Oct 16

Today’s News 16th October 2021

  • Bovard: When Barack Obama Got Away With Murder
    Bovard: When Barack Obama Got Away With Murder

    Authored by Jim Bovard via The Libertarian Institute,

    This week (Thursday) marked the 10th anniversary of the drone killing of Abdulrahman Al-Aulaqi, a 16 year old born in Colorado and killed in Yemen. He perished as part of Obama’s crackdown on terrorist suspects around the world. His father, who was also an American citizen, was killed two weeks earlier by another drone strike ordered by Obama.

    I wrote a piece condemning Obama’s assassination program for Christian Science Monitor in 2011,  “Assassination Nation: Are There Any Limits on President Obama’s License to Kill?” I derided the Obama administration’s claim that the president possessed a “right to kill Americans without a trial, without notice, and without any chance for targets to legally object…Killings based solely on presidential commands radically transform the relation of the government to the citizenry.”

    Readers responded by calling for my assassination. My article mentioned an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit pressuring the Obama administration “to disclose the legal standard it uses to place US citizens on government kill lists.” 

    “Will R.” was indignant: “We need to send Bovard and the ACLU to Iran. You shoot traders and the ACLU are a bunch of traders.” (I was pretty sure the ACLU was not engaged in international commerce). “Jeff” took the high ground: “Hopefully there will soon be enough to add James Bovard to the [targeted killing] list.” Another commenter—self-labeled as “Idiot Savant”—saw a grand opportunity: “Now if we can only convince [Obama] to use this [assassination] authority on the media, who have done more harm than any single terror target could ever dream of…”

    Here’s a riff I did on Obama’s assassination program in 2013:

    The Obama administration yesterday leaked out its confidential legal paper on killing Americans to NBC News. Obama’s legal wizards decided that the Fifth Amendment’s pledge that no citizen shall “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” is invalid in cases of imminent attack by terrorists.

    Though this might sound reasonable, the memo proceeds to craft a totally bogus notion of “imminent.” But, as John Glaser notes at Antiwar.com, “The memo refers to what it calls a ‘broader concept of imminence’ than what has traditionally been required, like actual intelligence an ongoing plot against the US. ‘The condition that an operational leader present an ‘imminent’ threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future,’ the memo states, contradicting conventional international law.”

    Obama top adviser Robert Gibbs had said the 16-year old should have had “a more responsible father” when asked directly about the assassination by drone…

    In a January 2017 USA Today piece, I urged Trump to open the files on Obama’s killings:

    “Trump should quickly reveal the secret memos underlying Obama’s “targeted killing” drone assassination program.

    Administration lawyers defeated lawsuits by the ACLU, The New York Times, and others seeking disclosure of key legal papers on how the president became judge, jury and executioner. A Trump administration could disclose the memos and white papers without endangering anything other than the reputation of the soon-to-be former president and his policymakers.

    Didn’t happen. The Trump administration could have exposed vast numbers of abuses by the Obama administration the same way that Obama (partially) opened the files on some of President George W. Bush’s torture policy and other atrocities. But as usual, the Trump team blew the opportunity.

    As a result, Obama can pirouette as a champion of civil liberties while the horrendous precedents he set continue to endanger Americans and anyone else in the world in the vicinity of people suspected of bad thoughts by the U.S. government.

    Hat tip to Dan Alban, an Institute of Justice lawyer who has scourged the Justice Department, IRS, and plenty of other government agencies.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/15/2021 – 23:50

  • Tracking Global Hunger & Food Insecurity
    Tracking Global Hunger & Food Insecurity

    Hunger is still one the biggest – and most solvable – problems in the world.

    Every day, as Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti notes, more than 700 million people (8.8% of the world’s population) go to bed on an empty stomach, according to the UN World Food Programme (WFP).

    The WFP’s HungerMap LIVE displayed here tracks core indicators of acute hunger like household food consumption, livelihoods, child nutritional status, mortality, and access to clean water in order to rank countries.

    After sitting closer to 600 million from 2014 to 2019, the number of people in the world affected by hunger increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    In 2020, 155 million people (2% of the world’s population) experienced acute hunger, requiring urgent assistance.

    The Fight to Feed the World

    The problem of global hunger isn’t new, and attempts to solve it have making headlines for decades.

    On July 13, 1985, at Wembley Stadium in London, Prince Charles and Princess Diana officially opened Live Aid, a worldwide rock concert organized to raise money for the relief of famine-stricken Africans.

    The event was followed by similar concerts at other arenas around the world, globally linked by satellite to more than a billion viewers in 110 nations, raising more than $125 million ($309 million in today’s dollars) in famine relief for Africa.

    But 35+ years later, the continent still struggles. According to the UN, from 12 countries with the highest prevalence of insufficient food consumption in the world, nine are in Africa.

     

    Approximately 30 million people in Africa face the effects of severe food insecurity, including malnutrition, starvation, and poverty.

     

    Wasted Leftovers

    Although many of the reasons for the food crisis around the globe involve conflicts or environmental challenges, one of the big contributors is food waste.

    According to the United Nations, one-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted globally. This amounts to about 1.3 billion tons of wasted food per year, worth approximately $1 trillion.

    All the food produced but never eaten would be sufficient to feed two billion people. That’s more than twice the number of undernourished people across the globe. Consumers in rich countries waste almost as much food as the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa each year.

    Solving Global Hunger

    While many people may not be “hungry” in the sense that they are suffering physical discomfort, they may still be food insecure, lacking regular access to enough safe and nutritious food for normal growth and development.

    Estimates of how much money it would take to end world hunger range from $7 billion to $265 billion per year.

    But to tackle the problem, investments must be utilized in the right places. Specialists say that governments and organizations need to provide food and humanitarian relief to the most at-risk regions, increase agricultural productivity, and invest in more efficient supply chains.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/15/2021 – 23:30

  • The Science Of Propaganda Is Still Being Developed And Advanced
    The Science Of Propaganda Is Still Being Developed And Advanced

    Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

    We live in a far less free society than most of us think.

    It looks like we’re free. We don’t get thrown in prison for criticizing our government officials. We can vote for whoever we want. We can log onto the internet and look up information on any subject we’re interested in. If we want to buy a product we have many brands we are free to choose from.

    But we’re not free. Our political systems are set up to herd people into a two-party system that is controlled on both sides by plutocrats. The news media that people rely on to form ideas about what’s going on and how they should vote are controlled by the plutocratic class and heavily influenced by secretive government agencies. Internet algorithms are aggressively manipulated to show people information which favors the status quo. Even our entertainment is rife with Pentagon and CIA influence.

    How free is that? How free is your speech if there are myriad institutional safeguards in place to prevent speech from ever effecting political change?

    It doesn’t matter what you’re allowed to say if it doesn’t matter what you say. It doesn’t matter if you’re allowed to call the oligarchic puppet put in office by the last fake election a dickhead. It doesn’t matter if you’re allowed to Google any information you want only to find whatever information Google wants you to find.

    What is the functional difference between a regime which directly censors the internet to prevent dissent and a regime which works with Silicon Valley plutocrats to control information via algorithms and has a system in place which prevents dissent from having any meaningful impact?

    There is none.

    We live in a profoundly unfree society that is disguised as a free society. Western liberal democracy is just totalitarianism dressed in drag.

    And it’s only getting worse. Propaganda is a still-developing science.

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    Last month Ottawa Citizen reported that the Canadian military used the Covid outbreak as an excuse to test actual military psyop techniques on its own civilian population under the pretense of assuring compliance with pandemic restrictions.

    Some excerpts:

    • “Canadian military leaders saw the pandemic as a unique opportunity to test out propaganda techniques on an unsuspecting public, a newly released Canadian Forces report concludes.”

    • “The plan devised by the Canadian Joint Operations Command, also known as CJOC, relied on propaganda techniques similar to those employed during the Afghanistan war. The campaign called for ‘shaping’ and ‘exploiting’ information. CJOC claimed the information operations scheme was needed to head off civil disobedience by Canadians during the coronavirus pandemic and to bolster government messages about the pandemic.”

    • “A separate initiative, not linked to the CJOC plan, but overseen by Canadian Forces intelligence officers, culled information from public social media accounts in Ontario. Data was also compiled on peaceful Black Lives Matter gatherings and BLM leaders.”

    • “‘This is really a learning opportunity for all of us and a chance to start getting information operations into our (CAF-DND) routine,’ the rear admiral stated.”

    • “Yet another review centred on the Canadian Forces public affairs branch and its activities. Last year, the branch launched a controversial plan that would have allowed military public affairs officers to use propaganda to change attitudes and behaviours of Canadians as well as to collect and analyze information from public social media accounts.”

    • “The plan would have seen staff move from traditional government methods of communicating with the public to a more aggressive strategy of using information warfare and influence tactics on Canadians.”

    So they’re not just employing mass-scale psychological operations on the public, they’re testing them and learning from them.

    And we can probably assume that anything which may have been learned was also shared with the government agencies of other NATO members.

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    In a new article titled “Behind NATO’s ‘cognitive warfare’: Western militaries are waging a ‘battle for your brain’”, The Grayzone’s Ben Norton reports on how recent NATO-sponsored discussions have explicitly advocated the need to advance the science of cognitive warfare for offensive as well as defensive purposes.

    Some excerpts:

    • “NATO is spinning out an entirely new kind of combat it has branded as cognitive warfare. Described as the ‘weaponization of brain sciences,’ the new method involves ‘hacking the individual’ by exploiting ‘the vulnerabilities of the human brain’ in order to implement more sophisticated ‘social engineering.’

    • “While the NATO-backed study insisted that much of its research on cognitive warfare is designed for defensive purposes, it also conceded that the military alliance is developing offensive tactics, stating, ‘The human is very often the main vulnerability and it should be acknowledged in order to protect NATO’s human capital but also to be able to benefit from our adversaries’s vulnerabilities.’”

    • “In a chilling disclosure, the report stated explicitly that ‘the objective of Cognitive Warfare is to harm societies and not only the military.’”

    • “The study described this phenomenon as ‘the militarization of brain science.’ But it appears clear that NATO’s development of cognitive warfare will lead to a militarization of all aspects of human society and psychology, from the most intimate of social relationships to the mind itself.”

    • “In other words, this document shows that figures in the NATO military cartel increasingly see their own domestic population as a threat, fearing civilians to be potential Chinese or Russian sleeper cells, dastardly ‘fifth columns’ that challenge the stability of ‘Western liberal democracies.’”

    • “Naturally, the NATO researcher claimed foreign ‘adversaries’ are the supposed aggressors employing cognitive warfare. But at the same time, he made it clear that the Western military alliance is developing its own tactics.”

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    In a 2017 essay titled “The War on Sensemaking”, writer Jordan Greenhall made an observation that I have thought about ever since: that the science of modern propaganda has been in research and development for more than a century now, and has necessarily advanced scientifically just as much as other fields in the military have.

    “In 1917, a young Edward Bernays was asked to help the American war effort by applying his uncle Sigmund Freud’s theories of the unconscious to a new German technique called ‘propaganda’,” Greenhall writes.

    “The technology of war moves quickly. In the span of one and a half centuries, the last war leapt from long rifles to repeating rifles to gatling guns all the way to Little Boy. The warfighters of the current war haven’t dawdled. The wars of culture, meaning and purpose have seen innovation on an ‘exponential technology curve.’ The artisanal efforts of Bernays and Goebbels have been left far in the past by modern methods.”

    Think about how many technological advancements there have been in the military over the last century. Our rulers have been refining their methods of manipulating our sensemaking abilities to their advantage throughout that entire time, and only a small minority of us have even begun to realize that that manipulation is even happening. We’re just learning to play checkers while they’re mastering 3-D chess.

    I don’t have any solutions to this problem other than to spread consciousness of the fact that it is happening. Propaganda only works if you don’t understand (A) that it is happening to you and (B) how it is occurring, and a basic awareness of the fact that there’s a globe-spanning campaign to manipulate human thought to the advantage of the powerful is the first step toward having that understanding. Having the humility to understand that you yourself can be manipulated and deceived is the second step.

    My hope is that humanity will transcend its psychological susceptibility to manipulation and move into a healthy relationship with mental narrative as our adapt-or-die precipice draws nearer. But time will only tell.

    *  *  *

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    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/15/2021 – 23:10

  • China Coal Prices Soar To Record As Winter Freeze Spreads Cross The Country
    China Coal Prices Soar To Record As Winter Freeze Spreads Cross The Country

    One week ago we discussed why the “worst case” scenario for China’s property crisis is gradually emerging; to this we can now add that China’s worst case energy crisis scenario is also about to be unleashed as cold weather swept into much of the country and power plants scrambled to stock up on coal, sending prices of the fuel to record highs.

    Electricity demand to heat homes and offices is expected to soar this week as strong cold winds move down from northern China, according to Reuters with forecasters predicting average temperatures in some central and eastern regions could fall by as much as 16 degrees Celsius in the next 2-3 days.

    Shortages of coal, high fuel prices and booming post-pandemic industrial demand have sparked widespread power shortages in the world’s second-largest economy. Rationing has already been in place in at least 17 of mainland China’s more than 30 regions since September, forcing some factories to suspend production and further disrupting already broken supply chains.

    On Friday, the most-active January Zhengzhou thermal coal futures closed at a record high of 2,226 per tonne early. The contract has risen almost 200% year to date.

    China’s three northeastern provinces of Jilin, Heilongjiang and Liaoning – also among the worst hit by the power shortages last month – as well as several regions in northern China including Inner Mongolia and Gansu have started winter heating, which is mainly fuelled by coal, to cope with the colder-than-normal weather.

    Meanwhile, even though Beijing has taken a slew of measures to contain coal price rises including raising domestic coal output and cutting power to power-hungry industries and some factories during periods of peak demand, so far all measures have failed with coal surging by 40% in just the past three days. Beijing has also repeatedly assured users that energy supplies will be secured for the winter heating season, and went so far as to order energy firms to “secure supplies at all costs.” Well, the energy firms heard it, because on that day, thermal coal closed at 1,436 yuan. Two weeks later it is some 800 yuan higher.

    Unfortunately for Beijing, the power shortages are expected to continue into early next year, with analysts and traders forecasting a 12% drop in industrial power consumption in the fourth quarter as coal supplies fall short and local governments give priority to residential users.

    Earlier this week, we reported that China undertook its boldest step in a decades-long power sector reform when it allowed coal-fired power prices to fluctuate by up to 20% from base levels from Oct. 15, enabling power plants to pass on more of the high costs of generation to commercial and industrial end-users. read more

    Steel, aluminium, cement and chemical producers are expected to face higher and more volatile power costs under the new policy, pressuring profit margins.

    Meanwhile, the latest Chinese “data” on Thursday showed factory-gate inflation in September hit a record high; but since thermal coal is the one commodity that correlates the closest to PPI, absent a sharp drop in coal prices in the next few weeks, expect the next PPI print to be far higher. Meanwhile as the power crisis leads to further shutdowns in domestic production, some banks – such as Nomura – have gone so far to predict that China’s GDP is set to shrink in coming quarters.

    China, which laughably aims to be “carbon neutral” by 2060 even as its president announced he will skip the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, has been “trying” to reduce its reliance on polluting coal power in favor of cleaner wind, solar and hydro. But coal remains the source for some 70% of China’s electricity needs.

    Of course, China is not the only nation struggling with power supplies, which has led to fuel shortages and blackouts in many European countries. and threatens to send US heating bills up as much as 50% this winter. he crisis has highlighted the difficulty in cutting the global economy’s dependency on fossil fuels as world leaders seek to revive efforts to tackle climate change at talks next month in Glasgow.

    China will strive to achieve carbon peaks by 2030, Vice Premier Han Zheng said in a video message at the Russian Energy Week International Forum, according to state-run news agency Xinhua late on Thursday. He also said that China and Russia are important forces leading the energy transition and they should cooperate and ensure smooth progress of major oil and gas pipeline and nuclear power projects.

    Translation: Russia better save that nat gas and not ship it to Europe as China will soon be needed even BCF Russia an provide. As for China

     

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/15/2021 – 22:50

  • Former Director Of National Intelligence Issues Warning Over Biden Buying Chinese Drones For Feds
    Former Director Of National Intelligence Issues Warning Over Biden Buying Chinese Drones For Feds

    Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

    Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe warned Sunday that the Biden administration is putting national security at risk by buying Chinese drone technology for federal law enforcement use.

    In an appearance on Fox News Ratcliffe urged that Chinese companies supplying the technology are likely relaying back information on U.S. critical infrastructure to the Chinese Communist Party.

    “Like so much that Biden administration has done on national security lately, this makes very little sense,” Ratcliffe warned.

    He added, “It’s harmful to our national security. And also, Chinese drone technology is not as good as U.S. drone technology.”

    “It’s hard to make sense out of what’s doing this, other than it is consistent with the Biden administration taking a softer approach, trying to promote a false narrative that somehow China is a competitor and not an adversary,” Ratcliffe further emphasised.

    Watch:

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    Ratcliffe’s warning comes a month after Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley allegedly engaged in a ‘top-secret’ mission to undermine President Trump’s ability to order military strikes, and promised to tip off the CCP if the U.S. was planning military action according to a new book by Bob Woodword and the Washington Post‘s Robert Costa.

    Biden has been long-rumored to be under the thumb of the Chinese government, and the Afghanistan debacle also made the case for that theory even stronger.

    *  *  *

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    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/15/2021 – 22:30

  • Aluminum Shortages Next As "Magnesium Supply Dries Up"
    Aluminum Shortages Next As “Magnesium Supply Dries Up”

    This week, the largest US producer of aluminum billet used to make automobiles and building supplies told customers and business associates that output capacity might be curtailed in 2022 due to a lack of magnesium supply.

    “In the last several weeks, magnesium availability has dried up, and we have not been able to purchase our required magnesium units for all of 2022,” Matalco Inc. President Tom Horter said in the letter obtained by S&P Global Platts. 

    Difficult-to-source supplies of raw materials and soaring energy prices are adding to the headwinds, Horter said in the letter. 

    “The purpose of this note is to provide this advanced warning that, if the scarcity continues, and especially if it becomes worse, Matalco may need to curtail production in 2022, resulting in allocations to our customers,” he said. 

    Horter said his company will source as much magnesium as possible and other raw materials, such as silicon, to maintain its planned production output for 2022. The warning comes as he told customers they should have contingency plans if supplies tighten. 

    Aluminum billet cannot be produced without magnesium, which is a strengthening agent and allows it to be strong enough to be used in structural applications, such as automobile frames, engine blocks, and body panels. 

    “We will provide an update in a couple of weeks,” Horter said. “In the meantime, you may want to consider letting your customer base know of this silicon and magnesium availability crisis and also let them know that other products or inputs needed for making billet or slab may also reach a crisis point.”

    Horter added other challenges such as the cost of energy, labor, and shipping are increasingly mounting. 

    Alcoa is another major US aluminum producer that also warned about shortages of magnesium and silicon. Without these two ingredients, both manufacturers cannot produce aluminum billet products. A reduction in US output would tighten global supply even further. 

    The macro backdrop of the aluminum industry is a complicated one. First, a military coup in Guinea last month stoked concerns over the supply of bauxite, a sedimentary rock with high aluminum content. Then the closure of energy-intensive smelters in Asia and Europe have tightened global supplies and forced LME prices to record highs. 

    The latest surge in industrial metals will continue to pressure inflation higher. 

    So much for the Federal Reserve’s “transitory” narrative. Higher costs will push up prices for new cars and other products made of aluminum.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/15/2021 – 22:10

  • Luongo: "When You Buy Into Fear, You Sell Your Reason"
    Luongo: “When You Buy Into Fear, You Sell Your Reason”

    Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

    It’s Time For All Good Men to Stop Fearing John Galt

    “Who is John Galt?”

    AYN RAND – ATLAS SHRUGGED

    There comes a point in every person’s life when they have to reckon with the person in the mirror. Who am I? What do I want? Where am I going?

    Since the beginning of the COVID-9/11 story I’ve watched it break so many people who couldn’t answer these basic questions. The fear of the virus uncovered a lot about all of us.

    For many, unfortunately, it provoked their inner tyrant.

    Last year, during the height of the COVID insanity after publicly hanging up on an unhinged Lee Stranahan live on Sputnik Radio I tweeted this out.

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    This wasn’t just directed at Lee, but it really was.

    The hard investigative journalist of February 2020 turned into a sniveling, state-worshipping baby by late April. Fear of death uncovered his Room 101. That incident, among others, eventually took down his radio show with certified stand-up guy, Garland Nixon.

    Today it’s a shadow of its former self.

    I don’t know if my action was the catalyst for the changes that came, but I do know after that day nothing was the same.

    The sad truth is that Lee wasn’t alone. His collapse was just the most public version I ran into personally.

    When you buy into fear, you sell your reason. Gone is your skepticism as your world collapses. Your eyes focus on your next step too afraid to raise them to the horizon.

    There is no bigger picture, there is only the moment.

    For 20 months now, we have lived among people terrorized by a story, not a virus but a story, that told them they are the heroes for being afraid and the skeptics are the villains.

    To save ourselves we just have to give up our humanity and submit to an authority incapable of telling us the truth.

    Because the truth is we had very little to actually fear.

    These are the real villains, the Faucis, Bidens, Schwabs, Psakis, Trudeaus and anyone who still believes their patter.

    It was never about the disease, it was about control and the real damage being done to our psyches, our bodies and our communities, exactly as I argued to Lee on the radio eighteen months ago before I hung up on him.

    They created the fear and then manipulated it into something violent. They preyed on our common decency and humanity, twisting it into something evil which is now plain for anyone who lifts his eyes off the ground to see.

    Because vaccine mandates are the ultimate form of state violence, the death penalty notwithstanding.

    Once they had a large enough segment so terrorized they would rather die than admit they had been duped, those villains pushed the ultimate Hobson’s Choice on us: get the vaccine against COVID-9/11 and you can have your life back.

    But it was never their life to take in the first place.

    We gave it to them, hoping they weren’t as evil as many suspected.

    It’s amazing how just one year after a summer of looting and burning over police brutality against a black man who overdosed on fentanyl, these same people are making excuses for even worse police violence against people walking around in sunshine unmasked.

    To them we are the Untermenschen, the unvaxxed, the unclean.

    And that makes their violence justified because, to them, we are the ones keeping things from getting back to normal.

    Once the threat from COVID-9/11 was well established, rationality should have returned. But it hasn’t. Too many people are still stuck in Room 101, wedded to their shame over being duped by villains.

    They now wish death by COVID on those who refuse to get a shot for a virus that has a defined low probability of killing them and for which multiple therapeutic options are available.

    If they would just shut up, trust the science and let doctor’s practice medicine, life would really return to something close to normal.

    But it’s increasingly obvious to enough people that these mandates don’t measure up to the threat of the virus.

    Every day it becomes clearer that this is about their fear of us seizing back the power we gave them.

    To save themselves from The COVID they wish it on us, just like Winston Smith, who looked in the mirror and betrayed his love to serve a master who hates him as much as he hates himself.

    It doesn’t matter if the vaccines are ‘safe’ and ‘effective’ or not. I’m not here to argue that. That’s your personal choice, make it as you see fit. No blame. No shame.

    What’s important is that it is no one else’s choice.

    Further, it’s not your personal choice to tell me that I can’t partake in civil society if I don’t get the shot or, like Joe Rogan, choose a different path to treating COVID-9/11 than you would.

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    Because Winston always had a choice. He could choose to face his fear and finally become a man, like Joe Rogan.

    Or he can project his fear onto real men and stay in his personal hell for all the world to laugh at:

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    Watching this man’s Two Minutes of Hate is revealing of everything that is wrong with the COVID-9/11 story.

    And that same choice is now directly in our path, vaxxed or unvaxxed.

    COVID-9/11 is never going away. Neither will the flu, the common cold or any other virus endemic to the environment.

    Life is risk and it belongs to those willing to face those risks to keep the world from breaking. Cower in fear if you like, but scapegoating the unvaxxed won’t save you.

    I saw this in March 2020 saying we have to be brave and celebrate everyone willing to go to work to make the things we need to treat the sick and protect the healthy.

    In a real economy, everyone is an essential worker.

    This is because everyone contributes in their small way to the fully functional world that ensures the shelves are stocked, the energy flows and our meager triumphs over nature’s hostility to our presence remain in place.

    For months now we have been openly threatened with having our lives taken away because we don’t have our party registration papers up to date. We’ve all wrestled, at some level, with our disbelief that things would degrade this badly and this quickly.

    The Olbermensch tells us we can be friends again after we just get the damn shot.

    What he won’t admit is that we know he’s lying. Keith hates us for the mirror we hold up in front of him. Take a long look, that is the face of shame.

    Because ideals are judges. Those ideals only shame men capable of admitting it. The rest sink into solipsism and insanity.

    In Rand’s novel, John Galt built the engine that could change the world. But he refused to give it to the world he lived in.

    The Olbermensches would just use it to perpetuate their power, their evil.

    Who is John Galt? He’s that best version of ourselves that knows who we are, what we want and where we will end up. And it’s past time we stopped fearing the loss that comes with stating that directly.

    The strike of the productive and the self-aware Rand envisioned is here. The airline pilots, an Ubermensch class of people if there is one in this sick, sad world, walked out over last weekend taking most of Southwest Airlines’ staff with them.

    The Olbermensches are furious, openly lying about what happened and castigating anyone who says otherwise.

    But we shouldn’t care.

    Just like we shouldn’t care that Sanjay Gupta, after Rogan’s shaming, was forced into a public Struggle Session to retain his place at CNN, proving to all the world that he is a man without principles, ideals or shame.

    As I write this, on October 15th, vaccine mandates go into effect all around the Davos-controlled world. The choice is now in front of hundreds of millions of people. Becoming your own version of John Galt comes with loss.

    It means giving up something today to retain not just your integrity but provide strength to those not quite there yet.

    Everything rests on giving them your consent. The Olbermensches do not negotiate, they bully.

    Bullies are cowards. Your consent today feeds their addiction to fear.

    Previously I told you to quietly, “Just Say No” to them. Now I’m telling you that takes the form of withdrawing consent completely, risking today’s comfort for tomorrow’s benefit. The strength you display today is the foundation of a world we build back better than the one that is gone.

    I had a good gig with Sputnik Radio. But I owed them nothing. But when the mask of civility fell, it was time to go.

    We all wear that mask at times but only with those worthy of reciprocating.

    All things come to an end, good and bad. What matters is who we choose to be, what we want and unafraid of where those choices lead us.

    Note: These images are from the classic DC Comic from the 1980’s The Question, Issue #5, where Vic nearly kills himself over guilt for setting in motion the final collapse of the city he’s sworn to protect, but has sunk into depravity, violence and apathy.

    *  *  *

    Join my Patreon if you question your premises.

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    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/15/2021 – 21:50

  • Global Auto Names On Watch After Toyota Slashes November Production Estimate By (Another) 15%
    Global Auto Names On Watch After Toyota Slashes November Production Estimate By (Another) 15%

    We wrote just hours ago that European auto stocks would likely be next on watch after disappointing data out of China.

    This morning, after a Nikkei report stating that Toyota would cut its global auto production target for November, those same stocks are on watch. Names like Stellantis, Daimler, GM, BMW and Renault will all be in focus on Friday as a result of the announcement.  

    Toyota said it was cutting auto production in November  by 15% from its latest plan. This will equate to a drop-off of about 150,000 vehicles. Toyota had already cut production targets by 40% from its initial plan for September to October, Nikkei reported. 

    The company said it was negatively affected (like everyone else in the industry) by the ongoing semiconductor shortage. Toyota also cited power outages in China as a reason for cutting its production targets. 

    Recall, days ago we reported that passenger vehicle wholesales in China fell 16.5% YOY to 1.75 million units.

    The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers predicts for a weaker full year auto market – also due to chip and power shortages, it said. It expects the chip shortage to ease up in Q4 of this year, marking yet another prediction amongst a sea of confusion between manufacturers and analysts as to when the global shortage will end. Other analysts and several automakers have commented that the chip shortage could continue into 2022.

    Despite the dip, there were a couple silver linings. The CAAM has been forecasting pickup truck sales to rise by more than 1 million units by 2030, from 414,000 in 2020. 

    New energy vehicle wholesales also continued to be robust, up 148.4% to 357,000 units.

    Toyota, meanwhile, is expected to keep its full year production target of 9 million units. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/15/2021 – 21:30

  • "Why I'm Leaving My California Teachers' Union"
    “Why I’m Leaving My California Teachers’ Union”

    Authored by Beth Richardson via RealClearEducation.com,

    I have been a middle school special education teacher for 18 years. Every day I spend in the classroom is a joy – the work is hard, but so rewarding – and with almost two decades of experience, I know how my students learn best.

    Imagine my surprise when the California Teachers Association – which spends zero days per year with students – tries to tell teachers how to run their classrooms.

    Like many teachers across the state, I have watched nervously as schools begin to adopt curriculums that include Critical Race Theory – a concept I believe would do incredible harm to our children and our country, as it requires every lesson we teach to be presented and understood through the lens of race. While my school, thankfully, has yet to embrace this unproven theory, I fear it may only be a matter of time.

    Adopting CRT certainly seems to be the direction our state union is taking, following the lead of the National Education Association, which recently announced that it will promote the theory and actively push back against anything it sees as “anti-CRT rhetoric.”

    We’re already seeing how these kinds of ideas can creep into the classroom and harm student education. Some educators in my state are pushing to redefine math, taking the focus off of the “right answer” because pointing out a wrong answer is supposedly a form of white supremacy.

    If we can no longer teach the difference between correct and incorrect, what is the point of teaching?  I’ve been a dues-paying union member for about three years, and while I frequently disagreed with the political direction of my union, I maintained my membership because I thought it necessary to keep my benefits.

    This desperate push for critical race theory, and the forcing of teachers to adopt this curriculum, no matter our beliefs, is the final straw. I could tolerate being told whom to vote for. I could tolerate paying for legal representation that is, frankly, subpar. What I cannot tolerate is being told how to teach by people who have never stepped foot in my classroom.

    So I’m leaving my union. Or at least I’m trying to leave. Despite the Supreme Court’s decision in Janus, which states that collecting union dues from non-members is a violation of the First Amendment, my request to leave the union was met with: “Sorry, try again.”

    After submitting my request to forgo membership, I received a letter from the CTA informing me that I must continue to pay my dues.

    “While you may drop your membership through your local,” the letter says, “the agreement to pay dues continues… regardless of membership status.”

    Indeed, a teacher can only “revoke [their] dues authorization by sending written notice… not less than thirty (30) days and not more than sixty (60) days before the annual anniversary date of the agreement.”

    Let me get this straight: I have to continue paying dues to an organization I do not support for an entire year? Next time I’ll make sure my political breaking point lines up with the union’s arbitrary 30-day period.

    I’m not alone in this battle with the union – at least eight other teachers in my district are trying to leave, for various reasons. They, too, missed this arbitrary 30-day window and are stuck financially supporting a radical political platform for another year.

    As the educator entrusted to lead my classroom, I should have a say in what and how I teach. I want to make sure all my students succeed and are set up for a life of purpose and fulfillment. CRT threatens that future, replacing equal opportunity in the classroom with a curriculum that pits groups against one another. I feel that it’s my responsibility to stand up for my students. The day I’m told that I have to change my curriculum is the day I’ll retire.

    Until then, I’d rather not be compelled to give part of my paycheck to an organization that puts its political agenda above the education of America’s kids.

    *  *  *

    Beth Richardson is a middle school special education teacher in San Diego, California.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/15/2021 – 21:10

  • Japan's New Prime Minister Admits Abenomics Was A Failure
    Japan’s New Prime Minister Admits Abenomics Was A Failure

    Sometimes it takes years, if not decades to be proven right in a world that has been turned upside down.

    Take Abenomics, the “radical” Japanese vision that was supposed to overhaul Japan’s economy and society, push wages higher, boost Japanese exports, spark en economic renaissance and drag Japan out of its perpetual deflationary debt trap (but it’s not targeting a weaker yen, it was never targeting a weaker yen) yet was nothing more than sanctioned money printing, and which we bashed from the very beginning, to wit:

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    … and so much more, it was just today, almost a decade after Abenomics first arrived on the scene, that we get the official verdict, that it was – as we said all along – a failure.

    Speaking to the FT in his first interview with international media since taking over Japan’s leadership this month, Fumio Kishida, Japan’s new prime minister pledged to move the country away from neoliberalism as he lambasted his own party’s failure to deliver broad-based growth under the Abenomics programme that defined the economy for almost a decade.

    Kishida told the FT that while regulatory reform remained necessary, he would approach it with a focus on narrowing the gap between the rich and poor. The implication – Abenomics, like money printing everywhere else, was responsible for creating a staggering chasm between the rich and poor.

    “Abenomics clearly delivered results in terms of gross domestic product, corporate earnings and employment. But it failed to reach the point of creating a ‘virtuous cycle’,” Kishida said, in his bluntest attack on a program embraced by his two predecessors that propelled the Tokyo stock market through a doubling in value.

    “I want to achieve a virtuous economic cycle by raising the incomes of not just a certain segment, but a broader range of people to trigger consumption. I believe that’s the key to how the new form of capitalism is going to be different from the past,” he added, Kishida said sounding almost socialist.

    In Japan, “neoliberalism” most often refers to the reforms of the 1990s and 2000s, including deregulation, privatization and labor market reform, rather than tight fiscal policy and cuts to public spending. By openly criticising his predecessor, Shinzo Abe, who failed not once but twice as Japan’s longest-serving prime minister and who resigned in September 2020, Kishida took a calculated risk according to the FT, as he prepares for a general election on October 31.

    One reason for his assault on Abenomics is that recent polls have showed him with an average approval rating of just over 50 per cent, considerably lower than most of his predecessors when they came into office and a signal, said political analysts, that his honeymoon period for enacting meaningful reform may be short.

    The former foreign minister was chosen to replace Yoshihide Suga as leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic party on the understanding that he would offer “status quo” stability and continuity. Despite attempts to remove that image, he has already backtracked on one of his major policy initiatives to raise capital gains tax after share prices fell sharply on concerns that such a move would kill a recent revival of interest by individual domestic investors.

    Kishida stressed his new economic approach — involving tax incentives for companies to raise wages and pay increases for nurses and care workers — would attempt to reverse the failures of the “trickle-down” theories and market-led reforms that have guided Japanese policymaking from the mid-2000s.

    “Everyone just considers regulatory reform in terms of market fundamentalism, competition and survival of the fittest. That’s the problem with our past thinking on regulatory reform,” Kishida said, calling on companies and the public to share a more holistic vision of the economy.

    He also envisions deeper collaboration between the state and the private sector to secure strategic assets and technologies such as chips and rare earths that will be pivotal for economic security.

    “It is important to ensure a self-sufficient economy when we are considering future growth,” Kishida said. “We need to make sure that Japan has technologies that are critical to complete global supply chains so we can achieve indispensability.”

    Kishida publicly signaled for the first time that he may also take a new approach to the corporate governance reform that has been a pillar of the Abenomics programme alongside aggressive monetary easing and fiscal stimulus.While Japan introduced its first corporate governance code in 2015, Kishida said a separate code may be needed to address the needs of small and medium-sized companies. “It’s not realistic to apply the same rules. Corporate governance is important for small- and medium-sized enterprises but they can’t do it in the same way as big companies,” he explained.

    Predictably, corporate executives who got egregiously rich thanks to money printing Abenomics have privately expressed scepticism about the new prime minister’s economic agenda, pointing to how Japan has failed to emerge from deflation and open up rigidly regulated markets even after nearly nine years of strong public support for Abenomics. Their solution: do more of what has failed, after all it makes them richer.

    Kishida also faces a more complex geopolitical environment than his predecessors, with China’s increasing assertiveness and a global rush to secure national supply chains following the turmoil caused by the coronavirus pandemic.When asked about the new trilateral security partnership the US has launched with the UK and Australia to strengthen their ability to counter China, Kishida said Japan had no specific plans to join the framework.

    But he added: “Considering the stability of the region, it is extremely important for European and US countries to be interested and involved in Asia’s security environment.”

    Kishida heads an LDP faction with a historically dovish stance on China, but as prime minister, he has called for a strengthening of the country’s missile and other defense capabilities.

    For the upcoming election, the ruling party for the first time included a manifesto pledge to double defence spending, in a break from the long-held tradition to keep its military budget within 1 per cent of GDP.

    “On the economic front, it’s important to stabilize relations with China,” Kishida said, before noting recent “questionable behavior” from Beijing. “So on the political level, Japan must be able to firmly assert itself against China.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/15/2021 – 20:50

  • China Releases Humiliating Footage Of Blindfolded Indian Troops Captured On Disputed Border
    China Releases Humiliating Footage Of Blindfolded Indian Troops Captured On Disputed Border

    Earlier this year China state media began belatedly releasing on-the-ground video footage of the Ladakh Galwan Valley clash which occurred in June 15-16, 2020 – and resulted in the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers. While Indian media sources claimed dozens of soldiers were also killed on the Chinese side, it resulted in a heightened military standoff which continues to this day, as peace talks have lately faltered. 

    Since the 2020 deadly skirmish, the Chinese side has kept quieter on the details, but this week released high quality video of the moment PLA soldiers captured Indian border troops and led them captive with blindfolds. 

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    Days ago a 13th round of military commander-level talks failed to produce any breakthroughs – instead troop encampments and military build-up involving tens of thousands along the disputed Line of Actual Control has continued.

    Some recent reports have suggested that the PLA military releasing such humiliating images of defeated looking Indian captives being led away by Chinese border patrols are meant as public retaliation for recent alleged Indian aggressions on the border.  

    This isn’t the first time China has released snippets of 2020 clash footage at Ladakh, but it’s perhaps the most provocative release to date.

    The recently failed talks mean that India and China will continue to have troops forwardly deployed in Ladakh, where the skirmishes took place. China has blamed the failure on what it called “unreasonable demands” from India.

    In the region there are tens of thousands deployed by either side. Since the deadly June 2020 skirmish, the US has stepped up military cooperation with India, including a new military pact that shares more satellite data with New Delhi. With this increased intelligence sharing, India can keep a better eye on Chinese troops.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/15/2021 – 20:30

  • Alabama School Districts Hit With Food Shortage, Warn Of Remote School Days
    Alabama School Districts Hit With Food Shortage, Warn Of Remote School Days

    A school district just north of Montgomery, Alabama, informed parents in a Facebook post that their food vendors are experiencing “supply chain issues” that have led to no food deliveries, and some area schools might not be able to feed kids, according to The Birmingham News. 

    Alexander City Schools urged parents to feed their children before school or bring snacks due to the lack of food at schools. 

    “As you know, breakfast and lunch is served daily in our schools. In previous weeks we have not received our food deliveries due to suppliers who are short on supplies, drivers and even warehouse employees,” school officials said in a Facebook post on Saturday.

    “Breakfast may be impacted more so than lunch in the coming weeks. If possible, we ask that you feed your student breakfast prior to school or try to send a snack,” the officials continued. 

    Alexander is experiencing various challenges that stretch from farm to cafeteria table. Food and labor shortages impact everything from food production to transportation to even serving up meals at schools. 

    Alexander is not an isolated issue. School districts across the state are facing similar shortages to varying degrees. 

    Dothan City Schools, located in the state’s southeastern corner, have already notified parents of the possibility that remote school days are possible. The school system must close schools to rebuild depleted inventories of food. 

    “As a last resort, we may also ask that you prepare to have virtual/remote school days a few days out of the week to alleviate the stress of our food supplies,” the district told parents on Sept. 23.”We face a situation where we must do everything we can to continue providing a nurturing environment for our students to learn and grow.”

    Snarled supply chains have upended other school districts across the country, including ones in Wisconsin and Indiana. 

    The problem appears to worsen over the last month as some schools are preparing to close down and return to remote learning for other reasons than the pandemic. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/15/2021 – 20:10

  • Flooding In West China Destroys Agricultural Production
    Flooding In West China Destroys Agricultural Production

    Authored by Alex Wu via The Epoch Times,

    Continuous rainfall for more than ten days has caused the lower reaches of the Luo River in China’s west to spill their banks. Large volumes of floodwater released from upstream have destroyed two dams in one county, and villages are flooded. Local jujube growers and those in animal husbandry have suffered serious losses.

    The autumn harvest is at a severe loss in Dali County of Weinan city, Shaanxi Province, where 108 villages have been affected by floods.

    According to local media reports, Dali County has experienced heavy rains this fall. Water levels in the Wei River and Luo River running across the province have exceeded their warning levels, with some areas experiencing serious floods.

    In Dali’s Zhaodu town, about 29,000 acres of farmland were flooded, and 25,126 people had to be urgently evacuated.

    As to the reason for the flooding, some locals have voiced suspicion that it’s caused by the local authorities intentional release of floodwaters to protect other areas.

    Xin Ming (alias), a villager in Xinsi village, Zhaodu town, told the Chinese-language Epoch Times that he believes that in order to protect Gansu Province and Henan Province, the authorities quickly released a large volume of water into the Dali area, bursting local river banks.

    “The village was completely submerged, about two meters (6.6 feet) deep, and the houses and furniture were all immersed in the water,” he said.

    Posts on social media by other local villagers in the disaster-stricken areas, across Zhaodu and Dali County, also said, “In order to protect Gansu Province in the upper stream, and Henan Province in the lower stream, [authorities in] Shaanxi Province opened their own gates for two flood releases. The flood passed through Dali, and the dam broke.”

    The Epoch Times could not verify this information. After contacting the Flood Control Command of Dali County, and a staff member said that they did not release floodwaters at this time.

    At 6 a.m. on Oct. 9, villagers suddenly received a notice from township officials ordering them to evacuate immediately.

    Xue Fei (alias), an animal husbandry farmer in Zhaodu, told The Epoch Times, “The water is rising rapidly, and the time for people to evacuate was very short, in a rush. Cows and pigs were killed by the flood, and the farmers have suffered particularly great losses.”

    Dali County is known for its jujube plantations. It has been recognized by the central authorities for its high-quality agricultural products, like the famous “Dali Jujube.” Most local villagers grow jujube to support their livelihoods. It’s harvest season now, but the floods have ruined this year’s crop.

    “Dali County’s winter jujube is the most delicious in the country and has the most output,” Xin said.

    “The winter jujube in the field is almost completely submerged, and the greenhouses are also completely submerged.”

    Xin’s 5-acre plantation of jujube trees was all destroyed after being soaked in floodwater.

    The Epoch Times has obtained a video showing the flooding in Dali County.

    After the flooding disaster, non-government relief materials were sent to the area in batches. But after the local government took over control of the distribution of aid, no aid has been reaching villagers outside the big towns.

    The weather has been getting cold, Xin said. “We are short of quilts, cotton-padded clothes, and daily necessities, and the villagers do not even have enough shirts and pants.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/15/2021 – 19:50

  • "It Was Just A Big Poker Game": Michael Dell Talks Dealing With Carl Icahn, Semi Shortage, In New Interview
    “It Was Just A Big Poker Game”: Michael Dell Talks Dealing With Carl Icahn, Semi Shortage, In New Interview

    Among what are likely pages of overused boring business anecdotes, Michael Dell’s new book, “Play Nice But Win: A CEO’s Journey From Founder to Leader”, also includes an interesting look at doing business with Carl Icahn. 

    Dell recently sat down with Bloomberg for an interview and revealed some of the book’s details, as well as his take on current events in the semiconductor industry, which has been experiencing a year long shortage.. 

    Speaking about when Carl Icahn took a stake in Dell and tried to prevent the company from going public, Dell said: “I didn’t really have much experience dealing with someone who would just go on television and lie.”

    He claimed that after confronting Icahn, he found out that the “activist” didn’t even have a plan for the company.

    Dell said: “I did go to his house and confront him, and I saw he didn’t have any plan whatsoever for the company. To him it was just a big poker game.”

    In other news, Dell believes that the semiconductor shortage could wind up persisting. 

    “It takes about three years to build a new semiconductor plant. We’re only 18 months into this,” he told Bloomberg. “We’ve heard from our customers that our supply chain is functioning well. They may not like the lead time, but it’s predictable and reliable.”

    Dell pointed out that he thought government should do more to provide infrastructure for semiconductors in the United States. 

    “When you have China investing so aggressively in these strategic areas and the U.S. and Europe not, it creates a real challenge,” he said.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/15/2021 – 19:30

  • Here's The Truth Behind Biden's 24/7 Port Operations Pledge
    Here’s The Truth Behind Biden’s 24/7 Port Operations Pledge

    Written by Lori Ann LaRocco, author of: “Trade War: Containers Don’t Lie, Navigating the Bluster” (Marine Money Inc., 2019) “Dynasties of the Sea: The Untold Stories of the Postwar Shipping Pioneers” (Marine Money Inc., 2018). First published on FreightWaves

    When you tear away the frills of President Biden’s supply chain announcement, it is essentially a political pawn to push the infrastructure bill. The ugly truth is the congestion will not be alleviated anytime soon and it will definitely not be any better in the next 90 days. Why? 

    It’s common sense and math. 

    You can’t blame private-sector companies for this plan’s future letdown. Trade takes people and coordination among all the players within the supply chain. The ports and all of the stakeholders within these ports must be on the same page when it comes to a 24/7 operation.

    The holes in this announcement are numerous.

    First, 3,500 additional containers moved in a week is 200 containers a day. During the month of August, the San Pedro Bay ports moved 1,241,896 TEUs. This projection of 3,500 does not move the needle at all. That’s a mere 14,000 containers — which translates into just 1% of the total TEUs. This plan is being called a “sprint.”

    Biden’s announcement of 24/7 ports is not accurate. Only one terminal out of the 12 in San Pedro is operating 24 hours a day — Total Terminals International (TTI) at the Port of Long Beach — and that every-second schedule is only Monday through Thursday, making it a 24/4 situation, not 24/7.

    A Port of Long Beach official said discussions were taking place with other terminals. But as of now, no other terminals have signed on. In the pursuit of 24/7, you need all the players to make this successful.

    The 24/7 operation at the Port of Los Angeles is not even happening. When asked if the port was going 24/7 on Thursday, the day after this announcement, the port press office answered in an email:

    “No(t) one marine terminal will go 24/7 tomorrow. This [is] a process to work the details of expanded hours leading to around-the-clock work in the private sector. It will take all private- and public-sector partners to operationalize this. There are no fast levers, but we have more cargo than ever and need to move it safely and securely. Gene [Seroka, executive director] will be meeting with industry associates tomorrow on this. No ETA as of today.”

    So the ports as of right now are status quo as it relates to expanded operations.

    The reason for this lack of 24/7 is because every facet of the supply chain must be participating in an equal fashion. Truckers are not going to work 24/7 if they can’t pick up containers at a warehouse that is closed. The flow of trade moves when everyone in that flow is working. The question is what can be done to change the behaviors of those in the supply chain to go to 24/7?

    This frustration can be read in a press release from the Harbor Trucking Association, which said the Biden administration’s plan did not address the core issues that have been plaguing the supply chain.

    The release stated,

    “While steamship lines and their marine terminal partners have been pointing the finger at the trucking industry for not utilizing appointments during this crisis, the underlying causes have continued to compound unchecked. Challenges faced by truckers doing business at the ports stem from productivity and efficiency issues that are not alleviated by merely shifting to 24/7 gate operations.”

    The HTA said thousands of empty containers currently are sitting in motor carrier yards on top of the chassis, preventing those chassis from moving an import container off the dock.

    “So those appointments go unused. … This is not an issue of unwillingness to pick up cargo, the entire supply chain wants this cargo moved. It is instead a tangled web of shifting constraints that impede and discourage participation,” the statement read.

    Also in this plan FedEx, UPS and Walmart were mentioned in stepping up in helping alleviate the supply chain. 

    When asked for specifics, FedEx global media relations responded:

    “FedEx Logistics President and CEO Dr. Udo Lange appreciated the opportunity to join other business leaders and the administration to share our expertise and discuss supply chain issues, but we have no other details to share at this time.”

    Walmart spokesperson Ashley Nolan said:

    “We’ll increase throughput by as much as 50% during the nighttime hours being added at the port.”

    At the time of publication, UPS did not respond to comment.

    In the sea of faces of those attending this press event, a critical piece of the supply chain was missing — the ocean carriers and the port terminals. 

    When Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s office was asked why there was no participation, the response was vague:

    “The administration has and will continue to have a regular dialogue with ocean carriers and terminal operators.” 

    And yet, at least one of those carriers has not been contacted — Hapag-Lloyd, one of the largest ocean shipping lines in the world.

    “We have not been approached,” confirmed a company spokesperson.

    “Ships are already operating 24/7 whenever possible. The challenge is to get containers off the terminal by truck and rail because the warehouses will not/cannot take deliveries on weekends. It is a lot about shippers’ inability to take delivery of their goods and infrastructure bottlenecks in the U.S.”

    The carriers and the terminal operators are key pieces to this puzzle. The terminals are the key segment of the supply chain that not only schedules the truck container pickups and drop-offs, they also request the  labor to unload the vessels.

    So if this is a 90-day sprint, the U.S. supply chain needs more muscle and a massive shot of adrenaline.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/15/2021 – 19:10

  • 4 In 10 TSA Employees Remain Unvaccinated As Deadline Looms
    4 In 10 TSA Employees Remain Unvaccinated As Deadline Looms

    While we wait to see what remains of the US army after hundreds of thousands of unvaccinated troops are told to pack up for not complying with Biden’s executive order (and whether that’s the moment China will decided to attack), we wonder if soon nobody will be able to fly as a few weeks from now the Transportation Security Administration may simply cease to exist.

    According to CNN, the TSA says 4-in-10 members of its workforce, including screeners, remain unvaccinated against Covid-19 just weeks ahead of a looming deadline. The deadline for civilian federal government workers to be fully vaccinated is November 22 – the Monday before Thanksgiving, which just happens to be the busiest travel time of the year.

    “We have about 60% of our workforce has been vaccinated, that that number needs to go quite a bit higher over the next few weeks,” TSA Administrator David Pekoske told CNN.

    The November 22 deadline for being fully vaccinated is still six weeks away, but the deadlines for receiving the vaccines are rapidly approaching or, in the case of the Moderna vaccine, have already passed, since an individual has to receive the full schedule of doses and wait two weeks before being considered fully vaccinated.

    In order to meet that deadline, the last possible date for receiving the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine is October 18, while the latest possible date for the first dose of Moderna was October 11. According to CNN, the Pfizer vaccine requires a three-week waiting period in between first and second doses. Moderna requires a four-week wait. The last possible date to receive the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine is November 8, two weeks before the November 22 deadline.

    Pekoske said he is “very hopeful” that the agency’s employees can meet the deadline and that there will not be worker shortages, however in light of mandatory requirements that clearly will not happen.

    “We are building contingency plans, for if we do have some staffing shortages as a result of this, but I hope to avoid that,” he said.

    It wasn’t clear what, if any, these contingency plans are.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/15/2021 – 18:50

  • #EmptyShelvesJoe Trends On Twitter Amid Supply Chain Snarls 
    #EmptyShelvesJoe Trends On Twitter Amid Supply Chain Snarls 

    The hashtag #EmptyShelvesJoe was one of the hottest trends across Twitter Thursday as people en masse are waking up to the fact that international supply chains are clogged, and shortages have resulted in empty store shelves at their local retailer. 

    The hashtag, number one in the US on Thursday, comes one day after President Biden issued a port directive to operate 24/7 to alleviate snarled supply chains. But the move to have Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, a point of entry for 40% of all US containerized goods, work in hyperdrive to alleviate congestion is “too little, too late” to save Christmas, said one top toymaker. 

    Earlier this week, 80 container ships are at anchor and 64 at berths across the twin ports. The backlog doesn’t stop there as it takes well more than a week for entry into the port. Once the containers are unloaded, it takes another week to leave the port to warehouses.

    Those tweeting the hashtag placed most of the blame on Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg for their inability to normalize supply chains as congestion creates shortages of consumer goods and rapid inflation. 

    An aerial visual of the backlog at the Port of Los Angeles shows tens of thousands of containers are sitting dockside. Some have said it’s the lack of truck drivers that have resulted in delays. 

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    “Are f**king container yards are stuffed,” said one Twitter user. 

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    As the hashtag continued to go viral on Thursday afternoon, Twitter police decided to remove it from the list of trending topics. 

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    “Empty store shelves” on Google Trends is also surging. 

    Here are some tweets of people across the county complaining about empty store shelves and using the #EmptyShelvesJoe hashtag. 

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    According to the latest Rasmussen poll, “62% of Americans say they’ve already noticed shortages of basic items in stores where they live.”

    Broken supply chains, raging inflation in energy, food, and housing, and the overall cost of living getting more expensive – compound this all with shortages of consumer goods, the president’s job approval number continues to tumble. 

    One can assume with congested supply chains unlikely to abate anytime soon, Biden will be blamed on Twitter for ruining Christmas as certain consumer goods won’t make it under the tree this year.    

    Finally, just in case you wondered who was to blame for “empty shelves”, here is Joe Biden himself explaining it last year… “We don’t have a food shortage problem — we have a leadership problem.”

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    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/15/2021 – 18:10

  • Bitcoin Nears $63k As ProShares Signals ETF Launch Imminent, Dorsey Plans Mining System
    Bitcoin Nears $63k As ProShares Signals ETF Launch Imminent, Dorsey Plans Mining System

    Update (1650ET): Confirming the earlier headlines that set the stage for a Bitcoin (futures) ETF to start trading next week, Bloomberg’s James Seyffart tweeted that Proshares’ 8A just hit which registers the ETF’s shares with the SEC for trading on an exchange.

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    Additionally, ETFStore President Nate Geraci told CoinDesk that the form is “a step forward” for digital assets and bridging them with the more traditional financial sector. He confirmed that the filing of a post-effective amendment is confirmation of the SEC’s tacit approval.

    “It’s an encouraging sign for the future of crypto to see SEC Chairman Gensler get comfortable in helping mainstream investors more easily access bitcoin exposure,” he said in an email.

    “The availability of a bitcoin ETF will now bring more investors under the crypto tent and facilitate greater education across the space.”

    As UBS warned in its latest Crypto Compasss, so as not to tempt fate, one veteran investor offered the tongue-in-cheek observation that anticipated SEC approval for a futures-based ETF may mark a local top in prices, much like the Coinbase IPO, per the old adage: “buy the rumour, sell the fact.”

    The same thing occurred on the exact day that BTC futures debuted on the CME on December 17, 2017. We wouldn’t bank on it but also wouldn’t be surprised to see such a milestone marking the point where some long-term dip buyers begin to lighten up. They have been accumulating steadily for the past seven months.

    But, options markets are signaling a lot of upside still for BTC (and positive gamma)…

    However, UBS notes that stablecoin intervention is a more potent threat, with authorities actively throwing sand in the wheels of further development. 

    *  *  *

    Update (1635ET): Square (and Twitter) CEO Jack Dorsey has been a long-time advocate for cryptocurrencies and this evening he tweeted about his latest plans to create a Bitcoin mining system:

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    As he detailed in a brief thread:

    1/ Mining needs to be more distributed. The core job of a miner is to securely settle transactions without the need for trusted 3rd parties. This is critical well after the last bitcoin is mined. The more decentralized this is, the more resilient the Bitcoin network becomes. True? 

    2/ Mining needs to be more efficient. Driving towards clean and efficient energy use is great for Bitcoin’s economics, impact, and scalability. Energy is a system-level problem that requires innovation in silicon, software, and integration. What are the largest opportunities here? 

    3/ Silicon design is too concentrated into a few companies. This means supply is likely overly constrained. Silicon development is very expensive, requires long term investment, and is best coupled tightly with software and system design. Why aren’t more companies doing this work? 

    4/ There isn’t enough focus on vertical integration. Considering hardware, software, productization, and distribution requires accountability for delivering to an end customer vs improving a single technology in the chain. Does seeing this as a single system improve accessibility? 

    5/ Mining isn’t accessible to everyone. Bitcoin mining should be as easy as plugging a rig into a power source. There isn’t enough incentive today for individuals to overcome the complexity of running a miner for themselves. What are the biggest barriers for people running miners? 

    Our team led by @JesseDorogusker will start the deep technical investigation required to take on this project. We’d love your thoughts, ideas, concerns, and collaboration. Should we do this? Why or why not? We’ll update this thread as we make our decisions. And now over to Jesse. 

    That headline was enough to push Bitcoin even higher on the day, nearing $63k at its peak…

    *  *  *

    Cryptos are all rallying this morning but Bitcoin is making headlines as it broke back above the $60,000 level for the first since April…

    Source: Bloomberg

    This has extended a recent run from around $40,000 which has been driven by increasingly optimistic signs of a Bitcoin ETF being imminent…

    Source: Bloomberg

    This has pushed Bitcoin back up to be the world’s 8th largest asset (just below that of Silver), and well above $1 trillion market cap…

    Source

    Citing “people familiar with the matter,” Bloomberg has reported that the United States Securities and Exchange Commission is poised to approve the first Bitcoin futures ETFs in the country.

    The anonymous sources said:

    “The regulator isn’t likely to block the products from starting to trade next week.”

    Bloomberg’s Eric Balchunas recently laid out his odds for which of the numerous ETF proposals will be accepted first…

    And for those in the “digital gold” camp, this analog from the ’70s is interesting. CoinTelegraph reports that Austrian investor and analyst Niko Jilch this week referenced famed investor Paul Tudor Jones while explaining the “excitement” over the Bitcoin ETF.

    Tudor Jones had previously highlighted Bitcoin’s cycles being similar to gold in the 1970s — just when it had become a futures product itself and enjoyed a 10-year bull run followed by a 50% correction.

    Gold’s 1970s rip, TechDev additionally noted, fits extremely neatly over Bitcoin’s performance since October 2020.

    Finally, not to be forgotten, Ethereum is holding above $3800…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/15/2021 – 17:58

  • Seattle School Cancels Halloween "Pumpkin Parade"; Says It "Marginalizes Students Of Color"
    Seattle School Cancels Halloween “Pumpkin Parade”; Says It “Marginalizes Students Of Color”

    Authored by GQ Pan via The Epoch Times,

    A public elementary school in the Seattle area has reportedly canceled a Halloween-themed parade after school district officials said it “marginalizes” students of color, especially those from the black community.

    Benjamin Franklin Day (B.F. Day) Elementary School, which serves the neighborhood in a northeastern suburb of Seattle, decided to discontinue the “Pumpkin Parade” holiday tradition this year on the advice of the school’s racial equity team, according to Seattle-based conservative radio host Jason Rantz.

    In an Oct. 8 newsletter to parents obtained by Rantz, the school explained the rationale behind the decision to cancel the Pumpkin Parade, which traditionally involves a procession of children in Halloween costumes.

    “Halloween events create a situation where some students must be excluded for their beliefs, financial status, or life experience,” the letter read.

    “Costume parties often become an uncomfortable event for many children, and they distract students and staff from learning.

    “Large events create changes in schedules with loud noise levels and crowds. Some students experience over stimulation, while others must deal with complex feelings of exclusion. It’s uncomfortable and upsetting for kids.”

    Instead of the Halloween festivities, students at B.F. Day Elementary may participate in fall events that are considered more inclusive, such as “thematic units of study about the fall” or review “autumnal artwork” while “sharing all the cozy feelings of the season.”

    In a statement provided to Rantz, a spokesperson for Seattle Public Schools said the district supports the decision to cancel the parade, which “historically marginalizes students of color” who don’t celebrate the holiday.

    “In alliance with SPS’s unwavering commitment to students of color, specifically African American males, the staff is committed to supplanting the Pumpkin Parade with more inclusive and educational opportunities during the school day,” the spokesperson stated.

    Some parents are upset with the cancellation of the parade.

    David Malkin, whose 7-year-old son is enrolled at B.F. Day, questioned whether the move actually helps anyone.

    “I don’t see any way in which this actually addresses any inequities to the extent that there are any inequities,” Malkin told Rantz on his show.

    “You know, this just seems like grandstanding on behalf of the principal and the staff who are predominantly white.”

    Malkin, who is Asian, also said the decision lacked input from him or other parents.

    “I’m sure they don’t want to hear from anyone of any race or ethnicity that doesn’t really want to go along with them in lockstep,” he said.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/15/2021 – 17:50

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Oct 15

Today’s News 15th October 2021

  • Taliban Is In Turkey For Talks After Warning US & EU That Sanctions Will Cause New Refugee Wave To Hit West
    Taliban Is In Turkey For Talks After Warning US & EU That Sanctions Will Cause New Refugee Wave To Hit West

    The Taliban has warned US and European envoys during ongoing talks in Doha that continued sanctions and US-led political pressure could unleash new refugee waves on Europe. 

    “Afghanistan’s new Taliban government has warned US and European envoys that continued attempts to pressure them through sanctions will undermine security and could trigger a wave of economic refugees,” the AFP wrote of the statement. Later in the week, the Taliban carried the same message to Turkey, which would find itself on the front lines of any migrant surge out of central Asia.

    A Taliban delegation is in Ankara for talks on Thursday, via TRT World

    Taliban official and acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi told his Western counterparts that “weakening the Afghan government is not in the interest of anyone because its negative effects will directly affect the world in (the) security sector and economic migration from the country.”

    Perhaps both a warning and a threat, and reminiscent of the 2015 migrant crisis driven in large part by the destabilizing war in Syria, Muttaqi added the following demand:

    “We urge world countries to end existing sanctions and let banks operate normally so that charity groups, organizations and the government can pay salaries to their staff with their own reserves and international financial assistance.”

    As for any recent “concessions” by Washington, the Biden administration days ago announced the US would resume humanitarian aid “to the Afghan people” – but on the condition of Taliban cooperation, including allowing foreign nationals free movement to exit the country. The US has still resisted any level of formal political recognition of Taliban rule over the country, however.

    Aid, investment, and security were top of the list of concerns as the Taliban met with top Turkish officials in Ankara Thursday. Given Turkey has long been the number one regional “bridge” between Asia and Europe for migrant and refugee traffic, the question of Afghan refugees is of prime importance for Turkey’s government. 

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    Turkey is expected to feel the shock first of any coming refugee wave out of Afghanistan, given it’s already long been for years a “jumping-off point” for Afghans making the arduous trip to Europe. The past decade alone has seen some 600,000 Afghans settle in Turkey – all the while a mass wave of Syrian refugees exited there as well, many which are still along Turkey’s southern border (over 3 million).

    Turkey is reportedly now constructing a nearly 300km wall along the Iranian border to physically block the exodus coming from central Asia, according to prior reporting in the AFP.

    During a press conference after the Turkish FM-Taliban meeting, Foreign Minister Cavusoglu said that while the Turkish side reiterated a desire for Taliban reforms in human rights and areas like girls’ education and women’s employment, Turkey’s foremost concern remains stability.

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    The question of security, which Turkey has offered assistance on when it comes to protecting Kabul’s international airport, is no doubt directly linked to Turkey as well as European fears of a new migrant crisis at their gates. In statements to the press, Cavusoglu appeared to take an indirect swipe at US policy toward the Taliban, saying it won’t press for “preconditions” of “inclusivity” like the US and UE, but desires a secure Afghan environment above all.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/15/2021 – 02:45

  • UK Fuel & Household Energy Spending Soared 20% In The Past 2 Weeks: Lloyds Bank
    UK Fuel & Household Energy Spending Soared 20% In The Past 2 Weeks: Lloyds Bank

    Via The Epoch Times,

    Sept. 24 saw the highest amount spent on fuel in a single day since Lloyds Bank records began, analysis of customers’ debit cards shows.

    The peak fell the day after BP and Tesco closed some filling stations due to problems with fuel delivery.

    Across the UK, people spent a fifth (20 percent) more at petrol stations in the past two weeks, compared with the two weeks before, the bank said.

    Sept. 24 saw the bank’s debit card users spend 125 percent more on fuel than on the same day in 2019, and the highest amount since records began in April 2014.

    The East Midlands saw the biggest increase in fuel spending in the last two weeks compared with the two before, up 24 percent, followed by the West Midlands (23 percent), and the south east (22 percent).

    This was followed by Yorkshire and Humber (20 percent). Wales and Scotland saw the lowest increases, at 14 percent and 15 percent respectively, followed by London and the south west on 19 percent.

    However, the bank said there were signs that demand for fuel was easing. Week-on-week spending across the UK has fallen by almost a third (31 percent), with the number of transactions down 20 percent.

    Only three regions, all in the south and east, saw drops of less than 30 percent. Londoners’ spending on fuel fell just 20 percent, the lowest of any region, followed by the south east (21 percent) and east of England (25 percent).

    The amount spent on cards on household energy in the past two weeks also increased, by 24 percent, as a combination of colder weather and soaring energy prices gripped the UK.

    Spending on energy is now 14 percent higher than the same two weeks in 2020, the bank’s figures show.

    Philip Robinson, payments and fraud and financial crime director at Lloyds Bank, said: “After an initial incredible spike in late September where spending on fuel was the highest we’ve ever seen it, over the past week card payments at petrol stations have fallen, particularly in northern and western parts of the UK.

    “However, household energy spend continues to increase, 13 percent in the last week alone, driven by rising prices and colder months.

    “With this in mind, now is a very good time to sit down and reflect on your personal finances ahead of Christmas 2021.

    “Budget effectively and give yourself a clear idea of what you can afford this festive season.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/15/2021 – 02:00

  • Cryptos Surge On News SEC "Set To Allow" Bitcoin Futures ETF
    Cryptos Surge On News SEC “Set To Allow” Bitcoin Futures ETF

    There was some speculation today that the long-awaited SEC decision on a futures-based bitcoin ETF was imminent, which is what sparked the earlier surge in the crypto sector. Said speculation got only stronger after earlier in the day, the SEC tweeted out an  education bulletin the agency wrote in June about bitcoin futures and “funds that hold bitcoin futures.” As Bloomberg’s resident in house crypto expert put it, this was “clearly good sign and we upping our [bitcoin ETF] odds to 85% but until I see ProShares’ updated post-effective prospectus his EDGS, I’m not calling it.”

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    He probably should have called it because late on Thursday, Bloomberg reported what so many crypto faithful had been waiting for the past 7 years, namely that the SEC is “poised to allow the first U.S. Bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund to begin trading in a watershed moment for the cryptocurrency industry.”

    According to the report, the SEC isn’t likely to block the products from starting to trade next week. Furthermore, as reported previously, unlike Bitcoin ETF applications that the regulator has previously rejected, “the proposals by ProShares and Invesco Ltd. are based on futures contracts and were filed under mutual fund rules that SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has said provide “significant investor protections.”

    So barring “a last-minute reversal”, the fund launch will be the culmination of a nearly decade-long campaign by the $6.7 trillion ETF industry to begin allocating some capital to the best performing asset class/currency/commodity of the past decade.

    Advocates have sought approval as a confirmation of mainstream acceptance of cryptocurrencies since Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the twins best known for their part in the history of Facebook Inc., filed the first application for a Bitcoin ETF in 2013.

    The long wait is coming to a favorable outcome after years of stumbles with the SEC previously rejecting bitcoin ETF on the grounds that the crypto space is plagued with investor hazards. The SEC had also expressed concern that prices could be manipulated and liquidity might be insufficient, and that Bitcoin’s drastic price swings may be too much for individual investors. Of course, for most investors the volatility is worth the returns: Bitcoin’s last three full-year returns were a 74% loss followed by gains of 95% and 305%. Additionally, the SEC has questioned whether funds would have the information necessary to adequately value cryptocurrencies or related products. There have also been questions about validating ownership of the coins held by funds and the threat from hackers.

    But the mood shifted in August, when Gensler – who previously showed extensive interest in the crypto world having once taught a class at MIT’s Sloan School of Management called “Blockchain and Money” – signaled he’d favor funds based on CME-traded Bitcoin futures filed under a 1940s law. He reiterated that stance late last month.

    Gensler’s openness led to a wave of futures-backed filings and unbridled optimism among issuers that approval could be imminent, and helped lift the price of bitcoin from the low/mid-$40,000s to above $50,000 in recent days, surging to its highest level since May this week, ultimately doubling from its price reached in late July when it briefly dipped below $30,000.

    That said, the initial capital reallocation will likely be modest. According to Balchunas, such futures-based ETFs are “flawed because rolling futures and will prob not sweep the nation.” His guess is only. 3-4b in first year (1% of ETF flows).” But, in any event, this is “def a BIG step after 7yr wait.”

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    Balchunas also made a prediction which Bitcoin ETF will get to the market first, a list which is headed by the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF and goes from there.

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    News of the imminent bitcoin ETF sent bitcoin and the broader crypto space sharply higher when it hit just after 10pm ET on Thursday.

     

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/15/2021 – 00:29

  • Tyrants Of The Nanny State: When The Government Thinks It Knows Best
    Tyrants Of The Nanny State: When The Government Thinks It Knows Best

    Authored by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

    “Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus—the bureaucracy, the police, the military. Not the one facing us across the frontier of the battle lines, which is not so much our enemy as our brothers’ enemy, but the one that calls itself our protector and makes us its slaves. No matter what the circumstances, the worst betrayal will always be to subordinate ourselves to this apparatus and to trample underfoot, in its service, all human values in ourselves and in others.”

    – Simone Weil, French philosopher and political activist

    We labor today under the weight of countless tyrannies, large and small, carried out in the so-called name of the national good by an elite class of governmental and corporate officials who are largely insulated from the ill effects of their actions.

    We, the middling classes, are not so fortunate.

    We find ourselves badgered, bullied and browbeaten into bearing the brunt of their arrogance, paying the price for their greed, suffering the backlash for their militarism, agonizing as a result of their inaction, feigning ignorance about their backroom dealings, overlooking their incompetence, turning a blind eye to their misdeeds, cowering from their heavy-handed tactics, and blindly hoping for change that never comes. 

    The overt signs of the despotism exercised by the increasingly authoritarian regime that passes itself off as the United States government (and its corporate partners in crime) are all around us: COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccine mandates that strip Americans of their freedom of movement and bodily integrity; censorship, criminalizing, shadow banning and de-platforming of individuals who express ideas that are politically incorrect or unpopular; warrantless surveillance of Americans’ movements and communications; SWAT team raids of Americans’ homes; shootings of unarmed citizens by police; harsh punishments meted out to schoolchildren in the name of zero tolerance; armed drones taking to the skies domestically; endless wars; out-of-control spending; militarized police; roadside strip searches; roving TSA sweeps; privatized prisons with a profit incentive for jailing Americans; fusion centers that spy on, collect and disseminate data on Americans’ private transactions; and militarized agencies with stockpiles of ammunition, to name some of the most appalling.

    Yet as egregious as these incursions on our rights may be, it’s the endless, petty tyrannies—the heavy-handed, punitive-laden dictates inflicted by a self-righteous, Big-Brother-Knows-Best bureaucracy on an overtaxed, overregulated, and underrepresented populace—that illustrate so clearly the degree to which “we the people” are viewed as incapable of common sense, moral judgment, fairness, and intelligence, not to mention lacking a basic understanding of how to stay alive, raise a family, or be part of a functioning community.

    It’s hard to say whether we’re dealing with a kleptocracy (a government ruled by thieves), a kakistocracy (a government run by unprincipled career politicians, corporations and thieves that panders to the worst vices in our nature and has little regard for the rights of American citizens), or if we’ve gone straight to an idiocracy. 

    This certainly isn’t a constitutional democracy, however.

    This overbearing Nanny State despotism is what happens when government representatives (those elected and appointed to work for us) adopt the authoritarian notion that the government knows best and therefore must control, regulate and dictate almost everything about the citizenry’s public, private and professional lives.

    The government’s bureaucratic attempts at muscle-flexing by way of overregulation and overcriminalization have reached such outrageous limits that federal and state governments now require on penalty of a fine that individuals apply for permission before they can grow exotic orchids, host elaborate dinner parties, gather friends in one’s home for Bible studies, give coffee to the homeless, let their kids manage a lemonade stand, keep chickens as pets, or braid someone’s hair, as ludicrous as that may seem.

    Consider, for example, that businesses in California must now designate an area of the children’s toy aisle “gender-neutral” or face a fine, whether or not the toys sold are traditionally marketed to girls or boys such as Barbies and Hot Wheels. California schools are prohibited from allowing students to access websites, novels or religious works that reflect negatively on gays. And while Californians are free to have sex with whomever they choose (because that’s none of the government’s business), removing a condom during sex without consent could make you liable for general, special and punitive damages.

    Up until a few years ago, Missouri required that anyone wanting to braid African-style hair and charge for it must first acquire a government license, which at a minimum requires the applicant to undertake at least 1500 hours of cosmetology classes costing tens of thousands of dollars. Tennessee was prepared to fine residents nearly $100,000 just for violating its laws against braiding hair without a government license. In Oregon, the law was so broad that you needed a license even if you were planning to braid hair for free. The mere act of touching someone’s hair could render you a cosmetologist operating without a license and in violation of the law.

    It’s getting worse.

    Almost every aspect of American life today—especially if it is work-related—is subject to this kind of heightened scrutiny and ham-fisted control, whether you’re talking about aspiring “bakers, braiders, casket makers, florists, veterinary masseuses, tour guides, taxi drivers, eyebrow threaders, teeth whiteners, and more.”

    For instance, whereas 70 years ago, one out of every 20 U.S. jobs required a state license, today, almost 1 in 3 American occupations requires a license.

    The problem of overregulation has become so bad that, as one analyst notes, “getting a license to style hair in Washington takes more instructional time than becoming an emergency medical technician or a firefighter.”

    This is what happens when bureaucrats run the show, and the rule of law becomes little more than a cattle prod for forcing the citizenry to march in lockstep with the government.

    Overregulation is just the other side of the coin to overcriminalization, that phenomenon in which everything is rendered illegal and everyone becomes a lawbreaker.

    This is the mindset that tried to penalize a fisherman with 20 years’ jail time for throwing fish that were too small back into the water.

    That same overcriminalization mindset reared its ugly head again when police arrested a 90-year-old man for violating an ordinance that prohibits feeding the homeless in public unless portable toilets are also made available.

    It’s no coincidence that both of these incidents—the fishing debacle and the homeless feeding arrest—happened in Florida.

    Despite its pristine beaches and balmy temperatures, Florida is no less immune to the problems plaguing the rest of the nation in terms of overcriminalization, incarceration rates, bureaucracy, corruption, and police misconduct.

    A few years back, in fact, Florida officials authorized police raids on barber shops in minority communities, resulting in barbers being handcuffed in front of customers, and their shops searched without warrants. All of this was purportedly done in an effort to make sure that the barbers’ licensing paperwork was up to snuff.

    As if criminalizing fishing, charity, and haircuts wasn’t bad enough, you could also find yourself passing time in a Florida slammer for such inane activities as singing in a public place while wearing a swimsuit, breaking more than three dishes per day, farting in a public place after 6 pm on a Thursday, and skateboarding without a license.

    In this way, the Sunshine State is representative of the transformation happening across the nation, where a steady diet of bread and circuses has given rise to an oblivious, inactive citizenry content to be ruled over by an inflexible and highly bureaucratic regime.

    America has gone from being a beacon of freedom to a locked down nation. And “we the people,” sold on the idea that safety, security and material comforts are preferable to freedom, have allowed the government to pave over the Constitution in order to erect a concentration camp.

    The problem with these devil’s bargains, however, is that there is always a catch, always a price to pay for whatever it is we valued so highly as to barter away our most precious possessions.

    We’ve bartered away our right to self-governance, self-defense, privacy, autonomy and that most important right of all—the right to tell the government to “leave me the hell alone.”

    In exchange for the promise of an end to global pandemics, lower taxes, lower crime rates, safe streets, safe schools, blight-free neighborhoods, and readily accessible technology, health care, water, food and power, we’ve opened the door to lockdowns, militarized police, government surveillance, asset forfeiture, school zero tolerance policies, license plate readers, red light cameras, SWAT team raids, health care mandates, overcriminalization, overregulation and government corruption.

    In the end, such bargains always turn sour.

    We relied on the government to help us safely navigate national emergencies (terrorism, natural disasters, global pandemics, etc.) only to find ourselves forced to relinquish our freedoms on the altar of national security, yet we’re no safer (or healthier) than before.

    We asked our lawmakers to be tough on crime, and we’ve been saddled with an abundance of laws that criminalize almost every aspect of our lives. So far, we’re up to 4500 criminal laws and 300,000 criminal regulations that result in average Americans unknowingly engaging in criminal acts at least three times a day. For instance, the family of an 11-year-old girl was issued a $535 fine for violating the Federal Migratory Bird Act after the young girl rescued a baby woodpecker from predatory cats.

    We wanted criminals taken off the streets, and we didn’t want to have to pay for their incarceration. What we’ve gotten is a nation that boasts the highest incarceration rate in the world, with more than 2.3 million people locked up, many of them doing time for relatively minor, nonviolent crimes, and a private prison industry fueling the drive for more inmates, who are forced to provide corporations with cheap labor.

    A special report by CNBC breaks down the national numbers:

    One out of 100 American adults is behind bars — while a stunning one out of 32 is on probation, parole or in prison. This reliance on mass incarceration has created a thriving prison economy. The states and the federal government spend about $74 billion a year on corrections, and nearly 800,000 people work in the industry.

    We wanted law enforcement agencies to have the necessary resources to fight the nation’s wars on terror, crime and drugs. What we got instead were militarized police decked out with M-16 rifles, grenade launchers, silencers, battle tanks and hollow point bullets—gear designed for the battlefield, more than 80,000 SWAT team raids carried out every year (many for routine police tasks, resulting in losses of life and property), and profit-driven schemes that add to the government’s largesse such as asset forfeiture, where police seize property from “suspected criminals.”

    According to the Washington Post, these funds have been used to buy guns, armored cars, electronic surveillance gear, “luxury vehicles, travel and a clown named Sparkles.” Police seminars advise officers to use their “department wish list when deciding which assets to seize” and, in particular, go after flat screen TVs, cash and nice cars.

    In Florida, where police are no strangers to asset forfeiture, Florida police have been carrying out “reverse” sting operations, where they pose as drug dealers to lure buyers with promises of cheap cocaine, then bust them, and seize their cash and cars. Over the course of a year, police in one small Florida town seized close to $6 million using these entrapment schemes.

    We fell for the government’s promise of safer roads, only to find ourselves caught in a tangle of profit-driven red light cameras, which ticket unsuspecting drivers in the so-called name of road safety while ostensibly fattening the coffers of local and state governments. Despite widespread public opposition, corruption and systemic malfunctions, these cameras—used in 24 states and Washington, DC—are particularly popular with municipalities, which look to them as an easy means of extra cash.

    One small Florida town, population 8,000, generates a million dollars a year in fines from these cameras. Building on the profit-incentive schemes, the cameras’ manufacturers are also pushing speed cameras and school bus cameras, both of which result in heft fines for violators who speed or try to go around school buses.

    As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, this is what happens when the American people get duped, deceived, double-crossed, cheated, lied to, swindled and conned into believing that the government and its army of bureaucrats—the people we appointed to safeguard our freedoms—actually have our best interests at heart.

    Yet when all is said and done, who is really to blame when the wool gets pulled over your eyes: you, for believing the con man, or the con man for being true to his nature?

    It’s time for a bracing dose of reality, America.

    Wake up and take a good, hard look around you, and ask yourself if the gussied-up version of America being sold to you—crime free, worry free, disease free and devoid of responsibility—is really worth the ticket price: nothing less than your freedoms.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/15/2021 – 00:00

  • Global Ship Backlog Just Got Even Worse As New Supply Chain Nemesis Emerges
    Global Ship Backlog Just Got Even Worse As New Supply Chain Nemesis Emerges

    As if relentless, fiscally-stimulated global demand for (made in China) products, coupled with soaring input prices, Covid-crippled indutries, production-throttling energy crises and containership parking lots off major ports wasn’t enough to cripple global supply chains, we can throw in one more factor that will make “just in time” deliveries a thing of the pre-Biden past and will ensure that nobody gets their presents this Christmas.

    The weather.

    A tropical storm that’s lashing southern China is causing a ship backlog from Shenzhen to Singapore, Bloomberg reports as it warn of even emptier store shelves come Christmas.

    Shipping data compiled by Bloomberg show there are currently 67 container ships anchored off Hong Kong and Shenzhen, 22% more congested than median daily counts from April through Oct. 14. Another 61 remain anchored off China’s massive Ningbo port in Shanghai.

    Container ship positions as of Oct. 14 heatmapped in yellow.

    For once there is no “unintended consequence” behind this pile up – it’s the result of Typhoon Kompasu freezing transit lanes, closing schools in Hong Kong and canceling stock market trading in the financial hub on Wednesday. It also sparked the latest containership domino-effect at the worst possible time, with 37 ships now waiting off Singapore, 18% more congested than normal. And with Singapore one of the most efficient ports in the world and a key hub for containers to be moved from one vessel to another while in transit, any disruption in the city-state is bound to have far-reaching ramifications.

    The incremental delays will make an already fragile supply chain, that much more unstable: according to the Busan Port Authority in South Korea, vessels are having to wait about three days to berth and that’s causing so-called transshipment cargo to pile up. Meanwhile, almost 40 ships are anchored off Los Angeles, 4.5% more congested than usual, while 11 are cooling their heels off the coast of Malaysia at Tanjung Pelepas, creating a congestion rate about 25% above the median. For Vietnam’s dual hub of Ho Chi Minh City and Vung Tau, things are even worse, with current congestion 38% higher than the median.

    Operators are scrambling to find a solution to this chaos which seems to get worse with every passing day: “shipping companies and other stakeholders are trying to resolve the backlog because there are real concerns that many year-end holiday goods will never reach consumers in time,” said Um Kyung-a, an analyst at Shinyoung Securities in Seoul. “This month will be the most challenging period but hopefully things will start to ease from the fourth quarter.”

    This is a “hopeful” line we have heard every month since May. It has yet to come true.

    Located at the gateway – both literal and metaphorical – of global Transpacific supply chains, accessible port terminals are an indispensable anchor to any hopes of normalizing supply chains. Alas, congestion at container terminals around the world has added pressure to already stretched supply chains. Covid-19 cases at ports, along with shortages of shipping containers and labor have aggravated the problem as exporters try to send goods to the U.S. and Europe before the end of the year.

    According to Singapore Logistics Association chairman Dave Ng, vessels are waiting one to three days to berth at most major ports in Southeast Asia, including Singapore, The wait is more than three days at major ports in Northeast Asia and could extend to over a week in other parts of the world. And any incremental delays only cascade exponentially, adding more days to an already broken system.

    “Global port congestion has introduced more uncertainty into planning and booking of sea shipments,” Ng told Bloomberg. “Ocean freight costs have increased five to six times from the levels pre-Covid and this has translated into higher operating costs for logistics companies.”

    Logistics companies have been working to improve business productivity by sharing resources and leveraging technology, Ng said. But they still face difficulties in filling jobs, particularly driving and warehousing, which could impact operations in the near term, he said.

    Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported this week that shipping giant Maersk said earlier this week that it’s diverting some ships from the U.K.’s largest container port because of congestion tied to a trucker shortage. Many logistics companies are finding it difficult to find drivers to pick up and deliver containers, causing a backlog at the Port of Felixstowe.

    Port congestion and lack of containers has driven shipping rates to record levels this year. Spot levies to haul a 40-foot container to Los Angeles from Shanghai peaked at $12,424 last month before easing to $11,173 as of Oct. 7, the Drewry World Container Index show. Rates to Rotterdam from Shanghai hit an all-time high of $14,807 last week. Shipping rates dipped modestly in the latest week, but as we explained previously, this was for the worst possible reason namely a sharp drop in China output. Expect a sharp spike in the next few weeks as throttled Chinese production returns.

    Exporters and shipping companies have been trying to find alternative routes to avoid the backlog. Some cargo from China is now being shipped to Busan and then reloaded on ships bound for Russia’s east coast before being put on trains and sent through to Europe.

    In an act of sheer desperation, the Biden admin announced on Wednesday that the Port of Los Angeles will begin operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week as part of efforts to break the logjam. However, as Rabobank explained earlier this morning, simply getting containers out of the terminal at LA achieves very little if you don’t the solve chassis crisis; if the containers sit there waiting for trucks; or for truckers; or for rail. All you do is move the logjam from sea to shore – and that can potentially make matters worse. The Transportation Secretary running this task force is a vocal opponent of the ‘so build a bigger road’ mentality that ends up with bigger roads and the same traffic logjam.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/14/2021 – 23:40

  • Oh Great, They're Putting Guns On Robodogs Now
    Oh Great, They’re Putting Guns On Robodogs Now

    Authored by Caitlin Johnstone,

    So hey, they’ve started mounting sniper rifles on robodogs, which is great news for anyone who was hoping they’d start mounting sniper rifles on robodogs.

    At an exhibit booth in the Association of the United States Army’s annual meeting and exhibition, Ghost Robotics (the military-friendly competitor to the better-known Boston Dynamics) proudly showed off a weapon that is designed to attach to its quadruped bots made by a company called SWORD Defense Systems.

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    “The SWORD Defense Systems Special Purpose Unmanned Rifle (SPUR) was specifically designed to offer precision fire from unmanned platforms such as the Ghost Robotics Vision-60 quadruped,” SWORD proclaims on its website.

    “Chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor allows for precision fire out to 1200m, the SPUR can similarly utilize 7.62×51 NATO cartridge for ammunition availability. Due to its highly capable sensors the SPUR can operate in a magnitude of conditions, both day and night. The SWORD Defense Systems SPUR is the future of unmanned weapon systems, and that future is now.”

    Back in May the US Air Force put out a video on the “Robotic Ghost Dog” these weapons are designed to be used with, showing the machines jogging, standing up after being flipped over, and even dancing. All of which becomes a lot less cutesy when you imagine them performing these maneuvers while carrying a gun designed to blow apart skulls from a kilometer away.

    At one point in the video a Senior Master Sergeant explains to the host how these robodogs can be affixed with all kinds of equipment like communications systems, explosive ordnance disposal attachments, gear to test for chemicals and radiation, and the whole time you’re listening to him list things off you’re thinking “Guns. Yeah guns. You can attach guns to them, why don’t you just say that?”

    The SPUR prototype is just one of many different weapons we’ll surely see tested for use with quadruped robots in coming years, and eventually we’ll likely see its successors tested on impoverished foreigners in needless military interventions by the United States and/or its allies. They will join other unmanned weapons systems in the imperial arsenal like the USA’s notorious drone program, South Korea’s Samsung SGR-A1, the Turkish Kargu drone which has already reportedly attacked human beings in Libya without having been given a human command to do so, and the AI-assisted robotic sniper rifle that was used by Israeli intelligence in coordination with the US government to assassinate an Iranian scientist last year.

    And we may be looking at a not-too-distant future in which unmanned weapons systems are sought out by wealthy civilians as well.

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    In 2018 the influential author and professor Douglas Rushkoff wrote an article titled “Survival of the Richest” in which he disclosed that a year earlier he had been paid an enormous fee to meet with five extremely wealthy hedge funders. Rushkoff says the unnamed billionaires sought out his advice for strategizing their survival after what they called “the event”, their term for the collapse of civilization via climate destruction, nuclear war or some other catastrophe which they apparently viewed as likely enough and close enough to start planning for.

    Rushkoff writes that eventually it became clear that the foremost concern of these plutocrats was maintaining control over a security force which would protect their estates from the rabble in a post-apocalyptic world where money might not mean anything. I encourage you to read the following paragraph from the article carefully, because it says so much about how these people see our future, our world, and their fellow human beings:

    “This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from the angry mobs. But how would they pay the guards once money was worthless? What would stop the guards from choosing their own leader? The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew. Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival. Or maybe building robots to serve as guards and workers — if that technology could be developed in time.”

    Something to keep in mind if you ever find yourself fervently hoping that the world will be saved by billionaires.

    LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman has said that more than half of Silicon Valley’s billionaires have invested in some type of “apocalypse insurance” such as an underground bunker to ensure they survive whatever disasters ensue from the status quo they currently benefit so immensely from. The New Yorker has published an article about this mega-rich doomsday prepper phenomenon as well. We may be sure that military forces aren’t the only ones planning on having eternally loyal killing machines protecting their interests going forward.

    We are ruled by warmongers and sociopaths, and none of them have healthy plans for our future. They are not kind, and they are not wise. They’re not even particularly intelligent. Unless we can find some way to pry their fingers from the steering wheel of our world so we can turn away from the direction we are headed, things will probably get very dark and scary.

    *  *  *

    My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here.

    Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/14/2021 – 23:20

  • India's Energy Crunch Intensifies As Power Supply Deficit Worst Since March 2016
    India’s Energy Crunch Intensifies As Power Supply Deficit Worst Since March 2016

    It’s now a fact that India is teetering on the edge of a power crisis as coal shortages have left power grids with the worst deficit in years. 

    This month, 80% of India’s 135 coal-fired plants had less than eight days of supplies — more than 50% of plants had two days of fuel left. For some context, the four-year average of coal inventory has been a little more than two weeks.  

    We noted India’s “persistent electricity shortages” have become more widespread since the start of October as coal-fired power plants can’t keep up with demand. 

    Reuters, citing data from grid operator Power System Operation Corporation (POSOCO), showed power supply dropped 750 million units short of demand throughout the first 12 days of October, primarily due to a coal shortage. The power deficit was the worst since March 2016, coming in at 1.6%. 

    Northern states such as Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh, and the eastern states of Jharkhand and Bihar had some of the worst power supply deficits between 2.3% to 14.7%. 

    A combination of supply factors and crashing coal imports led to this month’s power crunch that may worsen as coal supplies tighten and prices surge ahead of the Northern Hemisphere winter. 

    Coal-powered energy accounted for nearly 70% of power in early October, an increasing percentage as power generation from renewables declines. 

    If China is any guide, India might take steps to ration power to energy-intensive industries to maintain grid stability. 

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    The energy crisis is worldwide, first in Europe and China and now spreading to India. There’s reason to believe electricity shortages and blackouts could be unleashed in the US this winter. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/14/2021 – 23:00

  • Sanjay Gupta Tucks Tail Back At CNN After Disastrous Rogan Interview
    Sanjay Gupta Tucks Tail Back At CNN After Disastrous Rogan Interview

    Update (1715ET): To the surprise of absolutely nobody, CNN is in major damage control mode after Joe Rogan slammed the network over their coverage of his use of Ivermectin as part of a cocktail he used to treat Covid-19.

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    Note how CNN‘s framing is absolutely disingenuous – with Lemon suggesting they didn’t slander Rogan for taking ‘horse dewormer’ – whiled Gupta lied when he said there’s ‘no evidence that it [Ivermectin] really works’ against Covid.

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    Absolutely pathetic.

    *  *  *

    Joe Rogan went off big on CNN during an interview with the network’s chief medical correspondent, Sanjay Gupta, who appeared on the star’s Spotify podcast on Wednesday to discuss a wide range of topics.

    During the exchange, Gupta conceded that his network’s framing of Ivermectin, a widely-prescribed anti-parasitic which has shown tremendous efficacy in treating Covid-19, was wrong.

    “Calling it a horse de-wormer is not the most flattering thing, I get that,” said Gupta.

    “It’s a lie on a news network – and it’s a lie that they’re conscious of. It’s not a mistake. They’re unfavorably framing it as veterinary medicine,” Rogan shot back.

    “Why would you say that when you’re talking about a drug that’s been given out to billions and billions of people? A drug that was responsible for one of the inventors winning the Nobel Prize in 2015?” the 54-year-old Rogan continued.

    “A drug that has been shown to stop viral replication in vitro – you know that, right? Why would they lie and say that’s horse de-wormer? I can afford people medicine, motherfucker. This is ridiculous.”

    Watch:

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    Opining further on Rogan’s rough-up is Glenn Greenwald:

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    Meanwhile, as we noted last month regarding Ivermectin (and worth repeating):

    This widely prescribed anti-parasitic which is also used in horses has shown massive efficacy worldwide in the treatment of mild and moderate cases of Covid-19, plus as a prophylactic. India’s Uttar Pradesh province, with a population of over 200 million, says that widespread early use of Ivermectin ‘helped keep positivity [and] deaths low.’

    (source, May 12th)

    Separately, there have been several studies funded by the Indian government, primarily conducted through their largest govt. public medical university (AIIMS).

    • Role of ivermectin in the prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infection among healthcare workers in India: A matched case-control study (source)

    Conclusion: Two-dose ivermectin prophylaxis at a dose of 300 μg/kg with a gap of 72 hours was associated with a 73% reduction of SARS-CoV-2 infection among healthcare workers for the following month.

    • Ivermectin as a potential treatment for mild to moderate COVID-19 – A double blind randomized placebo-controlled trial (source)

    Conclusion: There was no difference in the primary outcome i.e. negative RT-PCR status on day 6 of admission with the use of ivermectin. However, a significantly higher proportion of patients were discharged alive from the hospital when they received ivermectin.

    • Clinical Research Report Ivermectin in combination with doxycycline for treating COVID-19 symptoms: a randomized trial (source, double-blind randomized, peer-reviewed)

    Discussion: In the present study, patients with mild or moderate COVID-19 infection treated with ivermectin in combination with doxycycline generally recovered 2 days earlier than those treated with placebo. The proportion of patients responding within 7 days of treatment was significantly higher in the treatment group than in the placebo group. The proportions of patients who remained symptomatic after 12 days of illness and who experienced disease progression were significantly lower in the treatment group than in the placebo group.

    Here are more human studies from other countries on the ‘horse dewormer’:
     
    Peru:
    • Sharp Reductions in COVID-19 Case Fatalities and Excess Deaths in Peru in Close Time Conjunction, State-By-State, with Ivermectin Treatments (source, peer-reviewed, University of Toronto, Universidad EAFIT)

    For the 24 states with early IVM treatment (and Lima), excess deaths dropped 59% (25%) at +30 days and 75% (25%) at +45 days after day of peak deaths. Case fatalities likewise dropped sharply in all states but Lima

    Spain:
    • The effect of early treatment with ivermectin on viral load, symptoms and humoral response in patients with non-severe COVID-19: A pilot, double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial (source, University of Barcelona, peer-reviewed)

    Findings: Patients in the ivermectin group recovered earlier from hyposmia/anosmia (76 vs 158 patient-days; p < 0.001).

    Bengladesh:

    • A Comparative Study on Ivermectin-Doxycycline and Hydroxychloroquine-Azithromycin Therapy on COVID-19 Patients (source – peer reviewed, though not govt funded)

    Conclusion: According  to  our  study,  the  Ivermectin-Doxycycline combination therapy has better symptomatic relief, shortened recovery duration, fewer adverse effects, and superior patient compliance compared to the Hydroxychloroquine-Azithromycin combination. Based on this  study’s  outcomes,  the  Ivermectin-Doxycycline  combination  is  a  superior  choice  for  treating  patients  with  mild to moderate COVID-19 disease.

    • A five-day course of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19 may reduce the duration of illness (source, peer-reviewed double blind randomized, though small sample size)

    Discussion: A 5-day course of ivermectin resulted in an earlier clearance of the virus compared to placebo (p = 0.005), thus indicating that early intervention with this agent may limit viral replication within the host. In the 5-day ivermectin group, there was a significant drop in CRP and LDH by day 7, which are indicators of disease severity.

    Meanwhile, There are currently 76 ongoing or completed clinical trials on Ivermectin around the world. Below are the results of 32 which have been completed. One can visit ivermeta.com and dig down on any of these / read the entire study. The site recommends Ivermectin in conjunction with vaccines to confer the best protection against Covid-19, however we’ll leave that to you and your doctor to discuss.

    Screenshot, http://ivermeta.com/

    Yet doctors who advocate for Ivermectin are ridiculed by the media (more here and here and here).

    The MSM swarmed over ‘horse paste overdoses’  for weeks after a handful cases nationwide (and no deaths) – including an outright lie amplified by Rolling Stone which they were forced to correct after the hospital in question denied the claim.

    Meanwhile, the likes of Maddow, Don Lemon and Chris Hayes jumped right on the propaganda bandwagon – with Maddow promoting the debunked ER story in a tweet she refuses to delete – and Twitter refuses to censor for misinformation.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/14/2021 – 22:43

  • Is America Becoming Rome Versus Byzantium?
    Is America Becoming Rome Versus Byzantium?

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via The Epoch Times,

    In A.D. 286 the Roman emperor Diocletian split in half the huge Roman Empire administratively—and peacefully—under the control of two emperors.

    A Western empire included much of modern-day Western Europe and northwest Africa. The Eastern half controlled Eastern Europe and parts of Asia and northeastern Africa.

    By 330 the Emperor Constantine institutionalized that split by moving the empire’s capital from Rome to his new imperial city of Constantinople, founded on the site of the old Greek polis of Byzantium.

    The two administrative halves of the once huge empire continued to drift apart.

    Soon there arose two increasingly different, though still kindred versions, of a once unified Romanity.

    The Western empire eventually collapsed into chaos by the latter fifth century A.D.

    Yet the Roman eastern half survived for nearly 1,000 years. It was soon known as the Byzantine Empire, until overwhelmed by the Ottoman Turks in 1453 A.D.

    Historians still disagree over why the East endured while the West crumbled. And they cite the various roles of differing geography, border challenges, tribal enemies, and internal challenges.

    We moderns certainly have developed unfair stereotypes of a supposedly decadent late imperial Rome of Hollywood sensationalism that deserved its end. And we likewise mistakenly typecast a rigid, ultra-orthodox bureaucratic “Byzantine” alternative that supposedly grew more reactionary to survive in a rough neighborhood.

    Yet in both cases, separate geography multiplied the growing differences between a Greek-speaking, Orthodox Christian and older civilization in the east, versus a more or less polyglot and often fractious Christianity in the Latin West.

    Byzantium held firm against ancient neighboring Persian, Middle Eastern, and Egyptian rivals. But the West disintegrated into a tribal amalgam of its own former peoples.

    Unlike the West, the glue that held the East together against centuries of foreign enemies, was the revered idea of an ancient and uncompromising Hellenism—the preservation of a common, holistic Greek language, religion, culture, and history.

    By A.D. 600, at a time when the West had long ago fragmented into tribes and proto-European kingdoms, the jewel at Constantinople was the nerve center of the most impressive civilization in the world, stretching from the Eastern Asia Minor to southern Italy.

    There is now much talk of a new American red state/blue state split – and even wild threats of another Civil War.

    Certainly, millions of Americans yearly self-select, disengage from their political opposites and make moves based on diverging ideology, culture, politics, religiosity or lack of it, and differing views of the American past.

    More conservative traditionalists head for the interior between the coasts, where there is usually smaller government, fewer taxes, more religiosity, and unapologetic traditionalists.

    These modern Byzantines are more apt to define their patriotism by honoring ancient customs and rituals—standing for the national anthem, attending church services on Sundays, demonstrating reverence for American history and its heroes, and emphasizing the nuclear family.

    Immigration in fly-over country is still defined as melting pot assimilation and integration of new arrivals into the body politic of a hallowed and enduring America.

    While red states welcome change, they believe America never had to be perfect to be good. It will always survive, but only if it sticks to its 234-year-old Constitution, stays united by the English language, and assimilates newcomers into an enduring and exceptional American culture.

    In contrast, the more liberal blue state antithesis is richer from globalist wealth. The west coast from Seattle to San Diego profits from trade with a thriving Asia. It is bookended by the east coast window on the European Union from Boston to Miami.

    The great research universities of the Ivy League, MIT, Caltech, Stanford, and the University of California system are bicoastal. Just as Rome was once the iconic center of the entire Roman project, so blue Washington, D.C., is the nerve center for big-government America.

    The salad bowl is the bicoastal model for immigration. Newcomers can retain and reboot their former cultural identities.

    Religion is less orthodox; atheism and agnosticism are almost the norm. And most of the recent social movements of American feminism, transgenderism, and critical race theory grew out of coastal urbanity and academia.

    Foreigners see blue coastal Americans as the more vibrant, sophisticated, cosmopolitan—and reckless—culture, its vast wealth predicated on technology, information, communications, finance, media, education, and entertainment.

    In turn, they concede that the vast red interior—with about the same population as blue America but with vastly greater area—is the more pragmatic, predictable and home to the food, fuels, ores, and material production of America.

    Our Byzantine interior and Roman coasts are quite differently interpreting their shared American heritage as they increasingly plot radically divergent courses to survive in scary times.

    But as in the past, it is far more likely that one state model will prove unsustainable and collapse than it is that either region would ever start a civil war.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/14/2021 – 22:40

  • Anti-Trump Neocons Led By Ex-CIA Operative To Back Democrats In Midterms
    Anti-Trump Neocons Led By Ex-CIA Operative To Back Democrats In Midterms

    A group of Republicans who hate all things Trump are set to endorse a slate of Democratic lawmakers throughout next year’s midterm election season in a bid to stop the Republican party from regaining control of Congress.

    Led in part by former CIA counterintelligence officer and failed 2016 Reoublican presidential candidate Evan McMullin (now an independent), the “Renew America Movement” (RAM) claims to support “principled Democrats, Republicans, and Independents who have the courage to stand up to political extremists in races across the country.”

    ‘Founding signatories‘ include notable neocons and anti-Trumpers McMullin, Anthony Scaramucci, George Conway, Max Boot, Michael Hayden, Michael Chertoff, Tom Ridge and dozens of others.

    Trump, meanwhile, has endorsed several candidates who are mounting primary challenges against GOP lawmakers who voted to impeach him over the Jan. 6 Capitol riots – such as Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, according to Reuters.

    RAM, whose leadership includes former Republican Governors Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey and Bill Weld of Massachusetts, said supporting moderate candidates is vital to safeguarding American democracy. -Reuters

    “With the mounting threats to our democracy and Constitution, we need people who work proactively to lead their party and the country away from the political extremes,” the group’s national political director, Joel Searby, told the outlet.

    So far, RAM will endorse and/or campaign for 11 moderate Democrats, 9 moderate Republians and one independent running in next year’s midterm elections. Those backed include Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and Sen. Mark Kelley (D-AZ).

    Unsurprisingly, they’re also supporting Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL).

    While claiming to ‘lead the country away from the political extremes,’ we note that the group doesn’t seem to be opposing any far-left Democratic socialists – arguably the most ‘politically extreme’ faction in DC.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/14/2021 – 22:20

  • Microsoft To Shut Down LinkedIn In China Following Censorship Criticism
    Microsoft To Shut Down LinkedIn In China Following Censorship Criticism

    Authored by Eva Fu via The Epoch Times,

    Microsoft is abandoning its local version of LinkedIn in China, a move that would close off the last major U.S.-owned networking platforms remaining in the country.

    LinkedIn entered mainland China in 2014, a country known for its highly restrictive censorship practices set by the ruling Communist Party. The platform now boasts about 53 million local users, or roughly 7 percent of its global total.

    But the professional networking site has recently drawn growing criticism over its move to block the profiles of researchers and others whose work involves China.

    In a statement on Oct. 14, LinkedIn said that it made the decision to discontinue the seven-year venture upon facing “a significantly more challenging operating environment and greater compliance requirements in China.”

    In its place, LinkedIn said it will later this year set up a new job search application called InJobs without a social feed or post sharing features.

    “While we’ve found success in helping Chinese members find jobs and economic opportunity, we have not found that same level of success in the more social aspects of sharing and staying informed,” the company statement said.

    China has some of the most strictest control over the internet. Twitter and Facebook were banned more than a decade ago. Google exited the country in 2010, four years after launching a self-censored search engine there.

    LinkedIn has made a number of controversial moves since its entry to the Chinese market that critics deem as appeasement to Beijing. That includes blocking coverage about 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, eliminating the presence of a Tiananmen activist, and freezing the account of a China critic after he called the Chinese regime a “repressive dictatorship” and the state media “propaganda mouthpieces.”

    Scrutiny over the platform’s censorship practices has intensified since June. On the morning of June 3, the eve of the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, staff members from The Epoch Times based in the United States, Sweden, Turkey, and elsewhere were informed by the company that their profiles would be hidden in China.

    A redacted LinkedIn message received by employees of The Epoch Times on June 3, 2021. (Screenshot via LinkedIn)

    More journalists and researchers have received similar messages over the following months. Affected users were also told that their account in China could be restored if they agreed to remove unspecified content.

    Asked by The Epoch Times at the time, the company said that “[d]ue to local legal requirements within China, the profiles and activity of some LinkedIn members associated with certain publishing organizations are not visible within China at this time.”

    It further pointed to a 2014 statement from its former CEO Jeff Weiner, who argued that despite LinkedIn’s support for freedom of expression, its absence from China would deny Chinese users the opportunity to “pursue and realize the economic opportunities, dreams, and rights most important to them.”

    The fresh wave of censorship by the platform has caught U.S. lawmakers’ attention.

    “LinkedIn’s willingness to carry water for the Chinese regime raises questions about how Microsoft became the only technology company with significant access to the Chinese market,” Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) wrote in a Sept. 24 letter.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/14/2021 – 22:00

  • Biden Admin Reinstates Andrew McCabe's Full Pension After 2018 Firing For Lying Under Oath
    Biden Admin Reinstates Andrew McCabe’s Full Pension After 2018 Firing For Lying Under Oath

    Andrew McCabe, the disgraced Russiagate FBI agent who lied four times to the DOJ and FBI, will receive his full pension more than three years after he was fired by the Justice Department, according to the New York Times. Under the terms of a settlement stemming from a lawsuit McCable filed in 2019 over his firing, he will also receive around $200,000 in missed pension payments.

    The DOJ has also agreed to expunge any mention of his firing from FBI personnel records, and that he would receive special cuff links given to senior executives, along with a plaque bearing his mounted badge and FBI credentials.

    The Justice Department did not admit any wrongdoing. But the settlement amounted to a rejection by the Biden administration of how Mr. McCabe’s case had been handled under Mr. Trump, who perceived Mr. McCabe as one of his so-called deep-state enemies and repeatedly attacked him. A notice of the lawsuit’s dismissal was also filed in federal court. -NYT

    McCabe’s lawyers will also receive over $500,000 in legal fees, courtesy of the US taxpayer.

    This, of course, is on top of more than $540,000 he got from just one of several GoFundMe campaigns, as well as income from his 2019 book, “The Threat.”

    McCabe, who was caught lying four times to the DOJ and FBI (twice while under oath) over leaks to the press, was fired in March, 2017 –  days before he was set to receive his full pension.

    Specifically, McCabe authorized an FBI spokesman and attorney to tell Devlin Barrett of the Wall St. Journal, just days before the 2016 election, that the FBI had not put the brakes on a separate investigation into the Clinton Foundation – at a time in which McCabe was coming under fire for his wife taking a $467,500 campaign contribution from Clinton proxy pal, Terry McAuliffe. 

    During a November, 2020 appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, McCable dismissed the FBI’s abuse of power under his watch as mere mistakes.

    McCabe said he was “shocked” by the “significant number of errors and failures related to the FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] applications” to spy on Carter Page, a former adviser on candidate Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. His claim was reminiscent of Captain Renault in the film “Casablanca,” who pretended to be “shocked, shocked” at the gambling in Rick’s Cafe as he pocketed his winnings. –Fox News

    McCabe also never bothered to speak with Christopher Steele – the former UK spy ultimately paid by the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign to fabricate a now-discredited dossier designed to smear then-candidate Donald Trump. McCabe knew the dossier was fake before the election and did nothing, claiming he was oblivious to the exculpatory evidence before the agency used the dossier when applying for a surveillance warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).

    Before Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, McCabe’s agents tracked down Steele’s main source, Igor Danchenko, who promptly discredited the dossier as nothing more than multiple hearsays and rank speculation, some of which emanated from Danchenko’s drinking buddies.

    It was also determined that parts of the dossier were likely Russian disinformation and that the Russia Hoax itself was invented by none other than Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton to smear Republican candidate Trump with an alleged scandal.  –Fox News

    Also recall that McCabe’s team, under Director Comey, heavily altered the language of the FBI’s 2016 opinion concerning Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information – effectively “decriminalizing” her conduct. Comey’s original draft – using the term “grossly negligent” would have legally required that the FBI recommended charges against Clinton. Instead, McCabe’s team changed it to “extremely careless” – a legally meaningless term.

    According to documents produced by the FBI, FBI employees exchanged proposed edits to the draft statement. On May 6, Deputy Director McCabe forwarded the draft statement to other senior FBI employees, including Peter Strzok, E.W. Priestap, Jonathan Moffa, and an employee on the Office of General Counsel whose name has been redacted. While the precise dates of the edits and identities of the editors are not apparent from the documents, the edits appear to change the tone and substance of Director Comey’s statement in at least three respects. –Letter from Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI)

    After he was fired, McCabe said he was “confused and distracted” when he was talking to investigators, and charges were never filed against him. Former Trump National Security Adviser Gen. Mike Flynn was notably not afforded the same luxury.

    “I answered questions as completely and accurately as I could. And when I realized that some of my answers were not fully accurate or may have been misunderstood, I took the initiative to correct them,” McCabe wrote in a Washington Post op-ed.

    In the wake of his firing, McCabe – an central figure in the Trump-Russia investigation, received over $540,000 from just one of several GoFundMe campaigns.

    Looks like Andy’s in the club…

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/14/2021 – 21:40

  • Navy Announces Plans To Expel Those Refusing Covid Vaccine, Revoke Benefits
    Navy Announces Plans To Expel Those Refusing Covid Vaccine, Revoke Benefits

    At the end of August the Pentagon initially announced a mandate for military personnel across all armed service branches, ordering them to “immediately begin” Covid vaccination. A memo issued by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the time directed the Secretaries of the Military Departments to “immediately begin full vaccination of all members of the Armed Forces under DoD authority on active duty or in the Ready Reserve, including the National Guard, who are not fully vaccinated against COVID-19.”

    However, when the mandate went out it remained unclear precisely what repercussions military members would face if they don’t comply – this also as a number of lawsuits have since been filed against the DoD by troops arguing that the order violates individual medical freedom. On Thursday the US Navy made it clear to their personnel: receive the jab by November 28 for be expelled from the service. 

    Via US Navy file image

    “With Covid-19 vaccines now mandatory for all military members, the Navy has announced plans to start processing for discharge those who refuse vaccination without a pending or approved exemption,” the US Navy said in the statement.

    The Pentagon had so far remained ambiguous over whether servicemembers would actually be booted after the mandate cut-off date. With Thursday’s Navy announcement, other branches are expected to soon follow suit.

    The AFP notes that “The navy said that 98 percent of its 350,000 active duty members had begun or completed the vaccination process.” The rate among all branches combined is about equal – or just under this, but Pentagon officials worry about lagging vaccination rates in the reserves, given recent reports indicate just 80% of the reserves have had at least one dose. 

    The AFP report underscores that if official Pentagon policy becomes to expel troops across the board for refusing the shot, this could create a significant problem for US defense readiness, given it would inevitably involve a mass exit of troops.

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    “If all the services take the same hard line that the navy is taking, it risks losing as many as 46,000 troops, though presumably more will accept vaccinations before the deadline,” the report underscores. 

    What remains is the question of the terms under which they would be discharged at the end of November. The Navy said in the Thursday announcement those kicked out for not taking the vaccine “will receive no lower than a general discharge under honorable conditions.” 

    However, there could be penalties like being forced to pay back certain training and education costs – or more significantly the loss of post military service benefits, as the official Navy guidance spells out: “This type of discharge could result in the loss of some veterans’ benefits.”

    The Hill details based on the statement that processing discharges might begin immediately: 

    With the new guidelines in place, administrative actions can begin immediately against those who refuse the vaccine who do not have a pending or approved exemption request.

    Those who refuse the vaccine will not be allowed to be promoted, advance, reenlist, or execute orders, with the exception of separation orders, until the CCDA has completed disposition of their case, the guidance notes.

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    Interestingly, the Navy while issuing the harsh punitive plan of action says it will recognize religious exemptions. Likely pastors, priests, and rabbis near military bases and at naval ports might begin to see a flood of random phone calls from “vaccine hesitant” military members seeking a way out of the impasse. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/14/2021 – 21:20

  • Average New Car Prices Hit Record High
    Average New Car Prices Hit Record High

    New car prices hit a new all-time high in September due primarily to snarled supply chains, according to Kelley Blue Book.

    At $45k, the average transaction price for a new car was up 12.1% (or $4,872) from one year ago in September and monthly up 3.7% (or $1,613) from August. Here are car prices for individual carmakers. 

    “The record-high prices in September are mostly a result of the mix of vehicles sold,” said Kayla Reynolds, an analyst for Cox Automotive. 

    “Midsize SUV sales jumped in September compared to August, and full-size pickup share moved up as well. Sales of lower-priced compact and midsize cars, which had been commanding more share during the summer, faded in September,” Reynolds said. 

    All-time-high prices come as the entire industry endures a slowdown in sales. Total sales last month were approximately a million cars, a 7.3% monthly decrease, and one of the lowest volumes in the past decade.

    Dwindling sales are likely a function of two things, a worldwide shortage of microchips that have shuttered many automobile factors and possibly higher prices are creating demand destruction among buyers. 

    Over the last year, dealership inventories have been tight due to supply chain difficulties and forced dealers to reduce incentives and discounts to prospective car buyers. Incentives were only 5.2% of the average transaction price last month, compared with 10% a year ago. 

    Another issue for buyers is the staggering increase in used cars, which hit a record high last month. 

    To sum up, fewer cars were sold last month, but prices continue to hit record highs that may suggest consumers are becoming discouraged to buy because of affordability issues. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/14/2021 – 21:00

  • John Durham & The Amazing Disappearing DNC Hack
    John Durham & The Amazing Disappearing DNC Hack

    Authored by George Parry via Spectator.org,

    Evidence grows that the alleged Russian hacking of the DNC server in 2016 was an inside job…

    This is the fifth in a series of articles analyzing the 27 page federal grand jury indictment charging lawyer Michael Sussmann with making a false statement to the FBI.

    As stated in the fourth article, when the FBI learned of the alleged hack of the Democratic National Committee’s (“DNC”) emails, it asked to examine the server.

    In fact, at the same time as the alleged DNC hack, there were similar reports regarding the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s (“DCCC”) server as well as DNC Chairman John Podesta’s personal email devices.

    In testimony before the Senate, FBI Director James Comey stated the following:

    Question (by Senator Burr): Did the FBI request access to those devices [the servers and Podesta’s devices] to perform forensics on?

    A: Yes, we did.

    Q: And would that access have provided intelligence or information helpful to your investigation in possibly finding … including to the Intelligence Community Assessment?

    A: Our forensics folks would always prefer to get access to the original device or server that’s involved. So, it’s the best evidence.

    Q: Were you given access to do the forensics on those servers?

    A: We were not. We were … a highly respected private company eventually got access and shared with us what they saw there.

    Q: But is that typically the way the FBI would prefer to do the forensics or would your forensic unit rather see the servers and do the forensics themselves?

    A: We always prefer to have access hands on ourselves, if that’s possible.

    Q: Do you know why you were denied access to those servers?

    A: I don’t know for sure. Um, I don’t know for sure.

    Q: Was there one request or multiple requests?

    A: Multiple requests at different levels and ultimately what was agreed to is that the private company would share with us what they saw.

    So, instead of using a search warrant or some other legal process to perform a direct, hands on forensic examination of the DNC server, the FBI agreed to base its investigation on the findings of a private cybersecurity company. And, as discussed in the previous article, that company, CrowdStrike, was to do the investigation pursuant to its contract with Michael Sussmann of Perkins Coie, the law firm that represented Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

    Think about that. When presented with allegations of a devastating foreign cyber attack on one of the two major political parties, the FBI meekly agreed to allow CrowdStrike and Perkins Coie to do the forensic examination and, for all intents and purposes, run the investigation.

    Not even the lowliest local police department would agree to such an absurd arrangement. What if this was a murder case? Would the Smallville PD allow a private investigator and lawyer hired by the murder victim’s family to process the crime scene, do the autopsy, and tell the police and district attorney what they supposedly found? Wouldn’t such findings be subject to attack in court as coming from sources that may have had an interest in shaping and tailoring the investigative results to suit the needs and desires of their client? Wouldn’t there be legal problems with the evidence’s provenance, chain of custody, and the reliability and comprehensiveness of the investigative work that supposedly produced it? Would the police and district attorney ever allow themselves to get roped into such a bizarre, ridiculous, nightmarish, and self-defeating arrangement?

    Of course not. No rational person or organization intent on conducting a serious investigation would.

    But that, in effect, is precisely what the FBI — the self-proclaimed greatest investigative agency in the world — did when faced with this purportedly monumental foreign attack on the Democrat Party apparatus.

    Now keep Comey’s testimony in focus as we review the remarkable appearance of Shawn Henry, President of CrowdStrike Services, before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (“HPSCI”).

    The HPSCI convened in closed executive session on December 5, 2017. Present were Henry, the Committee members and staff, as well as a lawyer representing CrowdStrike and a lawyer from Perkins Coie.

    Under questioning, Henry confirmed that CrowdStrike’s examination of the DNC server was done pursuant to its contract with Michael Sussmann of Perkins Coie. Consequently, as explained by the Perkins Coie lawyer, CrowdStrike’s findings were protected by the attorney-client privilege. Therefore, it would be up to Perkins Coie, acting on behalf of the DNC, to decide what information Henry would be allowed to share with the HPSCI.

    First up was Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT) who wanted to know why the FBI hadn’t taken “the lead in this investigation.”

    And that’s when the fun and games began.

    Once it was established that the FBI did not have access to the server, Stewart asked, “Could they [the FBI] conduct their own investigation in a thorough fashion without access to the actual hardware?”

    To that Henry went out on a limb and firmly replied, “Maybe.”

    Undeterred, Stewart asked, “Are you comfortable that someone could complete a thorough investigation, using other tools, without direct access to the hardware or equipment?”

    Up to the challenge, Henry proceeded to answer a question that wasn’t asked.

    “Could they come to a conclusion? You’re asking a nuanced question. And I’m not being cagey. I want to be clear, because this is an important point.”

    But would it be better if the FBI had access?

    Henry replied, “The more information you have access to, the better any investigation. But it doesn’t mean that a lack of a piece of information precludes you from coming to a conclusion.”

    The determined Stewart tried again. If you “could have a better investigation if you had access to all of the equipment or hardware” would there be “reasons for not making that available [to the FBI] that override the benefit of having a more conclusive investigation?”

    To which Henry replied, “You’re asking me to speculate. I don’t know the answer.”

    At which point, an exasperated Stewart said to the Perkins Coie lawyer, “By the way, you need to pay him well, because he’s obviously serving you well today as you guys have your conversations back and forth.”

    Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT) in 2019

    So just what evidence did CrowdStrike find on the DNC server?

    Over the course of the hearing, Henry grudgingly gave ground with answers such as these:

    “Counsel just reminded me that, as it relates to the DNC, we have indicators that data [the DNC emails] was (sic) exfiltrated [taken by hackers off the server]. We did not have concrete evidence that data was (sic) exfiltrated from the DNC, but we have indicators that it was exfiltrated…. There’s not evidence that they were actually exfiltrated. There’s circumstantial evidence … we didn’t have direct evidence. But we made a conclusion that data left the network.” (Emphasis added.)

    Okay, there was no direct, concrete, or other proof that the emails were actually taken from the DNC computer. But what were these “indicators” that led CrowdStrike to conclude that the emails were hacked?

    According to Henry, CrowdStrike found “indicators of [server] compromise, which are pieces of malware, et cetera.” He then explained that CrowdStrike’s investigative report states that the data [emails] were “staged for exfiltration” by the purported Russian hacker.

    He added, “There are times when we can see data exfiltrated, and we can say conclusively. But in this case, it appears that it (sic) was set up to be exfiltrated, but we just don’t have the evidence that says it actually left.” (Emphasis added.)

    Got that? With no evidence that the emails were actually hacked, CrowdStrike nevertheless concluded that the Russians hacked the emails.

    Despite the spin, the whole DNC hack story had just flatlined.

    But there was one more issue to be addressed: exactly what evidence was shared with the FBI?

    I will spare you the tedious details of the interrogation. The questioners kept asking Henry what information CrowdStrike provided to the FBI, and he repeatedly said that they got whatever they asked for.

    But the problem with this line of questioning is that it failed to consider the fact that CrowdStrike was working for Perkins Coie. Consequently, the questions should have focused on what information Perkins Coie allowed to be transmitted to the FBI.

    The closest anyone came to getting at this issue was when Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX) asked, “Did the DNC restrict anything that you shared with the FBI or that the FBI asked for? Did they tell you ‘no’ at any point?”

    Henry replied, “No, I have no recollection. Again, I know that there are redacted reports and there was some restriction on the reports. That’s the only thing that I can recall.”

    Wait. What? Redacted? Restriction? Does this mean that the DNC withheld some of CrowdStrike’s findings and work product from the FBI?

    The answer to that question can be found lurking in the pre-trial pleadings in the case of United States v. Roger Stone. In an effort to debunk the DNC hack story, Stone’s lawyers requested that the Department of Justice produce the full, unredacted CrowdStrike investigative report.

    And that’s when the cowpie hit the fan. It turned out that, in addition to not examining the DNC server, neither the FBI nor the DOJ actually saw the full, final CrowdStrike report.

    The following is lifted directly from the prosecution’s response to Stone’s discovery request:

    Ponder  that carefully. The referenced “counsel for the DNC and DCCC” is Perkins Coie. The reports provided were marked “draft” and had redactions. But the FBI and DOJ had the assurances of Perkins Coie that the  drafts were, in fact, the last version of the report and “no redacted information concerned the attribution of the attack to Russian actors.”

    So, was there a hack of the DNC server? Don’t ask the FBI or the DOJ. They only know what Perkins Coie — which was representing a client that was heavily invested in spreading the Russian hack story — allowed them to know.

    But thanks to the release of Shawn Henry’s testimony before the HPSCI, what we now know is that CrowdStrike never found any “direct,” “concrete,” or other evidence that proves the DNC emails “actually left” the DNC server.

    Or, as we used to say in the old Justice Department: turn out the lights, the party’s over.

    There’s more to come, but this article is already too long.

    So stay tuned for the next episode.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/14/2021 – 20:40

  • Brace For A Retail Sales Miss
    Brace For A Retail Sales Miss

    Last month, the August retail sales surge was a surprise to many… but not to us. With consensus expecting a modest drop in both headline and core, we tweeted moments before the data was revealed to expect a “big retail sales beat.”

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    How did we know? Because Bank of America, which instead of relying on the hive “knowledge” of a handful of recent Econ PhD grads and a reversion to the mean impulse uses real-time credit and debit card spending data to asses precisely how much Americans are spending at any given moment, knew, and in its preview of the September retail sales print, the bank correctly forecast a big beat.

    It wasn’t the first time BofA was right: in fact the bank has been accurate every single month since this spring, usually going against the onsensus herd and coming on top every single time like in August, when it correctly predicted a big drop in the July print…

    … the month prior when it and consensus agreed, and both were spot on…

    … the month before when BofA once again was correct in calling for a sharp drop and consensus was wrong…

    … one month earlier as well…

    … and so on.

    In short, when it comes to predicting the upcoming retail sales print, toss consensus which has been wrong on 5 out of 6 previous occasions, and listen to the flawless BofA.

    So what does the bank forecast the Census Bureau will report tomorrow at 830 when the September retail sales data drop? Well, it will be another miss, with headline coming in about three times worse than the consensus est of -0.2% and ex-autos coming in flat, also missing estimates of a 0.4% bounce.

    According to BofA, retail sales ex-autos were unchanged month over month seasonally adjusted (SA) in September.

    After accounting for the sharp collapse in unit auto sales to 12.2 million saar (seasonally adjusted annualized rate), as measured by Wards, BofA predicts that tomorrow’s Census Bureau total retail sales will end up down -0.6% mom SA. This follows the sharp swings over the prior two months which owed to a variety of special factors including the timing of the Prime Day promotions.

    While the delta between BofA data and Census is small, in a market where a miss is a miss, and a beat is a beat, will certainly be felt. This is how the delta between BofA’s numbers and the Census Burea has looked over time.

    In any case, BofA’s chief economist Michelle Meyer contends that this month’s report should give us a cleaner picture of the consumer.

    Drilling deeper, within retail ex-autos, spending on furniture and building materials staged a comeback, reflecting the latest turn higher in home sales. BofA also observed a pop in spending on airfare, consistent with the weekly data, working to offset the sharp drop in August. However, spending on lodging continued to contract mom SA (travel related spending is not in the retail ex-autos aggregate).

    Also in September, spending at daycare centers was 52% above last year’s level and only 13% below the same time in 2019. BofA sees this as an encouraging sign as reliable childcare is critical for the recovery of the labor force.

    While retail sales may miss consensus, it will be modest. Meanwhile, the good news and confirmation that the US consumer remains generally strong, BofA continues to see gains in leisure spending with spending on travel and entertainment, in particular, improving. The bank’s aggregate for leisure spending is running at 1% over a 2-year period, up from the recent low of -8% in mid Sept.

    The improvement is not felt evenly across the country, however: in NY and PA spending on entertainment services has been particularly weak (-20% and -12% over a 2-year period, respectively) vs. FL where entertainment is up 16% over a 2-year period.

    Once again, it is the south that knows how to party while the northeast excels mostly in locking itself down.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/14/2021 – 20:20

  • Treasury Slams 'Misinformation' Over $600 Bank Reporting Provision
    Treasury Slams ‘Misinformation’ Over $600 Bank Reporting Provision

    The US Treasury Department slammed “misinformation” over a provision in President Joe Biden’s tax plan which would require banks to report aggregate inflows and outflows of at least over $600 to the IRS.

    “Congressional consideration of this proposal has been marred by misinformation, as opponents have elevated the pernicious myth that banks will have to report all individual customers’ transactions to the IRS,” said Treasury deputy assistant secretary for economic policy, Natasha Sarin in a Thursday blog post. “This is unequivocally false, and an incorrect representation of the proposals under consideration.”

    So it won’t be ‘all’ customers.

    As Bloomberg suggests, “The plan would require financial institutions to report information about some bank accounts to the Internal Revenue Service in an effort to determine if Americans are underreporting their income on their tax forms.”

    While the blog post offered no clarity on who exactly would be targeted by the $600 provision, we can probably assume they mean ‘people who pay taxes.’

    According to the Tax Policy Center, 61% of Americans paid no federal income taxes in 2020, up from 47% .

    “This proposal has been seriously mischaracterized,” said Treasury Secretary Janey Yellen in a Tuesday interview with CBS Evening News.

    Of course, despite what the Treasury says, Democrats have been walking it back:

    House Democrats excluded the idea from their version of the tax-and-spending bill they wrote last month, partly because of opposition from members in their own party. However, Democratic leaders continue to work on the plan, which could raise hundreds of billions of dollars to fund an expansion of social programs.

    House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden have said they are working on scaling back the administration’s plan so that only account flows totaling $10,000 or more would be reported and other carveouts so that only high-income taxpayers would be in the scope of the plan. Lawmakers are looking at ways to exclude some common transactions, such as payroll deposits or mortgage payment withdrawals. –Bloomberg

    According to the Independent Community Bankers of America, a banking trade group, the Treasury’s proposal violates consumers’ privacy and would require banks to “perform a police function on behalf of the IRS.”

    The Treasury, meanwhile, insists that this additional information will help them track down high-earning tax cheats. The IRS estimates that people pay 99% of taxes due on their earnings when there is third-party reporting, vs just 45% when there’s no verification.

    “The proposal would direct banks to report basic, high-level information on aggregate account inflows and outflows,” reads the Treasury blog post. “Banks would add just a bit of additional data to information that they already supply to taxpayers and the IRS: how much money went into the account over the course of the year, and how much came out.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/14/2021 – 20:00

  • Larry Summers Slams "Woke" Fed "Losing Control" Of Inflation
    Larry Summers Slams “Woke” Fed “Losing Control” Of Inflation

    You know it’s bad when you’ve lost Larry Summers…

    It appears the so-called ‘progressives’ push to ever more signaling of their virtue and cradle-to-grave dependence on bigger and bigger government (as long as you ‘obey’ the narrative) is just too much for the former Treasury Secretary who warned that monetary policy makers in the U.S. and elsewhere for paying too much attention to social issues and not enough to the biggest risk to inflation since the 1970s.

    Speaking to a virtual conference organized by the Institute of International Finance, Summers rebuffed the newly ‘woke’ Fed:

    “We have a generation of central bankers who are defining themselves by their wokeness,” Summers, who is now a professor at Harvard University, said on Wednesday.

    “They’re defining themselves by how socially concerned they are.”

    Read that again and consider the source – Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary and head of the National Economic Council in the early years of the Obama administration!!

    His fear is simple: Fed talking heads are too focused on social justice that they are taking their eye off the ball that is their mandated job of managing inflation and jobs.

    “We’re in more danger than we’ve been during my career of losing control of inflation in the U.S.,” the 66-year-old Summers, a paid contributor to Bloomberg, said.

    “We’ve gone even further towards losing it in Britain and I think we’re at some risk in Europe.”

    Summers also – quite ironically for someone who has supported fiscal expansion as a means of promoting macroeconomic stability – blamed the Fed and other central banks for not preparing investors for the tough steps policy makers will probably have to take to rein in inflation.  

    “If those actions come, they’re going to be very shocking and very painful in financial markets,” he said.

    This is not the first time Summers has raised a red flag. As James Caton writes at The American Institute for Economic Research, in February, Summers participated in a discussion with Paul Krugman where he outlined his concerns. He notes that:

    1. The stimulus of 2020 was about twice the size of the output gap in the same year. The proposed stimulus for 2021 was, at the time, 4 times the size of the projected output gap.

    2. Unemployment compensation provided to the bottom 30% of earners was more than double their losses from Covid-19.

    Elsewhere, Summers explains that the current labor shortage will drive up wages and that we have already seen monthly rents for new tenants increase by 17 percent, on average, above the rents paid by previous tenants. 

    Summers believes that the “toxic side effects of QE” are not being recognized by policymakers. In an interview, Larry Summers used a rather peculiar metaphor to describe this situation.:

    So, I look at that dwindling hole. Then I look at expenditures that aren’t hard to add into the multiple trillions, and I see substantial risk that the amount of water being poured in vastly exceeds the size of the bathtub.

    When I heard Summers use this metaphor, my mind was drawn to a passage I first read over a decade ago from Benjamin Anderson in his reflection on the Great Depression. In referring to monetary policy that preceded the initiation of the Great Crash in October 1929, he wrote:

    When a bathtub in the upper part of the house has been overflowing for five minutes, it is not difficult to turn off the water and mop up. But when the bathtub has been overflowing for several years, the walls and the spaces between ceilings and floors have become full of water, and a great deal of work is required to get the house dry. Long after the faucet is turned off, water still comes pouring in from the walls and from the ceilings. It was so in 1928 and 1929. 

    Consistent with both statements is the belief that the monetary policy provided more stimulus than was merited by prevailing economic conditions. And consistent with Summers’ belief that excessive monetary support can be toxic, Anderson bemoans the extensive damage that can occur when the water spigot is left on for too long.

    Instead of racial ‘equity’ or climate change, The Fed needs to concentrate on monetary policy. This is a serious job that requires serious focus. Perhaps Summers recognizes that the post-2008 monetary framework has created a fiscal Fed. Or maybe he will. 

    Summers’ demands for limits to the aims of monetary policy might be politically feasible under the old Volcker-Greenspan regime. Under that monetary regime, inflationary pressure placed strict limits on the expansion of the balance sheet. The political incentives now faced by both politicians and Fed officials promote precisely the sort of oversized fiscal expansions that we have observed in the last two years, the same expansions that Summers decries. 

    The post-2008 framework has incentivized the destabilization of monetary policy. The sooner we recognize this fact, the sooner we can seriously discuss a solution to the problem.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/14/2021 – 19:40

  • Treasury Official Warns Using Stablecoins For Payments "Raises A Whole Set Of Issues"
    Treasury Official Warns Using Stablecoins For Payments “Raises A Whole Set Of Issues”

    As bitcoin prices surge in anticipation of the SEC finally approving a bitcoin ETF (after years of turning down one application after another), one top crypto regulator from Treasury – Treasury Undersecretary for Domestic Finance Nellie Liang – offered a frank explanation for why the Treasury Department sees stablecoins as an important locus for crypto regulation. The issue is that stablecoins solve a critical problem for crypto: they’re rarely volatile, by design. Bloomberg reported earlier this month that tether, one of the biggest stablecoins, appears to be a massive Ponzi scheme. Although it saw some volatility in response, on Thursday, tether was trading right around $1.

    Why is it that tether didn’t collapse after being accused of being a Ponzi scheme (not like this is even the first time)? Because stable coins like tether have become a central part of the crypto-trading economy, allowing traders to move easily into and out of positions in different coins without ever needing to re-convert their crypto to US dollars. As Liang put it, stablecoins play a “foundational” role in the crypto economy. While they’re mostly used for trading right now, the Treasury is keeping a close eye on whether stablecoins start being used for commerce, something that might trigger a backlash from the Treasury since it would be a sign that a real competitor to the US dollar might actually be emerging.

    As Liang added, stablecoins being used for payments (like Mark Zuckerberg infamously tried to do) “raises a whole set of issues”.

    “We believe they’re kind of foundational to crypto and future crypto services,” Liang said Thursday during a virtual event sponsored by the Institute of International Finance. “They’re being used mostly for crypto trading currently. They also have the potential and have started to be used for payments — and may be widely used for payments, and that raises a whole set of issues that the President.”

    “They’re being used mostly for crypto trading currently. They also have the potential and have started to be used for payments — and may be widely used for payments, and that raises a whole set of issues that the President’s Working Group wanted to focus on,” she said.

    At this point, more regulation for the crypto community seems virtually inevitable with Janet Yellen running Treasury and Gary Gensler running the SEC. President Biden and his advisors have even considered imposing an entire new regulatory framework for crypto via executive fiatn (no pun intended).

    Liang  is a member of the President’s Working Group on crypto regulation. For those who aren’t familiar with it, the working group includes the heads of Treasury and several other federal agencies. The group is planning to issue a report on stablecoins by the end of the month. In addition to the policy-setting team, the DoJ has put together a task force to combat cryptocurrency-related crime as well.

    Media reports have suggested that the Biden Administration plans to regulate stablecoins like banks. He’s also reportedly considered hiring a “crypto czar”

    But whatever happens, keep in mind: whatever lip-service federal policymakers give about stablecoins (including the FedCoin which is being studied by the central bank) being a key part of innovation, in reality, they see it as one thing: a threat.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/14/2021 – 19:20

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Oct 14

Today’s News 14th October 2021

  • Finland Will Lobby The EU To Give Nuclear Power "Sustainable" Status
    Finland Will Lobby The EU To Give Nuclear Power “Sustainable” Status

    It looks as though Finland is starting to come back around to the idea of nuclear power – and that they plan on taking their advocacy for the clean energy to the European Union. The country will now lobby the EU for a “sustainable” label on nuclear power. 

    The EU’s decision on whether or not nuclear is “sustainable” has yet to be made. Despite the fact that plants are emission free, “nuclear is currently considered only a low-carbon energy source due to emissions caused by mining and transport,” Euractive wrote this week.

    Finland’s fifth nuclear plant is nearing completing after years of delays, the report notes. Nuclear remains an important energy source for the country, which has a target of being carbon neutral by 2035. Nuclear currently accounts for 30% of the country’s power. 

    Finland’s government lobbying nuclear as a clean source of energy “marks a near U-Turn” in the green party, Euractive writes. The party has been traditionally “fiercely anti-nuclear” and has resigned from previous governments over the issue, the report says. 

    Now, it’s views have become “more pragmatic”. 

    Recall, yesterday, we published on uranium, which we have been recommending since December 2020. 

    We pointed out that the Sprott Physical Uranium Trust has emerged as a powerful buyer of physical uranium, which in a market as illiquid as uranium, would serve as a powerful catalyst to move prices of both the underlying commodity and various producers sharply higher.

    We also noted how hedge funds were starting to pour into uranium. 

    The difference this time from other uranium pops, we wrote, is that finally the institutions are waking up to what could be a historic surge, especially if the fake ESG lobby starts dumping the bloated FAAMG names and seeks refuge in such “soon to be green” sectors as uranium. Incidentally, the entire Uranium sector is a tiny fraction of Apple’s market cap.

    And while Finland is just a tiny brick in the wall in terms of additional adoption, they represent the obvious direction for energy lobby to eventually focus their efforts on. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/14/2021 – 02:45

  • French Finance Minister Issues Declaration Of Independence… From the US
    French Finance Minister Issues Declaration Of Independence… From the US

    Authored by John V. Walsh via AntiWar.com, 

    “Clear Differences Remain Between France and the U.S, French Minister Says,” is the headline to a remarkable piece appearing in the New York Times this week. The Minister, Bruno Le Maire, is brutally frank on the nature of the differences as the quotations below Illustrate. In fact, they amount to a Declaration of Independence of France and EU from the US.

    It is not surprising that the differences relate to China after the brouhaha over the sale of US nuclear submarines to Australia and the surprising (to the French) cancellation of contracts with France for submarines. Mr. LeMaire, sounding very much like a reproving parent, characterized this as “misbehavior from the US administration.”

    French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire (L) with President Emmanuel Macron, AFP

    Mr. LeMaire made it crystal clear that the disagreement over submarines is symptomatic of deeper differences in world view that have emerged not only in France but in the EU as a consequence of China’s rise. The NYT article states:

    “‘The United States wants to confront China. The European Union wants to engage China,’ Mr. Le Maire, a close ally of President Emmanuel Macron of France, said in a wide-ranging interview ahead of the (IMF) meetings. This was natural, he added, because the United States is the world’s leading power and does not ‘want China to become in a few years or in a few decades the first superpower in the world.

    “Europe’s strategic priority, by contrast, is independence, ‘which means to be able to build more capacities on defense, to defend its own view on the fight against climate change, to defend its own economic interest, to have access to key technologies and not be too dependent on American technologies,’ he said.”

    The article continued, quoting the Finance Minister:

    “The key question now for the European Union, he said, is to become ‘independent from the United States, able to defend its own interests, whether economic or strategic interests.’”

    LeMaire might have pre-ambled that statement with: “When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

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    Still, seasoned diplomat that Mr. LeMaire is, he provided some cold comfort to the naughty US administration, saying, the United States remains “our closest partner” in terms of values, economic model, respect for the rule of law, and embrace of freedom. But with China, he said, “we do not share the same values or economic model.”

    The article continued:

    “Asked if differences over China meant inevitable divergence between the United States and Europe, Mr. Le Maire said, ‘It could be if we are not cautious.’ But every effort should be made to avoid this, which means ‘recognizing Europe as one of the three superpowers in the world for the 21st century,’ alongside the United States and China.”

    The piece concluded;

    “One of the biggest lingering points of contention is over metal tariffs that former President Donald J. Trump imposed globally in 2018. Officials face difficult negotiations in coming weeks. Europeans plan to impose retaliatory tariffs on a range of US products as of Dec. 1, unless Mr. Biden pulls back a 25 percent duty on European steel and a 10 percent tax on aluminum.

    “‘If we want to improve the bilateral economic relationship between the continents, the first step must be for the United States to lift the sanctions in the steel and aluminum case,’ Mr. Le Maire said. ‘We are fed up with the trade wars,’ he added.”

    Shared values are nice, but shared profits are clearly better.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/14/2021 – 02:00

  • The Great New Normal Purge
    The Great New Normal Purge

    Authored by CJ Hopkins via The Consent Factory,

    So, the Great New Normal Purge has begun … right on cue, right by the numbers.

    As we “paranoid conspiracy theorists” have been warning would happen for the past 18 months, people who refuse to convert to the new official ideology are now being segregated, stripped of their jobs, banned from attending schools, denied medical treatment, and otherwise persecuted.

    Relentless official propaganda demonizing “the Unvaccinated” is being pumped out by the corporate and state media, government leaders, health officials, and shrieking fanatics on social media. “The Unvaccinated” are the new official “Untermenschen,” an underclass of subhuman “others” the New Normal masses are being conditioned to hate.

    You can see the hatred in the New Normals’ eyes …

    But it isn’t just a purge of “the Unvaccinated.” Anyone deviating from the official ideology is being systematically demonized and persecuted. In Germany, Australia, and other New Normal countries, protesting the New Normal is officially outlawed. The New Normal Gestapo is going around to people’s homes to interrogate them about their anti-New Normal Facebook posts. Corporations are openly censoring content that contradicts the official narrative. New Normal goon squads roam the streets, checking people’s “vaccination” papers.

    And it’s not just governments and corporations carrying out the New Normal Purge. Friends are purging friends. Wives are purging husbands. Fathers are purging children. Children are purging parents. New Normals are purging old normal thoughts. Global “health authorities” are revising definitions to make them conform to New Normal “science.”

    And so on … a new official “reality” is being manufactured, right before our eyes. Anything and anyone that doesn’t conform to it is being purged, unpersoned, memory-holed, erased.

    None of which should come as a surprise.

    Every nascent totalitarian system, at some stage of its takeover of society, launches a purge of political opponents, ideological dissidents, and other “anti-social deviants.” Such purges can be brief or open-ended, and they can take any number of outward forms, depending on the type of totalitarian system, but you cannot have totalitarianism without them.

    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 (or whatever type of social body it comprises). This fanatical pursuit of total control, absolute ideological uniformity, and the elimination of all dissent, is what makes totalitarianism totalitarianism.

    Thus, each new totalitarian system, at some point in its evolution, needs to launch a purge of those who refuse to conform to its official ideology. It needs to do this for two basic reasons: (1) to segregate or otherwise eliminate actual political opponents and dissidents who pose a threat to the new regime; and (2) and more importantly, to establish the ideological territory within which the masses must now confine themselves in order to avoid being segregated, or eliminated.

    The purge must be conducted openly, brutally, so that the masses understand that the rules of society have changed, forever, that their former rights and freedoms are gone, and that from now on any type of resistance or deviation from official ideology will not be tolerated, and will be ruthlessly punished.

    The purge is usually launched during a “state of emergency,” under imminent threat from some official “enemy” (e.g., “communist infiltrators,” “counter-revolutionaries,” or … you know, a “devastating pandemic”), such that the normal rules of society can be indefinitely suspended “for the sake of survival.” The more terrified the masses can be made, the more willing they will be to surrender their freedom and follow orders, no matter how insane.

    The lifeblood of totalitarianism is fear … fear of both the system’s official enemy (which is constantly stoked with propaganda) and of the totalitarian system itself. That the brutality of the system is rationalized by the threat posed by the official enemy doesn’t make it any less brutal or terrifying. Under totalitarian systems (of any type or scale) fear is a constant and there is no escape from it.

    The masses’ fear is then channeled into hatred … hatred of the official “Untermenschen,” whom the system encourages the masses to scapegoat. Thus, the purge is also a means of allowing the masses to purge themselves of their fear, to transform it into self-righteous hatred and unleash it on the “Untermenschen” instead of the totalitarian system, which, obviously, would be suicidal.

    Every totalitarian system — both the individuals running it and the system, structurally — instinctively understands how all this works. New Normal totalitarianism is no exception.

    Just reflect on what has happened over the last 18 months.

    Day after day, month after month, the masses have been subjected to the most destructive psychological-terror campaign in the history of psychological terror. Sadly, many of them have been reduced to paranoid, anus-puckering invalids, afraid of the outdoors, of human contact, afraid of their own children, afraid of the air, morbidly obsessed with disease and death … and consumed with hatred of “the Unvaccinated.”

    Their hatred, of course, is utterly irrational, the product of fear and propaganda, as hatred of “the Untermenschen” always is. It has absolutely nothing to do with a virus, which even the New Normal authorities admit. “The Unvaccinated” are no more of a threat to anyone than any other human being … except insofar as they threaten the New Normals’ belief in their delusional ideology.

    No, we are way past rationality at this point. We are witnessing the birth of a new form of totalitarianism. Not “communism.” Not “fascism.” Global-capitalist totalitarianism. Pseudo-medical totalitarianism. Pathologized totalitarianism. A form of totalitarianism without a dictator, without a definable ideology. A totalitarianism based on “science,” on “fact,” on “reality,” which it creates itself.

    I don’t know about you, but, so far, it has certainly made quite an impression on me. So much so that I have mostly set aside my satirical schtick to try to understand it … what it actually is, why it is happening, why it is happening now, where it is going, and how to oppose it, or at least disrupt it.

    The way I see it, the next six months will determine how successful the initial stages of the roll-out of this new totalitarianism will be. By April of 2022, either we’ll all be showing our “papers” to the New Normal Gestapo to be able to earn a living, attend a school, dine at a restaurant, travel, and otherwise live our lives, or we will have thrown a monkey wrench into the machinery. I do not expect GloboCap to abandon the roll-out of the New Normal over the longer term — they are clearly committed to implementing it — but we have the power to ruin their opening act (which they’ve been planning and rehearsing for quite some time).

    So, let’s go ahead and do that, shall we? Before we get purged, or unpersoned, or whatever. I’m not sure, as I haven’t seen a “fact-check” yet, but I believe there are some commercial airline pilots in the USA who are showing us the way.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/14/2021 – 00:05

  • Victoria "F*ck The EU" Nuland Is In Moscow Negotiating The Status Of Ukraine's Donbass
    Victoria “F*ck The EU” Nuland Is In Moscow Negotiating The Status Of Ukraine’s Donbass

    Look who’s back in Eastern Europe – this time forced to deal directly with the Kremlin after a half-decade of military and political stalemate in war-torn eastern Ukraine. Victoria “F*ck The EU” Nuland is currently in Moscow for high-level talks with top Russian officials. Among multiple tense issues, there’s reportedly been progress on the situation in eastern Ukraine, related to working out a potential lasting political settlement leading to the cessation of violence there.

    As Biden’s Under Secretary for Political Affairs, Nuland kicked off three days of talks Tuesday and into Wednesday with Yury Ushakov, the top foreign policy aide to Putin. Interestingly the Kremlin agreed to a temporary lifting of travel sanctions against her just to enter the country for the meeting. 

    Nuland leaving the Russian Foreign Ministry after meeting with the deputy foreign minister in Moscow on October 12, via AFP

    After initial meetings, Nuland hailed “the frank, productive review” of US-Russia relations, noting that the two sides are “committed to a stable, predictable relationship,” according to a US Embassy statement. On Tuesday after her arrival she had met with Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, reportedly for more than an hour-and-a-half. 

    The US side has indicated “no breakthroughs” in US-Russia relations as of yet, which comes after a year of sanctions and counter-sanctions targeting diplomats and mutual restrictions on media entities. It’s among the highest level meetings since Putin and Biden’s June summit in Geneva where the two leaders pledged better, frank and open communication – given Nuland is the number three highest official at the State Department.

    While the American delegation hasn’t commented to this level of specifics, Russian media is citing Kremlin deputy chief of staff Dmitry Kozak as saying after Wednesday meetings that “A thorough and constructive dialogue took place regarding the settlement of the conflict in south-east Ukraine.”

    Kozak told the top daily newspaper Kommersant that there’s general agreement over mutual recognition of special autonomy for Donbass – where the Russia-backed, self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic have been in a military stalemate with Ukrainian national forces for the past six years:

    “It was confirmed that the Minsk agreements remain the only basis for a settlement,” he continued. “During the talks, the US confirmed its position… that significant progress towards the settlement of the conflict is unlikely without any agreement on future parameters of Donbass autonomy.

    In other words, giving the region a special status within Ukraine.”

    The reference is to the 2014 peace plan for eastern Ukraine signed by Russia, Ukraine, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), with the mediation also of France and Germany. It’s still considered the only agreed upon basis for any future negotiations and settlement to the still “on hold” conflict. 

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    Commenting on the irony of Nuland – one of the very officials responsible for destabilizing Ukraine in the first place with an obvious agenda to strike at Russia’s influence – now eagerly joining Russian officials at the table in Moscow to talk “peace”, geopolitical analysis site SouthFront recalls:

    As a senior state department official, Nuland took an active part in what transpired in Ukraine back in 2014, namely the Euromaidan. She visited Kiev on several occasions during the height of the protests.

    From 2019 onwards she’s been entirely banned from entering Russia. Her visit on October 11th was completely at the initiative of the American side.

    Nuland who was a part of the “very successful” destabilization efforts in Kiev is now being sent to Moscow in order to foster “stable and predictable” relations.

    But also looming perhaps larger in the background is Russia and China’s growing closeness on a multitude of fronts:

    The developments in Ukraine, as well as in Afghanistan or in the Middle East, are only a pretext for the meeting. The recent US-China tensions and the energy crisis are a much more significant focal point.

    The United States is attempting to take advantage of the energy crisis, as China is one of its main victims. Washington is doing its best to inflict competitive damage to Beijing and to strengthen its own position. Improving on its competitive advantages over the EU comes as an added bonus.

    China, for its part, is drawing closer to Russia, as it has no other choice. As a result of Nord Stream 2, and the United States proving to France, and earlier to Afghanistan, that it is a disloyal “ally”, the EU is likely to grow “fonder” of Russia. This is a worrisome development for Washington in both of these cases.

    Indeed just last Friday Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian issued rare statements on the Nord Stream 2 controversy, stepping firmly into Moscow’s corner.

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    “It is well-known that the Nord Stream 2 project shows energy complementarity between Russia and Europe, and would help resolve the European energy crisis,” Zhao said during those last Friday remarks defending Russia.

    “The U.S., however, to serve its own geopolitical interests and monopolize the European energy market, spares no effort in disrupting and hobbling relevant projects to undermine the interests of Russia and Europe and their cooperation. This wins no support,” the official said. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/13/2021 – 23:45

  • Beijing Is Trapped: China Producer Prices Surge At Fastest Pace In 26 Years
    Beijing Is Trapped: China Producer Prices Surge At Fastest Pace In 26 Years

    China’s factory-gate prices grew at the fastest pace in almost 26 years in September, adding to global inflation risks and putting pressure on local businesses to start passing on higher costs to consumers.  

    The producer price index climbed 10.7% from a year earlier, the highest since November 1995, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed Thursday, far higher than the 9.5% gain in August and hotter than the 10.5% expected.

    On the other hand, consumer prices rose 0.7% last month from a year earlier, lower than a 0.8% gain in the previous month., but Bloomberg notes that for now consumer inflation remains in check because of falling pork prices, even though the removal of most virus controls by the end of September may have helped to boost household spending.

    “The widened gap between PPI and CPI means greater pressure for upstream sectors to pass on rising costs to the downstream,” said Bruce Pang, head of macro and strategy research at China Renaissance Securities Hong Kong.

    And, as we previously warned, the situation is about to get much, much more serious. If the historical correlation between Coal prices and PPI holds, were may be soon looking at a tripling of China’s PPI, which from 10.7% Y/Y in September, is about to soar to 30% or more.

    Needless to say, if Chinese PPI does hit 30%+, even if CPI somehow stay in the single digits, the results would be catastrophic: profit margins would collapse, the plunge in already thin cash flows would lead to even more defaults and supply chain bottlenecks, even as the scramble to obtain commodities “at any price” keeps pushing costs – and PPI – even higher.

    Meanwhile, if producers do try to pass on some of the costs and CPI spikes (the gap between CPI and PPI was already at record wide before the recent surge in coal prices) as it did in the early 90s…

    … then Beijing will have social unrest on its hands.

    There are early signs that producers are starting to pass on higher costs to consumers: the largest soy sauce maker in the country said this week it plans to raise retail prices of its products. At least 13 companies listed on China’s A-share market have announced price hikes this year to address rising costs and tight supply, China Securities Journal reported Thursday.

    And all this is happening as China’s property sector desperately needs a massive liquidity infusion which is – you guessed it – inflationary.

    And while China may be facing its first “galloping inflation” PPI print since the early 90s, it’s only downhill from there, because as Citigroup wrote over the weekend, power cuts (with over 20 provinces, making up >2/3 of China’s GDP, have rolled out electricity-rationing measures since August) and contractionary PMI “seem to suggest China could enter into at least a short period of stagflation.”

    “We think the risk of stagflation is rising in China as well as the rest of the world,” said Zhang Zhiwei, chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management Ltd.

    “Persistent inflationary pressure limits the potential scope of monetary policy easing.”

    And so, Beijing is now trapped: if it eases, inflation – already at nosebleed levels – will soar further crushing margins and sparking a deep stagflationary recession; if it does not ease, the property market – already imploding – will crater.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/13/2021 – 23:25

  • Putin Blasts Accusations Russia Is Weaponizing Natural Gas As "Politically Motivated Blather" 
    Putin Blasts Accusations Russia Is Weaponizing Natural Gas As “Politically Motivated Blather” 

    In Wednesday remarks aimed at Western press, President Vladimir Putin shot down accusations that Russia weaponizing its supplies of natural gas in order to pressure German regulators to quickly approve switching on the taps for the recently completed Nord Stream 2 pipeline. 

    He dismissed recent reports accusing the Kremlin of withholding gas supplies to Europe as “politically motivated blather with nothing to support it”. The statements were given to CNBC in Moscow as part of the annual Russian Energy Week major industry event, with Putin bluntly saying in response, “We are not using any weapons.” 

    The Russian leader added that “Even during the hardest parts of the Cold War Russia regularly has fulfilled its contractual obligations and supplies gas to Europe,” according to the US news network’s translation. 

    Via kremlin.ru

    Last week as Nord Stream 2 critics led by US officials alleged that the Russia-to-Germany pipeline will essentially hold Europe’s energy needs hostage to Russian geopolitical whims, Putin instead pointed to Europe’s ongoing energy market “hysteria” and crisis as being fundamentally a result of the ‘green transition’ coupled with corresponding low investment in the extraction industries.

    In the Wednesday remarks he re-emphasized that there’s “nothing to support it [the idea] that we use energy as a kind of weapon,” but instead the reality is that Russia is busy “expanding its supplies to Europe.” In support of this statement he alluded to state-run Gazprom actually increasing its natural gas flow to Europe by 15% over the first nine months of this year. He added that Russia stands ready to increase its supply if that’s what Europe needs and asks for.

    “Higher gas prices in Europe are a consequence of a deficit of energy and not vice versa and that’s why we should not deal in blame shifting, this is what our partners are trying to do,” Putin said during the panel conversation. He again invoked Europe’s green agenda as playing a big part in its energy costs soaring just ahead of winter:

    “You see the problem does not consist in us, it consists in the European side, because, first, we know that the wind farms did not work during summer because of the weather, everyone knows that. Moreover, the Europeans did not pump enough gas into their underground gas facilities… and the supplies to Europe have decreased from other regions of the world.”

    On oil, elsewhere in the conversation he noted that OPEC+ “is doing everything to ensure that the oil market is completely stabilized. We do not allow sharp price spikes and it is not in our interests.”

    “The market has stabilized, but we have not yet reached the pre- crisis production level of 11 million barrels a day. And our position is to increase production in accordance with the growing needs of the market,” the Russian president said.

    And then there was this exchange during the panel conversation:

    When asked whether oil could reach $100 a barrel, Putin said it’s “quite possible”…

    “We do not seek to restrain production in such a way that prices skyrocket, as it happens in the gas market. We favor smooth and balanced movement.”

    Gazprom too has been on the defensive in the face of the widespread natural gas restriction accusations coming out of Europe, particularly after last week gas supplies through Belarus to the EU were cut by 70%, according to the company’s data. And supplies via Poland too were slashed: “The new figures come after supplies via the Yamal pipeline, which runs from Russia via Belarus to Poland, fell by half last week,” EU Observer wrote.

    “Analysts, such as US investment bank Goldman Sachs, have said the Yamal cuts could lead to higher gas prices in winter,” the report added. 

    But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov recently fired back that Gazprom has fulfilled its current obligations to the maximum extent possible under existing contracts: “Nothing can be delivered beyond the contracts. How? For free? It is a matter of negotiating with Gazprom,” he said.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/13/2021 – 23:05

  • Brandon Smith: If You Don't Respect My Freedoms, I Don't Respect Your Pronouns
    Brandon Smith: If You Don’t Respect My Freedoms, I Don’t Respect Your Pronouns

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

    No group in this world is above ridicule, and that includes the mentally ill. Just because the mentally ill become an organized mob does not mean they are a victim status group deserving of special protection or special treatment. The mentally ill are the LAST people on the planet that should be given the power to dictate the course of society. Madness is, in a way, infectious. Narcissism is poisonous. Psychopathy is radioactive. The majority of humans naturally discriminate against such people because every facet of our biology, every cell of our being warns us that if they are given an ounce of control, destruction will surely follow.

    Human tribes and societies have understood this reality for thousands of years. Our repellent reactions to madness are ingrained in our cellular memory. Just as we instinctually recoil from snakes and spiders we have also learned over millennia to recoil from unhinged minds. But for some reason in the past 5-10 years we are being told to embrace the exact reverse. The insane are now above the rest of us. The insane must be worshiped. The insane are our leaders and role models. Biology is wrong, and the cultural Marxists and woke ideologues are right.

    The new narrative is that truth tellers and rational people are the “insane” ones and they should be watched or possibly locked up.

    I’ve been writing about political correctness and woke culture for a long time now, and I have to say that the developing trends of social justice are not surprising. However, the speed at which they are being forced on the rest of us today is disturbing. One has to wonder if the woke mob is in a rush to meet some kind of propaganda deadline the rest of us are not aware of.

    The gender and “Trans” issues are really at the forefront of leftist ideology these days. If you have observed these people for any length of time you know all about the Oppression Olympics and the intersectional totem pole. And, you are also probably aware that people who claim to be trans earn an automatic spot at the top of that totem pole, well above women, black people, and even your run-of-the-mill gay people. The trans costume is the most powerful of all SJW costumes and imbues a person with unlimited protection no matter how terrible that person might be. It even allows them to dictate the very thoughts and speech of the public at large.

    For example, there is a policy among western governments to allow male convicted criminals who claim to be trans women to be interned in women’s prisons. This allows them to rape female inmates at their leisure while claiming special status. Yet, according to the leftist media it is the men posing as women that are being “victimized” by guards and female inmates. In Britain, they are even passing a law which makes it a crime for prisoners to use the wrong pronouns when referring to a trans inmate.

    It is important to note that the trans identity is a sort of magic ticket for white people in particular. The SJW cult is especially concerned with all white people (mainly white men) as some kind of monstrous threat to the safety and emotional stability of everyone else. If you are a white person within the SJW religion you are immediately hated for your original sin and are relegated to the leftist gutter. They despise your skin color, and no amount of help you give as an “ally” is going to earn you a place among the oh-so-holy oppressed.

    Unless, that is, you say you are trans. Then, as if you have touched the pure hand of the SJW deity, you are suddenly absolved of all your inherent white evil and are given a mantle of divinity. You are better than everyone else, because you are supposedly the most oppressed of them all.

    Maybe this sounds like a bit of exaggeration. Surely I am engaging in hyperbole. I promise you I am not. Western culture is being increasingly segregated by the political left into various tiers of people based on their skin color as well as their sexual orientations and mental instabilities, and the more made-up the orientations and the more volatile the mental instability the more privileges a person is afforded. The patients are truly taking over the asylum.

    I am revisiting this subject because I have noticed a renewed uptick in aggression from leftists on the trans issue, and I suspect this is because they are starting to get more push-back from the public. The latest Dave Chappelle special on Netflix triggered the sensitive snowflakes again simply because Chappelle argues what most of us already know –That gender is a biological fact, not a social construct.

    This has led to numerous angry demands on Twitter to have Chappelle kicked off Netflix and canceled in general. For now it seems as though these demands are being ignored, which is exactly what should be happening everywhere all the time.

    Others, like author JK Rowling, have not been as lucky. And I suspect if Dave Chappelle was white it would be a different story.

    Sometimes people in the middle of the totem pole can get away with criticizing another group in the progressive stack, but if you’re a straight white person there are no allowances.

    Why are people that represent a tiny percentage of the population (around 0.3% or less) being given massive special attention and enjoying unprecedented legal regulations in their favor? Why are states like California going out of their way to force the public to accommodate the tiny trans minority, to the point of passing laws which make it an offense to have separate toy aisles for boys and girls, or trying to make it illegal to ignore a person’s preferred pronouns?

    Again, it seems that leftists (mostly middle-class and rich white progressives) are creating a kind of ultimate victim pass – A way to climb to the top of the totem pole from the very bottom. All they have to do is loudly denounce biological gender and say they are “trans”, and like magic they become part of a new civil rights movement in which they are the righteous “freedom fighters” in a fake revolution for a fake cause.

    Anyone that asserts conflicting viewpoints on the trans issue is usually met with accusations of bigotry and “transphobia.” After all, why should we care about the trans movement getting whatever it wants? Is it because we are prejudiced?

    This is a gaslighting tactic among leftists to deter any criticism of their activities. For most people who argue against corporate marketing and government laws in favor of gender neutrality, our interest is in fighting against the propaganda and disinformation, not fighting against trans people in general.

    There are some real transexual men and women out there that suffer from a disorder called “Gender Dysphoria.” It is an extremely rare condition; a mental illness that is mostly harmless to the rest of society but does cause a high rate of depression and suicide among those that have it. I don’t have any problem with these folks or their existence. What I do have a problem with is social justice Marxists exploiting gender dysphoria as a weapon in their ideological war to tear down western society and replace it with their own dystopian vision.

    The issue here is not about actual trans people, but about respect for freedom of speech and thought. You see, every single facet of the leftist movement is about collectivism and control. They say they care about minorities and their well-being, but they are really just using them to further their own twisted political conquests. Whether we are talking about critical race theory or the transgender movement the end goal is always the same: The leftists want to put themselves in the position of arbiter over what speech is acceptable and what speech is not acceptable.

    Once they are allowed to dictate what is and what is not “hate speech”, they then control ALL speech. Control is obviously the agenda rather than the defense of minorities; all you have to do is examine how they treat minorities that step out of line. Look at how they attack blacks like Dave Chappelle, classic feminists like JK Rowling, gay people like Dave Rubin or even trans conservatives like Blaire White. They are part of the precious totem pole, but as soon as any of these people leave the leftist plantation or speak contrary to the main agenda they are declared heretics and viciously excommunicated.

    The purpose of the trans movement and the purpose of social justice overall is two-fold:

    • The first purpose is to break down the foundations of western society and create chaos so that leftists can replace the existing culture with their own communist framework.

    • The second purpose is to use supposed “victim groups” as a shield from any criticism of their agenda by controlling the language and labeling the people that oppose them as “intolerant.”

    The battle over pronouns is indicative of this agenda because it requires the forced participation of everyone in the delusions of a minority of people with mental instability. It requires that I give respect to someone who hasn’t earned it and is not entitled to it, and call them whatever label they dictate I call them for however long they wish. And if I don’t, I am evil and should be punished by the state or by the mob.

    Imagine if schizophrenics decided to join together into a movement to demand that the rest of society call them by whatever delusional persona they happen to fantasize about that day. A guy suddenly decides that on Monday he is Napoleon Bonaparte or Jesus Christ and I’m supposed to accommodate him or be called a bigot? There is really no difference between this and what the LGBTQ-whatever movement is demanding when it comes to their made-up pronouns.

    I really don’t care if a person wants to declare themselves transgendered. That action by itself doesn’t really affect me and I hope it makes them happy. I think they should seek psychological help because if they really have gender dysphoria then they are statistically far more likely to commit suicide (and it’s not because society makes them commit suicide, there is no evidence to support that claim). Beyond that, as long as they don’t turn their sexual preferences into a political mob then there’s really no conflict. If I really like the person and they are respectful of my personal freedoms, I might even use their pronouns, who knows. Frankly, I don’t think any reasonable person would care about pronouns outside of their own biology.

    The war arises when leftists and the trans people they exploit try to impose their ideology and their views on the rest of us. The fight is over freedom, not over trans people. If you want to control how I talk, how I think and how I live; If you don’t respect my freedoms then I don’t respect you. You are not owed or entitled to respect just because you were born or because you think you are special. You get respect by earning respect. You get respect for your actions, not your identity.

    The world is not here to accommodate you or your pronouns. People are not here to adjust their speech to protect your feelings. Your feelings do not matter. Your pronouns do not matter. You will be measured by your accomplishments and by how much or how little you violate the rights of others. And if your goal is to manipulate or control how the rest of us speak or interact according to our natural biological preferences then perhaps you should start your own society somewhere else? Maybe somewhere far, far away…

    *  *  *

    If you would like to support the work that Alt-Market does while also receiving content on advanced tactics for defeating the globalist agenda, subscribe to our exclusive newsletter The Wild Bunch Dispatch.  Learn more about it HERE.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/13/2021 – 22:45

  • "Into The Trash It Goes": Snowden Slams CIA-Funded 'Encrypted' App Wicker
    “Into The Trash It Goes”: Snowden Slams CIA-Funded ‘Encrypted’ App Wicker

    In 1999, the CIA created In-Q-Tel, a nonprofit investment firm that invests in high-tech startup companies focused on increasing the capacity of US intelligence agencies. The fund has been notable for funding Google and Palantir at very early stages, bringing us to the latest possible investment into encrypted messaging platform Wickr. 

    Vice’s Motherboard was first notified by Jack Poulson, executive director of Tech Inquiry, about In-Q-Tel’s From 990 filed in the fiscal year ending in March 2020. The form details compensation paid to outside contractors and mentions a $1.6 payment to Wickr but doesn’t explain if it was an investment or a purchase order. 

    But deeper within the form, a section reads: “The hallmark of IQT’s strategic an agile model is the development effort—aka work program—where the company collaborates with the startup to tailor a company’s technology to specific government requirements and invests funds towards that work program.”

    Motherboard spoke with Carrie Sessine, senior vice president of marketing and communications at In-Q-Tel, and asked more about the funds sent to Wickr. 

    “In-Q-Tel is a prolific strategic investor, making more than 50 investments each year. Our website features the majority of our portfolio investments. There will always be companies that are not announced publicly, which is common practice in the investment community. In-Q-Tel serves multiple agencies committed to national security including the CIA, FBI, NSA, NGA, NRO, DHS (specifically Customs and Border Protection), DIA, and Air Force,” Sessine said. 

    However, Wickr’s funding profile is nowhere to be found on In-Q-Tel’s public portfolio section on its website.

    In June, Amazon Web Services announced it acquired Wickr. Amazon has been known to have cloud contracts with the CIA. 

    More questions than answers remain about In-Q-Tel’s $1.6 million injection into the end-to-end encrypted messaging app. 

    Edward Snowden responds to Wickr’s CIA funding by tweeting: “Into the trash it goes.”

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

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/13/2021 – 22:25

  • Paradigm Shift? Aussie Cop Quits, Refuses To Enforce COVID Tyranny, Says "Majority" Of Cops Feel The Same
    Paradigm Shift? Aussie Cop Quits, Refuses To Enforce COVID Tyranny, Says “Majority” Of Cops Feel The Same

    Authored by Matt Agorist via The Free Thought Project,

    A female officer with Victoria Police, who served for 16 years, has resigned in protest against the use of police to enforce Covid-19 rules, saying in an interview that a “great majority” of her colleagues shared her sentiments.

    Acting Senior Sergeant Krystle Mitchell has appeared on The Discernible Interviews channel on YouTube on Friday, wearing her dark-blue uniform and revealing that she had been “troubled” by how police resources have been applied during the pandemic by state authorities.

    Victoria Police has been tasked with making sure that people in one of Australia’s most populous states abide by the lockdown restrictions, and with curbing illegal protests against the health rules and vaccination mandates, which often turn violent, resulting in numerous arrests and accusations of police brutality. Melbourne, Victoria’s capital city, holds the world record for longest lockdown.

    Mitchell, who had been working with the gender equality and inclusion command, said that “all of my friends that are police officers that are working the front line and are suffering every day enforcing CHO (Chief Health Officer) directions, that certainly the great majority don’t believe in and don’t want to enforce.”

    The law enforcers were “scaring people in the community,” and she herself felt uneasy when encountering officers in the street while off-duty and wearing civilian clothes, she confessed.

    Some rough behavior by the police during the pandemic might be partially explained by the enforcement approach taken by Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews, Mitchell suggested. 

    “I think that the reason, or the issue, in why perhaps police [are] feeling more emboldened to act the way they are in relation to these harsher actions is because of the messaging that comes from Dan [Andrews],” who tells the law enforcers what to do “on a daily basis,” she said.

    “The consequences of me being here today, is that I will be resigning from Victoria Police, effective the end of this interview because the consequences of me coming out publicly would be dismissal,” Mitchell announced.

    I can’t remedy in my soul any more the way in which my organization, that I love to work for, is being used and the damage that it’s causing in the reputation of Victoria Police and .. to the community.

    Victoria Police confirmed that Mitchell used to be one of their officers, but stressed that her comments in no way reflected the views of the whole force.

    “Victoria Police cannot pick and choose what laws it enforces,” it said in a statement on Saturday, adding that the police “looks forward to the easing of restrictions and the eventual return to pre-COVID life,” just like ordinary residents do.

    As for Mitchell, she would be the subject of a professional standards command investigation over her revelations, according to the statement.

    Several instances of police brutality in the state of Victoria went viral in September at the height of the protests against Covid-19 restrictions in Melbourne. One of the viral clips that caused outrage featured police violently tossing an elderly woman to the ground and pepper-spraying her. In another incident, an officer was filmed slamming a demonstrator onto the pavement, allegedly rendering him unconscious.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/13/2021 – 22:05

  • Feds Deploy Non-Toxic Gas On Subway In Test Of Biological Attack Preparedness
    Feds Deploy Non-Toxic Gas On Subway In Test Of Biological Attack Preparedness

    If you smell something strange during your next subway ride, don’t panic, it’s not a terror attack – it’s just the Feds testing out a new strategy for averting chemical and biological attacks on the country’s largest public transportation system.

    According to NBC 4 New York, the MTA, working in partnership with the Department of Homeland Security and a team of researchers and city agencies, will deploy a non-toxic gas at 120 places across the city. The tests will be carried out on five days between Oct. 18 and Oct. 29.

    Most of the test sites will be above ground, including in some parks. But an unknown number of tests will be carried out below ground in subway stations across the city (exact details aren’t being released to the public).

    The public is advised: should one happen to stumble upon a test site, the gas is non-toxic and poses no public health risk.

    Although details are slim, the study is intended to simulate “the aerosol release of a biological agent in a densely populated urban environment.”

    “The study will track movement of non-toxic material and the results from these tests will be used to learn more about the relationship between airflow in street level and underground environments,” the MTA said.

    Commuters who encounter test sites will likely see teams of researchers around. The study is part of a secretive federal campaign called the Urban Threat Dispersion program. Testing has taken place in NYC before back in 2016, while cities like Washington DC and Boston have also been tested.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/13/2021 – 21:45

  • Taibbi: Konstantin Kilimnik, Russiagate's Last Fall Guy, Speaks Out
    Taibbi: Konstantin Kilimnik, Russiagate’s Last Fall Guy, Speaks Out

    Authored by Matt Taibbi via TK News,

    On Real Time With Bill Maher two Fridays ago, I fumbled and deflected politely over a Russiagate question, instead of going full cage match. The segment went off the rails beginning with this exchange:

    MAHER: You compared it to WMDs. You said, the Russia connection with Trump is this generation’s WMD. I don’t think that’s an accurate analogy, because there were no WMDs. But there was collusion with Russia.

    TAIBBI: Really? Where?

    MAHER: Where? The Senate Intelligence Committee, run by Republicans, who are if anything slavish to Trump, their report said, “The Trump campaign’s interactions with Russian intelligence services during the 2016 presidential election posed a ‘grave’ counterintelligence threat.”

    First of all, that quote isn’t from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) report from last August. It’s actually a paraphrase of the report from an Associated Press article, “Trump campaign’s Russia contacts ‘grave’ threat, Senate says,” which reads:

    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump campaign’s interactions with Russian intelligence services during the 2016 presidential election posed a “grave” counterintelligence threat, a Senate panel concluded Tuesday…

    The real SSCI quote is a little different:

    Taken as a whole, Manafort’s high-level access and willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services, particularly Kilimnik and associates of Oleg Deripaska, represented a grave counterintelligence threat.

    By all rights, Russiagate should be dead as a serious news story. But as the Real Time episode showed, “collusion” is still alive for some, and the bulk of the case essentially rests now upon the characterization of one person from the above passage as a Russian agent: a former aide to Paul Manafort named Konstantin Kilimnik.

    Kilimnik is a Ukrainian-American who’d served in the army and was hired to work as a translator at the American-funded International Republican Institute in Moscow beginning in the mid-nineties. In 2005, he left the IRI to go work for Paul Manafort, who was advising future president Viktor Yanukovich and the “Party of Regions” in Ukraine.

    As it happens, Kilimnik worked at the IRI in Moscow during the same time I lived in that city in the nineties and early 2000s. In fact, he was well-known enough in that small expatriate community that in the space of a day last week I was able to reach, through mutual acquaintances, five of Kilimnik’s former colleagues, including three from the IRI and one from the U.S. State Department, to whom he was a regular and valuable contact (the Senate investigators left that fact out). I also called Kilimnik and had two lengthy interviews with him.

    Why bring this up? Because in that little flurry of calls, I did more actual work on Konstantin Kilimnik than either the Special Counsel or SSCI researchers, who ostensibly spent thousands of man-hours investigating him.

    Kilimnik being a spy wouldn’t just mean that the Trump campaign had been penetrated. It would mean the same thing for the IRI, which was chaired by late Senator and leading proponent of the Russiagate theory John McCain at the time. More to the point, it would also be disastrous for the State Department, and particularly for the U.S. embassy in Ukraine, whose staffers placed great trust in “KK” as a regular source.

    The FBI’s own declassified reports show Kilimnik met with the head of the Kiev embassy’s political section “at least biweekly” during his time working with Manafort and Yanukovitch, adding that he “displayed good knowledge and seemed to know what was going on,” and came across as “less slanted” than other sources, among many other things. This fits with what I was told by multiple former colleagues of Kilimnik’s, that staffers in the Kiev embassy valued his analyses above those of some Americans in Yanukovitch’s orbit. (A third former co-worker was a little more blunt about what he heard, saying the Kiev embassy was “sucking his dick”).

    They also show the embassy was so intent on protecting Kilimnik’s identity as a State Department source that they pulled his name out of diplomatic cables sent home:

    Kilimnik says he “played a certain role in communication with the Western embassies in Kiev” both before and after the “Euromaidan” Revolution in 2014. “I tried to draw attention to facts about thugs attacking TV channels and opposition politicians, and things like [an arson attack against “InterTV” in 2016],” he says, adding that he “naively thought the West would stand for media freedom and protecting rules for fair play in politics, like it has for many years.”

    The only reason nobody’s asked the Senate Committee why Kilimnik’s alleged spy status doesn’t also represent a “grave” embarrassment to, say, the U.S. State Department is because our press corps is the most dogshit on earth (more on that in a moment).

    Special Counsel Robert Mueller claimed the FBI spoke to an IRI employee who said Kilimnik was “fired from his post because his links to Russian intelligence were too strong.” Though not all the IRI staffers I reached liked Kilimnik, each found the idea that he might be a spy alternately ridiculous and baffling. Multiple ex-colleagues said they believed he was fired for “moonlighting,” i.e. because he’d already started working for Manafort.

    “I was actually moonlighting. It was a funny story,” Kilimnik says (for a more complete explanation, see the Q&A below).

    As to the idea that it was known around the IRI office that Kilimnik had intelligence ties, one former senior IRI official said, “I think whoever said that, that’s someone trying to feel more important in retrospect,” adding that the idea that he was “some GRU plant from years gone by” was questionable because the Russians “didn’t know their right from their left back then, and the IRI could not described as a high-value target.” The official concluded: “I find the notion that Kilimnik is now this big figure remarkable.” None of former employees of the Moscow IRI office I spoke with had been contacted by any American investigator, including Mueller.

    Then there’s the matter of the suspect himself. Question to Kilimnik: how many times was he questioned by American authorities, with whom he was so familiar — remember he met with American officials “at least biweekly” at one point pre-Trump — during the entire Russiagate period?

    “Not a single person from the U.S. Government ever reached out to me,” Kilimnik says.

    Nobody from the Office of the Special Counsel, the FBI, or the Senate Intelligence Committee ever contacted him?

    “Not once,” Kilimnik says. “Nobody from Mueller’s team reached out to me, literally nobody.”

    In reaching Kilimnik last week I also became just the second American reporter, after Aaron Maté of RealClear Investigations and Grayzone, to call Kilimnik for comment on the Senate report. Virtually every American news organization or TV commentary program has in the last year repeated accusations against Kilimnik made by either the Senate Intelligence Committee or the U.S. Treasury Department, which earlier this year called him a “Russian Intelligence Services agent” in an announcement of sanctions against Russia.

    It was once normal practice in American media to give people a chance to respond to serious allegations, but no longer, apparently. “Zero. Zero,” says Kilimnik, when asked how many American media outlets called him after the release of the Senate report. Incidentally, Kilimnik isn’t hiding under a snow-covered trap door at a secret FSB installation outside Izhievsk. He’s in an apartment in Northwest Moscow, where anyone could find him.

    “Everybody knows my phone number. It was in Mueller’s reports,” he says. “But I got no questions. I mean, a lot of people know how to find me. I guess they just didn’t care.”

    Kilimnik was even on the list of 16 entities and 16 individuals the Treasury just this year said “attempted to influence the 2020 U.S. presidential election at the direction of the leadership of the Russian Government.” That’s the 2020 election, not the 2016 election, meaning the one that came after the Senate report.

    “The US actually sanctioned me for interference in 2020 elections,” Kilimnik says. “I would not be able to say why. I’d love to know. I’ve been sitting in fucking Moscow, in my backyard, and feeding squirrels. Must have been some sort of interference.”

    The aforementioned Maté published photos of Kilimnik’s passport that appear to show he entered the U.S. on a visa stamped in a regular Russian passport on October 28, 1997. This is the same date the Senate committee said he was entering the United States on a diplomatic passport. The Senate also said Kilimnik met with Manafort in Spain in 2017, which he denies. “I’ve never been to Spain,” Kilimnik laughs. “I haven’t been there. Let them prove I’ve been there.”

    Another thing that came up on Real Time was the idea that we shouldn’t dismiss the monetarily tiny Russian Facebook campaign — featuring classics that ironically read like Real Time bits, with images of Jesus pleading with American voters, “Struggling with addiction to masturbation? Reach out to me and we’ll beat it together” — because “9/11 didn’t cost much either”:

    I oversold things on the air, talking about how the Internet Research Agency only spent $100,000, as only $44,000 of that was before the campaign. More importantly, only a tiny percentage of ads qualified as coherent propaganda. I’d wager few Americans have actually read through all these ads, which have messages like, “Tell me once again that there’s no such thing as white privilege,” “Stop Trump and his bigoted agenda!”, and “Share the experience and the challenges of the black hair industry.” Overall, for 2016, they read like a creepy, overambitious parody of woke culture, with a tinge of Charlie Manson’s “Helter Skelter” plan thrown in. Whatever it is/was, it’s pretty far from 9/11:

    Kilimnik stands accused of helping Evil Von Putin aim this high-tech weapon. How? Senate investigators said, “Manafort briefed Kilimnik on sensitive Campaign polling data and the Campaign’s strategy for beating Hillary Clinton.” What was sensitive about it?

    “That’s bullshit. There was nothing that resembled ‘sensitive’ polling data,” Kilimnik says. “I would get two figures maybe once a month, not every day, not every week.”

    Two figures — meaning two pages?

    “Two digits,” he says. “Like, ‘Trump 40, Hillary 45.’ That’s all I would get, nothing more. So I don’t understand how this is sensitive data.”

    Kilimnik was getting his information from former Trump deputy campaign chief Rick Gates, who was directed to send the data to Kilimnik by Manafort. None other than Rachel Maddow once called Gates “Mueller’s star cooperating witness.” I called Gates last week and asked: what was he passing to Kilimnik?

    “Top-line data, and I want people to understand what that means,” he says. “It was like, ‘Ohio, Clinton 48, Trump 50,’ Or, ‘Wisconsin, Trump 50, Clinton 42.’ The sources were a combination of things like RealClear Politics and occasionally some numbers from [Republican pollster] Tony Fabrizio. But it was all just top-line stuff.”

    Gates’s story is that Manafort was passing this data back to people like his longtime sponsors, the Ukrainian barons Rinat Akhmetov and Sergei Lyvochkin, because “Paul was just trying to show that Trump was doing well,” as “Paul was just trying to do what he’s always done,” i.e. trying to show how valuable he could be.

    For those disinclined to believing the Gates or Kilimnik version of events, remember that neither Mueller nor the Senate Intelligence Committee could come up with a different one. Apart from adding “sensitive” to their description (Mueller just called it “internal polling data”), the Senate never offered evidence that Kilimnik was getting more than those few numbers. As to why Kilimnik was sent this information, this is what the Senate had to say:

    The Committee was unable to reliably determine why Manafort shared sensitive internal polling data or Campaign strategy with Kilimnik. Manafort and Gates both claimed that it was part of an effort to resolve past business disputes and obtain new work with their past Russian and Ukrainian clients by showcasing Manafort’s success.

    Why “sensitive?” The Committee was “unable to reliably determine” why, having no idea what Kilimnik did with those numbers. But they were sure enough it was bad to conclude it represented a “grave counterintelligence threat.”

    Kilimnik is roughly the twentieth suspect in a long list of alleged secret conduits that across five years have already been tried out and discarded by pundits and investigators alike as “smoking gun” links between Trump and Putin.

    An abbreviated list:

    There was a Maltese professor named Josef Mifsud and a young Trump aide named George Papadopoulos, former Trump adviser Carter Page, an alleged “secret server” supposedly pinging between Trump and Alfa Bank, former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser J.D. Gordon, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, the Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, real estate developer Felix Sater, another Russian who approached Trump people claiming to have dirt on Hillary Clinton named Henry Oknyansky, a Russian firm called Concord Consulting, plus Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, and many others.

    The pattern with all of these “smoking gun” cases was the same. At first, there would be a great press hullaballoo, complete with front-page media profiles and heated straight-to-camera monologues at the tops of cable commentary shows over “Breaking News” chyrons:

    Freakouts would be long, but months or years later, narratives would collapse. Ambassador Sergei Kislyak was everyone’s favorite suspect in the summer of 2016 for having done everything from rig the Republican convention platform to turning Sessions into a spy, but then Mueller quietly said Kisylak’s interactions with Trump officials in those months were “brief, public, and non-substantive.” Reporters howled that Christopher Steele was right about Cohen meeting Russian hackers in Prague to help rig the 2016 race, and even claimed (see above) that Mueller was about to release evidence of it any minute, until Mueller said flatly, “Cohen… never traveled to Prague.”

    The saddest case involved Carter Page. Steele’s Dossier identified Page — not Vladimir Putin, Julian Assange, or even Donald Trump — as the mastermind of the Wikileaks leak:

    The aim of leaking the DNC e-mails to WikiLeaks during the Democratic Convention had been to swing supporters of Bernie SANDERS away from Hillary CLINTON and across to TRUMP… This objective had been conceived and promoted, inter alia, by TRUMP’s foreign policy adviser Carter PAGE…

    Steele also had Page negotiating a massive bribe via the oil company Rosneft in exchange for the dropping of sanctions, and acting as the personal intermediary between Paul Manafort and the Kremlin. Page, not knowing he was being spied upon, told an FBI informant that August that he had “literally never met” or “said one word to” Paul Manafort, even going so far as to complain that Manafort never answered his emails. The FBI sat on this information, and wrote up a secret surveillance warrant application that read:

    Sub-Source reported that the conspiracy was being managed by Candidate’s then campaign manager, who was using, among others, foreign policy advisor Carter Page as an intermediary…

    It wasn’t until the report by Inspector General Michael Horowitz came out in December of 2019 that the world found out that the FBI not only “did not have information corroborating the specific allegations against Carter Page,” but had covered up Page’s history as an informant for the CIA, very much like the Senate and the Treasury are now covering up Kilimnik’s status as a U.S. State Department source.

    Kilimnik is just the last person on the list, and he’s conveniently in Moscow, unlikely to ever come back here to defend himself. As such, he’s the perfect fall guy for the marooned-Japanese-soldier-type holdouts on Russiagate who think the collusion narrative is still viable. More from Kilimnik:

    TK: You were described by the Senate Intelligence Committee as a “Russian Intelligence Officer.” Are you one?

    Konstantin Kilimnik: I have not had any relationship with any intelligence agency. Not with U.S. intelligence, not the Ukrainian, Russian, Zimbabwean, whatever. I’m a consultant who has worked for many years running elections in Ukraine. I just haven’t had any relationship with any intelligence, and haven’t seen any facts proving otherwise.

    I think the investigation was so politically charged from the beginning, that they just needed to find a Russian body that they could just put as much dirt as possible on. Ultimately, nobody is going to care, because all the Russians are considered to be bad anyhow, they’re all spies.

    TK: The intelligence community in the U.S. seems unanimous in their conclusion that Russians interfered in the 2016 and 2020 elections. Did they not?

    Konstantin Kilimnik: I don’t think Russians interfered… I know that runs counter to all the conclusions of the intelligence community and all that country to all the intelligence and press and all that. And maybe there were other efforts, as well. But, I was not involved in any of that.

    There was a lot of misinformation, just because the public wanted someone, and I just happened to be that person thrown into the mix. If I had Hungarian citizenship or any other citizenship, of course, people would not have given my name. They just needed the Russian connection, and I happened to be that unfortunate Russian connection.

    TK: The Mueller report claims an IRI employee believed you were “fired from his post because his links to Russian intelligence were too strong.” Others say you were “moonlighting.” Why did you leave the IRI?

    Konstantin Kilimnik: I was actually moonlighting. It was a funny story. I was looking for ways to move on, because by 2005 I had been at IRI for 10 years. Some time in mid-2004 an old IRI pal, Phil Griffin, reemerged and proposed a well-paying job of going to Ukraine and writing analyses of what was going on during the Orange Revolution, for Manafort.

    So, I went there after not having been to Ukraine for over 10 years. I was ecstatic about Kiev and got seriously interested in what was going on politically… Manafort, Griffin and I (as a translator) went to Donetsk in, I think, November 2004 to meet some guy I had no previous knowledge of (who turned out to be Rinat Akhmetov’s closest confidant, Borys Kolesnikov). Manafort and he spoke for several days and got convinced that the “Donetsk guys” were not even close to being thugs they had been portrayed by the Western media to be. I went back a couple of times to translate for these meetings, which I thought were not in any conflict with my work at IRI Moscow.

    Then, the government in Ukraine changed. [Viktor] Yuschenko became the President, Manafort was in negotiations about the contract, and I almost forgot about my short translation jobs. In April 2005, we were at an IRI retreat, and my boss, director of Europe and Eurasia programs Steve Nix got a tip from the new President’s office that “Donetsk thugs” were looking to hire an American consultant, and that a guy who seemed to work at IRI was helping in the process.

    Steve, who was very pro-Yuschenko, completely freaked out, and accused me of working for criminals. I said that a) I was doing this in my free time, 2) this did not conflict in any way with my job at IRI Russia, and 3) maybe things are not so straightforward in Ukrainian politics, and there are no guys in black and white hats, but mostly gray hats. He disagreed and demanded I resign, which I did.

    TK: The Senate claims you met Manafort in Spain in 2017. Did you?

    Konstantin Kilimnik: I have never been to Spain. (laughter)…I have not been there. They can’t prove that. And yet they’ve inserted that. And yet, that’s central to what they’re saying.

    Europe is specific place in terms of passports and immigration. To cross the border, you have to give your fingerprints, and upon any re-entry too. If I went to Spain, I can guarantee that, first of all, Europe keeps a record of that. They would say that I have crossed the border at a certain time in a certain place. And that would be okay because, again, it’s all tied to the fingerprints. You cannot get into the EU without this. You can’t fake it. So let them prove it.

    TK: You’ve been accused of obtaining that “sensitive polling data” for Oleg Deripaska. Was that right?

    Konstantin Kilimnik: No, Deripaska was a Russian businessman. I actually didn’t have any contact with him. There were Ukrainian businessmen and Ukrainian politicians in 2016 who were in opposition, and who were actually under pressure from Petro Poroshenko’s government. Naturally, for them, any change, opening a channel into the U.S. Government, that for them would have been a great thing. So that’s why they were interested in the outcome of the elections. There was no Russian connection whatsoever. If there were, they would have a record of me talking to Deripaska or visiting him.

    TK: You never had any contact with Deripaska?

    Konstantin Kilimnik: No, I haven’t met him since, I’m afraid to be exact, but like 2006, I think was the last time I saw him. I was translating for Manafort. But after that, Manafort spoke to him himself, because Deripaska spoke the language by then. And there was no need for me.

    Part 2 of my interview with Konstantin Kilimnik is coming later this week.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/13/2021 – 21:25

  • NIH-Backed Study Finds Moderna, Pfizer Boosters Work Best
    NIH-Backed Study Finds Moderna, Pfizer Boosters Work Best

    After months of dithering about the potential safety risks of mixing and matching various approved COVID vaccines, a long-running NIH-sponsored study has found that patients can safely and effectively receive booster shots from any of the major approved vaccines, even as the FDA’s vaccine advisory committee has sounded lukewarm about the prospect of approving booster jabs for all adults over the age of 18.

    According to Bloomberg, the complicated 9-arm trial involved over 450 people and measured the effects from giving a booster shot of the Moderna, Pfizer, BioNTech or J&J vaccines to those who had originally gotten a different vaccine. The data showed that the new jabs increased patients’ levels of neutralizing antibodies, sometimes by more than would be expected if they received a third jab of the same vaccine they had received initially.

    “These data suggest that if a vaccine is approved or authorized as a booster, an immune response will be generated regardless of the primary Covid-19 vaccination regimen,” the researchers said in their conclusion.

    In the abstract from the preprint of the study (which can be found on medrxiv.org) the researchers claimed they were embarking on this research because of the persistent breakthrough infections that continue to occur in some patients. While “homologous” mRNA booster jabs have received approval in some jurisdictions (Israel, and now the EUA, are now allowing some patients to receive a third dose of whatever initial jab they received)

    In total, 458 individuals were enrolled: 154 received mRNA-1273 (Moderna), 150 received Ad26.CoV2.S (J&J), and 154 received BNT162b2 (Pfizer) booster vaccines. The study was sponsored and primarily funded by the NIH.

    Participants were divided into nine groups with roughly 50 volunteers in each. Those who initially got the two-dose Moderna vaccine got either another Moderna shot, a Pfizer shot or a J&J shot as a booster four to six months after their primary immunization.

    People who got the two-dose Pfizer vaccine got either another Pfizer shot or a Moderna or J&J booster. And people who got the one-shot J&J vaccine, either got another J&J shot, or a Moderna or Pfizer booster. Antibody levels were then measured at two weeks and four weeks after the booster dose.

    Data showed that homologous boosters increased neutralizing antibodies by 4.2-20-fold while heterologous boosters created an increase of 6.2-76-fold. The conclusion: Conclusion: “Homologous and heterologous booster vaccinations were well-tolerated and immunogenic in adults who completed a primary Covid-19 vaccine regimen at least 12 weeks earlier.”

    Notably, the study found that for patients who initially received the J&J jab, switching to an mRNA jab (Pfizer’s or Moderna’) for the booster dose might afford them better protection. Regardless of the initial jab, Pfizer and Moderna boosters appeared to work best.

    More detail about the study are expected Friday afternoon during a meeting of an FDA advisory panel, where researchers conducting the trial are scheduled to give a presentation on their early findings. A panel will also meet Thursday to deliberate over Moderna’s application for booster-jab approval.

    Find the full pre-print below:

    2021.10.10.21264827v1.full by Joseph Adinolfi Jr. on Scribd

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/13/2021 – 21:05

  • Victor Davis Hanson: The Left Got What It Wanted – So Now What?
    Victor Davis Hanson: The Left Got What It Wanted – So Now What?

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via AmGreatness.com,

    There is no schadenfreude in seeing the Left destroy everything it touches – because its claws tear all of us as well…

    What was the purpose for the insane opposition of the Left between 2017 and 2021? To usher in a planned nihilism, an incompetent chaos, a honed anarchy to wreck the country in less than a year?

    Then

    No sooner had Donald Trump entered office than scores of House Democrats filed motions for impeachment, apparently for thought crimes that he might, some day, in theory, could possibly commit.

    Foreign Policy published an article by a liberal Obama Administration lawyer outlining all the ways to remove an elected president as soon as possible—including consideration of a military coup. 

    The FBI and the entrenched bureaucrats at the Justice Department continued their prior failed efforts during the campaign to seed the lies of the fabricated Steele dossier and Fusion GPS. A 22-month-long and $40 million hoax ended with the special counsel himself, a doddering Robert Mueller, swearing under oath that he essentially knew nothing about the dossier or Fusion GPS—the twin catalysts that had prompted his very own investigation. 

    Fired FBI Director James Comey—a lion on Twitter, and a lamb when under oath—on over 240 occasions testified to the Congress that he either did not know or could not remember, when asked details about the collusion fraud that the philosopher G-man had helped perpetuate. 

    No one worried about the weaponization of government. So, we went right from the nefarious legacy of John Brennan (who lied under oath to Congress twice), James Clapper (who lied under oath to Congress once), James Comey (who leaked confidential presidential memos), Andrew McCabe (who gave false testimony to federal investigators), Lisa Page (who was fired from the special counsel’s legal team for various unprofessional conduct), Peter Strzok (about whom there is not enough space to detail his transgressions), and the now convicted felon Kevin Clinesmith onto the next round of impeachments. 

    Two of them followed. Neither was conducted by a special counsel. There was no array of witnesses, no prosecutorial report. Much less were there formal charges of a specific high crime or misdemeanor, or bribery or treason, as specified by the Constitution. 

    In the end, both farces ended in trials—but not before the Left had established lots of baleful precedents. Impeachment is now simply a tool to embarrass a president in his first term when he has lost the House. A Senate trial could hound an innocent president, even as a private citizen out of office. And a chief justice need not preside over the Senate trial. If and when Joe Biden loses the House, the Left should applaud any attempt to impeach him—given it established the new model of opposition.

    Of the January 6 debacle, we were not told that it was a riot involving lawbreakers who would be punished. Instead, we were lied to that it was an “armed insurrection,” a “coup,” and “a rebellion” of massive proportions. 

    Our esteemed retired military and civil libertarians who had damned the mere thought of using federal troops to quell the prior four summer months of continuous rioting were suddenly happy to see 25,000 federal soldiers patrol Washington to hound out fantasy second-wave insurrectionists. In Animal Farm fashion, there were now to be good federal troops deterring mythical violent domestic extremists, but bad federal troops who should never stop real, ongoing mayhem in the streets.

    It mattered nothing that “armed” in the case of January 6 meant that no firearms were used or even found among the protestors. No one was charged with conspiracy, insurrection, or racketeering. But many were placed in solitary confinement without specific charges being filed—to the utter delight of liberal groups like the ACLU and human rights organizations.

    The FBI—recently known mostly for spreading Hillary Clinton’s campaign collusion hoax—found no premeditated grand plot. The remaining media narratives were also untrue: Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick was not murdered, but died tragically of a stroke the next day. Five persons were not “killed.” Four who died were Trump supporters. Only one of the five deaths occurred at the hand of a known other—a 14-year military veteran, unarmed, 110-pound female Ashli Babbitt. She was fatally shot while attempting to enter through a window of the Capitol by a law-enforcement officer—to the frequent approbation of the left-wing commentariat. The officer’s name was hidden for months from the public—something conspicuously uncharacteristic in other cases where law enforcement officers are involved in shooting unarmed suspects. 

    Videos surrounding the entire melee still have been repressed. They likely will never be released. That infamous day remains in dire contrast to the prior 120 days of continuous rioting, looting, and arson. In the election-year summer 2020, federal courthouses and iconic buildings were torched. Nearly $2 billion worth of property was destroyed and 28 were killed. 

    Yet current Vice President Kamala Harris rallied the public to help bail out the arrested. And the architect of the “1619 Project” reassured Americans that crimes against property like arson and looting are not really violence per se. The weeks of “spontaneous” mayhem magically vanished after November 3, 2020. Note that esteemed medical professionals argued that BLM protestors who flooded the streets were exempt from quarantine, social distancing, and mask requirements, given their higher morality. There are now good riots and bad ones, and noble sustained silence about a noble officer who lethally shoots an unarmed suspect, and noble immediate outing of an ignoble officer who lethally shoots an unarmed suspect.

    These were merely the main media distortions and fixations over the last four years. We forget the daily craziness such as a president’s calls to foreign heads of state routinely leaked or the FBI director passing on confidential memos of private presidential conversations to the liberal press, or the “whistleblower” who was not a whistleblower as much as a Democratic operative. The media nadir came when the press bellowed that Trump had overfed a fish.

    An array of retired four-stars damned their president as Hitlerian, Mussolini-like, and deserving an early exit from office. Their superior morality naturally excused them from abiding by the Uniform Code of Military Justice. 

    The New York Times falsely identified a minor Trump Administration bureaucrat (“anonymous”) as a major conservative truth-teller—once he thrilled the media by lying that a large, morally superior, inside cabal was devoted to obstructing the implementation of a president’s orders. Everyone from Hillary Clinton to an active FBI lawyer bragged of joining the “Resistance,” with plenty of conspiratorial retro-accusations that the 2016 election was “rigged.”

    All that was a warm-up for the plague year in which Donald Trump was blamed for every COVID death. His medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci was deified, due largely to his coy opposition to the president he was supposed to serve. 

    Both the current president and vice president had, less than a year ago, urged Americans not to be vaccinated, given their own reluctance to take a “Trump” vaccine. At least the anti-vaxxers had consistent opposition to the experimental inoculations; in contrast, the anti-Trumper anti-vaxxers merely saw sabotaging the 2020 vaccination program as necessary to be in a position to claim it as their own in 2021.

    Now

    What did all that madness achieve? Mostly, the first election in U.S. history in which over 100 million ballots were not cast on Election Day. Strangely, with such an avalanche of ballots, the usual error rate of absentee balloting dived from around 2-4 percent to 0.2-0.4 percent. You see, when we suddenly must count tens of millions more paper ballots then it becomes easier, not harder, to spot errors.

    So, the Left won its Pyrrhic victory. 

    The nation was done with the demonized Trump and now the Left controlled the presidency, and both houses of Congress. Somnolent Ol’ Joe Biden from Scranton pledged to heal the nation as he overturned his predecessor’s supposedly disastrous policies and went on a rampage of slandering his opponents. If Donald Trump was once damned as non compos mentis, the same media and academic accusers kept mum as Biden shuffled, fell, went mute, slurred words, and went off on angry, disjointed, and incoherent riffs.

    What followed was a concerted effort to destroy the Trump record: the greatest level of combined annual natural gas and oil production in any nation’s history, record low minority unemployment and near record peacetime, general unemployment, a border secure and illegal immigration finally under control, and a New Middle East in which Israel and its Arab enemies concluded neutrality pacts. China was put on notice for its past mockery of global norms. Inflation was low, growth was good. “Stagflation” was still a rarely remembered word from the past.

    And again, what was all that Pavlovian nihilism to achieve? 

    Within eight months the following was finalized: Joe Biden utterly destroyed the idea of a border. Some 2 million were scheduled to cross illegally in the current fiscal year. The sheer inhumanity of deplorable conditions at the border surpassed any notion of the “cages” Donald Trump, in fact, had inherited from the humanitarian Barack Obama. 

    A war almost immediately broke out in the Middle East, once Biden distanced the United States from Israel and rebooted the radical Palestinian cause. 

    The Taliban defeated the 20-year effort of the United States in Afghanistan, in the most humiliating withdrawal of the American military in over 45 years. Tens of billions of dollars of abandoned military equipment now arm the Taliban and have turned Afghanistan into a world arms mart for terrorists. Iran is emboldened and speeds up its nuclear proliferation efforts. China brags that the United States has been Afghanistanized and will not defend its allies, Taiwan in particular. 

    At home, gas prices have soared. Prior trillion-dollar deficits now seem financially prudent in comparison to multitrillion-dollar red ink. The nation is more racially polarized than at any time in the last half-century. A bleak and venomous woke creed has outdone the hate and fear of the McCarthyism of the 1950s, as it wages war on half the nation for various thought crimes and the incorrect idea that the United States was, is, and always will be a kind and humane place.

    More will likely have died each day from COVID by year’s end during the Biden first 12 months than during Trump’s last 12 months. That statistic perhaps might have been meaningless had Biden himself not demagogued the idea that a president is strangely responsible for all pandemic deaths on his watch. 

    But then again, Biden had warped the pandemic narrative only after he had inherited the Trump vaccination program (17 million vaccinated by Inauguration Day). Biden was wrongly and prematurely convinced that vaxxes were a permanent prophylaxis to any sort of COVID variants that would simply disappear once he took office. Depending on the occasion, Biden claims none, or just 4 million, were vaxxed until he took office, as truth and fantasies waft through his cloudy cognition.

    With Biden came not just woke polarization, stagflation, a subsidized ennui that erodes the work ethic, and selective nonenforcement of existing laws: Worse, still, we got a bankrupt ideological defense of these insanities. Critical legal theory, critical race theory, and a new monetary theory were all dreamed up by parlor academics to justify the nihilism. 

    Did America ever believe that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would trash his commander in chief as Hitlerian to journalist hitmen, or allegedly denounce news organizations as “terrorists,” or interrupt the chain of command on a prompt by the Speaker of the House, or warn the Chinese military that he believed there was enough instability in the White House to justify a promise to warn of any impending U.S. military action against Beijing deemed offensive? Was General Milley suffering from the very “white rage” he sought to ferret out?

    With Biden, China is now omnipresent in the halls of power. A task of our chief COVID advisor, Anthony Fauci, seems to be to deny repeatedly that his stealthy funding of gain-of-function research at the Wuhan virology lab in China had anything to do with the likely accidental release of a likely human engineered and energized coronavirus. Americans still cannot even imagine that their government might have helped subsidize the plague germ that has wrought such havoc upon them.

    Meanwhile the president’s son still owns a 10 percent cut in a communist Chinese government-affiliated financial venture, apparently due to his prior drug-addled record of financial mismanagement. The media still insists Hunter Biden’s laptop was “Russian disinformation,” while his paint-by-numbers art is auctioned off to foreign lobbyists expecting a return of the old days when Hunter and Joe grandly arrived on Air Force Two to do their bidding. 

    What did the Left leave as the proper model for conservatives now to deal with Biden? 

    Impeach him when he loses the House? Get a special counsel, lavish said counsel with $40 million, a dream team of right-wing lawyers, and 22 months to find real Chinese collusion? 

    Start seeding a conservative version of Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman and an “anonymous” whistleblower inside the Biden octopus? 

    Get retired four-star generals on TV to swear Biden is a Chinese “asset,” or have them retweet the idea of sending Biden supporters to China, or swear that he is a fascist? Bring back Woodward and Bernstein to find out whether Biden, Inc. ever paid taxes on all that Chinese and Ukrainian cash? 

    Call in the ubiquitous Dr. Bandy X. Lee from Yale to administer the Montreal Cognitive Assessment to prove that Biden can distinguish a camel from an elephant or a train from a bike or count backwards from five? 

    Will the Right prod General Mark Milley’s replacement to collude with soon-to-be Speaker Kevin McCarthy and call the Russians to warn them that Biden is demented, democracy is “messy,” Kamala Harris is crazy, and thus Moscow might need a warning from us about any Biden preemptive aggression?

    And what of the people who voted for this change and the media that empowered it? In the latest Quinnipiac poll, known for its liberal affinities, Biden now earns a 38 percent approval rating. We should add a few extra negative points given media bias. Do they suffer buyer’s remorse or angst that they were lied to by the hard Left that Joe Biden was cognizant and not a mere vessel for a two-year push for overt socialism?

    Meanwhile the media is reduced to explaining why an undocumented activist has an understandable right to chase a liberal Democratic senator into a public restroom, hector her, and then video her as she enters a stall to relieve herself and then post the grotesqueness on the internet—a felony in the state of the Arizona, though just part of the “process” for the president of the United States.

    We could call the above insanity nemesis for woke hubris. Or maybe it is karma, “payback’s a bitch,” or “what goes around comes around.” But there is no schadenfreude in seeing the Left destroy everything it touches—because its claws tear all of us as well.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/13/2021 – 20:45

  • Chaos In Texas As Employees Fired For Refusing To Get Vaxxed Demand Their Jobs Back
    Chaos In Texas As Employees Fired For Refusing To Get Vaxxed Demand Their Jobs Back

    Things are getting very confusing in Texas.

    Shortly after governor Greg Abbott issued an executive order banning the vaccine mandates by any employer, which in turn was followed by several prominent Texas corporations – such as IBM, American Air, Southwest – saying they would snub the EO and back Biden on shots, we’ve reach a point where some employers side with the governor, others side with the president, meanwhile employees have no idea what they have to do (or not do), while yet another group of (former) employees that was fired for refusing to comply with the mandates is now trying to get their jobs back. 

    As Houston Public Media reports, more than 150 former employees of Houston Methodist Hospital, who either quit or were fired in June over a vaccine mandate policy will demand to be rehired after Gov. Abbott issued an executive order on Monday banning any entity in the state from implementing such mandates, according to a lawyer representing the former employees.

    Attorney Jared Woodfill, who represents almost 200 healthcare workers in multiple lawsuits against Methodist, said executive order GA-40 makes the hospital’s policy illegal.

    “Governor Abbott says very clearly, ‘whereas countless Texans fear losing their livelihoods because they object to receiving a COVID-19 vaccination for reasons of personal conscience,’” he said. “That applies to every plaintiff that I represent, and every plaintiff that Methodist hospital thought it was appropriate to fire.”

    Woodfill said he planned to send a formal request to the hospital on Tuesday in an attempt to reinstate the former employees.

    As we reported at the time, Houston Methodist, which operates several hospitals in the area and has more than 25,000 employees, was the first hospital in the country to implement a vaccine mandate for workers in April sparking a fierce legal battle between hundreds of employees and the hospital. In June, 178 employees were suspended after declining to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. Weeks later, 153 employees either resigned or were terminated. According to Methodists’ numbers, 25 opted to get vaccinated and return to work.

    In a statement, Methodist CEO Marc Boom didn’t touch on whether or not the former employees would be allowed back, but said he was “deeply disappointed” by Abbott’s order. He added that the order wouldn’t have an impact on Methodist since the hospital implemented its vaccine mandate months ago.

    The hospital system is still reviewing Abbott’s order and its possible implications, but because its own rule went into effect months ago, 100% of its employees are compliant with the vaccine policy, according to Boom. 

    “We are reviewing the order now and its possible implications,” the statement read.

    “We expect all of our employees and physicians to be vaccinated as we must continue doing everything possible to keep all our patients and each other as safe as possible until this pandemic is over.”

    He added that “not only are our patients safe as a result, but we are able to remain healthy at work and be there for our community when it needs us the most.”

    Boom said he hoped that other Texas hospitals, like Baylor College of Medicine and Memorial Hermann, would continue to implement their vaccine mandates despite the governor’s orders.

    “We are grateful we mandated the vaccine early so the order will not have an immediate impact on us,” Marc Boom, the chief executive officer of Houston Methodist, wrote in an email. “But we are concerned for other Texas hospitals that may not be able to continue their mandates now with this executive order.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/13/2021 – 20:25

  • Lira Crashes To Record Low After Turkey's Erdogan Fires Three More Central Bankers
    Lira Crashes To Record Low After Turkey’s Erdogan Fires Three More Central Bankers

    At this point, we’ve lost count of how many central bankers Turkey’s authoritarian head Erdogan has fired, so a quick stroll down memory lane helped us remember:

    One look at the headlines above reveals that Erdogan, who himself is technically the head of the central bank as he can replace any current central bank governor that does not do his bidding and swap in some figurehead, tends to have a short fuse when it comes to heads of TCMB when they don’t follow the crackpot economic “theory” known as Erdoganomics according to which cutting interest rates is the way to lower inflation, not vice versa. It’s also why back in June when the Turkish central bank kept rates unchanged despite Erdogan’s prodding for a rate cut (even as Turkish inflation was well in the double digits), we predicted – jokingly – that Erdogan was about to fire everyone.

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

    Well, he didn’t “fire everyone”, but he definitely sent a message and back in September, the central bank shocked the market when it cut rates by 100bps to 18% with consensus again expecting an unchanged decision. The move sent the lira plunging to an all time low.

    Alas, it turns out that the pace of cuts was not to Erdogan’s liking and earlier today when we noted a Bloomberg headline that Erdogan was meeting with his central bank puppet, Kavcioglu, we said it was “game over” as more heads were about to roll.

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

    This time we were correct, and late on Wednesday evening, President Erdogan fired three members of the central bank’s interest-rate setting committee in a midnight decree after meeting with Governor Sahap Kavcioglu who was appointed by Erdogan to lead the central bank in March, replacing his hawkish predecessor Naci Agbal.

    Erdogan removed deputy governors Semih Tumen and Ugur Namik Kucuk, along with Monetary Policy Committee member Abdullah Yavas, according to the decree. He appointed Taha Cakmak as deputy governor and Yusuf Tuna as an MPC member.

    According to Bloomberg, the changes followed a meeting between Erdogan and Kavcioglu on Wednesday evening, where the two discussed changes to the committee. Kucuk was the only member of the committee who voted against Kavcioglu’s interest-rate cut last month, thus committing professional career suicide. Yavas didn’t vote because he had contracted Covid-19 in the U.S., where he lives, but that was enough to prompt Erdogan’s ire and to get him sacked.

    Erdogan probably wanted to fire the head as well, but just last week, Erdogan’s office refuted a Reuters report that said Erdogan is “cooling” on Kavcioglu in the job even though the central banker had cut rates just over a month ago – a move sure to make Erdogan happy – despite explosive inflation crushing Turkey’s economy. The inflation rate was 19.6% in September, when Kavcioglu lowered the benchmark interest rate by 100 basis points to 18%.

    Predictably, the lira – which has been hitting new all time lows almost daily – dropped to a record low against the dollar, and extended its losses to nearly 5% against the dollar since the governor delivered his surprise interest-rate cut on Sept. 23.

    The Turkish presidency posted a picture of the two men together on Twitter after the meeting, and Erdogan’s office described the conversation as “positive.” The presidency also said the two men discussed the general economic situation.

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

    The lira fell 1% to a fresh record low of 9.1883 per dollar…

    … and by now it should have become clear to even the most die-hard EM fanatic desperate for carry that any long position in the lira is career suicide. Which is why very soon we may see a wholesale capital flight out of Turkey which leads to total economic catastrophe, not to mention hyperinflation, for the NATO member state.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/13/2021 – 20:05

  • New Zealand Forces Vaccination Mandate On All Education, Health-Care Workers
    New Zealand Forces Vaccination Mandate On All Education, Health-Care Workers

    New Zealand announced late Monday that it would join the growing list of developed nations forcing workers – or at least certain workers – to choose: either accept the jab, or lose your job.

    One week after Canada adopted mandatory vaccination rules for federal workers and travelers, New Zealand has announced its own vaccine mandates for most teachers and health care workers.

    Per NZ’s Liberal-led government, doctors, nurses and other health-care workers must be fully vaxxed by Dec. 1, while everyone working in education who has contact with students must be vaccinated by Jan. 1.

    “We can’t leave anything to chance so that’s why we are making it mandatory,” said COVID Response Minister Chris Hipkins, who is also the country’s education minister.

    “Vaccination remains our strongest and most effective tool to protect against infection and disease,” Hipkins said.

    New Zealand briefly enjoyed COVID-free status after the initial global outbreak, but the country’s “drawbridge” strategy was unable to keep out the delta variant, imposing a lockdown in Auckland, the country’s largest city after confirming just a single case. As cases spread despite the tightening restrictions, the government was forced to finally abandon its “COVIDZero” strategy.

    New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern said the highly transmissible delta variant had proved a “game-changer” that can’t be easily eliminated.

    As kiwis confront the new system, the Guardian is reporting that New Zealand’s epidemiology “experts” were taken by surprise when Ardern abandoned “COVIDZero”. They said they weren’t consulted about the government’s new system, which will lessen restrictions in three stages.

    “We were obviously surprised on Monday last week when the government seemed to say that we were moving away from elimination,” said prof Michael Baker, one of the country’s most prominent pandemic communicators and a member of the ministry’s Covid-19 Technical Advisory group. “A decision of that size – changing your major strategy – you’d think you would consult with [the] quite small batch of scientists and other advisers who work very hard to support the government … explaining things to the public.”

    “That was very unusual. I think the government’s done a great job generally with consultation and getting us all to at least understand the rationale for change.”

    Others insisted that the only way out for the country is full vaccination.

    Now, keep in mind, New Zealand has confirmed fewer than 5K cases and fewer than 30 deaths.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/13/2021 – 19:45

  • Kemp: Beset By Coal Shortages, India's Power Grid Struggles To Meet Demand
    Kemp: Beset By Coal Shortages, India’s Power Grid Struggles To Meet Demand

    By John Kemp, Reuters energy analyst and reporter.

    India has experienced persistent electricity shortages since the start of October as power generators have proved unable to meet resurgent demand as the economy rebounds from last year’s coronavirus-driven recession.

    The country’s power crisis stems from the same mismatch between rapidly growing demand and lagging supply that is also causing electricity shortages in China and soaring gas prices across much of Europe and Asia.

    Generation shortages are manifesting themselves in blackouts and rotating power cuts as well as persistent under-frequency on the country’s transmission system. 

    The crisis has been building for some weeks, first in the form of a slide in coal stocks, then a deterioration in grid frequency, and now most obviously in blackouts hitting parts of the country.

    Grid controllers normally aim to keep frequency steady and very close to target, minimizing the size and duration of any deviations, which can damage generators as well as customer equipment.

    Below-target frequency indicates there is not enough generation to satisfy the total load on the transmission system (by contrast, above-target frequency indicates there is too much generation).

    India has a grid frequency target of 50 cycles per second (Hertz) with controllers tasked with keeping it steady between 49.90 Hz and 50.05 Hz to maintain the network in a safe and reliable condition.

    But average frequency has fallen well below target since the start of October, and the shortfalls have become larger and longer, indicating a chronic shortage of generation.

    On Monday, the average frequency fell to just 49.96 Hz, down from 50.03 two weeks earlier, and the proportion of time spent below the minimum target increased to 21%, from less than 1%.

    On Oct. 7, the worst day of the power shortages so far, the average frequency dropped to just 49.93 Hz, and the grid was below its minimum target for almost 28% of the day.

    Transmission controllers have been forced to inflict local blackouts to prevent frequency dropping even further and threatening the overall stability of the network.

    On Oct. 7, the nationwide shortage peaked at 11.7 Gigawatts and the day’s total unmet electricity demand hit 114 million kilowatt-hours, equivalent to almost 3% of total demand.

    COAL SHORTAGE

    Thermal power generators, most of them fuelled by coal, have proved increasingly unable to keep up with customer demand and the generation plan.

    Cumulative power production since the start of April has fallen 21.5 Terawatt-hours (-2.9%) behind plan, worsening from a deficit of 11.6 TWh (-2.0%) at the end of August.

    Thermal power generation has now fallen 21.7 TWh (3.6%) behind plan, from a deficit of 9.7 TWh (-2.0%) at the end of August.

    The shortfall in coal-fired generation has become so large it can no longer be covered by the above-plan output from nuclear and hydro sources.

    Coal-fired power plants are encountering increasing problems securing enough fuel to meet planned generation owing to a combination of fuel shortages and transport problems.

    Coal-fired power plants have an average of just 4 days of fuel on hand compared with 19 days in October 2020 and 12 days before the pandemic in October 2019.

    Coal stocks are rated critically low at 116 out of 135 generating plants (86%) across the country and those power plants account for 142 GW of generating capacity out of a total of 165 GW (86%).

    Fifteen power plants have less than one day of fuel on hand and another 47 have only 1-2 days fuel in their yards, according to daily reports from the Central Electricity Authority (CEA).

    Power producers report coal shortages are currently responsible for forced outages or some loss of production at 60 generating units across the country (“Daily maintenance report”, CEA, Oct. 11).

    Outages and losses are reported at coal-fired units in the states of Uttar Pradesh (14), Maharashtra (11), Gujarat (7), Rajasthan (6), Chhatisgarh (6), West Bengal (5), Punjab (4), Tamil Nadu (3), Karnataka (3) and Madhya Pradesh (1).

    Until fuel stocks improve and more coal-fired plants are able to return to full production the electricity grid will struggle to meet high levels of power demand.

    * * * 

    What’s worse, the energy crisis rippling worldwide could be doomed to repeat in the US. For more on that, read: “Energy Crisis May Unleash Winter Blackouts Across US, Insider Warns.” 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/13/2021 – 19:25

  • Taiwan Is Part Of China, Russia Declares, As Two Powers Coordinate To Resist US Pressure
    Taiwan Is Part Of China, Russia Declares, As Two Powers Coordinate To Resist US Pressure

    Russia has entered the fray in terms of interjecting in the ratcheting rhetoric between China and the US on the Taiwan issue. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made Moscow’s stance on the issue clear, firmly stating that Russia affirms its position that the island belongs to China. 

    “Just like the overwhelming majority of other countries, Russia views Taiwan as part of the People’s Republic of China. This is the premise we proceed from and will continue to proceed from in our policy,” Lavrov told reporters Tuesday, as cited in Interfax.

    The statement was in response to a press question over whether the geopolitical tensions growing around Taiwan constitute a threat to regional security that Russia is concerned about. His statement about the “overwhelming majority” of nations holding Russia’s same view is certainly accurate, given Washington technically falls into the same category, while a mere 14 countries today have diplomatic relations with Taipei. 

    Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, via CGTN

    Lavrov did just days ago indicate the Kremlin is watching things with growing concern, as the US transfers weapons to Taiwan, continues sending occasional provocative delegations, and as The Wall Street Journal days ago confirmed, has a kept a contingent of US Marines on the ground to train local forces. 

    Lavrov said last week at a defense conference: “The Indo-Pacific concept is aimed at breaking up this system that relied on the need to respect the indivisibility of security,” in reference to the latest US coalition-building efforts within ‘the Quad’ nations of Australia, India and Japan, ostensibly toward maintaining a “free and open Indo-Pacific.” 

    Lavrov pointedly charged that this US policy “has openly proclaimed that its chief objective is containing China.” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian was quick to welcome the remarks and Russia’s input on issues afflicting the South China Sea, specifically praising the remarks soon after as “well-put indeed!” – saying “Lavrov’s views reflect the shared concern of the vast majority of ASEAN countries.” The Chinese FM further blasted US policy as a reckless Cold War relic that Washington has lately revived:

    “The US Indo-Pacific strategy, AUKUS and Quad are all closed and exclusive cliques informed by the Cold War zero-sum mentality with strong military security undertones. They will spur regional arms race, aggravate tension, and undermine regional unity and cooperation.

    The US practice of ganging up against a third party runs counter to regional countries’ common aspiration to seek shared development through dialogue and cooperation and advance regional integration. It wins no hearts and has no future. Many ASEAN countries have questioned and opposed these moves to various degrees.”

    Zhao had also returned the favor, stepping into Russia’s corner on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which the US, Ukraine, and some EU allies have sought to block. 

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

    “It is well-known that the Nord Stream 2 project shows energy complementarity between Russia and Europe, and would help resolve the European energy crisis,” Zhao said during those last Friday remarks defending Russia. “The U.S., however, to serve its own geopolitical interests and monopolize the European energy market, spares no effort in disrupting and hobbling relevant projects to undermine the interests of Russia and Europe and their cooperation. This wins no support.”

    He then actually linked the two issues as representative of the United States’ ‘bullying’ approach (a term top Chinese leaders have lately used with increased frequency): saying “the U.S. is adept at politicizing issues in all means and would hurt others indiscriminately, including its allies and partners, for its own interests.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/13/2021 – 19:05

  • Supply Chain Disruptions Force White House To Ask Walmart, UPS, FedEx To Increase Output
    Supply Chain Disruptions Force White House To Ask Walmart, UPS, FedEx To Increase Output

    By Jack Phillips of Epoch Times,

    Carriers of goods including Walmart, UPS, and FedEx are moving to work more shifts—including 24 hours per day, seven days per week—to address global supply disruptions that have contributed to a surge in inflation, the White House said Wednesday. The update was announced ahead of President Joe Biden’s meeting with the heads of Walmart, FedEx, and UPS to address the supply chain bottlenecks before the Christmas season.

     

    According to a fact sheet released by the administration, Walmart said it would “increase its use of night-time hours significantly and projects they could increase throughput by as much as 50 percent over the next several weeks.”

    Meanwhile, UPS said it would commit to use 24/7 operations “and enhanced data sharing with the ports” to move more containers out of ports, said the White House.

    And FedEx, the fact sheet said, will “work to combine an increase in nighttime hours with changes to trucking and rail use to increase the volume of containers it will move from the ports.”

    UPS and FedEx combined shipped approximately 40 percent of U.S. packages by volume in 2020, the White House said. A White House official told news outlets on Wednesday that FedEx, UPS, and Walmart will move toward a 24/7 working schedule.

    Thousands of shipping containers at the Port of Felixstowe in Suffolk, England, on Oct. 13, 2021. (Joe Giddens/PA)

    “Across these six companies over 3,500 additional containers per week will move at night through the end of the year,” said the fact sheet. “Those boxes contain toys, appliances, bicycles, and furniture that Americans purchased online or at their local small business, and pieces and parts that are sent to U.S. factories for our workers to assemble into products.”

    Additionally, the Port of Los Angeles will move to 24/7 service, coming after the Port of Long Beach began similar operations several weeks ago, officials said.

    The International Longshore and Warehouse Union also made a commitment to staffing 24/7, meaning that it will double the “hours that cargo will be able to move out of its docks and on highways,” according to the White House.

    The supply crisis is driven in part by the global COVID-19 pandemic and potential vaccine mandates, as sales of durable goods jumped amid worker shortages and transportation hub slowdowns. Lower-than-expected Christmas sales could hurt U.S. companies and pose a political risk for Biden.

    Thousands of shipping containers are on cargo ships offshore waiting to be offloaded at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Similar backlogs exist at ports in New York and Savannah, Georgia. A shortage of warehouse workers and truck drivers to pick up goods is another reason for the bottlenecks.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/13/2021 – 18:45

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Oct 13

Today’s News 13th October 2021

  • Beijing Liberalizes Coal-Fired Power Prices To Combat Energy Crunch   
    Beijing Liberalizes Coal-Fired Power Prices To Combat Energy Crunch   

    Beijing said on Tuesday it would allow price fluctuations of power derived from coal-fired plants to improve the country’s power market as shortfalls in power generation have sparked an energy crisis. 

    According to a notice from National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), electricity prices generated by coal-fired plants will be permitted to rise and fall by 20%. That compares with the prior upside limit of 10% and the lower limit of 15%. The reform would take effect from Oct. 15

    NDRC requested provincial governments to require industrial and commercial users to purchase power at market prices. The agency added liberalization of the power market would help prevent price manipulation and monopolistic practices.

    Power plants in the country have struggled to meet post-pandemic demand, and record-high coal costs have rendered many power operations uneconomical. NDRC said by allowing market forces to dictate power prices in a range of 20% will increase power generation by making loss-making generators profitable and bring online generators that were once deemed uneconomical. 

    NDRC official Peng Shaozong said the reform was “designed to reflect power demand and consumption, and to some extent to ease operation difficulties of power firms and encourage plants to increase power supply.”

    Frederic Neumann, co-head of Asian Economic Research at HSBC, told Reuters that liberalization of “thermal power pricing is a positive for growth by reducing power outages.”

    “Still, this comes with a further rise in price pressures, as power companies can now pass on higher input costs to their commercial and industrial customers,” Neumann said. 

    However, Lara Dong, senior director of IHS Markit, said, “power prices at 20% above coal-fired power benchmark will not be sufficient to help coal plants break even at current fuel prices.”

    And she warned that energy-intensive sectors would face record-high power prices, which is pushing up the producer price index (PPI). 

    Historically, Chinese coal prices – due to their core role as the anchor of China’s energy-intensive economy – have been the commodity that most closely has correlated with PPI. And while we wait to get the latest Chinese CPI and PPI print later this week, we can already predict what will happen this winter. 

    “Higher electricity price in China will add to the worry of rising global inflation,” Kevin Xie, senior Asia economist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, warned.

    The reform comes as the Northern Hemisphere’s winter fast approaches, and China is facing an energy shortage of fossil fuels, including coal and natural gas. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/13/2021 – 02:45

  • Polexit!? Polish Court Overrules EU's European Court Of Justice
    Polexit!? Polish Court Overrules EU’s European Court Of Justice

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    Poland and the EU are increasingly at odds. Let’s take a look at events to see where this is headed…

    After the top Polish court overruled the ECJ, Fears Rose the Court Ruling Points to EU Exit.

    Tens of thousands of protesters marched through Warsaw and other Polish cities late Sunday to oppose a court ruling that European Union legal judgments have become incompatible with the Polish constitution, a decision protesters fear could prompt Poland to follow the U.K. out of the bloc.

    Waving EU and Polish flags, demonstrators held banners reading “I’m Staying in Europe” and “No Polexit!”

    Unlike in the U.K., an overwhelming majority of Poles wish to stay members of the EU—as do Hungarians, another Central European country whose government is in regular conflict with the bloc over where the EU’s powers end and national sovereignty begins.

    On Thursday, Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal ruled that the process of European integration encoded in EU treaty law has reached what it called a “new stage” that is incompatible with the Polish constitution, and that the latter should take precedence when the two conflict. When joining the EU in 2004, Poland agreed to implement EU treaties, also signing up a few years later to the bloc’s updated Lisbon Treaty. Poland’s ruling party says the EU has overstepped its authority.

    In Brussels, a spokesman for the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, on Monday gave no timeline for responding to Poland. EU officials fear a domino effect and gradual disintegration of the EU’s legal and political authority if one country can overrule EU rules and EU court decisions.

    “If you allow all these fundamental principles of European integration to be hollowed out and ignored, then this is eventually the end of the EU,” said Piotr Buras, head of the European Council on Foreign Relations’ Warsaw office.

    Fertile Ground for Secession

    In Ultra Vires, a column on the situation in Poland, Eurointelligence founder Wolfgang Münchau places some of the blame for what’s happening in Poland on the German Constitutional Court located in Karlsruhe.

    In its ruling last week, Poland’s constitutional court went beyond anything the German constitutional court ever did. It declared Art. 1 of the Treaty on European Union, the clause that establishes the EU, not compatible with certain chapters of the Polish constitution. It found the same for Art. 19 TEU, which establishes the CJEU. If sustained, this would constitute a legal Polexit. If a member states believes that the EU treaties violate their national constitution, they either have to change the constitution, get the other members to agree to a change in the treaties, or leave the EU. The EU could, if it wanted to, even make an argument under international law that this ruling automatically voids Poland’s accession treaty, and thus its EU membership. 

    The role of the German constitutional court in all of this is indirect but nonetheless important. What it did was engage in a legal discourse that made the Polish outrage possible. Readers may recall that the CJEU was a big factor in the Brexit discussions. If only the remainers had known that they could have renationalised some of those powers? Despite the europhobia that led to Brexit, there was much less of a sense of secessionism in the legal profession, compared to with Germany or Poland.

    Some of the arguments used during the Polish hearings were straight copies of arguments made by the German constitutional court. Karlsruhe, for example, popularised legal concepts such as ultra vires and the democracy principle. They sound more innocent than they are. Karlsruhe argues that sovereignty can be conferred but not shared. This implies that the CJEU cannot be the arbiter of its own remit. It also means that EU law does not override national law in areas outside the agreed perimeter, and that it is the national courts that decide the precise location of that perimeter. Fiscal policy and defence are not part of that remit. So, if you want a fiscal union or a European army, you cannot do this inside the existing treaty. 

    The Polish ruling will almost surely end up in Poland backing down. I see Polexit as a possible but improbable outcome. But remember that Brexit, too, started out that way.

    The Karlsruhe version of legal euroscepticism has been far more clever, and more effective. It managed to create legal facts out of thin air that informed the EU negotiating position of successive German governments. The Polish ruling, by contrast, is drafted as a deliberate provocation that might play into the hands of Law and Justice ahead of the 2023 elections. Karlsruhe is not responsible for what is happening in Poland. But it is responsible for starting a discourse that others take up and push to the limits.

    No Polexit!?

    Münchau opines there will not be a Polexit. 

    OK, but what about changes to the existing treaties for Eurobonds, financial debt commingling, or a European army? 

    It takes unanimous consent to change anything in the EU. Heck, it took nearly a decade just to work out something seemingly simple like a trade deal with Canada.

    Half-Baked Union

    Hungary and Poland are at odds with the EU over court rulings. Other countries are tangled up with EU disputes regarding immigration and borders.

    The European Monetary Union (EMU) or Eurozone is in a similar situation.

    It takes unanimous agreement to change anything or even do many things unless there were specifically established by treaty.

    Germany demanded these unanimous consent rules out of fear of debt commingling. Now these rules hamper efforts by the EU to bring Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and other countries into line over anything not clearly spelled out.

    The EU has a half-baked union and it will stay that way unless every country agrees to changes. 

    Good luck with that.

    *  *  *

    Like these reports? If so, please Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/13/2021 – 02:00

  • Which War Is Beijing Preparing For?
    Which War Is Beijing Preparing For?

    Op-Ed by James Gorrie via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Soldiers march to position during an anti-invasion drill on the beach during the annual Han Kuang military drill in Tainan, Taiwan, on Sept. 14, 2021. (Ann Wang/Reuters)

    It’s no secret that Beijing is preparing for war.

    One of the main reasons is China’s cratering economy. The recent collapse of the Evergrande real estate development firm is only the latest in a series of dire symptoms that are fueling rising domestic discontent. The $8 trillion debt crisis in the shadow economy—more than half of its GDP—is also looming large in China’s ability to keep its financial system afloat. An aging, less productive population, higher production costs, and fleeing foreign investment all result in falling GDP.

    China’s Power Has Peaked

    The reality is that China’s economic power is already declining.

    Sure, the statistics can be adjusted, but it doesn’t change reality. What’s more, this across-the-board economic decline is driving the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to impose even more extreme, oppressive measures against its people and businesses. The CCP’s response only worsens economic performance and civil unrest.

    Concurrently, Beijing has been adjusting its internal arrangements for several years. For example, its National Defense Transportation Law went into effect on Jan. 1, 2017. The law restructured its legal framework, putting all commercial shipping under direct authority of the CCP.

    Externally, China’s deepening isolation from the world is clearly evident and underscores its ongoing decoupling from the global economy and the international norms of trade and diplomacy. This trend may well make a Taiwan invasion likely sooner than later, if only to divert attention from China’s domestic problems.

    Taiwanese domestically-built Indigenous Defense Fighters (IDF) take part in the live-fire, anti-landing Han Kuang military exercise in Taichung, Taiwan, on July 16, 2020. (Ann Wang/Reuters)

    Military and naval experts conclude that Beijing plans to use commercial transport ships to help transport up to 2 million soldiers in a Taiwan invasion.

    Recent news reports seem to confirm such a conclusion. China’s official press, the Global Times, all but acknowledges the inevitable, if not imminent, invasion of Taiwan. “China is prepared for the worst-case scenario—the US and its allies, including Japan, launch(ing) an all-out military intervention to interrupt China’s national reunification.”

    Clearly, war or the threat of war is on the horizon, and all the nations in the Asia-Pacific region know it.

    In response to China’s increasing aggressive posture, including the commercial shipping arrangement, Taiwan and other nations are adding more long-range anti-ship missiles. Japan, which for decades has maintained a pacifist foreign policy, has also made a massive shift in its thinking, linking Taiwan’s security to its own.

    The impact of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan wouldn’t be limited to just Taiwan. Should it occur, like Japan, it will be perceived by the United States and other nations as a strategic threat to their own national security.

    This is partially due to the fact that Taiwan provides more than 50 percent of the world’s semiconductors necessary for advanced data processing, automobiles, artificial intelligence, and other high technology. But an invasion would also threaten democratic nations in the region, as well as trade and international legal norms.

    More Trigger Points

    But Taiwan is not the only trigger point. China is also threatening the uninhabited Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, which Japan considers its territory. They’re also claimed by China and Taiwan, and could become a flashpoint for war. The Biden administration has recently assured Japan’s new prime minister, Fumio Kishida, that the United States would defend the Senkaku Islands if China should attack.

    And as noted in an earlier article, the CCP has already put Australia on notice. Should Canberra acquire nuclear-powered submarines from the United States under the recent AUKUS military alliance, China would add Australia as a legitimate target for nuclear attack.

    A type 094 Jin-class nuclear submarine Long March 15 of the Chinese Navy participates in a naval parade in the sea near Qingdao, in eastern China’s Shandong Province on April 23, 2019. (Mark Schiefelnein/AFP via Getty Images)

    South Korea has expressed clear opposition to Beijing’s ambitions in Taiwan. In a joint statement with the United States, and for the first time, both nations committed to defend international rules and norms in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait. The unusual directness of the message is an acknowledgement of the imminent threat China poses to Taiwan and the Asia-Pacific region.

    Further afield, China’s recent military skirmish with India in the Himalayan heights of the Galwan Valley has alerted New Delhi to the reality that China is seeking unambiguous hegemony over its neighbors, of which India is one. This has driven India to strategically align itself with the U.S.-led AUKUS alliance. Its recent participation in the Malabar joint naval exercises off the U.S. territory of Guam from Aug. 26 to 29 of this year sent a clear message to Beijing.

    The lynchpin to all of these arrangements is, of course, the United States. It still maintains a significant naval advantage over China. But what is less certain is the political will of the Biden administration to follow through on its military commitments. With the United States’ retreat from Afghanistan, the Biden administration is perceived as weak and more concerned with domestic economic and social issues than projecting American power to protect the international order. Around the world, confidence in American leadership is at an ebb.

    Beijing is certainly aware of these facts, and it may be influencing its strategy with respect to Taiwan and the region as a whole. Chinese leadership may have concluded that the Biden administration’s weakness poses a unique opportunity to test American resolve in the region.

    Such perceptions would help explain the new and greater threats to the United States that are coming out of Beijing. But Xi Jinping’s personal leadership and ownership of the CCP, coupled with China’s mounting domestic failures, are most certainly also contributing factors.

    China would prefer to avoid war—at least until it can match U.S. military might in the region. But one area that it does lead the United States is in hypersonic anti-ship missile technology. Rather than clashing with its neighbors, could the CCP be planning a strike on American naval forces to drive the United States from the region?

    If so, how would the United States react? How would the region react?

    Anything less than a full response by the United States to a Chinese attack would mean that the U.S.-led Asia-Pacific security alliance would immediately cease to exist. It would then likely be up to each nation to make their separate peace with Beijing—if that were even an option.

    That would suit the CCP just fine.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/12/2021 – 22:25

  • "Don't Buy The Dip": BofA Explains Why The Fed Has Lowered Its Put Strike
    “Don’t Buy The Dip”: BofA Explains Why The Fed Has Lowered Its Put Strike

    One week ago, Bank of America’s derivatives team observed that “equity investors are losing confidence in Buy The Dip” and warned that after suffering a “meaningful setbacks in recent weeks,” the coast appears far from clear. The bank pointed to recent episodes of increasing market fragility, and highlighted the recent market volatility manifesting in the second daily selloff of 3 standard deviations or more in just 7 trading days, only the 24th time since 1928 that the S&P experienced two or more 3-sigma shocks within 10 trading days.

    Fast forward a week and BofA’s increasingly bearish derivatives team led by Riddhi Prasad and Benjamin Bowler has intensified their warning, and pointing to the market’s increasing trouble to rebound from its recent slump – it has now been 27 trading days without a record high, the longest such stretch since September 2020 – they note that momentum has been fading this fall, “and investor confidence in buying the dip may only keep waning the longer this sideways price action persists.”

    In the absence of proactive buyers – such as retail investors who have recently turned their back on the market, or aggressive stock buybacks which are currently in a blackout period due to the coming earnings season –  the “market may for the first time since the Covid shock, need to test the Fed put in the next selloff,” BofA warns.

    Then, of course, we have the Fed’s tapering. In an amusing interlude, BofA explains that the last time it warned that tapering is bearish, it got the usual “tapering is not tightening” platitudes from clients (spoiler alert: tapering is tightening as even Morgan Stanley now admits), adding that “the main pushback we received was that tapering asset purchases has a smaller economic impact than hiking rates, and is therefore a more minor threat than that of prior hiking cycles.”

    In response, the strategists counter that investors’ should focus “not just on the way tapering and hiking change the underlying economics, but on their impact on investor sentiment in today’s environment. For instance, just like the S&P thrived against 3 rate hikes in 2017 but choked on the 2018 hikes, a tapering cycle today could turn out as painful for the equity market as a prior hiking cycle.”

    Elaborating on that point, BofA starts with the obvious, namely “that unparalleled monetary policy contributed to the historic returns and valuations achieved post-Covid.”

    But with tapering looming and lacking such explicit Fed support, and with momentum fading this fall, “the market may need a period of bad news to get the Fed back on its side or reach more attractive valuation levels. The longer the recent sideway action persists, the weaker the momentum and confidence that investors require to buy the dip.”

    To be sure, the Fed will have one key lever to push stocks higher once tapering begins, namely jawboning about the timing of the first rate hike. That’s the lever Fed famously used to reverse falling stocks leading up to the first hike post-GFC. In October 14, St. Louis Fed President Bullard stepped in to calm markets fearful of a growth shock. In 2015, on the back of another bout of stock market weakness, Yellen pushed back a largely-expected hike around the Sep FOMC meeting and then delayed the next hike for an entire year.

    However, BofA cautions, “the option to delay hiking rates doesn’t rule out a period of higher volatility”, as:

    1. we still haven’t seen how the market will react to the actual taper today,
    2. the change in Fed tune means the Fed put might have to be tested (vs. the dip getting bought in anticipation), and
    3. overshooting inflation might limit the Fed’s ability to rescue the equity market as easily as it did during the last taper/tightening cycle (with inflation breakevens today well above anything experienced in the last taper and tightening cycles).

    In a potential double-whammy, the fact that fixed income markets are not pushing back against the Fed’s taper announcement lowers the Fed put strike, in BofA’s view. That’s because while traders generally tend to focus on equity market tantrums as the Fed’s signal to intervene, major U-turns in Fed stance were often encouraged by the bond market ‘disagreeing’ with the Fed’s plans.

    For example, the 2013 taper tantrum was by far most felt in fixed income markets, while both inflation breakevens and expected rate hikes fell sharply as Powell raised rates through the second half of 2018, indicating that well ahead of the infamous Powell pivot they already knew he was on the right path.

    Today, on the contrary, Eurodollar futures implied rates and inflation breakevens are rising in line with an uninterrupted hiking cycle ahead (Exhibit 9) – perhaps because investors don’t even bother to sell ahead of a market drop they know the Fed will step into and “rescue”, while rates vol has remained muted through the latest rise in long-term yields (unlike in the short-lived Treasury selloff of 1Q21; Exhibit 10). This price action – driven by bonds – has raises the Fed’s bar to easily change course if the equity weakness continues, and, as BofA warns, it calls into question where the Fed put strike is.

    To summarize BofA’s argument, between the coming taper and frequent recent warnings about euphoric markets from both FOMC talking heads and even the IMF today cautioning about a risk of sudden and steep declines in global equity prices and home values, the risk is the Fed put strike is (much) lower than the market anticipates, as:

    1. Equity valuations & returns have accelerated to extremes post-Covid,
    2. The bond market is projecting tightening is needed and
    3. Risks of inflation overshooting are increasingly real, with 5yr inflation break-evens well-above any level witnessed during the 2014-2018 taper/tightening cycle.

    As a result, Prasad warns that “the Fed may be less willing to so easily deviate from tapering plans and talk the market back up as during the last cycle, further adding to risks.” His conclusion – “bad news (delaying the Fed) would be the best news equities can wish for.”

    Translation: It’s almost time for another crisis.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/12/2021 – 22:23

  • Kim Vows To Build "Invincible Military" Due To Persistent US "Hostile Actions"
    Kim Vows To Build “Invincible Military” Due To Persistent US “Hostile Actions”

    A noticeably slimmer Kim Jong Un of North Korea laid out plans to build an “invincible” military to defend against what he charged as the persistent hostile threat from the United States. The comments came during a Monday speech at a North Korean weapons exhibition, which analysts have said is a rare venue compared to the usual state venues for such a speech.

    With a variety of large missiles surrounding him at the indoor expo dubbed ‘Self-Defense 2021’ in the capital of Pyongyang, he said “The US has frequently signaled it’s not hostile to our state, but there is no action-based evidence to make us believe that they are not hostile,” and made the accusation: “The US is continuing to create tensions in the region with its wrong judgments and actions.”

    Kim Jong Un’s Monday speech, Korean Central News Agency

    That’s when he said that in the face of this US “source” of instability on the Korean Peninsula, the north will prioritize attaining to “invincible military capability” that no powerful country can possibly challenge, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

    The speech is being widely interpreted as having an aim of driving a wedge between Washington and Seoul, also given Kim underscored that Korean peoples shouldn’t be fighting each other. At the same time he stressed there was “no action-based basis” to make Pyongyang believe the US has good intentions. 

    “We are not discussing war with anyone, but rather to prevent war itself and to literally increase war deterrence for the protection of national sovereignty,” he said. International reports described some of the weapons on display as follows:

    …the weapons in the photos include what appears to be a new ICBM that North Korea disclosed during a military parade last year but hasn’t test-fired…

    Other weapons on display were another ICBM that North Korea tested in 2017; ballistic missiles that can be fired from submarines or a train; solid-fueled, short-range missiles; and a developmental hypersonic missile that had its first test-flight last month.

    Image via Reuters

    The past weeks have seen ramped up weapons testing activity out of North Korea, after a first half of the year which was relatively quiet on the Korean peninsula (which was also Biden’s first six months in office). At the weapons exhibit from which Kim’s fiery speech was given, a number of recently tested weapons, including ICBMs, were on display. 

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

    An ABC News report cited one South Korean missile expert, Lee Choon Geun, who advises government officials as saying of the occasion, “Basically, North Korea wants to send this message: ‘We’ll continue to develop new weapons and arm ourselves with nuclear force, so don’t slap sanctions with these as we can’t agree on the double standards.’“

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/12/2021 – 22:00

  • Corn, Soybean Futures Dip After WASDE Forecasts Bigger Reserves
    Corn, Soybean Futures Dip After WASDE Forecasts Bigger Reserves

    Soybean and corn futures dipped in Chicago this afternoon following the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report revealed the US raised estimates for domestic stocks. 

    Soybeans fell as much as 2% to $12.00 per bushel after domestic stocks will be around 320 million bushels at the end of the season, compared with an earlier estimate of 298 million. Corn fell as much as 2% to $5.22 per bushel after domestic stocks were larger than expected, at around 1.5 billion, compared with an earlier estimate of 1.418 billion. 

    Ahead of the report, the Bloomberg Agriculture Spot Index has declined a little more than 2% over the last few sessions. 

    Charlie Sernatinger, head of global grain futures at ED&F Man Capital Markets Inc. in Chicago, told Bloomberg that end-of-season estimates for corn suggest prices to dip below $5 per bushel. He said soybean ending stocks will continue to increase in future reports: “None of the row crop numbers look bullish, either short term, or down the line for further revisions.” 

    Meanwhile, wheat prices moved higher on the session and are increasingly diverging from corn and soybeans. That’s because of tight supplies.

    The biggest takeaway from the report is that larger than estimated corn and soybean estimates are putting downward pressure on crop prices that might be a sign of relief for soaring food prices. The latest UN data showed global food prices hit a fresh decade high earlier this month. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/12/2021 – 21:35

  • India-China Border Talks Fail As Each Side Pursues Troop Build-Up Amid Threats
    India-China Border Talks Fail As Each Side Pursues Troop Build-Up Amid Threats

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    Talks between India and China over the disputed border region in the Himalayas have broken down, with each side blaming the other for the failed negotiations. Tensions have been high between the two powers along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), which separates Indian-controlled territory from Chinese-controlled territory.

    In 2020, Chinese and Indian troops fought several skirmishes along the LAC, including one in June 2020 that turned deadly. The failed talks mean that India and China will continue to have troops forwardly deployed in Ladakh, where the skirmishes took place. China has blamed the failure on what it called “unreasonable demands” from India.

    Indian fighter jet flies over the Ladakh region, via Reuters

    “The Chinese side has made great efforts and fully demonstrated its sincerity to promote the de-escalation of the border situation,” said Long Shaohua, a spokesman for China’s Western Theater Command. “But the Indian side still insists on unreasonable and unrealistic demands, making the negotiations more difficult.”

    India rejected the Chinese claim and said it made “constructive suggestions” but that the Chinese were “not agreeable” and “could not provide any forward-looking proposals.” Before the talks concluded, India’s army chief said China is building up troops on its side of the disputed border and building infrastructure.

    “So, it means that they are there to stay. We are keeping a close watch on all these developments, but if they are there to stay, we are there to stay, too,” said Gen. M.M. Naravane.

    According to a description of heightened tensions in India’s media:

    Southeast of Galwan Valley is where 20 Indian and at least four Chinese soldiers died in clashes in June 2020, Hot Springs lies in the Chang Chenmo river valley, close to Kongka La, a pass that marks the Line of Actual Control. India’s Patrolling Point 15, it is not a launchpad for any offensive action though the area did see action before and during the 1962 war.

    China’s unwillingness to pull back its platoon-sized unit from Hot Springs is a sign of the difficulties that lie in normalising the situation. The PLA has traditionally had a major base east of Kongka La.

    A 2004 CIA map of the disputed Kashmir region with red circles corresponding to 2020 conflicts.

    Since the deadly June 2020 skirmish, the US has stepped up military cooperation with India, including a new military pact that shares more satellite data with New Delhi. With this increased intelligence sharing, India can keep a better eye on Chinese troops.

    * * *

    Meanwhile, here’s Rabobank’s take…

    The Global Times is also doing its usual job, but this time threatening war with India again (“New Delhi needs to be clear about one thing: it will not get the border the way it wants. If it starts a war, it will definitely lose. Any political manoeuvring and pressure will be ignored by China.”) 

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    PLA tank exercises were reportedly held last night. Of course, one would logically presume there are more than enough fish for China to fry on the domestic and another geographic front….so ’Tra la la?’ 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/12/2021 – 21:10

  • Former Mossad Chief Stuns Audience By Admitting Iran "Not Even Close" To Getting Nuclear Bomb
    Former Mossad Chief Stuns Audience By Admitting Iran “Not Even Close” To Getting Nuclear Bomb

    Foreign Minister Yair Lapid is in Washington D.C. to meet with top Biden administration officials for talks centered on Iran as well as the Gaza Strip and other security-related matters. As expected, Lapid warned US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan that Iran is on brink of becoming a “nuclear threshold state”.

    Lapid’s office issued this statement after the Sullivan meeting: “The foreign minister shared with the national security adviser Israel’s concerns about Iran’s race toward nuclear capabilities, as well as that Iran is becoming a nuclear threshold state,” according to The Times of Israel. “Lapid also discussed with the national security adviser the need for an alternative plan to the nuclear agreement.”

    As nuclear talks between Tehran and world powers have remain stalled in Vienna, a key question at center of debate over whether the US should seek a restored JCPOA deal with Iran remains just how close is Iran to acquiring a nuke?

    Yossi Cohen, via i24 News

    Apparently even within the Israeli national security state, there’s a deep divide over the question, despite hawks sounding the alarm for decades that Iran is ever “on the brink” of obtaining a nuke. Or also, it could be that internally Israeli intelligence knows the Iranians are not actually close, while the politicians publicly take a very different position for propaganda purposes, and to keep up the international pressure on Tehran.

    The influential former Mossad director Yossi Cohen suggested this precisely in Tuesday comments that raised eyebrows. The Israeli intelligence veteran commander said in reality that Iran is “not even close” to getting a nuclear weapon – though he chalked this up largely to Israeli’s sabotage and espionage efforts targeting the Iranians. 

    “I think that Iran, to this day, is not even close to acquiring a nuclear weapon… This is due to longstanding efforts by some forces in the world,” he said in response to a question by Jerusalem Post intelligence reporter Yonah Jeremy Bob, which included references to Israeli covert actions in the Islamic Republic.

    Cohen added that due to Israeli intelligence efforts, Iran has “less foreign support for what [it is] doing than in the past.”

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    He called for a “completely refurbished” nuclear deal, or else warned that the Islamic Republic would indeed become more likely to develop a bomb. Here’s more according to The Jerusalem Post:

    If Iran develops a nuclear weapon, Israel must be able to stop it on its own, Cohen said.

    Asked if that would be possible without bunker-buster bombs, he responded: “We have to develop capabilities to allow us to be absolutely independent, doing what Israel has done twice before” – bombing nuclear reactors in Syria and Iraq.

    He further threatened that “They should not sleep quietly in Iran.” For much of the past few years Israel has been bombing what it frequently describes as ‘Iranian assets’ inside Syria. 

    The nuclear reactor reference the former Mossad chief made is to the 2007 Israeli bombing of a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor that was under construction allegedly with the help of North Korea. The attack on the Al-Kubar facility near Deir al-Zor in eastern Syria was belatedly admitted to by Israeli officials in 2018.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/12/2021 – 20:35

  • UN Tells Greta Thunberg To Pound Sand Over Climate Complaint
    UN Tells Greta Thunberg To Pound Sand Over Climate Complaint

    After three years of deliberations, an 18-member UN panel told Swedish climate alarmist Greta Thunberg to pound sand – saying that it could not immediately rule on a complaint that state inaction on climate change violates children’s rights – and that the teenage exhibitionist should have taken the case to national courts first.

    The complaint, filed in 2019, argues that France, Turkey, Brazil, Germany and Argentina (but not China) failed to curb their carbon emissions despite knowing the risks of climate change for decades.

    “I have no doubt this judgment will haunt the committee in the future,” said US petitioner Alexandria Villasenor of the Monday judgement, according to Reuters. “When the climate disasters are even more severe than they are now, the committee will severely regret not doing the right thing when they had the chance.”

    While Thunberg has yet to comment, we assume it will be along the lines of…

    The case is one of a growing number of climate litigation cases that invoke human rights and is seen as setting an important precedent.

    The committee, made up of 18 independent human rights experts, concluded that a “sufficient causal link” had been established between the significant harm allegedly suffered by the children and the acts or omissions of the five states.

    However, it accepted the arguments of the five countries that the children should have tried to bring cases to their national courts first.

    “You were successful on some aspects but not on others,” the committee told the young activists in a letter, which commended them on their “courage and determination.”

    “We hope that you will be empowered by the positive aspects of this decision, and that you will continue to act in your own countries and regions and internationally to fight for justice on climate change,” the letter added.

    Attorneys representing the children said they would attempt to go through national courts, however it would likely be time-consuming and fruitless.

    “In effect, the Committee instructed the youth to squander years waiting for inevitable dismissal,” reads a late-Monday joint statement from lawyers Hausfeld and Earthjustice.

    Meanwhile, looks like Thunberg isn’t backing down in her war against all polluting countries except China.

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    How. Dare. They.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/12/2021 – 20:10

  • US Farm Income Booms To Near Decade Highs 
    US Farm Income Booms To Near Decade Highs 

    Farmers in America have had a banner year as crop prices soared and exports to China increased, which means farm income boomed, according to Bloomberg. 

    Farm income has been struggling over the last decade, but since President Trump’s China trade deal and virus pandemic, Beijing has instructed domestic firms to dramatically increase ag imports from the U.S. Prices have also catapulted higher and marked 2021 as a pretty good damn year to be an American farmer. 

    USDA estimates farm income from crops to surge around 20% to $230.1 billion in 2021, the second-highest ever, almost surpassing the record in 2012. 

    It remains unclear how long the good times will last, considering snarled supply chains and the cost of everything is on the rise. Energy, fertilizer, machinery, and labor costs are rising, indicating margin compression ahead. There’s also an issue of slumping corn and soybean prices from their highs in recent months. 

    But the Bloomberg ag index remains in an overall uptrend.

    Bloomberg expects the USDA to increase estimates for domestic corn and soybean stockpiles on Tuesday. 

    Even with record drought and back-to-back heat waves in the western half of the U.S., farmers like Zach Egesdal in Iowa still “produced better than we thought with the limited moisture.” 

    “We’ve sold more than we have in the last few years out of the field for both corn and soybeans,” Egesdal told Bloomberg. “We were able to lock in a profit and made more sales.” 

    Rising costs and uncertainty could doom farm income in 2022: 

    “All of our inputs for next year are going to be significantly higher than what they were this past year,” farmer Pat Swanson from Iowa said. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/12/2021 – 19:45

  • Oregon Senators Call For Investigation Into Alleged COVID-19 Statistical Manipulation
    Oregon Senators Call For Investigation Into Alleged COVID-19 Statistical Manipulation

    Authored by Tammy Hung via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    An Oregon National Guardsman works with hospital staff at an intake station at Three Rivers Asante Medical Center in Grants Pass, Oregon, on Sept. 9, 2021. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

    Oregon state Sens. Kim Thatcher and Dennis Linthicum, both Republicans, have petitioned Acting U.S. Attorney Scott E. Asphaug to launch a grand jury investigation into the measurement of COVID-19 statistics by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

    Thatcher and Linthicum submitted the petition in a letter (pdf) on Aug. 16 after gathering signatures from 1,718 Oregonians and 53,032 Americans.

    In the petition, the senators expressed concerns over the measurement and reporting of COVID-19 vaccine adverse reactions including fatalities and injuries.

    The lawmakers stated that a whistleblower, under sworn testimony, said the data reported under the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System may have been underreported by a factor of five.

    Regarding the diagnosis of COVID-19 through widely-used PCR tests, the senators said that the CDC and the FDA’s setting of one particular test parameter—the cycle threshold—generated “false positives resulting in inflated numbers of COVID cases, hospitalizations, and deaths.”

    Harvard epidemiologist Dr. Michael Mina told The New York Times in August 2020 that tests with too high of a threshold may detect not just live viruses but also genetic fragments. Mina suggested setting the cut-off at 30 cycles or less.

    Thatcher expressed concern over the cycle threshold of 28 when testing vaccinated individuals. According to the petition, a low cut-off is likely to “eliminate false positive results and thereby reduce the number of vaccine ‘breakthrough’ cases.”

    Thatcher and Linthicum said that they consulted large groups of doctors, epidemiologists, and virologists on the subject of COVID-19 statistical reporting.

    “Additionally, we are profoundly concerned that the scientific literature continues to provide empirical evidence that safe and effective treatments and management strategies for COVID infections exist but are not being made available to Americans most in need,” continued the letter.

    Stand for Health Freedom (SHF), a non-profit organization that helped with the petition, said in a statement that the petition was submitted one month before public release to “protect those involved.”

    SHF also cited a March 2020 study (pdf) alleging that the CDC over-emphasized COVID-19 as the cause of death in compiling its statistics while “circumvent[ing] multiple federal laws” in the process.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/12/2021 – 19:20

  • Third Quarter Earnings Season Begins Tomorrow: It Could Be Ugly
    Third Quarter Earnings Season Begins Tomorrow: It Could Be Ugly

    As the following chart from Bloomberg shows, for six consecutive quarters, earnings season provided the antidote to all the stock market ills (if not on fundamentals but because stock stubbornly tracked the relentless growth of the Fed’s balance sheet which rose by $120BN every month like clockwork). But that perfect record is about to get its biggest test yet at a time when uncertainty is swirling among equity investors, and not just because a potentially ugly earnings season is on deck but because the Fed’s liquidity cannon is about to see its first “tapering” since the covid pandemic unleashed trillions and trillions in liquidity.

    Looking back, the large and persistent earnings beats over the last 5 quarters…

    … prompted record upgrades to forward earnings estimates.

    The market has moved higher in lockstep with these upgrades…

    … leaving the forward multiple remarkably flat at very elevated levels since May of last year. And as Deutsche Bank’s Binky Chadha warns, “the market is priced for these large beats and upgrades to continue” but can Q3 earnings season deliver?

    And so, as jittery investors brace to comb through the corporate tea leaves for clarity on everything from the impact of rising rates and commodity inflation to broken supply chains, setting the stage for a particularly dramatic serving of results, below we take a loot at what Wall Street expects as 3Q earnings kick off tomorrow when JPM reports bright and early.

    Following another huge beat in 2Q, 3Q EPS has risen 3% over the past three months to $49.06 (+27% YoY), down from an eye-popping 94% Y/Y surge in Q2; typically this estimate falls by 4% into the quarter. According to BofA, consensus forecasts imply the 2-year growth rate falling sharply to +16% vs. +27% in 2Q amid supply chain issues and the delta variant-driven slowdown (the just released news about Apple slashing its iPhone production due to chip shortages being the latest case in point).

    In a conspicuous break from the last 4 quarters which saw upgrades, DB notes that Q3 consensus estimates are being downgraded ahead of the earnings season, marking a return to what has been the historical norm. Downgrades have largely been driven by the pandemic-loser group on delta variant concerns, and by insurers following the impacts of hurricane Ida. But even excluding these lumpy impacts, estimates have stayed flat in contrast to the upgrades of recent quarters.

    As is typical, the consensus sees a drop in earnings sequentially (-4.5% qoq excluding loan loss provisions)…

    … with nearly all sector groups seeing declines. But that’s usually the case and in the end, earnings growth usually comes in positive.

    Cutting to the chase, DB notes that amidst a macro backdrop that is a little less supportive than over the last 4 quarters, the bank sees earnings continuing to rise but only modestly so (+1.5% qoq), beating consensus by 6%, far lower than the 14-20% range of the last 5 quarters and closer to the historical average beat of 5%

    Expect no beat this quarter

    In Q2, S&P500 companies delivered another monstrous beat topping consensus by 17%. With the strong beat, 3Q EPS estimates have risen 3% over the past three months, but BofA sees increased headwinds heading into 3Q, primarily driven by supply chain issues, delta-driven slowdown, and continued inflationary pressure.

    That said, while there are reasons to be cautious, earnings misses are extremely rare: since 2009, there have been only two quarters (out of 50) when earnings missed consensus (2Q11 & 1Q20). And with consensus expecting a meaningful moderation in the 2-year growth rate to 16% from 27%, BofA’s 3Q EPS estimate is in line with consensus, representing the worst earnings season since COVID and below the historical median beat of 3.5%.

    BofA generally agrees with DB, and expects earnings to come in in-line with consensus and revises its 3Q EPS down by $2 (to $49) and 4Q by $1. But, as has been the case for much of the past year, one of the top questions will be around guidance (which started to soften) and 2022 EPS will be revised lower.

    Another core question: who is best positioned to weather the surging input costs: “What we are going to be laser-focused on in this earnings season is pricing power,” said Giorgio Caputo, senior portfolio manager at J O Hambro Capital Management. “What we’re seeing is that getting the machine back up and running — those who thought it would be an easy quick fix are being disappointed now.”

    Which leads us to the most important variable of Q3 season: profit margins. As we noted at the time, although margins expanded to record highs in 2Q, companies highlighted increasing difficulties passing through cost inflation. Since then, issues have worsened: supply chain news stories increased 74% and freight rates from China rose 20%…

    … with record backlogs at the West Coast Ports. In 3Q, we also saw a near-record number of profit warnings stories (third highest since 2011), only after 4Q15 and 1Q19.

    In those quarters, earnings beat consensus by 0.6% and 4.9%, respectively, but subsequent quarter earnings were revised down by 9.3% and 2.2% mostly due to supply issues.Incidentally, we predicted that this would happen.

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    To be sure, consumer demand remains robust but soaring inflation poses downside risks. While analysts have baked in margin  contraction this quarter (non-Financials net margins -70bps QoQ), both BofA and Morgan Stanley see big risks to 2022 numbers, where analysts expect record margins, an outcome which is virtually impossible unless all the input cost inflation is passed through to consumers.

    It’s not just broken supply chains: wages are surging too; indeed as BofA writes, “wage inflation is just as big of a headwind (if not
    bigger)” than supply chains. The BEA estimates wages are as much as 40% of total private sector costs. At the same time, slowing China and its property sector issues also pose risks to US multinationals. And while higher oil prices have historically been positive for S&P earnings (every 100bps move up in WTI added 50bps to S&P earnings growth), but Energy companies’ capital discipline could translate to a lower earnings multiplier (i.e. less revenue for energy capex beneficiaries). Soaring gas prices also add pressure to Chemicals and Utilities. In other words, higher oil could be a headwind rather than a tailwind this time.

    Mentions of “inflation” on 2Q earnings calls topped 1Q levels and jumped to a record high, based on BofA’s Predictive Analytics team’s analysis. On a YoY basis, inflation mentions rose more than 900% YoY, in line with the increase we saw last quarter.

    Notably, supply chain mentions rose the most among inflation categories tracked in 2Q, more than doubling YoY (along with labor mentions). Since then, supply chain issues have worsened: news stories on “supply chain” increased 74% since the 2Q earnings season according to Bloomberg, and freight rates from China also rose 20% (Exhibit 10)

    And yet, amid all these rising margin risks, analysts are expecting margins to hit a new peak in 2022!

    Consistent with recent developments, consensus does point to a 70bps drop in net margins (ex-Fins) to 12.0% in 3Q, which does reflect some conservatism. However, they then expect the margin compression to stop there – with flattish margins in 4Q21, and expanding margins in 2022 to new record highs (above 2018 peaks).

    Analysts expect margins to hit new highs in 4 of 10 sectors, excluding Financials (Exhibit 14). BofA disagrees and expects current headwinds to last well into 2022, and sees risk to consensus numbers.

    As the bank cautions, “analysts have consistently underestimated margins over the past five quarters, but given the worsened macro environment for corporate profits (more below), we do not expect those big margin beats to repeat in 3Q.”

    And with good reason: the early reporters have shared mixed data at best. So far, 21 companies (primarily “early reporters” with August quarter-end) have reported 3Q results. Early reporters are concentrated in Consumer, Tech and Industrials, but can often give a read on the full quarter’s results: BofA has found a 71% correlation between the proportion of early reporter beats on EPS and sales and the proportion of full-quarter beats on EPS and sales. So far, 67% have beaten on EPS, 76% on sales and 57% on both. This is weaker than last quarter (67%/94%/67%), but still above the historical average (since 2012) of 70%  EPS beats, 63% sales beats and 49% both beats. The median EPS beat so far has been 4.0%.

    More ominously, BofA’s 3-month guidance ratio (# of above- vs. below-consensus guidance instances) sharply fell from a record high to 2.6x in September, albeit it remains well above the historical average of 0.8x. The more volatile 1-mo. guidance ratio also fell to 1.2x, representing the lowest level since Jun 2020, as companies warned about rising inflationary pressure. Meanwhile, guidance instances have picked up to the highest level in a decade in September.

    But perhaps the most troubling indication of what to expect comes from companies themselves after what BofA notes was peak corporate sentiment. According to BofA’s Predictive Analytics team overall, corporate sentiment dipped from a record high, potentially indicating peak corporate sentiment amid inflation concerns and the Delta variant. Consumer sectors had the weakest sentiment compared to their own history, while Materials and Real Estate had the worst sentiment on an absolute basis.

    Similarly, companies’ mentions of business conditions (ratio of mentions of “better” or “stronger” vs. “worse” or “weaker”) indicate slightly weaker business conditions vs. the peak level last quarter. Mentions of optimism also plummeted from record highs in the prior two quarters.

    Putting it all together, below is a handy list of what to expect courtesy of Deutsche Bank:

    • The macro backdrop is a little less supportive. After having been strongly positive for over a year, data surprises turned negative in late-July. Earnings estimate revisions have historically been tied to data surprises. Consensus Q3 GDP estimates have also been revised downwards from over 7% at the end of Jul to 5% now. DB economists also cut their Q3 GDP forecast for growth from 8.9% to 4.7% in early September. The sales-weighted G4 manufacturing PMI, a preferred measure of global growth, rose sharply from its trough of 42.4 in Q2 2020 to 59.3 in Q2 2021. In Q3 so far, it has stayed flat (Jul-Aug average of 59.4). The US dollar is also up slightly in Q3 after 4 quarters of declines.
    • Secular growers (MCG+ Tech) earnings likely to flatten at an elevated level. Earnings for MCG+ Tech have been boosted well above trend by a broad cyclical lift as well as from being direct beneficiaries given the realities of the pandemic. The cyclical component which is tied to global growth and the US dollar is likely to stay flat. With re-opening having gathered steam through the quarter, the idiosyncratic pandemic-related benefit should arguably start to wane, but even if the full benefit were to remain intact, it would still point to earnings overall staying largely flat (0.4%). With consensus seeing a drop (-4.5%), DB sees a beat of about 5.2%, a sharp slowdown from the 10-17% beats they posted over the last 5 quarters, but in line with the historical average of 6%. Notably, earnings remaining flat would also mean a modest move back towards their historical trend with the gap shrinking from a record +25% in Q2 to +22% in Q3.
    • Cyclicals earnings almost back to trend. The consensus sees losses for the pandemic losers diminishing in Q3 (-$6.6bn to -$2.4bn) as mobility rose albeit not as quickly as initially expected. Outside of the direct pandemic losers, the rest of the cyclicals in our view should continue to post modest growth (+1.7% qoq sa) as activity levels remain robust at elevated levels. Consensus sees earnings for cyclicals declining modestly (-0.4%), implying a beat of 8%, a sharp slowdown from the 14-38% range seen in the past four quarters, but ahead of the historic average level of 5.2%. If realized, cyclicals earnings would be almost back to their pre-pandemic trend, a strong and fast recovery after being over 70% below in Q2 last year
    • Defensives earnings likely to move back down towards trend. Earnings for the defensives were significantly above trend in Q2 (+7%), as they continued to benefit from a pandemic boost. We see earnings retrace halfway back to trend in Q3 implying a modest  (-1.5% qoq sa) decline, while the consensus sees a larger -6.3% drop, pointing to a potential 5.1% beat in the quarter. If realized, this would be the weakest aggregate beat since the start of the pandemic, which has seen surprises in the 7-18% range, but at about the average level of pre-pandemic beats (historical average of 4.4%).
    • Financials to continue posting outsized beats as benign credit costs remain a tailwind. Banks released large amounts from loan loss reserves in the past two quarters ($13.8bn in Q1 and $9.5bn in Q2), boosting earnings, and that is expected to continue given benign credit conditions. However, the consensus sees banks adding to reserves in Q3 ($3.8bn). Moreover, excluding loan-loss provisions the consensus sees earnings fall to the bottom of their 2013-19 trend channel. Together this points to a massive 29% beat again this quarter, in line with the 13-36% range of the last five quarters and way ahead of the typical +4.2% average.
    • Energy. Oil prices have risen from $69/bbl in Q2 to $73/bbl in Q3 on average. The consensus forecasts Energy sector earnings to grow 22.5% (qoq) in Q3, which is somewhat ahead of what is implied by the increase in oil prices. DB sees lower earnings growth of 12.8% qoq, which could see the sector miss (-8%) in the quarter, in contrast with the solid double digit beats of the past four quarters and a historic average beat of 6.4%. Energy earnings beats historically have tended to be extremely volatile.
    • Overall beats to remain robust but returning towards the historical norm. DB sees earnings for the S&P 500 rising modestly by +0.8% and EPS coming in at $53.6/share in Q3 2021. This compares with the consensus at $49.2/share, or a beat of 9%, significantly lower than the 14-21% range of the last 5 quarters. Excluding the outsized contribution from lumpy loan-loss reserve changes, DB expects a beat of 6.3%, close to the historical average of 5% and compares to the 10-21% range of the last 5 quarters

    In conclusion, and as noted earlier, huge beats and upward revisions kept the forward consensus rising steeply over the last 15 months according to DB’s Chadha. Since then, consensus estimates for 2021 have edged slightly lower over the last few weeks (-0.2%), while 2022 estimates have flat-lined. The 4 quarter ahead growth rate of consensus estimates has now fallen to the steady pre-pandemic average (around 14%). In the absence of upgrades, current forecasts point to the growth rate falling well below (11%) over the next 2-3 quarters. As beats and forward earnings look to be returning to historical norms, will forward valuations follow?

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/12/2021 – 18:55

  • It's All Fake: Kamala Harris Used Child Actors Who Had To Audition For Weird NASA Promo
    It’s All Fake: Kamala Harris Used Child Actors Who Had To Audition For Weird NASA Promo

    While President Biden draws ridicule for using a ‘Truman Show‘ fake White House set across from the actual White House…

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    …Vice President Kamala Harris is earning jeers of her own for using child actors in a recent NASA YouTube video about space exploration.

    Filmed in August while the Taliban was rapidly taking over Afghanistan and closing in on Kabul (and right before the Biden-Harris administration murdered a family of innocent civilians, including seven children), the “Get Curious with Vice President Harris” was tweeted by the VP’s account on October 7 to celebrate World Space Week.

    And it’s a cringe-fest…

    The video portrayed the children as regular kids – however it has been revealed that they were all paid actors who auditioned for the part by submitting a monologue and questions they would ask a world leader, according to the Daily Mail, which notes that the Washington Examiner revealed the production company; ‘Sinking Ship Entertainment’ out of Canada.

    Monterey resident Trevor Bernardino, 13, told KSBW he was stunned when he learned he would be traveling to Washington, DC to take part in the video.    

    ‘Then after that, like a week later my agent called me and was like ‘Hey Trevor you booked it,’ he told the network.

    Trevor was one of five teens who participated in the video for the YouTube original series. He was joined by Derrick Brooks II, another child actor, Emily Kim, likewise a child actor, Zhoriel Tapo, a child actor and aspiring journalist who has interviewed former First Lady Michelle Obama, and Sydney Schmooke. 

    The video was shot at the Naval Observatory, Harris’ residence, from August 11 to August 13. During that time the Taliban were making rapid advances across Afghanistan and were closing in on Kabul during the chaotic U.S. withdrawal. -Daily Mail

    So – the sitting US president is broadcasting from a fake White House, and his Vice President used a foreign production company and child actors for a NASA promo instead of tackling the border crisis.

    The video was mocked by Fox News‘ Tucker Carlson, who called it ‘fake’ and ‘fraudulent.’

    “So for humanitarian reasons we are not going to play that’ll video, but it’s online,” said Carlson. “If you dare, look it up, watch it. Watch it again, watch your own soul die as you do. It’s the fakest thing that’s ever been caught on video but in fact it’s even faker than it looks.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/12/2021 – 18:35

  • Fed's Quarles To No Longer Chair Committee On Supervision, Setting Stage For Brainard Ascent
    Fed’s Quarles To No Longer Chair Committee On Supervision, Setting Stage For Brainard Ascent

    While Fed watchers are on edge over the fate of Fed vice chair Richard Clarida, and whether the recent revelations about his stock trades will make him the third senior Fed official to step down as a result of his potentially illicit stock trades (as a reminder, he traded out of $1-$5 million in a Pimco bond fund on Feb. 27, 2020, and on the same day bought between $1 and $5 million of the Pimco StocksPlus Fund, one day before an emergency market-moving announcement by Chair Powell), moments ago the Fed announced that Fed Vice Chairman for Supervision Randal Quarles will be removed from his role as the main watchdog of Wall Street banks after his title officially expires Wednesday. The Fed made the announcement in a statement that seeks to answer key questions for banks and Democrats about how the Trump appointee’s era of oversight will end.

    “In light of the expiration of the vice chair’s term, he will no longer chair the committee on supervision and regulation,” the Fed said in a statement. The committee will meet “on an unchaired basis,” and only matters that all the members can agree on will be forwarded to the full board, the statement said.

    Quarles – who also sits on the Fed’s board of governors – will cease to be chairman of the central bank’s supervisory committee, leaving the panel without a leader. That means Lael Brainard, the board’s lone Democrat who has more seniority at the Fed, and Governor Michelle Bowman will equally share responsibilities with Quarles. Joe Biden has yet to nominate a candidate for the supervision role, which would also be subject to Senate confirmation.

    Quarles hasn’t said how long he will stay at the Fed as governor but it is likely he will step down shortly.

    As Bloomberg previously reported, Biden’s advisers are considering a recommendation that the president renominate Chair Jerome Powell and appoint Brainard as the vice chair for supervision. The Fed’s bank-supervision chief is the regulator with the longest reach into Wall Street banking. The decision on the vice chair is entangled with Biden’s decision about whether to nominate Powell for a second term. 

    With Quarles imminent departure, yet another hawk is set to part ways with the Fed. If he is replaced by Brainard it means that the balance of power will tip further toward the Doves.

     

     

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/12/2021 – 18:30

  • Southwest To Comply With Biden Vaccine Order, Ignore Texas Ban
    Southwest To Comply With Biden Vaccine Order, Ignore Texas Ban

    Dallas-based Southwest Airlines will ignore a Texas Executive Order prohibiting any entity from imposing Covid-19 vaccine mandates on employees or customers.

    Instead, the beleaguered airline will comply with a yet-to-be issued Biden federal mandate which requires that government employees and contractors get vaccinated, according to CEO Gary Kelly in a Tuesday interview with CNBC.

    “I’ve never been in favor of corporations imposing that kind of a mandate. I’m not in favor that. Never have been,” Kelly told “Squawk on the Street,” adding “But the executive order from President Biden mandates that all federal employees and then all federal contractors, which covers all the major airlines, have to have a [vaccine] mandate … in place by December the 8th, so we’re working through that.”

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    In addition to federal workers and contractors, President Biden announced a mandate last month which requires companies with 100 or more employees to ensure that their workforce is vaccinated or tested regularly. The Labor Department has yet to release details of the emergency rule, however Biden encouraged companies to ‘act now’ and not to wait for the requirement to go into effect.

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    In response, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued an executive order on Monday which prohibits any entity – including private businesses, from imposing vaccine mandates on either employees or customers.

    “The COVID-19 vaccine is safe, effective, and our best defense against the virus, but should remain voluntary and never forced,” said Abbott in a statement. The rule follows several executive orders Abbott issued over the summer banning local governments and school districts from mask or vaccination mandates – with $1,000 fines for those who fail to comply.

    Last week, Southwest announced that its 56,000-person workforce would need to be fully vaccinated with the Covid-19 jab by Dec. 8 in order to remain employed – an announcement which came days after other carriers (including American Airlines, Alaska Airlines and JetBlue Airways) announced similar measures, according to CNBC.

    Doubling down on the airline’s claim that widespread flight disruptions over the past four days weren’t related to an employee protest over the mandate, Kelly blamed “absenteeism” – which, we’re quite frankly

    We can’t believe CNBC didn’t ask Kelly, if that’s true, where this flag came from.

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/12/2021 – 18:15

  • America's Bottom 50% Have Nowhere To Go But Down
    America’s Bottom 50% Have Nowhere To Go But Down

    Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

    One might anticipate that the bottom 50%’s meager share of the nation’s exploding wealth would have increased as smartly as the wealth of the billionaires, but alas, no.

    America’s economy has changed in ways few of the winners seem to notice, as they’re too busy cheerleading their own brilliance and success. In the view of the winners, who just so happen to occupy all the seats at the media-punditry-Federal Reserve, etc. table–the rising tide of stock, bond and real estate bubbles are raising all boats. What’s left unsaid is except for the 50% of boats with gaping holes below the waterline, i.e. stagnant wages and a fast-rising cost of living.

    The truth the self-satisfied winners don’t include in their self-congratulatory rah-rah is there’s no place for the bottom 50% of American households to go but down. All the winnings flow to those who already owned assets back when they were affordable– the already-wealthy–whose wealth has soared as assets have shot to the moon while the the burdens of inflation and debt service hit the bottom 50% the hardest.

    Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is whining that inflation isn’t high enough yet for their refined tastes. Boo-hoo, how sad for the Fed–inflation isn’t yet high enough. Oh wait–didn’t they each mint millions by front-running their own policies? No wonder they’re not worried about inflation.

    The reality few acknowledge is that globalization and financialization have stripped the American economy of low-skilled jobs that don’t demand much of the employee. The reality is that a great many people don’t have what it takes to learn high-level skills and work at a demanding pace under constant pressure–the description of the average job in America.

    There were once millions of low-skill, low-pay jobs for people who for whatever mix of reasons were unable to muster the wherewithal to fulfill the fantasy of working extra hard, going to night school, soaking up high-level skills, moving quickly up the ladder to higher pay, buying the starter home and then moving up the food chain to middle class security from there.

    The cost of living was low enough that those working these low-skill, low-pay jobs could still have an independent life. There were still low-cost rentals, often derided by the wealthy, in nooks and crannies of even the costliest cities. (I once lived in a room stuffed with old tax records in a poolside shack in an upscale neighborhood. The room had been cleared for a single bed and a path to the decrepit bathroom. Its most important attribute was that I could afford it on my low earnings.)

    Affordable housing has vanished, eliminated by the financialization of America’s economy. Once landlords pay double the price for the property, rents have to double to pay their higher expenses. The apartment didn’t double in size or amenities–the rent doubled without any increase in utility to the renter. You get nothing more for double the price–nice.

    Yes, people could make better choices, and some do. The point here is the game is rigged against those in the lower tier of the economy who can no longer afford a house or other stake in the only winning game in town–speculative asset bubbles. Go ahead and work a second job and go to night school–you’ll still be left behind the already-rich.

    Globalization opened every job in America to global competition via offshoring or the influx of undocumented workers so desperate to support their families back home that no pay was too low and no working condition too wretched to refuse.

    Many overindulged pundits who never worked an honest day in their lives sneer about burger flippers without realizing how hard those burger flippers have to work. I doubt the well-dressed pundits, snobbish about their university degrees and general brilliance, could manage to work a single day in a demanding fast-food job.

    As the price of housing and other assets have soared, enriching the already rich, they’re out of reach for the bottom 50% who struggle to pay their bills as wages have stagnated and the costs of essentials have skyrocketed.

    The rising cost of parking tickets, junk fees, user fees, utilities and food don’t impact the well-paid top 5% technocrat class, whose stake in the Everything Bubble keeps expanding by tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. But for the bottom 50%, those incremental increases are, when added to higher rents, absolutely crushing.

    As for getting high-quality healthcare that includes mental health support–those are reserved for the rich. But no worries, self-medication is always a “choice.”

    Getting a boost in pay from $12 an hour to $15 an hour is welcome, but that doesn’t put the worker any closer to affording a house or equivalent stake in the Everything Bubble.

    The new feudalism is masked by the glossy SillyCon Valley PR of a gig economy where (per the PR fantasy) bright, shiny and totally independent workers freely choose to serve the winners in the rigged sweepstakes for low pay and zero benefits.

    In the SillyCon Valley PR, serfs freely choose to serve their noble masters for nothing but survival because they love the “freedom” and “choice” of kissing the nobility’s plump derrieres. (After all, there were “choices” even back in the good old days of feudalism–one could join the brigands in the forest, or enlist in a poorly paid mercenary army where the odds of dying were high–you know, “choices” of “gigs.”)

    One might anticipate that the bottom 50%’s meager share of the nation’s exploding wealth would have increased as smartly as the wealth of the billionaires, but alas, no–the bottom 50%’s share of stocks (equities) actually plummeted in the the glorious decades of Federal Reserve free money for financiers, stock buy-backs and asset bubbles.

    All this suits the billionaires and those collecting the crumbs of the Everything Bubble just fine. So what if the bottom 50% have nowhere to go but down? There’s plenty of room in the homeless encampment for another broken down station wagon or an old camper. There’s lots of “choices.”

    And no consequences for the winners, of course, because The Fed has our backs.

    *  *  *

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/12/2021 – 18:05

  • California Bans Small Off-Road Gas Engines, Including Lawnmowers And Chainsaws
    California Bans Small Off-Road Gas Engines, Including Lawnmowers And Chainsaws

    Authored by Christopher Burroughs via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    California Governor Gavin Newsom discusses the state’s plan for homelessness inniciatives in Los Angeles, Calif., on Sept. 29, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    California moved one step closer to ending reliance on fossil fuels as Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a new bill into law on Sunday to ban all off-road gas-powered engines.

    The new law requires the state to apply the new rule by Jan. 1, 2024, or as soon as regulators determine is “feasible,” whichever date is later, according to the bill.

    The bill served as one step in the governor’s California Comeback Plan that includes a strong focus on climate change initiatives.

    “In a time when the state and country are more divided than ever, this legislative session reminds us what we can accomplish together. I am thankful for our partners in the state Legislature who furthered our efforts to tackle the state’s most persistent challenges – together, we took action to address those challenges head-on, implementing historic legislation and the California Comeback Plan to hit fast forward on our state’s recovery,” Newsom said in a press release on Saturday.

    “What we’re doing here in California is unprecedented in both nature and scale. We will come back from this pandemic stronger than ever before,” he added.

    A ‘Massive Change’ Measure

    Not all Californians approve of the new legislation. Andrew Bray, vice president of government relations for the National Association of Landscape Professionals, argued the zero-emission commercial-grade equipment landscapers will be far too expensive.

    “These companies are going to have to completely retrofit their entire workshops to be able to handle this massive change in voltage so they’re going to be charged every day,” Bray said, according to a Los Angeles Times report Saturday.

    The change could strongly impact small businesses in landscaping and related industries. In addition to increased costs, the change could result in other unexpected problems, such as the need to carry charged batteries.

    “Bray said a three-person landscaping crew will need to carry 30 to 40 fully charged batteries to power its equipment during a full day’s work,” according to the report.

    A Small Business Disaster

    The new law is expected to affect nearly 50,000 small businesses, according to The Washington Examiner. It noted that California’s budget includes $30 million for professional landscapers and gardeners to quit using gas-powered equipment, but that it would not be enough to cover the full costs.

    The change is also not the only recent climate change announcement regarding gas-powered engines by Newsom. Last month, the governor signed an executive order to ban gas-powered and diesel cars by 2035.

    “This is the most impactful step our state can take to fight climate change,” Newsom said in the press release announcing the order. “For too many decades, we have allowed cars to pollute the air that our children and families breathe.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/12/2021 – 17:40

  • Vaccine Effectiveness In New York Dropped As Delta Variant Surged During Summer, Study Shows
    Vaccine Effectiveness In New York Dropped As Delta Variant Surged During Summer, Study Shows

    Authored by Ivan Pentchoukov via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    People wait to attend the Broadway musical “Hamilton” after showing their vaccination cards at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in New York on Sept. 14, 2021. (TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images)

    The effectiveness of the three COVID-19 vaccines dropped significantly over the course of 10 weeks this summer when the Delta variant exploded to become the dominant strain of the CCP virus, according to a preprint study (pdf).

    Scientists from the New York State Department of Health and the University at Albany School of Public Health studied the vaccination, testing, and hospitalization records of more than 8.8 million New Yorkers for the period between May 1 and July 10 this summer.

    The analysis found that effectiveness dropped the sharpest for those under the age of 50.

    The greatest decline in vaccine effectiveness occurred for the Pfizer-BioNTech shot, with a decline of 24.6 percent for people aged 49 and under, 19.1 percent for those 50 to 64 years old, and 14.1 percent for people 65 and over.

    Effectiveness for the Moderna and Janssen vaccines likewise dropped, although less so than the Pfizer shot. Moderna effectiveness dropped 18 percent, 11.6 percent, and 9.0 percent for those under 50, those aged 50 to 64. and people 65 and over respectively. The effectiveness of the Janssen shot dropped 19.2 percent, 10.8 percent, and 10.9 percent for the same respective age groups.

    The drop in effectiveness for all three vaccines occurred as the Delta variant of the CCP virus grew in prevalence from 1.8 percent on May 1 to over 85 percent on July 10. The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus, is the pathogen that causes COVID-19.

    “Our results provide evidence of immunity loss associated with time since completion of vaccination,” the study says.  “Irrespective of the cause or propensity for continued declines in [vaccine effectiveness], our findings have important implications for national vaccine policy. Pfizer-BioNTech booster doses have been demonstrated safe and to increase short-term protection against the Delta variant. Our findings align with the CDC recommendation for Pfizer-BioNTech boosters in persons [over] 65 years [old].”

    The reduction in effectiveness recorded in New York, while significant, is far less than that recorded in Israel. The New York study’s authors say this “may be due to earlier vaccination, increased sensitivity definitions, or other methodological differences.”

    All three vaccines remained effective at preventing COVID-19 related hospitalizations, with a small reduction effectiveness show for people 65 and over who took the Pfizer vaccine.

    “This latest study conducted by our renowned scientists here at DOH is the largest to examine in-depth changes in vaccine effectiveness over time broken down by all three COVID-19 vaccines types currently authorized for use in the United States,” said senior author and New York Health Commissioner Howard Zucker in a statement.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/12/2021 – 17:15

  • Private-Jet Demand Soars As Planemakers Enter Boon Times 
    Private-Jet Demand Soars As Planemakers Enter Boon Times 

    The virus pandemic has increased demand for private jets and is expected to continue with the lack of commercial flight options. 

    Kenn Ricci, the chairman of Flexjet, told Bloomberg his private-plane business is soaring like never before as he scrambles to find planes to expand his fleet. The company provides fractional ownership for private jets, aircraft leasing, and jet card services for people who wish to avoid busy airports and travel in comfort. 

    Ricci said the “used private jet market has been picked clean,” and ordering new planes from aircraft manufacturers takes longer than usual. He said 65 aircraft had been ordered to expand Flexjet’s fleet by 40% next year. 

    Flexjet demand has been off the charts since the pandemic and will continue through 2022 as the company had to suspend sales of blocks of flight hours. The influx of new customers means Flexjet’s annual growth has surged 30% this year. Ricci believes new customers who began using their service during the virus pandemic will stick around because of convenience.

    Even though corporate travel remains subdued – private aircraft flights are at the highest since 2008. 

    The demand for new private jets means boon times for planemakers, including Bombardier Inc., Textron Inc., Embraer SA, and General Dynamics Inc.’s Gulfstream unit. Those companies cut deliveries early in the pandemic but are now boosting production and raising prices. 

    Ron Draper, CEO of Textron Aviation, the maker of Cessna jets, said the influx of new customers comes as a surprise as many discover that avoiding commercial air travel is essential in a post-COVID world. 

    Take, for example, the thousand-plus flights Southwest Airlines canceled in the last few days stranded passengers across the county because of an alleged sickout by pilots over vaccine mandates. If anyone has been in this position, flight cancellations and delays are a headache.

    Avoid commercial air travel. Take a private jet appears to be a hot trend among those with the financial ease to do so. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/12/2021 – 16:50

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Oct 12

Today’s News 12th October 2021

  • Snow To Blanket UK As Rare Polar Vortex Collapse Could Spell Trouble For Power Grid 
    Snow To Blanket UK As Rare Polar Vortex Collapse Could Spell Trouble For Power Grid 

    A sensation headline from UK’s tabloid newspaper, Daily Star, sums up a possible rare weather event that could throw the UK into a more profound energy crisis. The headline states: “As gas supply chaos sends price sky-high a -10c polar vortex is heading our way…” 

    Meteorologists warn a stratospheric warming event could generate a polar vortex split that pours freezing weather into the country later this month or early November. 

    “There are signs of the stratosphere experiencing an unusual warming in the next few days, causing the polar vortex above the Arctic Circle to become less strong than normal later in October,” a former BBC weatherman and meteorologist for Weathertrending John Hammond told The Sun. 

    “These high-altitude winds normally intensify as we head towards winter. So an unusual weakening of the polar vortex may well impact our weather later through autumn and into early winter. 

    “‘Sudden stratospheric warming’ events can sometimes lead the polar vortex to go into reverse, which can have dramatic impacts on winter weather and increase the chances of severe cold. 

    “However, there are no indications yet that such a reversal will occur.

    “The last time that lowland southern Britain saw significant snowfall as early as October was in 2008 – a measure of how rare it is.”

    UK’s Met Office forecaster Marco Petagna said the polar vortex weakening could “have implications for our weather going into the winter.” 

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

    The forecast for an early winter event is disastrous, considering we’ve noted the “winter of discontent” could be imminent for the county as natural gas shortages have pushed prices to record highs in recent weeks. Natgas remains in a shortage due to low Russia-European flows and increased gas usage by UK power plants as renewable energy (wind power) becomes unreliable with some of the calmest winds in half a century. All of this caused multiple issues, first gas prices for chemical companies made it uneconomical to produce carbon dioxide, which triggered a food supply chain crisis for supermarkets. The second issue was soaring gas prices increased power prices for consumers. But the good news is Vladimir Putin soothed energy markets last week and said Russia is ready to help stabilize energy markets which pushed prices lower but still remain at elevated levels. 

    Natgas flows into the UK remain depressed but are slowly increasing. 

    The transition to cleaner energy has been an utter disaster for the UK as wind power generation has collapsed, forcing power suppliers to fire up natural gas turbines and even coal plants to meet demand and avoid a total grid collapse. The UK’s electricity system operator (ESO) spent more than $117 million last week in payments to coal-fired power plants to increase power supplies. Britain has been winding down coal power in recent years. Still, the transition to renewables has become so unreliable that fossil fuel is making a comeback, massively ahead of winter. 

    Soaring demand for coal in Europe and Asia is pushing prices to record-highs ahead of winter. 

    To sum this all up, the UK is not ready for a polar vortex collapse due to instabilities in its grid related to unreliable renewable energy sources. It may have to increasingly lean on fossil fuel generation that is becoming more expensive and in short supply. The green transition touted by liberals might jeopardize the grid during a winter storm or cold weather, forcing grid operators to initiate rolling blackouts to thwart a collapse. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/12/2021 – 02:45

  • Czech Voters Oust Communists From Parliament For First Time Since 1948
    Czech Voters Oust Communists From Parliament For First Time Since 1948

    Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times,

    On Oct. 9, Czech voters booted the communists out of parliament for the first time since the end of World War II, voting out a party with Soviet-backed predecessors that ruled the central European nation with an iron fist from 1948 until 1989’s Velvet Revolution that ushered in democracy.

    Chairman of the The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM) Vojtech Filip talks to the media after the parliamentary election in Prague, Czech Republic, on Oct. 9, 2021. (Radek Petrasek/CTK via AP)

    The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM) failed to retain enough seats to enter the Czech parliament for the first time since the formation of the Czech Republic after Czechoslovakia was peacefully dissolved into two nations in 1993, with the other state becoming Slovakia.

    The KSČM took 3.62 percent of the vote, failing to meet the 5 percent mark needed to retain seats in both the House and the Chamber of Deputies.

    In a stunning upset, the SPOLU alliance, a liberal-conservative three-party coalition, captured 27.8 percent of the vote, beating Prime Minister Andrej Babis’ Action for Dissatisfied Citizens (ANO) 2011 party, which won 27.1 percent.

    The center-left-liberal coalition of the Pirate Party (PIR) and the Mayors and Independents party (STAN) received 15.6 percent of the vote, finishing in third place, according to the statistics office.

    Ahead of the election, the SPOLU alliance vowed to form a coalition government with the PIR/STAN coalition. Over the weekend, the alliance signed a memorandum on their intent to create a majority Czech government with the coalition.

    The failure to secure enough votes comes amid waning support for the communist party, who, during their reign, jailed tens of thousands of people in forced labor camps in the 1950s and brutally repressed dissidents, including playwright-turned-president Vaclav Havel.

    “It pleases me. It pleases me a lot,” said Jiri Gruntorad, 69, a former dissident who signed the dissident Charter 77 statement and was jailed for subversion from 1981 to 1985 by the communist regime.

    “But it’s coming too late.

    “It was one of the last communist parties in the world apart from the Chinese and Cuban ones that held on to its name.”

    While the communists largely faded into the background after 1989, they did still cooperate with other parties seeking votes to pass legislation in parliament. They also worked to appeal to senior citizens and working-class members of the republic, but failed to resonate with younger voters, given their previous totalitarian rule.

    “I am very disappointed, because it is a really big failure,” said KSČM leader Vojtech Filip, who also resigned following the outcome of the vote.

    The communists had also maintained a close relationship with current President Milos Zeman, who was rushed to the hospital on Oct. 10 following the latest election results.

    Director Miroslav Zavoral of the Central Military Hospital in Prague said Zeman, 77, was admitted due to complications related to an undisclosed chronic condition.

    “We know the diagnosis precisely, which allows us to target treatment,” Zavoral said, stating that he didn’t have the president’s approval to disclose details of the diagnosis.

    The hospitalization is sure to create added uncertainty at a time when Zeman is set to lead political talks about forming a new government.

    Under the constitution, the president can appoint anyone as prime minister and instruct them to nominate a cabinet. A new cabinet must face a vote of confidence in the lower house within a month of its appointment.

    Prior to the election, Zeman had said that he would appoint the leader of the largest winning individual party, not a coalition, to try to form a government, which in this case would be Babis.

    While Babis has conceded that the SPOLU alliance won more votes as a coalition, he didn’t signal a move into opposition.

    “If the president authorizes me to do so, I will lead talks on forming a cabinet,” he said.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/12/2021 – 02:00

  • Live Free Or Die: Why Medical Autonomy Matters
    Live Free Or Die: Why Medical Autonomy Matters

    Authored by Frank Miele via RealClearPolitics.com,

    Because I have not been vaccinated against COVID-19, I have been labeled everything from an anti-science Luddite to a domestic terrorist. If I lived in almost any other state than Montana, I might be denied basic human services such as health care, refused employment, or told I can’t shop at a store for such fundamental necessities as food.

    The powers that be in government, media and medicine have decreed me to be an undesirable and they want to force me and millions like me to be vaccinated against our will. They say that I am a danger to society, never for a minute realizing that they represent a much greater threat to society — the threat of totalitarianism, the state against the individual.

    George Orwell might just as well have never written “Nineteen Eighty-Four.” The Greatest Generation might as well have never defeated the Nazis. Ronald Reagan may as well have never defeated the Evil Empire of Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.

    What’s the point if I have to surrender my dignity and willpower to the bureaucrats and technocrats and let them stick a needle in my arm to mark me just as a rancher would brand his cattle: owned.

    Oh, wait — I’m supposed to surrender for the greater good. I’m supposed to give up my ability to govern my own body because the people who are already vaccinated are still terrified of the virus that the vaccination supposedly protects them against.

    Something doesn’t add up, and until I feel comfortable with taking the vaccine, you can count me out. No, I’m not an anti-vaxxer. I’ve never had any problem with vaccines before. From the time I was a child growing up in the early 1960s, I understood that vaccines were to protect me — and society — from deadly illnesses.

    That’s not an exaggeration. Smallpox was fatal in up to 30% of cases, and even if you survived, you paid a price. One of my teachers bore the awful scars of smallpox on his face, and no one wanted to suffer as he had. Every kid in school also knew that if you had a run-in with a rusty nail, you ran the risk of being infected with tetanus, which went by the even scarier name of lockjaw.

    Then there were German measles, diphtheria and whooping cough. We kids may not have known much about those, but our parents sure did, and they could tell stories about cousins, siblings or friends who had perished from them. I never got measles because I was vaccinated at a young age, but it was a common problem in lower-income families such as mine, and was something you definitely didn’t joke about.

    I think vaccines have done the world a world of good. I remember getting my smallpox vaccine and waiting eagerly to get the scar on my arm that my mother’s arm showed off like a badge of courage, but it never appeared for me. Then when the oral polio vaccine was developed, I remember lining up in the gym at North Garnerville Elementary School in New York to get my first dose on a sugar cube. Yum.

    So yes, I’m pro-vaccine. I also generally get the flu vaccine every year. I even got a shot last year, although for some peculiar reason, influenza vanished last winter while COVID was enjoying its greatest reign of terror. And naturally, my three children have all been vaccinated against the usual childhood diseases and taken whatever was recommended to keep them safe.

    But one thing I never thought of doing was forcing my neighbors to get vaccinated against the flu. Did you know that influenza kills as many as 50,000 Americans a year? That’s approaching the number of U.S. soldiers killed in the entire length of the Vietnam War. On average, flu kills as many Americans every year as car crashes. Yet did anyone — even St. Anthony Fauci — ever dare to suggest that vaccination for flu should be mandatory because it would save lives?

    Hell, no, and even though many vaccinations are required of school children for good reasons, we also have allowed religious and medical exemptions for families that needed them. Because we aren’t supposed to be a nation of slaves, but a nation of citizens. If someone had a personal reason why they rejected vaccines, we didn’t put them through an inquisition or try to burn them at the stake of public opinion. This was America — land of the free.

    I also never thought of celebrating when a person who opted not to get the flu vaccine died of influenza. But vaccine mandate supporters seem to get giddy when a vaccine refusenik falls ill from COVID and dies on a ventilator or worse. This isn’t science; it’s scientific imperialism — and the CDC centurions are ruthless in their application of power to the masses. Obey or die.

    So why might a reasonable person decide not to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in such a hysterical climate? Maybe because it’s an experimental and untested drug using a technology (mRNA) that has the power to tamper with the very genetic makeup of the cells in my body. Maybe because I’m more worried about herd instinct than herd immunity. Maybe because I’ve heard wonky scientists gloating about the power they wield over everyday Americans. Maybe because Big Pharma’s getting rich by inventing reasons why you just might need to get a new shot every year. Maybe because I want to decide for myself what’s best for me.

    Think of it this way. You are afraid of dying of COVID-19. So am I. But that doesn’t mean I am going to die from COVID. In fact, there is what I would characterize as an acceptably small chance I will die of COVID, and I’m 66 years old, right smack in the realm of the supposedly at-risk elderly population. According to data from the CDC reported at RationalGround.com, from Jan. 1, 2020 until Sept. 11, 2021, there were 12,702 U.S. deaths from COVID for my age cohort out of an estimated population of 3,618,069. That’s a death rate of 0.365%.

    Meanwhile, 100,449 people my age died during the same period of all causes, suggesting I have about a 12% chance of dying of something this year, a much scarier possibility than dying of COVID-19. Think of it! If I’m going to die this year, I’m 33 times more likely to die of anything else besides COVID. Based on the propaganda we are inundated with every day about the virus, I should be terrified! There are way worse things out there trying to kill me than COVID.

    But I’m not terrified, not even slightly, because life is always a risk. I can temper my risks by avoiding downhill skiing, ATVs, booze, surfing, and motorsports. Those are my choices, but heaven forbid I should dictate that you have to avoid those activities because they are not 100% safe. Your behavior is none of my business. I make my choices, and you make yours. Except with COVID.

    Then Joe Biden makes my choices, trying to protect me from myself.

    But here’s the thing. There’s no guarantee I’ll ever actually be exposed to the coronavirus, and if I do, there’s something like a 99% chance that I — as a generally healthy man with no co-morbidities — will recover.

    Now consider the risk of some kind of debilitating side effect from receiving one of the experimental vaccines being pushed by the government. It is much harder to come up with an actual percentage of adverse effects, because there are so many potential side effects and not all of them may be linked with the vaccine yet, especially when they show up weeks or months after the jab. We do, however, have a number of vaccine-related deaths officially reported by the CDC, using data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System:

    “More than 396 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered in the United States from December 14, 2020, through October 4, 2021. During this time, VAERS received 8,390 reports of death (0.0021%) among people who received a COVID-19 vaccine.”

    Of course, this means the likelihood of dying from the vaccine is considerably lower than dying from COVID; in fact, if you do the math, it’s about 175 times less likely. That’s a pretty significant difference, even if you throw in the possibility that getting the jab will inflict you with one of the other known possible side effects such as Guillain-Barre syndrome, anaphylaxis, myocarditis, pericarditis, heart failure, thrombosis, brain damage, paralysis, menstrual disorders, and a variety of unexplained pain phenomena. All told, investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson says there were more than 400,000 adverse effects recorded by VAERS through July 19 of this year. That number is closing in on 600,000 by now.

    But reasonable people can’t ignore the adverse effects of the vaccine, and in a reasonable world, they wouldn’t. Just last week, for instance, Sweden and Denmark halted Moderna vaccinations for those under 30 years of age. Finland did the same for men under 30.

    According to Reuters, “The Swedish health agency said it would pause using the shot for people born in 1991 and later as data pointed to an increase of myocarditis and pericarditis among youths and young adults that had been vaccinated. Those conditions involve an inflammation of the heart or its lining. ‘The connection is especially clear when it comes to Moderna’s vaccine Spikevax, especially after the second dose,’ the health agency said, adding the risk of being affected was very small.”

    Small or not, the risk is real. The question is why you would want to leave the decision up to a health agency whether you should put something in your body that may harm or even kill you. Why not become informed and then make your own decision.

    Defenders of Big Pharma like PolitiFact say there is no evidence that the vaccines have killed anyone, but to believe that you would have to ignore the evidence of not just the VAERS data set, but also the numerous human stories told in news reports and obituaries of perfectly healthy men and women who died suddenly and often horribly after taking one of the vaccines.

    Now here’s the point. Knowing all that, if you or anyone else wants to take the COVID vaccine, God bless you, and may all turn out well. But don’t make that decision for me, and don’t turn me into a criminal for making my own decision. I have a conscience, I have a brain, and I have a God. They will inform my decision, along with the science, but the decision should be mine alone. I learned long ago in Psychology 101 that the individual is formed when the infant first cries, “NO,” and for now, that’s what I’m saying to any and all vaccine mandates. I refuse. I’m an individual citizen, not a vassal subject to the whims of my noble superior.

    Yes, there is a chance that I will contract COVID and suffer as a result. But there’s no certainty about whether I will ever be exposed to the virus while it is in a dangerous form. If I am, I may get very sick or only slightly sick or have no symptoms at all.

    Compare that to the absolute certainty that if I am vaccinated, I am putting myself intentionally at risk of known side effects by putting a vaccine into my arm that I don’t trust. Only a madman would do that, or someone who puts a much higher value on going along with the crowd than I do. I don’t want to die, but that’s not the worst thing that can happen. Being forced to turn my most personal medical decisions over to Joe Biden or Anthony Fauci is an insult to me and to the Founding Fathers who fought to free us from tyranny.

    “Live free or die” was their creed, if not yet a formal motto in 1776. Nearly 250 years later, it seems more appropriate than ever.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/11/2021 – 23:40

  • Mapped: Where Are The World's Ongoing Conflicts Today?
    Mapped: Where Are The World’s Ongoing Conflicts Today?

    We live in an era of relative peace compared to most of history, however, as Visual Capitalist’s Avery Koop details below, this does not mean that there are no conflicts in the world today.

    This map using data from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) reveals where the world’s 27 ongoing conflicts are today, and what type of conflicts they are.

    Note: conflicts are categorized by definitions laid out by the CFR.

    Detailing the Conflicts

    Many people alive today have never lived through a war on their country’s soil, especially those in the West. But conflict, wars, and violence are by no means things of the past.

    According to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), as of Q2’2021 alone:

    • Violence against civilians resulted in over 5,000 deaths worldwide

    • Battle related deaths numbered over 18,000

    • Explosion/remote violence led to more than 4,000 deaths

    • Riots resulted in over 600 fatalities

    Most of the world’s conflicts are concentrated in Asia and Africa and the most common forms are territorial disputes and civil wars. While terrorism often strikes fear in people, only three of the world’s ongoing conflicts are linked to terrorism, according to the CFR.

    As an example of a more typical conflict, Myanmar’s civil unrest began in February 2020 when the military overthrew the democratically elected government and arrested the country’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The civilian population has been protesting heavily but to no avail. According to a BBC report, more than 860 people have been killed and around 5,000 have been detained.

    This is just one of the many examples of persistent violence today including recent events like Mexico’s midterm election violence, Ethiopia’s fighting in the country’s Tigray region, and the fighting between Israel and Palestine over the Sheikh Jarrah evictions.

    Finally, though the United States military has now withdrawn from Afghanistan, and the Taliban has taken control of the country, the outlook for the country remains uncertain.

    War and Peace

    While there are conflicts today, deaths from violence and wars have and wars have decreased over time. For example, battle death rates in state-based conflicts have reduced significantly in a period from 1946 to 2016.

    However, according to the UN, although battle related deaths have been decreasing, the number of conflicts occurring in the last few years has actually been on the rise (they have simply remained less deadly). Most conflicts have been waged by non-state actors, like organized criminal groups and political militias.

    The UN found that the most common causes of conflict today are:

    • Regional tensions

    • Breakdowns in the rule of law

    • Co-opted or absent state institutions

    • Illicit economic gain

    • Scarcity of resources exacerbated by climate change

    Traditional war between countries and war-related deaths may be becoming a thing of the past, but the threat of violence is still very real. Many countries know this as they continue to build up armies and spend significant amounts on military and defense.

    The Future of Warfare

    War and conflict are still extremely relevant in the 21st century and impact millions of people. However, traditional warfare may be changing its shape and may become less deadly as a result.

    For instance, issues like climate change will create further exacerbations on conflicts, and new forms of technological and cyber warfare could threaten countries’ elections and manipulate populations.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/11/2021 – 23:20

  • Is Durham Circling Jake Sullivan? The Special Counsel May Not Be Done With National Security Adviser
    Is Durham Circling Jake Sullivan? The Special Counsel May Not Be Done With National Security Adviser

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    Last month Washington was rocked by the indictment of Michael Sussman, former counsel for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee, for his alleged role in spreading a false Russia conspiracy theory. Special counsel John Durham — who is variously described as either painfully methodical or positively glacial as a prosecutor — reportedly was prompted to indict Sussman by an expiring statute of limitations.

    Absent such a deadline involving Sussman, it seems unlikely that Durham would have disclosed as much as he did in the indictment. The reason is that he is likely focusing on other possible targets and witnesses. That could include the most notable figure exposed in the Sussman indictment: Jake Sullivan.

    In that event, Sullivan potentially could be in the unenviable position of having to argue that he was not perjurious, just clueless, in denying knowledge of key facts to Congress. The “ignorance is bliss” defense is a favorite fallback in Washington scandals but it is less common when that person is the current national security adviser to the President of the United States.

    While an indictment of Sullivan is viewed as unlikely, he popped up unexpectedly in the indictment and the National Security Advisor may not be done with Special Counsel. If Durham is focusing on who knew or approved of the Alfa Bank conspiracy claim in the Clinton campaign, one of the highest figures referenced in the indictment (and just below Hillary Clinton)  is Sullivan.

    With Sussman, Durham indicted someone who he believes intentionally hid the role of the Clinton campaign in creating and pushing Alfa Bank scandal. In testimony to Congress, Sullivan also insisted that he did not know the Alfa Bank scandal was the work of a Clinton lawyer and people associated with the campaign. It is not clear if Durham has evidence to contradict his claim of total ignorance on the work performed by campaign counsel and campaign researchers.

    Lying to Congress is neither easy nor common for prosecution, though Special Counsel Robert Mueller prosecuted figures like Roger Stone on that basis. Michael Cohen was also indicted for lying to Congress the involvement of Donald Trump in negotiations over a Moscow real estate deal. Sullivan will have to argue that, despite being one of the top campaign advisers, he was unaware of campaign’s prior work on developing the allegation.

    The Sussman indictment refers to a wide array of characters responsible for creating the alleged conspiracy theory about a secret communications link between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin through Russia’s Alfa Bank. The unsupported claim was allegedly orchestrated in part by Sussman, who was then a partner at the law firm Perkins Coie; another partner at the time, Marc Elias, was the general counsel for the Clinton campaign and played a significant role in pushing the infamous Steele dossier.

    The indictment revealed that the Alfa Bank theory was never viewed as particularly credible by the researchers tasked with creating it. Those researchers warned that it would be easy to “poke several holes” in the claim and see the data as “a red herring.”  Yet, as with the Steele dossier, the Clinton operatives were counting on an enabling media to ask few questions before the election. The researchers were told they should not look for proof but just enough to “give the base of a very useful narrative.”

    We now know the identities of many of the figures described in the 27-page indictment. The researchers appeared in part to be operating out of Georgia Tech, including one who, according to the indictment, warned “Tech Executive-1” in mid-2016 that “we cannot technically make any claims that would fly public scrutiny. The only thing that drives us at this point is that we just do not like [Trump].”

    According to media reports, the mysterious “Tech Executive-1” mentioned in the indictment appears to be Rodney L. Joffe, who was the chief cybersecurity officer at Washington tech contractor Neustar Inc. Joffe, 66, also was a longtime client of Sussman’s and reportedly boasted that he was offered a high-ranking position in the Clinton administration, if she won the election.

    In his emails, Joffe pushed for any documentation that could be used as a foundation for the campaign: “Being able to provide evidence of anything that shows an attempt to behave badly in relation to this, the VIPs would be happy.”

    That brings us to Sullivan.

    As soon as the conspiracy theory was packaged and delivered the FBI and the media by Sussman, the indictment recounts an exchange between some of those “VIPs”: “… on or about September 15, 2016, Campaign Lawyer-1 exchanged emails with the Clinton Campaign’s campaign manager, communications director, and foreign policy advisor concerning the Russian Bank-1 allegations that SUSSMANN had recently shared with Reporter-1.” The campaign lawyer reportedly was Elias, and the “foreign policy advisor” reportedly was Sullivan.

    Sullivan was quoted in an official campaign press statement as stating that the Alfa Bank allegation “could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow.” In the statement, Sullivan said: “Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank. This secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump’s ties to Russia … This line of communication may help explain Trump’s bizarre adoration of Vladimir Putin.”

    The U.S. intelligence community ultimately rejected the Alfa Bank conspiracy. It also concluded that the Steele dossier not only relied on a suspected Russian agent but likely was used by Russian intelligence to spread disinformation through the Clinton campaign.

    Yet, when Sullivan was later questioned by Congress, he went full Sergeant Schultz, claiming he basically did not have a clue about the basis or origins of the Alfa Bank controversy or other campaign-orchestrated scandals. Sullivan was adept at laying qualifiers upon qualifiers to render statements useless: “broadly speaking, at some point in the summer, and I don’t remember exactly when it was, around the convention, I learned that there was an effort to do some research into the ties between Trump and Russia.” That will make any false statement claim difficult absent direct involvement in the planning of these “campaign efforts.”

    Sullivan denied knowing that Elias or Sussman were working for the Clinton campaign, despite numerous news articles identifying Elias as the campaign’s general counsel. Sullivan just shrugged and said: “To be honest with you, Marc wears a tremendous number of hats, so I wasn’t sure who he was representing. I sort of thought he was, you know, just talking to us as, you know, a fellow traveler in this — in this campaign effort.”

    That seems odd, given Sullivan’s long, close involvement with Clinton and her campaigns. He advised her during the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries and later became her deputy chief of staff and policy planning director at the State Department. He was one of the notable names in Clinton’s email scandal and the recipient of her controversial order to strip the classification headings on a key email.  He later rejoined Clinton again during the 2016 campaign as one of her senior-most advisers.

    Yet, the lack of disclosure over those behind the “campaign effort” seems suspiciously consistent. Sussman was indicted for allegedly hiding his representation of Clinton in pushing the Alfa Bank conspiracy. Elias was accused of doing the same with reporters on the Steele Dossier. He also reportedly sat next to campaign chair John Podesta when he denied such connections to Congress. Now Sullivan denies any knowledge of the campaign’s early role in these scandals.

    It is notable that, when Sullivan was Clinton campaign’s foreign policy adviser, President Obama was given a national security briefing of Clinton’s alleged plan to tie then-candidate Trump to Russia as “a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.” That briefing was on July 28, 2016 — three days before the Russia investigation was initiated.

    This brings us back to Durham’s calendar. Sullivan reportedly gave his series of denials to Congress in December 2017. The statute of limitations for lying to Congress is five years, which means that Sullivan still would be within range for Durham if the special counsel does not buy Sullivan’s denials. He could also find himself unindicted but entirely exposed in a report that is likely to be blistering.

    If so, Sullivan could find himself a “fellow traveler” with Sussman — not “in this campaign effort” but in Durham’s still-unfolding prosecution effort instead.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/11/2021 – 23:00

  • Seattle Small Businesses Forced To Hire Private Security Over Reduced Police Presence
    Seattle Small Businesses Forced To Hire Private Security Over Reduced Police Presence

    With billions of Congressionally approved COVID aid still unspent,small businesses in San Francisco and now Seattle are desperate for aid to help deal with an increasingly intractable problem that’s driving away potential customers and ultimately hurting businesses: the surge in criminals trying to shoplift or loiter around while they use drugs. 

    One Seattle TV station says the situation has gotten so bad that an organization called the Downtown Seattle Association is lobbying the State and the King County council requesting help and financial aid to both make the streets safer and, in the mean time, help reimburse small business owners for the cost of hiring their own private security (since the defund the police movement has forced the Seattle PD to do more with less, and now hundreds more are ready to quit over the vaccine mandate, allegedly).

    The letter specifically requested grants from the city to help small businesses hire and pay for security “to offset the significant additional security-related expenses being incurred by small businesses, retailers and arts and cultural venues due to reduced SPD staffing and increased response times.”

    One group of downtown businesses have been paying $35,000 a month to hire two off-duty police officers to patrol about six blocks near 6th Ave and Pine Street.

    “These small businesses losing their windows and doors – we need this as a stop gap measure and help them,” said Lou Bond, who is the property manager at the Melbourne Tower, a Seattle office building.

    One Seattle City Council member, whose district includes the Pioneer Square neighborhood, said in a statement that the requests from business leaders outlined  in the letter “deserve our full consideration” for 2022. “There is significant overlap between the Council’s 2021 budget priorities and the goals of this letter.”

    “These are our brothers and sisters these are human beings and we’re just letting them be out here. This is terrible,” Bond said.

    Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan has already proposed the budget for next year. A spokesperson said city council could amend it to further fund help for businesses.

     

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/11/2021 – 22:40

  • New Aerosol Ammunition To Protect Russian Battle Tanks From US Javelin Missiles
    New Aerosol Ammunition To Protect Russian Battle Tanks From US Javelin Missiles

    Submitted by South Front,

    The Russian army has adopted a new aerosol ammunition designed to protect armored vehicles from high-precision weapons.

    The 3VD35 protective aerosol ammunition was developed by the Central Scientific Research Institute of Precision Engineering (TsNIITochmash), which is part of Rostec. Its caliber is 76 mm, with length of 290 mm and weight of 1.8 kg. Temperature range of the ammunition is from -50ºC to +50ºC.

    The main purpose of the new device is to protect Russian armored vehicles from strikes into the most vulnerable upper hemisphere, which has a smaller armor thickness and is generally not covered by dynamic or anti-cumulative protection. When a threat arises, the 3VD35 protective ammunition is fired in the direction of the enemy’s attack and creates an aerosol screen that “fools” the enemy’s precision-guided munitions guidance systems.

    In a way, it makes the armored vehicle (a battle tank, for example) invisible to the guided projectile, knocks it off the target due to the presence of light and heat-reflecting particles.

    The product is designed to protect equipment from high-precision weapons with laser, optical and thermal guidance systems. It “covers” the equipment both from high-precision aircraft weapons, barrage ammunition, and from third-generation anti-tank missile systems.

    When such protective ammunition is installed on a battle tank or other armored vehicle, the developers claim that it would become essentially invulnerable to high-precision and very expensive homing missiles, such as the US Javelin and AGM-114 Hellfire.

    Apparently, there is also interest from foreign buyers, so it could either be directly exported, or an export variant could be presented soon.

    The importance of the armored vehicles’ protection rises with the creation of new types of various guided missiles. Recently, the Chinese edition Sohu published photographs of Chinese soldiers with a new anti-tank guided missile launcher. It is believed that the ATGM in the photographs belongs to the third generation. The new weapon can attack armored vehicles in their upper hemisphere making it incredibly dangerous.

    If China is developing such a weapon, there is cause to consider that some of Russia’s competitors are also doing the same.

    In the past, the United States expressed doubts about the ability of Russian tanks to withstand the FGM-148 Javelin ATGM. The National Interest claimed in a report that the protection systems of the Russian T-72B3, T-80BVM, T-90M and T-14 battle tanks are insufficient to protect against the FGM-148 ATGM.

    The United Kingdom is also concerned with the matter, as it is developing a full-fledged active defense system for armored vehicles.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/11/2021 – 22:20

  • Visualizing The World's 100 Most Valuable Brands In 2021
    Visualizing The World’s 100 Most Valuable Brands In 2021

    In 2020, the global economy experienced one of the worst declines since the Great Depression.

    Yet, as Visual Capitalist’s Carmen Ang notes, while the ripple effects of COVID-19 have thrown many businesses into disarray, some companies have not only managed to stay afloat amidst the chaos—they’ve thrived. Using data from Kantar BrandZ, this graphic looks at the top 100 most valuable brands of 2021.

    Methodology

    Each year, research group Kantar BrandZ ranks companies based on their “brand value,” which is measured by:

    1. A brand’s total financial value, which is the financial contribution that brand brings to its parent company ($ value).

    2. Multiplied by its proportional value, measured by the brands proportional impact on its parent company’s sales (% value).

    The financial results are then combined with quantitative survey data, sourced from over 170,000 global consumers. The end result is a holistic look at a company’s brand equity, reputation, and ability to generate value.

    The Leaderboard

    The total value of 2021’s Top 100 brands grew by 42%, reaching a combined $7 trillion. At the top of the list, perhaps unsurprisingly, is Amazon, with a total brand value of $683 billion.

     

    It’s the third consecutive year that Amazon has placed first on the list. Since last year’s ranking, the ecommerce brand has seen its value grow by 64%. Keep in mind, this accounts for all areas of Amazon’s business, including its web and subscription services.

     

    Second on the list is Apple with a brand value of $612 billion. Apple wasn’t completely immune to the impacts of COVID-19—in the early days of the pandemic, its stock dipped almost 19% from record highs—but the company recovered and reported record-breaking revenue, generating $64.7 billion in Q4 2020.

    It’s fitting that the top brands on the list are big tech companies since the pandemic pushed consumers online for both their shopping and entertainment needs. A few social media platforms placed high on the list as well, like Facebook, which rose two ranks this year to score the sixth spot with a brand value of $227 billion.

    Instagram and TikTok trailed behind Facebook when it came to total brand value, but both platforms saw exceptional growth compared to last year’s report. In fact, when looking at brand value growth from 2020, both brands scored a spot in the top 10.

    Insights into Brand Value Growth

    The most valuable brand report has been ranking companies for over a decade, and some overarching factors have stood out as key contributors to brand value growth:

    1. The Big Get Bigger

    Starting “strong” can give brands an edge. This is because growth rate is closely correlated with high brand equity. In other words, a strong brand will likely see more growth than a weaker brand, which might explain why companies like Amazon and Apple have been able to hold their place at the top for several consecutive years.

    Keep in mind, this doesn’t account for industry disruptors. An innovative company could come out of the woodwork next year and give the Big Tech giants a run for their money.

    2. Marketing Makes a Difference

    The right strategy can make a difference, and even smaller brands can make a splash if the message is impactful. Brands with emotional associations, like pride or popularity, tend to see that translate into brand value growth.

    Companies like Nike and Coca-Cola have mastered the art of emotional advertising. For instance, in May last year, Nike released a video urging consumers to stand up for equality, in a video titled, “For Once, Just Don’t Do It.”

    3. Smart Investment

    It’s not just about developing an effective marketing strategy, it’s about executing that strategy, and continually investing in ways that perpetuate your brand message.

    For instance, innovation is the core value of Tesla’s brand, and the electric car company walks the walk—in 2020, the company spent $1.5 billion on R&D.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/11/2021 – 22:00

  • Stoddard: If Polls Are Right, Dems Are Doomed; If They're Wrong, It's Worse
    Stoddard: If Polls Are Right, Dems Are Doomed; If They’re Wrong, It’s Worse

    Authored by A.B.Stoddard via RealClearPolitics.com,

    In less than three months, President Biden’s approval rating has tumbled from a remarkable position in a polarized nation to the lowest of all but two presidents since 1945. Democrats are panicked though refusing to course-correct, hoping the pandemic will retreat, the economy will rebound, and their agenda will pass through Congress and turn out to be popular down the line.

    The standing of the party with voters, at this time, isn’t in doubt. It’s awful. Biden’s average job approval rating on July 20 was 52.4% in the RealClearPolitics average before tanking precipitously and taking the party’s fortunes with him as the delta variant surged and American troops withdrew from Afghanistan in a deadly and tragic exit. RCP currently has him at 43.3%. His approval in Gallup has dropped 13 points since June, six points in this last month. The latest Quinnipiac University poll had Biden’s approval/disapproval at 38/53, down four points in three weeks. Specific findings on leadership questions were dreadful, with Biden’s numbers falling since April by nine points on the question of whether he cares about average Americans, seven points on whether he is honest, and nine points on whether he has good leadership skills.

    The latest Morning Consult/Politico findings from last week showed Biden’s approval underwater across the board, at 45% approval overall, at 40% on the economy, 44% on health care, 40% on national security, 33% on immigration and 36% on foreign policy. The only number not underwater was Biden’s COVID approval of 49%-46%, 30 points lower than it was last spring. Across all polling Biden’s approval on the questions of competence and accomplishment have suffered. And that Morning Consult/Politico survey stated, “The shares of independent and Democratic voters who say Biden has underperformed expectations have doubled over the past three months.”

    The decline in COVID deaths, hospitalizations and infections and the disappearance of Afghanistan from the news has done nothing to stabilize the downward trajectory. In order for Democrats to stay competitive in the midterm elections, Biden’s approval would have to get back up to 50%-52%.

    Low presidential approval ratings have correlated to significant losses for the president’s party in the last four midterm elections of 2018, 2014, 2010 and 2006.

    Meanwhile Republicans have narrowed the margin in the congressional generic ballot, and a September Morning Consult/Politico poll found “58% of GOP voters say they’re ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ enthusiastic to vote in the 2022 midterms, up 10 points since July.”

    Even if their polling was good, Democrats face fierce headwinds next year: historical trends that favor the party out of power in the midterms in a president’s first term, a fragile four-seat margin in the House and no margin in the Senate, all of which can easily erase their congressional majorities, and redistricting maps that favor the GOP. In addition, the party is facing new liabilities in voter registration — it has lost registered voters in critical states in considerable numbers. The Hill reported registration is down for Democrats since 2019 in Florida by more than 200,000, in North Carolina by more than 135,000, and in Pennsylvania by more than 200,000. Democrats have seen marginal increases in party registration in Arizona and New Hampshire. 

    Yet while Democrats are bracing themselves for a wipeout at the ballot box next year, they may not know the true extent of their loss of support among voters. Polling before last year’s election, in which Biden only prevailed by fewer than 43,000 votes in three swing states, was the least accurate in 40 years.

    Postmortem assessments are complicated and, largely, inconclusive. But several point to the likelihood that both Republican and Democratic polls — almost all of which favored Biden over President Trump — were off by an average of four percentage points; that most surveys likely oversampled liberal Democrats; that a surge of new voters could have contributed to the polling errors; and that Trump supporters were less likely to respond to pollsters because Trump repeatedly characterized them as “fake” or “suppression polls.” While 2022 will not be a presidential year, a study of 2020 polls by the American Association of Public Opinion Research found that “[t]he overstatement of the Democratic-Republican margin in polls was larger on average in senatorial and gubernatorial races compared to the Presidential contest. Last year Democrats poured record sums into Senate races in red states like Montana, South Carolina, Kentucky, Kansas and Iowa because the polling looked so promising — only to lose them all.

    Certainly voter turnout can defy any polling predictions. But Democrats will have a rough time turning out their voters next year when the base of the party is likely to feel more disappointment than gratitude for the party’s accomplishments in 2021 and 2022, and the GOP base is likely to be highly energized.

    A few weeks from now the first consequential bellwether election will take place in Virginia where former governor Terry McAuliffe, who is running again, is tied with Republican Glenn Youngkin in the polls. If McAuliffe pulls it out, Democrats will likely dismiss the scenario that polling around the rest of the country is portraying for them next year. They shouldn’t.

    Much can happen in a year, Democrats hope for improvement in the economy and the pandemic, and a return on their far-reaching “infrastructure” agenda may materialize. Revelations from the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection may challenge GOP candidates trying to avoid any daylight between their campaigns and Trump. Trump’s war with the GOP, and his constant messaging to its voters that all elections are rigged, may cost the party substantial voter turnout in key districts or states.

    But Democrats shouldn’t count on it. They should believe the polls and campaign like they do.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/11/2021 – 21:40

  • Alaska Snow Crab Harvest Cut By 88% After Population Crash In Bering Sea
    Alaska Snow Crab Harvest Cut By 88% After Population Crash In Bering Sea

    Higher temperatures in the Bering Sea, a marginal sea of the Northern Pacific Ocean, could be responsible for one of the lowest levels set in snow crab harvest in more than four decades, according to the Seattle Times. 

    The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has set the 2021-22 catch limit of snow crab to 5.6 million pounds – down 88% from last season. 

    Scientists who study snow crabs attempt to understand what happened to the crabs, native to shelf depths in the North Pacific Ocean. 

    They discovered that sea bottom warmed, pushing the crabs farther to the northwest and deeper waters. But scientists, in testimony to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council last week, noted there has also been a massive downturn in the population – not just migration out of survey zones. 

    “We really do think that … some sort of mortality event did occur,” said Katie Palof, an Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologist who advises the council.

    This may suggest that supply woes could develop and push snow crab prices higher, adding to already rapid food inflation. 

    We’ve already detailed in length of an international crabmeat shortage already underway, especially with blue crabs. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/11/2021 – 21:20

  • Johnstone: Anyone Who'd Support Going To War Over Taiwan Is A Crazy Idiot
    Johnstone: Anyone Who’d Support Going To War Over Taiwan Is A Crazy Idiot

    Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

    Taiwan has been in the news a lot lately, and it’s really bringing out the crazy in people.

    The mass media have been falsely reporting that China has been encroaching on Taiwan’s “air defense zone”, which gets stretched into the even more ludicrous claim that China “sent warplanes flying over Taiwan”. In reality Chinese planes simply entered an arbitrarily designated area hundreds of miles from Taiwan’s coast it calls its “Air Defence Identification Zone”, which has no legally recognized existence and contains a significant portion of China’s mainland. This is likely a response to the way the US and its allies have been constantly sailing war ships into disputed waters to threaten Beijing.

    As Moon of Alabama reports, US warmongers inflamed this non-controversy even further by feeding a story to the press about the already public information that there are American troops in Taiwan training the military there, citing “concern” about the danger posed by China.

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    Now headlines are blaring about President Tsai Ing-wen responding to this non-event with the announcement that Taiwan will “do whatever it takes to defend its freedom and democratic way of life.” Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott just visited Taipei to advocate that “democracies stand shoulder to shoulder” with Taiwan against China. The CIA has announced the creation of a new spy center that will focus solely on China, which CIA Director William Burns says will “further strengthen our collective work on the most important geopolitical threat we face in the 21st century: an increasingly adversarial Chinese government”.

    A recent poll says that now more than half of Americans would support sending US troops to defend Taiwan from an invasion by the mainland, plainly the result of the aggressive propaganda campaign that has greatly escalated public hysteria about China. In Australia the mass media are cranking out unbelievably insane 60 Minutes episodes ridiculously pushing the idea that China may attack Australia and that Australians should be willing to go to war to protect Taiwan. I’ve been having many disturbing interactions with people online who emphatically support the idea of the US and its allies going to war with China over Taiwanese independence.

    This is clearly nuts, and anyone who buys into this line of thinking is a brainwashed fool.

    This isn’t some kind of complicated anti-imperialist issue, and it has nothing to do with which side you take in the debate over what government Taiwan belongs under. The US and its allies engaging in a full-scale war with nuclear-armed China over Taiwan is a prospect that should be vehemently opposed out of simple, garden variety self-preservation.

    Obviously if Beijing decides to launch a military assault on Taiwan in its bid to reunify China that would be a terrible thing which would cause a lot of suffering. I don’t think that will happen unless western powers push Taipei into declaring independence or otherwise upset the delicate diplomacy dance in some major way, but if it does happen under any circumstances that would be awful.

    But Taiwanese independence is not worth fighting a world war that could kill millions, and potentially billions if things go nuclear. This should be extremely obvious to everyone.

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    War proponents will reference Hitler, as they literally always do whenever there’s talk of war against someone the United States doesn’t like, arguing that China taking Taiwan would be like the Nazis invading Poland after which they’ll just keep invading and conquering until they are stopped. But there’s no evidence that China has any interest in invading Japan, much less Australia, still less everyone else, or that it has any ambitions on the world stage beyond reunification and securing its own economic and security interests.

    The idea that China wants to take over a bunch of foreign lands, make you live under communism and give you a social credit score is the same kind of foam-brained bigoted othering which told previous generations that Black men want to take over your neighborhood so they can have sex with your wives. It’s the sort of belief that can only find purchase in an emotionally primitive mind that lacks the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and understand that not everyone wants what you have.

    The jarring amount of pushback I’ve been getting for my very sane and moderate position that we should not be willing to start World War Three between nuclear powers over Taiwanese independence makes it abundantly clear that many people don’t truly understand that starting a war means you have to actually send actual human beings to go fight that war. All the big brave warrior men bloviating about the need to stand up to China know they’ll never find themselves on the front line of that conflict because they’re too old, but they’ll happily send my kids and the kids of countless of other mothers to go and fight in it. It’s like a video game or a movie to them.

    Propaganda has made us so compartmentalized and detached from the realities of the horrors of war. If people could really see what war is and what it does, truly grok deep down in their guts how their own governments are inflicting those horrors on people right now, they’d fall to their knees in anguish and never again advocate for such things. No sane person would support a war of this scale if they truly understood what it would mean.

    *  *  *

    My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here.

    Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/11/2021 – 21:00

  • FDA Responds To Nordic Countries Suspending Moderna COVID Vaccine Usage
    FDA Responds To Nordic Countries Suspending Moderna COVID Vaccine Usage

    By Jack Phillips of The Epoch Times

    The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) responded to Nordic countries limiting the use of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine last week, saying the shot’s benefits outweigh the risks.

    Health officials in Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland suspended the use of the Moderna vaccine for younger people due to a risk of side effects including myocarditis. Sweden said it would pause the vaccine for people under the age of 30, and Denmark did the same for those under 18. Finland said that males under the age 30 shouldn’t receive the jab, while Icelandic officials added over the weekend that they would suspend use of the shot.

    “The FDA is aware of these data. At this time, FDA continues to find that the known and potential benefits of vaccination outweigh the known and potential risks for the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine,” an FDA official said in a statement to news outlets over the weekend in response to the Nordic nations’ decision to suspend the vaccine for certain age groups.

    Moderna, meanwhile, said in a statement after the countries’ decision that it was “aware of the very rare occurrence of myocarditis and/or pericarditis following administration of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19.”

    “These are typically mild cases and individuals tend to recover within a short time following standard treatment and rest. The risk of myocarditis is substantially increased for those who contract COVID-19, and vaccination is the best way to protect against this,” the company’s statement continued.

    Moderna’s vaccine is still being administered under the Food and Drug Administration’s emergency use authorization. The company’s application for full approval is still pending.

    On Oct. 10, Iceland’s Health Directorate said the Moderna vaccine would be entirely suspended due to the risk of cardiac inflammation.

    “As the supply of Pfizer vaccine is sufficient in the territory … the chief epidemiologist has decided not to use the Moderna vaccine in Iceland,” according to a statement published on the Health Directorate website.

    The move was handed down due to “the increased incidence of myocarditis and pericarditis after vaccination with the Moderna vaccine, as well as with vaccination using Pfizer/BioNTech,” its statement continued.

    And in Sweden, officials have “decided to pause the use of Moderna’s vaccine, Spikevax, for everyone born in 1991 and later, for precautionary reasons,” reads a statement from the Swedish health agency, according to a translation.

    The agency further added there is “an increased risk of side effects such as inflammation of the heart muscle or heart sac,” noting that the risk is “very small.”

    Mika Salminen, director of the Finnish health institute, said Finland would instead give Pfizer’s vaccine to men born in 1991 and later. Finland offers shots to people aged 12 and over.

    “A Nordic study involving Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark found that men under the age of 30 who received Moderna Spikevax had a slightly higher risk than others of developing myocarditis,” he said.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/11/2021 – 20:20

  • "Final Straw": Erdogan Signals New Turkish Military Operation In Syria, Sending Lira Plunging
    “Final Straw”: Erdogan Signals New Turkish Military Operation In Syria, Sending Lira Plunging

    On Monday Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that he’s preparing “necessary steps” in Syria to eliminate the “YPG threat”, Turkish media reported.

    The pledge of what appears to be a coming military operation along the Syrian border area comes after reports of two Turkish police officers killed and multiple more wounded in Azaz in northern Syria, according to an Interior Ministry press release Sunday. “We have run out of patience,” Erdogan told reporters. “Turkey is determined to eliminate threats arising from northern Syria, either together with forces active there, or with our own means.”

    Via Hurriyet Daily

    “The latest attack on our police and the harassment that targets our soil are the final straw,” Erdogan said. Turkey considers Syria’s Kurdish YPG an offshoot of the PKK – long dubbed a “terrorist” group that Ankara has for decades attempted to eradicate. 

    According Al Jazeera, citing Turkish officials, the police deaths were accompanied by rocket fire from Syrian Kurdish positions onto towns inside Turkey:

    Separately, projectiles that landed in two separate areas caused explosions in Turkey’s southern Gaziantep province, across the border from Syria’s Jarablus city, the governor’s office said.

    A third landed in Jarablus and was believed launched from a region controlled by the YPG…

    Turkey is being fought in Syria’s north by both the US-backed Syrian Kurds and the Assad government, given Turkish national forces as well as anti-Assad jihadist groups supported by Turkey have annexed broad swathes of northern Syria territory along the border. Pro-Turkish forces have also over the years come under attack by Russian warplanes, creating lasting tensions between Ankara and the Kremlin.

    The Syrian and Russian governments have charged Turkey with severe and continued violations of Syria’s sovereignty and acts of aggression, and there’ve been recent rumors that the Syrian Army is preparing for an assault of al-Qaeda occupied Idlib province. It’s long been an open secret that Turkey is propping up the terror enclave. 

    Turkey has sought to justify its military occupation as based in “defensive” ‘counter-terrorism’ operations in accord with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. Hence it continually claims to be under attack by Syrian Kurdish militias in the region, for which it had initially launched ‘Operation Euphrates Shield in August 2016. 

    Meanwhile, also on Monday – likely in part in relation to Erdogan’s signaling a new major military campaign inside northern Syria (further destabilizing the refugee-packed border region) – and following last month’s unexpected rate cut by Turkey’s central bank, the lira weakened to a fresh record low. “The currency extended losses to trade past 9.00 per U.S. dollar,” Bloomberg recorded. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/11/2021 – 20:00

  • Learning To Fear Free Speech: How Politicians Are Moving To Protect Us From Our Unhealthy Reading Choices
    Learning To Fear Free Speech: How Politicians Are Moving To Protect Us From Our Unhealthy Reading Choices

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    Below is my column in the Hill on the increasing calls for censorship and speech regulation on the Internet.  The most recent push on Capitol Hill surrounds the testimony of former Facebook product manager Frances Haugen who alleges that Facebook has been knowingly harming children through promotion and access to certain sites. For some, the testimony follows a type of Trojan Horse pattern where anti-free speech measures are packaged as public safety measures.  Before embracing the proposals of these senators, the public needs to think long and hard over what is being lost in these “reforms.”

    Here is the column:

    “Caution: Free Speech May Be Hazardous to Your Health.” Such a rewording of the original 1965 warning on tobacco products could soon appear on social media platforms, if a Senate hearing this week is any indicator. Listening to former Facebook product manager Frances Haugen, senators decried how Facebook is literally killing people by not censoring content, and Haugen proposed a regulatory board to protect the public.

    But before we embrace a new “ministry of information” model to protect us from dangerous viewpoints, we may want to consider what we would lose in this Faustian free-speech bargain.

    Warnings over the “addiction” and “unhealthy” content of the internet have been building into a movement for years. In July, President Biden slammed Big Tech companies for “killing people” by failing to engage in even greater censorship of free speech on issues related to the pandemic. On Tuesday, many senators were enthralled by Haugen’s testimony because they, too, have long called for greater regulation or censorship. It all began reasonably enough over concerns about violent speech, and then expanded to exploitative speech. However, it continued to expand even further as the regulation of speech became an insatiable appetite for silencing opposing views.

    In recent hearings with social media giants, members like Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) were critical of limiting censorship to areas like election fraud and instead demanded censorship of disinformation on climate change and other subjects.

    Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) has repeatedly called for “robust content modification” to remove untrue or misleading information.

    Haugen lashed out at what she said was the knowing harm committed against people, particularly children, by exposing them to disinformation or unhealthy views. Haugen wants the company to remove “toxic” content and change algorithms to make such sites less visible. She complained that sites with a high engagement rate are more likely to be favored in searches. However, the problem is that sites deemed false or harmful are too popular. Haugen said that artificially removing “likes” is not enough because the popularity or interest in some sites will still push them to the top of searches.

    It was a familiar objection. Just the week before, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called for Amazon to steer readers to “true” books on climate change. Her objection was that the popularity of “misleading” books was pushing them to the top of searches, and she wants the algorithms changed to help readers pick what she considers to be healthier choices — meaning, more in line with her views.

    Similarly, Haugen’s solution seems to be … well, her: 

    “Right now, the only people in the world who are trained to analyze these experiments, to understand what is happening inside … there needs to be a regulatory home where someone like me could do a tour of duty after working at a place like [Facebook],and have a place to work on things like regulation.”

    Censorship programs always begin with politicians and bureaucrats who — in their own minds — have the benefit of knowing what is true and the ability to protect the rest of us from our harmful thoughts.

    Ironically, I have long been a critic of social media companies for their rapid expansion of censorship, including the silencing of political critics, public health experts and pro-democracy movements at the behest of foreign governments like China and Russia. I am unabashedly an internet originalist who favors an open, free forum for people to exchange ideas and viewpoints — allowing free speech to be its own disinfectant of bad speech.

    Facebook has been running a slick campaign to persuade people to embrace corporate censorship. Yet, now, even the Facebook censors are being denounced as too passive in the face of runaway free speech. The focus is on the algorithms used to remove content or, as with Haugen and Warren, used to flag or promote popular sites.

    Haugen describes her approach as a “non-content-based solution” but it is clearly not that. She objects to algorithms like “downstream MSI” which tracks traffic and pushes postings based on past likes or comments. As explained by one site, it is “based on their ability to engage users, not necessarily its usefulness or truthfulness.” Of course, the objection to those “un-useful” sites is their content and claimed harm.

    Like Warren, Haugen is calling for what I have criticized as “enlightened algorithms” to protect us from our own bad choices. Our digital sentinels are “non-content-based” but will magically remove bad content to prevent unhealthy choices.

    There is no question that the internet is fueling an epidemic of eating disorders and other great social problems. The solution, however, is not to create regulatory boards or to reduce free speech. Europe has long deployed such oversight boards in removing what it considers harmful stereotypes from advertising and barring images of honey or chips — but the results have been underwhelming at best.

    It is no accident that authoritarian countries have long wanted such regulation, since free speech is a threat to their power. Now, we also have U.S. academics writing that “China was right” all along about censorship, and public officials demanding more power to censor further. We have lost faith in free speech, and we are being told to put our faith into algorithmic guardians.

    We can confront our problems more effectively by using good speech to overcome bad speech. When it comes to minors, we can use parents to protect their children by increasing parental controls over internet access; we can help parents with more or better programs and resources for mental illnesses. Of course, it is hard to advocate for restraint when the image of an anorexic child is juxtaposed against the abstract concept of free speech. However, that is the siren’s call of censorship: Protecting that child by reducing her free-speech rights is no solution for her — but it is a solution for many who want more control over opposing views.

    Free speech is not some six-post-a-day addiction that should be cured with algorithmic patches.

    There is no such thing as a content-neutral algorithm that removes only harmful disinformation — because behind each of those enlightened algorithms are people who are throttling speech according to what they deem to be harmful thoughts or viewpoints.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/11/2021 – 19:40

  • Wall Street Is Done With Covid: Pandemic No Longer Among Top 3 Risks For Market
    Wall Street Is Done With Covid: Pandemic No Longer Among Top 3 Risks For Market

    The covid scare is officially over.

    According to the latest monthly survey of 600 global market participants conducted by Deutsche Bank, for the first time since June, the biggest perceived risk to markets is no longer covid. Instead the top three risks are i) higher inflation and bond yields, ii) central bank policy error and iii) strong growth failing to materialize or being very short lived (i.e. stagflation and/or recession). New covid variants that bypass vaccines has slumped from 1st place, which it occupied for the previous three months, to 4th place in October.

    Below we present some of the other notable results from the survey.

    When asked if there will be an equity correction before year-end, only 29% said no, while solid majority, or 63%, expect a drop between 5 and 10% before year end. Just 8% expect the coming drop to be bigger than 10%.

    The most likely catalyst for the coming correction are higher rates. At least that’s what the next survey question suggests: a whopping 84% of survey respondents expect the next 25bps move in 10Y yields to be higher, and just 11% lower. Only 5% of the respondents were honest.

    DB then asked respondents if they believe the policy error for major central banks – Fed, ECB, BOE – is being too dovish or hawkish. The risks were seen as high everywhere but the Fed/ECB were seen more likely to keep policy too loose with the BoE expected to err on the hawkish side.

    The next question is one we addressed over the weekend, namely what is Wall Street’s fluid definition of stagflation. While there was no overwhelming consensus definition for “stagflation”, there is a fairly strong bias that stagflation of some kind is more likely than not over the next 12 months. Particularly in the UK.

    A historic cross-section of responses shows something interesting: while inflation expectations have remained heavily tilted to the upside, there has been a slight pullback from the May extremes: in October, deflationary risks increased to highest since January, probably on the growth scares.

    We conclude with a response that confirms that for the most part Wall Steet is still clueless, with 62% still saying that inflation will be “mostly transitory”, while just 31% say mostly permanent. The silver lining: that 31% is the highest percentage since May, so there is some hope, even for Wall Street.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/11/2021 – 19:20

  • 131 Federal Judges Didn't Disclose Their Interests And Cases May Be Reheard
    131 Federal Judges Didn’t Disclose Their Interests And Cases May Be Reheard

    Authored by Adam Andrzejewski via RealClearPolicy.com,

    Federal district judges earn $218,600 annually and many hold stock investments, a potential conflict of interest when a case involving the companies in which they’re invested comes before them.

    That’s exactly what happened with 131 federal judges who broke the law by hearing suits in which they had a financial interest, The Wall Street Journal recently reported.

    The Journal looked at the financial disclosure forms that about 700 federal judges filed between 2010 and 2018 and found that 129 federal district judges and two federal appellate judges in 685 lawsuits had at least one case where they or their family owned stock in a company that was a plaintiff or defendant in their courtroom.

    Now, 56 of the judges have told their court clerks to notify parties in 329 lawsuits that they should have recused themselves, making it likely that new judges will be assigned to re-hear the cases at a huge cost to taxpayers.

    There’s no law stopping judges from owning stocks, but since 1974, federal law has barred judges from hearing cases that involve a party in which they, their spouses or their minor children have a “legal or equitable interest, however small.”

    While there’s no estimate as to how large the bill is that taxpayers foot for the average, federal court case, we know that these judges collect $218,600 annually — $28.6 million for 131 judges — plus benefits.

    Their court clerks and other support staff are paid salaries as they go through case after case, and re-hearing cases that have already been decided is a waste of taxpayer money that could have been avoided if judges disclosed their conflict of interests before taking a case.

    *  *  *

    The #WasteOfTheDay is presented by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/11/2021 – 19:00

  • China's Military Conducts Beach Landing Assault Drills Just Across From Taiwan
    China’s Military Conducts Beach Landing Assault Drills Just Across From Taiwan

    China’s military announced Monday that it carried out beach landing and assault drills just across from Taiwan at a moment the rhetoric coming out of Beijing, Taipei and Taiwan’s powerful backer Washington is growing increasingly bellicose. 

    The assault drills were held “in recent days” according to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) statement, located in the southern part of Fujian province, which is directly across the sea from the self-ruled island.

    Prior PLA assault drills, via Xinhua

    Importantly the official PLA statement didn’t specifically name Taiwan as a factor in the mission preparation and drills; however, the message is unmistakably meant to affirm China won’t back down on its longtime claims to sovereignty over the island. 

    Reuters describes details of the drills as summarized in Chinese state media as follows:

    The action had involved “shock” troops, sappers and boat specialists, the Chinese military newspaper added. The troops were “divided into multiple waves to grab the beach and perform combat tasks at different stages”, it added, without providing further details.

    It showed a video of soldiers in small boats storming a beach, throwing smoke grenades, breaking through barbed wire defenses and digging trenches in the sand.

    But it was also noted that a small number of troops appeared in the footage, suggesting elite units were involved – and not large-scale marine or infantry forces. 

    Though taking place firmly within Chinese mainland territory, the geography is important, considering as Reuters notes that “Fujian would be a key launching site for any Chinese invasion of Taiwan due to its geographical proximity.”

    The PLA video release of the Fujian drills…

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

    Within the past two months top Taiwan officials have openly described their strategic defense doctrine of wanting to transform the island into a “sea fortress” and “porcupine” which is able to withstand a direct Chinese assault – or at least long enough for help from more powerful allies to arrive. 

    But meanwhile one recent regional media report emphasized that “Washington will also make clear that Taipei must avoid any provocative action that would compel Beijing to respond, even as it pressures Taiwan to increase its military spending, invest in more mobile coastal cruise missile systems and strengthen its military reserves.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/11/2021 – 18:40

  • Beware Of The Progressive Redefinition Of Moderates
    Beware Of The Progressive Redefinition Of Moderates

    Authored by Gary Galles via The American Institute for Economic Research,

    Progressive thought control efforts have turned to a new attack on moderates.

    As reported on The Hill, first-year Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.), said “Referring to the small handful of conservative Democrats working to block the president’s agenda as ‘moderates’ does grave harm to the English language and unfairly maligns my colleagues who are actually moderate yet by and large understand the stakes of this historic moment.” He linked moderates and progressives together, as “united in our commitment to passing President Biden’s agenda,” and that “Anyone trying to obstruct that agenda” is not a moderate.

    This redefinition of moderates is reminiscent of the treatment of the Tea Party during an earlier impasse over the debt ceiling. In the wake of an historic explosion of federal power and spending (though dwarfed by current proposals) and when 40 percent of every federal dollar was borrowed, left-leaning politicians and pundits called for moderates to join them in supporting President Obama’s demand for higher taxes and bigger government. Predictably, they called everyone who wanted to undo some of that profligacy an extremist.

    In both cases, Democrats demonized those who were at least moderately concerned with citizens’ constitutional rights and wallets. They hoped to find people willing to support their budget priorities, and the massively higher burdens those priorities required. In the end, they hoped to remake America in their own image, while buying off the smallest number of citizens necessary to implement their 50 percent “landslide.”

    It is important to note that in both such cases, as well as many others, the moderation Democrats called for was moderation in defense of liberty. Those who resisted were branded unreasonable extremists and shown the door.

    While such rhetorical distortions reflect current progressive-left thinking, there is a source Americans can turn to for a more reasonable point of view. It comes from an “electoral manifesto” written by Frederic Bastiat in 1830. His dead-on discussion of moderation is worth recalling now:

    Moderation…plays a role in this army of sophisms.

    Were those who each year voted for more taxes than the nation could bear moderates? What about those who never found the contributions to be sufficiently heavy, emoluments sufficiently huge, and sinecures sufficiently numerous…the betrayal of the confidences of their constituents?

    Are those who want to prevent…such excesses extremists? I mean those who want to inject a dose of moderation into spending; those who want to moderate the action of the people in power…those who do not want the nation to be exploited by one party rather than another.

    Left to itself, [government] soon exceeds the limits which circumscribe its mission. It increases beyond all reason…It no longer administers, it exploits…It no longer protects, it oppresses.

    This would be the way all governments operate…if the people did not place obstacles in the way of governmental encroachments.

    Prodigality and liberty…are incompatible

    Where can there be liberty when the government, in order to sustain enormous expenditures and forced to levy huge fiscal contributions, must resort to the most offensive and burdensome taxation…to invade the sphere of private industry, to narrow incessantly the circle of individual activity, to make itself merchant, manufacturer, postman and teacher.

    Are we free if the government…subjects all its activities to the goal of enlarging its cohort of employees, hampers all businesses, constrains all faculties, interferes with all commercial exchanges in order to restrain some people, hinder others, and hold almost all of them to ransom?

    Can we expect order from a regime that places millions of enticements to greed all around the country…increasingly spreading the mania for governing and a zeal for domination.

    Do we want, then, to free government from the plotters who pursue it in order to share out the spoils, from factions who undermine it in order to capture it, and from the tyrants who strengthen it in order to control it? Do we want…order, freedom and public peace?

    Do we want the government to take more of an interest in us than we take in ourselves? Are we expecting it to restrain itself if we strengthen it and become less active if we send it reinforcements? Do we hope that the spoils it can take from us will be refused…Should we expect a supernatural nobility of spirit…in those who govern us, while for our part we are incapable of defending…our dearest interests! 

    Be careful…we should not shut our eyes to the evidence…are we going to destroy [liberty’s] work? 

    Frederic Bastiat wrote his electoral manifesto at a time when politically popular “moderates” enabled expanding government coercion, while “extremists” defended liberty.

    Unfortunately, little seems different today.

    But if we recognize with him what is at stake–liberty too precious to be bargained over–we might yet turn this destructive tide.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/11/2021 – 18:20

  • Southwest Blames Cancellations On Worker Shortage, Union Denies 'Sick-Out' Over Vaccine Mandate
    Southwest Blames Cancellations On Worker Shortage, Union Denies ‘Sick-Out’ Over Vaccine Mandate

    Update (1800ET): Southwest Airlines has had another terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day – as a shortage of workers combined with an air traffic control interruption to bring the total number of canceled flights to nearly 3,100 in four days.

    “Crews were struggling to move and you end up in short order with aircraft and crews in the wrong spot,” said EVP Bob Jordan, adding “It’s really difficult to repair and put those things back together.”

    Speculation over the actual cause of the cancellations has been rampant on social media – with some pilots refuting claims that they were staging a sickout over vaccination mandates, while COPO Mike Van de Ven told employees on Sunday night that it needs to build more of a “staffing cushion” to deal with unexpected disruptions.

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

    According to Bloomberg, Southwest has hired just half of the 5,500 workers it plans to before year-end, according to CEO-designate Jordan.

    The airline has set a Dec. 8 deadline for vaccinations, which the Pilots Union claim “imposes new conditions of employment” and threatens termination.

    “What was a minor temporary event for other carriers devastated Southwest Airlines because our operation has become brittle and subject to massive failures under the slightest pressure,” said Casey Murray, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association. “Our pilots are tired and frustrated because our operation is running on empty due to a lack of support from the company.”

    Murray denied that the cancellations were due to any sort of pilot protest.

    “I can say with certainty that there are no work slowdowns or sickouts either related to the recent mandatory vaccine mandate or otherwise,” he said, adding that under federal law “our union is forbidden from taking job action to resolve labor disputes under these circumstances. SWAPA has not authorized, and will not condone, any job action.”

    *  *  *

    Update (1220ET):

    *SOUTHWEST COO: STILL SHORT ON WORKERS, ESPECIALLY FLIGHT CREWS

    *SOUTHWEST COO COMMENTS ON CANCELLATIONS IN VIDEO FOR EMPLOYEES

    *SOUTHWEST COO: `WE NEED MORE STAFFING CUSHION FOR DISRUPTIONS’

    *SOUTHWEST COO: `CANNOT TELL YOU THAT WE ARE OUT OF THE WOODS’

    *  *  *

    As we noted on Sunday, Southwest airlines canceled nearly 2,000 flights over the weekend – blaming the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and inclement weather.

    Oddly, no other major airlines had the same issues, while rumors swirled that airline employees had staged coordinated walk-outs (which their unions deny).

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

    On Monday, Southwest was once again at the top of the cancellation list, according to FlightAware – which lists 356 cancellations as of this writing (23% of the day’s 1,539 total cancellations), prompting Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) to tweet: “As a loyal Southwest customer who has been flying safely throughout the pandemic and is utterly opposed to vaccine mandates, I’m asking, stop the madness before more damage is done.”

    Needless to say, shares in Southwest weren’t happy Monday morning – hopeful candle aside.

    Former US Senator Dr. Ron Paul may be on to something in a Monday op-ed via the Ron Paul Institute, when he calls it a rebellion (emphasis ours)

    The incredible cruelty and folly of forced vaccines finally came home to roost. The vaccine mandate backlash has been bubbling just under the surface, but now it has spilled out into the open, threatening to completely derail an already crumbling economy and to obliterate a deeply unpopular US President and Administration.

    Seemingly out of nowhere what appears to be a Southwest Airlines rebellion has taken flight this weekend. According to media reports, scores of pilots and other Southwest employees have coordinated the taking of “sick days” to use them up in advance of a Southwest Airlines mandate to get the jab or lose the job. Over Saturday and Sunday more than 2,000 flights have been cancelled, with airports experiencing full-on mayhem.

    The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association is suing the airline over the imposed vaccine mandate, bolstering the claim that there is a “sick out” underway among angry Southwest pilots.

    The mainstream media is doing its best to keep a lid on the expanding rebellion against the vaccine mandates, and Southwest Airlines itself is blaming the cancellations on bad weather and a lack of air traffic controllers. However, the weather problems that Southwest claims to be experiencing seem unique to that carrier: no other airline (thus far) is reporting such weather-related cancellations. And FAA spokesperson Steve Kulm told USA Today that “No FAA air traffic staffing shortages have been reported since Friday.”

    Will other pilots, such as at American Airlines, follow suit? Rumors are circling that this is only the beginning.

    Over the past few weeks, thousands of nurses, medical workers, and first responders have either quit or been fired for refusing to receive a medical treatment they do not want or need. The “nursing shortage” that Democrat politicians and the mainstream media had been blaming on “rising Covid cases” has been in reality a man-made disaster of historic proportions. The nursing crisis is not caused by “Covid” – cases have been in decline in the US for weeks. It is caused by the firing of medical personnel who refuse to take the experimental Covid shots.

    The stupidity of adopting a policy of firing healthcare workers while at the same time claiming that there is a raging pandemic gripping the country has not been lost on Americans. President Biden’s polling numbers have unsurprisingly been in freefall, with major Democrat candidates like Virginia’s Terry McAuliffe openly complaining that the deeply unpopular Biden is threatening him in a tight race for governor.

    While Biden Administration lackeys like Fauci are telling Americans they can’t celebrate Christmas again this year, more and more of America is finished with this “public health” terrorism. Here in Texas, a hundred thousand unmasked Texas A&M fans poured onto the football field on Saturday after a last minute surprise victory over Alabama. In Texas and elsewhere, the Administration is losing the fear factor.

    History may record this weekend as the turning point against the Biden Administration’s Covid tyranny. From nurses to pilots to truckers to even Amtrak workers, it appears that America is standing up and saying “enough!” Every one of our fellow citizens standing up on principle to oppose tyranny – facing the loss of their jobs and security – is owed a debt of gratitude by all who love liberty. Let’s hope that the peaceful rebellion continues to grow!

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/11/2021 – 18:00

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Oct 11

Today’s News 11th October 2021

  • Fertilizer Prices Hit Record Highs, May Pressure Food Inflation Even Higher
    Fertilizer Prices Hit Record Highs, May Pressure Food Inflation Even Higher

    Fertilizer prices have risen to a record high in North America, threatening to boost food inflation even higher. Nitrogen products are increasing due to the cost of natural gas, which is used in the manufacturing process. 

    The Green Markets North America Fertilizer Price Index soared to a record high last week of $996.32 per short ton. 

    The fertilizer market has been roiled by hurricanes, plant shutdowns, sanctions, and shortages of natural gas in Europe and China, pushing nutrient prices sky-high, which will raise the cost of production for global farmers. Here are global fertilizer prices zooming higher: 

    Fertilizers play an essential role in crop development for producing enough food for the global economy. The soaring costs of nutrients plus rapid food inflation will have the most severe economic impacts on emerging market economies first because low-income folks allocate a more significant part of their incomes to purchasing food. This week, the Food and Agriculture Organization’s global food index hit a new decade high, driven by gains for cereals and vegetable oils.

    Expensive fertilizer will push production costs higher for farmers worldwide, which will continue to increase food inflation.

    Benefiting from rising fertilizer prices is CF Industries Holdings Inc., the world’s second-biggest fertilizer company. 

    The Northern Hemisphere growing season begins late March/April. It may suggest that soaring farm input costs, such as fertilizer, diesel, labor, and machinery, will pressure farm incomes and lead to sustained food inflation well into 2022. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/11/2021 – 02:45

  • Europa Scorned And Forsaken
    Europa Scorned And Forsaken

    Authored by Alasdair Crooke via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    Does Europe possess the energy and the humility to look itself in the mirror, and re-position itself diplomatically?

    Two events have combined to make a major inflection point for Europe:

    The first was America’s abandonment of the Great Game ploy of attempting to keep the two Central Asian great land powers – Russia and China – divided and at odds with each other. This was the inexorable consequence to the US’ defeat in Afghanistan – and the loss of its last strategic foothold in Asia.

    Washington’s response was a reversion to that old nineteenth century geo-political tactic of maritime containment of Asian land-power – through controlling the sea lanes. However America’s pivot to China as its primordial security interest has resulted in the North Atlantic becoming much less important to Washington – as the US security crux compacts down to ‘blocking’ China in the Pacific.

    The Establishment-linked figure, George Friedman (of Stratfor fame), has outlined America’s new post-Afghan strategy on Polish TV. He said tartly: “When we looked for allies [for a maritime force in the Pacific] on which we could count – they were the British and the Australians. The French weren’t there”. Friedman suggested that the threat from Russia is more than a bit exaggerated, and implied that the North Atlantic NATO and Europe are not particularly relevant to the US in the new context of ‘China competition’. “We ask”, Friedman says, “what does NATO do for the problems the US has at this point?”. “This [the AUKUS] is the [alliance] that has existed since World War II. So naturally they [Australia] bought American submarines instead of French submarines: Life goes on”.

    Friedman continued: “The NATO countries don’t have force enough to help us. It has been weakened by the Europeans. To have a military alliance, you have to have a military. The Europeans are not interested in spending the money”. “Europe”, he said, “has left us with no choice: It is not a case of the US adopting this strategy [AUKUS], it is the strategy of Europe. First, there is no Europe. There is a bunch of countries in Europe, pursuing their own interests. You can only be bilateral [perhaps working with Poland and Romania]. There is no ‘Europe’ to work with”.

    A storm in a tea-cup? Possibly. But the French went apoplectic. Expressions such as ‘stab in the back’ and ‘betrayal’ were flung around. It was Europa scorned. She is bitter and angry. Biden has made a groveling apology to President Macron over cutting out France from the submarine contract, and Blinken has been in Paris smoothing feathers.

    George Friedman’s blunt account of the ‘new strategy’ may not be Biden ‘speak’, but it is Military Industrial think-tank conceptualisation. How do we know that? Firstly, because Friedman is one of their spokesmen – but simply because… continuity. The incumbents of the White House come and go, but US security objectives do not alter so readily. When Trump was in the White House, his views on NATO were very similar to those just repeated by Friedman. Incumbents may change, but military think-tank perspectives evolve to a different and slower cycle.

    The ‘multilateral dimension’ of relations with France would be viewed as a largely Biden preoccupation. Friedman expressed the continuity of a US slow-burn focus to seeing China as the threat to US primacy. NATO won’t disappear, but it will play a narrower role (especially in the wake of its’ Afghan débacle).

    But the EU, Friedman has made ruthlessly clear, is not viewed by the US security élite as a serious global player – or really as much more than one ‘punter’, amongst others, buying at the US weapons supermarket. The submarine contract with Australia however, was a centrepiece to Paris’s strategy for European ‘strategic autonomy’. Macron believed France and the EU had established a position of lasting influence in the heart of the Indo-Pacific. Better still, it had out-manoeuvred Britain, and broken into the Anglophone world of the Five Eyes to become a privileged defence partner of Australia. Biden dissed that. And Commission President von der Leyen told CNN that there could not be “business as usual” after the EU was blindsided by AUKUS.

    One factor for the UK being chosen as the ‘Indo-Pacific partner’ very probably was Trump’s successful suasion with ‘Bojo’ Johnson to abandon the Cameron-Osborne outreach to China; whereas the big three EU powers were perceived in the US security world as ambivalent towards China, at best. The UK really did cut links. The grease finally was Brexit, which opened the window for strategic options – which otherwise would have been impossible to the UK.

    There may be a heavy price to pay though further down the line – the US security establishment are really pushing the Taiwan ‘envelope’ to the limit (possibly to weaken the CCP). It is extremely high risk. China may decide ‘enough is enough’, and crush the AUKUS maritime venture, which it can do.

    The second ‘leg’ to this global inflection point – also triggered around the Afghan pivot into the Russo-Chines axis – was the SCO summit last month. A memorandum of understanding was approved that would tie together China’s Belt and Road Initiative to the Eurasian Economic Community, within the overall structure of the SCO, whilst adding a deeper military dimension to the expanded SCO structure.

    Significantly, President Xi spoke separately to members of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (of which China is not a part), to outline its prospective military integration too, into the SCO military structures. Iran was made a full member, and it and Pakistan (already a member), were elevated into prime Eurasian roles. In sum, all Eurasian integration paths combined into a new trade, resource – and military block. It represents an evolving big-power, security architecture covering some 57% of the world’s population.

    Having lifted Iran into full membership – Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt may also become SCO dialogue partners. This augurs well for a wider architecture that may subsume more of the Middle East. Already, Turkey after President Erdogan’s summit with President Putin at Sochi last week, gave clear indications of drifting towards Russia’s military complex – with major orders for Russian weaponry. Erdogan made clear in an interview with the US media that this included a further S400 air defence system, which almost certainly will result in American CAATSA sanctions on Turkey.

    All of this faces the EU with a dilemma: Allies who cheered Biden’s ‘America is back’ slogan in January have found, eight months later, that ‘America First’ never went away. But rather, Biden paradoxically is delivering on the Trump agenda (continuity again!) – a truncated NATO (Trump mooted quitting it), and the possible US shunning of Germany as some candidate coalition partners edge toward exiting from the nuclear umbrella. The SPD still pays lip service to NATO, but the party is opposed to the 2% defence spending target (on which both Biden and Trump have insisted). Biden also delivered on the Afghanistan withdrawal.

    Europeans may feel betrayed (though when has US policy ever been other than ‘America First’? It’s just the pretence which is gone). European grander aspirations at the global plane have been rudely disparaged by Washington. The Russia-China axis is in the driving seat in Central Asia – with its influence seeping down to Turkey and into the Middle East. The latter commands the lions’ share of world minerals, population – and, in the CTSO sphere, has the region most hungry and ripe for economic development.

    The point here however, is the EU’s ‘DNA’. The EU was a project originally midwifed by the CIA, and is by treaty, tied to the security interests of NATO (i.e. the US). From the outset, the EU was constellated as the soft-power arm of the Washington Consensus, and the Euro deliberately was made outlier to the dollar sphere, to preclude competition with it (in line with the Washington Consensus doctrine). In 2002, an EU functionary (Robert Cooper) could envisage Europe as a new ‘liberal imperialism’. The ‘new’ was that Europe eschewed hard military power, in favour of the ‘soft’ power of its ‘vision’. Of course, Cooper’s assertion of the need for a ‘new kind of imperialism’ was not as ‘cuddly’ liberal – as presented. He advocated for ‘a new age of empire’, in which Western powers no longer would have to follow international law in their dealings with ‘old fashioned’ states; could use military force independently of the United Nations; and impose protectorates to replace regimes which ‘misgovern’.

    This may have sounded quite laudable to the Euro-élites initially, but this soft-power European Leviathan was wholly underpinned by the unstated – but essential – assumption that America ‘had Europe’s back’. The first intimation of the collapse of this necessary pillar was Trump who spoke of Europe as a ‘rival’. Now the US flight from Kabul, and the AUKUS deal, hatched behind Europe’s back, unmissably reveals that the US does not at all have Europe’s back.

    This is no semantic point. It is central to the EU concept. As just one example: when Mario Draghi was recently parachuted onto Italy as PM, he wagged his finger at the assembled Italian political parties: “Italy would be pro-European and North Atlanticist too”, he instructed them. This no longer makes sense in the light of recent events. So what is Europe? What does it mean to be ‘European’? All that needs to be thought through.

    Europe today is caught between a rock and a hard place. Does it possess the energy (and the humility) to look itself in the mirror, and re-position itself diplomatically? It would require altering its address to both Russia and China, in the light of a Realpolitik analysis of its interests and capabilities.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/11/2021 – 02:00

  • China Prepares For Possible Large-Scale COVID-19 Outbreak: Leaked CCP Documents
    China Prepares For Possible Large-Scale COVID-19 Outbreak: Leaked CCP Documents

    Authored by Alex Wu via The Epoch Times,

    The Chinese regime has notified local authorities to prepare for a large-scale outbreak of COVID-19, according to leaked internal documents obtained by the Chinese Epoch Times.

    One document, titled “Notice of Further Strengthening of Epidemic Prevention” was issued by the Chinese regime’s State Council, and forwarded by Fujian provincial government to local authorities on Sept. 30.

    The other is a “National Day Epidemic Prevention Notice” issued by the State Council on Oct. 1 and distributed by the Fujian provincial officials to local authorities.

    The documents are both marked “extra urgent.”

    Both notices request enhanced preparations for an emergency response to the outbreak, with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) putting forward at least two standards for local authorities.

    One is to build central isolation sites, with local authorities required by the end of October to set up isolation centers and rooms of not less than 20 rooms per 10,000 people. The scale of each isolation site must be more than 100 rooms.

    According to public data, the population of Fujian Province in 2020 was 41.54 million. As of Sept. 19, the province has set up 35,691 quarantine rooms in 296 central sites.

    Based on the standard in the epidemic prevention notice, Fujian Province will need to build at least 83,000 quarantine rooms by the end of October, which is around 47,000 rooms in less than a month.

    According to one expert, the requirements for the COVID-19 quarantine sites reveal the real situation of the pandemic in China.

    Dr. Sean Lin, a former virology researcher at the U.S. Army Research Institute, told The Epoch Times:

    “This reflects the CCP’s concern about the rise of the epidemic. It must have been concealing the true epidemic in mainland China, otherwise it would not suddenly issue a national notice of emergency preparedness.”

    “Notice of Further Strengthening of Epidemic Prevention” requires the establishment of a five-layered control system.

    It states:

    “Township and street CCP cadres, community grid staff, grassroots medical workers, police, and volunteers shall jointly implement community epidemic prevention,” such as “strictly implement[ing] community prevention and control,” or locking down residential communities.

    Lin said that the control system is actually to tighten social management in local areas, and “the CCP’s purpose is to tighten control.”

    “If there is no nucleic acid test, all the CCP’s epidemic prevention measures are the same as political campaigns. For example, you can be quarantined at any time and put in a quarantine site. And the quarantine sites can also be a place of political persecution,” Lin said.

    “No matter who you are, as long as the CCP says that you tested positive in a nucleic acid test, it will deprive you of all your rights. The CCP’s quarantine sites are actually an alternative form of concentration camp.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/10/2021 – 23:30

  • "Ready For Fielding" – US AC-130 Gunship Receives Laser Cannon 
    “Ready For Fielding” – US AC-130 Gunship Receives Laser Cannon 

    One of the most feared planes on the modern battlefield is the U.S. Air Force’s AC-130H Spectre gunship. The service has made major upgrades to the gunship, including a new offensive laser weapon system. 

    Lockheed Martin published a press release last week outlining how the Airborne High Energy Laser (AHEL) “is ready for fielding today.” 

    “Completion of this milestone is a tremendous accomplishment for our customer,” said Rick Cordaro, vice president, Lockheed Martin Advanced Product Solutions. “These mission success milestones are a testament of our partnership with the U.S. Air Force in rapidly achieving important advances in laser weapon system development. Our technology is ready for fielding today.”

    The gunship, nicknamed “Hell in the Sky,” packs a serious punch with three side-firing weapons, including a 25mm Gatling gun, a 40mm Bofors cannon, and a 105mm howitzer. The fourth will be the AHEL, a chemical energy weapon, unleashing concentrated pulses of light to transfer energy to the target, quickly heating it and damaging it. 

    Lockheed went on to say the “AHEL subsystem for integration with other systems in preparation for ground testing and ultimately flight testing aboard the AC-130J aircraft.” There was no mention of when the laser weapon system would conduct air tests. 

    The 60-kilowatt laser weapon doesn’t have enough energy to punch a hole through a main battle tank or blow an enemy soldier to pieces, but rather it can melt ground-based satellite antennas and optical sensors. 

    There’s also a push by the Pentagon to develop and field laser weapons that are a “million times stronger” than anything out in the field today.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/10/2021 – 23:00

  • Anti-Interventionist vs Neocon: Rare Debate Sees Scott Horton Steamroll Iraq War Architect Bill Kristol
    Anti-Interventionist vs Neocon: Rare Debate Sees Scott Horton Steamroll Iraq War Architect Bill Kristol

    Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via caitlinjohnstone.substack.com

    An important and long-overdue debate has occurred between Iraq-raping arch-neocon Bill Kristol and the tireless libertarian war critic Scott Horton on the subject of US interventionism, and you should definitely drop whatever you’re doing and watch it immediately. The resolution up for debate was “A willingness to intervene, and to seek regime change, is key to an American foreign policy that benefits America,” with Kristol obviously arguing in the affirmative and Horton in the negative.

    The winner of the debate will be obvious to anyone watching. Horton plowed through criticisms of the way US foreign policy is constantly “creating its own disasters it must then attempt to solve” from his encyclopedic knowledge of interventionist bloodbaths and their undeniable repercussions while Kristol appeared frequently flustered, passed on multiple rebuttals, and got called on blatantly false claims.

    Horton rattled off nations, dates and death tolls in rapid succession and repeatedly referenced Kristol’s own role in imperialist bloodshed, while Kristol relied almost entirely on insubstantial assertions to defend his position that “we can be at once a republic and a liberal empire” and empty dismissal of Horton’s points about the destructive nature of various US foreign interventions.

    In the end a deflated-looking Kristol gave closing remarks which amounted to little more than whining that Horton’s position doesn’t assume war hawks like himself are acting “in good faith”, while Horton’s closing statement just continued his blistering assault.

    By the end of it you almost feel bad for old Bill.

    The audience unsurprisingly sided overwhelmingly with Horton by a significantly greater margin at the end of the debate than the beginning. The only unanswered question when all was said and done was, how the hell did Kristol get it in his head that entering this debate was a good idea?

    One can only assume hubris. Hubris arising from a life in an elitist echo chamber where his warped views are seldom challenged, and continual marination in the kind of unearned validation that only Beltway swamp monsters ever receive.

    So watch and enjoy, folks. Participating in this kind of humiliating debate is not a mistake that any high-profile neocon is likely to repeat anytime soon.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/10/2021 – 22:30

  • New Apple CarPlay Features Could Allow Control Of AC, Seats And Speedometer, From Your iPhone
    New Apple CarPlay Features Could Allow Control Of AC, Seats And Speedometer, From Your iPhone

    Apple isn’t just planning on getting into the car business, it plans on getting further into your business, no matter what car you drive.

    That’s because the tech giant is looking to vastly expand its CarPlay feature, which is already used by millions of drivers to control music and get directions in their vehicles. 

    Apple says it is expanding the reach of CarPlay and “working on technology that would access functions like the climate-control system, speedometer, radio and seats,” according to a new report by Bloomberg. The company’s CarPlay feature allows drivers and passengers to hook up their iPhones to their vehicles, mostly for infotainment purposes.

    The new project is codenamed “IronHeart” and would need to be executed with the help of automakers. Per Bloomberg, a new version of the software could include features to control:

    • inside and outside temperature and humidity readings
    • temperature zones, fans and the defroster systems
    • settings for adjusting surround-sound speakers, equalizers, tweeters, subwoofers, and the fade and balance
    • seats and armrests
    • the speedometer, tachometer and fuel instrument clusters

    Apple could “turn CarPlay into an interface that could span nearly the entire car” with the improvements, the report says. The all-in-one interface would be similar to the type that is being included in newer EVs.

    Some drivers have complained of having to switch between Apple’s interface adn the car’s interface to manage some controls. In 2015, Apple allowed carmakers to develop third party apps to work with CarPlay and in 2019, the tech giant enabled support for the platform on secondary car screens, like digital instrument clusters. Neither of the modifications caught on broadly with automakers. 

    The expansion of CarPlay would mark Apple’s most drastic move into vehicles since CarPlay was released in 2014. The feature is now available in more than 600 car models and Apple’s Siri voice assistant, works in tandem with the software. 

    Some auto manufacturers, like Tesla, have balked at offerings from Apple and Google, choosing instead to develop their own software. 

    The report says Apple may still cancel the project if the features wind up not showing enough promise.
     

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/10/2021 – 22:00

  • Does Taiwan Need Nuclear Weapons To Deter China?
    Does Taiwan Need Nuclear Weapons To Deter China?

    By James Holmes,J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and a Nonresident Fellow at the University of Georgia School of Public and International Affairs. Originally published in 19fortyfive.com

    Back in August in the Washington Examiner, American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Michael Rubin (and a 1945 Contributing Editor) contended that Taiwan must go nuclear in the wake of the disastrous American withdrawal from Afghanistan. It can no longer count on a mercurial United States to keep its security commitments to the island. To survive it should obey the most primal, bareknuckles law of world politics: self-help.

    QED.

    Set aside Rubin’s claim that the Afghan denouement wrought irreparable harm to America’s standing vis-à-vis allies. He could be right, but I personally doubt it. The United States gave Afghanistan—a secondary cause by any standard—twenty years, substantial resources, and many military lives. That’s a commitment of serious heft, and one that gave Afghans a chance to come together as a society. That they failed reflects more on them than the United States. I suspect Taiwan would be grateful for a commitment of that magnitude and duration.

    Yet Rubin’s larger point stands. One nation depends on another for salvation at its peril. Wise statesmen welcome allies . . . without betting everything on them. Taiwan should found its diplomacy and military strategy on deterring Chinese aggression if possible—alone if need be—and on stymieing a cross-strait assault if forced to it. This is bleak advice to be sure, but who will stand by Taiwan if the United States fails to? Japan or Australia might intercede alongside America, but not without it. Nor can Taipei look for succor to the UN Security Council or any other international body where Beijing wields serious clout. These are feeble bulwarks against aggression.

    Deterrence, then, is elemental. But does a deterrent strategy demand atomic deterrence? Not necessarily. It’s far from clear that nuclear weapons deter much apart from nuclear bombardment—the type of aggression least likely to befall Taiwan. After all, the mainland longs to possess the island, with all the strategic value it commands. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has little use for a radioactive wasteland.

    CCP overseers are vastly more likely to resort to military measures short of nuclear arms. China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could launch a naval blockade or a conventional air campaign against Taiwan in a bid to starve out the populace or bludgeon them into submission. And even a direct cross-strait amphibious offensive—the PLA’s surest way to seize prime real estate on a tight timetable—would preserve most of Taiwan’s value to China.

    So, it seems, a nonnuclear onslaught is what Taipei mainly needs to deter. History has shown that nuclear weapons stand little chance of deterring nonnuclear aggression. A threat to visit a Hiroshima or Nagasaki on, say, Shanghai in retaliation for low-level aggression would be implausible. Breaching the nuclear threshold would do little good strategically while painting the islanders as amoral—and hurting their prospects of winning international support in a cross-strait war.

    An implausible threat stands little chance of deterring. Think about Henry Kissinger’s classic formula for deterrence, namely that it’s a product of multiplying three variables: capability, resolve, and belief. Capability and resolve are the components of strength. Capability means physical power, chiefly usable military might. Resolve means the willpower to use the capabilities on hand to carry out a deterrent threat. A deterrent threat generally involves denying a hostile contender what it wants or meting out punishment afterward should the contender defy the threat.

    Statesmen essaying deterrence are in charge of capability and resolution. They can amass formidable martial power and steel themselves to use it. That doesn’t mean their efforts at deterrence will automatically succeed, though. Belief is Kissinger’s other crucial determinant. It’s up to the antagonist whether it believes in their combined capability and willpower.

    Taiwan could field a nuclear arsenal, that is, and its leadership could summon the determination to use the arsenal under specific circumstances such as a nuclear or conventional attack on the island. In other words, it could accumulate the capacity to thwart acts the leadership deems unacceptable or punish them should they occur. But would Chinese Communist magnates find the island’s atomic arsenal and displays of willpower convincing?

    Against a nuclear attack, maybe. If Taipei maintained an armory that could inflict damage on China that CCP leaders found unbearable, then Beijing ought to desist from a nuclear attack under the familiar Cold War logic of mutual assured destruction. The two opponents would reach a nuclear impasse.

    Kissinger appends a coda to his formula for deterrence, namely that deterrence is a product of multiplication, not a sum. If any one variable is zero, so is deterrence. What that means is that Taiwan could muster all the military might and fortitude in the world and fail anyway if China disbelieved in its capability, resolve, or both. And it might: Chinese Communist leaders have a history of making statements breezily disparaging the impact of the ultimate weapon if used against China. Founding CCP chairman Mao Zedong once derided nukes as a “paper tiger.” A quarter-century ago a PLA general (apparently) joked that Washington would never trade Los Angeles for Taipei.

    The gist of such statements: nuclear threats cannot dissuade China from undertaking actions that serve the vital interest as the CCP leadership construes it.

    Again, though, nuclear deterrence ought to be a peripheral concern for Taipei. Beijing is unlikely to order doomsday strikes against real estate it prizes, regardless of whether the occupants of that real estate brandish nuclear arms or not. Far better for the island’s leadership to refuse to pay the opportunity costs of going nuclear and instead concentrate finite militarily relevant resources to girding for more probable contingencies.

    Contingencies such as repulsing a conventional cross-strait assault.

    Wiser investment will go to armaments that make the island a prickly “porcupine” bristling with  “quills” in the form of shore-based anti-ship and anti-air missiles along with sea-based systems such as minefields, surface patrol craft armed to the teeth with missiles, and, once Taiwan’s shipbuilding industry gears up, silent diesel-electric submarines prowling the island’s environs. These are armaments that could make Taiwan indigestible for the PLA. And Beijing could harbor little doubt Taipei would use them.

    Capability, resolve, belief. Deterrence through denial.

    So Michael Rubin is correct to urge Taiwan not to entrust its national survival to outsiders. But it can take a pass on nuclear weapons—and husband defenses better suited to the strategic surroundings.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/10/2021 – 21:20

  • California Orders Big Box Stores To Create 'Gender-Neutral' Section For Kids Products
    California Orders Big Box Stores To Create ‘Gender-Neutral’ Section For Kids Products

    The Golden State has long burnished its reputation as the most “progressive” (at least when it comes to superficial posturing) state in the union by adopting ultra-strict emissions standards and gas taxes (which is why Californians pay $6 a gallon right now), offering official protection to sanctuary cities, and a host of other measures, including – most recently – outlawing bacon with some new ‘animal welfare’ law.

    Meanwhile, homelessness and inequality are soaring in Cali as businesses and residents (most recently Tesla and Elon Musk) have fled for the exits, flocking to places like Texas and Florida.

    Yet once again, Gov Gavin Newsom demonstrated Saturday just how out of touch the state’s leadership is when he signed into law one of the most ridiculous examples of government overreach in support of enforcing the “woke” agenda that we have ever seen. From here on out, any store in California with more than 500 employees (which essentially means all the big-box stores) are legally required to establish “gender-neutral” sections for a small range of products (essentially just toys and hygiene products).

    The law was inspired by “LGBT advocates” who claim that the colors pink and blue, when used in marketing, reinforce gender stereotypes that can be “harmful”.

    The law will allow dividing clothing and other products into boys and girls’ sections (due to its obvious practicality) to continue. But clothing stores must also now include a “gender neutral” section as well.

    As if business owners didn’t have enough on their hands dealing with COVID, the new law will require affected retailers to majorly reorganize, essentially forcing stores to shrink the sizes of their ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ sections while forcing them to place more items especially toys and things like razors that many complain have been subjected to the “pink tax”, in the new gender-neutral section.

    The bill was written and championed by Evan Low, a Democrat state assemblyman representing Cali’s 28th district (in Silicon Valley). It was rejected twice before the governor ultimately signed it.

    “We need to stop stigmatizing what’s acceptable for certain genders and just let kids be kids,” Low said. “My hope is this bill encourages more businesses across California and the US to avoid reinforcing harmful and outdated stereotypes.”

    In reality, the law won’t have much practical effect at all since big box stores like Target and Wal-Mart have already been making “reforms” moving away from “boys” and “girls” sections in the face of agitation from LGBT activists. Although California is the first state to adopt this policy into law.

    The law was opposed by some Republicans, who argued the government shouldn’t tell parents or businesses how to handle this. Interestingly, at least one big-box store – Target – already committed to easing gender identifiers attached to its products years ago.

    Given the bill’s almost-laughable premise, we wonder: who will be left to “enforce” this new law? Will gender studies majors suddenly have a market demand for their expertise?

     

     

     

     

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/10/2021 – 21:00

  • Snowden: Your Money AND Your Life
    Snowden: Your Money AND Your Life

    Submitted by Edward Snowden via Continuing Ed,

    1. This week’s news, or “news,” about the US Treasury’s ability, or willingness, or just trial-balloon troll-suggestion to mint a one trillion dollar ($1,000,000,000,000) platinum coin in order to extend the country’s debt-limit reminded me of some other monetary reading I encountered, during the sweltering summer, when it first became clear to many that the greatest impediment to any new American infrastructure bill wasn’t going to be the debt-ceiling but the Congressional floor.

    That reading, which I accomplished while preparing lunch with the help of my favorite infrastructure, namely electricity, was of a transcript of a speech given by one Christopher J. Waller, a freshly-minted governor of the United States’ 51st and most powerful state, the Federal Reserve.

    The subject of this speech? CBDCs—which aren’t, unfortunately, some new form of cannabinoid that you might’ve missed, but instead the acronym for Central Bank Digital Currencies—the newest danger cresting the public horizon.

    Now, before we go any further, let me say that it’s been difficult for me to decide what exactly this speech is—whether it’s a minority report or just an attempt to pander to his hosts, the American Enterprise Institute. 

    But given that Waller, an economist and a last-minute Trump appointee to the Fed, will serve his term until January 2030, we lunchtime readers might discern an effort to influence future policy, and specifically to influence the Fed’s much-heralded and still-forthcoming “discussion paper”—a group-authored text—on the topic of the costs and benefits of creating a CBDC.

    That is, on the costs and benefits of creating an American CBDC, because China has already announced one, as have about a dozen other countries including most recently Nigeria, which in early October will roll out the eNaira.

    By this point, a reader who isn’t yet a subscriber to this particular Substack might be asking themselves, what the hell is a Central Bank Digital Currency? 

    Reader, I will tell you.

    Rather, I will tell you what a CBDC is NOT—it is NOT, as Wikipedia might tell you, a digital dollar. After all, most dollars are already digital, existing not as something folded in your wallet, but as an entry in a bank’s database, faithfully requested and rendered beneath the glass of your phone.

    In every example, money cannot exist outside the knowledge of the Central Bank

    Neither is a Central Bank Digital Currency a State-level embrace of cryptocurrency—at least not of cryptocurrency as pretty much everyone in the world who uses it currently understands it.

    Instead, a CBDC is something closer to being a perversion of cryptocurrency, or at least of the founding principles and protocols of cryptocurrency—a cryptofascist currency, an evil twin entered into the ledgers on Opposite Day, expressly designed to deny its users the basic ownership of their money and to install the State at the mediating center of every transaction. 

    2. For thousands of years priors to the advent of CBDCs, money—the conceptual unit of account that we represent with the generally physical, tangible objects we call currency—has been chiefly embodied in the form of coins struck from precious metals. The adjective “precious”—referring to the fundamental limit on availability established by what a massive pain in the ass it was to find and dig up the intrinsically scarce commodity out of the ground—was important, because, well, everyone cheats: the buyer in the marketplace shaves down his metal coin and saves up the scraps, the seller in the marketplace weighs the metal coin on dishonest scales, and the minter of the coin, who is usually the regent, or the State, dilutes the preciosity of the coin’s metal with lesser materials, to say nothing of other methods.

    Behold the glory of thelaw

    The history of banking is in many ways the history of this dilution—as governments soon discovered that through mere legislation they could declare that everyone within their borders had to accept that this year’s coins were equal to last year’s coins, even if the new coins had less silver and more lead. In many countries, the penalties for casting doubt on this system, even for pointing out the adulteration, was asset-seizure at best, and at worst: hanging, beheading, death-by-fire.

    In Imperial Rome, this currency-degradation, which today might be described as a “financial innovation,” would go on to finance previously-unaffordable policies and forever wars, leading eventually to the Crisis of the Third Century and Diocletian’s Edict on Maximum Prices, which outlived the collapse of the Roman economy and the empire itself in an appropriately memorable way:

    Tired of carrying around weighty bags of dinar and denarii, post-third-century merchants, particularly post-third-century traveling merchants, created more symbolic forms of currency, and so created commercial banking—the populist version of royal treasuries—whose most important early instruments were institutional promissory notes, which didn’t have their own intrinsic value but were backed by a commodity: They were pieces of parchment and paper that represented the right to be exchanged for some amount of a more-or-less intrinsically valuable coinage.

    The regimes that emerged from the fires of Rome extended this concept to establish their own convertible currencies, and little tiny shreds of rag circulated within the economy alongside their identical-in-symbolic-value, but distinct-in-intrinsic-value, coin equivalents. Beginning with an increase in printing paper notes, continuing with the cancellation of the right to exchange them for coinage, and culminating in the zinc-and-copper debasement of the coinage itself, city-states and later enterprising nation-states finally achieved what our old friend Waller and his cronies at the Fed would generously describe as “sovereign currency:” a handsome napkin.

    Sovereign currency, as known to history

    Once currency is understood in this way, it’s a short hop from napkin to network. The principle is the same: the new digital token circulates alongside the increasingly-absent old physical token. At first.

    Just as America’s old paper Silver Certificate could once be exchanged for a shiny, one-ounce Silver Dollar, the balance of digital dollars displayed on your phone banking app can today still be redeemed at a commercial bank for one printed green napkin, so long as that bank remains solvent or retains its depository insurance. 

    Should that promise-of-redemption seem a cold comfort, you’d do well to remember that the napkin in your wallet is still better than what you traded it for: a mere claim on a napkin for your wallet. Also, once that napkin is securely stowed away in your purse—or murse—the bank no longer gets to decide, or even know, how and where you use it. Also, the napkin will still work when the power-grid fails.

    The perfect companion for any reader’s lunch.

    3. Advocates of CBDCs contend that these strictly-centralized currencies are the realization of a bold new standard—not a Gold Standard, or a Silver Standard, or even a Blockchain Standard, but something like a Spreadsheet Standard, where every central-bank-issued-dollar is held by a central-bank-managed account, recorded in a vast ledger-of-State that can be continuously scrutizined and eternally revised.

    CBDC proponents claim that this will make everyday transactions both safer (by removing counterparty risk), and easier to tax (by rendering it well nigh impossible to hide money from the government). 

    CBDC opponents, however, cite that very same purported “safety” and “ease” to argue that an e-dollar, say, is merely an extension to, or financial manifestation of, the ever-encroaching surveillance state. To these critics, the method by which this proposal eradicates bankruptcy fallout and tax dodgers draws a bright red line under its deadly flaw: these only come at the cost of placing the State, newly privy to the use and custodianship of every dollar, at the center of monetary interaction. Look at China, the napkin-clingers cry, where the new ban on Bitcoin, along with the release of the digital-yuan, is clearly intended to increase the ability of the State to “intermediate”—to impose itself in the middle of—every last transaction.

    “Intermediation,” and its opposite “disintermediation,” constitute the heart of the matter, and it’s notable how reliant Waller’s speech is on these terms, whose origins can be found not in capitalist policy but, ironically, in Marxist critique. What they mean is: who or what stands between your money and your intentions for it.

    What some economists have lately taken to calling, with a suspiciously pejorative emphasis, “decentralized cryptocurrencies”—meaning Bitcoin, Ethereum, and others—are regarded by both central and commercial banks as dangerous disintermediators; precisely because they’ve been designed to ensure equal protection for all users, with no special privileges extended to the State.

    This “crypto”—whose very technology was primarily created in order to correct the centralization that now threatens it—was, generally is, and should be constitutionally unconcerned with who possesses it and uses it for what. To traditional banks, however, not to mention to states with sovereign currencies, this is unacceptable: These upstart crypto-competitors represent an epochal disruption, promising the possibility of storing and moving verifiable value independent of State approval, and so placing their users beyond the reach of Rome. Opposition to such free trade is all-too-often concealed beneath a veneer of paternalistic concern, with the State claiming that in the absence of its own loving intermediation, the market will inevitably devolve into unlawful gambling dens and fleshpots rife with tax fraud, drug deals, and gun-running. 

    It’s difficult to countenance this claim, however, when according to none other than the Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes at the US Department of the Treasury, “Although virtual currencies are used for illicit transactions, the volume is small compared to the volume of illicit activity through traditional financial services.”

    Traditional financial services, of course, being the very face and definition of “intermediation”—services that seek to extract for themselves a piece of our every exchange.

    4. Which brings us back to Waller—who might be called an anti-disintermediator, a defender of the commercial banking system and its services that store and invest (and often lose) the money that the American central banking system, the Fed, decides to print (often in the middle of the night).

    You’d be surprised how many opinion-writers are willing to publicly pretend they can’t tell the difference between an accounting trick and money-printing.

    And yet I admit that I still find his remarks compelling—chiefly because I reject his rationale, but concur with his conclusions.

    It’s Waller’s opinion, as well as my own, that the United States does not need to develop its own CBDC. Yet while Waller believes that the US doesn’t need a CBDC because of its already robust commercial banking sector, I believe that the US doesn’t need a CBDC despite the banks, whose activities are, to my mind, almost all better and more equitably accomplished these days by the robust, diverse, and sustainable ecosystem of non-State cryptocurrencies (translation: regular crypto). 

    I risk few readers by asserting that the commercial banking sector is not, as Waller avers, the solution, but is in fact the problem—a parasitic and utterly inefficient industry that has preyed upon its customers with an impunity backstopped by regular bail-outs from the Fed, thanks to the dubious fiction that it is “too big too fail.”

    But even as the banking-industrial complex has become larger, its utility has withered—especially in comparison to crypto. Commercial banking once uniquely secured otherwise risky transactions, ensuring escrow and reversibility. Similarly, credit and investment were unavailable, and perhaps even unimaginable, without it. Today you can enjoy any of these in three clicks.

    Still, banks have an older role. Since the inception of commercial banking, or at least since its capitalization by central banking, the industry’s most important function has been the moving of money, fulfilling the promise of those promissory notes of old by allowing their redemption in different cities, or in different countries, and by allowing bearers and redeemers of those notes to make payments on their and others’ behalf across similar distances.

    For most of history, moving money in such a manner required the storing of it, and in great quantities—necessitating the palpable security of vaults and guards. But as intrinsically valuable money gave way to our little napkins, and napkins give way to their intangible digital equivalents, that has changed.

    Today, however, there isn’t much in the vaults. If you walk into a bank, even without a mask over your face, and attempt a sizable withdrawal, you’re almost always going to be told to come back next Wednesday, as the physical currency you’re requesting has to be ordered from the rare branch or reserve that actually has it. Meanwhile, the guard, no less mythologized in the mind than the granite and marble he paces, is just an old man with tired feet, paid too little to use the gun that he carries. 

    These are what commercial banks have been reduced to: “intermediating” money-ordering-services that profit off penalties and fees—protected by your grandfather.

    In sum, in an increasingly digital society, there is almost nothing a bank can do to provide access to and protect your assets that an algorithm can’t replicate and improve upon.

    On the other hand, when Christmas comes around, cryptocurrencies don’t give out those little tiny desk calendars.

    But let’s return to close with that bank security guard, who after helping to close up the bank for the day probably goes off to work a second job, to make ends meet—at a gas station, say. 

    Will a CBDC be helpful to him? Will an e-dollar improve his life, more than a cash dollar would, or a dollar-equivalent in Bitcoin, or in some stablecoin, or even in an FDIC-insured stablecoin?

    Let’s say that his doctor has told him that the sedentary or just-standing-around nature of his work at the bank has impacted his health, and contributed to dangerous weight gain. Our guard must cut down on sugar, and his private insurance company—which he’s been publicly mandated to deal with—now starts tracking his pre-diabetic condition and passes data on that condition on to the systems that control his CBDC wallet, so that the next time he goes to the deli and tries to buy some candy, he’s rejected—he can’t—his wallet just refuses to pay, even if it was his intention to buy that candy for his granddaughter.

    Or, let’s say that one of his e-dollars, which he received as a tip at his gas station job, happens to be later registered by a central authority as having been used, by its previous possessor, to execute a suspicious transaction, whether it was a drug deal or a donation to a totally innocent and in fact totally life-affirming charity operating in a foreign country deemed hostile to US foreign policy, and so it becomes frozen and even has to be “civilly” forfeited. How will our beleagured guard get it back? Will he ever be able to prove that said e-dollar is legitimately his and retake possession of it, and how much would that proof ultimately cost him?

    Our guard earns his living with his labor—he earns it with his body, and yet by the time that body inevitably breaks down, will he have amassed enough of a grubstake to comfortably retire? And if not, can he ever hope to rely on the State’s benevolent, or even adequate, provision—for his welfare, his care, his healing? 

    This is the question that I’d like Waller, that I’d like all of the Fed, and the Treasury, and the rest of the US government, to answer: 

    Of all the things that might be centralized and nationalized in this poor man’s life, should it really be his money?

    Subscribe here

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/10/2021 – 20:40

  • China Braces For Possible Large-Scale COVID-19 Outbreak: Leaked CCP Documents
    China Braces For Possible Large-Scale COVID-19 Outbreak: Leaked CCP Documents

    By Alex Wu of the Epoch Times

    The Chinese regime has notified local authorities to prepare for a large-scale outbreak of COVID-19, according to leaked internal documents obtained by the Chinese Epoch Times.

    One document, titled “Notice of Further Strengthening of Epidemic Prevention” was issued by the Chinese regime’s State Council, and forwarded by Fujian provincial government to local authorities on Sept. 30. The other is a “National Day Epidemic Prevention Notice” issued by the State Council on Oct. 1 and distributed by the Fujian provincial officials to local authorities.

    The documents are both marked “extra urgent.”

    Both notices request enhanced preparations for an emergency response to the outbreak, with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) putting forward at least two standards for local authorities.

    One is to build central isolation sites, with local authorities required by the end of October to create facilities of not less than 20 rooms per 10,000 people. The scale of each isolation site must be more than 100 rooms.

    The under-construction centralized quarantine facilities, where people at risk of contracting COVID-19 are to be taken into quarantine in Shijiazhuang, in northern Hebei Province, after the province declared an “emergency state,” on Jan. 16, 2021. (STR/CNS/AFP via Getty Images

    According to public data, the population of Fujian Province in 2020 was 41.54 million. As of Sept. 19, the province has set up 35,691 quarantine rooms in 296 central sites.

    Based on the standard set in the notice, Fujian Province will need to build at least 83,000 quarantine rooms by the end of October, which is about 47,000 rooms in less than a month.

    According to one expert, the requirements for the COVID-19 quarantine sites reveal the real situation of the pandemic in China.

    Sean Lin, a former virology researcher at the U.S. Army Research Institute, told The Epoch Times: “This reflects the CCP’s concern about the rise of the epidemic. It must have been concealing the true epidemic in mainland China, otherwise, it would not suddenly issue a national notice of emergency preparedness.”

    “Notice of Further Strengthening of Epidemic Prevention” requires the establishment of a five-layered control system.

    It states: “Township and street CCP cadres, community grid staff, grassroots medical workers, police, and volunteers shall jointly implement community epidemic prevention,” such as “strictly implement[ing] community prevention and control,” or locking down residential communities.

    Lin said that the control system is actually to tighten social management in local areas, and “the CCP’s purpose is to tighten control.”

    “If there is no nucleic acid test, all the CCP’s epidemic prevention measures are the same as political campaigns. For example, you can be quarantined at any time and put in a quarantine site. And the quarantine sites can also be a place of political persecution,” Lin said.

    “No matter who you are, as long as the CCP says that you tested positive in a nucleic acid test, it will deprive you of all your rights. The CCP’s quarantine sites are actually an alternative form of concentration camp.”

    * * *

    Commenting on the report, Dr. Li-Meng Yan, who was among the first to demonstrate that the Covid virus was man made in the Wuhan lab, says that this report shows

    • CCP leaders know #COVID19 is Unrestricted Bioweapon. They are scared of it
    • CCP knows vaxx can’t stop the pandemic
    • But CCP wanna the pandemic everlasting in other countries
    • CCP leaders will be away from patients for their safety

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/10/2021 – 20:20

  • Gazprom Hikes Export Prices As Moscow Urges Europe To Fix Ties To Avoid More Gas Shortages
    Gazprom Hikes Export Prices As Moscow Urges Europe To Fix Ties To Avoid More Gas Shortages

    Russia’s nat gas giant, Gazprom, raised its 2021 price guidance for natural gas exports, while signaling caution on volumes it could ship, as Europe’s energy crisis worsens.

    According to Bloomberg, the Russian state-controlled exporter that supplies 35% of European gas needs, reiterated that shoring up inventories at home was its top priority, and only after it has refilled its own storage facilities by the end of October, would the company look at potentially increasing exports to continental Europe, Wood & Co. and BCS Global Markets wrote in separate notes Friday following a webinar with Gazprom managers. It would, in theory, explain why Russian supplies to Europe remain well below recent levels.

    At the same time, Russian research houses Wood & Co and Sova Capital noted that Gazprom increased its full-year gas-price guidance for exports to Europe and Turkey to a range of $295 to $330 per 1,000 cubic meters. The revised outlook on Gazprom’s average prices in the region is good news for the company’s investors as it signals higher dividends may be coming. Both Wood & Co. and Sova Capital also say that Gazprom is sticking with its conservative estimate of full-year gas supplies to Europe and Turkey, which is seen at 183 billion cubic meters.

    That suggests that despite Putin’s suggestion last Wednesday that his country could boost deliveries to record levels, partially easing an energy crisis sweeping Europe which threatens to hamper the region’s economic recovery by driving up business costs and household bills and sending inflation soaring, Gazprom’s caution on shipments will disappoint some traders and policy makers hoping for an immediate hike in supply.

    Incidentally, in response to Putin’s statement, Goldman’s European energy analysts said that the comments from the former KGB spy raised questions as to what extent Russian gas supplies can alleviate the ongoing tightness in European gas markets. Goldman was adamant:

    “we believe these statements, which we discuss in more detail below, are similar in nature to what officials have communicated for the past few months and bring no new information as to how we should think about this winter’s gas balances in Europe. Accordingly, we maintain our base case, which assumes Russian flows to NW Europe through existing pipelines will normalize from November from reduced levels this month and that the newly built 55 Bcm Nord Stream 2 pipeline will be operational this winter, but with only a marginal net contribution to NW European supplies. Until then, we continue to see a risk that Gazprom might have to rely on taking physical delivery at the TTF hub to complement their pipeline flows to the region to satisfy winter contractual obligations given its local storage sites remain nearly empty.”

    According to Goldman, such physical tightening of the market could take TTF prices well above current levels. However, should Russian flows increase as Goldman predicts in its base case, the bank would expect EU gas prices to decline from current levels but remain above the threshold for gas-to-oil switching of $27/mmBtu at current oil prices (rising to $30/mmBtu at our year-end Brent price forecast) until we know more about winter weather. Should winter weather remain average, prices could then drop further to the bank’s base case $17/mmBtu forecast by likely year-end.

    Going back to the supply issues at hand, it’s not unusual for Gazprom to offer a cautious supply outlook, due to the fact that its sales are highly dependent on the weather, both in Russia and abroad. However, the company has taken pains to reiterate in recent days that it is fulfilling all its contractual obligations and it will aim to boost exports whenever possible. The Russian analysts say that Gazprom sees longer-term contracts and longer-dated prices as a tool that would help Europe mitigate the impact of extreme volatility. Translation: turn on Nord Stream 2 and all shall be well.

    Which brings us to the second point: according to the FT, the Kremlin’s ambassador to the EU called on Europe to mend ties with Moscow in order to avoid future gas shortages, even as he insisted that Russia had nothing to do with the recent jump in prices.

    Vladimir Chizov, Russia’s permanent representative to the EU, said he expected Gazprom, to respond swiftly to instructions from president Vladimir Putin to adjust output.

    Making it abundantly clear that the hurdles preventing Russia from pumping more gas to Europe are largely political, the ambassador said that action, which would help curb skyrocketing wholesale prices, was likely to come “sooner rather than later.” Putin “gave some advice to Gazprom, to be more flexible. And something makes me think that Gazprom will listen,” Chizov told the Financial Times.

    While rejecting assertions from European lawmakers that Russia had played a role in Europe’s gas crunch, Chizov said Europe’s choice to treat Moscow as a geopolitical “adversary” had not helped.

    “The crux of the matter is only a matter of phraseology,” he said. “Change adversary to partner and things get resolved easier . . . when the EU finds enough political will to do this, they will know where to find us.”

    And there you have it: after demonizing Russia for much of the past decade, with countless fake news reports out of the liberal media in the US seeking to portray Putin as the world’s biggest mastermind and effectively in control of the Trump White House, while helping send western relations with Russia to fresh post-Cold War lows, the chicken are coming home to roost and they are finding the temperature to be rather frigid. 

    Ironically, for a gas-starved Europe, Russia has now emerged as the only source of incremental gas supply which stands between the continent and a very cold winter. At one point last week spot gas prices reached nearly 10 times their level from the beginning of the year, before abruptly dropping after Putin hinted that Gazprom might increase supplies.

    Chizov insisted Moscow had no interest in gas price surges. “This does not promote stability,” he said. “People will start looking around, turning back from gas to coal, which some are already doing”, much to the chagrin of the ESG lobby.

    Record high prices and low reserves have spooked EU governments fearful of a winter shortage and led to demands from some member states for Brussels to consider emergency remedies or new reforms. But energy commissioner Kadri Simson told the FT last week that the roots of the crisis were “not created here in Europe.” Which, of course, is laughable as even Reuters’ energy analyst John Kemp explained over the weekend in “Forget Russian Intentions, Fundamentals Drove Up Europe’s Gas Price.”

    Cutting to the chase, Russian officials have said that regulatory approval to permit gas flows through the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany would help solve the crisis. Some analysts have suggested Moscow is exacerbating the price squeeze to force such an outcome (they wouldn’t be wrong). Meanwhile, the US and many eastern EU states oppose the pipeline, which they say was designed to circumvent gas transit through Ukraine.

    Chizov said the EU’s own energy policies had worsened the bloc’s woes as well as a reluctance among European energy companies to pay more to replenish their reserves. “All the problems that are arising have been created artificially. Primarily for political reasons,” he said.

    However, Klaus-Dieter Maubach, chief executive of German gas company Uniper, a Gazprom client, suggested last week that supplies were the issue. Uniper “would be happy if Gazprom . . . delivered more volumes to cool down the situation and lower the gas price,” he said at a conference in Russia.

    Chizov also told the FT that the crisis had been aggravated by EU regulations that force Gazprom to supply a proportion of gas to Europe on the freely-traded spot market terms, rather than through long-term contracts, which Brussels has argued are uncompetitive.

    “Long-term contracts . . . provided security of supply and stability of volumes and prices. Then came this idea, emanating from Brussels, that the system should be changed,” he said. “We know that market rules may be helpful in some situations but quite unhelpful in others. Things can change. And they did change.” And the result was the biggest surge in gas prices in history.

    Chizov also said that Gazprom is fulfilling its obligations to European customers on long-term supply contracts, but has been reluctant to make additional volumes available on the spot market, instead supplying domestic Russian storage facilities. That was because European energy companies were delaying extra purchases in the hope that prices will fall.

    “If prices are freely floated on the market, of course any energy company in this part of Europe will think what the best moment is to order additional volumes,” he said. “The serious buyers know perfectly well what is going on . . . they have their own calculations.”

    But Chizov said he believed the commission, whose flagship renewable energy reform initiative aims for the bloc to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, was “underestimating the future role of gas” as a European energy source.

    “Until mankind finds a way to store energy in a sizeable manner, all those propellers and solar panels will not become a decisive factor,” he said, and somewhere Greta Thunberg sobbed uncontrollably.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/10/2021 – 20:11

  • 3D Gun Legend, "JStark," Famous For "FGC-9," Dead At 28-Years Old
    3D Gun Legend, “JStark,” Famous For “FGC-9,” Dead At 28-Years Old

    It’s come to our attention that German magazine Der Spiegel reports the inventor of the rapid-fire 3D-printed gun that could be entirely printed at home has passed away. 

    JStark, a 28-year-old German citizen, was one of the biggest innovators of this decade when printing weapons and gun parts at home. He helped create Deterrence Dispensed – an online group that promotes and distributes open-source 3D printed firearms, gun parts, and cartridges. The group strongly supports freedom of speech applied to computer code and blueprints.

    Der Spiegel says JStark passed away on Friday of an apparent heart attack. Foul play was ruled out, and it “appears” his death was natural without any involvement of a third party. Along with this, the German magazine also reported police raided his home days before. 

    Another top 3D-printed gun designer that goes by the Twitter handle “CTRLPew,” also confirmed the death of Stark.  

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

    JStark’s wasn’t just an at-home gun hobbyist printing weapons. He promoted firearm ownership, freedom of speech and has been quoted in a documentary as saying, “We want everyone to have the freedom of speech, and the right to bear arms. If that’s too politically extreme for you … f**k yourself.” 

    JStark’s 2020 release of the FGC-9. otherwise known as “f**k gun control 9 mm,” was made widely available across the internet in late 2020. The publication of the gun’s blueprints created an online sensation. It spurred freedom movements of millennial printers who have revolutionized the way firearms are produced and that government cannot and will not control them. FGC-9 emerged as a symbol of life and freedom rather than a deadly weapon as governments worldwide impose tyrannical measures that restrict freedoms in a post-COVID world. 

    Some in the printing community have pointed out that a young man like himself shouldn’t have had a heart attack at 28-years old and reeks of suspension. 

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    Keep in mind, governments around the world are freaking out about printed guns (because they’re unserialized). The Biden administration has repeatedly warned he will “stop ghost guns.”

    Here’s a tribute to JStark. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/10/2021 – 20:00

  • "It's A Big Day For Our State" – Sydney Lockdown Finally Ends After 106 Days
    “It’s A Big Day For Our State” – Sydney Lockdown Finally Ends After 106 Days

    Not long after controversial New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian stepped down amid a corruption scandal, Sydney residents are breathing a sigh of relief early Monday (local time) as a nearly four-month-long lockdown afflicting Australia’s most populous city has finally been lifted, AFP reports.

    For the last 106 days, Sydney’s 5 million residents have been living under lockdown conditions, intended to suppress the hyper-infectious (allegedly) delta variant. The measures became an international joke as cases continued to soar (and are at an all time high currently), and the government mostly stood by their policy directives, despite the fact that Australia has recorded an enviably low number of hospitalizations and deaths.

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

    But after a successful vaccination campaign, the government no longer sees a need for the lockdown conditions. New South Wales, the state where Sydney serves as the capitol, recorded just 477 cases on Sunday, while more than 70% of the population over the age of 16 gas been fully vaccinated. While cases numbers may remain elevated in other parts of Australia, Sydney has seen a distinct downward trend in daily cases.

    Restaurant owners and bars were elated at the news. Some even planned to open at 1201 local time to serve vaccinated customers after months of struggling with little to no business. Locals appeared ready to celebrate now that the chaos, punctuated by increasingly violent protests, and an influx of soldiers sent to help ensure compliance, has ended.

    “It’s a big day for our state,” said New South Wales’ recently appointed conservative premier Dominic Perrottet.

    After “100 days of blood, sweat and no beers,” he said, “you’ve earned it.”

    Since June, most shops, schools, salons and offices have been closed for any non-essential workers or purpose. Many critics slammed the restrictions and protests pushed back aggressively against what many described as the greatest infringement on Australians’ personal liberty.

    During the lockdown there were bans on everything from traveling more than 5km from home, visiting family, playing squash, browsing in supermarkets and even attending funerals.

    “Very few countries have taken as stringent or extreme an approach to managing Covid as Australia,” Tim Soutphommasane, an academic and former Australian race discrimination commissioner, told AFP.

    Some restrictions on travel and mass gatherings will remain in place, but for the first time in months – since the delta wave arrived in Australia – life will return to some semblance of normal.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/10/2021 – 19:40

  • How Stocks Perform During Stagflation, And Why Goldman's Clients Are Worried
    How Stocks Perform During Stagflation, And Why Goldman’s Clients Are Worried

    In our third and final post of the day discussing stagflation (here are part one and part two), we look squarely at the reason why Wall Street is finally freaking out about the threat of rising inflation in a time of shrinking growth or outright contraction (for Wall Street’s definition of stagflation or rather lack thereof, see here) by taking a look at how markets perform during periods of stagflation. Spoiler alert: it’s ugly.

    As Goldman’s chief US equity strategist David Kostin writes in his Weekly Kickstart, “Stagflation was the most common word in client conversations this week as equity market volatility remained elevated.” One look at interest rates and energy prices should explain why.

    There is a reason why Goldman clients are worried: while Kostin repeats that “stagflation is not our economists’ base case expectation” even as his economics team just cut its GDP forecast again while hiking its inflation outlook, he admits that “the weak historical performance of equities in stagflationary environments helps explain why investors are concerned.”

    How weak? Well, during the last 60 years, Goldman calculates that the S&P 500 has generated a median real total return of +2.5% per quarter, but that quarterly return fell to -2.1% in stagflationary environments, worse than the median returns in environments characterized solely by weak economic growth or high inflation.

    Of course, one would have to look far and wide to find a trader who was actually active during the last major stagflationary episode, or even during the somewhat milder ones at the start of the century, and is why Kostin notes that “US equity investors have had little experience with stagflation in recent decades” which have been characterized mostly by deflation.

    By way of background, Kostin defines “stagflationary periods” – a term which as the recent Deutsche Bank poll found there was a wide disparity of opinions as to what exactly is “stagflation” – as episodes of two or more consecutive quarters in which core CPI inflation ran at least 50 basis points above the consensus long long-term expectation while real US GDP growth registered 50 bp or more below trend.

    As the next chart shows, since 1960, 41 quarters (17%) have met these criteria, but the vast majority of those occurred between the late 1960s and early 1980s. In the 21st century, stagflation has been virtually non-existant, until now.

    It should hardly come as a surprise that most of the equity market weakness in historical stagflationary environments has been attributable to pressure on corporate profit margins. That’s because stagflation has been associated with stable real revenues but declining profit margins and real earnings, indicating companies struggling to raise prices quickly enough to offset rising input costs.

    In addition to the earnings headwinds, Godlman also notes that P/E multiples have also declined modestly during stagflationary periods alongside rising interest rates.

    Who are the winners and losers during stagflation?

    At the sector level, Energy and Health Care have typically generated the strongest returns during periods of stagflation. That may explain why during the past month, Energy has been the strongest sector in the market, rising by 14% alongside an equivalent surge in crude oil, yet Health Care has declined by 6% and lagged the S&P 500 (-3%). This split outcome hint at dynamics that are more consistent with a market pricing rising growth and inflation than one focused on the type of economic growth weakness that would characterize a stagflationary environment.

    And while Goldman purposefully ignores the “other” possibility, it may also indicate that the market is woefully mispricing stagflation risks, as DB’s Jim Reid suggested earlier. In light of Goldman’s increasingly more frequent downgrades of US GDP, it is this alternative that looks far more realistic to us.

    In any case, looking at the big stagflation losers Goldman notes that “Industrials and Information Technology have generally lagged most during stagflationary environments. The Info Tech sector is less cyclical now than it was during the stagflationary years of the late 1960s to early 1980s due to the compositional shift toward software and services firms.” Today, however, the sector’s massive long long-term growth profile has given it a longer “duration” than most other equities, making it particularly sensitive to real interest rates.

    Further to this point, Albert Edwards showed last week that global tech stocks have become “cojoined” been with the US 30y bond yield since the start of this year. The SocGen strategist noted that “if the US 30y yield rises to 2.4% from the current 2.1%, it would knock some 15% off tech stock prices. Imagine if the US 10y rose from 1.5% currently to 2¼%! We could see quite a bear market in tech!“

    Going back to Kostin, not even this perennial optimist can deny that the sector would likely still be vulnerable to stagflation today if such an environment led investors to price higher future interest rates to combat inflation.

    Goldman then looks at the thematic shifts that have emerged during stagflationary periods, and notes that stagflation has been associated with shifts in consumer spending behavior and the outperformance of services companies relative to firms selling goods. Value and Size factors have generated roughly the same median returns during stagflationary periods as they have in general during the last 60 years. However, during stagflationary environments, real personal consumption expenditures for goods have grown at a median annualized rate of 1% compared with 3% for services. To justify this point Goldman looks at the historical performance of consumer stocks which reflects this gap: “Consumer services industries like restaurants and entertainment have outperformed goods industries including apparel and retail by over 100 bp per quarter during stagflationary periods compared with roughly equivalent performance in all periods.” The coming stagflation likely explains why consumer goods companies have lagged the S&P 500 since May, while consumer services firms have traded with the shifting virus outlook (see Exhibit 4).

    Another reason why stagflation has pernicious and adverse side-effects on all aspects of life is that historically it has weighed on not just economic growth but also the growth of household wealth. Household net worth has grown by a median real rate of 0.5% per quarter since 1960, but just a 0% rate during periods of stagflation. These periods have also been associated with declining household allocations to equities, helping explain the weakness in equity valuation multiples. Home prices have typically declined in real terms during stagflation while gold has appreciated.

    And yet, despite these admissions that stagflation has all but arrived, Goldman falls back on the tired, cliched narrative that “inflation is transitory” and the bank – which has a 4700 S&P price target, expects “equity market will continue to rally.” Goldman also falls back on the ironclad bullish defense that every dip has been bought so far, and the current one will too, because why not:

    … we believe this dip will prove a good buying opportunity, as 5% pullbacks usually have in the past. The 226 trading day stretch between last November and last Thursday ranked as the 8 8th longest period since 1930 without a 5% S&P 500 pullback. Since 1980, an investor buying the S&P 500 down 5% from its 12 12-month high would have gained a median of 6% during the subsequent three months and enjoyed a positive return in 82% of episodes (28 of 34). Our year year-end S&P 500 target of 4700 reflects 7% upside from today’s price.

    Its traditionally oblivious optimism aside, Goldman notes that Q3 earnings reporting season begins next week, and investors will be paying close attention to corporate messaging regarding the path of profit margins.

    Last quarter companies expressed an unprecedented degree of attention on input costs and price hikes, and we expect margins will remain the primary focus of both investors and managements this quarter.

    Curiously, at this point a major schism has opened up between Goldman’s traditionally bullish take and Morgan Stanley’s increasingly bearish outlook, and as the bank’s equity strategist Michael Wilson wrote last week when he predicted that a “fire and ice” scenario is coming that will send stocks sliding more than 10% in the coming days, a large number of companies are flagging serious supply chain issues in off-cycle earnings reports suggests and “both forward earnings estimates and price de-rated after many of these reports.”

    Jumping to the punchline, Wilson thinks this will be a pervasive dynamic during 3Q reporting season and it will “trigger downside in earnings revisions at the index level – a headwind for price.”

    Which begs the question: who will be right on the outcome of Q3 earnings season, and whose year-end price target will be closer to the S&P500 on Dec 31: Goldman with 4,700 or Morgan Stanley at 4,000.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/10/2021 – 19:29

  • Here's How Wall Street Defines "Stagflation" And Why "Markets Could Be Massively Mispriced"
    Here’s How Wall Street Defines “Stagflation” And Why “Markets Could Be Massively Mispriced”

    It is easy to understand why Wall Street is increasingly worried about Stagflation: with the Citi global inflation surprise index surging to the highest level ever (granted, it only captures the period since 1999 so it’s unclear how it compares to the 1970s or early 1980s inflation shock periods)…

    … Citi’s economic surprise index has turned negative and slumped to levels which historically have indicated an economic slowdown if not outright recession.

    As a result, it’s also easy to understand why some of Wall Street’s strategists have taken it upon themselves to ease investor concerns that another 1970s stagflationary shock may be coming, most notably Morgan Stanley earlier today, which admits that “it’s not hard to see why one term seems to come up again and again in conversations with investors: stagflation” but counters that in its view the surge in energy prices is temporary, and that the most comparable period to the current stagflationary scare is more comparable to 2005 when “CPI hit 3.5%Y while the US manufacturing PMI had fallen to 52. ‘Stagflation’ graced the cover of The Economist. These fears eventually passed as growth rebounded and inflation moderated, but we think that 2005 may provide a useful reference point for a scare that comes far short of the 1970s. Equity multiples de-rated throughout 2004-05, consistent with the current forecasts for my colleague Mike Wilson and our US equity strategy team.” (more in the full note here).

    Yet as Morgan Stanley also admits, while the “market is focused on stagflation, it just hasn’t quite decided what that term really means.”

    So to help shed some light on what most Wall Street professionals think when they hear the term “Stagflation”, today we publish a second post on the topic of stagflation, in which we point readers to the latest monthly survey conducted by Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid who asked just this question and agrees with Morgan Stanley that “one of the problems that the survey throws up is how we define “Stagflation”. It also shows the perceived elevated risks of it.”

    Here’s what the survey found:

    • 43% define Stagflation as “growth around zero or negative and inflation well above target”
    • 30% define Stagflation as “growth below trend and inflation comfortably above target”
    • 25% define Stagflation as “a strong slowdown in growth and strong pickup in inflation”

    As Reid notes, although the top most negative definition is the most popular, there is a relatively even split of definitions out there. “This is important because there’s a huge potential difference in the impact of these scenarios on global markets over the next 12-18 months. So when the term is used we have to be careful to understand the definition behind it.”

    Reid also admits that he was very surprised how strong the consensus is now that stagflation of some kind is more likely than not over the next 12 months: for the most aggressively negative definition, the very high or high risk is still “only” 22% and 33% for the US and Europe. It is a stunningly high 54% in the UK though.

    Surprisingly around 40% think the US is at risk of growth being below trend over the next year which given that consensus forecasts for GDP growth in 2022 is c.4%, feels quite aggressive.

    What this means in practical terms, is that if these numbers are proved correct, “markets could be massively mis-priced“, according to the DB strategist. The silver lining to Reid, and here he is somewhat in agreement with Morgan Stanley, is that his “gut feel” is that while the risks are elevated, especially on the inflation side, “the phrase “stagflation” is being used too aggressively at the moment.”

    The next few months will prove if he is right.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/10/2021 – 19:00

  • US Arrests Navy Nuclear Engineer And Wife For Trying To Sell Submarine Secrets To Foreign Power
    US Arrests Navy Nuclear Engineer And Wife For Trying To Sell Submarine Secrets To Foreign Power

    A Navy nuclear engineer and his wife have been arrested on spying-related charges after they were caught passing highly classified nuclear submarine information to someone they thought was a foreign official. It was part of a major sting operation in which it turns out the ‘foreign buyer’ of the classified material was an undercover FBI agent. The relationship had gone on for a year.

    The Annapolis, Maryland-based couple, identified as 42-year old Jonathan Toebbe and his 45-year old wife Diana had been passing secret “design elements and performance characteristics of Virginia-class submarine reactors,” according to a Justice Department statement. Toebbe had worked for naval labs working on naval nuclear propulsion since 2012 and held a top secret security clearance.

    US Navy image

    The foreign country Toebbe had initially reached out has not been named by the DOJ, with the precise way that the FBI was tipped off undisclosed. The AP notes that Toebbe had “set the probe in motion by sending a package in April 2020 to a foreign government, with a sample of restricted data and an offer to sell them more, according to the statement,” but that later “The package’s contents were obtained in December by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s attache in the foreign country, according to the government’s criminal complaint.”

    This suggests that officials in the unnamed foreign country may have notified the FBI themselves, meaning it was possibly a US-allied country (it remains that allies spy on each other all the time – Israel’s Jonathan Pollard being a prime recent historical example). Alternately, there’s the scenario of a US spy asset in the foreign country catching wind of the scheme, and notifying the US side.

    The DOJ statement indicates that “The affidavit also alleges that, thereafter, Toebbe began corresponding via encrypted email with an individual whom he believed to be a representative of the foreign government,” but “The individual was really an undercover FBI agent.”

    After a series of messages to build trust, including an initial $10,000 in crypto transferred to Toebbe, an initial “drop” was made in the early part of last summer, described as follows: 

    The following week, FBI agents watched as the Toebbes arrived at an agreed-upon location in West Virginia for the exchange, with Diana Toebbe appearing to serve as a lookout for her husband during the dead-drop operation, according to the complaint. The FBI recovered a blue SD card wrapped in plastic and placed between two slices of bread on a peanut butter sandwich, the complaint says.

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    And further, based on details in the DOJ statement:

    The SD card also included a typed message that said, in part: “I hope your experts are very happy with the sample provided and I understand the importance of a small exchange to grow our trust.”

    The FBI conducted similar dead-drop exchanges over the next several months, including an August one in Virginia in which Toebbe was paid $70,000 and concealed an SD card in a chewing gum package, the complaint says.

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    So it appears the couple’s acts of espionage were motivated at least in part by money. The FBI sting operation involved paying the couple some $100,000 in total over a period of months as the government built the case. 

    Toebbe faces multiple counts and life in prison, along with his wife (though likely facing lesser charges). It’s a rare case and arrest where the spies were caught red-handed in the act, with the last most high-profile similar instance being Robert Hanssen, who was arrested in a Vienna, Virginia in 2001 after being revealed as a double agent high up in the FBI. He had been passing state secrets to Russian intelligence services off and on from 1976 to 2001. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/10/2021 – 18:30

  • Well Done Greta: Energy Crisis To Send Carbon Emissions To All Time Highs
    Well Done Greta: Energy Crisis To Send Carbon Emissions To All Time Highs

    “I’m not in the transitory-inflation crowd. The private sector is allocating all the money to the fast-growing software, eating-the-world companies. It’s not allocating money to companies that actually make things and provide other kinds of services that people find less exciting, meaning there are shortages of these things now.”

    These comments from Greenlight Capital’s founder David Einhorn in a recent RealVision interview, while addressing the broader “transitory vs permanent” inflation debate, are especially apt in describing the transformation taking place in the energy sector where the recent ESG mania has deprived legacy fossil-fuel companies of much needed capital (not just growth capex but also maintenance) which has instead flown to “virtue-signaling” green projects.

    We discussed this dynamic back in June when we rhetorically asked “Will ESG Trigger Energy Hyperinflation” and explained that  “ESG is a negative supply shock that internalizes the climate cost of the production of goods and services. This negative supply shock will be inflationary until technological progress absorbs these costs. That could take years.” And, as Deutsche Bank’s credit analyst Jim Reid added, “pricing climate-change externalities more generally could make things more expensive over time. Are we on the verge of another change in inflation expectations due to oil and energy, one that is in large part due to ESG.“

    Well, for those living in Europe, the answer has been a resounding yes – with 10Y breakevens surging higher – and it took just a few months to get there as the chart below shows; and since we still have a potentially very cold winter ahead of us, absent a flood of Russian gas (via the NS2 of course) it’s about to get much worse.

    But the biggest irony is that in seeking to deprive fossil fuels of much needed growth capital to shrink fossil fuel output, the virtue-signaling assault by the green lobby spearheaded by hapless puppet Greta Thunberg, has achieved just the opposite.

    As Bloomberg writes, the ongoing global energy crisis, the coming winter weather and the release of pent-up pandemic demand have sent nations scrambling to stockpile fossil fuels, a move that portends a surge in global carbon dioxide emissions this year which is set to make new all time highs!

    The trajectory poses a new threat to the feel-good Paris Agreement goal of limiting global temperature increases to 1.5° Celsius as China, India and other developing economies are driving the demand for coal, but even the U.S. is poised to increase its consumption of the dirtiest fossil fuel in almost a decade, according to a forecast from the International Energy Agency.

    Here is Bloomberg’s Javier Blas with more:

    Across the world, fossil fuels are making a remarkable comeback as a super-charged recovery from the pandemic boosts demand. For all the green energy promises and plans, that transition is in its infancy, and the world still leans heavily on fossils. It’s an addiction built up over two and a half centuries, and it runs deep.

    In Europe, where electric vehicles are becoming ever more popular, gasoline sales are booming, reaching a 10-year high in some countries. In the developing world, from Brazil to China, natural gas consumption is stronger than ever. The global hunger for energy has collided with constrained supply, itself the result of a tangle of factors, sending power prices surging in many countries.

    Adding it all up, fossil fuel demand is already flirting with pre-pandemic levels, which means emissions are on the rise too. On current trends, the combined consumption of coal, natural gas and oil is likely to hit an all-time high by mid-2022.

    “This is the revenge of the fossil fuels,” said Thierry Bros, an energy expert and professor at Sciences Po in Paris.

    Some history: global CO2 emissions peaked just prior to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, but then in 2020 registered the biggest annual decrease since at least 1965, according to BP Plc. However, since every action leads to a much more expensive reaction, releases of the greenhouse gas this year through August are already just 1% less compared with the same period in 2019, according to Carbon Monitor, an emissions monitoring group. And they are about to soar.

    Needless to say, this is a huge embarrassment for the green lobby, which to this day is simply using ESG as a smokescreen to demand trillions in taxpayer-funded government spending, of which a substantial portion quietly goes into the bank accounts of a select handful of the most vocal virtue-signalers, never to be seen again. As Bloomberg notes, the forecast for record emissions is a poor backdrop to the COP26 climate talks that will take place in Glasgow, Scotland in November. Hilarious, the United Nations is urging countries to submit more ambitious emissions plans by the time the discussions get underway, and officials from almost 200 nations are expected to gather for the fortnight of negotiations. Instead, many countries will be fighting populist anger and protests about energy hyperinflation. Some, like China, are already seeing a sharp hit to their economy as a result of widespread blackouts which have crippled industrial production.

    And so, we have gotten to the point where not only are emissions not dropping but the question of just how big the spike will be, will depend on how cold it gets: “Whether emissions reach new highs will probably depend on the weather”, said Steven J. Davis, a professor at University of California, Irvine, and co-lead at Carbon Monitor. “Fossil fuels used to heat buildings could make up that 1% quickly if it’s cold.”

    Now if only someone had predicted this all too obvious outcome ahead of the push to defund the legacy fossil fuel infrastructure decades before alternative energy sources were ready to become the new energy leaders.

    The energy crisis has been concentrated in the power generation sector. Shortages of natural gas and electricity have been especially acute in China and the U.K. Emissions from electricity producers were already up 2.2% globally between January and August versus the same period in 2019, driven by increases in China, India and Brazil, Carbon Monitor data shows.

    To be sure, not everyone is set for new CO2 output records: emissions in the European Union and the U.K. during the first eight months of this year are down 4.7% compared with the same period in 2019, according to the group, which bases their estimates off on power generation, industrial activity, ground transport, domestic and international aviation and residential demand. In the U.S., they’re down 3.5%. Of course, the reason for that is that both the EU and UK are currently facing unprecedented supply bottlenecks which are preventing them from burning more fossil fuels. And considering that the trade off is energy hyperinflation, we are confident the local residents would be delighted at the trade off of much higher emissions if it means prices drop to historical levels. Incidentally, that’s exactly what will happen once Putin finally starts sending nat gas to Europe via Nord Stream 2.

    What is striking is how long it took for the experts to realize what was patently obvious to most long ago:

    “I’m concerned hydrocarbon demand is not falling fast enough to match the potential under investment in fossil fuels,” said Jason Bordoff, dean of the Columbia Climate School and a former senior energy official in the Obama administration.

    Coal is paradigmatic. For nearly a decade, it appeared in terminal decline as investors shunned miners and European countries shut down coal-fired power plants.

    And yet, the world’s dirtiest fossil fuel won’t go away. Global consumption peaked in 2014, but rather than fall rapidly, as many expected, it stabilized in a gentle plateau. And now, just as the fight against climate change intensifies, it’s growing again, with the resurgence largely driven by China.

    Oil is another case where hopes of an early peak in demand are quickly fading. In 2020, Bernard Looney, the head of British oil giant BP Plc, said it was possible that Covid marked the moment of peak oil. That view has since shifted, with BP predicting in August that demand will reach pre-Covid levels in the second half of 2022.

    All of this means carbon dioxide emissions are rising too. The IEA estimates that they’ll post their second largest annual increase ever this year, reversing most of the decline during the lockdowns of 2020. On current trends, emissions will hit a fresh record in 2022 despite all government pledges bring them down, and quickly.

    Hilariously, none other than the de facto leader of the ESG movement, Bloomberg whose billionaire founder has emerged as the patron saint of climate change propaganda as he criss-crosses the world in his private jet, concedes that maybe it had it all wrong and writes that “another factor that could spur emissions growth is new skepticism over renewables in the face of the energy crisis. Disruptions the past few weeks have sparked debate about the impact of the world’s transition to cleaner power. While some see evidence of the intermittency of wind and solar power, others see equivalent if not greater vulnerability from extreme price swings and volatility triggered by disruptions in fossil fuel supply chains and dependency on petrostates like Russia.”

    “My worry is there is a growing incorrect perception that the current energy crisis is caused because of renewables, or policies favoring renewables,” said BloombergNEF analyst Ali Izadi-Najafabadi. The problem is that that perception is not incorrect – it is precisely the rabid push for “green” that is behind the energy crisis and price explosion, as we warned back in June.

    Remarkably, and showing how out of touch with reality the Green crusaders truly are, Bloomberg’s analyst then said that “the rational response to higher fossil fuel commodity prices as well as higher emissions would be to accelerate the shift to renewables.” Actually no, that ridiculous statement encapsulates precisely the wrong response and all that is wrong with “green thinking” where the solution to a crisis is to make the crisis even bigger. In fact, that argument only makes sense in a world of infinite government spending that can be used to plug household funding holes such as those that have emerged now that we have energy hyperinflation.

    What should happen is that fossil fuels should receive appropriate capital for the next 3-4 decades until such time as alternative energy is competitive enough and widespread enough to be able to replace fossil fuels in their entirety. That won’t happen until the 2040s. As such any push to outsource all fossil fuels today with a green sector that is unable to pick up the baseload energy generation will lead to catastrophe.

    Incidentally, none other than iconic Enron energy trader John Arnold put it best: “In the US, a (growing) majority of voters support efforts to address climate change. A majority also express reluctance to pay for these policies. If voters believe climate policy is causing a spike in energy prices, support for those actions will fall.”

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    And unlike the Bloomberg crusaders, Arnold’s conclusion is spot on:

    Like it or not, oil and gas will be widely used by Americans, and the world, this decade. The transition to clean energy will be eased if it’s smooth: oil and gas prices stay at reasonable levels. Attempts to kill the industry are counterproductive to the broader effort.

    As for what happens next, the covid divide that split the world in two for the past year yet which is now fading away along with the pandemic, may soon shift to climate change as the most polarizing topic in the world:

    As political leaders prepare for COP26, the energy price spike has polarized views about the green transition, already an enormous challenge that involves rewiring the whole global economy. Climate change deniers and fossil fuel industry lobbyist have seized on it to campaign against green energy. On the other side, some climate activists say it shows the need to go even faster.

    “Inevitably, it wasn’t going to be a transition without tension,” said Morgan Bazilian, an energy expert and professor of public policy at the Colorado School of Mines. “The balancing act politically is becoming a lot harder.”

    And so we wait for the inevitable political turmoil that will follow as years of “green dream” waves crash into the rocks of a brutally hard – and very expensive – reality. Meanwhile for all those virtue-signalers listening and complying with Greta’s endless platitudes (which bizarrely continue to omit China as the primary source of emissions), we hope you enjoy your next energy bill.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/10/2021 – 18:00

  • Staggering Number Of US Troops Remain Unvaccinated As Deadlines Approach
    Staggering Number Of US Troops Remain Unvaccinated As Deadlines Approach

    With vaccination deadlines fast approaching, hundreds of thousands of US service members remain either unvaccinated or partially vaccinated against Covid-19, according to the Washington Post. 

    A Marine in Yuma, Ariz., receives his vaccine in February. (U.S. Marine Corps)

    The Navy has been most compliant with President Biden’s July edict that the nation’s 2.1 million troops take the jab. According to the report, 98% of active duty seamen have gotten at least one shot, while 90% are fully vaccinated. That’s in stark contrast to the Marines, where just 72% are fully vaccinated. Meanwhile, over 60,000 Air Force personnel have just three weeks to meet the DoD’s Nov. 2 deadline.

    Among the Army Guard and Reserve – which have until June 2022 to come into compliance, under 40% are fully vaccinated.

    “We expect all unvaccinated soldiers to receive the vaccine as soon as possible. Individual soldiers are required to receive the vaccine when available,” said Army spokesman Lt. Col. Terence M. Kelley, adding that the June deadlines “allow reserve component units necessary time to update records and process exemption requests.”

    Scattered throughout the WaPo report are various mentions of Covid deaths throughout all branches of the armed services – which they claim are ‘soaring’ right now. Throughout the pandemic there have been 62 Covid-linked deaths out of 2.1 million troops, or 4.7 botched Afghanistan pullouts.

    The military is balancing Biden’s edict with historical pushback to mandatory vaccines – stemming in part from a backfired Anthrax vaccine regimen in the late 1990s.

    The mandate “adversely” affected the “retention of trained and experienced guard and reserve pilots,” according to a Government Accountability Office sample survey cited in a 2002 report. About 16 percent of pilots and crew members in reserve units either sought a transfer to another unit to delay or avoid the process, switched to an inactive status or left duty altogether, the report found.

    “The Army probably does not want to risk those retention problems,” Brahmbhatt said. -WaPo

    Military medical personnel at Camp Lejeune, N.C., administer coronavirus vaccines in January. (U.S. Marine Corps)

    “Question for the SECDEF: are you really willing to allow a huge exodus of experienced service members just because they won’t take the vaccine?” former Navy SEAL Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) tweeted last month, adding “Honestly, Americans deserve to know how you plan on dealing with this blow to force readiness — it’s already causing serious problems.“

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/10/2021 – 17:30

  • Watch: Aussie Police Interrogate Citizen On His Doorstep Over 6-Month Old Anti-Lockdown Facebook Posts
    Watch: Aussie Police Interrogate Citizen On His Doorstep Over 6-Month Old Anti-Lockdown Facebook Posts

    Multiple videos have emerged online in the past weeks and months showing Australian police doing what they’ve dubbed “welfare checks” on citizens, which has involved confronting people at their homes or in public parks to interrogate them on whether they’ve broken Covid lockdown laws, or in other cases have attended “banned” protests. 

    “Have you gone to any protest in the past?” the policeman asked in one video and encounter previously featured in RealClearPolitics. “No, I’m not going to answer that, you guys wouldn’t be here otherwise,” the man says. “I’d like to know how you got this address, actually.” The above Orwellian scenario appears to be happening more and more, as the latest shocking and dystopian video to emerge below shows…

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    In the above video now circulating widely on social media a pair of police arrive at the doorstep of an Australian citizen (precise location unknown) to grill him on whether he attended an anti-lockdown protest six months ago.

    The police actually pull out a file and show the man printed screenshots of what are apparently his prior social media posts. 

    “Do you agree that you put some posts on Facebook?” the female officer questions.

    “Does this look familiar?”

    The man responds in the affirmative, “Yep” – to which the officers immediately ask: “The question that’s being raised is, ‘Were you there?’“

    The incredulous “suspect” breaks out in laughter at the absurdity of police showing up at his door to ask whether he attended a protest six months prior. Naturally he expresses outrage that protesting as a free Australian citizen would be deemed as somehow against the law.

    Police showing up at doors literally with six month old Facebook posts screen shots in hand…

    The homeowner blasts the police showing up at his door as “loser-ish” and “sad”…”where are we going in life?” he asks. “You got the cops coming around here to tell me that I’ve been in a protest… six months ago?” 

    “Well who gives a fuck? How illegal is that? Going to a protest?” the man continues as the police press him for answers. 

    Below is a separate prior incident showing a similar scene of cops interrogating people on their own doorstep…

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    The police officer informs the man the the protest in question was “illegal” – to which the man points out the rank hypocrisy and silliness of it all:

    “Black Lives Matter protests were fuckin two weeks before that… was that illegal? You knocking on their doors?”

    “Maybe,” the officer hesitates, now nervously on the defensive.. “No, you’re not,” the man points out, and then points out it’s all about police intimidation. 

    We can expect to see more such Orwellian intimidation tactics as Australia’s “crackdown” on Covid lockdown ‘rule-breakers’ continues.

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    But as recent huge protests which have rocked a number of Australian cities have shown, the police and state intimidation tactics will only result in fierce blowback as citizens finally say “enough” – flooding the streets in defiance of government-ordered “lockdowns” in larger and larger numbers. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/10/2021 – 17:00

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Oct 10

Today’s News 10th October 2021

  • 750 Bases In 80 Countries Is Too Many For Any Nation: Time For The US To Bring Its Troops Home
    750 Bases In 80 Countries Is Too Many For Any Nation: Time For The US To Bring Its Troops Home

    Authored by Doug Bandow via AntiWar.com,

    President Joe Biden did what his three predecessors could or would not: halt a seemingly endless war. It took two decades, but American troops no longer are fighting in Afghanistan.

    An important aspect of the US withdrawal was closing Washington’s bases, which once spread across the country. Uncle Sam left Bagram Air Base, America’s biggest facility in Afghanistan, on his way home.

    However, some 750 American military facilities remain open in 80 nations and territories around the world.

    No other country in human history has had such a dominant presence. Great Britain was the leading colonial power, but its army was small. London had to supplement its own troops with foreign mercenaries, as in the American Revolution. In wars with great powers Britain provided its allies with financial subsidies rather than soldiers.

    Previous empires, such as Rome, Persia, and China, were powerful in their own realms but had little reach beyond. The latter never reached outside Asia. Persia was twice halted by the Greek city states. As great as Rome became, its writ never went much beyond the Mediterranean, with Central Europe, North Africa, and the Mideast its boundaries. The New World remained beyond the knowledge let alone control of all three.

    A new Quincy Institute study by American University’s David Vine and World Beyond War’s Patterson Deppen and Leah Bolger details the global US military presence. Washington has nearly three times as many bases as embassies and consulates. America also has three times as many installations as all other countries combined. The United Kingdom has 145. Russia two to three dozen. China five. Although the number of US facilities has fallen in half since the end of the Cold War, the number of nations hosting American bases has doubled. Washington is as willing to station forces in undemocratic as democratic countries.

    The study figures the annual cost of this expansive base structure to be about $55 billion. Adding increased personnel expenses takes the total up to $80 billion. Wealthier countries, which needlessly enjoy what amounts to defense welfare, typically cover a portion of the cost through “host nation support.” Not so Washington’s newest clients. Indeed, through the Global War on Terror over the last two decades the US military spent as much as $100 billion on new construction, mostly in countries, like Iraq and Afghanistan, which were financial black holes.

    Although American bases face intense local opposition in some areas, such as Okinawa, facilities are seen as welcome money-makers in others. When President Donald Trump proposed pulling US forces out of Germany many locals’ greatest concern was economic. Indeed, the whining of local politicians who saw America’s presence as a financial rather than security issue was loud enough to heard across “the Pond.” Not only did they believe that Americans owed them military protection. In their view Americans also had a duty to bolster their economies.

    However, the price of Washington’s globe-spanning is more than economic. Explained Vine, et al.:

    “These bases are costly in a number of ways: financially, politically, socially, and environmentally. US bases in foreign lands often raise geopolitical tensions, support undemocratic regimes, and serve as a recruiting tool for militant groups opposed to the US presence and the governments its presence bolsters. In other cases, foreign bases are being used and have made it easier for the United States to launch and execute disastrous wars, including those in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya.”

    Perhaps the most expensive installations were those established in Saudi Arabia after the first Gulf War. By renting out members of the US military as bodyguards for the Saudi royals Washington underwrote one of the most vile dictatorships in existence, a veritable totalitarian state with no political, religious, or social liberty. Although Crown Prince Mohammed “Slice & Dice” bin Salman, responsible for the murder and dismemberment of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi three years ago, has loosened some social strictures, he has greatly tightened political controls.

    Worse from a foreign policy standpoint, America’s presence is one of the grievances which motivated Osama bin Laden to target the US Then Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz admitted in February 2003, before the invasion of Iraq, that America’s regional presence had cost “far more than money.” US bombing of Iraq and US troops in Saudi Arabia had “been Osama bin Laden’s principal recruiting device.” After the planned invasion, he added: “I can’t imagine anyone here wanting to … be there for another 12 years to continue helping recruit terrorists.”

    Perhaps the most serious price of endless bases has been endless wars. Obviously, causation is complex. However, going to war usually leads to creation of new facilities. Such installations encourage a continuing military presence. Existence of nearby bases reduces the marginal cost of intervening and increases the maximal temptation to make new commitments, meddle in local controversies, and enter nearby conflicts. Observed the Quincy study: “Since 1980, US bases in the greater Middle East have been used at least 25 times to launch wars or other combat actions in at least 15 countries in that region alone. Since 2001, the US military has been involved in combat in at least 25 countries worldwide.”

    American military facilities also raise expectations of host and neighboring nations. After Iran attacked Saudi oil facilities in September 2019 the well-pampered Saudi royals expected US retaliation but were sorely disappointed. Although President Donald Trump was right to allow the Saudis to “fight their own wars,” as he had tweeted five years before, America’s military presence, which Trump had increased, encouraged Riyadh to expect more – and might have motivated a more conventional president to act.

    Vine, et al. point to other costs as well. The Department of Defense is a terrible environmental actor. Although its practices have much improved in recent years, the accumulated damage is enormous. There also are questions about Washington’s tendency to load up US territories, such as Guam, with military installations. Such areas are not exactly foreign, but the Quincy report contended that the heavy base presence “helped perpetuate their colonial relationship with the rest of the United States and their peoples’ second class US citizenship.”

    Alas, DOD is less than forthcoming about the number of bases it maintains overseas. According to the report: “Until Fiscal Year 2018, the Pentagon produced and published an annual report in accordance with US law. Even when it produced this report, the Pentagon provided incomplete or inaccurate data, failing to document dozens of well-known installations. For example, the Pentagon has long claimed it has only one base in Africa – in Djibouti. But research shows that there are now around 40 installations of varying sizes on the continent; one military official acknowledged 46 installations in 2017.”

    The Biden administration should make rationalizing the US base network a priority. Indeed, this should be an integral part of the Global Posture Review that the president announced in his February speech to State Department employees. He explained that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin would lead the process “so that our military footprint is appropriately aligned with our foreign policy and national security priorities. It will be coordinated across all elements of our national security.”

    The initial task should be publicly listing military installations and their purposes. Then facilities should be consolidated, even if doing so angers local politicians and communities. After all, this process should be relatively painless overseas, in contrast to domestic base closures, which inevitably trigger fevered local and congressional opposition.

    The next step would be tougher but necessary. The administration should rethink the underlying commitments used to justify the bases. Europe has no need of a US military presence for defense: the continent enjoys an 11-1 economic advantage and more than 3-1 population edge over Russia. South Korea has a 55-1 economic and 2-1 population superiority over the North. The Mideast Gulf monarchies are well-armed and now working with Israel as well as each other. Washington’s presence in Iraq is unnecessary, since it and its neighbors could together confront any remaining threats from the Islamic State. America’s intervention in the Syrian civil war never made sense. The Marine Expeditionary Force stationed on Okinawa is tied to Korean rather than Chinese contingencies and America’s bases there unfairly burden the local population.

    Ending US security guarantees and avoiding fights not America’s own would allow Washington to shutter many existing military facilities. Halting endless wars in the Mideast would diminish the importance of logistical nodes in Germany and elsewhere. In appropriate cases the US could replace its bases with emergency access to foreign facilities to deal with unexpected contingencies. In broad sweep Washington should move from frontline to reserve status around the world.

    The international threat environment has changed dramatically since the end of World War II, yet America’s global network persists. The impact of the Soviet collapse and Warsaw Pact dissolution was too great not to have eliminated some US facilities, but otherwise the Pentagon has been reluctant to leave existing bases.

    The only sure way to close a local installation, it seems, is to lose a war, as in Vietnam and Afghanistan. That needs to change. America no longer can afford to garrison the globe. The Biden administration should make the US into a normal country again. And that means no more imperial legions stationed around the world for purposes other than America’s defense.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/09/2021 – 23:00

  • Forget Silver, Nevada Is Now The Lithium State
    Forget Silver, Nevada Is Now The Lithium State

    Lithium is one of the most in-demand commodities in the world today.

    With the ongoing shift to electric vehicles (EVs) and clean energy technologies, governments and EV manufacturers are rushing to secure their supply chains as demand for lithium soars.

    But, as Visual Capitalist notes, while the US is lagging behind in the global lithium race, it is only now starting to realize the need to catch up to China’s strong foothold. This infographic from Scotch Creek Ventures highlights the rising demand for lithium and the need for a domestic supply chain in the United States.

    What’s Driving the Demand for Lithium?

    Global lithium production more than doubled in the last four years to 82,000 metric tons in 2020, up from 38,000 metric tons in 2016. Here are some of the factors driving the lithium rush:

    1. More EVs on the Road:
      EV sales have been accelerating in recent years. Between 2016 and 2020, annual electric car sales increased by 297%, up from around 750,000 to nearly 2.9 million cars last year.

    2. Falling Battery Prices:
      Declining lithium-ion battery prices are allowing EVs to compete more aggressively with gas-powered cars. Since 2013, battery costs have fallen 80% with a volume-weighted average of $137/kWh in 2020.

    3. Rise of the Battery Megafactories:
      More battery manufacturing capacity means more demand for the critical minerals that go into batteries. As of March 2021, there were 200 battery megafactories in the pipeline to 2030, and 122 of those were already operational. According to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, if all 200 battery megafactories were operating at full capacity, their annual demand for lithium would be 3 million tonnes. That’s almost 37 times the 82,000 tonnes produced in 2020.

    Although the demand for lithium is rising globally, its supply chain from mines to batteries relies on a only few critical nations.

    China’s Lithium Dominance

    In 2020, Australia, Chile, and China collectively made up 88% of global lithium production. After mining, the lithium supply chain involves refining, processing, and packaging the lithium into batteries—and the majority of this occurs in China.

    In 2019, China produced 80% of the world’s refined battery chemicals, in addition to 73% of lithium-ion battery cells. What’s more, of the 200 battery megafactories in the pipeline to 2030, 148 are in China. As a result, China is far ahead of other countries in the race for lithium and batteries.

    On the other hand, the U.S. is heavily reliant on imports for its supply of lithium, with only one lithium-producing mine in the country. As demand increases, this lack of production could threaten U.S. energy independence in the future. To address this and gaps in the supply of other critical minerals, U.S. President Biden also signed an executive order aiming to build secure supply chains for strategic minerals.

    But where is lithium in the United States?

    Nevada: The Lithium State

    Nevada is known as the Silver State for its rich history of silver mining. Today, it’s the only source of lithium production in the U.S.

    Clayton Valley and Kings Valley, two of the country’s largest lithium deposits, are in Nevada. The country’s only producing mine, Albemarle’s Silver Peak Mine, produces around 5,000 tonnes of lithium every year in Clayton Valley. Furthermore, the region is among the world’s richest closed-basin brine deposits based on grade and tonnage.

    In addition to a rich lithium deposit, mining companies in Clayton Valley can also reap the advantages of Nevada as a jurisdiction. These include access to infrastructure, a skilled mining workforce, and proximity to a battery manufacturing base with Tesla Gigafactory 1. But that’s not all—in 2020, the Fraser Institute gave Nevada the top spot for mining investment attractiveness globally.

    Meeting Lithium Demand for Energy Independence

    As countries work to expand EV adoption, critical battery metals like lithium are becoming geopolitically significant, and their supply could redefine energy independence going forward. For this reason, the U.S., EU, and Canada all have lithium on their list of minerals that are critical to national security.

    The U.S. needs to build a domestic lithium supply chain from the ground up, and Nevada has the potential to support it with lithium in Clayton Valley. Scotch Creek Ventures is developing two lithium mining projects in Clayton Valley to supply lithium for the green future.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/09/2021 – 22:30

  • One Ring To Rule Us All: A Global Digital Fiat Currency
    One Ring To Rule Us All: A Global Digital Fiat Currency

    Via SchiffGold.com,

    We’ve written extensively about the “war on cash.”

    In a nutshell, governments would love to do away with cash in order to better track and control their citizens. There have been numerous moves closer to a cashless society in recent years, from capping ATM withdrawals to doing away with large-denomination bills. Last year, China launched a digital yuan pilot program and the US has floated moving toward a digital dollar.

    We got a first-hand look at what happens when governments restrict access to cash when India plunged into a cash crisis after the country’s government enacted a policy of demonetization in November 2016.

    It’s bad enough that various countries are exploring ways to move toward cashlessness, but there’s an even worse scenario – a global digital currency.

    Economist Thorsten Polleit compares it to the “master ring” in J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic Lord of the Rings.

    The following article was originally published by the Mises Wire.

    1.

    Human history can be viewed from many angles. One of them is to see it as a struggle for power and domination, as a struggle for freedom and against oppression, as a struggle of good against evil.

    That is how Karl Marx (1818–83) saw it, and Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) judged similarly. Mises wrote:

    The history of the West, from the age of the Greek Polis down to the present-day resistance to socialism, is essentially the history of the fight for liberty against the encroachments of the officeholders.

    But unlike Marx, Mises recognized that human history does not follow predetermined laws of societal development but ultimately depends on ideas that drive human action.

    From Mises’s point of view, human history can be understood as a battle of good ideas against bad ideas.

    Ideas are good if the actions they recommend bring results that are beneficial for everyone and lead the actors to their desired goals;

    At the same time, good ideas are ethically justifiable, they apply to everyone, anytime and anywhere, and ensure that people who act upon them can survive.

    On the other hand, bad ideas lead to actions that do not benefit everyone, that do not cause all actors to achieve their goals and/or are unethical.

    Good ideas are, for example, people accepting “mine and yours”; or entering into exchange relationships with one another voluntarily. Bad ideas are coercion, deception, embezzlement, theft.

    Evil ideas are very bad ideas, ideas through which whoever puts them into practice is consciously harming others. Evil ideas are, for example, physical attacks, murder, tyranny.

    2.

    With Lord of the Rings, J. J. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) wrote a literary monument about the epic battle between good and evil. His fantasy novel, published in 1954, was a worldwide success, not least because of the movie trilogy, released from 2001 to 2003.

    What is Lord of the Rings about? In the First Age, the deeply evil Sauron—the demon, the hideous horror, the necromancer—had rings of power made by the elven forges.

    Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,

    Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,

    Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,

    One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne

    In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

    One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,

    One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them.

    In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

    But Sauron secretly forges an additional ring into which he pours all his darkness and cruelty, and this one ring, the master ring, rules all the other rings.

    When Sauron puts the master ring on his finger, he can read and control the minds of everyone wearing one of the other rings.

    The elves see through the dark plan and hide their three rings. The seven rings of the dwarves also fail to subjugate their bearers. But the nine rings of men proved to be effective: Sauron enslaved nine human kings, who were to serve him.

    Then, however, in the Third Age, in the battle before Mount Doom, Isildur, the eldest son of King Elendils, severed Sauron’s ring finger with a sword blow. Sauron is defeated and loses his physical form, but he survives.

    Now Isildur has the ring of power, and it takes possession of him. He does not destroy the master ring when he has the opportunity, and it costs him his life. When Isildur is killed, the ring sinks to the bottom of a river and remains there for twenty-five hundred years.

    Then the ring is found by Smeagol, who is captivated by its power. The ring remains with its finder for nearly five hundred years, hidden from the world.

    Over time, Sauron’s power grows again, and he wants the Ring of Power back. Then the ring is found, and for sixty years, it remains in the hands of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, a friendly, well-meaning being who does not allow himself to be seduced by the power of the One Ring.

    Years later, the wizard Gandalf the Gray learns that Sauron’s rise has begun, and that the Ring of Power is held by Bilbo Baggins.

    Gandalf knows that there is only one way to defeat the ring and its evil: it must be destroyed where it was created, in Mordor.

    Bilbo Baggins’s nephew, Frodo Baggins, agrees to take the task upon himself. He and his companions—a total of four hobbits, two humans, a dwarf, and an elf—embark on the dangerous journey.

    They endure hardship, adversity, and battles against the dark forces, and in the end, they succeed at what seemed impossible: the destruction of the ring of power in the fires of Mount Doom. Good triumphs over evil.

    3.

    The ring in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings is not just a piece of forged gold. It embodies Sauron’s evil, corrupting everyone who lays hands or eyes on it, poisons their soul, and makes them willing helpers of evil.

    No one can wield the cruel power of the One Ring and use it for good; no human, no dwarf, no elf.

    Can an equivalent for Tolkien’s literary portrait of the evil ring be found in the here and now? Yes, I believe so, and in the following, I would like to offer you what I hope is a startling, but in any case, entertaining, interpretation.

    Tolkien’s Rings of Power embody evil ideas.

    The nineteen rings represent the idea that the ring bearers should have power over others and rule over them.

    And the One Ring, to which all other rings are subject, embodies an even darker idea, namely that the bearer of this master ring has power over all other ring bearers and those ruled by them; that he is the sole and absolute ruler of all.

    The nineteen rings symbolize the idea of establishing and maintaining a state (as we know it today), namely a state understood as a territorial, coercive monopoly with the ultimate power of decision-making over all conflicts.

    However, the One Ring of power stands for the particularly evil idea of creating a state of states, a world government, a world state; and the creation of a single world fiat currency controlled by the states would pave the way toward this outcome.

    4.

    To explain this, let us begin with the state as we know it today. The state is the idea of the rule of one over the other.

    This is how the German economist, sociologist, and doctor Franz Oppenheimer (1864–1946) sees it:

    The state … is a social institution, forced by a victorious group of men on a defeated group, with the sole purpose of regulating the dominion of the victorious group over the vanquished and securing itself against revolt from within and attacks from abroad…. This dominion had no other purpose than the economic exploitation of the vanquished by the victors.

    Joseph Stalin (1878–1953) defined the state quite similarly:

    The state is a machine in the hands of the ruling class to suppress the resistance of its class opponents.

    The modern state in the Western world no longer uses coercion and violence as obviously as many of its predecessors.

    But it, too, is, of course, built on coercion and violence, asserts itself through them, and most importantly, it divides society into a class of the rulers and a class of the ruled.

    How does the state manage to create and maintain such a two-class society of rulers and ruled?

    In Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, nine men, all of them kings, wished to wield power, and so they became bearers of the rings, and because of that, they were inescapably bound to Sauron’s One Ring of power.

    This is quite similar to the idea of the state. To seize, maintain, and expand power, the state seduces its followers to do what is necessary, to resort to all sorts of techniques: propaganda, carrot and stick, fear, and even terror.

    The state lets the people know that it is good, indispensable, inevitable. Without it, the state whispers, a civilized coexistence of people would not be possible.

    Most people succumb to this kind of propaganda, and the state gets carte blanche to effectively infiltrate all economic and societal matters—kindergarten, school, university, transport, media, health, pensions, law, security, money and credit, the environment—and thereby gains power.

    The state rewards its followers with jobs, rewarding business contracts, and transfer payments. Those who resist will end up in prison or lose their livelihood or even their lives.

    The state spreads fear and terror to make people compliant—as people who are afraid are easy to control, especially if they have been led to believe that the state will protect them against any evil.

    Lately, the topics of climate change and coronavirus have been used for fear-mongering, primarily by the state, which is skillfully using them to increase its omnipotence: it destroys the economy and jobs, makes many people financially dependent on it, clamps down on civil and entrepreneurial freedoms.

    However, it is of the utmost importance for the state to win the battle of ideas and be the authority to say what are good ideas and what are bad ideas.

    Because it is ideas that determine people’s actions.

    The task of winning over the general public for the state traditionally falls to the so-called intellectuals—the people whose opinions are widely heard, such as teachers, doctors, university professors, researchers, actors, comedians, musicians, writers, journalists, and others.

    The state provides a critical number of them with income, influence, prestige, and status in a variety of ways—which most of them would not have been able to achieve without the state. In gratitude for this, the intellectuals spread the message that the state is good, indispensable, inevitable.

    Among the intellectuals, there tend to be quite a few who willingly submit to the rings of power, helping—consciously or unconsciously—to bring their fellow men and women under the spell of the rings or simply to walk over, subjugate, dominate them.

    Anyone who thinks that the state (as we know it today) is acceptable, a justifiable solution, as long as it does not exceed certain power limits, is seriously mistaken.

    Just as the One Ring of power tries to find its way back to its lord and master, an initially limited state inevitably strives towards its logical endpoint: absolute power.

    The state (as we know it today) is pushing for expansion both internally and externally. This is a well-known fact derived from the logic of human action.

    George Orwell put it succinctly: “The object of power is power.”  Or, as Hans-Hermann Hoppe nails it, “[E]very minimal government has the inherent tendency to become a maximal government.”

    Inwardly, the state is expanding through all sorts of interventions in economic and social life, through regulations, ordinances, laws, and taxes.

    Outwardly, the economically and militarily strongest state will seek to expand its sphere of influence. In the most primitive form, this happens through aggressive campaigns of conquest and war, in a more sophisticated form, by pursuing political ideological supremacy.

    In recent decades the latter has taken the form of democratic socialism. To put it casually, democratic socialism means allowing and doing what the majority wants.

    Under democratic socialism, private property is formally upheld, but it is declared that no one is the rightful owner of 100 percent of the income from their property.

    People no longer strive for freedom from being ruled but rather to participate in the rule. The result is not people pushing back the state, but rather coming to terms and cooperating with it.

    The practical consequence of democratic socialism is interventionism: the state intervenes in the economy and society on a case-by-case basis to gradually make socialist ideals a reality.

    All societies of the Western world have embraced democratic socialism, some with more authority than others, and all of them use interventionism. Seen in this light, all Western states are now acting in concert.

    What they also have in common is their disdain for competition, because competition sets undesirable limits to the state’s expansive nature.

    Therefore, larger states often form a cartel. Smaller, less powerful states are compelled to join—and if they refuse, they will suffer political and economic disadvantages.

    But the cartel of states is only an intermediate step. The logical endpoint that democratic socialism is striving for is the creation of a central authority, something like a world government, a world state.

    5.

    In Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, the One Ring, the ring of power, embodies this very dark idea: to rule them all, to create a world state.

    To get closer to this goal, democracy (as we understand it today) is proving to be an ideal trailblazer, and that’s most likely the reason why it is praised to the skies by socialists.

    Sooner or later, a democracy will mutate into an oligarchy, as the German-Italian sociologist Robert Michels pointed out in 1911.

    According to Michels, parties emerge in democracies. These parties are organizations that need strict leadership, which is handed to the most power-hungry, ruthless people. They will represent the party elite.

    The party elite can break away from the will of the party members and pursue their own goals and agendas. For example, they can form coalitions or cartels with elites of other parties.

    As a result, there will be an oligarchization of democracy, in which the elected party elites or the cartel of the party elites will be the kings of the castle. It is not the voters who will call the tune but oligarchic elites that will rule over the voters.

    The oligarchization of democracy will not only afflict individual states but will also affect the international relations of democracies.

    Oligarchical elites from different countries will join together and strengthen each other, primarily by creating supranational institutions.

    Democratic socialism evolves into “political globalism”: the idea that people should not be allowed to shape their own destiny in a system of free markets but that it should be assigned and directed by a global central authority.

    The One Ring of power drives those who have already been seduced by the common rings to long for absolute power, to elevate themselves above the rest of humanity. Who comes to mind?

    Well, various politicians, high-level bureaucrats, court intellectuals, representatives of big banking, big business, Big Pharma and Big Tech and, of course, big media—together they are often called the “Davos elite” or the “establishment.”

    Whether it is about combating financial and economic crises, climate change, or viral diseases—the one ring of power ensures that supranational, state-orchestrated solutions are propagated; that centralization is placed above decentralization; that the state, not the free market, is empowered.

    Calls for the “new world order,” the “Great Transformation,” the “Great Reset” are the results of this poisonous mindset inspired by the one ring of power.

    National borders are called into question, property is relativized or declared dispensable, and even a merging of people’s physical, digital, and biological identities—transhumanism—is declared the goal of the self-empowered globalist establishment.

    But how can political globalism be promoted at a time when there are (still) social democratic nation-states that insist on their independence? And where people are separated by different languages, values, and religions?

    How do the political globalists get closer to their badly desired end of world domination, their world state?

    6.

    Sauron is the undisputed tyrant and dictator in his realm of darkness. He operates something like a command economy, forcing his subjects to clear forests, build military equipment, and breed Orcs.

    There are neither markets nor money in Sauron’s sinister kingdom. Sauron takes whatever he wants; he has overcome exchange and money, so to speak.

    Today’s state is not quite that powerful, and it finds itself in economies characterized by property, division of labor, and monetary exchange.

    The state wants to control money—because this is one of the most effective ways to gain ultimate power.

    To this end, the modern state has already acquired the monopoly of money production; and it has replaced gold with its own fiat money.

    Over time, fiat money destroys the free market system and thus the free society. Ludwig von Mises saw this as early 1912. He wrote:

    It would be a mistake to assume that the modern organization of exchange is bound to continue to exist. It carries within itself the germ of its own destruction; the development of the fiduciary medium must necessarily lead to its breakdown. (6)

    Indeed, fiat money not only causes inflation, economic crises, and an unsocial redistribution of income and wealth. Above all, it is a growth elixir for the state, making it ever larger and more powerful at the expense of the freedom of its citizens and entrepreneurs.

    Against this backdrop, it should be quite understandable why the political globalists see creating a single world currency as an important step toward seizing absolute power.

    In Europe, what the political globalists want “on a large scale” has already been achieved “on a small scale”: merging many national currencies into one.

    In 1999, eleven European nation-states gave up their currencies and merged them into a single currency, the euro, which is produced by a supranational authority, the European Central Bank.

    The creation of the euro provides the blueprint by which the world’s major currencies can be converted into a single world currency.

    This is what the 1999 Canadian Nobel laureate in economics, Robert Mundell, recommends:

    Fixing the exchange rates between the US dollar, the euro, the Chinese renminbi, the Japanese yen, and the British pound against each other and also fixing them against a new unit of account, the INTOR. And hocus pocus: here is the world fiat currency, controlled by a cartel of central banks or a world central bank.

    7.

    Admittedly, creating a single world fiat currency seems to have little chance of being realized at first glance. But maybe at second glance.

    First of all, there is a good economic reason for having a single world currency: if all people do business with the same money, the productive power of money is optimized. From an economic standpoint, the optimal number of monies in the world is one.

    What is more, nation-states have the monopoly of money within their respective territory, and since they all adhere to democratic socialism, they also have an interest in ensuring that there is no currency competition—not even between different state fiat currencies. This makes them susceptible to the idea of reducing the pluralism of currencies.

    Furthermore, one should not misinterpret the so-called rivalry between the big states such as the US and China and between China and Europe, which is being discussed in the mainstream media on a regular basis.

    No doubt that there is a rivalry between the national rulers: they do not want to give up the power they have gained in their respective countries; they want to become even more powerful.

    But the rivalry between the oligarchic democracies of the West has already weakened significantly, and there are great incentives for the oligarchic party elites to work together across borders.

    In fact, it is the oligarchization of democracy in the Western world that allowed for the rapprochement with a socialist-communist regime: the state increasingly taking control of the economic and societal system.

    This development could be called “the Chinacization of the West.”

    The way the Western world has dealt with the coronavirus—the suspension, perhaps the termination of constitutional rights and freedoms—undoubtedly shows where the journey is headed: to the authoritarian state that is beyond the control of the people—as is the case in Communist China. The proper slogan for this might be “One System, Many Countries.”

    Is it too farfetched to assume that the Western world will make common cause with Communist China not only on health issues but also on the world currency issue? The democratic socialists in the West and the Chinese Communist Party have a great deal of common ground and common interest, I would think.

    It is certainly no coincidence that China has pushed hard for the Chinese renminbi to be included in the International Monetary Fund’s special drawing rights, and that the IMF already agreed in November 2015.

    8.

    The issue of digital central bank money, something the world’s major central banks are working on, could be a catalyst in the creation of a single world currency.

    The issue of digital central bank money not only heralds the end of cash—the anonymous payment option for citizens and entrepreneurs.

    Once people start using digital central bank money, it will be easy for the central bank and the state to spy on people’s transactions.

    The state will not only know who pays what, when, where, and what for. It will also be in a position to determine who gets access to the deposits: who gets them and who doesn’t.

    China is blazing the trail with its “social credit system”: behavior conforming to the Communist regime is rewarded, behavior that does not is punished.

    Against this backdrop, digital central bank money would be particularly effective at stifling unwanted political opposition.

    Digital central bank money will not only replace cash, but it will also increasingly compete with money from commercial banks.

    Why should you keep your money with banks that are exposed to the risk of default when you can keep it safe with the central bank that never goes bankrupt?

    Once commercial bank deposits can be exchanged one to one for digital central bank money—and this is to be expected—the credit and monetary system is de facto fully nationalized.

    Because under these conditions, the central bank transfers its unlimited solvency to the commercial banking sector.

    This completely deprives the financial markets of their function of determining the cost of capital—and the state-planned economy becomes a reality.

    In fact, this is the type of command and control economy that emerged in National Socialist Germany in the 1930s. The state formally retained ownership of the means of production.

    But with commands, prohibitions, laws, taxes, and control, the state determines who is allowed to produce what, when, and under what conditions, and who is allowed to consume what, when, and how much.

    In such a command and control economy, it is quite conceivable that the form of money production will change—away from money creation through lending toward the issue of helicopter money.

    The central bank determines who gets how much new money and when. The amount of money in people’s bank accounts no longer reflects their economic success. From now on, it is the result of arbitrary political decisions by the central banks, i.e., the rulers.

    The prospect of being supplied with new money by the state and its central bank—that is, receiving an unconditional basic income—will presumably drive hosts of people into the arms of the state and bring any resistance to its machinations to a shrieking halt.

    9.

    Will the people, the general public, really subscribe to all of this?

    Well, government-sponsored economists, in particular, will do their very best to inform us about the benefits of having a globally coordinated monetary policy; that stabilizing the exchange rates between national currencies is beneficial; that if a supranational controlled currency—with the name INTOR or GLOBAL—is created, we will achieve the best of all worlds. And as the issuance of digital central bank money has shut down the last remnants of a free capital market, the merging of different national currencies into one will be relatively easy.

    The single world currency creature that the political globalists want to create will be a fiat money, certainly not a commodity money.

    Such a single world fiat currency will not only suffer from all the economic and ethical defects which weigh on national fiat currencies.

    It will also exacerbate and exponentiate the damages a national fiat currency causes. The door to a high inflation policy would be pushed wide open—as nobody could escape the inflationary single world fiat currency.

    The states are the main beneficiaries: they can get money from the world central bank at any time, provided they adhere to the rules set out by the world central bank and the special interest groups that govern it.

    This creates the incentive for national states to relinquish sovereignty rights and to submit to supranational rules—for example, in taxation and financial market regulation.

    It is therefore the incentive resulting from a single world currency that paves the way toward a world government and a world state.

    In this context, please note what happened in the euro area: the starting point was not the creation of the EU superstate, which was to be followed by the introduction of the euro. It was exactly the opposite: the euro was introduced to overcome national sovereignty and ultimately establish the United Nations of Europe.

    One has good reason to fear that the idea of issuing a world fiat currency—which the master ring relentlessly pushes for—would bring totalitarianism—that would most likely dwarf the regimes established by Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, and other criminals.

    10.

    In Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, evil is eventually defeated. The story has a happy ending. Will it be that easy in our world?

    The ideas of having a state (as we know it today), of tolerating it, of cooperating with it, of giving the state total control over our money, of accepting fiat money, are deeply rooted in people’s minds as good ideas.

    Where are the forces supposed to come from that will enlighten people about the evil that the state (as we know it today) brings to humanity?

    Particularly when in kindergartens, schools, and universities—which are all in the hands of the state—the teachings of collectivism-socialism-Marxism are systematically drummed into people’s (especially impressionable children’s) heads, when the teachings of freedom, free market and free society, and capitalism are hardly or not at all imparted to the younger generation?

    Who will explain to people the uncomfortable truth that even a minimal state will become a maximal state? That states’ monopolies over money will lead to a single world currency and thus world tyranny?

    It does not take much to become bleak when it comes to the future of the free economic and social order.

    However, it would be rather shortsighted to get pessimistic.

    Those who believe in Jesus Christ can trust that God will not fail them. If we cannot think of a solution to the problems at hand, the believers can trust God. Because “[e]ven in the darkest night, there is a bright light shining somewhere.”

    Or: please remember the Enlightenment movement in the eighteenth century. At that time, the Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant explained the “unheard of” to the people, namely that there is such a thing as “autonomy of reason.”

    It means that you and I have the indisputable right to lead our lives independently; that we should handle it according to self-imposed rules, rules that we determine ourselves based on good reason.

    People back then understood Kant’s message. Why should such an intellectual revolution—triggered by the writings and words of a free thinker—not be able to repeat itself in the future?

    Or: the fact that people have not yet learned from bad experience does not mean that they won’t eventually learn from it.

    When it comes to thinking about changes for the better, it is important to note that it is not the mass of people that matters, but the individual.

    Applied to the conditions in today’s world, among those thinkers who can defeat evil and help the good make a breakthrough are Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, and Hans-Hermann Hoppe—and all those following their teachings and fearlessly disseminating them—as scholars or as fans.

    They are—in terms of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings—the companions. They give us the intellectual firepower and the courage to fight and defeat evil.

    I don’t know if Ludwig von Mises knew Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. But he was certainly well aware of the struggle between good and evil that continues throughout human history.

    In fact, the knowledge of this struggle shaped Mises’s maxim of life, which he took from the verse of the Roman poet Virgil (70 to 19 BC):

    “Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito,” which means “Do not give in to evil but proceed ever more boldly against it.”

    I want to close my interpretation with a quote from Samwise Gamgee, the loyal friend and companion of Frodo Baggins.

    In a really hopeless situation, Sam says to Frodo: “There is something good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.”

    So if we want to fight for the good in this world, we know what we have to do: we have to fight for property and freedom and against the darkness that the state (as we know it today) wishes to bring upon us, especially with its fiat money.

    In fact, we must fight steadfastly for a society of property and freedom!

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/09/2021 – 22:00

  • Lebanese Army Seizes Over 28 Tons Of Ammonium Nitrate In Town With Terror Ties
    Lebanese Army Seizes Over 28 Tons Of Ammonium Nitrate In Town With Terror Ties

    The Lebanese Army announced this week that it has seized over 28 tons of ammonium nitrate during a raid at a gas station in Arsal in the Bekaa region, which is near the border with Syria. The fertilizer can be used in bomb-making, and the seizure comes after hundreds of tons of the same substance caused the August 2020 blast which killed 200 people and decimated whole neighborhoods in Beirut. 

    “Following information about the presence of ammonium nitrate in the town of Arsal, on October 4, an army patrol and military intelligence raided a gas station in the town, and seized 28,275 kilogrammes of ammonium nitrate,” Lebanon’s army announced in a Tuesday statement.

    After math of Beirut port explosion in Aug.2020, Associated Press

    Three Syrian men and a Lebanese citizen were arrested for improper storage, and possible charges that they skirted proper permits from the Economy Ministry – though it remains that given the area it was found is also a farming community, it could be that it was legitimately meant to be used as fertilizer. Some reports said it was being stored in a truck at the gas station.

    According to Middle East news source The National, “The quantities seized on Monday sparked fears among Lebanese that dangerous chemicals continue to be improperly stored, putting the country at risk of another incident at a time of economic crisis.”

    Currently Lebanese authorities are testing it the substance to see its concentration, according to the army statement: “It added that the bags storing the material indicated a nitrogen content of 26 per cent. The Army sent samples of the seized substance to check the percentage of nitrogen it contains.”

    Arsal is a town that has been under the authorities’ microscope ever since the height of the Syrian war. “Arsal has become notorious in Lebanon after extremists from Syria briefly took over the small border town and engaged in deadly clashes with the Lebanese army in 2014,” The National noted.

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    “Days of fighting between the army, Al Nusra Front and ISIS killed at least 19 soldiers, dozens of civilians and 60 militants,” the report said. “Hezbollah is also active on Lebanon’s porous border with Syria.”

    Various conspiracy theories being floated as to who is ultimately to blame for the Aug.4 2020 Beirut port explosion range from Hezbollah involvement, to blame placed on the Iranians, to Syria’s Assad – with some speculating the Israelis were behind it. However, consensus is that it was an accident after years of horrible neglect by government oversight authorities allowed unsafe and unstable amounts of ammonium nitrate to sit in a port warehouse, the immense blast was likely triggered when maintenance and wielding work ignited the substance.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/09/2021 – 21:30

  • Is The Small Business Sector Being Deliberately Targeted For Destruction?
    Is The Small Business Sector Being Deliberately Targeted For Destruction?

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

    The past 18 months have not been kind to small businesses. If you were unfortunate enough to live in a blue state during the onset of the covid lockdowns and you own a brick-and-mortar business then you have probably spent a large part of that 18 months closed, or struggling to stay open with a skeleton crew of employees. If you did manage to get a PPP loan from the government during shutdown you are now realizing that the 24-week grace period is running out and you will probably have to pay most if not all of that money back soon. Many who tried to get a PPP loan failed because the money was quickly chewed up by major corporations instead of being reserved for small businesses.

    And this isn’t even the beginning of the list of troubles for small companies. I have to say, unless a large part of your business is handled online your chances of staying solvent are slim. This is not the fault of most business owners, though, it is a consequence of artificially created conditions and restrictions.

    What do I mean by this? Well let’s look at some factors that many people might not be aware of…

    Here’s why small businesses are suffering

    For example, both state and federal governments have been offering some level of covid unemployment stimulus. In the case of federal programs this could amount to $300 extra a week on top of a person’s existing unemployment checks, even more if their state has a separate program. This has created a massive drought in the employee pool. No one wants to work when they can stay home, do nothing and make more money than they ever were before the pandemic. The reality is that there are jobs everywhere right now, but almost no one is applying.

    This has led to major corporations and retailers offering unheard of sign-on bonuses in the range of $300 to $500. Some companies are offering to pay people just to put in an application. Many are offering incredible wage increases in the range of $15 an hour for unskilled labor.

    But guess who can’t make offers like that? The majority of small businesses. Large corporate chains have enjoyed endless stimulus packages from the federal government and the central bank and as long as this continues they will always be able to outbid small businesses for employees. And though the federal covid checks are slowly winding down, there are still millions of people receiving regular unemployment for many months to come. In a bizarre twist, the jobless are now flush with cash and are in no hurry to rejoin the workforce. Small companies simply cannot compete and lure these workers from their covid vacations.

    On top of this, we are now witnessing a dynamic which I have been warning would happen for years now – a stagflationary grind. That’s right, the debate that has been raging for a decade among alternative economists is finally over: It’s not a deflationary depression or a Weimar-style hyperinflationary collapse that is bringing America down, but a crippling stagflationary malaise. This means that U.S. GDP will continue to decline and certain sectors of the economy will continue to decline while prices on many products (primarily necessities) will continue to increase or remain very high.

    This creates a conundrum for small business owners – Their overhead is rising and this is shrinking their profit margins. But, if they raise prices it makes it even harder to compete with large corporations that are able to keep prices lower for longer because they have government stimulus backing them up. So, not only are brick and mortar businesses unable to compete for employees, they also can’t compete in terms of prices as the cost of materials and goods spikes. It’s inevitable, they will have to close down. There were over 200,000 extra small business closures in the past year alone due to covid and the lockdowns.

    With small businesses being hit with a perfect storm leading to mass closures, the end result will be that only major corporations will be left to offer services in the near future, and I’ve been wondering for the past several months now if this is not part of the plan…

    Re-engineering the Great Depression

    I am reminded of the situation that took place during the Great Depression involving small banks. In the 1920s there were thousands of small town and county banks across the country that were unaffiliated with major banks like J.P. Morgan or Chase National. It might sound strange to hear it but before the Depression many banks used to be small mom and pop businesses. By the end of the 1930s over 9000 small banks had failed, and the primary beneficiaries were the major corporate banks that absorbed all the assets into their portfolios for pennies on the dollar.

    In other words, the banking industry and the massive power it holds today was consolidated in the wake of the economic collapse of the 1930s, and nothing was ever the same again. This beneficial crisis was helped along by the Federal Reserve, which had artificially lowered rates through the 1920s, only to rip rates higher in the late 1920s and the early 1930s. In an address to economist Milton Friedman on his birthday, former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke admitted that the Fed was essentially responsible for the disaster of the Great Depression, stating:

    “In short, according to Friedman and Schwartz, because of institutional changes and misguided doctrines, the banking panics of the Great Contraction were much more severe and widespread than would have normally occurred during a downturn.

    Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You’re right, we did it. We’re very sorry. But thanks to you, we won’t do it again.”

    It’s interesting to me that the collapse that the Federal Reserve “accidentally” caused just happened to be the same collapse that allowed their good friends in corporate banking to centralize financial power for decades to come.

    Today, we may be seeing a similar scenario unfolding. Look at it this way – The lockdowns were completely unnecessary. They didn’t stop infection rates and thus they didn’t save any lives anyway. In fact, the states with the harshest lockdowns and strictest mask mandates also had the worst infection spikes.

    The covid unemployment programs are mostly unnecessary and only justified by the pointless lockdowns. And the stagflationary conditions have been mainly inflamed by the trillions in stimulus that the federal government and the Federal Reserve printed from thin air to pay for the unnecessary covid response programs and unemployment. The covid checks and loans have conjured a workforce calamity, but they have also fueled a retail buying spree which is mostly enriching manufacturing hubs like China, triggering exploding shipping demand and shipping costs, straining the supply chain, jamming up cargo ports and raising overall prices by leaps and bounds.

    Every single element of this crisis has been engineered. And I would suggest the possibility that, like in the Great Depression, major corporations are once again in a convenient position to devour the small business sector and become the only game in town for all retail and services.

    Not only do corporations benefit from the death of small business, but so does the Biden Administration in its relentless pursuit of covid vaccine mandates. Consider for a moment that small businesses are the antithesis to covid controls. Why? Because they offer people who refuse to take the experimental vaccines an alternative to major retailers that might demand to see their vax passports. Small businesses are much more likely to defy the draconian mandates, so Biden also wins by removing competition to the corporate oligarchy that support his controls.

    Even if a small business complies with the passport mandates it will not save them, because the amount of extra costs involved in enforcement will be too much for most of them. Constantly policing customers and employees for up-to-date vaccine cards will become a full time job. Any slip up could mean a $70,000 to $700,000 fine, and because they have already submitted to the passports those businesses will have no backup from the community if they try to refuse to pay. They will ultimately close down anyway.

    Without liberty minded small businesses, the only options left for the unvaxxed will be self employment (which will also be made more difficult over time), or barter and black markets.

    Ironically, it is this threat that also creates an opportunity for small business owners. If they band together within their communities and let their communities know that they absolutely will not enforce the vaccine passports on employees or customers, then they could actually have a way to compete with and defeat the big box stores. They would have far more potential workers applying for jobs so their employee pool would grow at this critical time, and, they would gain all the customers in their area that also refuse to comply with the jab. Unless they are operating in a blue county, they will likely gain considerable business.

    All the incentives are there. Small businesses will succeed and local communities will have options for defiance of medical tyranny. Will it anger the overlords? Yes, but who cares. They want to put you out of business anyway, so why not take a risk and fight back? The choice is to make a stand now, or live under the heel of a boot for the rest of your days. That’s all there is.

    However, these measures need to be taken now before it’s too late. I also expect that as stagflationary pressures mount smaller businesses and the communities around them will have to start considering alternatives to the U.S. dollar. Precious metals are one option, along with barter and trade or local scrip as long as it is backed by commodities. There is much to be done. It is time for small businesses to accept the possibility that they have been targeted for destruction; they can do nothing and wait for the hammer to fall, or they can take measures to protect themselves. I suggest the latter.

    *  *  *

    With global tensions spiking, thousands of Americans are moving their IRA or 401(k) into an IRA backed by physical gold. Now, thanks to a little-known IRS Tax Law, you can too. Learn how with a free info kit on gold from Birch Gold Group. It reveals how physical precious metals can protect your savings, and how to open a Gold IRA. Click here to get your free Info Kit on Gold.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/09/2021 – 21:00

  • China's Xi: Taiwan's "Complete Reunification" With The "Motherland" Must Be Fulfilled
    China’s Xi: Taiwan’s “Complete Reunification” With The “Motherland” Must Be Fulfilled

    Chinese President Xi Jinping addressed the growing tensions surrounding the Taiwan issue during a speech Friday given in Beijing to mark the 110th anniversary of the “Xinhai Revolution” that brought down the last imperial dynasty, paving the way to establishment of the Republic of China.

    Not quite as bellicose as the last Taiwan-focused remarks he gave in a fiery address in July, Xi emphasized China is fully committed to full reunification of the island to the “motherland by peaceful means”. He vowed that a “one country, two systems” policy will “definitely” be implemented at some point in the near future. It “must be and can be realized,” he said.

    Via Reuters

    “To achieve the reunification of the motherland by peaceful means is most in line with the overall interests of the Chinese nation, including our compatriots in Taiwan,” Xi said in the address.

    In a veiled warning against the West, and in particular the United States, Xi called the issue “entirely China’s internal affair”:

    “No one should underestimate the Chinese people’s determination and strong ability to defend [our] national sovereignty and territorial integrity. The historical task of the complete reunification of the motherland must be fulfilled, and it will definitely be fulfilled,” Xi said.

    He additionally urged Taiwan to “stand on the right side of history jointly to create the glorious cause of the full reunification and the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”.

    However, it’s being widely noted that he emphasized “peaceful” means of reunification, without spelling out exactly how that scenario would happen:

    Chinese President Xi Jinping promised on Saturday to realize peaceful “reunification” with Taiwan, though did not directly mention the use of force after a week of tensions with the Chinese-claimed island that sparked international concern.

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    This was a much softer tone compared to the early July speech which he gave on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party.

    For that prior event the president had donned  a gray Mao suit and said the nation is committed to Taiwan reunification ensuring continued “stability” in Hong Kong, vowing that any outside “bullying” powers will inevitably “get their heads bashed”.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/09/2021 – 20:30

  • Furious School Parents Will Not Be Silenced – Doesn't AG Garland Have Better Things To Do?
    Furious School Parents Will Not Be Silenced – Doesn’t AG Garland Have Better Things To Do?

    Authored by Mark Glennon via Wirepoints.org,

    It’s tempting to see the new directive by Attorney General Merrick Garland as merely a transparent attempt to intimidate parents into silence over opinions that the Biden Administrations doesn’t like. However, it’s worth going though some of the other reasons why this misconduct by federal law enforcement is is so appalling, and to remind parents why they should not be deterred.

    Many parents in Illinois and across the country have spoken out recently with unprecedented anger in unprecedented numbers at school board meetings and beyond. Their complaints have been about Critical Race Theory in classrooms, mask mandates and explicit materials for minors about sexuality and gender. We’ve written here often supporting some of those complaints. My colleague Ted Dabrowski and I have participated in some of the efforts directed toward our own childrens’ schools.

    U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland

    But on Monday, Garland issued a directive to the FBI and federal law enforcement officials across the nation to focus on alleged criminal conduct in protests by parents.

    Outrage ensued immediately, and appropriately, from parents, their organizations and commentators who are infuriated that a threat of federal law enforcement is being used to try to scare them out of constitutionally protected speech.

    Garland’s Department of Justice has responded simply by saying it isn’t true, and its defenders, particularly MSNBC, have cited examples of conduct by parents that allegedly were either inappropriate or illegal.

    Linked here are Garland’s directive and an accompanying DOJ press release. They should be read in conjunction with a letter sent by the National School Boards Association late last month to President Biden, which gave rise to the directive. It claimed that school officials are “under immediate threat” and asked Biden to sic nearly the full force of the national security establishment on offending parents.

    It contains these astonishing requests, from which you would think the entire Taliban is loose in America:

    NSBA respectfully asks that a joint collaboration among federal law enforcement agencies, state and local law enforcement, and with public school officials be undertaken to focus on these threats. NSBA specifically solicits the expertise and resources of the U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Secret Service, and its National Threat Assessment Center regarding the level of risk to public schoolchildren, educators, board members, and facilities/campuses. We also request the assistance of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service to intervene…. including any technical assistance necessary from, and state and local coordination with, its National Security Branch and Counterterrorism Division, as well as any other federal agency with relevant jurisdictional authority and oversight. Additionally, NSBA requests that such review examine appropriate enforceable actions against these crimes and acts of violence under the Gun-Free School Zones Act, the PATRIOT Act in regards to domestic terrorism, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, the Violent Interference with Federally Protected Rights statute, the Conspiracy Against Rights statute, an Executive Order to enforce all applicable federal laws for the protection of students and public school district personnel, and any related measure.

    The DOJ was happy to oblige. It’s directive, as you can see in the documents they released, is much shorter but conveys the same point.

    And the DOJ made sure that school boards and officials will be trained in how to be claimed as victims who can call on those enforcement mechanisms. From the DOJ press release:

    The Justice Department will also create specialized training and guidance for local school boards and school administrators. This training will help school board members and other potential victims understand the type of behavior that constitutes threats, how to report threatening conduct to the appropriate law enforcement agencies, and how to capture and preserve evidence of threatening conduct to aid in the investigation and prosecution of these crimes.

    Keep in mind that a real crime requires violence or a threat to commit either violence or some other illegal act. But most of the offensive conduct being referenced by the media and school officials is not criminal. Is it criminal to say, for example “we will get you,” or “we will not forget this,” or “your career is education is dead”?

    Some such things may be vile and reprehensible, like saying “we know where you live,” but criminality is a different matter. The meanings of many statements are not clear nor is their criminality.

    Yes, there are other, worse examples of some actual, criminal conduct, including violence, which should not be tolerated. But neither the DOJ nor anybody else has put up any evidence that it is widespread enough to justify such an unprecedented federal response.

    That’s part of why Garland’s directive is so pernicious. He could have provided a useful service by delineating what is prosecutable and what isn’t. Instead, he used the tactic of exploiting the murkiness about where the line gets drawn between criminal conduct and protected speech, thereby purposely chilling what is constitutionally protected.

    “Garland knows this is dangerous nonsense. I personally know that he knows it.” That’s from Andrew McCarthy, who worked under Garland in the DOJ.

    McCarthy further wrote that “Garland incorrectly — indeed, outrageously for someone of his experience as a Justice Department official and federal appellate judge — claimed that free-speech principles yield not only to “threats of violence” but also to “efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views.”

    Why is the federal government getting involved at all in this? Crimes like those at issue are the domain of local officials.

    In fact, the constitutionality of federal involvement is highly questionable. At least two state attorneys general, in Arizona and Missouri, already blasted the DOJ for that reason and more may be coming. McCarthy, too, made that point in the column linked above.

    Selective enforcement of law for political reasons is reprehensible in itself, and it’s brazen in this case. If conduct like parents’ at school boards, even when intimidating, is colorable as a federal offense, where was the DOJ when rioting, vandalism and destruction of statues was overlooked for being supposedly acceptable protest?

    Doesn’t the DOJ have better things to do?

    Here in Illinois, it’s been over two years since a federal criminal investigation was opened about Gov. JB Pritzker’s removal of toilets to reduce property taxes. It’s still open. The event happened over four years ago. His reelection is approaching and his state would like to know if he will be its next indicted governor. But now the U.S. Attorney’s office in northern Illinois, which is handling the case, is ordered to spend time on parents and school boards.

    How about if federal resources were directed instead to, oh, say, enforcing the border? Or providing what assistance they can to major cities like Chicago being destroyed by crime?

    Garland’s biggest error is underestimating parental devotion to children. Few forces in nature are more unrelenting. Parents will not be frightened off from doing what is right for their offspring by the FBI or anybody else.

    Garland apparently has a different notion of parental devotion. It turns out that his son-in-law is the co-founder and president of Panorama Education, which sells teacher training and curriculum for race-focused surveys and conducts trainings on systemic oppression, white supremacy, unconscious bias, and intersectionality. CRT-type stuff, the primary thing parents are complaining about.

    Parents, know that there is safety in numbers. Countless other parents around the country will not stand for this.

    We will not change what we say and write.

    Nor should you.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/09/2021 – 20:00

  • Former Central Banker Says US Economy Already In Recession
    Former Central Banker Says US Economy Already In Recession

    In his latest note, SocGen’s Albert Edwards made an ominous – if obvious – comparison: “as energy prices surge with a backdrop of central bank tightening it’s starting to feel a bit like July 2008” referring to that moment of “unparalleled central bank madness as the ECB raised rates just as oil prices hit $150 and the recession arrived.” Then, looking at the dire impact that higher yields would have on the economy and markets which are still convinced the inflation (and in the case of European energy, hyperinflation) is transitory, he warned that not only has stagflation arrived, but that investors should “think hard about the likelihood that higher energy prices and bond yields will trigger a ‘wholly unexpected’ recession. For that is where the biggest risk might lie for investors.”

    For once, Albert’s doomsday grumblings may be behind the curve, because according to former BOE central banker during the 2008 financial crisis and current Dartmouth College professor, David Blanchflower, and Alex Bryson of University College London, despite rising employment and wages, the US is already in a recession according to the recent plunge in consumer expectations. In a paper published on Thursday titled “The Economics of Walking About and Predicting US Downturns“, the establishment economist duo concluded that consumer expectations indexes from the Conference Board and University of Michigan tend to predict American downturns 18 months in advance.

    “The economic situation in 2021 is exceptional, however, since unprecedented direct government intervention in the labor market through furlough-type arrangements has enabled employment rates to recover quickly from the huge downturn in 2020,” wrote Blanchflower and Bryson quoted by Bloomberg. “However, downward movements in consumer expectations in the last six months suggest the economy in the United States is entering recession now, even though employment and wage growth figures suggest otherwise.”

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    According to the authors, “all the recessions since the 1980s have been predicted by at least 10 and sometimes many more point drops in expectations indices.” Additionally, a single monthly rise of at least 0.3 percentage points in unemployment and two consecutive months of employment rate declines are also notable leading indicators.

    The economists concludes that “this is a bold call of course, and not consistent with consensus and only time will tell if we are right.” However, they add “equivalent falls in these data in 2007 were an early indicator of recession, missed at the time by policymakers and economists. There is a possibility of course, that these data are giving a false steer. However, missing the declines in these variables in 2007, as most policymakers and economists did, proved fatal. It is our hope such mistakes will not be repeated this time around. They missed it last time, hopefully they won’t miss it this time. These qualitative data trends need to be taken seriously.”

    As we noted at the end of September, the Conference Board’s gauge of current conditions fell to 143.4, a five-month low, while the group’s expectations index dropped to 86.60 the lowest since November.

    Potentially offsetting this plunge, the University of Michigan’s gained. However, as we also noted, while one is private-entity sourced the other is government sponsored. Figure out which one is which from the chart below.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/09/2021 – 19:32

  • Government Spending Cannot "Stimulate" The Economy
    Government Spending Cannot “Stimulate” The Economy

    Authored by Patrick Barron via The Mises Institute,

    Government economic policy is completely backwards. We are told that massive deficit spending, interest rates driven to zero, and now higher taxes on the “rich” will bring the American economy out of the doldrums or whatever fake malady seems to be popular. It is hard to imagine an economy in the doldrums when unemployment, the scourge of mankind for decades, is so low that businesses cannot attract enough workers. That’s number one; i.e., is the US economy really so bad? I admit that it always could be better, but we are not in the Great Depression of the 1930s, in which one-fourth of those seeking work could not find a job. At least not yet. Stay tuned, though.

    Stimulus Spending and the Cantillon Effect

    But let’s get back to the main point: Whether or not the US economy is underperforming, can government spending help? That has been the mantra since Keynesianism swept the economic and then government hallways shortly after World War II. So, we may ask ourselves, just how does government stimulus spending work? Well, from what I can conclude, the government sells its debt to the Fed (called monetizing the debt, which increases the monetary base), spends it on all kinds of programs, some (but not all) of us get more money in our pockets and spend it. So, we can see that, from government’s perspective, spending is the key. More spending MUST mean that the economy is doing better. Keynesian economists call this increasing aggregate demand, just a fancy name for more spending.

    The implied mechanism is that more spending via money created out of thin air somehow draws more goods out of hiding. Why these goods were hiding is not quite clear, except that aggregate demand was deemed to be too low. On the face of it, it appears logical. Let’s say that you are the surprise inheritor of a great deal of money from a distant relative. Your personal lifestyle certainly will be stimulated. But let’s consider the source of this windfall—your distant relative. He certainly did not print buckets of money that he left you in his will. Either he earned the money himself or inherited it from someone who did. In other words, the source of your newfound wealth was previous production. You are the new owner of that wealth. Whether you produced it or someone else, you are the new owner of what Professor Frank Shostak calls “something for something.” This is in contrast to receiving stimulus dollars printed by the government. Now you have received “something for nothing.” It is pure monetary inflation without any previous production in exchange. Therefore, any stimulus in the form of increased spending is pure smoke and mirrors, masking capital decumulation. The result is rising prices, at a minimum, and possibly hyperinflation if carried too far.

    But let me give you two thought experiments. For the first one, let’s assume that you and some others are marooned on an uncharted island, similar to the plot of the hit TV comedy Gilligan’s Island. The only resources you have are whatever washed ashore when your ship sank, whatever natural resources are at hand, and whatever survival skills you possess. Now let’s suppose that some large boxes wash ashore later. You rush to open them and find that they contain millions and millions of dollars in paper Federal Reserve notes. Not knowing when, or even if, you will be found, what good are these millions to you and your fellows? Do you all cheer, because now you all are rich? Since your most urgently desired goods certainly are not paper dollars, I doubt it. You all are left with the original resources—natural resources at hand, whatever goods washed ashore earlier, and your survival skills. But, you may say, I do not live on an uncharted island. I certainly can spend the millions and enrich my life. OK, now let’s assume that in the middle of the night Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell wakes you and slides a suitcase with a million dollars in Federal Reserve notes under your bed. Wow! What would you do? You might spend a little time thinking how to spend the money, but sooner or later you will take your suitcase of money and start to spend. Then you are shocked to find out that Mr. Powell, like a magical Santa Claus, visited every one of America’s 300 million-plus citizens and gave everyone of them a suitcase with a million dollars in Federal Reserve notes, too. You find that all the luxury cars are gone from dealers’ lots. When you enquire about ordering one, you find that the price has skyrocketed. When government engages in stimulus spending, the same thing happens, only on a smaller scale. A fortunate few, mostly bankers and bond dealers, get the newly printed money first. They buy current goods at current prices. Good for them! But subsequent receivers of the new money find that prices have gone up and their newly acquired money really doesn’t do them that much good. Then people much further down the line as recipients of the new money find that prices have gone up and their incomes haven’t gone up nearly as much or not at all (think of retirees on fixed pensions). Rather than enticing production out of hiding, government stimulus spending has caused a transfer of wealth from the later receivers of new money to the earlier receivers of new money. This is known in economic circles as the Cantillon effect.

    A Four-Point Plan from Forty Years Ago

    So, what can government do, if anything, to aid the economy? I have four main points, all from the Republican platform of 1980. (These four points were articulated by vice presidential candidate George Herbert Walker Bush on the steps of the capitol building in Springfield, Illinois, in the summer of 1980. I was in attendance.)

    1. Return to sound money by freezing the money supply. That requires two reforms. First, do not increase the monetary base by selling government debt to the central bank. Government must spend only what it raises in taxes or obtains through honest borrowing in the bond market. Secondly, forbid the ability of banks to engage in credit expansion through fractional reserve banking, whereby banks themselves create money out of thin air when they increase lending.

    2. Cut government spending. Of course, this is exactly opposite of what government does today, but government spending is parasitical on the real economy. Government does not create goods and services itself. It can only hand out what it has taken from others. It is the private economy that brings people what they most urgently want, not what government thinks they want or what government wants them to have.

    3. Number three, reduce regulations. The free market economy and the legal system are all that is needed to bring people what they most urgently want . Disputes are best resolved in the commercial and criminal justice systems.

    4. Number four, once the budget is balanced, finally goes into surplus, and the debt is slowly being reduced, government can begin to cut taxes. Tax reductions will take money from the destructive power of government spending and increase the capital accumulation power of the private sector. Since the money supply has remained the same, increased production will result in a slow and steady fall in prices, benefiting all levels of society. The cost of living will fall and the standard of living will rise.

    The American people need to be told the truth. Government can help the economy only by protecting you and your property. A free market economy, limited government, and the rule of law are the keys to prosperity and peace.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/09/2021 – 19:00

  • The US Is Officially A Banana Republic: The Top 1% Now Own More Wealth Than The Entire Middle Class
    The US Is Officially A Banana Republic: The Top 1% Now Own More Wealth Than The Entire Middle Class

    In some ways, we sympathize with Neel Kashkari’s fake “concern” about the unprecedented wealth inequality that has emerged in the US in recent years and which has resulted in a slow, methodical and relentless destruction of the US middle class … or rather make that precedented because there was another time when the top 0.1% had amassed as much wealth and it was just before the Great Depression.

    After all, who hasn’t seen charts such as these showing the tremendous divergence in income earned by America’s Top 1% at the expense of the middle and lower classes:

    Or that the top 10% now own 70% of all the US wealth, the same as the middle and lower classes combined…

    … up 10% from the 60% of wealth they controlled at the start of the century.

    Yet we find Kashkari’s “jaw-dropping” virtue signalling proposal to grant the Fed wealth redistribution power not only laughable but absolutely terrifying: after all it was the Fed’s ZIRP and QE that was behind the greatest wealth redistribution in the past decade…

    … a redistribution that started almost 50 years ago, when Nixon decided to end the Fed’s biggest nemesis – the US gold standard – launching an unprecedented increase in income growth for the “Top 1%”, even as the income of the “Bottom 90%” has remained unchanged ever since 1971.

    For those confused, Rabobank’s Michael Every put it best: of course the Fed can redistribute wealth but “that redistribution has been from the poor and middle-class to the rich, not the other way round.“

    Unfortunately, as we showed back in November 2019, it may already be too late to fix the US: as the following stunning chart shows, the US is already effectively a banana republic if one defines such a nation as one which has a small but ultrapowerful and unaccountable kleptocracy which gets richer year after year by stealing from the rapidly shrinking middle class.

    Here is the problem: while the US has one one of the highest median incomes in the entire world, with only three countries boasting a higher income, it is who gets to collect this money that is the major problem, because as the chart also shows, with just a 50% share of the population in middle-income households, the US is now in the same category as such “banana republics” as Turkey, China and, drumroll, Russia.

    What is just as stunning: according to the OECD, more than half of the countries in question have a more vibrant middle class than the US.

    Alas, since November 2019 it has only gotten worse… much worse because as a result of the unprecedented wealth redistribution unleashed by the covid pandemic, America’s has truly cemented its banana republic status as the wealth of the top 1% exploded as a direct result of the Fed pumping trillions into the stock market and levitating asset values, while the lower and middle classes stagnated.

    Two weeks ago, when discussing the latest US record household net worth number, which hit an all time high of $142 trillion or up $31 trillion since Covid, we showed that it would be great if this wealth increase was spread evenly across most Americans, but unfortunately, most Americans have not benefited from recent gains in wealth.

    Indeed, the latest data as of Q1 shows that the top 1% accounts for over $41.5 trillion of total household net worth, with the number rising to over $90 trillion for just the top 10%. Meanwhile, the bottom half of the US population has virtually no assets at all. On a percentage basis, just the Top 1% now own a record 32.1% share of total US net worth, or $45.6 trillion. In other words, the richest Americans have never owned a greater share of US household income than they do, largely thanks to the Fed. Meanwhile, the bottom 50% own just 2% of all net worth, or a paltry $2.8 trillion. They do own most of the debt though…

    And the saddest chart of all: the wealth of the bottom 50% is virtually unchanged since 2006, while the net worth of the Top 1% has risen by 132% from $17.9 trillion to $41.5 trillion.

    All of which brings us to the latest update from the Fed on Household Wealth distribution published on Friday and covering the second quarter of 2021, and which revealed yet another jawdropping fact about America’s full transformation into a banana republic.

    According to the Fed data, which breaks down the distribution of wealth according to income quintile (or 20% bucket) with a special carve out for the top 1%, the middle 60% of US households by income (those in the 20% to 80% income range) – a measure economists use as a definition of the middle class – saw their combined assets drop from 26.7% to 26.6% of national wealth as of June, the lowest in Federal Reserve data, while for the first time the super rich had a bigger share, at 27%.

    While especially true for the top 1%, it is all the rich that have benefited at the expense of the extinction of the US middle class – as the next chart shows, over the past 30 years, 10 percentage points of American wealth has shifted to the top 20% of earners, who now hold 70% of the total. The bottom 80% are left with less than 30%.

    Some context: while “middle class” is a fluid concept, many economists use income to define the group. The 77.5 million families in the middle 60% make about $27,000 to $141,000 annually, based on Census Bureau data. As Bloomberg notes, their share in three main categories of assets – real estate, equities and private businesses – slumped in one generation. That made their lives more precarious, with fewer financial reserves to fall back on when they lose their jobs.

    On the other end, the top 1% represents those 1.3 million households out of a total of almost 130 million, who roughly make more than $500,000 a year. The concentration of wealth in the hands of a fraction of the population is at the core of some of the country’s major political battles. It was also made possible entirely by the Fed, which as Stanley Druckenmiller said back in May echoing what we have said since our inception back in 2009, has been the single “greatest engine of wealth inequality” in history (to which we would also add the end of the gold standard under Nixon).

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    “If the economic system isn’t working for the clear majority of the population, it will eventually lose political support,” Nathan Sheets, newly appointed chief economist at Citigroup Inc., said by email. “This observation is motivating many of the economic reforms that the Biden Administration is putting forward.”

    And while Joe Biden is seeking to “bolster” working- and middle-class families with a $3.5 trillion package before Congress that includes assistance with child care, education and health care paid for with tax increases on high-income individuals, what he will do is make the rich even richer as the Fed will have to monetize all those trillions in new debt, boosting risk asset prices even higher, and while the middle class spends any one-time fiscal stimulus merely to cover soaring costs of everyday items like rent and gas, it is the top 1% who will benefit the most again as they stock portfolios hit new all time highs.

    It’s not just stocks that have benefited the super rich: housing has too. While a generation ago, the middle class held more than 44% of real estate assets in the country, it is now down to 38%. The pandemic generated a boom in housing values that has benefited most those who owned real estate in the first place. It also led to soaring rents this year, which hurt those who can’t afford a house. The self-feeding loop was yet another source of wealth transfer for the wealthier. 

    So the next time someone abuses the popular phrase  “they hate us for our [fill in the blank]”, perhaps it’s time to counter that “they” may not “hate” us at all, but rather are making fun of what has quietly and slowly but surely become the world’s biggest banana republic?

    And it has not Russia, nor China, nor any other foreign enemy to blame except one: the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/09/2021 – 18:30

  • "First Big Winter Storm" Of Season To Bring "Feet Of Snow" To Western US
    “First Big Winter Storm” Of Season To Bring “Feet Of Snow” To Western US

    A series of weather systems will traverse the western part of the US into the central region early next week. According to the National Weather Service, significant snowfall could fall in portions of the northern Rockies. 

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    After record drought, excessive heat, and wildfires, the first signs of winter with heavy snowfall are expected in the Rocky Mountains early next week. Cold air from two jet streams will send temperatures diving across the northern Rockies and the south-central Rocky Mountains through at least mid-week. Cooler air will continue making its way into the mountains of Colorado and High Plains of Montana, Wyoming, and even western Dakotas and western Nebraska. 

    Accumulating snow is expected in high elevations of the Sierra Nevada to the central and northern Rockies. Billings, Montana; Casper, Wyoming, parts of Salt Lake City, and foothills west of Collins-Boulder-Denver Front Range urban corridor could expect snow. 

    NWS tweeted a 3-7 day weather outlook through next Thursday and said, “heavy snow is expected for portions of the northern Rockies.” 

    Weather models show more than a foot of snow is expected for higher elevations. 

    The first significant snow event of the year comes as concerns mount some US power grids are unprepared for cooler weather. The green energy transition has been such a failure, pushing up natural gas prices worldwide, that nearly a quarter of US utilities are switching to coal this fall/winter. But declining mining output and labor shortages have resulted in low coal supplies and utilities might be forced to initiate rolling blackouts to protect grids. 

    Next week’s winter impact area of cooler weather has an abundance of coal, natgas, and crude burning power plants. 

    Further south, one major concern is that temperatures across Texas are expected to dive over the next few weeks. It remains to be seen if The Lone Star has rid itself of grid troubles. 

    It’s important to note that US Lower 48 mean temps are declining as the colder weather arrives. If your home is heated by fossil fuels, such as heating oil, now is the time to fill up before a shortage materializes or prices continue moving higher. 

    While the West is cold and snow is imminent, mild weather continues across the Eastern US next week. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/09/2021 – 18:00

  • Kemp: Forget Russian Intentions, Fundamentals Drove Up Europe's Gas Price
    Kemp: Forget Russian Intentions, Fundamentals Drove Up Europe’s Gas Price

    By John Jemp, Reuters energy market analyst and reporter

    European policymakers and some traders blame Russia for the low volume of gas stored across the region which has sent both gas and electricity prices surging to record highs.

    Russia’s pipeline gas export monopoly Gazprom has met commitments for long-term contracts, its clients confirm. But it has not raced to book extra pipeline capacity for spot buyers, despite European calls for more supplies.

    Some policymakers and traders have speculated additional gas has been deliberately withheld to make a diplomatic point and accelerate the approval of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Others say Russia has withheld gas to create a shortage, drive up prices and increase export revenues, similar to the way the OPEC+ producer group raises oil prices and its revenues.

    The other possibility is Russia has not supplied more gas because it faces its own shortage and wants to rebuild domestic stocks after they were depleted by a cold winter in 2020/21.

    There is no empirical way to determine which theory is correct or what Russia’s intentions have been. But whatever the reason, the result is the same: gas is in short supply and European energy prices have hit record levels.

    Escalating energy prices are a global phenomenon. Shortages of gas, coal, electricity and to a lesser extent oil are evident across North America and Asia as well as Europe. In every case, very high and rapidly rising prices this year are a reaction to very low and rapidly falling prices last year during the coronavirus-driven recession.

    Energy prices have always been strongly cyclical. In this instance, an exceptionally severe cyclical slump in 2020 has produced an equally extreme cyclical upswing in 2021.

    Energy production and consumption fell sharply last year, with consumption generally falling earlier and faster than production, leading to a big rise in inventories, and intensifying the downward pressure on prices. Since then, the process has reversed. Energy consumption has recovered rapidly, while production has come back more slowly, leading to a big inventory draw and intensifying the price rise.

    In the gas market, the long cold winter across North America and Eurasia depleted inventories even further and accelerated the routine cyclical swing from slump to boom conditions.  Compared with five-year averages, energy inventories have moved from large surpluses in 2020 through neutral in the winter of 2020/21 to deficits by late 2021.

    In Europe, the volume of gas in storage started the winter of 2020/21 at a near-record level of 1,069 Terawatt-hours (TWh) but ended at just 323 TWh. The winter drawdown of 2020/21 was the second-largest on record and left inventories at their lowest for three years.

    The United States experienced a similar though less severe draw that left working gas stocks in underground storage slightly below the same average. By the start of spring 2021, conditions for a future gas shortage and a sharp rise in prices were in place if production and deliveries did not rise faster than normal over the summer.

    When Russia failed to increase deliveries to Europe above contracted levels, and U.S. shale producers failed to increase drilling, the potential shortage in the spring of 2021 was transformed into an actual shortage by the autumn.

    Squeezing

    “You always squeeze with the grain of a market, never against it,” as one senior commodity trader once told me. Tight fundamentals and deliberate squeezes are inseparable. But it is the tight fundamentals that create conditions for a squeeze not the other way around.

    Did Russia spot an opportunity this year to squeeze an already tight market by deliberately reducing gas exports? Or did Russia prioritize rebuilding its own depleted inventories? We will probably never know. But what is clear is that most or all of the rise in gas, coal and electricity prices in Europe and the rest of the world can be explained in terms of regular supply-demand fundamentals.

    If the gas market had been comfortably supplied earlier this year, Russia would not have been able to increase prices by withholding production, whether or not that was its intention. In the same way, if the oil market had been comfortably supplied, with rising output from U.S shale fields and other sources, OPEC+ supply curbs would not have been able to lift prices by so much.

    Price slumps promote retrenchment and consolidation among energy producers, leaving those that survive with more pricing power and higher revenues when the cycle turns up again.

    Current energy shortages are an extreme version of the normal industry cycle, an exceptional price spike in 2021 in reaction to the exceptional slump in 2020.

    By the same logic, the exceptionally high prices of 2021 are creating conditions for a more balanced or even oversupplied market later in 2022 and 2023.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/09/2021 – 17:38

  • SpaceX Hits $100 Billion Valuation In Recent Share Sale From Existing Investors
    SpaceX Hits $100 Billion Valuation In Recent Share Sale From Existing Investors

    Elon Musk’s SpaceX has officially hit a $100 billion valuation. 

    The news comes after the company completed a share sale from existing investors last week, according to CNBC.

    The company has an agreement to sell up to $755 million in stock from current insiders at a price of $560 per share. This moves the company’s valuation to $100.3 billion.

    No new capital was raised from the offering, which was consummated at a 33% increase from the company’s last valuation of $74 billion, which was assigned to the company in February 2021. At the time, the company raised $1.2 billion.

    With its $100 billion valuation, CNBC notes, the company is now officially a “centicorn” – a term used for a $1 billion “unicorn” one hundred times over. 

    SpaceX has raised billions over the last few years to work on its Starship and Starlink projects. Starlink is the company’s plan to build a network of thousands of satellites to provide high speed internet. Starship is the company’s rocket that is being planned to move cargo and missions on the moon and Mars.

    Starship’s next step is to reach orbit, while Starlink has already launched 1,740 satellites and already has over 100,000 users participating in a public beta.

    And unlike Tesla’s Full Self Driving public beta, Starlink’s is far less likely to launch you into inanimate objects at high rates of speed for no particular reason. 

    Here’s how SpaceX’s valuation has grown over the last two decades:

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    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/09/2021 – 17:30

  • Breakfast Inflation Strikes As Oat Prices Hit Record Highs
    Breakfast Inflation Strikes As Oat Prices Hit Record Highs

    Americans are accustomed to a bowl of cereal as their go-to breakfast meal is about to experience a price increase because of rapid food inflation.  

    This year, a devastating drought in North American oat fields has resulted in the lowest harvest for the cereal grain in years, pushing prices to record highs, a warning sign that breakfast inflation is imminent. 

    Scorching heat waves in Candian oat fields slashed production to an 11-year low. Canada, the world’s biggest exporter, ships most of its oats to the US, its largest consumer. 

    The result so far has been a new record high in oats futures trading on the CME. The sudden spike in prices has yet to ripple through supply chains to affect consumers, though that will be coming. 

    According to Bloomberg, “the situation for North American farmers was so dire in the summer that many cut their losses and harvested damaged plants to be sold as feed for animals.” 

    What this means for consumers is that dwindling supplies and record-high prices will soon affect foods like cereals, oatmeal, and granola bars, all popular breakfast items. 

    Randy Strychar, president of Ag Commodity Research and Oatinformation.com, said Cheerios, the US’ most popular cereal, is made entirely of oats. He said there’s no substitute for the ingredient: “You can’t make a Cheerio out of barley.” 

    General Mills, the maker of Cheerios and Nature Valley granola bars, nor Quaker Oats Company, the maker of oatmeal, among others, have yet to announce price increase of their oat products, but that could be imminent or at least create an illusion of stable prices through shrinkflation. 

    As for Oatly Group AB, the world’s largest oat milk company, they’re able to source in the Baltics and other countries in addition to Canada to mitigate soaring prices. As for smaller North-American oat-milk producers, they could be forced to raise prices. 

    Another popular breakfast food facing higher prices is sugary donuts, according to Krispy Kreme, Inc., who recently warned ingredients, such as flour, butter, milk, oil, and sugar, are forcing the company to raise prices.  

    Global food prices rose to a new decade high last month, according to a United Nations index. 

    Breakfast foods might soon be the latest causality of soaring food inflation impacting the working poor the hardest. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/09/2021 – 16:30

  • The Economy Needs Higher Rates
    The Economy Needs Higher Rates

    Submitted by The Swarm Blog,

    In a RealVision interview, Greenlight capital’s founder David Einhorn recently said:

    “I’m not in the transitory-inflation crowd. The private sector is allocating all the money to the fast-growing software, eating-the-world companies. It’s not allocating money to companies that actually make things and provide other kinds of services that people find less exciting, meaning there are shortages of these things now.”

    In fact, after two decades of a downturn in economic activity, it is possible to argue that low interest rates policy has been a failed experiment.

    There is no free lunch in economics, meaning that every decision taken by authorities has consequences, even when it comes to supplying cheap money. I have already discussed the negative externalities due to lose monetary policies and infinite bailouts, such as a growing squeeze of working and middle classes (see There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch – Part 1), and capital misallocation (see Part 2).

    Those policies are based on the idea that low rates will favor investment decisions and fuel a powerful economic boom, which is a fallacy. Of course, authorities may provide temporary forms of relief when a crisis occurs in order to stabilize the system and to avoid a spiral of defaults. However, such measures should not become the new paradigm, as capitalism is based on the relationship between risk and return. Said differently, interest rates need to be high enough so as to incite wealthy agents to invest in new projects, looking for high returns on equity, and so that they can repeat that again and again on the long run.

    Besides, the economy evolves towards a form of punctuated equilibrium, which means that crises should not be treated as “accidents” but rather as structural and necessary events. In other words, the objective of any serious political or monetary authority should not be to avoid downturns at any cost, but to fight distortions and to ensure stability.

    Today, we live in countries where what matters the most is to make quick and significant capital gains. People are no longer investing in projects, they are just gambling on markets, willing to be part of the next major vertical move. This means buying stocks of young technology companies with absolutely no balance sheet and selling a vague promise of a killer product, or panic-buying shares of zombie firms with absolutely no future prospect, and let’s not even talk about NFTs.

    Even if some people argue that we have entered the so-called “exponential age” where only digital activities would matter, manufacturing remains the lifeblood of an economy. According to Czech-Canadian thinker Vaclav Smil, there is no innovation and no sustainable growth perspectives without a healthy manufacturing sector [1]. And this can only occur in an environment characterized by normalized interest rates.

    The economy can survive to higher rates. On the long run, it even needs them. The thing is, everyone is afraid of the consequences of such a move.

    Indeed, the corollary of that idea is the necessity for Western countries to solve their debt problem. As long as the debt situation worsens, the economy will continue to evolve towards an ultra-speculative machine that will destroy any serious prospect of creating long-term tangible assets, jeopardizing America and Europe’s chances for the future. Like it or not, but China has taken a reformist turn since 2015.

    Unfortunately, I deem such a change very unlikely.

    • First, too many people are being fooled by soaring asset prices. Even in the financial industry, people are convinced that bull runs reflect the fact that the economy is doing well. You would be surprised to find out how many people really believe in the efficient markets hypothesis. Meanwhile, every folk who tries to alert on risks is mocked and called “Cassandra.” Some persons even had the privilege of receiving a visit from the SEC just because of that, as if spreading bearish opinions was a federal crime in some democracies.

    • The second problem is the fact that a worrying number of political leaders are too corrupt to do anything about that. Beyond the case of Fed presidents trading stocks or municipals bonds, everyone should bear in mind that the speaker of the House has been making millions thanks to call options trades. If the people in charge of changing the rules are influenced by market prices, then who is going to push for serious reforms?

    • Last but not least, central banks are trapped as they opened a Pandora’s box in 2020 by adding too much risk to their balance sheet. Indeed, a growing share of the value of major currencies like the dollar or the euro is now backed by risky assets such as corporate bonds (including high yield ETFs). Therefore, the Fed and the ECB must ensure that the market price of those securities never fall, in order to guarantee the value of their currencies. Otherwise, that would mean losing control over the currency. But as capital markets are now conditioned to infinite QE policy, central banks have no choice but to keep expanding their balance sheet to support the value of those assets, meaning that they are forced to buy even more risky things (Janet Yellen once suggested that the Fed should buy stocks), leading to a problematic vicious circle.

    Nevertheless, at some point, we will have no choice but to change direction, wishing that this be done with discipline and without malice. Of course, one should expect a significant crisis, given that speculative excesses will not be absorbed smoothly. But everything comes with a price, and the economy really needs higher rates.

    If we do not initiate change on our own, then sooner or later our countries will be impacted by even more dramatic events. As Jonathan Tepper conjectured [2], “risk is like energy and cannot be destroyed, it can only be transformed.”

    * * *

    [1] Smil, V. (2013) Made in the USA: The Rise and Retreat of American Manufacturing. MIT Press.

    [2] Tepper, J. (2020) “COVID-19 Has Exposed Our Financial Fragility.” UnHerd.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/09/2021 – 16:00

  • Southwest Pilots Union Sues To Block Airline's Vaccination Mandate
    Southwest Pilots Union Sues To Block Airline’s Vaccination Mandate

    In what appears to be one of the first cases of a union pushing back against the new COVID vaccination requirements handed down by the Biden Administration, a union representing pilots at Southwest Airlines is suing to stop the vaccine requirement from being forced until a lawsuit is resolved.

    Bloomberg reports that the union representing Southwest’s pilots has asked a court to grant a temporary stay against the federal vaccination rules until an ongoing lawsuit over what they allege are violations of US labor laws is resolved.

    In a court filing on Friday, the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association also asked for an immediate hearing on the request before a federal court in Dallas, claiming the carrier has continued to take unilateral actions that violate terms of the Railway Labor Act, which governs relations between airlines and employee unions. The “unilateral action” in question is the company’s attempt (at the Biden Administration’s direction) to force workers to either get the jab, or be fired or sent on unpaid leave, Bloomberg reports.

    “The new vaccine mandate unlawfully imposes new conditions of employment and the new policy threatens termination of any pilot not fully vaccinated by December 8, 2021,” the legal filing said. “Southwest Airlines’ additional new and unilateral modification of the parties’ collective bargaining agreement is in clear violation of the RLA.”

    According to the guidelines set out by President Biden (and “voluntarily” embraced by most of the major airlines), Southwest has a deadline of Oct. 4 under the federal mandate for employees to get jabbed or have an approved medical or religious exemption. SW is affected by the mandate because it has contracts with the federal government (like many large businesses).

    The union represents 9,000 pilots at the airline, and a strike could easily disrupt American air travel (remember the air traffic controllers strike in the 1980s?)

    For whatever reason, the airline isn’t backing down, insisting that the vaccination mandate (which airline CEOs have gone on TV to defend) isn’t an issue subject to labor-management negotiation, and that anybody who refuses the jab without an exemption will be fired.

    “The airline disagrees with SWAPA’s claims that any Covid-related changes over the past several months require negotiation,” Southwest said in an emailed statement. The carrier is committed to working with its unions “as we continue navigating the challenges presented by the ongoing pandemic.”

    Unfortunately for the Southwest, the vaccine mandate isn’t the only COVID-related policy that the pilots have taken issue with.

    Other policies the union seeks to block include Southwest’s Covid quarantine rules for pilots and an infectious disease control policy that it says significantly altered work conditions, rules and rates of pay, until the two sides negotiate a resolution to alleged contract violations outlined in its original Aug. 30 lawsuit. The changes violate a “status quo” provision of the RLA by not maintaining terms of an existing contract during negotiations, the lawsuit claimed.

    Pilots are also uniquely at risk because (as a growing number of Nordic countries impose new restrictions on mRNA vaccines, and amid skepticism about whether vaccines are really worth it for the young and healthy) an adverse reaction to the vaccine could cost them their pilots’ license.

    Pilots are at a unique risk because adverse reactions to a vaccine could affect their ability to pass periodic medical examinations required to maintain their license. The union wants to negotiate, among other things, how such instances would be covered by long-term disability policies.

    Understandably, before agreeing to all these restrictions, the union wants to make sure any pilot affected in this manner receive disability.

    As we wait to see whether pilots at other unions push back in a similar way, over in the UK, restrictions on travelers and pilots are actually being relaxed.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/09/2021 – 15:30

  • Virginia Judge Hands Victory To Parents, Sides Against Prosecutor On School Board Recall
    Virginia Judge Hands Victory To Parents, Sides Against Prosecutor On School Board Recall

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

    A Virginia-based parent group attempting to oust five Loudoun County School Board members was given a small win after a Loudoun County Circuit Court judge ruled Tuesday in favor of the organization’s recall petition against a board member who sought to dismiss it.

    On Tuesday, a judge denied Loudoun County school board member Beth Barts’ motion to dismiss the case and also removed Loudoun County Commonwealth’s Attorney Buta Biberaj from the case.

    The group Fight For Schools and others have alleged that Barts was involved in a private Facebook group that violated the School Board’s Code of Conduct and other laws after members allegedly tried to attempt to reveal private information about parents and opponents.

    Judge Jeanette Irby, meanwhile, ruled that Biberaj should be removed from the case due to a public perception issue, arguing the public may not trust the prosecutor to be impartial.

    “I have the utmost respect for Ms. Biberaj … however, if she continued on this case there would never be acceptance on this case,” Irby said, according to local media outlets.

    An attorney for Citizens of Leesburg, another plaintiff in the case, cited a Twitter post made by Biberaj in which she shared a letter to the editor published in Loudoun Now that supported the district’s diversity, equity, and inclusion work—which is closely aligned with the quasi-Marxist critical race theory that’s now at the center of many heated school board debates across the United States.

    Biberaj was also listed as a member of the same private Facebook group in which Barts had belonged—Anti-Racist Parents of Loudoun—where members were allegedly sought to reveal private information, or “doxx,” parents and opponents of critical race theory.

    The Epoch Times has contacted the Loudoun County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office and the school district for comment.

    Ian Prior, who is involved in the charge to remove Barts from the school board, said he is pleased with the judge’s decision on Tuesday.

    “We are ecstatic,” Prior told WJLA.

    “I can say for months, parents have been asking for a seat at the table. We haven’t been heard by the school board. They haven’t given us that opportunity. The leaders here haven’t stepped up to try to come to resolution about what’s going on in schools, but yesterday the court gave us that seat at the table.”

    “I feel like the judge looked at the evidence and made a decision that was right,” Fight for Schools supporter Erin Dunbar, also a parent, said after the hearing, according to Loudoun Now.

    “I think she’s unbiased. She’s looking at the evidence in front of her and I think she’s actually going to give us a fair trial.”

    Earlier this year, when she was censured over her social media activity, Barts said in a statement:

    “It’s not my job to be liked. It’s my job to ask hard questions, work to provide the best education for our kids, make sure our teachers are paid what they really deserve, and represent the people of Leesburg.”

    Her statement came after School Board Vice Chairwoman Atoosa Reaser asserted in March that Barts repeatedly violated the school board’s code of conduct.

    Meanwhile, a several-month-long Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office investigation found that social media posts in the private Facebook group did not constitute criminal action, according to local media. The office, as a result, did not pursue criminal charges against any of the members after they received complaints alleging “evidence of organized criminal activity intended to infringe upon 1st Amendment rights and [violations of] certain laws surrounding the crimes of stalking, harassment, and racketeering.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/09/2021 – 15:00

  • US 'Committed' To Open-Ended Occupation Of Syria As Countries Begin Normalization With Assad
    US ‘Committed’ To Open-Ended Occupation Of Syria As Countries Begin Normalization With Assad

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com, 

    On Thursday, a senior Syrian Kurdish official was in Washington and met with US officials who told her that the US would continue its military presence in eastern Syria.

    “Recently, everybody thought the United States would withdraw but they were clearly saying they would stay as long as the Islamic State presence persisted,” Ilham Ahmed told Reuters.

    Getty Images

    Ahmed is a leader of the Syrian Democratic Council, the political wing of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who the US support in eastern Syria.

    The US uses ISIS as an excuse to stay in Syria, but its occupation and support for the SDF is part of the broader campaign against the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad. Most of Syria’s oil fields are in the region of Syria where the US has its presence, and the occupation keeps the vital resource out of the hands of Damascus.

    On top of the military presence, the US maintains crippling economic sanctions on Syria that specifically target the energy and construction sectors, making it difficult for the country to rebuild. Last week, after Jordan reopened its border in Syria, the State Department said the US has no plans to normalize or improve relations with Damascus.

    Ahmed signaled that the SDF might be open to talks with the Syrian government, this even as the Biden administration remains on isolating Damascus through a severe sanctions regimen. 

    “Countries like Russia also made preparations to assist for a healthier dialogue with the Syrian regime,” she said.

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    The SDF has previously warned Washington that it could join forces with Assad if the US pulls its troops out of Syria.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/09/2021 – 14:00

  • "So Deeply, Deeply Wrong" – Lithuanian Without Vaccine Pass Describes Life Under Medical Tyranny
    “So Deeply, Deeply Wrong” – Lithuanian Without Vaccine Pass Describes Life Under Medical Tyranny

    As governments around the world begin instituting Covid-19 ‘passports’ which will dictate the level of participation one is afforded within society – regardless of naturally acquired immunity or actual risk to the public from the unvaccinated (considering that the majority of transmission occurs in the home), people have begun to push back against authoritarian tactics to control privileges and push vaccines.

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    In America, the ‘my body, my choice’ crowd has suddenly invented conditions for their own mantra.

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    Regardless of how well vaccination rates and lockdowns actually work:

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    For those wondering how life under a strict Covid pass looks, keep reading – as Lithuanian citizen Gluboco Lietuva (@gluboco) describes the hell he and his wife are currently living due to their decision not to get vaccinated.

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    (Continued via threadreaderapp):

    Lithuania is a small EU country of 2.8 million people.

    Lithuania introduced a Covid Pass in May. It’s called the “Opportunity Pass”. The Opportunity Pass allows you the opportunity to participate in society. Without the Opportunity Pass, you don’t have opportunity: your rights are restricted.

    The government app shows the fun you’ll have participating in the opportunities of society if you have the Opportunity Pass. There is no illustration of life for people without the Pass.

    In August, Lithuania passed a law to restrict the rights of people who don’t have the Covid Pass. Other countries are moving in that direction. In Lithuania, it’s already in force: all restrictions are already fully effective, and enforcement is strict.

    Without a Pass, you may not enter any shopping center or large supermarket. At the entrances, people queue in line to be verified. Guards scan the Pass of each person. If you have a valid Pass, the light flashes green and beeps. Then you may enter. No Pass, no entrance.

    Without a Pass, you may only shop in small stores which mainly sell food, pharmaceuticals, glasses and contact lenses, veterinary goods, or farming supplies. You may not enter stores which mainly sell other products.

    Without a Pass, you may not enter any restaurant, cafe, or bar. Without a Pass, you may not enter banks or insurance companies, except for essential purposes – e.g., pensions or social benefits – where the service lasts no longer than 15 minutes.

    Without a Pass, you may not visit patients in medical facilities or senior care/residential homes. The only exception is for terminally-ill patients and children under 14 years of age, if the doctor gives advance permission.

    Without a Pass, you may not enter indoor public events or spaces, such as conferences, fitness centers, or beauty services like hair and nails.

    The Pass is in the form of a QR code. Most people get it on their phones thru e-banking/e-signature. Those without phones can get a paper printout.

    Officials launched a re-vaccination program in September. Seniors began receiving third dose boosters last week. The whole population will follow afterwards. The Vice-Minister of Health stated: “We are likely to start the fourth and fifth booster shots in several months.”

    My country was occupied by the USSR, 1944-1990. We fought for – and won – independence. Hundreds of thousands of people took real risks opposing Soviet tyranny. On one day, 30% of the entire population joined hands to form a 675-km chain in support of freedom.

    Our population now is apathetic about losing freedoms previous generations fought for.

    We battled Soviet propaganda and “Show me your documents!” authoritarianism,only to acquiesce to media-led propaganda and technocratic health authoritarianism of “Show me your Covid Pass!”

    Principled Covid Pass opposition is caricatured as conspiracy-theorist, anti-vaxxer. Honest debate is dismissed. Mainstream leaders – politicians, officials, media, educated elite – openly wish death upon opponents of the Pass “so we can finally end this pandemic”.

    Under Soviet occupation, political dissent was suppressed, news was censored. Now, we’ve returned to a regime of censorship – this time, enforced by mob rule rather than government. Principled opponents don’t speak freely. Fear of the mob makes people censor themselves.

    By my count, 14 of the 27 EU countries now have domestic Covid Pass restrictions. But Lithuania is much further along than most. Other countries are planning restrictions such as broad bans on supermarkets and all non-essential shopping. Here, it’s already reality.

    The current reality in Lithuania foreshadows the future that faces other countries if they continue down the path of Covid Pass restrictions: Europe, the US, the UK, Australia, Canada…

    To me, this should be a global news headline:
    —
    “Lithuania bans citizens from society. Other EU countries following soon.”
    —

    But there’s virtually no reporting in English about this massive change in society. Or about the hatred and de-humanization which has resulted. My wife and I have 2 kids. She’s pregnant with our third. We’re very ordinary. Not important, not connected. Together we earn 3000 eur/month: not rich, not poor. My favorite activity is foraging wild mushrooms in the forest with my family (the chanterelles are heavenly!)

    I’ve never cared about politics before Covid. Never been to a protest in my life. Never been involved in activism. In short, I’m not political. But I am moral. And the Covid Pass regime is a deep moral wrong.

    My wife and I refuse to be caricatured as crazed anti-vaxxers. We are not illiterate, innumerate, or anti-science. We do not believe in conspiracy theories. Vaccines have saved millions of lives: smallpox,polio, measles… And Covid vaccination can be beneficial for many people. It’s a personal medical decision for each individual in consultation with a doctor. What we strongly oppose is the coercion of the Covid Pass regime.

    There are legitimate reasons for restricting the rights of citizens when society itself could be destroyed. Covid is a deadly disease. But it is not an existential threat which justifies ripping apart our society. The Covid Pass regime is vindictive, intended to punish. In just a few months, the new rules have turned my country into a two-tier society of discrimination and hate. Restriction by restriction, it is shredding the bonds that hold us all together in one society.

    My wife and I have lost our rights as citizens. We are not allowed to shop, eat out, get our hair cut, or go to the bank, gym, or library. We were both suspended from our jobs. This is deeply wrong.

    Our leaders encourage hatred of us. Our countrymen openly wish for our death. And it’s all amplified by the media and cheered on by likes and retweets. This is deeply wrong.

    Othering. Discrimination. Blame for disease. Accusation of wartime betrayal. Incitement. Hatred. Persecution. This is not a history textbook. This is the reality of life for my family in 2021. Our humanity has been erased. This is wrong. So deeply, deeply wrong.

    There is a lot of fear around us, and fear leads to anger. But we shouldn’t let that fear control us. We shouldn’t let that fear make us forget who we are as individuals. A mob may say that people without a Covid Pass should be banished from society. A mob may wish for hate and death. But as individuals, people would never accept this de-humanization of their families, friends, and neighbors.

    In Lithuania, the Covid Pass is already a reality. But other countries around the world are very quickly moving down the same path. Lithuania’s Covid Pass regime is a harbinger of what will happen everywhere if enough people don’t unite in principled opposition. With this message, I hope to reach people not as a mob, but as individuals.

    I hope to show people – as individuals – the reality of life in a Covid Pass regime. Because I hope – and truly believe – that as individuals, we will recognize the inhumanity and unite to stop it. I’m not social media savvy. I only joined Twitter this week solely to share info on the Covid Pass regime. I don’t want recognition, money, or credit. My only goal is to reach people with this message.

    I’m just an ordinary man trapped in a Kafkaesque world of mind-numbing absurdity. So I’d be grateful for your help to share this message so that together, we can unite to stop this madness. And then I can forget about Covid Pass regimes and get back to my wild mushrooms.🙂 If you want to know more, I wrote a detailed article about Lithuania’s Covid Pass regime and its effects on my family. The article contains my contact info as well as links to government websites for verification of all restrictions described here.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/09/2021 – 13:30

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Oct 09

Today’s News 9th October 2021

  • A Message To Fauci: You Are In No Position To Dictate The "Greater Good"
    A Message To Fauci: You Are In No Position To Dictate The “Greater Good”

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

    How does a fraud like Anthony Fauci find himself in the highest paid position in US bureaucracy? Well, Fauci’s career is a rather shocking testament to the reality of our government and our era – The more corrupt you are the more favors and promotions you will receive.

    Fauci is well known as a shameless opportunist among many within the medical research community. For example, the creator of the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Test, Kary Mullis, had nothing but disdain for Fauci. Mullis was an interesting figure who valued scientific honesty above all else. He often warned that his PCR test could be exploited to inflate infection numbers by identifying remnants of a virus in person’s body without distinguishing whether or not they are actually “infected” (sick). Sadly, his test is no be used in this exact manner today to exaggerate infection rates of the covid-19 virus.

    In interviews Mullis has referred to Anthony Fauci as a “liar”, arguing that he is a bureaucrat that “doesn’t know anything about anything”. Mullis noted that people like Fauci have an agenda that is outside of the public good, and that they have no problem misrepresenting the science to the populace to achieve their goals. It should also be noted that YouTube has made it their mission to consistently erase any traces of the Mullis interviews mentioning Fauci from their website.

    It is also not surprising that Fauci’s rampant fear mongering over AIDS in the 1980’s has gone mostly unmentioned by the mainstream media. His claim that 1 in 5 heterosexual Americans would be dead from AIDS by 1990 has been summarily memory-holed and the guy is treated like a scientific genius by the journalistic community in 2021.

    If there is any justice in this world then Fauci should really go down in history as one of the primary initiators of the Covid pandemic, being that he was the head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that funded Gain of Function research on corona-viruses at the Wuhan Lab in China. This is the same research that Fauci blatantly lied about to congress on multiple occasions. And, the Wuhan lab is the same lab that evidence suggests was the ground zero source of the Covid-19 outbreak.

    It is important to note that it was Fauci and the NIH that LIFTED the ban on gain of function research on deadly viruses in 2017, and it was well known around this time that the Level 4 Wuhan lab in China was not secure.

    If anyone is responsible for global covid deaths, it is Fauci, the Chinese government and anyone else involved in that gain of function research which is primarily used to WEAPONIZE viruses under the guise of creating “therapeutics.” Gain of function research was originally banned under the Biological Weapons Convention which went into effect in 1975, unless it was being used for therapeutics. Now ALL gain of function research that is revealed publicly is labeled as therapeutics even if it is actually designed to produce biological weapons. This is sometimes referred to as “dual use research.”

    The prevailing narrative continues to be that even if the virus came from the Wuhan lab then it was surely an accident. I continue to believe according to the available evidence that Covid-19 was deliberately released in order to create a global crisis which could then be exploited by the establishment to introduce extreme controls over the populace to the point of medical totalitarianism. But of course, there is no smoking gun to prove this, only common sense.

    If we take the notorious Event 201 into account things get a little weird. Event 201 was a war game held by the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Its claimed purpose was to simulate the effects of a deadly coronavirus pandemic “spread by animals” to humans and to develop the policies governments and their corporate partners should employ to deal with it. Interestingly, this simulation was held in October of 2019, only two months before the REAL THING happened. Nearly every policy suggested by the participants of Event 201 has now been adopted by most governments, including the social media censorship campaign against anyone that questions the origins of the virus and the safety of the experimental mRNA vaccines.

    Anthony Fauci and friends….

    WEF founder Klaus Schwab was quick to announce at the start of the pandemic that Covid-19 was the “perfect opportunity” to launch the “Great Reset”, which is a globalist plan to completely erase free market systems and replace them with a highly centralized socialist framework. The WEF envisions a world in which carbon related power is banned, all financial transactions become digital and are monitored and controlled by central authorities, and they have even suggested that one day people will “own nothing and be happy”. This is a reference to the so-called “shared economy” of the future, where the concept of personal property is abolished and all people will live in communal housing collectives where necessities are rationed or rented out to them by the government.

    Something must have went wrong with covid, however, because the Event 201 death estimates for such a virus were around 65 million within the first year of the outbreak. This of course never happened with Covid-19. So, the resistance to the mandates has been high, or much higher apparently than the globalists expected. They have been forced to engage in an endless fear campaign for the past 18 months over a virus with a mere 0.26% median death rate. It is a virus that well over 99.7% of all people will survive and it has an extremely low chance of long term effects on those who do actually end up hospitalized. In the majority of states the hospitalization rates are between 10-35 people for every 100,000 people infected.

    These numbers come from the CDC and the medical establishment at large, yet they are ignored by propagandists like Fauci, just as Fauci has continued to ignore natural immunity as a factor in covid mandates. It might seem bizarre to almost any scientist, doctor and virologist not paid by the government, but Fauci has argued that natural immunity should be ignored when compared to vaccination. Multiple studies from around the world now show that natural immunity is up to 27 times more effective at preventing covid infection than the vaccines, but those with natural immunity are considered a threat to others under the new mandates unless they are also vaxxed.

    This simply makes no sense from a scientific perspective until you realize that the mandates are not about science, they are about authoritarianism. Fauci is the US front man for a campaign of medical tyranny being imposed in every nation; this is why he does not care about natural immunity. The idea of it is inconvenient to his narrative, so he pretends it is inconsequential.

    It is perhaps ironic that Fauci himself is becoming inconsequential as he is slowly fading away from the media limelight. I have noticed that ever since the NIH gain of function information was released to the public Fauci has been in the media less prominently. A documentary produced by National Geographic and soon to be distributed by Disney+ portrays the conman as a misunderstood savior and is sure to be a trash fire. That said, it does represent a clear last-ditched effort to save the man’s false reputation.

    There is a good reason for all of this. Fauci’s distaste for personal freedom has been well documented and is making him extremely unpopular. He even recently argued on CNN in favor of vaccine mandates using this perverse position:

    “There comes a time when you do have to give up what you consider your individual right of making your own decision for the greater good of society.”

    Fauci and his globalist ilk can be distilled down to this single mantra: Do as you are told for the greater good. But who gets to determine what the “greater good” is? Isn’t it disturbing that it’s always the same elitists that end up in that position? I know that leftists in particular love the idea of the vaccine mandates and worship Fauci, and they say we skeptics should “listen to the science”, but Fauci is not a scientist, he’s a door-to-door salesman, and as I’ve noted above the REAL science does not support the arguments for forced vaccinations or lockdowns.

    Hell, I keep asking the same questions on the mandates in these articles and not a single leftists or pro-vax proponent has come up with a valid or logical response, but out of morbid curiosity I would love to see Fauci give his answers:

    1) Covid has a median death rate of only 0.26%, so why should we take ANY risk on an experimental mRNA vaccine with no long term testing to prove its safety?

    2) Why not give support to the 0.26% of people actually at risk from dying due to covid instead of spending billions of dollars on Big Pharma producing a rushed vaccine that you plan to force on the 99.7% of people who are not at risk?

    3) In majority vaccinated countries like Israel, over 60% of covid hospitalizations are fully vaccinated people. The exponential rise of fully vaccinated patients in multiple nations suggests that the vaccines do not work. Why should we take a vaccine that has been proven not to be effective?

    4) If you believe the vaccines actually do work despite all evidence to the contrary, then why should vaccinated people fear anything from unvaccinated people? How are we a threat to them?

    5) If the vaccines don’t work, then doesn’t this mean the mandates are pointless and the people that are most safe are the people with natural immunity? Shouldn’t we be applauding the naturally immune and encouraging treatment instead of useless vaccination?

    6) Since the vaccines actually don’t work according to the data, isn’t it time to stop blindly dismissing treatments like Ivermectin and focus on trials and studies that research these alternatives? Why the vitriolic propaganda campaign to label Ivermectin nothing more than “horse paste” when it is actually a long used Nobel Prize winning treatment for human ailments? Is it because the experimental covid vaccines would lose their emergency authorization status under the FDA if effective treatments exist?

    7) Why are government funded scientists so keen on defending Big Pharma to the point of ignoring all data that contradicts their claims? Are you just embarrassed of being wrong, or are you corrupt?

    8) Who decided you are qualified to determine what constitutes the “greater good?”

    Globalists and errand boys like Fauci will never be able to answer these questions without twisting the narrative. They will say “What about the 700,000 dead in the US?” to play on the idea that the freedom minded lack empathy for their fellow man. Of course, around 40% of those deaths are patients from nursing homes with preexisting conditions, so we have no idea if they died from covid or from their previous ailments. Also, millions of people die every year from a plethora of communicable diseases including the flu and pneumonia, and we never tried to lock down the entire country and crush people’s civil rights because of this.

    If we maintained a running tally of flu and pneumonia deaths year after year as we are doing with covid, then the ever increasing number of bodies would seem just as forbidding. Society cannot function when it is preoccupied with death.

    Yes, around 0.26% of people die from covid, but life goes on for everyone else. Our freedoms are more important than your irrational fears. Our freedoms are more important than globalist agendas for centralization. Our freedoms ARE the greater good. Without them our society dies, and as our society dies millions more people will die from the inevitable collapse and tyranny that will follow; far more than will ever die from covid.

    This is why nothing Fauci says has any relevance to us. He is so transparent in his corruption that he might as well be invisible. We will continue to ignore his declarations and admonitions and we will continue to fight back against the vaccine passports and restrictions. When all is said and done, if Fauci, Biden and other globalist puppets try to use force to impose their agenda upon us then there will come a day very soon when they will be held accountable for their crimes against humanity, and then they will wish they were invisible.

    *  *  *

    If you would like to support the work that Alt-Market does while also receiving content on advanced tactics for defeating the globalist agenda, subscribe to our exclusive newsletter The Wild Bunch Dispatch.  Learn more about it HERE.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/08/2021 – 23:40

  • Chuck Schumer Urges President Biden To Crack Down On "Ghost Guns"
    Chuck Schumer Urges President Biden To Crack Down On “Ghost Guns”

    It comes as no surprise that the federal government is continuing its crusade against ghost guns, or ready-to-assemble gun kits, also known as 80% lowers. The latest is Sen. Chuck Schumer, who demanded that the Biden administration crackdown on these untraceable firearms. 

    “There is absolutely no doubt about it – ghost guns continue to haunt New York, and pose a serious threat to our public safety,” Schumer told reporters earlier this week.

    “We’re asking the administration to act: Close the ghost gun loophole as quickly as we can,” he added. “Stop ghost guns from coming into our city, our communities that are killing [people], particularly our kids.”

    Schumer said ghost guns are sold as separate components and don’t need a background check to purchase. He warned when these components are pieced together, they create a fully operational firearm that can end up in the wrong hands of “felons” and “spousal abusers.”

    The Senate majority leader said the ATF should define these “partially complete frames” as firearms and subject buyers to background checks. 

    In May, the Department of Justice proposed a rule that would require gun shops and online retailers to conduct background checks on those who wanted to purchase 80% lowers. The proposed rule also wanted manufacturers to add serial numbers to the frames. He predicted that if the federal government passed such a law, it would prevent ghost guns from ending up in the wrong hands. 

    But not so fast, says Baltimore-based gunshop and gun policy advocacy group The Machine Gun Nest (TMGN), who warned that more regulation of the firearms industry would only push criminals to print 3D weapons.

    “Nowadays, all someone needs is a 3D printer off Amazon, a few spindles of pla filament, and a CAD file to print a weapon at home. There’s simply no way for the government to continue a regulation spree on the industry and for any successful outcomes to materialize. It’s a losing war, just like the war on drugs.

    “What will the Feds ban next? 3D Printers?” TMGN opined. 

    During the last year and a half of panic gun buying, mostly due to the virus pandemic and social unrest of 2020, Americans also hoarded ghost gun kits in anticipation the government would crack down on these unserialized frames. 

    If there’s one thing the government likes doing, it’s the art of control, and the best way to do that is to continue regulating the gun industry into non-existence. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/08/2021 – 23:20

  • Singapore Drops AI Chatbot After Giving Inappropriate Advice About COVID
    Singapore Drops AI Chatbot After Giving Inappropriate Advice About COVID

    Singapore’s Ministry of Health (MOH) removed an AI chatbot from its website after it went ‘haywire’ and provided people with inappropriate answers to COVID-related questions, according to Singapore newspaper Today. 

    Dubbed “Jamie,” the AI chatbot uses Natural Language Processing engine to figure out questions asked by the public. 

    Things recently took a turn for the worse when the chatbot left some residents in disbelief by its answers about family planning advice when asked about the virus. 

    An example of one of the conversations posted on Reddit shows one user asking the AI chatbot, “My son tested covid positive what should I do?”

    The chatbot responded: 

    “You should practice safe sex through the correct and consistent use of condoms, or abstinence, for at least the whole duration of your female partner’s pregnancy.”

    Another conversation posted online shows a resident asking, “Where can I get an ART?” ART refers to rapid antigen tests. However, the chatbot was far from helpful and offered the “polio vaccine” instead. 

    MOH was quick to remove the chatbot from its website after what it calls “misaligned” replies. Local media reports Ask Jamie is functional on dozens of other government websites and appears to be working fine. It remains a mystery why the chatbot gave terrible advice when residents asked COVID questions. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/08/2021 – 22:40

  • 15 Common Dynamics Of SHTF Collapses
    15 Common Dynamics Of SHTF Collapses

    Authored by Fabian Ommar via The Organic Prepper blog,

    When it comes to how we see and prepare for SHTF, thinking in terms of real and probable rather than fictional and possible can make a big difference. Even though SHTF has many forms and levels and is in essence complex, random, diverse and unsystematic, some patterns and principles are common to the way things unfold when it hits the fan.

    With Toby and Selco’s Seven Pillars of Urban Preparedness as inspiration, I came up with a different list of the 15 dynamics and realities of collapses.

    #1 SHTF is nuanced and happens in stages

    Thinking about SHTF as an ON/OFF, all-or-nothing endgame is a common mistake that can lead to severe misjudgments and failures in critical areas of preparedness. Part (or parts) of the system crash, freeze, fail, or become impaired. This is how SHTF happens in the real world. And when it does, people run for safety first, i.e., resort to more familiar behaviors, expecting things to “go back to normal soon.” 

    By “normal behaviors,” I mean everything from hoarding stuff (toilet paper?) to rioting, looting, and crime, and yes, using cash – as these happen all the time, even when things are normal. But no one becomes a barterer, a peddler, a precious metals specialist in a week. Society adapts as time passes (and the situation requires). That’s why preppers who are also SHTF survivors (and thus talk from personal experience) insist that abandoning fantasies and caring for basics first is crucial. This is not a coincidence. It is how things happen in the real world. 

    Recently I wrote about black markets and the role of cash in SHTFs, emphasizing these things take precedence except in a full-blown apocalypse – which no one can say if, when, or how will happen (because it never has?). Now, I don’t pretend to be the owner of the truth, but those insisting changes in society happen radically or abruptly should check this article about the fallout in Myanmar.

    #2 Everything crawls until everything runs

    Number two is a corollary to #1. SHTF happens in stair-steps, but most people failing to prepare and getting caught off-guard is evidence of the difficulty of the human brain to fully grasp the concept of exponential growth. It bears telling the analogy of the stadium being filled with water drops to illustrate this.

    Let’s say we add one drop into a watertight baseball stadium. The deposited volume doubles every minute (i.e., one minute later, we add two more drops, then four in the next minute, eight in the next, then sixteen, and so on). How long would it take to fill the entire stadium? Sitting at the top row, we’d watch for 45 minutes as the water covered the field. Then at the 48-minute mark, 50% of the stadium would be filled. Yes, that’s only 3 minutes from practically empty to half full. At this point, we have just 60 seconds to get out: the water will be spilling before the clock hits 49 minutes.

    This is an important dynamic to understand and keep in mind because it applies to most things. Another example: it took over 2 million years of human prehistory and history for the world’s population to reach 1 billion, and less than 250 years more to grow to almost 8 billion. 

    #3 The system doesn’t vanish or change suddenly

    Based on history, the Mad Max-like scenario some so feverishly advocate is not in our near future.  

    The Roman Empire unraveled over 500 years. We may not be at the tipping point of our collapse or the last minute of the flooding stadium, as illustrated in #2 above. But time is relative, and those 60 seconds can last five, ten, fifteen years. Things are accelerating, but there’s no way to tell at which point in the curve we are.

    That doesn’t mean things will be normal in that period. A lot has happened to people and places all over the Roman empire during those five-plus centuries: wars, plagues, invasions, droughts, shortages, all hell broke loose. Our civilization has already hit the iceberg, and the current order is crumbling. There will be shocks along the way, some small and some big. But SHTF is a process, not an event.

    #4 History repeats, but always with a twist

    That’s because nature works in cycles, and humans react to scarcity and abundance predictably and in the same ways. Also, we’re helpless in the face of the most significant and recurring events. But things are never the same. Technology improves, social rules change, humankind advances, the population grows. This (and lots more) adds a variability factor to the magnitude, gravity, and reach of outcomes.

    What better proof than the COVID-19 pandemic just surpassing the 1918 Spanish Flu death toll in the US? It’ll probably do so everywhere else, too. Even if we don’t believe the official data (then or now), we’re not yet out of this new coronavirus situation. 

    #5 SHTF is about scarcity

    A shrink in resources invariably leads to changes in the individual’s standard of living or entire society (depending on the circumstances, depth, and reach of the disaster or collapse). Then it starts affecting life itself (i.e., people dying).

    Essentially, when things really hit the fan, abundance vanishes, and pretty much everything reverts to the mean: food becomes replenishment, drinking becomes hydration, sleeping becomes rest, home becomes shelter, and so on. Surviving is accepting and adapting to that. 

    #6 The consequences matter more than the type of event

    I’ll admit to being guilty of debating probable causes of SHTF more often than I should, mainly when it comes to the economy and finance going bust. That’s from living in a third-world country, with all the crap that comes with it. 

    It’s what I have to talk, warn, and give advice about. I still find it essential to be aware and thoughtful of the causes. But it’s for the consequences that we must prepare for: instability, corruption, bureaucracy, criminality, inflation, social unrest, divisiveness, wars, and all sorts of conflicts and disruptions that affect us directly.

    #7 Life goes on 

    Humankind advances through hardship but thrives in routine. We crave normalcy and peace, and over the long term, pursue them. Contrary to what many think, life goes on even during SHTF. And things tend to return to normal after the immediate threats cease or get contained. 

    At least some level of normal, considering the circumstances. For example, in occupied France, the bistros and cafés continued serving and entertaining the population and even the invaders (the Nazi army). It was hard, as is always the case anywhere there’s war, poverty, tyranny – but that doesn’t mean the world has ended. 

    #8 SHTF pileup

    Disasters and collapses add instability, volatility, and fragility to the system, which can compound and cause further disruptions. Sometimes, unfavorable cycles on various fronts (nature and civilization) can also converge and generate a perfect storm.

    It’s crucial to consider that and try to prepare as best we can for multiple disasters happening at once or in sequence, on various levels, collective and individual – even if psychologically and mentally. And if the signs are any indication, we’re entering such a period of simultaneous challenges.

    #9 Snowball effect

    Daisy based her excellent article on the 10 most likely ways to die when SHTF on the principle of large-scale die-off caused by a major disaster, like an EMP or other. This theory is controversial and the object of endless discussions. Some say it’s an exaggeration. But in my opinion, that’s leaving a critical factor out of the equation.

    Consider the following: according to WPR and the CDC, before COVID-19, the mortality rate in the US was well below 1% (2.850.000 per year, or about 8.100 per day). If the mortality rate increases to just 5%, this alone would spark other SHTFs, potentially more serious and harmful than the first.

    That five-fold jump in mortality would result in more than 16 million dead per year or 44.000 per day. That’s 5% we’re talking about, not 20 or 30. If there’s even a protocol to deal with something like that, I’m not aware. It would be catastrophic on many levels over a shorter period (say, a few months).

    Early in the CV19 pandemic, some cities had trouble burying the dead, and the death rate was still below 1%. Sure, other factors were playing. But the point is, things can snowball: consequences and implications are too complex and potentially far-reaching. Think about the effects on the system.

    #10 SHTF is a situation, but it’s also a place 

    Things are hitting the fan somewhere right now. Not in the overblowing media but the physical world: the Texas border, third-world prisons, gang-ruled Haiti, in Taliban-raided Afghanistan, in the crackhouse just a few blocks from an affluent neighborhood, under the bridges of many big cities worldwide, in volcano-hit islands. 

    There are thousands of places where people are bugging out, suffering, or dying of all causes at this very moment. If you’re not in any SHTF, consider yourself lucky. Be grateful, too: being able to prepare is a luxury. 

    #11 Choosing one way or another has a price

    Being unprepared and wrong has a price. However, so does being prepared and wrong. Though some benefits exist regardless of what happens, the investment in terms of time, finance, and emotion to be prepared could be applied elsewhere or used for other finalities (career, a business, relationships, etc.) rather than some far-out collapse.

    Since so much in SHTF is unknown and open, and resources are limited even when things are normal, survival and preparedness are essentially trade-offs. We must read the signals, weigh the options, consider the probabilities, make an option, and face the consequences. That’s why striving for balance is so important.

    #12 SHTF is dirty, smelly, ugly

    This is undoubtedly one of the most striking characteristics of SHTF: how bad some places and situations can be. Most people have no idea, and they don’t want to know about this. Those who fantasize about being in SHTF should think twice. Abject misery and despair have a distinct smell of excrement, sewage, death, rotting material, pollution, trash, burned stuff, and all kinds of dirt imaginable. And insects. The movies don’t show these things. But bad smells and insects infest everything and everywhere, and it can be maddening. 

    During my street survival training, I get to visit some really awful places and witness horrible things. The folks eventually going out with me invariably get shocked, sometimes even sickened, when they see decadence up and close for the first time. Even ones used to dealing with the nasties – it’s hard not to get affected. 

    For instance, drug consumption hotspots are so smelly and nasty that someone really must have to be on crack just to stand being there. It’s hell on earth, and I can’t think of another way to describe these and other places like third-world prisons, trash deposits, and many others. Early on, being in these places would make me question why I do this. It never becomes “normal.” We just adapt. But seeing these realities changes our life and the way we see things.

    #13 The Grid is fragile

    It’s baffling how this escapes so many. Most people I know are in constant marvel with modern civilization. They look around, pointing and saying, “Are you crazy? Too big to fail! There’s no way this can go away! Nothing has ever happened!“. 

    We have someone to take our trash, slaughter, process our food, treat our sick, purify our water, treat our sewage, protect us from wrongdoers and evil people (and keep them locked), control the traffic, and defend our rights. 

    Peeking behind the curtains is a red pill moment. What keeps The Grid up and running is not something small, but it’s fragile. The natural state of things is not an insipid, artificially controlled environment. On the positive side, it makes us feel more grateful, humble, and also more responsible.  

    #14 The frog in the boiling water

    That’s you and me and everyone around us. There’s no other way around it. We’re the suckers who get squeezed and pay the bill whenever something happens, anywhere and everywhere. It’s always our freedom, rights, money, and privacy that gets attacked, threatened, stolen.  

    Not only because the 1% screws us at the top, but because we’re the big numbers, the masses. And only those who work and produce something can bear the brunt of whatever bad happens to society and civilization. 

    Make no mistake: whenever the brown stuff hits the fan, it will fall on us. It’s no reason to revolt but to acknowledge that, ultimately, we’re responsible for ourselves. 

    #15 People can make things worse

    Just have a look around and see what’s happening. Selco himself will tell you that the most dangerous thing about the SHTF is other people.

    Conclusion

    Sometimes, the mechanics, brutality, and harshness of SHTF end up in the background of personal narratives and emotional accounts. Being more knowledgeable and cognizant of some general aspects of collapses may allow flexibility, creativity, improvisation, adaptation, resiliency, and other broad and effective strategies.

    Or, simply provide material for reflection and debate, really. 

    Either way, even those who haven’t been through collapse can still learn from history, from others’ experiences, from human behavior, from the facts. Just be sure to see the world for what it is and not from what you think. Because it will go its own way, and reality will assert itself all the same.

    What are your thoughts about the dynamics of an SHTF scenario? Are there any you want to add? Does this match up with your personal expectations? Let’s discuss it in the comments.

    *  *  *

    Fabian Ommar is the author of The ULTIMATE Survival Gear Handbook and  Street Survivalism

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/08/2021 – 22:20

  • Aussie Freedom Blogger Arrested At Home For Alleged 'Breach Of Public Health Act'
    Aussie Freedom Blogger Arrested At Home For Alleged ‘Breach Of Public Health Act’

    Australian blogger Simeon Boikov – known as the “Aussie Cossack” – has been arrested a home for reportedly violating lockdown rules.

    Boikov, a citizen journalist whose YouTube channel covers police brutality and lockdown measures, livestreamed as three NSW cops entered his home and arrested him for “an alleged breach of the Public Health Act” on Oct. 4.

    As of this writing, it’s unclear what Boikov was charged over, however it comes days after he posted a video mocking the arresting officer, Seargeant Kingston. In a longer video (below), Kingston calls Boikov an “absolute menace” who was suspected of committing an offense by parking his car and getting out of it – which Boikov says he did ‘to exercise.’

    More:

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    Following the arrest, Boikov’s wife posted a clip where she says officials are discussing bail, but has no more information on what’s going on.

    Several commenters slammed the arrest in the comments section:

    In several videos on his YouTube channel, Boikov can be seen spotlighting police brutality and intimidation tactics against the public, walking into public places without a mask to challenge local mandates, instructing people on how to legally protest. In short, he’s a huge thorn in the side of the NSW government.

    In 2015, Boikov was questioned by NSW joint counterterrorism police after traveling to eastern Ukraine to meet with pro-Russia separatists who were the subject of Australian sanctions following the downing of flight MH17.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/08/2021 – 22:00

  • US Debates Promising 'No First Use' Of Nuclear Weapons
    US Debates Promising ‘No First Use’ Of Nuclear Weapons

    Authored by Jason Ditz via AntiWar.com,

    For the handful of nations armed with nuclear weapons, the circumstances under which they’d be used are always an important consideration. This is particularly true of the United States, which has one of the world’s largest arsenals, and is the only nation that has used nuclear arms offensively during a war.

    Often debated, but as yet never confirmed, is the possibility of “no first use,” a promise to the world that the US won’t attack anybody with nuclear arms. At present, China is the only nuclear power with a no first use policy, while India has a somewhat more limited promise not to nuke non-nuclear states. The US has so far refused calls to take such a position.

    The “nuclear football” which accompanies the US president everywhere he travels, via CBS

    President Biden is in the process of debating a new nuclear posture like finally making a “no first use” pledge. The Obama Administration was reportedly close to such a move, but ultimately changed its mind.

    The upshot would be that nuclear first strikes are morally unconscionable, and that the “no first use” policy is really a bare minimum of decency, even if it is a level of decency above and beyond not having actively started a nuclear holocaust yet.

    The debate is likely to be a high-profile one, as despite the straightforward ethical decision there are some outspoken proponents who favor the US remaining ambiguous on who it will nuke, and when. Biden is believed to be at least considering “no first use,” and Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID) is positioning himself as the primary opponent, claiming US allies are “very, very upset” with the prospect of changing posture.

    Sen. Risch, the ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, suggested that such a pledge would give comfort to the enemy, adding that “there are scenarios where you can imagine a first strike.”

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    Advocates say a proper policy change would reduce the chances of getting into a civilization-ending nuclear war with China or Russia by reducing the risk that either of them comes to the mistaken belief that the US is about to nuke them. Throughout the Cold War, such confusion happened, and nearly resulted in devastating exchanges.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/08/2021 – 21:40

  • One US State Already Has A De Facto 'Vaccine Passport' Requirement Just To Enter
    One US State Already Has A De Facto ‘Vaccine Passport’ Requirement Just To Enter

    Much of the American public might be surprised to find out that for months there’s already been a de facto ‘vaccine passport’ policy in effect to enter one US state. And already there’s been a handful of people busted at the “state border” (legal questions of Constitutionality aside) attempting to enter the islands with a fake vaccine proof card. 

    “People are pressing their luck entering Hawaii with fake vaccination cards or test results, an offense that can carry jail time,” The Hill reports. It’s the vacation paradise destination that the Chicago woman with the “Maderna” card got caught this summer trying to enter. Also initially a father and son from California marked the first case that gained national attention. 

    Image source: “The Points Guy”

    In the latest incident, a couple in their 30’s flew from Los Angeles with what’s being described as faking a negative Covid test. The Guardian reports that “According to a police statement last week, they uploaded false results into the state’s system, which flagged the documents and prompted an investigation.”

    The travelers were subsequently arrested and sent back to California and are now awaiting a court date. The attempts to get around Covid testing and vaccine mandates are apparently geared toward avoiding a lengthy hotel quarantine stay at personal cost upon entering Hawaii. 

    As The Hill details, some people were caught falsifying vaccine cards even for their children – despite the underage children being ineligible to receive the vaccine in the first place – but now face stiff legal penalties, including the possibility of jail time: 

    According to Hawaii News Now, fake cards hold a penalty of up to $5,000 or a prison term of up to a year, however, Newsweek reports that a 24-year old man from New York could face seven years in prison for allegedly submitting a fake card.

    The trend has been observed nationally. So far the most sophisticated fake vax record bust has come out of New York and Jersey, given in that prior instance one of the schemers had access to state computer records.

    As we detailed in early September, a woman in New Jersey who was known to clients as “AntiVaxMomma” – which she goes by on Instagram – had been charged by police with offering false documents, criminal possession of a forged instrument and conspiracy. Police said she was known to have sold some 250 fake COVID-19 vaccine cards over the previous months for about $200 each in the New York City area.

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    The scheme was among the more elaborate ones uncovered of late, given that customers could offer $250 more for someone she was working with to enter the card buyer’s name into a New York state vaccination database, according to ABC News. This would then grant the ‘fake’ card verification status if checked against state health systems.

    Meanwhile, within Hawaii the state has already rolled out a COVID vaccine passport for residents to access gyms, bars, and restaurants – akin to large US cities like New York and San Francisco. “The state calls it a digital smart health card and says it would work the same way as the Safe Travels vaccine exception, where people would have to upload a copy of the vaccination card to a secure website,” local media detailed. However, at this early phase it’s not yet fully mandated, but businesses are being encouraged to enforce it on their premises.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/08/2021 – 21:20

  • Is Gunvor Getting Flushed? How NatGas 'Netbacks' Are Crushing The Secretive Commodity Trader
    Is Gunvor Getting Flushed? How NatGas ‘Netbacks’ Are Crushing The Secretive Commodity Trader

    Earlier this week, we noted that some of the world’s largest commodity traders were facing massive margin calls from wrong-way spread trades in the natural gas markets.

    According to reports, it appears the trading shops have all been hammered by a spread (or arbitrage trade) gone wrong.

    For years, the prices of European (red) and US natural gas (green) have traded within a well-defined range. When the spread between the two reaches one extreme or the other, you buy one and sell the other – easy, right ?

    Source: Bloomberg

    So as European NatGas prices surged in Q2, it reached a notable extreme relative to US NatGas, prompting traders to instigate the strategy of selling European Gas and Buying US Gas in the hopes the spread compresses.

    The strategy backfired last month when European gas prices soared due to a variety of factors including low inventories, high demand for gas in Asia, low Russian and LNG supply to Europe, and outages.

    Since then, the situation appears to have grown more grim, as Bloomberg reports that major energy traders including Gunvor Group. and Mercuria Energy Group. have reduced the size of their trading positions and increased borrowing from lenders to cover large margin calls stemming from the unprecedented surge in European gas prices, according to people familiar with the matter.

    Specifically, Bloomberg reports that both Gunvor, the biggest independent trader of liquefied natural gas, and Mercuria, a major power and gas trader, asked banks for additional credit to fund margin calls arising from their hedging positions, said the people, who asked not to be named because the information is private. 

    But, as ‘Structurer’, Jacques Simon, details in the following report, the situation could be far more grave for Gunvor…

    TL;DR…

    • Two weeks ago Gunvor was in the debt market for the 1st time since 2013 according to BBG. We note that Gunvor is the world largest LNG independent trader and also the biggest by % share among the houses with this exposure.

    • The trader is a net buyer of netbacks (a type of contract under which it receives the Henry hub index and pays the TTF or Platts JKM index to the producers).

    • Recently it has changed its LNG head in Singapore and we are also aware that Gunvor Singapore uses a strategy called “the box” whereas the trader locks the arbitrage spread at predetermined levels by swap hedges.

    • U.S website Zerohedge reports that Gunvor is facing massive margin calls as the global natural gas arb explodes.

    • Among the injured will be ABN amro, Credit Agricole, Rabobank, SG, Natixis, ING and Unicredit.

    • The margin calls are between $3.6B and $6.1B in the coming months for a company with a $2.5B net equity.

    • We will explain what is “the box” and then show our calculations for the margin calls and summarize our assumptions below.

    • The banks have offloaded $300M worth of their credit-risk on Gunvor last September to the bond market but since then the Dutch TTF-Henry spread has gone parabolic and the group’s financial position has significantly deteriorated.

    • The trader’s future is purely and simply in the hands of Goldman Sachs, Citi and the long swap dealers at TTF.

    *  *  *

    GUNVOR FINANCIAL POSITION

    Gunvor is very secretive on their financial positions, only releasing partial and selective information.

    Gunvor’s debt is unrated.

    The trader turnover is 94 million mt/year and the rule of thumb is that each 1$ in sale is backed by 5$ of debt. With the turnover growth we believe Gunvor debt is minimum $20B.

    If the House capital is $2.5B in H1-2021 then we derive that Debt/Capital ratio is 8X.

    THE NETBACKS

    Netbacks are based on the premise that the spread between two global LNG markets are underpinned by the transportation costs.

    The arbitrage flows is from the low price market towards the higher price market putting a downward pressure on the overpriced market, and has the effect of reimposing a netback-based parity between the markets. Netbacks assume an access to financing, prompt cargoes in the cheap market, and shipping capacity.

    • DUTCH TTF-HH-Transportation costs-Tolling fee= NETBACK TTF

    • JKM-HH-Transportation costs-Tolling fee= NETBACK JKM

    IF NETBACK TTF >= NETBACK JKM, the trader will ship the LNG to TTF until the equation parity is restored again.

    The caveat: It is another mean-reversion trade based on moderate volatility.

    See, Druz, T., Capra Energy Group, “When will European LNG Imports Recover ?” (2021)

    THE “BOX”

    1. Gunvor Singapore buys TTF netbacks which are defined as the Dutch TTF minus Henry Hub minus the Freight U.S Gulf Coast to Europe minus a $2.45-2.55 tolling fee. Gunvor is now long the TTF and that it must pay to the producer in exchange for the gas.

    2. To protect its margin the trader sells the TTF and buys the HH times the number of cargoes per month.

    3. Based on the current TTF/HH spread and the hedged level the trade becomes a “box” if Gunvor is long freight.

    Typically when the spread goes over the pre-hedge level, the freight cost rises => and Gunvor (long) absorbs the risk because it leases a 10-year fleet. In this situation Gunvor still makes a profit despite a $2-3 margin call on the hedge because it can resell the physical cargo or resell the freight voyage (relet).

    However this is not the behavior observed during Q3 and in Q4-21… As the TTF-HH goes above the 90th percentile value (blue line) while the freight (purple) has not converged with the arbitrage.

    Gunvor has not captured the arbitrage with the freight.

    What a trader employee at Gunvor did was underwriting a gigantic amount of risk (CALLs like optionssellers.com…) analogous to multiple times the trading-firm capital.

    The difference between the generic netback 2010-2020 and the 90th percentile TTF-HH spread represents the profitable trading hedgeable area for the trader “in the box” and where we presume a merchant trader would put some price risk covers against the TTF to pay the producers.

    As you can see the netback is now trading above the 90%P TTF-HH spread for Q4 and CAL22 leaving Gunvor with major curve losses.

    Most of the people out there think the physical trader can settle at a profit if it delivers the cargoes.

    This is not as simple given the financial exposure and box strategy employed by Gunvor in natural gas.

    The severity, timeline length combined force us to make further determinations regarding the risk of major default.

    If you are in the media/commodity headhunters/by-standers or even a Gunvor employee it’s time to pay attention right now.

    GUNVOR PHYSICAL LNG/GAS EXPOSURE

    The first step in our model is to determine the physical exposure by Gunvor in LNG/GAS.

    -Gunvor has ~42% of its total exposure linked to LNG/GAS according to the 2019 Gunvor Group Summary.

    The annual physical exposure of 20.32 million metric ton of LNG is factored by @ 0.80 for the proportion of netbacks SP&As in the portfolio and by 0.75 for the proportion marketed from November to March. This gives us 12.192 million ton of LNG equivalent.

    In the absence of any disclosure by Gunvor Group and based on 2020 volume we believe it forms a conservative assessment of how the trading house sources and markets its LNG.

    The conversion in mmbtu is 645.09 millions mmbtu or ~64,509 contracts equivalent.

    Thus at the present moment we determine that Gunvor has +64,509 long exposure on the TTF-HH spread falling in line with what Gunvor is (or was until last year) as the largest independent LNG trader in the world.

    GUNVOR MARGIN CALL MODEL

    With the physical exposure we use two hedging models to imply the current margin calls under the TTF-HH curve.

    As we stated earlier in “the box” we assume that the trader has hedged the physical netbacks at the 90th percentile TTF-HH spread. If it’s not the case we would be underestimating Gunvor’s actual margin call losses.

    STACK HEDGE VS ROLL HEDGE

    Assumption 1:

    Gunvor uses a strip hedge and the 64,509 exposure is evenly spreaded across the curve.

    With a $3.6 billion margin call it is the less severe of the two cases for Gunvor but still the TTF-HH netback doesn’t make even or below the 90P TTF/TTF line until next July which speaks for the fact that Gunvor Group is consumed by the $3.6B financial loss.

    Assumption 2:

    If Gunvor has elected to use a stack hedge, the Geneva-based trader hedges its price exposure on netback contracts by selling 64,509 nearby expiring month contracts.

    Since the curve has inverted, and increased, the stack and roll position generates enormous negative cash-flows. Under these conditions the current margin call is $6.1B.

    This is 2.5x the trader capital and Gunvor has to settle the swaps in cash at the TTF, the maths and market work effectively at wiping out the trader.

     

    To conclude there is a catch-22 moment for the banks who have extended credit lines to a Gunvor’s model relying on cheap bank financing.

     

    *  *  *

    Gunvor was in fact in the debt market to finance a mega margin call on TTF/HH, JKM/HH 3 weeks ago. The verdict is that Gunvor is now boxed. We are totally unapologetic about this.

    In our median estimate Gunvor faces a 5B$ capital shortfall: the trader is on a slippery slope, not capitalized at all while its margin calls will roll across several months.

    Our quantitative models lend credit to the argument that TTF no longer represents the supply & demand fundamentals.

    Gunvor is getting flushed. The market has a job to perform but is not done yet. For us as an analyst it has explained the extreme-volatility in the TTF gas market.

    The FT can officially start to write an obituary. 

    Something big is coming, watch your email inbox. We have calculated the implied margin call. (If you know someone at Gunvor they’ve to take their bonus now rather than wait for 31th December coming).

    “While there have been margin calls associated with the European natural gas price rally, Gunvor maintains a healthy liquidity position and instruments to manage any further volatility,”

    – Gunvor Spokesman.

    To the contrary our credible sources indicate that Gunvor Group trading activity in Geneva is effectively frozen with its remaining gunpowder serving to manage its decay. The bonuses in arrears won’t get paid.

    The trader’s future is purely and simply in the hands of Goldman Sachs, Citi and the long swap dealers at TTF.

    By December 31th, we call for 80-84 Rue du Rhone to be already gone.

    Bon voyage Gunvor.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/08/2021 – 21:00

  • "Catastrophic" Property Sales Mean China's Worst Case Scenario Is Now In Play
    “Catastrophic” Property Sales Mean China’s Worst Case Scenario Is Now In Play

    No matter how the Evergrande drama plays out – whether it culminates with an uncontrolled, chaotic default and/or distressed asset sale liquidation, a controlled restructuring where bondholders get some compensation, or with Beijing blinking and bailing out the core pillar of China’s housing market – remember that Evergrande is just a symptom of the trends that have whipsawed China’s property market in the past year, which has seen significant contraction as a result of Beijing policies seeking to tighten financial conditions as part of Xi’s new “common prosperity” drive which among other things, seeks to make housing much more affordable to everyone, not just the richest.

    As such, any contagion from the ongoing turmoil sweeping China’s heavily indebted property sector will impact not the banks, which are all state-owned entities and whose exposure to insolvent developers can easily be patched up by the state, but the property sector itself, which as Goldman recently calculated is worth $62 trillion making it the world’s largest asset class, contributes a mind-boggling 29% of Chinese GDP (compared to 6.2% in the US) and represents 62% of household wealth.

    It’s also why we said that for Beijing the focus is not so much about Evegrande, but about preserving confidence in the property sector.

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    But first, a quick update on Evergrande, which – to nobody’s surprise – we learned today is expected to default on its offshore bond payment obligations imminently according to investment bank Moelis, which is advising a group of the cash-strapped developer’s bondholders. Evergrande, which is facing one of the country’s largest defaults as it wrestles with more than $300 billion of debt, has already missed coupon payments on dollar bonds twice last month.

    The missed payments, worth a combined $131 million, have left global investors wondering if they will have to swallow large losses when 30-day grace periods end for coupons that were due on Sept. 23 and Sept. 29. A separate group of creditors to Jumbo Fortune Enterprises who are advised by White & Case, are also waiting for a $260 million bond principal repayment, after a bond guaranteed by Evergrande matured last Friday, and unlike the offshore bonds, does not have a 30 day grace period (although five business days ‘would be allowed’ if the failure to pay were due to administrative or technical error).

    The Jumbo Fortune payment is being closely watched because of the risks of cross-default for the real estate giant’s other dollar bonds; it would also be the firm’s first major miss on maturing notes instead of just coupon payments since regulators urged the developer to avoid a near-term default. And with the five business days up as of today, and with a payment yet to be made, it appears that this weekend we will get news of a declaration of involuntary default from the creditor group which will set in motion the Evegrande default dominoes.

    With that background in mind, let’s move on to the truly chilling latest developments: it now appears that China does not need Evergrande to officially default to unleash a property crisis – one has already arrived.

    Recall that in September, sketched out Goldman’s three scenarios on China’s housing sector – a base case, a severe scenario and a third “hard landing.”

    While readers can find the full details here, we focus on the worst case, “Scenario 3”, which Goldman summarized as follows:

    In the third and most bearish scenario, land sales and housing starts fall 30% and property sales, house prices and completions drop 10% from 2021 to 2022. The tightening in financial conditions doubles that in the second scenario. Note that in this scenario, the tightening is of the same magnitude as the tightening in Goldman’s China Financial Conditions Index (FCI) from November 2017 to June 2018 when domestic credit tightening and the US-China trade war rattled the financial market significantly.

    Quantifying this dire scenario, Goldman envisions a China where new property starts tumble 30%, completions drop 10% alongside sales volumes and ASPs. If this scenario comes to pass it would also wipe out at least 4% of China’s 2022 GDP, potentially resulting in full-year contraction at the second largest economy in the world, an outcome that would have catastrophic implications for the rest of the world. And with Goldman’s warning that such a scenario would lead to a tightening in financial conditions similar to what happened “from November 2017 to June 2018 when domestic credit tightening and the US-China trade war rattled the financial market significantly” and one can therefore see that while contagion from an Evergrande default may skip China’s banks, it would have no less dire consequences for global markets and economies.

    With that preamble in mind, we bring readers’ attention to a little noticed report in Shanghai Securities News, citing China Real Estate Information Corp. research (link), which revealed that more than 90% of China’s top 100 property developers’ sales declined in September by an average of 36% from the same period last year. According to the report:

    • Sept. sales totaled 759.6b yuan ($118BN), down 36.2% from September 2020 and 17.7% lower from the same period in 2019, deepening a downward spiral that started in July
    • Among companies, 60% of developers saw sales decrease by more than 30% y/y in Sept.
    • Beijing, Shenzhen and Guangzhou saw transaction volume of residential properties decline 30% y/y, while Shanghai fell 45%

    We had to do a double take when we saw this because these are absolutely terrifying numbers and are, to put it bluntly, scarier than Goldman’s “worst case scenario“; what’s worse this sudden collapse in China’s property market is taking place before Evergrande has even defaulted, an event which would lead to a glacial freeze in the property market as potential buyers hold off expecting liquidation firesales from the property giant in hopes of getting bargains. The problem is that in addition to being the world’s largest asset, China’s property market is also the world’s largest ponzi scheme, and without constant inflow of new capital it would implode, especially when factoring in the 90 million vacant apartment which just sit inert and which would promptly be dumped by anxious owners, flooding the market with excess inventory and sending prices crashing.

    It didn’t take long for the market to notice what is going on and otherwise healthy property developers, which are in far better financial health than Evergrande, promptly collapsed: China Jinmao Holdings plunged as much as 10%, China Overseas Grand Oceans Group tumbled -7.9%, Sunac -3.7%, Country Garden Holdings -3%, Agile Group -2.8%, and so on.

    But keep in mind that all of the above presupposes just one major default, that of Evergrande. Alas, it’s going to be far, far worse because in a reflexive toxic spiral, one property values fall, the entire property sector will collapse, leading to an epic bursting of a housing bubble that is order of magnitude greater than the US housing market was in 2007/2008.

    As Bloomberg writes, Chinese property firms “may face a wave of defaults” next year if China Evergrande Group’s deepening debt crisis shuts access to a key source of funding and conditions don’t ease for heavily indebted borrowers. As we have documented extensively in the past month, there’s growing alarm that the liquidity crisis at Evergrande will spill over to other developers as President Xi maintains measures to cool the property market while maintaining China’s “three red lines” rules on property sector leverage (a new report from the FT today found that no less than half of China’s 30 top developers were in breach of at least one of said lines).

    Fears of contagion risks intensified this week after a surprise default by Fantasia Holdings Group spurred a dramatic selloff in the offshore market.

    That sent yields on China dollar junk bonds to 17.5%, the highest in about a decade, while Evergrande’s dollar bond prices sank to a record low. After plunging 80%, Evergrande’s HK-traded stock remains halted.

    Distressed debt veteran Michel Lowy said in a Bloomberg TV interview that the nation’s developers are facing a “triple whammy” with dwindling access to offshore financing, “catastrophic” September pre-sales and a limited onshore banking market. Translation: both organic (i.e., operation) and external sources of cash have dried up.

    That could spark a “large wave of defaults” if the offshore market remains shut for riskier borrowers going into next year, said Lowy, chief executive officer of his alternative asset manager SC Lowy. For dollar bonds – which in the coming Evegrande default will be at the very bottom of the pre-petition claims waterfall leaving them with negligible recoveries at best – the risk is that the increase in yields becomes indiscriminate and makes it impossible for developers to refinance maturing debt, triggering a succession of missed payments across the industry.

    If they end up being locked out from the market and unable to rollover coming maturities, and with operating cash flow drying up, the only recourse is the dreaded liquidation firesale which would be the pin that bursts China’s housing bubble.

    “Ultimately it’s a liquidity game,” said Lowy. “How many months can you survive until at some point the central government will relent and start releasing liquidity pressures on developers?”

    And while much has been written about the turmoil in China’s dollar, or offshore bond market, the distress is starting to spread to the onshore bond market too. As Bloomberg notes, signs of strain in China’s $12 trillion domestic credit market after months of resilience may add to borrowers’ refinancing pressures. Stress levels rose in both the local and offshore bond markets in September, Bloomberg’s China Credit Tracker showed.

    Take yuan-denominated bonds sold by Xiamen Yuzhou Grand Future Real Estate Development Co., Yango Group Co. and Aoyuan Corp. Group all of which plunged to record lows Friday while two local bonds from a Fantasia Holdings Group unit were briefly halted following sharp declines. Yango denied social media reports that one of its housing projects had been halted indefinitely, and said that it had sufficient cash to repay debt.

    And while Bloomberg still has its onshore credit stress indicator at a positively bubbly level 3 (vs 2 in August), expect this to get much, much worse as the property sector implosion accelerates. As for the offshore bond credit stress indicator, well at least it can’t get any worse.

    Needless to say, once the “stress level” in China’s far bigger, $12 trillion onshore bond market approaches levels currently at the offshore, property-dominated market, all bets are off.

    Yet what makes the situation especially dire is that while Beijing would eagerly step in to bailout every insolvent bank and corporations until a few years ago, the one time when China’s economy desperately needs a bailout from the state is when Xi decided to be silent. Authorities have been allowing defaults to rise in recent years in order to curb moral hazard and encourage better pricing of risk in its debt markets. Property firms’ missed payments made up 36% of the record 175 billion yuan in onshore corporate bond defaults this year.

    Yet if Xi allows the entire $62 trillion Chinese property sector to sink, the outcome will be orders of magnitude more dire than Lehman.

    “It’s very difficult to see a solution right now,” said Hao Hong, head of research and chief strategist at BoCom International, who agrees that the Evergrande crisis could drag on. China’s Evergrande strategy would be to “let as many people bear the cost as possible,” to lessen the pain for any one individual, Hong said. However, if the broader population loses faith in what is China’s biggest asset while the market waits for a resolution – something the latest sales data confirm is already taking place – then the consequences will be catastrophic.

    So while some observers have compared Evergrande’s woes to the epic collapse of Lehman, the truth is that the coming default is just the trigger event whose downstream effects would pull down the entire Chinese bubble house of apartments cards, something the latest housing data show is already in play. Because at the end of the day, no Ponzi scheme can continue if the participants lose faith in a favorable outcome, and at $62 trillion China’s housing sector is the world’s biggest Ponzi scheme. Which is why other experts have said this isn’t a Lehman Brothers moment— it could be far worse, if one views China’s gargantuan real estate sector as rotten to the core.

    Which it is.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/08/2021 – 20:46

  • Stunning Video Show "Supposedly Retired," F-117 Nighthawk Stealth Fighters In Action
    Stunning Video Show “Supposedly Retired,” F-117 Nighthawk Stealth Fighters In Action

    For the last year, we’ve noted a series of reports (read: here & here) of (supposedly retired) Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk stealth attack aircraft conducting combat training missions over the skies of California.  

    The latest sighting of the world’s first stealth aircraft, which first debuted in the early 1980s and retired in 2008, after the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor stealth fighter aircraft was first fielded, was in mid-September at the Fresno Air National Guard Base, California. 

    The US Air Force released a statement at the time stating “two F-117 Nighthawk aircraft” would be conducting “air combat training missions.” 

    This is the first time that F-117s have landed in Fresno. Their presence immediately received attention from aviation geeks who captured the planes operating in Fresno in never before seen 4k resolution video, according to The Aviationist. 

    The Pentagon appears to be bringing some of these legacy stealth aircraft back to active duty as tensions between the US and China continue to soar with Taiwan in focus. 

    Four decommissioned F-117s were secretly deployed to the Middle East in 2017 to launch surgical strikes. The reason for the deployment was simple; Russia and Syria had shut down Syrian airspace by mid-2016. The U.S.-led coalition was unwilling to lose a fifth-generation aircraft to Russia’s S-400 missile systems in Syria. 

    As of January 2021, there were 48 F-117s in Type 1000 storage, meaning the planes could swiftly return to active service. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/08/2021 – 20:40

  • Key Witness In Assange Case Jailed After Allegedly Fabricating Statement In Court, Going On Crime Spree: Report
    Key Witness In Assange Case Jailed After Allegedly Fabricating Statement In Court, Going On Crime Spree: Report

    Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A leading witness in the United States Justice Department’s case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been jailed in Iceland, Stundin reported.

    Sigurdur Thordarson, a hacker and convicted pedophile, was remanded in custody in Iceland’s highest security prison, Litla Hraun, on Sept. 24 after being arrested when he arrived back in Iceland from a trip to Spain.

    Julian Assange gestures to the media from a police vehicle on his arrival at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London on April 11, 2019. (Jack Taylor/Getty Images)

    Officials requested he be detained indefinitely to halt an “ongoing crime spree,” claiming he posed a “clear and present” threat to the public and was at high-risk of re-offending and violating the law. The judge agreed.

    His lawyer, Hunbogi J. Andersen, confirmed the news to Stundin, a well-known Icelandic biweekly.

    The Epoch Times has contacted Thordarson’s lawyer for comment.

    U.S. prosecutors have indicted Assange on 18 criminal charges of breaking an espionage law and conspiring to hack government computers.

    WikiLeaks published a U.S. military video in 2010 showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters in Baghdad that killed a dozen people, including two Reuters news staff. It then released thousands of secret classified files and diplomatic cables, which included critical appraisals of world leaders, from Russian President Vladimir Putin to members of the Saudi royal family.

    Assange sought refuge inside Ecuador’s London embassy for seven years from 2012 until he was arrested in April 2019 for skipping bail during a separate legal battle.

    He is now in London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison but the United States is currently seeking his extradition from the UK. If it succeeds, he could face up to 175 years in jail. Assange has argued he won’t get a fair trial in the United States.

    Thordarson was given immunity by the FBI in exchange for testimony against Assange, but later admitted to Stundin that he had fabricated statements to implicate the WikiLeaks founder and contradicted what he was quoted as saying in U.S. court documents, casting doubt on the indictment against Assange.

    Julian Assange speaks to the media from the balcony of the embassy of Ecuador in London on May 19, 2017. (Jack Taylor/Getty Images)

    Thordarson told U.S. courts that he was asked by Assange to “commit computer intrusion and steal additional information, including audio recordings of phone conversations between officials in NATO Country-1, including members of parliament.”

    However, he told Stundin that this was in fact a lie, explaining that Assange, “never asked him to hack or access phone recordings of MPs” and that such recordings were provided to them by a third party. He added that Assange was not involved but that he later offered to show the recordings to the WikiLeaks founder, without knowing what they contained.

    Thordarson also told U.S. courts that he and Assange had attempted but failed to decrypt a file stolen from an Icelandic bank. However Thordarson admitted to Stundin that these were actually files that were widely circulated online in 2010 and believed to be related to the collapse of Icelandic Landsbanki in the 2008 financial crisis, which does not support his initial claims that they were “stolen,” as it was assumed they were distributed by whistleblowers from inside the bank.

    Thordarson admitted to a host of other misleading and fabricated comments he made against Assange that can be found in the indictment.

    He also told Stundin that he had continued with a “crime spree” after it was discovered that he had used money raised for WikiLeaks through merchandise sales in 2010 to embezzle more than $50,000 from the organization.

    Thordarson said: “The idea behind all the companies [that I run in Iceland] is to squeeze out every last penny, knowing it will inevitably lead to bankruptcy by request of the tax authorities and the bill would end with them. Is it illegal? No, it’s just very immoral, that much I would agree with. But I have not heard of anyone being convicted for this sort of thing.”

    Stundin also claims that Thordarson allegedly forged his own lawyer’s signature in order to “fraudulently inflate the net worth of his company’s assets.”

    It is not known whether his recent admissions to Stundin played a role in his recent arrest.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/08/2021 – 20:20

  • Over 1,000 Crew Members Are Stranded On 'Abandoned' Cargo Ships Globally Without Pay Or Food
    Over 1,000 Crew Members Are Stranded On ‘Abandoned’ Cargo Ships Globally Without Pay Or Food

    Pandemic-driven global trade disruptions and an increasing number of shipping companies abandoning their own vessels over mounting debts including older vessels deemed too costly to repair has led to the rise in the phenomenon of crewmembers simply being abandoned at sea, often left to fend for themselves as they await pay which sometimes never comes. 

    A Friday investigative report in The Wall Street Journal has detailed some of the shocking stories of tanker crew members left adrift after companies abandoned vessels or sold or transferred them, or couldn’t pay mounting debts, while trying to survive oftentimes on little food even while moored close to resort locations in places like Dubai – or in other cases floating off the Suez Canal or at Black Sea ports.

    “The $14 trillion shipping industry, responsible for 90% of world trade, has left in its wake what appears to be a record number of cargo-ship castaways,” the report begins. “Abandonment cases are counted when shipowners fail to pay crews two or more months in wages or don’t cover the cost to send crew members home, according to the International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency.”

    Image via NUSPM

    The UN agency recorded a doubling in the number of abandonment cases for 2020, with the number expected to grow once again for 2021 particularly after a noticeable surge in cases now getting media attention.

    WSJ cites the industry labor union, International Transport Workers’ Federation, to detail that over 1,000 international crew members are currently abandoned. But the report assures the true number of those left aboard container ships and bulk carriers whose transport operations have been halted is likely way higher, given individual crew members’ reluctance to come forward for fear of not getting hired by other freight companies. 

    Though most of those who effectively overnight became “castaways” choose to stay aboard abandoned ships until they get paid, in many cases they legally cannot disembark even if they wanted to due to complex local laws dictating policies of many ports. The Wall Street Journal explains: 

    Some governments require sailors to remain aboard as guarantors until shipowners pay port authorities for berth fees and other charges. More often, sailors refuse to disembark, convinced they will never recoup months or years of lost wages if they leave. Seafarers stuck on board generally borrow money from friends and family to feed themselves and crewmates.

    Many say they will stay put until the ship is sold for scrap, which can take years, rather than go home empty-handed.

    Some survive for up to a year on rice and water, or perhaps the goodwill and care packages of nearby ships and people on land, and others might stay put for literally years. The report noted that one engineer aboard a stranded tanker on the Black Sea has been there for four years. 

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    Abandoned seafarers have described the ships as turning into a “prison” and a “slave ship”. One ongoing saga off Romania in the Black Sea involves four crewmembers awaiting the resolution of a high level Romanian court case to determine who is responsible for payment of debts involving the ship’s owner. Legally they simply aren’t allowed off the vessel. In some instances the WSJ documented stories of unpaid workers contemplating suicide. Some of them literally face starvation, and in these instances sometimes attract the help of local charities.

    Moored ships hit by storms with crew aboard – yet not able to disembark – is another example of some of the more dramatic and immediate threats to safety these workers face. And then there’s this instance noted in the WSJ report: “Off the coast of Yemen, one of the world’s largest oil supertankers, laden with 1.1 million barrels of crude, sits decaying in a war zone. An errant rocket or the ship’s corroding steel hull could trigger an explosion and massive spill.”

    Currently, there are efforts underway among a handful of large nations – namely China, Indonesia and the Philippines – whose ships make up the bulk of international sea freight traffic, to establish an ‘abandonment fund’ to help with emergency assistance for stranded crew. However, it could encourage companies to continue shrugging off responsibility, as is still continually happening according to the report. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/08/2021 – 20:00

  • Buchanan: Are China's Threats To Taiwan A Bluff?
    Buchanan: Are China’s Threats To Taiwan A Bluff?

    Authored by Pat Buchanan,

    Monday, four dozen Chinese military aircraft flew into Taiwan’s air defense zone, climaxing a weekend of provocations that saw nearly 150 sorties of China-based fighters and bombers.

    The U.S. State Department countered by issuing a stern statement warning Beijing about the adverse effect on regional “stability” of such “provocative military activity.”

    Yet even as the waves of Chinese military aircraft entered Taiwan’s air defense zone, President Joe Biden was reassuring Japan’s new Prime Minister Fumio Kishida that the U.S. would defend the Senkakus from any Chinese attack.

    Controlled by Japan but claimed by China, the Senkakus are uninhabited rocks in the East China Sea.

    Our alliances in the Pacific dating to the 1950s have put us in an odd position. The Biden administration says it will fight to defend the Senkakus and fight if the Philippines attempt a military retrieval of atolls and reefs in the South China Sea that China has seized, occupied and fortified.

    For Taiwan, however, a democratic island of 14,000 square miles and 23 million people, and for Hong Kong, a formerly free city of 7 million, we will not commit to fight — though human rights and democracy are said to be central to the Biden foreign policy.

    We will fight for Japan’s right to hold the Senkakus and Manila’s right to retrieve Mischief Reef, but not to ensure the rights of the 30 million people of Hong Kong and Taiwan.

    What is China, dispatching bombers and fighters around the southern and eastern coasts of Taiwan, up to?

    This is an unmistakable message to America that, about Taiwan, Beijing is serious. China is warning the U.S. and its allied and associated powers — Australia, Japan, India — that it will, in the last analysis, fight to prevent an independent Taiwan.

    Taiwan is a red line for China. Is it for us?

    This latest challenge comes after the public humiliation of the United States in Afghanistan, about which China has been crowing since August.

    Yet, these four days of Chinese intrusions into the air defense zone of Taiwan do not necessarily portend an imminent invasion or attack.

    For such an attack would risk a U.S. response in East Asia and a political and diplomatic confrontation if not a military one. The impact on the world economy of a collision between the world’s largest militaries and the world’s largest economies would be devastating.

    The stakes involved here are huge, but who would benefit from such a war?

    If after the fall of Afghanistan and the humiliation of the U.S. defeat and departure, the U.S. abandoned Taiwan, U.S. credibility would be shot in Asia. Asia and the world would conclude that China owned the future.

    As for credibility, China has a well-established record.

    China started and finished the recent war in the Himalayas with India. It warned Hong Kong to stifle the democracy protests that went violent in 2019. When Hong Kong failed to do so, Beijing acted and is now completing the full absorption of the city into the mainland.

    On its warnings and threats, China tends to follow through.

    Of all the islets and reefs in the South China Sea it has taken from Vietnam, the Philippines and other neighbors, China has surrendered not a one. Though charged with “genocide” against the Uyghurs, it has persisted in its persecution, as it has in its suppression of Tibetans and Christians.

    Chinese President Xi Jinping and his party are unapologetic about their Communist values and Marxist beliefs.

    Still, China has its problems, none of which would be solved and all of which would be exacerbated by any major clash with the United States.

    China is facing energy shortages and blackouts from a lack of fuel for its coal-fired power plants, its primary source of energy.

    After decades of a “one couple, one child” policy, China is facing a demographic crisis. In parts of the country, deaths now exceed births. China’s women have a fertility rate below replacement levels. China is aging and shrinking, and declining populations correspond with declining powers.

    But if it is hard to see any benefit to China to come out of war with the United States, it is equally hard to see any benefit for the USA.

    China will never relinquish its claim to Taiwan, whose independence is recognized today by only a handful of nations.

    China is a nation many fear and respect, but whose regime few see as a friend. For Beijing has historic claims in every direction — on lands held by Russia and India, and to islands and reefs claimed by Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, the Philippines and Japan. It has a claim on Taiwan and on all the islands Taiwan claims in the East and South China Seas.

    Yet, though facing the world’s most menacing power 100 miles away, Taiwan, as of 2019, was still spending less than 2% of GDP on defense.

    Refusing to invest in your own defense, and relying on America to come and fight your wars, seems to be a tradition with America’s allies.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/08/2021 – 19:40

  • Nobel Peace Prize Goes To Journalists Who Stood Up To "Authoritarian" Governments
    Nobel Peace Prize Goes To Journalists Who Stood Up To “Authoritarian” Governments

    Russian dissident Alexei Navalny can add his name to the growing list of candidates who have been shafted by the Nobel Committee this year (many grumbled when the creators of the mRNA COVID jabs didn’t win the medicine Nobel).

    The Nobel Committee announced Friday that the winners of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize are a pair of journalists who challenged “authoritarian” regimes with their fearless reporting, the Committee said. The prize ultimately went to Maria Ressa, the editor and founder of the Rappler, an independent Philippines digital-media outlet that has persisted with critical coverage of ‘strongman’ President Rodrigo Duterte and his use of death squads to extrajudiciallly purge drug dealers and other criminals.

    “Free, independent and fact-based journalism serves to protect against abuse of power, lies and war propaganda,” the committee said in a statement.

    “Without freedom of expression and freedom of the press, it will be difficult to successfully promote fraternity between nations, disarmament and a better world order to succeed in our time,” it added.

    She will share the prize with Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov, founding editor of the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper, what the committee said was one of the few remaining “independent” news sources in Russia. The newspaper was founded in the 1990s, and was helped by an initial investment in former Soviet Leader (and fellow Peace Prize recipient) Mikhail Gorbachev.

    Ressa, who cut her death reporting from conflict zones, said even this didn’t prepare her from the backlash she would face from Duterte and his supporters since founding the Rappler in 2011.

    “There were so many hate messages … Ninety hate messages an hour, 90 rape threats per minute,” the first Nobel laureate from the Philippines told Reuters in 2017.

    As a result of her reporting, Ressa is currently free on bail as she appeals a six-year prison sentence handed down last year for a libel conviction, Ressa expressed “shock and disbelief” on Friday after sharing the prize. She says she has had to post bail ten times after being arrested as a result of her reporting.

    The Nobel committee said their award was an endorsement of free speech rights, which it said are under threat worldwide. The Rappler remains embroiled in a legal tussle with the government to have its license revoked, allegedly for violating laws on foreign ownership, even as Ressa attests that the outlet is “100% Filipino-owned”.

    Back in Russia, Novaya Gazeta has published investigative stories that have been at times critical of the Russian government’s conduct in the war in Chechnya, and investigations into the wealth controlled by oligarchs. Navalny, though his documentaries, has done similar types of investigations. But unlike Navalny, at least six of Novaya Gazeta’s journalists have been killed since the start of its existence (Navalny claims to have been poisoned by the Kremlin twice).

    Source: Statista

    Globally, the number of journalists killed peaked in 2012, and has since declined. But while the Nobel Committee focused on journalists who bravely held “authoritarian” regimes accountable (Duterte, the Filipino strongman, has just declared his retirement from politics), it’s perhaps overlooking the fact that in the US, the home of “the free press”, public trust in the media remains at rock-bottom levels.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/08/2021 – 19:20

  • The Assault On Merit Continues: MIT Cancels University Of Chicago Professor
    The Assault On Merit Continues: MIT Cancels University Of Chicago Professor

    By Mark Glennon of Wirepoints

    America’s plunge into insanity, particularly in higher education, apparently hasn’t bottomed yet.

    Dorian Abbot is a professor in the Department of the Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago. He was invited to give the annual Carlson Lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which apparently is a major honor in Abbot’s field. Abbot’s topic was to be climate habitability and the potential for life on other planets.

    But a Twitter mob, as Abbot describes it, composed of a group of MIT students, postdocs, and recent alumni, demanded that he be uninvited. Sure enough, just six days later, MIT called Abbot to say the lecture was cancelled because they didn’t want the controversy.

    The particular viewpoint at issue here is especially noteworthy: Abbot wants universities to hire and promote based on what he calls MFE — Merit, Fairness, and Equality, “whereby university applicants are treated as individuals and evaluated through a rigorous and unbiased process based on their merit and qualifications alone.”

    Merit? Heaven forbid that.

    The assault on merit was initially a subtext lurking behind the woke movement. Now, however, the mob is open about it.

    Some examples in Illinois:

    • A bill is pending in the Illinois General Assembly that would ban discrimination based on any characteristic that disadvantages somebody, the implications of which are absurd, as explained here. The bill already passed the House and two Senate committees.

    • Mayor Lori Lightfoot sponsored a resolution at the US Conference of mayors equating “meritocracy” with racism.

    • Cook County’s Racial Equity Policy statement defines “equity” as full inclusion regardless of “ability.”

    For the MIT lecture, Abbot’s political views had no relation to the the topic he was to speak about. That doesn’t matter to the mob, which wants its enemies silenced on everything.

    One who wrote about the Abbot/MIT affair is Chicago native and University of Chicago alum Jonathan Turley. “What occurred at MIT this month is a chilling reminder that even a premier institution will yield to anti-free speech campaigns,” Turley wrote. “The result is cringing obedience to a rising orthodoxy on our campuses.”

    But the most important point was made by Abbot himself, who described the whole episode in Substack. Here’s his conclusion:

    • It’s time to say no to the mob, no to the cancellations. And it’s time to be forthright about your true opinions. 

    • This is not a partisan issue. Anyone who is interested in the pursuit of truth and in promoting a healthy and functioning society has a stake in this debate. Speaking out now may seem risky. But the cost of remaining silent is far steeper.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/08/2021 – 19:00

  • Manhattan Apartment Purchases Hit Three Decade High Amid 'Buying Frenzy'
    Manhattan Apartment Purchases Hit Three Decade High Amid ‘Buying Frenzy’

    The latest housing data from appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate signals “confidence” has returned to the Manhattan housing market, according to Bloomberg.

    Third-quarter data shows apartment sales in the borough totaled 4,523, the most in any quarter, dating back to 1989. The median price for homes that sold rose 1.4% from a year earlier to $1.12 million.

    “There’s more optimism and a sense of safety in the market,” said Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel. “And there’s a sense that Covid discounts are evaporating quickly. They’re not going to have a lot of life left in them.”

    Buyers quickly moved in to buy the dip as bidding wars broke out, and the share of deals above the listing prices was 8.3%, the highest in three years. Also, the average time an apartment spent on the market was 152 days, 10% less than the prior quarter. 

    “People learned a decade ago that when you get a buying opportunity like this, you want to take advantage of it,” said Greg Heym, chief economist at brokerage Brown Harris Stevens, which released a separate report on the state of the Manhattan real estate market. 

    The buying frenzy helped diminish Manhattan’s massive pile of apartment inventories. Real estate firm the Corcoran Group noted there were 6,850 apartments for sale as of mid-September, 28% fewer than a year ago. However, inventories remain stubbornly high. “Buyers still have a significant amount of control over the transactions,” Miller said.

    Employers have been slow to bring back workers to the office this fall, but a separate report by Cushman & Wakefield predicts the return-to-office trend may accelerate in the first quarter of 2022.

    Kastle Systems, which aggregates data from its swipe-card access systems, shows only 29% of office workers in the city are back at their desks. That number is expected to pick up early next year. 

    However, commercial real estate remains in a terrible glut that may not be resolved until 2025. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/08/2021 – 18:40

  • Florida State Board Sanctions Eight School Districts For Defying Ban On Mask Mandates
    Florida State Board Sanctions Eight School Districts For Defying Ban On Mask Mandates

    Authored by Jannis Falkenstern via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Students return to school at Seminole Heights Elementary School after the Florida Department of Education mandated that all schools must have in-class learning during the week in Tampa, Florida, on August 31, 2020. (Octavio Jones/Getty Images)

    PUNTA GORDA, Fla.–The Florida Department of Education on Thursday sanctioned eight Florida school districts for defying the state’s ban on school mask mandates.

    School districts in Brevard, Broward, Duval, Hillsborough, Leon, Miami-Dade, Orange and Palm Beach counties now face financial penalties.

    Commissioner Richard Corcoran reported to the board that none of the eight counties had provided any information proving that they were in compliance with state law before Thursday’s meeting.

    “They can’t pick and choose which parts of the law they want to follow,” Corcoran said as he was handing out the penalties to the school districts.  He also gave the districts 48 hours to amend their policies before the penalties went into effect.

    The state law the commissioner was referring to is an emergency rule adopted last month by the Florida Department of Health, that props up the Parent’s Bill of Rights. The rule requires that parents can opt-out their children from wearing mask mandates imposed by schools. The rule states that opting out of mask requirements is “at the parent or legal guardian’s sole discretion.”

    The commissioner recommended that sanctions in the amount of one-twelfth of each school board member’s annual salary be withheld. In addition, the commissioner recommended withholding funding in the amount equal to any federal grant the districts receive, namely the Project Safe Grant.

    The Biden administration has dedicated taxpayer money from the Project Safe Grant to repaying school districts the funding lost due to defying state bans on school mask mandates.

    These grants according to Corcoran serve to “backfill” what was withheld from Broward and Alachua districts for not complying with state law regarding mask mandates. Last month the U.S. Department of Education chose to award COVID-19 aid funds to cover salaries of board members in Broward and Alachua Counties.  Corcoran said they were the only two districts in the country to apply for and receive this type of grant funding.

    Corcoran reported during the meeting that Alachua had received a total of $147,710 in grants from Project Safe Grant and Broward has received approximately $420,000. The state began withholding Alachua’s funding on Aug. 28 which so far totals $13,429. The six remaining counties were also penalized but their funding totals were not readily available by press time.

    The state commissioner said the federal grants served to “buy off school districts” and said the federal government was interfering with the state board’s responsibility to govern its educational system, which is in violation of the tenth amendment of the constitution.

    “Every Floridian should be offended by the federal government’s interference in state education issue,” he said. “We will not be strong-armed by the federal government.”

    Superintendents from each county were allowed five minutes to defend their policies.  All eight superintendents argued their policies were in compliance and should not have sanctions imposed as they were following the law and serving students in the name of safety.

    Orange County Superintendent Barbara Jenkins read her defending statement to the state board during the meeting and said, “the action was legal” and “the action was necessary” given the “alarming rise” of school-related COVID-19 cases during the August surge fueled by the contagious delta variant.”

    Public comments were taken before the meeting began.  A majority of the callers were from Brevard County saying the district was not in compliance and the parents complained they were removed from a board meeting earlier in the week, which they contend was a violation of Florida Sunshine Law and asked the board to investigate.  Most asked for salaries to be withheld while one parent wanted them to take the consequences a step further.

    “I would like to see the board remove the superintendent and the board members,” Catherine Delaney a parent of a Brevard County student said. “I want them held accountable; we don’t want lawbreakers on our school boards.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/08/2021 – 18:20

  • China Demanding Answers Over US Nuclear Sub "Underwater Collision" In Indo-Pacific Waters
    China Demanding Answers Over US Nuclear Sub “Underwater Collision” In Indo-Pacific Waters

    China is demanding to know answers and says it’s deeply “concerned” over the incident with the US nuclear submarine in international waters in the Indo-Pacific which was revealed for the first time Thursday. A Navy-affiliated news outlet reported that a US nuclear attack submarine had been damaged in the Western Pacific after suffering an “underwater collision” – although it’s not clear what the sub collided with. The collision took place on Oct. 2.

    “China is seriously concerned over this incident,” China’s foreign ministry’s spokesman Zhao Lijian said Friday. He urged immediate transparency over the incident, “including the exact location of the incident, the purpose of this trip, and details of what the submarine encountered,” according to the statement. 

    Seawolf-class attack submarine USS Connecticut, US Navy image

    However, no other follow-up details were issued since the initial US Navy report, only that the vessel is in a “safe and stable” condition. Presumably China and other regional countries could be suspicious or concerned that the incident is bigger than what the US is letting on – for example there’s the question, albeit unlikely, of nuclear material leakage. Reports are indicating it happened somewhere in the South China Sea.

    The Seawolf-class nuclear submarine the USS Connecticut is now returning to port in the US 7th Fleet in Guam, where it’s expected to arrive within the next day. The Navy says the safety of the crew remains its top priority. A Navy official said 11 sailors were injured during the incident, suffering moderate to minor injuries.

    As BBC notes, “the last known incident where a submerged US submarine struck another underwater object was in 2005, when the USS San Francisco hit an underwater mountain at full speed near Guam. One sailor died in the incident.”

    And further an analysts interviewed in BBC said whatever the submarine struck had to be “something big” to cause nearly a dozen injuries to crew: 

    Alexander Neill, a Singapore-based defence and security expert, told the BBC the number of injuries caused by the collision suggested the submarine probably “hit something big” and was “going really fast”.

    The incident, he said, was “uncommon but not unheard of” and had exposed how busy the area was with military activities.

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    Neill added of the growing and crowded ship traffic situation in the region: “The South China Sea has been increasingly saturated with naval vessels from a number of different countries. While there’s been a lot of show of force by surface vessels you don’t see the level of activity under the surface.”

    Without doubt if the situation were reversed – for example if a Chinese or Russian nuclear submarine had an accident in the Atlantic Ocean or somewhere off the US coast, Washington would be insistent on answers. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/08/2021 – 18:00

  • Taibbi: The Cult Of The Vaccine
    Taibbi: The Cult Of The Vaccine

    Authored by Matt Taibbi via TK News,

    Yesterday, I ran a story that had nothing to do with vaccines, about the seeming delay of the development of a drug called molnupiravir (see the above segment with the gracious hosts of The Hill: Rising for more). In the time it took to report and write that piece, conventional wisdom turned against the drug, which is now suspected of ivermectinism and other deviationist, anti-vax tendencies, in the latest iteration of our most recent collective national mania — the Cult of the Vaccine.

    The speed of the change was incredible. Just a week ago, on October 1st, the pharmaceutical giant Merck issued a terse announcement that quickly became big news. Molnupiravir, an experimental antiviral drug, “reduced the risk of hospitalization or death” of Covid-19 patients by as much as 50%, according to a study.

    The stories that rushed out in the ensuing minutes and hours were almost uniformly positive. AP called the news a “potentially major advance in efforts to fight the pandemic,” while National Geographic quoted a Yale specialist saying, “Having a pill that would be easy for people to take at home would be terrific.” Another interesting early reaction came from Time:

    Vaccines will be the way out of the pandemic, but not everyone around the world is immunized yet, and the shots aren’t 100% effective in protecting people from getting infected with the COVID-19 virus. So antiviral drug treatments will be key to making sure that people who do get infected don’t get severely ill.

    This is what news looks like before propagandists get their hands on it. Time writer Alice Park’s lede was sensible and clear. If molnupiravir works — a big if, incidentally — it’s good news for everyone, since not everyone is immunized, and the vaccines aren’t 100% effective anyway. As even Vox put it initially, molnupiravir could “help compensate for persistent gaps in Covid-19 vaccination coverage.”

    Within a day, though, the tone of coverage turned. Writers began stressing a Yeah, but approach, as in, “Any new treatment is of course good, but get your fucking shot.” A CNN lede read, “A pill that could potentially treat Covid-19 is a ‘game-changer,’ but experts are emphasizing that it’s not an alternative to vaccinations.” The New York Times went with, “Health officials said the drug could provide an effective way to treat Covid-19, but stressed that vaccines remained the best tool.”

    If you’re thinking it was only a matter of time before the mere fact of molnupiravir’s existence would be pitched in headlines as actual bad news, you’re not wrong: Marketwatch came out with “‘It’s not a magic pill’: What Merck’s antiviral pill could mean for vaccine hesitancy” the same day Merck issued its release. The piece came out before we knew much of anything concrete about the drug’s effectiveness, let alone whether it was “magic.”

    Bloomberg’s morose “No, the Merck pill won’t end the pandemic” was released on October 2nd, i.e. one whole day after the first encouraging news of a possible auxiliary treatment whose most ardent supporters never claimed would end the pandemic. This article said the pill might be cause to celebrate, but warned its emergence “shouldn’t be cause for complacency when it comes to the most effective tool to end this pandemic: vaccines.” Bloomberg randomly went on to remind readers that the unrelated drug ivermectin is a “horse de-worming agent,” before adding that if molnupiravir ends up “being viewed as a solution for those who refuse to vaccinate,” the “Covid virus will continue to persist.”

    In other words, it took less than 24 hours for the drug — barely tested, let alone released yet — to be accused of prolonging the pandemic. By the third day, mentions of molnupiravir in news reports nearly all came affixed to stern reminders of its place beneath vaccines in the medical hierarchy, as in the New York Times explaining that Dr. Anthony Fauci, who initially told reporters the new drug was “impressive,” now “warned that Americans should not wait to be vaccinated because they believe they can take the pill.”

    Since the start of the Trump years, we’ve been introduced to a new kind of news story, which assumes adults can’t handle multiple ideas at once, and has reporters frantically wrapping facts deemed dangerous, unorthodox, or even just insufficiently obvious in layers of disclaimers. The fear of uncontrolled audience brain-drift is now so great that even offhand references must come swaddled in these journalistic Surgeon General’s warnings, which is why whenever we read anything now, we almost always end up fighting through nests of phrases like “the debunked conspiracy theory that COVID-19 was created in a lab” in order to get to whatever the author’s main point might be.

    This lunacy started with the Great Lie Debate of 2016, when reporters and editors spent months publicly anguishing over whether to use “lie” in headlines of Donald Trump stories, then loudly congratulated themselves once they decided to do it. The most histrionic offender was the New York Times, previously famous for teaching readers to digest news in code (“he claimed” for years was Times-ese for “full of shit”) but now reasoned a “more muscular terminology,” connoting “a certain moral opprobrium,” was needed to distinguish the “dissembling” of a politician like Bill Clinton from Trump’s whoppers. “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” could be mere falsehood, but “I will build a great great wall” required language that “stands apart.”

    The key term was moral opprobrium. Moralizing was exactly what journalists were once trained not to do, at least outside the op-ed page, but it soon became a central part of the job. When they used they word “lie,” the Times explained, they wanted us to know that was because “from the childhood schoolyard to the grave, this is a word neither used nor taken lightly.” Put another way, the Times didn’t want people reading about something Donald Trump said, grasping that it was a lie, and, say, chuckling about how ridiculous it was. If the New York Times sent the word “lie” up the flagpole, they now expected an appropriately solemn salute.

    This was the beginning of an era in which editors became convinced that all earth’s problems derived from populations failing to accept reports as Talmudic law. It couldn’t be people were just tuning out papers for a hundred different reasons, including sheer boredom. It had to be that their traditional work product was just too damned subtle. The only way to avoid the certain evil of audiences engaging in unsupervised pondering over information was to eliminate all possibility of subtext, through a new communication style that was 100% literal and didactic. Everyone would get the same news and also be instructed, often mid-sentence, on how to respond.

    At first this expressed itself via regurgitation of Approved Unambiguous Phraseology™ handed down from official or law enforcement sources, like “Russia’s election interference activities,” e.g. “Page’s alleged coordination with Russia’s election interference activities.” However, it wasn’t long before the stage-direction factor in coverage went berserk, as I noted last year after this question by Anderson Cooper in a presidential debate:

    COOPER: Mr. Vice President, President Trump has falsely accused your son of doing something wrong while serving on a company board in Ukraine. I want to point out there’s no evidence of wrongdoing by either one of you.

    The phrase, “no evidence of wrongdoing,” was a mandatory add last year in all coverage involving Ukraine, Joe Biden, and Hunter Biden, from the Guardian (“No evidence the younger Biden did anything illegal”) to CNBC (“There is no evidence that Trump or Giuliani has produced which shows that Hunter Biden was engaged in wrongdoing”) to Newsweek (“Although there is no evidence of illegal wrongdoing by the Bidens in those dealings”) to NBC (“No evidence of wrongdoing on the part of either Biden”) to AP (“There has been no evidence of wrongdoing by either the vice president or his son”) to the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Axios, and countless others.

    The language was absurd on multiple levels, beginning with its incorrectness — unless they were talking purely about a legal definition, the issue of whether or not there was “wrongdoing” in Hunter Biden accepting a no-show $50,000-a-month job from a crooked Ukrainian energy firm was a matter for readers to decide, not an issue of fact. Still, a lot of people not only swallowed it, but vomited these and other terms back up again, over and over, on social media, or to their friends and family, or to anyone at all, in what became a new way for a certain kind of person to relate to the world.

    As a student in the Soviet Union I noticed subscribers to what Russians called the sovok mindset talked in interminable strings of pogovorki, i.e goofball proverbs or aphorisms you’d heard a million times before (“He who takes no risk, drinks no champagne,” or “Work isn’t a wolf, it won’t run off into the woods,” etc). This was a learned defense mechanism, adopted by a people who’d found out the hard way that anyone caught not speaking nonstop nonsense could be suspected of harboring original thoughts. Voluble stupidity is a great disguise in a society where silence is suspect.

    We’re similarly becoming a nation of totalitarian nitwits, speaking in a borrowed lexicon of mandatory phrases and smelling heresy in anyone who doesn’t. This cult reflex was bad during the Russiagate years, but it’s gone into overdrive since the arrival of COVID. The CNN writer who thinks it’s necessary to put a disclaimer in the lede of a story about molnupiravir, of all things, is basically claiming he or she is afraid a theoretical unvaccinated person might otherwise read the story and be encouraged to not take the vaccine.

    Except, if that theoretical unvaccinated person could be convinced by anything CNN said or did, they’d have already gotten the shot, because the network runs ten million stories a day directly imploring people to get vaccinated or die. News flash: the instinct to armor-plate even unrelated news subjects with layer after layer of insistent vaccine dogma is not for the non-immunized, who mostly don’t watch outlets like CNN or read the New York Times. Outlets apply that neurotic messaging for their own target audiences, who’ve been trained to live in terror of un-contextualized content, which everyone knows leads to Trump, fascism, and death.

    I’d be the last person to claim there aren’t dumb people out there in America, but at least the audiences of channels like Fox and OAN know that content has been designed for them. The people gobbling down these pieces by Bloomberg and the Times that have the journalistic equivalent of child-proof caps on every paragraph that even parenthetically mentions COVID really believe that content has been dumbed down for some other person. They think it’s someone else who can’t handle news that vaccines work and that there also might be a pill that treats the disease, without freaking out or coming to politically unsafe conclusions. So they put up with being talked to like children — demand it, even. Which is nuts. Right? It is nuts, isn’t it?

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/08/2021 – 17:40

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Oct 08

Today’s News 8th October 2021

  • Ireland Agrees To Minimum Global Corporate Tax Deal Leaving Hungary, Estonia As EU's Last Holdouts
    Ireland Agrees To Minimum Global Corporate Tax Deal Leaving Hungary, Estonia As EU’s Last Holdouts

    While the Democrats kick the can on the debt ceiling as a bitter partisan fight threatens to derail President Biden’s entire domestic agenda, a key piece of his foreign agenda has just fallen into place.

    In a commitment that should clear the way for the OECD to lead a global corporate tax reform initiative that would represent the biggest change to international corporate tax rates in a century, Ireland has agreed to abandon its 12.5% corporate tax rate and sign up for the new 15% minimum global corporate rate being pushed by the Biden Administration.

    Donohoe

    According to the FT, the deal is expected to cost Ireland €2 billion ($2.3 billion) in lost revenues in the coming years.

    Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe told the FT that this change in the baseline tax rate would be the only significant change as part of the agreement – although it is of course “very, very significant”, since having the lowest corporate tax rates in its neighborhood has been a cornerstone of Irish economic policy for decades.

    The new rate will affect 1,556 companies in Ireland that employ some 500,000 people, including US tech giants like Apple, Google and Amazon.

    Ireland is joining 140 countries that have agreed via the OECD to the levy of 15% on multinationals. It reached the deal by persuading the OECD to allow it to keep the 12.5% rate for smaller domestic companies with a turnover of less than €750MM. Donohoe added that he had been unsure the OECD would agree to the carve out – but securing Ireland’s participation was critical to making the new policy work, since the idea is to de-incentivize multinationals from leaving the US.

    Donohoe said the change would likely be permanent, and that the change would be “right for Ireland” (in exchange for agreeing to the minimum rate, the US intends to allow European countries to take a bigger piece of the overall corporate tax pie).

    “I believe that change will be right for Ireland and I believe it is also right for Ireland to be playing a positive role in implementing what I believe will be an important agreement,” he said in an interview, adding the deal provided “certainty and stability.”

    Asked if the new rate would remain forever, he said: “I can’t see in my lifetime this kind of circumstances developing again…15 will mean 15.”

    […]

    “We’re all depending on each other to be able to implement this collectively and comprehensively,” Donohoe said. But he added: “I have enough confidence now that this is going to happen globally for me to believe that it’s appropriate that Ireland go into it now.”

    The agreement with Ireland was secured during a meeting in Paris. Details of the international framework have yet to be completed, including the amount that of the tax offset mentioned above. To entice countries to agree, the deal will impose new taxes on multinationals that must be paid in countries where they operate, but aren’t necessarily based. This is known as the “Pillar One” of the deal.

    The president of the Irish Tax Institute, Karen Frawley, said that rejecting the deal would make Ireland look like a “tax haven”, which would have left it with a “damaged” reputation.

    Per the FT, EU members Estonia and Hungary are among the remaining holdouts. For the deal to have any hope of succeeding, the EU needs to secure unanimous support from its 27 members, and then there are still other low-tax nations (including, for example, Singapore), that must be brought on as well.

    Interestingly, polling shows 59% of Irish residents opposed increasing the corporate tax rate but Mark Redmond, CEO of the American Chamber of Commerce of Ireland “warmly welcomed” Ireland’s decision.

    “The revised agreement ensures essential predictability, stability and certainty for multinational employers,” he said. US FDI in Ireland accounts for about 20% of private sector jobs.

    The Irish government expects the higher minimum rate will actually lead to lower revenue, though the FT didn’t go into detail on this. One reporter pointed out that the “headline rate” isn’t that big of a deal for multinationals, anyway.

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    It’s widely expected that the new global tax rate won’t take effect until at least 2023.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/08/2021 – 02:45

  • What Governments Got Wrong About The Global Energy Transition
    What Governments Got Wrong About The Global Energy Transition

    By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com

    The energy crisis in Europe exposed the complexity of a transition to green energy: it is not happening overnight, and it cannot be done successfully with the old tricks. Energy systems, markets, and grids globally need fundamental changes to legislation, regulation, and oversight in order to accommodate 100-percent zero-emission sources. And even in that case, power systems need flexibility and backups in order to avert similar crises down the road as many parts of the world commit to net-zero emissions by 2050 or 2060.

    The current crisis in the UK is a cautionary tale about how not to rush to green energy, Rochelle Toplensky of The Wall Street Journal notes.

    Net-zero electricity systems need an entirely new set of rules in all areas of the energy systems and power markets, as well as enough flexibility to offset environmental factors such as low wind speeds, which happened in the UK last month.

    The UK has cut its reliance on coal dramatically over the past decade.

    But its power systems are not yet as resilient to a major transition to low-carbon energy sources as to prevent concerns about its power supply, the Journal’s Toplensky argues.

    The current energy crisis in the UK, the rest of Europe, and in major energy importers in Asia is a warning to policymakers that the transition cannot be rushed before new rules are set in place and backup battery storage is built en masse to support soaring new solar and wind capacity.

    Boosting power grid resilience, building battery storage, and widespread use of the much-touted green hydrogen will require trillions of U.S. dollars of investment, government support, and much greater coordination and cooperation among industry and policymakers at the national and international level.

    Everyone knew that the energy transition would not be cheap. The ongoing energy crisis shows that no one can put the cart before the horse in the transition – backups and flexibility are vital for any successful energy system.

    UK Power Crisis Shows Challenges To Green Transition 

    Even the UK, which has pledged to phase out coal-fired power generation by October 2024, had to fire up an old coal plant last month in order to meet its electricity demand. 

    The country which kick-started the Industrial Revolution with coal saw the share of the fuel drop to a record-low in 2020 – coal generated just 1.8 percent of electricity, down from 28.2 percent in 2010, as per government data. Renewable generation, on the other hand, hit a record 43.1 percent in 2020, outpacing annual fossil fuel generation for the first time.

    During many days in recent years, wind power generated the largest share of Britain’s electricity, surpassing natural gas. This is a commendable move toward clean energy but does not change the fact that wind power generation depends on…the speed of the wind. On those unfortunate days when the wind doesn’t blow, as it happened on most days in September, natural gas is used more in power generation, driving up gas and power prices and also increasing coal generation because of the sky-high prices of natural gas.

    Although households face higher energy bills, they are protected to some extent because of the so-called Energy Price Cap in the UK. But it is this price cap – when power providers are unable to pass the full extent of surging costs onto consumers – that has already led to nine UK providers going out of business. Just last week, three suppliers said they were ceasing trade, and the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets, Ofgem, had to choose new suppliers to take over the failed businesses.

    The UK likely needs new regulations on how its domestic power market operates, which should take into account the net-zero commitment and increased green energy share in electricity generation, analysts say.

    The European Union is also looking at potential changes to the way wholesale electricity markets operate, European Energy Commissioner, Kadri Simson, said this week.

    Demonization Of Fossil Fuels Cuts Backup Options 

    The two oil price crashes in the past five years, as well as the increasingly louder calls for shunning investment in fossil fuels, have led to chronic underinvestment in new supplies of oil, gas, and coal, especially in developed economies aspiring to reach net-zero by 2050.

    These days, however, those developed economies are scrambling for fossil fuel supplies to ensure they will keep the lights on. The surging price of coal and natural gas is leaving many energy-intensive businesses in Europe vulnerable to the price shock because the energy transition hasn’t reached the point where anything other than gas can efficiently power fertilizer or steel production.

    However, investment from the fossil fuel industry has declined in recent years. Moreover, Wall Street investors have been shunning traditional energy because of poor returns, Jeff Currie, global head of commodities research at Goldman Sachs, told Bloomberg in an interview earlier this week. 

    “The new economy is over-invested and the old economy is starved,” he said. “Gas, coal, oil, metals, mining – you pick – the old economy, it is severely underinvested,” Currie noted.

    Major Challenges Ahead To Avoid “A Disorderly Mess”

    Since the world continues to need a lot of fossil fuels despite the green push, supply shortages and price spikes are in the cards in the future, too.

    “[I]t is important to recognise that the transition is, as its derivation suggests, a process of moving from one state to another, and if it is to be successful must involve the managed decline of the existing energy system as well as its transformation towards a future state,” James Henderson and Anupama Sen of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (OIES) wrote in a paper last month. 

    “Policymakers have set countries on this essential road, and technology is the key to accelerating the process, but many complex questions remain to be resolved if the world is to avoid the transition becoming a disorderly mess,” they say.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/08/2021 – 02:00

  • Big Tech Q3 Earnings
    Big Tech Q3 Earnings

    By Nick Colas of DataTrek

    US corporate earnings season is fast approaching, and Big Tech’s announcements will be key to the market’s direction. Wall Street has been cutting numbers for some names (GOOG, AMZN) and not raising estimates for AAPL, MSFT or FB. The good news is that the Street expects every Big Tech company to print Q3 results that are BELOW Q2 actuals. That’s likely too pessimistic; 2019, for example, saw no seasonality between Q2 and Q3. Big Tech may not be Q4 leadership (cyclicals should be), but they should be no impediment to a market rally later in the quarter.

    We have been saying Q3 US corporate earnings season should be a bright spot that counteracts an otherwise troubled equity market narrative, so today we will discuss upcoming Big Tech earnings. Add up the S&P 500 weightings for Apple (6.0 percent), Microsoft (5.8 pct), Google (4.3 pct), Amazon (3.8 pct) and Facebook (2.1 pct) and you have 22 percent of the index. How markets respond to earnings reports from these 5 companies matters just about as much as the combined impact of announcements from the Industrials, Consumer Staples, Energy, Real Estate, Materials and Utilities sectors (a combined 24 pct of the S&P).

    Let’s start with the most important point: Big Tech has not been immune from the recent trend of Wall Street analysts cutting their Q3 earnings estimates that we’ve been talking about every Sunday for the last month. Numbers have come down for Amazon and Google, and have remained only constant for Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook. As the following 30/60-day earnings revision trends show, Amazon has seen its Q3 expectations slashed over the last 2 months, Facebook’s Q3 estimates actually rose, and Q3 estimates for Google, Apple and Microsoft are basically unchanged:

    • Apple: $1.23/share expected, +$0.01 over the last 60 days, flat over the last 30 days
    • Microsoft: $2.07/share expected, +$0.01 over the last 60 days, flat over the last 30 days
    • Google: $23.40/share expected, +$0.07 over the last 60 days, but -$0.08 over the last 30 days
    • Amazon: $8.92/share expected, -$4.02/share over the last 60 days, -$0.09 over the last 30 days
    • Facebook: $3.17/share expected, +$0.22 over the last 60 days, flat over the last 30 days

    Now, the funny thing about all these estimates is that in every single case they are lower than what these companies reported in Q2 2021. That fits the oddity we’ve also been mentioning in our weekly earnings updates: Wall Street analysts are expecting the S&P 500 to print lower aggregate Q3 earnings ($49/share) than actual Q2 results ($53/share).

    That has struck us as excessively pessimistic in a cyclical recovery (even if it has been slowing through Q3), and Big Tech’s Q3 2021 earnings expectations when compared to how quarterly earnings typically trend between Q2 and Q3 supports that view:

    • Apple’s $1.23 Q3 estimate is lower than Q2’s actual $1.30. In 2019, the company reported $0.55/share (split adjusted) in Q2 and $0.76/share in Q3, so seasonality doesn’t seem to be an issue for Apple’s quarterly earnings progression.
    • Microsoft’s $2.07 Q3 estimate is lower than Q2’s actual $2.17/share. As with Apple’s 2019 results, MSFT saw no drop from Q2 ($1.37/share) to Q3 ($1.38) in that year.
    • Google’s $23.40 Q3 estimate is meaningfully lower than Q2’s actual $27.26. In 2019 the company took a charge for a regulatory fine, but its operating earnings were essentially unchanged from Q2 to Q3 ($9.9 billion in each quarter).
    • Amazon’s $8.92 Q3 estimate is well below Q2’s actual of $15.21. That is a 41 percent drop, and perhaps correct given the incremental costs the company faces. But the Q2 to Q3 2019 earnings progression was $5.22 to $4.23, only a 19 percent decline.
    • Facebook’s $3.17 Q3 estimate is also far below Q2’s actual of $3.61. In 2019, Q3 saw earnings increase, to $2.12, from $1.99 in Q2.

    Takeaway (1): you can see why US Big Tech has had a tough slog in the last month (flat/down Q3 earnings expectations), but estimates seem too low just based on what these companies reported for Q2. Seasonality doesn’t explain the expected drop, nor do economic factors. Now, that doesn’t mean Big Tech can be market leaders over the balance of the year; our “Pandemic Peacetime” paradigm points to other, more cyclical, groups playing that role. But nor should they embarrass themselves when they report Q3 results and take the market down with them.

    Takeaway (2): going from the “micro” of 5 companies’ earnings reports to the “macro” of what this says about US large cap stocks, we think markets broadly agree with our point that Q3 earnings reports will surprise meaningfully to the upside. That’s why the S&P 500 is only off 4 percent from its early September highs despite cuts to earnings estimates, a slowing US economy, a de facto announcement of Fed bond purchase tapering and 2022 rate hikes, not to mention DC’s recent debt limit wrangling. That’s good and bad news, because it put all the market’s eggs in one basket. For that reason, we expect market volatility to continue at least until more than half the S&P 500 has reported (i.e., late in the month).

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/07/2021 – 22:40

  • Indian Central Bank Accumulating Large Quantities Of Gold Almost Under The Radar
    Indian Central Bank Accumulating Large Quantities Of Gold Almost Under The Radar

    Submitted by Ronan Manly of BullionStar.com

    While large one-off central bank gold purchases get a lot of media attention and the same is true for central banks accumulating gold reserves over a two or three month period, sizeable accumulation of gold by central banks on a month in, month out basis, with the exception of the Chinese and Russian central banks, tends to go almost unnoticed.

    A prime case in point is the gold buying strategy of India’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which almost under the radar, has now become one of the world’s biggest and most consistent central bank gold buyers every year for the last four years.    

    Starting in early 2018 and up to the end of August 2021, over that time the RBI has added a staggering 166 tonnes to it’s strategic gold reserves, and now holds a claimed 724.24 tonnes of gold, making India the 9th largest sovereign gold holder in the world, well ahead of the Netherlands (in 10th place), and within shouting distance of Japan (8th place).   

    Arguably, this stealthy gold accumulation by the Indian official sector is now becoming more apparent since two of the big guns that are normally active in the central bank gold buying market, the central banks of Russia and China, are currently ‘taking a break’.

    Reserve Bank of India (RBI) – India’s central bank

    According to it’s official figures, China (via the People’s Bank of China) last added to it’s monetary gold reserves in September 2019, leaving it with a unchanged official total of 1948 tonnes of gold since then. This is notwithstanding the fact there is widespread skepticism about the real size of China’s sovereign gold reserves. 

    Additionally, the Russian Federation (via the Bank of Russia) officially stopped buying gold in the domestic Russian market at the end of March 2020 and actually made an official announcement about this hiatus at the time. Due to this pause since March 2020, Russia’s official gold reserves have essentially remained unchanged except for some tiny adjustments, and Russia currently claims to hold 2,294.5 tonnes of monetary gold.

    With these two gold buying giants now officially “off the grid”, the gold buying activities of the Indian central now come into sharper focus.

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    The Details    

    According to the Reserve Bank of India’s latest FX Reserves report dated 16 September 2021, the RBI, as of 27 August, held 724.24 tonnes of gold. See report online here and in pdf here. Compared to the same report from 30 July 2021 when the RBI held a total of 711.18 tonnes, this shows that the RBI added 13.06 tonnes to it’s gold reserves during August 2021.

    Indian central bank gold holdings (tonnes), 27 August 2021 and 30 July 2021. Source.

    Prior to August, the RBI had already purchased a combined 34.6 tonnes of gold during five months of 2021 (in February, March, May, June and July). Adding the 13.06 tonnes of gold that the RBI bought in August, this means that so far in 2021, the Indian central bank has bought 47.66 of gold, which on an annualized basis would be 71.5 tonnes, and would be more than the gold buying totals of Hungary (63 tonnes bought in March), and Brazil (62.3 tonnes bought during May, June and July). See “Hungarian central bank boosts its gold reserves by 3000% in less than 3 years” and “Brazil’s Central Bank refuses to answer any questions about its Gold Reserves”.

    RBI – Consistent Gold Buyer since 2018

    This sizeable gold buying by the Indian central bank in 2021 is not a one off, and it continues a trend that began in early 2018. The following statistics come from World Gold Council (EGC) data (which itself is based on IMF data that each central bank submits to the IMF (on a voluntary basis)).

    During 2018, the RBI accumulated a total of 42.3 tonnes of gold, with gold purchases claimed to be made in each of the 10 months from March to December 2018.

    The following year in 2019, the RBI was again a substantial buyer of gold, adding a total of 34.5 tonnes during seven of the twelve months (each month from January to April, and again in each month between October and December).

    During 2020, the RBI bought another 41.7 tonnes of gold, again by pursuing the ‘buy often and consistently’ strategy, adding gold to it’s reserves in each month except for January and September.

    Therefore, over the three years of 2018 – 2020 inclusive, the Reserve Bank of India purchased 118.5 tonnes of gold. Adding the 47.66 tonnes of gold purchased so far in 2021 (up to the end of August), this means that since early 2018, the RBI has bought a whopping 166.16 tonnes of gold.

    You will also see that the 47.66 tonnes bought by the RBI so far in 2021 (up to month 8) is more than the total amount of gold that the RBI bought in each of 2018, 2019 and 2020. So far in August 2021, the RBI has been buying an average of 6 tonnes of gold per month, compared to buying an average of 2.5 tonnes per month in each of 2018 and 2020, and an average of 2.9 tonnes per month in 2019. So not only is RBI’s gold buying consistently happening in most months, the quantities of gold that the RBI is buying each year are accelerating,

    Additionally, given that the RBI purchased gold in each of 10 months of 2018, in each of 7 months of 2019, and in each of 10 months of 2020, and has purchased gold in 6 of the 8 months so far this year, we should therefore expect further gold buying by the Indian central bank in at least one or two (or maybe even all) of the remaining months of 2021.

    Whichever way you look at it, the total amount of gold accumulated by the RBI since early 2018 is sizable and ranks up there among the top central bank gold buying nations.

    Between 2020 and year-to-date 2021, the Indian central bank has purchased a combined 89.4 tonnes of gold, which is just marginally less than the largest central bank gold buyer over that same period, the Bank of Thailand, which bought 90.2 tonnes. See “Thai central bank leads pack, buying 90 tonnes of gold over April and May”. 

    Over the period from the beginning of 2019 up to year-to-date 2021, the Reserve Bank of India has added 123.9 tonnes of gold. This is second only to Russia’s 182 tonnes of gold buying over that same period, and more than Poland’s 100 tonne gold purchase over the same timeframe (see “Poland joins Hungary with Huge Gold Purchase and Repatriation”)

    Over the period from the start of 2018 through to year-to-date 2021, in which the Indian central bank accumulated 166.2 tonnes of gold, this is third only to Russia’s huge gold buying over that period (456.7 tonnes) and not too much less than Turkey’s claimed 209.7 tonnes of gold buying over the same timeframe. For the rationale on Russian and Turkish central bank gold purchases, see “Turkey and Russia Highlight Gold’s Role as a Strategically Important Asset”.

    Where is the RBI Gold Held?

    The 166 tonnes of gold purchased by the Indian central bank since 2018 is also nearly as much as the 200 tonnes of gold that India claimed to have bought from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in October 2009, in what the IMF called an ‘off-market’ transaction. There is little information known about how this sale by the IMF to India was transacted and, like everything in the central bank gold market, the real details remain secret. See “IMF Gold Sales – Where ‘Transparency’ means ‘Secrecy’” for more details on the IMF gold sales.

    So where is the RBI’s 724.24 tonnes of gold held? This is where it gets interesting.

    From the RBI Annual report for 2021 (up to March 30, 2021), we see that of the RBI’s claimed gold holdings, “292.30 metric tonnes is held as backing for notes issued and shown separately as an asset of Issue Department”, while the rest “is treated as an asset of Banking Department”.

    However, the gold held by the Banking Department and the gold held by the Issue Department are both classified as part of the RBI’s foreign exchange reserves, along with foreign currencies, and IMF SDRs.

    Table XII.4 of the 2021 RBI annual report. Source

    Table XII.4 of the 2021 RBI annual report also illustrates these two components of the RBI’s gold holdings, where, from year to year, an unchanged 292.30 tonnes is classified as “Gold held for backing notes issued (held in India)”, while the rest of the gold holdings are classified as “Gold held as asset of Banking Department (held abroad)”, which as of 31 March 2021 amounted to 403.01 tonnes.

    RBI Nagpur gold vault: Strategically located in the very center of India

    The gold which the RBI holds in India is actually held in the vaults of the RBI’s building in Nagpur, in the state of Maharashtra. See below for more on the RBI’s gold vaults in Nagpur.

    Turning to the latest half-yearly RBI “Report on Management of Foreign Exchange Reserves”, dated 12 May 2021, we find in section I.6. “Management of Gold Reserves”, that the RBI gold that is held abroad (outside India), is held at the Bank of England and with the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

    “I.6. Management of Gold Reserves

    As at end-March 2021, the Reserve Bank held 695.31 metric tonnes of gold. While 403.01 metric tonnes of gold is held overseas in safe custody with the Bank of England and the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), 292.30 tonnes of gold is held domestically.”

    Interestingly, the previous version of this “Report on Management of Foreign Exchange Reserves”, dated 8 December 2020, also mentioned that some of the RBI’s gold was in the from of gold deposits (in other words gold loans to bullion banks), as the wording says:  

    “As at end-September 2020, the Reserve Bank held 668.25 tonnes of gold (including gold deposits of 9.04 tonnes). While 366.91 tonnes of gold is held overseas in safe custody with the Bank of England and the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), 292.30 tonnes of gold is held domestically.”

    Of the RBI’s two components of gold, the 292 tonnes attributed to the RBI’s Issue Department has been constant since at least 2002, save for a few tiny additions over the years due to an increase in gold coin holdings.   

    While it’s not clear where the RBI purchased 166 tonnes of gold over 2018-2021, the fact that all of this increase is held abroad and the fact that all of RBI’s gold stored internationally is with the Bank of England and the BIS, then it’s logical to conclude that the RBI’s gold purchases over 2018-2021were at the Bank of England in London, or via gold transactions with the BIS, or both.

    Note that the BIS maintains gold storage accounts in Berne with the Swiss National Bank (SNB), in London at the Bank of England, and in New York with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY). As the BIS states on it’s website under banking services (for central banks):

    “Gold location exchange, safekeeping and settlement: loco London, Berne or New York”

    So any reference to the BIS holding RBI gold either means that the RBI has lent gold out to bullion banks using the gold loan (deposit) services of the BIS, or the RBI has bought gold from the BIS and holds this gold in a sub-account of the BIS in either Berne (SNB), London (Bank of England) or New York (FRBNY).

    Bank of England’s gold vaults, London – Home to the bulk of India’s gold

    If we go back to mid-2009, to before the RBI supposedly purchased 200 tonnes of gold from the IMF, we find in the “Report on Foreign Exchange Reserves” dated 16 July 2009, that:

    “I.7. Management of Gold Reserves

    The Reserve Bank holds about 357 tonnes of gold forming about 3.8 per cent of the total foreign exchange reserves in value terms as on March 31, 2009. Of these, 65 tonnes are being held abroad since 1991 in deposits / safe custody with the Bank of England and the BIS.

    Eagle-eyed readers will see that, of this 357 tonnes, with 65 tonnes stored aboard as of mid 2009, that left 292 tonnes of RBI gold stored in India at that time, i.e. the unchanged 292 tonnes of gold has been stored in India for many years.

    Looking at the RBI’s “Report on Foreign Exchange Reserves” dated 19 January 2010, i.e. after the RBI’s supposed 200 tonnes gold purchase from the IMF, we again see reference to the gold held abroad since 1991:

    I.7. Management of Gold Reserves

    The Reserve Bank held about 357.75 tonnes of gold forming about 3.7 per cent of the total foreign exchange reserves in value terms as at the end of September 2009. Of these, 65.49 tonnes are being held abroad since 1991 in deposits / safe custody with the Bank of England and the Bank for International Settlements.

    In November 2009, the Reserve Bank concluded the purchase of 200 metric tonnes of gold from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), under the IMF’s limited gold sales programme.  The purchase was an official sector transaction and was executed over a two week period during October 19-30, 2009 at market-based prices. As a result of this purchase, the Reserve Bank’s gold holdings have increased from 357.75 tonnes to 557.75 tonnes.

    So before supposedly buying 200 tonnes of IMF gold in 2009, the RBI had held 65.49 tonnes of gold at the Bank of England  and / or with the BIS.

    Which IMF Gold was Sold to India?

    Assuming that the IMF did sell 200 tonnes of gold to the Indian central bank in October 2009, then where was this gold located when ownership was transferred from the IMF to the RBI?

    IMF gold is stored in 4 “gold depositories” across the world. These 4 gold depositories are the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Bank of England in London, the Banque de France in Paris, and the Reserve Bank of India in Nagpur India. For details, see “The IMF’s Gold Depositories – Part 1, The Legal Background” and “The IMF’s Gold Depositories – Part 2, Nagpur and Shanghai, the Indian and Chinese connections“.

    The most logical answer is that the IMF gold transferred to the RBI in 2009 had been held in the Bank of England vaults in London. Why? Firstly, the IMF gold sale to the RBI in October 2009 definitely did not use IMF stored in Nagpur, India. This is because the 200 tonnes purchase in 2009 was immediately classified by the RBI as “held abroad” as soon as it was transacted. Besides, the IMF never had as much as 200 tonnes of gold stored at the Nagpur depository. The most IMF gold that was ever stored in Nagpur was 144.4 tonnes. Additionally, some of the IMF gold held in India is of variable quality and includes confiscated smuggled gold and other non-good delivery gold from domestic mine production.

    Secondly, the IMF gold held in the New York and Paris depositories (i.e. FRB New York and Banque de France) is not / was not in good delivery form. To quote the IMF during the 1970s when it previously conducted gold sales:  

    “…most of the gold of the Fund is not in the form of individually stamped and weighed bars but consists, with the exception of the gold held in depositories in the United Kingdom and India, of melts, comprising 18-22 individual bars, which will first need to be identified, weighed, and selected before they can be delivered.”

    “A melt is an original cast of a number of bars, usually between 18 and 22. The bars of an unbroken melt are stamped with the melt number and fineness but weight-listed as one unit; when a melt is broken, individual bars must be weighed and stamped for identification. It is the practice in New York and Paris to keep melts intact.”

    “As indicated in the staff paper on Gold Sales (EBS/76/46, 2/2/76), most of the Fund’s gold held with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Banque de France is in the form of melts. Before the gold can he offered in gold auctions a part of these holdings has to be transformed into individually weighed and identified bars.

    For details see “The IMF’s Gold Depositories – Part 3, Gold Swaps and the Quality of the IMF Gold”.

    And additionally, as the Banque de France commented to National Geographic in February 2011:

    “Buyers don’t want the beat-up American gold. In a nearby room pallets of it are being packed up and shipped to an undisclosed location, where the bars will be melted down and recast in prettier forms.”

    So with the IMF gold in Nagpur being a hodgepodge of mostly low quality old gold, and with IMF gold in New York and Paris being in the form of bundled up old US Assay Office melts and even some low quality coin bars, then it would be logical for the IMF in October 2009 to sell the RBI some of its good delivery gold which was stored in London (which, until at least the late 1970s, was predominantly held in the form of Rand Refinery 400 oz gold bars).

    Thirdly, prior to October 2009, the only gold which the RBI stored abroad was with the Bank of England and the BIS, and after October 2009 this was still the case, so the 200 tonnes of gold which the IMF acquired in October 2009 had to have come from IMF gold bars that the IMF had stored at the Bank of England, because this is the only remaining IMF gold depository when the other 3 IMF gold depositories are excluded.

    Note that prior to 2009, the RBI had not purchased any gold in the preceding years between 2002 – 2008 (which is the earliest data that is available on the World Gold Council website).

    Conclusion

    So putting this all together, we know that of the 724.24 tonnes that the Indian central bank claims to hold, 292.3 tonnes in held by the RBI in its vaults in Nagpur, India, and the rest, 432 tonnes, is held with the Bank of England and the BIS. Of this 432 tonnes, 65.5 tonnes has been held with the Bank of England / BIS since 1991, 200 tonnes was bought from the IMF in 2009 and is stored at the Bank of England, and the rest, 166 tonnes (purchased over 2018 – 2021) is held with the Bank of England / BIS.

    But similar to all central banks the world over, the Indian central bank never publishes any physical audits of the RBI gold, never publishes weight lists (bar lists) of the gold bars held, never published a breakdown of much RBI gold is held by the Bank of England and how much is held by the BIS, and never publishes any information about gold loans or gold swaps nor how much gold is out on loan with bullion banks.

    The 292.3 tonnes of gold held by the RBI in Nagpur has been held for many years. Some since pre-Independence times, and some accumulated during the 1950s – 1960s. This gold is not high quality / purity. In fact, in July 2014, the RBI was in discussions with bullion banks about conducting gold location and quality swaps whereby the RBI would provide this old / inferior quality gold to the banks, and swap it for access to Good Delivery gold bars in London. See Economic Times article here – “RBI plans to swap old gold in Nagpur vault with purer variety”.

    The Reserve Bank of India building in Nagpur

    Appendix – The Gold Vault in RBI Nagpur

    For those who are interested in central bank gold vaults, and especially vaults which claim to gold IMF gold, I will leave you with an intriguing old report from the RBI website which was published in February 1984 and which is titled “Report of the Committee on Security Arrangements, Vol 1” (pdf RBI CR671). This report gives some insight into the RBI’s gold vault in Nagpur at that time. From pages 107 – 109:  

    “Gold vaults

    5.8 The Bank has in its custody a considerable quantity of gold not only on its own account as Reserve Gold for note issue but also balances held in safe custody on behalf of Government of India and the International Monetary Fund. The bulk of this gold is held in Nagpur. The major portion of the remaining gold is held in Bombay.

    In regard to the custody and operation of the gold vaults, the Committee would recommend the following :-

    (a) Nagpur

    (i) The main door of the gold vault is enclosed in a grilled enclosure in the patrol corridor

    (ii) The actual joint custodians of the gold balances are the Assistant Currency Officer and the Treasurer. In view of the nature of the treasure, viz gold and the fact that not only is it the Reserve Bank of India’s own gold but also gold of the Government of India and the International Monetary Fund which means that it is not merely the tangible value of the gold that is involved but also the intangible, viz. the image of the Reserve Bank as the custodian of the gold of the World body and the Central Government that is involved, it will be more appropriate to elevate the status of the joint custodians.

    On the analogy of the holding of one key by the Treasurer, the head of the cash department, the other key may be held by the other comparable head of the issue department, viz. the Currency Officer (Administration). This will also be in keeping with the controlling key being held by the Manager.

    (b) (ii) In Nagpur, the original keys of the joint custodians are held in safes, under the third lock of the Manager, and the safes themselves are kept in different vaults.

    A lot may have changed in the Nagpur vaults since 1984, although a lot may have remained the same. And with the RBI vault in Nagpur being an IMF gold depository, the IMF would undoubtedly prefer that the world forgets that the Nagpur gold vault even exists. 

    This article was originally published on the BullionStar.com website under the same title “Indian Central Bank accumulating large quantities of Gold almost under the Radar”.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/07/2021 – 22:10

  • San Francisco Eases Indoor Mask Requirements As UK Removes 47 Countries From Travel "Red List"
    San Francisco Eases Indoor Mask Requirements As UK Removes 47 Countries From Travel “Red List”

    Here’s something you don’t see every day: headlines about the authorities dialing back COVID-related restrictions, as CNBC’s Carl Quintanilla pointed out in a tweet.

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    Most notably, San Francisco is easing its indoor mask requirements beginning Oct. 15 – or next week. The decision comes after several high-profile California politicians including Gov. Gavin Newsom and San Francisco Mayor London Breed have been caught violating their own COVID guidelines.

    And it’s not just San Francisco, the county, along with seven of its neighbors, will mostly remove local mandates as COVID cases continue to decline and vaccination rates rise (this second requirement may prove to be a bit of a snag), according to the San Francisco Examiner.

    Here’s more:

    The eight Bay Area counties with indoor mask mandates currently in place must reach moderate levels of transmission as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and low hospitalization rates as defined by the local health officer. In counties that haven’t reached 80% of the population vaccinated, the orders may be lifted three weeks after children ages 5-11 are granted access to vaccines.

    San Francisco will partially lift its mask mandate a week from Friday, assuming local COVID cases and hospitalizations remain stable or decline over the next week. At that time, people may stop wearing masks at indoor spaces that require proof of vaccination — including gyms, offices and places that host small gatherings — as long as no children under 12 are present and other ventilation and safety measures are in place.

    The criteria announced Thursday apply to Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Sonoma counties, which all reinstated indoor mask mandates in August amid the delta surge. Solano County did not put in place a local mandate.

    […]

    “I’m excited that we’re once again at a place where we can begin easing the mask requirements, which is the direct result of the fact that we have one of the highest vaccination rates in the country, our cases have fallen, and our residents have done their part to keep themselves and those around them safe,” said San Francisco Mayor London Breed in a statement.

    On top of all this, relaxing SF’s mask requirements might help law enforcement end the epidemic of shoplifting afflicting the City by the Bay.

    Moving on from San Francisco to Europe, Germany’s Health Minister Jens Spahn said Thursday that he believes Europe’s biggest economy will be able to forego additional COVID-related restrictions during the fall and winter since the country’s vaccination rate is actually higher than authorities had previously believed.

    According to Reuters, Spahn said that a study by Germany’s RKI had found that the number of people vaccinated against COVID was 5% higher than the government had believed. This, according to Spahn, means the existing rules requiring people to show evidence of showing a negative test or having been vaccinated or recovered on entering an indoor space or event should be enough.

    “As things stand, this vaccination rate means no further restrictions are needed,” he said.

    But it wasn’t all good news. While the UK removed 47 countries from its “red list” of countries where travelers must quarantine after returning, with Transportation Secretary Grant Shapps, UK health authorities also reported more than 40K cases in a single day for the first time in a month, according to Sky News.

    Still, travelers in the UK need a Day 2 test if they’re fully vaccinated, and a pre-departure test if they’re not, even to travel to countries on the green list.

    Whether restrictions are further relaxed will likely depend on which direction case numbers break toward during the coming week.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/07/2021 – 21:40

  • In Stunning Rebuke, Poland's Top Court Rules Polish Law Takes Presedence Over The EU
    In Stunning Rebuke, Poland’s Top Court Rules Polish Law Takes Presedence Over The EU

    In a stinging rebuke to Europe’s unelected bureaucrats, and a major escalation in the rule of law crisis between Warsaw and Brussels, Poland’s constitutional court ruled on Thursday that Polish law can take precedence over EU law amid an ongoing dispute between the European bloc and the eastern European member state. The decision by the Constitutional Tribunal came after Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki requested a review of a decision by the EU’s Court of Justice (ECJ) that gave the bloc’s law primacy. Two out of 14 judges on the panel dissented from the majority opinion.

    “The attempt by the European Court of Justice to involve itself with Polish legal mechanisms violates … the rules that give priority to the constitution and rules that respect sovereignty amid the process of European integration,” the ruling said, in an outcome that could have wide-reaching consequences for Europe when the next crisis hits.

    Meanwhile, Brussels considers the Constitutional Tribunal illegitimate due to the political influence imposed upon Poland’s judiciary by the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS).

    As the FT’s Henry Foy notes, it is “Hard to overstate the importance of this ruling.” He goes on to note that “Poland is *the* EU success story of eastern enlargement, and the biggest recipient – by a long long way – of EU taxpayer money since 2004. And now it is saying that it refuses to recognize a fundamental part of the whole project.”

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    As DW reports, the court had looked specifically at the compatibility of provisions from EU treaties, which are used by the European Commission to justify having a say in the rule of law in member states, with Poland’s constitution.

    A ruling by the ECJ in March said that the EU can force member states to disregard certain provisions in national law, including constitutional law. The ECJ says that Poland’s recently implemented procedure for appointing members of its Supreme Court amounts to a violation of EU law. The ruling from the ECJ could potentially force Poland to repeal parts of the controversial judicial reform.

    Meanwhile, the EU is withholding billions of euros of aid for post-pandemic rebuilding in Poland over concerns that the rule of law is being degraded in the country.

    “The primacy of constitutional law over other sources of law results directly from the Constitution of the Republic of Poland,” PiS government spokesman Piotr Muller wrote on Twitter after the court’s decision. “Today (once again) this has been clearly confirmed by the Constitutional Tribunal.”

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    However, the EPP group, the center-right bloc in the European Parliament to which PiS belongs, come out strongly against the court’s ruling: “It’s hard to believe the Polish authorities and the PiS Party when they claim that they don’t want to put an end to Poland’s membership of the EU. Their actions go in the opposite direction. Enough is enough,” Jeroen Lenaers, MEP and spokesperson for the group, said. “The Polish Government has lost its credibility. This is an attack on the EU as a whole,” he added.

    Previously, the European Parliament called on Morawiecki to cancel the court case in a resolution passed last month. It stressed the “fundamental nature of primacy of EU law as a cornerstone principle of EU law”, which however now is put in doubt.

    Poland has come under repeated fire from the EU including over issues to do with LGBTQ rights and women’s rights and media freedom, and in general for refusing to do whatever Brussels tells it do.

    As DW notes, the judiciary reforms by the PiS government have been seen as a threat to Poland’s membership within the 27-member bloc as well as to the stability of the EU as a whole.

    That said, the court’s decision on Thursday came as little surprise. The presiding judge, Julia Przylebska, is a government loyalist who was appointed by the ruling party. Similar to the highly partial US Supreme Court justices who are anything but impartial themselves.

    Jack Parrock, DW’s correspondent in Brussels, highlighted the importance the decision could have on Poland’s role in the EU.

    “One of the cornerstones of EU membership is that EU law has primacy over all other laws and that the European Court of Justice is the top court within the European Union and what these judges are saying is that in some aspects they don’t believe that that is the case,” he told DW.

    “This all started because the European Court of Justice essentially ruled that certain aspects of judicial tampering that the government was doing in Poland’s judiciary were not in line with EU law,” Parrock explained.

    “This has been an ongoing saga, and this is a pretty major issue now for the EU. We’ve already seen some pretty strong reactions coming from European parliamentarians and I’m sure we’re going to see some harsh criticism of this ruling coming from the European Commission,” he added.

    Needless to say, the EU was not happy, and promptly escalated the war of words tweeting that “The Commission will not hesitate to make use of its powers under the Treaties to safeguard the uniform application & integrity of Union law.”

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/07/2021 – 21:10

  • Oh My: Amazon Looks At Leaving Seattle Over City Council Hostility
    Oh My: Amazon Looks At Leaving Seattle Over City Council Hostility

    Authored by Ed Morrissey via HotAir,

    AP Photo/Matt Rourke

    To paraphrase Animal House, Andy Jassy hasn’t dropped the big one — yet — but he put it in play this week. After years of deteriorating relations with their home city of Seattle and its ultra-progressive city council, Amazon’s CEO made it known that the online giant may look for greener pastures. Citing the city’s hostility toward their presence, Jassy suggested that the suburbs are looking better and better for a new home to its 50,000-employee home base (via Instapundit):

    The world’s largest online retailer is by far the biggest private employer in Seattle with more than 50,000 workers. That distinction has proved a headache in recent years, with some residents and government officials blaming the company for exacerbating homelessness and traffic.

    “I’d say the last five years, the city council has become less enamored with business or with Amazon,” Jassy said during an event hosted by technology news site GeekWire. “It’s just been rougher.” …

    The company, which is wrapping up construction of an expanded Seattle headquarters campus, has since shifted its expansion planning toward neighboring cities like Bellevue and Redmond. Bellevue, just east of Seattle, “is where most of our growth will end up being,” Jassy said. He added that he wouldn’t be surprised if Amazon opened other offices in additional cities in the region.

    Bloomberg notes that Amazon may have contributed to the current state of hostilities with the city. Three years ago, they made a $1 million contribution to the local chamber of commerce’s campaign to get more moderates on the city council. That worked out as well as could be expected in the pre-CHAZ era of Seattle; it backfired and left the impression that Amazon wanted to buy its own city council. The winning ultra-progressives came into office with an even bigger axe to grind against the city’s biggest capitalist organization.

    Post-CHAZ and post-riot, one has to wonder whether Seattle voters might regret that choice. Even some of the city’s leadership had reason to regret that final expression of ultra-progressive activism. Remember Jenny Durkan’s abrupt about-face on CHAZ after the activists targeted her home?

    The big question here is whether Amazon regrets its massive investment in its new Seattle HQ enough to abandon it and take the loss. Jassy might just be looking for more leverage with a now-chastened city council, but they’re not that chastened, and the situation hasn’t improved over the last year. Jassy may not completely abandon Seattle, but he can move enough of the business out of the council’s jurisdiction to make their budgeting a lot more complicated in the future. And it’s not just Amazon feeling the Bern, either. Things got so bad for Boeing that they decamped in 2001 for Chicago, as Don Surber reminds readers:

    Seattle’s hostility to business led to Boeing’s departure for Chicago in 2001. The company was founded in Seattle in 1916. It decided last year to shutter its last factory in Seattle. …

    No, to really kill business, you need a government that is hostile and frankly jealous of success. In 22 short years, the garage business became the top retailer in the country. Seattle is doing everything it can to force Amazon out.

    The CEO finally got the hint because when it comes to Democrat policy, there is no such thing as unintended consequences. Seattle wants Amazon out. So be it.

    Seattle’s city council doesn’t really want Amazon out. It wants Amazon to fund The Revolution, and resents the company’s refusal to do so. The council keeps escalating the stakes and assumes — weirdly — that Amazon has more invested in Seattle for its online business model than Boeing did for its manufacturing model. At some point, Jassy will have to call Seattle’s bluff and take the short-term loss on its commercial real estate venture, or the city council will have to back down from its capitalist bête noire. I’d put my bet on the former, and sooner rather than later. Either way, the radical leftists in Seattle are playing out a lose-lose scenario.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/07/2021 – 20:40

  • September Payrolls Preview: It Will Be A Beat, The Question Is How Big
    September Payrolls Preview: It Will Be A Beat, The Question Is How Big

    After a strong initial claims report and a solid ADP private payrolls print, all eyes turn to the most important economic data point of the week, and the month, Friday’s nonfarm payrolls report due at 830am ET on Friday, where consensus expects a 500K print- more than double last month’s disappointing 235K print – as well as a drop in the unemployment rate to 5.1% and an increase in average hourly earnings to 4.6%. And unlike last month, when we correctly predicted the big miss in August payrolls, this time we agree that tomorrow’s report will be a beat, the only question is how big.

    Here is a snapshot of what to expect tomorrow:

    • Total Payrolls: 500K, Last 235K
    • Private Payrolls: 450K, Last 243K
    • Unemployment Rate: 5.1%, Last 5.2%
    • Labor force participation rate: 61.8%, Last 61.7%
    • Average Hourly Earnings Y/Y: 4.6%, Last 4.3%
      • Average Hourly Earnings M/M: 0.4%, Last 0.6%
    • Average Weekly Hours: 34.7, Last 34.7

    As Newsquawk writes in its NFP preview, September’s jobs data, the last before the Fed’s November 3rd policy meeting, will be framed in the context of the central bank’s expected taper announcement, where a merely satisfactory report would likely to be enough for the FOMC to greenlight a November announcement to scale-back its USD 120BN/month asset purchases.

    Goldman economists are more bullish than normal, and estimate nonfarm payrolls rose 600k in September, above consensus of +500k, and they note that “labor demand remains very strong, and we believe the nationwide expiration of enhanced unemployment benefits on September 5 boosted effective labor supply and job growth—as it did in July and August in states that ended federal benefits early.” As a result, Goldman is assuming a 200k boost in tomorrow’s numbers and a larger boost in October. The bank also believes the reopening of schools contributed to September job growth, by around 150k. Despite these tailwinds, Big Data employment signals were mixed, and dining activity rebounded only marginally.

    Labor market proxies have been constructive for the month: ADP’s gauge of payrolls surprised to the upside, although analysts continue to note that the direct relationship between the official data and the ADP’s gauge is tenuous, despite the gap being under 100k over the last three reports. The number of initial jobless claims and continuing claims has eased back between the survey periods of the August and September jobs data, although analysts note that more recent releases have shown an uptick in claims potentially clouding the outlook. The ISM business surveys have signaled employment growth in the month, with manufacturing employment rising into growth territory again, but services sector hiring cooled a little in the month, but remains expansionary; survey commentary continues to allude to a tight labour market. The Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the September employment situation report at 13:30BST/08:30EDT on October 8th.

    POLICY: The September jobs report might have reduced relevance on trading conditions given that Fed officials have effectively confirmed that, barring a collapse in the jobs data, it is on course to announce a tapering of its asset purchases at the November 3rd meeting. Accordingly, trading risks may be skewed to the downside, rather than to the upside, where a significant payrolls miss may present obstacles to the Fed announcing its taper. Additionally, it is worth being cognizant of how efforts in Washington to raise the debt ceiling are progressing; as yet, officials have not struck a deal, and are in the process of enacting stop gap legislation to allow funding into December; some analysts suggest that the Fed may be reticent to tighten policy in the face of potential default risks.

    PAYROLLS: The consensus looks for 500k nonfarm payrolls to be added to the US economy in September (prev. 235k), which would be a cooler rate of growth than the three- and six-month average rate, though in line with the 12-month average (3-month average is 750k/month, the six-month average is 653k/month, and the 12-month average is 503k/month – that technically at least suggests an improving rate of payrolls growth in recent months). Aggregating the nonfarm payrolls data since March 2020, around 5.33mln Americans remain out of work relative to pre-pandemic levels.

    MEASURES OF SLACK: The Unemployment Rate is expected at 5.1% (prev. 5.2%); Labour Force Participation previously at 61.7% vs 63.2% pre-pandemic; U6 measure of underemployment was previously at 8.8% vs 7.0% prepandemic; Employment-population ratio was previously 58.5% vs 61.1% pre-pandemic. These measures of slack are likely to provide more insight into how Fed officials are judging labour market progress, with many in recent months noting that they are closely watching the Underemployment Rate, Participation Rate, and the Employment-Population Ratio for a better handle on the level of slack that remains in the economy. Analysts would be encouraged the closer these get to pre-pandemic levels.

    EARNINGS: Average Hourly Earnings expected at +0.4% M/M (prev. +0.6%); Average Hourly Earnings expected at +4. 6% Y/Y (prev. +4.3%); Average Workweek Hours expected at 34.7hrs (prev. 34.7hrs). Aggregating the nonfarm payrolls data since March 2020, around 5.33mln Americans still remain out of work relative to pre-pandemic levels.

    ADP: The ADP National Employment Report showed 568k jobs added to the US economy in September, topping expectations for 428k, and a better pace than the prior 340k (revised down from 374k initially reported). ADP itself said that the labor market recovery continued to make progress despite the marked slowdown in the rate of job additions from the 748k pace seen in Q2. It also noted that Leisure & Hospitality remained one of the biggest beneficiaries to the recovery, though said that hiring was still heavily impacted by the trajectory of the pandemic, especially for small firms. ADP thinks that the current bottlenecks in hiring will likely fade as the pandemic situation continues to improve, and that could set the stage for solid job gains in the months ahead. On the data methodology, analysts continue to note that ADP’s model incorporates much of the prior official payrolls data, other macroeconomic variables, as well as data from its own payrolls platform; “Payrolls were soft in August, thanks to the hit to the services sector from the Delta variant, and that weakness likely constrained ADP data,” Pantheon Macroeconomics said. “The overshoot to consensus, therefore, suggests that the other inputs to ADP’s model were stronger than we expected, but none of the details are published, so we don’t know if the overshoot was model-driven or due to stronger employment data at ADP’s clients.”

    INITIAL JOBLESS CLAIMS: Initial jobless claims data for the week that coincides with the BLS jobs report survey window saw claims at around 351k – little changed from the 349k for the August jobs data survey window – where analysts said seasonal factors played a role in boosting the weekly data, while there may have been some lingering Hurricane Ida effects; the corresponding continuing claims data has fallen to 2.802mln in the September survey period vs 2.908mln in the August survey period. In aggregate, the data continues to point to declining trend, although in recent weeks the level of jobless claims has been picking up again.

    BUSINESS SURVEYS: The Services and Manufacturing ISM reports showed divergent trends in September, with the service sector employment sub-index easing a little to 53.0 from 53.7, signalling growth but at a slower rate, while the manufacturing employment sub-index rose back into expansionary territory, printing 50.2 from 49.0 prior. On the manufacturing sector, ISM said companies were still struggling to meet labour-management plans, but noted some modest signs of progress compared to previous months: “Less than 5% of comments noted improvements regarding employment, compared to none in August,” it said, “an overwhelming majority of panelists indicate their companies are hiring or attempting to hire,” where around 85% of responses were about seeking additional staffing, while nearly half of the respondents expressed difficulty in filling positions, an increase from August. “The increasing frequency of comments on turnover rates and retirements continued a trend that began in August,” ISM said. Meanwhile, in the services sector, employment activity rose for a third straight month; respondents noted that employees were flocking to better-paying jobs and there was a lack of pipeline to replace these staff, while other respondents talked of labor shortages being experienced at all levels.

    ARGUING FOR A BETTER-THAN-EXPECTED REPORT:

    • End of federal enhanced unemployment benefits. The expiration of federal benefits in some states boosted labor supply and job-finding rates over the summer, and all remaining such programs expired on September 5. The July and August indicated a cumulative 6pp boost to job-finding probabilities from June to August for workers losing $300 top-up payments and a 12pp boost for workers losing all benefits. Some of the 6mn workers who lost some or all benefits on September 5 got a job by September 18—in time to be counted in tomorrow’s data. Goldman assumes a +200k boost to job growth from this channel, with a larger increase in subsequent reports (+1.3mn cumulatively by year end).

    • School reopening. The largest 100 school districts are all open for in-person learning, catalyzing the return of many previously furloughed teachers and support staff. While full normalization of employment levels would contribute 600k jobs (mom sa, see left panel of the chart below), some janitors and support staff did not return due to hybrid teaching models, and job openings in the sector are only 200k above the pre-crisis level (see right panel). Relatedly, the BLS’s seasonal factors already embed the usual rehiring of education workers on summer layoff, so if fewer janitors returned to work than in a typical September, this would reduce seasonally adjusted job growth, other things equal. Taken together, assume a roughly 150k boost from the reopening of schools in tomorrow’s report.

    • Job availability. The Conference Board labor differential—the difference between the percent of respondents saying jobs are plentiful and those saying jobs are hardto get – edged down to 42.5 from 44.4, still an elevated level. Additionally, JOLTS job openings increased by 749k in July to a new record high of 10.9mn.
    • ADP. Private sector employment in the ADP report increased by 568k in September, above consensus expectations for a 430k gain, implying strong growth in the underlying ADP sample. Additionally, schools generally do not use ADP payroll software, arguing for a larger gain from school reopening in the official payroll measure.

    ARGUING FOR A WEAKER-THAN-EXPECTED REPORT:

    • Delta variant. Rebounding covid infection rates weighed on services consumption and the labor market in August. And while US case counts began to decline in early September, restaurant seatings on Open Table rebounded only marginally. leisure and hospitality employment rose in September, but probably not at the ~400k monthly pace of June and July.
    • Employer surveys. The employment components of our business surveys were flat to down, whereas we and consensus forecast a pickup in job growth. Goldman’s services survey employment tracker remained unchanged at 54.5 and the manufacturing survey employment tracker declined 0.4pt to 57.8. And while the Goldman Sachs Analyst Index (GSAI) decreased 0.8% to 68.5, the employment component rose1.9% to 71.9.

    NEUTRAL FACTORS:

    • Big Data. High-frequency data on the labor market were mixed between the August and September survey weeks, on net providing little guidance about the underlying pace of job growth. Three of the five measures tracked indicate an at-or-above-consensus gain (Census Small Business Pulse +0.5mn, ADP +0.6mn,Google mobility +2mn), but the Homebase data was an outlier to the downside. At face value, it would indicate a large outright decline in payrolls. The Census Household Pulse (-0.6mn) was also quite weak, though encouragingly, it also indicated a large drop in childcare-related labor supply headwinds as schools reopened.
    • Seasonality. The September seasonal hurdle is relatively low: the BLS adjustment factors generally assume a 600-700k decline in private payrolls (which exclude public schools), compared to around -100k on average in July and August. Continued labor shortages encouraged firms to lay off fewer workers at the end of summer. Partially offsetting this tailwind, the September seasonal factors may have evolved unfavorably due to the crisis—specifically by fitting to last September’s reopening-driven job surge (private payrolls +932k mom sa).
    • Jobless claims. Initial jobless claims fell during the September payroll month, averaging 339k per week vs. 378k in August despite a boost from individuals transitioning or attempting to transition to state programs. Across all employee programs including emergency benefits, continuing claims fell dramatically (-3.3mn)–but again for non-economic reasons (federal enhanced programs expired). Continuing claims in regular state programs decreased 106k from survey week to survey week.
    • Job cuts. Announced layoffs reported by Challenger, Gray & Christmas rebounded 11% month-over-month in September after decreasing by 14% over the prior two months (SA by GS). Nonetheless, layoffs remain near the three-decade low on this measure (in 1993).

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/07/2021 – 20:10

  • Senate Advances $480 Billion Debt Ceiling Deal After 11 Republicans Join Democrats To Invoke Cloture
    Senate Advances $480 Billion Debt Ceiling Deal After 11 Republicans Join Democrats To Invoke Cloture

    Update (2105ET): The Senate has officially advanced the short-term debt limit by a simple majority vote of 50-48, after 11 GOP lawmakers joined Democrats in a vote to invoke cloture, achieving the 60-vote filibuster threshold.

    The $480 billion increase will now move to the House, where it could be considered as early as next week. It should be enough to last through at least early December.

    *  *  *

    Update (2000ET):  The debt ceiling can has been kicked to December.

    After Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer set up Thursday night vote on a short-term debt ceiling increase that would leave the battle to be rejoined less than two months from now, in the middle of an already packed congressional agenda, moments ago a procedural cloture vote which needed 60 votes – meaning at least 10 Republicans would need to join McConnell in agreeing to concede – took place and as expected, amid all the high theatrical drama, not 10 but 11 Republicans votes were found to join the Democrats in a 61-38 vote.

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    The republicans voting Aye were:

    • Barrasso
    • Blunt
    • Capito
    • Collins
    • Cornyn
    • McConnell
    • Murkowski
    • Portman
    • Rounds
    • Shelby
    • Thune

    So with the vote having passed (Incidentally, Mitt Romey voted no), the next vote to follow tonight will be a vote to raise the debt ceiling by $480 billion where is a simple majority vote is needed, which the Democrats will be able to muster on their own, in the process punting the debt ceiling discussion for some time in mid-December, when as noted earlier, the bond market is already bracing for the next round of high drama with mid-December Bills “kinking” relative to the prior week.

    * * *

    Update (1440ET): According to The Hill, several Senate Republicans aren’t exactly thrilled with the debit limit deal brokered by GOP leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) – arguing that the Republicans gave Democrats and easy way out. 

    Several Senate Republican sources said members of their caucus were “surprised and disappointed” when McConnell unveiled the parameters of the deal with Schumer on Wednesday.

    One GOP senator said “you could hear a pin drop” when McConnell shared the details of his plan to allow Democrats to raise the debt ceiling to “a fixed number” without having to undergo the arduous process of amending the 2022 budget resolution and holding multiple time-consuming vote-a-ramas on the Senate floor. -The Hill

    According to Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND), some of his GOP colleagues had whiplash after 46 Senate Republicans signed an August letter warning Schumer that they “will not vote to increase the debt ceiling, whether that increase comes through a stand-alone bill, a continuing resolution, or any other vehicle.”

    “I’m not surprised that they are a little surprised and disappointed, because of course 46 Republicans signed a letter saying they wouldn’t vote for an increase,” said Cramer, adding “I think they feel like maybe we could have pushed it a little longer.“

    “The problem is the Republican members feel like we’re blinking and blinking a little earlier than might be necessary,” he continued, adding that the upcoming Columbus Day recess slated to begin this weekend “probably entered into the calculation.”

    “It’s not insignificant because people have plans and all that but plans aside, your plans to go on a CODEL [congressional delegation trip] are not the highest priority, the government is,” Cramer said. “I think some people wanted to go closer [to the deadline] and feel like we blinked too soon.”

    The biggest downside of the deal, in the view of these disappointed Republicans, is that the their conference will divide over a procedural vote on bringing a two-month extension of the debt limit to the floor for an up-or-down vote.

    Republicans have said for months that they would not provide any assistance to Democrats in raising the debt limit, especially since Democrats are working on a $3.5 trillion human infrastructure package that would raise taxes by hundreds of billions of dollars.

    But now they face the prospect of having to vote on a cloture motion to bypass a filibuster so that Democrats can pass the short-term debt limit increase with a simple-majority vote.

    At least 10 Republicans need to vote for the procedural motion to pave the way for legislation that would raise the debt limit by $480 billion, which is enough to cover the U.S. government’s financial obligations until Jan. 3. -The Hill

    According to the report, it appeared as though McConnell is facing a tough time rounding up enough GOP votes to bypass a filibuster and allow the two-month debt limit increase proceed to the floor – after which Democrats would then pass it on their own.

    Several Republican Senators are still on the fence – which could complicate matters. They include Sens. John Thune of SD and Roy Blunt of MO.

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    That said, National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Rick Scott (R-FL) said he expects there will be a 60-vote threshold for advancing the debt deal.

    “There’s going to be a cloture vote,” he said.

    *  *  *

    Update (1312ET): According to the NYT’s Manu Raju, the debt-ceiling deal might be hitting a snag: many GOP senators don’t want to vote for it, meaning McConnell needs to secure at least 10 GOP votes to pass the bill over a GOP filibuster.

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    * * *

    Update (1300ET): As the Democratic leadership scrambles to get the short-term debt-ceiling deal passed, the Democratic leadership is ramping up its criticisms of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, as one might expect.

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    Some more details about the new deal: after passing the Senate via a series of likely unanimous votes, the amended bill must also pass the House, which is in recess.

    Speaking Thursday on the Senate floor, McConnell said “the pathway our Democratic colleagues have accepted will spare the American people any near term crisis.” The deal also means “there’ll be no question they’ll have plenty of time” to use the reconciliation process to approve a long-term increase.

    * * *

    Update (1140ET): Fox News’ senior Hill correspondent and seasoned political reporter Chad Pergram shared some new details about the debt-ceiling deal. The updated bill  (which is technically an amendment) doesn’t mention a date and solely authorizes the $480 billion needed for the Treasury to pay debts coming due between now and early December.

    But Pergram’s report also shared some new details suggesting that the margin between the “drop dead” date and actual default might be thinner than previously believed.

    According to Pergram’s sources, the Treasury started using cash from emergency accounts over the summer, and the deal doesn’t include any additional funding to replenish these accounts.

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    That could contribute to the perception that Dec. 3 truly is a “hard” deadline, and that the closer we get to it without a long-term deal, the greater the risk to the market.

    * * *

    Update (1125ET): As we await a Senate vote on the short-term debt ceiling deal, Goldman’s political analyst Alec Philips has just chimed in with a brief note to clients, advising that the $480 billion debt-ceiling increase was larger than he had anticipated, meaning that the real deadline for a more long-term deal (or at the very least another can-kick) is probably “somewhat later than Dec. 3”.

    Media reports indicate that Senate leaders have struck a deal to raise the debt ceiling by $480bn (i.e., to $28.88 trillion). This is intended to carry the Treasury to December 3, at which point an additional debt limit increase or suspension would be required. The amount is higher than we would have anticipated the Treasury would need to get to that date, so there appears to be a good chance that the actual deadline for the next increase will come somewhat later than Dec. 3. That said, it is probably not sufficient to last past the end of the year, so it appears likely that Congress will need to address the issue in December as expected, either as part of the next reconciliation bill, a standalone bill, or part of a spending package for FY22 to extend spending authority past the current expiration, which Congress also set at Dec. 3 when it passed its continuing resolution on Sep. 30.

    Meanwhile, the T-bills market responded to news of the deal by shifting the “kink” in the curve out to December.

    * * *

    Update (1115ET): Cogs are already turning to tee up a vote on the short-term debt deal on Thursday.

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    Of course, as part of the deal, GOP senators will vote to raise the debt limit, something that McConnell had initially tried to avoid by pushing to force the Democrats to use reconciliation, a process that could have allowed them to bypass a GOP filibuster, but Dems – including President Biden – complained doing so would be unworkable and complex.

    * * *

    Update (1020ET): Following reports earlier this morning about a short-term deal to suspend America’s debt ceiling, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was on the tape just a few minutes ago confirming that a short-term deal has indeed been reached, and that he hopes the Senate will vote on the measure Thursday.

    “I have some good news…we’ve reached agreement to extend the debt ceiling through early December,” Schumer said during opening remarks on the Senate floor.

    US stocks celebrated the headline by sending the S&P 500 and Dow surging past key technical levels, as we pointed out. 

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    Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman reports that the deal will raise the debt limit by $480 billion – the figure that Treasury says is required – to extend the deadline until Dec. 3, giving the Dems’ a little bit of wiggle room to continue their divisive, bitter factional battle over President Biden’s domestic agenda, which includes an infrastructure bill and an even larger expansion of the social safety net.

    The Dec. 3 deadline lines up with the short-term extension of government spending signed by Biden a week ago.

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    Minority Leader Mitch McConnell first offered the deal on Wednesday and leaders negotiated the details into Thursday. Defying expectations, the deal – which is really just a short-term can-kick – comes more than a week before the Oct. 18 “drop dead” date quoted by Treasury Sec. Janet Yellen (which is really just a point in a range that could be days or weeks, since the Treasury can’t say exactly when it would run out of money).

    While the market celebrated, White House reporters criticized the deal, with one claiming it’s such a weak can-kick that it’s “not even a band-aid…it’s like, the scrap of Kleenex that you found lying around that you have to use…” The criticism lined up with an analysis by Goldman strategists.

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    Another reporter noted that the early December deadline could create even more problems for Democrats, since they have other important issues and deadlines coming up in December.

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    As we reported earlier, Goldman’s top political strategist Alec Phillips published a note to clients advising that McConnell’s short-term offer likely wouldn’t be that attractive to Democrats.

    * * *

    Following negotiations that stretched late into Wednesday evening, Democrats and Republicans have reportedly forged a compromise deal on a short-term increase in the the debt ceiling which will avoid default, but as Bloomberg notes, “threatens to exacerbate year-end clashes over trillions in government spending.”

    In moving forward, Democrats appear to be on the verge of accepting a proposal from GOP leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) which would raise the debt limit by a specific amount – enough to move things into December, when Congress will have to vote again to avoid a default.

    While the details aren’t totally clear, McConnell’s offer was to allow a vote on extending the debt limit at a fixed collar amount – which Goldman’s Alec Phillips expects a number on over the next day or so.

    “We’re making good progress,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in early Thursday morning comments from the Senate floor, adding “we hope to have agreement tomorrow morning,” adding that the Senate would come back into session at 10 a.m. Thursday.

    That said, this is classic can-kicking which will have consequences down the road, as Democrats will likely attempt to move forward with their massive tax and spending package and separate infrastructure bill while at the same time funding the government to avoid yet another potential shutdown after December 3.

    News of a possible debt-ceiling accord stoked the biggest positive turnaround in the equity market in more than seven months, as the S&P 500 Index closed up 0.4% after tumbling earlier. In the bond market, traders bid back up the prices of Treasuries set to mature in the window around a potential default. Investors then moved on to gauge which securities may now be most at risk of a missed or delayed payment under the new congressional timeframe. -Bloomberg

    Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned that the US would likely default after October 18 without congressional action. At present, the current debt limit is $28.4 trillion, while the Treasury reported that it had $343 billion in combined extraordinary measures and cash on hand.

    As an approximation, during the period from Sep. 29 to Dec. 3, 2019, debt subject to limit (this includes marketable and non-marketable debt) increased by $356bn and the cash balance declined by $50bn, suggesting that the Treasury would use around $400bn in borrowing capacity by early December if cash flows are similar this year. Since the Treasury still had more than $300bn in room under the debt limit at the end of September, a debt limit increase to only $28.5-$28.6 trillion might be sufficient to accomplish the intent of the agreement, but the Treasury will be the final word on this and the amount will depend on expected cash flows this year. -Goldman Sachs

    And while a fixed dollar amount (vs. a calendar-based solution) injects a bit of uncertainty as to when exactly the next deadline will hit, the debt deal alleviates concerns which were beginning to reverberate throughout the investment community. Earlier this week, McConnell sidestepped a question over whether any major banks or wall street titans had contacted him over the debt ceiling fight.

    It was thought that the investment community would hammer Washington if lawmakers bumbled into a debt ceiling crisis. 

    Worry started to permeate Washington that rating agencies could downgrade the creditworthiness of the U.S. before Oct. 18 – the deadline when Treasury says the U.S. will run out of cash. –Fox News

    Senate Democrats have considered the debt deal a victory –  with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) exclaiming on Wednesday that “McConnell caved,” adding “And now we’re going to spend our time doing child care, health care, and fighting climate change.”

    From here, the focus will undoubtedly return to negotiations over Biden’s fiscal agenda – and in particular, the stalemate within the Democratic party between Senate moderates Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), who have vowed to sink any reconciliation plan that exceeds $1.5 trillion, and House progressives, who will likewise tank the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure deal unless Manchin and Sinema bend the knee.

    Assuming that drags into December, expect fireworks into the end of the year.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/07/2021 – 20:06

  • Energy Crisis May Unleash Winter Blackouts Across US, Insider Warns 
    Energy Crisis May Unleash Winter Blackouts Across US, Insider Warns 

    The energy crisis that is rippling through Asia and Europe could unleash electricity shortages and blackouts in the U.S., according to Bloomberg. 

    Ernie Thrasher, CEO of Xcoal Energy & Resources LLC., told energy research firm IHS Markit that U.S. utilities quickly turn to more coal 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. 

    With natgas, coal, and oil prices all soaring is a clear signal the green energy transition will take decades, not years. Walking back fossil fuels for unreliable clean energy has been a disaster in Asia and Europe. These power-hungry continents are scrambling for fossil fuel supplies as stockpiles are well below seasonal trends ahead of cooler weather. 

    A similar story is playing out in the U.S., where increased demand for coal might not be reached by mining companies. We noted Thursday morning that boosting output might be challenging due to years of decommissioning mines to reduce carbon emissions and transition the economy from fossil fuels to green energy. There’s also been a steady decline of miners over the last three and a half decades. 

     “That whole supply chain is stretched beyond its limits,” Thrasher said. “It’s going to be a challenging winter for us here in the United States.”

    Utility company Duke Energy Corp.’s Piedmont Natural Gas unit, covering North and South Carolina customers, warned power bills this winter are set to rise due to high natgas prices and low production. 

    A pure-play coal company that is already benefiting from the demand surge and rising prices is Peabody Energy Corporation. As cooler weather fast approaches, the company may see increased demand for its thermal coal that utility companies use to produce electricity. On a technical basis, a so-called bullish “golden cross” was just triggered. 

    The troubled green energy transition gives the fossil fuel industry new hope, especially “Making Coal Great Again.” 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/07/2021 – 19:40

  • Twitch Hack Exposes How Top Streamers Earn Millions Of Dollars On Platform
    Twitch Hack Exposes How Top Streamers Earn Millions Of Dollars On Platform

    The hacker, or hackers, who stole and published reams of invaluable source code, internal security tools and creator payouts from Twitch – the Amazon-owned streaming service that’s popular with gamers and has come to dominate the world of “eSports” (to be sure, there are plenty of Twitch streamers who aren’t focused on video games, but we digress) – allegedly managed to “own” Jeff Bezos by – claiming in a 4chan post that “Jeff Bezos paid $970MM for this, we’re giving it away for free #dobettertwitch” – they also exposed how much money some of the platform’s most popular streamers are raking in.

    The leaked data showed popular streamers raking in payouts from Twitch ranking in six-figure territory, with the top earners pulling in millions of dollars.

    According to one leaked document listing Twitch’s top earners shows gross earnings since 2019 reached $9.6MM for the platform’s top account, “CriticalRole.” This account, which is run by a set of voice actors, according to its Twitch page, generated an average of $370,000 a year, according to the document. The list points to 13 accounts that have made more than $108,000 a year and at least 80 that have collected more than $1MM since 2019.

    Several Twitch streamers confirmed via social-media posts that the leaked payout figures were consistent with what they earned on the platform. The data showed some users reaching payouts in the six figures.

    This isn’t exactly a surprise: data on the highest-earning eSports stars collected by Statista shows that players are raking in more than $100MM in aggregate earnings. While that’s still peanuts compared to professional athletes in the major American sports leagues, earnings have soared over the last decade.

    Infographic: The Keyboard Kings of the World | Statista You will find more infographics at Statista

    On Twitch, streamers can generate income via advertising, sponsorships and tips from viewers. But Twitch cuts bespoke deals with its most popular streamers, part of a strategy to lock them (and their audience) into the platform.

    Scott Hellyer, a streamer who has been part of Twitch’s partner program for six years, said in a direct message on Twitter that information about his payouts was exposed in the breach.

    “I really hope that no major personal info (Full names, emails, address, phone number, banking info) gets out in the rumored next part of the leak,” said Mr. Hellyer, who has about 72,000 followers on his channel, “tehMorag.” “I’ll take the heat if people are surprised about how much I make in the coming days, and try to have an open dialog about it.”

    Amazon bought Twitch back in 2014 for nearly $1 billion in cash. The platform boasts 2.5MM viewers tuned in at any given time, with more than 7MM creators using the platform.

    But now that the source code has been published, cybersecurity experts are warning Twitch users to exercise extreme caution to protect their accounts and any sensitive personal data, since hackers can now comb through the source code in search of vulnerabilities that can be exploited. While the hacker who pulled off the original Twitch hack apparently took measures to avoid releasing any sensitive data that could harm others, others might not be so accommodating.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/07/2021 – 19:10

  • Musk Says Tesla Will Move Headquarters To Austin, Texas
    Musk Says Tesla Will Move Headquarters To Austin, Texas

    Tesla is moving its headquarters to Austin, Texas, from Silicon Valley, CEO Elon Musk said Thursday during the company’s annual shareholder meeting in the Austin area, where the company is building a factory. He stressed that Tesla will continue to expand in both California and Nevada, saying “we will continue to expand our activities in California. This is not a matter of Tesla leaving California. Our intention is to increase output from Freemont and giga-Nevada by 50%.”

    As part of the overhaul, Musk unveiled what appears to be Tesla’s new logo: “Don’t Mess With Tesla.”

    Some other highlights from the meeting courtesy of Bloomberg:

    • Elon Musk said that the Shanghai plant is now outproducing the Fremont plant.
    • Musk hopes the chip shortage will abate, saying the year has been a “constant struggle” with the supply chain, but said there is also a shaip shortage, which was logistically challenging.
    • Tesla has no plans to offer a dividend, which is something several retail investors had asked about.
    • Musk repeated his call for a carbon tax

    One investor asked if Tesla would start issuing a dividend. To which Musk responded: “When a company offers dividends, it’s kind of cresting the hill. They’ve run out of things to invest in internally. We’ve not run out of things to invest in by a long shot.”

    Musk also addressed Cybertruck production, saying it will start at the end of next year, with volume production in 2023. “Hopefully we can also produce the Semi and new Roadster in 2023.”

    Ironically, Musk stressed that his goal is to make Tesla cars as affordable as possible but is seeing cost pressure in the supply chain, so they had to increase prices temporarily.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/07/2021 – 19:02

  • Biden Doesn't Know That Vaccinated Individuals Can Still Spread Covid
    Biden Doesn’t Know That Vaccinated Individuals Can Still Spread Covid

    The sitting president of the United States, advised by the nation’s top infectious diseases specialists, doesn’t know what is now common knowledge; that vaccinated individuals can still spread Covid-19.

    (Susan Walsh/AP)

    For those keeping track, this is the second major issue Biden had no knowledge of – the first being an international spat with France over a tri-lateral submarine agreement.

    Speaking in Elk Grove Village, Illinois on Thursday, Biden urged more employers to institute strict vaccine requirements – calling them “tough medicine” that will help bring the United States out of the Covid-19 pandemic.

    In addition to failing to recognize naturally-acquired immunity for individuals who have recovered from Covid, Biden made clear that he has no idea vaccinated people can still spread the virus.

    “If you seek care at a healthcare facility, you should have a certainty that the people providing that care are protected from Covid and cannot spread it to you,” Biden said, explaining the rationale behind forcing healthcare workers and other professionals to get vaccinated or lose their job.

    Watch (relevant portion starts at 50 seconds):

    Biden’s latest false statement comes one week after his own CDC director Rochelle Walensky said that vaccines “can’t prevent transmission.”

    “Our vaccines are working exceptionally well. They continue to work well for Delta with regard to severe illness and death – they prevent it, but what they can’t do anymore is prevent transmission,” she told CNN‘s Wolf Blitzer. “So if you’re going home to someone who is not vaccinated…I would suggest you wear a mask in public indoor settings,” she continued.

     Again, this is common knowledge by now:

    • Emerging data suggest that Delta could spread more readily than other coronavirus variants among people vaccinated against COVID-19. (Nature, Aug. 12)
    • Vaccinated People With Breakthrough Infections Can Spread The Delta Variant, CDC Says (NPR, Jul. 30)
    • UC study finds similarities in COVID viral loads between vaccinated, unvaccinated people (KTXL, Oct. 6)
    • CDC study says COVID-19 can spread in vaccinated (AP, Sep. 21)

    Alas, the president of the United States – or whoever wrote that speech – doesn’t follow the science.

    Cover photo: Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

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

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/07/2021 – 18:50

  • NASA Engineer Earns Crypto By Helping Crowdsource Stock Picks
    NASA Engineer Earns Crypto By Helping Crowdsource Stock Picks

    One NASA engineer is using his smarts not only planning to explore outer space, but also earning cryptocurrency by picking stocks.

    When 32-year-old Hayden Burgoyne isn’t plotting a mission to explore Jupiter’s moons as part of project Europa Clipper, the Los Angeles resident spends his spare time as an amateur quant – poring through market data for Paul Tudor Jones-backed crowdsourcing firm Numerai, according to Bloomberg. 

    Without revealing their models, the contributors pick stocks they think will outperform in the coming month and make bets in online trading tournaments using a digital currency issued by Numerai. The San Francisco-based firm, established in 2015, then invests in the corresponding stocks. 

    Those picks from the likes of Burgoyne, a world away from Wall Street, have powered the market-neutral fund to a 9% gain this year through August. In 2020 it was up 8% when many storied quants faltered.

    “I have no finance background so it puts people like me on an equal footing with somebody with an economics PhD,” he told Bloomberg. 

    Burgoyne uses an “assortment of data” on 5,000 stocks to make his picks. He uses metrics like price history to valuation ratios, sometimes without even knowing what the underlying metrics are.

    Those who perform well get “NMR” tokens, which are now worth about $50 a piece. 

    Numerai founder Richard Craib commented: “By setting up the problem and being in charge of data people look at, we can get exactly the type of signal we want. Although they might not work individually, when you combine them altogether the increase in accuracy and performance is huge.”

    Craib also commented on paying out in crypto: “Even if we gave away 100% of our profits of the fund to our users we will never be able to pay as much. What I like about cryptocurrencies is the idea that actually through the community, the cryptocurrency is valuable for its own reasons.”

    Burgoyne has 630 NMR tokens backing his predictions. 

    Another Numerai trader, Sharon Moran, commented: “As a mother of three with a daughter in private college, there’s the money consideration. But the ability to learn and grow and apply some of what I’ve been learning as far as modeling was the initial motivation.” 

    And people are taking notice: one pension fund that has $45 million in assets with Numerai could increase their allocation to $130 million if the firm hits “certain milestones”. 

    While quant funds and factor-based investing have consistently shown themselves to be unreliable at best, crowdsourcing ideas as a quant model still hasn’t been fully vetted. And something is working for Numerai. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/07/2021 – 18:40

  • Labor Strikes Target Big Food As Workers Seize On Industry Turmoil
    Labor Strikes Target Big Food As Workers Seize On Industry Turmoil

    By Chris Casey of Food Dive,

    At food plants around the country this year, workers have been making themselves heard about the state of wages, working hours and conditions.

    Just this week, roughly 1,400 Kellogg workers at ready-to-eat cereal plants in four states — Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nebraska and Tennessee — went on strike after their contract expired. In a statement, the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM) said its goal is to “obtain a fair contract that provides a living wage and good benefits.”

    Anthony Shelton, BCTGM’s president, said Kellogg workers “have been working long, hard hours, day in and day out, to produce Kellogg ready-to-eat cereals for American families” but that the company has responded by cutting benefits and threatening to send jobs to Mexico if employees don’t accept the company’s proposals.

    “Kellogg is making these demands as they rake in record profits, without regard for the well-being of the hardworking men and women who make the products that have created the company’s massive profits,” Shelton said in a statement. 

    Just a couple weeks earlier, more than a thousand workers returned to their jobs at Mondelēz Nabisco factories in five states after a walkout that lasted nearly six weeks. It also was led by BCTGM. The workers were protesting what they considered unfair changes in overtime rules and shift lengths.

    This came a few months after hundreds of Frito-Lay employees in Topeka, Kansas, were on strike in July for 19 days, demanding better hours and higher pay. That same month, dozens of Teamster truck drivers gathered to strike against Coca-Cola in West Virginia, rejecting a contract that would reportedly have made them pay more for health insurance and give them less commission.

    Some of these strikes, including those at Mondelēz and Frito-Lay plants, have reached their conclusion after the manufacturers came to terms with workers and their unions. And some, like the strike affecting Kellogg plants, are only ratcheting up. The turmoil reflects a unique set of conditions — a labor shortage, growing demand and supply chain disruptions in the midst of a pandemic — that has given labor unions extra leverage, and food manufacturers a greater incentive to meet their demands. 

    CPGs are currently hobbled by a massive labor shortage. There are now 4.9 million more people who are either not working or not looking for work compared to pre-pandemic times, The Washington Post recently reported. At the same time, demand for food has skyrocketed, rising 8.7% in the second quarter of this year alone, as people spend more time at home, the Consumer Brands Association reported. This has left CPG manufacturers scrambling to increase production with fewer workers and a shaky, fragile supply chain — all while dealing with continued uncertainty over the outlook for COVID-19.

    The leverage that workers and labor advocates currently enjoy is a recent change in fortunes. The power of unions, specifically in the food manufacturing sector, had deteriorated during the past four decades as companies avoided meeting worker demands by moving many jobs overseas, according to Bryant Simon, labor scholar and history professor at Temple University.

    But the COVID crisis, Simon believes, has provided a unique opportunity for American factory workers to reassess their pivotal role in the food industry.

    “Workers are like, ‘Look, I’m not going to work on these terms anymore, and you’ve given me a chance to explore some other options,’ ” Simon said.

    Uncertain outcomes

    The Mondelēz strike demonstrates how all of these factors can come into play.

    The dispute began in May when workers were offered a new contract that would increase hourly shifts from eight hours to 12, without additional overtime pay for the first five days of the week. A Mondelēz spokesperson told CBS News at the time that the changes were intended to “promote the right behaviors” among workers. 

    Meanwhile, some Mondelēz employees at its Chicago factory told The New York Times they had worked 16-hour shifts during the pandemic to keep up with the increased demand for the snack giant’s most popular products, such as Oreos.

    Workers were also worried that their jobs would be sent to Mexico, similiar to what happened in 2016, when Mondelēz cut nearly 1,000 jobs at plants in Chicago and Philadelphia. 

    Mondelēz International spokesperson Laurie Guzzinati told Food Dive in August that the contract negotiations were “not about” moving jobs to Mexico and that the company was committed to keeping its U.S workforce. 

    Workers in Portland, Ore., launched the first walkout on Aug. 10, with signs reading “No contract, no snacks,” “Weekends are family time” and “Spit out that Oreo” populating the picket line. As the strikes spread to other states — Illinois, Virginia, Colorado and Georgia — they quickly made national headlines. Actor Danny DeVito and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders came out in support of the workers. 

    The snacks giant told Food Dive that it began negotiating with the union “as soon as the action took place in Portland.” In its last quarterly earnings call on Sept. 9, Mondelēz’s CEO Dirk Van De Put said that after the company requested contract changes to increase capacity at its plants as well as product inventory, it “foresaw that it would not be an easy conversation.” He said Mondelēz was making a new offer to the union, which included increased wages, a higher 401(k) match and more flexible hours. The company was not willing to reinstate its pension plan. 

    The new terms sealed the deal. In a statement after its members voted to approve the new four-year contract, BCTGM said that they “made enormous sacrifices” to reach a deal “that preserves our Union’s high standards for wages, hours and benefits for current and future Nabisco workers.” BCTGM did not respond to multiple requests for comment by Food Dive.

    The Kellogg strikes, meanwhile, may not be coming to a quick, amicable conclusion any time soon.

    BCTGM called for a strike a month after Kellogg announced plans to invest $45 million in restructuring its ready-to-eat cereal supply chain, which includes cutting more than 200 jobs at its Battle Creek factory. The company said it is shifting production to more efficient production lines, even as it struggled with shortages of factory line workers and truck drivers at many of its plants.

    BCTGM representatives said last week that Kellogg did not provide workers with a “comprehensive offer” during contract negotiations like it had stated.

    In a statement to Food Dive, Kellogg spokesperson Kris Bahner said the company is “disappointed by the union’s decision to strike,” and that its proposed new contract provides wage and benefits increases “while helping us meet the challenges of the changing cereal business.” Bahner said the company hopes to reach an agreement with the union soon. 

    Raising the stakes of negotiations even further: Kellogg filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against BCTGM in the U.S. District Court of Nebraska, saying that it “seeks to recover damages for ongoing breaches of a labor agreement.” The cereal giant said the union’s “improper actions” have the intention of inflicting “significant economic harm” to the company before a contract agreement is able to be met.

    What’s next for labor

    Despite this test of wills between labor and food manufacturers, the “ultimate leverage” for workers in 2021 is their ability to create negative publicity for their parent company through strikes to make them appear “union-busting” in hopes of spurring a consumer boycott of their products, said Erik Loomis, a labor expert and University of Rhode Island professor.

    Loomis said this can bring about more immediate benefits to unions compared to legal frameworks, which are often not on the side of workers and could take months or years to result in better contracts.

    The use of social media to spread organization efforts and make the public aware of working conditions makes today’s strikes different to those of the past, according to Simon with Temple University. In the case of Mondelēz, calls for a boycott of Nabisco snacks like Oreos and Wheat Thins gained traction on social media during the strikes, with users uploading photos of shelves stocked with unsold Oreos and Chips Ahoy! cookies at grocery stores.

    However, relying on public support to dictate change has its drawbacks. Simon said wage increases for food manufacturing workers is a larger “ideological hurdle” because many consumers ultimately may not be willing to pay more for food products to support higher wages. This is despite the fact that the annual mean salary of a food factory employee is under $33,000, significantly lower than the roughly $56,000 national average for all jobs, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Food prices have also been rising during the pandemic as manufacturers pass along higher costs for ingredients, manufacturing, packaging and transportation. 

    Loomis expects strikes to continue due to the supply chain crisis, and as workers see more examples of successful organizing taking place.

    Meanwhile, under the Biden administration, the political climate is also friendlier to unions. The PRO Act (Protecting the Right to Organize), which passed Congress in March with five Republicans joining, is supported by The White House. One of its biggest elements — monetary punishments for companies that infringe on workers’ union-based rights — was added as part of the budget reconciliation bill package currently being debated in the Senate.

    “You’re going to see more strikes within the legal sense,” Loomis said. “Even outside of that, workers will take matters into their own hands when they feel it is necessary to do so.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/07/2021 – 18:15

  • JPMorgan: Institutions Are Rotating Out Of Gold Into Bitcoin As A Better Inflation Hedge
    JPMorgan: Institutions Are Rotating Out Of Gold Into Bitcoin As A Better Inflation Hedge

    For much of the summer, when bitcoin was shedding its April 15 all time high of $63,000 by more than half, Wall Street was bombarded with weekly notes from JPMorgan’s cross-asset strategist Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou who would encourage selling, telling institutional clients that upward momentum had fizzled and that the only logical direction for bitcoin was lower. Those notes ended abruptly in July when Bitcoin reversed sharply and start its latest upward trek, and were instead replaced with warnings that there is too much euphoria in the market and thus the only logical direction for bitcoin was… you can guess the rest.

    Well, maybe not, because on Wednesday bitcoin soared higher, surging above $55,000 and once again sporting a market cap of over $1 trillion, and pushing the total market cap of all crypto markets above $2.3 trillion (still below the market cap of one Apple, Inc.), and suddenly the doom and gloom from JPM’s Panigirtzoglou has done a 180, with the quant writing in his latest Flows and Liquidity report published overnight that “the increase in the share of bitcoin is a healthy development as it is more likely to reflect institutional participation than smaller cryptocurrencies.”

    Blindsided by the surge in bitcoin, the JPM strategist was also wrong about the institutional preference for bitcoin vs ethereum, writing two weeks ago that “JPMorgan: Institutional Investors Are Piling Into Ethereum, Leaving Bitcoin” – starting in early October, the two largest cryptos have decoupled with Bitcoin clearly outperforming its smaller peer.

    Not surprisingly Panigirtzoglou addressed this latest flub, writing in his note that “we had argued before our position proxies based on CME futures had showed strong preference for ethereum vs. bitcoin by institutional investors during most of August and September. But as shown in Figure 16 this preference appears to be have been reversing since the end of September with a sharp rebound in the position proxy for bitcoin. This rebound reflects at least partly short covering as indicated by Figure 17 which depicts bitcoin futures liquidations across all futures exchanges. According to Figure 17 short bitcoin futures position liquidations appear to have picked up over the past week or two.”

    Having completed his damage control homework, Panigirtzoglou then shifted to the main thrust of his note, which was once again trying to explain why bitcoin was surging, where he offered three distinct reasons. While the first two have been extensively discussed here in the past few weeks, and we thus found them of marginal value, it was his third point that may have some insight especially when presented to gold bugs, namely that “institutional investors appear to be returning to bitcoin perhaps seeing it as a better inflation hedge than gold.”

    Here is what JPM believes has triggered the bitcoin recovery:

    1. the recent assurances by US policy makers that there is no intention to follow China’s steps towards banning the usage or mining of cryptocurrencies;
    2. the recent rise of the Lightning Network and 2nd layer payments solutions helped by El Salvador’s bitcoin adoption. According to President Bukele 2.7m Salvadorians had onboarded by early October the Chivo wallet which uses the Lightning Network. We have to admit we are skeptical of this second explanation; and
    3. the reemergence of inflation concerns among investors has renewed interest in the usage of bitcoin as an inflation hedge. Bitcoin’s allure as an inflation hedge has perhaps been strengthened by the failure of gold to respond in recent weeks to heightened concerns over inflation, behaving more as a real rate proxy rather than inflation hedge.

    The last point is notable, especially since we have frequently noted the growing price divergence between actual gold and its digital counterpart, which while not only providing a credible diversification tool to risk assets (compared the return of bitcoin to any other asset class YTD) has also shown a strong correlation with soaring inflation expectations in recent months, unlike gold which is sharply lower for the year.

    In the chart below, JPMorgan shows “tentative signs that the previous shift away from gold into bitcoin seen during most of Q4 2020 and the beginning of 2021 has started re-emerging in recent weeks.”

    If JPM is correct (this time) and if indeed bitcoin is emerging as not only an accepted inflation hedge – certainly better than gold – but as an asset JPM will push to its institutional clients, especially those sporting a balanced, 60/40 portfolio, the potential inflows into bitcoin and cryptos in general would be remarkable if even a small portion of the global 60/40 portfolio is reallocated toward the digital currency, an outcome One River’s CIO Eric Peters has been predicting for a long time.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/07/2021 – 17:50

  • $137 Million Racism Verdict Against Tesla May Be Cut In Half On Appeal
    $137 Million Racism Verdict Against Tesla May Be Cut In Half On Appeal

    A $137 million verdict against Tesla for failing to prevent racism against contract employee Owen Diaz may be cut in half if the automaker appeals. 

    Law professor Michael Selmi said the original verdict of punitive damages about 20 times as large as actual damages is “well in excess” of typical punishment, according to Bloomberg.

    Punitive damages are usually calculated at 9 to 1 or 10 to 1, the report notes. 

    This means the $137 million award is “unlikely to survive a challenge,” according to Selmi. 

    This doesn’t mean the jury didn’t send a strong message in the case. One juror told Bloomberg: “They claim to have a zero tolerance policy, but suspended rather than fired, and ignored rather than rectified or retrained their employees on proper prevention.”

    Recall, a jury awarded Diaz $137 million for enduring “racist abuse” while working for the company. 

    Diaz’s attorneys told CNBC that the case was only able to move forward because Diaz didn’t sign one of the company’s mandatory arbitration agreements. 

    One attorney, J. Bernard Alexander, said: “We were able to put the jury in the shoes of our client. When Tesla came to court and tried to say they were zero tolerance and they were fulfilling their duty? The jury was just offended by that because it was actually zero responsibility.”

    Owen Diaz, right. Photo by Bloomberg. 

    Diaz found the work at Tesla through a staffing agency in 2015 and told the jury that coworkers told him to “go back to Africa” and left racist graffiti in the company’s restrooom. They also left a racist drawing in his workspace, he told the court.

    Back in August, Tesla was forced to pay another former employee $1 million for enduring racism while working at the company. The former employee won a ruling that the company failed to stop his supervisors from calling him the “N-word” at the company’s Fremont factory.

    Melvin Berry won the discrimination award after a closed-door proceeding that came on the heels of “years of complaints from Black workers that Tesla turned a blind eye to the commonplace use of racial slurs on the assembly line,” Bloomberg wrote at the time. 

    Similarly, it was also alleged that the company was slow to remove graffiti containing hate symbols.

    Berry was hired by Tesla in 2015 and quit within 18 months. He claimed that when he confronted a supervisor about being called the “N-word” he was forced to work longer hours and “push a heavier cart”.

    Diaz commented on the verdict, stating: “I’m really happy to be able to shine a light on what happened. I want it to be less about me and more about what’s going on at Tesla. It’s like they saw right through the smoke and mirrors. They were courageous in saying ‘enough’ to this billion-dollar company and say, ‘This is not acceptable.”’

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/07/2021 – 17:25

  • De Blasio Misused Public Resources For Family's Benefit: Report
    De Blasio Misused Public Resources For Family’s Benefit: Report

    New York Mayor Bill de Blasio misused public resources for his own political and personal benefit – and has not reimbursed the city for security costs related to his presidential campaign, according to the New York Times, citing a city investigation released on Thursday.

    Among other things, de Blasio deployed his security detail to move his activist daughter to Gracie Mansion, while the city spent nearly $320,000 for members of his security detail to travel during his presidential campaign trips in 2019.

    According to the Times:

    The report painted a deeply unflattering portrait of Mr. de Blasio’s reliance on his security detail — behavior that a top investigator said amounted to the mayor having his own personal “concierge service” to shuttle around relatives and staffers.

    It found that the use of a police van and personnel to help move Mr. de Blasio’s daughter was “a misuse of N.Y.P.D. resources for a personal benefit,” and that Howard Redmond, the police inspector in charge of the family’s security detail, had “actively obstructed and sought to thwart this investigation.”

    At a news conference, Margaret Garnett, the commissioner of the investigation department, said that Mr. Redmond had deleted communications and that he had tried to destroy his cellphone after he was told to surrender it. She said that she had referred Mr. Redmond’s conduct to the Manhattan district attorney’s office for a criminal investigation into obstruction of justice.

    De Blaso, who has just three months left in office as he mulls a run for New York governor, has faced multiple investigations into his fundraising practices during his time in office – including a 2017 incident in which prosecutors raised questions but ultimately declined to bring criminal charges.

    The mayor pushed back on Thursday, criticizing the findings as “naïve” and blaming advice he had received about using the detail.

    “I’m honored to be the mayor of this city, but my first responsibility is as a father and a husband,” he said, adding “And so I think of the safety of my family all the time.”

    Just not on his own dime, apparently.

    According to the report, de Blasio’s misuse of his security detail during his failed presidential campaign in 2019 ran the city nearly $320,000 – which includes hotels, meals, rental cars and flights for members of the detail – who accompanied de Blasio on multiple campaign stops.

    “Government resources should be used for government business,” said Betsy Gotbaum, the executive director of Citizens Union, a good-government group, adding “The mayor should reimburse these funds immediately.”

    More:

    The report also cited several occasions where the mayor’s detail was used to pick up his brother from the airport, and to drive him to pick up a Zipcar in Palmyra, N.J. The detail also drove Mr. de Blasio’s brother “to an Alamo rental car location without the mayor present.”

    Asked if Mr. de Blasio was using his security detail as “glorified Uber drivers,” Ms. Garnett said there was a culture of treating the officers like they were City Hall staffers and a “concierge service.”

    The report made recommendations to prevent the misuse of the mayor’s security detail in the future. One was for the Conflicts of Interest Board to publicly release advice for elected officials about the use of city resources in connection with political activities. -NYT

    In addition, de Blasio’s security detail was used to drive his son, Dante, between NYC and Yale University in Connecticut – with one detective recalling that it happened “approximately seven or eight times without the mayor or first lady present.”

    After Dante graduated, he continued to benefit from his father’s taxpayer-funded security detail, as well as rides from the police every weekday morning from Gracie Mansion to his workplace in Brooklyn.

    De Blasio’s office also hit back – citing several examples of threats his children faced, yet failing to explain why that should fall on the shoulders of New York taxpayers.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/07/2021 – 17:11

  • Afghan Gun Shop Bonanza: US-Supplied Weapons Including .50 Cals Being Sold To Public
    Afghan Gun Shop Bonanza: US-Supplied Weapons Including .50 Cals Being Sold To Public

    Since the botched US evacuation and withdrawal at the end of August, Afghanistan seems to have become one big gun bizarre where individuals with enough cash can purchase an array of American-supplied weapons and advanced equipment from right off the streets – no questions asked.

    A New York Times report has found not only small arms like pistols and military assault rifles are showing up in gun shops around major cities like Kabul and Kandahar, but two-way radios and even grenades and night vision goggles along with ample ammunition. The American military items were “originally provided to the Afghan security forces under a U.S. training and assistance program that cost American taxpayers more than $83 billion through two decades of war,” the report emphasizes.

    Illustrative image via Al Jazeera

    The NY Times report noted that American M4 carbines are going for about $4,000, and at least $1,200 for Beretta M9 handguns, with other NATO-supplied handguns common among Afghan police forces going for about $350. Many of these had been acquired by local gun dealers as the Taliban was gobbling up territory during the rapid US draw down. Desperate Afghan soldiers who hadn’t been paid would gain far more than a month’s salary by essentially pawning their weapons to local dealers.

    Russian-made rocket-propelled grenade launchers are also popping up in local gun shops, for about $1,100, and Kalashnikov rifles – perhaps already long ubiquitous in the region – going for an average of $900.

    One shop owner in the southern city of Kandahar told the Times: “American-made weapons are in great demand, as they work very well and people know how to use them.” Another dealer said: 

    “We used to work as a mobile team,” he said. “We would meet many government soldiers and officers to buy weapons from them. After that we would take those weapons to the Taliban and sell it to them, or to anyone who would give us a good price.”

    Pistols, hand grenades, and ammunition for sale in Kandahar province. AFP/Getty Images

    Further the Times report details that “A third gun merchant in Kandahar, who asked not to be identified because the Taliban had warned him not to speak to the news media, said dealers had sold weapons as large as anti-aircraft guns to the Taliban this summer.” 

    “Now, he said, he sold American-made M4s and .50-caliber machine guns, as well as weapons manufactured by other nations, including rocket launchers and Kalashnikov assault rifles,” she shop keeper added.

    Interestingly, the Taliban is trying to claim that it has imposed a strict accounting system for US weapons seized after the American troop exit, with a spokesman cited in the report as commenting on whether the weapons were being sold on the streets to the public: “I totally deny this; our fighters cannot be that careless.” He added dubiously: “Even a single person cannot sell a bullet in the market or smuggle it.”

    The Taliban official claimed they “are all listed, verified and are all saved and secure under the Islamic Emirate for the future army.” But the Times investigative team verified that significant amounts of American weapons were being sold openly in shops, and that dealers have continued to receive new merchandise in waves.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/07/2021 – 17:00

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Oct 07

Today’s News 7th October 2021

  • German Parking Garage Unveils Dedicated Spaces For LGBTQ And Migrant Drivers
    German Parking Garage Unveils Dedicated Spaces For LGBTQ And Migrant Drivers

    Today in “our obsession with inclusiveness is once again leading us back to segregating people” news, a car park in Germany is unveiling dedicated parking spaces for LGBTQ and migrant drivers.

    The three “diversity” parking spaces were put up in an underground car park in Hanau city centre, according to the Daily Mail.

    Hanau is considered a city of diversity already, the report noted. Hanau’s population was “already ethnically diverse” before the 2015 migrant crisis. 

    The aim of the spots was to “help people who feel a special need for protection,” according to Thomas Morlock, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the lot.

    Morlock told the Daily Mail the spaces were built to set a “conspicuously colourful symbol for diversity and tolerance”.

    He said they “are not necessarily meant” to be used by a “seperate group of people”.

    And of course, as the Daily Mail puts it, the kicker:

    “It is not immediately clear how the authorities intend to monitor whether people who park in the spaces are in fact part of the LGBTQ community or migrants…”

    Keep up the great work, Herr Morlock. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/07/2021 – 02:45

  • France & The Fraying Of NATO
    France & The Fraying Of NATO

    Authored by Gary Leupp via Counterpunch.org,

    Biden has infuriated France by arranging the agreement to provide nuclear-powered submarines to Australia. This replaces a contract to purchase a fleet of diesel-powered subs from France. Australia will have to pay penalties for breach of contract but the French capitalists will lose around 70 billion dollars. The perceived perfidy of both Canberra and Washington has caused Paris to compare Biden to Trump. The UK is third partner in the agreement so expect post-Brexit Franco-British relations to deteriorate further.

    This is all good, in my opinion!

    It’s also a good thing that Biden’s withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan was poorly orchestrated with the lingering “coalition partners” such as Britain, French and Germany, producing angry criticism. It’s great that the British prime minister proposed to France a “Coalition of the Willing” to continue the fight in Afghanistan following the U.S. withdrawal—and better that it was dead in the water. (Maybe the French better than the Brits remember the Suez Crisis of 1956, the disastrous joint Anglo-French-Israeli effort to reimpose imperialist control over the canal. Not only did it lack U.S. participation; Eisenhower rationally shut it down after warnings from the Egyptians’ Soviet advisors.) It’s good that these three countries heeded the U.S. command to uphold their NATO promise to stand with the U.S. when attacked; that they lost over 600 troops in a fruitless effort; and that in the end the U.S. didn’t see fit to even involve them in the end plans. It’s good to wake up to the fact that the U.S. imperialists could care less about their input or their lives. but only demand their obedience and sacrifice.

    It’s wonderful that Germany, despite obnoxious U.S. opposition, has maintained its involvement in the Nordstream II natural gas pipeline project along with Russia. The last three U.S. administrations have opposed the pipeline, claiming it weakens the NATO alliance and helps Russia (and urging purchase of more expensive U.S. energy sources instead—to enhance mutual security, don’t you see). The Cold War arguments have fallen on deaf ears. The pipeline was completed last month. Good for global free trade and for national sovereignty, and a significant European blow to U.S. hegemony.

    It’s great that Trump in Aug. 2019 raised the ridiculous prospect of purchasing Greenland from Denmark, indifferent to the fact that Greenland is a self-governing entity, within the Kingdom of Denmark. (It is 90% Inuit, and led by political parties pressing for greater independence.) It’s marvelous that when the Danish prime minister gently, with good humor, refused his ignorant, insulting and racist proposal, he exploded in rage and cancelled his state visit including state dinner with the queen. He offended not only the Danish state but popular opinion throughout Europe with his boorishness and colonial arrogance. Excellent.

    Trump personally, needlessly insulted the prime minister of Canada and the chancellor of Germany with the same childish language he’d used against political opponents. He raised questions in Europeans’ and Canadians’ minds about the value of an alliance with such vileness. That was a major historical contribution.

    Good also that, in Libya in 2011, Hillary Clinton working with the French and British leaders secured UN approval for a NATO mission to protect civilians in Libya. And that, when the U.S.-led mission exceeded the UN resolution and waged full-out war to topple the Libyan leader, enraging China and Russia who called out the lie, some NATO nations declined to participate or turned back in disgust. Another U.S. imperialist war based on lies creating disorder and flooding Europe with refugees.

    It was good only in the fact that it exposed once again the utter moral bankruptcy of the U.S.A. so widely now associated with images of Abu Ghraib, Bagram, and Guantanamo. All in the name of NATO.

    *  *  *

    Over the last two decades, with the Soviet Union and “communist threat” receding memories, the U.S. has systematically expanded this anti-Soviet, anti-communist postwar alliance called NATO to surround Russia. Any unprejudiced person looking at a map can understand Russia’s concern. Russia spends about a fifth of what the U.S. and NATO spend on military expenses. Russia is not a military threat to Europe or North America. So—the Russians have been asking since 1999, when Bill Clinton broke his predecessor’s promise to Gorbachev and resumed NATO expansion by adding Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia—why do you keep trying to expend to surround us?

    Meanwhile more and more Europeans are doubting the leadership of the United States. That means doubting the purpose and value of NATO. Formed to confront an imaginary Soviet invasion of “western” Europe, it was never deployed in war during the Cold War. Its first war indeed was the Clintons’ war on Serbia in 1999. This conflict, which severed the Serbian historical heartland from Serbia to create the new (dysfunctional) state of Kosovo, has since been repudiated by participants Spain and Greece who note that the UN resolution authorizing a “humanitarian” mission in Serbia explicitly stated that the Serbian state remain undivided. Meantime (after the bogus “Rambouillet agreement” was signed) the French foreign minister complained that the U.S. was acting like a hyper-pouissance (“hyperpower” as opposed to mere superpower).

    The future of NATO lies with the U.S., Germany, France and the UK. The last three were long members of the EU, which while a rival trading bloc generally coordinated policies with NATO. NATO has overlapped the EU such that virtually all of the countries admitted to the military alliance since 1989 have first joined NATO, then the EU. And within the EU—which is after all, a trading bloc that competes with North America—the UK long served as a kind of U.S. surrogate urging cooperation with Russian trade boycotts, etc. Now the U.K. has split from the EU, unavailable to, say, pressure Germany to avoid deals with the Russians Washington opposes. Good!

    Germany has a number of reasons to want to increase trade with Russia and has now shown the will to stand up to the U.S. Germany and France both challenged George W. Bush’s Iraq war based on lies. We should not forget how Bush (promoted lately as a statesman by the Democrats!) rivaled his successor Trump as a vulgar, lying buffoon. And if Obama seemed a hero in contrast, his magnetism ebbed as Europeans learned that they were all being monitored by the National Security Agency, and that the calls of Angela Merkel and the Pope were bugged. This was the land of freedom and democracy, always boasting about liberating Europe from the Nazis and expecting eternal payoff in the form of bases and political deference.

    It has been 76 years since the fall of Berlin (to the Soviets, as you know, not to the U.S.);

    72 since the founding of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO);

    32 since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the promise by George W. H. Bush to Gorbachev NOT to expand NATO further;

    22 since the resumption of NATO expansion;

    22 since the U.S.-NATO war on Serbia including the aerial bombing of Belgrade;

    20 since NATO went to war at U.S. behest in Afghanistan, resulting in ruin and failure;

    13 years since the U.S. recognized Kosovo as an independent country, and NATO announced the near-term admission of Ukraine and Georgia, resulting in the brief Russo-Georgia War and Russian recognition of the states of South Ossetia and Abkhazia;

    10 years since the grotesque NATO mission to destroy and sew chaos in Libya, producing more terror throughout the Sahel and tribal and ethnic violence in the crumbling country, and producing more waves of refugees;

    7 since the bold, bloody U.S.-backed putsch in Ukraine that placed a pro-NATO party in power, provoking the ongoing rebellion among ethnic Russians in the east and obliging Moscow to re-annex the Crimean Peninsula, inviting unprecedented ongoing U.S. sanctions and U.S. pressure on allies to comply;

    5 since a malignant narcissist moron won the U.S. presidency and soon alienated allies by his pronouncements, insults, evident ignorance, a belligerent approach, raising questions in a billion minds about the mental stability and judgment of the voters of this country;

    1 year since a career warmonger who has long vowed to expand and strengthen NATO, who became the Obama administration’s point man on Ukraine after the 2014 coup, his mission being to clean up corruption to prepare Ukraine for NATO membership (and who is the father of Hunter Biden who famously sat on the board of Ukraine’s leading gas company 2014-2017 making millions for no apparent reason or work done) became president.

    1 year since the world saw repeatedly on TV the 9 minute video of an open, public police lynching on the streets of Minneapolis, surely many among the views wondering what right this racist nation has to lecture China or anyone on human rights.

    9 months since the U.S. capitol was stormed by U.S. brown shirts brandishing Confederate flags and fascist symbols and calling for the hanging of Trump’s vice president for treason.

    It is a long record of terrifying Europe with seemingly unstable leaders (Bush no less than Trump); harassing Europe with demands it minimizes trade with Russia and China and obey U.S. rules on Iran, and demanding participation in its imperialist wars far from the North Atlantic to Central Asia and Northern Africa.

    It is also a record of provoking Russia while expanding the anti-Russian juggernaut. It has meant actually using NATO militarily (as in Serbia, Afghanistan, and Libya) to cement the military alliance under U.S. direction, the stationing of 4000 U.S. troops in Poland, and threatening flights in the Baltic. Meanwhile, multiple U.S. agencies work overtime to plot “color revolutions” in the counties bordering Russia: Belarus, Georgia, Ukraine.

    NATO is dangerous and evil. It should be terminated. Opinion polls in Europe suggest a rise in NATO skepticism (good in itself) and opposition (better). It was already split seriously once: in 2002-2003 over the Iraq War. Indeed the manifest criminality of the Iraq War, the obvious willingness of the Americans to use disinformation, and the buffoonic personality of the U.S. president probably shocked Europe as much as the beastly Trump.

    The amusing thing is that Biden and Blinken, Sullivan and Austin, all seem to think none of this happened. They really seem to think that the world respects the United States as the (natural?) leader of something called the Free World —of nations committed to “democracy.” Blinken tells us and Europeans we’re confronting, “autocracy” in the form of China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela all threatening us and our values. They seem think they can return to the 1950s, explain their moves as reflections of “American Exceptionalism,” posture as champions of “human rights,” cloak their interventions as “humanitarian missions,” and arm-twist their client-states into joint action. At present NATO is being pushed by Biden to identify (as it did in its last communique) the PRC as a “security threat” to Europe.

    But the reference to China was controversial. And NATO is divided on the matter of China. Some states do not see much of a threat and have every reason to expand ties with China, especially with the advent of the Belt and Road projects. They know that China’s GDP will soon exceed that of the U.S. and that the U.S. is not the economic superpower it was after the war when it established its hegemony over most of Europe. It has lost much of its basic strength but, like the Spanish Empire in the eighteenth century, none of its arrogance and brutality.

    Even after all the exposure. Even after all the shame. Biden flashing his trained smile announces “America is back!” expecting the world—especially “our allies”—to delight in the resumption of normalcy. But Biden should recall the stony silence that met Pence’s announcement at the Munich Security Conference in February 2019 when he conveyed Trump’s greetings. Do not these U.S. leaders not realize that in this century Europe’s GDP has come to match the U.S.’s? And that few people believe that the U.S. “saved” Europe from the Nazis, and then staved off the Soviet Communists, and revived Europe with the Marshall Plan, and continues to this day to protect Europe from the Russia that threatens to march west at any moment?

    Blinken wants to pick up and move on and lead the world forward. Back to normal! Sound, reliable U.S.leadership is back!

    Oh really? the French might ask. Stabbing a NATO ally in the back, sabotaging a signed $66 billion deal with far-off Australia? “Doing,” as the French foreign minister put it, “something Mr. Trump would do”? Not only France but the EU has denounced the U.S.-Australia deal. Some NATO members question how the Atlantic Alliance is served by a business dispute between members that pertains to what the Pentagon calls the “Indo-Pacific” region. And why—when the U.S. is attempting to secure NATO’s participation in a strategy of containing and provoking Beijing—it is not bothering to coordinate with France?

    Is Blinken unaware that France is an imperialist country with vast holdings in the Pacific? Does he know about the French naval facilities at Papeete, Tahiti, or the army, navy and air force bases in New Caledonia? The French conducted their nuclear blasts at Mururora, for god’s sake. As an imperialist country, does not France have the same right as the U.S. to gang up on China with Australia, in France’s corner of the Pacific? And if its close ally the U.S. decides to undermine the deal, should not etiquette have dictated that it at least inform its “oldest ally” about its intentions?

    The French condemnation of the submarines deal has been unprecedentedly sharp, in part, I imagine, due to the implicit disparagement of France as a great power. If the U.S. is urging its allies to join with it in confronting China, why does it not consult with France about an arms deal designed to do that, especially when it supplants one already openly negotiated by a NATO ally? Isn’t it clear that Biden’s appeals for “alliance unity” mean uniting, behind U.S. leadership around preparations for war on China?

    Gradually NATO is fraying. Again, this is a very good thing. I had worried that Biden would quickly work to integrate Ukraine into the alliance, but Merkel seems to have told him no. Europeans don’t want to be dragged into another U.S. war, especially against their great neighbor whom they know much better than Americans and have every reason to befriend.

    France and Germany, who (recall) opposed the U.S. war-based-on-lies on Iraq in 2003, are finally losing patience with the alliance and wondering what membership means other than joining with the U.S. in its quarrels with Russia and China.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/07/2021 – 02:00

  • Ivermectin – Truth & Totalitarianism
    Ivermectin – Truth & Totalitarianism

    Authored by Justus R. Hope via TheDesertReview.com,

    Calling out the lie

    “Merck stock surged 10% Friday after it said its investigational pill cuts the risk of hospitalization and death in COVID-19 patients…The pill reduced the risk of hospitalization or death by about 50%,” Merck and its partner, Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, said in a statement Friday.

    “This is a phenomenal result. This is a profound game-changer to have an oral pill that had this kind of effect, this magnitude of effect in patients who are at high risk who are already symptomatic,” former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Friday on CNBC about results of the interim analysis.

    “Meanwhile, shares of COVID vaccine makers Pfizer and Moderna fell 2.5% and 10%, respectively.”

    This puts Dr. Scott Gottlieb between a rock and a hard place.

    On the one hand, as a member of Pfizer’s Board of Directors, he is paid handsomely to attend a few board meetings per year, yet on the other hand, he must not be too glowing in his praise of the antiviral, which might lead people away from the Pfizer vaccine. Moreover, it could affect sales just as it has already dropped the stock price.

    In 2020, Gottlieb was paid $338,587 by Pfizer. In 2020, he also earned $525,850 as a director of Illumina. Due to his former FDA Chief status, Gottlieb is in high demand as one word of favor from him can send a stock price soaring.

    He has served on multiple other boards, including Tempus Labs, National Resilience, and the Mount Sinai Health System. It must be a daunting task to walk the line by promoting one corporate interest while not offending any of the others.

    But the good news is that soon, Pfizer, too, will be peddling their antiviral drug, which should make up for any drop in their vaccine sales.

    “Pfizer is testing whether its pill—PF-07321332—can prevent infection in people exposed to the virus or benefit patients who have not been hospitalized with COVID-19.”

    Roche and Atea are not far behind with their antiviral pills, and soon all of Big Pharma can get in on the action. They have timed it perfectly.

    While shutting down any competition from repurposed drugs like HCQ or Ivermectin, they deftly rolled out the vaccines first, making sure not to confuse the consumer with antiviral pills that would only be allowed AFTER the majority of the population had been vaccinated. 

    The one glitch is that Merck’s Molnupiravir only surfaced AFTER a prominent scandal involving Merck lying three times.

    Just as Peter would disown Christ three times before the cry of the rooster, Merck would turn their back on their creation with three lies about Ivermectin before they would accept the payoff from the United States government.

    On February 4, 2021, Merck, the corporation behind the monumental Mectizan Program, which rescued the world from River Blindness, told three untruths about Ivermectin.

    Lie #1: No scientific basis for a potential therapeutic effect against COVID-19 from preclinical studies;

    FALSE:  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166354220302011

    Lie #2: No meaningful evidence for clinical activity or clinical efficacy in patients with COVID-19 disease.

    FALSE: https://covid19criticalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/FLCCC-Alliance-Response-to-the-NIH-Guideline-Committee-Recommendation-on-Ivermectin-use-in-COVID19-2021-01-18.pdf

    https://covid19criticalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/One-Page-Summary-of-the-Clinical-Trials-Evidence-for-Ivermectin-in-COVID-19.pdf

    Lie #3: A concerning lack of safety data in the majority of studies.

    FALSE: https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/36858/pdf/

    However, the Monash preclinical study disproved the first statement showing a massive 99.98% reduction in viral load with a single Ivermectin treatment in cell culture.

    The second statement is disproved by the FLCCC’s Public Statement issued January 18, 2021, that reports colossal evidence for Ivermectin’s clinical activity and efficacy against COVID-19 in clinical settings:

    a. Large reductions in mortality rates;

    b. Shorter durations of hospital stay;

    c. Profound reductions in the infectivity rate in both pre- and post-exposure prophylaxis studies;

    d. Faster times to clinical recovery;

    e. Faster times to viral clearance.

    Finally, the third statement concerning “lack of safety data” contradicts the published WHO safety data. In 3.7 billion doses of Ivermectin given over four decades, Ivermectin has proven exceedingly safe.

    Moreover, more than anyone, Merck is in the position to know Ivermectin’s true safety profile as they provided those billions of doses for the Mectizan Donation program.

    However, lying was required, and the payoff came on Wednesday, June 9, 2021, when Merck got a fat reward. They announced the US government had agreed to pay $1.2 billion for 1.7 million doses of their new antiviral, Molnupiravir, BEFORE clinical testing showed either effectiveness or safety. Our hard-earned tax dollars were irresponsibly handed over to Merck by an agency charged with a fiduciary duty to protect our health.

    So in the end, Scott Gottlieb did not endanger Pfizer’s bottom line. Just as Moderna was choreographed to go first in the vaccine rollout, Merck was first with the antiviral, and Pfizer first with the booster. They would take turns as there was more than enough profit to go around. Soon it would be Pfizer’s turn at the antiviral trough, but they had to be patient for now. There was an order and method to this.

    But the craftiest strategy of all was Merck’s: Accuse the other side of that which you are guilty.

    This quote has been variously attributed to Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister. Regardless of its source, it has proven remarkably effective as a propaganda tactic throughout modern history, and Merck was betting on this to sell the public on Molnupirivar. However, the move backfired. In the case of Ivermectin, they falsely argued that it was ineffective and unsafe while their own drug suffered from both.

    For example, one could argue, “There is a concerning lack of safety data” regarding Molnupirivar. Indeed, it does not have decades of safety data like Ivermectin; it does not even have years. The little safety data pertains to a dearth of Phase II and Phase III clinical trials, which total less than a few thousand patients.

    While Ivermectin’s safety data with over 40 years of treatment in over 3.7 billion doses is truly robust, Molnupiravir’s safety numbers are barely rudimentary. In short, Molnupiravir’s safety data is concerning because of its lack. 

    Of more concern is a recent study showing the alarming potential of Molnupiravir’s metabolite, NHC, to induce mutations. In a peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, the author writes, “The mutagenic effect of NHC has been shown in animal cell cultures, raising concerns on the potential risk of molnupiravir-induced tumorigenesis and the emergence of detrimental mutations in sperm precursor cell generation and embryo development.”

    I don’t know about you, but that would be enough for most of my patients to decide against this drug. With all due respect to Dr. Gottlieb, if the choice were between a drug with a 40-year safety profile of excellence versus a new experimental one that could introduce mutations into germ cells, it would be a no brainer.

    As if this were not enough, another group of researchers at the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center associated with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are also concerned. 

    They write, “The concern would be that mutations in host DNA could contribute to the development of cancer or cause birth defects either in a developing fetus of through incorporation into sperm precursor cells.” 

    This may be the best time to mention that cheap, repurposed drugs, all FDA approved as safe for other conditions, are one of the best ways to address terminal cancers. They have well-defined and often long-term safety profiles, and cocktails of such old drugs hold great promise as adjuncts in cancer prevention and treatment. Moreover, unlike experimental new medicines with little safety testing, repurposed drugs will not give you cancer.

    As for meaningful clinical activity or efficacy in patients with COVID-19, there are also concerns with Molnupiravir. The hospital trials were stopped early. Where is the data for inpatients? Where is the data for patients on ventilators? Where is the evidence for pre-exposure prophylaxis? 

    The limited trials that have been performed only suggest a correlation between Molnupiravir use and a lower rate of hospitalization and fewer deaths based on low numbers of patients. But the evidence is lacking on safety, prevention of disease, and treatment of late disease. This is where the evidence on Ivermectin is overwhelming.

    However, the evidence of effectiveness for Molnupiravir is sketchy at best.

    Moreover, on the use of Molnupiravir in mild and moderate disease, we have one study – only partially completed – showing 7.3% death OR hospitalization in the drug group versus 14.1% of those receiving placebo. The fact that deaths were combined with hospitalizations does not mean that 48% fewer in the treatment group died. It means the sum of deaths and hospitalizations was 48% lower in the treatment group.

    Moreover, the study only involved 775 patients. This is far too few on which to base an approval. Right? Isn’t that what we have been told regarding Ivermectin? After all, we now have over 32 randomized controlled trials of Ivermectin in COVID, reflecting a 58% improvement in the Ivermectin groups compared to placebo. Thus, we have 65 clinical trials in total involving 655 scientists and 47,717 patients. We have been told this is insufficient evidence, so the Merck data on 775 patients cannot possibly be enough if we use the same standard.

    With Ivermectin, we see an average of 86% improvement in 14 prophylaxis studies, a 66% improvement in 29 early treatment trials, a 40% improvement in 22 late treatment trials, a 57% improvement in the 26 mortality trials. This data has been updated to October 1, 2021.

    c19ivermectin.com 

    So, even assuming Molnupiravir effectively reduces death PLUS hospitalization by 48%, we still do not know how reliable this figure will be when looking only at death. Ivermectin’s reduction in death in mild to moderate COVID-19 surpasses this number. 

    Assuming more studies confirm Molnupiravir’s lesser effect at reducing mortality in mild to moderate disease, we are still left with uncomfortable questions about its safety. However, Ivermectin’s excellent long term safety profile is solid, and this alone will lead many to choose Ivermectin OVER Molnupirivar, especially when factoring in the possibilities of mutagenesis and gene toxicity.

    The price of around $700 per course of treatment which involves ten pills, makes it vastly more expensive than Ivermectin, which might be fine if it were considerably more effective. But it isn’t, it is less effective, and it is potentially MUCH more dangerous. The fact the choice is being “forced” does not make it more appealing.

    Perhaps the most distasteful dimension is that the drug was developed through deceit and propaganda under Merck’s scandal with Ivermectin.  

    It is part of an overall mandated program that robs people of their God-given liberty to choose their own medical treatment. 

    The mandates have been fraught with division among leading scientists, including Dr. Robert Malone. Dr. Robert Malone discovered in-vitro and in-vivo RNA transfection and invented mRNA vaccines while he was at the Salk Institute in 1988. He helped draft “The Physicians Declaration,” which was announced at the Global COVID Summit held in Rome, Italy.

    The Physician’s Declaration is not unlike the US Declaration of Independence, as both documents enumerate a series of injustices that create the need for a Declaration.

    In the case of the US Declaration of Independence, those injustices included taxation without representation, not providing fair hearings or trials – the lack of due process – and “exciting domestic insurrections amongst us.” 

    In the case of the Rome Physician’s Declaration, these injustices include public policymakers who have forced a “one size fits all treatment strategy” to the Pandemic resulting in “needless illness and death.” In addition, physicians have been subject to censorship of ideas, barriers from pharmacies, threats of censure, and loss of license for upholding their Hippocratic Oath to do no harm.

    Censorship of  Senate testimony of Harvard and Yale-educated physicians by YouTube at the behest of government agencies should not be tolerated in a democratic society.

    When the WHO and CDC degenerate into captured agencies that no longer serve the medical interests of the people, something needs to change.

    The United States declared itself free from oppression from England in 1776 with the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

    As of today’s date, some 10,000 physicians and health scientists have also signed the modern Physician Declaration and accused the public health agencies of “crimes against humanity.”

    Physicians have declared through this document that they “must be free to practice the art and science of medicine without fear of retribution, censorship, slander, or disciplinary action” and that physicians shall not be restricted from prescribing safe and effective treatments.  A fully informed patient should have the right to choose or decline medical treatment. This absolute right MUST be restored.

    Taking a stand for truth is what is essential now. Over the last 18 months, Americans, indeed citizens of the developed world spanning from the United Kingdom to Australia, have been fed a steady diet of propaganda by  Big Pharma and Big Regulators being aided and abetted by complicit governments, media, and Big Tech.

    These corrupt organizers seem to be driven by a desire for money, power, and control. Most citizens are either willing participants or are those who feel powerless to object. Most physicians who are part of organized medicine dare not speak out for fear of consequences. The NIH influences most of the world’s medical research through the strategic use of its nearly $50 billion annual budget. As a result, it can affect most medical societies, medical journals, most research, and thus it can and does control the way data is analyzed. 

    The top medical journals have even published fraudulent studies to discredit unprofitable repurposed drugs.

    These same medical journals have appointed questionable figures to investigate the origins of COVID-19, those with ties to coverups, and those who are likely to maintain the coverup.

    From the AMA to the FDA to the New England Journal to the Lancet, the NIH controls organized medicine around the globe. But it cannot do so alone, especially abroad, which is why the WHO also figures prominently.

    The WHO budget is about 10% of the NIH at $5.8 billion. 

    The Gates Foundation contributes roughly 10% of the WHO budget. Thus both Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the NIAID – an arm of the NIH, and Bill Gates, vaccine proponent of the world, play significant roles.

    All those physicians who signed Dr. Malone’s Physician Declaration are genuinely courageous, just as were Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and John Hancock, those men of courage who signed the US Declaration of Independence. 

    And, whether or not most recognize it, we, the citizens of the United States, those of Australia, and the United Kingdom, are living in an increasingly totalitarian world, run by Big Pharma, Big Regulators, and Big Tech where the politicians and governments are secondary.

    This concept is very similar to the “soft totalitarianism” described in the book Live Not by Lies by Rod Dreher. In a thoughtful review, Abe Greenwald notes, “Lies are the lifeblood of totalitarianism; to resist, therefore, is to hold fast to the truth.”

    Our world’s current soft totalitarianism goes unrecognized by most because it is so different in appearance from that of the Soviet Union, yet it is every bit as deadly. In quoting Dreher, totalitarian society is defined by, “An ideology (that) seeks to displace all prior traditions and institutions with the goal of bringing all aspects of society under control of that ideology…A totalitarian state is one that aspires to nothing less than defining and controlling reality.” 

    In this Pandemic, those who do not conform to lockdowns, mask wear, or vaccination protocols are vilified, regardless of the science. As Greenwald observes, our totalitarianism is couched in the guise of “helping and healing others.” We live in a totalitarian “therapeutic culture.” Those who do not conform are branded as “the enemy (of the state).”

    Dreher writes, “It masks its hatred of dissenters from its utopian ideology of helping and healing…In therapeutic culture, which has everywhere triumphed, the great sin is to stand in the way of the freedom of others to find happiness as they wish.”

    As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn often said, the antidote to totalitarianism has always been exposing the truth and then living in truth. It is what is essential now. Just as evil hates the light, lies hate the truth.  

    Dreher correctly observes that living in truth requires courage to stand up for what is right. For example, he offers this quote from a Slovakian dissident:

     “The question is, which is going to win: fear or courage?” he says. “In the beginning, it was mostly a matter of fear. But once you started experiencing freedom—and you felt it, you felt freedom through the things you did— your courage grew. We experienced all this together. We helped one another to gradually build up the courage to do bigger things, like join the Candle Demonstration.” 

    Fear is now falling while courage is rising. The word is slowly getting out through alternative media. Doctors are organizing resistance groups. Whereas six months ago, few patients had heard about Ivermectin, today most know about it, and many take it. 

    There is a reason that so many health care professionals are speaking out against the mandates, and it may have something to do with the fact healthcare is their field. For example, if airline pilots, experts in their field, refused to fly on a specific model of 747 aircraft, would an average person wish to know why, or would they blindly jump on that plane – because the FAA declared it safe? Help get the truth out.

    To patients everywhere, to all those whose voices have been silenced during this Pandemic, I advise the courage to live in the truth, share this message with others, and never yield to fear by remaining silent. Please share this article with your physician(s), share the link below, and ask them to sign the Physician’s Declaration. We are at 10,000 signatures now. When I started a petition on www.change.org this spring, it was taken down by the censors. However, this declaration cannot be taken down.

    Let us reach at least a million signatures. Then, when the signature box is opened for signing by the general public, please sign as well.

    I now invite all physicians and medical scientists to join in truth with Dr. Malone, Dr. Fareed, Dr. McCullough, Dr. Tyson, and Dr. Kory and sign the Rome Physician’s Declaration here. Let us stand for truth, freedom, and Human Rights, which shall always prevail over totalitarianism. Let us honor our sacred Hippocratic Oath.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/07/2021 – 00:10

  • US Stealth Jets Become First Fighters To Fly From Japanese Ship Since WWII
    US Stealth Jets Become First Fighters To Fly From Japanese Ship Since WWII

    In yet another move signaling the deepening US-Japan military relationship, two US stealth fighters practiced taking off and landing on Japan’s largest warship, the JS Izumo. The flights happened Sunday, with Japan’s Ministry of Defense releasing photos and video of the event early this week, hyping the major advance in its Maritime Self-Defense Force’s operations.

    Crucially it marked the first time since World War II that fixed-wing aircraft operated from a Japanese warship. Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger was earlier quoted as saying, “We’re not going to go on deployment but we’re actually going to fly U.S. Marine Corps F-35s off of a Japanese ship.”

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    Japan’s military is working on adapting 24,000-ton Izumo class helicopter carriers for fixed-wing operations. The pair of US aircraft – Marine Corps F-35B Lighting II Joint Strike Fighters – conducted successful short takeoff, vertical landings from the mid-sized carrier’s deck.

    The period of joint Japanese and Marine aircraft trials are set to continue aboard the Izumo through October 7. One aviation analysis monitoring site hailed in its headline that “Japan rejoins aircraft carrier club with USMC F-35B landing.”

    Of course, China is sure to take note given also given no less than five total navies currently engaged in warship exercises off Japan, including the US and UK:

    Two U.S. carrier strike groups drilled with the United Kingdom’s Carrier Strike Group 21 (CSG21) and a Japanese big-deck warship over the weekend in a major naval exercise in the waters off the southeast of Okinawa, Japan.

    The exercise involved six different navies – the U.S Navy, the U.K. Royal Navy, the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, the Royal Netherlands Navy, the Royal Canadian Navy and the Royal New Zealand Navy – making up a total of 17 surface ships, which included four aircraft carriers.

    JS Izumo file image

    The drills come after a tense weekend over contested skies near Taiwan, which saw China PLA jet incursions set multiple records in terms of number of aircraft breaching the self-ruled island’s defense identification zone – including 56 jets on Monday alone. 

    The Drive, meanwhile, further details Japan’s near-term carrier ambitions and cooperation with the US Marines as follows:

    After the concept of fixed-wing operations is proven aboard the Izumo, that warship will then undergo more extensive revisions to better support F-35Bs during routine operations over sustained periods. So far, the vessel has received a heat-resistant flight deck to cope with the F-35B’s scorching exhaust, as well as changes to the lighting and deck markings.

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    Amid the major joint exercises off Japan, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said to reporters on Monday, “We urge Beijing to cease its military, diplomatic, and economic pressure and coercion against Taiwan,” and added that the US will “continue to assist Taiwan in maintaining a sufficient self-defense capability.”  

    Notably, Japan has lately become more vocally and firmly in Washington’s corner of late on the Taiwan issue – also as Japan is engaged in its own small contested island dispute with China off its south – so Beijing is sure to see the latest warship and carrier exercises as aimed in its direction.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/06/2021 – 23:50

  • Colorado Hospital Set To Deny Kidney Transplant For Unvaxxed Woman
    Colorado Hospital Set To Deny Kidney Transplant For Unvaxxed Woman

    Now that vaccines are widely available and 56% of the US population is vaccinated (significantly missing President Biden’s Jul. 4 target of 70%), a little less than half of the country is unvaxxed and subjected to shocking and dehumanizing discrimination, making life very stressful. 

    Across the country, the hot-button subject entering the fall is COVID vaccination passes for restaurants and football stadiums in certain cities, counties, and or even states. This has made life painful for the unvaxxed (as planned by the administration) who can’t go to their favorite eatery or cheer on their favorite sports team.

    However, the latest discrimination story of an unvaxxed person is terrifying.

    A Colorado woman with stage 5 kidney failure is scrambling to find a new hospital because she and her donor are unvaxxed, and the hospital system has given them 30 days to get vaccinated or be taken off the transplant list. 

    UCHealth, a healthcare system headquartered in Aurora, Colorado, adopted new transplant rules requiring patients to be fully vaccinated. 

    “Here I am, willing to be a direct donor to her. It does not affect any other patient on the transplant list,” Jaimee Fougner, Leilani Lutali’s kidney donor, told Colorado-based news station CBS4. 

    (credit: Leilani Lutali and Jaimee Fougner)

    “How can I sit here and allow them to murder my friend when I’ve got a perfect kidney and can save her life?” Fougner said. 

    Lutali received a letter from UCHealth last week explaining she and Fougner had until the end of October to begin the vaccine process, or they would be removed from the transplant list. 

    “I said I’ll sign a medical waiver. I have to sign a waiver anyway for the transplant itself, releasing them from anything that could possibly go wrong,” said Lutali. “It’s surgery, it’s invasive. I sign a waiver for my life. I’m not sure why I can’t sign a waiver for the COVID shot.”

    In August, UCHealth told Lutali that being vaxxed wouldn’t be a requirement for the surgery. “At the end of August, they confirmed that there was no COVID shot needed at that time,” she said. “Fast forward to Sept. 28. That’s when I found out. Jamie learned they have this policy around the COVID shot for both for the donor and the recipient.”

    Lutali received this letter from the hospital:

    Both met at bible study almost a year ago, and for either religious reasons or too many uncertainties, they refuse to take the vaccine. 

    “It’s your choice on what treatment you have. In Leilani’s case, the choice has been taken from her. Her life has now been held hostage because of this mandate,” Fougner added.

    They’re still searching for a hospital in Colorado that will do the transplant for unvaxxed people. This is the latest in the shocking discrimination against unvaxxed people. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/06/2021 – 23:30

  • WHO Approves First Malaria Vaccine After 30 Years Of Development
    WHO Approves First Malaria Vaccine After 30 Years Of Development

    More than three decades after scientists at GlaxoSmithKline started developing it, a malaria vaccine was finally approved Wednesday by the WHO. The vaccine could help save the lives of 400,000 people who still succumb to malaria every year (more than 50% are children under 5), most in sub-Saharan Africa. The vaccine is formulated for inoculating young children as well as adults.

    Per WSJ, the WHO’s endorsement is a critical step for enabling production and the rollout of the jab, which unfortunately could take years to come into wide use across the continent of Africa.

    The malaria jab will be administered in four doses. It has already been used to inoculate more than 800K children in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi as part of a long-running pilot program.

    In a press release announcing its approval, the WHO said the jab offers “a glimmer of hope” for the Continent’s most vulnerable children and others.

    “Today’s recommendation offers a glimmer of hope for the continent which shoulders the heaviest burden of the disease and we expect many more African children to be protected from malaria and grow into healthy adults,” said WHO Regional Director for Africa Matshidiso Moeti in the release.

    Notably, the vaccine – called TS,S or Mosquirix – is the first jab to ever be deployed against a parasitic disease. The jab was designed to work against Plasmodium falciparum, the most common malaria parasite in Africa, and the deadliest.

    “This is a historic moment. The long-awaited malaria vaccine for children is a breakthrough for science, child health and malaria control,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in the press release.

    But before anybody gets too excited, WSJ points out that the vaccine was only shown to reduce severe malaria cases by 30%. Because of this, and the difficulty of distribution, it could take years to see how effective the vaccine is in the real world.

    While it typically doesn’t overwhelm hospitals, malaria has been steadily killing people by the hundreds of thousands for years.

    Yet its development and approval wasn’t considered an emergency?

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/06/2021 – 23:10

  • NYT Gives Russia-Gate CPR, WSJ Pronounces It Dead
    NYT Gives Russia-Gate CPR, WSJ Pronounces It Dead

    Authored by Ray McGovern via AntiWar.com,

    Those who may still think it was Russia that “interfered” with the 2016 election owe it to themselves to read the Sussmann indictment/charging document.

    Spoiler:

    It was the very top officials of the Clinton campaign aided by a lawyer crooked as a hound’s hind leg that interfered in 2016.

    The tricks tried by Sussmann and associates might make even GOP “strategists” like Lee Atwater and Karl Rove blush.

    One must recall that back in 2016 the Clinton campaign folks and their well-heeled coterie of attorneys were sure Mrs. Clinton would win. As the Sussmann charging document shows, there was some expectation of high-level posting in the “incoming” Clinton administration and – alas – absolutely no thought of indictment. This goes a long way to explain the brazenness of it all.

    As discredited former FBI Director James Comey put it in his apologia-sans-apology book, A Higher Loyalty, 

    “I was making decisions in an environment where Hillary Clinton was sure to be the next president …”

     Needless to say, a Clinton presidency would confer automatic immunity on key campaign miscreants and lawyers like Sussmann. Worse still for them, it appears likely that others of their breed may also find themselves criminally referred to the Department of Justice.

    High Stakes

    Were the stakes not so high, one might find it amusing how hard the Times tries to stanch the stench of that long-dead red herring about Donald Trump colluding with the Russians and blaming his victory on – inter alia – Russian “hacking”. But the stakes remain high, and too many people are still suffering from Mad-Maddow/Trump Derangement Syndrome, with the attendant dangers of adding to the current high tension with nuclear-armed Russia.

    In Friday’s article, Times authors Charlie Savage and Adam Goldman bend over backwards in an attempt to “make the worse case the better.”

    Socrates was accused (falsely) of precisely that, but there is no sign yet that anyone at the Times is about to take the hemlock.

    In contrast, The NY Times pettifoggery is absent from today’s Wall Street Journal authoritative piece by the Journal’s Editorial Board, titled “Durham Cracks the Russia Case.”

    Referring to the Sussmann indictment, the Journal editors write:

    “This is no ho-hum case of deception. The special counsel’s 27-page indictment is full of new, and damning, details that underscore how the Russian collusion tale was concocted and peddled by the Clinton campaign. …

    “Sussmann is accused of making false statements to then-FBI general counsel James Baker in a Sept. 19, 2016 meeting when he presented documents purporting to show secret internet communications between the Trump Organization and Russia-based Alfa Bank.

    “The indictment adds new details about the sweeping nature of the Clinton campaign’s effort to falsely tag Donald Trump as in bed with the Russians. The document alleges this extended far beyond the opportunity-research firm Fusion GPS and the fake “dossier” produced by Christopher Steele – though both played a role in the broader effort.”

    “Campaign Lawyer-1” mentioned in the indictment has been identified as former Perkins Coie lawyer/Clinton campaign general counsel, Marc Elias. The indictment makes clear that Elias brought up to date Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook, communications director Jennifer Palmieri and foreign policy adviser (now Biden’s national security adviser) Jake Sullivan a few days before Sussmann is said to have lied to the FBI. The latest news is that more indictments may be in the offing.

    This week came additional information suggesting that Durham has still more up his sleeve. A new set of subpoenas is reported to have been served on Perkins Coie after Sussmann was charged.

    So it seems possible – just possible – that special counsel John Durham may be allowed to proceed to full-scale prosecution – this time. His record, however, counsels caution. He had the goods on CIA torturers, for example, and sneaked meekly off when he was told to stop. And so it goes.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/06/2021 – 22:50

  • Hollywood Stagehands Vote Overwhelmingly For Authorization To Strike
    Hollywood Stagehands Vote Overwhelmingly For Authorization To Strike

    Members of Hollywood’s International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees have authorized its union to strike over the weekend.

    The decision comes after “months of failed negotiations” between the union and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, CNBC reported this week.

    Matthew Loeb, president of IATSE, said in a statement Monday: “The members have spoken loud and clear. This vote is about the quality of life as well as the health and safety of those who work in the film and television industry. Our people have basic human needs like time for meal breaks, adequate sleep, and a weekend. For those at the bottom of the pay scale, they deserve nothing less than a living wage.″

    This means a strike is now on the table if talks break down further. It marks the first time the IATSE has authorized a strike, with over 90% of eligible ballots cast and about 98% of voters authorizing the strike. 

    “We deeply value our IATSE crew members and are committed to working with them to avoid shutting down the industry at such a pivotal time, particularly since the industry is still recovering from the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic,” the AMPTP responded.

    Recall, we wrote days ago about how negotiations were breaking down. 

    The union has a membership of about 60,000, most of whom are based in Los Angeles. They are threatening to walk off the job, should the union’s leadership – which is countrywide – decide. This means that a strike would affect studios across the U.S., not just in Los Angeles. 

    In total, 1 million jobs “directly tied to film and TV production” could be affected.

    Alongside of a historic labor shortage coming back from the pandemic, production has been on the rise as the studio arms of companies like Netflix and Amazon look to build out their content. Both Netflix and Walt Disney have told shareholders that the lack of new content has been a headwind for streaming sign-ups. 

    The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers says it “put forth a deal-closing, comprehensive proposal that meaningfully addresses the IATSE’s key bargaining issues.” 

    But the union isn’t amused. It wrote to its members: “As you may be aware, negotiations with the major producers have reached a standstill. They refused to reply to our last proposal.”

    The union is pushing for rest and meal breaks, as well as higher pay for its lowest earners, some of whom only make $15 per hour. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/06/2021 – 22:30

  • The Deep Politics Of Vaccine Mandates
    The Deep Politics Of Vaccine Mandates

    Authored by Charles Lipson via RealClearPolitics.com,

    The debate over President Biden’s vaccine mandates has focused, understandably, on the tradeoff between individual rights to make medical choices and the potential harm the unvaccinated pose to others.

    That tradeoff is unavoidable.

    It is simply wrong for Biden to say, “It’s not about freedom.” It is.

    It is equally wrong for some Republican governors to say it is all about freedom.

    It’s also about the external effects of each person’s choice. To pretend that tradeoff doesn’t exist is demagoguery. But then, so is most American politics these days.

    What’s missing or underappreciated in this debate?

    The most important thing is that the Biden administration’s “mandate approach” is standard-issue progressivism. The pushback is equally standard. The mandates exemplify a dispute that has been at the heart of American politics for over a century, ever since Woodrow Wilson formulated it as a professor and then president. That agenda emphasizes deference to

    • Experts, not elected politicians,

    • Rational bureaucratic procedures,

    • Centralized power in the nation’s capital, not in the federal states, and

    • A modern, “living constitution,” which replaces the “old” Constitution of 1787 and severs the restraints it imposed on government power.

    Implemented over several decades, this progressive agenda has gradually become a fait accompli, without ever formally amending the Constitution. The bureaucracies began their massive growth after World War II and especially after Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society initiatives of the mid-1960s (continued, with equal vigor, by Richard Nixon).

    The judicial shackles were broken earlier, when Franklin Roosevelt threatened to pack the Supreme Court in 1937. Although FDR never followed through, his threat did the trick. The justices yielded to his pressure and began rubber-stamping New Deal programs that, until then, they had rejected as unconstitutional. Gradually, the older judges retired and Roosevelt picked friendly replacements. These judicial issues have reemerged now that progressives no longer dominate the Supreme Court. They are again threatening to pack the court and demanding that today’s justices stick with precedents set by their progressive predecessors (“stare decisis”).

    The pushback against vaccine mandates is partly a debate about these progressive issues concerning the president’s authority and constitutional strictures.

    Mandate opponents say the federal government lacks the constitutional authority to impose these requirements, at least beyond its own workforce. They add that, if the president does wish to impose new rules, he and his executive agencies must go through the normal regulatory process. That process is slow — indeed, too slow to cope with an emergency.

    Biden himself seemed to recognize these constitutional limitations before deciding to ignore them — the second time he’s done so in his brief presidency. That’s a very troubling development, even if the courts overrule his decisions.

    The first time was his fiat decision to extend the moratorium on rent payments, which had been imposed during the worst days of the pandemic. Biden explicitly stated his unconstitutional rationale: It would take the courts time to rule against him and, until then, he could implement the policy. Of course, he also had a political rationale: to placate his party’s far left, which had mobilized over this issue.

    Biden’s extension on the rent moratorium had a second, troubling dimension. It was promulgated by the Centers for Disease Control as a “public health issue.” That was a transparently false rationale in summer 2021 and dealt with housing issues far beyond the CDC’s expertise. The unintended consequence of the moratorium extension, beyond bankrupting small landlords, is to undermine the basic rationale for all progressive rulemaking: that the rules are being made by experts who know much more about their specialized area than do ordinary citizens or their elected representatives. What, pray tell, do experts on infectious disease know about the complexities of the U.S. housing market? Zero.

    Progressive politics depends on public acceptance that experts really know what’s best and that their decisions will produce good outcomes. But trust in experts has collapsed alongside trust in all American institutions over the past half-century. The turning point was the disastrous war in Vietnam, advocated by LBJ’s Harvard advisers and the Whiz Kids in Robert McNamara’s Pentagon. Their failure was captured in the title of David Halberstam’s 1973 bestseller, “The Best and the Brightest.” The calamitous Afghan withdrawal underscored Halberstam’s sarcastic point.

    So did the failure of so many Great Society programs, begun with such hope and fanfare. The most painful experience was “urban renewal,” especially the massive program of building high-rise towers for welfare recipients. Before those towers were torn down, they had destroyed two or three generations of families. Part of the tragedy was that, like so many federal programs, the towers were built everywhere at once. If they had been tried out in a few cities, the problems would have been obvious, the failures remedied or the program abandoned. But Washington almost never does that. Congress funds and the bureaucracies implement mammoth, nationwide programs with no opportunity for feedback or mid-course corrections.

    As public mistrust of institutions grew, a few institutions initially escaped the scorn. The military, for instance, was highly regarded until recently. It will take a heavy blow from the Afghan failure and the new, high-priority program of ideological training for troops. Government health officials were also highly regarded, at least until the botched rollout of Obamacare and the scandals at Veterans’ Affairs hospitals. Still, the public trusted the CDC and Dr. Anthony Fauci at the beginning of the pandemic. They trust them far less today, thanks to false and misleading statements, secrecy about funding the Wuhan virology lab, the absence of clear guidance on many issues, and blunt regulations that ignore important variations, such as natural immunity.

    The effect of this growing mistrust was painfully apparent in President Biden’s mandate announcement. He didn’t rely on persuasion or trust in federal experts. He hectored, demonized, shamed, politicized, and threatened. That has become his routine, along with his refusal to answer the public’s pressing questions.

    Biden’s political problem is that he faces real resistance from voters if he can’t solve the COVID problem, both because it is so serious and because he ran on being able to handle it better than Trump. Since Biden’s speech last week spent a lot of time attacking Republican governors, it was also an exercise in preemptive blame-shifting, in case the mandates fail.

    His approach makes political sense, but it has at least two problems beyond the constitutional questions. One is that it politicizes vaccinations, which could have unintended consequences. Among the most obvious, it shifts the issue away from doctors and public health professionals and into the contentious political arena. Another is that it raises questions about the administration’s hypocrisy. Why do all federal employees, including those with natural immunity, need to get vaccinations but not the illegal immigrants arriving from Central America? That’s clearly a political decision, not a medical one, and it undermines the legitimacy of Biden’s whole approach, which stresses public health and medical experts.

    The president’s speech had another major feature: It relied on vitriolic “wedge politics.” But Biden was elected partly because he promised to end the vitriol and divisiveness of the Trump years. He hasn’t done that. The poster child for his tendentious governing strategy is the second, $3.5 trillion “human infrastructure” bill. Not only does it have no Republican support, it has met serious resistance from centrist Democrats. On his signature spending bills, like his vaccine mandates, Biden is pursuing a unilateral, aggressively partisan approach.

    There’s no question the delta variant poses serious health risks and that, in general, vaccinations help both the individuals who get the jab and everyone around them. But there are serious questions about whether sticks or carrots are the best way to increase vaccination rates; how to convince people to get the vaccine now that trust in public-health experts has eroded; whether politicizing the issue is self-defeating; and what authority Washington has to impose mandates beyond its own workforce.

    The questions about the federal government’s authority — its effectiveness, its constitutionality, and its potential overreach — are among the most important in American politics. They have been for a century, and they won’t be resolved anytime soon.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/06/2021 – 22:10

  • White House Discloses Number Of Nukes In US Stockpile For 1st Time In Years
    White House Discloses Number Of Nukes In US Stockpile For 1st Time In Years

    For the first time in years, and in a stark reversal from the Trump presidency – who had ordered a blackout of the data during his administration – the Biden White House has made public the number of nuclear weapons in the US stockpile.

    Citing the importance of “increasing transparency” the State Department said in a Tuesday official report that it is “releasing newly declassified information on the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile to update the information previously released in September 2017.” The report indicated 3,750 nuclear warheads currently in America’s stockpile, and among these 2,000 waiting to be dismantled.

    Biden and Trump had been clearly divided on the issue during the 2020 presidential campaign, with Biden at the time vowing that “administration will work to maintain a strong, credible deterrent while reducing our reliance and excessive expenditure on nuclear weapons.” Trump for his part had greatly ratcheted up spending on the Defense and Energy departments to sustain and modernize the nuclear arsenal, having last requested $44.5 billion for fiscal year 2021.

    According to the newly released official count by the State Dept:

    As of September 2020, the U.S. stockpile of nuclear warheads consisted of 3,750 warheads. This number represents an approximate 88 percent reduction in the stockpile from its maximum (31,255) at the end of fiscal year 1967, and an approximate 83 percent reduction from its level (22,217) when the Berlin Wall fell in late 1989. The below figure shows the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile from 1945 through September 30, 2020.

    The bulk of this dismantling of non-strategic nuclear weapons occurred since 1991 – which correspond to the collapse of the Soviet Union – with the stockpile of nuclear weapons declining over 90% since the end of the Cold War.

    Via US State Department

    This involved the US dismantling 11,683 nuclear warheads from 1994 to 2020, and an additional 711 nuclear warheads since September 30, 2017, according to the numbers.

    The official report gave as rationale for making the numbers public, including to US ‘enemies’ and rivals like Russia and China, the following: “Increasing the transparency of states’ nuclear stockpiles is important to nonproliferation and disarmament efforts, including commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and efforts to address all types of nuclear weapons, including deployed and non-deployed, and strategic and non-strategic,” the State Department said.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/06/2021 – 21:50

  • Biden Tells Japan's New PM That US Will Defend Senkaku Islands From China
    Biden Tells Japan’s New PM That US Will Defend Senkaku Islands From China

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com, 

    President Biden told Japan’s new Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in a phone call on Monday that the US would defend the Senkaku Islands in the event of a Chinese attack.

    The Senkakus, known as the Diayous in China, are a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea. They are currently controlled by Japan and are also claimed by China and Taiwan.

    Via Tokyo Review

    In a statement on the call, Japan’s Foreign Ministry said that Biden had “reaffirmed the US’s unwavering commitment to the defense of Japan including the application of Article V of the Japan-US Security Treaty to the Senkaku Islands.”

    Article V is the section of the US-Japan Security Treaty that outlines the mutual defense agreement between the two countries. Kishida told reporters on Tuesday that President Biden had given “strong remarks on the US commitment to defend Japan, including Article V.”

    The Senkaku Islands have turned into a potential flashpoint for a conflict between the US and China since the Obama administration when the US first affirmed it would come to Japan’s defense if the islands were attacked.

    The Biden administration first made the pledge that it would defend the Senkakus to Japan back in January when Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin first spoke with his Japanese counterpart.

    Kishida said that he and Biden agreed to work together on “challenges facing neighboring regions such as China and North Korea.” The Japanese leader said he wants to strengthen military ties with the US as well as other “democracies” in Asia and Europe.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/06/2021 – 21:30

  • "Osama Bin Laden Is Probably More Popular" – NY Dems Scoff As De Blasio Reportedly Explores Run For Governor
    “Osama Bin Laden Is Probably More Popular” – NY Dems Scoff As De Blasio Reportedly Explores Run For Governor

    Whether Democrats or Republicans, there’s one political question that most Americans can agree on: Mayor Bill de Blasio is leaving NYC in much worse shape than he found it eight years ago.

    Yet, despite facing near-universal criticism, and polling at under 1% nationally during his presidential campaign (which became the butt of endless jokes), political reporters in New York State are sounding the alarm Wednesday morning that the mayor best known for surging crime rates and economic inequality (and eating his pizza with a fork and knife) is exploring a run for governor of the Empire State.

    Earlier this morning, the NYT‘s Katie Glueck reported on Twitter that she had spoken with at least three people close to the mayor who say he’s been holding talks about a potential gubernatorial run, while sounding out some former aides about their potential interest in joining his campaign.

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    Shortly after breaking the news, Glueck shared some amusing comments about de Blasio’s prospects, shared by fellow Dems who clearly weren’t concerned about protecting their identities. “Osama bin Laden is probably more popular in Suffolk County than Bill de Blasio,” said said Rich Schaffer, the chairman of the county’s Democratic committee, who has already endorsed sitting governor Kathy Hochul (the state’s first female governor) in her bid for a full term.

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    As the NYT reminds us, there was one memorable moment during the race for the Democratic Primary for mayor where the candidates were asked during a debate whether they would accept de Blasio’s endorsement. Only Andrew Yang raised his hand (though there was some speculation that de Blasio was ‘secretly backing’ Eric Adams, the primary’s winner, who will very likely be elected to succeed de Blasio at Gracie Mansion).

    He’s also already facing significant competition, and not just from Hochul: New York AG Letitia James, who burnished her rep by leading the investigation into former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s sexual transgressions, is believed to be running. So is Jumaane Williams, a progressive Brooklyn Democrat and the city’s current public advocate (a job that once belonged to de Blasio), who is popular with NYC’s professional-class progressives. Should James win the governorship, she would be the first black woman elected governor in any state in the country.

    What does de Blasio have to say about that? Per the NYT:

    Asked whether New York should have another white male governor – Ms. Hochul is the first woman to lead the state; Ms. James and Mr. Williams are Black, and Ms. James could be the first Black woman to govern any state in the country – Mr. de Blasio appeared to brush aside the question last week.

    “We need people of all backgrounds to be involved in government,” he said.

    We’re starting to suspect that even de Blasio doesn’t support a de Blasio candidacy. But as another NY political reporter pointed out, de Blasio doesn’t need to win the governorship to benefit from his campaign. The game is a popular one in the US: run to build up a war chest, then use that war chest not to campaign, but to influence other politicians (because that money can then be given away).

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    But we thought Democrats were supposed to be the ‘principled’ ones?

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/06/2021 – 21:10

  • Dry Bulk Shipping Rates Hit $80,000 Per Day As Buyers Scramble For Coal
    Dry Bulk Shipping Rates Hit $80,000 Per Day As Buyers Scramble For Coal

    By Greg Miller of FreightWaves,

    Yet another sign of stress for energy supplies and global supply chains: Spot rates for large dry cargo ships just topped $80,000 per day for the first time since 2009, and freight derivatives for the fourth quarter — a period when rates for these vessels normally pull back — just spiked.

    Not long ago, it was a different story. On Sept. 20, headlines were dominated by Chinese property developer Evergrande and its impending collapse; fallout to construction and steel demand would assumedly hit future Chinese buying of commodities carried on dry cargo vessels.

    Dry bulk stocks plunged. While spot rates for Capesizes (bulkers with capacity of around 180,000 deadweight tons) held firm at $53,800 per day, forward freight agreement (FFA) derivatives did not. Amid what one broker called “mayhem,” the Q4 FFA contract sank to $36,750 per day, with the December contract all the way down to $29,500. The FFA market signaled: Party over.

    Two weeks later, it has a new message: Party not over. Festivities shall continue until year-end.

    As of Tuesday, spot Capesize rates were up to $80,877 per day, based on the Baltic Exchange 5TC index. That’s 50% higher than two weeks ago when sentiment briefly dimmed.

    Fears on Chinese property development still loom large, but now there’s an even bigger spotlight on Chinese factory blackouts due to electricity rationing and dwindling coal supplies in both China and India.

    More coal to keep the power on in the winter should equal higher bulker rates.

    And as with container shipping, rampant port congestion is slashing effective ship supply, adding more support to rates. Braemar ACM Shipbroking estimates that 5.7% of the entire global dry bulk fleet is now waiting offshore of China.

    FFAs have shot up even faster than physical rates, accelerating their rise on Tuesday. “There are few superlatives appropriate for the price moves,” wrote brokerage Clarksons regarding Tuesday’s FFA trading, citing “monstrous gains.”

    The Q4 Capesize FFA closed at $61,500 per day, up 67% from levels on Sept. 20, with October contracts up 78%, November 59% and December 63% over the same two-week stretch.

    Dry bulk shipping stocks rallied. The Breakwave Dry Bulk Shipping ETF, an exchange-traded fund that buys FFAs, rose 9% Tuesday and hit its highest level since its debut in 2018.

    Shares of Navios Holdings jumped 16%. Shares of Diana Shipping rose 9% and Eagle Bulk 7%. Golden Ocean, Safe Bulkers and Star Bulk gained 6%, and Genco Shipping 5%.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/06/2021 – 20:50

  • China Manipulating Google, Bing Search Results To Advance Covid-19 Conspiracy Theories
    China Manipulating Google, Bing Search Results To Advance Covid-19 Conspiracy Theories

    China has been taking advantage of a ‘data void’ in order to flood social media platforms with Chinese-backed conspiracy theories regarding the origins of Covid-19, which in turn affects algorithmic results from popular search engines such as Google and Bing, according to the Washington Post, citing a Tuesday report by the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD).

    The Chinese posts have almost exclusively focused on a theory that Covid-19 was created in a lab at Fort Detrick, home to the US Army’s Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) – which will ring a bell for anyone who read The Hot Zone, and was then purposefully spread throughout Wuhan, China during the October 2019 Military World Games.

    Illustration via China’s state-run Global Times

    By saturating social media platforms with this theory, it now crops up when people search for other things via popular search engines.

    What’s particularly noteworthy about the campaign, researchers said, is that the officials have tapped into a highly effective means for spreading misinformation and disinformation: filling the Internet with misleading content on issues where there’s a dearth of reliable information. The result is that when users search for these more obscure topics — when they type “Fort Detrick” into Google or Bing — they are more likely to see Chinese-backed conspiracy theories.

    …

    According to the report, news search results for Fort Detrick across Google, YouTube and Bing were “dominated” by state-run Chinese media such as CGTN and the Global Times at various times since May. Researchers called the outlets “central to Beijing’s information operations.” -WaPo

    “It gives an advantage to those who are trying to promote this conspiracy because they continue to publish on it over and over and over and over, so that when someone who’s not familiar with the term just Googles it … you tend to get the conspiracy theorist’s point of view,” said Bret Schafer, a media and digital disinformation fellow at ASD who co-authored the report.

    China’s disinformation campaign conceals their own involvement

    We know from government contracts, FOIA records, and leaked emails that the US government was conducting risky gain-of-function research on US soil until former President Obama banned it in 2014 over ethical questions raised by the scientific community. The ‘research’ included manipulating bat Covid to be more transmissible to humans. Instead, the research was shifted overseas to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and laundered through New York nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance – whose CEO Peter Daszak secured lucrative contracts to study and manipulate bat coronaviruses in Wuhan China four months before Obama’s ban.

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

    Then, in 2017, a subagency of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) – headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci – resumed funding a controversial grant to genetically modify bat coronaviruses in Wuhan, China without the approval of a government oversight body.

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

    In 2017 the “Potential Pandemic Pathogens Control and Oversight (P3CO) Framework was formed within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS),” which was tasked with evaluating the risks involved with enhancing dangerous pathogens, as well as whether proper safeguards are in place, before a grant into ‘gain-of-function’ or similarly risky research can be issued. Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) – the subagency which funded EcoHealth – didn’t think the grant needed review, and resumed their relationship with Daszak without flagging it for the P3CO committee, an NIH spokesperson told the Daily Caller.

    We also know (thanks to a FOIA lawsuit by The Intercept) that Daszak wanted to release ‘Chimeric Covid Spike Proteins‘ Into Bat Populations Using ‘Skin-Penetrating Nanoparticles,’ only to be denied by DARPA on the grounds that it was too risky.

    The bid was submitted by Daszak, who was hoping to use genetic engineering to cobble “human-specific cleavage sites” onto bat Covid ‘which would make it easier for the virus to enter human cells’ – a method which would coincidentally answer a longstanding question among the scientific community as to how SARS-CoV-2 evolved to become so infectious to humans.

    Daszak’s proposal also included plans to commingle high-risk natural coronaviruses strains with more infectious, yet less deadly versions. His ‘bat team’ of researchers included Dr. Shi Zhengli from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, as well as US researchers from the University of North Carolina and the US Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center.

    “This is a roadmap to the high-risk research that could have led to the current pandemic,” said Gary Ruskin, executive director of U.S. Right To Know, a group that has been investigating the origins of Covid-19 (via The Intercept).

    And so – China’s Fort Detrick propaganda completely ignores the international collaboration between the US NIH and Wuhan scientists.

    Further reading:

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/06/2021 – 20:30

  • Would Americans Benefit From A Government Default?
    Would Americans Benefit From A Government Default?

    Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

    The Biden administration’s rhetoric on the debt ceiling has become nothing short of apocalyptic.

    The Treasury Department has announced that a failure to increase the debt ceiling “would have catastrophic economic consequences” and would, as NBC news claims, constitute a “doomsday scenario” that would “spark a financial crisis and plunge the economy into recession.”

    Apparently, the memo went out to the debt peddlers that they are not to hold back when sowing maximum fear over the thought that the US might government might pause its incessant debt accumulation even for a few days. 

    The reality, however, is quite something else.  While a failure to raise the debt ceiling would no doubt cause short-term disruptions, the fact is the medium- and long-term effects would prove beneficial by reining in the regime’s chokehold on the American economy and financial system. 

    This is explained in a recent column by Peter St. Onge in which he examines just how much of a problem default really is:

    In 2021 the US government plans to spend $6.8 trillion. Of which about half is borrowed — $3 trillion. So if they can’t raise the ceiling, they’d have to cut that $3 trillion.

    Mainstream media, naturally, claims this is the end of the world. CBS estimates it would cost 6 million jobs and $15 trillion in lost wealth—comparable to the 2008 crisis, which was also caused by the federal government. CNN, more colorfully, claims cascading job losses and “a near-freeze in credit markets.” They conclude, falsely, that “No one would be spared.”

    Considering the source, we can guess these predictions are overblown. So what would happen?

    Well, $3 trillion is a lot of money—roughly 15% of America’s GDP. But we have to remember where that $3 trillion came from. The government, after all, doesn’t actually create anything, every dollar it spends came out of somebody else’s pocket. Whose pocket? Part of the $3 trillion was bid away from private borrowers like businesses, and the rest was siphoned from peoples’ savings by the Federal Reserve creating new money.

    This means that, yes, GDP would decline sharply. But wealth would actually grow, perhaps substantially. The businesses would be able to buy things they need, while the savers keep their money that was doing useful things like paying their retirement.

    So GDP drops, wealth soars.

    Now, there will be near-term pain, simply because the GDP drop comes before the private borrowing ramps up, while those retirement savings are no longer being siphoned to pay for parties at strip clubs or, say, another trillion for farting cows.

    So, yes, it will be a sharp drop in GDP. But so long as government stays out of the way, choosing the prudent 1920 response of doing nothing, the recovery will be very rapid. Why would they do nothing? After all, governments don’t like staying out of the way these days. Because a government that suddenly loses half it’s budget is going to find a lot of things not worth doing. Given a choice between defunding government workers’ pensions or defunding economy-crushing Green New Deals, governments will choose their own.

    So that’s short-term: pain, but less than it seems. And that’s where the magic begins. Because ending deficits fundamentally reduces governments’ long-term ability to prey on the people’s wealth.

    This is because debt and money printers are much less obvious than taxes, which are painful and make more enemies. So a default becomes a “back door” to move government back towards its traditional “parasite” role rather than the “predator” role it’s taken on since Nixon unleashed the money printers. Especially since Covid-19, when lockdowns were bought with fresh money and deficits. I wrote about this predatory evolution a few months ago, but the bottom line is government default is a tremendous investment in our future prosperity.

    Ultimately, when a media pundit or Janet Yellen predicts the end of the world if debt doesn’t continue to skyrocket ever upward, they are simply calling for a continuation of the status quo.

    And what does the status quo mean? It means a world in which the US government continues to spent trillions of dollars it doesn’t have, made possible through monetizing massive amounts of debt and forcing taxpayers to devote ever more of their own wealth and income to paying off an ever-more-huge chunk of interest. 

    It also means more government spending, which—regardless of whether it’s funded by debt or by taxes—causes malinvestment and, through the redistribution of wealth, rewards the politically powerful at the expense of everyone else. In other words, its keeps Pentagon generals and Big Pharma executives living in luxury while the taxpayers are lectured about the need to “pay America’s bills.” 

    Rather, as Mark Thornton noted in  2011, the right thing to do is lower the debt ceiling. Thornton explains the many benefits, ranging from effective deregulation to freeing up capital for the private sector: 

    If Congress passed legislation that systematically reduced the debt ceiling over time, the economy could be rebuilt on a solid foundation. Entrepreneurs in the productive sectors would realize that an ever-increasing proportion of resources (land, labor, and capital) would be at their disposal, while companies that capitalized on the federal budget would have an ever-declining share of such resources.

    Congress would have to cut the pay and benefits of its employees (FDR cut them by 25 percent in the depths of the Great Depression) as well as the number of such employees. Real wage rates would decline, allowing entrepreneurs to hire more employees to produce consumer-valued goods.

    Congress would have to cut back on its far-flung regulatory operations, which are in fact one of the biggest drags on the economy due to the burden and uncertainty that Obama and Congress have created in terms of healthcare, financial-market, and environmental regulations. A recent study by the Phoenix Center found that even a small reduction of 5 percent, or $2.8 billion, in the federal regulatory budget would result in about $75 billion in increased private-sector GDP each year and the addition of 1.2 million jobs annually. Eliminating the job of even a single regulator grows the American economy by $6.2 million and creates nearly 100 private-sector jobs annually.

    Under a reduced debt ceiling, the federal government would also have to sell off some of its resources. It has tens of thousands of buildings that are no longer in use and tens of thousands of buildings that are significantly underused—about 75,000 buildings in total. It also controls over 400 million acres of land, or over 20 percent of all land outside of Alaska, which is almost wholly owned by the government. There is also the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and many other assets that could be sold off to cover short-term budget shortfalls.

    Of course, reducing the debt ceiling would force the government to stop borrowing so much money from credit markets. This would leave significantly more credit available for the private sector. The shortage of capital is one of the most often cited reasons for the failure of the economy to recover.

    Lowering the debt ceiling would force federal-government budget cutting on a large scale, and this would free up resources (labor, land, and capital) and force a cutback in the federal government’s regulatory apparatus. This would put Americans back to work producing consumer-valued goods.

    Unfortunately, the public has been fed a steady diet of rhetoric in which any reduction in government spending will bring economic Armageddon. But it’s all based on economic myths, and Thornton concludes:

    Passing an increase in the debt ceiling merely perpetuates the myth that there is any ceiling or control or limit on the government’s ability to waste resources in the short run and its willingness to pass the burden of this squander onto future generations.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/06/2021 – 20:10

  • Top Secret CIA Cable Admits "Dozens" Of Agents Abroad Are Being Captured, Killed
    Top Secret CIA Cable Admits “Dozens” Of Agents Abroad Are Being Captured, Killed

    It was revealed this week in a bombshell New York Times report that the CIA has raised the alarm with all its overseas stations and officers that an unusually high number of US informants are being captured and executed abroad. There are “dozens” of such instances, according to an agency memo.

    The report is an incredibly rare instance of the media getting hold of a fresh, very recent highly classified memo that’s also sure to be embarrassing for the agency. “The message, in an unusual top-secret cable, said that the CIA’s counterintelligence mission center had looked at dozens of cases in the last several years involving foreign informants who had been killed, arrested or most likely compromised,” the NYT writes. 

    “Although brief, the cable laid out the specific number of agents executed by rival intelligence agencies — a closely held detail that counterintelligence officials typically do not share in such cables.”

    Image: AFP/Getty 

    The cable warned its officers across the globe against put “mission over security” – which it strongly suggested was a key cause that’s leading to poor tradecraft, putting agents at risk. “Agents” in this context means foreign and local assets recruited by the CIA to spy in their home countries, a dangerous endeavor which puts all the risk on the foreign person (and their family) who feeds sensitive information to their CIA handler. 

    The cable also cited the growing capabilities and awareness on the part of foreign and rival agencies of US intelligence’s methods. According to the NY Times synopsis of what’s in the top secret memo:

    The cable highlighted the struggle the spy agency is having as it works to recruit spies around the world in difficult operating environments. In recent years, adversarial intelligence services in countries such as Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan have been hunting down the CIA’s sources and in some cases turning them into double agents.

    Especially the growing biometric technology deployed by China is seen as a serious problem for maintaining local assets’ cover.

    The report continues by spelling out, “The large number of compromised informants in recent years also demonstrated the growing prowess of other countries in employing innovations like biometric scans, facial recognition, artificial intelligence and hacking tools to track the movements of CIA officers in order to discover their sources.”

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    Though this wasn’t addressed in the cable, there’s also the possibility of leaks and the question of double-agents gaining compromising material, further exposing other assets. 

    The NY Times report further quotes former CIA operatives who described a somewhat flawed internal system and bureaucracy that’s set up to reward ambition but not recognize when officers prudently exercise restraint. Promotions are often handed out to operatives who recruit the most agents abroad. 

    One former CIA operative, Douglas London, told The Times, “No one at the end of the day is being held responsible when things go south with an agent.” But of course in general it remains that few if anyone are ever held accountable for failures when it comes to Washington’s massive national security state bureaucracy. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/06/2021 – 19:50

  • DOJ Announces Launch Of National Crypto Enforcement Team As FDIC Mulls Insuring Stablecoins
    DOJ Announces Launch Of National Crypto Enforcement Team As FDIC Mulls Insuring Stablecoins

    One of the catalysts behind crypto’s impressive surge in the past week emerged last Friday, when the WSJ reported that the Biden admin was seeking to regulate stablecoin issuers as banks and was “considering ways to impose bank-like regulation on the cryptocurrency companies that issue stablecoins, including prodding the firms to register as banks.” Coming at the same time as both Jerome Powell and Gary Gensler said they did not seek to bank crypto, the news was confirmation that the regulatory apparatus was seeking to integrate the crypto space within the confines of the state – especially since taxes on cryptos are expected to generate tens of billions in government revenues to the Democrats “deficit neutral” multi-trillion spending plan. In short, this was very good news for digital tokens as it eliminated the worst possible outcome: a China-style terminal crackdown on the sector.

    Today, we got more good news when Cointelegraph reported that an official from the Office of the Attorney General said the United States government is going to take a more active role in enforcement action against actors using cryptocurrencies for money laundering and other cybercrimes. In effect, the DOJ is already policing cryptos as if they were securities, providing an implicit security to investors even though the formal regulatory treatment of cryptos remains nebulous.

    Speaking at the Aspen Institute Cyber Summit on Wednesday, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said the Justice Department had launched the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, who aim is to target platforms “that help criminals launder or hide their criminal proceeds.” Monaco cited her office’s work against Darknet-based Bitcoin (BTC) mixing service Helix in August but said the U.S. government should be doing more.

    “We want to strengthen our capacity to dismantle the financial ecosystem that enables these criminal actors to flourish and — quite frankly — to profit from what they’re doing,” said Monaco. “We’re going to do that by drawing on our cyber experts and cyber prosecutors and money-laundering experts.”

    Monaco, who has often been a central figure in the U.S. government’s response to major ransomware and cyberattacks involving cryptocurrency payments, added that “cryptocurrency exchanges want to be the banks of the future. We need to make sure that folks can have confidence when they’re using these systems, and we need to make sure we’re poised to root out abuse that can take hold on them.” She should know: she was part of a task force that “found and recaptured” millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin paid to the allegedly Russia-based DarkSide hackers following an attack on the Colonial Pipeline system in May.

    What Monaco didn’t say is that by accelerating enforcement actions, the DOJ was in effect providing confidence to millions of retail investors that someone was looking after their interest in a market which the government had for years depicted as the “wild wild west.” Needless to say, such as intervention will only increase retail participation.

    Meanwhile, in a clear indication that the government is already planning how to capitalize, and not penalize, the incipient stablecoin industry, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, or FDIC, a key U.S. banking regulator, is reportedly studying whether certain stablecoins might be eligible for its coverage, Coindesk reported citing five people familiar with the agency’s thinking said.

    The agency is trying to analyze what so-called pass-through FDIC insurance might look like for the reserves that stablecoin issuers hold at banks, the sources said. Such coverage would insure holders of the tokens against losses up to $250,000 if the bank holding the collateral were to fail.

    The FDIC is also looking at what regular, direct deposit insurance might look like for banks that want to issue stablecoins, people familiar with the discussions said.

    “This is all part of a process by which they are trying to bring stablecoins into the banking system in a responsible manner,” one insider said. “It depends on what’s backing the stablecoins. If it’s backed by reserves at the Fed[eral Reserve] for cash then I think you just make the argument that it’s a deposit. If it’s backed by Treasurys, I think you’ll have a hard time treating it as a deposit.”

    That all may be, but once again it misses the forest for the trees, namely that the government is taking increasingly permissive steps to give new investors some implicit comfort that the government is watching out for their interests and, in the case of stablecoins, that they may even be insured from total losses should the stablecoin issuer collapse.

    That said, it wasn’t exactly clear how an FDIC backstop would work for stablecoins: if the FDIC went ahead and provided deposit insurance for stablecoins, it would apply only if a bank that was banking a stablecoin issuer or that was issuing a stablecoin itself went into receivership. Even in this scenario, it’s rare that FDIC insurance would enter into the picture because the agency generally takes a failed bank’s assets and deposits and sells them to a healthy bank.

    “The FDIC is probably looking at whether stablecoins can count as deposits or whether someone’s ownership of a stablecoin is a deposit at the stablecoin issuer,” said Todd Phillips, a former FDIC lawyer who is now the director of financial regulation and corporate governance at the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank.

    The coverage could present challenges for issuers. Typically, these companies identify customers when they deposit cash for stablecoins or redeem the tokens for cash. But since stablecoins run on open, public blockchain networks (usually Ethereum), theoretically anyone with a crypto wallet that hasn’t been blacklisted can receive stablecoins from and send them to other wallets.

    “One thing to remember is that each person has insurance of only up to $250,000,” said Phillips. “So, the stablecoin issuer would need to keep track of who is the current holder of their stablecoin, and how many they own.” Whatever the FDIC insures has to not compromise the rest of the agency’s mission, he said.

    How the agency proceeds could potentially help protect consumers, Phillips added.

    “The FDIC basically has one overriding mission which is to ensure the safety of the Deposit Insurance Fund, the DIF,” Phillips said. “If the FDIC were to insure a stablecoin, that insurance would come out of the DIF and the FDIC will want to be very sure that they are on legal footing and that whatever they do doesn’t risk the DIF.”

    “The FDIC has strict rules as to which institutions may call themselves FDIC-insured or use the FDIC logo for advertising,” he said. “Just as how the FDIC’s logo on a bank’s website allows savers to be confident that the bank is a safe, insurance of particular stablecoins and permission to use the FDIC logo would provide clarity about which stablecoins, up to the insurance limit, will not lose value.”

    It’s likely that the agency will ask for public comment from the industry before any actual policy change is taken, Phillips said.

    “I also imagine there are conversations going on between the four FDIC directors, since you need a majority of them to approve a new regulation,” he said.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/06/2021 – 19:31

  • Inventory At US Car Dealers Falls To New Record Low
    Inventory At US Car Dealers Falls To New Record Low

    As discussed yesterday, US light vehicle sales for September came at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 12.2MM per Wards and 12.3MM per Motor Intelligence, a number below consensus expectations of 12.5MM. A US SAAR in the low 12MM range is down about 25% yoy from about 16.3MM in September 2020 and down in the mid single digits sequentially from the August SAAR of about 13.1MM. The biggest reason for the decline is the continued record low inventory levels.

    Some more details:

    In September, car sales were down about 33% yoy, SUV sales were down about 20% yoy, and pickup truck sales were down about 30% yoy. Pickups and SUVs as a percent of total units were 19% and 55%, respectively (vs. 20% and 51% in September 2020). Per Motor Intelligence, Ford sales were down about 18% yoy and GM sales were down about 53% yoy in September. Ford’s market share in September increased yoy to 15% from 14%, and GM’s market share declined yoy to 11% from 17%. We believe that GM faced particularly acute challenges in 3Q21 (after doing relatively better in 2Q).

    Contrary to ICEs, September EV sales were up about 26% yoy, and hybrid sales were up about 32% yoy, per Motor Intelligence. Notably, Tesla does not report monthly sales. That said, Tesla reported strong 3Q21 global deliveries that were +73% yoy, implying that its EV sales in September in the US were likely strong.

    Incentive spending per vehicle was down over 40% yoy, and down about 3% sequentially in September. Not surprisingly, in a market that has never been tighter, September’s industry incentive spending per vehicle was down over 40% yoy and down about 3% sequentially to about $2.4K per vehicle (per Motor Intelligence). Industry pricing should remain strong as component shortages continue to weigh on production in the short term, and dealer inventory remains low.

    Inventory

    Finally, the punchline: according to Goldman, inventory at US dealers declined sequentially to ~900k from just below 1.0 mn in August 2021, and down from 2.6 mn in September 2020. Industry DOI came in at 22 days compared to 23 days in August 2021 and 48 days in September 2020. Pickup truck DOI was 35 days (vs. 32 in August 2021 and 48 in September 2020), SUV DOI was 20 days (vs. 21 in August 2021 and 47 in September 2020), and car DOI was 16 days (vs. 18 in August 2021 and 51 in September 2020).

    Inventories at dealers continued to fall from already historically low levels, and it will take time for inventory at dealers to return to normalized levels given the strong demand for vehicles coupled with ongoing supply chain challenges (particularly with semiconductor chip shortages, but also due to shipping constraints).

    Implications

    Similar to prior months, historically low inventory levels at dealerships continue to weigh on industry sales, and since nothing is likely to change in the short-term, finished vehicle inventory supply/demand will remain tight over the near to intermediate term and weigh on industry sales, driven primarily by supply chain issues (such as semiconductor shortages) coupled with strong sell-through (demand indicators are generally strong, albeit moderating slightly). As a result, most strategists expect new vehicle pricing to remain at a high level in 2021 and decline only modestly over the course of 2022.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/06/2021 – 19:10

  • As US Stocks Stumble, SecState Blinken Suddenly Urges China To "Act Responsibly" On Evergrande
    As US Stocks Stumble, SecState Blinken Suddenly Urges China To “Act Responsibly” On Evergrande

    Since the crisis in China’s housing market begin to explode as Evergrande’s massive ponzi pile-up started to plunge – which followed China’s tech crackdown that smashed Chinese tech firms lower, and China’ education system crackdown which pummeled China’s education stocks – the ‘expected’ contagion has apparently been modest at worst and Washington’s politerati have been quiet on the issues “over there.”

    However, the last couple of weeks have seen the teflon market in the US start to shake a little…

    Which may help to explain why Secretary of State Antony Blinken has suddenly decided to chime in, demanding China “act responsibly” in how it addresses (translation: bails out) the potential impact of an Evergrande default crisis.

    “China has to make sovereign economic decisions for itself, but we also know that what China does economically is going to have profound ramifications, profound effects, on literally the entire world because all of our economies are so intertwined,” Blinken said Wednesday in an interview in Paris with Bloomberg Television.

    “So certainly when it comes to something that could have a major impact on the Chinese economy we look to China to act responsibly and to deal effectively with any challenges,” he added.

    In other words – “fix it!” – before this things blows up all the good work we have done by puking trillions of free money into markets. Ironically, this demand is coming as US political chaos escalates.

    We look forward to Beijing demanding that Washington “act responsibly” in dealing with USA’s sovereign risk…

    Source: Bloomberg

    The message: “Don’t throw stones in glass houses (or shower there).”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/06/2021 – 18:50

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