sanctions were “explicit.” Both the Post and the special counsel used Flynn’s explicit comments about expulsions to erroneously assert that he had discussed sanctions.

  Yet the release of the transcripts did not prompt the Post to come clean. Instead, both the Post and the New York Times doubled down on the deception. The Post’s May 29, 2020, story about the transcripts’ release was headlined “Transcripts of calls between Flynn, Russian diplomat show they discussed sanctions.” The Times claimed that same day that “Flynn Discussed Sanctions at Length With Russian Diplomat, Transcripts Show.”

  In reality, the transcripts showed the exact opposite.

  In response to RCI, the Post acknowledged that the Feb. 9, 2017 story had conflated “sanctions” with “expulsions.”

  “We appropriately used the word ‘sanctions’ in reference to the punitive measures announced by President Obama, including Treasury penalties on Russian individuals, expulsions of Russian diplomats/spies and the seizure of two Russia-owned properties,” Shani George, the Post’s Vice President for Communications, wrote.

  In other articles, however — including a Dec. 29, 2016 article linked in the Feb. 9 story’s second paragraph – the Post made a clear distinction between the two. Asked about dropping the distinction between sanctions and expulsions for the article discussed here, the Post did not respond by the time of publication. 

  Falsehood No. 2: Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence

  Left to right, Carter Page, Paul Manafort, Roger Stone: Repeated contacts with Russian spies? Doubtful.

  

  FNC/AP

  Trump Campaign Aides Had
  Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence
  By Michael S. Schmidt, Mark Mazzetti and Matt Apuzzo
  New York Times, February 14, 2017

  On Feb. 14, 2017 – just one day after Flynn resigned – the New York Times fanned the flames of the growing Trump-Russia inferno.

  “Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials,” the Times reported.

  The story, written by three members of the paper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning team, Michael S. Schmidt, Mark Mazzetti and Matt Apuzzo, also suggested that these suspicious “repeated contacts” were the basis for the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign’s potential conspiracy with Russia: “American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee, three of the officials said. The intelligence agencies then sought to learn whether the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians on the hacking or other efforts to influence the election.”

  The article even threw in a plug for Christopher Steele, who, the Times said, is believed by senior FBI officials to have “a credible track record.”

  The story helped build momentum for the appointment of Special Counsel Mueller, and then quickly unraveled.

  Four months after the Times’ report – and just weeks after Mueller’s hiring – FBI Director James Comey testified to Congress about the story, saying that “in the main, it was not true.” When the Mueller report was released in April 2019, it contained no evidence of any contacts between Trump associates and Russian intelligence officials, senior or otherwise. And in July 2020, declassified documents showed that Peter Strzok, the top FBI counterintelligence agent who opened the Trump-Russia probe, had privately dismissed the article. The Times reporting, Strzok wrote upon its publication, was “misleading and inaccurate … we are unaware of ANY Trump advisers engaging in conversations with Russian intelligence officials.”

  Comey on Times story: “In the main, it was not true.” It’s still uncorrected.

  To date, the Times has appended two minor corrections. The most recent one reads: “An earlier version of a photo caption with this article gave an incorrect middle initial for Paul Manafort. It is J., not D.”

  Rather than address its glaring errors, the Times left the story otherwise intact. When the Strzok notes disputing its claims emerged, the Times responded: “We stand by our reporting.”

  Earlier this year, the Times even claimed vindication. The occasion was an April 15, 2021, press release from the Treasury Department. The Treasury statement alleged that Konstantin Kilimnik, a former aide to Trump’s one-time campaign manager, Paul Manafort, is a “known Russian Intelligence Services agent” who “provided the Russian Intelligence Services with sensitive information on polling and campaign strategy” during the 2016 election.

  Writing that same day, Times reporters Mark Mazzetti and Michael S. Schmidt declared that Treasury’s evidence-free press release — coupled with an evidence-free Senate Intelligence claim in August 2020 that Kilimnik is a “Russian intelligence officer” — now “confirm” the Times’ report from February 2017.

  The Treasury announcement did not explain how the department, which conducted no official Russiagate investigation, was prompted to lodge an explosive allegation that a multi-year FBI/Mueller investigation found no evidence for. It also does not name the position Kilimnik allegedly held in Russian intelligence – much less say whether he was a senior official. It also failed to address ample countervailing evidence:

  • that Kilimnik had shared this same, publicly available polling data with Americans;

  • that the FBI still does not deem him a Russian intelligence officer, instead claiming that he has unspecified “ties”;

  • that he had long been a valued State Department source;

  • that he traveled to the U.S. on a civilian Russian passport, not the suspicious diplomatic one Mueller alleged without producing it;

  • and that even the Senate Intelligence Committee was “unable to obtain direct evidence of what Kilimnik did with the polling data and whether that data was shared further.” 

  Wanted in the U.S., Kilimnik shared his civilian (not diplomatic) passport with RCI.

  

  Konstantin Kilimnik via RealClearInvestigations

  In addition, no U.S. government or congressional investigator ever contacted him for questioning, Kilimnik told RCI in an April 2021 interview when he produced images of the civilian passport.

  To declare victory, Mazzetti and Schmidt not only relied on one sentence of a press release but distorted the claims of their original story. Even if Kilimnik somehow proved to be a Russian intelligence officer, the Times’ 2017 story had reported that the Trump campaign had engaged in “intercepted calls” with multiple “senior Russian intelligence officials” – not just one person, and at a “senior” level.

  To elide that, Mazzetti and Schmidt abandoned the plural Russian “intelligence officials” to spin the Treasury press release as proof that “there had been numerous interactions between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence during the year before the election.” It then returned to the use of the plural to further claim that Treasury’s statement is “the strongest evidence to date that Russian spies had penetrated the inner workings of the Trump campaign.”

  RCI sent Mazzetti and Schmidt detailed questions about their February 2017 article and their claim, four years later, that a Senate report and a Treasury press release confirm it. They did not respond.

  Falsehood No. 3: George Papadopoulos’s ‘Night of Heavy Drinking’ With the Australian Envoy

  The Times mischaracterized George Papadopoulos’s supposed Russiagate-launching barroom chat.

  

  AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

  Unlikely Source Propelled Russian Meddling Inquiry
  By Sharon LaFraniere, Mark Mazzetti and Matt Apuzzo
  New York Times, December 30, 2017

  By late 2017, the Russiagate saga was engulfing the Trump presidency. The indictments of several figures connected to Trump fueled a media-driven narrative that Mueller was closing in on a Trump-Russia conspiracy.

  But a roadblock emerged in late October. After a year of evasions, the Hillary Clinton campaign and its law firm Perkins Coie admitted that they had funded the Steele dossier and that a lawyer for the firm, Marc Elias, had commissioned it. The disclosure was forced by House Republicans, led by Rep. Devin Nunes, who had subpoenaed the bank records of Fusion GPS in a bid to identify its secret funder. (Fusion GPS was the opposition-research firm hired by Perkins Coie that in turn hired Steele.)

  For those wedded to the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, the admission was problematic: After months of anonymous media claims that Steele’s dossier was “credible” and even “bearing out,” the heralded document was exposed as a paid partisan hit job from Trump’s political opponents. If the FBI was found to have relied on the dossier, the Clinton campaign’s key role could discredit the entire investigation.

  Just before the 2017 year-end deadline for 2018 Pulitzer eligibility, the New York Times produced a new origin story for the probe that would temper these concerns and help the newspaper win the prize. The FBI’s decision to open the Trump-Russia probe had nothing to do with Steele, the Times claimed. Instead, the instigator was George Papadopoulos, a low-level campaign volunteer indicted by Mueller two months prior.

  “During a night of heavy drinking at an upscale London bar in May 2016,” the Times’ piece began, Papadopoulos told an Australian diplomat named Alexander Downer that Russia had “political dirt on Hillary Clinton,” including “thousands of emails.” Papadopoulos, the Times said, had learned of the Russian scheme the previous month from Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese academic who claimed to be in touch with “high-level Russian officials.” Mifsud’s claim signaled inside knowledge of Russia’s alleged hack of the Democratic National Committee, the Times said, because at that point the “information was not yet public.”

  Alexander Downer: The Australian diplomat’s account of his conversation with George Papadopoulos conflicts with the Times’ reporting.

  

  Twitter/@AlexanderDowner

  When Downer, via the Australian government, relayed this information to the U.S. in July, the FBI decided to open its Trump-Russia probe, codenamed Crossfire Hurricane, the Times reported.

  “The [DNC] hacking and the revelation that a member of the Trump campaign may have had inside information about it were driving factors that led the F.B.I. to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia’s attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump’s associates conspired,” the Times claimed. The article pointedly asserted that the Steele dossier “was not part of the justification to start a counterintelligence inquiry, American officials said.” (In a possible contradiction, it also claims, without specifics, “that the investigation was also propelled by intelligence from other friendly governments, including the British.”)

  Several key aspects of the article have been challenged by the principals involved — leaving aside a key question the Times appears never to have asked: Why would the FBI launch a counterintelligence probe of a presidential campaign based on a barroom conversation involving a volunteer?

  Moreover, the Times or its sources mischaracterized the barroom conversation, according to both of its participants. Speaking to a Sydney-based newspaper a few months later about the fateful London exchange, Downer said Papadopoulos had never mentioned “dirt” or “thousands of emails” — which the FBI would have linked to the DNC hack. Instead, Downer told The Australian, Papadopoulos “mentioned the Russians might use material that they have on Hillary Clinton in the lead-up to the election, which may be damaging.” Contrary to the specificity of the Times’ rendering, Downer recalled that Papadopoulos “didn’t say what it was.” He also said Papadopoulos made no mention of Mifsud, a mysterious figure with rumored ties to Western intelligence who vanished after a cursory FBI interview.

  A declassified FBI document would later confirm Downer’s account of a vague conversation. In May 2020, the Justice Department released the July 31, 2016, FBI electronic communication (EC) that officially opened its Russia investigation. The EC states that Downer had told the U.S. government that Papadopoulos had “suggested the Trump team had received some kind of suggestion from Russia that it could assist” the Trump campaign by anonymously releasing damaging information about Clinton and President Obama. The EC made no mention of any “dirt,” “thousands of emails,” or Mifsud. It also acknowledged that the nature of the “suggestion” was “unclear” and that the possible Russian help could entail “material acquired publicly,” as opposed to hacked emails by the thousands.

  Another declassified document, the December 2017 testimony from Andrew McCabe — the former FBI deputy director who helped launch and oversee the Russia probe — also undermined the Times’ premise. Asked why the FBI never sought a surveillance warrant on the Trump volunteer who supposedly sparked the investigation, McCabe replied that “Papadopoulos’ comment didn’t particularly indicate that he was the person … that was interacting with the Russians.”

  Despite the countervailing claims of Downer, McCabe, and the FBI document that opened the investigation (not to mention the recollections of both Papadopoulos and Downer that they only had one drink, belying the Times claim of “a night of heavy drinking”), the Times has never run a single update or correction.

  Falsehood No. 4: Russia Launched a Sweeping Interference Campaign That Posed a ‘National Security Threat’

  Social media posts from Russia’s effort to “assault American democracy,” as the Times put it.

  

  HPSCI Minority

  Doubting the intelligence, Trump pursues Putin
  and leaves a Russian threat unchecked
  By Greg Miller, Greg Jaffe and Philip Rucker
  Washington Post, December 14, 2017

  To Sway Vote, Russia Used Army of Fake Americans
  By Scott Shane
  New York Times, September 8, 2017

  As the Pulitzer-winning media outlets relied on anonymous intelligence officials to fuel innuendo about Trump-Russia collusion, they turned to these same sources to imply that a compromised president was unwilling to confront the existential threat of “Russian interference.”

  “Nearly a year into his presidency,” a Pulitzer-winning December 2017 Washington Post story declared, “Trump continues to reject the evidence that Russia waged an assault on a pillar of American democracy and supported his run for the White House.” As a result, Trump has “impaired the government’s response to a national security threat.”

  The Post’s article was sourced to “more than 50 current and former U.S. officials” including former CIA Director Michael Hayden, who “described the Russian interference as the political equivalent of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.”

  Another Pulitzer-winning story, written by Scott Shane of the New York Times two months earlier, offered a revealing window into the merits of the Russian interference allegations, and the appropriateness of equating them to attacks like 9/11.

  “To Sway Vote, Russia Used Army of Fake Americans,” the Times’ headline blared. Aside from the Pulitzer board, Shane’s article also impressed the New York Times’ editors, who proclaimed in a follow-up editorial that their colleague’s “startling investigation” had revealed “further evidence of what amounted to unprecedented foreign invasion of American democracy.”

  But from the details in Shane’s article, it is difficult to see why anonymous U.S. intelligence officials, Pulitzer judges, and Times editors saw the alleged Russian “cyberarmy” as such a seismic danger.

  Melvin Redick, suspected Russian operator. The proof? Articles “reflecting a pro-Russian worldview,” the Times reported.

  

  New York Times

  Shane’s piece opened by describing a June 2016 Facebook post by an account user named Melvin Redick, who promoted the website DC Leaks, alleged by the U.S. to be a Russian intelligence cutout. Redick’s posts, Shane writes, were “among the first public signs” of Russia’s “cyberarmy of counterfeit Facebook and Twitter accounts” that turned the platforms into “engines of deception and propaganda.” To Clint Watts, a former FBI agent turned MSNBC commentator, Russia’s infiltration of Facebook and Twitter was so dangerous that social media, he said, is now afflicted by a “bot cancer.”

  But these explosive conclusions, Shane’s own piece later acknowledged, were undermined by a lack of evidence. The online users who manipulated social media, Shane quietly notes near the bottom, were in fact only “suspected Russian operators” [emphasis added]. Shane’s uncertainty extends to Melvin Redick, the alleged Russian bot who begins the story. Redick is one of several identified accounts that “appeared to be Russian creations,” Shane concedes. The only proof tying Redick to Russia? “His posts were never personal, just news articles reflecting a pro-Russian worldview.”

  Robert Mueller’s final report two years later also tried to raise alarm about what he called a “sweeping and systematic” Russian interference campaign. But as with the Pulitzer-winning outlets before him, the contents of his report failed to support the headline assertion. The Russian troll farm blamed for a sweeping social media campaign to install Trump spent about $46,000 on pre-election posts that were juvenile, barely about the election, and mostly appeared during the primaries. After suggesting that the troll farm was tied to the Kremlin, the Mueller team was forced to walk back that innuendo in court, and later dropped the case altogether. The other main claim regarding Russian interference – that the GRU (Russia’s foreign intelligence agency) hacked the DNC’s email servers and gave the material to Wikileaks – was quietly undermined by Mueller’s qualified language and key evidentiary gaps, as RCI reported in 2019.

  The Russian hacking claim suffered an additional setback in May 2020, when testimony from the CEO of CrowdStrike — the Clinton-contracted firm that was the first to publicly accuse Russia of infiltrating the DNC — was declassified. Speaking to the House Intelligence Committee in December 2017, CrowdStrike’s Shawn Henry disclosed that his company “did not have concrete evidence” that alleged Russian hackers had stolen any data from the servers.

  Despite its once exhaustive and alarmist interest in the operations of Russia’s cyber army, neither the Times nor the Post has ever reported Henry’s explosive admission. This includes Pulitzer-winning Post national security reporter Ellen Nakashima, who effectively kicked off the Russiagate saga by breaking the news on CrowdStrike’s Russian hacking allegation in June 2016. Other than Henry, Nakashima’s main source was Michael Sussmann – the Clinton campaign attorney recently indicted for lying to the FBI.

  Falsehood No. 5: The Justice Department Pulled Its Punches on Trump

  Ex-Justice official Rod Rosenstein was blamed for handcuffing Mueller — a charge much doubted.

  

  AP Photo/Evan Vucci

  Justice Dept. Never Fully Examined
  Trump’s Ties to Russia, Ex-Officials Say
  By Michael S. Schmidt
  New York Times, Aug. 30, 2020 (Updated June 9, 2021)

  When Mueller ended his investigation in 2019 without charging Trump or any other associate for conspiring with Russia, a collusion-obsessed media formulated more conspiracy theories to explain away this unwelcome ending.

  First came the belief that Attorney General William Barr had forced Mueller to shut down, misrepresented his final report, and hid the smoking-gun evidence behind redactions. When Mueller failed to support any of these allegations in his July 2019 congressional testimony, a new culprit was needed.

  One year later, the New York Times found its fall guy: Mueller’s overseer, former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, had handcuffed the special counsel.

  “The Justice Department secretly took steps in 2017 to narrow the investigation into Russian election interference and any links to the Trump campaign, according to former law enforcement officials, keeping investigators from completing an examination of President Trump’s decades-long personal and business ties to Russia,” Michael Schmidt reported on Aug. 30, 2020. Rosenstein, Schmidt said, “curtailed the investigation without telling the bureau, all but ensuring it would go nowhere” and preventing the FBI from “completing an inquiry into whether the president’s personal and financial links to Russia posed a national security threat.”

  To buttress his case, Schmidt cited the Democrats’ leading collusion advocate, Rep. Adam Schiff, who feared that “that the F.B.I. Counterintelligence Division has not investigated counterintelligence risks arising from President Trump’s foreign financial ties.”

  But as Schmidt’s article tacitly acknowledged, that outcome did not come from Rosenstein but the Mueller team itself. After Rosenstein appointed Mueller, Schmidt reported, members of the special counsel’s team “held early discussions led by the agent Peter Strzok about a counterintelligence investigation of the president.” But these “efforts fizzled,” Schmidt added, when Strzok “was removed from the inquiry three months later for sending text messages disparaging Mr. Trump.” If Rosenstein had indeed “curtailed” a counterintelligence investigation by Mueller’s team, why did the special counsel staffers discuss it, and why did it only “fizzle” upon Strzok’s exit three months later?

  Strzok himself disputed the premise of Schmidt’s article.

  “I didn’t feel such a limitation,” Strzok told the Atlantic. “When I discussed this with Mueller and others, it was agreed that FBI personnel attached to the Special Counsel’s Office would do the counterintelligence work, which necessarily included the president.” The only problem, Strzok added, was that by “the time I left the team, we hadn’t solved this problem of who and how to conduct all of the counterintelligence work.” Strzok’s “worry,” he added, was that the counterintelligence angle “wasn’t ever effectively done” – not that it was ever curtailed. Another key Mueller team member, lead prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, also rejected Schmidt’s claim.

  NYT story today is wrong re alleged secret DOJ order prohibiting a counterintelligence investigation by Mueller, “without telling the bureau.” Dozens of FBI agents/analysts were embedded in Special Counsel’s Office and we were never told to keep anything from them. 1 of 2

  — Andrew Weissmann (@AWeissmann_) August 31, 2020

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

  Also erroneous is NYT claim “Rosenstein concluded the F.B.I. lacked sufficient reason to conduct an investigation into the president’s links to a foreign adversary.” See DOJ Special Counsel Appointment Order, para. (b)(i). 2 of 2

  — Andrew Weissmann (@AWeissmann_) August 31, 2020

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

  Rosenstein’s May 2017 scope memo, which established the parameters of Mueller’s investigation, indeed contained no such limitations. It broadly tasked Mueller to examine “any links and/or co-ordination” between the Russian government and anyone associated with the Trump campaign, as well as – even more expansively – “any matters that arose or may arise directly from that investigation.”

  In his July 2019 congressional appearance, Mueller had multiple opportunities to reveal that his probe had been impeded or narrowed. Asked by Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.) whether “at any time in the investigation, your investigation was curtailed or stopped or hindered,” Mueller replied “No.” When Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) tried to lead Mueller into agreeing that he “of course … did not obtain the president’s tax returns, which could otherwise show foreign financial sources,” Mueller did not oblige. “I’m not going to speak to that,” Mueller replied.

  With no curtailing or interference in the probe, perhaps Mueller never turned up any Russia-tied counterintelligence or financial concerns about Trump because there was simply none to find.

  For a media establishment that had spent years promoting a Trump-Russia collusion narrative and sidelining countervailing facts, that was indeed a tough outcome to fathom.

  But it’s no time for excuses or false claims of vindication: The tepid accounting spurred by the Steele dossier’s collapse should be just the start of a far more exhaustive reckoning. Broadly misleading journalism that plunged an American presidency into turmoil demands much more than piecemeal corrections.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/24/2021 – 17:40

• Apple Sues Israeli Spyware Firm, Begins Notifying Victims Of State-Sponsored iPhone Hacks
  Apple Sues Israeli Spyware Firm, Begins Notifying Victims Of State-Sponsored iPhone Hacks

  Hours after Apple filed a lawsuit against Israeli spyware maker NSO Group, it sent threat notification alerts to notify victims of state-sponsored hackers that they had been targets, including activists and researchers in Thailand, El Salvador and Uganda.

  In El Salvador, for example, at least a dozen staff members of a newspaper known to be deeply critical of the government were alerted. The message sent from Apple warns: “Apple believes you are being targeted by state-sponsored attackers who are trying to remotely compromise the iPhone associated with your Apple ID. These attackers are likely targeting you individually because of who you are or what you do.”

  Further it said, “If your device is compromised by a state-sponsored attacker, they may be able to remotely access your sensitive data, communications, or even the camera and microphone. While it’s possible this is a false alarm, please take this warning seriously.”

  

  On Tuesday Apple filed suit in a US federal court against NSO Group over its notorious Pegasus malware, seeking to collect what appear to be largely symbolic damages of over $75,000. But ultimately the legal action is toward gaining a permanent injunction which would bar the Israeli firm from ever using Apple software or devices.

  Further the US company is using the lawsuit as a “warning” to other international makers of spyware. The following is the statement released by Apple and in the lawsuit: 

  “The steps Apple is taking today will send a clear message: in a free society, it is unacceptable to weaponize powerful state-sponsored spyware against innocent users and those who seek to make the world a better place,” Ivan Krstic, Apple’s head of security engineering and architecture, said in a tweet.

  NSO Group software permits “attacks, including from sovereign governments that pay hundreds of millions of dollars to target and attack a tiny fraction of users with information of particular interest to NSO’s customers,” Apple said in the lawsuit filed in federal court in the Northern District of California, saying that it is not “ordinary consumer malware.”

  NSO Group is well-known to work closely with the Israeli government as a key defense contractor, and government authorities oversee and regulate the export of Pegasus as a unique defense technology which must be prevented from being used by Israel’s enemies. The spyware is actually controlled for export in the same way that weapons would be. 

  It’s believed the Saudis, for example, used such technology to hack and track journalists and dissidents, such as the murdered Jamal Khashoggi, killed at the Istanbul consulate in 2018 at the hands of Saudi operatives on orders from the kingdom.

  Apple rolling out notifications to victims of NSO Group’s Pegasus spywarehttps://t.co/otgljsmDZn pic.twitter.com/U82TqmlMFT

  — profdeibert (@RonDeibert) November 23, 2021

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

  Revelations starting in 2018 detailed that the cutting edge spyware was used by foreign governments to hack Western allies, including accessing the mobile numbers of French President Emmanuel Macron and much of his cabinet. But it appears many more victims on the list were activists, journalists, and political oppositionists in various countries, often whose governments are seen as friendly to Israel. 

  The Israeli government itself has come under fresh pressure, including from the Biden administration, over the whole scandal. At the start of this month NSO Group and another Israeli spyware company were placed on a US blacklist by the Biden administration, in an almost unprecedented US move targeting of an Israeli entity. US firms or entities now have to seek a special US waiver if they want to do business with the company. The White House said it moved against NSO for having acted “contrary to the foreign policy and national security interests of the US”. It appears Apple is now trying to tighten the noose. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/24/2021 – 17:20

• Biden To Restart Trump's "Remain In Mexico" Policy
  Biden To Restart Trump’s “Remain In Mexico” Policy

  The Biden administration will begin booting asylum seekers back to Mexico as soon as next week following a court order to resume the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” program, according to Axios, which adds that the illegal immigrants will be offered the COVID-19 vaccine on the way out.

  

  The ruling means that Biden will officially backtrack on a key election promise which forces asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico until their US immigration court hearings.

  More via Axios:

  • One difference from the program under former President Trump’s administration: All migrant adults enrolled in “Remain in Mexico” will be offered the vaccine, although it can’t be required, according to two government immigration officials.
  • It’s unclear at what point in the process the migrants would be able to get their shots, whether before being turned back, when they return to the U.S. for their court hearing or at some other time.
  • The policy, formally called the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), will first be reinstated in El Paso and Brownsville, Texas, as well as San Diego, California, one DHS official said.

  *  *  *

  “In compliance with the court order, we are working to reimplement MPP as promptly as possible,” DHS spokesperson Marsha Espinosa told the outlet, which notes that the timing of the move ultimately depends on Mexico’s cooperation.

  “We cannot do so until we have the independent agreement from the Government of Mexico to accept those we seek to enroll in MPP.  We will communicate to the court, and to the public, the timing of reimplementation when we are prepared to do so.”

  According to two sources familiar with internal discussions, there are concerns about migrants who would be forced to travel through Mexico in the ‘middle of the night’ so they can be on time for early morning court hearings.

  Read the rest of the report here.

  Unauthorized migrant crossings dropped for a third straight month in October, with ‘only’ 164,303 people intercepted along the US-Mexico border – a 14% decrease from September as the number of Haitians plummeted by more than 90%.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/24/2021 – 17:00

• If The Chaos In Our Streets Is This Bad Now, How Bad Will It Get In 2022 And Beyond?
  If The Chaos In Our Streets Is This Bad Now, How Bad Will It Get In 2022 And Beyond?

  Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

  If crime and violence are wildly out of control when things are still relatively good, how nightmarish will things become when conditions get really bad in this country? 

  

  Just think about it. 

  Right now, anyone that wants a job can get one.  Millions of Americans have either died of have become seriously incapacitated over the last two years, and so now we are in the midst of the most epic worker shortage in the history of the United States.  Companies all over the nation are absolutely desperate to hire anyone with a pulse, and so there is no excuse for being unemployed.  In addition, we have invented literally millions of different ways to entertain ourselves.  There are hundreds of channels on television, new movies are constantly being released, we live in a golden era of video games, and there are millions of sites to visit and things to do on the Internet.

  So we should all be able to make a living, and we should all have more than enough things to do in our free time.

  In other words, crime should theoretically be extremely low right now.

  But instead, crime rates are absolutely skyrocketing and we are seeing chaos in our streets on a nightly basis.

  In fact, I just wrote about the chaos in our streets yesterday, and now I am writing about it again today.

  When I was growing up, you weren’t taking your life into your hands by attending a parade.  Sadly, quite a few of those that attended the Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin on Sunday won’t be attending any parades ever again.

  A career criminal/rapper/political activist/registered sex offender named Darrell Brooks ripped right through the center of the parade in his vehicle, and many of the victims that he hit were women and children…

  Father Corey Montiho recalled running between crumpled bodies in the streets of Waukesha, 20 miles from Milwaukee, in an attempt to find his wife and two daughters after the girls’ dance team was hit by a speeding red SUV which tore through the parade route around 4.40pm – leaving the streets littered with bodies, broken bones, and ‘fragments of brain’.

  ‘They were pom-poms and shoes and spilled hot chocolate everywhere. I had to go from one crumpled body to the other to find my daughter,’ he said. ‘My wife and two daughters were almost hit.

  ‘I saw bodies flying. I ran down the parade route to find my girls. Addison, my daughter, heard someone yell “car” and ran away. The girls right next to her were hit.

  If the man behind the wheel had been a conservative, the mainstream media would undoubtedly be calling this an act of “domestic terrorism”.

  But since Darrell Brooks absolutely hates conservatives and absolutely hates the police, the mainstream media are not using that particular label.

  Meanwhile, stores in the San Francisco area were hit by highly organized looters for a third night in a row…

  San Francisco Bay has been hit by a third day of brazen looting, with a gang of thieves filmed smashing glass cases at a jewelry store and emptying them as staff screamed in terror.

  The latest incident happened at a Sam’s Jewelers store at the Southland Mall in Hayward around 5:30pm PST Sunday evening, and was caught on camera.

  Robbers – said to have been part of a gang of around 40 to 50 teens who entered the mall – wielded hammers to smash display cases at Sam’s, before making off with goods. Dramatic footage shot from a nearby store showed shop workers screaming with fear as the disturbing scene unfolded.

  Other stores in that same mall were hit as well.

  The thieves have learned that as long as they keep the value of what they steal under $950 they will never be charged with a felony.

  So it is open season on retailers in northern California, and store owners desperately want the politicians to do something to protect them…

  Retailers who already suffered looting in the Black Lives Matter riots of 2020 have had enough, and are speaking out against the left-wing Mayor and other public officials who have failed to protect them. The San Francisco Chronicle reported:

  “The mayor and her entire team should resign,” said John Chachas, whose family owns luxury retailer Gump’s on Post Street in Union Square. “You can’t really run a retail enterprise if you have to board up the windows five weeks before the critical Christmas selling season.”

  Sadly, we are seeing similar scenes in the middle of the country.

  For example, one gang of organized looters just got away with approximately $120,000 worth of merchandise from a Louis Vuitton store near Chicago…

  A group of over a dozen people stormed a Louis Vuitton store in a Chicago suburb and stole about $120,000 worth of merchandise, police said.

  The suspects were caught on video wearing masks and sweatshirts as they grabbed bags and cleared out shelves in the store. The robbery resulted in about $120,000 in merchandise being stolen.

  Of course these are not just isolated incidents.

  As the National Fraternal Order of Police has pointed out, crime rates are absolutely skyrocketing all over the nation.

  As Violent Crime SURGES across America, some politicians and some in the media are gaslighting the public into thinking the Police are the Problem…

  Homicides:
  Atlanta ⬆️ 58%
  Portland ⬆️ 533%
  Philadelphia ⬆️ 37%

  Shootings:
  New York City ⬆️ 64%
  Los Angeles ⬆️ 51%
  Chicago ⬆️ 18% pic.twitter.com/5RbhbKY312

  — National Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) (@GLFOP) June 22, 2021

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

  This is the end result of decades of moral collapse in America.

  These young criminals are not stealing because they can’t find jobs and desperately need money.

  At this point, all of them could go out and get jobs by the end of the week.

  And they aren’t causing havoc because they are bored because there is nothing to do.

  Rather, they are committing these crimes because our system never taught them right and wrong and now they have fully embraced evil.

  As the chaos in our streets gets worse and worse, it is becoming increasingly difficult to be a police officer.  Many of our largest cities have greatly restricted what police departments can do to crack down on crime, law enforcement officers are being endlessly demonized by the corporate media, and violent attacks against police officers are on the rise.

  In such an environment, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that so many officers regret ever becoming cops.  For instance, just check out these numbers from a recent survey that was conducted in New York…

  Not only did 56 percent of cops say they wouldn’t put on the badge if they had to do it all over again, but a majority feel the public disrespects (46 percent agree, 42 percent disagree) and distrusts (44 to 41 percent) them.

  “There is no other profession that is scrutinized as much as we are,” said one NYPD sergeant, a 16-year-veteran. “The far-left leaning politics are absolutely destroying the city of New York.”

  Countless officers have left their law enforcement careers behind over the past couple of years, and many more will leave in 2022.

  And because we are in the midst of such a horrible labor shortage, it will not be easy to replace them.

  This is yet another example of how core institutions are crumbling all over America, and it is only going to get worse in the years ahead.

  As the violence in our streets continues to escalate, what will the streets of our major cities look like in 2022 and beyond?

  If you live in or near one of our major cities, you may want to ask yourself that question, because the storm clouds on the horizon are becoming exceedingly clear at this point.

  *  *  *

  It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 11/24/2021 – 16:20

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• Democrats To Introduce Law That Allowing Cops To Confiscate Guns From US Troops; Report
  Democrats To Introduce Law That Allowing Cops To Confiscate Guns From US Troops; Report

  Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

  A report out of Military.com notes that House Democrats are aiming to pass legislation that would allow police to confiscate firearms from active duty troops.

  

  The report notes that the legislation would permit civilian police to take the action against any military service members if they are accused of ‘domestic violence.’

  Police Could Take Guns from Troops Accused of Domestic Violence Under Proposed Law |

  Democrats are trying to take 2nd Amendment rights from service members. https://t.co/QFu1iWszIE

  — Ray Burton 🇺🇸⚓✈🗡🎵🎚⚽⚾🇬🇧 (@RayBurtonSAS) November 23, 2021

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

  Just “accused” 🤔#LiberalismIsAMentalDisorder

  — #CreepyJoe (@PANTSupDONTIoot) November 21, 2021

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

  California Democratic Rep. Jackie Speier, who chairs the House Armed Services Committee’s subcommittee dedicated to personnel said “Domestic violence is a forgotten crisis in the military, and that’s why I offered an NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act] amendment to ensure that service members have access to military court protective orders that are as strong and enforceable as protective orders issued by civilian courts.”

  The report explains that the law as it currently stands means that civilian law enforcement does not enforce military court orders, and commanders have no authority to seize guns from troops if they are kept off base.

  The Democrat legislation would “create a system for military courts to issue protective orders,” the report notes, adding that “Military court protective orders would be fully recognized by state and local law enforcement under the proposed law.”

  Critics of the proposal point out that it is similar to so called ‘red flag’ gun confiscation laws that allow police or family members to petition a court to remove firearms from anyone deemed to be a danger to themselves or others.

  Red-flag test-bed. https://t.co/6XR8ti69mT

  — Soturi (@FedSnap) November 22, 2021

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

  Republicans are opposing the move, calling on the leaders of the House and Senate armed services committees to remove the provision from the NDAA, arguing that it “would violate the Second Amendment rights of our nation’s brave service members by allowing military judges and magistrates to issue military court gun confiscation orders.”

  Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas further urged that “Congress should not allow servicemen who are faced with allegations to have their firearms taken away first, and face due process later.”

  Last year an almost identical provision in the House version of the NDAA was removed as it progressed to the Senate, which at the time was controlled by Republicans.

  This is a wolf in sheep’s clothing! Police Could Take Guns from Troops Accused of Domestic Violence Under Proposed Law | https://t.co/WncVVK1m5I https://t.co/UfI0C7bTKU

  — Crusty Bastard (@bastardcrusty1) November 22, 2021

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

  *  *  *

  Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

  In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. We need you to sign up for our free newsletter here. Support our sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown. Also, we urgently need your financial support here.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/23/2021 – 23:40

• US, Russia Military Chiefs Hold Urgent "Deconfliction" Call As Ukraine Crisis 2.0 Looms
  US, Russia Military Chiefs Hold Urgent “Deconfliction” Call As Ukraine Crisis 2.0 Looms

  The heads of the Russian and United States militaries held a rare and urgent phone call on Tuesday in efforts to deescalate soaring tensions in eastern Europe, with both sides cryptically confirming it was to discuss “current” international security issues. 

  Russia’s most senior military general, Valery Gerasimov, held the call with US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, in which the two top generals talked about “pressing issues of international security”. The past days have witnessed heightening rhetoric and threats being exchanged between Moscow and Washington over tensions in Ukraine and Belarus, especially given recent reports from US media over a Russian force build-up and planned “invasion” of eastern Ukraine, reports which the Kremlin has vehemently denied. 

  The US side’s readout of the call acknowledged it was for the purpose of rapid “de-confliction” between the two superpowers, also coming the same day CNN reported the Biden administration is now mulling additional weapons and military trainers for Ukraine. 

  

  No additional details or specifics of the military-to-military call were revealed; however, it was without doubt related to a building new Ukraine crisis, following the US allegations of a massive Russian troop build-up near Ukraine for a potential imminent invasion. 

  At the start of this week it was revealed that the Biden administration was reported to have briefed the European partners that Russia on the supposed planned invasion of eastern Ukraine. The Kremlin has been fierce in its response rejecting the accusations, with some thinly-sourced Western reports suggesting as many as 100,000 active duty Russian troops and reservists were being mustered for a major offensive operation. 

  A report in US News and World Report that tensions are fast approaching a breaking point, leading to the potential for a ‘Ukraine crisis 2.0’ amid the tit-for-tat accusations: 

  Through a series of public statements and posts through its state news services, leaders in Russia on Monday presented the unified case that Ukraine was needlessly deploying its military forces to challenge Russia’s sovereignty and its nearby interests, that rising concern in the West of military action by Moscow represents only an attempt by Kyiv to mask its own intentions to do so, that the Western-backed peace process for the conflict in Ukraine is broken and that Kyiv’s allies in Europe and North America are not prepared to back up their pledges of support.

  Just prior to the Tuesday military deconfliction phone call between the US and Russia being revealed, on Tuesday Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said that US nuclear-capable bombers had drastically ramped up their flights across Eastern Europe, close to Russia’s border. 

  Kiev’s top diplomat has denied claims that Ukrainian troops could soon begin an all-out assault on the war-torn east of the country, amid warnings from Russia that the flow of American weapons is rapidly worsening the situation.https://t.co/ooHLdsybxr

  — Bryan MacDonald (@27khv) November 23, 2021

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  Earlier this month, on Nov.10, Russia had sent its own strong message by flying a pair of Tu-22M3 bombers along Belarus’ border with the EU, amid the ongoing migrant crisis standoff between Belarus and Poland. This was combined with verbal warnings from Putin and Kremlin officials that NATO must not cross Russia’s “red lines” in Ukraine. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/23/2021 – 23:20

• Pride Goeth Before The Bitcoin Fall
  Pride Goeth Before The Bitcoin Fall

  Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

  Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.

  – Proverbs 16:18

  Many people already know some of my controversial takes on bitcoin, not the least of which is the idea that I believe a crypto cataclysm could be coming, and that China could be side-stepping a global economic crisis by bowing out of the crypto world.

  You can read those thoughts here: Is China Sidestepping A Crypto Cataclysm No One Else Sees Coming?

  So I was very interested when, last week, Kitco posted a debate between Peter Schiff and Alex Mashinsky on the merits of bitcoin versus gold.

  Schiff is CEO and chief global strategist of Euro Pacific Capital and a large proponent for buying gold as a safe heaven to preserve wealth.

  Mashinsky is the CEO of Celsius, a CeFi lending platform operated by use of blockchain technologies, and a proponent for bitcoin and cryptos as assets.

  I want to start this piece off by saying two things.

  First, just know I’m going to get a lot of shit from bitcoin bulls about it. If you’re one of those bulls already thinking about giving me shit, I encourage you to read some of the points I’m going to make here and not immediately try and throw a wet blanket over this entire article.

  Second, I want to make the points that (i) there are some things about bitcoin that I like and (ii) that I have exposure to some crypto related names. I like the idea of bitcoin, I just don’t know if it is going to stand up, long-term, in practice. Like many people, for a preservation of wealth and store of value, I am much more comfortable holding gold.

  Furthermore, I agree with the problem that a lot of bitcoiners are trying to solve: that the central banks are completely out of control and are doing more harm than good. So hopefully, if you are a crypto advocate, you don’t see this article as me widening the gap between us, but rather trying to identify some nonsense in the space that I think can help inform both bitcoin skeptics and those who are bullish.

  

  When I first saw that Peter Schiff was debating Alex Mashinsky on Kitco news, I knew it was a debate that I wanted to watch. Before I even started watching the interview, I saw a disclaimer on Twitter written by Peter himself, where he apologized for losing his temper.

  I couldn’t help but wonder what, exactly, took place during the interview, as I have watched hundreds of Schiff interviews and have never seen him lose his temper. In fact, sometimes, I lose my temper watching the videos and get mad at Peter for not losing his temper because of how stupid some of the guests are that he is routinely pinned against when discussing things like the merits of capitalism versus socialism.

  But it wasn’t more than a couple of minutes into Kitco’s debate that I started to understand exactly why Peter was getting frustrated. The guy that he was “debating” against was throwing a slew of logical fallacies against the wall and just seeing what stuck.

  Mashinsky led the debate by suggesting a classic fallacy: that bitcoin’s past performance was going to always be indicative of its future results. This is akin to betting “black” at the roulette table after “red” comes out fifty times in a row because it is “due” to come out when, in fact, “black” still has the same 50% chance of coming out as it did on all of the prior spins.

  I give kudos to the Kitco moderator for trying to put a stop to this argument before it started, but this is always the first arrow in the quiver for bitcoin bulls. I have pointed out over and over, there is a reason that the first disclaimer you always see when buying a financial product is: “past performance is not indicative of future results.”

  Because it isn’t.

  Mashinsky then continues hopping from one logical fallacy and inaccuracy to the next. During a discussion about whether or not all bitcoin margin debt (key word: all) was liquidated during the last bitcoin crash, Peter Schiff points out that the amount of leverage people are using to buy bitcoin is likely still significant and dangerous. Mashinsky argues that he believes all margin debt had been liquidated during the last bitcoin plunge, a ridiculous assertion that had Peter fuming.

  

  The absolute worst and most irresponsible of all of the arguments from Mashinsky came when he suggested to viewers of the debate – many of whom likely lack financial sophistication – that both bitcoin and gold pay a yield.

  Of course, what he meant was that they pay a yield on his Celsius platform, but he failed to qualify his statements to make that clear. Neither asset pays a yield in general and Mashinsky knows that.

  As Peter noted, the capital to pay a yield has to come from somewhere. In dividend paying companies, it comes from their retained earnings. Bitcoin and gold don’t earn anything on their own, so there’s nowhere to draw from to pay a yield, let alone an astronomical 5% yield that Mashinsky claims during this debate.

  When Mashinsky claims bitcoin pays 5%, Peter hones in on the fallacy and immediately asks him repeatedly where the yield comes from. Mashinsky has no answer. Peter then takes a guess and asks if Celsius trades the crypto in order to come up with the proceeds to be able to pay the yield, but Mashinsky never gives him a clear answer. This is an extremely dangerous thing to suggest by Mashinsky without explaining in full – and I think even bitcoin bulls can understand why this is dangerous. You can’t get a 5% yield anywhere, let alone from a speculative new asset class. And if you are getting 5% somewhere, chances are you may not be getting it consistently or for a long period of time.

  Understanding how a yield is paid is one of the most important concepts in value investing, which is of course why Peter honed right in on the Achilles’ Heel and why Mashinsky refused to answer questions about it.

  Hilariously, there are also several times during the debate where Mashinsky refers to bitcoin as “gold” or the “gold standard”. Perhaps Mashinsky should take a step back and understand why things are labeled the gold standard to begin with.

  In the words of Peter Schiff: “Gold mines are literally gold mines!”

  

  Mashinsky spends parts of the debate trying to juxtapose bitcoin and gold, like many others have done while advocating for bitcoin. But at some point, it’s going to become very apparent that the two are not the same and bitcoin bulls will one day wonder why they hadn’t made the distinction clearer to begin with.

  Mashinsky then contradicts himself several times when speaking about where the price of bitcoin is going to go. When questioned about where the price of both gold and bitcoin are going, he predicts that gold will go to between $2300 and $2500 over the next year. He then predicts that bitcoin will reach $150,000 next year. That prediction comes just moments after Mashinsky himself says that we have no idea where the price of either asset is going to go. The fact that he is replete with double talk like this should alarm prospective investors in bitcoin.

  There’s also a point in the middle of the debate where Mashinsky admits that psychological buy-in is the one thing that’s driving the price of bitcoin. Schiff then tries to ask several times what happens if people stop believing in it. Mashinsky admits that if people stop believing in it, it means that they have started believing in something else. This point should be fleshed out as a major risk factor and not just dashed over quickly after being avoided, as it was done in this interview.

  Showing off pure ignorance of where value comes from, Mashinsky even claims gold “has no value” during the interview, telling Peter:

  “Gold has zero value. Yes you can use it in jewelry and you can use it to build high fidelity electronic equipment, but that doesn’t mean it has any value.”

  Mashinsky also advocates for “borrowing against your fiat” to buy bitcoin. Make no doubt about it, this is asking people to borrow against their houses, credit cards and everything they own to pour money into bitcoin. It’s an idea that’s as irresponsible to suggest as it inverse to the idea of “protecting” your wealth.

  Mashinsky’s debate tactics also included ad hominem attacks, like when attempts to make fun of Peter for being a dinosaur, suggesting he is using a dial-up modem after his connection drops during the debate. These jokes, especially about Peter, often come up in the bitcoin community and while they are relatively harmless, it is important to understand that they are creating a climate of cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias that reaffirms the notion that bitcoin bulls have some super tech-savvy understanding of bitcoin that guys like Schiff and myself do not.

  Bitcoiners better hope they’re right.

  As I’ve argued several times before, sometimes it isn’t the fact that people don’t understand bitcoin that makes them skeptical, it’s the fact that they do.

  Finally, later in the debate, Mashinsky is also challenged on bitcoin’s need for a power source and the threat of quantum computing, both of which he doesn’t really seem to have a great answer for.

  People laugh at me when I bring up the idea of solar flares and coronal mass ejections rendering their bitcoin temporarily useless, but it is a real world scenario that could happen. In fact, we had solar storms just over the last week. When asked about the need for power, Mashinsky is forced to reply that all bitcoiners will be able to do in that instance is “wait for the power to come back on”.

  Since I have been paying attention to bitcoin over the last couple years, no one has been able to give a good answer for what to do when the power goes out. It looks like your bitcoin is simply rendered useless in that case. Yes, you could say the same thing about the banking system because a lot of it is digital, but people that own gold own it as a hedge against those systems.

  Wouldn’t it be safe to say that gold could be a hedge against bitcoin, too?

  When talking about quantum computing, Mashinsky admits that bitcoin is going to have to be modified over the next decade as quantum computing advances. No one knows what those advancements or changes will look like and who is to say whether the bitcoin you buy today will adhere to the same rules and same mathematical certainties it will after such a modification is made.

  Gold, on the other hand, has had the exact same properties and has been the exact same metal for thousands of years, which is specifically why people like it and why it works as a store of value.

  What are the two key points I’m trying to make in this article?

  First, bitcoin bulls can do better than Alex Mashinsky. The guy obviously spent a majority of the debate pitching his own service and not trying to legitimately deconstruct counter-arguments against bitcoin. I’ve met too many people who are too smart in the bitcoin community to let this guy be the person that represents you as a whole. Personally, I wouldn’t wanna do business with the guy either, but that’s just me.

  The second key point is to always remember that hubris comes before the fall. This is an old saying, but Mashinsky’s tone of arrogance and bragging about his business while not being able to answer key questions about how it functions, to me, looks like a great deal of hubris.

  The more interviews I watch like this, the more the hubris ramps up towards a fever pitch. Over time, nature and karma have a way of correcting these things. Admittedly, I’ve been saying the same thing about Tesla for years and its reckoning hasn’t happened yet, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t.

  Past performance is not indicative of future results.

  You can watch the entire hour long debate here.

  —

  Read more from QTR:

  1. Covid Is Over (If You Want It)

  2. Two Reasons The Market Could Collapse Heading Into The Holidays

  3. When The Global Monetary Reset Happens, Don’t Forget Who To Blame

  —

  Zerohedge readers always get 10% off a subscription to my blog for life by using this link.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/23/2021 – 23:00

• "This Is Literally Going To Kill Me": Five Texas Chipotle Employees Quit Over Short-Staffing, Burnout
  “This Is Literally Going To Kill Me”: Five Texas Chipotle Employees Quit Over Short-Staffing, Burnout

  A group of five employees at an Austin, Texas Chipotle quit their jobs earlier this month over “impossible” work conditions and staffing shortages, according to Insider. The group included a general manager who had worked there for five years.

  

  “My store was severely understaffed, we struggled just to keep our heads above water,” said one of the employees, Peter Guerra, who added that he was regularly scheduled to work 80 hours a week and often had to do more in order to cover for other employees who quit.

  “I thought, ‘this is literally going to kill me if I keep it up,'” said Guerra, who added that the constant pressure to serve so many customers at once made him feel like he had been set up to fail. He hit his breaking point on November 13, when online orders began stacking up as a line of customers stretched to the door.

  Chipotle stores operate with two food-prep lines: one for customers who order on-site and another for digital orders. Some Chipotle workers have previously told Insider that it’s hard to keep up with the rapid rate at which digital orders stack up.

  Without enough workers to serve everyone, Guerra closed the dining room to focus only on digital orders.

  The next day, he quit – along with kitchen manager James Williams who was “stretched infinitely too thin.”

  According to Guerra, customers were sympathetic.

  “They could see the burnout on our faces,” he said.

  A total of five employees confirmed with Insider that they had walked out. Meanwhile Chipotle said that the location had been reopened.

  “The Parmer Lane location was temporarily closed on Monday due to available labor, but reopened Tuesday with normal business hours,” according to a spokesperson, who added: “In a few minor instances, there have been challenges with available labor, so we made adjustments in these restaurants to temporarily accommodate the needs of the business.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/23/2021 – 22:40

• Now That Rittenhouse Is Acquitted, Can Officer Kelly Have His Job Back?
  Now That Rittenhouse Is Acquitted, Can Officer Kelly Have His Job Back?

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  The acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse produced a number of immediate changes beyond the custodial status of the 18-year-old himself.

  GoFundMe lifted its ban on people contributing to his defense . . . after his defense was over and the verdict was in. Some media outlets finally reported on evidence that supported his self-defense claims and one critic called for “revisiting” the clearly biased reporting in the case.

  However, there is one person whose status has not changed: Norfolk Police Officer William Kelly who was fired for simply donating to the Rittenhouse defense fund and writing a supportive note as a private citizen.

  He made the comment and donation anonymously.

  The only thing more shocking than Kelly’s loss of his job is that Norfolk City Manager Chip Filer and Police Chief Larry Boone have retained theirs.

  

  I criticized the firing of Kelly last April as a blatant attack on free speech. The termination occurred after Kelly made a $25 donation to the defense of Kyle Rittenhouse. He made the donation anonymously and added the comment “God Bless. Thank you for your courage. Keep your head up. You’ve done nothing wrong. Every rank-and-file police officer supports you.”

  Early in the Rittenhouse case, activists sought to cut off Rittenhouse’s ability to raise money for his defense by harassing donors and (successfully) pressuring companies like GoFundMe to block contributions. A criminal defense in any case (let alone a high-profile case with ramped up prosecution teams) is hugely expensive. That financial threat can prompt some to plead guilty. That is why people want to help fund such defenses to guarantee true access to a fair trial. Activists and GoFundMe did everything it could to block such efforts and increase the pressure on this teenager to just plead guilty.

  Back to Kelly. This is an officer who had served for almost 20 years when he decided to contribute to the defense. As a police officer, Kelly likely saw the defense grounds more clearly than most people. The jury ultimately agreed with his view that Rittenhouse acted in self-defense. Nevertheless, activists learned his identity and demanded his termination. Filer rushed to satisfy the mob. He fired Kelly with the support of Boone and declared “his egregious comments erode the trust between the Norfolk Police Department and those they are sworn to serve.”

  The “egregious comments” were to say anonymously that there are officers who support Rittenhouse and believe in his defense. Kelly has pointed out that Boone was allowed in uniform to march with Black Lives Matter protesters. Yet, he was fired for anonymously making the supportive donation and statement to a legal defense fund.

  Various public officials, including Vice President Kamala Harris, have contributed to the The Minnesota Freedom Fund, which “pays criminal bail and immigration bonds for those who cannot otherwise afford to as we seek to end discriminatory, coercive, and oppressive jailing.”  They have the right to support such legal defense funds, which serve to assure that litigants have the means to defend themselves. So does Kelly.

  When Kelly was fired, many on the left celebrated despite the fact that he was being denied his right to free speech and free association. It is a pattern that I have written about in the past as public employees are fired for statements on social media or associations in their private lives.  This includes a New Jersey police officer fired for calling BLM protesters “terrorists” on her personal Facebook account. Most recently, a court reinstated Loudon teacher Byron “Tanner” Cross, who was fired for speaking publicly against gender identification policies.

  As it stands, Kelly was fired for supporting (again anonymously) a teenager who was ultimately acquitted of all charges by a jury. He was fired for contributing to a legal fund that would guarantee that the accused would be allowed to put on a full defense. That is in the interest of justice.

  Yet, Filer and Boone remain employed despite using their official positions to retaliate for the use of free speech. Kelly and his family continue to appeal his firing as they struggle to survive on the teacher’s salary of his wife.  The dictator Idi Amin once proclaimed “There is freedom of speech, but I cannot guarantee freedom after speech.”

  That seems the standard applied in Norfolk where even anonymous support for a legal defense is grounds for termination.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/23/2021 – 22:20

• Kremlin Informs China: 10 US Strategic Bombers Trained To Use Nukes Against Russia This Month
  Kremlin Informs China: 10 US Strategic Bombers Trained To Use Nukes Against Russia This Month

  Russia’s Defense Ministry informed China on Tuesday that US strategic bombers recently conducted training exercises which envisioned Russia as a target for nuclear strikes.

  Speaking to Chinese Defense Minister and top PLA General Wei Fenghe, Russia’s defense chief Sergey Shoigu described that “this month, during US strategic forces exercise Global Thunder, ten strategic bombers practiced the option of using nuclear weapons against Russia almost simultaneously from the Western and Eastern directions.”

  

  Crucially he emphasized the threat is ultimately aimed at China too, as “such actions of the US strategic bomber aviation pose a threat not only to Russia but also to China,” according to the remarks cited in state media. 

  He also informed the PLA chief that “We are witnessing a considerable increase in the US strategic bombers’ activity near the Russian borders. Over the past month, they conducted about 30 flights to the borders of the Russian Federation, or 2.5 times more compared to the same period of last year.”

  The virtual meeting among the defense chiefs came as Washington and some European allies, including officials in Kiev, have charged the Kremlin with a threatening build-up of forces near Ukraine, and after the Biden administration was reported to have briefed the European partners that Russia is “planning an invasion” of eastern Ukraine. 

  The militaristic rhetoric has only grown as a result, with US News and World Report describing that tensions are dangerously approaching a breaking point:

  Through a series of public statements and posts through its state news services, leaders in Russia on Monday presented the unified case that Ukraine was needlessly deploying its military forces to challenge Russia’s sovereignty and its nearby interests, that rising concern in the West of military action by Moscow represents only an attempt by Kyiv to mask its own intentions to do so, that the Western-backed peace process for the conflict in Ukraine is broken and that Kyiv’s allies in Europe and North America are not prepared to back up their pledges of support.

  So it appears Moscow is ready to call what it sees as the West’s bluff over Ukraine. For now both sides continue “playing chicken” with their growing and threatening rhetoric. 

  The Kremlin has blasted the Western reports as a disinformation campaign, and it’s likely that Shoigu’s very bold public statements to his Chinese counterpart are meant as a warning related to the rising tensions with NATO over Ukraine as well as the Belarus-Poland migrant crisis. 

  Shoigu had further emphasized that Russian and Chinese troops are increasingly “interacting on land, sea, and air” – noting the fact that as both countries have come under Washington pressure in recent years, their “trusting and friendly” strategic cooperation has only deepened, now with routine military cooperation and drills.

  Gen. Fenghe appeared in full agreement, according to the meeting summary in Russian press reports, saying, “I also support your vision of the military threat to our countries coming from the United States of America.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/23/2021 – 22:00

• DOJ Intervenes To Defend Section 230 In Trump's Facebook Lawsuit
  DOJ Intervenes To Defend Section 230 In Trump’s Facebook Lawsuit

  Authored by Ivan Pentchoukov via The Epoch Times,

  The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday intervened in former President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against Facebook in order to defend the constitutionality of Section 230, a federal statute derided by both Trump and President Joe Biden.

  

  The plaintiffs in Trump’s lawsuit filed a constitutional question in July as to the legality of Section 230. The federal court handling the case in Florida certified the question to Attorney General Merrick Garland and in late August ordered the DOJ to decide whether to intervene to defend the legality of the statute.

  In its filing on Nov. 22, the government noted that the Justice Department “has an unconditional right to intervene to defend the statute” and is intervening “for the limited purpose of defending the constitutionality of Section 230.”

  The counsel for Facebook and Trump agreed to the DOJ’s intervention, according to the filing (pdf).

  Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shields internet companies from liability for good faith removal of “objectionable” content.

  On the campaign trail in 2019, Biden told The New York Times that Section 230 should be repealed.

  “The idea that it’s a tech company is that Section 230 should be revoked, immediately should be revoked, number one. For Zuckerberg and other platforms,” Biden said in an interview with the Times’ editorial board on Dec. 16, 2019.

  “It should be revoked because it is not merely an internet company. It is propagating falsehoods they know to be false.”

  In May this year, Biden revoked a Trump order that had targeted Section 230.

  

  Former President Donald Trump prepares to speak during the Conservative Political Action Conference CPAC held at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, Texas, on July 11, 2021. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

  In his class-action lawsuit against Facebook, Trump is seeking the reinstatement of his account, punitive damages for being banned from the platform, and for Section 230 to be declared unconstitutional.

  Facebook banned Trump indefinitely from its platform on Jan. 7, 2021, the day after the riot at the Capitol.

  Trump’s attorneys had argued in October that Section 230 violates the First Amendment when applied in his case.

  “Coerced by members of the United States Congress, operating under an unconstitutional immunity granted by a permissive federal statute, and acting directly with federal officials, [Facebook] is censoring plaintiff, a former President of the United States,” Trump’s attorneys said in a motion for a preliminary injunction.

  “[Facebook] exercises a degree of power and control over political discourse in this country that is immeasurable, historically unprecedented, and profoundly dangerous to open democratic debate. Defendant not only banned Plaintiff from its platform, but also extended its prior restraint to innumerable Users who post comments about Plaintiff.”

  Facebook, in prior filings, called the case “meritless.” The company’s counsel attorney had successfully motioned to move the case to a California court, pointing out that users who accept its terms of service agree to litigate their claims in California.

  Trump had tens of millions of users on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube before the three social media giants banned his accounts in the wake of the Jan. 6 riot. Trump was subsequently exonerated by the Senate from Capitol-riot-related charges against him brought by House Democrats as part of the second impeachment.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/23/2021 – 21:40

• "A Drop In The Ocean": Goldman Mocks Biden's Tiny SPR Release
  “A Drop In The Ocean”: Goldman Mocks Biden’s Tiny SPR Release

  Goldman’s commodities team, which for most of 2021 has been extremely bullish on the price of oil which it sees rising to $90 by year end and remaining higher for years to come, has not been exactly timid in its view on what Biden’s SPR release will do to the price of oil: two months ago, when the idea was first floated, Goldman said that an “SPR Sale Would Release Only 60MM Barrels; Will Bring Even Higher Oil Prices“, and then, less than a week ago when oil prices tumbled, the bank said that with Brent below $80, “A Biden SPR Release Is Now Fully Priced In And Will Send Oil Price Even Higher In 2022.”

  Well, Goldman was right, and as we showed today, Brent exploded higher after news of the smaller than expected SPR exchange (not release) finally hit turning sell the rumor into a “buy the news” frenzy.

  

  Not surprisingly, after the dust finally settled, it was time for Goldman’s commodity guru Damien Courvalin to take a victory lap and in a note titled “A Drop in the Ocean” (it’s all too clear what the title was referencing)…

  

  … he writes that as details of government crude reserve releases started being released today, with 50 million barrels (mb) from the US and as much as 30 mb from Korea, Japan, China, India and the UK, “the aggregate size of the release of c. 70-80 mb was both smaller than the 100+ mb the market had been pricing in, with the swap nature of most of these barrels implying an even smaller c. 40 mb net increase in oil supplies over 2022-23.” That, as Courvalin points out, is in the context of a market drawing up to 2mb/d at present!

  

  Translation: enjoy the low oil and gas prices while you can… we are going much higher.

  How much higher? As Courvalin explain, on his pricing model, such a release would be worth less than $2/bbl, significantly less than the $8/bbl sell-off that occurred since late October. So at $82/bbl currently, Brent prices are in fact not only pricing in today’s  announced release, but an additional hit to global oil demand of 1.5 mb/d for the next three months. That is equivalent to pricing in both a repeat of last winter’s 1 mb/d hit to EU oil demand due to the COVID wave (which occurred in the absence of vaccinations) as well as a repeat of this summer’s 0.5 mb/d hit to Chinese demand from lockdowns.

  

  Needless to say, the Goldman strategist views these as “excessive concerns over the next three months, leaving the recent sell-off overshooting fundamentals due to the year-end decline in trading activity.”

  Separately, while Goldman concedes that on their own, the coordinated government stock releases would warrant a $2/bbl downgrade to the bank’s $90 year-end Brent price forecast, it sees offsetting risks from the lack of progress on negotiations with Iran. To be sure, the restart of negotiations next Monday, November 29, will provide some sense of potential timeline to an agreement, with clear risks that Goldman’s assumption for an April lift of sanctions (and February onward unwind of 60mb Iranian floating storage) could prove too optimistic. In addition, and in retaliation for the SPR release, OPEC could easily consider halting its production hikes to offset the detrimental SPR impact of lower oil prices on the needed recovery in global oil capex, likely justifying such action as prudent in the face of COVID demand risks.

  In conclusion, Courvalin reiterates his view that such government intervention is not the solution to higher oil prices that are required to overcome the slow supply response of producers, something he discussed earlier this week. This instead has been driven by:

  1. the damage to investors caused by oil producers’ capital destruction over the last seven years, now compounded by ESG allocation inefficiencies, and
  2. the demand uncertainties of COVID, China and energy transition.

  One thing is certain: neither of these two will be resolved by palliative measures such as an SPR release, or potentially counter-productive measures, such a US export ban.

  One final point: while not even the Biden admin is dumb enough to consider it, some have speculated that once the SPR release is shown to be a total disaster, Biden may implement an oil export ban. The problem: this would have catastrophic consequences. As Goldman explains, a US export ban would significantly disrupt the US and global oil markets, and potentially be a counterproductive tool to attempt to lower oil prices.

  The US exports 3 mb/d of crude and domestic pipelines would not be able to reroute these volumes to US refiners, which further don’t have enough capacity to process this much crude. This would leave excess US crude supply quickly reaching tank tops and forcing shut-in production, with investment and production soon to enter significant declines. At the same time, the global market would be deprived of 3 mb/d of US supply (light sweet crude that is Brent like in quality). Brent prices would therefore need to spike to push demand lower as there is simply not enough spare capacity (nor suitable crude) to replace US lost exports.

  Finally, with the US an importer of gasoline from Europe, US gasoline prices would spike to curtail domestic demand, creating a negative hit to US economic activity.

  Come to think of it, this is precisely what Biden will do next.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/23/2021 – 21:20

• Here's One Simple Example Of How Absurd Build Back Better' Is
  Here’s One Simple Example Of How Absurd Build Back Better’ Is

  Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

  In early January 1964, barely six weeks after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, US President Lyndon Johnson delivered a speech to the American people in which he declared an “unconditional war.”

  But he didn’t declare war on Vietnam. Or Cuba. Or the Soviet Union.

  Johnson declared war on poverty.

  And in his State of the Union address he told his fellow Americans that it would take more than “a single piece of legislation” to eradicate poverty.

  So they got to work preparing a series of expensive programs to create jobs, build affordable housing, establish new entitlement programs, and invest in vocational training.

  It goes without saying that this spending bonanza kicked off a steep increase in inflation. But more importantly it turns out that most of these programs were utter failures.

  One of the best examples is the Job Corps, an initiative established in 1964 to provide free vocational training to young people.

  The Job Corps was something of a pet project for Lyndon Johnson; he believed that “one thousand dollars invested in salvaging an unemployable youth today can return $40,000 or more in his lifetime.”

  This is a long-standing argument for increased public investment in education.

  And yet according to a long-term study of the Job Corps published in 2018 by the agency’s own Inspector General, the program has been a terrible investment for the American taxpayer.

  The Job Corps spends $1.7 billion of taxpayers’ money each year to train around 66,000 people; this works out to be $25,000 per student per year, which is already more expensive than many public universities.

  

  Yet Job Corps’ own Inspector General found that “more than half” of the participants in his study “did not have a beneficial outcome.”

  A later report by the US Department of Labor determined that a small group of Job Corps graduates could earn, on average, $275 more per year than non-graduates who work in similar jobs.

  Wonderful. But given that these jobs are at the lowest possible tax bracket, the additional tax revenue per Job Corps graduate is less than $30 per person.

  That makes the Job Corps’ annual Return on Investment about 0.1%, at best. More likely it loses money and provides no real benefit to graduates.

  So why would any sane individual continue investing in this program? Even the New York Times called it a complete failure and “a little bit like prison”.

  And yet the Job Corps is set to be the proud beneficiary of $1.5 billion, courtesy of the Build Back Better Act that passed the US House of Representatives on Friday.

  This new funding will roughly double the program’s budget.

  Now, if you’re spending money and you’re getting a fantastic return on investment, then cost shouldn’t be an issue.

  The problem is spending money and failing to achieve any meaningful outcome. And that tends to be the government’s track record.

  LBJ believed in 1964 that investing in job training would generate a huge return on investment. But six decades of Job Corps data show that they completely failed to achieve this vision.

  Instead they created a job training program that is more expensive than most public universities, yet generates no real benefit for its graduates or for taxpayers.

  But politicians only think about money. If they increase an agency’s budget and throw money at an issue, they feel like they’ve done their job. They never look at performance or execution.

  And this is the real problem with Build Back Better. Much has been said about the cost of the legislation, including those who say it will “cost nothing”.

  (The initial cost is actually $1.7 trillion, and the long term costs look like they’ll probably top $4 trillion.)

  But focusing on cost really misses the point. The real question is– will there be any return on investment?

  The failure of Job Corps provides a pretty clear answer.

  Build Back Better is a whopping 2,468 pages. Buried in that text, they’re creating thousands of new programs, just like Job Corps.

  The politicians keep insisting that these are all “investments”. But they never conduct a honest assessment of investment performance.

  They just keep writing checks and spending other people’s money with a dangerous fanaticism, and absolutely no consideration of execution and performance.

  And just like LBJ’s War on Poverty, Build Back Better will likely lead to much higher inflation.

  After all, it’s not difficult to predict what might happen when they spend money endlessly and generate zero return on investment.

  LBJ at least got one thing right.

  In his original State of the Union address in 1964, he acknowledged that the private sector (NOT the government) had the real power to create jobs, enhance prosperity, and alleviate poverty.

  He argued that cutting taxes, for example, would “create new jobs and new markets in every area of this land”, and he told Congress, “We need a tax cut now to keep this country moving. . . Our taxpayers surely deserve it.”

  Further, he stated, “the most damaging and devastating thing you can do to any businessman in America is to keep him in doubt and to keep him guessing on what our tax policy is.”

  Today, however, politicians hold the opposite view. They believe that tax increases are the path to prosperity. They believe jobs are created through more rules, more laws, and more money in the hands of the government.

  And they’re delighted to keep people guessing about tax policy, including threatening retroactive tax changes.

  This entire ethos is completely destructive… not to mention highly inflationary. But we’ll tackle that issue another time.

  *  *  *

  We think gold could DOUBLE and silver could increase by up to 5 TIMES in the next few years. That’s why we published a new, 50-page long Ultimate Guide on Gold & Silver that you can download here.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/23/2021 – 21:00

• Lawsuit Imminent? Psaki Deflects After Kyle Rittenhouse Says Biden Defamed His Character
  Lawsuit Imminent? Psaki Deflects After Kyle Rittenhouse Says Biden Defamed His Character

  White House press secretary Jen Psaki issued a carefully worded answer on Tuesday after Fox News‘ Peter Doocy asked if President Biden would “ever apologize to Kyle Rittenhouse for calling him a white supremacist.”

  

  Psaki deflected, saying “let’s be clear what we are talking about here. This is about a campaign video, released last year, that used President Trump’s own words, during a debate, as he refused to condemn white supremacists and militia groups.”

  So Biden called Rittenhouse a white supremacist because of Trump? That’s a new one. Let’s review the defamatory campaign ad:

  There’s no other way to put it: the President of the United States refused to disavow white supremacists on the debate stage last night. pic.twitter.com/Q3VZTW1vUV

  — Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 30, 2020

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

  Now watch Psaki spin in circles trying to explain why Biden doesn’t need to apologize.

  Transcript pic.twitter.com/IHGZJMoJa5

  — Richard Lucas (@EpistemiclyRich) November 23, 2021

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

  Doocy’s questioning follows comments Rittenhouse made during a Monday night appearance on Fox News‘ “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” where he used oddly specific legal language to describe his side of what happened.

  “Mr President, if I can say one thing to you, I would urge you to go back and watch the trial and understand the facts before you make a statement,” said Rittenhouse. “It is an actual malice and defaming my character for him to say something like that.“

  Watch:

  Rittenhouse also told Carlson that he thought the jury reached the right decision.

  “I thought they came to the right verdict. It was not Kyle Rittenhouse on trial in Wisconsin, it was the right to self- defense on trial.”

  The only question now is whether Rittenhouse is going to sue the MSM or the Biden campaign first?

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/23/2021 – 20:40

• 34% Of White College Applicants Lied About Race To Improve Chances Of Getting Accepted, Survey Finds
  34% Of White College Applicants Lied About Race To Improve Chances Of Getting Accepted, Survey Finds

  Authored by Charloitte McKinley via TheCollegeFix.com,

  Thirty-four percent of white college student applicants have lied about their race to admissions officials to better their chances of getting accepted into their desired university or receive better financial aid, according to a survey from Intelligent.

  The survey of 1,250 white college applicants ages 16 and older found that the most popular racial claim was Native American. Out of the 34 percent of white college applicants who lied about their race, 77 percent were accepted.

  

  “It’s the easiest lie to tell because you can’t get caught in it,” said Vijay Jojo Chokal-Ingam, an admissions consultant at SOSAdmissions.com and author of “Almost Black: The True Story of How I Got Into Medical School By Pretending to Be Black.”

  “A lot of people, based on very flimsy reasons, claim to be either African-American, Hispanic or Native American because they know it’s going to improve their chances,” Chokal-Ingam said in an interview with The College Fix.

  Though lying on college applications is frowned upon, universities typically do not push back on students about their race. Instead, they accept it regardless of what they look like, he said.

  “It’s become a joke,” Chokal-Ingam said.

  

  He cited Senator Elizabeth Warren, who famously “lied about her race to get a faculty position at Harvard.”

  “If there was a degree to which people felt guilt about doing that, it died with Warren because the Boston Globe, the New York Times, the Washington Post—they all ran to her defense,” he said. “This prompted an ‘if she can do it, I can do it too’ ideology.”

  “When President Trump called Senator Elizabeth Warren ‘Pocahontas,’ [the media] called him a racist. They said it was a racist thing. On the contrary, I think that he was bringing to attention a very important issue in the field of racial-race relations,” Chokal-Ingam said.

  “He was making people aware of the fact that people routinely, on a massive scale, lie about their race.”

  When Chokal-Ingam was faced with the prospect of getting caught in his lie, he said he knew exactly what he needed to say to shut them down: “I don’t want to talk about my ethnic background because I think it is very racist for you to ask me these highly inappropriate questions.”

  Colleges are not solely looking at a person’s race when choosing people to go to their universities. For instance, Harvard scores on three sections: academics, extracurriculars and personality, said Kenny Xu, author of “An Inconvenient Minority: The Attack on Asian American Excellence and the Fight for Meritocracy.”

  Whereas white college applicants are more likely to lie about their race to gain acceptance into the university of their choice, many universities are deliberately controlling which races will join their classrooms through affirmative action clauses, he said in an interview with The College Fix.

  “In academics, Asians score the highest of all races, in extracurriculars Asians score the highest level of the races, and in personality, Asians get the lowest score,” Xu said.

  “Out of all the reasons, despite the fact that they would score highest on alumni interviews and second highest teacher recommendations … It’s pretty much the personality score that is used to discriminate against Asians in the college admissions process.”

  Unlike their white counterparts, Asians are unable to “cheat” their way out of it, he said.

  “For various reasons, white people are more mixed in their orientation. They can get away with it more than Asians can,” he said.

  Ultimately, meritocracy is the best strategy for college admissions, Xu said.

  “Merit should be the only criteria to which a student should get into a university,” Xu said.

  “You shouldn’t have to worry about things like race or admitting people beyond their scope of qualifications.”

  Instead of lying to get into certain elite colleges, Xu also suggested students expand their horizons.

  “If you don’t get into the one you’re qualified for, guess what? You can go to a university that you are qualified for and you will achieve and be a big fish in a smaller pond,” he said.

  Chokal-Ingam said the special treatment given to blacks and Hispanics is damaging.

  “It is a stigma they will carry on the rest of their lives,” he said.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/23/2021 – 20:20

• Chinese Doctors Urge Beijing To Abandon "Zero-COVID" Strategy As Infections Rise, Government Doubles Down
  Chinese Doctors Urge Beijing To Abandon “Zero-COVID” Strategy As Infections Rise, Government Doubles Down

  As the world approaches the second anniversary of Beijing’s New Years’ Eve (at least, for Americans) report to the WHO about a mysterious new virus circulating in Wuhan, Bloomberg reports that China is officially facing its toughest battle with COVID since the early days of the outbreak, and in response, is doubling down on its “COVID Zero” pledge, just as Australia calls in its military to help forcibly remove people in the northern territories to quarantine camps.

  The decision to “double down” comes “despite rising costs to Australia’s people and economy”, Bloomberg reports. Additionally, as the FT reports, at least three leading Chinese health scholars have challenged the government’s policy of monitoring of mobile phone location data to help identify close contacts of COVID-19 cases, “in a rare instance of public opposition to the nation’s draconian pandemic prevention strategy.”

  

  Per the FT, whose reporting embraces the notion that Beijing has an obligation to accept that COVID will inevitably become “endemic”, China’s top public-health officials, led by Chen Fujun at Huaxi No 4 Hospital in the southwestern city of Chengdu (which imposes travel restrictions and mandatory tests for mobile phone users who strayed within 800 meters of a confirmed case for more than 10 minutes), believe that the program results in “an overuse of medical resources, growing public panic and the disruptions of people’s normal life and work”. “We should consider the sustainability of these measures,” the doctors said.

  

  Source: BBG

  The doctors’ criticism highlights the “growing challenges” faced by the Chinese government as it attempts to stick with its “zero COVID” containment strategy despite repeated outbreaks of the delta variant and other variants that have been repeatedly covered up by Beijing’s increasing restrictions on reporting.

  Despite early resistance to the notion, the US and European mainstream media have apparently decided that a commitment to complete eradication of the virus is now “excessive” – at least when China does it.

  Yanzhong Huang, a public health policy expert at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, said Chengdu’s measures were “excessive” and reflected ‘poor risk assessments by the authorities’.

  The Chinese government, Huang added, seems to believe that the country’s only two options are “zero cases or… [a] worst-case scenario where the entire healthcare system is overwhelmed and social stability is undermined.”

  Does that sound familiar?

  For context, Singapore, one of the world’s most active adopters of contact tracing, considers people “close contacts” of the infected only if they come within two meters of a confirmed case, a much smaller margin than Beijing’s 800M.

  Although, before Beijing doubles down (publicly, at least) on its insistence that COVID cases can be brought completely to heel, perhaps they should tell their lab-hands in Wuhan to stop tinkering first.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/23/2021 – 20:00

• Biden's Oil Price Smoke And Mirrors
  Biden’s Oil Price Smoke And Mirrors

  By Ryan Fitzmaurice, Senior Commodity Strategist at Rabobank

  Summary

  • The White House is playing the political blame game with respect to high gasoline prices

  • Several key agencies, including OPEC, are now forecasting oversupplied oil markets in 2022, but don’t assume oil prices will fall even if this is the case

  • We are expecting a surge of new capital into commodity markets in 1H22, following a stellar year for the alternative asset class as well as the CTA trading community

  The blame game

  Oil prices fell on the week as the rally appears to be losing steam, but not for the reasons being discussed by the White House. In fact, oil prices have been trading mostly range bound to lower ever since late October, when the year-to-date highs were set, as a combination of bearish seasonal patterns and speculative liquidation take hold.

  However, even though oil futures have been falling recently, the rhetoric out of the White House has only increased, highlighting the political vulnerabilities arising from high gasoline prices.

  First, President Biden put the blame squarely on OPEC and Russia, who according to him were not increasing oil production fast enough to calm prices. In our view, this statement was largely unfounded and meant to distract voters given OPEC+ is in fact increasing production every month by 400kb/d until pre-pandemic levels are achieved next year.

  At the same time, US crude oil production remains significantly below (-1.6mb/d) the pre-pandemic high watermark with little growth pencilled in for the shale industry next year. Unsurprisingly, OPEC+ did not heed Biden’s call for more oil at the last supply meeting and, as a result, the White House moved on to consider a new release of oil from the strategic reserve (SPR) and even a temporary crude oil export ban, both of which could backfire and lead to a surge in global oil prices rather than reduce them. Biden even reportedly floated a coordinated SPR release with China during his virtual meeting with Xi, but prospects for joint action remain low. Not to mention, the US and China have already been quietly releasing oil from reserves but that has had no discernible impact on prices to date as discussed here and here.

  To top it off, the Biden administration is now diverting the blame for high gasoline prices away from domestic policies and towards shale drillers, ordering an official investigation into oil and gas companies for potential illegal gouging despite no evidence whatsoever to support these claims.

  

  Flows vs fundamentals

  As just discussed, oil fundamentals have been in the spotlight recently given mounting inflation concerns and the political sensitivities at play. Interestingly, several key agencies including OPEC are now calling for an oversupplied oil market in 2022, suggesting relief at the pump and at the ballot box is just around the corner. This is not how we see it, however, and our disagreement has less to do with the fundamental outlook and more to do with the idea that looser balances will result in lower oil prices as the consensus has suggested. For starters, and as we often point out on these pages, the spot price of oil is extremely flow driven and prices do not simply fall because the market is slightly oversupplied, rather a trader or algorithm, as is increasingly the case, must sell oil futures to make the price go down or vice versa on the upside.

  Moreover, commodities markets and oil, have a deep and wide cross-section of market participants including commercial traders and speculators. Over time, the speculative interest has become more and more systematic in nature, relying heavily on quantitative market signals such as trend, momentum, and carry to make trading decisions rather than market fundamentals. In addition to systematic commodity funds, a once dormant group of commodity traders known as index investors have reappeared in impressive fashion this year due to soaring inflation. So, between these two groups of influential speculators, fundamentals rarely enter the equation directly. For example, a large multi-asset money manager is little concerned with OPEC signalling a modest oversupply of crude oil next year and is more interested in getting broad-based commodity exposure to diversify holdings and mitigate the impact of inflation on the portfolio level.

  To understand the importance of these money flows, all one must do is look back at the first half of this year to see the impact they had on oil prices (Fig. 2). To our minds, these flows were the most important price driver at the time. Further to that end, both groups of speculators are now directionally “long” oil and, importantly, have had a stellar year for returns. As a result, we are expecting another surge of capital into commodities markets in 1H22 as intuitional money chases strong returns, thereby driving spot oil prices even higher, holding all else equal. That is not to say that fundamentals don’t matter, far from it. On the contrary, we believe strongly in fundamentals, however, the price impact is much more likely to play out on the curve structure rather than spot prices.

  As such, it would not surprise us to see the oil curve structure weaken next year on the back of a build-up in inventories should the calls for a modestly oversupplied market be realized.

  

  Looking forward

  Looking forward, we are viewing the current oil market weakness as a function of speculative liquidation in response to bearish seasonal patterns, an increase in market volatility, and a much stronger US Dollar. Furthermore, we expect the oil rally to resume in earnest early next year as institutional capital pours into commodities following a stellar year for the alternative asset class

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/23/2021 – 19:40

• Tech Hubs Draw Fewer Out-Of-Town Renters While 'Peripheral' Markets Get More Attention
  Tech Hubs Draw Fewer Out-Of-Town Renters While ‘Peripheral’ Markets Get More Attention

  Yet another report on shifts in renter preferences across America’s vast housing market (where roughly half of Americans are still renters) is showing once again that renters continue to abandon over-priced “hubs” like San Francisco and Seattle while the number of out-of-towners moving to “peripheral” markets like Sacramento, Richmond and Raleigh is on the rise.

  

  Stock photo: Richmond VA.

  According to Apartment List, the ongoing pandemic has forced many renters to rethink their situation, as increasing shifts to remote work, and other disruptions some related to the pandemic, others not, change the landscape for remote work.

  Of the 50 largest metros, 37 saw a YoY decline in relative inbound migration, while 26 of the 50 largest saw a YoY decline in relative outbound migration. Meanwhile, for both inbound and outbound shifts, the largest declines occurred in the places where the level of the given metric was highest in 2019. For example, from April through August of last year, the San Francisco metro area saw the second-highest relative inbound migration rate. But ever since, it has experienced the largest decrease in that share.

  

  As a result, many of the hot markets that had been attracting significant interest from out-of-towners have cooled, while some less-popular destinations are now attracting more inbound interest. Because of this, San Francisco has seen the nation’s fastest decline in rents since the start of the pandemic, with prices down by 3.3% from March through July. Although San Francisco remains the nation’s most expensive rental market, local renters are likely finding better deals now than they have in some time, which may encourage them to stick around.

  As inbound interest to San Francisco cools, another NorCal metro has seen inbound interest increase: Sacramento. In 2020, relative inbound migration to Sacramento increased by 3.8% compared to last year; this is the second largest increase among the nation’s 50 largest metros. San Francisco is the most popular source of inbound searches to Sacramento, and this migration flow has strengthened from 2019 to 2020. As more flexible working arrangements gain popularity, affordable metros on the peripheries of major job centers may become increasingly attractive, and Sacramento appears to be showing early signs of this trend.

  A similar dynamic appears to be at play in a few of other major metros that renters consider more-affordable alternatives to some of the nation’s most expensive markets. Richmond, VA, which sits about 100 miles south of Washington, DC saw relative inbound migration increase from 31.4% last year to 34.6% this year.

  However, this trend isn’t universal – some tech hubs are still seeing intense interest from out-of-towners. For example, Boston saw the biggest increase in the share of renters looking to leave the metro, with relative outbound migration increasing from 21.1% to 28.7%. The combination of these changes could mean that Boston is poised for more turnover in its renter population in the near future. This might in part be driven by the fact that Boston has always been a popular city among college students, who have increasingly shifted to remote learning over the past few years.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/23/2021 – 19:20

• It's Official: Samsung To Build $17bln Chip Factory In Taylor, Texas
  It’s Official: Samsung To Build $17bln Chip Factory In Taylor, Texas

  Update (1912ET): At a press conference in Austin, Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott announced that Samsung Electronics Co. would construct a new semiconductor manufacturing facility in Taylor, a small town outside Austin. 

  Samsung will invest $17 billion into the plant, including buildings, property improvements, machinery, and equipment. The investment is the most significant foreign direct investment in Texas history. 

  Samsung will build a new $17 billion semiconductor manufacturing facility in Taylor — the largest foreign direct investment in Texas on record!

  More details: https://t.co/xA0em8kQND pic.twitter.com/TLv2XBqaHG

  — Gov. Greg Abbott (@GovAbbott) November 23, 2021

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

  The plant will begin construction in early 2022 and start producing advanced logic chips that will power devices for applications such as mobile, 5G, high-performance computing, and artificial intelligence in the second half of 2024.

  “Companies like Samsung continue to invest in Texas because of our world-class business climate and exceptional workforce,” said Abbott.

  “Samsung’s new semiconductor manufacturing facility in Taylor will bring countless opportunities for hardworking Central Texans and their families and will play a major role in our state’s continued exceptionalism in the semiconductor industry. I look forward to expanding our partnership to keep the Lone Star State a leader in advanced technology and a dynamic economic powerhouse,” he continued.

  Abbott will set up a $27,000,000 grant via the Texas Enterprise Fund awarded to Samsung for job creation. 

  “As we add a new facility in Taylor, Samsung is laying the groundwork for another important chapter in our future,” said Dr. Kinam Kim, Vice Chairman and CEO of Samsung Electronics Device Solutions Division.

  “With greater manufacturing capacity, we will be able to better serve the needs of our customers and contribute to the stability of the global semiconductor supply chain. We are also proud to be bringing more jobs and supporting the training and talent development for local communities, as Samsung celebrates 25 years of semiconductor manufacturing in the United States,” said Kim. 

  The mayor of the small Texas town was ecstatic on Samsung’s decision:

  “Samsung’s decision to locate its cutting-edge semiconductor fabrication plant in Taylor is the single most significant and consequential development for the local economy since the International & Great Northern Railroad laid tracks here in the 1870s,” said Taylor Mayor Brandt Rydell.

  “The City of Taylor is honored to have been selected by Samsung as the site for this critically important project, and we look forward to a long-lasting and mutually-beneficial relationship between our community and the company,” Rydell said. 

  Great news for President Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan, but economic benefits won’t start materializing years from now. 

  * * * 

  WSJ reports Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is scheduled to make a major “economic announcement” on Tuesday at 5 pm local time concerning new plans for a massive semiconductor plant in Taylor, Texas. 

  South Korean tech giant, Samsung Electronics Co., is doubling down in Texas with another facility, about 30 miles from its manufacturing hub in Austin. The new Taylor facility will cost a whopping $17 billion and create 1,800 jobs. Chip production wouldn’t start until the second half of 2024.

  WSJ said officials in Taylor incentivized Samsung by giving them “property-tax breaks of up to 92.5% for the first ten years, with the write-offs gradually declining over the next several decades.”

  “A final decision has not yet been made regarding the location,” a Samsung spokeswoman said.

  

  Samsung is taking advantage of the Biden administration’s effort to lure advanced manufacturing back to the U.S., especially semiconductor production, as global supply chains are being reworked around China. 

  In February, President Biden signed an executive order to address the global semiconductor chip shortage. “Make no mistake, we’re not simply planning to order up reports. We are planning to take actions to close gaps as we identify them,” an administration official said at the time.

  Then in July, the Biden administration announced a “supply-chain disruptions task force” to identify bottlenecks. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo has headed up the task force with the help of “Mayor Pete,” focused on semiconductors and other areas, including homebuilding and construction. 

  This year’s semiconductor shortage has been very disruptive to domestic manufacturing firms. The problem is that while U.S. semiconductor firms account for 47% of global chip sales, only 12% of production is domestic. In the 1990s, the U.S. accounted for 37% of the global output. 

  Is this move the beginning of Biden’s “Build Back Better” strategy working? Or is this reflective of a red state’s more-open and less-taxed status as being attractive for global competition? The U.S. is also seeking independence from China on large-capacity batteries for electric vehicles, rare earth minerals, and pharmaceuticals. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/23/2021 – 19:12

• Food Inflation Is the 2022 Crisis, Not Supply Chains
  Food Inflation Is the 2022 Crisis, Not Supply Chains

  By Mark Cudmore, Bloomberg Markets Live commentator and analyst

  The real trouble will start when this year’s energy crisis morphs into next year’s food inflation problem.

  We’ve all become armchair inflation experts. And why not? It’s almost impossible for anyone to keep getting it as systematically incorrect as professional economists have done this year.

  It’s time for the conversation to move beyond the current obsession with eye-catching headline numbers. That we’re in a global inflation regime of a kind not seen for decades, is beyond doubt.

  Interest in supply chains is at a 17-year high, according to Google Trends, but it has become a red herring when it comes to forecasting the persistence of inflation.

  Supply-side constraints are usually a key initial catalyst in any price spiral. And it’s intuitive that the vast majority of supply-side issues are “transitory” in nature as supply eventually responds to higher prices. So, while it’s good to know when supply-side pressures will ease, that knowledge isn’t sufficient to conclude when the broader inflation threat will pass.

  What we need to establish is whether demand will take over in leading the inflation charge. And, for that purpose, inflation expectations are critical. As measured by breakeven rates, U.S. 5-year expectations have breached 3% for the first time in at least 19 years. The U.K. equivalent is well above 4% for the first time in records going back more than 25 years.

  Expectations of higher inflation have the double impact of encouraging people to front-load spending, further pushing up prices, as well as the more important effect of laborers demanding higher wages, thereby both directly increasing costs and the future pool of capital allocated to demand.

  This latter point is crucial to dwell on: CPI gets boosted as equality increases and labor takes a larger share of profits from capital. This is because lower-income individuals have a higher marginal propensity to consume, whereas wealthier people just add to investments. An extra $1 billion to Warren Buffett won’t change his spending habits, whereas an extra $100 to a low-income single parent likely gets recycled into the real economy within days.

  Inflation becomes a material economic problem when it significantly affects the person on the street, squeezing their disposable income and compelling central bank reactions.

  And the various themes of 2021 are coalescing into a perfect storm for one of the few unavoidable items in every CPI basket: food. Climate disruption has been a primary catalyst, but the price impacts have been exaggerated by supply-chain issues and labor shortages driving up wages. Now, the energy crisis is exacerbating the problem directly through costs.

  But it’s the issue of fertilizer becoming too expensive and industrial greenhouses getting turned off that is sowing the seeds (inappropriate pun intended) of the 2022 crisis. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s food price index is up more than 30% over the past year as of the end of October, and not slowing down this month.

  

  Coffee, a daily staple for many of us, provides one great example where there’s been such damage to crops that it’ll take several years to see the damage repaired. Arabica coffee beans, the main type, have doubled in price over the past year.

  Wheat is surging globally with negative supply stories mounting by the day. Milling-wheat reached another record in Paris and the International Grains Council warned last week that inventories across major exporters could fall to a nine-year low. That’s something to bear in mind as tensions mount on the Russia/Ukraine border — two of the world’s largest wheat producers.

  The Bloomberg Commodity Agriculture Subindex is up more than 80% from last year’s lows. The last such extreme surge, in 2010-11, was partially blamed as a catalyst for the Arab Spring, a series of social uprisings across much of the Arab world.

  

  That is an index measured in dollars, and back then the greenback was weakening steadily. This year, the dollar is on a tear, meaning the true effect of these commodity price rises is even greater on consumers through much of the rest of the world.

  A squeezed consumer is bad for stability in both politics and markets, and a negative for stocks. And few things motivate laborers to demand higher wages more than being unable to afford putting dinner on the table for their families.

  It is this food crisis that will sustain the inflation problem well into 2022 and wreak havoc on a humanitarian level as well as for markets.

  Something to ponder as we celebrate the food-focused holiday of Thanksgiving.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/23/2021 – 19:00

• Iron Ore Prices Jump On China Property Optimism
  Iron Ore Prices Jump On China Property Optimism

  Iron ore futures trading in Singapore have bounced back above $100/ton after a series of positive announcements over the last week, from potential loosening of monetary policy to easing of regulations for China’s property sector. This has sparked optimism that China’s troubled property sector could soon boost steel demand. 

  Prices in Singapore have soared as high as 22% to $104 handle in just four sessions. As of Tuesday, prices faded and hovered around the $100 mark as a turnaround in the demand outlook is being priced in.

  

  The surge in price is being led by increasing optimism that easing property-market curbs could soon lift steel demand and improve profitability for steelmakers. There’s also chatter the People’s Bank of China could unleash stimulus amid the economic growth slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy after this year’s vicious regulatory crackdown by Beijing. 

  “The market has higher expectations for steel production to resume,” Huatai Futures Co. wrote in a note. Property is a leading source of steel demand in the country. 

  Iron ore prices have been on a rollercoaster this year after surging to a record in May as Beijing unleashed steel output limits to curb pollution and emissions for smelters. The rally then faltered by late summer as Beijing unleashed a crackdown on the property sector — a key source of steel demand, in return, hurt the outlook for consumption.

  On the macro front, positive developments are appearing as the PBoC could be close to easing and Beijing dials back on regulatory crackdowns. Institutional investors are also getting in on the action as China’s high-yield bonds have had a bid this month. 

  

  It appears the Chinese government would prefer to have a healthy property market and economy (or at least one that isn’t imploding) ahead of the upcoming Beijing 2022 Olympics. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/23/2021 – 18:40

• Canadian Pacific To Resume Vancouver Rail Service Tuesday
  Canadian Pacific To Resume Vancouver Rail Service Tuesday

  By Nate Tabak of FreightWaves,

  Canadian Pacific plans to restore service in British Columbia on Tuesday in a reprieve for the backlogged Port of Vancouver, which has been cut off from the rails for over a week following floods and landslides that devastated the province. 

  

  CP said Monday that it expects to reopen its railway from Kamloops to Vancouver by midday and will be working to “clear the backlogs as quickly and efficiently as possible.” 

  “The following 10 days will be critical,” Keith Creel, CP president and CEO, said in a statement.

  “As we move from response to recovery to full-service resumption, our focus will be on working with customers to get the supply chain back in sync.”

  The backlog of vessels has mounted at the Port of Vancouver, with 43 ships waiting to dock as of Monday afternoon. It included 17 grain, 12 coal and six container ships. 

  It’s unclear, however, when exactly CN’s rail lines will be running again. The company said on Friday that it expected to have repairs completed this week. Both railways’ lines between Kamloops and Vancouver have been shut down since Nov. 15 after heavy rain brought floods and landslides. This week is expected to bring more storms to the region. 

  It will likely take weeks for the backlogs to be cleared. Meanwhile, shippers have been looking for alternates to get freight in and out of Vancouver – compounded by road closures. Air Canada said Monday that it was boosting cargo capacity for Vancouver, adding cargo-only flights and using larger passenger aircraft.

  Meanwhile, trucking companies have reported an increase in demand for expedited truckload service from Vancouver to Toronto. But reaching Vancouver via truck remains a challenge as highways have been only partially reopened. 

  “Black Friday is this Friday, so every merchant that has a Black Friday deal and has freight that’s been on the water or is in the warehouse is trying to get it moved as fast as possible,” said Corey Darbyson, director of Montreal-based Transport DSquare.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/23/2021 – 18:20

• US COVID Deaths In 2021 Have Surpassed 2020's Total… Despite Vaccines, Treatments
  US COVID Deaths In 2021 Have Surpassed 2020’s Total… Despite Vaccines, Treatments

  COVID-19 has killed more people in 2021 than 2020.

  The virus was reported as the underlying cause of death (or a contributing cause of death) for an estimated 377,883 people in 2020, accounting for 11.3% of deaths, according to the CDC. As of Monday, more than 770,000 people have died from the coronavirus, according to Johns Hopkins University data. That means over 15,000 more people have died in 2021 than last year from COVID-19 – and there’s still more than a month left.

  

  This has happened despite the fact that last year no Americans were vaccinated (now 59% of all eligible Americans have had the “life-saving” jab) and some 17% have received booster shots…

  

  The 2021 U.S. death toll caught some doctors by surprise. They had expected vaccinations and precautionary measures like social distancing and scaled-down public events to curb the spread of infections and minimize severe cases. But, The Wall Street Journal has its own explanation, suggesting lower-than-expected immunization rates as well as fatigue with precautionary measures like masks allowed the highly contagious Delta variant to spread, largely among the unvaccinated, epidemiologists say.

  Among missteps, Dr. Abraar Karan, an infectious-diseases doctor at Stanford University, said, public-health officials failed to effectively communicate that the purpose of vaccines is to protect against severe cases of Covid-19 rather than to prevent the spread of infection entirely, which may have led some to doubt the effectiveness of the shots.

  CDC has an excuse too, claiming that there was a larger undercount of Covid-19 deaths in 2020, when the disease was newer and a scarcity of tests made confirming some infections difficult.

  Deaths remain concentrated in older people (81% of 2020 deaths were among people aged 65 and above, and 69% of the same cohort in 2021).

  Still could be worse (and still could be if this latest trend continues in the US)…

  

  “The vaccine is not a panacea,” said Ana Bento, an epidemiologist at Indiana University-Bloomington.

  Well that’s pretty clear now, eh!?

  This wasn’t supposed to happen…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/23/2021 – 18:00

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• Syrian Christians Were Quietly Warned Before The War
  Syrian Christians Were Quietly Warned Before The War

  Authored by Brad Hoff via The Libertarian Institute, 

  Years ago I wrote about my first encounter with Syria as a young twenty-something year old fresh out of active duty service in the Marines: “My first visit to the region while desiring to study Arabic in 2004, just after completion of active duty service, and while still on the inactive reserve list, began a process of undoing every assumption I’d ever imbibed concerning Middle East culture, politics, and conflict.” I introduced in that fairly widely-read essay with the provocative title, A Marine in Syria, “An initial visit to Syria from Lebanon was the start of something that my Marine buddies could hardly conceive of: Damascus became my second home through frequent travel and lengthy stays from 2004 to 2010, and was my place of true education on the real life and people of the region.”

  I recounted that this first visit to Damascus was a mere one year after the US invasion of Iraq. “While fellow service members were just across Syria’s border settling in to the impossible task of occupying a country they had no understanding of, I was able view a semblance of Iraq as it once was through the prism of highly stable Ba’athist Syria.” A key personal detail I had left out of that account is that I met my now wife on that initial fateful trip. After I spent those early summers staying in Damascus, mostly seeing and traveling around the country with her, we married in 2006 at the historic St. John of Damascus Orthodox church just off ‘Straight Street’ in the walled Old City of Damascus. We began our life there during those better times.

  Ironically enough our first ever fierce argument happened on just our second or third date, during that 2004 trip. Discussing the raging Iraq War then unfolding across Syria’s eastern border while strolling in a public park, Reem said, “You know… the Americans are coming here next.” My immediate haughty laughter and scoffing dismissal of such a far-fetched scenario as the U.S. ever attacking Syria had angered and annoyed her. “Impossible,” I quipped, and implied that she and other Syrians that were then warning me of a near-future war on Syria could be chalked up to “Arab paranoia” which tends to assume a U.S. hidden hand and machinations behind every bad geopolitical event. In the early evening, surrounded by random other Syrians, we had a shouting match – with me actually defending America and George W. Bush’s “good intentions” – and with her warning me that Syria is top of the U.S. war machine’s target list. “A war on Syria is coming. The Americans are coming here – whether in a few years or more, they will target Damascus,” she said. “Israel will be part of it too.”

  

  Fast-forward to today, and a horrific decade-long war in Syria later… we live in Texas, and she still on occasion reminds me of “our first fight”. She was exactly right of course, tragically. She hadn’t been the only one: many of her Syrian Christian friends had – more than a half decade before the war unfolded in 2011 – tried to warn me that Washington is actively eyeing Syria for regime change “next” after Iraq.

  I believe it was when I was temporarily living in Damascus in 2005 that I began to believe her and her friends were on to something. One Friday night out we were in a big group of young professionals, and at dinner at a restaurant everyone was abuzz over the news of a very unusual government-authorized memo. It had circulated that week to all private businesses and entities in Damascus and major cities. All Syria-based companies were being warned by the Baath government of Bashar al-Assad that they must temporarily halt any new business dealings or implementing fresh contracts with US-based international companies, specifically dealings that would involve junkets where Westerners would be invited to spend any significant amount of time inside Syria.

  The allegation was that US and Western spies or assets were using business contacts to infiltrate Syrian companies and even government entities. At that dinner, my Syrian friends began to joke that “Brad might be CIA” – leading to lots of laughter, and admittedly a bit of discomfort (given that one of our friends actually harbored these suspicions all the way up till I married Reem and we started having children… this was apparently finally proof enough that it wasn’t all a “front”). 

  Dinner table banter and speculation over “a coming war for the Middle East” aside, that was the year CNN’s Christiane Amanpour told Assad to his face that regime change is coming for him. This was in a 2005 televised and archived interview, now for all posterity to behold…

  CNN in 2005 – US wants regime change in Syria

  Washington was “actively looking for a new Syrian leader” looong before the civil war in Syria began

  pic.twitter.com/0wDgaKbuun

  — Maria ⏳ (@ml_1maria) November 1, 2019

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  Amanpour, it must be remembered, was married to former US Assistant Secretary of State James Rubin (until 2018), who further advised both President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And of course it was during the Obama years that the massive CIA covert program to fund and train so-called “moderate rebels” – detailed and revealed in The New York Times as Timber Sycamore – kicked off (though given Assad is obviously still in power, the regime change efforts failed, with a brutal ‘sanctions warfare’ regimen taking its place).

  The point of these personal anecdotes and memories, which I’m sure are not unique to any Westerner that spent time in Syria during those perhaps “deceptively stable” pre-war years of the mid to late 2000s, is to say that these recollections are what in large part spurred my recent efforts to interview Syrians, and especially Syrian Christians, who had experienced or fled the war.

  I learned through these interviews, many of which are detailed in my new book Syria Crucified with co-author and friend Zachary Wingerd, that Syrian Christians in particular were so on edge during those opening years of the US occupation of Iraq precisely because Iraqi Christian refugees fleeing from across the border toward Damascus were actively warning Syrian Christians, “You are next!” 

  A number of Syrians had told us that years before the war started in 2011, they understood that not only was Syria top of the list for regime change, but that Christians in particular would be targeted in a planned sectarian war – just as in Iraq. Though it remains a story for another time, as it is still till this day too sensitive to discuss openly, I have gained confirmation from a handful of Syrian Christian individuals that in 2010 into early 2011 (just before the conflict started in Syria), U.S. intelligence officers were contacting them and very aggressively seeking their assistance – trying to make them assets. While these particular individuals are not featured or mentioned in my new book (again, given the sensitivity of the information and individual situations), I’ll just note that in every instance that I’ve been able to confirm, the U.S. case officers were told by the Syrians “screw off!” – or some variation thereof.

  Suffice it to say that some Syrian Christians had been essentially tipped off by U.S. intelligence operatives that something big was coming for Syria, again, significantly prior to the actual start of the war. In one glaring instance, an official from the then existent U.S. Embassy in Damascus (it closed in February 2012) tried to convince a well-liked local Syrian Christian man who had spent a career working for major American news outlets in the Middle East (thus he had a lot of high-level media contacts across the globe) to become part of the U.S.-recognized “political opposition” in Syria. Keep in mind this was before such an “opposition” body was even brought into existence.

  The focus on my own research into the plight of Christians during the war began in earnest all the way back in 2014, when I wrote the following for my now-defunct blog:

  One potential map of the Middle East, created by retired Col. Ralph Peters, envisions a future division according to Shia, Sunni, Kurdish regions, with absolutely no place for Christians, who will be “cleansed” through genocide or forced immigration. One article Peters wrote was called “Blood Borders” because he admitted that minorities would have to be killed off for his map to make sense! (Yes, as in well-known FOX News contributor Ralph Peters).

  Many have seen “Greater Lebanon” (which is extended far north beyond it’s actual boundaries up through Latakia in the “imagined map” below), as what would become a primarily Christian enclave after neighboring states would be emptied of the indigenous Christian presence…

  

  Or worse, during opening years of the war in Syria maps like the below emerged, with analysts suggesting Christians would have to flee to an Alawite “rump state”…

  

  I wrote further in that prior 2014 article about how some European Union countries were shipping weapons to jihadist insurgents while simultaneously offering Syrian Christians asylum if they left their war-torn homeland: 

  While some might understandably benefit by France’s latest offer [of political asylum for Middle East Christians], and this might be good for those individuals and families who have already suffered enough, the Orthodox Church Patriarchate has a firm understanding of the current and future designs of Western policy makers. Ethno-religious sectarianism was not a shaping reality for 20th century Arab nationalist movements, but is the long-term strategic plan of Saudi Arabia. Through the help of its closest ally, the United States, along with other western countries, the logic of sectarianism is being implemented, and there are few who understand the nature of the game.

  Syrian Church leaders had called it the West’s “Trojan Horse” plot vis-a-vis Mideast Christians: encourage Christian emigration from the region while at the same time covertly shipping in the very weapons that would be used to target Christians who tried to remain (given also that local Christians by and large stuck with the Assad government, which would prove a very “inconvenient” problem for U.S. policy given efforts to overthrow said government). This theory received some degree of validation when I wrote the below 2015 article based on a leaked classified Saudi cable – an article later circulated by WikiLeaks…

  Did Saudi Arabia Barter in Christian Lives with the #Vatican? http://t.co/zDpkaOK1QR

  See: https://t.co/RsleSyCc5Q

  — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) July 14, 2015

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  Saudi to Vatican: Help us bring down Assad and we will ensure Christians are spared from retaliation #SaudiCables https://t.co/zSr60GOm91

  — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) July 7, 2015

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

  Our new book, Syria Crucified: Stories of Modern Martyrdom in an Ancient Christian Land provides ample testimony and examples confirming Syrian Christian suspicions that Washington had long been OK with “throwing Christians to the lions” while seeking to topple Assad (as a 2013 NY Times article put it).

  For example, we quote the Antiochian Orthodox Church’s Bishop of Baghdad and Kuwait, Ghattas Hazim, who described during the height of the Iraq War that “Christians are being slaughtered in Iraq and the West does not lift a finger to protect them.”

  At the height of the war, high-ranking Syrian Church leaders went to the White House to plead with then President Obama to abandon disastrous regime change policies…

  Christian leaders meet Obama, discuss concerns for Mideast minorities http://t.co/3jzEtp6M8Q pic.twitter.com/x8cmJa2Fg2

  — Catholic News Service (@CatholicNewsSvc) September 13, 2014

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  This suspicion that the West was pursuing an unspoken agenda of initiating and exacerbating a sectarian conflict that would break apart Syria, ultimately leading to the liquidation of Syria’s ancient some two-million strong Christian community (like happened to a large degree in Iraq), was echoed by a Syrian Christian physician named Shaza, who Zac and I spoke to extensively.

  She had for decades been a practicing physician out of offices in Damascus, until she fled to the United States after her family was nearly killed by sniper fire and mortars as Al-Qaeda encroached on her neighborhood (the story is recounted in chapter 2), setting up checkpoints just minutes from her home and kids’ school. There are many similar stories that fill this new book, and I’ll end this meandering essay by providing one heart-wrenching example from the book below.

  

  Below is the Syrian doctor Shaza’s story, excerpted from the book…

  * * *

  As Shaza mused on the catastrophic shift from an idyllic life to one of upheaval, she recounted being given a forewarning of the Syrian Christian tragedy. As a physician Shaza ministered to those displaced due to the Iraq War: “I worked with the Iraqi refugees from 2003 to 2010 in a charity center. It’s a program done by the Church, but they are accepting all the people – Christians and Muslims.” Little did Shaza foresee that less than a decade into the future it would be Syrian Christians themselves caught in dire straits.

  Shaza related how a number of Iraq refugees tried to warn her:

  They talk about horrible stories. They’re kidnapping, killing, raping. When they trust me after a couple of years, they keep saying, “Have a plan B. They are going to do this with Syrian Christians.” I keep saying, “No, it will not happen.” They keep saying, “No, it’s going to happen, so think about what is your next step if it’s happened.” And we didn’t think about that. We never thought that this will happen in Syria. Most of the Syrians – they keep saying that it’s protected because it’s a strong region. I have been to Iraq and to Jordan, to Egypt, in the past as a tourist – I saw poor people. We never see them in Syria. We have no homeless people in Syria. It’s a prosperous country. It was a good country, but after, I think, 2006 or ’07 till 2010, we began to notice something. Maybe politics, maybe economic, I don’t know what’s the problem, but something happened, you know. Makes the people more poor so more suffer. They have these thoughts of revolution. I think that made them easily accepted this. 

  Figures gathered by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) showed that by 2007 the number of Iraqi refugees that fled into Syria exceeded 1.2 million. Most of these were unregistered, meaning they had trouble being reached with international humanitarian aid or accessing Syrian government services. A report cited by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) during that period underscored that displaced Iraqis were helped “mostly through local Church organizations.” The financial burden on Syria, whose population was less than twenty million, of abruptly absorbing over one million impoverished Iraqis in need of housing, health care, and education helps explain some of the economic decline just before the war that Shaza mentioned.

  She then pondered the origins of the early uprising in Syria and how rapidly it became militarized and internationalized:

  I keep thinking of the Free Syrian Army. I heard about some young people who have their thoughts of freedom. They believe in these thoughts, but they were like the chess pieces. Somebody is moving them for his own ideas… When they faced with the extreme Muslims, they lost their lives. Those extreme Muslims open the roads to the strangers to come. I can’t even imagine that Syrian people want to destroy our history, our old cities, our old things, because it means a lot for them as a Syrian. But for the strangers, it means nothing. It’s easy to destroy everything.

  

  * * *

  To read more, order the book Syria Crucified direct from the publisher, or through Amazon.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/22/2021 – 23:40

• China's Orbital Bombardment System Firing Hypersonic Weapons Showed Unprecedented Capability, FT Says
  China’s Orbital Bombardment System Firing Hypersonic Weapons Showed Unprecedented Capability, FT Says

  Since the Financial Times reported China conducted two hypersonic tests over the summer, US officials have expressed concern about technological advances because no nation (except China) can propel a hypersonic weapon into space that can fly over the South Pole, rendering US missile defense systems useless. In other words: a possible checkmate. 

  In a new report via FT, People familiar with details of the July 27 test said China launched an “orbital bombardment system” rocket over the South China Sea while moving at five times the speed of sound. Pentagon experts are unsure how China managed to fire a hypersonic glide vehicle from the system while traveling at such speeds in space. It appears China has mastered a technology that Russia and the US have yet to acquire fully. 

  The orbital bombardment system could be a checkmate to the US because it flies over the South Pole, putting US missile defense shields out of reach. There’s also the issue of the hypersonic glide vehicle that is highly maneuverable and is hard to shoot down, which suggests the US is prone to a hypersonic missile attack from China. 

  

  FT reported last month that China conducted two hypersonic weapons tests, one on July 27 and another on Aug. 13. Both tests come as Beijing increases its nuclear capability and posture in the South China Sea, Taiwan Strait, and Pacific. 

  China’s Foreign Ministry denied reports that the country had tested a hypersonic weapon in space, saying “it was not a missile, it was a space vehicle.”  

  The Chinese embassy said it had no idea of a missile test. 

  “We are not at all interested in having an arms race with other countries,” said Liu Pengyu, the embassy spokesperson. “The US has in recent years been fabricating excuses like ‘the China threat’ to justify its arms expansion and development of hypersonic weapons.”

  Meanwhile, US Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General John Hyten told CBS News’ David Martin last week that China’s recent hypersonic missile test that went around the world “is a very significant capability that has the potential to change a lot of things.” 

  China’s hypersonic weapons tests suggest President Xi Jinping has or is on the brink of checkmate with the US when deploying advanced weapons. Orbital strikes from China on the US mainland via hypersonic glide vehicles could be a severe threat because US defense shields may not stop the weapons.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/22/2021 – 23:20

• Letter To A Tyrant
  Letter To A Tyrant

  Authored by Margaret Anna Alice via ‘Through The Looking Glass’ Substack,

  I won’t bother to reason with you or appeal to your compassion – because you have none.

  You are a foul, fetid, festering, fiendish, fear-fomenting fecker devoid of soul, purpose, and meaning. No matter how many lives you masticate, hearts you shred, minds you menticide, and puppet strings you try to throttle us with, you will forever remain a hollow husk of a simulated human.

  I know you envy us our feelings. You seethe with rage, jealousy, loathing, terror, disgust, and every other malevolent emotion, but you are incapable of comprehending love, joy, friendship, warmth, and abiding peace.

  This letter isn’t to beg or plead or ask you to stop. This letter is to put you on notice. This letter is to tell you the people are waking, and it is you who have shaken us awake.

  

  You have sown the seeds of your own obliteration, and those seeds are germinating.

  None of your efforts to enshroud the sun, contaminate the soil, befoul the water, defile the oceans, toxify the air, autodarwinate seeds, sequester the food supply, extinguish species, or commodify the ecosystem can stop those seeds from bursting through the earth and winding their tendrils around your Nuremberged neck.

  In a way, we should thank you. You have shown your hand so recklessly because you were certain we would roll over. So confident were you in the psychological conditioning you subjected us to—following Biderman’s Chart of Coercion like a recipe—you expected us to jump in the pot voluntarily.

  

  You were half-right, sadly. But the fence-sitters are now witnessing the nuclear fallout from your detonation of The Great Democide, and they can no longer deny the torrent of reality acid-raining down upon us.

  Foolishly forgetting to administer the elite’s faux injections to the most visible tier instead of the commoners’ poison death shot was a clumsy fumble that’s too obvious to miss. You remembered a few celebrities like this one and this one but forgot the athletes, and now they’re collapsing in a pile on the field.

  And your victims, the ones you maimed, the ones you sterilized, the ones you failed to fell immediately, the ones whose loved ones you slayed, are speaking out about their suffering.1

  And now you’re coming for the children. Even the wokety-woke NPC Covidians aren’t buying it anymore:

  

  And then you have an FDA shill making this reprehensible statement about the decision to inject children aged 5–11, “We’re never gonna learn about how safe this vaccine is until you start giving it.”

  Well, we don’t have to wait to find out. A twelve-year-old child just died two days after receiving the Pfizer injection, and the autopsy proves it. And these fourteen children died of such conditions as pulmonary embolism, intracranial hemorrhage, cardiac arrest, and myocarditis post-injection—only to be swept under the rug by BigPharma toady CDC. And deaths of male children have jumped 86 percent in the UK since the vaxx rollout. It is estimated that nearly 800 children have been killed from the injection thus far, and you and your colluders are only ramping up the pedicide program.

  You are commanding that children—whose immune systems are at their most robust and who face virtually zero risk of dying from COVID—put their lives and long-term health at risk by undergoing an experimental injection lacking long-term clinical trials and with substantially greater evidence of harm than good.

  According to this risk-benefit analysis, you will “kill 117 kids to save one kid.” And the proposition that this injection will save a single child is extraordinarily generous considering the nonexistent threat COVID poses to children and the availability of highly efficacious early treatment protocols and historically safe drugs such as ivermectin.

  As more and more children fall prey to your Mephistophelian machinations, you will unleash the Mama and Papa Bears—and then you will see a mass upheaval like you’ve never imagined.

  You and your conniving cohorts are flaccid, feeble, frail-minded Frankensteins whose transhumanism won’t immortalize you as you fantasize. It will only render you deader inside than you already are.

  

  The White Rose Society is blossoming from the gravesides of those you have massacred, and your attempt to establish the Fourth Reich is faltering.

  You are shaking the hive. Prepare for the swarm.

  The more you crack down, the greater the whiplash.

  This is a love letter, straight from our heart:

  That isn’t a threat. It is a report from the frontlines. It is the retribution YOU are unleashing.

  I suggest you flee to your underground bunker and let the people get busy restoring the planet you have taken a wrecking ball to in the name of saving it.

  You have underestimated the resilience of the human spirit. You have boiled the pot too quickly. You have forgotten what survivors do when backed into a corner.

  I hereby invoke Thomas Wake’s epic curse from Robert Eggers’s work of artistic genius The Lighthouse (Prime Video, blu-ray, DVD) in which Willem Dafoe delivers the crowning achievement of his lifetime (Note: I cannot find a clip that permits playing outside of YouTube, but I assure you it is absolutely worth the click-through to watch this volcanic scene):

  Let Neptune strike ye dead, Winslow!

  Haaaaark! Hark, Triton! Hark!

  Bellow, bid our father, the sea king, rise from the depths, full foul

  in his fury, black waves teeming with salt-foam, to smother

  this young mouth with pungent slime …

  … to choke ye, engorging your organs till ye turn blue and

  bloated with bilge and brine and can scream no more …

  only when he, crowned in cockle shells with

  slithering tentacled tail and steaming beard,

  take up his fell, be-finnèd arm — his coral-tined trident

  screeches banshee-like in the tempest and plunges right through yer gullet,

  bursting ye, a bulging bladder no more,

  but a blasted bloody film now — a nothing

  for the Harpies and the souls of dead sailors to peck and claw and feed

  upon only to be lapped up and swallowed by the infinite waters of

  the dread emperor himself…

  forgotten to any man, to any time, forgotten to any god or devil,

  forgotten even to the sea… for any stuff or part of Winslow, even

  any scantling of your soul, is Winslow no more, but is now itself

  the sea.

  In the words of Bette Davis’s immortal Margo from All About Eve, “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.”

  *  *  *

  If you feel the work I am doing is worthwhile and want to make it possible for me to spend more time writing and researching in my aim to unmask totalitarianism and awaken the sleeping before tyranny triumphs, please consider supporting me, whether it be by subscribing, donating, buying me a coffee, or sharing my posts. I thank you for reading, thinking, sharing, and supporting my work in whichever ways you choose.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/22/2021 – 23:00

• "Wait, What?" Even Reuters Tripping Out On 55-Year Delay To Release Pfizer Vax Data
  “Wait, What?” Even Reuters Tripping Out On 55-Year Delay To Release Pfizer Vax Data

  Last week attorney Aaron Siri of Injecting Freedom reported that the FDA is going to take 55 years, or until 2076, to disclose all of the data and information it relied on before approving Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine.

  

  Following its publication, we expected the usual constellation of conflicted neerdowell ‘fact checkers’ to shoot it down – or at least, spin what was going on.

  To our surprise, that wasn’t the case. In fact, Reuters – whose founder and former CEO sits on the board of Pfizer, looked into the matter and was apparently shocked:

  Even Reuters, whose former CEO is on the board of Pfizer pic.twitter.com/Ob2sH3HMEl

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) November 21, 2021

  Here’s how they explain it:

  The 1967 FOIA law requires federal agencies to respond to information requests within 20 business days. However, the time it takes to actually get the documents “will vary depending on the complexity of the request and any backlog of requests already pending at the agency,” according to the government’s central FOIA website.

  Justice Department lawyers representing the FDA note in court papers that the plaintiffs are seeking a huge amount of vaccine-related material – about 329,000 pages.

  The plaintiffs, a group of more than 30 professors and scientists from universities including Yale, Harvard, UCLA and Brown, filed suit in September in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, seeking expedited access to the records. They say that releasing the information could help reassure vaccine skeptics that the shot is indeed “safe and effective and, thus, increase confidence in the Pfizer vaccine.”

  But the FDA can’t simply turn the documents over wholesale. The records must be reviewed to redact “confidential business and trade secret information of Pfizer or BioNTech and personal privacy information of patients who participated in clinical trials,” wrote DOJ lawyers in a joint status report filed Monday.

  The article explains how the FDA proposed releasing 500 pages per month on a rolling basis – informing the court that they only have 10 employees in the branch that would handle the review, and are currently processing around 400 other FOIA requests.

  “By processing and making interim responses based on 500-page increments, FDA will be able to provide more pages to more requesters, thus avoiding a system where a few large requests monopolize finite processing resources and where fewer requesters’ requests are being fulfilled,” wrote DOJ attorneys, citing other cases in which the 500 monthly page production was upheld.

  The plaintiffs, on the other hand, point out that the FDA has 18,000 employees and a budget of $6 billion – and “has itself said that there is nothing more important than the licensure of this vaccine and being transparent about this vaccine.”

  Since the first batch of documents were released, people have already noted some disturbing findings. What could the rest of the documents reveal?

  WILDFIRE.🔥

  “[T]here was a total of 42,086 case reports (25,379 medically confirmed and 16,707 non-medically confirmed) containing 158,893 events”…

  It’s now clear why the FDA won’t *fully release* these documents for 55 YEARS.🔻https://t.co/TqHjihuQqI

  — Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) November 21, 2021

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

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/22/2021 – 22:40

• In Memory Of JFK: The First US President To Be Labeled A Terrorist & Threat To National Security
  In Memory Of JFK: The First US President To Be Labeled A Terrorist & Threat To National Security

  Authored by Cynthia Chung via The Saker blog,

  In April 1954, Kennedy stood up on the Senate floor to challenge the Eisenhower Administration’s support for the doomed French imperial war in Vietnam, foreseeing that this would not be a short-lived war.

  

  In July 1957, Kennedy once more took a strong stand against French colonialism, this time France’s bloody war against Algeria’s independence movement, which again found the Eisenhower Administration on the wrong side of history. Rising on the Senate floor, two days before America’s own Independence Day, Kennedy declared:

  “The most powerful single force in the world today is neither communism nor capitalism, neither the H-bomb nor the guided missile – it is man’s eternal desire to be free and independent. The great enemy of that tremendous force of freedom is called, for want of a more precise term, imperialism – and today that means Soviet imperialism and, whether we like it or not, and though they are not to be equated, Western imperialism. Thus, the single most important test of American foreign policy today is how we meet the challenge of imperialism, what we do to further man’s desire to be free. On this test more than any other, this nation shall be critically judged by the uncommitted millions in Asia and Africa, and anxiously watched by the still hopeful lovers of freedom behind the Iron Curtain. If we fail to meet the challenge of either Soviet or Western imperialism, then no amount of foreign aid, no aggrandizement of armaments, no new pacts or doctrines or high-level conferences can prevent further setbacks to our course and to our security.”

  In September 1960, the annual United Nations General Assembly was held in New York. Fidel Castro and a fifty-member delegation were among the attendees and had made a splash in the headlines when he decided to stay at the Hotel Theresa in Harlem after the midtown Shelburne Hotel demanded a $20,000 security deposit. He made an even bigger splash in the headlines when he made a speech at this hotel, discussing the issue of equality in the United States while in Harlem, one of the poorest boroughs in the country.

  Kennedy would visit this very same hotel a short while later, and also made a speech:

  “Behind the fact of Castro coming to this hotel, [and] Khrushchev…there is another great traveler in the world, and that is the travel of a world revolution, a world in turmoil…We should be glad [that Castro and Khrushchev] came to the United States. We should not fear the twentieth century, for the worldwide revolution which we see all around us is part of the original American Revolution.”

  What did Kennedy mean by this? The American Revolution was fought for freedom, freedom from the rule of monarchy and imperialism in favour of national sovereignty. What Kennedy was stating, was that this was the very oppression that the rest of the world wished to shake the yoke off, and that the United States had an opportunity to be a leader in the cause for the independence of all nations.

  On June 30th, 1960, marking the independence of the Republic of Congo from the colonial rule of Belgium, Patrice Lumumba, the first Congolese Prime Minister gave a speech that has become famous for its outspoken criticism of colonialism. Lumumba spoke of his people’s struggle against “the humiliating bondage that was forced upon us… [years that were] filled with tears, fire and blood,” and concluded vowing “We shall show the world what the black man can do when working in liberty, and we shall make the Congo the pride of Africa.”

  Shortly after, Lumumba also made clear, “We want no part of the Cold War… We want Africa to remain African with a policy of neutralism.“

  As a result, Lumumba was labeled a communist for his refusal to be a Cold War satellite for the western sphere. Rather, Lumumba was part of the Pan-African movement that was led by Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah (who later Kennedy would also work with), which sought national sovereignty and an end to colonialism in Africa.

  Lumumba “would remain a grave danger,” Dulles said at an NSC meeting on September 21, 1960, “as long as he was not yet disposed of.” Three days later, Dulles made it clear that he wanted Lumumba permanently removed, cabling the CIA’s Leopoldville station, “We wish give [sic] every possible support in eliminating Lumumba from any possibility resuming governmental position.”

  Lumumba was assassinated on Jan. 17th, 1961, just three days before Kennedy’s inauguration, during the fog of the transition period between presidents, when the CIA is most free to tie its loose ends, confident that they will not be reprimanded by a new administration that wants to avoid scandal on its first days in office.

  Kennedy, who clearly meant to put a stop to the Murder Inc. that Dulles had created and was running, would declare to the world in his inaugural address on Jan. 20th, 1961, “The torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans.”

  La Resistance

  Along with inheriting the responsibility of the welfare of the country and its people, Kennedy was to also inherit a secret war with communist Cuba run by the CIA.

  The Bay of Pigs set-up would occur three months later. Prouty compares the Bay of Pigs incident to that of the Crusade for Peace; the Bay of Pigs being orchestrated by the CIA, and the Crusade for Peace sabotaged by the CIA, in both cases to ruin the U.S. president’s (Eisenhower and Kennedy) ability to form a peaceful dialogue with Khrushchev and decrease Cold War tensions. Both presidents’ took onus for the events respectively, despite the responsibility resting with the CIA. However, Eisenhower and Kennedy understood, if they did not take onus, it would be a public declaration that they did not have any control over their government agencies and military.

  Further, the Bay of Pigs operation was in fact meant to fail. It was meant to stir up a public outcry for a direct military invasion of Cuba.

  On public record is a meeting (or more aptly described as an intervention) with CIA Deputy Director for Plans Richard Bissell, Joint Chiefs Chairman Lyman Lemnitzer, and Navy Chief Admiral Burke basically trying to strong-arm President Kennedy into approving a direct military attack on Cuba. Admiral Burke had already taken the liberty of positioning two battalions of Marines on Navy destroyers off the coast of Cuba “anticipating that U.S. forces might be ordered into Cuba to salvage a botched invasion.”[7] (This incident is what inspired the Frankenheimer movie “Seven Days in May.”)

  Kennedy stood his ground.

  “They were sure I’d give in to them,” Kennedy later told Special Assistant to the President Dave Powers.

  “They couldn’t believe that a new president like me wouldn’t panic and try to save his own face. Well they had me figured all wrong.”

  Incredibly, not only did the young president stand his ground against the Washington war hawks just three months into his presidential term, but he also launched the Cuba Study Group which found the CIA to be responsible for the fiasco, leading to the humiliating forced resignation of Allen Dulles, Richard Bissell and Charles Cabell. (For more on this refer to my report.)

  Unfortunately, it would not be that easy to dethrone Dulles, who continued to act as head of the CIA, and key members of the intelligence community such as Helms and Angleton regularly bypassed McCone (the new CIA Director) and briefed Dulles directly.

  But Kennedy was also serious about seeing it through all the way, and vowed to “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.”

  * * *

  There is another rather significant incident that had occurred just days after the Bay of Pigs, and which has largely been overshadowed by the Cuban fiasco in the United States.

  From April 21-26th, 1961, the Algiers putsch or Generals’ putsch, was a failed coup d’état intended to force President de Gaulle (1959-1969) not to abandon the colonial French Algeria. The organisers of the putsch were opposed to the secret negotiations that French Prime Minister Michel Debré had started with the anti-colonial National Liberation Front (FLN).

  On January 26th, 1961, just three months before the attempted coup d’état, Dulles sent a report to Kennedy on the French situation that seemed to be hinting that de Gaulle would no longer be around, “A pre-revolutionary atmosphere reigns in France… The Army and the Air Force are staunchly opposed to de Gaulle…At least 80 percent of the officers are violently against him. They haven’t forgotten that in 1958, he had given his word of honor that he would never abandon Algeria. He is now reneging on his promise, and they hate him for that. de Gaulle surely won’t last if he tries to let go of Algeria. Everything will probably be over for him by the end of the year—he will be either deposed or assassinated.”

  The attempted coup was led by Maurice Challe, whom de Gaulle had reason to conclude was working with the support of U.S. intelligence, and Élysée officials began spreading this word to the press, which reported the CIA as a “reactionary state-within-a-state” that operated outside of Kennedy’s control.

  Shortly before Challe’s resignation from the French military, he had served as NATO commander in chief and had developed close relations with a number of high-ranking U.S. officers stationed in the military alliance’s Fontainebleau headquarters.

  In August 1962 the OAS (Secret Army Organization) made an assassination attempt against de Gaulle, believing he had betrayed France by giving up Algeria to Algerian nationalists. This would be the most notorious assassination attempt on de Gaulle (who would remarkably survive over thirty assassination attempts while President of France) when a dozen OAS snipers opened fire on the president’s car, which managed to escape the ambush despite all four tires being shot out.

  After the failed coup d’état, de Gaulle launched a purge of his security forces and ousted General Paul Grossin, the chief of SDECE (the French secret service). Grossin was closely aligned with the CIA, and had told Frank Wisner over lunch that the return of de Gaulle to power was equivalent to the Communists taking over in Paris.

  In 1967, after a five-year enquête by the French Intelligence Bureau, it released its findings concerning the 1962 assassination attempt on de Gaulle. The report found that the 1962 assassination plot could be traced back to the NATO Brussels headquarters, and the remnants of the old Nazi intelligence apparatus. The report also found that Permindex had transferred $200,000 into an OAS bank account to finance the project.

  As a result of the de Gaulle exposé, Permindex was forced to shut down its public operations in Western Europe and relocated its headquarters from Bern, Switzerland to Johannesburg, South Africa, it also had/has a base in Montreal, Canada where its founder Maj. Gen. Louis M. Bloomfield (former OSS) proudly had his name amongst its board members until the damning de Gaulle report. The relevance of this to Kennedy will be discussed shortly.

  As a result of the SDECE’s ongoing investigation, de Gaulle made a vehement denunciation of the Anglo-American violation of the Atlantic Charter, followed by France’s withdrawal from the NATO military command in 1966. France would not return to NATO until April 2009 at the Strasbourg-Kehl Summit.

  In addition to all of this, on Jan. 14th, 1963, de Gaulle declared at a press conference that he had vetoed British entry into the Common Market. This would be the first move towards France and West Germany’s formation of the European Monetary System, which excluded Great Britain, likely due to its imperialist tendencies and its infamous sin City of London.

  Former Secretary of State Dean Acheson telegrammed West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer directly, appealing to him to try to persuade de Gaulle to back track on the veto, stating “if anyone can affect Gen. de Gaulle’s decision, you are surely that person.”

  Little did Acheson know that Adenauer was just days away from signing the Franco-German Treaty of Jan 22nd, 1963 (also known as the ÉlyséeTreaty), which had enormous implications. Franco-German relations, which had long been dominated by centuries of rivalry, had now agreed that their fates were aligned. (This close relationship was continued to a climactic point in the late 1970s, with the formation of the European Monetary System, and France and West Germany’s willingness in 1977 to work with OPEC countries trading oil for nuclear technology, which was sabotaged by the U.S.-Britain alliance.

  The Élysée Treaty was a clear denunciation of the Anglo-American forceful overseeing that had overtaken Western Europe since the end of WWII.

  On June 28th, 1961, Kennedy wrote NSAM #55. This document changed the responsibility of defense during the Cold War from the CIA to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and would have (if seen through) drastically changed the course of the war in Vietnam. It would also have effectively removed the CIA from Cold War military operations and limited the CIA to its sole lawful responsibility, the collecting and coordination of intelligence.

  By Oct 11th, 1963, NSAM #263, closely overseen by Kennedy[14], was released and outlined a policy decision “to withdraw 1,000 military personnel [from Vietnam] by the end of 1963” and further stated that “It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of U.S. personnel by 1965.” The Armed Forces newspaper Stars and Stripes had the headline U.S. TROOPS SEEN OUT OF VIET BY ’65.

  It would be the final nail in the coffin.

  Treason in America

  “Treason doth never prosper; what is the reason? Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”

  – Sir John Harrington

  By Germany supporting de Gaulle’s exposure of the international assassination ring, his adamant opposition to western imperialism and the role of NATO, and with a young Kennedy building his own resistance against the imperialist war of Vietnam, it was clear that the power elite were in big trouble.

  On November 22nd, 1963 President Kennedy was brutally murdered in the streets of Dallas, Texas in broad daylight.

  With the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem, likely ordained by the CIA, on Nov. 2nd, 1963 and Kennedy just a few weeks later, de facto President Johnson signed NSAM #273 on Nov. 26th, 1963 to begin the reversal of Kennedy’s policy under #263. And on March 17th, 1964, Johnson signed NSAM #288 that marked the full escalation of the Vietnam War and involved 2,709,918 Americans directly serving in Vietnam, with 9,087,000 serving with the U.S. Armed Forces during this period.

  The Vietnam War would continue for another 12 years after Kennedy’s death, lasting a total of 20 years for Americans, and 30 years if you count American covert action in Vietnam.

  Two days before Kennedy’s assassination, a hate-Kennedy handbill was circulated in Dallas accusing the president of treasonous activities including being a communist sympathizer.

  

  On November 29th, 1963 the Warren Commission was set up to investigate the murder of President Kennedy.

  The old Congressman Hale Boggs of Louisiana was a member of that Warren Commission. Boggs became increasingly disturbed by the lack of transparency and rigour exhibited by the Commission and became convinced that many of the documents used to incriminate Oswald were in fact forgeries.

  In 1965 Rep. Boggs told New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison that Oswald could not have been the one who killed Kennedy. It was Boggs who encouraged Garrison to begin the only law enforcement prosecution of the President’s murder to this day.

  Nixon was inaugurated as President of the United States on Jan 20th, 1969. Hale Boggs soon after called on Nixon’s Attorney General John Mitchell to have the courage to fire J. Edgar Hoover.

  It wasn’t long thereafter that the private airplane carrying Hale Boggs disappeared without a trace.

  Jim Garrison was the District Attorney of New Orleans from 1962 to 1973 and was the only one to bring forth a trial concerning the assassination of President Kennedy. In Jim Garrison’s book “On the Trail of the Assassins”, J. Edgar Hoover comes up several times impeding or shutting down investigations into JFK’s murder, in particular concerning the evidence collected by the Dallas Police Department, such as the nitrate test Oswald was given and which exonerated him, proving that he never shot a rifle the day of Nov 22nd, 1963.

  However, for reasons only known to the government and its investigators this fact was kept secret for 10 months.

  It was finally revealed in the Warren Commission report, which inexplicably didn’t change their opinion that Oswald had shot Kennedy.

  Another particularly damning incident was concerning the Zapruder film that was in the possession of the FBI and which they had sent a “copy” to the Warren Commission for their investigation. This film was one of the leading pieces of evidence used to support the “magic bullet theory” and showcase the direction of the headshot coming from behind, thus verifying that Oswald’s location was adequate for such a shot.

  During Garrison’s trial on the Kennedy assassination (1967-1969) he subpoenaed the Zapruder film that for some peculiar reason had been locked up in some vault owned by Life magazine (the reader should note that Henry Luce the owner of Life magazine was in a very close relationship with the CIA). This was the first time in more than five years that the Zapruder film was made public. It turns out the FBI’s copy that was sent to the Warren Commission had two critical frames reversed to create a false impression that the rifle shot was from behind.

  When Garrison got a hold of the original film it was discovered that the head shot had actually come from the front. In fact, what the whole film showed was that the President had been shot from multiple angles meaning there was more than one gunman.

  When the FBI was questioned about how these two critical frames could have been reversed, they answered self-satisfactorily that it must have been a technical glitch…

  There is also the matter of the original autopsy papers being destroyed by the chief autopsy physician, James Humes, to which he even testified to during the Warren Commission, apparently nobody bothered to ask why…

  This would explain why the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), reported in a July 1998 staff report their concern for the number of shortcomings in the original autopsy, that “One of the many tragedies of the assassination of President Kennedy has been the incompleteness of the autopsy record and the suspicion caused by the shroud of secrecy that has surrounded the records that do exist.” [emphasis added]

  The staff report for the Assassinations Records Review Board contended that brain photographs in the Kennedy records are not of Kennedy’s brain and show much less damage than Kennedy sustained.

  There is a lot of spurious effort to try to ridicule anyone who challenges the Warren Commission’s official report as nothing but fringe conspiracy theory. And that we should not find it highly suspect that Allen Dulles, of all people, was a member and pretty much leader of said commission. The reader should keep in mind that much of this frothing opposition stems from the very agency that perpetrated crime after crime on the American people, as well as abroad. When has the CIA ever admitted guilt, unless caught red-handed? Even after the Church committee hearings, when the CIA was found guilty of planning out foreign assassinations, they claimed that they had failed in every single plot or that someone had beaten them to the punch, including in the case of Lumumba.

  The American people need to realise that the CIA is not a respectable agency; we are not dealing with honorable men. It is a rogue force that believes that the ends justify the means, that they are the hands of the king so to speak, above government and above law. Those at the top such as Allen Dulles were just as adamant as Churchill about protecting the interests of the power elite, or as Churchill termed it, the “High Cabal.”

  Interestingly, on Dec. 22nd, 1963, just one month after Kennedy’s assassination, Harry Truman published a scathing critique of the CIA in The Washington Post, even going so far as to state “There is something about the way the CIA has been functioning that is casting a shadow over our historic position [as a] free and open society, and I feel that we need to correct it.”

  The timing of such a scathing quote cannot be stressed enough. Dulles, of course, told the public not to be distressed, that Truman was just in entering his twilight years.

  In addition, Jim Garrison, New Orleans District Attorney at the time, who was charging Clay Shaw as a member of the conspiracy to kill Kennedy, besides uncovering his ties to David Ferrie who was found dead in his apartment days before he was scheduled to testify, also made a case that the New Orleans International Trade Mart (to which Clay Shaw was director), the U.S. subsidiary of Permindex, was linked to Kennedy’s murder. Col. Clay Shaw was an OSS officer during WWII, which provides a direct link to his knowing Allen Dulles.

  Garrison did a remarkable job with the odds he was up against, and for the number of witnesses that turned up dead before the trial…

  This Permindex link would not look so damning if we did not have the French intelligence SDECE report, but we do. And recall, in that report Permindex was caught transferring $200,000 directly to the bankroll of the OAS which attempted the 1962 assassination on de Gaulle.

  Thus, Permindex’s implication in an international assassination ring is not up for debate. In addition, the CIA was found heavily involved in these assassination attempts against de Gaulle, thus we should not simply dismiss the possibility that Permindex was indeed a CIA front for an international hit crew.

  In fact, among the strange and murderous characters who converged on Dallas in Nov. 1963 was a notorious French OAS commando named Jean Souetre, who was connected to the plots against President de Gaulle. Souetre was arrested in Dallas after the Kennedy assassination and expelled to Mexico, not even kept for questioning.

  What Does the Future Hold?

  After returning from Kennedy’s Nov. 24th funeral in Washington, de Gaulle and his information minister Alain Peyrefitte had a candid discussion that was recorded in Peyrefitte’s memoire “C’était de Gaulle,” the great General was quoted saying:

  “What happened to Kennedy is what nearly happened to me… His story is the same as mine. … It looks like a cowboy story, but it’s only an OAS [Secret Army Organization] story. The security forces were in cahoots with the extremists.

  …Security forces are all the same when they do this kind of dirty work. As soon as they succeed in wiping out the false assassin, they declare the justice system no longer need be concerned, that no further public action was needed now that the guilty perpetrator was dead. Better to assassinate an innocent man than to let a civil war break out. Better an injustice than disorder.

  America is in danger of upheavals. But you’ll see. All of them together will observe the law of silence. They will close ranks. They’ll do everything to stifle any scandal. They will throw Noah’s cloak over these shameful deeds. In order to not lose face in front of the whole world. In order to not risk unleashing riots in the United States. In order to preserve the union and to avoid a new civil war. In order to not ask themselves questions. They don’t want to know. They don’t want to find out. They won’t allow themselves to find out.”

  The American people would do well to remember that it was first John F. Kennedy, acting as the President to the United States, who was to be declared a terrorist and threat to his country’s national security.

  Thus is it not natural that those who continue to defend the legacy of Kennedy should be regarded today as threat, not truly to the nation’s security, but a threat to the very same grouping responsible for Kennedy’s death and whom today have now declared open war on the American people.

  This will be the greatest test the American people have ever been confronted with, and it will only be through an understanding of how the country came to where it is today that there can be sufficient clarity as to what the solutions are, which are not to be found in another civil war. To not fall for the trapping of further chaos and division, the American people will only be able to rise above this if they choose to ask those questions, if they choose to want to know, to want to find out the truth of things they dared not look at in the past for fear of what it would reveal.

  “Whenever the government of the United States shall break up, it will probably be in consequence of a false direction having been given to public opinion. This is the weak point of our defenses, and the part to which the enemies of the system will direct all their attacks. Opinion can be so perverted as to cause the false to seem true; the enemy, a friend, and the friend, an enemy; the best interests of the nation to appear insignificant, and the trifles of moment; in a word, the right the wrong, the wrong the right. In a country where opinion has sway, to seize upon it, is to seize upon power. As it is a rule of humanity that the upright and well-intentioned are comparatively passive, while the designing, dishonest, and selfish are the most untiring in their efforts, the danger of public opinion’s getting a false direction is four-fold, since few men think for themselves.”

  -James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851)

  We must dare to be among the few who think for ourselves.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/22/2021 – 22:20

• Some Jobs Are Still In Huge Demand…
  Some Jobs Are Still In Huge Demand…

  As it turns out, while many employers are struggling to find workers, some jobs are still seeing huge demand from potential job-seekers.

  And one of those jobs, as it turns out, is in the field of Las Vegas exotic dancer.

  Now, keep in mind, strippers are known for traveling around the country, often on circuits as they move from town to town in search of fresh customers. But the other day, a strip club in Las Vegas was forced to cancel a planned audition as the local fire marshal feared an “Astroworld”-type situation.

  According to TMZ, Club Ice, a new strip joint in Vegas, and its owners hosted open tryouts for dancers this week at the Blume Lounge on the outskirts of town. We’re told more than 1,000 girls signed up to strut their stuff.

  However, the problem is that too many wannabe dancers (and wannabe patrons) crowded into the the Lounge, pushing from both the back and the front.

  In a video obtained by TMZ, viewers can hear one of the event organizers telling everyone to take a step back to avoid a possible “Astroworld” crush situation. He can be heard yelling at the crowd “Y’all gonna try and trample each other. Y’all not gonna be suing me, talking about ‘I let y’all do this s**t.'”

  Fortunately for the club owner, the Fire Marshall shut the whole thing down before it came to that.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/22/2021 – 22:00

• CJ Hopkins: Pathologized Totalitarianism 101
  CJ Hopkins: Pathologized Totalitarianism 101

  Authored by CJ Hopkins via ConsentFactory.org,

  So, GloboCap has crossed the Rubicon.

  

  The final phase of its transformation of society into a pathologized-totalitarian dystopia, where mandatory genetic-therapy injections and digital compliance papers are commonplace, is now officially underway.

  On November 19, 2021, the government of New Normal Austria decreed that, as of February, experimental mRNA injections will be mandatory for the entire population. This decree comes in the midst of Austria’s official persecution of “the Unvaccinated,” i.e., political dissidents and other persons of conscience who refuse to convert to the new official ideology and submit to a series of mRNA injections, purportedly to combat a virus that causes mild-to-moderate flu-like symptoms (or no symptoms of any kind at all) in about 95% of the infected and the overall infection fatality rate of which is approximately 0.1% to 0.5%.

  Austria is just the tip of the New Normal spear. Prominent New-Normal fascists in Germany, like Der Führer of Bavaria, Markus Söder, and Minister of Propaganda Karl Lauterbach, are already calling for an allgemeine Impfpflicht (i.e., “compulsory vaccination requirement”), which should not come as a surprise to anyone. The Germans are not going sit idly by and let the Austrians publicly out-fascist them, are they? They have a reputation to uphold, after all! Italy will probably be next to join in, unless Lithuania or Australia beats them to the punch.

  But, seriously, this is just the beginning of the Winter Siege I wrote about recently. The plan seems to be to New-Normalize Europe first — generally speaking, Europeans are more docile, respectful of all authority, and not very well armed — and then use it as leverage to force the new pathologized totalitarianism on the USA, and the UK, and the rest of the world.

  I do not believe this plan will succeed. In spite of the longest and most intensive propaganda campaign in the history of propaganda, there remain enough of us who steadfastly refuse to accept the “New Normal” as our new reality.

  And a lot of us are angry, extremely angry … militantly, explosively angry.

  We are not “vaccine hesitant” or “anti-vax” or “Covid-denying conspiracy theorists.” We are millions of regular working-class people, people with principles, who value freedom, who are not prepared to go gently into the globalized, pathologized-totalitarian night. We no longer give the slightest shit whether our former friends and family members who have gone New Normal understand what this is.

  We do.

  We understand exactly what this is. It is a nascent form of totalitarianism, and we intend to kill it — or at least critically wound it — before it matures into a full-grown behemoth.

  Now, I want to be absolutely clear. I am not advocating or condoning violence. But it is going to happen. It is happening already. Totalitarianism (even this “pathologized” version of it) is imposed on society and maintained with violence. Fighting totalitarianism inevitably entails violence. It is not my preferred tactic in the current circumstances, but it is unavoidable now that we have reached this stage, and it is important that those of fighting this fight recognize that violence is a natural response to the violence (and the implicit threat of violence) that is being deployed against us by the New Normal authorities, and the masses they have whipped up into a fanatical frenzy.

  It is also important (essential, I would argue) to make the violence of the New Normal visible, i.e., to frame this fight in political terms, and not in the pseudo-medical terms propagated by the official Covid narrative). This isn’t an academic argument over the existence, severity, or the response to a virus. This is a fight to determine the future of our societies.

  This fact, above all, is what the global-capitalist ruling classes are determined to conceal. The roll-out of the New Normal will fail if it is perceived as political (i.e., a form of totalitarianism). It relies on our inability to see it as what it is. So it hides itself and the violence it perpetrates within a pseudo-medical official narrative, rendering itself immune to political opposition.

  We need to deny it this perceptual redoubt, this hermeneutic hiding place. We need to make it show itself as what it is, a “pathologized” form of totalitarianism. In order to do that, we need to understand it … its internal logic, and its strengths, and weaknesses.

  Pathologized Totalitarianism

  I have been describing the New Normal as “pathologized totalitarianism” and predicting that compulsory “vaccination” was coming since at least as early as May 2020. (See, e.g., The New Pathologized Totalitarianism). I use the term “totalitarianism” intentionally, not for effect, but for the sake of accuracy. The New Normal is still a nascent totalitarianism, but its essence is unmistakably evident. I described that essence in a recent column:

  “The essence of totalitarianism — regardless of which costumes and ideology it wears — is a desire to completely control society, every aspect of society, every individual behavior and thought. Every totalitarian system, whether an entire nation, a tiny cult, or any other form of social body, evolves toward this unachievable goal … the total ideological transformation and control of every single element of society … This fanatical pursuit of total control, absolute ideological uniformity, and the elimination of all dissent, is what makes totalitarianism totalitarianism.”

  In October 2020, I published The Covidian Cult, which has since grown into a series of essays examining New-Normal (i.e., pathologized) totalitarianism as “a cult writ large, on a societal scale.” This analogy holds true for all forms of totalitarianism, but especially for New Normal totalitarianism, as it is the first global form of totalitarianism in history, and thus:

  “The cult/culture paradigm has been inverted. Instead of the cult existing as an island within the dominant culture, the cult has become the dominant culture, and those of us who have not joined the cult have become the isolated islands within it.”

  In The Covidian Cult (Part III), I noted:

  “In order to oppose this new form of totalitarianism, we need to understand how it both resembles and differs from earlier totalitarian systems. The similarities are fairly obvious — i.e., the suspension of constitutional rights, governments ruling by decree, official propaganda, public loyalty rituals, the outlawing of political opposition, censorship, social segregation, goon squads terrorizing the public, and so on — but the differences are not as obvious.

  And I described how New Normal totalitarianism fundamentally differs from 20th-Century totalitarianism in terms of its ideology, or seeming lack thereof.

  “Whereas 20th-Century totalitarianism was more or less national and overtly political, New Normal totalitarianism is supranational, and its ideology is much more subtle. The New Normal is not Nazism or Stalinism. It’s global-capitalist totalitarianism, and global capitalism doesn’t have an ideology, technically, or, rather, its ideology is ‘reality’.”

  But the most significant difference between 20th-Century totalitarianism and this nascent, global totalitarianism is how New Normal totalitarianism “pathologizes” its political nature, effectively rendering itself invisible, and thus immune to political opposition. Whereas 20th-Century totalitarianism wore its politics on its sleeve, New Normal totalitarianism presents itself as a non-ideological (i.e., supra-political) reaction to a global public health emergency.

  And, thus, its classic totalitarian features — e.g., the revocation of basic rights and freedoms, centralization of power, rule by decree, oppressive policing of the population, demonization and persecution of a “scapegoat” underclass, censorship, propaganda, etc. — are not hidden, because they are impossible to hide, but are recontextualized in a pathologized official narrative.

  The Untermenschen become “the Unvaccinated.” Swastika lapel pins become medical-looking masks. Aryan ID papers become “vaccination passes.” Irrefutably senseless social restrictions and mandatory public-obedience rituals become “lockdowns,” “social distancing,” and so on. The world is united in a Goebbelsian total war, not against an external enemy (i.e., a racial or political enemy), but against an internal, pathological enemy.

  This pathologized official narrative is more powerful (and insidious) than any ideology, as it functions, not as a belief system or ethos, but rather, as objective “reality.” You cannot argue with or oppose “reality.” “Reality” has no political opponents. Those who challenge “reality” are “insane,” i.e., “conspiracy theorists,” “anti-vaxxers,” “Covid deniers,” “extremists,” etc. And, thus, the pathologized New Normal narrative also pathologizes its political opponents, simultaneously stripping us of political legitimacy and projecting its own violence onto us.

  20th-Century totalitarianism also blamed its violence on its scapegoats (i.e., Jews, socialists, counter-revolutionaries, etc.) but it did not attempt to erase its violence. On the contrary, it displayed it openly, in order to terrorize the masses. New Normal totalitarianism cannot do this. It can’t go openly totalitarian, because capitalism and totalitarianism are ideologically contradictory.

  Global-capitalist ideology will not function as an official ideology in an openly totalitarian society. It requires the simulation of “democracy,” or at least a simulation of market-based “freedom.” A society can be intensely authoritarian, but, to function in the global-capitalist system, it must allow its people the basic “freedom” that capitalism offers to all consumers, the right/obligation to participate in the market, to own and exchange commodities, etc.

  This “freedom” can be conditional or extremely restricted, but it must exist to some degree. Saudi Arabia and China are two examples of openly authoritarian GloboCap societies that are nevertheless not entirely totalitarian, because they can’t be and remain a part of the system. Their advertised official ideologies (i.e., Islamic fundamentalism and communism) basically function as superficial overlays on the fundamental global-capitalist ideology which dictates the “reality” in which everyone lives. These “overlay” ideologies are not fake, but when they come into conflict with global-capitalist ideology, guess which ideology wins.

  The point is, New Normal totalitarianism — and any global-capitalist form of totalitarianism — cannot display itself as totalitarianism, or even authoritarianism. It cannot acknowledge its political nature. In order to exist, it must not exist. Above all, it must erase its violence (the violence that all politics ultimately comes down to) and appear to us as an essentially beneficent response to a legitimate “global health crisis” (and a “climate change crisis,” and a “racism crisis,” and whatever other “global crises” GloboCap thinks will terrorize the masses into a mindless, order-following hysteria).

  This pathologization of totalitarianism — and the political/ideological conflict we have been engaged in for the past 20 months — is the most significant difference between New Normal totalitarianism and 20th-Century totalitarianism. The entire global-capitalist apparatus (i.e., corporations, governments, supranational entities, the corporate and state media, academia, etc.) has been put into service to achieve this objective.

  We need to come to terms with this fact. We do. Not the New Normals. Us.

  GloboCap is on the verge of remaking society into a smiley-happy pathologized-totalitarian dystopia where they can mandate experimental genetic “therapies,” and any other type of “therapies” they want, and force us to show our “compliance papers” to go about the most basic aspects of life. This remaking of society is violent. It is being carried out by force, with violence and the ever-present threat of violence. We need to face that, and act accordingly.

  Here in New Normal Germany, if you try to go grocery shopping without a medical-looking mask, armed police will remove you from the premises (and I am saying this from personal experience). In New Normal Australia, if you go to synagogue, the media will be alerted and the police will surround you. In Germany, Australia, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium, and many other countries, if you exercise your right to assemble and protest, the police will hose you down with water cannons, shoot you with rubber bullets (and sometimes real bullets), spray toxic agents into your eyes, and just generally beat the crap out of you.

  And so on. Those of us fighting for our rights and opposing this pathologized totalitarianism are all-too familiar with the reality of its violence, and the hatred it has fomented in the New Normal masses. We experience it on a daily basis. We feel it every time we’re forced to wear a mask, when some official (or waiter) demands to see our “papers.” We feel it when when we are threatened by our government, when we are gaslighted and demonized by the media, by doctors, celebrities, random strangers, and by our colleagues, friends, and family members.

  We recognize the look in their eyes. We remember where it comes from, and what it leads to.

  

  It isn’t just ignorance, mass hysteria, confusion, or an overreaction, or fear … or, OK, yes, it is all those things, but it’s also textbook totalitarianism (notwithstanding the new pathologized twist). Totalitarianism 101.

  Look it in the eye, and act accordingly.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/22/2021 – 21:40

• "Make Amazon Pay" Protests Could Spark Black Friday Chaos For Customers 
  “Make Amazon Pay” Protests Could Spark Black Friday Chaos For Customers 

  Amazon workers are preparing to strike or protest on Black Friday, ahead of Cyber Monday, in 20 countries as part of a movement called “Make Amazon Pay.”

  “We are workers and activists divided by geography and our role in the global economy but united in our commitment to Make Amazon Pay fair wages, its taxes, and for its impact on the planet.

  “On Black Friday 26 November 2021, from oil refineries, to factories, to warehouses, to data centres, to corporate offices in countries across the world, workers and activists are rising up in strikes, protests and actions to Make Amazon Pay,” the group’s website said. 

  The group’s “Common Demands'” the tear-off sheet said, “the pandemic has exposed how Amazon places profits ahead of workers, society, and our planet,” adding, “Amazon takes too much and gives back too little. It is time to Make Amazon Pay.”

  

  There’s been growing discontent among Amazon warehouse employees who barely make a living wage, work long and grueling shifts, and have limited benefits. Some warehouses have tried to unionize (see: here & here), but Amazon has squashed every attempt. 

  What irks warehouse employees, and Make Amazon Pay highlighted this in their video, is when founder Jeff Bezos told customers, employees “you guys paid for this,” referring to his recent outer space trip. 

  Make Amazon Pay has released a list of demands it wants for workers:

  <!–

  <!–

  //–>

  //–>

  Make Amazon Pay is being discussed in the anti-work subreddit. One post that discusses plans for a protest has 5k upvotes. The r/antiwork forum has been rapidly expanding this year, with more than 1.2 million members.  

  

  There’s no telling how many Amazon employees are set to strike or protest come Friday. Still, one thing is sure, any disruption to warehouses could cause logistical headaches for the largest e-commerce company in the world on the biggest shopping day of the year. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/22/2021 – 21:20

• Colorado Officials Scrapping "Sex Offender" Term, Citing "Negative Effects"
  Colorado Officials Scrapping “Sex Offender” Term, Citing “Negative Effects”

  Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

  A Colorado board voted on Friday to no longer recognize the term “sex offender” in official documentation for people who commit sexual offenses to reflect so-called “person-first” language.

  

  The Colorado Sex Offender Management Board (SOMB), which controls treatment standards for people convicted of sex crimes, voted 10–6 to call offenders “adults who commit sexual offenses” in its standards and guidelines for sex offenders.

  “The language change applies only to the SOMB Standards; the term ‘sex offender’ will continue to be used in Colorado statute and the criminal justice system, including courts, law enforcement and the Colorado Sex Offender Registry. The name of the SOMB itself will also remain unchanged,” the board stated in an announcement.

  The revision will be open to public comment for 20 days, after which the board will review public sentiment and discuss adjustments before ratifying the change during the next meeting, which is set for Dec. 17.

  The SOMB is a 25-member board made up of everyone from public defenders to prosecutors, created by the Colorado General Assembly in order to establish standards for treatment and management of adult and juvenile sex offenders. Its aim is to prevent them from recommitting crimes, while enhancing protection for victims.

  Treatment providers would have to follow the new guidelines when assisting sex offenders, and in other official communications. Although law enforcement and the criminal justice system do not fall within the purview of the latest language revision, some worry it’s a step in that direction.

  “Referring to me by a label for something I did half my life ago is inappropriate and downright offensive,” said Derek Logue to CBS 4 Denver. He preferred to be called “client,” which was one of the five terms the board considered.

  Kimberly Kline, a licensed counselor and chair of the board, told the Denver Post, “I think the biggest thing is research really shows us that assigning a label has the potential for negative effects in rehabilitation.”

  Kimberly Corbin, a rape survivor, told CBS 4 Denver:

  “It’s very, very damaging for those who people who are labeled when it has to do with gender, race, sexuality, ability, but those are not their choices, the biggest thing for me is these are choices that sex offenders make.”

  “I’m involved today after hearing that it would be improper or offensive in some manner for me to refer to the man who raped me as a sex offender,” Corbin added.

  Several attempts to change official language have been made throughout the country, including a sheriff in Dane County, Wisconsin, deciding to discard the term, “inmate,” and replacing it with “residents.” Last year, lawmakers were considering removing the phrase “sexually violent predator” from statutes but eventually backed away.

  The Colorado board will not drop “sex offender” from its own name as only the state Legislature has the right to change the name of the board.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/22/2021 – 21:00

• Goldman: Another Fiscal Package Next Year Appears Likely
  Goldman: Another Fiscal Package Next Year Appears Likely

  Commenting on Friday’s passage of Biden’s BBB bill, Goldman’s Alec Phillips writes that the Biden fiscal agenda took two steps forward over the last week, as the President signed the “hard” infrastructure bill into law and the House passed its version of the “Build Back Better” (BBB) legislation. That said, those were arguably the easier parts of the legislative process and the hard part now begins, and according to Goldman, “Democratic leaders are likely to face a more difficult task in getting the BBB legislation through the Senate, and changes there look likely.”

  For one, Senate rules look likely to preclude some policies in the House bill. Some policies in the House-passed legislation are likely to violate Senate rules regarding what may be included in reconciliation legislation. Immigration policy changes, in particular, are likely run afoul of the “Byrd Rule” in the Senate, which prohibits provisions whose fiscal effect is “incidental to” the primary purpose of the provision. If these provisions are removed in the Senate, as seems likely, this would reduce net spending in the bill by around $115bn over 10 years.

  The political realities in the Senate are likely to lead to other changes. As Phillips explains, there are several items in this category, and there will probably be additional issues that arise over the next few weeks as the Senate debates the bill. Among the new benefits the bill provides, the most obvious areas where one or more Senate Democrats might object include:

  • Paid leave. After negotiations with centrist Democrats in the Senate, the White House omitted from its framework its prior proposal to provide a new federal benefit for paid leave. However, the House added the program back into its version, raising the cost of the bill by around $200bn. Sen. Manchin (D-W. Va) has indicated that he opposes a benefit program like the House proposes, and the Senate will likely scale back paid-leave benefits or remove them entirely from the bill.
  • Infrastructure and climate spending. The House-passed BBB legislation has around $28bn in “hard” infrastructure spending and tens of billions in funding for electric vehicles, on top of the amounts in the recently enacted infrastructure bill. There will be likely be some centrist Democratic opposition to including provisions that were supposed to have been dealt with only in the earlier infrastructure bill.
  • State and Local Taxes (SALT). The House-passed bill would allow taxpayers to deduct $80k in state and local taxes, up from $10k today, a tax holiday for the rich. The Senate looks likely to change the provision, potentially by fully reinstating the deduction for individuals with income under $400k or $500k and leaving the $10k cap in place for those with higher incomes. At this point, something along the lines of the potential Senate policy looks like the most likely outcome, though some combination of the two ideas also seems possible.

  The chart below shows Goldman’s comparison of fiscal proposals with new estimates of the House-passed legislation

  

  Goldman then argues that how the legislation offsets the cost of new spending could also change. Some revisions to the policies Democrats would use to pay for the legislation also seem likely, though it is less clear how these might change. Among the possibilities are:

  • Minimum tax on book income. The House-passed legislation includes a 15% minimum tax on book income, which President Biden proposed earlier in the year but had been put aside until recently. Taxing companies based on their financial statement income would represent a major step away from the current system that relies only on tax returns, and it could face some resistance in the Senate. While some version of this tax will likely make it into the final version of the bill, there is a greater chance that it will be changed or removed from the bill in the Senate than most of the other corporate tax increases. If the Senate did opt to drop the minimum tax proposal, it could reopen the debate on a modest corporate tax rate increase, though this does not appear very likely at the moment.
  • Surtax on upper incomes. The House proposal to impose a 5% surtax income over $10mn and another 3% on income over $25mn (for a total of 8%) will likely also change in the Senate, though it looks very likely that something similar will be in the final package. It is conceivable that another smaller surtax could be applied at a lower level of income in order to offset a broader SALT deduction, for example.
  • Drug pricing. Further changes to the Medicare drug pricing changes in the Senate are possible, as the affected industries are likely to continue to seek modifications in the 50-50 Senate. Again, the final bill is expected to follow the general contours of the House bill in this area, but incremental changes seem possible.

  

  A major complaint many have lodged against Biden’s BBB is that it uses a lot of timing gimmicks to reduce its true cost.

  To wit, with much of the bill spending likely to be front-loaded, some centrist Democrats will likely oppose the extent to which the House bill front-loads new spending, primarily by setting some policies to expire after 1 year (e.g. expanded child tax credit and earned income tax credit extension), 3 years (e.g. health insurance subsidies), or 6 years (e.g. child care and pre-kindergarten benefits). As shown in Exhibits 4, 5, and 6, the spending in the House bill is indeed more front-loaded than the tax increases and other means of offsetting the cost, which are slightly back-loaded over the 2022-2031 period.

   

  The Senate version of the bill will likely be a “little less” front-loaded than the House version.  Sen. Manchin has described some of the strategies the House bill uses as “shell games and gimmicks” and is expected push to reduce them in the Senate. That said, even if there are changes along these lines, expect only a modest effect on spending over the next few years. Some of the policies that the Senate might drop from the bill, like paid leave and immigration changes, have little impact over the next couple of years but removing them would make room to extend other policies for longer than they last under the House bill.

  Goldman also argues that it could be tough for lawmakers to set a hard limit on the top line amount of spending in the bill. Specifically, Sen. Manchin along with Sen. Sinema (D-Ariz.) have also suggested that new spending in the bill should be kept below a certain level—somewhere between $1.5 trillion and $1.75 trillion. However, the “size” of the bill is somewhat subjective. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate shows $1.64 trillion in new spending, similar to the range that centrist Democrats in the Senate have implied they might support. But that spending number omits more than $200bn in climate-oriented tax credits and nets $260bn in drug pricing changes (i.e., spending reductions) against the new spending. Taking those items into account, the new spending and tax benefits in the House-passed bill totals slightly more than $2 trillion over 10 years.

  If the Senate removes the House provisions on paid leave and immigration, the adjusted total would drop to around $1.75 trillion/10 years. Since the Senate might redirect some of these funds to other purposes, Goldman estimates that a total of $1.75 to $2 trillion over 10 years seems likely. Of course, the official CBO estimate of spending will probably be at least a few hundred billion below the actual amount of new spending and tax benefits because that’s what the CBO does.

  Another touchy topic is that the White House has made assurances that the legislation will not add to the deficit, but that is also subject to interpretation. CBO estimates the House-passed bill would raise the deficit by $367bn over 10 years, but this omits $207bn in increased revenues from increased funding for tax enforcement, suggesting that the bill would raise the deficit by only $160bn over 10 years (less than 0.1% of GDP over that period). The White House contends that tax enforcement would raise revenues by $400bn or more, which would mean that the bill would actually reduce the deficit slightly over ten years if true.

  Then there is the issue of bill passage and timing, and here a big wildcard is the debt ceiling, which will have to be addressed some time in late December. According to Goldman, the debt limit could delay Senate action on the BBB bill, or accelerate it, depending on how Democrats choose to address it. The two parties have taken the same positions ahead of the next debt limit deadline as they did ahead of the last one—Democrats believe Republicans should support a debt limit increase under “regular order” while Republicans believe Democrats should raise it alone via the reconciliation process. While their positions are the same, comments from Democratic lawmakers suggest somewhat greater openness to addressing the issue via reconciliation than the last time around, and we think this is the more likely approach.

  To use the reconciliation process, Democrats would need to first revise their budget resolution for fiscal year 2022, which already includes instructions for the BBB bill but does not instruct the relevant committees to raise the debt limit. Once Congress has revised the budget resolution, Democrats would then need to decide whether to pass a standalone debt limit increase or to combine it with the broader BBB bill. A standalone reconciliation bill could take several days to pass unless Republicans agree to an expedited process. Combining the debt limit with the BBB bill would be more efficient—it could even create a deadline for BBB passage in the Senate—but would have the disadvantage of directly linking the debt limit to the major fiscal legislation. At this point, separate bills seem more likely but either scenario is possible

  One final point: as Phillips concludes, another fiscal package next year appears likely:  According to the Goldman strategist, “as the final version of the BBB takes shape, discussion of another fiscal package has already begun.” The one-year extension of the expanded child tax credit (CTC) and earned income tax credit (EITC), through 2022, is likely to lead congressional Democrats to prepare legislation to extend it further. Goldman thinks that it is more likely than not that Congress extends the expanded child tax credit past 2022, though there is clearly some risk that it expires at that point. Congressional Democrats might also try to pass legislation to address some of the policies that do not make it into the BBB legislation, like a federal paid leave benefit or Medicare expansion. And while it is hard to rule out another (much more modest) fiscal package next year, Goldman would be surprised “if Congress manages to do much more than extend expiring policies at that point.” We, on the other hand, would be surprised if Congress does not manage to pass another substantial fiscal package, especially if we see a “surge” in covid cases into the winter with Democrats claiming that hardships will require another round of stimmies. Not surprisingly, the pieces are all starting to fall into place, with this headline hitting late on Monday:

  • 7-DAY DAILY CASE COVID CASE AVERAGE ROSE 18% FROM WEEK EARLIER

  This looming deflationary threat is also why anyone who really thinks the Fed will hike rates not once but twice in 2022 – an election year – may want to consider taking it easy on the booze and/or hard drugs.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/22/2021 – 20:40

• Pentagon Confirms US Will Start Over-the-Horizon Mission In Afghanistan
  Pentagon Confirms US Will Start Over-the-Horizon Mission In Afghanistan

  Authored by Jason Ditz via AntiWar.com,

  Over the weekend, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin talked up the long-promised “over-the-horizon” missions to keep attacking Afghanistan without being in Afghanistan.

  Austin said this would be part of a relentless focus on terrorism, talking of action coming against ISIS-K and al-Qaeda. US troops left Afghanistan after the Taliban routed the US-backed government in all major cities.

  

  “We must work together to combat terrorism—including in Afghanistan from al-Qaeda, and from the malice and sectarian hatred of ISIS,” he said while addressing the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ (IISS) Manama Dialogue 2021.

  “And we’ll keep up our relentless focus on counterterrorism, even as we shift to an over-the-horizon concept in Afghanistan,” the defense secretary added.

  Even before the US left, officials talked about this sort of operation as a way to stay active in Afghanistan. It’s not at all clear what that would look like, or how sustainable it might be.

  However, the Taliban spokesman for Afghanistan’s defense ministry rejected the possibility that it would allow US military intervention, even if airstrikes targeting ISIS: “There are no outsiders in Afghanistan. We will not allow any country’s presence by any other means,” he said. But it remains a different question on whether the Taliban could do anything about it.

  It’s probably going to mean airstrikes with little targeting support. The Taliban has insisted that they don’t need help in fighting terror, and they’ve been active in anti-ISIS-K measures.

  “The truth is that none of these countries were honest regarding Afghanistan. They all were in Afghanistan for their own interests,” an Afghan political analyst, Abdulhaq Humad, said of the potential for the looming renewed US airstrikes in the country.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/22/2021 – 20:20

• Billionaire Beef: Elon Musk And Jamie Dimon Have A Longstanding Feud, Report Reveals
  Billionaire Beef: Elon Musk And Jamie Dimon Have A Longstanding Feud, Report Reveals

  Talk about burying the lede…in a lawsuit…

  It looks like a recent lawsuit filed by JP Morgan against Tesla’s Elon Musk is apparently the first public indication of what has been a longstanding feud between Musk and JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, according to a new report by the WSJ.

  At the heart of the feud has apparently been Musk’s spurning of JP Morgan in favor of working with other banks, the report says, adding that “conversations over the years between the two companies have often upset one side or the other”. 

  When Musk and Dimon have tried to clear the air, things have only gotten worse, the report says, leading to JP Morgan finally deciding that “it is better off without Tesla”. 

  Last week’s lawsuit, filed by JP Morgan and claiming damages of $162 million as a result of a trade the bank helped arrange in 2014, marks one of the first indicators of the feud to spill out into the public eye. 

  For a comparison of how seriously each part is taking the feud, the bank said last week: “We have provided Tesla multiple opportunities to fulfill its contractual obligations, so it is unfortunate that they have forced this issue into litigation.”

  And Elon Musk responded by telling the WSJ: “If JPM doesn’t withdraw their lawsuit, I will give them a one star review on Yelp. This is my final warning!”

  

  The report notes that JP Morgan hasn’t worked on any Tesla deals since 2016, following its work on the company’s 2010 IPO and several transactions afterward.

  Tesla has generally selected Goldman Sachs for such transactions. Goldman has made about $90 million in deals from Tesla whereas JP Morgan has made about $15 million, the report says. 

  Meanwhile, the lawsuit that was just filed concerns warrants that JPM bought from Tesla. 

  From the WSJ:

  At the heart of the lawsuit are warrants that JPMorgan bought from Tesla as part of a large set of trades it helped set up for the company in 2014. Tesla would have to pay JPMorgan, in cash or stock, if the stock was trading above the agreed-upon price when the warrants expired in 2021.

  The contract, JPMorgan said, allowed JPMorgan to change that strike price if Tesla announced it was exploring a sale or other transactions, because that would affect the value of the warrants.

  In 2018, Mr. Musk tweeted that he had secured funding to take Tesla private at $420 a share. JPMorgan lowered the strike price and alerted Tesla, according to its lawsuit. When it became apparent there was no deal, JPMorgan moved the strike price higher again, but not all the way back to the original price.

  Tesla objected, according to the lawsuit, telling JPMorgan that its price adjustments were “unreasonably swift” and “opportunistic.”

  JP Morgan also reportedly balked at backing Tesla’s plan for EVs early on, citing concerns about the long-term value of EV batteries. The bank later approached Tesla about making JPM the primary lender for sales made at dealers, but Musk told the bank no.

  JP Morgan has instead recently signed such an agreement with Rivian; a move that will likely only continue to draw the ire of Musk. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/22/2021 – 20:00

• Texas AG Accuses Biden Admin Of Creating Border Crisis As Large Migrant Caravan Approaches
  Texas AG Accuses Biden Admin Of Creating Border Crisis As Large Migrant Caravan Approaches

  Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

  Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has accused the Biden administration of not following federal laws and “inviting” illegal migrants by changing policies meant to discourage them from entering the country.

  

  Paxton’s comments come as a migrant caravan with almost 3,000 Haitians and Central Americans reportedly departed Tapachula, Mexico late last week and were heading towards the southern border, according to Mexican news reports and social media.

  Speaking to Fox News Live, Paxton described the situation as “deja-vu.”

  “The Biden administration is not doing what they need to do to stop this. As a matter of fact, they’re inviting it,” he said.

   “The border patrol is frustrated with having to deal with logistics and handling these families.”

  Paxton said border agents are risking their lives but “are not encouraged to do their jobs … or protect the border. They’re not allowed to have the resources that they need.”

  Led by Center for Human Dignity leader Luis Garcia Villagran, the migrant caravan plans to join up with former Arizona activist Irineo Mujica in Veracruz and other migrants before entering the United States.

  According to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics, there have almost been 1.6 million illegal aliens apprehended during the fiscal year 2021. When migrants stopped at the border are included, the number comes to 2 million.

  “It’s clear to me that the Biden administration does not want to stop this,” Paxton said.

  “They have changed all the policies that stopped this,” referring to Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program.

  

  Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton at a press conference in Anzalduas Park near McAllen, Texas, on April 28, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

  In January, President Joe Biden paused deportations, stopped border wall construction, halted the Remain in Mexico program, repurposed Immigration and Customs Enforcement priorities, and reversed the ban on travel from terror-prone countries.

  Paxton said that his office had to sue the Biden administration seven times and that they had won, but the administration still hasn’t implemented the program for migrants to stay back in Mexico.

  Regarding whether it was fair to condemn the administration for drug dealers and criminals being part of the people coming in, Paxton said, “They know these cartels are gaining strength … They charge for almost everybody that crosses the border. You’re not getting across without paying the cartels … an average of $8,000,” according to estimates from Border Patrol.

  “The Biden administration knows this. They’re aiding and abetting the cartels for not only the transportation of drugs but also the transportation of human beings.”

  Paxton reiterated that if the administration just enforces laws passed by Congress, restricts migrants to Mexico, and deports criminals, there could be an immigration policy that works.

  U.S. residents living near the border have to bear the brunt of the issue while Americans elsewhere are currently not impacted, Paxton said. “They’re not going to be affected like the people on the border whose property is being damaged, who are scared to go out at night or sometime even in the day,” because they don’t know who’s crossing their properties, he said.

  “This is going to affect the entire nation because these people are moved around secretly, overnight on planes and buses … Some have COVID, some are drug-runners, potentially criminals, they could be terrorists. We don’t know … We aren’t able to keep track of them,” he said.

  The White House has dodged difficult questions relating to the border and has refused to call it a “crisis,” instead saying it’s focusing on the “root causes” of illegal immigration and that it’s seeking a “fair, orderly, and humane” immigration system.

  Last month, when asked by CNN whether he plans to visit the border, Biden said, “I guess I should go down. But the—but the whole point of it is: I haven’t had a whole hell of a lot of time to get down.”

  Biden met with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Thursday to discuss a range of issues of which one was migration.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/22/2021 – 19:40

• BofA Is Bearish On Markets Ahead Of The 2022 "Rates Shock"
  BofA Is Bearish On Markets Ahead Of The 2022 “Rates Shock”

  For those who have been following BofA CIO Michael Hartnett’s sometimes disjointed thoughts and observations, dutifully jotted down in his weekly Flow Show report (and summarized here), it will come as no surprise that the Bank of America strategist has been turning decisively bearish in recent months (see BofA Chief Strategist: Markets Are About To Be Hit With Three Shocks; This Is How One Bank Will Trade The Bursting Of The Biggest Ever Asset Bubble In 2022; and ““2022: The Year Of The Rate Shock”: The Fed’s Policy Mistake Already Happened And Next Year Everyone Pays”).

  Even so, it was certainly helpful for Hartnett’s clients (and our readers) to be presented with a more structured and organized version of the CIO’s views for the year ahead, which is what he did overnight in his latest periodical The Thundering Word, titled appropriately “Fin de Siecle” in which he finally makes it clear that “we are market bearish” for many of the same reasons we have discussed previously namely that the “growth show” of 2020, which was followed by the “inflation shock” of 2021 will be followed by the “rates shock” in ’22 (as described here). The sharply higher rates, a taste of which we got today when real rates spiked following news that Powell will be renominated for another 4 years…

  

  … will tighten financial conditions via Wall St and/or policy action; and since asset prices are driven by rates & profits, with short rates rising in 2022 (as QE ends, threatening to invert the yield curve) and as EPS sharply slow…

  

  … Hartnett expects low/negative and  volatile asset returns in ’22 after 18 months of fat returns in crypto, credit & US equities.

  Hartnett’s bearish views aside, the strategist admits that BofA economists and strategists predict robust GDP growth with weak China the outlier; and while inflation is predicted to be above consensus like GDP it too should decelerate next 12 months; All this leads to the bank’s house view of 3 Fed rate hikes forecast in ’22 (unlike Morgan Stanley which stubbornly expects no rate hikes in 2022 and with more covid lockdowns on the way, may well be right) with 10-year Treasuries ending the year at 2%; BofA also expects the US dollar & oil to remain well-bid (oil peaks around $117/barrel in Q2), and gold will appreciate.

  

  So with that macro background in mind, here is Hartnett summarizing 2021, or “The Year Behind“…

  The Year Behind: ’21 started with an insurrection, ended with inflation, narratives flipped from political “blue waves”, China credit/regulatory crackdowns, institutionalization of cryptocurrencies, US infrastructure, supply-chain disruptions and so on, but 3 dominant investment themes were…

  • The Vaccine: number of global vaccinations against COVID-19 surged from 10 million jabs to over 7 billion; this in turn led to a “reopening” of the US & European economies and a surge in corporate profits (e.g. US EPS flipped from -20% in ’20 to 49% in ’21); at the same time the world was unable to say “end of COVID” and summer delta fear and “growth shock” in Aug/Sept engorged the bull via prolonging…
  • The Stimulus: policy makers added almost $9tn in policy stimulus this year ($4tn fiscal, $5tn QE) to the $23tn announced in ’20 ($15tn fiscal, $8tn QE); central banks remained exceptionally dovish & behind-the-curve, led by the Fed (see real rates); the vaccine & the stimulus led to…
  • The Inflation: excess stimulus/demand clashed with insufficient supply across a wide range of sectors and markets including transportation, energy, goods, services, housing and labor.

  2021 in Returns:

  • Inflation explains commodities (up 46% for best year since ’73) & government bonds (down 8% for worst year since ’49)…

  

  … as well as outperformance of energy & banks (Table 2).

  

  Excess liquidity helps explain the ascent of cryptocurrencies (a transformative technology).

  • Dovish central banks & V-shape in EPS explain splendid performance of stocks ($1.0tn of institutional flows to stocks in ’21), particularly US stocks which have outperformed the RoW by most since ’97 (19.8pps); note 10-year rolling outperformance of US stocks vs government bonds widest since 1964 (12.2pps).

  

  China & monetary tightening meant miserable performance of Emerging Markets (LatAm stocks relative to US just hit lowest level since LTCM crisis of 1998).

  * * *

  Which brings us to 2022: The Year Ahead, and the bank’s three scenarios

  Base case…

  • 2021-22 investment backdrop similar to early stagflation of late-60s, early-70s…period of inflation & interest rates breaking higher from secular low/stable trading ranges on back of high budget deficits, Vietnam, “Great Society” policies, civil unrest, political & acquiescent Fed; late-60s/70s “stagflation” winners were real assets, real estate, commodities, volatility, cash, EM, all of which held their own vs inflation; losers were bonds, credit, equities, tech, all of which ultimately struggled (see Stagflation Quilt chart below); we think we’re in the ’69-’71 period.

  

  • Hartnett is convinced 2020 was the secular low point on inflation and interest rates; last 2 great inflection points for bond markets were 1966, 1980…2020 watershed driven by social/economic shifts from Wall St to Main St, Deregulation to Intervention, Globalization to Isolationism, Wealth to Health, Capital to Labor…COVID simply the accelerator.
  • The CIO also believes that the 2020s will see secular bull markets in volatility & commodities beginning, while the bull market in stocks & credit ending (as shown in secular return charts 5-10); He also expects the US dollar to peak in 2022; note the “permanent portfolio” of 25/25/25/25 of cash, commodities, stocks, bonds appreciated 15.4% annualized in 2021 highlighting an era where greater diversification rewarded also beginning.

  

  • For 2022, Hartnett sees consensus bullishly positioned for another year of “stocks go up, bonds go nowhere, and Fed does nothing.” And indeed, BofA’s Bull & Bear Indicator does not suggest an immediate “short” opportunity but as in 2018 that can change quickly. Here Hartnett is quick to note that asset price sensitivity to central bank liquidity has been extremely high in past decade, and a global tapering has begun (G5 liquidity add was $8.5tn in 2020, $2.1tn in 2021, will be just $0.1 in 2022); meanwhile BofA’s global EPS growth model peaked at 40% in June, it is currently running around 30% and predicts further EPS deceleration to <10% in H1’22. “We are therefore bearish and believe capital preservation will grow as a theme in the year ahead.”

  Bull case…

  • This one should be self-explanatory: Lowest rates in 5000 years, 1000 rate cuts since Lehman, $32 trillion policy stimulus since COVID ($840 million per hour central bank asset purchases), global stock market cap up $60 trillion in 18 months, GDP >10%, CPI>5%, house prices >20%, largest worker shortages in 50 years…this most unconventional of cycles highly unlikely to follow a conventional path…the-mother-of-all bubbles in crypto & tech remains a “fat tail”.
  • More prosaically stock market upside could continue if it becomes clear in H1 that Fed determined to keep real rates deeply negative (expect a market narrative that the Fed can’t “bankrupt” US Treasury), and US monetary policy dictated by a credo of Wall St “too big to fail” (this goes without saying but a “big fall in credit & stocks prices quickest route to recession, civil unrest, institutional crisis and so on“).

  Bear case…

  • By far the biggest downside risk is Fed stays hawkish even if Wall Street corrects because fears of wage-price spiral grow; in addition a return of bond vigilantes across developed world (they returned in EM in 2021) causes bond & currency volatility.
  • Even more extreme downside risks include a crypto-derivatives crash, geopolitical events related to China & Taiwan, and that a receding liquidity wave exposes credit-events to the detriment of private & public equity.
  • Not even the bearish Hartnett expects these to materialize (just yet).

  Finally, this is how BofA will trade based on these views:

  • Macro trades: long US$, MOVE, VIX (tighter financial conditions); long quality, defensives e.g. staples, telco, big pharma (EPS deceleration); long oil, energy (inflation); long real asset (best inflation hedge), short copper/semis (IP lower); short PE/XBD (wider credit spreads).
  • Contrarian trades: long GT30 & gold (yield curve inversion/recession); long EM (spring peak in US dollar); long CRE/CMBS (global reopening); long China credit; long small cap value (hedge for US tech bubble); long income streams in commodity markets (dollar debasement); short Nasdaq (rates & regulation).

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/22/2021 – 19:20

• Waukesha Massacre Suspect Charged With Five Counts Of Murder
  Waukesha Massacre Suspect Charged With Five Counts Of Murder

  Update (1415ET): Despite what CNN is peddling, Waukesha police believe Sunday’s parade massacre was intentional.

  According to CBS Chicago, Darrell Brooks, 39, has been charged with five counts of murder. According to the police chief, the deaths were “not a terrorist event.”

  The dead range in age from 52 to 81.

  JUST IN – Darrell Brooks intentionally drove his vehicle into the Christmas parade in #Waukesha and is charged with 5 counts of intentional homicide, according to the police.

  — Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) November 22, 2021

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  More on Brooks’ past via CBS Chicago:

  CBS 2 found records for another ongoing case from July, 2020. He was charged with two counts of recklessly endangering safety with use of a dangerous weapon, and possession of a firearm/convicted of felony. He pleaded not guilty in this case.

  • In 2011 Brooks was found guilty on a resisting/obstructing an officer charge.
  • In 2010, he was found guilty on strangulation and suffocation felony charges in Wood County.
  • In 1999, he was found guilty on substantial battery-intend bodily harm, a felony.

  Waukesha Police Chief Dan Thompson gave no immediate details about the person or any possible motive.

  *  *  *

  Update (1320ET): The suspect in the Waukesha mass murder, Darrell Brooks Jr., was released on an ‘inappropriately low’ bail on November 11 in an unrelated case, after posting just $1,000 cash bail following charges of Second Degree Recklessly Endangering Safety, Felony Bail Jumping, Battery, Obstructing and Officer and Disorderly Conduct in an existing case against him, according to Milwaukee County DA John T. Chisholm.

  Waukesha update; Milwaukee County District Attorney says the state’s bail recommendation was “inappropriately low” in Darrell Brooks’ ongoing criminal case. pic.twitter.com/6AOUsEFraR

  — Mary Spicuzza (@MSpicuzzaMJS) November 22, 2021

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  Meanwhile, CNN is doing its best to push the narrative that Brooks – a BLM supporter whose social media accounts are riddled with anti-white hate speech, was simply fleeing a crime he had just committed and that slamming into the parade was an accident.

  Exactly. Anyone that lives in an around Waukesha knows this. https://t.co/tlg2A09dap

  — Mythinformed MKE (@MythinformedMKE) November 22, 2021

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  Darrell Brooks, the suspect in the Waukesha attack, posted a whole bunch of anti-white posts on Facebook, where he weighed in on the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict and called for violence against white people. pic.twitter.com/qDMJDRHNCJ

  — Ian Miles Cheong @ stillgray.substack.com (@stillgray) November 22, 2021

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  What’s more, Brooks was accused in his most recent case of “purposefully” running a woman over with his vehicle.

  🚨🚨🚨NOT THE FIRST TIME *this month* that Waukesha suspect Darrell Brooks Jr. has been accused of trying to run people over!

  Apparently it had happened before! And recently!https://t.co/oGQuzMd3sW pic.twitter.com/Ele41t1q7j

  — crabcrawler (@crabcrawler1) November 22, 2021

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  The same people who told you for 14 months that Kyle Rittenhouse intentionally murdered BLM protesters are now telling you that a career criminal unintentionally ran over a Christmas parade

  — Jack Posobiec ✝️ (@JackPosobiec) November 22, 2021

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  *  *  *

  Update (0830ET): As independent journalists and the MSM race to shape the narrative surrounding the alleged Waukesha attacker, one thread has exposed him as a potentially admitted child sex trafficker.

  This is Darrell Brooks Jr.

  He killed at least 5 and injured 40+ when he plowed into a Christmas Parade.

  He was released on $1,000 cash bail just two days before the attack and has an extensive criminal history.

  Why was he allowed back on the streets? pic.twitter.com/iQSjOG5h1N

  — Benny (@bennyjohnson) November 22, 2021

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  THREAD: #Waukesha #BLM Darrell Edward Brooks Jr.

  He is an admitted child sex trafficker. pic.twitter.com/h1O7Ef8Xr6

  — The Cocaína (@MrNukemCocaine) November 22, 2021

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  #Waukesha #BLM Darrell Edward Brooks Jr. pic.twitter.com/e5gwPFsDXe

  — The Cocaína (@MrNukemCocaine) November 22, 2021

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  #Waukesha #BLM Darrell Edward Brooks Jr. pic.twitter.com/XVka8g14eg

  — The Cocaína (@MrNukemCocaine) November 22, 2021

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  #Waukesha #BLM Darrell Edward Brooks Jr. pic.twitter.com/8tbBE4RFn6

  — The Cocaína (@MrNukemCocaine) November 22, 2021

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  #Waukesha #BLM Darrell Edward Brooks Jr. pic.twitter.com/O2J5XmKnTR

  — The Cocaína (@MrNukemCocaine) November 22, 2021

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  We’ll leave digging through the detritus to our readers.

  * * *

  Update (0600ET): Overnight, the City of Waukesha has confirmed that the body count for last night’s horrific attack at its Christmas parade has risen to at least five, while more than 40 have been injured. The local PD has also confirmed a person of interest is in custody, as we reported earlier.

  At this time, we can confirm that 5 people are deceased and over 40 are injured. However, these numbers may change as we collect additional information. Many people have self-transported to area hospitals. The Police Department has the person of interest in custody.

  — cityofwaukesha (@CityofWaukesha) November 22, 2021

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  The section of Main St. worst impacted by the attack will “not be open” before mid-day tomorrow.

  Main Street is closed from Barstow & Main to Wisconsin and Main. The street will not be open before mid-day tomorrow, Monday, November 22nd. Businesses in this area should remain closed as entry and exit from Main Street will not be allowed.

  — cityofwaukesha (@CityofWaukesha) November 22, 2021

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  The City Council has asked that all items intended for a memorial be placed at Veterans’ Park.

  When the area is open, the City is requesting that any items for a temporary memorial be placed at Veterans Park.

  Many people witnessed traumatic events this evening. If you need to talk with someone, please call 211.

  — cityofwaukesha (@CityofWaukesha) November 22, 2021

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  Overnight, the city said the scene was “still fluid”, but across the country, journalists and ordinary Americans are waiting on the next update after a man drove his Ford Escape through a barricade and onto the parade route of the city’s annual Christmas parade, causing immense damage and loss of life.

  The scene is still fluid, and the investigation is ongoing. The community mourns the loss of our community members and those injured. We are asking for the community to come together during this time and to keep the families in your prayers.

  — cityofwaukesha (@CityofWaukesha) November 22, 2021

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  According to Red State, the NY Post and others, a person of interest has been identified as Darrell Brooks of Milwaukee. described as a “black man with dreadlocks” who was released on cash bail a few days ago.

  Audio recorded by local independent journalists off police scanner chatter has police identifying the suspect as a “lighter skin, black male, dreadlocks, possibly no shoes”, which matched the description from several outlets.

  Darrell E. Brooks, black male, late 30s is the suspect in custody in Waukesha.

  — Karol Markowicz (@karol) November 22, 2021

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  I can confirm, as I have his birthday, that this is the man in custody in Waukesha. https://t.co/5xlJEc34Rm

  — Karol Markowicz (@karol) November 22, 2021

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  Info from the Wisconsin Courts page about Brooks shows his cash bond was posted just a few days ago; he is scheduled for a Zoom hearing just a few days before Christmas, according to WI court records.

  

  

  

  Tipsters have also stumbled upon a Soundcloud page allegedly belonging to Brooks which included rap tracks with anti-Trump lyrics. They also featured samples of Malcolm X.

  The question now, as Laura Loomer noted overnight, is who exactly paid for Brooks’ cash bail? Meanwhile, local authorities said the next press conference will be held at 1300 local time on Monday.

  * * *

  Update (2015ET): A person of interest has been taken into custody following today’s horrific attack at the Waukesha Christmas parade according to VOA News‘ Steve Herman.

  In addition to several fatalities, eleven adults and twelve ‘pediatric patients’ have been transported to local hospitals according to the fire chief.

  “There were some fatalities:” Waukesha fire department officials say they have transported a total of 11 adults and 12 pediatric patients to area hospitals. pic.twitter.com/QzXBGlQAMF

  — CBS News (@CBSNews) November 22, 2021

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  Update (1940ET): Footage of the moment the SUV began plowing into parade participants has emerged.

  TRIGGER WARNING: 🚨DISTURBING VIDEO🚨A viewer sent in horrifying video the moment a red SUV plowed through a crowd during the #Waukesha Holiday Parade. Its currently unclear how many people have been injured. Updates to come on @tmj4 pic.twitter.com/u6q10VgTJ1

  — Taylor Lumpkin (@TaylorLumpkinTV) November 22, 2021

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  Police have issued a Public Safety Alert asking people in Waukesha to shelter in place. pic.twitter.com/fjF0k0tIQB

  — Benny (@bennyjohnson) November 22, 2021

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  *  *  *

  A mass casualty event has occurred at the Waukesha, WI Christmas parade, after a red SUV allegedly broke through the police line, plowed through pedestrians, and began firing round out of the window. It is unclear at this time how many people have been injured or killed, however at least four people have been reported as having been hit and ‘not moving.’

  The driver has not been identified as of this writing.

  This was recorded from the City of Waukesha’s Facebook account, which was streaming the parade.

  You can see a red SUV speed right past these band members, hear screams and then a law enforcement officer running. @fox6now pic.twitter.com/8lO5oRuP1I

  — Sam Kraemer (@SamKraemerTV) November 21, 2021

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  Shots fired at vehicle as possible suspect’s vehicle rams barriers in escape from #Waukesha Christmas parade car attack. pic.twitter.com/2UnQcjPSn8

  — Kyle is free at last, free at last! (@historysbattles) November 21, 2021

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  According to WISN‘s Courtney Sisk, the SUV hit the “dancing grannies” before speeding off, leaving “at least four members” on the ground and were not moving. One of the group’s members reportedly flew ‘over the hood’ of the SUV.

  Reports of mass causality in Waukesha. An SUV plowed through the Christmas Parade. Witnesses on the phone just told me several members of the “Dancing Grannies” were hit and are not moving. We are on the way. @WISN12News pic.twitter.com/DvoJKg3KzI

  — Courtney Sisk (@Courtney_SiskTV) November 21, 2021

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  “At the Waukesha Holiday parade and a car just broke through the police line, plowing through pedestrians and firing rounds out the window. Family and I are safe. Happened 20 feet in front of us,” wrote Twitter user Zach Heisler (@zrheisler).

  At the Waukesha Holiday parade and a car just broke through the police line, plowing through pedestrians and firing rounds out the window. Family and I are safe. Happened 20 feet in front of us.

  — Zach Heisler (@zrheisler) November 21, 2021

  Another view of the Waukesha driver. Barely missing the little girl!! Wow. #waukesha @JackPosobiec @stillgray pic.twitter.com/PreH0krGbu

  — Lacy (@l_a_c_y___) November 21, 2021

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  #Update: Video of the scene right now in #Waukesha in #Wisconsin after a car ploughed his way through people of crowds, injuring up to at least 30 people. pic.twitter.com/mcQpgGxZDo

  — Sotiri Dimpinoudis (@Sotiridi1) November 21, 2021

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  ⚠️🇺🇸#URGENT: Mass Causality Incident declared after car plows through parade in downtown Waukesha, Wisconsin#Waukesha l #WI
  Dozens of injuries now reported after a suspect reportedly drove through police barricades at the Holiday Parade before opening fire.
  Updates to follow! pic.twitter.com/SUvxVcO7vE

  — Intel Point ALERT (@IntelPointAlert) November 21, 2021

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  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/22/2021 – 19:11

• Biden Using Backdoor Rule To Pass Free College Agenda
  Biden Using Backdoor Rule To Pass Free College Agenda

  Authored by Gerard Scimeca via RealClearEducation.com,

  Americans by and large oppose giveaways to the affluent or privileged, which explains why they consistently oppose forgiving college student-loan debt.

  Eighty percent of Americans have no student loan debt, and those who carry debt are disproportionately millennials with advanced degrees – and higher earning potential.

  Easy loan forgiveness falls under the umbrella of the free college agenda championed by most Democrats, but strong opposition led the Biden administration to drop free college from the spending bill it proposed last month.

  

  Not to worry: Democrats discovered a backdoor to free college through an obscure and arcane Department of Education (DOE) rule.

  Known as Borrower Defense to Repayment (BDR), the rule existed as little more than a formality in the annals of the Federal Register, a stopgap to finalize the Federal Direct Loan Program. Through the first twenty years of its existence, it was implemented just five times, but it has now evolved into a battering ram for Democrats to get free college through the political barricades.

  In 2015, Corinthian Colleges, which enrolled over 100,000 students at its 100 subsidiary campuses, filed for bankruptcy. The school’s collapse coincided with growing momentum for the “cancel college debt” and “free college” campaigns, which had evolved out of the Occupy Wall Street movement of the early 2010s and found friendly supporters in Congress, such as Senators Elizabeth Warren and Dick Durbin.

  Under pressure from progressives, Obama Administration Secretary of Education Arne Duncan proposed an interpretation of BDR that would provide more leeway for the DOE to forgive loans. After restructuring the department with an “enforcement office” that would be staffed with attorneys and contractors, the Obama team issued its amendments to the Borrower Defense rule just days before the 2016 election.

  Among the changes, the Obama administration sought to require for-profit schools – which the Left abhors – to post a letter of credit if a lawsuit was filed. This obligation created a self-fulfilling cycle, whereby Title IV funding could be withheld from a college merely on the basis of unsubstantiated claims, a rule akin to forcing a business to post a bond from a bad Yelp review. This policy weaponized BDR against for-profit schools almost exclusively.

  The punch landed. Popular career-oriented institutions rely on federal aid far more than public or private institutions do. Three-quarters of students at two-year for-profit colleges receive student loans, for example, compared to just 18% of students at public two-year colleges. When the ITT Technical Institute was targeted by the Obama administration in 2016, it took just 12 days for the school to close its doors after the DOE withheld funds. 

  The Trump administration halted this policy, arguing that lowering the burden of proof lets any student dissatisfied with his education claim he was misled by his school and seek loan forgiveness. But the Biden administration has resurrected it.

  To date, President Biden’s Department of Education has approved over $1.5 billion in Borrower Defense claims for some 92,000 students at proprietary colleges.

  That’s not by chance. BDR has been narrowly promoted among students at for-profit institutions. A survey conducted by our organization in October polled students at five public and private colleges with the largest number of online students. We found that of those who received federal financial aid, nine in ten had never heard of BDR. A remarkable 82% believed they had been misled by their school, and 98% said they would be interested in filing a claim.

  These findings further confirm that what was created as a failsafe for students truly defrauded by their college or university has been converted into a political bludgeon against for-profit institutions and a free college giveaway. 

  Ironically, progressives’ politicization of BDR could undermine the significant investment that the U.S. has made to increase access to higher education. It would lead to less educational opportunity, particularly for disadvantaged and low-income students, less innovation and competition in the marketplace, and lasting damage to our economy, which desperately needs skilled workers.

  What should be clear by now is that easy loan forgiveness – putting no burden on students to demonstrate alleged deception on the part of the institutions they have attended – is merely a backdoor to hundreds of billions of dollars in free college tuition, courtesy of Americans who have paid off their own student loans or never had them in the first place. It’s a massive giveaway to the wealthy.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/22/2021 – 19:00

• Two Of 17 Kidnapped Missionaries In Haiti Released, US Aid Group Says
  Two Of 17 Kidnapped Missionaries In Haiti Released, US Aid Group Says

  Two missionaries kidnapped by a dangerous street gang in Haiti last month have been released, according to a statement released by the US-based Christian Aid Ministries.

  “We have learned that two of the hostages in Haiti were released. We praise God for this! Only limited information can be provided, but we are able to report that the two hostages who were released are safe, in good spirits, and being cared for,” Christian Aid Ministries said Sunday.

  “While we rejoice at this release, our hearts are with the fifteen people who are still being held,” the statement also said.

  On Oct. 16, 16 Americans and one Canadia were kidnapped by Haitian gang 400 Mawozo while traveling by van in the country’s capital city of Port-au-Prince. Most of the missionaries are from Amish, Mennonite, and other conservative Anabaptist communities in the U.S. The Canadian is from Ontario. 

  

  Few details have been released by the missionary and the U.S. about negotiations to release the hostages. The U.S. doesn’t pay ransom for kidnapped citizens. 

  Haitian Justice and Interior Minister Liszt Quitel told CNN that captors are demanding $1 million per hostage, but there was no word on if the missionary paid to have the two released. 

  Kidnappings for ransom are widespread in Haiti. The Caribbean nation is the poorest in the Western Hemisphere. On a per-capita basis, it has the world’s highest rate of kidnappings. 

  According to NYTimes, F.B.I. and the State Department have worked with local authorities to free the missionaries. 

  The political turmoil in the country accelerated in early July when President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated. Then a powerful earthquake in mid-August devastated the country even further. 

  Haitian security forces are increasing efforts to combat gangs, but it would be an uphill battle with at least half of Port-au-Prince controlled by criminal organizations. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/22/2021 – 18:40

• The Benefit Of SARS-CoV-2 Natural Immunity In The Armed Forces
  The Benefit Of SARS-CoV-2 Natural Immunity In The Armed Forces

  Authored by Scott Sturman via RealClearDefense.com,

  The risks to soldiers, sailors, and airmen of contracting SARS-CoV-2 affect the readiness of military organizations. The condition of an individual’s immune status determines susceptibility to infection and is dependent on one’s pre-existing medical condition, the implementation of beneficial prophylactic treatments, and whether protection is conferred by natural immunity or vaccination. Commanders who assess and rationally address the problem will ensure the best possible health outcome for those under their command.

  

  The age of those serving in the military places them in a low-risk category for severe morbidity and death due to Covid. Without accounting for health risk factors, those 18-29 represent 0.56% of all U.S. Covid deaths to date, while those 18-49, a cohort representing most active duty personnel, account for 6.3% of the total. In this healthy patient population, the goal to achieve broad, long-lasting immunity against SARS-CoV-2 can be better achieved by naturally acquired immunity instead of relying on vaccines that require multiple boosters and do not confer sterilizing protection.

  Natural immunity is the gold standard of immunology. Exposure and subsequent recovery from a pathogen provide immunity due to antibodies and memory B and T cells. This protection is often lifelong and complete since one’s immune system develops antibodies against multiple antigens on the infectious organism. Traditional vaccines using live attenuated or killed inoculums also afford this level of protection. However, mRNA vaccines designed to induce antibodies against a single, highly mutating antigen require frequent booster shots, allow for breakthrough infections, and the ability to infect others.

  To date, there are over 100 high-quality studies that demonstrate the superiority or equality of natural immunity compared to vaccine induced immunity. Natural immunity critics point out that long-lasting immunity has not been proven; however, this is a disingenuous argument since persistent immunity has been shown as long as the observations have been conducted. Patients who recovered in 2003 from SARS-CoV-1, a close relative of SARS-CoV-2, remain immune eighteen years later. An article from Nature concluded that those with even mild symptoms due to SARS-CoV-2 will produce antibodies for a lifetime.

  The CDC traditionally recognized that patients who have contracted certain diseases do not require vaccination for those diseases. Examples include mumps, measles, rubella, and chickenpox-diseases where there is no benefit to vaccination after illness.  Studies published by the Cleveland Clinic and from Israel describe extremely low reinfection rates in patients who acquired and recovered from SARS- CoV-2.

  Pfizer admits that its mRNA vaccine induces antibody titers that wane rapidly after administration, thus requiring multiple boosters. Furthermore, vaccinated patients obtain high viral loads and are as infectious as non vaccinated patients, yet the CDC cannot demonstrate one case when a patient with natural immunity becomes reinfected with SARS-CoV-2 and transmits it to another person. Fully vaccinated countries have the highest incidence of new Covid cases. While protective against hospitalization and death, adverse reactions to mRNA vaccines exceed 850,000, including over 18,000 deaths, as reported in a recent summary of the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). The link between vaccine induced myocarditis and young males is widely established, prompting Germany and France to suspend all Moderna vaccinations for those under age 30. Those recovered from naturally acquired disease are more apt to experience side effects if vaccinated.

  Black and Hispanic vaccination rates lag behind Whites, yet these minorities die from Covid at numbers out of proportion to their respective vaccination rates. With the high numbers of minorities serving in the armed forces, commanders must be aware of the best medical options to ensure their health and ability to fulfill the mission. Blacks and Hispanics frequently have low serum vitamin D3 levels due to inadequate dietary supplementation or sun generated synthesis. Studies indicate that those who suffer severe symptoms or death from Covid often presented with low levels of serum vitamin D3. Routine supplementation with vitamin D3 prior to contracting Covid has a beneficial effect, particularly in patients at high risk.

  Natural induced immunity to SARS-CoV-2 offers a military advantage. Under these circumstances, the Department of Defense has at its disposal a fighting force at low risk for reinfection, protected against the severe effects of new variants, and not in need of endless booster shots. Requiring vaccinations that are potentially harmful and provide little medical benefit adversely affects reenlistment rates and degrades morale. Exempting Congress, their staff, and judicial branch of government from mandatory vaccination reeks of hypocrisy, and this double standard is palpable among those who serve. The argument that vaccinating low-risk groups is necessary to protect others is debunked in a recent Lancet study which noted, “fully vaccinated individuals with breakthrough infections have peak viral load similar to unvaccinated cases and can efficiently transmit infection in household settings, including to fully vaccinated contacts.”

  All members of the armed services should receive SARS-CoV-2 antibody testing, and if positive, be automatically exempted from Covid vaccination. Those who test negative and do not have medical risk factors should be placed on prophylactic vitamin D3 and encouraged to maintain an ideal body weight. There are a number of other widely discussed prophylactic and therapeutic options available, which are inexpensive, protective, and of low risk to patients. Commanders must insist that these alternatives be thoroughly explored, studied, and implemented if proven effective. The welfare of the country depends on those serving in the armed forces, and their health care must be based on non-political, scientifically based policies.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/22/2021 – 18:20

• Cold Snap Sweeps Across China As Fears Of Energy Crisis Reemerge
  Cold Snap Sweeps Across China As Fears Of Energy Crisis Reemerge

  A massive cold blast is sweeping across most parts of China, unleashing snow, mixed precipitation, and dangerous wind. China’s energy crisis eased last month but could soon be ignited again by wicked winter weather. 

  According to the website weather.com.cn, which the China Meteorological Administration runs, more than 100 weather alerts are issued for the country as record-breaking cold temperatures spread further and further south. 

  

  The latest forecast shows a cold air mass has descended on the county. 

  By Sunday morning, a cold wave stretched from the west of Hebei province to the west of Henan province, causing temperature drops of between 4 C and 8 C in Shanxi province and Hebei, the center said. The Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region and parts of Gansu province also experienced temperature slumps of more than 10 C.

  On Monday, the cold air is expected to rapidly descend southward and affect most of the central and eastern parts of China, the center forecast.

  By Tuesday, the Bohai, Yellow, and East China seas will face strong winds of up to about 100 kilometers per hour, it said.

  The winds are expected to carry floating sand and dust to northern areas, including Beijing.

  Snow was forecast to hit the northeast from Sunday to Wednesday, with blizzards expected in Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces, the center said.

  New snow accumulation over the period is expected to reach up to 40 centimeters in Heilongjiang, adding to snow from last week.

  On Sunday, the Heilongjiang provincial government announced a Level II warning for weather disaster emergency response, the second-highest in a four-tier warning system.

  Fang Chong, the chief forecaster of the Central Meteorological Observatory, said a cold air mass is pouring into China from Siberia, Russia

  “This bout of cold wave will sweep across China faster than the previous one in early November because airflow is stronger under the current weather conditions,” Chong said. “The weather system is more complicated than before, with blizzards, rain, sand, and dust finding their paths in North and South China.”

  The world’s No 2 economy suffers from a severe energy crunch as coal and natural gas are in short supply. The government spent the last month ramping up the production of energy supplies in anticipation of cold weather. It also intervened in energy markets to suppress prices for power plants. 

  

  Unseasonably cold weather could spark the next round of coal shortages that would have severe knock-on effects throughout supply chains. 

  Even though China’s energy crisis has been eased, the government must continue stockpiling energy supplies to avoid electricity shortages amid rising demand. 

  A freezing winter could spell disaster for China’s economy if it doesn’t have enough energy supplies. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/22/2021 – 18:00

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• Will The CIA's JFK Assassinated-Related Records Ever Get Released?
  Will The CIA’s JFK Assassinated-Related Records Ever Get Released?

  Authored by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

  By this time, it should be sinking into everyone’s consciousness that the American people are never going to be permitted to see the rest of the CIA’s 60-year-old secret records relating to the JFK assassination…

  

  Yes, I know, President Biden says that the new deadline for disclosure is December 22, 2022, which just happens to fall after the November 2022 congressional elections. But that’s just like the mechanical rabbit that is used in dog races — the dogs are never going to catch that rabbit. And the American people are never going to see those records.

  Don’t forget, after all, that this isn’t the first deadline that has been set for disclosure. There was the 25-year deadline that was set back in the 1990s. That deadline came due during the Trump administration. 

  What happened when that deadline came? It got extended of course. Trump surrendered to the CIA’s demands for continued secrecy, just as Biden now has. Every president will do so. The CIA will demand it. National security depends on it!

  Ever since Kennedy was assassinated, there has been a segment of society that has fallen for the official story — that a lone nut communist former U.S. Marine shot and killed the president. This segment has also bought into what has become known as the magic-bullet theory, which holds that a bullet hit Kennedy in the back of the neck, exited his throat, broke ribs and a wrist bone in Governor Connally, lodged in Connally’s thigh, and ended up in virtually pristine, never-been-shot condition. 

  What this segment of society has never been able to explain is why it was therefore necessary to shroud the investigation of the assassination in national-security-state secrecy. In other words, if the assassination really happened because a lone-nut communist former U.S. Marine suddenly, without any motive, decided to kill the president, what in the world would that have to do with “national security,” no matter was definition is put to that nebulous, meaningless term?

  Let’s consider the other alternative, the one set forth in the best book that has ever been written about the assassination: JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters by James W. Douglass. Let’s assume that the assassination was a highly sophisticated regime-change operation to oust a president from office whose policies, it had been determined, posed a grave threat to national security. 

  In other words, consider the principles that led to the U.S. regime-change operations on both sides of the Kennedy assassination: Iraq (1953), Guatemala (1954), Cuba (1959-2021), and Chile (1973), and simply apply them to Kennedy. Ousting the leaders of those countries was necessary, we are told, because such leaders posed a grave threat to national security. Let’s assume that that was the case with Kennedy. (See my article “What If a President Is a Threat to National Security?)

  Such being the case, wouldn’t the malefactors want to hide any semblance of incriminating evidence? That just makes sense.

  Now, I’m not suggesting that anyone would ever find a written confession within those still-secret CIA records. Including such a confession would have been stupid, and the people within the CIA in 1963 were not only not stupid, they were actually very brilliant people. Many of them were Ivy League graduates who were putting their brilliant minds toward the study of assassination and cover-up.

  Moreover, from the very beginning of the CIA, when it adopted the power of assassination, there was a strict rule against ever putting anything about an assassination into writing. That rule would especially apply to the assassination of a president or prime minister.

  But there are so many moving parts to an assassination and its cover up that it becomes imperative to keep all records secret so that sharp-minded researchers and investigative reporters are unable to put individual pieces of the puzzle together. 

  That’s why national-security state secrecy on what was purported to be a lone-nut assassination was imperative from the very moment of the JFK assassination.  

  The Kennedy assassination took place in November 1963. In 1991 — almost 30 years later — Oliver Stone came out with his movie JFK, which, not surprisingly, created all sorts of controversy. The movie rejected the official lone-nut/magic-bullet theories of the assassination and instead posited that the assassination was a highly sophisticated regime-change operation on the part of the U.S. national-security establishment.

  What shocked — and actually outraged — a large segment of the American people was Stone’s disclosure that the national-security establishment was still keeping its assassination-related records secret. 

  Why would they do that? It had been 30 years — 3 decades! — since the assassination.  That’s a long time for secrecy in what is purported to be a lone-nut assassination. 

  So, a large number of Americans were naturally suspicious. They demanded that Congress mandate a release of those records. It was one of those rare instances where the public is able to force Congress to do something that Congress doesn’t want to do. 

  The fact that the national-security establishment fiercely opposed disclosing their assassination-related records to the public makes it even more remarkable that the JFK Records Act of 1992 was enacted. 

  Why did President George H.W. Bush, who had served as CIA director, sign the bill into law? Because Bill Clinton, against whom he was running for president, came out publicly in favor of the law. Bush was trapped, politically. He decided he’d better sign the bill into law to avoid letting Clinton turn it into a campaign issue.

  Thousands of records were released, some over the fierce objections of the Pentagon and the CIA. No, there were no confessions. But there was a mountain of evidence establishing that the national-security establishment had conducted a fraudulent autopsy on the president’s body on the very evening of the assassination. See my two books The Kennedy Autopsy and The Kennedy Autopsy 2. 

  There were three unusual aspects of the JFK Records Act. 

  One was that the Assassination Records Review Board, which was called into existence to enforce the law, was absolutely prohibited from investigating any aspect of the Kennedy assassination.

  Thus, when the ARRB uncovered the evidence establishing the fraudulent autopsy, it was not permitted to conduct an extensive investigation into what it had uncovered. 

  The other unusual provision was that the CIA and other federal agencies had the prerogative of keeping some of their records secret for another 25 years, on grounds of “national security.” 

  Now, I ask you: If you have committed a criminal act and you know that the ARRB has already uncovered what you did to commit a fraudulent autopsy, what evidence are you going to keep secret for another 25 years? Aren’t you going to keep the most incriminating evidence secret for as long as you can, hopefully forever? Isn’t that just logical?

  No, not a confession, but other pieces to the assassination puzzle that fill in more portions of the regime-change mosaic, such as Lee Harvey Oswald’s purported trip to Mexico City just before the assassination, which is still shrouded in mystery and cover-up almost 60 years later.

  Another unusual aspect of the JFK Records Act was that it failed to automatically call the ARRB back into existence when that 25-year deadline came due. That’s what has enabled the national-security establishment, especially the CIA, to secure forever extensions for secrecy.

  What are the chances the balance of the records will ever be released to the American people. Nil. That’s because there is virtually no chance that Congress will call the ARRB back into existence to enforce the JFK Records Act. And even if it did, it is a virtual certainty that the CIA would require any president to veto it. 

  Only a large public outcry against continued secrecy, similar to what happened after Oliver Stone’s movie, could change that. Unfortunately, there is little indication that that is going to happen. 

  One thing is clear though — the CIA’s need for continued secrecy of its assassination-related records on the ridiculous ground of “national security” is about as close to an implicit admission of guilt as one can get. After all, there is no Fifth Amendment right to remain silent for the CIA and the rest of the national-security establishment. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/21/2021 – 23:30

• Space Force General: US "Not As Advanced" As China Or Russia With Hypersonic Missiles
  Space Force General: US “Not As Advanced” As China Or Russia With Hypersonic Missiles

  A top ranking general within the recently established US Space Force has voiced dire public concern that America’s hypersonic missile capabilities are significantly behind those of Russia and China, coming days after Russia successfully test-fired another Tsirkon Hypersonic missile from a warship in the Arctic, and months after China caught US intelligence off guard by its own impressive hypersonic test.

  General David Thompson, the Space Force’s Vice Chief of Space Operations, which is number two post over the command, said in a Saturday interview that the US is simply “not as advanced” in this are compared to China or Russia. He described this lagging behind in this crucial cutting-edge weaponry as implicitly presenting a threat to national security. 

  

  “We have catching up to do very quickly, the Chinese have an incredible hypersonic program,” he said. “It’s a very concerning development … it greatly complicates the strategic warning problem.”

  As The Hill writes of his words, they are consistent with a recently Congressional Research Service report which highlighted the two US rivals’ ability to launch hypersonics that are nuclear-capable:

  The U.S. failed its own hypersonic missile tests in October, according to CNN.

  According to a memo the Congressional Research Service (CRS) provided for U.S. Congress on Oct. 19, the U.S. is lagging behind China and Russia because “most U.S. hypersonic weapons, in contrast to those in Russia and China, are not being designed for use with a nuclear warhead.”

  That report concluded that “As a result, U.S. hypersonic weapons will likely require greater accuracy and will be more technically challenging to develop than nuclear-armed Chinese and Russian systems,” the CRS wrote.

  And further, the US general included the following explanation about the new type of game-changing threat that hypersonics in the hands of enemies poses:

  During his interview, Thompson said hypersonic missiles are “changing the game” for national defense and security, comparing their use to a snowball fight. Typically, you can predict where a snowball is when it’s thrown. Yet, if the projectile is thrown in another direction, it’s harder to detect — but it’s still going to hit you.

  “That’s what a hyperglide vehicle does,” he said, referring to another type of hypersonic missile. “You no longer have that predictability. So every launch of a certain type, regardless of where it’s headed, now has the potential to be a threat.”

  Gen. Thompson’s remarks were given Saturday, just two days prior Russia’s Ministry of Defense publicly released video hailing another successful hypersonic missile launch in the country’s far north. 

  Frigate Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Gorshkov performs another test firing of Zircon hypersonic missile https://t.co/xeZbWvG3C5#MOD #MinistryOfDefence #Zircon #Launch pic.twitter.com/e1Vlg8IVSO

  — Минобороны России (@mod_russia) November 18, 2021

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  “Russia has fired its Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missile from a warship in the north of the country, the military said Thursday,” according to The Moscow Times. “The Admiral Gorshkov frigate has test-launched the Tsirkon several times in recent years.”

  Russia’s Vladimir Putin has frequently described the Zircon missile as “invincible” as its touted as reaching Mach 9, making it virtually impossible for conventional anti-air missile systems to shoot down. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/21/2021 – 23:00

• Lawmakers Question Biden's 'Dangerous' & 'Unconstitutional' Ongoing Occupation Of Syria
  Lawmakers Question Biden’s ‘Dangerous’ & ‘Unconstitutional’ Ongoing Occupation Of Syria

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  On Thursday, a bipartisan group of 30 House representatives penned a letter to President Biden questioning US airstrikes and the US military presence in Syria.

  In February and June of this year, the US bombed Shia militia targets in Syria and cited Article II of the Constitution as justification for the strikes. In the letter led by Reps Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), Peter DeFazio, and Nancy Mace (R-SC), the lawmakers call the idea that the Constitution justifies such strikes a “dangerous claim.”

  

  “We are deeply troubled by your administration’s dangerous claim that Article II of the Constitution permits you to bypass Congressional authorization to perform strikes inside Syria,” the letter reads.

  There is wide support in Congress to reign in the president’s war powers by repealing authorizations for the use of military force (AUMFs) that were passed in 1991 and 2002 to wage wars against Iraq.

  Some lawmakers also favor repealing and replacing the 2001 AUMF that is used to justify the wars against groups like ISIS and al-Shabaab, even though they didn’t exist when the AUMF was passed. But the fact that the Biden administration used the Constitution as justification for airstrikes sets a dangerous precedent and suggests that no matter what AUMF is repealed, the Executive Branch will still have unilateral power to bomb other countries.

  The letter also questioned the US occupation of eastern Syria. There are currently about 900 US troops stationed in Syria under the 2001 AUMF. But since ISIS no longer has a significant foothold in Syria, the lawmakers are questioning this authorization.

  “Virtually all observers, including your administration, acknowledge that ISIS no longer holds territory in Syria. This casts serious doubt on the applicability of the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which some claim authorizes the entire US military presence in Syria,” the letter reads.

  US Coverup Of Syria Massacre Shows The Danger Of The Assange Precedent

  “This is what’s at stake in the Assange case. Our right to know what the most deadly elements of the most powerful government on our planet are doing.”https://t.co/x7tJiYoq6V

  — Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ (@caitoz) November 15, 2021

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  The letter represents a small but growing opposition in Congress to the US war in Syria. Rep. Bowman introduced an amendment to the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would have required the Biden administration to get authorization to stay in Syria from Congress or leave the country.

  The amendment was shot down in a vote of 118 to 286, but the majority of House Democrats voted in favor of the measure.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/21/2021 – 22:30

• "Cancerous To The West": Kyle Bass On The Risks Of China's Digital Currency Rollout
  “Cancerous To The West”: Kyle Bass On The Risks Of China’s Digital Currency Rollout

  EpochTV’s Tiffany Meier sat down with Kyle Bass, founder and principal of Hayman Capital Management, and John Mac Ghlionn, journalist and researcher. They touch on President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s summit, the U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission, and what it means going forward.

  

  When asked about actionable steps following the commission review, Bass said, “If we actually did one thing as a government, my preference would be to start harmonizing the lists between the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, the Treasury Department’s OFAC list, and the Pentagon’s DOD procurement list…”

  “Here’s a great example. Today there are 257 companies on the BIS Entity List at Commerce. There are only seven entities on Treasury’s list that overlap. So there are 250 entities that are still ‘investable’ by U.S. individuals and institutions that the Commerce Department has flagged as a risk to U.S. national security.

  That makes no sense. And so if we start harmonizing the work that we’ve done in the various presidential Cabinet departments, I think we could go a long way to at least, if we don’t ban all investment in China, but we ban the companies that are state-owned and military-run or a risk to U.S. national security, that would be a quantum leap from where we are today.”

  He also had a warning about China’s digital currency ambitions, saying:

  “I believe that the adoption of their central bank digital currency is cancerous to the West.

  It’s the adoption of the Chinese tech stack. It has a mind of its own.

  Their human data project is interfaced with their rollout of CBDC and they’ll be able to effectuate bribes to individuals outside of the purview of banking regulators or sovereign regulatory oversight. And so it’ll be a brave new world for a Chinese Communist Party who’s known to bribe, steal, coerce, to do everything they do as they move through the world.

  This gives them the ability to reach people directly, which is a real problem. So I don’t believe we can allow a little bit of it. I believe it to be cancerous.

  You can’t have a little bit of cancer. You either have cancer, or you don’t. And so we all need to be talking about the rollout of the CBDC and why it’s so vitally important to understand this in the context of China’s grand strategy.”

  And as for the virtual summit between Biden and Xi, Mac Ghlionn said, “The reason why no progress has been made is because Taiwan is the main talking point…”

  “And essentially, China and the U.S. are speaking two very different languages, politically anyway. And I think that’s why no progress was really made. And I think it was all for show, all for show I don’t think there was any real significance to it.

  “China has to look like that it’s coming to the table. We saw it at the Glasgow, at the recent climate summit…”

  “Well, the CCP didn’t even come to the table. Xi didn’t even come to Beijing, but you know, he sent a sent a strongly worded statement, if you would, about committing to a climate goal.

  And I think it’s a little bit similar with the meeting with Biden.

  China needs to look like that it’s playing ball. Biden needs to look … he has to look somewhat competent, especially after falling asleep in Glasgow. He had to redeem himself. So this is what I mean by it all for show. I think Joe Biden knows and the Biden administration knows, especially when it comes to Taiwan, that you can meet for three hours, 33 hours, 33 days, 33 weeks, it doesn’t really matter, because China’s obsessed with the reunification issue, and it’s not going to budge. And this is why I think it’s for show. Xi knew coming in where he stood, Biden knew and knows where Xi stands. But they have to meet because they’re two superpowers. And I suppose it’s like a geopolitical game of chess, you know, they need to sit down and figure each other out.”

  Watch the full episode on EpochTV.

  Subscribe to EpochTV’s YouTube channel for more first-hand news from China.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/21/2021 – 22:00

• University Of California To Permanently Remove Standardized Testing For Admission
  University Of California To Permanently Remove Standardized Testing For Admission

  Authored by Alice Sun via The Epoch Times,

  The University of California (UC) Board of Regents announced Nov. 18 to eliminate standardized tests from the admission process, without any alternative exam to be adopted in the foreseeable future.

  

  The board originally approved in May 2020 the removal of standardized testing—for applications for admission to the nine UC colleges—and planned to put an alternative test in place of ACT and SAT by 2024.

  During the board’s meeting on Thursday, the regents reached a consensus to keep exams out of admission requirements for a longer time, in favor of practices promoting educational equity and quality.

  “UC will continue to practice test-free admissions now and into the future,” Michael Brown, UC provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, said in a statement.

  Also, to help students build a successful college path, the UC will strengthen its relationship with K-12 schools, Brown said.

  Cecilia Estolano, chair of the board, said the regents are not feeling comfortable using any assessment in the admission process. She added that the decision to removed standardized test is “significant” because it has set a standard that made a difference nationally.

  Bob Schaeffer, executive director of FairTest: The National Center for Fair & Open Testing, told the Los Angeles Times that the UC is becoming “a national model for test-free admissions.”

  He said many more schools are going test-free in their admission in the past two years.

  Alvin Lyu, a fourth-year chemical biology student at the University of California—Berkeley, told The Epoch Times the board’s decision is “a fair move” as students have many more challenges due to the pandemic.

  He added that it is best to have the ACT and SAT scores optional so that high school students with lower grade point averages can use it as a booster in the admission process.

  Helen Tan, an international student studying statistics at the University of California—Los Angeles, said removing the SAT and ACT can affect the number of applicants.

  “If [the UC schools] don’t require [standardized tests], [they] will definitely attract more students who really like the UCs. But there will be more people taking AP and honor classes to make them a more competitive candidate,” Tan told The Epoch Times.

  Bardia Kaseb, a first-year transfer student from Santa Monica College, now studying history at the University California—Irvine (UCI), said the admission process is fairer to the incoming freshmen without considering testing scores. He did not need to submit an SAT or ACT score when he transferred to UCI.

  “It’s a good thing. It makes it equal between freshmen and transfer students,” Kaseb told The Epoch Times.

  Hannah Duong, a freshman studying business administration at UCI, said standardized testing is a necessary way of measuring everyone.

  However, she said the SAT and ACT are not representative of students intellect, but only of “what they know.”

  “There might be really smart people but they go to schools that aren’t very good.” Duong told The Epoch Times.

  “There should be a different way to measure that kind of thing.”

  Benjia Zhang, a first-year electrical engineer student at the University of California—San Diego, said the UC should keep the SAT and ACT standardized tests.

  “Even [though] it is not a hundred percent fair to all students, it is the closest thing we can get,” Zhang told The Epoch Times.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/21/2021 – 21:30

• Multiple Fatalities, 23 Hospitalized After SUV Plows Into Waukesha Parade; Person In Custody
  Multiple Fatalities, 23 Hospitalized After SUV Plows Into Waukesha Parade; Person In Custody

  Update (2015ET): A person of interest has been taken into custody following today’s horrific attack at the Waukesha Christmas parade according to VOA News‘ Steve Herman.

  In addition to several fatalities, eleven adults and twelve ‘pediatric patients’ have been transported to local hospitals according to the fire chief.

  “There were some fatalities:” Waukesha fire department officials say they have transported a total of 11 adults and 12 pediatric patients to area hospitals. pic.twitter.com/QzXBGlQAMF

  — CBS News (@CBSNews) November 22, 2021

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  Update (1940ET): Footage of the moment the SUV began plowing into parade participants has emerged.

  TRIGGER WARNING: 🚨DISTURBING VIDEO🚨A viewer sent in horrifying video the moment a red SUV plowed through a crowd during the #Waukesha Holiday Parade. Its currently unclear how many people have been injured. Updates to come on @tmj4 pic.twitter.com/u6q10VgTJ1

  — Taylor Lumpkin (@TaylorLumpkinTV) November 22, 2021

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  Police have issued a Public Safety Alert asking people in Waukesha to shelter in place. pic.twitter.com/fjF0k0tIQB

  — Benny (@bennyjohnson) November 22, 2021

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  *  *  *

  A reported mass casualty event has been reported at the Waukesha, WI Christmas parade, after a red SUV allegedly broke through the police line, plowed through pedestrians, and began firing round out of the window. It is unclear at this time how many people have been injured or killed, however at least four people have been reported as having been hit and ‘not moving.’

  The driver has not been identified as of this writing.

  This was recorded from the City of Waukesha’s Facebook account, which was streaming the parade.

  You can see a red SUV speed right past these band members, hear screams and then a law enforcement officer running. @fox6now pic.twitter.com/8lO5oRuP1I

  — Sam Kraemer (@SamKraemerTV) November 21, 2021

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  Shots fired at vehicle as possible suspect’s vehicle rams barriers in escape from #Waukesha Christmas parade car attack. pic.twitter.com/2UnQcjPSn8

  — Kyle is free at last, free at last! (@historysbattles) November 21, 2021

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  According to WISN‘s Courtney Sisk, the SUV hit the “dancing grannies” before speeding off, leaving “at least four members” on the ground and were not moving. One of the group’s members reportedly flew ‘over the hood’ of the SUV.

  Reports of mass causality in Waukesha. An SUV plowed through the Christmas Parade. Witnesses on the phone just told me several members of the “Dancing Grannies” were hit and are not moving. We are on the way. @WISN12News pic.twitter.com/DvoJKg3KzI

  — Courtney Sisk (@Courtney_SiskTV) November 21, 2021

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  “At the Waukesha Holiday parade and a car just broke through the police line, plowing through pedestrians and firing rounds out the window. Family and I are safe. Happened 20 feet in front of us,” wrote Twitter user Zach Heisler (@zrheisler).

  At the Waukesha Holiday parade and a car just broke through the police line, plowing through pedestrians and firing rounds out the window. Family and I are safe. Happened 20 feet in front of us.

  — Zach Heisler (@zrheisler) November 21, 2021

  Another view of the Waukesha driver. Barely missing the little girl!! Wow. #waukesha @JackPosobiec @stillgray pic.twitter.com/PreH0krGbu

  — Lacy (@l_a_c_y___) November 21, 2021

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  #Update: Video of the scene right now in #Waukesha in #Wisconsin after a car ploughed his way through people of crowds, injuring up to at least 30 people. pic.twitter.com/mcQpgGxZDo

  — Sotiri Dimpinoudis (@Sotiridi1) November 21, 2021

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  ⚠️🇺🇸#URGENT: Mass Causality Incident declared after car plows through parade in downtown Waukesha, Wisconsin#Waukesha l #WI
  Dozens of injuries now reported after a suspect reportedly drove through police barricades at the Holiday Parade before opening fire.
  Updates to follow! pic.twitter.com/SUvxVcO7vE

  — Intel Point ALERT (@IntelPointAlert) November 21, 2021

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  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/21/2021 – 21:16

• JPMorgan Warns S&P Fair Value Is 2,500 If Inflation Shocks Do Not Fade Away
  JPMorgan Warns S&P Fair Value Is 2,500 If Inflation Shocks Do Not Fade Away

  Last week, when discussing the latest Bank of America Fund Manager Survey, we pointed out that yet another paradox had emerged: on one hand, Wall Street professionals were the most overweight stocks since 2013, while on the other virtually nobody was expecting a stronger global economy in the future, an unprecedented divergence between these two data sets the likes of which has never once been seen in survey history.

  

  How does one make sense of this historic gap? Well, one doesn’t – this is just Wall Street goalseeking any and all scenarios to make it seems that being all in risk is the only possible trade, and the only way this particular goalseek does not blow up is if the finance bros also “believe” that inflation is transitory (something not even the Fed is doing anymore), as a persistent inflation would lead to a painful repricing of all asset classes sharply lower. That’s why despite sharply higher than expected October inflation data, a majority of FMS investors acknowledge that inflation is a risk but only 35% think it is permanent while 61% think it is transitory…

  

  …while a net 14% of investors now expect global inflation will be lower, the lowest level since the onslaught of COVID-19 in Mar’20. In other words, 51% of investors expect lower inflation while 37% expect higher inflation.

  

  Setting aside how laughable Wall Street’s delusion with “transitory” inflation has become when it is by now painfully obvious that prices will not revert to previous levels and at best will see the pace of galloping increase moderate somewhat, although in light of persistent wage growth one can just as easily argue that inflation will keep surging for years, the bigger question is what happens when the day of reckoning comes and Wall Street’s conviction of transitory inflation comes crashing down – say we get another 2-3 outlier CPI prints; forcing Wall Street to stop ignoring the imminent threat posed by surging inflation.

  Trying to answer this question is JPMorgan quant Nick Panigirtzoglou, who in his latest Flows and Liquidity note titled “What if the rise in inflation volatility persists?” note (available to pro subs in the usual place) looks at what would happen to stocks if inflation volatility surges.

  The reason why is because as the Greek strategist explains, in his longer-term fair value framework for 10y real yields and the S&P 500, “inflation volatility is an important input as a proxy for term premia in the former and for risk premia in the latter.”  And with upside inflation shocks in the US and UK in the last week, JPMorgan notes that “the question of the persistence of inflation has again featured heavily in our discussions with clients” while the steep rise in inflation readings “has also raised questions over inflation volatility.”

  In other words, what does a rise in inflation vol imply for real rates and equities? To answer this question JPM updates its long-term fair value model for 10y UST yields and the S&P 500.

  First, some background: Turning first to the former, the JPM model values the 10y real yield as a function of the real Fed funds rate, inflation volatility as a proxy for term premia, and three major components of net demand for dollar capital: from government, corporate and emerging market issuers. The bank measures these as the government deficit, the corporate financing gap (the difference between capex and corporate cash flow), and the EM current account balance, all as a % of US GDP.

  In theory, higher deficits by governments and corporates (ought to) exert upward pressure on yields as overall demand for capital rises, while external surpluses of EM countries ought to push US yields lower due to repayments of dollar-denominated debt and/or dollar asset accumulation by their central banks.

  In the JPM model, inflation volatility has a significant influence given a coefficient of 0.75. In other words, a 100bp increase in inflation volatility would put 75bp of upward pressure on 10y real yields. The next chart shows the 5y moving average of US CPI volatility over time, which shows that inflation volatility has already risen markedly, from around 0.6% in 1Q21 to 1.6% after the October CPI release. According to JPM, this metric looks likely to rise further, potentially to around 2.2% during 1H22 based on the bank’s economists’ inflation forecasts before starting to drift lower.

  Based on JPM calculations, the increase in inflation volatility that has already taken place would push up 10y real rates by 75bp. And if inflation vol drifts further to 2.2% it could put an additional 40bp of upward pressure on real rates. In this risk scenario where inflation vol proves persistent and is fully incorporated into term premia in rate markets, it would suggest a fair value for the 10y UST real yield of +40bp.

  

  As a quick aside, JPM here asks why do real yields remain so low, which as a reminder is the market’s $64 trillion question as we discussed in “The Most Important Question For The Market Is Identifying The Driver Behind Record Low Negative Real Rates”? JPMorgan’s response is that this is partly because markets price in negative real policy rates even a decade out. This is shown in the next chart which depicts 1m forward USD OIS rates starting in mid-December of each year and the 5-10y ahead inflation forecast from Consensus expectations.

  

  This pricing also stands in contrast with JPM economists’ own revised Fed forecast of a start of the hiking cycle in September 2022 and quarterly 25bp hikes thereafter at least until real policy rates reach zero (2022 US economic outlook, Feroli et al, Nov 17th). This would
  suggest policy rates reaching 2% by mid-2024 and potentially 2.5% by end-2024.

  Meanwhile, the broader bond market has – similar to the BofA Fund Manager Survey respondents –  looked through the rise in inflation volatility thus far, “treating it as a transitory shock.” However, as Panigirtzoglou warns, “if inflation volatility remains elevated, say fluctuating around 1.5-2% for a prolonged period, this could start to put more meaningful upward pressure on term premia.” This could further be compounded by the Fed’s taper, given that one of the channels that QE operates through is via suppressing term premia.

  Bonds aside, what about the implications of a rise in inflation vol for equities, the one asset class which seems impervious to absolutely all negative newsflow and is only dependent on how much liquidity central banks will inject at any one moment?

  Well, as the JPM strategist notes, he had argued previously that equity markets have effectively looked through not only the surge in inflation vol but also the the rise in real GDP volatility, given the significant policy support from fiscal and monetary authorities. Effectively,
  following policy measures to smooth the impact of the pandemic on incomes and avoid a situation where disorderly markets, particularly credit markets, amplify the shock, equity markets focused more on the eventual recovery in earnings than on the near term vol shock. Indeed, after the Q2 2020 real GDP contraction in excess of 30% and the Q3 2020 expansion of a similar magnitude, the volatility of GDP readings has been markedly more modest – this is shown in Figure 6 with the red line, which excludes 2Q20 and 3Q20 from the exponentially weighted real GDP volatility calculation. In other words, the run rate of real GDP volatility, while still above pre-pandemic levels, has already shown signs of normalizing.

  

  So how have equity markets processed the other vol shock, that of inflation? The next chart shows how JPM’s fair value model would look like with three different scenarios applying after 1Q20.

  • The first, shown in as the grey dotted line, mechanically applies the headline increase in both real GDP and inflation vol.
  • The second scenario looks through the shock in real GDP vol but incorporates the headline increase in inflation vol, shown as the black dotted line.
  • The third and final scenario (red dotted line) assumes markets look through both the real GDP vol shock as well as the rise in inflation vol.

  

  Since the blue line – which is the actual S&P500-  has been tracking the red dotted line, it suggests that equity markets have looked through both volatility shocks, effectively assuming both will prove to be temporary.

  As noted above, the run-rate of real GDP vol excluding the 2Q20 and 3Q20 swings around the trough of the pandemic-induced recession has already shown signs of normalizing, which suggests that markets looking through the real GDP vol shock has been a reasonable approach.

  And while it is clear that consensus is, as in the case of the FMS, that any kind of economic shock will be transitory, is it equally reasonable for both equity and bond markets to look through the inflation volatility shock? 

  According to JPM, this ultimately depends on the nature of the current inflation shock. As the bank recent argued in last week’s J.P. Morgan View last week, a big reason behind the inflation vol has come from energy prices and re-opening components, such as used and rental cars, vehicle insurance, lodging, airfares and food away from home, undoubtedly more affected by the Delta variant waves, and the fading of these drags has generated a rebound in services activity that is sparking a normalization in prices (at least until the current spike in cases leads to another round of lockdowns as we have already seen in Austria).

  

  According to Panigirtzoglou, who like his quant colleague Marko Kolanovic has traditionally been extremely bullish on stocks and bearish on cryptos – because any agent of the establishment system can not possibly support both fiat-driven and digital gold-based assets –  these volatile components “should ultimately stabilize and the accompanying volatility they have induced should fade.” Of course, this is almost completely wrong, just as wrong as Goldman’s monthly inflation forecasts for all of 2021, and JPM does in fact admit that it could be wrong conceding that “there has been some upward pressure on inflation readings beyond these components, pointing to some persistence in inflation risks.” Then again, in keeping with the bank’s bullish mandate, Panigirtzoglou concldues that “provided these persistent pressures do not also become more volatile, or provided market participants have confidence that central banks will respond to contain these pressures, markets can still look through inflation volatility.”

  However, in a surprising reversal from the bank’s uniform and stbborn bullishness, the JPM quant acknowledges there is risk that inflation volatility could stay elevated for a longer period, which could eventually feed through to markets pricing in higher term premia and risk premia that would put upward pressure on real yields and downward pressure on equities.

  The outcome for stocks? An S&P500 which collapses to its “fair value” of 2,500 as all those inflation and GDP shocks that the market has so eagerly ignored so far, turn out to be persistent, and crush risk assets.

  However, before anyone goes and accuses JPMorgan of being bearish, Panigirtzoglou emphasizes “that this is a risk scenario, not a  baseline view.” Translation: “this is what will happen, we just don’t want to tell our bullish clients just yet.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/21/2021 – 21:00

• Democrats' Tax Cuts For The Wealthy In NY, NJ Spotlights Build Back Better Hypocrisy
  Democrats’ Tax Cuts For The Wealthy In NY, NJ Spotlights Build Back Better Hypocrisy

  Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

  State and Local Tax (SALT) deductions have made hypocrites out of the entire group of House Democrats.

  

  Tax Plan Inflames Democratic Debate

  House Democrats are in a fresh revolt over SALT. 

  It’s a fine (hypocritic) time for it given they all voted for the Build Back Better build. 

  BBB is now in the hands of the Senate where an Inflamed Discussion is taking place. 

  House passage of Democrats’ $2 trillion education, healthcare and climate package has inflamed an intraparty debate about whether the bill gives overly-generous tax benefits to high-income Americans.

  At the center of the dispute is the House plan to raise the $10,000 cap on the deduction for state and local taxes to $80,000 through 2030. A small but committed group of lawmakers from high-tax states like New York and New Jersey have for years insisted on repealing the $10,000 cap, which Republicans put into place as part of the 2017 tax law.

  “I think it’s bad politics, it’s bad policy,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) said to reporters. “The Democrats correctly have campaigned on the understanding that amidst massive income and wealth inequality, we’ve got to demand that the wealthy start paying their fair share of taxes, not give them more tax breaks.”

  Setting the tax-deduction cap at $80,000 without an income limit means that its benefit goes to even the highest-income households, who all would save $25,900 more in taxes than they do under current law. Nearly one-third of the benefit of that $80,000 cap would go to the top 1% of households, according to the Tax Policy Center.

  The inclusion of the higher state and local tax deduction, or SALT, cap means the bill overall would provide a net tax cut to many wealthy households. According to the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, more than two-thirds of households with income over $1 million would get a tax cut in 2022.

  One Non-Hypocrite

  The only Democrat non-hypocrite in the House (on this issue) is Rep. Jared Golden of Maine.

  Golden voted against BBB, criticizing its “tax giveaways to millionaires.”

  Lie of the Day

  In the lie of the day, Pelosi presented this feeble excuse “This isn’t about who gets a tax cut, it’s about which states get the revenue that they need in order to meet the needs of the people, and that is a fight that I will continue to make.”

  Pelosi was a late supporter of the break for millionaires when she discovered she needed votes of Democrats in NY and NJ to pass BBB. 

  Senator Michael Bennett Chimes In

  The House proposal on SALT gives more than 70% of its benefits to the wealthiest 5% — that’s preposterous.

  The American people didn’t send us to Washington to cut taxes for rich people. https://t.co/OrXIILYrT6

  — Michael Bennet (@SenatorBennet) November 18, 2021

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  Senator Bennett is a Democrat from Colorado. 

  Question of the Day

  You gonna vote for raising the BBB SALT deduction bro? https://t.co/t9s9dKUVuw

  — John Carney (@carney) November 20, 2021

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  Ok Bernie where do you stand? 

  There is no way he will vote against BBB but he will likely lower the deduction to a number that gives something like 50% of the benefit to the wealthy instead of 70%.

  Meanwhile, the House Progressive Caucus Group of about 100 hypocrites silently hopes the Senate does their dirty work for them (raise taxes on the wealthy in NY and NJ).

  No matter what amendments pass the Senate, it is nearly certain the House will approve them. 

  Four Changes to Expect

  • Reduction but not elimination of SALT change.

  • Immigration reform goes out the Window. It’s a nonbudget item and against Reconciliation rules.

  • Manchin will remove the provision that Electric Vehicle credits go to unions only (assuming the Senate parliamentarian does not remove that provision first as a non-budget item).

  • Manchin wants any extension of the Child Tax Credit (CTC) to include a “firm” work requirement and be limited to parents with “family income” of about $60,000 or less. 

  There will be other changes too, but I have no idea what they will be. Something always comes up.  

  Manchin could easily kill the whole thing. Sensible people hope he does. 

  Instead, expect some tinkering around the edges. That tinkering is likely to reduce the CBO cost estimate to a fully paid $1.5 trillion package. 

  But at least credit Manchin that we do not see an immediate $4 trillion monstrosity. It will now only be an immediate $1.5 trillion monstrosity.

  Who Has the Courage?

  The lower monstrosity only sticks if Republicans get control of at least one branch of government and they then really do let the temporary entitlement programs expire.

  In practice, entitlement programs have never before been cut. Perhaps it’s different this time. 

  For related discussion, please consider Profiles in Non-Courage

  *  *  *

  Like these reports? If so, please Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/21/2021 – 20:30

• Hundai? Lambogini? These Are The World's Most Commonly Misspelled Brands
  Hundai? Lambogini? These Are The World’s Most Commonly Misspelled Brands

  We’ve all been there: you’re trying to search for something on Google and suddenly you’re not so sure how to spell whatever you’re looking for.

  “There’s no h in Lamborgini, is there? And if so: where does it fit?”

  Turns out there is an h in Lamborghini and, as Statista’s Felix Richter notes, while search engines are thankfully smart enough to ignore minor spelling problems, some brands are so hard to spell correctly that it can become a bit of a nuisance.

  The research department at Money.co.uk had a closer look at the issue, conducting an analysis to find out which are the most misspelled brands in the world.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Turns out car manufacturers have a knack for hard-to-spell names with four of the ten most misspelled brands being car brands, including the entire top three.

  Hyundai, often misspelled as Hiundai or Hundai, is the most misspelled brand in the world, followed by the aforementioned Lamborghini and Ferrari. Did I get all these right? I better google it.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/21/2021 – 20:00

• "Those Of Us Who Are Being Honest Truly Don't Know What Happens Next… Nor Does Anyone Else"
  “Those Of Us Who Are Being Honest Truly Don’t Know What Happens Next… Nor Does Anyone Else”

  By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management

  Swipe

  “The past year has seen many countries promise to achieve net-zero emissions by mid-century. The next must focus on curtailing emissions in the coming decade. The 17bln-20bln tons of greenhouse gases that need to be cut by 2030 correspond to a 45% drop from 2010 levels. Even then, there would be only a 50% chance of limiting global warming to 1.5°C says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Yet current nationally determined contributions (NDCS) will result in a rise in emissions, not a drop, by 2030,” reported The Economist.

  It should be rather obvious to everyone at this stage that global governments, in aggregate, have no intention of meeting the emission reduction goals they set for themselves. That is in no way due to a lack of desire. But rather an unwillingness to pay the price required to meet the deadline. For the first time in decades, we are confronting problems that cannot be solved with the swipe of a pen. For as long as anyone can recall, each problem that appeared intractable was solved by kicking the proverbial can down the road and accruing more debt.

  How will national and geopolitics be altered by a problem that cannot be solved solely with a swipe? The global pandemic will be a helpful guide. Although a far smaller problem than climate change, Covid also affected all and defied a strictly monetary solution. Wealthy nations prioritized their interests over others. China deflected blame, intimidating any nation that dared press for answers. The most vulnerable suffered disproportionately. No globally coordinated effort was made to marshal every possible resource to tackle the problem. And to soothe the stresses, unprecedented sums of money were created at the swipe of a pen.

  Don’t Know

  I don’t know why 10-year US gov’t bonds yield 1.55% when CPI is 6.2% and inflation appears increasingly persistent. I have some theories to be sure. But I don’t definitively know. Nor does anyone else. And I don’t know what the Fed will do if inflation stays high, but interest rates remain low. It might be that it does little, or nothing. And if that’s what happens, I don’t know why stocks and housing wouldn’t keep surging. But if that started happening, I’m not sure what would stop everyone from borrowing more and more to leverage up.  

  And I don’t know what the Fed would do if everyone started leveraging up, while inflation remained firm, but interest rates remained low. If they hiked as gradually as markets now price, I’m not sure why that such an incremental rise would dampen speculative demand. If the Fed hiked to curb speculation in the name of promoting financial stability and this caused a sharp stock market decline, even as inflation remained high, I’m not sure the Fed could quickly reverse those hikes without sparking a run on the dollar, which would then lift inflation.

  But what I really don’t know is how markets start to behave when there are so many things that people don’t know. Naturally, there are always many uncertainties when it comes to such things. But the new set of unknowns we face today arise from the reappearance of inflation after many decades of dormancy. And because the economy is vastly different from when we last endured an inflation, while our financial markets are wildly more complex and interconnected, those of us who are being honest truly don’t know. Nor does anyone else. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/21/2021 – 19:30

• NYC Passes Bill To Restrict 'Racist, Sexist' Hiring Software
  NYC Passes Bill To Restrict ‘Racist, Sexist’ Hiring Software

  New York City is on track to become the first city in the nation to ban automated hiring tools unless a yearly bias audit can prove that the software won’t discriminate based on an applicant’s race or gender, and would force makers of said AI tools to open up their black box algos to scrutiny.

  

  The bill, passed by the city council in early November and would go into effect January 2023 if signed into law, would also give candidates the option of choosing an alternative process (a human) to review their job applications, according to the Associated Press.

  “I believe this technology is incredibly positive but it can produce a lot of harms if there isn’t more transparency,” said Frida Polli, co-founder and CEO of New York startup Pymetrics, which has lobbied for the legislation that favors firms such as hers which publish ‘fairness audits.’

  Advocates point to a 2018 Reuters report that Amazon scrapped a similar AI recruiting tool because it favored men over women.

  Pymetrics, whose core product is a suite of 12 games that are based on cognitive science experiments, paid a third party company to audit their software for bias, and to see if it passed what’s colloquially known as the ‘four-fifths’ rule – an informal hiring standard in the United States according to Technology Review.

  Pymetrics and Wilson decided that the auditors would focus narrowly on one specific question: Are the company’s models fair?

  They based the definition of fairness on what’s colloquially known as the four-fifths rule, which has become an informal hiring standard in the United States. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) released guidelines in 1978 stating that hiring procedures should select roughly the same proportion of men and women, and of people from different racial groups. Under the four-fifths rule, Kim explains, “if men were passing 100% of the time to the next step in the hiring process, women need to pass at least 80% of the time.”

  If a company’s hiring tools violate the four-fifths rule, the EEOC might take a closer look at its practices. “For an employer, it’s not a bad check,” Kim says. “If employers make sure these tools are not grossly discriminatory, in all likelihood they will not draw the attention of federal regulators.”

  In theory, if Pymetrics’ suite was selecting white men for jobs, the software can correct for bias by comparing game data from those men with the results of women and people from other racial groups in order to eliminate data points which don’t correlate with race or gender, but do distinguish successful employees, according to the report, which notes that Pymetrics’s system satisfies the four-fifths rule.

  More problems

  Despite Pymetrics meeting the four-fifths rule, Technology Review points out that the audit didn’t actually prove that the tool is free of any bias whatsoever, nor that it picks the most qualified candidate for the job.

  For example, the four-fifths rule only requires people from different genders and racial groups to pass to the next round of the hiring process at roughly the same rates. An AI hiring tool could satisfy that requirement and still be wildly inconsistent at predicting how well people from different groups actually succeed in the job once they’re hired. And if a tool predicts success more accurately for men than women, for example, that would mean it isn’t actually identifying the best qualified women, so the women who are hired “may not be as successful on the job,” says Kim.

  Another issue that neither the four-fifths rule nor Pymetrics’s audit addresses is intersectionality. The rule compares men with women and one racial group with another to see if they pass at the same rates, but it doesn’t compare, say, white men with Asian men or Black women. “You could have something that satisfied the four-fifths rule [for] men versus women, Blacks versus whites, but it might disguise a bias against Black women,” Kim says. -Technology Review

  We have a feeling that there’s no AI in the world that will satisfy various identity groups given how many genders, races, and species are now recognized for preferential treatment in the name of nondiscrimination.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/21/2021 – 19:00

• Rittenhouse 2.0: Threats Of New Litigation Fly In Aftermath Of Verdict
  Rittenhouse 2.0: Threats Of New Litigation Fly In Aftermath Of Verdict

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  In the aftermath of the Rittenhouse verdict, figures on both sides of the case threatened new filings and investigations. It seems likely that the case will move into a new stage of litigation, particularly civil litigation. However, advocates on both sides may be overstating the basis for a Rittenhouse 2.0.  These lawsuits can come with risks and considerable costs. That is why Voltaire once lamented “I was never ruined but twice: once when I lost a lawsuit, and once when I won one.”

  

  RITTENHOUSE AS A FUTURE DEFENDANT

  Federal Action

  Immediately following the verdict, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler called for the Justice Department to investigate the “miscarriage of justice.” Others have called for a federal civil rights case against Rittenhouse.

  The Justice Department does not have an office for the prosecution of “miscarriages of justice” due to errant jury decisions. Rittenhouse was acquitted on state charges by a state jury. Moreover, while some have called for reducing self-defense protections, the jury applied the law on the books. It is not allowed to simply ignore the law to seek its own criminal justice rules. The Rittenhouse jury faithfully applied the Wisconsin law and came to a well-founded verdict of acquittal. It is a dangerous precedent to investigate jury decisions simply because you disagree with their decisions.

  There is also no clear basis for a civil rights prosecution. Rittenhouse is white and shot three white men. He was not accused of a hate crime. Moreover, he is not a member of law enforcement or government agency, so he did not deprive anyone of their civil rights under federal law.

  Civil Liability

  Rittenhouse could face lawsuits from the families of the deceased or Gaige Grosskreutz, who survived being shot in the arm. That includes wrongful death actions much like the litigation against O.J. Simpson after he was acquitted for the killings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.  However, he was then found guilty in a torts lawsuit brought by the Goldman family and ordered to pay $33.5 million. Those damages later rose to $58 million.

  The risk of such torts actions is that they proceed under a lower standard of proof. Rather than shouldering the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard of the prosecution, the plaintiffs would have to only prove responsibility by a “preponderance of the evidence.”  However, that is no guarantee of conviction. All three men attacked or threatened Rittenhouse before he used his weapon. The common law protects not just self-defense but mistaken self-defense where a person may have erroneously (but reasonably) thought that he was under attack. When attacked, Rittenhouse is authorized under common law to use commensurate force.  While Wisconsin does not have a “Stand Your Ground” law, the common law has always recognized such a right and did not require a person to retreat before using force.

  There is also more leeway in the admission of evidence in civil cases on both sides. That could further complicate any recovery by these plaintiffs. Finally, Wisconsin is a “modified comparative negligence” state. Accordingly, any plaintiff (or his estate) is barred if he is 51 percent or more at fault.

  RITTENHOUSE AS A FUTURE PLAINTIFF

  Defamation

  Rittenhouse does not have a viable claim for wrongful arrest or prosecution given the fatalities in the case and the reasonable disagreement of the need to use lethal force.

  However, many commentators have suggested that he has a strong case for defamation against President Joe Biden and many in the media for calling him a “white supremacist,” “domestic terrorist,” and “murderer.”  There is no question that Rittenhouse has been subject to false and harmful claims in the media. Indeed, many watching the trial were surprised by the sharp disconnect between what they had seen on the case in the media and what was being presented in court.

  Such defamation cases however are notoriously difficult and the odds are against Rittenhouse in prevailing on these characterizations of prejudice or guilt. It is likely that Rittenhouse will be considered a limited public figure or public figure given the notoriety of the case and his public defenses. The Supreme Court has held that public figure status applies when  someone “thrust[s] himself into the vortex of [the] public issue [and] engage[s] the public’s attention in an attempt to influence its outcome.” A limited-purpose public figure status applies if someone voluntarily “draw[s] attention to himself” or allows himself to become part of a controversy “as a fulcrum to create public discussion.” Wolston v. Reader’s Digest Association, 443 U.S. 157, 168 (1979).

  If a court finds such a status, he would be subject to a higher standard of proof under New York Times v. Sullivan. This is precisely the environment in which the opinion was written and he is precisely the type of plaintiff that the opinion was meant to deter. The Supreme Court ruled that tort law could not be used to overcome First Amendment protections for free speech or the free press. The Court sought to create “breathing space” for the media by articulating that standard that now applies to both public officials and public figures.

  Moreover, courts are highly protective of “opinion” statements. People are allowed to reach a different conclusion from the jury in calling Rittenhouse a murderer or to characterize his actions as racist given the subject of the underlying protests. That does not mean that they are right or fair. There is no evidence that Rittenhouse is a white supremacist. However, courts give a wide berth to free speech in such public controversies.

  Many cite the litigation by Nicholas Sandmann, a former high school student who was widely and unfairly accused of abusing a Native American at a pro-life event at the Lincoln Memorial. Reporters latched on to the fact that he was wearing a MAGA hat and called a racist and falsely accused of starting the confrontation.  He sued and settled with some media outfits.  However, courts rejected his claims based on being labeled a racist. Where he prevailed was on statements that he “blocked” the activist at the scene.

  There may be more specific false statements like those in Sandmann’s case but the characterizations of his motivations or beliefs will be the most challenging to litigate.

  Bond claims

  Finally, there is likely to be litigation over who receives the $2 million bond posted in the Kyle Rittenhouse case. Now that he has been acquitted, the bond ordinarily goes to the defendant. However, his previous lawyer, Lin Wood, and his organization Fightback Foundation claim the money.

  In a letter sent to Kenosha County Circuit Court Judge Bruce Schroeder, Kenosha attorney Xavier Solis wrote that the money should be returned to Fightback:

  “These funds were transferred by the Fightback Foundation to the Pierce Bainbridge Law Firm’s trust account and paid by attorney John Pierce on behalf of, and as an agent for, the Fightback Foundation. Accordingly, the $2 million shall be returned to the Fightback Foundation, if and when such funds are released consistent with Wisconsin law and pursuant to court rulings releasing the bail money back to the individual or entity that posted the cash bail.”

  That presents a novel question. The court received the money on behalf of Rittenhouse. The family also claims that his mother raised a fair amount of the bail money. This could come down to a contractual dispute if Rittenhouse expressly agreed that this was a loan to be returned to the foundation. If not, the court could just return the money to Rittenhouse and have the lawyers sue the family for recovery of owed funds.

  What is clear is that the Rittenhouse case (like the Simpson and Sandmann cases) will continue for years. Indeed, Sandmann is still awaiting trial on some of his defamation claims. This is why Thomas Edison once remarked that “a lawsuit is the suicide of time.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/21/2021 – 18:15

• Hunter Biden's Private Equity Firm Facilitated $3.8 Billion Chinese Purchase Of American-Owned Cobalt Mine
  Hunter Biden’s Private Equity Firm Facilitated $3.8 Billion Chinese Purchase Of American-Owned Cobalt Mine

  An investment firm founded by Hunter Biden facilitated a $3.8 billion purchase of an American-owned cobalt mine by a Chinese conglomerate, placing a key resource used in the manufacture of electric car batteries under foreign control, according to the New York Times.

  

  The mine, formerly owned by Freeport-McMoRan and located in the Democratic Republic of Congo, was purchased in 2016 after Chinese mining outfit China Molybdenum announced a partnership with the Biden-founded Bohai Harvest RST (BHR) – with the Chinese contributing $2.65 billion and BHR contributing $1.14 billion to buy out a minority stakeholder, Lundin Mining of Canada. The money for Bohai’s share came “entirely from Chinese state-backed companies,” according to the report.

  China Molybdenum lined up about $700 million of that total as loans from Chinese state-backed banks, including China Construction Bank. BHR raised the remaining amount from obscure entities with names like Design Time Limited, an offshore company controlled by China Construction’s investment bank, according to the Hong Kong filings.

  Before the deal was done, BHR also signed an agreement that allowed China Molybdenum to buy BHR’s share of the mine, which the company did two years later, the filings show. That purchase gave China Molybdenum 80 percent ownership of the mine. (Congo’s state mining enterprise kept a stake for itself.) -NYT

  In 2019, when Hunter controlled 10% of the firm through Washington-based Skaneateles, LLC, BHR sold its stake. As the Times notes, Chinese corporate records show Skaneateles is still part owner of BHR, however Biden attorney Chris Clark said that Hunter “no longer holds any interest, directly or indirectly, in either BHR or Skaneateles.”

  According to a former BHR board member, Hunter and the other American founders were not involved in the mine deal, and the firm only earned a ‘nominal’ fee on the deal. The proceeds allegedly went towards the firm’s operating expenses, and was not distributed to its owners.

  That said, the Times does raise a good point: “It is unclear how the firm was chosen by China Molybdenum.”

  A dozen executives from companies involved in the deal, including Freeport-McMoRan and Lundin, said in interviews that they were not given a reason for BHR’s participation. Most of the executives also said they were unaware during the deal of Mr. Biden’s connection to the firm.

  Paul Conibear, Lundin’s chief executive at the time, said it was made clear that China Molybdenum was leading the transaction even though the buyer of Lundin’s stake was BHR.

  “I never really understood who they were,” Mr. Conibear said of BHR. -NYT

  So – Hunter Biden’s investment firm shows up to funnel money from Chinese state-owned firms into the cobalt deal, and nobody involved knows why. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/21/2021 – 18:00

• Hedge Fund CIO: The Only Thing That Matters To Biden Now Is Whether To Fire Powell Before Or After The Democrats Lose The Mid-terms
  Hedge Fund CIO: The Only Thing That Matters To Biden Now Is Whether To Fire Powell Before Or After The Democrats Lose The Mid-terms

  By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management

  “I need to decide,” whispered Biden to himself, struggling, unsure.

  “Lael is just terrific, no doubt, and her Fed wouldn’t dare cut off my funding,” thought the President, old enough to remember bond vigilantes. 

  “But you can’t help but like Jay, a fine gentleman, a decent human being, and face it, he’s still buying over $100bln of bonds a month with CPI humming hotter than 6%,” thought Joe, having lived through the 1970s inflation. Heck, he was born during WWII and grew up during the post-war financial repression.

  “Hard to say we need someone more dovish than Powell,” whispered Biden. But of course, all such considerations were beside the point and Joe knew it deep down.

  The only thing that mattered now, was whether it would be better to fire Powell before or after the Democrats lose mid-terms. Because at this point in the cycle, Jay’s greatest political value is in being a scapegoat.

  

  Overall:

  “Climate chaos is an urgent threat to our health, communities and economy,” tweeted Senators Merkley and Whitehouse.

  “We need a Fed Chair who recognizes the urgent need for bold climate action. That person is not Jerome Powell,” they added, the scent of mission creep thick in the air.

  In 1977, following a horrendous run, Congress tasked the Federal Reserve with an oxymoron – a dual mandate with three objectives: maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates. And having been born of original sin, into a world where 1+1=3, the central bank’s mandate quite naturally propagated. Slowly at first. Then faster. Until there appeared almost nothing in economics and politics that resided outside the Federal Reserve’s mandate.

  In 1998 it added to its mission the necessity of bailing out wildly overleveraged hedge funds managed by PhDs with more Nobel prizes than imagination. Blinded by math, they failed to conceive of the possibility that historically stable correlations could break for no reason but for the fact that markets inevitably find a way to inflict the greatest possible pain on those who lack humility. Ever since, in each downturn, the Fed bailed out such characters, always in greater size.

  It takes an active imagination to envision a world where the Fed is unwilling or unable to fulfill this mandate. Which makes this a real risk. But the central bank’s mandate expanded in far wider ways. In pandemics, the Fed funds the government and buys mortgage bonds, even as house prices surge.

  Some Senators now call on the Fed to “recognize the urgent need for bold climate action.” It is neither right nor wrong that the Fed does so, it is simply a mandate choice.

  And the central bank can do anything, everything, just so long as we continue to believe that money is real. Which of course it is not. And inflation is the one thing that can pierce the illusion.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/21/2021 – 17:30

• Biological Female Prisoners Sue California After Officials Altered Complaints Over Trans 'Male' Sex-Offenders
  Biological Female Prisoners Sue California After Officials Altered Complaints Over Trans ‘Male’ Sex-Offenders

  A group of biological female inmates incarcerated in California are suing the state’s Department of Corrections (CDCR) for allegedly violating their First Amendment rights by altering their official complaints about transgender sex offenders to remove references to ‘males.’

  

  According to Just the News, “It’s the most unusual claim in the federal lawsuit filed this week by the Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF) on behalf of inmates Janine Chandler, Krystal Gonzalez, Tomiekia Johnson and Nadia Romero, who allege they are victims of either sexual or domestic violence.”

  The women are challenging California Senate Bill 132, which they claim is unconstitutional because it allows prisoners choose their gender identity for the purposes of placement and bodily searches, and requires no actual sex reassignment surgery or hormone therapy.

  When Romero filed a complaint about being “grabbed by a man in her unit,” and Gonzalez requested single-sex housing after a transgender inmate sexually assaulted her, prison officials described their attackers as transgender women or females.

  Being housed with self-identified transgender prisoners who are anatomically male also constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the 8th Amendment, and violates their 14th Amendment equal protection rights, the suit claims. -Just the News

  According to the lawsuit, the SB 132 puts biological women at “substantially increased risk of sexual harassment, sexual assault, rape, and physical violence,” not to mention STDs and psychological fear, and functionally “transform[s] the California prison system from being sex-separated … to a system comprised of men’s facilities, and mixed-sex facilities.”

  Read the rest of the report here.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/21/2021 – 17:00

• Fauci Says Babies, Toddlers Eligible For COVID Jabs In Q1 2022
  Fauci Says Babies, Toddlers Eligible For COVID Jabs In Q1 2022

  Since the start of the pandemic – edging ever closer to two years now – 428 children aged 4 and under have died ‘with COVID’, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Putting that number in context, there are around 73 million children in America.

  Dr. Daniel Rauch, chief of pediatric hospital medicine at Tufts Children’s Hospital in Boston, summed things up rather succinctly:

  “The good news continues to be that this is not a common problem for kids.”

  

  Source: CDC

  So why oh why is all-knowing and unquestionable ‘science’-soothsayer Dr. Anthony Fauci now openly discussing that, even though he “can’t guarantee it,” babies and toddlers aged 6 months to 5 years could be eligible for COVID-19 vaccination by spring.

  “Hopefully within a reasonably short period of time, likely the beginning of next year in 2022, in the first quarter of 2022, it will be available to them,” Fauci told Insider in an interview, though he cautioned that he was speculating, adding, “you’ve got to do the clinical trial.” 

  According to CNN, Pfizer is the furthest along in trials for those aged 6 months to 5 years, but Moderna is also conducting studies in very young children.

  “We don’t have enough data now to present it for a regulatory approach, but right now, the data are being collected and analyzed,” Fauci said when speaking to CNN earlier this month.

  “So we will be able to answer the question, I believe, within a reasonable period of time regarding the safety and the immunogenicity among those lower than 5 years old.”

  Frankly, we have no words for this idea. It appears Big Pharma is running out of cohorts to jab and make money from? In Utero next? What about pets? Better safe than sorry, right?

  

  Some context…

  “Think about it in terms of football stadiums,” Dr. Rauch said.

  “In 100,000 kids, one of them is not going to make it with COVID. Everyone else who walked in is going to walk out.”

  As USAToday.com reports, in August and September, shortly after cases began to rise, hospitalizations of children with COVID-19 increased across the U.S. Weekly pediatric admissions reached a peak of more than three kids per 100,000 the week ending Sept. 5 and have since declined in most states along with adult COVID-19 admissions.

  

  Source: Department of Health & Human Services

  And as far as deaths are concerned, things get even more extreme on the outlier scale.

  Here is the official CDC data for the toddler and baby cohort (total deaths vs COVID-19 deaths)…

  

  

  Source: CDC

  In fact, the relative scale of COVID deaths among America’s 0-4 year-olds is so tiny that it doesn’t even show up on a chart…

  

  Source: CDC

  Given all of the above, what parent will willingly take the risk of vaccinating their baby against a virus that barely registers on the risk of hospitalization scale and is practically non-existent on the risk of death meter? And why is the scientist-uber-alles even suggesting this?

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/21/2021 – 16:00

• Morgan Stanley: Here's Why We See No Rate Hikes In 2022 And What That Means For Markets
  Morgan Stanley: Here’s Why We See No Rate Hikes In 2022 And What That Means For Markets

  By Vishwanath Tirupattur, global head of Quantitative Research at Morgan Stanley

  This has been our outlook week. We published our year-ahead global economics and strategy outlooks last Sunday, and more detailed asset class and country-specific outlooks have been streaming out during the week. At Morgan Stanley Research, our outlooks are the culmination of weeks of deliberation and spirited debate among economists and strategists across all the regions and asset classes we cover. In our highly inter-related world, where everything effectively affects everything else, I am convinced that such a collaborative exercise is necessary. In last week’s Start, my colleague Andrew Sheets summarized the outcome of the process – our outlook for 2022 across markets and economies. This week, I will focus on the key debates we engaged in during the process.

  Our economists’ view that the Fed will wait until 1Q23 to make its first interest rate hike, despite their projection that US unemployment will fall to 3.6% by end-2022, was hotly debated. Considering that the current market pricing implies about two full hikes next year, we focused on two key questions:

  1. why does the Fed wait, and

  2. when does the market reflect that delay?

  For interest rates and FX markets, this was the crux of the matter, especially in the context of potential changes to the composition of the FOMC. Our economists see two drivers for no hikes in 2022 – falling core PCE inflation and rising labor force participation. The market could see more support for these expectations as soon as March and no later than June next year. Furthermore, they do not see material changes to policy outcomes as a consequence of potential changes in the composition of the FOMC. This is key to our narrative on interest rates and FX: markets first price in a more hawkish Fed outcome (bear-flattening, higher real yields, strong DXY) before shifting to concern that the Fed may be too dovish (bear-steepening, higher breakevens, weaker DXY).

  The forecasts our strategists presented were more cautious than our economists’ expectations of strong growth, moderating inflation, and patient central banks, leading us to debate whether this is a set-up for ‘Goldilocks’. Didn’t our economic forecasts imply the best of all possible worlds and, as such, a better environment for markets? As it turned out, in some instances (Europe and Japan equities, for example), this is what our strategists forecast. But across several other markets – US equities, US and European corporate credit, agency mortgages, to name a few – our strategists saw more challenges, especially early in the year.

  Central banks may ultimately prove dovish, but that may not be immediately apparent, an uncertain dynamic that could push yields and USD higher. US earnings are already elevated relative to the economy and face a potential tax headwind. In credit, current valuations leave little margin for error, and even modest or idiosyncratic stresses can weigh on returns. Agency mortgages have to contend with the two largest buyers, the Fed and banks, slowing their purchases next year, while other investors will need to digest about US$200 billion more mortgages in 2022 than in 2021.

  We also debated whether we should be more constructive on emerging markets. The case seemed reasonable: EM assets underperformed materially in 2021. With better valuations, better growth, and no Fed hike until 2023, shouldn’t we join the chorus calling for improvement? The debate around this point was robust, but we settled on ‘not yet’. We think that the market will be slow to price in our ‘later-than-expected’ Fed lift-off, leading to initial USD strength. The one exception is China high yield credit, where we think that the market is underestimating the resolve and ability of policy-makers to control disruption in the property sector, leading our credit strategists to turn bullish on China high yield.

  Another topic of debate was the divergence between US and European equity markets. In their base cases, our equity strategists forecast a 5% decline in the S&P 500 versus an 8% rise in MSCI Europe. After all, for more than a decade, US stocks have outperformed European equities meaningfully.

  

  Part of the rationale is idiosyncratic: US equities face a potential tax headwind to earnings and a much larger rise in real rates than other developed market regions. Those factors alone could equate to a double-digit adjustment, before considering valuation differences. Our equity strategists expect to see the best earnings growth next year across different regions in Europe and greater uncertainty about earnings in the US. Furthermore, thanks to lower inflationary pressures, the ECB can afford to be more patient than the Fed. Even though US equity underperformance has been rare since the global financial crisis (GFC), it is worth noting that such occurrences were less uncommon before the GFC.

  Enjoy your Sunday.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/21/2021 – 15:30

• "Nobody Likes A Snob": Bill Maher Slams AOC, Other 'Woke' Democrats For Being Out Of Touch With 'Most Of America'
  “Nobody Likes A Snob”: Bill Maher Slams AOC, Other ‘Woke’ Democrats For Being Out Of Touch With ‘Most Of America’

  Self-proclaimed “old school” Democrat Bill Maher has a message for his party: stop being snobs.

  During Friday night’s “Real Time,” the 65-year-old comedian slammed the left over wokeness and cancel culture, and said that Democrats are losing elections because “liberals think this country is full of dumb white people.”

  

  “Vote Democrat because white people suck,” should be a 2024 Democrat campaign slogan, the HBO host joked, noting that 62% of Americans think the ruling party is “out of touch.”

  Why are @TheDemocrats who support so many issues that benefit the middle class still considered “out of touch” by 62% of America? #DemIntervention #Midterms2022 #WokeIsAJoke pic.twitter.com/87U2n81m0d

  — Bill Maher (@billmaher) November 20, 2021

  “In plain English, nobody likes a snob. … Your micro aggression culture doesn’t play in the Rust Belt,” said Maher. “If a staffer hands you a speech that says ‘menstruating people’ instead of women, don’t say that, say women.”

  The host also took aim at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and technocrats for embracing “woke” culture, according to PJ Media.

  “It’s [wokeness] a joke, because it makes you think of people who wake up offended and take orders from Twitter and their over-sensitivity has grown tiresome,” he said, adding that Democrats shouldn’t alienate white voters without college degrees.

  As PJ Media’s  A.J. Kaufman notes:

  In his surprising gubernatorial triumph in Virginia, Glenn Youngkin received more than 70% of the vote in the commonwealth’s 45 rural counties.

  And it’s not like Youngkin is a populist or a candidate who electrifies voters; the governor-elect basically is Mitt Romney in a fleece vest. But blue-collar white voters increasingly realize Democrats are smug and hostile to them.

  Recall that an old white guy with, rightly or wrongly, a moderate reputation was the only Democrat last year who didn’t shed working-class whites — both in the primaries and general election.

  On Wednesday night, Maher told CNN‘s Chris Cuomo that critical race theory is “just virtue signaling,” and accused liberals of being “afraid to acknowledge progress.”

  “It’s just something going on in the schools that never went on before,” said Maher.

  “I think, I remember what my education was with American history. We learned about the Civil War. I mean, they mentioned racism. We understood slavery and Lincoln … But they didn’t really go into it any more than ‘Gone with the Wind’ goes into it. It was there but you didn’t feel it, this really. Now we’re doing that, and I think that’s a good thing. People should understand that,” said Maher, adding “That’s different than teaching that racism is the essence of America. That’s what people get upset about, or involving children, who are probably not old enough, or sophisticated enough, to understand this very complicated issue, with a very complicated history.”

  Watch:

  Bill Maher says both sides are trying to cancel him now and it’s new.

  “My politics have not changed. I am an old school liberal… they changed, not me,” he says on the issue of race. pic.twitter.com/QZ9rTSqVGq

  — Cuomo Prime Time (@CuomoPrimeTime) November 18, 2021

   

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

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/21/2021 – 15:00

• We Are In Mass 'Jonestown' Delusion Territory
  We Are In Mass ‘Jonestown’ Delusion Territory

  Submitted by Larry McDonalds, author of The Bear Traps Report

  In April, Goldman Sachs was looking for tame CPI inflation by December 2021. That’s right, the best and brightest told us core would be 2.20% and headline data of 2.77% was coming. Today, they brought out the eraser with a forecast of 5.19% and 6.31%.

  

  Over the last 30 years looking at markets, there are periods when things happen so fast millions are left in a previous mindset, not fully comprehending the world has changed in a secular fashion, NOT cyclically.

  “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen” Vladimir Ilyich Lenin reminds us. Years and years of inflation without a pulse has changed human behavior in such a profound way, a true complacency overdose took over.

  Over the last 18 months, from Beijing to Tokyo, to Berlin to Washington no amount of fiscal spending has been unacceptable. Debt monetization via central banks, MMT (modern monetary theory) has moved from “taboo” to “bring it on” territory.

  Looking forward, every hour, minute and second of each day more and more market participants are waking up to the new reality of sustained inflation. On the Sunday talk shows, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen threw the inflation blame on the pandemic and is essentially making the point that rate hikes are NOT needed once the pandemic is over inflation will disappear is the argument.

  This is HIGHLY BULLISH gold and silver miners. In our view, Yellen is using public forums to lay out the future Fed policy path. There is NO QUESTION Yellen has President Biden’s ear and if Fed Chair Powell wants the job, he must fall in line.

  Interest costs to taxpayers have nearly doubled ($562B) since 2000 with interest rates/bond yields falling from near 7.0 % to 1.5%. How much pressure is on the Fed to further monetize debt 2022-2030??

  Extreme measures. CPI is normalizing at a much higher trajectory, that’s all that matters for consumers.

  We are in mass “Jonestown” delusion territory. Over $100T of the planet’s wealth is positioned in bonds sub 2% in yield with inflation normalizing this cycle at 3-4% vs 1-2% post Lehman.

  It’s mind boggling that people are focused on YoY inflation coming down, of course, it will, that’s irrelevant . All that matters is when does inflation come back to the 2010-2020 norm? If that is 5 years from now, trillions of dollars of assets are in the wrong place.

  Corporations are making more money than ever while inflation is at multi decade highs which in turn is causing a sharp decline in real wages. Hard to imagine a better recipe for coast to coast labor strikes.

  The Fourth Turning will be characterized by open conflict between the management class and labor. Unions will grow their ranks. The strike at Deere has farmers scrambling for used tractors and tractor parts.

  Prices increased by 9.5% in the 3rd quarter, as per The Machinery Pete Used Values Index, the keepers of which predict higher increases 4th quarter. As a result the planting season will be more expensive. Those increased costs will be passed on to the consumer. This will cause the price of food to be higher.

  There is no greater exercise of the power of labor than a work strike. And we see here how it causes inflation. Worse than 2008-2009, UMich Buying Conditions for large Household Durables , “furniture, a refrigerator, stove, television, and things like that “ printed at 78 last week vs. 112 last year and as low as 98 during the 2008 financial crisis. U.S. demand destruction from inflation is near unprecedented levels.

  

  Bullish gold and silver yields on 10 year inflation indexed Treasuries are at their most negative in twenty+ years as investors expect the economy to continue shrinking in real terms. The last time the Fed hiked rates 2015-2018, these yields ranged from a positive +0.05% to +1.2% vs today at -1.2%.

  

  S&P 500 earnings growth expectations do not jive with real evidence of demand destruction; discussing the record PEG level, BofA says that “today’s level would suggest losses of -20% over the next 12 months based on the historical relationship.”

  

  It is a “deer in the headlights” moment for the Street. After buying the Fed’s “transitory” narrative for nine months, the Street still has 2021, 2022, and 2023 S&P 500 earnings growth per share up in the clouds. Bonds are screaming growth is plunging as demand destruction is taxing consumers and profits, but the Street just took up their numbers bigly! They missed 2020 by a country mile on covid (understandable), and then lowballed their 2021 outlook in Q1 this year, then they took 2021, 2022, and 2023 numbers UP 20% 25% higher over the summer. Then inflation becomes NOT transitory.

  This is a screaming sell signal.

  As inflation has proved more sustainable, U.S. tech stocks have a near term date with an elevator shaft. Hard assets > financial assets 2020-2030.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/21/2021 – 14:45

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• Should We Accept There Are Problems In The World The US Cannot Solve?
  Should We Accept There Are Problems In The World The US Cannot Solve?

  Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

  The US and EU need to address the above question.

  

  Philosophical Question of the Day

  Credit Wolfgang Münchau at Eurointelligence for the question. I changed it slightly. He phrased it as EU, not US. 

  The Green MEP, Reinhard Bütigkofer, wrote yesterday that Ursula von der Leyen had personally intervened to stop the EU from upgrading its ties with Taiwan. We ourselves would like to know whether this decision was preceded by a phone call from Berlin, or whether the spirit of Angela Merkel is already roaming independently inside the Berlaymont building.

  The acting German chancellor said yesterday that it would be damaging for Europe to decouple totally from China. So where do go from here?

  [Mish Note: Münchau suddenly shifts the topic to Belarus and the question of an EU Army. What follows is a bit disjointed. I cut a couple of paragraphs but they mostly added to the confusion.]

  The build-up of military capability that is currently being discussed in Brussels is not going to change anything, unless the EU agrees how and when to use it, and how to decide. Those conditions are not met. If you do not have a consensus in favour of qualified majority voting in foreign policy, you do not have a consensus to deploy armed forces. Ask yourself: If you had an EU rapid reaction force, would you have dispatched it to the Polish-Belarus border? To do exactly what? Fight refugees? Would you have taken military action against Alexander Lukashenko’s regime? Maybe bomb Minsk airport? We don’t think so.

  A rapid reaction force is several steps ahead of what needs to be decided right now. Which is start where Merkel left, with the definition of what constitutes our strategic interest in respect of the two big powers on the Eurasian continent: China and Russia. 

  Legitimate commercial interests should be complements by security interests. But do we really want to engage in the China/Taiwan issue? Or should we accept that there are problems in the world the EU cannot, and perhaps should not, get involved in? It would be perfectly plausible for the EU to adopt a narrow foreign policy strategy, based on the defence of commercial, ecological and security interests. That’s already a lot. And if that is so, then surely, Merkel is right that it would be a mistake to decouple from China over Taiwan.

  Rapid Reaction Force? Why?

  Münchau asks the correct questions. But he left off an important point. Even if there was an EU rapid reaction force, every nation in the EU would have to agree to deploy it.

  One of the fundamental problems in the EU is that it takes unanimous consent of 27 nations to do anything that is not explicitly spelled out. And a neither a rapid deployment force nor a European army is spelled out.

  It took over a decade of bickering for every nation in the EU to finally agree to a trade deal with Canada.

  US Needs to Address the Same Question

  Failure to correctly answer that question led to the US losing two wars. The first was Vietnam, the second in Afghanistan.

  Neither was our issue and ultimately US voters turned against each war.

  But problems go far beyond absurd wars based on lies. 

  Trump placed sanctions on Russia and European companies over Gazprom. The result was that Gazprom was completed anyway, by Russia with help from Merkel. 

  If Germany wants to cut a deal with Russia over natural gas, that’s their call, not ours. 

  Gazprom, Taiwan, NATO

  Gazprom was never our battle and we should have stayed out of it. 

  Apparently the EU and Germany are at odds over Taiwan. That means the US cannot  count on the EU for coordinated support against China.

  So why is it that US taxpayers should foot the bill for soldiers in Germany, Poland, and the EU in general?

  Whose battle is it? 

  Trump threatened to cut funding for NATO. He also said he would pull all troops from Afghanistan. 

  He should have. But he was all talk and no show. 

  What About Iran?

  The deal we had with Iran was the opposite. Trump unilaterally killed a deal that NATO our European allies, and our own Joint Chief of Staff all said was working.

  The EU could have acted against Trump’s sanctions, but didn’t. The EU is totally dysfunctional. 

  Regardless, the key question remains for both. 

  We made a mess in the Ukraine by foolishly attempting to convert it into a NATO country. 

  The wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan speak for themselves. ISIS was a direct result of a foolish attack on Iraq.

  None of this meddling ever did the US any good. 

  Correct Focus

  Whether a problem is solvable or not is actually not the correct focus.

  Let’s state the issue in correct terms.

  The EU and the US both need to admit there are problems beyond their control in which meddling is likely to make matters worse. 

  For starters, the US cannot afford to be the world’s policeman and should not even try. 

  The answers are obvious but don’t expect anyone to listen.

  *  *  *

  Like these reports? If so, please Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/20/2021 – 23:30

• 494 Million People Are Not Celebrating 'World Toilet Day'
  494 Million People Are Not Celebrating ‘World Toilet Day’

  Today marks World Toilet Day, which was created to bring awareness to the lack of sanitation, water and hygiene facilities in many parts of the world.

  In 2020, 494 million people, or 6.3 percent of the world population, were still practicing open defecation, the most severe level of lack of sanitation service. Additionally, as Statista’s Katharina Buchholz points out, 22 percent around the world did not have access to at least basic sanitation, defined as a private toilet connected to sewage piping, a septic or composting tank or a pit. 46 percent – almost half of the world population – did not live with safely-managed sanitation, meaning that their sewage was not treated properly, posing severe health risks to them as it enables pathogens to re-enter water supplies.

  As recently as the year 2000, 1.3 billion people were still defecating outdoors, with grave health consequences. The UN has been working to eradicated the practice and has made some progress. In 2017, the number of those without access to any bathroom had sunk to 673 million and finally to 494 million in 2020.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Gains remain to be made in Sub-Saharan Africa, where steady population growth continues to put pressure on sanitation services. Cambodia, Ethiopia, Nepal and India saw the largest fall in outdoor defecation since the year 2000, reducing it from affecting around 70 to 85 percent of the population to 10 to 20 percent.

  The latter country has been particularly ambitious in installing proper toilets. Before Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014, more than 60 percent of India’s population didn’t have access to a household toilet. Since then, billions of dollars were invested under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (“Clean India”) campaign. According to UN numbers, open defecation was reduced to affecting 15 percent of the Indian population in 2020, while those without access to at least basic sanitation now make up around 29 percent.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/20/2021 – 23:00

• Shellenberger: Why We Must Arrest Drug Addicts
  Shellenberger: Why We Must Arrest Drug Addicts

  Authored by Michael Shellenberger via Substack,

  Normalizing and liberalizing drug use resulted in 100,000 drug deaths…

  

  The United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday announced that 100,000 Americans died from illicit drugs in the 12 month period ending in April, a nearly 30 percent increase from the same period the year before. Progressives blame laws that treat addiction as a criminal rather than public health problem, while conservatives blame lockdowns to covid.

  Both sides are wrong. The cause of the 100,000 deaths is the normalization of hard drug use and the liberalization of drug laws. Many of those deaths were of children poisoned after taking what they thought were prescription drugs they had bought from dealers they met through Snapchat. Many others were of addicts who had first gotten hooked on prescription opioids, then switched to heroin, and more recently to fentanyl.

  It’s true that covid was partly responsible for the increase, and that America has failed miserably to treat addiction. Many of those drug deaths occurred due to self-medication by people, including homeless people given hotel rooms, who suffered worse mental health problems brought on by isolation created by covid. And America lacks a functioning mental health care system capable of providing people with untreated mental illness and addiction the psychiatric and rehabilitation they need.

  But the death toll has been rising gradually from 2000, when just 17,000 people died, to 2020, and the underlying reason is the normalization and liberalization of drug laws. The U.S. liberalized the prescription of opioid pharmaceutical drugs starting in the late 1990s. It’s true that the U.S. tightened prescription regulations in 2010, which is when many opioid addicts turned to heroin. But cities and states also liberalized drug laws, including against open drug scenes in cities, euphemistically referred to as “homeless encampments,” where dealers and buyers meet. And American society has gradually normalized and even glamorized the use of pharmaceutical and hard drugs for 20 years.

  If we are going to significantly reduce drug deaths we need to start arresting drug addicts. I’m not suggesting we arrest people who aren’t breaking any laws other than using hard drugs. People who want to kill themselves in the privacy of their own homes by smoking fentanyl should be free to do so. But people who use drugs, camp publicly, and break other laws stemming from their addictions, such as shoplifting, should be arrested, brought before a judge, and be given the choice of rehab or jail.

  Many progressives and some conservatives will object to this approach by saying that Portugal, Netherlands, and other European nations handled their addiction crises in the late 1980s differently, but they didn’t. Faced with open drug scenes, Portugal and Netherlands also tried the “helping-only” approach of giving addicts clean needles and offering methadone, an opioid substitute, and failed. Addicts took the needles and methadone, kept shooting heroin in public, and dying. It was only after those nations started arresting addicts and giving them the choice of rehab or jail that lives were saved.

  A restaurant owner named Adam Mesnick earlier this week released a video on Twitter of an interview with homeless fentanyl street addict named Diane, 34. She moved to San Francisco from Chicago eight months ago. Diane was crying. “My husband got me started on heroin in 2012,” she said. “I heard they’re starting to put fentanyl in everything because they want people to be addicted to everything.”

  Diane. 34. Explained her father died in an accident and mother committed suicide. She lives at 7th and mission. pic.twitter.com/2xlBgoCRMS

  — bettersoma (@bettersoma) November 17, 2021

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

  Drug decriminalization and “Housing First” advocates say that all we should do to help Diane is to give her a free apartment, needles for shooting and foil for smoking fentanyl, and a place where she can safely use fentanyl. That’s the progressive thing to do, according to San Francisco’s Mayor and Supervisors, who are advocating for a place for addicts to smoke and inject fentanyl. But does that seem like the moral thing to do? Of course it’s not. In fact, it could kill her, in the same way that decriminalization and Housing First policies have contributed to the deaths of 712 people in San Francisco last year.

  

  The moral thing to do is to arrest Diane. Does that sound mean to you? If it does, then you don’t understand addiction, or you’re in denial about its hold over people. In the comments on Twitter to Adam’s video, Jacqui Berlinn, the mother of a fentanyl street addict in San Francisco, said, “She deserves love and compassion mental care and counseling — not needles and foil.” Someone responded, “She has to chose to do that herself. Nobody can force her.” It’s true that Diane has to decide whether to quit fentanyl. But by enforcing our laws against public drug use, we can give Diane the choice of rehab or jail.

  Why don’t we? In a word, victimology. That’s the three part idea that a) Diane is a victim; b) victimhood is not a stage on the road to heroism but rather a permanent state; and c) everything should be given and nothing required of victims. According to the progressive victimologists who run San Francisco, and other progressive cities, the laws against public drug use, public defecation, and shoplifting, should not be enforced against Diane because she’s an addict. As a victim, Diane is sacred, and the system is sinful. As such, it is better to let her die from fentanyl than to enforce the law. It’s part of the Woke religion.

  

  Click image for huge legible version.

  It is Woke religion, a.k.a., victimology, which leads progressives to grossly misrepresent Diane’s situation. Progressives insist, against what they say are our lying eyes, that Diane is homeless not because she is addicted to fentanyl but rather because rents in San Francisco are too high. Progressives insist that the homeless on the streets are locals who couldn’t afford the rent, not people who moved to San Francisco because they knew the city would allow them to maintain their addiction at low cost without risk of arrest. And progressives insist that the only moral approach is to help Diane maintain her addiction, and not enforce the laws when she breaks them.

  In San Fransicko, I debunk the myths that homelessness is a result of high rents, show that Europe saved lives being lost to addiction by arresting addicts and closing open drug scenes, and explain why victimology leads progressives to maintain what is plainly an immoral situation. The title of the book has two meanings. The sickness I describe is the sickness of untreated mental illness and addiction. But the other sickness, San Fransickness, is the sickness of those in the grip of victimology. It is a sickness unto death, one that leads them to deny the fact that the normalization and liberalization of drugs is killing 100,000 of our brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, every year.

  *  *  *

  Michael Shellenberger is a Time Magazine “Hero of the Environment,”Green Book Award winner, and the founder and president of Environmental Progress. He is author of just launched book San Fransicko (Harper Collins) and the best-selling book, Apocalypse Never (Harper Collins June 30, 2020). Subscribe To Michael’s substack here

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/20/2021 – 22:30

• US Inflation: Which Categories Have Been Hit Hardest?
  US Inflation: Which Categories Have Been Hit Hardest?

  Prices have been going up in a number of segments of the economy in recent months, and, as Visual Capitalist’s Nick Routley exposes below, the public is taking notice. One indicator of this is that search interest for the term “inflation” is higher than at any point in the past decade.

  

  Recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics highlights rising costs across the board, and shows that specific sectors are experiencing rapid price increases this year.

  

  Where is Inflation Hitting the Hardest?

  Since 1996, the Federal Reserve has oriented its monetary policy around maintaining 2% inflation annually. For the most part, U.S. inflation over the past couple of decades has typically hovered within a percentage point or two of that target.

  Right now, most price categories are exceeding that, some quite dramatically. Here’s how various categories of consumer spending have fared over the past 12 months:

  

   

  Of these top-level categories, fuel and transportation have clearly been the hardest hit.

  Drilling further into the data reveals more nuanced stories as well. Below, we zoom in on five areas of consumer spending that are particularly hard-hit, how much prices have increased over the past year, and why prices are rising so fast:

  1. Gasoline (+50%)

  Consumers are reeling as prices at the gas pump are up more than a dollar per gallon over the previous year.

  Simply put, rising demand and constrained global supply are resulting in higher prices. Even as prices have risen, U.S. oil production has seen a slow rebound from the pandemic, as American oil companies are wary of oversupplying the market.

  Meanwhile, President Biden has identified inflation as a “top priority”, but there are limited tools at the government’s disposal to curb rising prices. For now, Biden has urged the Federal Trade Commission to examine what role energy companies are playing in rising gas prices.

  2. Natural Gas (+28%)

  Natural gas prices have risen for similar reasons as gasoline. Supply is slow to come back online, and oil and natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico was adversely affected by Hurricane Ida in September.

  Compared to the previous winter, households could see their heating bills jump as much as 54%. An estimated 60% of U.S. households heat their homes with fossil fuels, so rising prices will almost certainly have an effect on consumer spending during the holiday season.

  3. Used Vehicles (+26%)

  The global semiconductor crunch is causing chaos in a number of industries, but the automotive industry is uniquely impacted. Modern vehicles can contain well over a thousand chips, so constrained supply has hobbled production of nearly a million vehicles in the U.S. alone. This chip shortage is having a knock-on effect on the used vehicle market, which jumped by 26% in a single year. The rental car sector is also up by nearly 40% over the same period.

  4. Meats (+15%)

  Meat producers are facing a few headwinds, and the result is higher prices at the cash register for consumers. Transportation and fuel costs are factoring into rising prices. Constrained labor availability is also an issue for the industry, which was exacerbated by COVID-19 measures. As a top-level category, inflation is high, but in specific animal product categories, such as uncooked beef and bacon, inflation rates have reached double digits over the past 12 months.

  5. Furniture and Bedding (+12%)

  This category is being influenced by a few factors. The spike in lumber prices along with other raw materials earlier in the year has had obvious impacts. Materials aside, actually shipping these cumbersome goods has been a challenge due to global supply chain issues such a port back-ups.

  How Inflation Could Influence Consumer Spending

  Rising prices inevitably impact the economy as consumers adjust their buying habits.

  According to a recent survey, 88% of Americans say they are concerned about U.S. inflation. Here are the top five areas where consumers plan to cut back on their spending:

  

   

  Will Inflation Continue to Rise in 2022?

  Many experts believe that U.S. inflation will decelerate going into 2022, though there’s no consensus on the matter.

  Improved semiconductor supply and an easing of port congestion around the world could help slow inflation down if nothing goes seriously wrong. That said, if the last few years are any indication, unexpected events could shift the situation at any time.

  For the near term, consumers will need to adjust to the sticker shock.

  *  *  *

  Where does this data come from?

  Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics – Consumer Price Index (November 10, 2021)
  Data Note: The Consumer Price Index (CPI) measures the change in prices paid by consumers for goods and services. The CPI reflects spending patterns for each of two population groups: all urban consumers and
  urban wage earners and clerical workers, which represent about 93% of the total U.S. population. CPIs are based on prices of food, clothing, shelter, fuels, transportation, doctors’ and dentists’ services, drugs, and other goods and services that people buy for day-to-day living.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/20/2021 – 22:00

• "They Laughed At The Parents" – Leaked Audio Reveals How California Teachers Recruit Kids Into LGBTQ Clubs
  “They Laughed At The Parents” – Leaked Audio Reveals How California Teachers Recruit Kids Into LGBTQ Clubs

  By Brad Jones of the Epoch Times

  A leaked audio recording revealed California teachers mocking parents over concerns about homosexual and transgender indoctrination at school, said a source who attended a recent teachers union conference in Palm Springs.

  

  The recording, obtained by The Epoch Times, captured two seventh-grade teachers, Kelly Baraki and Lori Caldeira from Buena Vista Middle School in Salinas, Calif., telling other teachers how to recruit students into LGBTQ clubs, also known as “Gay-Straight Alliance” (GSA) clubs, at school.

  “It was horrifying to listen to not just one teacher but really all of the teachers in all of these seminars, excoriating parents,” said the source, who goes by the pseudonym Rebecca Murphy.

  Murphy attended the California Teachers Association (CTA) conference in late October. She told The Epoch Times the teachers “mocked” parents for their concerns, and suggested they know better than parents about what’s best for their children.

  “They laughed at the parents,” Murphy said.

  The sold-out CTA conference, billed as the “2021 LGBTQ+ Issues Conference, Beyond the Binary: Identity & Imagining Possibilities,” was held Oct. 29 to 31.

  The CTA has hosted similar “Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity” (SOGI) professional development training for at least the last two years, according to an event notice posted on the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) website, which asks teachers: “Do you have the courage to create a safe environment that fosters bravery to explore sexual orientation, gender identity and expressions?”

  However, according to Murphy, the purpose of conference in Palm Springs appeared to be about teachers showing other teachers how to undermine the authority of parents and school administrators and conceal activities related to gender inclusion and sexual orientation from them.

  The three classes Murphy attended were designed to recruit middle school students to GSA clubs, she said.

  “The overarching theme of the classes that I attended were California Teachers instructing other teachers on how to sneak in the LGBTQ+ curriculum in a manner that does not alert parents,” Murphy said.

  Caldeira and Baraki led a workshop called “How we run a ‘GSA’ in Conservative Communities,” and they described the obstacles they faced as activist teachers in concealing the activities of these clubs from parents.

  In the audio clip, Caldeira advised teachers who lead LGBTQ clubs to maintain an air of plausible deniability so they can play dumb if they are questioned by parents.

  “Because we are not official, we have no club rosters. We keep no records,” said Caldeira, who is also an LGBTQ club leader. “In fact, sometimes we don’t really want to keep records because if parents get upset that their kids are coming? We’re like, ‘Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe they came?’ You know, we would never want a kid to get in trouble for attending if their parents are upset.”

  Baraki backed up Caldeira’s advice, suggesting activist teachers to disguise the nature of GSA clubs by calling them something less obvious. Baraki provided an example of this deception, pointing out she avoided naming her LGBTQ club a GSA. Instead, she called it the “Equity Club” and later changed the name to the “You Be You” club.

  The teachers bragged about spying on students’ online searches and activity as well as eavesdropping on their conversations to identify and recruit sixth-grade students into these LGBTQ clubs whose membership rolls are kept hidden from parents. They suggested that parents who refuse to call their child by pronouns of the child’s choosing should be arrested and charged with child abuse, Murphy said.

  Buena Vista Middle School falls under the jurisdiction of the Spreckels Union School District (SUSD). Another nearby district, Salinas Union High School District (SUHSD) has been a center of controversy over its mandatory ninth grade ethnic studies program, which teaches elements of critical race theory.

  SUSD Board President Steve McDougall, Superintendent Eric Tarallo, and school board members did not respond to Epoch Times inquiries about the leaked audio. Neither did Caldeira and Baraki.

  Anti-Bullying Presentation

  Caldeira also discussed a yearly anti-bullying presentation she provides to students along with Baraki, and she said LGBTQ issues were not the only topics they discussed.

  “We also covered religious differences, race, cultural backgrounds, family status poverty—everything that is listed in the Parents’ Rights handbook.”

  However, when the kids went home and talked to their parents about the presentation, the parents complained about the LGBTQ content. Baraki suggested a different strategy to avoid resistance from parents.

  “Next year, we’re going to do just a little mind-trick on our sixth graders. They were last to go through this presentation and the gender stuff was the last thing we talked about. So next year, they’ll be going first with this presentation and the gender stuff will be the first thing they hear about. Hopefully to mitigate, you know, these kind of responses, right?” Baraki said.

  Baraki ridiculed a parent who complained she hadn’t planned on having a conversation about sexual orientation and gender identity issues with her middle-schooler but was pushed into it by the school.

  “I know, so sad, right? Sorry for you, you had to do something hard!” Baraki told her audience. “Honestly, your 12-year-old probably knew all that, right?”

  When a principal suggested to another parent to enroll their child in a private school over the controversy, Caldeira said, “We count that as a win.”

  Controlling Morning Announcements

  Caldeira also spoke about how she controls morning announcements at the school.

  “That’s another type of strategy I can give you,” she said. “I’m the one who controls the messaging. Everybody says, ‘Oh, Ms. Caldeira, you’re so sweet, you volunteered to do that.’ Of course, I’m so sweet that I volunteered to do that, because then I control the information that goes out. And, for the first time this year, students have been allowed to put openly LGBT content into our morning announcement slides.”

  She went on to boast about the students she recruited to help with the announcements.

  “Three of the kids on the team, two of them are non-binary, and the other one is just very fluid in every way. She’s fabulous. So, it’s actually a nice group,” she said.

  Caldeira pointed out more than once that she can’t be fired, and she thanked CTA for her tenure and for providing resources and tools.

  “You can’t fire me for running a GSA,” she said. “You can be mad, but you can’t fire me for it.”

  “CTA has made it very clear that they are devoted to human rights and equity,” she added.

  Caldeira tells teachers, that she and Baraki have acted with “great integrity.”

  “We never crossed a line,” she says. “We’ve wanted to, but we never have.”

  School Response

  After information about the leaked audio was made public this week, Supt. Tarallo, SUSD President McDougall and Kate Pagaran, the principal at Buena Vista Middle School, issued a letter Nov. 19 addressed to the “SUSD Community” that the “UBU You Be You” club has been suspended.

  “Any future student clubs will be required to submit an outline of all activities and materials before being allowed to meet,” the letter states. “Student sign-in sheets will be maintained and parent/guardian permission slips will be sent home prior to a club holding a meeting.”

  The letter states that “all messaging shared in the morning announcements” will be controlled and distributed by the principal, a practice that “will be in place permanently.”

  “Teachers are prohibited from monitoring students’ online activity for any non-academic purpose.”

  SUSD will follow state-approved standards and curriculum on all presentations involving “sensitive themes such as sexuality” and “materials of any sensitive themes will be shared with parents/guardians before being shown to students,” the letter states.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/20/2021 – 21:30

• Navy Shipbuilder Backpedals On Vaccine Mandate After Flood Of Employees Threaten To Quit
  Navy Shipbuilder Backpedals On Vaccine Mandate After Flood Of Employees Threaten To Quit

  A federal subcontractor to the US Navy reversed course over the vaccine mandate this week, and announced that most workers will not longer be required to get the Covid-19 vaccine.

  

  Huntington Ingalls Industries, parent company of Newport News Shipbuilding made the announcement on Tuesday night notifying employees that they will no longer have to comply with a January 4 deadline.

  “with respect to Ingalls Shipbuilding and Newport News Shipbuilding, our customer has confirmed that our contracts do not include a requirement to implement the mandate,” reads the letter. “In light of this development, we are hereby suspending the deadline for vaccination, except where specific Technical Solutions contracts require it.“

  The shipyard initially announced that all 25,000 employees would need to be fully vaccinated by Dec. 8 as a “condition of continued employment,” only to move it to January – and now, not at all.

  Some shipyard employees feel ‘tricked’ however, as they “only got the vaccine because of the mandate,” according to WTKR.

  “They made me get it and then lifted it,” said Newport News Shipyard employee, Deshawn Royal. “I didn’t want to get it, but they said I had to get it or we were going to get fired. And then they lifted it. Y’all did us wrong.”

  Another employee, Rodney Apop, said that a lot of co-workers feel the same way.

  “They went ahead and jumped, and they didn’t have the choice to do it,” he said. “And now when they take [the mandate] away, they wish they had known so they didn’t have to.”

  Employees speculate the suspension came after workers threatened to quit.

  “You’re gonna lose your people,” said Royal. “Not everybody is gonna get it. It’s not worth a lot of people’s money to get injected with something they don’t want.”

  In Petter’s letter to employees, he stated, “We have not wanted to lose a single employee to the virus, or to the effect of the mandate.”

  But sentiments varied between shipyard employees.

  Anthony Askew, an employee within the IT Department at HII, said his coworkers are advocates for getting vaccinated against COVID-19.

  “All of us got the vaccine so we pretty much are on the same page in terms of supporting getting the vaccine,” he said. -WTKR

  While there is no longer a mandate, the company is still encouraging employees to get vaccinated. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/20/2021 – 21:00

• We Are In Mass 'Jonestown' Delusion Territory
  We Are In Mass ‘Jonestown’ Delusion Territory

  Submitted by Larry McDonalds, author of The Bear Traps Report

  In April, Goldman Sachs was looking for tame CPI inflation by December 2021. That’s right, the best and brightest told us core would be 2.20% and headline data of 2.77% was coming. Today, they brought out the eraser with a forecast of 5.19% and 6.31%.

  

  Over the last 30 years looking at markets, there are periods when things happen so fast millions are left in a previous mindset, not fully comprehending the world has changed in a secular fashion, NOT cyclically.

  “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen” Vladimir Ilyich Lenin reminds us. Years and years of inflation without a pulse has changed human behavior in such a profound way, a true complacency overdose took over.

  Over the last 18 months, from Beijing to Tokyo, to Berlin to Washington no amount of fiscal spending has been unacceptable. Debt monetization via central banks, MMT (modern monetary theory) has moved from “taboo” to “bring it on” territory.

  Looking forward, every hour, minute and second of each day more and more market participants are waking up to the new reality of sustained inflation. On the Sunday talk shows, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen threw the inflation blame on the pandemic and is essentially making the point that rate hikes are NOT needed once the pandemic is over inflation will disappear is the argument.

  This is HIGHLY BULLISH gold and silver miners. In our view, Yellen is using public forums to lay out the future Fed policy path. There is NO QUESTION Yellen has President Biden’s ear and if Fed Chair Powell wants the job, he must fall in line.

  Interest costs to taxpayers have nearly doubled ($562B) since 2000 with interest rates/bond yields falling from near 7.0 % to 1.5%. How much pressure is on the Fed to further monetize debt 2022-2030??

  Extreme measures. CPI is normalizing at a much higher trajectory, that’s all that matters for consumers.

  We are in mass “Jonestown” delusion territory. Over $100T of the planet’s wealth is positioned in bonds sub 2% in yield with inflation normalizing this cycle at 3-4% vs 1-2% post Lehman.

  It’s mind boggling that people are focused on YoY inflation coming down, of course, it will, that’s irrelevant . All that matters is when does inflation come back to the 2010-2020 norm? If that is 5 years from now, trillions of dollars of assets are in the wrong place.

  Corporations are making more money than ever while inflation is at multi decade highs which in turn is causing a sharp decline in real wages. Hard to imagine a better recipe for coast to coast labor strikes.

  The Fourth Turning will be characterized by open conflict between the management class and labor. Unions will grow their ranks. The strike at Deere has farmers scrambling for used tractors and tractor parts.

  Prices increased by 9.5% in the 3rd quarter, as per The Machinery Pete Used Values Index, the keepers of which predict higher increases 4th quarter. As a result the planting season will be more expensive. Those increased costs will be passed on to the consumer. This will cause the price of food to be higher.

  There is no greater exercise of the power of labor than a work strike. And we see here how it causes inflation. Worse than 2008-2009, UMich Buying Conditions for large Household Durables , “furniture, a refrigerator, stove, television, and things like that “ printed at 78 last week vs. 112 last year and as low as 98 during the 2008 financial crisis. U.S. demand destruction from inflation is near unprecedented levels.

  

  Bullish gold and silver yields on 10 year inflation indexed Treasuries are at their most negative in twenty+ years as investors expect the economy to continue shrinking in real terms. The last time the Fed hiked rates 2015-2018, these yields ranged from a positive +0.05% to +1.2% vs today at -1.2%.

  

  S&P 500 earnings growth expectations do not jive with real evidence of demand destruction; discussing the record PEG level, BofA says that “today’s level would suggest losses of -20% over the next 12 months based on the historical relationship.”

  

  It is a “deer in the headlights” moment for the Street. After buying the Fed’s “transitory” narrative for nine months, the Street still has 2021, 2022, and 2023 S&P 500 earnings growth per share up in the clouds. Bonds are screaming growth is plunging as demand destruction is taxing consumers and profits, but the Street just took up their numbers bigly! They missed 2020 by a country mile on covid (understandable), and then lowballed their 2021 outlook in Q1 this year, then they took 2021, 2022, and 2023 numbers UP 20% 25% higher over the summer. Then inflation becomes NOT transitory.

  This is a screaming sell signal.

  As inflation has proved more sustainable, U.S. tech stocks have a near term date with an elevator shaft. Hard assets > financial assets 2020-2030.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/20/2021 – 20:30

• Rise Of The Robots
  Rise Of The Robots

  While more and more consumers enjoy the convenience of having a robot vacuum their home or take care of the lawn, Statista’s Felix Richter details below that it is in industrial applications that robotics have made the biggest impact.

  State-of-the-art manufacturing processes are unthinkable without industrial robots handling part of the workload, whether it’s handling, welding or assembling, which are the three most common applications of newly installed industrial robots in 2020.

  

  As the following chart, based on data from the International Robotics Federation shows, the operational stock of industrial robots has tripled over the past decade, with more than three million robots in use across various industries by the end of 2020.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  According to the IFR, Asia leads the way in the shift to automated processes, with China in particular installing industrial robots at breakneck speed. In 2020, China installed 168,400 industrial robots, amounting to 44 percent of global installations.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/20/2021 – 20:00

• Boondoggle Democracy For The Elites
  Boondoggle Democracy For The Elites

  Authored by MN Gordon via EconomicPrism.com,

  President Joe Biden puffed out his chest.  He grinned from ear to ear.  He’d finally accomplished something as President.  The passing of a $1.2 trillion infrastructure boondoggle.

  

  Upon signing the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act on the White House lawn this week Biden declared:

  “That’s how our system works.  That’s American democracy.  And I am signing a law that is truly consequential, because we made our democracy deliver for the people.”

  No doubt, American democracy is a giant scam.  It has been for a long time.  In fact, democratic mob rule supplanted the limited government of a republic with the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913.  This amendment established direct election of Senators by popular vote.

  In short, the Seventeenth Amendment allows the Senate to buy votes from their constituents in exchange for delivering federal money back to their districts.  This ensures the government acts to meet the collective demand for private prosperity through public spending.  It also rewards political corruption and public graft.

  For example, 19 Senate Republicans and 13 House Republicans broke ranks to pass the boondoggle bill.  They got extra heapings of government lard in return.

  Senator Deb Fischer and Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska, who both voted for the bill, delivered $2.5 billion for state road and highway repairs and $216 million for water infrastructure.  Bacon said he “thought it was good for the district and good for America.”

  We’re all for Nebraska having nice roads and water infrastructure.  But shouldn’t residents of Nebraska pay for their own roads and water treatment plants?  Shouldn’t all state and local governments be responsible to provide for their own infrastructure?  Why does Washington have a hand in any of it?

  The reality is this $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill delivers a giant burden to the American people at the benefit of the Washington elite and connected insiders.  That’s how 21st century American democracy works.  That’s how it delivers for the elite…and not the people.

  Let’s explore…

  Ticking Timebomb

  Over the last 100 years the American system of democratic mob rule has devolved to self-cannibalization.  The elites consume the productivity of working and middle class Americans, while indenturing future offspring to debt servitude.  After stuffing their faces at the public trough, they toss dog scraps to placate the mob.

  By consuming itself, the nation can temporarily live beyond its means.  This dynamic is best observed by looking at the growth in federal debt since the turn of the century.

  When Y2K came and went without a hitch the federal debt was about $5.6 trillion.  Today it’s over $28.9 trillion.  In just 22 years the federal debt has increased by over 416 percent.  Over this same period, real U.S. gross domestic product has only increased from about $12.5 trillion to roughly $23 trillion – or roughly 84 percent.

  

  The difference between debt growth and GDP growth, as far as we can tell, is a recipe for disaster.  Yet this isn’t the half of it…

  You see, this growth in national debt relative to national income coincided with a corresponding growth in something for nothing policies.  This growth in national debt relative to national income also occurred during a period of especially cheap credit.

  Cheap credit, however, can also give way to expensive credit.  And as interest rates rise, the net interest payments to service the debt also rise.

  Net interest payments on the national debt for fiscal year 2021 were just over $300 billion.  This was in a year when the yield on the 10-Year Treasury note was mostly below 1.5 percent.  However, it won’t take much of an increase in interest rates to completely blowout the budget.

  According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, interest rates of one percentage point higher for all of fiscal year 2021 would have totaled interest costs of $530 billion — more than the cost of Medicaid.  Rates two percentage points higher would have totaled interest costs of $750 billion, which is more than the federal government spends on defense or Medicare.  And at three percentage points higher, interest costs would have totaled $975 billion — almost as much as is spent on Social Security.

  The greater the federal debt, the more exposed the federal government is to the ticking timebomb of rising interest rates.  What if the 10-Year Treasury note jumps to over 15 percent like it did in 1981 to counteract raging inflation?

  That would likely mean that net interest rate payments would be made entirely with borrowed money.  This along with mass currency debasement is where self-cannibalization ultimately leads.

  In the meantime, President Biden and team have hatched a pretty neat scheme to shirk responsibility…

  Boondoggle Democracy for the Elites

  The main task for politicians is to evade responsibility when it’s discovered that infrastructure spending, like other forms of waste, is flushed down the toilet.  Biden knows something about this.  He has experience.

  When President Barry Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in early-2009 he tasked his Vice President, Joe Biden, with ensuring the $800 billion was spent wisely.  Biden put together an oversight team to follow the money.  He also pleaded with local politicians to not spend the money on “stupid things.”  Little good this did.  According to the Wall Street Journal:

  “An Alaskan village called Ouzinkie, population 167, received a $15 million airport while some major hubs received nothing.  Only about 10 percent of the law’s spending, or $80 billion, was devoted to infrastructure—and very little went to critical work.  Funding ‘shovel-ready’ projects promised by Mr. Obama meant that money didn’t go to the bridges most in need of repair but to jobs that could quickly clear the thicket of regulatory permitting.  Repaving roads was a typical activity; less than 12 percent of the infrastructure spending went for work on bridges.  A promised green-jobs boom never materialized.” 

  So where did the remaining 90 percent of the money go if only 10 percent went to infrastructure?  Does Biden know?  We suspect it went to the elites and connected insiders who did a lot of nothing with it while bringing home inflated incomes.

  Alas, the newest infrastructure boondoggle bill appears to be a repeat of the last one.  Washington’s merely piling boondoggles upon boondoggles.  The Cato Institute’s Randal O’Toole writes:

  “About half of the transportation dollars in the bill are dedicated to Amtrak and urban transit, modes of transportation that carry less than 1 percent of passenger travel and no freight.  While the other half appears to be dedicated to highways, much of that will be spent on projects that will reduce, not maintain or increase, roadway capacities.”

  At this point, what’s most important to President Biden is that Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, and other members of his cabinet have a way to shirk responsibility for all the waste to come.  Thus Biden announced that former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu will serve as senior advisor and infrastructure coordinator for the boondoggle bill.

  Will Landrieu do a better job than Biden did in this role?

  One can only hope.  But regardless, it really doesn’t matter…

  The Washington elites, thanks to 21st century American democracy, have another boondoggle bill to exploit and feed off.  After that, they’ll get another.  And countless roads will get repaved whether they need to or not.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/20/2021 – 19:30

• US Urges Taliban To "Earn Legitimacy" For Release Of $9BN In Frozen Afghan Funds
  US Urges Taliban To “Earn Legitimacy” For Release Of $9BN In Frozen Afghan Funds

  Twenty years of war and occupation, thousands of US troop and countless Afghan civilian deaths, and trillions of dollars later, Washington is now essentially begging the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan to “earn” legitimacy and respect in the eyes of international powers. 

  The Taliban since its takeover of the country last August amid the chaotic US troop pullout has been demanding the US release billions in frozen Afghan funds held abroad. On Friday the new Biden-picked US special envoy for Afghanistan Thomas West called on the hardline Islamist organization to reform itself, and then the US would mull unfreezing the assets.

  

  “Legitimacy and support must be earned by actions to address terrorism, establish an inclusive government, and respect the rights of minorities, women & girls — including equal access to education & employment,” West said in a statement posted to Twitter.

  Currently the US has frozen at least $9 billion in funds – which has angered the Taliban, also at a moment the group is pressing the United Nations to take a seat at the UN in New York from the former national government. 

  “Afghanistan was unfortunately already suffering a terrible humanitarian crisis before mid-August, made worse by war, years of drought, & the pandemic,” West said further in his statement, explaining that Washington had stuck by its prior vow to cut off foreign aid to the country in the case of a Taliban takeover. 

  “US officials made clear to the Taliban for years that if they pursued a military takeover rather than a negotiated settlement with fellow Afghans then critical non-humanitarian aid provided by the international community — in an economy enormously dependent on aid, including for basic services — would all but cease. That is what occurred,” he said. A limited amount of humanitarian aid has been approved by the Biden administration, however…

  5/5 The U.S. will continue to support the Afghan people with humanitarian aid. We’ve provided $474 million this year, applaud the robust efforts of Allies & partners in this space, & are making every effort to help the UN & humanitarian actors scale up to meet needs this winter.

  — U.S. Special Representative Thomas West (@US4AfghanPeace) November 19, 2021

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

  Ironically, the US sanctions on Kabul and blockage of foreign aid is likely mostly hurting the civilian population as the war-time economy continues to spiral, also amid the expectation that Western funds will continue being blocked for at least many more months to come.

  But despite prior attempts of the Taliban to present itself with a new “moderate” image, its hardline religious police have returned to the streets, and ghastly practices such as hanging executed bodies in public have returned, including cutting off hands for criminal offenses. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/20/2021 – 19:00

• Fighting "Information Disorder": Aspen's Orwellian Commission On Controlling Speech In America
  Fighting “Information Disorder”: Aspen’s Orwellian Commission On Controlling Speech In America

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  The Aspen Institute has issued the results of its much heralded 16-person Commission on Information Disorder on how to protect the public from misinformation. The commission on disinformation and “building trust” was partially headed by Katie Couric who is still struggling with her own admission that she edited an interview to remove controversial statements by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

  

  The Aspen recommendations however are a full-throated endorsement of systems of censorship.

  The findings and recommendations are found in an 80-page report on how to combat “disinformation” and “misinformation,” which are remarkably ill-defined but treated as a matter of “we know when we see it.”  From the outset, however, the Commission dismissed the long-standing free speech principle that the solution to bad speech is better speech, not censorship. The problem is that many today object to allowing those with opposing views to continue to speak or others continue to listen to them.  The Commission quickly tosses the free speech norm to the side:

  “The biggest lie of all, which this crisis thrives on, and which the beneficiaries of mis- and disinformation feed on, is that the crisis itself is uncontainable. One of the corollaries of that mythology is that, in order to fight bad information, all we need is more (and better distributed) good information. In reality, merely elevating truthful content is not nearly enough to change our current course.”

  In addition to Couric, the Commission was headed by Color of Change President Rashad Robinson and Chris Krebs, former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Robinson was also a notable choice since he has been one of the most outspoken advocates of censorship. While some of us have been denouncing the expanding system of censorship by companies like Facebook, Robinson was threatening boycotts if the companies do not “rein in” those considered racists or spreaders of misinformation.

  The Commission also includes Prince Harry who has referred to free speech protections under the First Amendment as “bonkers.”

  Much of the report seems more aspirational in recommendations like “endorsing efforts that focus on exposing how historical and current imbalances of power, access and equity are manufactured and propagated with mis- and disinformation — and on promoting community-led solutions to forging social bonds.”

  The Commission also appears to endorse the movement against “objectivity” and “both sideism” in the media: “Commissioners also discussed the need to adjust journalistic norms to avoid false equivalencies between lies and empirical fact in the pursuit of ‘both sides’ and ‘objectivity,’ particularly in areas of public health, civil rights, or election outcomes.”

  Former New York Times Magazine reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones was one of the journalists who pushed the New York Times to denounce its own publication and promise to curtail columns in the future. In so doing, she railed against those who engage in what she called “even-handedness, both sideism” journalism.  Likewise,  Stanford Communications Professor Emeritus Ted Glasser has publicly called for an end of objectivity in journalism as too constraining for reporters in seeking “social justice.” In an interview with The Stanford Daily, Glasser insisted that journalism needed to “free itself from this notion of objectivity to develop a sense of social justice.” He rejected the notion that journalism is based on objectivity and said that he views “journalists as activists because journalism at its best — and indeed history at its best — is all about morality.”  Thus, “journalists need to be overt and candid advocates for social justice, and it’s hard to do that under the constraints of objectivity.”

  However, the most chilling aspect of the report is the obvious invitation for greater forms of censorship. It calls for the government to become involved in combatting misinformation, the scourge of free speech and an invitation for state controls over speech. Ironically, there is no need for such direct government involvement when social media companies are acting as the equivalent of a state media in the censorship of public debates.

  The import of the recommendations are abundantly clear:

   “Reducing Harms: Mitigating the worst harms of mis- and disinformation, such as threats to public health and democratic participation, and the targeting of communities through hate speech and extremism.

  • Comprehensive Federal Approach: Establish a comprehensive strategic approach to countering disinformation and the spread of misinformation, including a centralized national response strategy, clearly-defined roles and responsibilities across the Executive Branch, and identified gaps in authorities and capabilities.

  • Public Restoration Fund: Create an independent organization, with a mandate to develop systemic misinformation countermeasures through education, research, and investment in local institutions.

  • Civic Empowerment: Invest and innovate in online education and platform product features to increase users’ awareness of and resilience to online misinformation.

  • Superspreader Accountability: Hold superspreaders of mis- and disinformation to account with clear, transparent, and consistently applied policies that enable quicker, more decisive actions and penalties, commensurate with their impacts — regardless of location, or political views, or role in society.

  • Amendments to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996: 1) Withdraw platform immunity for content that is promoted through paid advertising and post promotion; and 2) Remove immunity as it relates to the implementation of product features, recommendation engines, and design.”

  The ill-defined terms of “misinformation” and “disinformation” become more menacing when those terms are used as the basis for a government and private sector system to take “decisive actions and penalties” against those who spread such information.  The Commission is more focused on harm than the specific definition:

  “Disinformation inflames long-standing inequalities and undermines lived experiences for historically targeted communities, particularly Black/African American communities. False narratives can sow division, hamper public health initiatives, undermine elections, or deliver fresh marks to grifters and profiteers, and they capitalize on deep-rooted problems within American society. Disinformation pours lighter fluid on the sparks of discord that exist in every community.”

  In the end, the Commission dismisses the classic defense of free speech while calling for greater regulation of speech to address “deep-rooted problems in American society.” However, the deepest rooted problems in our society include the denial of free speech. Indeed, the First Amendment is premised on the belief that this right is essential to protecting the other freedoms in the Constitution. It is the right that allows people to challenge their government and others on electoral issues, public health issues, and other controversies.

  The Aspen report is the latest evidence of a building anti-free speech movement in the United States. It is a movement that both rejects core free speech values but also seeks to normalize censorship. In the last few years, we have seen an increasing call for private censorship from Democratic politicians and liberal commentators. Faculty and editors are now actively supporting modern versions of book-burning with blacklists and bans for those with opposing political views. Columbia Journalism School Dean Steve Coll has denounced the “weaponization” of free speech, which appears to be the use of free speech by those on the right. So the dean of one of the premier journalism schools now supports censorship.

  Free speech advocates are facing a generational shift that is now being reflected in our law schools, where free speech principles were once a touchstone of the rule of law. As millions of students are taught that free speech is a threat and that “China is right” about censorship, these figures are shaping a new and more limited role for free speech in society.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/20/2021 – 18:30

• Northrop Grumman To Develop "Agile And Affordable" Lunar Rover For Astronauts 
  Northrop Grumman To Develop “Agile And Affordable” Lunar Rover For Astronauts 

  Aerospace and defense technology company Northrop Grumman unveiled a high-tech dune-buggy that astronauts may use once they return to the lunar surface.

  Northrop Grumman is designing an unpressurized Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) to transport NASA’s Artemis astronauts across the lunar surface. NASA created the Artemis program during the Trump administration, intending to have the first woman and first person of color on the moon between 2024-2025 but come to find out this month, NASA’s Office of the Inspector General said the landing event will probably take place several years after 2024. 

  “Together with our teammates, we will provide NASA with an agile and affordable vehicle design to greatly enhance human and robotic exploration of the lunar surface to further enable a sustainable human presence on the Moon and, ultimately, Mars,” said Steve Krein, vice president, civil and commercial space, tactical space systems division, Northrop Grumman.

  

  Not much is known about LTV regarding the specific design and capabilities for potential use in the Artemis program. Northrop Grumman partnered with propulsion system specialist AVL, space products provider Intuitive Machines, space technology company Lunar Outpost, and tire expert Michelin to help design the LTV. 

  NASA has turned to the commercial industry for the LTV. The space agency put out a call in August requesting LTV designs from U.S. companies. The request stated that a lunar rover must be electric-powered and survive the moon’s surface for at least a decade.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/20/2021 – 18:00

• Peak Season Over: Container-Ship Arrivals In Southern California Fall
  Peak Season Over: Container-Ship Arrivals In Southern California Fall

  By Greg Miller of Freightwaves

  Amid all the headlines on consumer demand, imports to America’s primary container gateway — the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach — have sunk back to pre-COVID levels, not only due to congestion stranding massive amounts of cargo offshore, but also due to a pullback in ship arrivals that’s being obscured by the congestion story.

  LA-LB imports normalizing

  The Port of Los Angeles held its monthly press briefing on Tuesday, featuring Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, but the port didn’t have its monthly numbers ready at the time of the event.

  Two days later, the country’s largest port belatedly reported that it imported 467,287 twenty-foot equivalent units of containerized cargo in October, down 8% from October 2020 and down 4% from October 2018, pre-COVID.

  Looking at LA-LB volumes combined, October import volumes totaled 852,287 TEUs, down 6% from last October and flat with October 2018 levels. Monthly imports to LA-LB in October were down 13% from this year’s May peak of 980,450 TEUs.

  

  LA-LB imports are still on track for a record year. Also, at the end of last month, statistics from the Marine Exchange of Southern California showed ships waiting offshore with a capacity of 637,326 TEUs. In other words, October would have been by far the best import month ever for Southern California, if only all that cargo could have made it ashore.

  Ship arrivals are falling

  The number of container ships arriving in LA-LB is actually falling as wait times from anchorage to berth are simultaneously surging.

  The rising number of ships at anchor or loitering is creating the perception of a rising tide of U.S. imports, when in fact, higher wait times for ships are being caused by landside logistics issues and gridlock at the ports — not higher inbound container-ship arrivals.

  

  The Marine Exchange publishes a daily harbor traffic update showing the number of container ships scheduled to arrive the following day. American Shipper analyzed the daily Marine Exchange data on scheduled arrivals for the following day from Aug. 1 through Wednesday.

  In the second half of this year, container-ship daily arrivals in LA-LB peaked in September, at a monthly average of 6 per day, up from 5.2 in August. Average daily arrivals then fell to 5.6 per day in October and 5.4 in November to date.

  

  Despite the pullback in arrivals, the average time it has taken for a container ship to get from waiting offshore (at anchorage or loitering) to a berth at the Port of Los Angeles has spiked 133% between Sept. 1 and Thursday, to 18.4 days.

  An all-time high of 86 container ships were waiting offshore of Los Angeles and Long Beach on Tuesday, according to the Marine Exchange. In November to date, an average of 78.7 containers ships per day have been stuck offshore, up 37% from the monthly average of 57.4 ships in September, despite a 10% decrease in the monthly average of arriving container ships in November to date versus September.

  

  Decrease in outbound empty containers

  During a public hearing on Oct. 29, Matt Schrap, CEO of the Harbor Trucking Association, argued that the biggest source of Los Angeles/Long Beach congestion is not import containers that dwell too long, but rather, empty outbound containers that dwell too long. “Empties are the issue here,” he said.

  

  To reduce port gridlock, outbound empty volumes need to increase, but in Los Angeles, they are decreasing. On Thursday, the port reported that 337,106 TEUs of empties were exported last month, down from 358,581 TEUs in September and 364,212 TEUs in August.

  The situation with empties piling up at the terminals has gotten even worse in November, Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka confirmed on Tuesday’s call. “We’ve got about 65,000 empty container units sitting on the docks right now,” he said. “That’s up from 55,000 just a couple of Fridays ago.”

  Seroka is encouraging liner companies to bring in “sweepers,” ships that are deployed to return empties. “We’ve seen six sweeper ships so far pick up a little more than 17,500 TEUs of empties and there are another two on their way that can probably pick up another 2,500 TEUs, but we’ve got to do a lot more than that.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/20/2021 – 17:30

• Smash-And-Grab Flashmobs Target Louis Vuitton Stores 
  Smash-And-Grab Flashmobs Target Louis Vuitton Stores 

  The effects of allowing chaos to prevail in Democrat-controlled US cities will destroy local commerce as businesses flee to safer areas. San Francisco officials have disregarded law and order with the passing of Proposition 47, which lowered penalties for thefts under $950 has sparked dramatic increases in shoplifting.

  By now, readers are well familiar with nearly two dozen Walgreens stores in San Francisco that have closed up shop due to the high rate of thefts (read: here & here).

  Ahead of the holiday shopping season, flashmobs are stepping up their game and targeting ultra-luxury retailers. On Friday night, videos surfaced on social media showing folks breaking through the front entrance of a Louis Vuitton store in San Francisco’s Union Square and making off with tens of thousands of dollars in purses and handbags. 

  Footage of Louis Vuitton in Union Square of San Francisco getting emptied. Look at how chill they are.

  I could’ve been physically able to do this. Call me next time! pic.twitter.com/8maf4x6PPy

  — Jenny, Girl from 4th 🌍, 鄰白廢物 🦍 (@JennyChachan) November 20, 2021

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  Louis Vuitton San Francisco, Union square got cleared out!! pic.twitter.com/7Sz6rlRo8n

  — Da Juan (@CARLITOSGUEY) November 20, 2021

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  The price range of a Louis Vuitton bag is from around $1,100 to about $6,000 – some bags can exceed more than $20,000. So it appears some thieves made off with goods above the $950 limit. 

  The Louis Vuitton in San Francisco union square just got emptied out 😳 pic.twitter.com/Imi6qbL0i1

  — Yealenne (@Yealenne) November 20, 2021

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  San Francisco Police Department officers arrived at the scene and arrested multiple suspects, according to local news ABC7 News. 

  “Officers arrived on scene to a retail store in Union Square where they observed several suspects involved in criminal acts. Officers have arrested multiple suspects,” police said in a written statement.

  SFPD said the Louis Vuitton store wasn’t the only one to get hit. Officers are “continuing to respond to other retail establishments, where reports of vandalism are occurring.” 

  In a separate incident last week, a flashmob of 14 targeted a Louis Vuitton store in Chicago. Police said the group made off with over $100k worth of merchandise in a matter of minutes. 

  WANTED: At least 14 suspects conduct ‘grab & run’ at Louis Vuitton store in Oak Brook Center Mall near Chicago; Police estimate $100,000 worth of merchandise was stolen – WGN pic.twitter.com/mEaVnCA7x8

  — Breaking911 (@Breaking911) November 18, 2021

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  Liberal cities that have relaxed laws on petty crimes and or defunded the police are stuck in a dangerous cycle of lawlessness that will be another big backlash for Democrats during the 2022 midterm elections. 

  When will the Biden administration pay people, not to flashmob stores?

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/20/2021 – 17:00

• Welcome To The 'New Normal': This Is Going To Be A Holiday Season That None Of Us Will Ever Forget
  Welcome To The ‘New Normal’: This Is Going To Be A Holiday Season That None Of Us Will Ever Forget

  Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

  We seem to have entered a nightmare that does not appear to have an ending.  Earlier this year, many of the “experts” assured us that the U.S. economy would be “booming” by the end of 2021, but that didn’t turn out to be true at all.  Instead, we are dealing with widespread shortages, the worst inflation since the 1970s, and the most epic supply chain crisis in the history of the United States.  So this year, we are all going to have a “new normal” holiday season.  The upcoming holidays may not be quite what you have become accustomed to, but the elite are still trying to put a positive spin on things.

  

  For example, CNN is encouraging us to look on the bright side by assuring us that we “won’t have to cancel Thanksgiving” even though store shelves are increasingly bare…

  If you’ve been noticing emptier shelves when shopping for Thanksgiving, you’re not alone. But you won’t have to cancel Thanksgiving.

  The shortages of 2020 were supposed to be long gone by now, but instead the shortages of 2021 are far worse.  If you doubt this, just check out these availability numbers for some of our most important Thanksgiving staples…

  During that first week of November, whole bird frozen, fixed-weight turkeys were in stock at a rate of 64% on average across national retailers, IRI found. This time last year, that figure was around 86%. IRI data didn’t include seasonal fresh turkey. Last week, many Americans who were buying turkey early were buying frozen birds.

  Availability of packaged pie was roughly 68% that week, compared to 78% in 2020. Liquid gravy, with an in-stock rate of 73%, is down about 12 percentage points compared to last year. Cranberry sauce, with 79% availability, is down from 89% in that same period.

  I still remember the “good old days” when every store had turkeys and pies.

  Will we ever see such days again?

  There is a shortage of Christmas trees too.  It is being reported that the U.S. is now facing a significant shortage of both real and fake Christmas trees…

  Anyone planning on purchasing a Christmas tree this year should act fast, according to experts.

  Extreme weather and supply chain issues caused by the ongoing pandemic have led to shortages in both real and faux trees, according to the American Christmas Tree Association.

  A shortage of fake Christmas trees?

  Oh the humanity!

  How will we possibly survive?

  In addition to a lack of trees, CBS News is telling us that a number of other things will also be in very short supply over the next couple of months…

  -Clothing and accessories

  -Apple iPhone 13

  -Sportswear

  -L.O.L. Surprise! toys

  -Alcohol

  -Jewelry

  -PS5 and Xbox gaming consoles

  -Christmas lights

  Of course these shortages shouldn’t really surprise anyone, because it seems like there are shortages of just about everything these days.

  For instance, the shortage of garage doors has become so severe that builders in Sacramento are now being permitted to board up the garages of newly built homes…

  The city of Sacramento will now allow garages to be boarded up in new homes, if the garage doors are not delivered in time.

  Its a response to the shortage of garage doors caused by rampant supply chain problems.

  Sadly, a lot of other things will be getting boarded up in the months ahead as our economy continues to crumble.

  A little over a year ago, Joe Biden promised voters that prices would go down and our standard of living would go up if he won the election.

  Apparently he must have been campaigning in “Bizarro World” at the time, because what we have actually gotten has been the exact opposite.

  And things aren’t going to be getting better any time soon.

  At this point, even Goldman Sachs is publicly admitting that inflation “will get worse this winter”…

  “The current inflation surge will get worse this winter before it gets better,” Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research warns clients in a “2022 U.S. Economic Outlook.”

  This is the weirdest economy that I have ever seen in the entire time that I have been writing, and the American people are becoming increasingly restless.

  In fact, the latest ABC News-Washington Post poll found that 70 percent of all Americans now rate the economy negatively.

  So there is certainly a lot of bad news out there right now.

  But I am going to end this article with some good news.

  We just learned that implementation and enforcement of the OSHA mandate has been officially suspended.  The following comes from the official OSHA website…

  On November 12, 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit granted a motion to stay OSHA’s COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing Emergency Temporary Standard, published on November 5, 2021 (86 Fed. Reg. 61402) (“ETS”). The court ordered that OSHA “take no steps to implement or enforce” the ETS “until further court order.” While OSHA remains confident in its authority to protect workers in emergencies, OSHA has suspended activities related to the implementation and enforcement of the ETS pending future developments in the litigation.

  As litigation proceeds, things could still change.

  But for now, this deeply insidious unconstitutional mandate has officially been put on hold.

  And that is something that all of us should be truly thankful for, because the OSHA mandate could have forced millions of hard working Americans out of their jobs early next year.

  So despite the widespread shortages we are witnessing, the painful inflation we are enduring and the supply chain problems that never seem to end, we have a great deal to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.

  At least for now, millions of jobs have been saved, and the U.S. economy has avoided an absolutely devastating blow.

  *  *  *

  It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/20/2021 – 16:30

• Rand Paul Leads Push To Block Biden's $650 Million Arms Transfer To Saudis
  Rand Paul Leads Push To Block Biden’s $650 Million Arms Transfer To Saudis

  The Saudi coalition war against Houthi rebels in Yemen has witnessed an uptick in intensity this past week and month, with the Houthis on Saturday saying they’ve launched several missile attacks on Saudi bases and oil refineries in the kingdom’s south. 

  The timing is interesting given the Biden White House’s recently announced plans to transfer at least $650 more in weaponry to Riyadh, despite prior Biden pledges to help end the war in Yemen. Specifically the proposed sale involves what’s being dubiously dubbed “defensive” air-to-air missiles or AMRAAMs, as well as 596 LAU-128 missile rail launchers (MRLs).

  This week, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul has been leading the charge seeking to kill the large missile sale to the Saudis. His office told the foreign policy D.C.-based think tanks Responsible Statecraft that “A message needs to be sent to Saudi Arabia that we don’t approve of their war in Yemen.”

  

  “By participating in this sale, we would not only be rewarding reprehensible behavior but also exacerbating a humanitarian crisis in Yemen,” Sen. Paul said. To be successful in stopping the sale he’ll have to get Democrats on board. 

  On Thursday he was joined by Bernie Sanders (D-VT) and Mike Lee (R-UT) in introducing a resolution to block the transfer, which argues that Saudi war crimes in Yemen prevent the US from legally doing so. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) had already days prior introduced a similar resolution, “It is simply unconscionable to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia while they continue to slaughter innocent people and starve millions in Yemen, kill and torture dissidents, and support modern-day slavery,” she had said.

  A report by Responsible Statecraft noted that the Congressional and legal debate will likely hinge on whether the weapons are indeed “defensive” or “offensive” – with the latter being what Paul and others have emphasized: 

  Other comments speak to what could be the sticking point for many others — the difference between “offensive” and “defensive” weapons. At the beginning of his term, President Biden pledged to end all assistance to Riyadh for its “offensive” operations in Yemen. In the months since, analysts have scratched their heads over what that really means and whether the administration would find loopholes through which to drive new arms sales to Saudi Arabia anyway (there is one, approved by the Trump administration, still on hold).

  What’s been described as the “forgotten war” in Yemen has raged since 2015, with for much of that period the Pentagon providing direct assistance to Saudi-UAE coalition airstrikes against Yemeni Houthi rebels backed by Iran.

  Biden’s $500m Saudi deal contradicts Biden’s promises on ‘offensive’ weapons used in Yemen war, critics say https://t.co/7felTjmlt3

  — Jon Rainwater (@jonrainwater) October 28, 2021

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  Prior US involvement in the Saudi-waged war grew increasingly controversial, given the high civilian death toll – amid a total estimated death toll of over 130,000 Yemenis killed.

  Though it does appear that over the last two years the Pentagon has moved away from active or direct involvement in executing airstrikes, the US has still provided the Saudi-UAE coalition with the bulk of the military equipment (and training). Sen. Paul’s resolution is seeking to shut down the US-Saudi war machine in Yemen entirely – however, hawks say that such a move will only strengthen Iran, given Tehran’s covert support to the Shia Houthis.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/20/2021 – 16:00

• Jim Grant: "The Fed Reminds Me Of A Speculator On The Wrong Side Of The Market"
  Jim Grant: “The Fed Reminds Me Of A Speculator On The Wrong Side Of The Market”

  Authored by Christoph Gisiger via TheMarket.ch,

  Jim Grant, editor of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, warns of the rampant speculation in the stock market. He worries that the central banks are underestimating the threat of persistently high inflation and explains why gold has a bright future.

  

  The financial markets are «high». In the U.S., the S&P 500 is up for seven straight days, closing on another record at the end of last week. Particularly in demand are red-hot stocks like Tesla and Nvidia with fantastically rich valuations. Together, the two companies have gained around $600 billion in market value in the past three weeks alone.

  For Jim Grant, this is an environment that calls for increased caution. According to the editor of the iconic investment bulletin «Grant’s Interest Rate Observer», investors have to beware of an explosive cocktail combining exceptionally easy monetary policy, a pronounced appetite for speculation, and the high degree of leverage. He also thinks that central banks are underestimating the risk of persistent inflation.

  «The Fed reminds me of a speculator who is on the wrong side of the market», says Mr. Grant.

  The fact that the Federal Reserve is now beginning to taper its bond purchases makes little difference in his view.

  «It’s like pouring a little less gasoline on the fire,» he thinks.

  In this in-depth interview with The Market/NZZ, which has been edited and condensed for clarity, the outspoken market observer and contrarian investor compares today’s environment with the second half of the 1960s and explains why he expects persistently high inflation rates. He explains what this means for the dollar as well as for gold, and where the best investment opportunities are with respect to the challenge of global warming.

  Mr. Grant, what does the financial world look like from your perspective in late fall 2021?

  It feels like the only days the stock market doesn’t make new highs is Saturday and Sunday when it’s not open. So certainly, there is never a dull moment. Things are very different, they are singular: We have the lowest interest rates in about 4000 years, or perhaps 3990 years because they have recently gone up a bit. But these are still some of the lowest interest rates on record. At the same time, we have some of the highest equity valuations with perhaps the exception of 1999 and 2000. And, we have one of the most speculative Zeitgeists on record. It is a time of disinhibition, of rampant, riotous speculation and of all the accompanying thrills and chills.

  Few people know the history of financial markets as well as you do. What parallels would you draw to the current environment from the past?

  There are certainly some things that resemble it. For instance, the late 1960s anticipated some of this. It was a time of rising CPI inflation and a great boom in new issues and over the counter stocks. During that era, a writer who went by the pen name «Adam Smith» wrote popular books about Wall Street, including «The Money Game». He said what you have to do is to go out and hire some very young people to run your portfolios for you because only they understand what’s happening. I think of this in connection with the novelties of today: You want to go out and hire people in the age of perhaps 21 or 22 and give them each a million dollars as they go out and speculate without any pretense of security analysis. They just go out and buy all of the NFTs and cryptos that are going up.

  Are there also specific differences from previous speculative bubbles?

  I think today’s Zeitgeist is unique in the intensity of the speculation and in the amount of dollars, or Swiss Francs, British Pounds or Euros involved. And, it is perhaps unprecedented in the leverage applied to these speculations. But it is not unique in the sense that humanity, the human race in one great aggregate in its past and present, has lived through these episodes before. We have lived through them in the tulip mania of course, and the great speculation of the early 18th Century with the Mississippi Company and the likes, and the railroad bubble after that. Speculative episodes aren’t anything but unprecedented. So let me re-emphasize: What is unique today is the intensity, the amount of money, the amount of leverage and the monetary backdrop. All of these things are unique.

  Where do you observe the biggest excesses when it comes to leverage?

  I’m thinking of corporate leverage in particular. Just to pick one example, you can observe it in the decline in the quality of the debt as witnessed by the deterioration of the covenants; the fine print in the section of a bond indenture which limits the options or choices a corporate borrower can make with respect to adding new debt or distributing new cash. Today, the covenants are much weaker, and the ratio of debt to cash flow is much higher than it was even in 2007-08.

  We know what happened next: The credit crisis almost caused a meltdown of the financial system. Nevertheless, today even long-term unprofitable companies are generously financed by investors like SoftBank with private equity and venture capital money.

  Certainly, SoftBank is right up there as an exemplar or an avatar of the current age. It takes this place with Tesla, China Evergrande and with other companies. The way they operate to enhance themselves and the goals they have set for themselves exemplify a time of free and easy lending and borrowing as well as of flyaway prices and of seemingly limitless valuations.

  At the same time, wild trading in short-term stock options is taking place. Is the stock price of companies like Tesla being manipulated?

  I haven’t made any study between the connection of option trading activity and stock prices, so I have to decline to comment on that. But this is a time of unusually, if not uniquely easy financial conditions, and a time of conditioned expectations by repeated interventions of the Federal Reserve to contain any weakness in share prices and bond prices. As a general rule, in such a setting you would expect that people would be out over their skis.

  At the moment, the most important question is whether the rise in inflation will be persistent or transitory. What do you think?

  I’m in the persistent camp, rather than the transitory camp. But we’re all guessing, and it becomes ill for anyone to dogmatize or to insist that she or he knows the future. Especially, since we collectively have been so surprised by events like the pandemic. So it’s not as if anyone has a clear line of the future. But what’s so striking about the current alignment of the financial stars is that the bond market – either it’s foresight, hindsight or just faith – is choosing to look beyond today’s inflation problems.

  What do you mean by that?

  In the United States, the ten-year Treasury note is yielding more or less 1.5%, despite the measured rate of inflation being currently in excess of 5% year-over-year. And the increase in producer prices is even greater. So the bond market, like the Fed, is making a big bet on this notion of a transitory inflation that is all about the shortage of goods and services, rather than the excess of purchasing power.

  Why do you think the Fed’s assessment of a transitory inflation could prove to be wrong?

  Well, nothing is permanent in our transitory lives. But my hunch from examining current data and from recalling past instances of serious inflation is that this very well could be persistent. By that, I mean lingering well beyond the first few months of 2022, perhaps going on for a year, or two or three. Interestingly, there has only been one prior serious episode of a piece-time inflation. Every other inflation in U.S. up until the one that began in 1965, was a phenomenon of war or the aftermath of war.

  How did inflation come about at that time?

  The inflation that began in the Sixties crept in on little cat’s feet, to borrow from the poem «Fog» by Carl Sandburg. First, it was 3%, then 4%, and it didn’t seem too bad. But by late 1967, the then Chairman of the Fed, William McChesney Martin, said that it was too late: The horse of inflation was out of the barn. Today, people talk about the inflation in the Seventies, but we should not forget that it began in the mid-Sixties in a seemingly harmless way. Like today, many people said at that time that a little inflation is desirable because it lubricates the wheels of commerce and it makes people optimistic about the future because their nominal wages are going up. So the inflation came upon the world very gently and gradually, but before you knew it, it became entrenched.

  Where do you see signs of similar developments today?

  For instance, take a look at what’s happening at John Deere & Co. They are in the first major strike since 1986, and the Union membership voted down a wage package that looked like a rise of 10%. So we can’t predict the future, but we can observe how investors are setting the odds on the future – and from what I can tell, investors are betting on transitory inflation. They are betting that the central banks are in control, and that today’s low interest rates will prove persistent and that everything is more or less fine. That’s the consensus as one reads it in the marketplace. But I think that it is not a certainty at all, and one is advised to take out insurance on this big bet being dead wrong.

  What else points to permanently high inflation rates?

  There is a general move in Corporate America, and perhaps business people elsewhere to build in a margin of safety in the supply chains and in manufacturing processes. The current state of the world’s supply chains reminds somewhat of the valuations of the world’s securities: There is no margin of safety in the financial market place, and there has been very little margin of safety in the construction of supply chains.

  And what does that have to do with inflation?

  That’s one reason to expect that we are embarked on an inflation that may be a little bit stickier and longer lived than the authorities would wish or expect: There is a movement to so-called onshore manufacturing, bringing activity away from the seemingly well protected low-cost Asian centers from where seamless transportation could deliver parts and finished goods reliably and cheaply in the past. It’s a move away from that to bring things back to higher-wage areas. And, as I see it, people are at a much faster pace than in the 1960s reforming their expectations and adapting to what may prove to be a longer duration problem.

  Then again, at the FOMC meeting last week the Federal Reserve reiterated that it does not expect permanently high inflation.

  That to me is another sign that this is a bigger problem than they admit. The Fed reminds me of a speculator or an investor who is on the wrong side of the market. But even though the market goes into the unexpected and unauthorized direction and this speculator is suffering, he will not sell if he’s long, or not cover if he’s short. Basically, the Fed is saying: No, we’re right! The markets are wrong, just be patient.

  For the first time since the outbreak of the pandemic, the Fed is now reducing its securities purchases somewhat. By next summer, the stimulus program should be completely wound down. Isn’t that a step in the right direction?

  The tapering is just a way of the Fed saying «we are not tightening; we are loosening at a slower rate.» History will make of it what it will, that the Fed met this inflation by buying $120 billion of bonds and mortgage-backed securities per month. And then, history will scratch its head to figure why the Fed has chosen to meet that inflation after six or nine months – however you want to date it – by continuing to buy a lot of securities and turning those securities into dollars. It’s like pouring just a little less gasoline on the fire.

  Yet, despite the unprecedented stimulus measures and the huge increase in government debt, the dollar has been surprisingly robust this year.

  But the competition isn’t much in the world of paper currencies. In a world of vanishingly tiny rates, I guess many people observe that American interest rates are relatively robust. Still, one always has to take the market’s judgment with respect and difference. After all, it is the market speaking. Still, I wonder if the market has taken the full measure of the weakness of the current Biden administration and of the geopolitical stirrings coming from China and the particular risk to Taiwan. That’s why the dollar might be at risk for geopolitical nuisance as well as for reasons having to do with American inflation.

  Intuitively, however, one would think that the dollar would trend firmer in the event of an escalation in the Asia-Pacific region. Don’t investors usually take refuge in safe haven assets like the dollar in times of crisis?

  It could be. It worked in March of 2020, interestingly enough. But it wasn’t the way it worked in the 1970s. So a great deal depends upon the world’s perception of the United States’ geopolitical strength. And a great deal depends upon the course of American interest rates. It depends for example on whether the Fed is prepared to carry through on its now very preliminary program of being a little bit less easy. But what happens if the market, instead of continuing to go up, reverses course? The Fed might panic, as it has panicked in recent years. So if you have a fall in stock prices, the Fed could loosen its policy again – and that wouldn’t be so hot for the dollar.

  How can investors best position themselves in this environment?

  Well, let’s take a quick look again on the lay of the land: Stocks are near all-time high valuations, interest rates near all-time lows, inflation is percolating, leverage high, and the Federal Reserve still in partial denial. People are reaching for yield at acrobatic levels. Figuratively speaking, they climb on steep ladders, grasping for returns in the hopes of generating some income to meet the actuarial demand of pension plans or University endowments. This is a setup of great risk and oddly enough of a widespread denial that it is risky.

  What does that mean for investors?

  I think this juxtaposition of objectively great financial risk on one hand, and the collective attitude of madcap indifference to that risk on the other hand spells trouble.

  Now, people can say to me:

  «That’s all well and good, except you have been saying that for a long time, in fact seemingly forever, and yet things go up.»

  My answer to that is: Yes, correct. All that’s true and I don’t know when things go south. So at «Grant’s», we try to present ideas that have a margin of safety and that can offer people a chance to realize good returns even in the midst of the aforementioned troubles and risks.

  What’s an example for such an investment?

  «Grant’s» had an investment conference a few weeks ago, and I would suggest that people take a page from Will Thomson, one of the speakers. His point was that when you’re serious about the climate you shouldn’t pay heed to inherently backward-looking ESG scores. In other words: You should not be buying these ESG funds that own nothing except Apple, Facebook and other FAANG names. You’re not helping the world by doing that. Instead, you are helping the world when you invest in companies that aren’t inherently «green», but are becoming «green».

  What kind of companies are we talking about here?

  Will made this point very well. As an example of constructive greenifying, he identified RWE, which once was Europe’s largest coal-powered utility and now is one of its top producers of carbon-free electricity. He also presented a selection of companies that make the component materials for solar panels and wind farms. For instance, he thinks Siemens Energy is a premier play on the burgeoning growth in turbines, substations, hydrogen electrolyzers and other essential energy-infrastructure items.

  It’s also no secret that you are a passionate fan of gold. What’s your take on the precious metal at the current time?

  I love it with the same intensity that I am frustrated by it, which is considerable. That is a rather poetic expression of my opinion. So let me get you a more down to earth answer: Gold is unusual in that it is kind of outside this speculative whirlwind. Gold mining stocks are perhaps at all-time cheap levels with respect to the S&P 500. Whether it’s yield you’re talking about, or free cash flow, or price to earnings, or profit margins: Gold mining shares are perhaps as cheap as they have ever been against the broad market. So gold is a little bit of an island of indifference in a boiling sea of gambling and speculation.

  When will gold shine again?

  Gold is not what cryptos are, it’s not what NFTs are, it’s not what Tesla is. It is outside of a raging speculation and I think it will come into its own raging speculation when this great speculative episode, correctly called the Everything Bubble, bursts. But it’s not going to attract much interest as long as stocks are making daily new highs. So count me still bullish, but also very frustrated.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/20/2021 – 15:30

• "No Turning Point Yet" – Soaring Food Inflation To Continue Into 2022: Commodity Expert
  “No Turning Point Yet” – Soaring Food Inflation To Continue Into 2022: Commodity Expert

  Soaring food inflation has still more room to run and will continue well into 2022, according to Judy Ganes, the president of J. Ganes Consulting. 

  Ganes was interviewed on Bloomberg Television Friday and said rising food prices should continue into the middle of next year. 

  “We’re not seeing a turning point just yet, we’ll probably see it, my guess is the middle of next year. There’s a point where high prices are the best cure for high prices, there’s a point where its going to have to resolve itself,” she said. 

  She pointed out rising prices were due to a combination of factors, such as caps on migration, red hot labor market, labor shortages, adverse weather conditions, snarled supply, higher fertilizer prices, and soaring transportation costs.

  Ganes said the end to several major droughts and increased rainfall in major producing areas means global food production in 2023-24 will be “much improved.” 

  For instance, she pointed out that farmers worldwide are experiencing higher costs due to labor shortages and expensive fertilizer. “In Brazil, labor rates have to match what the inflation rate is, and if inflation is at 10%, then wages go up 10%, and that hits straight through the supply chain,” she said. 

  Brazil is a top ag country, producing everything from citrus to coffee to beef. Much of the ag goods are transported around the world, especially to the US. 

  Ganes’ view that food inflation is persistent comes one day after Cargill CEO David MacLennan told Bloomberg he changed his mind about “transitory” inflation and now believes it will be more persistent with higher food prices in 2022. 

  “I thought inflation in ags and food was transitory. I feel less so now because of continued shortages in labor markets,” MacLennan said during an interview at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore. “That’s one of the inputs to the supply chain that we’re watching most carefully.” 

  The latest data from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization’s food price index shows that October prices climbed to a new decade high, mainly due to soaring vegetable oils and cereals. 

  

  Compound rising food prices with higher energy, shelter, and vehicle cost, working poor Americans have seen their real wages turn negative this year. Core CPI in October spiked to its highest since August 1991…

  

  John Maynard Keynes once said: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?” And as the facts prove today, inflation is not as “transitory” as the Biden administration and the Federal Reserve want everyone to believe. They’ve doubled down on the narrative that will likely prove to become a dangerous bet ahead of the 2022 midterms, where people might vote with their depleted wallets. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/20/2021 – 15:00

• Full Employment? Ask Young Workers
  Full Employment? Ask Young Workers

  By Nicholas Colas of DataTrek Research

  The $64 question for the US labor market is how close are we to full employment in a post-pandemic world? One way we can assess this topic is by looking at the current employment status of younger Americans. This cohort was disproportionately hurt after the Financial Crisis, particularly when it came to underemployment. It took a hot labor market and years of economic growth to incorporate them into the labor force and into positions that matched their skill levels. Did the Pandemic Recession cause the same problem all over again, or are we in a better spot now?

  #1: Here’s how young workers with and without a college degree are faring relative to prior cycles using data from the New York Fed (rates calculated as a 12-month moving average back to 1990):

  • The unemployment rate for recent college graduates (aged 22 to 27) with a bachelor’s degree or higher fell to 5.4 percent in September 2021 (latest available data) from a high of 13.3 pct in June 2020 during the pandemic. The lows of the last 3 economic cycles were 3.5 pct (November 2019), 3.0 pct (May 2007) and 3.7 pct (November 2000). Average: 3.4 pct, or 2 percentage points below the current rate.

  • The unemployment rate for all college grads (aged 22 to 65) was 2.9 pct as of September versus a high of 8.0 pct in June 2020. The lows of the last 3 cycles were 2.0 pct (January 2020), 2.0 pct (March 2007) and 1.7 pct (December 2000). Average: 1.9 pct, down 1 percentage point from the current rate.

  • The unemployment rate of young workers without a bachelor’s degree (aged 22 to 27) was 8.8 pct in September 2021 versus a high of 21.5 pct in June 2020. The lows of the last 3 cycles were 5.8 pct (June 2019), 7.4 pct (May 2007) and 6.0 pct (October 2000). Average: 6.4 pct, or down 2.4 percentage points from the current rate

  

  Takeaway: each cohort’s unemployment rate has improved much more quickly than after the Great Recession. Young workers without higher education have the furthest to go to reach their lowest average unemployment rate of the last 3 cycles, followed by recent college grads and all college grads. Young workers without a college degree always take the longest to get pulled back into the labor force after recession given that doing so requires an especially strong economy.

  #2: Underemployment (“the share of graduates working in jobs that typically do not require a college degree”):

  • The underemployment rate of all college grads was 33.0 pct as of September. The lows of the prior 3 economic cycles were: 33.4 pct (December 2019), 33.2 pct (August 2008) and 31.4 pct (June 2000). Average: 32.7 pct

  • The underemployment rate of recent college grads was 41.0 pct in September 2021. The lows of the past 3 cycles were: 40.2 pct (September 2018), 40.6 pct (January 2008) and 36.6 pct (April 2001). Average: 39.1 pct.

  

  Takeaway: the underemployment rates of college grads and recent college grads are much lower than the last recovery. Both are currently just above their lowest average underemployment rates of the last three cycles. By contrast, they took much longer to improve after the Dot Com Bubble and Financial Crisis, particularly in the case of recent college grads.

  Here are our three takeaways from this data:

  1. Unemployment among recent college grads and younger workers without a college degree continues to fall at a brisk clip, but they are not yet at the point of full employment as compared to the prior three cycles. The unemployment rate for recent college grads is currently around levels reached in 2014/early 2015 after the Financial Crisis, and 2016 in the case of younger workers without a degree. Again, much better than the last cycle, but still room for improvement relative to three decades of history. While that likely means overall full employment is still a way off, it does give employers a couple of pools of talent from which to hire amid labor shortages and near-record high levels of job openings. Whether that helps the US labor market bridge the gap of still 4.2 million jobs missing since before the pandemic will come down to two considerations: 1) both recent grads and younger workers without higher education lack experience, so employers will need to be willing to invest in training, and 2) employers may need to loosen their job requirements of having a college degree.

  2. Recent grads are much less likely to be underemployed than after the Financial Crisis, which yields two major positives on the consumer spending front: 1) adequate employment relative to young workers’ higher education level should mean they have more discretionary income, and 2) they should be less delayed with purchasing a home, having kids and all the purchases that come with those life milestones. This should help US economic growth, and in turn, the pace of further hiring.

  3. A faster labor market recovery for young workers should help overall productivity. Many younger workers missed out on formative first real job experiences after the Great Recession, so the sooner they train now the more effective they will be for companies and the greater economy.

  Bottom line: while unemployment among younger workers still exceeds the best levels of prior cycles, its rapid progress shows the US economy is getting closer to full employment more quickly than initially anticipated. Additionally, this is nothing like the environment after the last crisis when young college educated workers had to take jobs that did not leverage their education. They are entering a labor market hungry for workers, affording them the ability to find suitable jobs and pay which should in turn provide a boost to both US economic growth and productivity for years to come.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/20/2021 – 14:30

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• A Brief History Of West African Slavery
  A Brief History Of West African Slavery

  Submitted by ICE-9 via The Burning Platform

  Slave [sleyv] from Middle English, from Old French sclave, from Medieval Latin sclāvus (“slave”), from Late Latin Sclāvus (“Slavic Person”), from Byzantine Greek Σκλάβος (Sklábos), from Proto-Slavic slověninъ …

  The seminal image many 50+ year old Americans have regarding the West African slave trade’s operating model can be traced back to the 1977 television miniseries Roots.  Some of you may recall sitting in front of your CRT television screen unknowingly watching the roots of a future social justice movement unfold before your eyes as a gang of European men magically appear deep within the Heart of Darkness wielding nets, superior numbers, and incredible brutality and snatch up a young and happy Kunta Kinte from his ancestral homeland.

  Like me, I bet the knot in your gut got tighter at each stage as Kunta Kinte was first shipped off in chains to a slave depot, sold at auctioned, and finally sent to America where his foot got cut off and he was renamed Toby.  The miniseries was a monumental success at implanting those first seeds of suburban white guilt into what had previously been infertile terrain.  Afterwards, many Americans could never innocently watch OJ Simpson run through airports in quite the same way.

  Roots was the initial vector that dug its pernicious roots into the formerly oblivious white collective consciousness.  It succeeded where back in the 1960s continuous years of three minute lead story action clips on the Six O’clock Evening News showing groups of helpless southern Negroes getting pummeled by police truncheons and slammed with water cannons had failed.  Thus those January nights back in 1977 unleashed the power of humanized myth that unequivocally proved superior to the old ways of cold impersonal facts.  It was through this new found power of myth and the visceral emotions it conjured that a primordial wokeness was spawned.

  Today, when discussing even the most oblique references to slavery in America, the emotions ignite, misguided passions reign supreme, facts equate to racism, and the phenomenology of history devolves into one where history becomes but a construct derived to aid and abet a white supremacist patriarchy.  Case in point – according to current woke orthodoxy, evil cis-male Europeans just up and sailed 3,500 miles south to forgotten lands like Zenaga, trekked hundreds of miles inland without roads, maps, or logistic support, and – according to some extraordinary unverified estimates – kidnapped up to six million innocent Africans.

  But was this the reality on the ground in West Africa circa 1619, or did Europeans instead rely on intermediaries to conduct their dangerous, high opex dirty work and if so, who were these intermediaries?  Do Americans have an accurate understanding of the West African slavery supply chain, or have they instead meekly decided to go along to get along and ingest without question a toxic narrative that is an antipathy encumbered product tainted by a combination of pop culture and political agenda?  And last, did slavery in West Africa materialize out of thin air with the first appearance of Europeans, or did it exist long before their arrival?

  The answer to this last question is both morally and legally significant, as it could nullify any and all claims to both tangible and ethical debts of reparation borne by ancestral liability.  For if Caucasian Americans are collectively guilty – including those who immigrated here after the Civil War – as a result of their ancestors’ theoretical participation in the West African slave trade, would not a basis be equally established to extend slavery’s collective culpability to African Americans if it were shown that their ancestors too participated to an equal degree in the West African slave trade?  Would not equal culpability on both ancestral sides of the Atlantic nullify any and all claims by one party against the other?  Further still, if slavery in West Africa was shown to be prevalent long before the arrival of Europeans, based on the premise of hereditary culpability, then slavery in America could no longer exist as some kind of alleged “Original Sin”.

  The forthwith exposition can be considered a template for countering the unreasonable and fanciful woke dogma surrounding the realities of West African slavery and specifically, the false claims regarding Europe’s and America’s sole complicity in this industry.  It is an attempt – described here in broken wokespeak – to deconstruct the prevailing narrative derived to aid and abet a People of Color aligned, non-binary, trans-supremacist heterarchy.  Let us begin our journey of enlightenment.

  The Songhai Empire as Gateway to Europe’s Appetite for African Slaves

  Between the 4^th and early 16^th centuries AD, through a succession of kingdoms that included Wagadou (Ghana), Mali, and Songhai, the West African Sahel was among the wealthiest regions on earth during a period when most of Europe wallowed in medieval feudalism.  Prior to the discovery of the Americas, West Africa was the world’s largest source of gold – so much gold in fact that when the Malian king Mansa Musa visited Mecca during his 14^th century hajj, his 60,000 strong retinue (including 12,000 slaves) distributed so much gold that he crashed its value and created a decade of economic chaos on the Arabian peninsula.

  The Niger River during this time possessed six times more arable land than the Nile.  In the adjacent Sahara to the north, Africans operated extensive salt mining operations.  With the arrival of the Arabs in the 8^th century AD, a prodigious iron smelting and blacksmithing industries occupied entire villages from one end of the Sahel to the other.  The West African political economy was such that no king ever enforced strict ownership over the entirety of his realm, so after the millet harvest an African peasant could earn good extra income panning for alluvial gold, mining iron ore, harvesting trees to make charcoal fuel for iron smelting, or travelling north to labor in the salt mines.

  The Sahel during this period was awash in food and gold and large prosperous cities like Gao grew into architectural wonders.  So what happened that would drain not only the wealth of an established long-standing power center yet leave nothing behind but piles of dirt from what were formerly majestic structures of timber and adobe brick?  The short answer is that it all fell to pieces due to horses.

  In the 9th and 10th centuries AD, trade caravans from what are today Morocco and Algeria began regularly making their way south through the Sahara desert during the winter months. These caravans initially brought with them manufactured goods and luxury items to exchange for gold, ivory, specialty woods, animal skins, and salt.  But during the 13^th century these caravans started supplying a vital military component to the various competing rulers of the Sahel – Barb horses.  Ownership of horses gave each ruler a cavalry, and ownership of large herds could facilitate military superiority over rivals.

  The Malian, Hausa, Mossi, Bornu, Kanem and Songhai cavalries regularly battled each other for over three hundred years to what could be considered an equilibrium sometimes punctuated with transient victories and an occasional ebb or flow of juxtaposed borders.  Continuous combat was made possible only by a steady supply of Barb horses from the Maghreb, a market that traders were happy to oblige as the supply of gold from the Sahel appeared endless.

  But with its monsoonal climate and tropical diseases like trypanosomiasis, the Sahel Africans found it difficult to breed horses – the local Dongola sub-breed had a short life expectancy – and thus a steady flow of imported Barb horses were required to both replenish the high equine mortality rates and maintain at least military parity with the surrounding kingdoms. These imported horses were expensive and were initially paid for with alluvial gold, which was starting to go into productive decline during the 15^th century at about the same time the Songhai king Sonni Ali Ber led a successful campaign to defeat his enemy Mali and consolidate rule over the Sahel from Lake Chad to the Cap-Vert peninsula.  So the height of Songhai power coincided with maximum operating costs to retain that power just as alluvial gold production from the Niger River went into decline.

  Saddled with the mounting expense of maintaining many cavalry regiments stretching across an 1,800 mile expanse, the Songhai lords began to launch slave raids upon the various Sahel peoples.  So as the 15^th and 16^th centuries progressed, slaves rather than gold became more and more the medium of exchange between the Songhai lords and the horse traders of the Maghreb.  As these traders brought more and more slaves to the Mediterranean coast of North Africa, most were purchased by Arabs but many were sold on to Europeans where they were employed as domestic servant in wealthy cities like London and Antwerp and were considered a high status symbol – the “negars and blackmoores” of 16th century Elizabethan England.  So it was not the Europeans that first procured slavery in West Africa, but the Songhai themselves that introduced Europe to African slaves via Arab and Berber intermediaries.  Europeans at this time were a minor end customer, where the primary slave demand was provided by Arabs.

  As the 16th century ground out successive years, the gold really began to play out.  Continuous and devastating slave raids depopulated the Niger River goldfield regions – crashing not only gold but also food production – and drove its inhabitants onto marginal lands that had been earlier deforested to manufacture charcoal for the formerly prodigious iron smelting industry.  Over a period of 200 years the once prosperous Sahel was transformed into a land inhabited by subsistence food scavengers and all powerful cavalry lords where the incessant demand for horses laid economic waste to this once prosperous region.

  With Songhai power in the late 16^th century at its nadir as a result of internecine strife and succession wars among the dead king Askia Daoud’s many sons, the Sultan of Morocco, Ahmad al-Mansur, took advantage of the ensuing political instability and sent a military expedition across the Sahara and in 1591 these 4,000 Moroccans and their cannons defeated the Songhai at the battle of Tondibi.

  Thus with the defeat of the powerful Songhai Empire the coast of West Africa south of the Arab stronghold Nouakchott was left wide open to European maritime exploitation.  By 1625 the Dutch had established a permanent settlement at Gorée and the Portuguese likewise at Portudal, both located in modern day Senegal.  These initial European forays onto West African soil provided the vital resupply anchorage that enabled further permanent settlements along the entirety of the Gulf of Guinea and as far south as Namibia.  And it is at this point where the Kunta Kinte mythology begins with the permanent settlement of Europeans on African soil who allegedly trekked hundreds of miles inland into dangerous areas they did not control to randomly kidnap happy Africans into slavery.  Was this the reality on the ground in Africa back in 1619?  The Angolan experience provides the answers.

  The Angolan Model of Contracted Slave Procurement

  The gradual encroachment of European settlements down the Atlantic coast of West Africa did not lead to immediate mass colonization as malaria and tsetse flies kept out all but the hardiest and most rapacious adventurers.  But how did these Europeans procure so many slaves to service the burgeoning and incredibly profitable sugar and tobacco charters of the Caribbean?  The Kunta Kinte procurement model would have eventually led to depopulation of the local areas as the traditionally semi-mobile Africans would have just up and moved out of reach like they did to avoid the Songhai lords, and Africans were beginning to adopt European weapons in their defense.  So – how did so many Africans end up as slaves in the Americas despite their overwhelming numbers back in Africa?

  The answer lies in the Angolan model which was by no means confined to this region alone.  During the first half of the 16^th century the Portuguese established a permanent trading station at the port of Soyo, a province within the Kingdom of Kongo on the south bank at the mouth of the Congo River.  The significance of Soyo was it established the first European occupation in West Africa outside the provenance of the tsetse fly, and with trypanosomiasis absent, colonists could settle and import European livestock for the first time on the African Atlantic coast.  Entire families of Portuguese colonists began to arrive and by 1575 the city of Luanda was founded, followed by Benguela in 1587.  With Angola’s drier, more temperate climate, these early European colonists got to the business of building homes, clearing land, farming, fishing, and raising their livestock.  But one thing they did not do was get to the business of travelling hundreds of miles inland to hunt down and capture slaves.  They left that to others – and these others weren’t Europeans.

  Soon after the Portuguese planted their flag at Soyo, they granted a trade monopoly to the Kingdom of Kongo which ruled over what is now northwestern Angola.  But as Portugal established colonies to the south of Soyo, these new colonies were located in lands claimed by Kongo but occupied by Ambundu peoples of the N’Dongo and Kisama states within the Kwanza River valley.  Because of the trade monopoly specifics granted to Kongo, the Bakongo could sweep through the Kwanza River valley and capture the local Ambundu and sell them into slavery to the Portuguese, but the Ambundu could not capture these Bakongo raiders and sell them into slavery to the same customer.  This egregious injustice incensed the N’Dongo king to the point of declaring war on – not the Portuguese – but the Bakongo in an attempt to break the discriminatory trade monopoly.  The Ambundu were successful and in 1556 they defeated the Bakongo in a war fought not to end the enslavement of their fellow Africans, but to extend to themselves the right to capture, enslave, and sell their Bakongo neighbors to the Portuguese.

  Despite the N’Dongo victory and elimination of Kongo influence in the Kwanza River valley, the Portuguese insisted on upholding their original trade agreement, so the Kongo trade monopoly remained in place with the Ambundu still cut out of all commercial activity with the Portuguese.  Realizing they had prosecuted a war for nothing, the N’Dongo spent the next several decades threatening colonists and harassing Portuguese interests up and down the Kwanza River valley without any penetration into the colonial economy.  In 1590 N’Dongo had had enough of the commercial status quo so it allied itself with its eastern Ambundu neighbor Matamba and together they declared war on all Portuguese interests across Angola.

  This war led the Portuguese to construct a network of fortalezas up and down the Angolan coastline and after years of protracted violence the Portugal finally defeated the N’Dongo in 1614.  Portugal’s first act after victory was to invite their old trading partner – the Bakongo – to commence mop-up operations across the Kwanza River valley in order to clear out the defeated Ambundu and bring them in chains to the new network of fortalezas, which not only served as troop garrisons and acropoli for the local inhabitants, but also as slave depots that accommodated the swelling numbers of captured Ambundu before being auctioned off and sent to Brazil.

  With the defeat of the Ambundu the N’Dongo matriarchal dynasty fled east to their ally Matamba.  There, a royal refugee named N’Zinga M’Bandi betrayed the hospitality shown her by Matamba and began secret negotiations with Luanda for a return of the Ambundu to the Kwanza River valley.  N’Zinga M’Bandi secured agreements that not only deposed the sitting Matamban queen – handing her the crown by subterfuge – but also convinced the Portuguese to nullify their long standing trade monopoly granted to the Kingdom of Kongo which, in effect, established the Ambundu peoples in the slave procurement business.

  The new Matamban queen made haste regarding her political and business affairs and quickly consolidated N’Dongo and the neighboring Kasanje states under her rule.  By 1619, Queen N’Zinga had grown her realm into the most powerful African state in the region using the wealth generated from her industrial scale slave procurement undertaking.  Within a few decade of Queen N’Zinga’s ascension, the regions surrounding central Angola were depopulated of not only the rival Bakongo peoples, but of its Ovimbundu, Ganguela, and Chokwe peoples too.

  The lucrative Angolan slave trade not only flourished under female African leadership, but grew scientific and efficient and continued unabated until the Portuguese crown outlawed the colonial slave trade in 1869.  However, avarice and ingenuity always prevail so after this slavery prohibition a vibrant slave black market continued unabated as abolition only served to drive up the price of slaves and therefore the incentive to procure them in the field.  These lucrative smuggling operations from Angola lasted up until the day its primary customer Brazil abolished slavery in 1888.

  Today the dominance of the Ambundu peoples in the business, political, and military affairs of modern day Angola is directly traced to the business acumen, organizational skills, and operational efficiency that the Ambundu peoples’ developed during their 269 year monopoly over slave procurement in Angola.  From the tens of thousands of their fellow African “brothers” and “sisters” that the Ambundu sold into slavery, they accumulated incredible wealth that enabled them to occupy a position of respect, influence, and near equality in colonial Angola unparalleled anywhere in colonial Africa.  They became, in a sense, the “Master Ethnicity” of the region.

  Twilight of the Woke Idols

  The irony behind the etymology for the word slave, lost upon the woke and the allies of Critical Race Insanity, is that slave derives from ancient words describing Caucasian Slavic peoples.  If slavery were at the core of the “American Experience”, America long ago would have adopted a word for slave that describe African peoples just as the Romans employed Sclāvus to describe a Slav.  But in the 402 years since 1619, Americans have not made this linguistic transition because there is an older and deeper collective history of slavery that can be traced back millennia to Eastern Europeans who constitute a large proportion of the American population.

  Yet somehow this deeper history has not affected Caucasians of eastern European descent – even the generational poor – in the same way it has tormented the collective psyche of African Americans.  Maybe these demons are not so much the product that African Americans were once slaves, but instead a manifestation of the incessant bombarded of acerbic messages from the Academia-Media-Technocracy Complex demanding that African Americans play the role of perpetual victims and that they deserve some abstract redress from those who themselves have never benefitted from systemic anything.

  Or is there a deeper pathological diagnosis, a sepsis of personal ontology whereby the current woke narrative is a desperate attempt at mass cognitive dissonance to blot out the humiliating reality that one’s ancestors were traded in bulk by one’s own kind for the likes of a horse?

  Africans were one of many peoples in a long line of slaves procured by Europeans but they are the last group before the prohibitions of the Utilitarian campaigns of universal human rights put an end to the practice. Thus it is this ‘Last In, First Out” queuing that gives African Americans claim to their title of “systemic victims” without regard to the broader history of European slavery during the preceding two millennia – including Medieval feudalism.  The reality on the ground for centuries in Europe was that slave relations were between Caucasian Master and Caucasian slave.

  And with the advent and maturing scientific efficiency of institutions such as central banking, nation states, denominational religions, non-governmental organizations, together with the application of mass psychology, one finds upon further scrutiny that this predominant relationship between Master and slave has changed little over the millennia.  We Americans are, in a sense, all slaves – caught in a systemic nexus of control with few options of escape.  Therefore, claims of “systemic injustice” and demands for redress are nothing more than demands to be promoted from field hand to domestic slave unless the true, invisible system of enslavement is abolished for all Americans.

  Slavery existed for millennia throughout the entirety of the Bantu populated African continent prior to the arrival of Europeans.  African slaves were captured, worked hard in the millet fields, scolded, beaten, sold multiple times, raped, and murdered well before the first European footprint was impressed on a West African beach.  Slavery was the natural African social condition, it continued as Europeans colonized the continent, and in some places it continues today after most Europeans have left.  Thus any conception of an “Original Sin” borne by Americans through ancestry lies not with Caucasians, but with those of African ancestry as Africans themselves were the origination point for the West African slavery supply chain where they occupied the roles of contractor, planner, procurer, and transporter to distribution hubs.

  The indigenous Africans were, in modern terms, the Chief Operating Officers of the West African slave trade.  Europeans played the roles of wholesale customer, clearing house, and retail distributor of a product offered to them by brazen and entrepreneurial local rulers who amassed great wealth from their endeavors and whose ancestors today are the beneficiaries of an “ethnic privilege” derived from this wealth and societal status as former Masters.

  The truth is that this seminal enduring image created with Kunta Kinte’s abduction is a fraud and was fabricated to not only impugn the Caucasian audience and henceforth brand them evil and complicit through ancestry, but was also consciously constructed to expiate the guilt surrounding the ugly and brutal truth that Africans themselves were the culpable party.  Had indigenous Africans not captured and sold so many of their brethren into slavery, there would likely be very few African Americans today.

  Epilogue

  The woke will never mention the 800 years of an East African slave trade conducted by Arab merchants up and down the Indian Ocean coast.  The woke won’t utter a word regarding present day slavery across the Sahel countries of Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad, and Sudan.  One hears only silence from the woke when one mentions the “Systemic Ethniscism” that permeates every Bantu nation where wealth and power are concentrated into the hands of a dominant ethnic group.

  The woke ignore the 3,000+ freed African slaves who show up in the ante bellum US census who were granted manumission, inherited plantations from their former owners, and kept the slaves.  No woke person ever admits that American Indians owned African slaves nor will they / them accept that slavery permeated Nahuatl culture even as they / them espouse the virtues of Greater Aztlán.  And the woke will never accept that it was Europeans who eventually stamped out slavery within the Bantu cultural world despite it being the natural human condition there for centuries.

  And, most importantly, the woke will never acknowledge that all Americans are trapped in a nexus of corporate, bureaucratic, technological, and psychological control where the true “American Experience” has devolved into one where everyone is a slave serving invisible Masters. Until these Masters’ hands are removed from every lever of power and influence in our nation – by any means necessary – abstractions like “equality” and “equity” are nothing more than job promotions on the American plantation.  The woke will never become unwoke because they love their servitude, it has opened the door for them to serve an irresponsible existence free of rationality, logic, true meaning in their existence.  Through their wokeness, they have essentially been freed from Freedom – they can place no hope in death, and their blind lives are so abject that they are envious of every other fate.  The world should let no fame of theirs endure; both true Justice and Compassion must disdain them.

  One final comment about those 4,000 Moroccans at the Battle of Tondibi.  The invading Moroccan army was commanded by a one Judar Pasha, but he was not always known by this name.  Judar was born Diego de Guevara, an inhabitant of the Spanish region of Andalusia who as a boy was captured by Arab slave raiders, packed off in chains to Morocco, and sold into slavery to the Moroccan Sultan.  And just like Kunta Kinte, Diego’s name got changed, but where Kunta Kinte had his foot cut off, Judar was castrated and forced to serve this foreign Sultan as a eunuch.  But we will never see a TV miniseries where an Arab slave wrangler hangs one Diego de Guevara upside down by his ankles, thrashes him with a bull whip, and screams repeatedly, “Your name is not Diego, your name is Judar!”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/19/2021 – 23:40

• Taiwan Rolls Out Advanced F-16 Fighter Jets In Ceremony With US Diplomats In Attendance
  Taiwan Rolls Out Advanced F-16 Fighter Jets In Ceremony With US Diplomats In Attendance

  Taiwan this week unveiled its new batch of updated and advanced F-16 fighter jets, recently upgraded with US help, specifically via Lockheed Martin, which further has plans to upgrade 141 F-16 fighter jets by 2023 for the democratic-run island claimed by China.

  A total of 64 upgraded fighters, called F-16Vs, officially went into service for Taiwan’s air force during a ceremony on Thursday attended by President Tsai Ing-wen. She declared that “This represents the steadfast promise of the Taiwan-US partnership.”

  

  The Taiwanese president then urged more countries to follow the US example: “I trust that in holding fast to democratic values, there will definitely be more countries with similar values who will stand with us on this front,” she said.

  During the ceremony at an air force base in the city of Chiayi, pilots demonstrated complex maneuvers, including low passes over the area. The Associated Press noted that by the end of 2023 when Lockheed fulfills the contract, Taiwan will become the largest operator of F-16s anywhere in Asia.

  The AP described further that: “The F-16V is the most technologically advanced version of the storied multi-role fighter jet, equipped with highly capable radar, allowing it to track more than 20 targets at a time. It also features cutting-edge electronic warfare systems, along with advanced weapons, precision GPS navigation and a system to automatically avoid collisions with the ground.”

  Washington has continued to provocatively maintain a very visible presence in Taiwan, following the recent revelation and confirmation that it’s had hundreds of US Marines there training Taiwan’s special forces for more than a year. 

  VIDEO: Taiwan held a ceremony on Thursday to commission the first squadron of its most advanced F-16 fighter. President Tsai Ing-wen oversaw the ceremony at an air base in the southern city of Chiayi alongside Sandra Oudkirk, Washington’s de facto ambassador to Taiwan pic.twitter.com/3Y8ZC7L1aR

  — AFP News Agency (@AFP) November 19, 2021

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

  Sandra Oudkirk, the United States de facto ambassador to Taiwan, was in attendance for Thursday’s upgraded F-16 rollout ceremony, despite constant Chinese warnings against the US selling Taiwan more weaponry. Currently Congressional hawks are calling on more money and support to Taiwan’s military.

  Predictably, Beijing at the end of the week condemned the continued relationship, warning Washington to be “be cautious with its words and actions on the Taiwan issue, and refrain from sending any wrong signals to the secessionist forces of Taiwan independence,” according to the latest Foreign Ministry statements. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/19/2021 – 23:20

• Tools In The Service Of Tyranny
  Tools In The Service Of Tyranny

  Authored by Deane Waldman via AmericanThinker.com,

  What does a virus, a Marxist movement, and bans on firearms have in common? Nothing, superficially. Delving deeper, they are tools of federal oppression.

  

  An obvious common element of the three tools is the fear they engender: of infectious death; of unchecked rioting and looting; and of gun violence. These dangers are in fact greatly exaggerated or fabricated altogether.

  Stanford economist Paul Romer is credited with first saying, “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.”

  Washington has taken this idea to heart.

  In 2019, when no crisis existed, the Washington establishment created the perception of existential threat from COVID that would kill 2.2 million Americans without drastic federal intervention. In fact, COVID carried a risk for the general, healthy population similar to seasonal flu and was only dangerous to elderly, immunocompromised individuals with pre-existing conditions. Biden, Fauci, and the media made it seem as if we all would die if we did not follow Washington draconian orders for lockdowns, social distancing, and vaccine mandates.

  Fauci commanded Americans to put aside concerns about “personal liberties” for the greater public welfare. We had to accept federal suppression of constitutionally guaranteed rights such as free speech, religious liberty, right to assemble, and even right to work to defeat the “common enemy.”

  The “swamp” used fear of COVID as a tool to impose pseudo-martial law.

  Biden COVID mandates exceeded federal authority. They are unconstitutional, as the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals recently reminded Washington. Public health measures are state, not federal, responsibility.

  BLM (Black Lives Matter) is a proudly Marxist, domestic organization hiding behind the obvious slogan that the lives of black people matter – just as the lives of all people matter. Yet the Biden administration has tolerated the violence, arson, looting, and even murder by armed BLM agitators in all-black garb and ski mask anonymity.

  Washington and Biden’s DoJ tacitly condone BLM’s domestic terrorism for one reason: it promotes an atmosphere of fear and insecurity. This led to cries to the federal government: Do Something, Anything! In response, they changed or suspended rules, laws, and constitutional rights using violence in the name of social justice as an excuse. Washington encouraged defunding local police departments while offering federal “policing” for local communities.  

  Washington’s tolerance and covert encouragement of BLM is another way to justify extending federal power and reach.

  When the Bill of Rights was written, there was no real difference in military power of a state militia compared to the Continental army. They both had muskets, handguns, bayonets, horses, and even cannon. The Second Amendment does not use words such as “may” or “should” or “cannot.” It reads “shall not [italics added] be infringed” is a simple, unambiguous, and unarguable command.

  The Founders wanted private citizens to have the military capability to resist central government attempts to reimpose tyranny on its citizens. Thus, after free speech and religious independence, the next most important “right” was to keep and bear (use) firearms, in armed defense, if necessary, of personal liberty and American freedom.  

  This is why Democrats seek to circumvent the Second Amendment and take away guns from private citizens. Gun bans are another tactic of federal oppression.

  In progressive hands, COVID, BLM, anti-gun laws, and many others are tools in the service of tyranny… if we allow it.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/19/2021 – 23:00

• Where America's International Students Come From
  Where America’s International Students Come From

  For the 2020/21 academic year, the total number of international students enrolled in U.S. higher education came crashing down because of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the 2021 Open Doors Report on International Education Exchange published by the IIE, around 914,000 students from abroad were enrolled in U.S. higher education institutions in the past academic year. The decrease of 15 percent from the previous year represents a grave financial loss for institutions. The loss of around 160,000 international student cost stakeholders around $10 billion dollars, according to NPR.

  As Statista’s Katharine Buchholz notes, international students make up 4.6 percent of the total U.S. student population, down from 5.5 percent in 2019/20. They contributed $39 billion to the American economy in 2020.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  China remained the largest source country for international students with a grand total of 317,299 enrolled in undergraduate, graduate, non-degree and optional practicing training programs.

  India came second with 167,582 while South Korea came third with 39,491. Canada rose one spot into rank 4, as its international student numbers decline the least in the pandemic.

  54 percent of all international students in the U.S. are enrolled in STEM fields.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/19/2021 – 22:40

• China Deems Australia 'No Longer Peaceful', But Now "Saber Wielding" After Sub Deal
  China Deems Australia ‘No Longer Peaceful’, But Now “Saber Wielding” After Sub Deal

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  China’s acting ambassador to Australia, Wang Xining, said by seeking nuclear submarines under the AUKUS military pact, Australia will turn to “saber wielding” rather than being a “peace defender.”

  In an interview with The Guardian published Thursday, Wang said he used to view Australia as a peace-loving nation, but now that it is seeking nuclear-powered submarines designed for long-range attacks, that view has changed. “So who are you going to attack? You are no longer a peace lover, a peace defender, you become a saber wielder in certain form,” he said.

  

  Under the AUKUS deal, a three-way pact between the UK, the US, and Australia, Canberra would not get the nuclear submarines until at least the late 2030s. But the pact is a sign that Australia is following the US and other Western powers in the campaign against China, and Australian officials have stepped up their rhetoric.

  “There’s zero nuclear capacity, technologically, in Australia, that would guarantee you will be trouble free, you will be incident free,” Wang said further. “And if anything happened, are the politicians ready to say sorry to people in Melbourne and in Adelaide?”

  Last week, Australian Defense Minister Peter Dutton signaled Australia was willing to follow the US in a war against China over Taiwan. Dutton said it would be “inconceivable” for Australia not to join the US if it takes action to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion.

  Responding to Dutton, Wang said Australian officials should not do “anything that would lead to an even more gloomy state of our relationship.” Last month, former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott visited Taiwan. Wang said this visit was “very unfortunate” and not in the interest of Australia.

  

  “Actually, it is very agonizing to see that such a high-level politician would engage in something that doesn’t serve the interests of Australia, because I think it serves the interests of Australia and China to stick to one-China policy and make our relationship as trouble-free as possible,” Wang said.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/19/2021 – 22:20

• Canadian Teen Arrested For Allegedly Stealing $36.5 Million In Crypto
  Canadian Teen Arrested For Allegedly Stealing $36.5 Million In Crypto

  Bitcoin fixed this.

  A Canadian teen has been arrested for allegedly stealing $36.5 million worth of crypto from a victim in the U.S., Bloomberg reported this week. 

  It marks the largest crypto theft reported from one person, police near Toronto said.

  The victim was targeted by a SIM swapping scam, wherein someone hijacks a wireless customer’s phone number and then can intercept two-factor authentication codes – in addition to simply accessing accounts on their phone.

  

  The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Secret Service Electronic Crimes Task Force joined together to make the arrest, according to the Hamilton, Ontario police. It’s the culmination of an investigation that started last March.

  The Hamilton police seized crypto worth more than $5 million. Some of the stolen crypto was used to purchase a “rare” online gaming username, which was a key clue integral in helping investigators find out who committed the crime.

  There was no further information on how much crypto had not been recovered or located – which may prove to make for an interesting story once the teen makes his way through the judicial system and pays his debt to society. 

  The teenager has since been charged and has a court case pending.  

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/19/2021 – 22:00

• Texas Party Switcher Is Latest Ominous Sign For Democrats
  Texas Party Switcher Is Latest Ominous Sign For Democrats

  Authored by Susan Crabtree via RealClearPolitics.com,

  Ryan Guillen had been a Democratic member of the Texas legislature, representing a sprawling district south of San Antonio, for nearly two decades. This week he jumped ship for the Republican Party, blaming Democrats for leaving him, not the other way around.

  

  Normally such a move would make local and state news, but certainly not prime-time national coverage. Yet, on Wednesday night, Fox News’ Laura Ingraham gleefully cited the defection as further proof that “truly smart” Democrats are abandoning a sinking ship. While Guillen is a state lawmaker whose switch won’t impact which party holds power in Washington, there’s one sign that this may not be an isolated example: At least nine congressional House Democrats have  announced they are not seeking reelection next year. More are expected to follow.

  Highlighting the shifting political terrain in South Texas isn’t just a partisan exercise. The New York Times’ Tom Edsall this week cited evidence that President Biden’s immigration record and Democrats’ progressive agenda is hurting them with traditional-base voters, especially Hispanics in Texas border counties.

  “Democrats shouldn’t panic,” Edsall wrote. “They should go into shock.”

  Explaining his switch to the GOP, Guillen provided more fodder for veteran campaign consultant James Carville and others warning Democrats to rein in their left wing. The 44-year-old anti-abortion and pro-gun lawmaker cited the defund-the-police push and the climate change movement, which he said is “destroying” the Lone Star state’s oil and gas industry, along with the “chaos at the border.”

  “Friends, something is happening in South Texas, and many of us are waking up to the fact that the values of those in Washington, D.C., are not our values, not the values of most Texans,” he said at a press conference Monday with Gov. Greg Abbott and House Speaker Dade Phelan, both Republicans.

  Democrats quickly pointed out that Guillen made the switch only after the GOP-led redistricting process turned his already Republican-leaning district scarlet. Texas is the only state to gain two congressional seats after the 2020 census, and Republicans control the state legislature and governor’s mansion, and thus the redistricting process.  

  Yet Guillen wasn’t exaggerating when he said there’s a significant political sea change taking place in South Texas. His move was the latest sign of a rightward shift in the Rio Grande region in recent years. Donald Trump won Guillen’s district by 13 percentage points in 2020; just four years earlier, Hillary Clinton carried it by the same margin. The voters still chose Guillen by 17 points last year, but the new map could have threatened such margins for him in the future. The newly formed district voted for Trump by 25 points.

  Republicans are heavily targeting three South Texas congressional seats held by Democrats and are encouraged by Guillen’s switch and other signs of GOP inroads in traditionally more liberal areas of the state. That trio of districts voted for Joe Biden by just two to four percentage points in 2020, down from the 17-to-22-point margins Clinton garnered in 2016.

  The first signs of Democratic vulnerability in districts along the U.S.-Mexico border came earlier this year when Rep. Filemon Vela, who represents Texas’ 34th Congressional District, announced his retirement.

  Then, in June, the traditionally Democratic border city of McAllen elected a Republican mayor in Javier Villalobos, a former Hidalgo County GOP chairman. (The county had gone for Biden by 17 percentage points over Trump.) Another warning for Democrats came a few weeks ago when Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez announced he would run in the adjacent 34th district because he no longer felt confident about holding onto Texas’ 15th. Gonzalez won the 15th by nearly 20 percentage points in 2016 but by just 2.9 points last year.

  Gonzalez publicly claimed he didn’t have much of a choice after Republicans made his district redder, but the Texas Tribune reported the decision was more deliberate than Gonzalez let on. A Democratic amendment to the redistricting process moved his home into the 34th district.

  In early November, Republicans also picked up an additional Democratic-friendly state House seat in San Antonio, an area where Biden won comfortably but still underperformed expectations last year.

  After Guillen’s jump to the GOP this week, liberal groups assailed aggressive GOP redistricting tactics as a prime motivating factor. Common Cause, a liberal nonprofit that advocates for easier voting access, accused Texas Republicans of “whitewashing” state legislative and congressional districts to dilute the power of minority voters. Anthony Gutierrez, who heads Common Cause’s Texas office, said Republicans revealed the new maps just three days before a scheduled vote on them, “providing almost no time for people to assess the maps or go talk to impacted communities.”

  Democrats are now fighting the redrawn districts in court. Eric Holder, who served as attorney general in the Obama administration, now chairs the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. The committee filed a suit arguing the new congressional districts lines violate Voting Rights Act protections for minority populations and are gerrymandered to give Republicans an advantage.

  It’s a familiar refrain. In most states, the power to create new congressional maps lies with the state legislature after the decennial U.S. Census, and the majority party in power often attempts to redraw them to benefit their members. But election experts counter that Democrats are trying offset Republican redistricting gains in Texas and Florida in areas where they control the state legislatures, such as California, New York and Illinois. In these states and in most areas across the country, heavily Democratic urban areas are growing while rural GOP areas are losing population.

  The stakes this year are particularly high with Republicans only needing to gain five seats in 2022 to win control of the House. Republicans are hoping the path to regaining the majority runs through South Texas and they point to Guillen’s decision to switch parties as the latest bad omen for Democrats.

  “Texas Democrats are retiring or becoming Republicans because they know they’re doomed in in 2022,” said Torunn Sinclair, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

  The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee didn’t respond to a request for comment.

  It’s not surprising that Biden’s plummeting poll numbers are worse in Texas than they are nationally. A recent University of Texas and Texas Tribune survey, released Nov. 8, found only 35% of Texans approve of the way Biden is handling his job while 55% of voters disapprove. The survey showed that Texas voters, more than a third of whom are Hispanic, rank Biden the lowest on his handling of immigration and border security with only 22% of respondents saying they approve of his record on that issue and 63% saying they disapprove.

  Democrats are hoping to bolster Biden’s sinking popularity by pushing through a massive $1.85 trillion climate and social spending bill known as Build Back Better. Last month, Biden warned Democrats that their “House and Senate majorities and my presidency” will be determined “by what happens” to the latest version of the measure.

  “I don’t think it’s hyperbole,” he said, referring to polls indicating many of the individual provisions are popular with voters.

  The legislation, which White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain has described as “twice as big in real dollars as the New Deal,” would provide free preschool for all children, expand the child tax credit and bolster liberals’ green agenda with numerous consumer rebates and tax credits for clean energy investments.

  To help pay for the spending package, Democrats are proposing to increase taxes on wealthy Americans and corporations, including new taxes on oil and gas producers. It’s a  controversial move in Texas, even among some Democrats. At least 620,000 jobs are connected to the oil and gas industry across the state, and oil production in South Texas has helped transform the relatively poor region into a boom area over the past decade. The plan would penalize oil and gas companies for leaks of methane from wellheads, pipelines, storage and other facilities to the tune of $1 billion to $10 billion annually. Proponents say the tax would serve as incentive for companies to stop leaks and avoid wasting methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

  Vela and Gonzalez, who founded the House Oil and Gas Caucus, as well as Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar, sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in late September asking them not to include the methane tax. Another controversial piece of the House version of the bill would allow illegal immigrants to obtain child tax credits.

  The final House version of the Build Back Better bill, which the House could vote on as soon as Friday, still includes these two provisions. Despite this, Gonzalez and Cuellar have signaled they will vote in favor of it, a point Republicans will inevitably hammer home in ads to voters for months to come.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/19/2021 – 21:40

• NATO Chief Outrages Kremlin In Speech Linking "Nuclear Sharing" & "Our Eastern Allies"
  NATO Chief Outrages Kremlin In Speech Linking “Nuclear Sharing” & “Our Eastern Allies”

  On Friday NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg gave a key speech on Europe’s nuclear defense posture before a security conference in Germany. His comments are subject of multiple Russian state media reports, particularly as his suggestion that US-supplied nuclear warheads could be positioned on the military bloc’s eastern frontier are driving outrage among Kremlin officials. 

  Highlighting threats from both China and Russia during his German Atlantic Association ‘NATO Talk’ Conference 2021, Stoltenberg especially highlighted Russia’s “aggressive actions” and that “it interferes in other countries’ affairs.” With this in mind, he spelled out: “Our aim is a world free of nuclear weapons, but as long as others have them, NATO must have them too.”

  

  That’s when he invoked countries in the alliance which border Russia, saying provocatively: “The nuclear weapons we share in NATO provide European Allies with an effective nuclear umbrella. This, of course, also includes our eastern Allies.“

  This has set off fury in Russia. For example, RT News quickly wrote within hours of Stoltenberg’s speech that he effectively “urged member states to remain committed to plans that could see deadly American nuclear weapons shared across the US-led military bloc’s eastern frontier, close to the border with Russia.

  And Sputnik interpreted his words as an ultimatum to Germany: “If Berlin refuses to station NATO nuclear weapons, then it can be moved to other European countries, including in the Eastern part of the continent, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday.” However, the commentary might be reading too much implied intent into his actual words.

  Stoltenberg said Germany remains at the forefront of NATO security in Europe, and urged German leaders to maintain strong defense, further calling on the EU in general not to establish “parallel structures”: 

  So Germany has a special responsibility to keep NATO strong. This means providing more and new capabilities. Soldiers that are well-trained and well-equipped. Planes that can fly. And ships that can sail.

  And I count on Germany to remain committed to NATO’s nuclear sharing. It is our ultimate security guarantee.

  The Secretary General of NATO has urged member states to remain committed to plans that could see deadly American nuclear weapons shared across the US-led military bloc’s eastern frontier, close to the border with Russia.

  Moscow ain’t happy. https://t.co/mJjO3W7lKM

  — Bryan MacDonald (@27khv) November 19, 2021

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

  On the European Union in particular, the NATO chief said, “So I am now working with President Von der Leyen and President Michel on a new Joint Declaration between the two EU presidents and myself to chart the way forward for further strengthening NATO-EU cooperation.” He added: “As I have said many times, I welcome European efforts on defense. NATO has been calling on European Allies for many years to invest more, and provide more capabilities.”

  As Brookings reviews: 

  Germany has no nuclear weapons of its own, but it stores 20 or fewer U.S. B-61 nuclear gravity bombs at Büchel air base, and maintains a fleet of aging Tornado fighter bombers to deliver them. This gives it a seat in NATO’s nuclear planning group. The SPD and the Green election platforms demanded the removal of the U.S. bombs from German soil. They also want Germany to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) as an observer.

  The section where Stoltenberg calls out a litany of Russia and China threats that NATO must stand up to is also worth noting. He said as follows:

  Russia carries out aggressive actions. It interferes in other countries’ affairs. It has invested significantly in military capabilities, including new, advanced nuclear weapons.

  And Russia continues its massive military build-up, as we see now around the borders of Ukraine. And it has shown a willingness to use military force against its neighbors.

  Meanwhile, China is using its might to coerce other countries and control its own people. It is investing heavily in new technologies, like hypersonic glide vehicles. Expanding its global economic and military footprint in Africa, in the Arctic and in cyber-space.

  And China is suppressing democracy and human rights at home. We don’t regard China as an adversary but we need to take into account the consequences for our security, the rise of China.

  In addition, we face more frequent and sophisticated cyber-attacks. Hybrid tactics, as we see today from Belarus on the border with Poland.  We also face persistent terrorist threats. The proliferation of nuclear weapons. And the security implications of climate change.

  If a brief, quick reaction to the speech Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned that Russia will no longer turn a blind eye by such “provocations”.

  

  Just the day prior, on Thursday, Putin himself warned that Western powers must stop dismissing Russia’s “red lines”. “We’re constantly voicing our concerns about this, talking about red lines, but we understand our partners — how shall I put it mildly — have a very superficial attitude to all our warnings and talk of red lines,” Putin told a foreign policy conference. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/19/2021 – 21:20

• The Utter Orwellian Stupidity Of Masks On Airplanes
  The Utter Orwellian Stupidity Of Masks On Airplanes

  Authored by Jeffrey Barke, M.D., via AmericanThinker.com,

  I recently traveled across the country to Hillsdale, Michigan.  My wife and I sat for five hours each way on airplanes with a mesh mask pressed across our faces.  It made the absurdity of the mask mandate we live under both clear and depressing.  The charade in which we are all forced to participate is not only totalitarian in nature, but also a big Orwellian lie.

  

  I am sure most of the passengers on the planes were either COVID-19-vaccinated or COVID-19-recovered.  While few speak about the thousands of people who have had COVID-19 and survived, they are turning out to be an important group in the ongoing battle against the virus.  I myself am COVID-recovered after a bout with the disease a couple of months ago.  I now have natural immunity to the disease. 

  Forcing someone like me to wear a mask makes no scientific or health sense.  There are no studies to show that mask-wearing on an airplane can stop a respiratory viral illness.  If that were the case, we would expect pilots always to wear masks while in the cockpit.  But they don’t.  Maybe the recirculated air on airplanes keeps them safe from onboard viruses.  Furthermore, if mask-wearing on an airplane were critical to preventing the spread of the disease, why are we allowed to remove our masks for extended periods of time while eating and drinking?  I wish someone would pose that specific question to Dr. Fauci.

  The requirement to wear a mask when entering or exiting a restaurant, but leaving it off while eating and drinking, also makes absolutely no sense.  Do the authorities suppose that the COVID-19 virus stops seeking new hosts to infect only when we are unmasked but not eating or drinking?  Do these bureaucratic geniuses really believe that the virus plays fair, observing equivalent rules to those invented by the Marquess of Queensberry for boxing?  I think the COVID-19 virus is more likely to play by Fight Club rules!

  The CDC recently acknowledged that it does not have any data showing that naturally immune COVID-recovered people can get and spread the disease to others.  Despite this, the CDC discriminates against these people by insisting that they be fully vaccinated in addition to wearing a mask to function in society.

  Since the CDC is requiring these measures, you would think it would have a mountain of evidence to support such a draconian policy.  It doesn’t.  The science, in fact, shows just the opposite.  It shows that natural immunity is strong, durable, and broad-based.  Strong means that natural immunity protects against a COVID infection better than immunity produced by a vaccine.  It is why we do not see COVID-recovered patients getting COVID again.

  While it is common to see COVID-vaccinated people getting COVID and even requiring hospitalization, COVID-recovereds stay healthy.  Multiple studies have confirmed that SARS-CoV-2 behaves much like SARS-CoV-1 as well as many other viral illnesses such as chickenpox, measles, mumps, rubella, etc.  That is, these diseases provide long-lasting immunity to those who have been infected. 

  I had chickenpox as a child.  I got it because my mom walked my brother and me down the street to a neighbor’s house where the kid who lived there had the illness.  Our dad, a physician, wanted to have us exposed and to deal with the disease under controlled conditions and when it is mild.  This was circa 1970, prior to a chickenpox vaccination being available. 

  Many scientists expect SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes COVID-19 — to behave similarly.  COVID-recovered patients appear to be immune to all SARS-CoV-2 variants, including the delta variant.  This broad immunity occurs because those who contract COVID-19 have exposure to the entire virus.  This is in major contrast to the vaccine, which creates immunity to just the spike protein of the virus, thus limiting the immunity and making it much easier for the virus to break through the vaccine-induced immunity.

  There is an expression that says, “We get what we tolerate.”  Over the past 21 months, we have tolerated assaults on our liberties that we would never have accepted before COVID-19.  We have allowed unelected health care bureaucrats to cover their rear ends against any possible outcome from the disease — no matter how unlikely.  We have allowed a complicit media establishment to knowingly sell every possible danger from the virus to a fearful public.  We should all be embarrassed by the hoax they have perpetuated and we have absorbed.

  I would normally think strong men would step up and say no — the same ones who fight wars, protect our streets, and battle bullies in the schoolyard.  But they were emasculated early on by the “experts.”  Now, however, the mama bears have become involved as the bureaucrats, politicians, and supportive media try to force children as young as five to get an investigational vaccine against a virus that poses little risk to their age group. 

  Ah, but don’t ever underestimate mama bears and the protective nature of their maternal instincts.  They may yet be the force to stop the current madness and then join the larger battle for the future of America.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/19/2021 – 21:00

• Almost 9 In 10 Americans Worried About Inflation
  Almost 9 In 10 Americans Worried About Inflation

  A new survey has found nine in ten Americans say they’re concerned about inflation. The high level of anxiety about soaring food, energy, and shelter costs, among others, is felt the same across all age groups, racial and ethnic groups, and income levels. 

  Insurance and financial services company Country Financial commissioned the survey, finding 88% of Americans are highly concerned about inflation.

  Tens of millions of Americans are suffering from runaway inflation that will persist into 2022. The White House and Federal Reserve have erred in calling inflation “transitory,” which has proved to be anything but that. Consumer sentiment tumbled to COVID crisis lows in October as inflation expectations marched higher. 

  In response to rising prices, respondents said they would begin to cut back on spending. About half of them said they would reduce dining at restaurants or take-out meals (48%). About 30% said they would keep their current technology instead of upgrading. 

  The survey was conducted between Oct. 22-25 and had 1,031 adults surveyed. It also found other actions respondents said they would cut back:

  • budget food (29%)

  • purchase less clothing (29%)

  • put off home renovations (23%)

  • cancel/put off travel plans (20%)

  • drive less (13%)

  Americans’ worries about inflation are a snub to the establishment’s constant propaganda that this is ‘transitory’ and that ‘you can afford it’.

  The facts are that consumer prices soared 6.2% YoY in October, far higher than the +5.9% YoY expected and accelerating from September’s 5.4% YoY; that was the highest print since June 1990…

  

  Higher prices for energy, shelter, food, and vehicles fueled the supercharged reading and indicated inflation is broadening out beyond categories associated with the reopening.

  Meanwhile, soaring prices have sent consumer sentiment waterfalling to COVID lows. 

  

  All this despite a stock market that is surging to fresh highs day by day.

  

  Even though retail spending was strong in October (thanks in large part to the fact that it is nominal and therefore inflated by higher costs of everything), it’s only a matter of time before Americans’ credit cards get maxx’d out (because savings rates have already crashed back to pre-COVID levels) and they are forced to cut back their spending to survive persistent high inflation that is destroying real wages. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/19/2021 – 20:40

• Crypto Company Creates Architecture For A Self-Sovereign Economy
  Crypto Company Creates Architecture For A Self-Sovereign Economy

  Authored by ‘NAMCIOS’ via BitcoinMagazine.com,

  Synonym Software, dedicated to bringing new utility and user experiences to Bitcoin and the Lightning Network, has officially launched today.

  “Hyperbitcoinization won’t magically happen on its own,” said John Carvalho, CEO of Synonym, in a statement sent to Bitcoin Magazine.

  “In order to live in a world without big banks, oppressive regulation, or Big Tech presiding over our lives, we need a strategy and ecosystem to replace the legacy economy. That is where Synonym comes in.”

  

  Synonym builds software to empower the Bitcoin and Lightning networks to encompass more use cases and free users from depending on traditional finance applications and systems.

  “By combining the Lightning Network’s speed and efficiency with an architected ecosystem of open P2P platforms and applications, Synonym hopes to accelerate Bitcoin’s ability to act as an independent, self-regulated economy,” per the statement.

  At launch, Synonym is releasing Slashtags, a protocol that leverages a web of trust model to create interoperable, uncensorable networks connected via encrypted private channels and feeds. Plans for Slashtags include a search and publishing platform that enables users to create and monetize data and a user-centric decentralized social media platform.

  “Synonym will also release Blocktank, a full-service ‘Lightning Service Provider’ (LSP), which will allow businesses, platforms, apps, or Bitcoiners to configure and purchase Lightning Network connections and liquidity instantly,” according to the statement.

  The company, which Tether Holdings owns, is also open-sourcing code libraries for features like tokens on Lightning, a mobile Lightning node, and encrypted, remote wallet backups. Fulgur Ventures is also an investor.

  “As part of the family of companies that make up Tether and Bitfinex, Synonym is positioned to integrate all of these companies products in a strategic way for Bitcoin, and we can reroute these resources back into Bitcoin development,” Carvalho told Bitcoin Magazine.

  “Slashtags Accounts and Blocktank LSP will be integrated with Bitfinex. Instant Tether tokens will be introduced to the Lightning Network, within our apps, and within Blocktank LSP for token channel liquidity, and Synonym will bring all of this together using the one and only important blockchain, Bitcoin.”

  

  AN EXCLUSIVE LOOK INSIDE SYNONYM WITH CEO JOHN CARVALHO

  The Slashtags protocol challenges common beliefs in the cryptocurrency industry that many blockchains are necessary for disrupting traditional finance. Synonym and its software stack aim to demonstrate how only one blockchain is necessary.

  “We wanted to show and prove that you literally do not need a blockchain for anything other than a Bitcoin standard store of value,” Carvalho told Bitcoin Magazine. “Slashtags can improve any network’s ability to authenticate, coordinate, permission, and sort anything digitally expressible.”

  Slashtags is based on a web of trust (WoT) model, in which public-key cryptography is used to establish the authenticity of the binding between a public key and its owner. It requires that a schema be passed when communicating about a key. These schemas can be leveraged to allow anyone to form private yet interoperable networks.

  “These localized WoTs can rebuild an entire new user-centric web where you decide who to include and under which conditions,” Carvalho explained. “This empowers Bitcoiners by allowing us to create literally any digital marketplace we can define in a way that leaks minimal metadata and only with whom we choose to trust.”

  Slashtags is only part of Synonym’s stack, however. The company also uses Omni, a platform that enables tokens, decentralized crowdfunding, and peer-to-peer trading solutions on Bitcoin.

  “The reason we chose to support Omni and OmniBOLT, is that they are the only token solutions that do not require extra blockchains or native store of value tokens to operate,” Carvalho said. “Omni transactions are Bitcoin transactions with special info that is tracked by the Omni network, and uses the same scaling methods as Bitcoin, like a Lightning Network layer 2.”

  Similar offerings exist, like Liquid and Stacks, that also promise the ability to issue digital assets on Bitcoin. However, Carvalho explained why Synonym chose Omni instead.

  “The problem with Liquid is that it requires a trusted federated network, and that risk profile is nearly impossible to communicate to users inside of an app. Omni allows users to focus on whether they trust each individual token owner alone,” he said. “The problems with Stacks are even worse, as it has a lot of superfluous design and mechanics that do not scale whatsoever, and are ultimately totally unnecessary to achieve decentralized web goals.”

  Synonym’s goal is to enable society to function without trusting intermediaries or asking for permission from big banks or tech companies. By leveraging Bitcoin and the Lightning Network, the company aims to replace trusted intermediaries with an “Atomic Economy” powered by open-source software that puts the user back in control.

  “The idea is to actually reform the web to be as practical and relevant as possible to each individual,” Carvalho said.

  “The Atomic Economy is a concept that combines the ideas of a circular economy with a web of trust to form a highly efficient and relative social economy. Our hypothesis is that if we can achieve minimal conversion (with a circular economy) and minimal data redundancy (with localized webs of trust), we can replace the violent oppressive legacy economy with a self-regulating reputation-aware social economy that obsoletes banks, governments, and Big Tech.“

  Bitcoin is core to that goal since it provides a global and permissionless monetary network to backbone the new web, and Lightning is central to unleashing sound money’s full potential. Synonym’s LSP, Blocktank, seeks to bring that power to everyday users with convenience. The service rivals Lightning Lab’s Pool and Voltage’s Flow as a market for Lightning liquidity.

  “Pool and Flow are systems that attempt to decentralize aspects of this kind of service, but we want to demonstrate that such a design is not always necessary because users can still hold their own keys regardless of the source of their channel connection,” Carvalho explained. “We aim to prove that by offering an intentional business service for Lightning channel liquidity and automation, we can specialize and scale in predictable and useful ways for the businesses that choose to work with us.”

  User control in the form of key ownership and true sovereignty is central to Synonym’s mission, as well as choosing the right tool for the job. As a result, that is where much of the company’s and Carvalho’s criticism of novel “Web3” narratives, common in the cryptocurrency industry, stems from.

  “You simply do not need a blockchain to create what they call ‘Web3’ user experiences and designs. We are solving the same problems using Slashtags and Hypercore to establish a new social economy web paradigm without the nonsense of unscalable blockchain bullshit,” he said.

  “The Web3 and Metaverse narrative will haunt us for years, and require much re-education to separate design ideas from the people simply trying to pump their investments to greater fools.”

  “The Slashtags Web of Trust will enable people to make their own decisions together about which token credit issuers to trust, and which to dismiss, empowering all businesses to leverage their relevance with the customers that rely on them by issuing credit in any format they wish: IOU dollar tokens, hamburger tokens, subscription tokens, gift tokens (a strict upgrade to gift cards), and any bearer instrument they are willing to define and be responsible for,” Carvalho added.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/19/2021 – 20:20

• Iranians Hold Huge Anti-Government Protest After Key River Completely Dries Up
  Iranians Hold Huge Anti-Government Protest After Key River Completely Dries Up

  Rare mass protests have hit a large central Iranian city over persisting water shortages and continued economic woes which is fast creating a humanitarian crisis as farmers are losing their crops.

  Thousands gathered in central Isfahan, outraged over government mismanagement which has allowed a key river to dry up completely. “Footage broadcast by state television and dozens of videos circulating on social media on Friday showed a sea of farmers and other people standing on a huge barren strip of dirt where the major Zayandeh Rud River used to flow, near the iconic Khaju Bridge in Isfahan province,” Al Jazeera reports.

  Massive Protest in Isfahan #Iran today against drought, corruption and poor management.

  Internet disruptions now being reported, and heavier security presence now to quell gatherings at night: pic.twitter.com/0uygcusVyx

  — Joyce Karam (@Joyce_Karam) November 19, 2021

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

  Lack of resources – which has of late also included gasoline after last month a major cyberattack disrupted a national program for state-subsidized fuel, literally taking gas stations offline for days and weeks (it was widely blamed on Israel) – has fueled sporadic protests for much of the past year, also amid rolling blackouts as the power grid has been strained to the max across major cities.

  The current protest in Isfahan has been underway for much of the past week, but Friday saw the biggest gathering yet, gaining international media attention. Isfahan is the country’s third-largest city.

  Iranian officials have reportedly been under pressure to find a solution for the region’s lack of water. “The key river has faced water shortages and droughts for years, and farmers have intermittently protested the lack of attention given to the issue. But officials have yet to find a sustainable solution to the problem,” Al Jazeera notes further.

  Large protest in Iran’s Isfahan over the drying up of Zayandeh Rood river pic.twitter.com/gLlvjmoWxF

  — Golnaz Esfandiari (@GEsfandiari) November 19, 2021

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

  Most provinces in the Islamic Republic have already endured years of drought, and the recent energy woes – exacerbated by US-led sanctions which in some cases have crippled technicians’ ability to quickly replace grid parts – have escalated anti-government sentiment. 

  Many of Iran’s modern high-rise buildings are not designed to stay cool with lack of power, leading residents in sweltering conditions. But the water access issue, particularly in central and southern Iran, remains the most immediate pressing problem. 

  #Iran: Massive gathering in my hometown of #Isfahan. It’s no longer just the farmers, but thousands more have joined in solidarity to protest the catastrophic management of water resources by the regime that has dried up city’s river. In a shift state media is covering it too. pic.twitter.com/ojHkTexQQU

  — Bahman Kalbasi (@BahmanKalbasi) November 19, 2021

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

  “Precipitation had decreased by almost 50 percent in the last year, leaving dams with dwindling water supplies to fuel the country,” an Associated Press report from last summer emphasized. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/19/2021 – 20:00

• COVID Is Over (If You Want It)
  COVID Is Over (If You Want It)

  Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

  The title of this blog post is, of course, an homage to the classic John Lennon Christmas song “Happy XMas (War is Over)”, which then spurred the popularity of the phrase “War is Over! (If You Want It)”.

  Despite my distaste for Yoko Ono (and John Lennon being one of my least favorite Beatles), the song is undeniably one of the greatest ever written, both musically and lyrically.

  Its chorus, including the background lyrics “war is over, if you want it”, sung by the Harlem Community Choir, deliver a goosebump-inducing message of peace at the time of year where so many people, of varying walks of life, celebrating any number of holidays, realign themselves with the magic of giving, the importance of family, the closeness of community and a sense of purpose about our short journey here on Earth.

  

  I caught myself by surprise a couple days ago when the first Christmas playlist I put on this year pumped out this song and I started to get a little emotional.

  It’s surprising, because while I’ve always enjoyed Christmas and the holidays, I never found Christmas music to be particularly moving. Rather, after suffering through years of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” being the number one song played on the bar jukebox where I used to work during all of November and December, I found it less to be about the spirit of giving and more to be a lobotomized cue for automatons to order a 16th glass of egg nog.

  And so, this week, I was trying to take personal inventory about what could have me feeling so moved during only the second week of November. I started thinking about it then, and finished thinking about it during a 3 hour drive I had this week – one of the rare times where I have silence and can hear myself think.

  I stumbled upon the idea that because Christmas last year broke from tradition for so many people (myself and my family included) and because this year it finally feels like some of the nation is breathing a true sigh of relief from Covid, that the 2021 holiday season could wind up being one where we embrace tradition yet again.

  This is akin to some actual Christmas magic.

  To me, it feels like the nation is on the verge of collectively exhaling after what can only be described as a physically arduous and psychologically burdensome 24 months. We’ve lost some family and friends, we’re all a couple years older, our perspectives have shifted – yet, if you’re reading this, you’re one of the billions of members of the human race relentlessly marching forward.

  Together, we have dealt with an assault on our senses for nearly two years and, this holiday season, it’s time to just let that shit go.

  Worse than the virus itself has been the continued incessant reminders to get vaccinated, two-faced mask requirements from hypocritical politicians, spurious and useless mandates and individuals and businesses who suffered personal or economic losses.

  The psychological toll from Covid easily rivals, if not surpasses, the physical toll we have paid. And why wouldn’t it be? Every day, the mainstream media brutalizes us with new sensationalist claims about how Covid is waiting around the corner with a gun, getting ready to shoot us in the face in our own homes if we do something as meaningless as use a one-way door labeled “Exit” to enter a building.

  And if the virus doesn’t shoot us (hyperbole), the government might (less hyperbole). Just ask Australia.

  What have we been rewarded with, as a nation – as a human race – for obeying all of these rules? We have been lied to and deceived at almost every instance possible.

  There have been deceptions about herd immunity, Dr. Fauci has lied willingly about whether or not he helped fund gain of function research, the media has lied about potentially efficacious Covid treatments, FDA staff have resigned in protest over pressure to approve boosters and the stocks of companies like Moderna have gone through the roof.

  Yesterday was another day that I woke up and watched the mainstream media narrative alternate between trying to scare the shit out of people and complete and total implosion.

  Almost one year to the day after President Biden said “You’re not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations,” the following headline made its way onto MSNBC.

  

  The article read:

  “What we’re starting to see now is an uptick in hospitalizations among people who’ve been vaccinated but not boosted,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease, said Tuesday in an interview.

  Surprise, surprise. The goalposts have been moved again. Oh, and look: vaccination status continues to be pushed as controversial.

  Yesterday there was unending coverage on ESPN over whether or not NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown was vaccinated or whether he faked his vaccination card. The allegations of Brown using a fake card were made by his former private chef, who said Brown owes him $10,000.

  

  To which, I replied: who honestly fucking cares? How is this news?

  Nobody in a stadium full of 40,000 football fans (or on the field tackling each other) honestly cares so much about this that it should be any news story. The virus is dangerous, but not that dangerous, and vaccines have been, and will continue to be, personal health decisions.

  Between headlines like these and another “impending doom” chryon (remember that idiocy from the CDC director?), we continue to be subject to an onslaught of media hysteria heading into the holiday season.

  

  To the average American just trying to do the right thing, these news items are yet another reason, in addition to skyrocketing inflation and just trying to survive in general while healthy, to wake up with your muscles tensed and your mind panicked. How much human capital are we wasting in this perpetual fight or flight state right now? How far have we overshot the response mark? How counterintuitive are our actions? How much is it eating at our quality of life?

  The unfortunate fact of the matter is that Covid is simply going to be unavoidable for most of us. It is everywhere, it’s going to be everywhere, and the sooner that one makes peace with that and accepts it, the quicker they can start to alleviate themselves of the psychosis they’ve been carrying around for two years months.

  Since about March 2020, I haven’t worried much about Covid. I’m in good shape and have continued most of my normal routine despite having Covid earlier this year. I was one of the lucky ones who had a fever for a couple of days, some flu like symptoms, and then just got on with my life. The worst part was losing my smell and taste for a while, but that eventually came back. I didn’t crow about my positive Covid test, I didn’t write about it on Twitter, I didn’t use it as a soapbox to tell people what to do with their lives, and I didn’t have a nervous breakdown.

  I just got on with my life. This holiday season, we can all do the same.

  

  It’s weird that I’m feeling a great sense of relief heading into the holiday season this year. I know I’m going to be around family. I know they are going to be slightly less stressed than they are were last year and – Covid or no Covid – I know I only have so many holiday seasons left. So, this year, I’ll be focusing 100% of my energy on making this one special, and one to remember.

  By all means, if you are immuno-compromised or elderly, or have people with comorbidities in your family – take precautions. Protect those that you love.

  Realistically, you may not be able to completely ignore Covid this holiday season , but there’s a high chance that you owe it to yourself to try and exhale and enjoy your holidays as close to “normally” as you can. Many people might even be able to turn their brains off to Covid completely, like millions across the nation have already done.

  The least you can do, even if you are taking precautions with your family, is turn off the television and stop bludgeoning yourself with the media. It has been nothing but a combination of deception, hysteria and and sensationalism. None of those things belong at your peaceful holiday dinner table.

  Take that deep breath now, then exhale. Covid is over (if you want it).

  *  *  *

  This was a free look at paid subscriber content from QTR’s Fringe Finance. If you enjoy and want to support my work, I’d love to have you as a subscriber. Zerohedge readers get 10% off a subscription for life by using this link.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/19/2021 – 19:40

• Ford And GM Could Soon Be Getting Into The Semiconductor Production Business
  Ford And GM Could Soon Be Getting Into The Semiconductor Production Business

  There’s no better reminder of how markets adapt to problems than the free market finding solutions to roadblocks in an industry. That’s what’s happening in automotive, where it appears that Ford and GM are going to start vertically integrating – by producing – to solve their semiconductor woes.

  Both automakers are looking to get into the semiconductor business, a new report from the WSJ claims. In fact, Ford has already outlined a strategic agreement with GlobalFoundries to develop chips in a move that “could eventually lead to U.S. production”.

  The partnership is focused on “producing higher-end chips that would go into vehicles several years out,” WSJ wrote.

  Chuck Gray, Ford’s vice president of vehicle embedded software and controls, said: “We feel like we can really boost our product performance and our tech independence at the same time.”

  Ford is considering bringing chip development in-house, the report says. Its own chips could help improve some vehicle features, the company believes.

  GM is also partnering with names like Qualcomm and NXP Semiconductors, the report says, and has agreements in place to manufacture chips.

  

  GM President Mark Reuss said: “We see the semiconductor requirements more than doubling over the next several years.”

  GM is also aiming to reduce the number of unique microprocessors needed for new vehicles by 95%. It plans on developing three core families that use similar architecture in order to do so. 

  Mike Hogan, a senior vice president in charge of GlobalFoundries automotive business said: “This is a great example of how you take a crisis and turn it into an opportunity.”

  It’s not a huge surprise that automakers want to take production matters into their own hands. Recall, we wrote in September how major auto manufacturers were predicting that the global semi shortage “may not just go away” on its own in 2022. 

  Volkswagen Chief Executive Officer Herbert Diess said at the time: “Probably we will remain in shortages for the next months or even years because semiconductors are in high demand. The internet of things is growing and the capacity ramp-up will take time. It will be probably a bottleneck for the next months and years to come.”

  Ola Kallenius at Daimler and Oliver Zipse of BMW also added to the pessimism. Kallenius said that the shortage “may not entirely go away” in 2022, according to Bloomberg. Zipse said there could be another 6 to 12 months left in the shortage.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/19/2021 – 19:20

• Hyped-Inflation Versus The Coming Global Demographic Vortex
  Hyped-Inflation Versus The Coming Global Demographic Vortex

  Most Central Banks are increasingly convinced high inflation rates might not be so transient after all. Which is why the tightening cycle has now begun. It’s worth reminding oneself that secular demographics are set to reach maximum deflationary pressure in the decade ahead. This is in stark contrast to the 1970s when demographic trends underpinned the then inflationary surge.

  But amid the current inflation panic, Eric Basmajian of EPB Research reminds us that the demographic headwinds facing the major economies are intensifying (especially with people dropping out of the workforce). His great charts show deflation pressures are intense.

  In the long-term, demographics will be a big shock to Central Banks hopes of higher inflation rates.

  The Global Demographic Vortex

  Executive Summary

  • All major economies are suffering from aging demographics.

  • An economy gets a boost from the 25-54-year-old age cohort and suffers a drag from the 65+-year-old age cohort.

  • Older populations are correlated to lower real growth and lower inflation.

  • With major economies already stuck at the zero-bound, fiscal and monetary authorities will have to contemplate negative interest rates or continued debt-financed fiscal spending.

  • Both options will not reverse economic gravity and erode the standard of living over time.

  A rising tide lifts all boats. An economy receives a significant boost through the prime-age (25-54) population as this cohort has the highest rate of income and consumption. Prime-age workers buy more homes, vehicles, and durable goods, helping to boost production and employment. 

  Conversely, an economy feels a drag as older demographics (65+) comprise a larger share of the total population, particularly as modern economies are structured through heavy transfer payments in traditional retirement years. The older population rapidly slows consumption, downsizes home size, and is more able to leave the labor force, supported through Medicare and Social Security, at least in the United States. 

  The next 10-15 years will bring a significant demographic drag, not only in Japan, the poster-child for an aging population, but also in Europe, the United Kingdom, China, and the United States. 

  The global demographic vortex will act as a vacuum, sucking resources from the prime-age workers through taxation or debt-financed transfers, forcing central banks to hold rates at the zero-bound or quickly return after another failed attempt to combat rising inflation.

  Demographic Drag 

  Charted below, we can see the aging population across major economies of the world. The 65+-year-old group as a percentage of the total population is rising (charted inversely) in the five largest economies. 

  Aging Demographics In All Major Economies:

  

  Source: Our World In Data, EPB Macro Research

  Despite popular opinion, Japan is not the only country that is suffering a demographic drag, and in fact, over the next ten years, the major economies of the world will mirror the problems that plagued Japan over the previous decades. 

  Aging Demographics In All Major Economies:

  

  Source: Our World In Data, EPB Macro Research

  Many investors and economic analysts acknowledge aging demographics and the negative impact on growth and inflation but are relatively flippant about the importance. Like the analogy of a frog in boiling water, demographics have been impacting every major economy, contributing to sub-par economic growth over the last ten years, with investors and analysts offering dozens of explanations other than the most obvious and forceful economic fundamental. 

  The chart below shows the 10-year annualized rate of real GDP growth for the United States [blue] and the old-age population as a percentage of the total, graphed inversely [black]. 

  Aging Demographics vs. Real GDP Growth:

  

  Source: Our World In Data, BEA, FRED, EPB Macro Research

  The demographic drag will not impact economic growth month to month or even year to year. Still, if you are willing to take a longer view, demographics are the most reliable economic fundamental impacting real growth, inflation, and thus, central bank policy and interest rates across the entire Treasury curve.

  The relationship below shows the old-age population on the X-axis and the 10-year annualized rate of real growth on the Y-axis. The 2030 demographic estimate highlights how we should very much expect real economic growth to converge to 0% by the end of the decade. 

  Real Growth Will Converge To Zero:

  

  Source: Our World In Data, BEA, FRED, EPB Macro Research

  While this may sound extreme, investors that are more familiar with the long-term analysis at EPB Macro Research know that real GDP per capita growth is already rapidly converging towards zero despite unlimited central bank support and fiscal transfers. 

  Real GDP Per Capita: 20-Year Annualized Growth

  

  Source: BEA, EPB Macro Research

  As economic growth converges towards zero, the linear relationship between demographics and growth starts to level off. With the help of statistician Ian Fellows, we can plot the relationship between real GDP growth and the old-age population in Japan, the UK, and the United States. 

  Real Growth Will Converge To Zero:

  

  Source: Our World In Data, BEA, FRED, Ian Fellows, EPB Macro Research

  Aging demographics plaguing all five major economies of the world will suck real economic growth down towards zero, forcing central banks to the zero-bound if not already there and through the zero-bound for those willing to further the experiment of negative interest rates. 

  The recent surge in supply-side inflation is causing panic among global central banks, putting rate hikes back into the near-term equation. As with the last several attempts to “normalize” policy, there will be a quick U-turn back towards the zero-bound as economic gravity continues to pull the real growth rate to zero.

  Demographics & Inflation

  Demographics is also the most influential factor for inflation if you are willing to accept a longer time frame. 

  The age-dependency ratio is a measure that relates the “dependents” in the population to the working-age population. 

  The population 15-years and younger depend on parents for support, and the population 65-years and older, based on the way we have structured our system, also depends on the working-age population to produce goods, work, and generate income support retirement programs. 

  As a result, the age-dependency ratio graphed inversely in the chart below measures how much pressure there is on the working-age population to divert resources towards the young and old. 

  As the line is moving higher in the chart below, the working-age population is widening relative to the dependent population, creating robust economic conditions. 

  United States: Age Dependency Ratio

  

  Source: Our World In Data, EPB Macro Research

  Particularly today, with inflation that resembles the 1970s, investors and analysts frantically remember what caused the 1970s inflation and the similarities to the current situation.

  In reality, the situation today is much different as the 1970s inflation can be almost entirely explained by a demographic boom. 

  After the war, there was a “baby boom.” Fast forward 20 years, and those babies are now entering the prime-age cohort, ready to work, consume and produce. From 1960-1985, the United States experienced some of the most positive demographics the country has ever seen. 

  If we take the 20-year rolling change in the age-dependency ratio and plot it against the long-term (10Y) rate of inflation, we can see that almost all of the long-term inflation trends can be explained through demographics and a widening or contracting share of the working-age population. 

  United States: Change In Age Dependency Ratio Vs. Inflation

  

  Source: Our World In Data, BLS, FRED, EPB Macro Research

  Investors and analysts ignore demographics despite the clear relationships proving population trends to be the most reliable and forceful determinant of economic conditions.

  Summary

  Over the last ten years, sub-par economic growth and lackluster rates of inflation have confused policymakers and investors. A global demographic drag is at the heart of the problem. 

  The next decade will come with a global demographic drag that is far more intense than the last ten years across all major economies, not just Japan. 

  The rate of real economic growth will continue to slowly grind towards 0% and pull the long-term rate of inflation with it. 

  Fiscal policy will try and paper over this lost demand, aided by a close relationship with the central bank. Still, this debt-based strategy will only compound the problem, leaving the economy without any lasting growth and a rising debt burden, adding even more pressure to the global economy than the demographic drag alone. 

  Central banks will once again try an exercise of removing accommodation and raising interest rates to combat severe supply-side inflation, only to find that the structural economy is too weak, and a quick U-turn back towards the zero-floor will come if you are willing to take the multi-year view. 

  Debt-based fiscal spending will create short-term boosts to growth and inflation but with diminishing efficacy and increasing unintended consequences. 

  The long-term investor should be mindful of these trends and align their portfolio with assets that can survive another low-growth decade. Defensive assets like long-duration Treasury bonds are still effective at low levels of interest rates and one part of a diversified portfolio. 

  Some equities will benefit from low or no growth, particularly the companies that do have legitimate growth as growth that investors can find will continue to trade at a premium. 

  Companies that are sensitive to the real economy and aggregate economic growth will not benefit, so the overall equity market will become increasingly narrow in the decade ahead.

  *  *  *

  If you’re interested in regular updates on the shorter-term cyclical trends in both growth and inflation, consider our monthly report. If you’re interested in quarterly updates on the longer-term structural trends in both growth and inflation, consider our quarterly presentation. If you’d like access to both offerings, please contact me for a bundled rate. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/19/2021 – 19:00

• Rolling Blackouts Possible In Texas, Midwest As Cold Blast Looms
  Rolling Blackouts Possible In Texas, Midwest As Cold Blast Looms

  The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), a nonprofit corporation responsible for overseeing US’ power grid, published a new report on the risk of rolling blackouts if persistent cold weather is observed this winter. 

  NERC’s three-month (December–February) winter report is an assessment that identifies potential reliability issues of interest across six regional power grids. 

  

  The report identifies Texas as having the weakest power grid if extreme cold weather were to strike.

  

  “Extreme weather events, including extended durations of colder than normal weather, pose a risk to the uninterrupted delivery of power to electricity consumers,” the report said, adding that power grids might have to use “rolling blackout procedures to ensure that no critical infrastructure loads (e.g., natural gas, telecommunications) would be affected.” 

  Power grids are expected to have sufficient supplies under normal operating conditions between the three months. But if unseasonably cold weather is observed, fossil fuel generators (powered by crude, coal, or natural gas) may experience shortages due to supply constraints. 

  For instance, the report warns about potential coal delivery problems:  

  “Coal delivery problems by rail can impact the operation of coal-fired electricity generation; likewise, the economics of electricity and energy markets can affect coal supplies. Coal supplies in North America are being affected by the current global energy shortage,” the report said, pointing out that supplies are dwindling ahead of winter. 

  

  In early October, we quoted Ernie Thrasher, CEO of Xcoal Energy & Resources LLC., who said US utilities are quickly turning to coal generation because of soaring natural gas prices. 

  “We’ve actually had discussions with power utilities who are concerned that they simply will have to implement blackouts this winter,” Thrasher warned.

  He said, “They don’t see where the fuel is coming from to meet demand,” adding that 23% of utilities are switching away from gas this fall/winter to burn more coal. 

  We recently noted that due to unprecedented demand, resource companies had sold every piece of coal they will extract from the ground for 2022. “It’s pretty much sold out,” Peabody CEO Jim Grech said last month. “We only have a small portion left to be sold for 2022 and for 2023.”

   A La Nina winter means below-average temperatures for parts of the northern hemisphere. Hopefully, an energy crisis like the one playing out in Europe and China isn’t headed for the US. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/19/2021 – 18:40

• Jordan Peterson: Government Adviser Told Me COVID Rules Based On Opinion Polls, Not Science
  Jordan Peterson: Government Adviser Told Me COVID Rules Based On Opinion Polls, Not Science

  Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

  Jordan Peterson says he spoke to a senior government adviser who told him Canada’s COVID restriction policies are completely driven by opinion polls and not science.

  

  “In relation to the COVID restrictions, I talked to a senior adviser to one of the provincial governments a couple of weeks ago,” said Peterson.

  “He told me flat out that the COVID policy here is driven by nothing but opinion polls related to the popularity of the government,” he added.

  “No science, no endgame in sight, no real plan, and so what that means is that the part of the population that is most afraid of COVID,” are driving the policy.

  Peterson pointed to figures that prove people vastly exaggerate the risk of being hospitalized by COVID due to relentless government fearmongering campaigns.

  This is concerning.
  Jordan Peterson is not known for making up lies, I would love to know who he’s talking about🤔 pic.twitter.com/FyiAzPpUWq

  — heather (@howisthismylif) November 18, 2021

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

  The author said he found the conversation “extremely disheartening” because he had hoped lockdown policies were “at least driven by something remotely resembling a scientifically informed plan.”

  Peterson said the government adviser was “irate at what had been happening, enough to consider resigning.”

  As we have previously highlighted, populations in virtually every major country believe COVID to be an exponentially greater threat than it actually is.

  A poll in France showed that the average person thinks the infection to fatality ratio is over 16 per cent, when it is actually 0.1-0.3 per cent.

  As we previously highlighted, a poll conducted in summer 2020 found that the average American believed 9 per cent of the population, around 30 million people, had died from coronavirus when the actual figure at the time was less than 155,000.

  People in the U.S. also believed that 20% of Americans had caught coronavirus, 20 times higher than the number of confirmed cases.

  In Sweden and the UK in particular, people also vastly overestimated the number of lives COVID-19 had claimed, with the average Brit thinking coronavirus had killed 100 times more people than the actual figure.

  Governments scare the living hell out of citizens to elicit a fear reaction, then point to poll numbers calling for more lockdown measures in order to justify more lockdown measures.

  It would be funny if it were not so sinisterly Machiavellian.

  *  *  *

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  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/19/2021 – 18:20

• DoJ Charges 2 Iranians Posing As Proud Boys With Election Meddling
  DoJ Charges 2 Iranians Posing As Proud Boys With Election Meddling

  An indictment unsealed in New York Thursday charged two Iranian nationals for their alleged involvement in a “cyber-enabled campaign to intimidate and influence American voters, and otherwise undermine voter confidence and sow discord, in connection with the 2020 U.S. presidential election,” according to a Department of Justice (DoJ) press release. 

  Seyyed Kazemi, 24, and Sajjad Kashian, 27, Iranian nationals, were indicted by a grand jury in Manhattan federal court this week. The indictment claims Kazemi and Kashian obtained voter information from one state website while attempting to access others. The duo posed as a “group of Proud Boys volunteers” and created bogus videos showing a person hacking state voter websites to create fake absentee ballots. The video was widely distributed ahead of the 2020 presidential election to Republican members of the House and Senate, Trump administration officials, and Trump’s re-election campaign. 

  Both men are charged with one count of conspiracy to commit cyber fraud and abuse, intimidate voters and transmit interstate threats. 

  

  “This indictment details how two Iran-based actors waged a targeted, coordinated campaign to erode confidence in the integrity of the U.S. electoral system and to sow discord among Americans,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the DoJ’s National Security Division.

  “The allegations illustrate how foreign disinformation campaigns operate and seek to influence the American public. The Department is committed to exposing and disrupting malign foreign influence efforts using all available tools, including criminal charges,” Olsen said. 

  “As alleged, Kazemi and Kashian were part of a coordinated conspiracy in which Iranian hackers sought to undermine faith and confidence in the U.S. presidential election,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York. 

  “Working with others, Kazemi and Kashian accessed voter information from at least one state’s voter database, threatened U.S. voters via email, and even disseminated a fictitious video that purported to depict actors fabricating overseas ballots. The United States will never tolerate any foreign actors’ attempts to undermine our free and democratic elections. As a result of the charges unsealed today, and the concurrent efforts of our U.S. government partners, Kazemi and Kashian will forever look over their shoulders as we strive to bring them to justice,” Williams said. 

  The suspects are at large, and the DoJ’s Rewards for Justice Program offers $10 million for their whereabouts. Given that Kazemi and Kashian are likely in Iran, and both countries have poor relations, it’s unlikely the pair will be brought to justice. 

  DOJ officials briefed reporters Thursday that the duo didn’t influence the election nor was successful in changing any votes.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/19/2021 – 18:00

• Seniors To The Rescue? New Truckers Over-50 Could Solve Driver Shortage
  Seniors To The Rescue? New Truckers Over-50 Could Solve Driver Shortage

  By Noi Mahoney of FreightWaves,

  Laura Reny has been an over-the-road truck driver since 2014. The Idaho resident got into the trucking industry full time to pay the bills after her husband passed away from a long illness. She was 63 when she first took the wheel with her CDL as a widow. She’s now 70 — and has no plans to stop anytime soon.

  “I enjoy truck driving, I tell a lot of people that it’s a good job for women and old people, and I’m both,” Reny said.

  

  Ed Falls, 57, retired from a 30-year career as a school band director before he became a truck driver full time about two years ago. Falls wanted a change from teaching and driving a truck seemed like something he could do for a living.

  “It was just time for me to do something else and I always like driving,” Falls said. “I like over-the-road stuff. I like the freedom.”

  While the U.S. trucking industry continues to face a shortage of qualified drivers, a sometimes overlooked aspect of the market could be recruiting older drivers. The median age of over-the-road drivers is 46 and the average age of a new truck driver being trained is 35, according to a 2019 report from the American Trucking Associations.

  The ATA study estimates that the industry could be short by as many as 160,000 drivers by 2028. The trucking industry currently has about 2 million drivers, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

  For some people, a truck driving career is all about timing. John Albert said becoming a truck driver was easier as an empty nester.

  “If I was younger and I still had children at home, I would not do it,” said Albert, who is now 69 and started truck driving when he was 55. 

  Travis Bacon, manager of driver recruiting at Prime Inc., doesn’t usually see recruits in their 60s or 70s in the company’s CDL training program.

  Prime is a Springfield, Missouri-based refrigerated, flatbed, tanker and logistics trucking company with more than 8,000 drivers. Like most carriers in the industry, Prime is always on the lookout for truck drivers. Each week, up to 120 new student drivers begin orientation at Prime aiming to get their Class A CDLs. Of those new students, usually a handful are 50 or older.

  “I do see plenty of 50-year-olds starting. For the most part, it’s guys in their early 20s that are getting started, just what you would expect,” Bacon said. “We do occasionally see 50-year-olds, sometimes older, maybe a guy or two every week.”

  Most applicants arriving at orientation already know some information about the trucking industry, Bacon said.

  “We’re kind of painting the picture for them. You’re sleeping in the box in the truck. You’re showering at truck stops, you’re away from home for a few weeks at a time, you’re traveling all over the country and you’ve got to be ready for any type of weather,” Bacon said. “There’s also some perks to [truck driving]. There’s not a boss breathing down your neck 99% of the time, you’re kind of just cruising down the highway, listening to music or whatever you like, but driving takes a lot of focus.”

  Reny has had two stints working as a truck driver over the last 30 years. The first was from 1988 to 1993, after she got out of the Air Force, and her second career as a driver began under sad circumstances.

  “My husband had suffered a traumatic brain injury in 1996. For the next 18 years I took care of him. He went downhill in 2014,” Reny said. “I knew I wasn’t able to care for him any longer. I went ahead and put him in a nursing home. In the meantime, I had gotten my CDL because when I drove before I had a chauffeur’s license and wasn’t able to transfer it over to CDL.”

  Reny works as a long-haul truck driver for GLS Carriers, driving as much as 13,500 miles a month. She has hauled loads through all lower 48 states and in every weather condition. Reny describes driving down on the road as a “busy” experience.

  “My head is always on a swivel to watch traffic around me, because you have to watch all the other vehicles around you, most people drive very unconsciously,” Reny said.

  One of the best parts about truck driving for Reny is the money.

  “The money for sure,” said Reny, who makes roughly $75,000 a year. “Because I had no savings and Social Security is only like $1,500 a month, with my house payment and other stuff, that would be tough to live on.”

  Albert also said the money has been good driving a truck. He’s made more money in the last 14 years as a trucker than he did the previous 30 years working in other industries.

  “The very first year I started driving I made $55,000, and I’ve probably made a million dollars gross pay in 14 years driving a truck,” Albert said.

  Albert started working as a truck driver after working in a ministry.

  “The very hardest part for me, like most people, was backing,” Albert said. “It took about six months to a year, then all of a sudden the light bulb came on and it became a lot easier. I kept trying to turn the trailer into a spot, but you don’t actually turn it. You push it. When I cranked the wheels one way, it was going to push that trailer the other way. That became a little easier for me.”

  Falls said he completed his CDL training at a local community college in Michigan but really learned how to drive a truck on the job.

  “The CDL training was very good at preparing me for the test, getting my CDL,” Falls said. “As far as day-to-day driving on the road, bigger stuff, not too helpful there.”

  Falls said the first time he was out on his own he was driving a truck on Interstate 80 through the Chicago area to Gary, Indiana.

  “I was pretty confident behind the wheel, but I was also aware that I had a lot to learn so I tried to be very aware of what was going on around me. For example, when I was in areas where the traffic was heavier,” Falls said. “I would make sure that the radio was off so that I could really focus on what I was doing, no distractions.”

  Falls currently works Monday through Friday and is home on weekends. He said managing time and concentrating on the road are his most important tips for drivers of any age.

  “You need to be aware of the things that distract you personally, develop strategies to account for them,” Falls said. 

  Albert currently works as a driver for Nussbaum Transportation, for which he makes runs during the week, but like Falls is home mostly every weekend now.

  “I used to do over-the-road trucking, be gone sometimes five weeks at a time, I can’t do that anymore,” Albert said. 

  About 18 months ago, Alberts contracted COVID-19, which kept him in a hospital for two weeks.

  “I was like an inch away from having to go on a ventilator,” Albert said. “I feel privileged to still be doing what I’m doing.”

  Albert said one of his favorite parts about the job is seeing the country and least favorite is delays.

  “I’ve always enjoyed seeing the sights. I’ve seen deer, bears, elk and moose. I’ve even seen a wolf,” Albert said. “Unfortunately I’ve seen a lot of bad accidents too. The frustrating parts are accidents, construction, delays and stuff. 

  Albert said one of the biggest differences he sees between older drivers and younger ones are missed delivery appointments.

  “One of the big things that helped me in trucking is that my biggest pet peeve in life is tardiness,” Albert said. “You have got to be on time when you’re driving a truck.”

  Albert’s advice for anyone thinking of becoming a truck driver is to “count the costs.”

  “That’s how much money you make versus the sacrifice you’re going to have to make, because they’re large,” Albert said. “I think too many people get into trucking and think it’s a glamorous thing, but it is anything but glamorous. So counting the costs I think is No. 1.”

  Falls said anyone thinking of becoming a truck driver should be self motivated and open to learning new things. 

  “Talk to people and be open to suggestions,” Falls said.

  Reny’s advice for new truck drivers is to learn how to save money.

  “If you’re doing it because you need a certain level of money, you need to be prepared for that ahead of time, because it’s going to take an astute person to make more than $45,000 their first year,” Reny said.

  Reny hopes to keep driving for another two years so she can pay off her house and buy a new pickup truck and camper to travel around the U.S.

  “I’ll go visit friends and family and make a nuisance of myself. I want to really see the country,” Reny said.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 11/19/2021 – 17:40

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• How The "Grand Chessboard" Led To US Checkmate In Afghanistan
  How The “Grand Chessboard” Led To US Checkmate In Afghanistan

  Authored by Max Parry via Off-Guardian.org,

  Nearly as suspenseful as the Taliban’s meteoric return to power after the final withdrawal of American armed forces from Afghanistan is the uncertainty over what will come next amid the fallout…

  

  Many have predicted that Russia and China will step in to fill the power vacuum and convince the facelift Taliban to negotiate a power-sharing agreement in exchange for political and economic support, while others fear a descent into civil war is inevitable.

  Although Moscow and Beijing potentially stand to gain from the humiliating US retreat by pushing for an inclusive government in Kabul, the rebranded Pashtun-based group must first be removed as a designated terrorist organization.

  Neither wants to see Afghanistan worsen as a hotbed of jihad, as Islamist separatism already previously plagued Russia in the Caucasus and China is still in the midst of an ongoing ethnic conflict in Xinjiang with Uyghur Muslim secessionists and the Al Qaeda-linked Turkestan Islamic Party.

  At this point everyone recognizes the more serious extremist threat lies not with the Taliban but the emergence of ISIS Khorasan or ISIS-K, the Islamic State affiliate blamed for several recent terror attacks including the August 26th bombings at Hamid Karzai International Airport in the Afghan capital which killed 13 American service members and more than a 100 Afghans during the US drawdown.

  Three days later, American commanders ordered a retaliatory drone strike targeting a vehicle which they claimed was en route to detonate a suicide bomb at the same Kabul airport.

  For several days, the Pentagon falsely maintained that the aerial assault successfully took out two ISIS-K militants and a servile corporate media parroted these assertions unquestioningly, including concocting a totally fictitious report that the blast consisted of “secondary explosions” from devices already inside the car intended for use in an act of terror.

  Two weeks later, US Central Command (CENTCOM) was forced to apologize and admit the strike was indeed a “tragic mistake” which errantly killed ten innocent civilians — all of whom were members of a single family including seven children — while no Daesh members were among the dead.

  This distortion circulated in collusion between the endless war machine and the media is perhaps only eclipsed by the alleged Russian-Taliban bounty program story in its deceitfulness.

  If any Americans were aware of ISIS-K prior to the botched Kabul airstrike, they likely recall when former US President Donald Trump authorized the unprecedented use of a Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, informally referred to as the “Mother Of All Bombs”, on Islamic State militants in Nangarhar Province back in 2017.

  Reportedly, Biden’s predecessor had to be shown photos from the 1970s of Afghan girls wearing miniskirts by his National Security Advisor, HR McMaster, to renege on his campaign pledge of ending the longest war in US history. As it happens, the ISIS Khorasan fighters extinguished by the MOAB were sheltered at an underground tunnel complex near the Pakistani border that was built by the CIA back in the 1980s during the Afghan-Soviet war.

  Alas, the irony of this detail was completely lost on mainstream media whose proclivity to treat Pentagon newspeak as gospel has been characteristic of not only the last twenty years of US occupation but four decades of American involvement in Afghanistan since Operation Cyclone, the covert Central Intelligence Agency plan to arm and fund the mujahideen, was launched in 1979.

  Frank Wisner, the CIA official who established Operation Mockingbird, the agency’s extensive clandestine program to infiltrate the news media for propaganda purposes during the the Cold War, referred to the press as it’s “Mighty Wurlitzer”, or a musical instrument played to manipulate public opinion.

  Langley’s recruitment of assets within the fourth estate was one of many illicit activities by the national security apparatus divulged in the limited hangout of the Church Committee during the 1970s, along with CIA complicity in coups, assassinations, illegal surveillance, and drug-induced brainwashing of unwitting citizens.

  At bottom, it wasn’t just the minds of human guinea pigs that ‘The Company’ sought to control but the news coverage consumed by Americans as well.

  In his testimony before a congressional select committee, Director of Central Intelligence William Colby openly acknowledged the use of spooks in journalism, as seen in the award-winning documentary Inside the CIA: On Company Business (1980).

  Unfortunately, the breadth of the secret project and its vetting of journalists wasn’t fully revealed until an article by Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame appeared in Rolling Stone magazine, whereas the series of official investigations only ended up salvaging the deep state by presenting such wrongdoings as rogue “abuses” rather than an intrinsic part of espionage in carrying out US foreign policy.

  The corrupt institution of Western media also punishes anyone within its ranks who dares to swim against the current. The husband and wife duo of Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould, authors of a new memoir which illuminates the real story of Afghanistan, were two such journalists who learned just how the sausage is made in the nation’s capital with the connivance of the yellow press.

  Both veterans of the peace movement, Paul and Liz were initially among those who naively believed that America’s humiliation in Vietnam and the well-publicized hearings which discredited the intelligence community might lead to a sea change in Washington with the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976.

  In hindsight, there was actually good reason for optimism regarding the prospect for world peace in light of the arms reduction treaties and talks between the US and Moscow during the Nixon and Ford administrations, a silver lining to Henry Kissinger’s ‘realist’ doctrine of statecraft.

  However, any glimmer of hope in easing strained relations between the West and the Soviet Union was short-lived, as the few voices of reason inside the Beltway presuming good faith on the part of Moscow toward détente and nuclear proliferation were soon challenged by a new bellicose faction of DC think tank ghouls who argued that diplomacy jeopardized America’s strategic position and that the USSR sought global dominion.

  

  Since intelligence assessments inconveniently contradicted the claims of Soviet aspirations for strategic superiority, CIA Director George H.W. Bush consulted the purported expertise of a competitive group of intellectual warmongers known as ‘Team B’ which featured many of the same names later synonymous with the neoconservative movement, including Richard Pipes, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle.

  Bush, Sr. had replaced the aforementioned Bill Colby following the notorious “Halloween Massacre” firings in the Gerald Ford White House, a political shakeup which also included Kissinger’s ouster as National Security Advisor and the promotion of a young Donald Rumsfeld to Secretary of Defense with his pupil, one Richard B. Cheney, named Chief of Staff.

  This proto-neocon soft coup allowed Team B and its manipulated estimates of the Soviet nuclear arsenal to undermine the ongoing Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) between Washington and the Kremlin until Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev finally signed a second comprehensive non-proliferation treaty in June 1979.

  The behind-the-scenes split within the foreign policy establishment over which dogma would set external policymaking continued wrestling for power before the unipolarity of Team B prevailed thanks to the machinations of Carter’s National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski.

  If intel appraisals of Moscow’s intentions and military capabilities didn’t match the Team B thesis, the Polish-American strategist devised a scheme to lure the USSR into a trap in Afghanistan to give the appearance of Soviet expansionism in order to convince Carter to withdraw from SALT II the following year and sabotage rapprochement.

  By the time it surfaced that the CIA was supplying weapons to Islamist insurgents in the Central Asian country, the official narrative dispensed by Washington was that it was aiding the Afghan people fight back against an “invasion” by the Red Army.

  Ironically, this was the justification for a proxy conflict which resulted in the deaths of at least 2 million civilians and eventually collapsed the socialist government in Kabul, setting off a bloody civil war and the emergence of the Taliban.

  Even so, it was the media which helped manage the perception that the CIA’s covert war began only after the Soviets had intervened. Meanwhile, the few honest reporters who tried to unveil the truth about what was happening were silenced and relegated to the periphery.

  Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould were the first two American journalists permitted entry into the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in 1981 by the Moscow-friendly government since Western correspondents had been barred from the country. What they witnessed firsthand on the ground could not have contrasted more sharply from the accepted tale of freedom fighters resisting a communist “occupation” disseminated by propaganda rags.

  Instead, what they discovered was an army of feudal tribesman and fanatical jihadists who blew up schools and doused women with acid as they waged a holy war against an autonomous, albeit flawed, progressive government in Kabul enacting land reforms and providing education for girls.

  In addition, they learned the Soviet military presence was being deliberately exaggerated by major outlets who either outright censored or selectively edited their exclusive accounts, beginning with CBS Evening News and later ABC’s Nightline.

  

  Not long after the Taliban established an Islamic emirate for the first time in the late 1990s, Brzezinski himself would shamelessly boast that Operation Cyclone had actually started in mid-1979 nearly six months prior to the deployment of Soviet troops later that year.

  Fresh off the publication of his book The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, the Russophobic Warsaw-native told the French newspaper Le Nouvel Observateur in 1998:

  Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs that the American intelligence services began to aid the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan six months before the Soviet intervention. Is this period, you were the National Security Advisor to President Carter. You therefore played a key role in this affair. Is this correct?

  Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujaheddin began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan on December 24, 1979. But the reality, closely guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

  Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into the war and looked for a way to provoke it?

  B: It wasn’t quite like that. We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.

  Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against secret US involvement in Afghanistan , nobody believed them. However, there was an element of truth in this. You don’t regret any of this today?

  B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, essentially: “We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.” Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war that was unsustainable for the regime , a conflict that bought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

  Q: And neither do you regret having supported Islamic fundamentalism, which has given arms and advice to future terrorists?

  B: What is more important in world history? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some agitated Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?

  If this stunning admission straight from the horse’s mouth is too candid to believe, Fitzgerald and Gould obtain confirmation of Brzezinski’s Machiavellian confession from one of their own skeptics.

  Never mind that Moscow’s help had been requested by the legitimate Afghan government to defend itself against the US dirty war, a harbinger of the Syrian conflict more than three decades later when Damascus appealed to Russia in 2015 for military aid to combat Western-backed “rebel” groups.

  Paul and Liz also uncover CIA fingerprints all over the suspicious February 1979 assassination of Adolph Dubs, the American Ambassador to Afghanistan, whose negotiation attempts may have inadvertently thrown a wrench into Brzezinski’s ploy to draw the USSR into a quagmire. Spurring Carter to give his foreign policy tutor the green light to finance the Islamist proxies, the timely kidnapping and murder of the US diplomat at a Kabul hotel would be pinned on the KGB and the rest was history.

  The journo couple even go as far as to imply the branch of Western intelligence likely responsible for his murder was an agent from the Safari Club, an unofficial network between the security services of a select group of European and Middle Eastern countries which carried out covert operations during the Cold War across several continents with ties to the worldwide drug trade and Brzezinski.

  Although he was considered to be of the ‘realist’ school of international relations like Kissinger, Brzezinski’s plot to engineer a Russian equivalent of Vietnam in Afghanistan increased the clout of neoconservatism in Washington, a persuasion that would later reach its peak of influence in the George W. Bush administration.

  In retrospect, the need for a massive military buildup to achieve Pax Americana promoted by the war hawks in Team B was a precursor to the influential “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” manifesto by the Project for the New American Century cabal preceding 9/11 and the ensuing US invasion of Afghanistan.

  Fitzgerald and Gould also historically trace the ideological roots of neoconservatism to its intellectual foundations in the American Trotskyist movement during the 1930s. If a deviated branch of Marxism seems like an unlikely origin source for the right-wing interventionist foreign policy of the Bush administration, its basis is not as unexpected as it may appear.

  In fact, one of the main reasons behind the division between the Fourth International and the Comintern was over the national question, since Trotsky’s theory of “permanent revolution” called for expansion to impose global revolution unlike Stalin’s “socialism in one country” position which respected the sovereignty and self-determination of nation states while still giving support to national liberation movements.

  The authors conclude by highlighting how the military overhaul successfully championed by the neoconservatives marked the beginning of the end for US infrastructure maintenance as well.

  With public attention currently focused on the pending Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to repair decaying industry at home just as the disastrous Afghan pullout has put President Joe Biden’s favorability at an all-time low, Fitzgerald and Gould truly connect all the dots between the decline of America as a superpower with Brzezinski and Team B.

  Even recent statements by Jimmy Carter himself were tantamount when he spoke with Trump about China’s economic success which he attributed to Beijing’s lack of wasteful spending on military adventures, an incredible irony given the groundwork for the defense budget escalation begun under Ronald Reagan was laid by Carter’s own foreign policy.

  Looking back, the spousal team note that the ex-Georgia governor did not need much coaxing after all to betray his promises as a candidate, considering his rise to the presidency was facilitated by his membership alongside Brzezinski in the Trilateral Commission, an elite Rockefeller-funded think tank.

  What is certain is that Paul and Liz have written an indispensable book that gives a level of insight into the Afghan story only attainable from their four decades of scholarly work on the subject.

  The Valediction: Three Nights of Desmond is now available from Trine Day Press and the timing of its release could not offer better context to recent world events.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/18/2021 – 23:40

• Mapping The World's Solar Power In 2021
  Mapping The World’s Solar Power In 2021

  The world is adopting renewable energy at an unprecedented pace, and solar power is the energy source leading the way.

  Despite a 4.5% fall in global energy demand in 2020, Visual Capitalist’s Govind Bhutada notes that renewable energy technologies showed promising progress. While the growth in renewables was strong across the board, solar power led from the front with 127 gigawatts installed in 2020, its largest-ever annual capacity expansion.

  The above infographic uses data from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) to map solar power capacity by country in 2021. This includes both solar photovoltaic (PV) and concentrated solar power capacity.

  

  The Solar Power Leaderboard

  From the Americas to Oceania, countries in virtually every continent (except Antarctica) added more solar to their mix last year. Here’s a snapshot of solar power capacity by country at the beginning of 2021:

  

  *1 megawatt = 1,000,000 watts.

  China is the undisputed leader in solar installations, with over 35% of global capacity. What’s more, the country is showing no signs of slowing down. It has the world’s largest wind and solar project in the pipeline, which could add another 400,000MW to its clean energy capacity.

  Following China from afar is the U.S., which recently surpassed 100,000MW of solar power capacity after installing another 50,000MW in the first three months of 2021. Annual solar growth in the U.S. has averaged an impressive 42% over the last decade. Policies like the solar investment tax credit, which offers a 26% tax credit on residential and commercial solar systems, have helped propel the industry forward.

  Although Australia hosts a fraction of China’s solar capacity, it tops the per capita rankings due to its relatively low population of 26 million people. The Australian continent receives the highest amount of solar radiation of any continent, and over 30% of Australian households now have rooftop solar PV systems.

  China: The Solar Champion

  In 2020, President Xi Jinping stated that China aims to be carbon neutral by 2060, and the country is taking steps to get there.

  China is a leader in the solar industry, and it seems to have cracked the code for the entire solar supply chain. In 2019, Chinese firms produced 66% of the world’s polysilicon, the initial building block of silicon-based photovoltaic (PV) panels. Furthermore, more than three-quarters of solar cells came from China, along with 72% of the world’s PV panels.

  With that said, it’s no surprise that 5 of the world’s 10 largest solar parks are in China, and it will likely continue to build more as it transitions to carbon neutrality.

  What’s Driving the Rush for Solar Power?

  The energy transition is a major factor in the rise of renewables, but solar’s growth is partly due to how cheap it has become over time. Solar energy costs have fallen exponentially over the last decade, and it’s now the cheapest source of new energy generation.

  Since 2010, the cost of solar power has seen a 85% decrease, down from $0.28 to $0.04 per kWh. According to MIT researchers, economies of scale have been the single-largest factor in continuing the cost decline for the last decade. In other words, as the world installed and made more solar panels, production became cheaper and more efficient.

  This year, solar costs are rising due to supply chain issues, but the rise is likely to be temporary as bottlenecks resolve.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/18/2021 – 23:20

• The Road To Fascism: Paved With Vaccine Mandates And Corporate Collusion
  The Road To Fascism: Paved With Vaccine Mandates And Corporate Collusion

  Authored by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “Man is born free but everywhere is in chains.”

  – Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  We are moving fast down the road to fascism.

  This COVID-19 pandemic has shifted us into high gear.

  

  The heavy-handed collusion between the Techno-Corporate State and the U.S. government over vaccine mandates is merely the latest manifestation of the extent to which fascist forces are working to overthrow our constitutional republic and nullify the rights of the individual.

  In early November 2021, the Biden Administration drew its line in the sand for more than 100 million American workers: get vaccinated against COVID-19 (by Nov. 22 for federal workers, and Jan. 4 for federal contractors and companies with more than 100 employees) or else.

  Or else what?

  For many individuals with sincere objections to the vaccine, either based on their religious beliefs or some other medical or philosophical concern, non-compliance with workplace vaccine mandates will mean losing their jobs and the possibility of no unemployment benefits.

  One survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management estimated that 28% of employed Americans wouldn’t get a COVID vaccine even if it meant losing their jobs.

  Although OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) is requiring that employees be paid for the time it takes to get vaccinated and recover from any side effects, those who refuse to get vaccinated but keep their jobs will have to test negative for COVID weekly and could be made to shoulder the costs of those weekly tests. Healthcare workers are not being given an option for testing: it’s the vaccine or nothing.

  To give the government’s arm-twisting some added strength, companies that violate the workplace mandate rules “can face fines of up to $13,653 per violation for serious violations and 10 times that for willful or repeated violations.”

  In other words, as Katrina Trinko writes for USA Today, “the government is turning employers—who are not paid by, nor work for, the government—into an army of vaccine enforcers.”

  You know who won’t suffer any harm as a result of these vaccine mandates? The Corporate State (manufacturers, distributors, and health care providers), which were given a blanket “get out of jail” card to insulate them from liability for any injuries or death caused by the vaccines.

  While this vaccine mandate is being presented as a “targeted” mandate as opposed to a national mandate that impacts the entire population, it effectively leaves those with sincere objections to the COVID vaccine with very little options beyond total compliance or unemployment.

  This has long since ceased to be a debate over how best to protect the populace at large against an unknown pandemic. Rather, it has become a massively intrusive, coercive and authoritarian assault on the right of individual sovereignty over one’s life, self and private property.

  As such, these COVID-19 mandates have become the new battleground in the government’s tug-of-war over bodily autonomy and individual sovereignty.

  Already, the legal challenges to these vaccine mandates are piling up before the courts. Before long, divided circuit court rulings will make their way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will be asked to decide whether these mandates constitute government overreach or a natural extension of the government’s so-called emergency powers.

  With every new court ruling that empowers corporations and the government to use heavy-handed tactics to bring about vaccine compliance, with every new workplace mandate that forces employees to choose between their right to bodily autonomy and economic livelihood, and with every new piece of legislation that insulates corporations and the government from being held accountability for vaccine injuries and deaths, our property interest in our bodies is diminished.

  At a minimum, our right to individual sovereignty over our lives and our bodies is being usurped by power-hungry authoritarians; greedy, self-serving corporations; egotistical Nanny Staters who think they know what’s best for the rest of the populace; and a short-sighted but well-meaning populace which fails to understand the long-term ramifications of trading their essential freedoms for temporary promises of safety and security.

  We are more vulnerable now than ever before.

  This debate over bodily autonomy, which covers broad territory ranging from forced vaccinations, abortion and euthanasia to forced blood draws, biometric surveillance and basic healthcare, has far-reaching ramifications for who gets to decide what happens to our bodies during an encounter with government officials.

  On a daily basis, Americans are already being made to relinquish the most intimate details of who we are—our biological makeup, our genetic blueprints, and our biometrics (facial characteristics and structure, fingerprints, iris scans, etc.)—in order to clear the nearly insurmountable hurdle that increasingly defines life in the United States: we are now guilty until proven innocent.

  This merely pushes us one step further down that road towards a total control society in which the government in collusion with Corporate America gets to decide who is “worthy” of being allowed to take part in society.

  Right now, COVID-19 vaccines are the magic ticket for gaining access to the “privileges” of communal life. Having already conditioned the population to the idea that being part of society is a privilege and not a right, such access could easily be predicated on social credit scores, the worthiness of one’s political views, or the extent to which one is willing to comply with the government’s dictates, no matter what they might be.

  The government is litigating and legislating its way into a new framework where the dictates of petty bureaucrats carry greater weight than the inalienable rights of the citizenry.

  When all that we own, all that we earn, all that we say and do—our very lives—depends on the benevolence of government agents and corporate shareholders for whom profit and power will always trump principle, we should all be leery and afraid.

  As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, nothing good can come from totalitarian tactics – no matter how benevolent they appear – that are used to make us cower, fear and comply with the government’s dictates.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/18/2021 – 23:00

• Olympic Committee Just Made It Much Easier For Biological Males To Beat Women
  Olympic Committee Just Made It Much Easier For Biological Males To Beat Women

  The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has published a new framework that discards rules on hormone levels for male-born trans athletes competing in women’s sports. 

  The new framework, titled “IOC Framework On Fairness, Inclusion And Non-Discrimination On The Basis Of Gender Identity And Sex Variations,” states, “every person has the right to practice sport without discrimination and in a way that respects their health, safety, and dignity.” 

  “Athletes should not be deemed to have an unfair or disproportionate competitive advantage due to their sex variations, physical appearance and/or transgender status,” the report said.

  IOC officials swapped out the 2015 framework for the new one, which reverses the committee’s earlier stance on transgender athletes. It previously stated women athletes were only allowed to compete if their testosterone levels were below a certain threshold 12 months before the Games. 

  Under the new framework, sex testing to verify an athlete’s gender is deemed “disrespectful” and “potentially harmful” and “invasive physical examination.” 

  However, these relaxed rules could transform male-born trans athletes into elite female sports stars. The Sports Councils Equality Group recently found male-born trans athletes had an unfair advantage over female athletes. The report said, “transgender women are on average likely to retain physical advantage in terms of physique, stamina, and strength.”

  During the Tokyo Olympics, this was the issue when New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard, the first openly transgender athlete, competed in the Games. Hubbard was eliminated from the women’s super heavyweight weightlifting competition (failing to record a single successful lift and has now quit the sport.). 

  

  As Damian Wilson summed up perfectly: Women’s rights have been sacrificed at the woke altar by the clueless, self-appointed guardians of morality in sport that sit on the IOC. Female athletes will rightly feel cheated, because this is a disgrace.

  Female athletes will soon be asking the question: Why even compete in the Games if they’re fundamentally rigged against them. 

  But it’s not all one way ladies: female-born athletes wishing to compete against men face no barriers either… but can you name just one?

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/18/2021 – 22:40

• Can The FBI Be Salvaged?
  Can The FBI Be Salvaged?

  Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via AmGreatness.com,,

  For its own moral and practical survival, the FBI should be moved far away from the political and media tentacles that have so deeply squeezed and corrupted it…

  

  The Washington, D.C.-based Federal Bureau of Investigation has lost all credibility as a disinterested investigatory agency.

  Now we learn from a whistleblower that the agency was allegedly investigating moms and dads worried about the teaching of critical race theory in their kids’ schools.

  In truth, since 2015, the FBI has been constantly in the news – and mostly in a negative and constitutionally disturbing light.

  The fired former Director James Comey injected himself into the 2016 political race by constantly editorializing on his ongoing investigation of candidate Hillary Clinton’s email leaks.

  In a bizarre twist, the public learned later that Comey had allowed Hillary Clinton’s own private computer contractor – CrowdStrike – to run the investigation of the hack. The private firm was allowed to keep possession of pertinent hard drives central to the investigation. How odd that CrowdStrike’s point man was Shawn Henry, a former high-ranking FBI employee.

  During the Robert Mueller special investigation, the FBI implausibly claimed it had no idea how requested information on FBI cell phones had mysteriously disappeared.

  It was also under Comey’s directorship that the FBI submitted inaccurate requests for warrants to a FISA court. Elements of one affidavit to surveil Trump supporter Carter Page were forged by FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, who later pleaded guilty to a felony.

  The FBI hired the disreputable ex-British spy Christopher Steele as a contractor, while he was peddling his fantasy – the Clinton-bought dossier – to Obama government officials and the media.

  Former FBI general counsel James Baker was reportedly the subject of a federal investigation. He allegedly conducted prominent meetings both with media outlets that later leaked lurid tales from the Steele dossier. He also met repeatedly with the now-indicted Perkins Coe attorney Michael Sussman.

  Comey himself, through third-party intermediaries, leaked to the media his own confidential memos detailing private meetings with President Trump. His assurances both to Congress and to Trump that the president was not the current subject of FBI investigations were either misleading or outright lies.

  In sworn testimony to the House Intelligence Committee, Comey on some 245 occasions claimed he could not remember or had no knowledge of key elements of his own “Russian Collusion” investigation.

  Comey’s replacement, acting FBI director Andrew McCabe, was fired for leaking sensitive information to the media. He then lied on at least three occasions about his role to federal attorneys and his own FBI investigators.

  McCabe is now a paid CNN consultant who often has offered misleading information on the Russian collusion hoax that he helped promulgate.

  Former FBI director and special counsel Robert Mueller conducted a 22-month, $40 million wild goose chase after some mythical “Russian Collusion” plot. When called before Congress, Mueller claimed he had little or no knowledge about Fusion GPS or the Steele Dossier – the twin sources that birthed the entire collusion hoax.

  FBI lawyer Lisa Page was removed from Mueller’s investigation, along with her paramour FBI investigator Peter Strzok. Both misused FBI communications, revealing their pro-Clinton biases during their investigations of “Russian collusion,” while hiding their own unprofessional relationship.

  Mueller himself staggered their firings and delayed explanations about why they were let go from his investigation team.

  When the FBI arrested pro-Trump activist Roger Stone, it did so with a huge quasi-swat team – to the tipped-off and lurking CNN reporters.

  The FBI repeated such politicized performance art recently when they stormed the home of Project Veritas director James O’Keefe. The agency confiscated his electronic devices on the grounds that he had knowledge of the contents of the allegedly lurid missing diary of Joe Biden’s daughter. The FBI – an apparent retrieval service of lost Biden family embarrassments – also did not disclose that it had possession of Hunter Biden’s laptop at a time when the media was erroneously declaring the computer inauthentic.

  O’Keefe was accosted in the pre-morning hours by a crowd of FBI agents, wielding a battering ram, who pushed him out of his home in his underwear.

  The time and location of the FBI raid, as in the Stone case, were leaked to the media that cheered the raid shortly after it was conducted. A federal judge recently stopped the FBI’s ongoing monitoring of O’Keefe’s communications.

  Wall Street Journal columnist Holman Jenkins recently detailed other FBI lapses such as downplaying evidence that former Olympic gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar was a known and chronic molester of teenage gymnasts.

  The agency also extended its witch hunt against the innocent researcher wrongly accused of involvement in the anthrax attacks of 2001.

  One could add to such misadventures the mysterious leadership roles of at least 12 FBI informants in the harebrained kidnapping scheme of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

  We can also cite the agency’s inability to follow up on clear information about the dangers posed by criminals as diverse as the Tsarnaev brothers, the Boston Marathon bombers, and the sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.

  For its own moral and practical survival, the FBI should be given one last chance at redemption by moving to the nation’s heartland – perhaps Kansas – far away from the political and media tentacles that have so deeply squeezed and corrupted it.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/18/2021 – 22:20

• "Keep Brazilian Beef Out" – US Trade Groups Warn Amid Mad Cow Disease Detection 
  “Keep Brazilian Beef Out” – US Trade Groups Warn Amid Mad Cow Disease Detection 

  Several American trade groups request the federal government to immediately halt beef imports from Brazil due to the rising risk of mad-cow disease. 

  The U.S. Cattlemen’s Association (USCA) cites reports from Brazil’s Agriculture, Livestock, and Food Supply Ministry of two “atypical” bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) cases, according to Bloomberg. BSE, also known as mad cow disease, is a deadly neurodegenerative disease of cattle that spreads to humans through diseased meat.

  

  The Denver-based National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) and Billings-based R-CALF USA, a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting the U.S. cattle industry, demanded that Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack temporarily suspend imports of fresh beef from Brazil due to BSE cases. In September, China and the Philippines suspended their imports of beef products from Brazil, the largest beef exporter in the world.

  Brazil “has a history of corruption at the highest levels, and we are gambling with the health of the domestic cattle herd each time we accept a shipment of beef from Brazil,” said USCA Trade Committee Chair Larry Kendig.

  Lia Biondo, a livestock lobbyist with Western Skies Strategies, said this is the first time all three trade groups are warning about Brazilian meat.

  In a Nov. 12 letter to Vilsack, NCBA demanded the USDA suspend Brazilian beef imports until an investigation can review the process of how Brazil’s livestock industry detects diseased meat. 

  “It’s time to keep fresh Brazilian beef out of this country until USDA can confirm that Brazil meets the same consumer and food safety standards that we apply to all our trade partners,” said NCBA Vice President of Government Affairs Ethan Lane.

  “NCBA has long expressed concerns about Brazil’s history of failing to report atypical BSE cases in a timely manner, a pattern that stretches back as far as 2012. Their poor track record and lack of transparency raise serious doubts about Brazil’s ability to produce cattle and beef at an equivalent level of safety as American producers. If they cannot meet that bar, their product has no place here,” said Lane.

  For the U.S., Brazilian beef imports account for 15% of the domestic beef supply. If imports were suspended, this could result in an inflationary impact on beef prices at the supermarket already at multi-year highs. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/18/2021 – 22:00

• Why Is The Media Suddenly No Longer Interested In Blaming COVID Waves On Red States
  Why Is The Media Suddenly No Longer Interested In Blaming COVID Waves On Red States

  Authored by ‘IM’ via ‘Unmasked’ Substack,

  By now, it’s become a truth universally acknowledged that the media must continually be in search of a governor and specific political ideology to blame when COVID cases rise.

  Well, I’m old enough to remember when it was a truth universally acknowledged.

  But that was way back in the summer, when cases were rising in the Southern states, mostly run by Republican governors who refused to acquiesce to demands from the media to mandate masks and vaccine passports.

  The seasons have changed, however, and case trends along with it.

  The Midwest and the Northeast are now the epicenter of the latest COVID surge.

  

  [ZH: We thought these two charts may also help explain the lack of media malificence]

  

  

  And just like that, inexplicably, the media’s no longer interested in blaming local officials or the political beliefs of residents for the dramatic increase in COVID cases. Imagine that!

  After scores of hysterical articles on Florida were written, despite the fact that the inevitable crash of cases and hospitalizations in the state almost immediately proved them wrong, interestingly the mass panic and hyperbole is noticeably absent of late.

  There are a few possible explanations for this confusing lack of interest, and after reviewing the data from each state, some interesting conclusions can be drawn.

  Most of the states have several things in common that seem to insulate them from the levels of severe criticism reserved for governors like Ron #DeathSantis.

  Let’s see the lessons that can be learned from the COVID situation across the country.

  Michigan

  How many of you knew that Michigan now leads the country in recent case rates?

  Probably not many!

  Just for the sake of comparison, I Google searched “Florida leads the country in new covid cases” and here are a few of the top results:

  

  I then searched “Michigan leads the country in new covid cases November” and these were a few of the top results:

  

  Well that’s certainly different, isn’t it?!

  Here’s how the curve of new cases looks in Michigan though:

  

  Not great, huh?

  In fact, Michigan is rapidly approaching the same heights it reached in April, when the CDC director said they needed to again implement lockdown measures to control the surge.

  Yet I searched for Vanity Fair articles labeling Governor Gretchen Whitmer the “Angel of Death,” as they did with Ron DeSantis and came up with a big fat blank.

  I’m not kidding. They literally called DeSantis the “Angel of Death” and said he was a “super-spreader event:”

  

  I also checked those keywords to see if Bess wrote a similar article on Gretchen Whitmer:

  

  Very strange, isn’t it?

  It’s also strange that DeSantis has been accused of courting “anti-vaxxers” and not doing enough to encourage and promote vaccinations, while Florida has significantly higher vaccination rates in every single category.

  As of today, here’s the key vaccination states for both states:

  Michigan

  • TOTAL POPULATION AT LEAST ONE DOSE/FULLY VACCINATED – 60%/54%

  • 12 AND UP AT LEAST ONE DOSE/FULLY VACCINATED – 69%/63%

  • 65 AND UP AT LEAST ONE DOSE/FULLY VACCINATED – 92%/85%

  Florida

  • TOTAL POPULATION AT LEAST ONE DOSE/FULLY VACCINATED – 70%/61%

  • 12 AND UP AT LEAST ONE DOSE/FULLY VACCINATED – 81%/70%

  • 65 AND UP AT LEAST ONE DOSE/FULLY VACCINATED – >99%/87%

  Literally in every single category, Florida’s had higher vaccine uptake. Yet only DeSantis has been accused of being “anti-vaxx,” because he…promoted a life-saving treatment that cuts hospitalizations and deaths by 78% in high risk populations.

  Really odd, huh?

  Minnesota

  Minnesota currently ranks second in the U.S. in recent case rate, reporting an average of 700 cases per million residents over the past seven days, which has nearly doubled in just the past few weeks.

  Minnesota also has a higher than average vaccination rate, with 67% of the entire population at least partially vaccinated, 78% of everyone 12 and up, 80% of the over 18 population and 99% of the 65+ population.

  

  Has anyone seen an article accusing Governor Tim Walz of being the “Angel of Death?”

  What’s even more impressive about Minnesota’s recent surge is that they’ve essentially equaled Texas’s recent summer peak:

  

  It’s fair to ask at this point, but did a major online media outlet say that Greg Abbot was running a “death cult?”

  The answer, as always, is yes. Yes of course they did.

  

  You’ll undoubtedly be shocked to learn that I searched for “Tim Walz death cult” and didn’t get any results, even though Minnesota has reported more cumulative COVID cases than Texas after adjusting for population. Bewildering.

  New Mexico & Oregon

  The state with the third highest recent case rate is New Mexico, who you might remember from the glowing article published in September 2020 in Scientific American, extolling their virtues for “controlling” the spread of COVID.

  Infamously, that article was written before cases immediately went up 2,450%. But back to this year.

  As True Believers in The Science™, New Mexico is one of the few states remaining to have a statewide mask mandate for vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals, which has been in place for nearly three months.

  Shockingly, cases have nearly doubled since:

  

  And naturally, as a result of this dramatic success, they extended the mandate just a few days ago.

  Confusingly, New Mexico’s currently reporting higher case numbers than neighboring Colorado and Utah, states that have followed nearly identical curves for twenty months now:

  

  New Mexico’s vaccination rates are the highest of the three as well:

  New Mexico

  • TOTAL POPULATION AT LEAST ONE DOSE/FULLY VACCINATED – 74%/63%

  • 12 AND UP AT LEAST ONE DOSE/FULLY VACCINATED – 86%/74%

  • 65 AND UP AT LEAST ONE DOSE/FULLY VACCINATED – >99%/89%

  Colorado

  • TOTAL POPULATION AT LEAST ONE DOSE/FULLY VACCINATED – 69%/62%

  • 12 AND UP AT LEAST ONE DOSE/FULLY VACCINATED – 80%/73%

  • 65 AND UP AT LEAST ONE DOSE/FULLY VACCINATED – 95%/87%

  Utah

  • TOTAL POPULATION AT LEAST ONE DOSE/FULLY VACCINATED – 62%/55%

  • 12 AND UP AT LEAST ONE DOSE/FULLY VACCINATED – 77%/67%

  • 65 AND UP AT LEAST ONE DOSE/FULLY VACCINATED – 98%/88%

  I’ll admit I didn’t check, but I have significant doubts that Michelle Lujan Grisham has been accused of running a death cult or being a dangerous “anti-vaxxer.”

  Meanwhile, Oregon’s Governor Kate Brown has seen deaths skyrocket to the highest levels of the pandemic, currently ranking in the top 10 in the country despite an active mask mandate and above average vaccination rate:

  

  Nothing to see here either!

  Vermont

  One of the more remarkable surges is happening in Vermont, which currently ranks fifth in the country in population adjusted case rate.

  Cases in Vermont peaked last winter at 277 per million in January of this year. Their recent case rate peak this month is 591 cases per million.

  Remember, this is after world famous expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said that getting just 50% of adults vaccinated would make surges a thing of the past:

  

  Vermont has 93% of adults with some level of vaccination. Cases are double what they were last winter.

  And while Governor Phil Scott is a Republican, 66.1% of state residents voted for Joe Biden.

  Somehow I doubt Salon will be updating their story on “unvaccinated Trumpers spreading Delta” given what’s happened in Vermont:

  

  Hard to blame “unvaccinated Trumpers” in a state where only 30% of people voted for Trump and 93% of adults are vaccinated, so you won’t be seeing any stories from the media placing the blame for COVID on Vermont’s political ideology.

  Sure does poke some holes in the obscene push for vaccine passports as well, doesn’t it?

  *  *  *

  So what are the lessons we can learn from this? Well, if you belong to the proper ideology, you can avoid being accused of running a death cult, being the Angel of Death or courting anti-vaxxers by promoting monoclonal antibodies. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have mask mandates or have lower than average vaccination rates, you can avoid most media criticism.

  Four of the top five states in current case rates are either run by Democratic governors or where the populace overwhelmingly voted for Joe Biden. All are also seeing hospitalizations rising significantly too.

  It’s remarkable how it works, isn’t it? When cases are rising in areas where the incorrect set of political beliefs is dominant, it’s a moral failing that would be easily preventable if masks were mandated or vaccination rates improved.

  When cases rise in areas with the correct set of media approved political beliefs, no matter what the vaccination rates are or mask wearing rules, it’s an unfortunate barrier to be overcome and an unavoidable increase likely due to seasonal effects and infinitesimal percentages of unvaccinated Trumpers. Or unmasked kids.

  This was an entirely predictable sequence of events, and exactly the same pattern we saw last year. Cases rose in the South during the summer, leading to mass criticism of free-dumb loving Covidiots, only for colder climates to take off a few months later to deafening silence.

  The media never learns. Purposefully never learns. They’re unable to accept that the spread of a highly infectious respiratory virus is not a moral examination to be passed or that there’s essentially no correlation with government intervention and better COVID outcomes.

  Remember, Sweden ranks 54th in the world in COVID deaths per million:

  

  Is it any wonder why we never hear about them anymore?

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/18/2021 – 21:40

• Accelerating CEO Turnover Expected To Continue Heading Into 2022
  Accelerating CEO Turnover Expected To Continue Heading Into 2022

  CEO turnover has become so pervasive in 2021 that news organizations have given it a name: It’s being dubbed “the great resignation”. 

  The rotating door of executives this year has come as a result of stressed out executives who navigated their firms through Covid and a desire for companies to bring on new talent to help with post-Covid business pivots, according to Reuters. 

  Recruiting firm Heidrick & Struggles conducted a study that showed how CEOs are “not immune to the exhaustion that has swept hundreds of millions of workers worldwide since the onset of the pandemic,” Reuters recently reported. 

  And now, heading into the back end of 2021 and the front end of 2022, the executive exodus is continuing and is expected to continue. 

  Jeff Sanders, co-managing partner of Heidrick’s global CEO and board practice, said: “Our belief is that it will only accelerate going into next year as people have delayed their retirements.” Sanders’ study showed 103 CEO appointments in the first half of 2021 versus just 49 CEO changes in the second half of 2020. 

  

  “Many CEOs didn’t have to travel as much,” Sanders said, before noting that virtual communication for many CEOs was still “exhausting”. 

  Despite vaccines acting as a somewhat calming presence that allowed many CEOs to step down, boards were still reluctant to meet with new CEO candidates in person. This could be why 66% of new CEOs were internal candidates, the report said. 

  And, as there is with every story nowadays, there had to be a racial element to the shift in the C-suite as well. Our “woke” readers will be disappointed to hear that just 13% of new incoming CEOs were women. 

  Despite 103 CEO changes in companies of all sizes hardly being statistically significant to the Fortune 100, Reuters was forced to add at the end of its reporting that “3% of Fortune 100 CEOs are Black, 4% are Hispanic or Latino, 4% are Asian and 1% are Middle Eastern or North African,” as if the ongoing executive changes were a continued indictment of a racially inequitable business landscape in the country.

  There’s no word on whether or not Heidrick & Struggles studied whether or not any CEOs were leaving due to the burdensome and increasing amount of “diversity” training that that needs to take place during normal work hours, when actual work could be getting done. 

  But, we digress…

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/18/2021 – 21:20

• Shellenberger: Why $6 Billion Won't Solve World Hunger
  Shellenberger: Why $6 Billion Won’t Solve World Hunger

  Authored by Michael Shellenberger via michaelshellenberger.substack.com (emphasis ours),

  In late October, David Beasley, the Director of the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) urged billionaires Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk to “step up now, on a one-time basis” to address hunger globally. “Six billion [dollars] to help 42 million people that are literally going to die if we don’t reach them. It’s not complicated.” 

  But would you be surprised to learn that saving those 42 million lives is, in fact, complicated?  

  

  Part of the problem is how the money is spent. Musk tweeted back, “If WFP can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6B will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it.” Musk added, “it must be open source accounting, so the public sees precisely how the money is spent.”

  Beasley responded, “I can assure you that we have the systems in place for transparency and open-source accounting.” 

  If WFP can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6B will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it.

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 31, 2021

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

  There have been problems in the past with the financial accounting and transparency of WFP and other United Nations agencies, but the larger problem is with food aid itself. After WFP won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020, it should have been a time of self-celebration. Instead, it enabled longtime critics of food aid to renew their criticisms of the WFP for dumping food on poor nations, driving down prices and bankrupting farmers, ultimately making it harder for poor nations to become self-sufficient. 

  This scenario has happened time and again around the world. In the 1950s and 1960s, surplus wheat from the US was sent to India, undermining local farmers. In 1976, the US sent wheat to Guatemala, in response to an earthquake, even though the country had just produced record yields. The decline of prices was so harmful to farmers that the government banned grain imports. Six years later, the Peruvian government asked the US government to stop dumping rice on the country, given its impact on poor farmers.  

  In 2002, Michael Maren, a former food aid monitor for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Somalia published a book called “The Road to Hell,” documenting how food aid prolonged that nation’s civil war in three ways. 

  First, much of the food aid was stolen and sold to buy arms, furthering the conflict. 

  Second, the food aid helped destroy the centuries-old credit system that allowed pastoral farmers to borrow money during droughts to pay for food, which they repaid later during good times. By undermining the credit system, foreign food aid had helped undermine the social ties that had kept the nation together. 

  And third, the food aid undermined the very incentive to farm.

  The WFP says it has learned from the past by giving one-third of its support in the form of cash aid, which is viewed as both more efficient, and more likely to avoid bankrupting small farmers. But cash aid can also fuel corruption, as I discovered the hard way 30 years ago when attempting to support a small, worker-owned coffee cooperative in Nicaragua. 

  My friends and I raised a few thousand dollars and gave it to the coop’s leaders. One year later, we returned to see how the money was spent. We were told one night by the coop’s angry cook that the coop’s all-male leadership had spent the money on alcohol and partying. None had gone towards upgrading the coop’s infrastructure. Naturally, the coop’s leaders denied it all, and said the money wasn’t sufficient, and they needed more. The lesson? When there is poor governance, aid money makes the situation worse, not better.

  An even bigger problem is that what causes hunger in most cases is not the absence of food but the presence of war and political instability. 

  A few days after his Twitter exchange with Elon musk, the WFP’s Beasley released a list of recipient nations and how much they would each receive in food aid and cash aid if Musk, Bezos, or someone else ponied up the more than $6 billion WFP said was needed to save 42 million lives. The list included the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan, Yemen, Ethiopia, Sudan, Venezuela, Haiti and Syria. Notice anything in common between them? They are all at war or in political turmoil, which is preventing farming and the transportation of food.

  Not all nations suffering from hunger and famine are at war. Some, like Madagascar, are suffering from drought. But we have known since economist Amartya Sen published his landmark 1981 book, “Poverty and Famines,” that most famines are deliberately caused as a weapon of war. They weren’t, for the most part, the result of food supplies in general or drought in particular, which farmers and societies have learned to deal with for millennia. Today, the world produces a 25 percent surplus of food, the most in recorded human history.

  To his credit, Beasley acknowledged that “$6 billion will not solve world hunger,” adding that that “it WILL prevent geopolitical instability [and] mass migration.” 

  If that were true, then that $6 billion would be the greatest philanthropic investment in human history. Unfortunately, it’s not. 

  Just look at Democratic Republic of the Congo, the eastern region of which is again at war. In the 1990s and again in the early 2000s, Congo was the epicenter of the Great African War, the deadliest conflict since World War II, which involved nine African countries and resulted in the deaths of three to five million people, mostly because of disease and starvation. Another two million people were displaced from their homes or sought asylum in neighboring countries. Hundreds of thousands of people, women and men, adults and children, were raped, sometimes more than once, by different armed groups. 

  When I was there in 2014, armed militias roaming the countryside had been killing villagers, including children, with machetes. Some blamed Al-Shabaab terrorists coming in from Uganda, but nobody took credit for the attacks. The violence appeared unconnected to any military or strategic objective. The national military, police and United Nations Peacekeeping Forces, about 6,000 soldiers, were either unable or unwilling to do anything about the terrorist attacks. 

  The sad truth is that wars are rarely settled from the outside and, when they are, it’s through long-term military occupation, not food aid. Even 20 years is not long enough, as the US failure to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan shows.

  We have known for more than two centuries that almost every nation escapes hunger and famine in the same way. First, there is sufficient stability to allow farmers to produce and transport their crops to the cities, and for businesses in the cities to operate without being bombed or shelled. The ugly truth is that such stability is often won the hard way, after years or decades of war and even genocide.

  Stability allows farmers to become more productive, and cities to develop new industries, such as manufacturing. Rising farm productivity means fewer people are required to work in farms, and many of them move to the city for work in factories and other industries. In the cities, the workers spend their money buying food, clothing and other consumer products and services, resulting in a workforce and society that is wealthier and engaged in a greater variety of jobs. 

  The use of modern energy and machinery means a declining number of workers required for food and energy production, which diversifies the workforce and grows the economy.

  During the last 200 years, poor nations found that they didn’t need to end corruption or educate everyone to develop. As long as factories were allowed to operate freely, and the politicians didn’t steal too much from their owners, manufacturing could drive economic development. And, over time, as nations became richer, many of them, including the US, became less corrupt. 

  While a few oil-rich nations like Saudi Arabia have achieved very high standards of living without ever having embraced manufacturing, almost every other developed country in the world, from Britain and the United States to Japan to South Korea and China, has transformed its economy with factories. 

  This remains the case today. Ethiopia had to end and recover from a bloody 17-year civil war, which resulted in at least 1.4 million deaths, including one million from famine, before its government could invest in infrastructure. Today, factory workers in the capital city of Addis Ababa continue to make clothing for Western labels including Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger and H&M. Ethiopia has been competitive both because of its low wages compared to places like China and Indonesia, where they have risen in recent years, as well as its investments in hydroelectric dams, the electricity grid and roads. As a result, Ethiopia has seen more than 10 percent annual growth over the last decade.

  But all of that is now in jeopardy. There is a growing war in the northern Tigray region, and the Ethiopian government has blocked aid from being delivered, which has resulted in nearly a half million people suffering from famine. Now, the US and other nations are considering imposing trade sanctions in response, putting in jeopardy the livelihoods of factory workers in Addis Ababa.

  The reason for continuing famines in a world of plenty is not just complicated but also tragic. Over the last 20 years, economists and other experts have criticized development aid for being counterproductive, making nations dependent upon outsiders, and undermining efforts at internal development.

  Those complaints have mostly been ignored. Today, many developed nations continue to see charitable aid as an alternative to economic development. The latest guise to sell charity as development comes in the form of “climate adaptation.” The idea is that poor nations should forgo the use of fossil fuels, a necessary ingredient to industrialization and development, and instead rely on foreign hand-outs to adapt to higher temperatures.

  For poor nations to finally free themselves from the clutches of would-be rescuers from the rich world, they will need to defend their right to develop, including through the use of fossil fuels, and seek to trade with rich nations on equal terms. That may be starting to happen. In response to calls by rich world leaders that Africa not use fossil fuels, South Africa’s energy minister on Wednesday called for united resistance. “Our continent collectively is made to bear the brunt for polluters,” complained Gwede Mantashe. “We are being pressured, even compelled, to move away from all forms of fossil fuels… a key resource for industrialization.” 

  He’s right. From climate change to food aid, rich nations are demanding the poor nations develop in ways radically different from the way they developed centuries ago, without agricultural self-sufficiency, industrialization and fossil fuels. It can’t work. The harsh truth is that poor nations must go through the same, often painful steps toward development, including, often civil war, in order to achieve the political stability they need to develop. Rich nations can be partners to poor nations. But we should stop trying to be their saviors.

  Michael Shellenberger is author of Apocalypse Never (Harper Collins 2020), San Fransicko(HarperCollins 2021), and President of Environmental Progress. He lives in Berkeley, California.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/18/2021 – 21:00

• Visualizing How Much Gold Is In The World?
  Visualizing How Much Gold Is In The World?

  Gold has retained its value throughout history, partly due to the fact that it is indestructible.

  As Visual Capitalist’s Govind Bhutada details below, that means that virtually all the gold in the world that has been mined is still around in one form or another. Some of it may have turned into jewelry, while some might be sitting inside vaults as bullion. So, just how much gold have we mined, and how much of it is left beneath the ground?

  This infographic from Kalo Gold visualizes all the gold in the world that’s above ground and the identified reserves that we have yet to mine.

  

  Where is All the Gold?

  The World Gold Council estimates that miners have historically extracted a total of 201,296 tonnes of gold, leaving another 53,000 tonnes left in identified underground reserves.

  If all of the above-ground gold were stacked beside each other, the resulting cube would only measure 22 meters on each side, which is a testament to the metal’s rarity. But where exactly is all of this mined gold?

  Nearly half of all the gold ever mined is held in the form of jewelry. India and China have been the largest markets for gold jewelry consumption, combining for more than 50% of global jewelry demand in 2020.

  

   

  *Dollar values are based on gold’s price of $1756.66/oz as of close on Sept. 30, 2021.

   

  Investors across the globe buy gold because of its ability to deliver value, and when inflationary pressures are high, gold often acts as a flight to safety. Consequently, investment is one of gold’s biggest end-uses, with over 44,000 tonnes of gold held as bars, coins, or bullion for gold-backed exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

  Besides investors, central banks are also among the biggest holders of gold. Unlike foreign currency reserves, equities, and debt-backed securities, gold’s value largely depends on supply and demand. Therefore, central banks often use gold to diversify their assets and hedge against fiat currency depreciation. Central banks’ gold holdings account for almost one-fifth of all above-ground gold; as of 2021, official holdings exceed 35,000 tonnes.

  Although gold is widely coveted as a precious metal, it also has various industrial uses, with applications in electronics, dentistry, and space. In fact, it’s estimated that a typical iPhone contains about 0.034 grams of gold, in addition to other precious metals. It is these industrial uses that account for 29,448 tonnes or roughly 15% of all above-ground gold.

  Underground Gold Reserves

  Before it turns into jewelry and bullion, gold goes through several stages in the supply chain, beginning with mineral exploration and mining of underground reserves. As of 2020, the world had 53,000 tonnes of gold in identified reserves. Here’s where all this gold lies:

  

   

  Given their availability of reserves, it’s no surprise that Australia, Russia, U.S., and Peru are among the world’s largest gold producers, with only China having produced more in 2020. These reserves not only help determine current production but can also provide an idea of where gold mining could occur in the future.

   

  In 2020, miners produced just over 3,000 tonnes of gold, and at this rate, underground reserves will last less than 18 years without new discoveries. However, it’s important to note that reserves can change and grow as explorers find gold in different parts of the world.

  A Golden Future

  Gold has been around for thousands of years, and it will likely remain that way in the future.

  With rising concerns over the growth in money supply and inflation, gold will continue to deliver value and protect investors in times of volatility while preserving wealth for the long term.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/18/2021 – 20:40

• Crypto Company Creates Architecture For A Self-Sovereign Economy
  Crypto Company Creates Architecture For A Self-Sovereign Economy

  Authored by Joakim Book via BitcoinMagazine.com,

  In a moment of balance and strength, I felt my muscles stiffen, the pressure against my right triceps increasing. Flirting with gravity, I engaged my core like I had a hundred times before, raised my hips a little higher, and started angling my upper body towards my friend. I looked at him with a labored gaze before I remembered my many teachers’ endless insistence that I smile. With equal part astonishment and equal part disbelief, he muttered that he could never possibly do that: “That’s impossible. You are just so flexible!”

  The great mistake in that sentence is the word “are”: it took me five years to reach that yoga pose, and only in the last 12 months or so was I strong enough to finally experiment with the arm balance we were exploring. There was no static “are” involved, no fixed description that somehow belonged to my being or inscribed in my genome. Combining the balance, the strength, the flexibility, and the concentration required to hold my body in place was no mere accident or circumstance. For hours on end, day after day, week after week, I had put my money where my mouth was – or rather, body where my yoga mat was – and endured. I had put in the work that over time resulted in a body capable and strong enough to hold a complicated arm balance.

  

  What the Bitcoin network’s proof-of-work so neatly captures about reality is that nothing valuable in our world comes from nothing; nothing worth having can be had by the waving of magic wands. You must put real-world resources behind the computer network that powers bitcoin, for a randomized yet pre-programmed chance at receiving some new coins. “Let there be light,” said God allegedly – and nobody else ever. This isn’t just true in the ethereal world of digital money, but in probably every endeavor worth doing.

  Wherever I look these days, I see proof-of-work. The skills that people have acquired are their proof-of-work – long arduous hours before a computer coding, in a simulator trying to fly an airplane, in a baking hot sun laying bricks upon bricks, or in apprenticeships or training that teach you how to safely lay electrical wires or perform open-heart surgery. The humongous podcast catalogues that this or that podcaster has, or the astonishing output that certain writers have run up, are proof-of-work. The relationships people have cultivated, with their friends and families and lovers, are proof-of-work. All of them included different ingredients, came into existence in different ways and with different starting points, but all required nurturing to flourish. They exist, and flourish, because their participants have put work into them.

  All of us are given very different starting points in life, and sometimes another’s raw talents seem altogether unfair. That guy had a head start; this dude lucked out; that family had financial resources; those people had better genes. Often, we see ourselves as uniquely disadvantaged compared to someone else or some ideal life we might imagine that others lead. Even so, very few people can succeed with raw talent or ability alone: even the most talented basketball player needs hours and hours on that court; the baseball batter with the most perfect build needs to hone that hitting ability into perfection.

  Nobody gets anything for free, not even the Bitcoiners who stumbled onto the world’s best performing asset way before it was cool. They faced challenges of their own that us latecomers never had to: they doubted the entire project, more than once – every time something bad happened or their underdeveloped markets dropped 80%. They had to learn on their own, rather than follow podcasters and how-to guides for everything. They had to invent, circumvent, or build the technical and financial infrastructure that the rest of us take for granted today. Yes, the ones who grasped the importance of bitcoin in the early days, and put in the mental and practical work required, have been richly rewarded – but they also faced challenges to their diamond hands that the rest of us could hardly even imagine.

  Deep friendships don’t drop from the sky, but require long and hard work. Beyond the youthful relations that bloom during intense summers or first semesters at college, the enduring friendships we grown-ups have nurtured remain precisely because we maintain them. With our best friends, we’ve gone through rough patches, dealt with hard times, shared accomplishments, and put in the hours needed when either they wanted it or we needed it.

  Soul mates, lifelong companions, and other idealized descriptions of love require even higher amounts of devotion and negotiation. They take time to develop, and not just days and weeks and years – but time spent together, exploring, improving, attempting, and yes, negotiating. Successful relationships are proof-of-work. It’s hard to carve out an intimate life with another person, harder the more stressors of politics, societal divides, and financial hardships surround them. One does not simply swipe right a few times and effortlessly find their perfect life partner: however well-matched you are, it takes work – time, attention, commitment, vulnerability, and plenty of sacrifices. It’s the proof-of-work that matters, not the proof-of-accident or fleeting attraction.

  There is but one proof-of-steak I endorse in my life – the pictures of my carnivore(-ish) meals that I send, not to Instagram as my fellow millennials might have, but to my shitcoiner friends (always with a comment about staking). And even this proof-of-steak is technically proof-of-work, because you need to source it, earn it, make it, and most importantly: commit to it before it starts building you into the stronger human being for which steak is intended.

  My generation was raised, intentionally or not, with the opposite mentality – a proof-of-stake mentality, where our mere existence conveyed rights, benefits, and well-being. Every one of us spoiled snowflakes were unique and perfect the way we were, and now are, and tomorrow will be. Whatever we feel is real, whatever delusion we have incorporated lately must be unquestioningly accepted by everyone else. We cannot be exposed to any sort of risk, in case they traumatize us or hurt our precious feelings; horrific ideas of other people cannot be allowed in our midst.

  It’s no surprise that a generation of proof-of-stake later, we’re all coddled and compliant, naive and credulous, unhealthy and stupid. It’s no wonder we trust our monetary overlords more so than our own interactions with the world: the top stakers in our fiat proof-of-stake system say that something is, then surely who am I to object?

  EVERYONE GETS THE BITCOIN PRICE THEY DESERVE

  Everything important in life requires you to focus, to work diligently toward the thing you desire. You will face set-backs; others will do better than you; and you will wonder why on Earth you even try. Before you actually get around to pressing that buy button, do that bitcoin-paying gig, or mine those first sats, you get nothing.

  Everything in the world requires work – physical, mental, or financial. What we are isn’t fixed, and at the bottom of bitcoin’s promise to the world lies the promise that work rewards and discipline matters. Everyone gets bitcoin when they’re ready, or intellectually open to it; everyone thus gets the bitcoin price and allocation they deserve.

  You don’t get things for nothing; You must put in the work before you reap the rewards. Bitcoin teaches us that. Until very recently in our societies, reality taught us that too.

  In time, perhaps it can once more.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/18/2021 – 20:20

• House Set For Debate, Passage Of Build Back Better In Thursday Night Session
  House Set For Debate, Passage Of Build Back Better In Thursday Night Session

  Update (2000ET): The House of Representatives is set to debate and then vote on President Biden’s $1.75 trillion Build Back Better Act tonight, just hours after the Congressional Budget Office found that it will add more than $350 billion to the budget deficit – a determination which contradicts the White House’s longstanding claim that the bill is ‘paid for.’

  

  The CBO found that the draft legislation contains $1.636 trillion in spending, and $1.269 trillion in revenue over 10 years, adding $367 billion to the US deficit over that period.

  House speaker Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to fellow Democrats on Thursday advising them that they would be receiving an “updated chart from the White House, reflecting the revised numbers” from the CBO, adding that a vote would take place Thursday night “so that we can pass this legislation and achieve President Biden’s vision to Build Back Better!”

  Of course, BBB passing the house was more or less a foregone conclusion given its broad support in the chamber. If House Republicans are united in opposition, Democrats can afford to lose three votes and still pass the bill.

  What’s in Build Back Better for health care

  – Capping insulin at $35/month
  – Capping seniors’ out-of-pocket drug spending at $2,000/yr
  – Medicare drug-price negotiations
  – Expanding Medicare to cover hearing benefits
  – Boosting ACA subsidies
  – Closing Medicaid gap in 12 states https://t.co/QpWyrZA2oi

  — Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) November 18, 2021

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  The big question now is whether moderate Senate Democrats Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) will support it.  The  (more) fiscally conservative Democrats will make their decision as Republicans hammer the bill for increasing the national debt, as well as its potential to intensify inflation, hinder job growth, and increase government dependency.

  A key reason the CBO finds the bill does not pay for itself involves estimates of how much increased tax collection can result from expanding the Internal Revenue Service’s budget. While the White House has projected that increasing the number of enforcement agents at the Internal Revenue Service would yield $400 billion in higher revenue, the CBO does not agree. –Bloomberg

  Critics also point to the fact that without sunset provisions, the bill would have actually exceeded $4 trillion, including tax credits for children and low-income workers which will be extended for one year.

  And while it will likely pass the House tonight, the final bill is almost certain to be whittled down in the Senate, where Democrats are at the mercy of Manchin and Sinema, who have previously objected to how aspects of the legislation will be funded.

  *  *  *

  Just as the House Rules Committee cleared Biden’s Build Back Better bill for debate by the full House with first votes on the bill set as early as 19:15EST (with Senator Manchin commenting earlier that he has not decided on whether to vote to proceed to the Build Back Better Bill), moments ago the CBO finally released its score of Biden’s bill and, to nobody’s surprise, it finds that contrary to what the Democrats asserted (and then un-asserted), that the bill would not fully pay for itself.

  Instead, the CBO estimates that enacting this legislation would result in a net increase in the deficit totaling $367 billion over the 2022-2031 period, as a result of an additional $1.636 trillion in additional spending…

  

  … offset by just $1.269 trillion in revenue (which however the CBO notes does not count any additional revenue that may be generated by additional funding for tax enforcement).

  

  Worse, over just the next five years, the deficit grows by $792 billion, a number which somehow declines to $367 billion over the next decade, which comes as a result of a massive surge in revenues generated from Ways and Means, which magically surges from just $115BN over the next five years to a whopping $1.2 trillion over the next decade.

  

  The massive surge in revenues from Ways and Means comes almost entirely from one section: “Responsibly Funding Our Priorities” (which conjures up an additional $1 trillion of revenues from 2026-2031, dramatically easing the ‘cost’ of the bill)…

  

  That “Responsibly Funding Our Priorities” Section can be read in full here (Spoiler Alert – that’s where all the Tax Reform gotchas are).

  As Mike Shedlock notes, the 10-year lie is that Progressives say the front-loaded benefits will expire. Meanwhile they pledge to do everything in their power to ensure they don’t.

  History shows that government entitlement programs only get bigger, they don’t expire.

  Nor did the CBO look at ancillary costs such as inflation.

  Earlier in the week, the Biden administration began preparing lawmakers for a ‘disappointing estimate,’ and told them to “disregard” the assessment according to the New York Times.

  Hilariously, at just the same time as the CBO revised its long-awaited score, Janet Yellen – knowing how ugly it would look when the CBO scored that the Democrats lied – issued a statement saying that “the combination of CBO’s scores over the last week, the Joint Committee on Taxation estimates, and Treasury analysis, make it clear that Build Back Better is fully paid for, and in fact will reduce our nation’s debt over time by generating more than $2 trillion through reforms that ask the wealthiest Americans and large corporations to pay their fair share.”

  The wildcard? Yellen’s estimate that the IRS will recoup “at least $400 billion in additional revenue” from high-earners to plug the hole.

  A particularly salient aspect of the revenue raised by the legislation is a historic investment in the IRS to crack down on high-earners who avoid paying the taxes that they owe, which Treasury estimates would generate at least $400 billion in additional revenue.

  The CBO somewhat agrees with this hypothetical wildcard which can not be modeled out and instead has to be taken as faith, which is why the CBO did not account for it, but it does say that its deficit estimates do not account for the $207 billion in IRS “savings”, meaning CBO’s effective estimate is $160 billion in new deficits.

  Of course, in the end all of this is just optics and the CBO score won’t have any impact, with the Bill sure to pass the House and then it will be up to the moderate Democrats in the Senate to determine if it becomes law.

  Now let’s see what moderate Senate Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have to say about it.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/18/2021 – 20:00

• "Significant Storm" And Plunging Temperatures Loom For Thanksgiving Week
  “Significant Storm” And Plunging Temperatures Loom For Thanksgiving Week

  Early last week, we told readers a “severe blast” of Arctic air would encompass parts of the US Lower-48 beginning today. While today is mild, Friday, on the other hand, will be the beginning of colder weather for the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, and Northeast, with the potential for a Thanksgiving week snowstorm from Chicago to New York. 

  The first colder air mass will pour into the East over the next couple of days. Temperatures will be 10-15 degrees below normal for this time of year. 

  “The next surge of colder air will spread across the eastern half of the lower 48 Monday-Tuesday with the broadest coverage of highs 10-15F below normal expected on Tuesday,” the Weather Prediction Center (WPC) said.

  There is a good chance strong winds, rain, or perhaps even snow from Chicago to New York could be seen Sunday night and into early next week. 

  “This storm remains a prominent weather focus due to its timing right before Thanksgiving but it will likely still take a while to resolve the details,” WPC said.

  The National Weather Service in New York said, “a lot of uncertainty in the forecast Sunday night and into early next week, so forecast has low confidence especially in terms of exact precipitation amounts, winds, and the timing of higher winds and precipitation.” 

  

  Another round of cold air will keep temperatures across the East well below normal for Thanksgiving and through the weekend. All of this chilly weather will increase energy demand. Commodity website Nat Gas Weather outlines, “early next week will bring another chilly weather system across the northern US for a swing back to stronger demand.” 

  

  Natgas futures are higher ahead of the latest round of government inventory data Thursday as strong demand continues. The December Nymex contract was up 13 cents, or nearly 3%, to 4.95/MMBtu at around 1145 ET. The coming cold spell could add additional support to prices. 

  

  Heating degree days for the US Lower 48 will spike above the 30-year trendline through the end of the month, forecasting that demand for energy to heat building structures will increase. This in itself suggests natgas prices will remain elevated. 

  

  According to WPC, plunging temperatures and the threat for a “significant storm to affect the East early next week” could disrupt Thanksgiving travel plans. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/18/2021 – 20:00

• Murdoch Accuses Facebook, Google Of Censoring Conservative Voices
  Murdoch Accuses Facebook, Google Of Censoring Conservative Voices

  Authored by Daniel Teng via The Epoch Times,

  Rupert Murdoch has accused tech giants Google and Facebook of silencing conservative voices on their platforms and has called for “significant reform” and transparency around digital advertising supply chains.

  “What we have seen in the past few weeks about the practices at Facebook and Google surely reinforces the need for significant reform,” the News Corp executive chairman told an annual shareholder meeting on Nov. 17.

  “There is no doubt that Facebook employees try to silence conservative voices and a quick Google News search on most contemporary topics often reveals a similar pattern of selectivity—or to be blunt, censorship.”

  Facebook has previously denied it silences conservative voices, with Mark Zuckerberg in 2016 declaring in a post on his social media platform that he took the report it was censoring news on its trending topics very seriously.

  “We take this report very seriously and are conducting a full investigation to ensure our teams upheld the integrity of this product,” he said. “We have found no evidence that this report is true. If we find anything against our principles, you have my commitment that we will take additional steps to address it.”

  Google has also denied its silences conservative voices in 2018.

  

  Murdoch also highlighted his concern over a recent complaint by the Texas Attorney General that the two companies collude.

  “The collusion between the two companies on ad tech as alleged in the Texas Attorney General’s complaint is extraordinary.”

  

  The News Corp. building on 6th Avenue, home to Fox News, the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal in New York City, N.Y., on March 20, 2019. (Kevin Hagen/Getty Images)

  In December 2020, Ken Paxton’s office, along with 47 other attorney-generals and the Federal Trade Commission, filed an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook.

  “The states’ investigation revealed that Facebook protected its monopoly by identifying competitive threats and either absorbing them through acquisition or neutralising them through exclusionary conduct,” Paxton said in a press release.

  “The law enforcement action filed today exposes its illegal conduct and should ultimately restore competition in social networking for the benefit of millions of users in Texas and the United States as well as businesses that advertise on Facebook.”

  Murdoch said the digital ad market—dominated by Google and Facebook—was subject to manipulation and that companies and consumers were being overcharged for its services.

  “The idea falsely promoted by the platforms that algorithms are somehow objective and solely scientific is complete nonsense,” he said.

  “Algorithms are subjective, and they can be manipulated by people to kill competition and damage other people, publishers and businesses.”

  In Australia, where News Corp has a significant presence, Google is currently facing a five-year inquiry from the nation’s competition watchdog over its market dominance.

  The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is simultaneously probing Google’s activities in the App store space, its control of the digital advertising supply chain, and even whether consumers should have the choice to select non-Google-related search engines when they turn on their phone or PC.

  The ACCC estimated that Google controlled 50 to 100 percent of different segments of the digital ad supply chain, which underpins the country’s AU$3.4 billion digital advertising (excluding classifieds and search) market.

  “But there is a real lack of competition, choice and transparency in this industry. These issues add to the cost of advertising for businesses, which will ultimately impact the prices paid by consumers,” Sims said in a statement.

  “Google’s significant presence across the whole ad tech supply chain, combined with its significant data advantage, means Google is likely to have the ability and the incentive to preference its own ad tech businesses in ways that affect competition,” he added.

  Meanwhile, Murdoch also commented on the current political scene in the United States saying that it was time for everyone, including U.S. President Donald Trump to focus on the future.

  “The current American political debate is profound, whether about education or welfare or economic opportunity,” Murdoch said.

  “It is crucial that conservatives play an active, forceful role in that debate,” he said. “The past is the past, and the country is now in a contest to define the future.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/18/2021 – 19:40

• "These Are Numbers We Have Never Seen Before": Drug Overdose Deaths Hit Record High During Pandemic
  “These Are Numbers We Have Never Seen Before”: Drug Overdose Deaths Hit Record High During Pandemic

  As the pandemic swept across the country, a record number of Americans died of drug overdoses in the 12-month period ending in April 2021, according to preliminary data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

  

  The more than 100,000 overdose deaths is nearly 30% higher than the 78,000 counted the year before – with much of the blame landing on the availability and potency of synthetic opioids such as Fentanyl – which is up to 50x more potent than heroin, according to Statista, which notes that the CDC has reported more than 60% of overdose deaths last year involved synthetic opioids.

  

  “I believe that no one should die of an overdose simply because they didn’t have access to naloxone,” said Dr. Rahul Gupta, adding “Sadly, today that is happening across the country, and access to naloxone often depends a great deal on where you live.”

  “These are numbers we have never seen before,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, who noted that most of the fatalities were among those aged 25 to 55.

  “They leave behind friends, family and children, if they have children, so there are a lot of downstream consequences,” said Volkow. “This is a major challenge to our society.”

  Responding to the staggering figure, the Biden administration on Wednesday said that it would expand access to medications such as naloxone, which can reverse an opioid overdose, according to the New York Times.

  As Liberty Nation‘s Keelin Ferris notes:

  The president’s plans so far are treatment based, focusing on recovery or immediate responses to an overdose. He made no mention of ways to keep the drugs from flowing into the country.

  The President failed to mention China in his statement on Wednesday, the nation responsible for the immense amount of fentanyl killing Americans every day. Former President Trump frequently criticized China’s high level of exports of fentanyl or the substances used to make it, which are smuggled into the United States through Mexico.

  Back in 2018, under pressure from President Trump, President Xi promised to make trading fentanyl a criminal act, punishable to the highest level: the death penalty. However, Xi failed to follow through on that promise, which President Trump routinely blasted him for. So far in 2021, the Drug Enforcement Administration has seized enough fentanyl to kill every member of the United States population.

  Unless the United States government can slow and eventually stop the flow of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids into the states and onto the streets, the number of deaths will likely continue to rise. Funding treatment programs goes a long way in helping addicts recover and stay clean, but it is not enough. The federal government needs to take aggressive action in preventing addictions and overdoses in the first place, cutting off the access to drugs in cities and towns across America.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/18/2021 – 19:20

• Oregon Middle School Halts In-Person Classes Due To Students "Struggling With Socialization Skills"
  Oregon Middle School Halts In-Person Classes Due To Students “Struggling With Socialization Skills”

  Authored by Mimi Nguyen Ly via The Epoch Times,

  A middle school in Oregon is pausing in-person instruction for two weeks over classroom disruptions that officials say are caused by some students “struggling with the socialization skills necessary for in-person learning.”

  

  It comes after the school was forced to provide distance learning over the past year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, starting in spring 2020. The school was able to provide some in-person instruction in the spring of 2021 but still continued with distance learning before recently shifting to full in-person learning.

  “The shifts in learning methods and isolation caused by COVID-19 closures and quarantines have taken a toll on the well-being of our students and staff,” Superintendent Danna Diaz told families and staff.

  “We are finding that some students are struggling with the socialization skills necessary for in-person learning, which is causing disruption in school for other students.”

  Steve Padilla, assistant director of public relations for the Reynolds School District, told The Oregonian,

  “It’s not just fighting, it’s disruptive behaviors as well. Students are disrupting other students, making it hard for them to learn.”

  Reynolds Middle School in Fairview will have distance learning for about two weeks starting Nov. 22. Students will have Nov. 18 and 19 off to allow teachers and support staff to prepare for the transition, Reynolds superintendent Danna Diaz announced.

  During the planned two weeks of distance-learning, school administrators and staff will put in place “operational safety procedures” before the the school resumes in-person learning Dec. 7.

  The measure is to ensure the school “has the necessary social-emotional supports and safety protocols in place to provide a safe learning environment for all students.”

  “The safety and security of our students, families, and staff is our highest priority,” Diaz said.

  Reynolds Middle School is one of three middle schools in the district, admitting students from parts of Gresham, Fairview, and Wood Village, and is the only one to have taken such actions due to disruptive behaviors. The school has 928 students.

  [ZH: Forgive us our ignorance here, but if the lack of socialization skills was caused by lock-downs and isolation… what possible good does it do to put the kids back into remote learning?]

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/18/2021 – 19:00

• NY Commuter Train Ridership Still Down 48% From 2019, Despite Trains Appearing "Should To Shoulder" Packed
  NY Commuter Train Ridership Still Down 48% From 2019, Despite Trains Appearing “Should To Shoulder” Packed

  Are things really getting back to normal on New York’s commuter trains – or could your eyes be deceiving you?

  One look at a recent Bloomberg article would suggest that things are “back to normal” on Metro-North trains. The article talks about the fact that, while ridership is still “way down”, some trains are “filling up enough to make it feel like old times again.”

  Author David Papadopoulos recalls how, in the Spring, a citywide return to office started to result in trains filling back up again. Now, he says, it is “shoulder to shoulder” yet again on these trains, just like it was pre-Covid. To the outside observer, this may be the case…

  But the appearance of these trains belies just how poor ridership truly is. Papadopoulos admits that “some” of what he is seeing is a “function of the reduction in the number of trains that the MTA is running”.

  

  And riders like Beth Stanton have unveiled another dirty little secret that could be hiding just how poorly these trains are still doing. 

  “On the earliest express trains (which I ride) the front cars are packed but the rear ones are empty because @MetroNorth won’t open the #NorthEndAccess gates before 6:30am (like they did pre-Covid),” she rwote on Twitter on Wednesday. 

  This is “forcing everyone to exit thru the terminal,” she continued. 

  Here’s a twist: On the earliest express trains (which I ride) the front cars are packed but the rear ones are empty because @MetroNorth won’t open the #NorthEndAccess gates before 6:30am (like they did pre-Covid), forcing everyone to exit thru the terminal. @davidelgreco @sbanjo https://t.co/7SMlcKWL0A

  — Beth Stanton (@beth_stanton) November 17, 2021

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  Once again, it’s a case of reality being far worse than the MTA may potentially want to let on.

  We wrote just hours ago about how President Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure bill would only stave off MTA fare hikes for 6 months. The NY Times was caught celebrating the fact that President Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure bill will keep MTA fares stable and MTA service “robust”, but the punchline was that the fares will only stay stable for “at least six months”, leaving the door wide open for hikes before the end of 2022. 

  All the result of “receiving billions of dollars” from the infrastructure bill. The Times also celebrated the fact that the bill would “defer drastic service cuts”, as if service from the MTA could possibly get any worse.

  Gov. Kathy Hochul commented prior to the bill being passed: “We anticipate there’ll be no fare hikes for the M.T.A.”. She also said service cuts are “off the table”.

  Several paragraphs down in their article, the Times admits that the MTA is “facing a staggering financial crisis in the wake of the pandemic, which decimated ridership and the agency’s revenue”.

  

  Janno Lieber, acting chair and chief executive of the MTA, said: “Incentivizing people to come back means maintaining the pretty robust service that we have. And it also means that for the time being, we need to stand on the fare.”

  The agency had previously planned a 4% increase in fares earlier this spring. The MTA usually raises fares every two years and the agency has been mum on whether or not they plan on raising fares between the 6 month and 2 year period. 

  Lieber said that the MTA was “taking fare hikes off the table for at least six months and maybe well beyond that.”

  As we said hours ago, “maybe” we’ll just check back in six months…

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/18/2021 – 18:40

• Watch: Rand Paul Warns "Authoritarian" Fauci's "Casual Disdain" For Rights Is "Recipe For Totalitarianism"
  Watch: Rand Paul Warns “Authoritarian” Fauci’s “Casual Disdain” For Rights Is “Recipe For Totalitarianism”

  Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

  Appearing on Fox News Wednesday, Senator Rand Paul continued his long running exposition of Anthony Fauci, warning viewers that Fauci’s latest comments provide yet another example of how brazenly “authoritarian” he is.

  

  Fauci stated earlier this week that Americans have a “misplaced perception” about individual rights as regards “societal safety”.

  These are the rantings of a tyrant who finds the Constitution inconvenient to his whims. https://t.co/ABy38LNwxA

  — Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) November 16, 2021

  Paul urged that it is “alarming” to see such “casual disdain” for individual freedom, as well as science, calling Fauci an “authoritarian that doesn’t obey the science.”

  “He’s a liar and he lies about natural immunity. He knows it works,” Paul added.

  “This is a recipe for totalitarianism. It’s a recipe for something we don’t want in our country,” the Senator further warned.

  Watch:

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  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/18/2021 – 18:20

• Adam Schiff And The End Of Shame In American Politics
  Adam Schiff And The End Of Shame In American Politics

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  The famous philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal once declared that “the only shame is to have none.” The problem with shame is it assumes a sense of guilt over one’s actions. In the age of rage, there appear fewer and fewer actions that are beyond the pale for politics. Take Adam Schiff and the Steele dossier. While even the Washington Post has admitted that it got the Russian collusion story wrong in light of the findings of Special Counsel John Durham, House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff, D-Calif., is still insisting that he was absolutely right to promote the discredited Steele dossier. Schiff’s interview on NBC’s Meet the Press may be the final proof of the death of shame in American politics.

  Schiff was one of the greatest promoters of the Steele dossier despite access to briefings casting doubt about Steele and the underlying claims. However, Schiff recently has attempted to defend himself by claiming that Steele was a respected former spy and that he was lied to by a Russian source.

  Schiff told host Chuck Todd:

  “I don’t regret saying that we should investigate claims of someone who, frankly, was a well-respected British intelligence officer. And we couldn’t have known, of course, years ago that we would learn years later that someone who is a primary source lied to him. [Igor] Danchenko lied to Christopher Steele and then lied to the FBI. He should be prosecuted. He is being prosecuted. And I’ll tell you this, if he’s convicted, he should not be pardoned the way Donald Trump pardoned people who lied to FBI agents, like Roger Stone and Mike Flynn. There ought to be the same standard in terms of prosecuting the liars. But I don’t think there ought to be any pardon, no matter which way the lies cut.”

  Schiff’s spin is enough to cause permanent vertigo.

  

  Some of us have spent years being pummeled for questioning the obvious problems with the Steele dossier, including the long-denied connection to the Clinton campaign. Schiff was the main voice swatting down such criticism and his endorsements were treated as dispositive for media from MSNBC to the Washington Post. After all, he was the chair of the House Intelligence Committee and assured the public that our criticisms were meritless and the dossier was corroborated.

  Schiff’s spin however many continue to deny the obvious about the Russian collusion scandal.

  First, many would guffaw at the claim that Steele was and remains a “well-respected British intelligence officer.”  Soon after the dossier was shopped to the FBI, British intelligence flagged credibility problems with Steele. The FBI severed Steele as an asset. Even his own sources told the FBI that Steele wildly exaggerated information and distorted intelligence. Most recently, Steele went public with a laughable claim that Michael Cohen, Trump’s former counsel, was lying to protect Trump despite spending years trying to get Trump charged criminally.

  Second, Schiff ignored repeated contradictions in Steele’s dossier as well as evidence that the dossier was paid for and promoted by the Clinton campaign. In 2017, even fired FBI agent Peter Strzok admitted that “we are unaware of ANY Trump advisors engaging in conversations with Russian intelligence officials” and “Steele may not be in a position to judge the reliability of his subsource network.” Schiff would have had access to some of this intelligence. Indeed, while the Clinton campaign was denying that it funded the dossier, American intelligence knew that that was a lie.  Indeed, until the Durham indictments, Schiff continued to defend the Russian collusion investigation and the Steele dossier.

  Third, Schiff attempts to portray the sole problem with the Steele dossier as Russian analyst Igor Danchenko. That is simply not true. Schiff was long aware that there were allegations of misleading or false information given by the FBI to the secret court. Indeed, the first Durham conviction was of Kevin Clinesmith, the former FBI agent who pleaded guilty. Schiff was aware that President Barack Obama was briefed in 2017 that Hillary Clinton was allegedly planning to manufacture a Russian collusion scandal — just days before the start of the Russian investigation. The dossier was riddled with disproven allegations.

  Fourth, Schiff states that he merely sought to investigate allegations.  However, Schiff was one of the most active members fueling the Russian collusion allegations. Indeed, when the Mueller investigation found no proof of Russian collusion, Schiff immediately went public to claim that he had evidence of collusion in his committee files. It was meant to keep the scandal alive. Schiff has never produced his promised evidence of collusion.

  While Schiff insists that he was just doing his due diligence in pushing for an investigation, the claim is not only undermined by his refusal to acknowledge obvious flaws in the dossier for years but his opposition to the investigation by John Durham. Indeed, while Schiff insists that he is glad to see people like Danchenko prosecuted, he opposed the continuation of this and other investigations.

  Schiff told MSNBC that ongoing investigations would constitute “tearing down our democracy” and would serve as a way to “delegitimize” a president.  Schiff denounced the Durham investigation as a “politically motivated” effort and resisted demands from Trump to issue a report before the election. Schiff raised the termination of the Durham investigation by Attorney General Garland before Durham could issue any indictments or reports.  He added “The appointment is not consistent with the language of the statute that he’s relying on and can be rescinded, I think, by the next attorney general. I would presume the next attorney general will look to see if there is any merit to the work that John Durham is doing.”

  So Schiff is now heralding indictments by Durham despite the fact that, if he had gotten his way, there would have been no Durham and no indictments.

  The Russian collusion scandal was not some harmless political ploy. Lives were destroyed. Carter Page, who was never charged with a single crime, was labeled a Russian agent and pilloried across networks and print media. A fortune was spent on investigations by Congress, two special counsels, and inspectors general investigations.  Hundreds of people faced questioning and many spent their savings on legal representation. A presidency was derailed, agencies like the Justice Department and the FBI were whip lashed by scandal, and Congress dropped a myriad of other issues to focus on various investigations.

  In the wake of those costs, Schiff offers little more than a shrug.

  Many have long marveled at the incapacity for shame in politicians. That missing emotion was most famously captured by lawyer Joseph Welch in the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954: “Have you no shame, sir, at long last? Have you no shame?” The answer is that we now live in a post-shame era where the only shame is yielding to the impulses of decency or decorum. The Russian collusion scandal served its purpose and Adam Schiff would be the first say that there is no shame in that.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 11/18/2021 – 17:40