Jan 20

Today’s News 20th January 2021

  • Nord Stream 2 Completion "At Risk" After Fresh Trump Admin Sanctions, Gazprom Admits
    Nord Stream 2 Completion “At Risk” After Fresh Trump Admin Sanctions, Gazprom Admits

    Coming on Trump’s last full day in office, the US has slapped yet more sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 Russia to Germany natural gas pipeline as part of ongoing efforts to prevent its completion, specifically targeting a ship in involved in its final leg of construction.

    The Russian pipe-laying ship “Fortuna” and its owner will be subject to new sanctions according to a declaration by the US Treasury on Tuesday, specifically under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). Additionally the oil tanker Maksim Gorky and two Russian firms, KVT-Rus and Rustanker, were blacklisted.

    “The United States is not afraid to hold accountable those who continue to aid and abet this tool of Russian coercion,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said of the new measures in his last statements while on the job in the Trump administration.

    The new measures come as Gazprom has estimated that only 6% of the pipeline remains till completion. This is equal to about 150kim, which Russia has vowed to see through to finish.

    While prior US sanctions have been shrugged off, though sometimes with temporary stoppages, Gazprom and Russian officials are now sounding the alarm over the growing “risk” the project could be suspended altogether if more Washington sanctions are piled on:

    Russian state gas company Gazprom acknowledged there is a risk that its undersea pipeline to Germany could be suspended or cancelled after the United States on Tuesday slapped sanctions on a Russian ship involved in its construction.

    Germany’s Economy Ministry said it had been informed in advance of the new US sanctions against the Russian pipe-laying ship Fortuna and its owner. “We take note of this announcement with regret,” the ministry said.

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    While underscoring the state-owned company plans to finish, a fresh memorandum by Gazprom issued to investors noted that these latest sanctions could make “the implementation of the project impossible or unfeasible and lead to its suspension or cancellation,” according to TASS.

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov separately on Tuesday slammed the “crude and illegitimate US pressure” in the form of 11th hour Trump administration sanctons.

    “We closely follow the situation and analyze it as we continue work to finalize the project,” Peskov told reporters.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/20/2021 – 01:00

  • Escobar: Baghdad On The Potomac – Welcome To The Blue Zone
    Escobar: Baghdad On The Potomac – Welcome To The Blue Zone

    Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Saker blog,

    The season opening of the Joe and Kammy Regime Change Show could not be a more appropriate roomful of mirrors reflecting the self-described US “political elite”.

    The star of the Joe and Kammy Regime Change Show

    During the 2000s, I came face to face with Baghdad’s Green Zone multiple times.

    I always stayed, and worked, in the hyper-volatile Red Zone – as you may check in my 2007 book Red Zone Blues.

    We knew then that blowback would be inevitable.

    But still, we could never have imagined such a graphic simulacrum: the Green Zone fully replicated in the heart of imperial D.C. – complete with walls, barbed wire, multiple checkpoints, heavily armed guards.

    That is even more significant because it ends a full “new world order” geopolitical cycle: the empire started bombing – and cluster bombing – Iraq 30 years ago. Desert Storm was launched in January 17, 1991.

    The Blue Zone is now “protected” by a massive 26,000 plus troop surge – way more than Afghanistan and Iraq combined. The Forever Wars – which you may now relieve through my archives – have come back full circle.

    Just like an ordinary Iraqi was not allowed inside the Green Zone, no ordinary American is allowed inside the Blue Zone.

    Just like the Green Zone, those inside the Blue Zone represent none other than themselves.

    The D.C. Blue Zone map

    And just like the Green Zone, those inside the Blue Zone are viewed by half of the population in the Red Zone as an occupying force.

    Only satire is capable of doing poetic justice to what is, de facto, the Potemkin inauguration of a hologram. So welcome to the most popular president in history inaugurated in secret, and fearful of his own, fake, Praetorian Guard. The Global South has seen this grisly show before – in endless reruns. But never as a homegrown Hollywood flick.

    When in doubt, blame China

    Meanwhile, trapped inside the Blue Zone, the White House has been busy compiling an interminable list of accomplishments.

    Multitudes will go berserk relieving the appalling foreign policy disasters, courtesy of American Psycho Mike Pompeo; debunking the official narrative partially or as a whole; and even agreeing with the odd “accomplishment”.

    Yet close attention should be paid to a key item: “Colossal Rebuilding of the Military”.

    This is what is going to play a key role beyond January 20 – as Gen Flynn has been extremely busy showing evidence to the military, at all levels, of how “compromised” is the new Hologram-in-Chief.

    And then there’s the rolling, never-ending November 3 drama. Blame should be duly apportioned. Impeachment, digital witch hunts, rounding up “domestic terrorists”, that is not enough. “Foreign interference” is a must.

    Enter Director of National Intelligence (DNI) John Ratcliffe, adamantly stating that “the People’s Republic of China sought to influence the 2020 U.S. federal elections.”

    Ratcliffe was referring to a report sent to Congress on January 7 by the DNI’s Chief of the Solutions Division, or analytic ombudsman Barry Zulauf, side by side with an assessment about “foreign interference”.

    A legitimate question is why it took them so long to finish this report. And it gets wackier: the full intel on the report about foreign interference was scotched by none other than CIA higher-ups.

    The ombudsman states that the groups of analysts working on Russian and Chinese interference used different standards. Russia, of course, was guilty from the start: a categorical imperative. China had the benefit of the doubt.

    Ratcliffe actually states that some analysts refused to blame Beijing for election interference because they were – what else – Never Trumpers.

    So Langley, we’ve got a problem. Pompeus “We Lie, We Cheat, We Steal” Minimus is CIA. He qualifies the Chinese Communist Party as the greatest evil in the history of mankind. How would he not influence his minions to produce, by any means necessary, any instance of Chinese election interference?

    At the same time, for the Dem Deep State faction, Russia is perpetually guilty of…whatever.

    This rift inside the Deep State roomful of mirrors delightfully reverberates the Blue Zone/Red Zone schism.

    Needless to add, in both the ombudsman’s report and Ratcliffe’s letter, there is absolutely no hard evidence of Chinese interference.

    As for Russia, apart from election interference – once again, no evidence – the Dem Deep State Dementia apparatus is still busy trying to blame Moscow also for 1/6. The latest gambit centers on a MAGA chick who may have stolen Pelosi’s laptop from her office at the Capitol to sell it to the SVR, Russian foreign intel.

    The whole Global South – Baghdad’s Green Zone included – just can’t get enough of the greatest show on earth. Do they sell bananas in the Blue Zone?

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 23:50

  • Fire-Crotch? Gwyneth Paltrow's Vagina Scented Candle "Explodes", Sets UK Home Ablaze
    Fire-Crotch? Gwyneth Paltrow’s Vagina Scented Candle “Explodes”, Sets UK Home Ablaze

    To look back and think we thought things were weird in January 2020, when we first reported that Gwyneth Paltrow was selling a candle called “This Smells Like My Vagina”, is funny. Incidentally, once Covid-19 took hold of the year, Paltrow’s vagina-scented candle wound up turning into one of the more normal stories of the year.

    But not unlike the new year’s Covid mutations, the Paltrow-vagina-candle-story has also mutated for 2021. And neither mutation is good news.

    It was reported this weekend that one of Paltrow’s vagina-scented candles “exploded into flames” after a woman in the U.K. lit it in her living room. The woman had won the candle as a prize for a quiz, the New York Post reports. 

    The woman, 50 year old Jody Thompson, said: “The candle exploded and emitted huge flames, with bits flying everywhere. I’ve never seen anything like it. The whole thing was ablaze and it was too hot to touch. There was an inferno in the room.”

    She then said she “threw the flaming candle out the front door”. 

    “It could have burned the place down. It was scary at the time, but funny looking back that Gwyneth’s vagina candle exploded in my living room,” Thompson said. 

    As we noted last year, for just $75, perverts around the world can fool themselves into thinking they are living in the nether regions of the famous 47 year old actress by shelling out for and burning the candle, which according to Fox News actually is made up of geranium, citrusy bergamot and cedar smells. 

    The idea for the candle supposedly started as a joke and the product description online reads: “This candle started as a joke between perfumer Douglas Little and GP — the two were working on a fragrance, and she blurted out, ‘Uhhh … this smells like a vagina’ — but evolved into a funny, gorgeous, sexy, and beautifully unexpected scent.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 23:30

  • Biden’s DHS Pick To "Study" Whether To Keep Trump’s Border Wall
    Biden’s DHS Pick To “Study” Whether To Keep Trump’s Border Wall

    Submitted by Planet Free Will,

    On the same day Trump extended an emergency declaration at the southern border, Biden’s pick for secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, says that he will “study” whether the border wall constructed under the Trump administration will remain in place.

    “President-elect Biden has committed to stop construction of the border wall. It would be my responsibility to execute on that and I have not looked at the question of what we do with respect to the wall that has already been built,” Mayorkas said Tuesday during his Senate confirmation hearing.

    “I look forward to studying that question, understanding the costs and benefits of doing so, being open and transparent with you and all members of this committee, sharing my thoughts and considerations and working cooperative with you toward a solution,” he said.

    The incoming DHS Sec. says that he plans to work on “harnessing innovation and technology” for future border security as he believes a border wall may not be the most effective way to stop people from entering the country.

    President-elect Biden has stated that he would not construct “another foot” of border wall between the U.S. and Mexico when he assumes office.

    “There will not be another foot of wall constructed on my administration, No. 1,” Biden said in August. “I’m going to make sure that we have border protection, but it’s going to be based on making sure that we use high-tech capacity to deal with it. And at the ports of entry — that’s where all the bad stuff is happening,”

    As we highlighted earlier, President Donald Trump on Tuesday extended his declared emergency at the southern border to be in effect until February 2022. The order set in motion funding for the now 453 miles in length southern border wall after congress had folded on devoting money to the project in 2019.

    “The executive branch has taken steps to address the crisis, but further action is needed to address the humanitarian crisis and to control unlawful migration and the flow of narcotics and criminals across the southern border of the United States,” the President said in a statment, adding:

    For these reasons, the national emergency declared on February 15, 2019, and the measures adopted on that date to respond to that emergency, must continue in effect beyond February 15, 2021. Therefore, in accordance with section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622(d)), I am continuing for 1 year the national emergency declared in Proclamation 9844 concerning the southern border of the United States.

    If further construction of the border wall ends under Biden, the U.S. southern border would remain largely open between Texas and Mexico.

    While both Biden and his incoming DHS Secretary tout a “high-tech” solution to securing the border, it is unclear what type of technology could prevent caravans of migrants, such as the one currently heading north through central American to the U.S., from breaching the largely open border.

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    Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Thomas Homan said Monday that Biden’s immigration policies could cause “a surge at the border that we’ve never seen before.”

    “The criminal gangs have already figured out the transportation routes. The caravans are already loaded up and coming and more is going to come. You’re going to see a surge at the border that we’ve never seen before because of the words of Joe Biden,” Homan told Fox News.

    The poor economic conditions in Honduras is sending a wave of economic-migrants up through Central America in anticipation for the Biden Administration’s welcoming immigration policies which could place a moratorium on deportations and fast track millions of migrants to citizenship.

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 23:10

  • CIA Director Gina Haspel Announces Resignation A Day Before Biden Enters Office
    CIA Director Gina Haspel Announces Resignation A Day Before Biden Enters Office

    After a 36-year career in the CIA the Trump-appointed director of the agency, Gina Haspel, has stepped down a day before Joe Biden’s inauguration.

    She took up the top post in 2018, replacing Mike Pompeo who moved to Secretary of State, and was the first woman to ever be named director. Her retirement is being reported as “widely expected” given tensions within the administration down to the last minute.

    “It has been the greatest honor of my life to lead this remarkable organization,” Haspel said in a message shared by the CIA on Twitter. There’s long been speculation she would be fired amid an increasingly soured relationship with President Trump, however she’s stayed largely in the background and has avoided publicly opposing or embarrassing the president.

    According to Yahoo News, “Haspel also reportedly resisted Trump’s last-minute attempts to install Kash Patel, a former aide to Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, a Trump ally, as CIA deputy director.” It was believed this was a strategy to push her out.

    Axios had recently detailed based on inside sources that Trump had “spent his last year in office ruminating over Haspel” and whether he should replace her based on perceived lack of loyalty.

    Biden has previously announced plans to nominate career diplomat William Burns as his pick for CIA director.

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    Most of Haspel’s career was spent abroad as an operations officer in a covert capacity. Her rising to the director in 2018 was the first time much of the American public had ever heard of her.

    She’s come under wide scrutiny for running a “black site” in Thailand during the post-9/11 ‘war on terror’ – where it’s believed she oversaw torture of terror suspects. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 22:50

  • Yellen's Opening Salvo Shows No Let Up In Tensions
    Yellen’s Opening Salvo Shows No Let Up In Tensions

    By Ye Xie, macro commentator at Bloomberg

    If there were any expectations for a quick reset of the tense U.S.-China relationship under the incoming Biden administration, Treasury Secretary nominee Janet Yellen dashed those hopes on Tuesday.

    At her confirmation hearing, Yellen said the U.S. is prepared to take on China’s “abusive” trade and economic practices, saying Beijing is undercutting American businesses by dumping products, subsidizing domestic companies and stealing intellectual property. These are harsh words, but they’re hardly surprising. After all, China-bashing has bipartisan support, as shown in a Morgan Stanley survey.

    Interestingly, just a day earlier, China’s top financial regulator rebutted accusations that the country is pursuing “state monopoly capitalism” that distorts market relations, as if to preemptively push back against the U.S. criticism. Guo Shuqing, chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, pointed out that government subsidies to state-owned enterprises were actually negative. Their tax burden is twice as much as private firms, which like foreign companies have enjoyed preferable taxation and fees. He added that it’s impossible for China’s banks to subsidize state-backed companies amid intensified competition in the credit market.

    The difference in U.S. and Chinese perspectives suggests that it won’t be easy to repair the trade relationship. The tariffs imposed on Chinese products during the Trump administration are likely to stay for a while, not least of all because the Biden administration is likely to prioritize domestic issues, such as Covid stimulus relief, in its early months.

    It’s also clear that technology will be a key area of competition between the two countries. During the hearing, Yellen called China the U.S.’s “most important strategic competitor” and urged America to strengthen its own economy by investing in infrastructure and research and development.

    It’s perhaps not a coincidence that tech firms account for a big chunk of companies that have been put on the U.S. black list in the final days during the Trump era, as shown in this chart compiled by economists at Natixis.

    Ironically, the strategic rivalry and tech competition means it may be necessary for investors to get exposure to both the U.S. and Chinese markets as positioning for what Blackrock described as a “bipolar” world. Small wonder that mainland investors are busy buying those sanctioned firms in Hong Kong these days.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 22:30

  • "It's Killing Younger People" – New COVID Strain Reportedly Emerging Within Brazilian Amazon
    “It’s Killing Younger People” – New COVID Strain Reportedly Emerging Within Brazilian Amazon

    As warnings about the hyper-infectious COVID strains first isolated in the UK and South Africa ring out across the US, Europe and, well, the rest of the world, too, at this point, authorities in Brazil fear they may have a new strain on their hands that’s more infectious, and deadlier, than anything the world has seen previously.

    According to a report published by Brazilian outlet Universo Online, a surge in cases and deaths, particularly among younger patients, in the hard-hit Amazonian city of Manaus (situated in northwestern Brazil, on the banks of the River Negro) has drawn the attention of health professionals working on the front lines of the pandemic in the hard-hit Latin American powerhouse.

    Several officials with direct knowledge of the situation told UOL that a new “variant” – a mutated strain of the virus – may be responsible for harsher symptoms, and quicker onset times.

    But the most alarming shift has been a surge in deaths among younger people, who are dying now in greater numbers than in earlier waves of the outbreak in Manaus, which has long struggled with overburdened health-care resources.

    According to Manaus death records from the past 30 days cited by ULO, four out of ten deaths during that time involved patients under the age of 60 in the state.

    The UOL analyzed the latest data Transparency Portal of the registry offices. There were 710 deaths in the state (since it may still increase), of which 285 were people under 60 years old – or 40.1% of the total. Before that period, this percentage was 36.5%. “Without a doubt many more young people are dying. We are not just talking about a risk group: this is in all age groups, affecting babies, children, teenagers even without comorbidity”, points out the infectologist Silvia Leopoldina, who also works in the state public networks and municipal of Manaus. The doctor says there were changes in the behavior of the disease in the state. “Before, the first symptoms of severity appeared around the tenth day onwards. Now there are patients who, with seven, eight days, are involved in 75% of both lungs.”.

    One researcher told ULO that, while he couldn’t say for certain what it is, “something very different” is happening in Manaus right now.

    “Something very different is happening in Manaus. I don’t know if it is a new strain or if it is something different. But those on the front line are seeing an increase in the severity of the cases,” says infectologist and researcher Noaldo Lucena, who works in popular clinic, home care and public hospitals.

    The new infection and death numbers are so severe, he says, they go beyond the already known greater contagiousness of the new variant of the virus.

    “Clearly, we are facing an invisible being that is much more pathogenic and transmissible. Today whole families arrive with the symptoms at the same time, before it was one at a time.”

    Lucena added that patients in Manaus are also seeing more severe damage to their lungs.

    “This year, I have seen 150 more people here at the clinic and 300 more in the public service. I say that less than 2% of them had mild impairment. The rest were over 50%. Some with 70%, 80%, 90%, requiring immediate hospitalization and even ventilatory support,” he said.

    The lung damage is also becoming harder to detect on initial examination.

    “You auscultate the patient’s lungs and hear nothing. But when you see the tomographic image, you don’t believe how there is such a huge commitment with so little noticeable clinical repercussion.”

    While researchers are still working to confirm exactly what is causing the surge in deaths and severity in Manaus, the biggest fears remain: that new mutations of COVID-19 might be able to pierce through immunity from past infections, and the vaccine.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 22:10

  • Media Cheers DC Under Military Occupation
    Media Cheers DC Under Military Occupation

    Authored by Michael Tracey via mtracey.medium.com (emphasis ours),

    Downtown Washington, DC is currently under what essentially amounts to military occupation. Streets are locked down, guarded by Army vehicles and blocked off by huge, garish checkpoints. Vehicular traffic is limited to motorists who can show papers demonstrating that, as one Guardsman told me, they are conducting “legitimate business.” (Apparently this includes Uber drivers and food delivery workers.)

    According to official estimates, 25,000 military personnel are now deployed to the area — on top of countless federal, state, and local law enforcement agents. Troops roam around carrying rifles with no ammo loaded. If you can manage to navigate on foot to the perimeter of the National Mall, you encounter an enormous fencing apparatus, complete with barbed wire.

    Question: does anyone with a media job find this situation to be worthy of some further inquiry? Or in other words, worthy of questioning the premise of why such an extravagantly intensive military presence is allegedly necessary? Is it proportionate to the scale of the purported threat? Has the nature of the threat itself — whatever that might be, exactly — been adequately probed to determine whether it is grounded in reality? Already a bunch of purported threats initially trumpeted across the media with the usual five-alarm-five hysteria have dissipated in short order, so there is perhaps some reason for doubt in that regard.

    Instead of applying a modicum of skepticism to this gigantic show of military force, much of which appears to be “security theater” in its purest form, our vaunted media is doing little other than cheering it on. And of course, inflating the threats being cited as justification for it. They can repeat over and over again that what occurred on January 6 at the Capitol was an “attempted coup,” and therefore everything and anything is justified to retaliate, but everyone with a brain by now should be able to recognize that the government was never at a greater than 0% risk of being overthrown that day. Fear-inducing terms like “insurrection,” “domestic terrorism,” “seditious conspiracy,” “armed rebellion,” and others have been marshaled intentionally to inure the public to extreme actions such as the swiftly-executed corporate censorship purge and now, the transformation of the country’s capital into a military fortress.

    It’s doubly odd because the deployment of military personnel to various cities last summer, though generally welcomed by locals and intended to quell what had genuinely been a sudden outburst of destructive chaos, was depicted by media members at the time as the rawest incarnation of violent fascism. The New York Times nearly imploded in a spasm of wild outrage. Suddenly though, this unprecedented militarization of DC is greeted by the same media hive-mind as the triumph of good over evil, light over darkness. It’s almost like the ultimate variable is not principled apprehension about the force of the state, but whose political priorities are being defended by such force — and who is being punished.

    *  *  *

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 21:50

  • China Unveils New Attack Drone For "High-Threat Battlefield Environments" 
    China Unveils New Attack Drone For “High-Threat Battlefield Environments” 

    For the last couple of years, China has been exporting military drones into Europe and the Middle East, rapidly shrinking America’s military-industrial complex’s international drone market share. In the latest development of advanced Chinese military drones soon to hit the international markets is the WJ-700, a high-altitude, long-endurance, and high-speed armed reconnaissance drone, according to the Chinese state-run media Global Times. 

    WJ-700 successfully conducted its maiden flight test last week as the new drone has been “characterized by its large payload and ability to launch large munitions from outside hostile anti-aircraft fire coverage zone,” said Global Times.

    Third Academy of the state-owned arms firm China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp told Global Times in a written statement that the drone “integrates high altitude, high speed, long-endurance, and large load capacities, and focuses on the domestic and international market needs in the next five to 10 years.” 

    With a successful test flight and surely more testing ahead, the Academy said the groundwork has been laid out for the drone’s future series production. 

    “The WJ-700 is the only high-altitude, high-speed and long-endurance drone capable of executing both attack and reconnaissance missions in China, and is also a rare type in the world,” the Academy said.

    Wei Dongxu, a Beijing-based military expert who spoke with Global Times about the new drone, said the most distinguishing characteristic of the WJ-700 is that it will carry larger missiles outside of enemy anti-aircraft fire coverage zones. 

    The Academy said the drone offers operators the ability to switch between combat and wide-area reconnaissance areas at a moment’s notice in “high-threat battlefield environments.” We believe the Academy is referring to the militarized islands in the South China Sea that China has laid claim to as US warships continue to use “freedom of navigation” to sail through. 

    The unveiling of the WJ-700 is the latest installment of how China is rapidly expanding its defense industry. 

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    Multiple countries in the Middle East are already using Chinese military drones; the same goes for Europe. 

    American exceptionalism is slowly rapidly dying, China is catching up… and the world wants more inexpensive Chinese military drones. 

    Adding to the conversation about exceptionalism in the West declining, China is now expected to overtake the US as the world’s largest economy in 2028, five years earlier than previously thought, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 21:30

  • Greenwald: The New Domestic War On Terror Is Coming
    Greenwald: The New Domestic War On Terror Is Coming

    Authored by Glenn Greenwald via greenwald.substack.com,

    The last two weeks have ushered in a wave of new domestic police powers and rhetoric in the name of fighting “terrorism” that are carbon copies of many of the worst excesses of the first War on Terror that began nearly twenty years ago. This trend shows no sign of receding as we move farther from the January 6 Capitol riot. The opposite is true: it is intensifying.

    ​

    We have witnessed an orgy of censorship from Silicon Valley monopolies with calls for far more aggressive speech policing, a visibly militarized Washington, D.C. featuring a non-ironically named “Green Zone,” vows from the incoming president and his key allies for a new anti-domestic terrorism bill, and frequent accusations of “sedition,” “treason,” and “terrorism” against members of Congress and citizens. This is all driven by a radical expansion of the meaning of “incitement to violence.” It is accompanied by viral-on-social-media pleas that one work with the FBI to turn in one’s fellow citizens (See Something, Say Something!) and demands for a new system of domestic surveillance.

    Underlying all of this are immediate insinuations that anyone questioning any of this must, by virtue of these doubts, harbor sympathy for the Terrorists and their neo-Nazi, white supremacist ideology. Liberals have spent so many years now in a tight alliance with neocons and the CIA that they are making the 2002 version of John Ashcroft look like the President of the (old-school) ACLU.

    The U.S. Department of Homeland Security website, touting a trademarked phrase licensed to it in 2010 by the City of New York, urging citizens to report “suspicious activity” to the FBI and other security state agencies

    The more honest proponents of this new domestic War on Terror are explicitly admitting that they want to model it on the first one. A New York Times reporter noted on Monday that a “former intelligence official on PBS NewsHour” said “that the US should think about a ‘9/11 Commission’ for domestic extremism and consider applying some of the lessons from the fight against Al Qaeda here at home.” More amazingly, Gen. Stanley McChrystal — for years head of Joint Special Operations Command in Iraq and the commander of the war in Afghanistan — explicitly compared that war to this new one, speaking to Yahoo News:

    I did see a similar dynamic in the evolution of al-Qaida in Iraq, where a whole generation of angry Arab youth with very poor prospects followed a powerful leader who promised to take them back in time to a better place, and he led them to embrace an ideology that justified their violence. This is now happening in America….I think we’re much further along in this radicalization process, and facing a much deeper problem as a country, than most Americans realize.”

    Anyone who, despite all this, still harbors lingering doubts that the Capitol riot is and will be the neoliberal 9/11, and that a new War on Terror is being implemented in its name, need only watch the two short video clips below, which will clear their doubts for good. It is like being catapulted by an unholy time machine back to Paul Wolfowitz’s 2002 messaging lab.

    The first video, flagged by Tom Elliott, is from Monday morning’s Morning Joe program on MSNBC (the show that arguably did more to help Donald Trump become the GOP nominee than any other). It features Jeremy Bash — one of the seemingly countless employees of TV news networks who previously worked in Obama’s CIA and Pentagon — demanding that, in response to the Capitol riot, “we reset our entire intelligence approach,” including “look[ing] at greater surveillance of them,” adding: “the FBI is going to have to run confidential sources.” See if you detect any differences between what CIA operatives and neocons were saying in 2002 when demanding the Patriot Act and greater FBI and NSA surveillance and what this CIA-official-turned-NBC-News-analyst is saying here:

    The second video features the amazing declaration from former Facebook security official Alex Stamos, talking to the very concerned CNN host Brian Stelter, about the need for social media companies to use the same tactics against U.S. citizens that they used to remove ISIS from the internet — “in collaboration with law enforcement” — and that those tactics should be directly aimed at what he calls extremist “conservative influencers.”

    “Press freedoms are being abused by these actors,” the former Facebook executive proclaimed. Stamos noted how generous he and his comrades have been up until now: “We have given a lot of leeway — both in the traditional media and in social media — to people with a very broad range of views.” But no more. Now is the time to “get us all back in the same consensual reality.”

    In a moment of unintended candor, Stamos noted the real problem: “there are people on YouTube, for example, that have a larger audience than people on daytime CNN” — and it’s time for CNN and other mainstream outlets to seize the monopoly on information dissemination to which they are divinely entitled by taking away the platforms of those whom people actually want to watch and listen to:

    (If still not convinced, and if you can endure it, you can also watch MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski literally screaming that one needed remedy to the Capitol riot is that the Biden administration must “shutdown” Facebook. Shutdown Facebook).

    Calls for a War on Terror sequel — a domestic version complete with surveillance and censorship — are not confined to ratings-deprived cable hosts and ghouls from the security state. The Wall Street Journal reports that “Mr. Biden has said he plans to make a priority of passing a law against domestic terrorism, and he has been urged to create a White House post overseeing the fight against ideologically inspired violent extremists and increasing funding to combat them.”

    Meanwhile, Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA) — not just one of the most dishonest members of Congress but also one of the most militaristic and authoritarian — has had a bill proposed since 2019 to simply amend the existing foreign anti-terrorism bill to allow the U.S. Government to invoke exactly the same powers at home against “domestic terrorists.”

    Why would such new terrorism laws be needed in a country that already imprisons more of its citizens than any other country in the world as the result of a very aggressive set of criminal laws? What acts should be criminalized by new “domestic terrorism” laws that are not already deemed criminal? They never say, almost certainly because — just as was true of the first set of new War on Terror laws — their real aim is to criminalize that which should not be criminalized: speech, association, protests, opposition to the new ruling coalition.

    US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) flanked by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) (R) and Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), speaks at a press conference on Capitol Hill (Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images)

    The answer to this question — what needs to be criminalized that is not already a crime? — scarcely seems to matter. Media and political elites have placed as many Americans as they can — and it is a lot — into full-blown fear and panic mode, and when that happens, people are willing to acquiesce to anything claimed necessary to stop that threat, as the first War on Terror, still going strong twenty years later, decisively proved.

    An entire book could — and probably should — be written on why all of this is so concerning. For the moment, two points are vital to emphasize.

    First, much of the alarmism and fear-mongering is being driven by a deliberate distortion of what it means for speech to “incite violence.” The bastardizing of this phrase was the basis for President Trump’s rushed impeachment last week. It is also what is driving calls for dozens of members of Congress to be expelled and even prosecuted on “sedition” charges for having objected to the Electoral College certification, and is also at the heart of the spate of censorship actions already undertaken and further repressive measures being urged.

    This phrase — “inciting violence” — was also what drove many of the worst War on Terror abuses. I spent years reporting on how numerous young American Muslims were prosecuted under new, draconian anti-terrorism laws for uploading anti-U.S.-foreign-policy YouTube videos or giving rousing anti-American speeches deemed to “incite violence” and thus provide “material support” to terrorist groups — the exact theory which Rep. Schiff is seeking to import into the new domestic War on Terror.

    It is vital to ask what it means for speech to constitute “incitement to violence” to the point that it can be banned or criminalized. The expression of any political viewpoint, especially one passionately expressed, has the potential to “incite” someone else to get so riled up that they engage in violence.

    If you rail against the threats to free speech posed by Silicon Valley monopolies, someone hearing you may get so filled with rage that they decide to bomb an Amazon warehouse or a Facebook office. If you write a blistering screed accusing pro-life activists of endangering the lives of women by forcing them back into unsafe back-alley abortions, or if you argue that abortion is murder, you may very well inspire someone to engage in violence against a pro-life group or an abortion clinic. If you start a protest movement to object to the injustice of Wall Street bailouts — whether you call it “Occupy Wall Street” or the Tea Party — you may cause someone to go hunt down Goldman Sachs or Citibank executives who they believe are destroying the economic future of millions of people.

    If you claim that George W. Bush stole the 2000 and/or 2004 elections — as many Democrats, including members of Congress, did — you may inspire civic unrest or violence against Bush and his supporters. The same is true if you claim the 2016 or 2020 elections were fraudulent or illegitimate. If you rage against the racist brutality of the police, people may go burn down buildings in protest — or murder randomly selected police officers whom they have become convinced are agents of a racist genocidal state.

    The Bernie Sanders campaign volunteer and hard-core Democratic partisan, James Hodgkinson, who went to a softball field in June, 2017 to murder Republican Congress members — and almost succeeded in fatally shooting Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) — had spent months listening to radical Sanders supporters and participating in Facebook groups with names like “Terminate the Republican Party” and “Trump is a Traitor.”

    Hodgkinson had heard over and over that Republicans were not merely misguided but were “traitors” and grave threats to the Republic. As CNN reported, “his favorite television shows were listed as ‘Real Time with Bill Maher;’ ‘The Rachel Maddow Show;’ ‘Democracy Now!’ and other left-leaning programs.” All of the political rhetoric to which he was exposed — from the pro-Sanders Facebook groups, MSNBC and left-leaning shows — undoubtedly played a major role in triggering his violent assault and decision to murder pro-Trump Republican Congress members.

    Despite the potential of all of those views to motivate others to commit violence in their name — potential that has sometimes been realized — none of the people expressing those views, no matter how passionately, can be validly characterized as “inciting violence” either legally or ethically. That is because all of that speech is protected, legitimate speech. None of it advocates violence. None of it urges others to commit violence in its name. The fact that it may “inspire” or “motivate” some mentally unwell person or a genuine fanatic to commit violence does not make the person espousing those views and engaging in that non-violent speech guilty of “inciting violence” in any meaningful sense.

    To illustrate this point, I have often cited the crucial and brilliantly reasoned Supreme Court free speech ruling in Claiborne v. NAACP. In the 1960s and 1970s, the State of Mississippi tried to hold local NAACP leaders liable on the ground that their fiery speeches urging a boycott of white-owned stores “incited” their followers to burn down stores and violently attack patrons who did not honor the protest. The state’s argument was that the NAACP leaders knew that they were metaphorically pouring gasoline on a fire with their inflammatory rhetoric to rile up and angry crowds.

    But the Supreme Court rejected that argument, explaining that free speech will die if people are held responsible not for their own violent acts but for those committed by others who heard them speak and were motivated to commit crimes in the name of that cause (emphasis added):

    Civil liability may not be imposed merely because an individual belonged to a group, some members of which committed acts of violence. . . .

    [A]ny such theory fails for the simple reason that there is no evidence — apart from the speeches themselves — that [the NAACP leader sued by the State] authorized, ratified, or directly threatened acts of violence. . . . . To impose liability without a finding that the NAACP authorized — either actually or apparently — or ratified unlawful conduct would impermissibly burden the rights of political association that are protected by the First Amendment. . . .

    While the State legitimately may impose damages for the consequences of violent conduct, it may not award compensation for the consequences of nonviolent, protected activity. Only those losses proximately caused by unlawful conduct may be recovered.

    The First Amendment similarly restricts the ability of the State to impose liability on an individual solely because of his association with another.

    The Claiborne court relied upon the iconic First Amendment ruling in Brandenburg v. Ohio, which overturned the criminal conviction of a KKK leader who had publicly advocated the possibility of violence against politicians. Even explicitly advocating the need or justifiability of violence for political ends is protected speech, ruled the court. They carved out a very narrow exception: “where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action” — meaning someone is explicitly urging an already assembled mob to specific violence with the expectation that they will do so more or less immediately (such as standing outside someone’s home and telling the gathered mob: it’s time to burn it down).

    It goes without saying that First Amendment jurisprudence on “incitement” governs what a state can do when punishing or restricting speech, not what a Congress can do in impeaching a president or expelling its own members, and certainly not social media companies seeking to ban people from their platforms.

    But that does not make these principles of how to understand “incitement to violence” irrelevant when applied to other contexts. Indeed, the central reasoning of these cases is vital to preserve everywhere: that if speech is classified as “incitement to violence” despite not explicitly advocating violence, it will sweep up any political speech which those wielding this term wish it to encompass. No political speech will be safe from this term when interpreted and applied so broadly and carelessly.

    And that is directly relevant to the second point. Continuing to process Washington debates of this sort primarily through the prism of “Democrat v. Republican” or even “left v. right” is a sure ticket to the destruction of core rights. There are times when powers of repression and censorship are aimed more at the left and times when they are aimed more at the right, but it is neither inherently a left-wing nor a right-wing tactic. It is a ruling class tactic, and it will be deployed against anyone perceived to be a dissident to ruling class interests and orthodoxies no matter where on the ideological spectrum they reside.

    The last several months of politician-and-journalist-demanded Silicon Valley censorship has targeted the right, but prior to that and simultaneously it has often targeted those perceived as on the left. The government has frequently declared right-wing domestic groups “terrorists,” while in the 1960s and 1970s it was left-wing groups devoted to anti-war activism which bore that designation. In 2011, British police designated the London version of Occupy Wall Street a “terrorist” group. In the 1980s, the African National Congress was so designated. “Terrorism” is an amorphous term that was created, and will always be used, to outlaw formidable dissent no matter its source or ideology.

    If you identify as a conservative and continue to believe that your prime enemies are ordinary leftists, or you identify as a leftist and believe your prime enemies are Republican citizens, you will fall perfectly into the trap set for you. Namely, you will ignore your real enemies, the ones who actually wield power at your expense: ruling class elites, who really do not care about “right v. left” and most definitely do not care about “Republican v. Democrat” — as evidenced by the fact that they fund both parties — but instead care only about one thing: stability, or preservation of the prevailing neoliberal order.

    Unlike so many ordinary citizens addicted to trivial partisan warfare, these ruling class elites know who their real enemies are: anyone who steps outside the limits and rules of the game they have crafted and who seeks to disrupt the system that preserves their prerogatives and status. The one who put this best was probably Barack Obama when he was president, when he observed — correctly — that the perceived warfare between establishment Democratic and Republican elites was mostly theater, and on the question of what they actually believe, they’re both “fighting inside the 40 yard line” together:

    A standard Goldman Sachs banker or Silicon Valley executive has far more in common, and is far more comfortable, with Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan than they do with the ordinary American citizen. Except when it means a mildly disruptive presence — like Trump — they barely care whether Democrats or Republicans rule various organs of government, or whether people who call themselves “liberals” or “conservatives” ascend to power. Some left-wing members of Congress, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) have said they oppose a new domestic terrorism law, but Democrats will have no trouble forming a majority by partnering with their neocon GOP allies like Liz Cheney to get it done, as they did earlier this year to stop the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and Germany.

    Neoliberalism and imperialism do not care about the pseudo-fights between the two parties or the cable TV bickering of the day. They do not like the far left or the far right. They do not like extremism of any kind. They do not support Communism and they do not support neo-Nazism or some fascist revolution. They care only about one thing: disempowering and crushing anyone who dissents from and threatens their hegemony. They care about stopping dissidents. All the weapons they build and institutions they assemble — the FBI, the DOJ, the CIA, the NSA, oligarchical power — exist for that sole and exclusive purpose, to fortify their power by rewarding those who accede to their pieties and crushing those who do not.

    No matter your views on the threat posed by international Islamic radicalism, huge excesses were committed in the name of stopping it — or, more accurately, the fears it generated were exploited to empower and entrench existing financial and political elites. The Authorization to Use Military Force — responsible for twenty-years-and-counting of war — was approved by the House three days after the 9/11 attack with just one dissenting vote. The Patriot Act — which radically expanded government surveillance powers — was enacted a mere six weeks after that attack, based on the promise that it would be temporary and “sunset” in four years. Like the wars spawned by 9/11, it is still in full force, virtually never debated any longer and predictably expanded far beyond how it was originally depicted.

    The first War on Terror ended up being wielded primarily on foreign soil but it has increasingly been imported onto domestic soil against Americans. This New War on Terror — one that is domestic in name from the start and carries the explicit purpose of fighting “extremists” and “domestic terrorists” among American citizens on U.S. soil — presents the whole slew of historically familiar dangers when governments, exploiting media-generated fear and dangers, arm themselves with the power to control information, debate, opinion, activism and protests.

    That a new War on Terror is coming is not a question of speculation and it is not in doubt. Those who now wield power are saying it explicitly. The only thing that is in doubt is how much opposition they will encounter from those who value basic civic rights more than the fears of one another being deliberately cultivated within us.

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 21:10

  • Federal Officials Warn "Mutant" COVID Strain Spreading In US As Cases Decline: Live Updates
    Federal Officials Warn “Mutant” COVID Strain Spreading In US As Cases Decline: Live Updates

    Summary:

    • University of California system to return to in-person classes in the fall
    • Federal officials warn that
    • US COVID deaths top 400K
    • Cases decline across US; NY releases latest data
    • US nears 400K COVID-linked deaths
    • Global cases: 95.7MM
    • UK vaccinates 6% of population
    • Brazil approves US, Chinese vaccines
    • Israel opens vaccinations to people in their
    • UK considering “all possible measures” as deaths spike
    • Germany extends lockdown to Feb. 14
    • California deaths down day over day
    • NY saw second straight daily drop over weekend
    • Swedish PM couldn’t rule out further restrictions

    * * *

    Update (2035ET): As cases decline across all four regions of the US, while Joe Biden holds a public memorial for the 400K people who have now died from COVID over the past year since the start of the pandemic, the head of the University of California system (located in a state with one of the most pro-lockdown stances), has seemingly bucked the trend by announcing the return to in-person education.

    In a statement, the office of the president said the university system intends to conduct 100% of its classes in person in the fall.

    The University of California Office of the President announced that it intends to hold Fall 2021 classes in person rather than online.

    The statement says that the school is making the change systemwide, and is “planning for a return to primarily in-person instruction” beginning in fall 2021.

    UC System President Michael Drake stated that “current forecasts give us hope that in the fall our students can enjoy a more normal on-campus experience.”

    “With robust research advancements and COVID-19 vaccines soon becoming available to students, staff, and faculty, UC is preparing to welcome students back to all its campuses this fall, while remaining vigilant in all critical prevention efforts and continuing to prioritize the health and well-being of the University community,” said the statement.

    The news comes as Dr. Fauci insists that, with Biden in office, it will be possible to blanket the country with immunity from the virus.

    A breakdown of COVID-linked deaths in Illinois shows that roughly 50% of those who succumbed were in long-term care facilities.

    On the federal end, even as cases decline in all four regions, the presence of the more contagious mutant strain of the virus is spreading among Americans and could become dominant by March,  according to federal public health officials cited by Joe Bidem, as the endless parade of warnings continues.

    * * *

    Update (1450ET): US COVID deaths have officially passed the 400K mark, the largest official death toll in the world, almost exactly one year after the first cases were confirmed in the US, marking the official start of the pandemic (even though the WHO dawdled on calling it that for a week or two).

    On Tuesday afternoon in New York, Johns Hopkins counted 400,002 deaths in the US, a death toll that’s higher than the number of American deaths in battle of any single war, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, and is higher than World War II, the most deadly war for Americans, by about 108,000 deaths.

    * * *

    Update (1350ET): New York State just reported its latest numbers, and it looks like a trend that started late last week has persisted. Instead of the post-Christmas explosion of cases promised by Dr. Fauci, cases are falling across all regions of the US.

    Here are the latest numbers out of NY.

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    Also, Moderna shares took a hit earlier Tuesday after the company revealed it didn’t know how many jabs had been given from a batch of vaccines causing a higher than normal number of adverse reactions.

    As we noted earlier, Dr. Fauci is again making the media rounds to proclaim that hitting 100MM Americans vaccinated in his first 100 days is “entirely feasible”, and that it’s also possible to bring about herd immunity in the US by the fall, before the next flu season, even though these scientists don’t know exactly where the herd immunity threshold is.

    * * *

    As the US approaches 400K COVID-related deaths (at least, according to the official numbers) the focus Tuesday morning has shifted back to Europe, where Chancellor Angela Merkel has reached a deal with local leaders to extend Germany’s lockdown until Feb. 14.

    According to the latest numbers from Johns Hopkins, another 3.8K US patients in the US died of causes related to COVID-19, keeping the country on track to reach 400K deaths before Joe Biden’s Wednesday inauguration. Meanwhile, even after Pfizer and Moderna missed their vaccination target for year-end 2020 by a wide margin, Dr. Anthony Fauci team Biden’s promise of delivering 100MM doses of the vaccine in 100 days is “absolutely a doable thing.”

    A breakdown of new cases by state shows particularly harsh numbers in California, and parts of the Southeastern US.

    As the incoming Biden team continues to wrestle with the US vaccine rollout (as refusals climb to levels unexpected by the experts, at least among health-care workers), Israel continues to lead the world in the race to vaccinate its entire population, with eligibility expanded to those 40 and older, as the tiny Mediterranean county has now vaccinated 27% of its population.

    Meanwhile, the FT is once again hyping up the UK’s vaccination rollout, carefully planned by PM Boris Johnson and the NHS. According to the FT, the UK, which has “pulled ahead” of its western peers, has already vaccinated roughly 6% of its population.

    In stark contrast to this message, UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Tuesday that the UK is considering “all possible measures” as deaths top 1.2K for the fifth day in a row, something that experts have attributed to the mutant strain, which purportedly makes the virus more infectious.

    Meanwhile, yet another COVID strain “variant” may be emerging in Amazonia, in the Brazilian city of Manaus, which has seen a surge in younger patients dying.

    As far as vaccinations are concerned, the WHO recently selected vaccine “inequality” as the theme for its new annual report, which expanded on remarks from Dr. Tedros, the chief of the WHO, who called the vaccine rollout worldwide a “massive moral failure.”

    This, from an organization that has once again meekly obliged as Beijing once again denied access to investigators looking to figure out how the global viral outbreak began, and what exactly Beijing did wrong. With Beijing pushing vaccines from half a dozen Chinese companies, the question of access for various countries will likely come down to whether they receive the “rich” world Pfizer and Moderna jabs, or the vaccines from China and Russia.

    Underscoring all of this, Brazil has officially approved both the AstraZeneca COVID vaccine and the SinoVac jab as cases and deaths climb, and the total number of shots delivered worldwide nears 40MM, according to Bloomberg.

    Here’s some more COVID news from the US and Europe.

    California reported 432 deaths, fewer than 669 the previous day and below the 14-day rolling average of 490, according to the health department’s website. If the state were a country, its 33,392 total fatalities would rank it 16th, between South Africa and Poland. California added 42,229 new cases yesterday, surpassing the 2.94 million mark. The state’s 14-day positivity rate was 12.5%, little changed from the 14-day average (Source: Bloomberg).

    France reported 16,642 new cases on Sunday, the lowest daily increase in six days and less than the previous seven-day rolling average of infections of 18,148 (Source: Bloomberg).

    Virginia destroys its record for new infections Sunday, rising to a new daily high of 9.9K, state health data show (Source: Bloomberg).

    New York state reported 13.8Knew cases Sunday, the second daily drop after infections climbed to a record of just below 20K on Friday. Hospitalizations, a growing concern, fell slightly to 8.8K, as did the positive test rate, to 5.61% statewide, Governor Andrew Cuomo said in a statement. Another 172 people in the state died (Source: Bloomberg).

    Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Lofven says he can’t rule out further restrictions under a temporary new law (Source: Bloomberg).

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 20:52

  • The ECB Has Quietly Launched Yield Curve Control… Just Don't Call It Yield Curve Control
    The ECB Has Quietly Launched Yield Curve Control… Just Don’t Call It Yield Curve Control

    When the BOJ – that experiment guinea pig among “developed” central banks which now holds a record 133% of Japan’s GDP on its balance sheet and which simply can’t stop intervening or Japan’s economy will implode in an instant – launched Yield Curve Control in late 2016, most market participants knew that it was just a matter of time before this particular experiment came to every other “developed” central bank. After all, the world’s monetary experimentalists long ago found themselves permanently trapped by pushing yields to record low levels to enable a tsunami of debt by inflating a gigantic asset bubble and then hoping they can let some air out of the bubble occasionally, and let yields rise again, if ever so slowly in hopes of “renormalization.” Alas as the recent events of late 2018 showed, in a world that has over $300 trillion in debt, higher yields – and renormalization – are now impossible, which is why central banks can never stop their micromanagement of capital markets and the economy, and why digital currencies are coming as the current fiat regime is now effectively defunct.

    But first, it means that Japan’s Yield Curve Control will be attempted across the world.

    And while we wait for Jerome Powell to launch YCC in the US, which according to some may happen once the nascent inflationary spike pushes 10Y yields to 1.50% or higher threatening a crash in the bond market – and from there all other markets – it appears that the ECB has already launched a stealthy version of Yield Curve Control of its own, i.e., controlling and manipulating government bond yields which are only permitted to trade within a narrow range of parameters. Just two caveats: it’s “different” from the BOJ version of YCC, and whatever you do, don’t call it yield curve control.

    According to Bloomberg, the ECB “is buying bonds to limit the differences between yields for the strongest and weakest economies in the euro zone, according to officials familiar with the matter, with one person saying the central bank has specific ideas on what spreads are appropriate.”

    In other words, yield curve control. But since the ECB does not want to be associated with the stigma that trails the BOJ which, as everyone knows, will be the first central banks to capitulate, the European incarnation of bond market nationalization is called yield spread control.

    The ECB’s stealthy market manipulation strategy, which has never been disclosed previously in any official capacity, explains for example why the spread between Italian and German debt “has stayed remarkably stable despite the Italian government nearing collapse, after the central bank raised the pace of bond buying.” It also explains why rates volatility – both in Europe and by extension, in the US – has been is at record lows.

    As Bloomberg explains, “the latest insight into its strategy sheds light on how policy makers are navigating euro-area complexities that make publicly targeting bond levels difficult.” It also helps answer a long-running investor question: whether the central bank has specific levels in mind when it tries to cap bond yields. It turns out that the answer is no – instead the ECB is focusing on spreads between different countries.

    “It’s different to the so-called yield curve control deployed by the Bank of Japan and Reserve Bank of Australia, which have publicly announced numerical targets for specific yields. In the case of the BOJ, it aims for zero percent on the 10-year government bond.”

    The reason why the ECB, which could love to have the same luxury as the BOJ of pulling all yields to zero but can’t due to different fiscal regimes and different sovereign risks, can’t pursue an identical YCC is because ECB President Christine Lagarde has to manage the monetary needs of a currency union with 19 nations, each issuing their own debt.

    While that strategy is similar to yield curve control, “they’re calling it something different,” said Christoph Rieger, head of fixed-rate strategy at Commerzbank AG. “My feeling is that this is an important thing for the ECB, they’re looking at it and they’re actually envious of the BOJ. They would love to have something like that.”

    Why of course they would; and they would be even more envious of the USSR which would set all price levels by fiat and capital markets would no longer exist. But that too is coming, just not immediately.

    As for YCC, the BOJ was the first central bank to adopt the policy in 2016 as a stimulus tool to boost inflation (actually that’s not true: the Fed was running under a yield curve control regime in the 1940s to keep bond yields during and after World War II). The RBA followed suit, and announced last March it would keep three-year yields at around 0.25%, and in November reduced that to around 0.1%. U.S. Federal Reserve Vice Chair Richard Clarida said late last year it’s part of the toolbox, but the Fed is waiting for yields to blow out first before launching it as it would be one less key tool in the Fed’s “toolkit.”

    The YCC pledge has to be credible though…. or the central bank simply has to monopolize the entire bond market. The BOJ, which is the only price setter left in Japan does the latter. Meanwhile, as Bloomberg correctly notes, investors must believe the central bank will spend as much as needed to defend its policy, and that’s where the ECB runs into problems.

    For starters, it lacks a single bond to target. That’ll change soon when the European Union starts issuing joint debt to finance its 750 billion-euro ($909 billion) recovery fund, but that plan is a temporary one linked to the pandemic –  the ECB could run out of bonds to buy. The European central bank is also forbidden by EU law from directly financing governments. It has kept its bond-buying programs legal by imposing limits on what it can buy and for how long, but yield curve control is implicitly limitless.

    “There are a number of issues in opting for such a strategy, or adding this to the ECB toolbox,” said Katharina Utermoehl, an economist at Allianz SE. “This could bring out the idea that actually the ECB is doing monetary financing.”

    Which, of course, the ECB has been doing for years, but in a world where it is in everyone’s best interest to spread lies and pretend that rules are still followed, nobody pretends to notice.

    And speaking of pretending, even though the ECB has been engaging in spread control, the ECB is now pretending it may actually launch official yield curve control, and Bank of Spain Governor Pablo Hernandez de Cos said this month that it’s an “option worth exploring.”

    Hernandez de Cos suggested targeting a technical measure, the region’s overnight index swap curve. Other economists, such as ABN Amro’s Nick Kounis have proposed using an average euro-zone bond yield weighted by national gross domestic product.

    Both Hernandez de Cos and Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel say the Governing Council has never discussed formal yield curve control. And why would they if the ECB is already doing it, just under a different name.

    Hilariously, Bloomberg then pretends that someone actually cares about the long-term, and notes that “the measure does carry broader risks, such as encouraging reckless fiscal policy by relieving governments of some market constraints.” Uhm, guys, we are now well beyond that part: if you don’t believe us, just check out the price of bitcoin.

    Meanwhile, YCC always comes with a cost, even if it is delayed. As mentioned above, when the Fed and the U.S. Treasury agreed in 1942 to cap borrowing costs to fund the country’s participation in World War II, yields were just barely above 0%. Five years later, inflation has exploded in double digits amid the post-war boom and the central bank was forced to start pulling back. It is this inflationary deluge that assets which central banks don’t (yet) control like bitcoin, are sniffing out.

    Explicit yield goals also make exiting the policy a challenge. Investors are likely to dump bonds, driving up borrowing costs, the moment they perceive the target is about to be dropped. Hence why the Fed spent all of last week talking down the risk of QE tapering.

    Finally, in an amusing twist of semantics, Bloomberg naively concludes that “that may ultimately mean the ECB has an edge with what Lagarde has described as an “holistic” approach to maintaining favorable financing conditions.”

    “It’s not as explicit as the Japanese do it, but broader,” said Florian Hense, European economist at Berenberg. “Once it’s out that you explicitly control the yield curve, this commitment can be very expensive.”

    Well, the cat is now officially out of the bag, and whatever one calls it, the fact that it is only with the ECB’s explicit intervention that European yields haven’t blown out will mean that the moment there is even the tiniest whiff the ECB may be pulling back its intervention that we will have an epic crisis.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 20:52

  • Democrats Fear Inauguration Violence… But Certainly Are Experts
    Democrats Fear Inauguration Violence… But Certainly Are Experts

    Via HumanEvents,com,

    In a CNN interview, Rep. Steve Cohen (TN-9) made the egregious accusation that because of its conservative majority, 75 percent of the National Guard might be inclined to attack during Joe Biden’s inauguration. 

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    “You know, I was thinking, the Guard is 90 some-odd percent, I believe, male; and only about 20 percent of white males voted for Biden. You’ve got to figure that in the Guard, which is predominately more conservative, and I see that on my social media and we know it, they’re probably not more than 25 percent of the people that are there protecting us who voted for Biden,” he said. 

    “The other 75 percent are in the class that would be, the large class of folks, who might want to do something. And there were military people and police who took oaths to defend the Constitution and to protect and defend who didn’t do it who were in the insurrection, so it does concern me,” he continued. 

    “The suspect group is large.” 

    If Trump and all other conservatives inherently and collectively encourage or incite violence, democrats are guilty by their own standards. 

    The Daily Wire put together a video exposing the countless times democrats and the left-wing Hollywood elite openly inciting violence against the president and conservatives. 

    Here are some examples: 

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: “I don’t even know why there aren’t uprisings all over the country. Maybe there will be.” 

    Eric Holder: “When they go low, we kick them.” 

    Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ): “Go to the Hill today. Get up and please, get up in the face of some Congresspeople.” 

    Joe Biden: “They asked me if I would like to debate this gentleman. I said ‘No,’ I said ‘If I were in high school I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him.’” 

    Mickey Rourke: “I’ll meet him in a hotel room, any motherf***ing day of the week, and give hima  Louisville slugger. Kiss my motherf***ing a**.” 

    Madonna: “Yes, I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House.” 

    Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA): “Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up, and if you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they are not welcome. Anymore. Anywhere.” 

    Gov. Andrew Cuomo: “He can’t come back to New York. He can’t. He’s gonna walk down the street in New York, forget bodyguards, he better have an army if he thinks he’s gonna walk down the street in New York.” 

    Kathy Griffin: 

    pic.twitter.com/HG3wwVO8hm

    — Kathy Griffin (@kathygriffin) November 4, 2020

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    Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA): “If the president does go ahead and fire Robert Mueller, we would have people take to the streets. I believe there would be widespread civil unrest because Americans understand that the rule of law is paramount.” 

    Johnny Depp: “When was the last time an actor assassinated a president? It’s been a while, and maybe it’s time.” 

    Big Sean: “If you put this round my neck, and I might just kill ISIS with the same ice pick that I murdered Donald Trump in the same night with.”

    Nancy Pelosi, again: “Sunday morning. I just came from Mass, but nonetheless I’ll just say this. If you’re in the arena, you’ve got to be ready to take a punch. You got to be ready to throw a punch, for the children.” 

    Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT): “Even in states where Donald Trump won big, that it does you any good running away from Donald Trump. I think you need to go back and punch him in the face. I mean, the truth is is this guy is bad for this country.” 

    Rep. Cynthia Johnson (D-MI): “So this is just a warning to you Trumpers. Be careful. Walk lightly. We ain’t playing with you. Enough of the shenanigans. Enough is enough. And for those of you who are soldiers, you know how to do it. Do it right. Be in order. Make them pay.” 

    Of course, those cases are all completely different… because #OrangeManBad.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 20:30

  • Sub-Hunting Drone Completes Successful Test Off California Coast
    Sub-Hunting Drone Completes Successful Test Off California Coast

    The US Navy and General Atomics tested a Reaper drone for the first time ever with new submarine-hunting technology, according to Defense News.

    The General Atomics’ MQ-9A Block V Reaper drone dropped ten sonobuoys were used to track an underwater training target that mimicked a submarine. 

    The test was conducted in November. The MQ-9A Block V Reaper is part of a research and development project with the Navy’s Naval Air Systems Command.

    The successful completion of the test may lower submarine-hunting surveillance costs and divert more expensive human-crewed airplanes, such as the Boeing P-8 Poseidon, to more critical missions. 

    A General Atomics tear-off sheet shows the MQ-9A Block V Reaper has four pods that can carry up to 40 ‘A’ size or 80 ‘G’ size sonobuoys. During the test, the drone dropped sonobuoys to track an underwater target in real-time. 

    “This demonstration is a first for airborne antisubmarine warfare. The successful completion of this testing paves the way for the future development of more Anti-Submarine Warfare capabilities from our MQ-9s,” said General Atomics Aeronautical Systems President David Alexander in a statement. “We look forward to continuing collaboration with the US Navy as they explore innovative options for distributed maritime operations in the undersea domain.”

    Using drones for anti-submarine warfare could be the cheapest bet for the military to monitor the Pacific Ocean as China continues to expand its underwater capabilities. 

    Suppose the MQ-9A Block V Reaper is deployed in the future. In that case, courtesy of BofA is a map of US military bases and presence in the Pacific Ocean and, specifically, in proximity to China. 

    To sum up, the US Navy has likely found a new countermeasure against China’s growing fleet of underwater drones and submarines. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 20:10

  • The Empirical Case For A Mask Mandate Lacks Scientific Grounding
    The Empirical Case For A Mask Mandate Lacks Scientific Grounding

    Authored by Phillip Magness via The American Institute for Economic research,

    Last fall, the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics Evaluation (IHME) published a headline-grabbing study with a politically appealing claim: if Americans would simply mask up when they ventured out into public, over 120,000 lives could be saved by the beginning of next year.

    As Joe Biden takes office later this week, he is widely expected to use executive orders to enact a 100-day long national mask mandate.

    Biden’s action is directly premised on the claims of the IHME study, which he has repeatedly alluded to in his public commentary. But is the science behind this claim sound?

    As I documented last fall, the IHME’s projections rested upon a simple data error. The IHME model begins from the assumption that only 49% of Americans were currently wearing masks in public. Increase the mask adoption rate to between 85% and 95%, it stands to reason, and you’ll save over a hundred thousand lives by reducing the spread of Covid-19. A national mask mandate, the authors implied, would do the trick.

    The IHME’s projections had a crucial problem however. The IHME took its 49% adoption figure from a months-old outdated survey at the beginning of the pandemic. As of late September when they made their projections, US mask adoption hovered at 80% nationwide. Instead of nearly doubling mask use rates, a national mask mandate would only increase compliance by about 5 to 15 percentage points. The number of lives that the mandate would save, it turned out, had been vastly exaggerated in the published report.

    The IHME’s director took exception to my criticism, though notably he did not dispute any of my math.

    “[Magness] is correct that our estimate of mask-wearing rates has increased” since the study’s publication, explained Christopher J.L. Murray in a letter to the Wall Street Journal.

    New data from the summer and early fall confirmed an increase in public mask adoption rates.

    Yet Murray continued: “[h]e is incorrect to suggest that this weakens the case for public policies that require masks.”

    In the roughly two months since this public exchange, the IHME’s mask model has undergone a curious transformation. Murray and his team quietly updated their figures to reflect the higher and more realistic mask-adoption rates. Furthermore, they extended these corrections retroactively to their model’s projections from the summer months.

    The chart below shows how the IHME mask model has shifted over time. The blue line depicts the actual US mask adoption rate, as tracked by the YouGov survey. It shows that US mask adoption rapidly increased in the spring until hitting about 80% in mid-July. From July until the present, it has held stable at the 80% level (parallel surveys by the CDC, Pew Charitable Trust, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Kaiser Family Foundation confirm these findings).

    The orange line shows the IHME’s mask model and forecast on September 21, which is the version it published in the journal Nature-Medicine. The yellow line shows the IHME’s subsequent upward revisions as of January 2021, which are now finally starting to converge with reality. Their estimates still fall slightly short of what the aforementioned surveys show, but as of January 18th the IHME model assumes that 76% of Americans wear masks in public – just shy of the 80% level.

    While the IHME team is to be commended for correcting their model to better reflect reality, these adjustments also mean that comparatively few additional gains remain to be had from bumping the mask-adoption rate upward to 85 or 95%. The most recent of the independent surveys – a study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation in December – even reports that 89% of Americans always or almost always wear masks in public, suggesting we are already at or near the targeted “universal adoption” threshold of the IHME model.

    The ongoing corrections to the IHME model have severely dampened the promised benefits of a national mask mandate. The figure below shows the IHME’s “lives saved” forecast under universal mask adoption with 95% compliance, as projected for 4 months out from its release date.

    Back in September, the IHME model projected over 120,000 lives would be saved by January under a mask mandate. Now it projects a much smaller 31,000 lives saved by the end of April.

    When reading these ever-shrinking projections, keep in mind that US mask adoption patterns have not meaningfully changed since the mid-summer of 2020, before the IHME even released its first “lives saved” estimate. It has stayed constant at roughly 80% throughout this entire time. The only apparent changes are the input data for the IHME model, which they updated in the wake of my critique to better approximate reality. The effect is to reduce the IHME’s “lives saved” projection at the 4-month mark to only one quarter of its headline-grabbing claim from back in the fall.

    These changes do not mean that masks lack effectiveness at the margins. They remain a precautionary hygienic response – particularly in certain indoor venues and around vulnerable people. Rather, the IHME’s model adjustments confirm what several of us have been pointing out since the mask mandate movement began in earnest last year. The main gains from masking have already been reaped. Americans rapidly adopted them last summer and have continued to use them at consistently high rates ever since. Adding a new national mask mandate on top of this practice will bring little if any additional benefit to what voluntary adoption already achieved, though it may foster a false hope in the exaggerated claims of an obsolete and erroneous model.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 19:50

  • Pompeo Hits China With 11th Hour 'Genocide' Label For Its Treatment Of Uighur Minority
    Pompeo Hits China With 11th Hour ‘Genocide’ Label For Its Treatment Of Uighur Minority

    In some of his last official remarks as Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo on Tuesday lashed out a final time both at China and the incoming Biden administration. 

    He said China’s communist government is committing ongoing “genocide” targeting its minority-Muslim Uighur population in the Xinjiang region while underscoring that Biden policies are likely to only embolden China. It’s a significant eleventh-hour declaration against Beijing using the strongest language thus far on the issue (namely, the genocide label).

    Getty Images

    “If the Chinese Communist Party is allowed to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against its own people, imagine what it will be emboldened to do to the free world, in the not-so-distant future,” Pompeo said in the statement. 

    “While the CCP has always exhibited a profound hostility to all people of faith, we have watched with growing alarm the Party’s increasingly repressive treatment of the Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minority groups,” Pompeo added.

    The issue has been highlighted in multiple reports both by international human rights organizations as well as in press reports. In particular over the past year there’s further been detailed descriptions of ‘re-education’ and forced labor camps in Xinjiang.

    Pompeo went on in his statement, describing Chinese authorities, to say: 

    “Their morally repugnant, wholesale policies, practices, and abuses are designed systematically to discriminate against and surveil ethnic Uyghurs as a unique demographic and ethnic group, restrict their freedom to travel, emigrate, and attend schools, and deny other basic human rights of assembly, speech, and worship.”

    And further: “The governing authorities of the second most economically, militarily, and politically powerful country on earth have made clear that they are engaged in the forced assimilation and eventual erasure of a vulnerable ethnic and religious minority group, even as they simultaneously assert their country as a global leader and attempt to remold the international system in their image,” he said.

    A so-called vocational training center in Xinjiang many are reportedly across the region where Chinese Muslims are sent for alleged ‘re-education’ programs:

    Interestingly the Trump administration has waited to level the genocide label till now, a mere day before Biden’s inauguration, as perhaps a final major effort to “box Biden in” when it comes to China. The issue of whether China’s treatment of Uighurs constitutes genocide had been studied and under intensive review by the State Department since at least last month.

    Any Biden reversals in terms of the Trump’s targeted sanctions on Chinese officials – particularly related to the Hong Kong issue – will make the Democratic administration look “soft”. But this is precisely what such statements as Pompeo’s latest are designed to do.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 19:30

  • My Pillow CEO Says Bed Bath & Beyond, Kohl's To Stop Selling His Products
    My Pillow CEO Says Bed Bath & Beyond, Kohl’s To Stop Selling His Products

    Authored by Zacharty Stieber via The Epoch Times,

    My Pillow products won’t be carried in Kohl’s or Bed Bath & Beyond any longer, the company’s CEO says.

    CEO Mike Lindell said Monday that his company recently was notified of the discontinuance.

    “I just got off the phone with Bed Bath and Beyond. They’re dropping My Pillow. Just got off the phone not five minutes ago. Kohl’s, all these different places,” Lindell told Right Side Broadcasting Network.

    Kohl’s and Bed Bath & Beyond didn’t immediately respond to inquiries.

    Lindell said the actions came after groups like Sleeping Giant push companies to stop doing business with him.

    “It’s not their fault that they’re scared because they don’t realize these are fake people that are on, they’re going ‘we’re going to boycott your store if you don’t drop My Pillow.’”

    “People should go into the stores and say they support My Pillow,” he added.

    A general view of the Bed Bath & Beyond sign as photographed in Westbury, N.Y., on March 20, 2020. (Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

    He also said his company is a good partner and has seen its direct sales increase 30–40 percent since Friday.

    Lindell drew attention last week by visiting the White House to meet with President Donald Trump. While there, notes he was holding were photographed and pictures of the notes were then circulated on social media. The notes suggested Trump declare martial law and move the chief of staff to acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller to acting CIA chief.

    Lindell told The Epoch Times that the notes contained suggestions from a lawyer and he was just the messenger. He said martial law wasn’t part of the five-minute discussion he shared with the president.

    The cancellation of Lindell’s products is the latest in punitive action taken against Trump and his supporters since the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol. The president was banned from social media platforms and cut off by some banks, while some supporters have also been banned by Twitter and been fired by employers.

    Sleeping Giants, a leftist activist group, has ongoing campaigns to pressure companies to drop conservative and right-leaning websites, such as Breitbart News and Fox News. On Twitter, it trumpeted the news that Bed Bath & Beyond and Kohl’s dropped My Pillow, claiming Lindell played a part in motivating the breach of the Capitol by questioning the results of the 2020 election.

    “Honestly, how awesome would it be if we started selling Sleeping Giants pillows?” it added.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 19:10

  • US Cuts Off Telephone Line To Russian Consulate In New York Day Before Inauguration
    US Cuts Off Telephone Line To Russian Consulate In New York Day Before Inauguration

    Russian state-run news agency RIA is reporting that the US has switched off to telephone line to Russia’s consulate in New York.

    RIA cited officials with the Russian diplomatic mission, who further said there’s been no connection for more than a day.

    Russian consulate in the Upper East Side of Manhattan

    However, RIA gave no further details. Speculation abounds given the timing of the apparent phone switch off, coming a mere day before Joe Biden’s inauguration.

    It also comes amid some Democratic leaders as well as the mainstream media actually attempting to tie the Capitol Hill riot of January 6 somehow to Russian intelligence and social media ‘influence ops’.

    In a follow-up to RIA’s initial reporting, Russia’s Sputnik confirmed the following:

    The Russian Consulate-General in New York has been completely cut off city telephone lines by the American authorities since 18 January, the diplomatic mission in the city has stated via its official Twitter account. The consulate added that it is occasionally also encountering issues with Internet connectivity.

    A source at the Russian mission in New York says US authorities are citing technical issues as the reason for the cut-off. According to the source, however, a two-day delay in the resumption of telephone services is “unheard of”. The diplomatic mission in the city has several telephone lines connected and all of them went dead at the same time, the source adds.

    Meanwhile in terms of the strangeness of the timing, there’s this bizarre continuing saga:

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    Sputnik notes further, however, that “This is not the first time the Trump administration takes actions against Russian diplomatic missions in the US. Back in 2017, Washington decided to close the Russian Consulate-General in San Francisco in response to the expulsion of American diplomats from Russia.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 18:50

  • China To Sanction US Officials For "Blatant Interference" In Hong Kong & Taiwan
    China To Sanction US Officials For “Blatant Interference” In Hong Kong & Taiwan

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    China announced it plans to sanction US officials as retaliation for measures Washington has taken over Hong Kong and for steps the Trump administration has taken to increase ties with Taiwan.

    Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Monday that the US was “blatantly interfering” in Hong Kong by sanctioning Chinese officials over arrests in the city.

    Last Friday, the US imposed sanctions on six Hong Kong and Chinese officials. In December, the US sanctioned members of Beijing’s legislature for their alleged role in crafting Hong Kong’s new national security law.

    Hua said Beijing will hit US officials and lawmakers who are “primarily responsible for the vile actions on Hong Kong” with reciprocal sanctions. “The US must immediately stop interfering in Hong Kong’s affairs and immediately stop using various pretenses to interfere in China’s internal affairs,” she said.

    Hua also said China will take action against US officials responsible for the increased ties between Washington and Taipei. Specific names of US officials that will be subject to punitive measures have not been given.

    The Trump administration has taken several steps to increase diplomatic relations with Taiwan as part of its hardline China policies. In the latest move, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced he was lifting State Department restrictions on official US contacts with Taiwanese officials.

    Hua said Monday that unspecified US officials would also be targeted by Beijing as they had “acted maliciously” on the Taiwan issue.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 18:30

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Jan 19

Today’s News 19th January 2021

  • China Imports Of Corn, Wheat Hit Record High Amid Soaring Food Prices
    China Imports Of Corn, Wheat Hit Record High Amid Soaring Food Prices

    On the same day that China published a much stronger than expected (if largely laughable as we first noted and Michael Pettis subsequently confirmed) GDP print, making China the only major economy to grow in the “year of covid”, China customs data showed that grains imports soared to record highs in 2020 after tight domestic corn supplies pushed prices to multi-year peaks, driving demand for cheaper imports.

    China, the world’s top agricultural market, bought a record 11.3 million tonnes of imported corn last year, according to General Administration of Customs data, exceeding the annual quota – which was set at 7.2 million tonnes – for the first time.

    China also imported a record 8.38 million tonnes of wheat, just shy of the max quota of 9.64 million tonnes.

    According to Reuters, in 2019 China only used 67% of its annual quota for corn and one-third of its quota for wheat. China has accelerated buying of global grains in the past year due to healthy demand from a recovering pig sector, and a domestic shortfall in corn supplies.

    The table below shows imports of China’s major agriculture products in December, according to data released on Monday. The data did not provide a breakdown on the origins of the imports. Data on soybean imports was released earlier this month.

    This is happening as grains prices have exploded by over 60% in the past 6 months…

    … prompting a very worried Albert Edwards to warn that a new and potentially much more violent “Arab Spring” revolutionary cascade could be imminent unless food prices stabilize and revert to much lower levels (see “Why Albert Edwards Is Starting To Panic About Soaring Food Prices“.)

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 01:00

  • FBI Probing Allegation That Woman Stole Laptop From Pelosi’s Office To Sell It To Russia
    FBI Probing Allegation That Woman Stole Laptop From Pelosi’s Office To Sell It To Russia

    By Zachary Stieber of Epoch Times

    The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating whether a woman seen in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) office on Jan. 6 stole a computer or hard drive and planned to sell it to Russia. The claim was outlined in an affidavit filed in the case against Riley June Williams, a Pennsylvania woman who authorities said stormed the U.S. Capitol earlier this month.

    In the days following the breach, a witness called the FBI’s tip line several times. The witness said he or she was a former romantic partner of Williams and saw Williams in video footage captured on Jan. 6.

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    The caller (W1) also claimed to have spoken to friends of Williams who showed him or her a video of Williams taking a computer or hard drive from Pelosi’s office during the mayhem that day.

    “W1 stated that WILLIAMS intended to send the computer device to a friend in Russia, who then planned to sell the device to SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service,” Special Agent Jonathan Lund wrote in the court filing.

    “According to W1, the transfer of the computer device to Russia fell through for unknown reasons and WILLIAMS still has the computer device or destroyed it. This matter remains under investigation.”

    Pelosi’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for Pelosi confirmed last week that a laptop was stolen from her office during the breach of the Capitol. The computer “was only used for presentations,” spokesman Drew Hammill said.

    At least one other laptop was stolen from congressional offices on Jan. 6. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) said a computer was taken from his office.

    U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin told reporters in a recent briefing that people “were literally rifling through Pelosi’s office and stealing items, stealing materials, mail, and sometimes even personal mementos.”

    The new affidavit was signed by a judge on Sunday.

    Officials say Williams, 22, apparently fled. According to law enforcement officers in Harrisburg, Williams’s mother said her daughter packed a bag and left home, saying she’d be gone for a couple of weeks. Sometime after Jan. 6, Williams changed her phone number and deleted accounts on social media platforms, including Facebook, Reddit, and Parler.

    Williams was charged with illegally entering the Capitol and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. Williams didn’t have an attorney listed as of Monday morning.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/18/2021 – 23:45

  • China Reports 100+ Cases For Sixth Day As Lockdowns Expanded To 29MM
    China Reports 100+ Cases For Sixth Day As Lockdowns Expanded To 29MM

    As the CCP scrambles to ship tens of thousands of people out of Shinjiang into designated “quarantine centers” across Hebei province, Chinese authorities have confirmed 100+ new cases of COVID-19 for the sixth straight day on Monday as infections continue to rise in Hebei, the northeastern province surrounding Beijing, where an outbreak centered around the city of Shijiazhuang, only 300 kilometers (186 miles) from Beijing, has been festering for weeks.

    Rising infection numbers in China are unsurprisingly triggering anxieties and international media coverage as the world prepares for the Lunar New Year holiday, the travel season that helped spread the virus around the world one year ago, when the CCP failed to stop citizens from Wuhan from traveling across the country, the region and the world.

    So far this year, 457 new cases have been confirmed in the region, though Beijing has long been suspected of under-reporting the numbers.

    Officials have been ratcheting up travel restrictions and other social distancing rules in cities across the region, with the new controls in the city of Gongzhuling in Jilin province, which has a population of about 1MM people, brings the total number of people under lockdown to more than 29MM.

    In other related news, as more questions arise about the efficacy of some of the Chinese COVID vaccines, Hong Kong’s government-appointed vaccine advisory panel is seeking more data from the Norwegian and German governments on the reported deaths of elderly people after they received the Pfizer-BioNTech as fears about “adverse” health reactions.

    Still, the panel recommended the shot for use in Hong Kong, though they  but would ask the government to stop administering it “as soon as we receive information that tips the balance ratio of risks and benefits”. The panel is also seeking more information on the deaths from Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical which is marketing the vaccine in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

    Circling back to the official tally, NHC Minister Ma Xiaowei said over the weekend that outbreaks in the northeast have come from travellers entering the country or contaminated frozen food imports. China is the only country to claim COVID-19 can be transmitted via cold chain imports, even though the WHO has downplayed the risks.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/18/2021 – 23:15

  • Turley On 'The No-Show' Option: Trump Could Sit Out The Senate Trial And Still Prevail
    Turley On ‘The No-Show’ Option: Trump Could Sit Out The Senate Trial And Still Prevail

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    There is a better defense: no defense…

    In a matter of days, this country will face an unprecedented Senate trial. The Senate not only will try a president for a second time but will do so after he has left office.

    Vice President-elect Kamala Harris assures us the Senate can politically “multitask” to deal with an impeachment, an incoming Biden administration and a pandemic.

    However, the threshold question is whether this is constitutionally one of those tasks — and for soon-to-be citizen Donald Trump, the best defense may be no defense at all.

    In fairness, people on both sides are struggling to deal with this novel impeachment. While I have stated that I do not wish to serve as the president’s counsel, I have spoken to members of Congress and the White House on the historical and constitutional backgrounds for a trial. From a purely strategic perspective, I believe Trump may be wise to skip any trial.

    For a notorious counterpuncher, avoiding a fight might be the most difficult decision of all, particularly because he has obvious defenses.

    First, he was denied due process when the House held an unprecedented “snap impeachment” without a hearing or inquiry even though a trial likely would not occur immediately.

    Even a one-day hearing would have allowed evidence to be discussed as well as a formal request for a response.

    Second, the impeachment article is poorly crafted and poorly conceived, built around assertions that Trump’s Jan. 6 speech to supporters was an “incitement to insurrection.” His speech raised potentially impeachable grounds; I condemned it as he gave it and opposed his challenge of electoral votes from the outset. But as I wrote previously, it would have been far better to censure him for it in a bipartisan, bicameral resolution.

    While impeachment can be based on noncriminal grounds, Trump’s speech alone did not amount to criminal incitement. Absent direct evidence of intent, a criminal charge would likely collapse in an actual trial or on appeal on First Amendment grounds. Trump expressly called for his supporters “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” He told them to go to the Capitol “to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women,” to “fight like hell” to challenge the election, and to remind unsupportive Republicans that their actions would not be forgotten. It was a reckless speech — but, in a court of law, it would constitute protected speech.

    Despite the strength of such defenses, the president must first decide whether he wants to sit for trial at all. He can legitimately argue that a private citizen cannot be impeached and that the Senate cannot remove a person from office who has already left.

    Article I, Section 4, of the Constitution states that the sole purpose of an impeachment trial is whether “the president, vice president and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office.” While the Senate can later add a disqualification from holding federal office again, that is only after removal is decided — because it is a question of the penalty, not the purpose of the proceeding.

    The Constitution refers to a present-tense status of “the president.” That status is key to other provisions bestowing official powers and privileges, which do not linger after leaving office. No one would argue that Trump could continue to exercise those powers once President-elect Biden is sworn in. Yet a Senate trial would insist that, while Trump has no continuing powers, he remains subject to continued penalties tied to the office. Moreover, the stated purpose of the impeachment trial is whether a president “shall be removed.” Thus, the only person constitutionally subject to an impeachment trial would be the sitting president, Joe Biden.

    This issue has been debated since the first impeachment in 1797, when Sen. William Blount of Tennessee faced allegations of conspiring to help Great Britain seize what is now Louisiana. Blount was expelled from the Senate before being impeached, so he insisted he was not subject to trial and refused to appear. The Senate apparently agreed and dismissed the case — just 10 years after the Constitution’s ratification, with most of the Framers still alive and some serving in Congress. (Indeed, Blount was one of its signers.)

    The second case fared little better. In 1876, former Secretary of War William Belknap was tried even though he resigned before being impeached. Almost half of the senators voted that they did not have jurisdiction, and Belknap was later acquitted, in part due to doubts over the trial’s legitimacy.

    The absence of a defendant or defense counsel might not be the only curious element in this trial. It is unclear, for example, if Chief Justice John Roberts would be called upon to preside. After all, the Constitution stipulates that when “the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside” — but the president will be Biden, not Trump.

    The failure to put on a defense is not an admission of guilt. The Senate has a duty to resolve whether there is a valid impeachment trial to be held and then whether the constitutional standard has been satisfied. If the Senate does not dismiss the case in a threshold vote, Trump can treat the proceeding as an extraconstitutional act because he is no longer subject to removal. If the Senate were to convict, he would have standing to challenge any disqualification from future federal offices. He could well prevail, and the Senate would have created a precedent against itself: history’s first judicial reversal of an impeachment verdict.

    Courts have long maintained that impeachments are left to Congress. Yet this is different. This is a question of whether a private citizen can be subjected to a proceeding that is expressly committed to the removal of officeholders. Impeachments go to the status of an officeholder, while indictments go to the status of an individual. If prosecutors believe Trump incited insurrection, they should charge him. However, the Senate must decide if it wants to hold a trial based on a legal fiction: a vote to remove someone who is no longer in office.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/18/2021 – 22:45

  • Facebook Temporarily Bans Ads For Combat Gear Following Capitol Riots 
    Facebook Temporarily Bans Ads For Combat Gear Following Capitol Riots 

    On Saturday morning, Facebook published a short update on their blog titled “Our Preparations Ahead of Inauguration Day,” explaining how the social media company would temporarily prohibit advertisements from defense firms amid the fallout from the Jan. 6 US Capitol riots.

    Facebook wrote, “we are banning ads that promote weapon accessories and protective gear in the US at least through Jan. 22, out of an abundance of caution.”

    “We already prohibit ads for weapons, ammunition, and weapon enhancements like silencers. But we will now also prohibit ads for accessories such as gun safes, vests, and gun holsters in the US,” the social media company continued. 

    The ad ban on gun safes, vests, and gun holsters on the platform comes a little more than a week after the Capitol riots. 

    What’s concerning is the ban could be permanent if Democrats have it their way. 

    Last week, three senators and four attorney generals sent letters to Facebook demanding that the platform permanently ban ads of defense products used in armed combat. 

    The senators, all Democrats (Tammy Duckworth, Richard Blumenthal, and Sherrod Brown), said the social media company must take bold action to “hold itself accountable for how domestic enemies of the United States have used the company’s products and platform to further their own illicit aims.”

    “Whether through negligence or with full knowledge, Facebook is placing profit ahead of our Nation’s democracy,” they said.

    An update on the blog on Friday said the social media company was “implementing a series of additional measures to continue preventing attempts to use our services for violence,” adding that “we are blocking the creation of any new Facebook events happening in close proximity to locations including the White House, the US Capitol building and any of the state capitol buildings through Inauguration Day.”

    Under a Biden presidency, a taste of what’s coming could be a major clamp down on the Second Amendment to the US Constitution. Biden has already said he will “defeat” the now-bankrupted NRA. 

    Last week, readers learned that New York could be the first state to ban body armor for civilians if a new bill is passed. If the bill is passed, body armor bans could sweep across blue states. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/18/2021 – 22:15

  • Tomorrow Q4 Earnings Begin In Earnest: Here's What To Expect… And Why They Don't Matter
    Tomorrow Q4 Earnings Begin In Earnest: Here’s What To Expect… And Why They Don’t Matter

    Earnings season ramps up this week as 43 companies in the S&P 500 will report –  the highlights will be Bank of America, Netflix, Charles Schwab and Goldman Sachs tomorrow, then on Wednesday, releases will come from Procter & Gamble, UnitedHealth Group, ASML Holding, Morgan Stanley and BNY Mellon. Finally on Thursday, we’ll hear from Intel, Union Pacific and IBM.

    So what to expect?

    According to BofA, the bank’s one-month Global Earnings Revision Ratio increased in December from 1.30 to 1.35 to reach a two-year high. The recovery in earnings expectations has been supported by continuing accommodative monetary and fiscal policy and the start of global distribution of multiple vaccines. In the past, when the Ratio has been near current levels, the MSCI All Country World Index has averaged 11.3% over the subsequent 12 months. And since the global earnings cycle has a 76% correlation with the Global Wave, BofA says that “the rising Global Wave suggests a sustained earnings recovery could support the next leg of an equity market rally.”

    In terms of actual quantitative expectations, Goldman’s David Kostin writes that consensus expects S&P 500 firms to report 4Q year/year EPS growth of -11% as virus restrictions hampered the growth of cyclical sectors. Excluding Energy, S&P 500 EPS is expected to fall by a more modest 8%.

    LIke earnings, margins are forecast to contract by 116 bps to 9.5%, falling in 7 of 8 sectors. In contrast, consensus estimates that sales will only fall by 1% (and rise by 2% ex-Energy).

    Beneath the surface of the market, earnings growth is expected to vary widely across sectors. In contrast with the index-level decline, Health Care will post 2% year/year EPS growth and Info Tech earnings will grow by 1%. Overall, analysts expect cyclical sectors will report the largest earnings declines. Consensus expects EPS to contract by 102% for Energy, 40% for Industrials, and 21% for Consumer Discretionary. Materials represents a notable exception; its 6% expected EPS growth for 4Q is the largest of any S&P 500 sector.

    Looking ahead, Goldman notes that risks to 4Q EPS estimates “appear tilted to the upside.” If current consensus forecasts are realized, the year/year growth rate will have decelerated from 3Q, but this to Kostin would be inconsistent with the improving trajectory of economic activity. Putting this in context, since 2003 realized S&P 500 EPS has averaged 4% greater than consensus expectations at the start of reporting season. However, in 2Q and 3Q, the aggregate S&P 500 surpassed consensus expectations by 24% and 17%, respectively.

    In both quarters, the realized decline in margins was ultimately less than expected. On the other hand, Goldman warns that the delayed passage of a fiscal stimulus deal may have constrained consumer spending and poses a downside risk to S&P 500 EPS estimates.

    The irony is that like the past few quarters, nothing that is reported will actually matter (which is why stocks have been sloshing around in a sea of liquidity with zero concerns about fundamentals). Indeed, consistent with the previous two quarters, Goldman expects “investors will look through 4Q results and focus on company commentary about the trajectory of recovery in 2021.”

    That said, as investors look to 2021, (ultra loose) policy remains a key driver for corporate profits. Joe Biden laid out his economic plan on Thursday, where he proposed a fiscal stimulus package of $1.9 trillion, designed to support the economy as it emerges from the pandemic recession. Core components of the package include direct stimulus checks of $1,400 per person, further expansion of unemployment benefits through September, $370 billion for additional state and local government aid, and $190 billion for public health funding. Biden indicated that he would seek bipartisan support for the bill (60 votes) rather than pass it via reconciliation (50 votes). In response, Goldman’s political economists increased their fiscal assumptions and now assume Congress will enact $1.1 trillion in additional stimulus, well below what BIden has proposed. But, they expect a second proposal dealing with taxes, infrastructure, and benefit programs to pass around mid-year. That should also be over a trillion dollars.

    In this context, Kostin notes that he recently revised his top-down S&P 500 EPS forecasts “to reflect the policy implications of unified Democratic control in Washington, DC.” Following the Democratic victories in the Georgia run-offs – which as a reminder as recently as two months ago was seen as bearish for markets – Goldman economists turned uber bullish, and now incorporate the likelihood of increased fiscal spending as a result lifting their 2021 real US GDP growth forecast. They also raised their 2021 S&P 500 EPS growth rate by 2 pp to +31% ($178). But at the same time they lowered their 2022 EPS growth rate by 2 pp to 10% ($196) to reflect the positive impact of greater fiscal spending but also the headwind of higher corporate taxes.

    Going back to Goldman’s 2021 EPS estimate, these remain 6% above the consensus bottom-up forecast of $168 because the bank expects upward revisions in the near future. Consensus 2021 EPS estimates for the overall S&P 500 index have risen by less than 1% since November 9 when Pfizer/BioNTechannounced the surprisingly-high efficacy of its vaccine candidate. Additionally, consensus forecasts have historically been too pessimistic coming out of recessions (e.g., in 2010). In particular, Goldman warns that analysts tend to underestimate margin rebounds in recovery periods. Instead the bank sees three sources of potential margin upside: (1) operating leverage, which currently stands at the highest in a decade, (2) moderating costs (e.g., labor, T&E), as SG&A expenses currently account for an elevated share of S&P 500 revenue, and (3) the growing weight of high margin industries in the S&P 500.

    The real story, however, will be at the sector level: here, Goldman expects 8 of the 11 sectors to surpass their 2019 EPS by the end of 2021. As vaccine rollout develops, the bank expects sectors with the highest degree of operating leverage—namely, Consumer Discretionary and Energy—to deliver some of the fastest EPS growth this year.

    In addition to operating leverage, last week we noted that Goldman’s Commodities team brought forward their expectations for higher Brent prices, which should support Energy EPS growth. Still, sespite the cyclical rebound, Goldman expects 2021 EPS will remain below 2019 levels in three sectors: Energy, Industrials, and Financials. On the other end, Tech will continue to deliver rapid growth and represent the largest share of S&P 500 EPS given its exposure to long-term secular trends.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/18/2021 – 21:45

  • Taibbi: How Much Did "The Culture Of Narcissism" Get Right?
    Taibbi: How Much Did “The Culture Of Narcissism” Get Right?

    Authored by Matt Taibbi via TK News,

    It is symptomatic of the underlying tenor of American life that vulgar terms for sexual intercourse also convey the sense of getting the better of someone, working him over, taking him in, imposing your will through guile, deception, or superior force.

    – Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism

    Back in 1979, social critic Christopher Lasch wasn’t buying the idea that Americans in the sex-drugs-and-disco era were actually having fun.

    “This hedonism is a fraud,” he wrote. “The pursuit of pleasure disguises a struggle for power. Americans have not really become more sociable and cooperative… they have merely become more adept at exploiting the conventions of interpersonal relations for their own benefit.”

    Lasch’s reasoning traced to the beginning of American society.

    The Puritans embraced the idea of getting rich, but “saw personal aggrandizement as incidental to social labor” and “instructed men who prospered not to lord it over neighbors.” Puritans gave way to Yankees and their Protestant work ethic, which imagined prosperity as a reward for hard work, but also for “self-discipline, the training and cultivation of God-given talents, above all the cultivation of reason.”

    A century later, the ideal of self-improvement gave way to what Lasch called a “cult of competitive industry,” as people like P.T. Barnum began to evangelize a more brutally self-interested version of the Ben Franklin Yankee ideal. The new idea was to strive for worldly success “without Franklin’s concern for the attainment of wisdom.” Instead of pursuing an abstract goal of discipline and self-denial, American society became more openly organized around competing and beating one another to the top.

    In the twentieth century, mass media promoted a new religion of self-care that stressed turning one’s whole self into an engine of such competitive ascent. People gobbled up magazine articles about “the art of conversation,” fashion, and “culture,” as the “management of interpersonal relations came to be seen as the essence of self-advancement.” New stresses on “winning friends and influencing people” now replaced the old ideals of self-discipline and thrift, leading, as Lasch put it, to a stage of history where “the pursuit of wealth lost the few shreds of moral meaning that still clung to it.”

    By the sixties and seventies, America became an intrinsically performative society, a vast population that didn’t particularly distinguish between public and private life, and for whom image was as important as inner reality. Even foreign policy was understood as an effort to manipulate how other nations perceived us. One of the creepier revelations of the Pentagon Papers was that we even waged war in places like Vietnam with an eye out for how our actions would be perceived by “relevant audiences,” e.g. the Communists, the South Vietnamese, America’s Western allies, and the American public.

    Read the rest here…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/18/2021 – 21:15

  • Goldman: Here Is What Bidencare Will Look Like
    Goldman: Here Is What Bidencare Will Look Like

    Last week, Goldman published its preview of what political life would look like for at least the next two years under a Democratic “blue sweep” of Washington. Today, in a follow up to that widely-read report, Goldman’s chief economist Jan Hatzius assesses the macroeconomic implications of Biden’s campaign proposal to modify and expand the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which Goldman’s economists believe has a good chance of enactment through the reconciliation process later this year. Below, we except from the key parts of Goldman’s report providing a preliminary view of the macroeconomic impact of Biden’s expanded healthcare platform, which Goldman calls Bidencare.

    * * *

    The Biden-Harris healthcare platform proposes to expand healthcare coverage and reduce costs, in part by providing more generous health insurance subsidies to consumers and by lowering the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 60. The proposal would boost gross government spending on healthcare by roughly $1.5tn over 10 years (0.6% of GDP).

    The most straightforward effect of the plan would be an increase in healthcare coverage, on the order of 14 million people by the mid-2020s according to the Penn-Wharton model. This expansion would be roughly half as large as the 29.6 million people who gained coverage during the ACA’s implementation from 2010 to 2015, 24 million of whom joined government-sponsored or direct-purchase programs. Accordingly, many of the macroeconomic effects of the ACA during the 2010s would likely recur on a smaller scale in the 2020s.

    To complement Goldman’s review of the academic literature studying the ACA, the bank analyzed the state-level cross section of macro outcomes in the 2010s (the ACA was passed in 2010 and for the most part implemented over 2012-2017).

    The left panel of Exhibit 1 compares states that expanded their Medicaid programs under the ACA in 2014 to those that didn’t. In expansion states on average, the publicly insured population share rose an additional 3% over five years, healthcare employment rose an additional 1.4%, and healthcare consumption rose an additional 1.6% on a nominal basis—and probably quite a bit more in real terms due to lower healthcare inflation in the MSAs of those states.

    As with the original ACA, coverage expansion in the 2020s would likely be financed by some combination of Medicare reimbursement rate cuts (lower healthcare prices paid by the government to healthcare providers), tax increases, and efficiency gains.

    In terms of labor supply effects, labor force participation fell almost everywhere during 2012-2017, but it surprisingly fell by less on average in Medicaid expansion states (-0.7pp vs. -1.1pp in non-ACA states over the full period). Similarly, the average workweek fell in most of the country, but by less so in expansion states on average (-0.1% vs. -0.5% over the full period).

    The academic literature on the healthcare sector implications of the ACA generally arrives at the same conclusions using considerably more detail in order to isolate the ACA’s causal effects. As shown in Exhibit 2, these studies generally find that the ACA lowered healthcare prices and costs, increased healthcare consumption, and generally improved quality of care, particularly for lower-income consumers. However, some studies found a reduction of physician time spent with each patient, and the potential consequences of this trend on quality of care warrant further study; meanwhile deductibles soared. Additionally, some studies suggest improvements in health outcomes or labor productivity are concentrated or skewed towards specific subgroups, such as lower-income households or minorities.

    Based on the median results of these studies, Goldman’s state cross-sectional results, and an assumption that the 2020s coverage expansion would be roughly half as large as that of the ACA itself (discussed earlier), the bank offers tentative estimates of the implications of a possible ACA expansion on these macro variables in the final row of Exhibit 2. Taken together, Biden’s proposed ACA expansion would ultimately boost healthcare consumption by at least 1%. If such legislation is partially financed by Medicare reimbursement rate cuts — as was the original ACA — it would likely lower PCE healthcare inflation by 0.25-0.5% per year for several years. These inflation effects would be additive to the continued drag from annual Medicare cuts legislated by the original ACA (worth roughly -0.5%) and to the temporary changes in healthcare price levels in 2020-22 related to the coronavirus. The literature also suggests that ACA expansion would likely improve health outcomes as well, most obviously for those gaining coverage.

    In terms of the effect on the medical sector’s financial health, Goldman writes that hospital margins actually rose during ACA implementation, despite the legislated cuts to Medicare prices paid to hospitals and negative price spillovers to private-payer reimbursement rates (e.g. what health insurance companies pay to hospitals). And both in the state cross-section and the academic literature (“Provider Finances” column of Exhibit 2), ACA implementation appeared to be neutral or even positive for the financial health of providers (190bp of margin outperformance among hospital systems in expansion states, population-weighted, based on data from the American Hospital Association).

    The outperformance of hospital margins in expansion states likely in part reflects the fact that Medicare reimbursement cuts affected providers in all states, whereas the benefits of the ACA’s Medicaid expansion (primarily increased volumes and less uncompensated care) were better enjoyed by states that participated in the program. As shown in Exhibit 3, expansion states saw slower growth of uncompensated care (relative margin impact of +0.8pp on average versus 2011), which for example includes uninsured individuals going to the emergency room and not always paying the full bill.

    Given the magnitude of the Medicare cuts, it is somewhat surprising that margins increased at all over this period. At a minimum, the absence of margin contraction in expansion states in the 2010s suggests scope for additional increases in healthcare coverage and consumption that are financed in part by lower prices—and that need not overburden the healthcare system itself.

    In terms of the impact on the labor market (first two columns, exhibit 4), the literature is more mixed, with some evidence of a boost to employment levels, but ambiguous effects on labor force participation. In the strongest evidence of a negative effect, Duggan, Goda, and Li (2020) analyze a sample of near-elderly individuals, finding that the expanded coverage options in the ACA reduced participation by 1.1% among this group (or 110k individuals exiting the labor force). Using microdata from the Current Population Survey, Goldman also finds that larger increases in insurance coverage were associated with larger participation declines among those close to retirement age (55-65 years old), both in states that expanded Medicaid and in those that had larger increases in coverage, as shown in Exhibit 5.

    Given this and the likelihood that Biden’s plan to lower the Medicare eligibility age would amplify this incentive, Goldman believes that implementation would likely reduce labor force participation — at least among the near-elderly — but this labor supply effect would only partially offset the boost to employment levels from other channels in the medium term.

    The GDP effects of an ACA expansion are less clear cut, given so many moving parts and uncertainty around the details of the program. That said, based on the bank’s analysis and literature review, Hatzius says that he believes the GDP effects are likely to be positive over the medium term, unless they are financed by large tax increases on lower- and middle-income consumers. In summary, Goldman believes that the combined GDP boost from higher healthcare consumption, increased healthcare labor demand, and a more productive workforce could more than offset the drag from reduced labor force participation among the near-elderly.

    * * *

    Bottom line: Bidencare will be just the “virtuous wrapper” the doctor ordered so speak, to transfer $1.5 trillion in debt-funded deficit spending into the broader economy, while enabling tens if not hundreds of billions of government inefficiencies (read waste, corruption and embezzlement) along the way, while banks get to pocket their 5-10% advisory fees along the way, making everyone – except future generations of course, which will be saddled with even more insurmountable debt – better off. That last bit, by the way, was from us and not from Goldman for obvious reasons.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/18/2021 – 20:45

  • Trump Lifts Ban On Travel From EU, UK And Brazil… And Biden Immediately Reinstates It
    Trump Lifts Ban On Travel From EU, UK And Brazil… And Biden Immediately Reinstates It

    The back and forth between the outgoing and incoming administrations is approaching peak humor levels.

    Late on Monday, the Trump admin announced plans to lift airline travel bans that kept most visitors from Europe, the United Kingdom and Brazil away since last spring, when President Trump imposed bans on those countries as part of his administration’s initial response to the coronavirus pandemic.

    Under a presidential proclamation released by the White House on Monday, the change would go into effect Jan. 26, the same day as new requirements announced last week that all people flying to the U.S. from abroad test negative for Covid-19 no more than three days before their flights. Restrictions on travel from China and Iran would remain in place.

    Yet barely had potential visitors to the US cracked open a bottle of champagne, when the incoming Biden administration promptly reversed the reversal, and rejected Trump’s effort to lift bans on most travel into the U.S. Biden’s incoming White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, wrote on Twitter on Monday night that the Biden administration wouldn’t lift the travel restrictions.

    “With the pandemic worsening, and more contagious variants emerging around the world, this is not the time to be lifting restrictions on international travel,” she wrote. “On the advice of our medical team, the Administration does not intend to lift these restrictions on 1/26. In fact, we plan to strengthen public health measures around international travel in order to further mitigate the spread of Covid-19.”

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    According to the WSJ, members of Trump’s coronavirus task force had discussed lifting the restrictions, which were a core element of the administration’s early response to the pandemic, for some time, according to people familiar with the matter, acknowledging they did little to help the U.S. with the virus already circulating widely here. But clearly, the incoming Biden administration disagreed.

    Martin Cetron, who leads the CDC’s Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, said in an interview last week that the travel restrictions created collateral damage to the economy and had proved leaky. “We learned that the opening strategy of banning locations and asking about exposures and doing fever checks just didn’t cut it,” Dr. Cetron said. “We had to pivot.”

    Officials in Europe and the U.K. had also pressed the Trump administration to take steps to allow travel to resume in some form, the WSJ reported citing sources. Finally, the airlines themselves – suffering from severely depressed international travel in recent months – had also advocated lifting the restrictions in conjunction with the new testing regime.

    It’s not just the US that remains out of reach for most: many countries, including much of Europe, remain closed to most U.S. citizens. But lifting of the restrictions could set the stage for reciprocal agreements with foreign governments to allow each others’ residents to cross their borders, according to one U.S. official familiar with the matter. That, however, does not appear to be imminent under the Biden administration.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/18/2021 – 20:11

  • Major Airstrikes Rock Iran-Backed Iraqi Militias Near Baghdad, Casualties Reported
    Major Airstrikes Rock Iran-Backed Iraqi Militias Near Baghdad, Casualties Reported

    update: Moments ago US Central Command denied that the United States was involved in the reported airstrikes on Iraqi paramilitary positions south of Baghdad.

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    * * *

    In what could be the start of a last-minute ‘counter Iran’ military operation which many have anticipated during President Trump’s final days in office, a major air assault on Iran-backed paramilitary units southwest of Baghdad is being reported in regional media.

    The airstrikes are also being reported in Iranian state media overnight (local time). The target was reportedly Shia militia positions in Jurf al-Sakhr, and follow last month’s rocket attack on Baghdad’s Green Zone and US Embassy, as well as multiple IED attacks on US coalition forces in various parts of the country.

    F-16 Fighting Falcon, file image: US Air Force

    “Casualties reported after airstrikes hit Iraqi forces’ positions in Jurf al-Sakhr, Babil province,” Iran’s PressTV reports. 

    Militia sources have told regional media the attack was conducted by US-F-16 jets. However, it remains that little information has been verified.

    The area is known for hosting the headquarters for Iran-backed Iraqi paramilitary units.

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    Gulf-based Al-Arabiya reports the following:

    Multiple explosions were heard south of Iraq’s capital overnight Monday in what reports suggest may have been US airstrikes on Iran-backed militias.

    The Pentagon and US Central Command (CENTCOM) have not yet responded to a request for comment.

    Though unconfirmed, militia as well as Iranian state sources are saying that at least 6 Iraqi soldiers have been killed.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/18/2021 – 19:50

  • 13,000 NY Nursing Home Residents And Nearly Half Of Staff Decline COVID-19 Vaccine
    13,000 NY Nursing Home Residents And Nearly Half Of Staff Decline COVID-19 Vaccine

    New York will be reallocating unused COVID-19 vaccines after more than ten thousand nursing home residents and nearly half of staffers declined the jab, according to Gareth Rhodes, a member of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s COVID-19 Response Task Force.

    Rhodes said that out of 70,000 nursing home residents, 57,000 have been vaccinated, while 13,000 have declined. Meanwhile, out of 89,000 nursing home staff, 41,000 have declined.

    Overall, 105,000 first-doses of the vaccine have been used so far in nursing homes, while 120,000 doses remain.

    “We’re gonna reallocate those that are used in the long-term facility program to the state program, but we’ll make sure that the residents who want to take it and the staff who want to take it, we will reserve their doses,” said Cuomo, who in July came under fire for ordering nursing homes to accept coronavirus patients from hospitals.

    The reallocation comes more than a week after New York came under scrutiny over discarded vaccines – with officials changing regulations which required that extra doses to be tossed.

    In a Monday letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, Cuomo called on the federal government to beef up vaccine supply, claiming that Azar falsely claimed that doses would be held in reserve, when they were in fact distributed to states.

    New York has received approximately 1.2 million doses, of which around 860,000 have been administered. The figure doesn’t include shots allocated to nursing homes, while the CDC claims New York has received 1.8 million doses. 

    Cuomo last week extended the shots to anyone age 65 and over, but has repeatedly insisted the state has nowhere near enough doses to cover everyone who is now eligible.

    The governor also sent a letter Monday to Pfizer chairman and CEO Albert Bourla asking him to let New York purchase COVID-19 vaccines directly from the company. –NY Post

    “My job as governor of New York is to pursue every avenue,” said Cuomo, adding “The federal government increased eligibility dramatically but never increased the supply for the dosages.”

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    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/18/2021 – 19:25

  • 'No Evidence Of Threats, No Issues Flagged' As MSM Stokes Fears Of Military Insider Attack At Inauguration
    ‘No Evidence Of Threats, No Issues Flagged’ As MSM Stokes Fears Of Military Insider Attack At Inauguration

    Fears of mayhem at state capitol buildings and the US Capitol complex in Washington, DC, this past weekend were widely overblown by mainstream media. Now there’s more fearmongering from mainstream outlets, this time it’s AP, who reports fears of an insider attack that have prompted the FBI to vet the 25,000 National Guard troops stationed in DC ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration. 

    AP quotes Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, who said military officers are conscious of the potential threat and warned officers to observe troops under their command for any red flags. 

    But, as usual, there’s something missing from AP’s headline. As Jack Posobiec points out, “the way read to establishment media articles is skip the headline and scroll to the middle,” while referring to the AP article titled “FBI vetting Guard troops in DC amid fears of insider attack.” 

    Despite the fearmongering of an imminent “insider attack” by Guardsmen during inauguration day, AP’s clickbait journalism is more or less another classic example of how real journalism is dead, as AP themselves admit, further down the story, past the point at which 99% of America’s short-sighted, closed-minded partisans will read, that:

    So far, however, he and other leaders say they have seen no evidence of any threats, and officials said the vetting hadn’t flagged any issues that they were aware of. 

    Commenters on Posobiec’s post were furious with AP’s reporting, calling it, “Clickbait journalism is more destructive than Trump ever could have been.” 

    Another said, “They’ve gotta pump up the time spent on the site so they can get their advertising dollars.”

    Someone else said, “Nothing new. Typical tactics for spreading BS. Getting 67K likes and 29K retweets. While maybe 2,347 actually read the article to find that it’s all a Nothing Burger.” 

    We must remind readers how Bloomberg, NBC, and CNN published headlines late last week detailing how as per a Bloomberg headline read, “Rioters Came to Capture And Assassinate Officials, US Says.” 

    It was later noted that the top federal prosecutor in Washington, DC said there was no “direct evidence” that suggested rioters who stormed the US Capitol had formed “kill capture teams.”

    Again, more evidence of mainstream media’s Alinsky-ite news-cycle of misinformation.

    However, as Southfront reported last week, this narrative of looking inside the military for issues  is nothing new. The administration of US President-elect Joe Biden has not entered power yet, but its allies within the country’s highest government bodies have already launched an advance on the vestiges of symbols that do not fit the new trend of the total dominance of neo-liberal and globalist values.

    The purge of sources of the ‘wrong ideology’ took place not only in social media, where accounts of the acting US President Donald Trump and his supporters were targeted, but also in the US military.

    Commanders of the US Air Force have been ordered to review their unit emblems, morale patches, mottos, nicknames, coins and other forms of unit recognition in order to eliminate ‘potentially offensive images’.

    “Their continued use (of derogatory symbols and language) ostracizes our teammates undermining unit cohesion and impeding our mission readiness and success … Our diversity of experience, culture, demographics and perspectives is a force multiplier and essential to our success in this dynamic global environment … We must ensure all our Airmen and Guardians are valued and respected,” the memo emphasized.

    This move comes directly from the ongoing push to rewrite the US history and remove & cancel all historical figures and symbols that may be described as ‘offensive’ for the globalists, neo-liberals and various minorities that dominate in the US public politics and media. For the US military, the push started with the removal of Confederate imagery on military property and the names of its installations.

    Taking into account the existing trend, it would take little time to fully rebrand the US armed forces, including the Air Force and the Navy, to new the neo-liberal force. In the previous year, the US administrations were providing their policies under the moto of defending democracy. Now, military interventions and other active actions of the US foreign policy will likely be justified by the need to fight ‘oppressors’ and create a minorities-friendly environment.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/18/2021 – 19:00

  • Peter Schiff: Economic "Rescue" Plan Like Throwing A Drowning Man An Anchor
    Peter Schiff: Economic “Rescue” Plan Like Throwing A Drowning Man An Anchor

    Via SchiffGold.com,

    President-elect Joe Biden unveiled his massive stimulus plan last week touted as the “American Rescue Plan.” In his podcast, Peter Schiff said it was more like throwing a drowning man an anchor.

    Before Biden announced his stimulus plan, Jerome Powell spoke and reassured everybody that the Fed will continue with its loose monetary policy. He emphasized that the central bank will hike interest rates “no time soon.” He also pushed back against some of the other Fed presidents, particularly Atlanta Federal Reserve President Raphael Bostic, who hinted the central bank might consider “pulling back” on asset purchases in the near future. Powell said, “Be careful not to exit too early,” adding “by the way, try not to talk about exit if you’re sending that signal because markets are listening.”

    Powell seems to sincerely believe that the Fed can stimulate economic growth and create jobs by printing money. Peter said Powell lecturing about economics is “the blind leading the blind.”

    He knows nothing about economics and he’s talking to people who know nothing about it. But what’s worse  — it’s not just he doesn’t know anything — it’s that he thinks he knows something. And what he thinks he knows is wrong. And that is the real danger. You know, you have all this power in the hands of somebody that has no idea what they’re doing. Power and ignorance is a dangerous combination, especially when you’re the chairman of the Federal Reserve. You have the power to print all this money and you think that if you exercise that power you’re doing good. But you’re actually doing harm.”

    Powell talked about how much the government is helping during the pandemic. Peter said if the government really wants to help, it should get out of the way.

    The government needs to lighten the burden that it places on the economy. … It should be cutting spending. Instead, it’s doing the opposite and it’s adding an inflationary problem to the health problem, so we’re in much worse shape.”

    It’s difficult to overstate the level of spending. The US government set an all-time record high December budget deficit of $143.6 billion last month. In just the first quarter of fiscal 2021, the federal government spent $1.3 trillion. And the spending isn’t about to slow down. In fact, it will likely accelerate.

    Last week, Joe Biden unveiled plans for a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill. It’s called the

    First of all, this is not going to stimulate the economy. This is going to sedate the economy. So, it’s not a stimulus. It is a sedative.”

    In a nutshell, Biden wants to “stimulate” the economy with a bunch of government spending paid for by more Federal Reserve money printing. Here are just a few highlights.

    • Direct payments of $1,400 to most Americans

    • Increasing the federal, per-week unemployment benefit to $400 and extending it through the end of September

    • $350 billion in state and local government aid

    • $170 billion for K-12 schools and institutions of higher education

    • $50 billion toward Covid-19 testing

    • $20 billion toward a national vaccine program in partnership with states, localities and tribes

    Biden said the expanded and extended unemployment benefits would help people make ends meet while they look for a job. Peter said it will just let them put off their job search.

    They don’t have to start looking for jobs because they got a better deal on unemployment than anything they can hope for in the employment market.”

    Biden also included a proposal to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. Peter said that will make the unemployment benefits an even bigger deal.

    The higher minimum wage is going to make it a lot harder for the low-skilled workers to get jobs. Because if they can’t convince an employer to pay them $15 an hour, they’re out of luck. They have no choice.”

    Biden’s plan is effectively to incentivize people not to work by paying them more money to stay at home, and to make it more difficult for them if they actually do want to go back to work by making it harder for people with low skills to get a job because they’re not legally employable given their relatively low productivity.

    So, Biden’s plan to revive employment is going to achieve the opposite result. It’s going to further incentivize people not to work and then make it a lot more difficult for the people who want to work to actually get a job.”

    All of this stimulus spending will be almost entirely financed by the Federal Reserve. There may be some tax hikes on “the rich” down the road, but that won’t come anywhere close to closing the spending gap.

    All this money – the $1.9 trillion – is going to be printed and spent into circulation. And that is the inflation that is driving commodity prices. It’s the anticipation of that inflation.”

    This isn’t a rescue plan. It’s basically the equivalent of throwing a drowning man an anchor.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/18/2021 – 18:35

  • Greenwald Explains How Biden's Neoliberal Policies To Fuel Rise Of A "Smarter, More Stable Donald Trump"
    Greenwald Explains How Biden’s Neoliberal Policies To Fuel Rise Of A “Smarter, More Stable Donald Trump”

    Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, formerly of The Intercept, gave his broad assessment and predictions of the incoming Joe Biden administration during Chris Hedges’ Sunday show On Contact.

    “I don’t think it’s particularly difficult… to know what to expect from the Biden administration,” Greenwald told Hedges early in the interview, which focused on both the growing immense power of Silicon Valley as well as an expected return to disastrous foreign policy thinking under Obama.

    Biden is “somebody who has repeatedly supported militarism and imperialism” given also he was “one of the crucial leading advocates of the invasion of Iraq,” Greenwald said. At the same time Biden is “a loyal servant of the credit card and banking industry” on the domestic front.

    Greenwald has long been a thorn in the side of Liberals, given his politics are Left yet he’s a foremost fierce critic of the Democratic establishment, unwilling to buy into the blind hyperpartisanism that often defines public discourse in America.

    As an example of his willingness to be radically independent and buck the simplistic discourse, he again went after those among Democrats feigning progressive politics while imposing censorship in the name of anti-Trumpism.

    Greenwald told Hedges in this fresh interview:

    “The most disturbing event yet beyond as we discussed earlier, Facebook and Twitter’s unity in blocking the New York Post reporting [on Hunter Biden], is the fact that Amazon, Apple, and Google, three of the four companies that a Democratic House Subcommittee, just three months ago, declared to be dangerous, monopolist, and illegal anti-trust, anti-competitors in a really comprehensive report that they issued, united to remove from the internet a competitor to Twitter, and Facebook, and Instagram that had become the most popular app downloaded on the Apple Store, which is Parler, on the grounds that Parler played a role in inciting or agitating for the capital breach and the riot that occurred on January 6th, even though it was their own properties like Google’s YouTube and Facebook that played a much, much bigger role.  They simply destroyed a competing platform at the urging of people like Congressman Ro Khanna, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. They issued demands for it on Twitter, and within 72-hours, Parler was gone from the internet.“

    And here’s more on what to expect of President-Elect Biden, set to enter the White House January 20, based on the RT interview with Glenn Greenwald…

    Glenn Greenwald, via ZUMA Press/Newscom

    On Militarism, Imperialism, Corporatism

    Greenwald: “Joe Biden has been at the national political level since 1972.  So we’re talking about essentially 50 years.  He has a very clear record of who he is, somebody who has repeatedly supported militarism and imperialism.  He obviously was one of the crucial leading advocate in the invasion of Iraq as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2002.  He, coming from Delaware, has been a very loyal servant of the credit card and banking industry, architecting the bill that Elizabeth Warren said made her so angry that she entered politics, which was the bill that made it much more difficult for consumers to discharge debt and bankruptcy.  Obviously, he is the architect of the 1994 Crime Bill, which is so ironic in a year when we had months and months of protests, largely from the Left against the police state and against racist police abuses, that the person who is probably more responsible than any other single person for that became the person behind whom they rallied.”  

    “And then you add on to that eight years of the Obama administration of which Biden was a crucial part of that, as you said, which he’s clearly attempting consciously to replicate.  I think people have forgotten what the Obama administration is like.  The Democrats are very good at creating a brand that is radically different than the reality.  But essentially the Democratic Party serves militarism, imperialism, and corporatism. That’s who funds them. That’s what they believe in.  It’s why you see neocons migrating so comfortably back to the Democratic Party, why you see… operatives cheering for Joe Biden, why Wall Street celebrated when he picked Kamala Harris, who of course has her own background as a harsh prosecutor.  I think it’s very easy to see exactly who they are.”

    Biden’s Neoliberal Policies to Fuel Rise Of a “Smarter more stable version of Donald Trump”

    Greenwald: “I think you see the dangers of–that neoliberal mentality, that neoliberal ideology in not just United States but entirely–basically throughout the democratic world.  Here in Brazil where I live, people always ask me how is it possible that a country that elected a center-left Workers Party from 2002 until 2014, so essentially four consecutive national elections, suddenly lurched to this far-right extremism in Jair Bolsonaro, and the answer is it’s because the system failed them, they know the system failed them, and then they rallied behind whoever it was who seem to be the most virile adversary of that political order.  Obviously, the same was true with Brexit in the United Kingdom with the rise of far-right parties in Western Europe, places we never expected to see them.  And it’s not a coincidence that after eight years of Obama and Biden, we got Donald Trump.  And, obviously, if you go back and do exactly the same thing that the O’Biden administration did for eight years, which is what Biden is preparing to do, any rational person has to expect the same outcome.“

    “The same outcome being the middle class continues to be destroyed, companies that have no allegiance to the United States that will take as many jobs as possible and shift them to places where they can pay slave labor will continue to do so, communities will continue to be ravaged with unemployment, crisis with drug addiction, with suicide, with depression, all the things that are dominating small American towns, rural towns, and increasingly even larger ones.  And that anger and dissatisfaction is going to only continue to grow so that when you have a smarter more stable version of Donald Trump tapping into that populace anger, promising them to close the United States, to give them better lives, it’s going to be even more appealing this time around.“

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    Big Tech Censorship and Russia, Russia, Russia!

    Greenwald: “I mean, one of the big causes of the Left during the 2020 election, it was one that I supported, was working to help Ed Markey, the long-time congressman, now senator from Massachusetts defeat a primary challenge nominally from his Right on the part of Congressman Joe Kennedy III.  He became a hero of the Left.  And right after he won, his primary and general election, there was a hearing convened where they called Silicon Valley leaders, including Mark Zuckerberg to testify before a committee on which Senator Markey sits and he told Mark Zuckerberg, Unlike my Republican colleagues who are complaining about censorship, we don’t believe that the problem is that you’re censoring too much.  We believe the problem is you’re not censoring enough.  And then proceeded to show him a bunch of content on Facebook that Markey thinks is dangerous or extremist speech that he demanded be censored.  Obama delivered a speech a couple months before the election in which he says he believes the internet is the greatest threat to American democracy because of the role it’s playing in disseminating misinformation.”  

    “So the Democratic Party, including its Liberal wing and its Left-wing, are very much on board with idea that we cannot have free speech in this age of, whatever they want to call it, White supremacy, domestic terrorism, right-wing extremism, because it simply too dangerous.  And not only should the free speech be restricted by laws and acted by Congress, which presumably would have to mean amending the First Amendment, but until then they’re on their knees pleading with billionaires, and oligarchs, and monopolists, and Silicon Valley to censor in the way that they believe is politically advantageous.  And this was true, as you said, even before the election.  I honestly think, Chris, that one of the most momentous moments of the last five or six years was when the New York Post started reporting on documents that, to this day, everyone acknowledges are completely authentic.  And the intelligence community invented a lie that it was Russian disinformation, which immediately pressured or gave the pretext to Twitter and Facebook to ban report it.” 

    Banning Content in the Name of Protecting ‘Biden Brand’

    “If you wanted to go on Twitter and post a link to the New York Post reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop, which contain a lot of information about what Joe Biden was doing in Ukraine, what he was doing in China when he was the presidential frontrunner, you couldn’t even post the link.  They had banned it.  Facebook algorithmically announced through a long-time Democratic Party operative networks at Facebook that they were going to suppress the spread of that story.  That was stunning intervention on the part of Silicon Valley in the ability to do journalism, in the election on behalf of a candidate that Silicon Valley overwhelmingly was supporting.  And since the Democrats won, every time the Democrats call on Apple, or Google, or Facebook, or Twitter to censor, those companies comply because they’re in debt together.  There is an alliance between Silicon Valley billionaires, and oligarchs, and monopolist on the one hand and the Democratic party on the other.  And it’s now all about to merge with the power of the state.”

    “I found it really interesting that numerous world leaders, including ones who have famously acrimonious relationship with President Trump stood up and very vehemently denounced Twitter’s decision and Facebook’s decision to ban President Trump from the platform, that includes Chancellor Angela Merkel, who’s a center-right politician with whom Trump has argued and bickered almost his entire presidency.  It includes President Lopez Obrador in Mexico, who’s a leftist president, who very eloquently and vehemently warned that Silicon Valley is becoming essentially a world media leader.  Something greater than nation states, because–and ministers high up in the Macron government in France, obviously who also don’t love Donald Trump, denounced it in similar terms.  Why?  Because they’re extremely concerned that these private tech monopolists who they cannot battle–the EU has been trying to break up Google and break up Facebook for years, and they simply can’t because they’re too powerful, are also coming for their democracies.”

    The Biden-MSM Nexus will try to Destroy Independent Media

    Greenwald: “I think absolutely they are very committed to the destruction of any outlets that permit independent voices of dissent.  Already you could just pick up a New York Times this morning, and there was an article about how people who were using Parler but now can no longer because it was removed from the internet by Amazon, Google, and Apple are migrating to platforms like Telegram and Signal.  And there was a New York Times article, Laying the Groundwork, for saying, Look, Telegram and Signal are now the venues for this right-wing extremism that has become a dangerous.  It’s only a matter of time as Substack grows before these groups of journalists that the–that NBC and the New York Times and the CNN employ whose only function is to demand censorship, start turning their guns on platforms like Substack or Patreon and saying, Look at the extremism that they’re hosting.  Why aren’t they removing this content that’s extremist and radicalizing people, and is so dangerous. 

    “They want to maintain a monopoly over the dissemination of information, and they’re not–and the most shocking part of it is the people who are leading this crusade, this censorship crusade are journalists, are the people who work at the large corporate media outlets. They are the biggest and the most vocal cheerleaders for corporate censorship of anybody because they don’t want any other voices competing with their own.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/18/2021 – 18:10

  • In Today's America, The Wise Person Willfully Suspends Belief
    In Today’s America, The Wise Person Willfully Suspends Belief

    Authored by Frank Liberato via AmericanThinker.com,

    In 2007, then-Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton deemed it necessary to “willfully suspend disbelief” to accept General David Petraeus’ progress report on the Iraq war.

    In 2021, it seems necessary for the American people to willfully suspend belief in our government institutions, the media, and their corporate overlords. 

    The body politic is putrid and lashing out with the most disgusting displays of immorality, deceit, and coercion. Entertainment, education, social media, and the MSM ‘watchdogs of democracy’ are now the defenders, recruiters, and propagandists for this sick, bloated, and festering bureaucracy. 

    Twenty years ago, I believed most of what came over the nation’s airwaves. Ten years ago, I was becoming quite the skeptic. Today, after years of unrelenting attacks on the President, I don’t believe any of it.

    It’s all lies, half-truths, and misinformation, designed to influence elections and steer the collective mentality toward accepting the loss of freedom, the loss of constitutional rights and, eventually, to embrace communist ideas and authoritarian policies. I’m not sure when it all went south, but I think it was probably long before I first became aware that there was a problem.

    Fifty years ago, it seemed outrageous that the government would create laws requiring people to wear seat belts or to purchase auto insurance to be able to drive. Today, the debate is about forcing people to stay in their homes, wear masks, and allowing the government to inject them with “vaccines.” Where is the outrage? Oh, it’s all for “our protection.” Well, OK then. 

    To stay out of jail, I’ll wear the mask where it’s required but I won’t be getting the vaccine and Joe Biden is not my President.

    Anyone who stayed up to watch the election results on November 3rd knows that this election was a fraud. The counting stopped around midnight with the President enjoying seemingly insurmountable leads in all key states. We waited hours for a victory declaration or for the counting to resume. When neither was forthcoming, we called it a night.

    We woke before sunrise to discover that all leads were gone and that Trump was losing in Michigan and Wisconsin. How is this possible? It’s not.

    People ask me where is the evidence of fraud? I watched the fraud happen on the night of the election. I don’t need any more evidence, but it has been pouring in for weeks for those willing to look.

    To this day, the President has not been granted a venue where he can present all the evidence. Is it any wonder that upwards of half-a-million people gathered in the capital to peacefully protest? They don’t need the President to tell them this was a fraud. They watched it happen.

    The violence in the capital was a setup. Just as the Obama administration took extraordinary, and illegal measures to try to cripple or oust the incoming President, so too has the Deep State devised a plan to deface Trump’s legacy while simultaneously reducing all his followers to the status of domestic terrorists. It was brilliantly planned and executed, and altogether evil.

    I would not have believed it possible four years ago, but after seeing the Russian collusion fiasco unravel with its illegal unmasking, spying, and politically motivated prosecutions, all orchestrated by the deep state and the opposition political party, and then to see all the actors that were caught red-handed walk away virtually unscathed, I can easily believe that political operatives with no scruples and nothing much else to do, could come up with this plan without any fear of being held responsible.

    The Capitol scheme is already starting to unravel, with timelines not matching up and evidence of a preplanned attack coming to light. In the coming weeks and months, we should see a great deal more exposed, but the President is already impeached, and he and his followers are being banned from social media.

    It’s very convenient that all the tech giants were ready to pounce. They were just waiting for the go signal from the deep state and now the media will run cover for all of them. If we do learn who was behind it all, I’m sure a never-ending investigation will be put to bed after a few years when everyone has fallen asleep. 

    If not for President Trump’s pardons, General Flynn, Paul Manafort, and Roger Stone would be languishing in prison for the rest of their lives. Their crime was having a relationship with Donald Trump. None of them would have faced any prosecution had they not tried to help the President in some way. 

    Comey, McCabe, Brennan, Clapper, Strzok, Page, Clinton, Joe Biden, and many others have committed real crimes. Many of them are on tape and documented, but it looks like they will all skate. 

    If we continue to accept the swamp narrative, we’ll never get this ship turned around. I no longer believe anything that comes out of that den of thieves. I’m willfully suspending belief. We all should.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/18/2021 – 17:45

  • California Halts COVID Vaccinations From Moderna Batch Linked To "Unusually High Number" Of Adverse Reactions
    California Halts COVID Vaccinations From Moderna Batch Linked To “Unusually High Number” Of Adverse Reactions

    As the suspected death toll attributed to COVID-19 vaccines rises around the world, with dozens already reported in the US and Norway, California health officials have asked health-care providers in the state to immediately stop administering a batch of Moderna COVID-19 jabs after an “unusually high number” of adverse reactions were linked to it, according to RT.

    On order of State epidemiologist Dr. Erica S. Pan and the California Department of Public Health, the vaccines should be shelved until a proper investigation can be conducted. The lot in question is Moderna Lot 041L20A.

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    More than 330,000 doses from this lot have been distributed to 287 providers across the state.

    The shipments arrived in California between Jan. 5 and 12.

    All of the reactions appear to be tied to a single community clinic that was administering the batch. The clinic reportedly closed for several hours after a string of adverse reactions occurred.

    California has confirmed nearly 3MM COVID cases as of Monday morning,

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    Officials on Wednesday announced a major expansion of vaccination eligibility guidelines, allowing all residents 65 and older to more quickly qualify for COVID-19 vaccinations. As far as numbers go, more than 330K doses from the same Moderna vaccine batch have been distributed to 287 providers across the state, but this is the first time that health authorities have received reports detailing adverse reactions associated with the lot.

    While acknowledging that “less data exists on adverse reactions related to the Moderna vaccine,” the state epidemiologist insisted that it’s still rare for vaccines to trigger serious side effects. Moderna, the CDC, and the FDA are reviewing the batch and all relevant medical data.

    The COVID-19 jab has been linked to other cases of serious medical emergencies, not just in the US, but in Europe and elsewhere around the world.

    In December, a physician in Boston said he suffered one of the worst allergic reactions he’s ever experienced after receiving Moderna’s vaccine, describing the episode as potentially life-threatening, while a doctor in Miami actually died due to a reaction from the vaccine.

    Similar cases linked to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine have been referred to the CDC and FDA for review. According to other reports, Hong Kong’s government-appointed vaccine advisory panel is seeking more data from the Norwegian and German governments on the reported deaths of elderly people after they received.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/18/2021 – 17:25

  • Trump Plans 100 Pardons For Tuesday – Will Assange Be Among Them?
    Trump Plans 100 Pardons For Tuesday – Will Assange Be Among Them?

    President Trump is expected to issue a long list of pardons and commutations on Tuesday, according to several sources who spoke to CNN:

    President Donald Trump is preparing to issue around 100 pardons and commutations on his final full day in office Tuesday, according to three people familiar with the matter, a major batch of clemency actions that includes white collar criminals, high-profile rappers and others but — as of now — is not expected to include Trump himself. The White House held a meeting on Sunday to finalize the list of pardons, two sources said.

    The president had issued a number of pardons prior to Christmas, but this final large list is said to have been finalized in a White House meeting on Sunday.

    Some of them may be controversial to say the least – for example Steve Bannon. But currently still dominating the news are those arrested in the wake of the Capitol Hill mayhem of last week.

    Sen. Lindsey Graham addressed this on a Sunday news show, telling Fox “There are a lot of people urging the President to pardon the folks” involved in the rioting. “To seek a pardon of these people would be wrong.”

    But the biggest name said to be under possible consideration is WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange, subject of a major independent and social media campaign to lobby for his full pardon and release from a London jail where extradition proceedings are still ongoing. Will President Trump pardon Assange?

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    Even if Assange’s name isn’t among the current list of one hundred expected to be pardoned, it’s theoretically possible Trump could do so even on the morning of January 20 just ahead of Biden being formally sworn in as president.

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    “Still, Trump is expected to leave the White House on January 20 and could issue pardons up until noon on Inauguration Day,” according to CNN.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/18/2021 – 17:20

  • "It Was A Non-Event" – MSM Forced To Admit Nationwide Pro-Trump Protest Panic Was Overblown
    “It Was A Non-Event” – MSM Forced To Admit Nationwide Pro-Trump Protest Panic Was Overblown

    “It was a non-event today and we are glad it was.”

    That’s how Troy Thompson, spokesman for the Department of General Services – the agency that protects the Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg, described yesterday’s mass national armed protest “domestic terrorism” event that the mainstream media (and various government agencies) has been “warning” ‘good’ Americans about all week.

    As we reported in detail yesterday – avoiding the mainstream media’s jump to a pre-conceived narrative conclusion – armed protesters did indeed appear at multiple state capitol complexes across the country Sunday morning.

    This followed a special bulletin from the FBI last week that warned: “armed protests” were being planned at 50 state capitols and the US Capitol in Washington, DC, ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20. This was immediately picked up by the media and amplified dramatically…

    However, as Reuters reports, only small gatherings of demonstrators had taken to the streets alongside much larger crowds of law-enforcement officers and media personnel.

    Even worse, they decried violence! Doesn’t sound very “terrorist”-y or “coup”-y or “insurrection”-y:

    “I am not here to be violent and I hope no one shows up to be violent,” said one man standing on the lawn in front of the capitol.

    The man, who refused to give his name, wore a “Make America Great Again” hat and waving a “Don’t tread on me” flag.

    And furthermore, as we detailed previously, while the protesters are being identified across various platforms as members of a so-called “boogaloo” movement, they largely appear to be generic anti-government anarchists – some of whom call themselves “liberty boys,” and others who oppose the conservative Proud Boys. Their sudden emergence surrounding the inauguration is curious, to say the least.

    Even The Guardian was forced to admit:

    “At heavily fortified state capitals across USA on Sunday, law enforcement & media outnumbered protesters, with only a handful of armed men showing up to planned demonstrations.”

     Some local news agencies flipped the narrative, proclaiming that the lack of turnout of “domestic terrorists” was due to the outsize presence of National Guardsmen nationwide.

    We suspect otherwise, as we have already seen numerous walkbacks of hyperbolic headlines and statements from various deep-state-loyal agencies:

    • After FBI Director Christopher Wray told Vice President Mike Pence in a briefing on Thursday that the bureau was seeing an “extensive amount of concerning online chatter” of potential threats before and during the inauguration, Ken Cuccinelli, acting deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said on CNN’s “New Day,” that “there’s no specific credible threats at this point in time. There’s just this raised level of tension. And so we’re raising our security level. And we’re doing it across the country,”

    • After local Federal prosecutors claimed “Strong evidence, including Chansley’s own words and actions at the Capitol, supports that the intent of the Capitol rioters was to capture and assassinate elected officials in the United States government,”…the top federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C. said on Friday there is no “direct evidence” to suggest that rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol had formed “kill capture teams.”

    So who could blame Americans for not trusting the media or the government?

    As Jordan Schachtel concludes, the FBI seems to be grossly exaggerating the capabilities of a fringe network of activists that does not have the capacity to mobilize significant numbers of people. Certainly, they do not present a threat of “insurrection,” or anything close. In leaking these bulletins to the media, it appears that the Bureau is once again, after four years of “Trump-Russia” madness, engaged in unsavory activism and attempts to manufacture a political narrative.

    However, given this embarrassing propaganda-rife exaggeration of threats, and the FBI ‘lies’ and these local prosecutors’ ‘lies’, the chances of a ‘false-flag’ event are rising rapidly as one might just get the impression that fear is being ratcheted up for political gain and to enable Patriot Act II’s crackdown on “domestic terrorism” to more easily slide between the cheeks of an anxious American public desperate to be saved from this terror – to hell with liberty, just do something!

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/18/2021 – 16:55

  • COVID Lockdowns Will Result In 1 Million Excess Deaths Over Next 15 Years, Scientists Find
    COVID Lockdowns Will Result In 1 Million Excess Deaths Over Next 15 Years, Scientists Find

    Back in the summer of 2020, a critical discussion almost broke out between progressives on one hand, who were adamant that if “just one life” could be saved with pervasive, widespread economic lockdowns that it was everyone’s imperative to bring the economy to a crawl, and pragmatic, rational thinkers who argued that the economic cost of such lockdowns would end up being far greater than the immediate human cost in terms of lives lost, especially since the impacted lives would be far younger than potential covid vicitms most of whom are in their 70s and 80s. Deutsche Bank credit strategist Jim Reid summarized it best as follows:

    … while the coronavirus has lead to virtually no excess deaths in younger age cohorts, it is the younger strata of society that are the most impact by the economic shutdowns that have resulted in tens of millions of unemployed Millennials.

    Reid then argued that since “younger people will be suffering most from the economic impact of Covid-19 for many years to come, we wonder how history will judge the global response.” To this, however, we countered that since the economic crisis resulting from Covid-19 helped crush Donald Trump’s chances for re-election and also unleashed full-blown helicopter money as well as the biggest round of corporate bailouts of insolvent and zombie companies in history, “we are confident that the tsunami of global moral hazard – which will leave tens of millions of young workers without a job – will allow central bankers to sleep soundly at night.”

    Unfortunately as we said at the top, this discussion “almost” happened, although in the end it did not because any time an attempt for rational discourse emerged it would be promptly and violently shouted down by the armies of virtue signalers who were also monetarily incentivized in maintaining the lockdown status quo (such as bankers, pharma and online payment companies, politicians, the media and so on) and who would instantly defer to the “scientists” as the only expert class worth opining on the critical debate of “excess covid deaths now” vs “excess deaths from economic shutdowns later.”

    Well, with a roughly one year delay, scientists from Duke, Harvard, and Johns Hopkins finally wrote a paper which may come as a shock to all the virtue-signaling progs out there, because its conclusion is stunning: in a nutshell, the NBER working paper (“The Long-Term Impact Of The Covid-19 Unemployment Shock On life Expectancy And Mortality Rates“) finds that while there have been roughly 400,000 covid-linked deaths so far (amid extensive debate of just what is a “covid-linked death” since even crash victims are counted as covid casualties, not to mention tens of thousands of others with terminal co-morbidities), the long-term economic implications from covid-related lockdowns are dire, resulting in COVID-19-related unemployment  “which is between 2 and 5 times larger than the typical unemployment shock” and resulting in a “3.0% increase in mortality rate and a 0.5%  drop in life expectancy over the next 15 years for the overall American population.”

    The bottom line, as scientists Bianchi, Bianchi and Song find is that…

    For the overall population, the increase in the death rate following the COVID-19 pandemic implies a staggering 0.89 and 1.37 million excess deaths over the next 15 and 20 years, respectively

    That’s bad; where it gets even worse for the world’s progressives is the report’s finding that the “shock will disproportionately affect” women, particularly of Hispanic heritage; African Americans; foreign born individuals; less educated adults and individuals age 16-24 – in short all those racial and social classes that are of primary concern to the “progressives” – while “white men might suffer large consequences over longer horizons” (we doubt progs will care too much about this).

    In short, everyone will be hit by the covid-lockdowns, with blacks, Hispanics and women first, and white men next for a far longer period of time. And, in the process, nearly 1 million excess deaths will take place that wouldn’t have taken place otherwise.

    We wonder how those same progressives, who demanded wholesale economic lockdowns – because that’s the only way to save even one life – will feel now that scientists explicitly state that their preferred policies will lead to nearly a million excess deaths simply from the economic shutdowns. Or, as Reid warned all the way back in July 2020 – when nobody bothered to listen – “younger people will be suffering most from the economic impact of Covid-19 for many years to come, we wonder how history will judge the global response.”

    Here are some more details from the NBER paper:

    While the trade-off between containing  the  COVID-19  pandemic and economic activity has been analyzed in the short-term,  there is currently no analysis regarding the long-term impact of the COVID-19-related economic recession on public health. What is more, most of  the papers interested in the relation between the COVID-19 pandemic and economic activity argue, correctly, that lockdowns can save lives at the cost of reducing economic activity, but they do not consider the possibility that severe economic distress might also have important consequences  on  human  well-being  (Gordon  and  Sommers  (2016)  and  Ruhm (2015)). This shortcoming is arguably explained by the fact that current macroeconomic models do not allow for the  possibility that economic activity might affect mortality rates of the agents in the economy.

    Which merely goes to show just how idiotic macroeconomics as a so-called “science” truly is, because if economists are truly baffled by this “shortcoming”, maybe they should take a look at the millions of small businesses and unemployed service workers to emerge from the covid crisis. Anyway, continuing with the paper:

    Between  late  March-early April, most U.S. states imposed stay-at-home orders and lockdowns, resulting in widespread shut down of business. Unemployment rate rose from 3.8% in February 2020 to 14.7% in April 2020 with 23.1 million unemployed Americans.  Despite a decline to 6.7% in November 2020,the average unemployment rate over the year is comparable with the 10% unemployment rate at  the peak of the 2007-2009 Great Recession and it is near the post-World War II historical maximum reached in the early 1980s (10.8%). Importantly, COVID-19 related job losses disproportionately affect women, particularly of Hispanic heritage; African Americans; foreign born individuals; less educated adults and individuals age 16-24.  In fact, the unemployment rate underestimates the extent of the economic contraction as many potential workers have abandoned the workforce (especially women).

    We fast-forward to the conclusion:

    The long-term effects of the COVID-19 related unemployment surge on the US mortality rate have not been characterized in the literature. Thus, as a last step, we compute an estimate of  the excess deaths associated with the COVID-19 unemployment shock.   This corresponds to the difference between the number of deaths predicted by the model with and without the unemployment shock observed in 2020. For the overall population, the increase in the death rate following the COVID-19 pandemic implies a staggering 0.89 and 1.37 million excess deaths over the next 15 and 20 years, respectively. 

    These numbers correspond to 0.24% and 0.37%of  the  projected  US  population  at  the  15-  and  20-year  horizons,  respectively.   For  African-Americans, we estimate 180 thousand and 270 thousand excess deaths over the next 15 and 20years, respectively.  These numbers correspond to 0.34% and 0.49% of the projected African-American population at the 15- and 20-year horizons,  respectively. For Whites, we estimate 0.82 and 1.21 million excess deaths over the next 15 and 20 years, respectively. These numbers correspond  to  0.30%  and  0.44% of the projected White population at the 15- and 20-year horizons, respectively. These numbers are roughly equally split between men and women.

    And the damning piece de resistance which every virtue signaler will rush to burn before reading

    Overall, our results indicate that, based on the historical evidence, the COVID-19 pandemic might have long-lasting consequences on human health through its impact on economic activity. We interpret these results as a strong indication that policymakers should take into consideration the severe, long-run implications of such a large economic recession on people’s lives when deliberating on COVID-19 recovery and containment measures. Without any doubt, lockdowns save lives, but they also contribute to the decline in real activity that can have severe consequences on health. Policy-makers should therefore consider combining lockdowns with policy interventions meant to reduce economic distress, guarantee access to health care, and facilitate effective economic reopening under health care policies to limit SARS-CoV-19 spread.

    Needless to say, the longer the lockdowns continue, the death toll will only grow bigger across all races and social classes.

    But wait, there’s even more!

    As we reported last week, a new peer reviewed study out of Stanford has questioned the effectiveness of lockdowns and stay-at-home orders (which it calls NPIs, or non-pharmaceutical interventions) to combat Covid-19. The study’s lead author (an associate professor in the Department of Medicine at Stanford), found that “the study did not find evidence to support that NPIs were effective in preventing the spread” and that “we fail to find strong evidence supporting a role for more restrictive NPIs in the control of COVID in early 2020.”

    So, did left-leaning states’ rushed policies in response to the pandemic – to unleash broad lockdowns, crush economies, and spark mass unemployment and poverty leading to increasing deaths of despair actually achieve anything? The short answer is no…

    … while the longer answer we now know thanks to the NBER report, is yes: they made the situation for African Americans, Hispanics and women (and yes, even white men) considerably worse for at least the next two decades.

    In other words, while lockdowns may not have even led to a tangible improvement in halting the spread of covid, what they will certainly do is lead to hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, in excess deaths over the next decade.

    Which begs the question: now that “respected scientists” have finally quantified the “staggering” excess death toll resulting from covid lockdowns, is it time to finally have the discussion – which nobody has dared to have since about a year ago – about the cost-benefit analysis between widespread economic lockdowns, which will lead over a million early deaths, and locking down the economy every time there is even a modest rebound in covid cases…

    … as per the covid we created several months ago, and which may have zero positive impact on actually halting the spread of covid?

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/18/2021 – 16:55

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Jan 18

Today’s News 18th January 2021

  • Looking Through An Adversary's Eyes: A KGB Agent's Prophecy
    Looking Through An Adversary’s Eyes: A KGB Agent’s Prophecy

    Authored by ‘Jean Chen’ via The Epoch Times,

    Human beings have a weakness: It is easy for us to see others’ problems, but not our own problems. Actually, most of us are nearly blind to our own problems.

    However, if we examine how our enemies look at us, some insights may be revealed.

    For many people right now, the aftertaste of the 2020 presidential election is bitter. They feel that something is very wrong with our country. But what is it?

    For current events, it may be useful to look through the eyes of an adversary that many thought had been vanquished: the USSR in the 20th century

    The Prophecy of a KGB Agent

    I came across a YouTube video of a 1985 interview of Yuri Bezmenov, a KGB agent who defected to the West in 1970.

    The interview is about the Soviet Union’s strategy to subvert the United States. It is eye-opening and I wish to share a quote here first:

    “Marxism-Leninism ideology is being pumped into the soft heads of at least three generations of American students, without being challenged or counter-balanced by the basic values of Americanism and American patriotism … The demoralization process in the United States is basically completed already … Most of it is done by Americans to Americans thanks to lack of moral standards.

    As I mentioned before, exposure to true information does not matter anymore. A person who was demoralized is unable to assess true information. The facts tell nothing to him. Even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents, with pictures. Even if I take him by force to the Soviet Union and show him concentration camp he will refuse to believe it until he is going to receive a kick in his fat bottom. When the military boot crashes him, then he will understand, but not before that. That’s the tragic of the situation of demoralization.”

    It is scary to watch the video. (More video here and here.)

    What Mr. Bezmenov described 35 years ago is unfolding in front of our very eyes. To me, what is most alarming is that the demoralization is mostly “done by Americans to Americans due to lack of moral standards.” Actually, as Bezmenov pointed out, “for the last 25 years, actually it’s over-fulfilled because the demoralization now reaches such areas where previously not even Comrade Andropov [KGB leader during 1967–1982] and all his experts would even dream of such a tremendous success.”

    According to Bezmenov, only 10 to 15 percent of the KGB’s personnel and resources were allocated to traditional clandestine espionage in James Bond’s style, with the rest going to “legitimate, overt, and open” ideological subversion. He said that subversion happens in four stages: demoralization, destabilization, crisis, and “normalization.”

    The first stage, lasting for about 15 to 20 years, the period of time needed to raise a generation, is to brainwash the public with communist ideology. Manipulation of the media and academia is required for this purpose.

    The second stage focuses on throwing society into chaos, and it usually takes 2-5 years. During this stage, the status quo in economy, foreign relations, and defense systems are changed. The establishment promises all kinds of goodies in order to win people’s support for creating a massive government that is intrusive to people’s lives. Media and academia are also essential to make it successful.

    The third stage instigates a crisis that leads to a civil war, revolution, or foreign invasion. This stage only took 2-6 months. This is the stage when the leftist idealists, or “useful idiots,” are no longer needed, because they would be disillusioned and become obstacles. They are going to be eliminated, exiled, or imprisoned, like what has happened in Grenada, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and China. “It is the same pattern everywhere,” said Bezmenov.

    These three steps culminate in the fourth and final stage of “normalization”—the populace begins to accept and assimilate communism. This final stage can take up to 20 years to complete.

    Today, 35 years after the interview, Bezmenov’s chilling prophecy still sounds so relevant. According to annual polls by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, support for socialism and Marxism among young people in the United States increases steadily. Actually, that is happening in all Western countries. Ambitious proposals like the “Great Reset Initiative” are aiming to change the world fundamentally in economy, international relations, and defense systems, and establish global governance, which sounds like Bezmenov’s stage two, destabilization.

    The United States is lauded as the beacon of democracy and freedom. But our once-proud institutions based on the Constitution and the separation of powers seems so powerless under the stress test of the 2020 presidential election. The deep frustration and distrust of the system cannot be dissipated by political intimidation, or deliberate ignoring of evidence-based allegations of irregularities. Many people are deeply worried about our country’s future.

    “The United States is in a state of war. Undeclared total war against the basic principles and the foundations of this system… The time bomb is ticking. Every second, the disaster is coming closer and closer. Unlike myself, you will have nowhere to defect to unless you want to live in Antarctica with penguins. This is it. This is the last country of freedom and possibility.” (Bezmenov)

    How did we get this far almost unknowingly?

    The Surreptitious Path of Infiltration

    Sen. Ted Cruz once commented about the law school of a prestigious university he attended:

    “There were more self-declared communists [in the faculty] than there were Republicans. … If you asked [them] to vote on whether this nation should become a socialist nation, 80 percent of the faculty would vote yes and 10 percent would think that was too conservative.”

    The amazing book, “How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World,” gives a comprehensive analysis of the non-violent infiltration of communism in the West. In 1884, a year after Karl Marx’s death, the British Fabian Society was founded to bring about communism gradually. It encourages its members to advance socialist aims by joining suitable organizations and ingratiating themselves with important figures, such as cabinet ministers, senior administrative officials, industrialists, university deans, and church leaders. Since then, many American intellectuals began accepting communist ideas or its Fabian socialist variant.

    The 1960s counterculture movement produced a large number of young anti-traditional students who were influenced greatly by cultural Marxism and Frankfurt School theory. After graduation, they entered the institutions with the most influence over society and culture, such as universities, news media, government agencies, and non-profits. What guided them at that time was mainly the theory of “the long march through the institutions” proposed by Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci. This “long march” aimed to alter the most important traditions of western civilization. As a result, generations of young people have been indoctrinated with the communist ideology.

    Why are Intellectuals So Prone to Communism?

    Intellectuals tend to be fooled by radical ideologies. This phenomenon has drawn the attention of scholars. British historian Paul Johnson found that radical intellectuals share the fatal weaknesses of arrogance and egocentrism.

    This arrogance is exhibited in a statement by nineteenth-century French politician and art critic Jules-Antoine Castagnary: “Beside the divine garden from which I have been expelled, I will erect a new Eden … At its entrance, I will set up Progress … and I will give a flaming sword into his hand and he will say to God, ‘Thou shalt not enter here.’”

    Rapid scientific progress since the 18th century greatly strengthened humankind’s confidence in its own ability and fueled the intellectual trend of progressivism. People started to worship humanist reason instead of God. Reason is believed to be able to lead people to the path of happiness and morality. People want to create a utopia, a “paradise on earth,” which is the essential idea of communism. As the “pastors” of modern science, intellectuals believe that they are the interpreter of the truth, and their cause is so important that no means are off-limits to serve their ends. This has caused a deluge of blood and misery.

    What Can We Do?

    Two hundred years of experimenting with human pride and reason has led to the declining of morality and the loss of tens of millions lives due to the ravages of communism.

    Founding Father John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Interestingly enough, a ruthless communist dictator, Joseph Stalin, echoed his point from another angle, “America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within.”

    It is time for us to be humble again, look inward, and follow the true wisdom of righteous spiritual beliefs. This is our only solution.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/17/2021 – 23:30

  • ​​​​​​​Feds Warn Amateur Radio Operators "Not To Commit Criminals Acts" Ahead Of Inauguration
    ​​​​​​​Feds Warn Amateur Radio Operators “Not To Commit Criminals Acts” Ahead Of Inauguration

    As tech giants shift into censorship overdrive – between Parler’s deplatforming, Twitter purges, and Facebook seemingly cracking down on just about any political discussion ahead of the inauguration – and Sunday’s imagery of anti-government anarchists who showed up to several US capitols on Sunday, those who wish to coordinate peaceful protests (and perhaps not-so peaceful protests) may try to use less-monitored methods to coordinate efforts.

    As such, the feds have put would-be criminals on notice.

    The Enforcement Bureau (Bureau) of the Federal Communications Commission is out with a Sunday warning reminding “licensees and operators in the Personal Radio Services, that the Commission prohibits the use of radios in those services to commit or facilitate criminal acts.“

    The Bureau has become aware of discussions on social media platforms suggesting that certain radio services regulated by the Commission may be an alternative to social media platforms for groups to communicate and coordinate future activities. The Bureau recognizes that these services can be used for a wide range of permitted purposes, including speech that is protected under the First Amendment of the US Constitution. Amateur and Personal Radio Services, however, may not be used to commit or facilitate crimes.

    Specifically, the Bureau reminds amateur licensees that they are prohibited from transmitting “communications intended to facilitate a criminal act” or “messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning.” 1 Likewise, individuals operating radios in the Personal Radio Services, a category that includes Citizens Band radios, Family Radio Service walkie-talkies, and General Mobile Radio Service, are prohibited from using those radios “in connection with any activity which is against Federal, State or local law.” 2 Individuals using radios in the Amateur or Personal Radio Services in this manner may be subject to severe penalties, including significant fines, seizure of the offending equipment, and, in some cases, criminal prosecution. – the memo read 

    The Bureau’s warning comes days before President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20. 

    The FBI released a special bulletin last week warning about armed protests at 50 state capitols and the US Capitol in Washington, DC, ahead of the inauguration. Considering Sunday’s footage of armed ‘boogaloo boys’ who actually showed up – and who appear to be largely leftist anti-government anarchists – it stands to reason that they, or others, may try to use radio amateur radio frequencies to coordinate rallies and or attacks.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/17/2021 – 23:00

  • As Tech Companies Purge Users, Here Are Some Alternatives
    As Tech Companies Purge Users, Here Are Some Alternatives

    By Simon Black at Sovereign Man

    By now you’re probably aware of the various purges taking place across tech platforms and social media. Major companies have used the events of January 6th at the US Capitol as an excuse to delete users and deplatform businesses. But the scope of the purge has gone much further than removing calls for violence.

    For example, 147 members of Congress are being blacklisted by banks, insurance providers, and hotel companies because they objected to certifying the results of the election.

    The entire social media company Parler was shut down when Amazon banned it from its servers, while Apple and Google dropped the app from their stores.

    Twitter executed over 70,000 accounts.

    PayPal cut ties with the US President, as well as a Christian website that raised funds to send protesters to DC. Shopify removed accounts “associated” with Trump, and payment processor Stripe joined in the purge as well.

    Facebook even suspended Ron Paul’s account for a time, before claiming it was a mistake. Ron Paul, keep in mind, has been an outspoken critic of this administration’s defense and monetary policies.

    The message is clear: your access, your data, and potentially your livelihood is not safe in the hands of the biggest tech companies, which we have been conditioned to rely on. Express the wrong opinion, and you may be the next casualty.

    What this means:

    The good news is there are alternatives, and the purge has been a major driving force for people to move to alternative platforms.

    For example, Telegram, a private messaging app which allows you to enable encryption in private chats, attracted 25 million new users in a 72-hour period. The app now has over 500 million active daily users worldwide.

    Almost 18 million people downloaded the (arguably better) encrypted messaging app Signal between January 5th and January 12th– a 61x increase.

    Meanwhile, Facebook-owned WhatsApp’s downloads were down about 20% week on week.

    Facebook and Twitter just voluntarily handed market share to their competitors. From January 5-14, Facebook lost over $70 billion of valuation. Twitter lost over $5 billion during the same period.

    Don’t go where you aren’t wanted.

    Spy-apps that repeatedly censor and abuse their customers have faced calls for an exodus for some time now. But now a critical mass is actually moving, which makes it more likely that the amount of content and users will keep people engaged in social media alternatives.

    In that sense, you could consider the purge a good thing.

    What you can do about it:

    The following are some popular alternatives to common social media platforms. Keep in mind that we aren’t endorsing or vouching for the safety/ privacy of any particular company listed below. The point is to start exploring alternatives so that all your eggs aren’t in one tech-company basket.

    Social Networks Alternatives to Facebook and Twitter

    • Gab.com – Similar to Twitter, Gab bills itself as a champion of free speech. It owns and operates its own servers, which means it can’t simply be shut down like Parler. But that also means the website is a little stressed at the moment, as so many new users flock to it.

    • MeWe.com – As a Facebook alternative, MeWe’s main draw is that it does not share or sell user data. But it does state in the user agreement that it reserves the right to terminate users who post “hateful, threatening, harmful” content.

    • Minds.com – This is a blockchain-based social media website which rewards engagement with tokens. Tokens can be used to boost your own content, fund other users, or redeemed for other currency. The website’s code is open source for transparency and accountability, and the content moderation policy is based on the First Amendment.

    Private Messaging Alternatives to Whatsapp

    • Signal – This messaging app is end-to-end encrypted so no one can snoop on your communications. And its technology is open source, so anyone who knows the coding language can check that it’s truly secure. Signal does require your phone number to use, but that’s about all the information it collects.

    • Telegram – Plenty of Whatsapp groups are migrating to Telegram for privacy reasons. But it is important to note that only private messages can be encrypted, and even then you have to specifically select the “secret chat” feature.

    Video Posting and Viewing Alternatives to YouTube

    • LBRY.com – This is an open source, blockchain-based, decentralized digital content sharing protocol. That means anyone can use it to build apps that allow peer to peer sharing of digital content. But the main selling feature is LBRY.tv or Odysee.com which facilitate the video sharing and viewing portions of the platform. Unlike Youtube, you have ultimate control over your own content.

    • Brighteon.com – Mike Adams, the creator of Natural News, started this video hosting website as a free speech alternative after he was repeatedly censored on YouTube and other social media.

    Then there is Brave Browser to replace Chrome, Protonmail to replace Gmail, and plenty of methods to accept cryptocurrency, instead of using typical payment processors.

    Clearly, this list is not exhaustive. And in the future we will be talking about more alternatives, and doing a deeper dive on their privacy and accountability. The point is you don’t have to allow these tech giants to have power over you.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/17/2021 – 22:30

  • China Reports Stronger Than Expected GDP, Is Only Major Economy To Grow In 2020
    China Reports Stronger Than Expected GDP, Is Only Major Economy To Grow In 2020

    China, which a little over a year ago unleashed a global pandemic on the world which reshaped economies, global supply chains, capital markets, and societies and was directly responsible for the downfall of a US president, was hell bent on demonstrating that it was the biggest winner from said plague, and early on Monday local time, Beijing’s National Bureau of Statistics announced that Gross Domestic Product in 2020 growth beat expectations of 6.2% to reach 6.5% in the fourth quarter of last year, with the economy expanding 2.3% for the full year 2020, making China the only major economy to expand last year on the back of an unprecedented multi-trillion credit expansion.

    That China’s sprawling economy managed to calculate all this just two weeks into the new year was perfectly normal as nobody actually believes any “data” out of China; instead all that matters is what Beijing wishes to telegraph to the outside world, and for now that message is “all is well.”

    The “data” underlines a rapid turnround in the world’s second-largest economy, which declined in early 2020 for the first time in more than four decades after the country was hit by the pandemic and authorities imposed a harsh lockdown. 

    The recovery was aided by record fiscal and monetary stimulus that boosted investment in infrastructure and real estate. Once China had virus cases under control and factories were able to resume production, growth was spurred by strong overseas consumer demand for Chinese exports, especially medical equipment and work-from-home devices.

    Despite the stronger than expected GDP, overall December activity data were mixed – industrial production growth was stronger than market expectations, but retail sales and fixed investment growth were below market expectations. In particular, December industrial production came in at +7.3% yoy, above market expectations, and was faster vs. November. Based on IP by major product data, cement production decelerated to 6.3% yoy in December from 7.7% yoy growth in November; steel product production grew 12.8% yoy in December vs. 10.8% yoy in November; electricity production accelerated to 9.1% yoy, from +6.8% in November. Meanwhile, retail sales missed expectations and slowed from November – in December, retail sales growth was 4.6% yoy, vs. +5.0% in November. Automobile sales growth slowed to +6.4% yoy (vs. +11.8% yoy in November). Fixed investment growth also weakened in December. On single month basis FAI growth was +5.1% yoy in December (vs. +9.4% yoy in November), and on a full year year-over-year basis, FAI growth was +2.9%yoy in 2020, below market expectations.

    “The quarter really seems to have shown the economy ended the year on a strong note, manufacturing is doing well,” said Cui Li, head of macro research at CCB International Holdings in Hong Kong said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. The softer-than-expected retail sales data in December may reflect the cooler weather and the resurgent virus in northern parts of China as some cities enforce new restrictions to control the outbreak.

    Separately, the unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.2% in December, while fixed asset investment added 2.9% over the full year, while real estate investment jumped 7% .

    Ning Jizhe, head of the National Bureau of Statistics, said the economy “recovered steadily” last year but added that the “changing epidemic dynamics and external environment pose a multitude of uncertainties”.

    China’s activity was boosted by shifts in orders as other countries struggled with virus outbreaks and further lockdowns, which was evident in the continued jump in China’s exports, while factory data had been encouraging during the prior quarter as November Official Manufacturing PMI printed its strongest reading in over 3 years and although it then eased in December, it still registered the 8th consecutive month in expansion territory.

    The GDP figures, which beat expectations, came days after China recorded its highest-ever monthly trade surplus in December, stoked by three consecutive months of double-digit exports growth. Exports rose 18% last month compared with the same period in the previous year.

    Meanwhile, global demand for Chinese-made goods is expected to remain strong as the pandemic continues to keep large parts of the world’s population locked down. Already the top exporter, the value of China’s goods shipments increased 3.6% in 2020, according to official data. Imports declined 1.1%, resulting in a $535 billion annual trade surplus, the highest since 2015.

    Of course, there is nothing organic about China’s resurgent growth and the fiscal and monetary stimulus to support the economy has been accompanied by a record surge in debt, a development that authorities are now seeking to address as the recovery takes hold. At a December meeting to lay out economic goals for 2021, the ruling Communist Party signaled that stimulus would be gradually withdrawn, although it would avoid any “sharp turns” in policy.

    In terms of forecasts, economists expect China’s GDP will expand 8.2% this year, continuing to outpace global peers, even as other large economies begin to recover with vaccines being rolled out. Chinese President Xi also recently touted positive growth whereby he expects China’s 2020 GDP to exceed CNY 100tln after around CNY 99tln in 2019. The country’s mandated return to growth last year attracted strong appetite from foreign investors, who injected about 1 trillion yuan ($154bn) into Chinese stocks and bonds  in 2020.

    As with anything China related, there is always the question how manipulated this “data” is: in China, where new cases of Covid-19 slowed to a trickle in the middle of 2020, but a recent outbreak in the northern province of Hebei has prompted a renewed wave of social restrictions and lockdowns. Last week, the country reported its first coronavirus death since April.

    The ongoing recovery in 2021 will depend on whether China can prevent a large-scale spread of virus infections, and on whether it can pass the baton of spending from local governments and large state companies to smaller businesses and consumers. Household spending and investment by manufacturing companies has lagged overall growth in 2020.

    In any case, the onshore yuan strengthened as much as 0.06% to 6.4779 versus the dollar after the release of GDP data, while the ChiNext Index of small caps gained 1.6%. The yield on the most actively traded contract of 10-year government bonds gained 2 basis points to 3.165%, set for the highest in two weeks.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/17/2021 – 22:03

  • Blue State Economies Will Soon Crumble – But Will They Take Red States With Them?
    Blue State Economies Will Soon Crumble – But Will They Take Red States With Them?

    Authored by Brandon Smith and originally published at Birch Gold Group,

    Over the past six to eight months, the U.S. has seen perhaps one of the largest migrations of people based on economic and ideological concerns in almost a century. Not since the Great Depression has there been so many Americans relocating in search of a better life. Today, however, those who relocate seem to be largely conservatives and moderates. There is a very good, multifaceted, reason for this.

    One of the best recent explanations for the conservative migration is visible in the near-180-degree turnaround by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on his draconian lockdown mandates. All of a sudden, Cuomo has announced that New York simply cannot stay closed any longer and that businesses need to reopen quickly.

    What could have possibly forced the thick-skulled Cuomo to finally see the light?  I think it has a lot to do with the fact that New York has attempted to distribute millions of doses of the COVID-19 vaccine and they have only been able to give out 30% of them. This means that around 70% of people eligible to get the vaccine in New York are apparently refusing to take it (a smart move in my opinion considering the highly experimental and untested nature of the cocktail). Surprisingly, at least 30% of NY healthcare workers are also refusing to take the vaccine. Cuomo has resorted to threatening hospitals with fines if they do not distribute the vaccines fast enough.

    In his latest statement Cuomo is trying to send a message that New Yorkers need to take the vaccine so that a reopening can begin. In other words, “take the vaccine or the economy will collapse”.

    I don’t believe Cuomo is mending his totalitarian ways, but at least for now, I think he is realizing what most of us in the alternative economic field have been saying for the past year:  Blue state economies are dying because they are oppressive and this stifles trade and business.

    Beyond the business factor and the restrictions on people’s daily movements and activities, the lockdowns and subsequent financial crisis have triggered rising crime levels across the country, but predominantly in blue states and democratic controlled cities.

    According to the U.S. Postal Service, New York City alone saw over 300,000 residents pick up everything and leave from March to October. This is an unprecedented spike, an exodus the likes of which New York has not seen in a long time.

    On the other side of the country, California is witnessing its own exodus, and it started well before the pandemic struck. In 2019, California saw over 653,000 residents escape the state’s suffocating bureaucracy and high taxes. In 2020, the state has hit its lowest population growth rate in history, even after accounting for babies born. More than 200,000 people left the state than moved in in the past year, and before anyone claims that these people are “liberals” invading red states, even the California media admits they are mostly conservatives seeking to escape the socialist sinkhole.

    U-Haul, one of the largest moving companies in the nation, has compiled data on the top states which Americans are moving to during the pandemic. The list is loaded with well-known conservative strongholds and red states, with Tennessee, Texas and Florida at the top.

    But what does this mean for leftist states in economic terms?  First, a huge loss of tax revenue, and this is dangerous for blue states in particular. California was projecting a $5.6 billion surplus in January of last year, only to face a $54 billion deficit by August. The state’s net tax revenue fell by 42% from March to May year-over-year, far outpacing losses in the rest of the country. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom begged Congress for $14 billion in federal aid, claiming that the government has a “moral and ethical obligation to help the states”.

    And this seems to be exactly how states like California are surviving, by stealing tax dollars from people in other states that have been more responsible in caring for their economies.

    We often hear about states like California and New York as having GDPs comparable to entire countries. We hear about all the manufacturing and agricultural production, and a couple of years ago, there were even calls for secession in California on the grounds that “orange man bad” and that the state could fiscally support itself “easily.”

    Nothing could be further from the truth. What leftist cheerleaders often refuse to mention is the deep and insidious debt problems and deficits blue states suffer from. Looking at a list of the most indebted states in the U.S. in terms of total assets and liabilities, you will find that the vast majority of them are Democrat controlled.

    Furthermore, blue states tend to have the highest levels of unfunded pension liabilities. In other words, their public pension obligations are only partially funded and are suffering a net loss. California, Connecticut and Illinois top the list and the only red state that comes close in terms of percentages is Alaska. Red states top the list in terms of the best funded pensions and the lowest debt per capita.

    These debts are caused by irresponsible spending policies and endless socialist welfare measures, and as with most socialist systems, they always end up spending more money than they can bring in. They also end up wasting money more than they effectively spend money. This translates to much higher taxes, as blue states refuse to admit policy errors and fix their mistakes. Instead, they punish the citizenry with increased taxation. A list of the highest personal income taxes across the country is dominated by blue states.

    Blue states like Illinois also stack the list of highest property taxes.

    One might assume that with such high taxation that social welfare programs would be in place to help the needy and to reduce poverty, but this is not the case. California and New York have the highest population of homeless people by far (151,278 in CA and 92,091 in NY). The next highest homeless population is in a red state, Florida, with only 28,000.

    Add to this the fact that blue states have been the most lockdown-happy during the pandemic despite the fact that the lockdowns have done nothing to stop the spread of COVID-19, and now you know why people are leaving these places en masse.

    This dynamic has led to red states outperforming blue states across the board in terms of economic recovery. Job recovery in red states far outpaces blue states, along with recovery in GDP. As a result, a call has been rising for a “Blue State Bailout”, and with Biden ostensibly entering the White House they may very well get what they are asking for.

    The problem is, the amount of bailout money that would satiate the hunger of blue states would have to be in the multi-trillions. As more and more people and businesses leave these places for more free states, it’s inevitable that tax revenues will dry up. And, as leftists raise taxes to cover the deficit even more people will relocate. It is a vicious cycle that will lead to complete dependency on federal dollars for blue states to survive.

    Red states, on the other hand, will not be enforcing strict lockdown mandates. In fact, I suspect that even if Biden tries to institute a Level 4 federal lockdown that many red states will defy him and carry on with business as usual while blue states quickly bow and submit. The only practical option is for blue states to ignore the lockdowns and fully reopen, not just for a couple of months, but permanently. Will they do this?  I doubt it.

    It is also important to consider at a fundamental level the types of people that make up the populations of red states versus blue states. Blue states have built a culture of dependency and the majority of leftists have no useful skill sets that would allow them to adapt to an economic crisis. Meanwhile, red state culture encourages independence, self-reliance and productivity.

    The most likely reaction among blue states or the federal government under Biden will be to try to “redistribute” the wealth and stability from red states to blue states. This could happen in the form of stimulus measures that unfairly benefit blue states. The resulting dollar devaluation and price inflation might hit red states harder because they would not be receiving bailouts to offset the higher costs. In the worst-case scenario, in which a full spectrum financial collapse occurs, we may even see the federal government attempt to redistribute production and manufacturing from red states to blue states in the name of “national emergency.”

    There could also be an attempt to stop people from moving away from blue states entirely. We have already seen a beta test for this in California, where legislators are attempting to pass a bill which would legally require former residents to continue paying taxes to the state for years after they leave.

    Of course, this would lead to severe resistance from conservatives, but that is a discussion for another time. The bottom line is this: the economic and pandemic policies of blue states have failed miserably. Their only option is to see the error of their ways, become fiscally responsible and remove totalitarian lockdown measures, or, attempt to leech success from the red states like parasites. Which one do you think they will choose?

    *  *  *

    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
    Sun, 01/17/2021 – 21:30

  • Armed Protesters Begin To Arrive At State Capitols Around The Nation
    Armed Protesters Begin To Arrive At State Capitols Around The Nation

    Update (1918 ET): Heading into the overnight, in a show of force, hundreds of National Guard troops protecting the US Capitol are marching in the city streets amid threats of armed protests. 

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    At least 25,000 Guardsmen are protecting the Capitol complex. 

    *** 

    Armed protesters have arrived at multiple state capitol complexes across the country Sunday morning. This follows a special bulletin from the FBI last week that warned: “armed protests” were being planned at 50 state capitols and the US Capitol in Washington, DC, ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20. 

    While the protesters are being identified across various platforms as members of a so-called “boogaloo” movement, they largely appear to be generic anti-government anarchists – some of whom call themselves “liberty boys,” and others who oppose the conservative Proud Boys. Their sudden emergence surrounding the inauguration is curious, to say the least.

    A field reporter at The Daily Caller, Jorge Ventura, reports from the Ohio Statehouse, where he notes that “580 National Guard members” were activated “to provide security around the Ohio Statehouse in downtown Columbus through Wednesday.”

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    “We are not a pro-Trump group,” said one of the armed protesters at the Ohio demonstration. 

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    An armed protester in Ohio told the “Proud Boys do not come here.” 

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    In Michigan, a dozen or so armed protesters are now showing up at the State Capitol.

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    Daily Mirror’s Derek Momodu tweeted, “this is very worrying…” as armed protesters gather in front of the Michigan State Capitol as Guardsmen are on “standby.” 

    “If you continue to oppress the American people, they will remain rational no longer,” said an armed protester in Michigan. 

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    In New Hampshire, a handful of armed protesters showed up outside the Capitol.

    While a similarly small group began to assemble outside the Oregon Capitol. 

    The group in Oregon refers to themselves as the “liberty boys.” 

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    At the Illinois State Capitol, Guardsmen and State Troopers are heavily armed, waiting for protesters. 

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    There’s a large police presence at the Minnesota State Capitol building as threats of armed protesters could assemble today.

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    Armed protesters rally at the Texas Capitol. 

    More armed protesters at the Texas Capitol. 

    Bloomberg notes, “militia groups from both the left and right gathered outside the state capitol in Frankfort, Kentucky.” 

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    Meanwhile, in Washington, DC, at least 25,000 Guardsmen and other law enforcement agencies have the US Capitol to White House area on lockdown. 

    On top of this all, civil flight observers have said, “amount of USAF cargo aircraft (C130s C17s KC135s KC46s) bringing National Guard troops to Washington DC/Capitol is truly impressive. Almost a constant air bridge for the past several days.”

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    *Check back for more updates. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/17/2021 – 21:20

  • SEC Whistleblower Tips Have Soared 31% Since Most Employees Started Working From Home
    SEC Whistleblower Tips Have Soared 31% Since Most Employees Started Working From Home

    Sitting around at home with nothing to do during the pandemic? Why not become a corporate whistleblower! It allows you to exact revenge on your boss and co-workers for years of misery and can also pay well!

    That must be exactly what many are thinking, as it is being reported that since the work from home boom started, whistleblower tips to the SEC have soared. The SEC received 6,900 tips for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2020, which marked a 31% rise from the previous 12 months, Bloomberg reported. 

    The increase in tips “really started gaining traction in March when Covid-19 forced millions to relocate to their sofas from office cubicles,” the report notes.

    Jordan Thomas, a former SEC official who helped set up the agency’s whistle-blower program, said: “You’re not being observed at the photocopy machine when you’re working from home. It’s never been easier to record a meeting when you can do it from your dining room table.”

    Adam Waytz, a psychologist and professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, said: “When you feel disconnected from work, you feel more comfortable speaking up.”

    And the increase in tips has led to larger and more consistent payouts from the SEC. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the agency has paid out $330 million in awards, including one award of $114 million to a single tipster in October. The payments are likely tied to cases prior to the pandemic, but are indicative of a trend of growing payouts. 

    The SEC has been paying whistleblowers since the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, which was put into effect as a result of massive financial blowups like Madoff and Enron. Bloomberg wrote:

    Under the program, tipsters can receive financial awards if they voluntarily provide unique information that results in an enforcement action. Payouts can range from 10% to 30% of the money collected in cases where sanctions exceed $1 million. Awards are paid from a fund set up by Congress — not money owed to harmed investors.

    Whistleblowers are never named and, on occasion, when working with lawyers, the SEC may not even know the name of a whistleblower. 

    Joseph Grundfest, a former SEC commissioner, said: “Corporations and their lawyers are acutely aware of the fact that tips are flooding in and that whistle-blower awards have ballooned. You pay whistle-blowers more than $100 million, you’re going to get more whistle-blowers.”’

    “Making more awards — certainly larger awards — all those things do go toward incentivizing whistle-blowers to come forward,” former SEC Enforcement Director Stephanie Avakian said.

    “The problem is that they’re being flooded with tips and don’t have a robust mechanism for separating the wheat from the chaff,” Grundfest concluded. 

    Since the program’s inception it has paid out about $737 million.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/17/2021 – 21:00

  • Biden To 'Immediately' Send Congress Bill That Would Offer Citizenship To 11 Million Illegals
    Biden To ‘Immediately’ Send Congress Bill That Would Offer Citizenship To 11 Million Illegals

    President-elect Joe Biden will ‘immediately’ send a legislative package to Congress which would provide a pathway to citizenship for some 11 million illegal immigrants, according to the Los Angeles Times, according to “immigrants rights activists in communication with the Biden-Harris transition team.”

    The bill would also provide a shorter pathway to citizenship for hundreds of thousands of people living in the United States under a temporary protected status and/or who qualify under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program who were brought into the US as children.

    And in what the Times calls a “significant departure from many previous immigration bills under both Democratic and Republican administrations,” the Biden plan would contain zero provisions for stepped-up immigration enforcement and security measures, according to Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center Immigrant Justice Fund, who was informed of the details by Biden staffers.

    Both Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris have said their legislative proposal would include a pathway to citizenship for millions of immigrants in the U.S. without legal status, and The Times has confirmed the bold opening salvo that the new administration plans in its first days doesn’t include the “security first” political concessions of past efforts.

    Hincapié, who was co-chair of the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force on Immigration — part of Biden’s outreach to his top primary rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, and his progressive base — said that Biden’s decision to not prioritize additional enforcement measures was probably a result of lessons learned from the Obama administration’s failed attempt to appease Republicans by backing tighter immigration enforcement in hopes of gaining their support for immigration relief. –Los Angeles Times

    “On Inauguration Day, President-elect Biden will sign roughly a dozen actions to combat the four crises, restore humanity to our immigration system, and make government function for the people,” reads a Saturday memo by incoming Biden chief of staff, Ron Klain, who said the incoming president’s agenda included “the immigration bill he will send to Congress on his first day in office.“

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    Under BIden’s plan – the most sweeping and comprehensive since President Regan’s 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act granting some 3 million people legal status (after which California flipped blue), immigrants would be eligible for legal permanent residence after five years, and US citizenship after three more years.

    Several immigration activists who spoke with The Times praised the reported scope and scale of the bill and expressed surprise at its ambition. A number of legislators and analysts had predicted that the new administration, at least in its first months in power, would be likely to pursue immigration measures that would stir the least controversy and could be achieved by executive actions rather than legislation. -LA Times

    Will it pass?

    Given the sweeping changes, Democrats are likely to face serious pushback despite holding slim majorities in both chambers of Congress – and the bill will likely face months of political debate as conservative members and immigration hard-liners push back.

    Meanwhile, Texas Democratic Rep. Juaquin Castro said in a Friday call with reporters that he’s formulating a bill which would offer illegals immediate protection from deportation and a fast-tracked path to citizenship for essential workers who are undocumented.

    “It’s time for essential workers to no longer be treated as disposable, but to be celebrated and welcomed as American citizens,” said Castro, adding “If your labor feeds, builds and cares for our nation, you have earned the right to stay here with full legal protection, free from fear of deportation.”

    And look at this – just in time:

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/17/2021 – 20:45

  • Conservatives Should Learn From The Left
    Conservatives Should Learn From The Left

    Authored by Heather Higgins via RealClearPolitics.com,

    As the political right struggles to regroup after the horrible events at the U.S. Capitol, it should learn from the masters. The left has a consistent pattern when responding to terrible behavior by activists associated with their cause — from the widespread destruction and violence last summer during protests of police brutality to mobbing Republican senators during the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings to the Bernie Sanders acolyte who opened fire at GOP members of Congress in 2017.

    The left starts by driving the narrative that their protests or movements were mostly peaceful while amplifying participants’ concerns to give them legitimacy.

    They downplay any violence, positioning it as nothing to do with them, a distraction from the cause. Having disassociated themselves from the bad behavior, they never act embarrassed.

    Compare this to those on the right:

    Everyone has unambiguously condemned the rioters in the Capitol, as they should. But many have fallen into the trap of accepting that they ought to be embarrassed, as though the rioters represented them, or even most Trump supporters, neither of which is the case. Nor have they defended the right to protest and the importance of recognizing and hearing concerns. Failing to do so has allowed the false equivalence between the rioters and the Trump supporters who were protesting to advance their concerns about election fraud, even though the vast majority of those in Washington on Jan. 6 were peaceful people who revere the Constitution.

    The left has used those missteps to play a semantic game of expanding definitions and thus tar an ever widening circle. They start with the remarkable premise that there were no election shenanigans whatsoever, and consequently that it’s heresy to question rule changes or unrequested mailed ballots. Why? To label legitimate issues as merely a “fringe” contentions. 

    Over the course of a week we’ve watched this metastasizing of definitions — President Trump “should have known” what his statements would lead to became “he deliberately incited” the rioting. And assertions that “everyone should have known” was expanded to “everyone who supported Trump incited the violence,” which led to “those who were silent and didn’t oppose Trump are enablers” and — when you are on a roll, why stop? — that conservatives are nascent Nazis.

    With blame comes punishment — not just deserved penalties for the rioters but threatened retaliation, starting with employment prospects, against the peaceful protesters, those who worked for the administration, and now even anyone who supported Trump and his policies.

    They are also ratcheting up censorship of conservatives by de-platforming the president and tens of thousands of others, shutting down alternate platforms, and revoking book publishing deals, all by applying standards that magically do not pertain to others. 

    Most toxic is the assault on speech through redefinition — it is no longer what was said or intended, it is how it might be interpreted. That subjective non-standard gives an excuse to those on the left to define what constitutes permitted opinion, not just on this matter but a range of issues where disagreement will be labeled as dangerous. 

    The implications of that are dire. It will mean the left  can use social pressure against cowering corporations, and foundations, to cut off the oxygen of speech and commerce — not just  access to social media platforms or hosting servers, but also banking services and funding — for individuals and organizations with a different view. 

    To prevent this, the right needs to defend the peaceful participants and their right to protest, explain the roots of their deep legitimate concern (years of fake news, social media suppression, and election rule overrides and ballot proliferation), and use this as an opportunity to unite, not divide. 

    Some conservative leaders and commentators, especially Never Trumpers, seem to see this as an opportunity to purge the movement of everyone associated with Trump and mistakenly presume that by feeding him and his allies to the alligator, they will be allowed to escape and achieve the left’s promised unity.  

    But as the social media putsch shows, this kind of “unity” really means “accept your guilt and be silenced.” With Trump out of the White House, the alligator won’t go away; his menu will simply shift to any others who won’t shut up and “unify.” The penalty: their platforms, social standing, and sources of funding will all be cut off.

    Efforts to force the 74 million people who voted for Trump over Joe Biden to feel ashamed and responsible or to publicly punish and silence their advocates, will be devastating not just to the Republican Party but to our country. We must instead regroup around our positive agenda, defend the tremendous policy gains that have been made — and stand strongly for the right of free speech and association, applied with neutral rules to everyone, including conservatives.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/17/2021 – 20:30

  • Whole Foods CEO Suggests Americans Wouldn't Need Healthcare If They Ate Better 
    Whole Foods CEO Suggests Americans Wouldn’t Need Healthcare If They Ate Better 

    Whole Foods CEO John Mackey said Americans would not need healthcare if they ate better and lived healthier lives. 

    “I mean, honestly, we talk about healthcare. The best solution is not to need health care,” Mackey told Freakonomics Radio on Nov. 4 and was first reported on Monday by CNBC.

    “The best solution is to change the way people eat, the way they live, the lifestyle, and diet,” he said. “There’s no reason why people shouldn’t be healthy and have a longer healthspan. A bunch of drugs is not going to solve the problem.” 

    Whole Foods CEO John Mackey

    Mackey dropped some pretty alarming health statistics that show Americans make bad health choices. 

    “71% of Americans are overweight and 42.5% are obese. Clearly, we’re making bad choices in the way we eat,” he said. “It’s not a sustainable path. And so, I’m calling it out.” 

    The numbers also shed light on why the US has had a relatively difficult time containing the virus pandemic because obese Americans are more at risk of contracting the infection. 

    To make matters worse, lockdowns and restrictions have led the most obese nation in the world, the US, to become ever more overweight. About a quarter of Americans gained between five and ten pounds since the coronavirus lockdowns.

    The reason for the “Quarantine 15” weight gain has been changes in diet, lack of regular exercise and a more sedentary lifestyle.

    Mackey has been vocal about adult health for years. In 2009, he argued in a WSJ op-ed that “the last thing our country needs is a massive new healthcare entitlement.”

    “This begins with the realization that every American adult is responsible for his or her own health,” Mackey wrote. “We should take that responsibility very seriously and use our freedom to make wise lifestyle choices that will protect our health.”

    Suppose Americans listened to Mackey’s advice. Then how would big pharma make their billions of dollars from obese people who suffer from heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and high blood pressure? 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/17/2021 – 20:00

  • Russia Advances In The Field Of Autonomous Combat Robotic Platforms
    Russia Advances In The Field Of Autonomous Combat Robotic Platforms

    Via South Front.org,

    Russia has been testing autonomous combat robotic platforms.

    The experimental robotic platform “Marker” completed a trek of approximately 30 kilometers, entirely in autonomous mode, the Advanced Research Fund (FPI) reported on December 30th. The tests were carried out in the Chelyabinsk region.

    The route of the vehicle was laid through an unprepared territory – a forest-steppe with a snow cover. The autonomous platform motion control system, having received a route assignment with the coordinates of a given point, ensured the platform’s arrival at the finish line in an hour and a half. The vehicle relied on the data of the technical vision system built on new neural network algorithms.

    The autonomous control system of the platform movement provides autonomous laying and adjustment of the route of movement in the event of obstacles – trees, rises, ravines, bushes, etc.

    The technical characteristics of the platform provide the possibility of autonomous operation for up to 48 hours on paved roads and up to 24 hours on rough terrain. As part of the next tests, the “Marker” platform will have to cover 50, 100 and 200 kilometers.

    The “Marker” experimental robotic platform was developed as part of a project by the Advanced Research Foundation, which was launched in 2018. The goal of the project is to create and conduct a full-scale development of technologies and basic elements of ground-based robotics.

    The “Marker” in the version on a tracked platform completed movement trials in July 2019, and then moved towards the firing practice. the Marker platform was developed and produced by the NPO Androidnaya Tekhnika as part of the first stage of the FPI project. The “Marker” uses two types of platforms: tracked and wheeled. A total of five robotic complexes will be manufactured to test the technologies.

    The robotic platform “Marker” is a joint project of the Foundation for Advanced Study and NPO “Android Technology”. It is assumed that this combat robot will become the basis for working out the joint interaction of ground robots, unmanned aircraft and special forces. The “Marker” is positioned as a constructor for creating models of warfare in the future.

    The evolution of modern ground-based robotic systems for military purposes is moving towards increasing the ability to perform tasks in an autonomous mode with a gradual decrease in the involvement of the operator in the process of controlling. To increase the level of autonomy of ground-based robotic systems, the development of a number of key technologies is required, which together determine the appearance of promising robotic system. Therefore, it is relevant to develop robotics technologies and bring them to the level of readiness that allows the technologies being created to be applied on promising autonomous robotic systems in real conditions.

    To test the technologies being created, to bring their level of readiness, a mobile demonstrator of robotics technologies was created using the modular design principle, with an open information architecture of construction, which provides the possibility of carrying out a full-scale development of technologies and basic elements of ground-based robotics.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/17/2021 – 19:30

  • There's Now A 12 Minute $175 Chopper Ride From Westchester Or Greenwich To Manhattan
    There’s Now A 12 Minute $175 Chopper Ride From Westchester Or Greenwich To Manhattan

    The irony of New York City getting new helicopter travel options is that the traffic these rides once sought to avoid has thinned out significantly. As a result of both Covid-19 and a general exodus from the city that is taking place as a result of the wonderful job Mayor Bill de Blasio is doing, the once super-crowded streets of Manhattan have been downgraded to simply just crowded.

    Regardless, those with the means in NYC may be happy to hear there is a new 12 minute helicopter ride option for those who want to travel between Westchester County Airport and Manhattan. The ride, put into service by Blade Urban Air Mobility, can carry five and will cost $175, according to Bloomberg.

    Rob Wiesenthal, the company’s CEO, said: “We believe people will be willing to pay to go once a week by Blade, because we’re saving so much friction. These people are working remotely four days a week, and it can feel comfortable to do this once a week.”

    A Blade chopper / Photo: BBG

    The program comes after the success of a pilot program in and out of the Hamptons last year. The chopper’s helipad will be in Ross’s terminal in Westchester.

    Blade is looking to introduce even more helipads that it calls “vertiports” alongside of electric choppers within four years. The expansion, especially in NYC, could come as more people start meandering back to the office daily for work. 

    Mitchell Moss, director of the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management, concluded: “The helicopter and vertical technology are going to surge, because of the savings in time. It’s one of the best investments, because you can be twice as productive when you’re in your Manhattan high rise office: You can do far more in face to face, which makes the helicopter worth it.”

    He concluded: “There’s a new hierarchy of how you commute. The helicopter is superseding the limousine and the SUV for hedge-fund executives and high-tech leaders.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/17/2021 – 19:05

  • Stockman: Why Does Sleepy Joe Think We Need Another $850 Billion Of Transfer Payments?
    Stockman: Why Does Sleepy Joe Think We Need Another $850 Billion Of Transfer Payments?

    Authored by David Stockman via EconomicPolicyJournal.com,

    In light of Sleepy Joe’s swell new $1.9 trillion package of more free stuff, it’s time to get out our magnifying glasses again. The purpose is to compute the size of the hole in  America’s collective paycheck that purportedly requires such continued, extraordinary beneficence from our not so rich Uncle Sam.  

    To repeat: There is no reason in the world why the February (pre-Covid) level of wage and salary disbursements is not a solid and appropriate benchmark for measuring the pocketbook hit from the Covid-Lockdowns that have wreaked havoc on the US economy since March. That is, from the point at which the evil Dr. Fauci convinced the Donald to pull the plug on MAGA and his own tenure in office, too (of course, 80-year old Dr.  Fauci is still there, fixing to bamboozle yet another notionally “elected” president).  

    Still, back in February the Donald was boasting to one and all that he had delivered the greatest economy the world had ever seen and Wall Street apparently agreed, pushing stocks high into the nose-bleed section of history.  

    As it happened, the February run rate (annualized) of wage and salary disbursements was $9.659 trillion, which computes to about $805 billion per month. So we would suggest that if $805 billion of monthly wages was enough to justify celebration of the  Greatest Economy Ever, then the shortfall from that benchmark is a solid measure of the hit to US worker earnings that has occurred since February.  

    Based on the red bars in the chart below and translated to actual monthly numbers, the  Covid-wage and salary loss computes as follows:  

    • March: -$25b;  

    • April: -$76b;  

    • May: -$61b;  

    • June: -$43b;  

    • July: -$31b;  

    • August: -$19b;  

    • September: -$12b;  

    • October: -$6b; 

    • November: -$3b;  

    • December est: $0b;  

    • 10-month total: -$276b 

    The total of $276 billion of lost paychecks compares to $8.05 trillion of wages and  salaries which would have been earned during that period at the February rate ($805  billion). So the cumulative shortfall through year-end amounted to just 3.4%. 

    More importantly, the $0-$6 billion monthly shortfall since September has been so small as to constitute a rounding error in the scheme of things, as suggested by the fact that American households spend far more—about $8 billion per month—-on pet food and pet care alone.  

    Yet Sleepy Joe has now teed up another $850 billion of direct aid to households, which in the aggregate are no longer suffering any material paycheck shortfall. And what is  especially egregious about filling a non-existent income hole in this manner is  that 53% of this amount goes to “stimmy” checks and child tax credits, which are  essentially not even mean-tested except at the tippy-top of the income scale ($200,000  for a married couple):  

    Sleepy Joe’s $850 Billion of Direct Handouts to Households: 

    • Stimmy checks and child tax credits: $450b;  

    • Unemployment benefits: $200b;  

    • Health insurance aid: $100b;  

    • Rental assistance: $35b;  

    • Child care aid: $40b  

    • Safety net: $20b  

    Still, to paraphrase Walter Mondale’s famous campaign slogan from 1984: Another  $850 billion for income replacement but “Where’s The Hole?” 

    Compensation of All US employees, Annualized Run Rate, February 2020- November 2020

    Of course, there are other ways to measure the hit to the national economy stemming from the Covid-Lockdown impact, as we will amplify below. But first it would be well to summarize the “solution” that Washington’s fiscally incontinent politicians have heaved at the “problem” during the last 11 months—a “problem” that they have never bothered to quantify.  

    With the new Biden package, spending authorized by the five major Covid relief  measures can be summarized as follows (billions):  

    • Families First act: $192b;  

    • CARES act: $2,200b;  

    • Paycheck Protection Program: $733b;  

    • Response and Relief Act: $935b;  

    • Biden Jan. 14th plan: $1,900b;  

    • Five package total: $5,960b. 

    That’s right. The Washington pols are fixing to heave nigh onto $6 trillion at a $274  billion hole in the nation’s wage bucket. That’s a solution 22X bigger than the putative problem!  

    Of course, we do not mean to dwell lightly on the “putative” part, nor embrace the notion that government owes citizens reparations for the damage its actions have caused.  

    Yes, the overwhelming share of the actual economic harm since March is due to the misguided (and unconstitutional) lockdown policies of the government and the vastly disproportionate and unwarranted public hysteria fanned by Dr. Fauci and the Virus  Patrol, not the disease itself. But if the state gets into the business of fully indemnifying the public for the endless harm wrought by its policies, insolvency would be thereafter guaranteed, and in short order, too.  

    Besides, why does Washington have the right to burden future taxpayers with permanent debt service payments in order to make-whole a $276 billion loss of income and 3.4% inconvenience among taxpayers today?  

    And don’t stiff us with the humanitarian relief bit. The simple fact is that the overwhelming share of this $276 billion of wage losses has been visited upon low-wage and part-time workers in the social-congregation sectors of the economy (bars,  restaurants, gyms, hotels, movies, ball parks etc.) that the Virus Patrol in its wisdom has shutdown. The right solution is to send the Virus Patrol packing and let these unfairly penalized employees go back to work.  

    Moreover, even if you want to plug that “hole” beyond what the in-place safety net is already providing (see below), well, then, tax the more affluent section of today’s citizenry to pay for it, not unknowing, unborn and voiceless future taxpayers.  

    Then again, the bipartisan duopoly is not about to give that fiscally honest approach the  time of day; they specialize in the joint gang-mugging of voiceless future taxpayers.  

    Even if you think that the total wage and salary loss computed above understates the  economic damage caused by the lockdowns, the massive fiscal overkill owing to the  Everything Bailouts cannot be gainsaid.  

    For instance, GDP is the most comprehensive measure of economic activity that we have  (despite its manifest flaws), but the loss of GDP after February has also been only about  3.6%. In fact, based on the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow forecast, we project that nominal  GDP during Q4 will post at about $21.650 trillion, a figure only 0.46% below the  Greatest Economy Ever level of Q4 2019.  

    So, again, if we assume that Q4 2019 is a reasonable pre-Covid benchmark for the level  of total economic activity in the USA, we get the following shortfall, including an  estimate for Q4 based on the Atlanta Fed’s latest outlook.  

    Quarterly GDP Change From Q42019 Benchmark: 

    • Q1 2020: -$47b;  

    • Q2 2020: -$559b;  

    • Q3 2020: -$144b;  

    • Q4 2020E: -$25b;  

    • 4-quarter total: -$775b

    So even if you want to count everything including losses from the $2.5 trillion of  imputed activity in the GDP, the pending $6 trillion of Everything Bailouts is 7.7X the  size of the problem!

    Quarterly GDP At Annual Rates

    Of course, the real point of the bailouts is to compensate the private sector for the economic harm done by the government in its exertions in furtherance of the public health. But when you look at the impact of the Covid-Lockdowns on value-added of the non-financial business sector, the hit compared to pre-Covid levels is also quite small.  

    Again, using Q4 2019 as the pre-Covid benchmark and actual results through Q3 2020  and the Atlanta Fed estimates for Q4, the loss in business output relative to Q4 2019 is  just $594 billion or 2.7% of total GDP. So by this measure of the “problem”, the  impending Everything Bailouts would amount to 10X the size of the hole in the bucket.  

    Likewise, our Atlanta Fed-based estimate of Q4 nonfinancial business value added of  $10.251 stands at fully 99.1% of the Q1 2019 level. That’s hardly a setback that warrants  burying future taxpayers in $6 trillion of new debt, and most especially not the $1.9  trillion part recommended by our day-late-and-dollar short incoming POTUS, who has  just emerged from his Delaware bunker.  

    Quarterly Change In Business Value-Added Versus Q4 2019 Benchmark: 

    • Q1 2020: -$23b;  

    • Q2 2020: -$347b;  

    • Q3 2020: -$142b;  

    • Q4 2020E: -$82b; 

    • 4-Quarter total: -$594b

    Quarterly Nonfinancial Business Sector Gross Value Added (Annualized):

    By contrast, it is well worth looking at the other side of the coin: Namely, the surge in transfer payments since last February stemming from a combination of the built-in safety net (principally unemployment insurance, foods stamps and Medicaid) and disbursements of stimmy checks, enhanced Federal UI benefits and the rest authorized by the Everything Bailouts.  

    At the pre-Covid level in February, total government transfer payments (including state  and local) were running at a $3.165 trillion annual rate or about $265 billion per  month. As shown in the chart below, however, that monthly figure skyrocketed by 107%  to $546 billion in the month of April alone.  

    And, no, that latter figures is not the annualized rate: In their infinite generosity,  government programs pumped more than one-half trillion dollars into the household  sector during April alone. That’s $18.2 billion per day! 

    Thereafter, the tsunami of transfer payments began to abate, but were still running at a  $400 billion monthly level in July and $306 billion level in November. Overall, the 10- month total of incremental transfer payments above the February level totaled $1.05  trillion.

    You can’t make this up. Transfer payments to households during the past 10 months have exceeded the loss of household wages and salaries ($276 billion) by nearly four times.  

    So the question recurs: Why does Sleepy Joe think we need another $850 billion of transfer payments to households on top of the immense generosity already dispensed per the chart below?  

    The answer is simple: He’s doing it because he can—because the nation-wreckers in the  Eccles Building have determined to purchase $120 billion of government debt and  GSE securities per month for the indefinite future. As JayPo rattled on at his presser this week, they are not even thinking about thinking about tapering this tsunami of fake money plucked from thin air by the Fed’s digital printing presses.  

    Accordingly, under this crooked regime of massive debt monetization, there is no here  and now economic sting to rampant Federal borrowing; no “crowding-out” as in times  of yore before the Fed went off the deep-end with Keynesian money-pumping; and no  

    surging interest rates to rouse Wall Street and the business community from their happy  slumber in the lap of ultra-cheap borrowing costs.  

    Stated differently, when it comes to the rampant fiscal incontinence in the Imperial City  enabled by the Fed, did the election outcome make any difference?  

    It did not. Sleepy Joe is about to give the once and former King of Debt a run for his money when it comes to the annals of fiscal infamy in America.

    Total Government Transfer Payments, Annualized

    Even if you set-aside things like increased Medicaid and food stamp spending embedded in the above figures for total government transfer payments and focus just on the change in Federal-state unemployment insurance disbursements since February, the sheer fiscal madness at loose on Capitol Hill is baldly evident.  

    To wit, prior to the Covid-Lockdown battering of the US economy, which has so far caused the filing of an incredible 70 million in new unemployment benefit claims, the  Federal-state unemployment systems was pumping out benefit payments at a $27.8  billion annual rate in February or about $2.3 billion per month. 

    Here is the subsequent increase in UI payments from both existing state programs and the Federal pandemic assistance benefits and $600 per month topper payments. They total $518 billion or nearly two-times the $276 billion cumulative loss of wages and salaries during the same 10-month period.  

    Moreover, the alacrity with which the system poured money into the ranks of unemployment claimants is a wonder to behold. By April the February payment level of  $2.3 billion had soared to $41 billion, per month and by July the figure came in at an astounding $117 billion per month.  

    That’s right. At the June peak rate of $117 billion per month ($1.4 trillion annualized per  the chart below), the monthly payment rate was 51X higher than it had been in  February, and exceeded the full year UI payout rate during the depths of the Great  Recession.

    Monthly UI Payments Annualized

    But consider this: If the Federal-State unemployment system was already overcompensating for actual lost wages and salaries by 2X, why did we need to send helicopter checks, or what Washington now fondly calls “stimmy checks”, to 155 million households on top of that, when most of these households had not lost their jobs or paychecks?  

    Nevertheless, here is the “stimmy check” and related non-means tested money in the  five Everything Bailouts including Sleepy Joe’s new edition to the Fiscal Demolition  Derby:  

    Non-Means-Tested Stimmy Funding: 

    • Families First act: $105b;  

    • CARES act: $315b;  

    • Response & Relief Act: $191b;  

    • Biden Jan. 14th plan: $625b;  

    • Total non-means tested stimmy: $1.235 trillion.

    In short, the wage loss hole in the bucket was already filled two-times over by the  increase in UI benefit payments since February, but this massive drop of cash on the  American public will have filled it again by another 4.5X. 

    As we said, free lunches for one and all……except, except the debt is never going away  and future generations will surely rue the day. 

    * * *

    The above originally appeared at David Stockman’s Contra Corner.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/17/2021 – 18:40

  • Parler Back From The Dead As CEO Posts New Message
    Parler Back From The Dead As CEO Posts New Message

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours)

    Parler’s website suddenly appeared online Sunday with a message from its CEO, John Matze, who said, “Hello world, is this thing on?”

    The message suggests Parler was able to find another hosting service, coming about a week after Amazon Web Services booted the social media website from its services, taking the site down. It came as Parler—billed as a “free speech” platform—was seeing an unprecedented surge in users as prominent conservatives, among others, were being banned from Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms.

    Matze also issued a temporary status update.

    “Now seems like the right time to remind you all—both lovers and haters—why we started this platform,” Matze. “We believe privacy is paramount and free speech essential, especially on social media. Our aim has always been to provide a nonpartisan public square where individuals can enjoy and exercise their rights to both. We will resolve any challenge before us and plan to welcome all of you back soon. We will not let civil discourse perish!”

    A screenshot of Parler.com on Jan. 16, 2020. (Screenshot/Parler)

     

    Amazon Web Services’ rationale behind jettisoning Parler was due to a lack of moderation and came in the backdrop of the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riots. Parler, in a court filing, citing text messages between Matze and an Amazon representative, claimed Amazon was primarily concerned with whether President Donald Trump would migrate to Parler after his Twitter account was banned last week.

    The same filing asserted that Amazon didn’t appear to care much about alleged violent threats that were made by Parler users.

    Last week, Parler asked a federal court in Washington state to block Amazon’s decision, while maintaining that Amazon engaged in monopolistic practices by booting the platform. Twitter is also a major client of Amazon Web Services.

    This illustration picture shows the social media website from Parler displayed on a computer screen in Arlington, Va., on July 2, 2020. (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)

    According to a WHOIS search, Parler appears to be hosted by Epik, which also hosts social media website Gab.

    While it did not confirm Parler was seeking its services, Epik in a statement last week blasted Big Tech companies’ “kneejerk reaction” of “simply deplatforming and terminating any relationship that on the surface looks problematic or controversial.” The statement noted that Epik is “not quick to abandon our administrative positions,” as it attempted to contrast it and Amazon.

    Other than Amazon’s decision, Google and Apple removed Parler from its respective app stores.

    Earlier on Sunday, Matze said there was no indication Amazon, Google, and Apple would pull their services.

    In the days up to the suspension, “Amazon, as usual, [was] basically saying, ‘Oh, I never saw any material problems. There’s no issues.’ You know, they played it off very nonchalantly. And so we had still even, you know, on the 8th and the 9th, you know, we had no real indication that this was, you know, deadly serious,” Matze told Fox News.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/17/2021 – 18:34

  • Fox News Ratings Plummet After Abandoning MAGA Viewership
    Fox News Ratings Plummet After Abandoning MAGA Viewership

    Before the 2020 election, Fox News was dominating its cable rivals – in large part due to Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, whose pro-Trump messaging and coverage of the Russiagate and Biden scandals helped lead the network to its #1 ratings spot for several years.

    Then, after host Chris Wallace ‘moderated’ the first Presidential debate by overtly protecting Joe Biden while attacking Trump, the network’s establishment bias upstaged even their ratings darlings. Disgusted MAGA viewers began turning to alternatives such as One America News and Newsmax for pro-Trump coverage after Fox made clear where they stand.

    According to the Daily Beast, Fox News’ ratings have plummeted – as the network finished third to both CNN and MSNBC in the ratings on Friday for the third straight day, their poorest showing since September 2000.

    On Wednesday, CNN averaged 5.941 million total viewers and 2.074 million in the key 25-54 demographic for the entire day, compared to MSNBC’s 4.543 million viewers overall and 1.106 million demo audience and Fox News’ total audience of 3.464 million and 852,000 in the demo.

    The disparity increased on Thursday, with CNN drawing 3.854 million total viewers, MSNBC averaging 3.321 million, and Fox pulling in 1.935 million for the day. CNN also led in the demo, nabbing 1.193 million with MSNBC finishing second at 653,000 and Fox bringing in the rear at 384,000.

    The streak continued on Friday as CNN finished first once again with 3.121 million total viewers, followed by MSNBC’s 2.816 million and FNC’s 1.702 million. In the total day demo, CNN drew 878,000 viewers, compared to MSNBC’s 512,000 and Fox News’ 320,000. MSNBC, meanwhile, experienced its highest-rated week ever, averaging a total of 3.1 million viewers. –Daily Beast

    Fox is trying to salvage their ratings disaster. Last Monday they announced a massive overhaul of its daytime and early primetime weekday lineup – shifting Martha MacCallum from 7 p.m. to 3 p.m., and moving anchors Dana Perino and Bill Hemmer out of their early afternoon broadcasts for a co-anchored segment from 9-11 a.m. with a rebooted America’s Newsroom.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/17/2021 – 18:15

  • The Trial Of Citizen Trump Would Raise Serious Constitutional Questions
    The Trial Of Citizen Trump Would Raise Serious Constitutional Questions

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    Below is my column in USA Today on the upcoming Senate trial of President Donald Trump. The Hill recently ran my second column on why the best defense of Trump could be no defense — to skip the Senate trial and force a threshold vote on the constitutionality of the trial of an ex-president. Here is my column:

    With the second impeachment of President Donald Trump, the Congress is set for one of the most bizarre moments in constitutional history: the removal of someone who has already left office. The retroactive removal would be a testament to the timeliness of rage. While it is not without precedent, it is without logic.

    The planned impeachment trial of Donald Trump after he leaves office would be our own version of the Cadaver Synod.  In 897, Pope Stephen VI and his supporters continued to seethe over the action of Pope Formosus, who not only died in 896 but was followed by another pope, Boniface VI.  After the brief rule of Boniface VI, Pope Stephen set about to even some scores. He pulled Formosus out of his tomb, propped him up in court, and convicted him of variety of violations of canon law. Formosus was then taken out, three fingers cut off, and eventually thrown in the Tiber River.

    While some may be looking longingly at the Potomac for their own Cadaver Synod, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats have stated that their primary interest is in the possible disqualification of Trump from holding future federal office. Disqualification however is an optional penalty that follows a conviction and removal. It may be added to the primary purpose of removal referenced in the Constitution. The Trump trial would convert this supplemental punishment into the primary purpose of the trial.

    This did happen before but that precedent is only slightly better than the Cadaver Synod. That case involved William Belknap who served as Secretary of War to President Ulysses S. Grant. Belknap resigned after allegations of corruption — just shortly before a House vote of impeachment. The Senate held a trial but acquitted him. Twenty nine of 66 voting senators disagreed in a threshold motion that Belknap was  “amenable to trial by impeachment . . . notwithstanding his resignation.”

    In fairness to the Democrats, I have long rejected the argument that there comes a point when it is too late to impeach a president while he is in office. As I said in both the Clinton and Trump impeachment hearings, the House is under a duty to impeach if it believes that a president has committed a high crime and misdemeanor. If that occurred on the last day of a term, it would still be warranted.

    My objection to this second impeachment was that it proceeded without any deliberation of the traditional impeachment process. It was a snap impeachment, which is to the Constitution what Snapchat is to conversations. It reduces the process to a raw, brief and partisan vote. This could have been avoided. A hearing could have been held in a day to allow the language of the article to be amended and the implications of the impeachment considered. It would also have allowed for a formal demand for a response from the president.

    Instead, the impeachment was pushed through on a partisan muscle vote with only ten Republicans supporting the single article. It was an ironic moment. In the last Trump impeachment, I chastised the Democrats for pushing through an impeachment on the slimmest record and the shortest time frame of any presidential impeachment. They insisted that there was no time for witnesses before the House Judiciary hearing, but later waited weeks to submit the articles to the Senate. Now they have outdone that record with an impeachment with no traditional record in a matter of a couple of days. The Senate will not sit until January 19th and any trial would likely occur after January 20th.

    I have long wrestled with the notion of a retroactive impeachment trial. I can see the value of establishing that a president was not just accused but convicted of unconstitutional acts. There is also the value of disqualification of such an individual from future office. However, what was an intriguing academic puzzle is now a pressing constitutional concern.

    The impeachment trial of a private citizen raises a host of constitutional and practical problems. For example, a president can rely on publicly-funded lawyers like the White House Counsel and can assert presidential privileges. After leaving office, an ex-president would not only pay for his own defense, but he will lose the ability to make privilege determinations. Indeed, many such assertions would be subject to the review of his successor, Joe Biden. It would be like Pope Stephen making determinations on critical evidence of Pope Formosus after pulling him out of the crypt.

    The main issue however would be whether this is really an impeachment trial, as opposed to some curious constitutional post-mortem on a passed presidency. That question could face Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts if he has summoned for this role. A chief justice does not simply show up at anything deemed an impeachment trial. He must make an independent judgment over his carrying out a constitutional function.  Even if he rules that this is a valid trial, that ruling could be rejected by the Senate in a motion to dismiss the article. In the Clinton impeachment, Democrats demanded such a threshold vote before a trial. Of course, since there is no president to try for impeachment, the Senate may not even ask Roberts to preside — a telling departure that only undermines the trial as a whole.

    This impeachment should end with the Trump administration. I do not fault those who view the president’s conduct as impeachable. The speech was reckless and wrong. My primary objection was to the use of a snap impeachment and the language of the article of impeachment. That is now part of Trump’s presidential legacy. The question is now what will be the troubling constitutional legacy left by the Senate in the trial of an ex-president.

    In my view, a retroactive removal vote would combine with the use of a snap impeachment to fundamentally altering the role of impeachment in the United States. It would take a rush to judgment and turn it into a parade of constitutional horribles. Any party could retroactively impeach or remove a former president for the purpose of disqualifying him from office. Thus, if a party feared a one-term president’s possible run, they could hold use impeachment to eliminate the political threat. With the snap impeachment, it would be worse than creating a type of “no confidence vote” under our Constitution. After a non confidence vote in the United Kingdom, a former prime minister can still run again for office.

    A conviction would also not bring the closure as many may hope. Such disqualification would be one of the few impeachment issues that could be challenged in court. Trump would have standing to sue for his right to run again and he could well win. He would then be more popular than ever with many citizens eager to defy the Washington establishment. There is another path. The Senate could end the trial with a threshold vote and let history and the voters be the final judge of Donald J. Trump.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/17/2021 – 17:50

  • Incoming $1400 "Stimmy" Checks Could Push The S&P Over 4,000
    Incoming $1400 “Stimmy” Checks Could Push The S&P Over 4,000

    There’s no doubt that the $600 stimulus checks that went out earlier this month put a charge into the market. Will the coming $1,400 checks push the market even higher? We think so.

    We believe that another round of stimulus – at more than 2x the amount of the previous round – is an obvious catalyst that will move the market higher once again. We noted as such on January 13 when we posted to Twitter that the top 3 banks were “probably right” in suggesting calendar spreads because stimulus would pave the path for the S&P to breach 4,000.

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

    This question was also explored by Bloomberg on Sunday morning, who arrived at a similar conclusion. Noting that the recent $600 checks caused option trading to explode and penny stock volume to skyrocket, the report points out that people “can’t help notice how tiny traders with money to spend keep turning up in the vicinity of almost every market spectacle these days”.

    Then, the obvious question becomes: where does that extra money come from? 

    Brrr…

    Peter Cecchini, founder and chief strategist of AlphaOmega Advisors LLC, commented: “If the additional $1,400 goes to the same income levels it did before, we are highly likely to see additional speculation in stocks, which could continue to inflate an already-existing bubble. If it goes to people with below-average incomes, speculation will be less likely.”

    Data suggests that people who got a stimulus check, across all income groups, traded 30% more in the first 10 days of January than at the start of December. Those who earn less than $75,000 per year saw a 53% jump in their trading, Bloomberg wrote.

    And the coming $1,400 will hit bank accounts during a “full-blow market mania”. Speculation is rampant not just in risky asset classes like cryptocurrencies, but in penny stocks, dubious startup companies and cash burning entities across all exchanges in the U.S. – we are at peak euphoria. In fact, the options market saw its second busiest day ever for bullish equity calls this week and penny stock volume is up 6x from last year.

    Retail stocks, as we have noted many times on Zero Hedge, are blowing away hedge fund favorites and the S&P 500 index:

    And while people certainly need the stimulus to help offset rising costs and job losses, many will instead divert their checks to the market. 

    23-year-old Ava Frankel of Boston, who works in the financial services sector, said: “I told my friends, if you’re going to spend your stimulus check on shoes, you might as well just put it in Robinhood instead. The $600 check was just something extra I didn’t need so I just threw it in the stock market.”

    Frankel put her entire $600 check in to a SPAC that is reportedly in talks with Lucid Motors and says she would consider doing the same with the next check she gets. “I would love to see a pullback in the tech sector because I would like to add to my positions in the tech names,” she also said. 

    Chris O’Keefe of Logan Capital Management concluded: “If there is a bubble being created within the financial markets, to some degree, those checks do add to it because I think they’re going to chase performance. It used to be you added money to the economy and people went out and bought things — cars and furniture — now it seems to amplify what’s going on in the financial markets.”

    Or, in other words:

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

     

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/17/2021 – 17:25

  • Ice Cream From China Contaminated With COVID: Officials
    Ice Cream From China Contaminated With COVID: Officials

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

    Officials in a Chinese municipality said that three samples of ice cream tested positive for the CCP virus, and thousands of boxes were confiscated, according to state-run media.

    Storage of the ice cream, produced by Tianjin Daqiaodao Food Co., was sealed after samples sent by the firm to a local disease control center last week tested positive for the virus.

    Officials said that the company’s more than 1,662 workers were placed under quarantine due to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus—also known as the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

    Authorities in Tianjin said the company produced more than 4,836 boxes of COVID-contaminated ice cream, according to state media. Hundreds of boxes of ice cream entered the market.

    The Tianjin Municipality is located in northeastern China and borders Hebei Province and Beijing.

    According to reports in October 2020, CCP authorities had detected and isolated the virus on the outer packaging of frozen cod during efforts to trace the virus in an outbreak in Qingdao.

    Officials’ claims about the virus being found in frozen food could be a tactic to blame other countries for COVID-19 cases in the country. In November, regime authorities said that allegedly COVID-contaminated food was imported from other countries in what some experts said was an attempt to blame those countries for the outbreak.

    State media reports over the weekend said the raw material used to produce the ice cream came from Ukraine and New Zealand.

    The ice cream development comes as CCP authorities relocated about 20,000 people in Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei Province, to other areas for quarantine several days ago. The outbreak, according to officials, also spread to Qiqihar—one of the largest cities in northern China in Heilongjiang Province.

    The new wave of the COVID-19 outbreak in Shijiazhuang was concentrated in Zengcun township of Gaocheng district, and has spread to other parts of China.

    The Epoch Times learned on Jan. 11 that after many residents in Zengcun were sent to quarantine sites, nearly 20,000 people who had remained were urgently notified by local authorities to be transferred to quarantine centers in remote areas.

    And leaked government documents obtained by The Epoch Times showed that officials in Hebei are anticipating a surge in CCP virus cases and are making preparations to curb its spread.

    Chinese officials in Heilongjiang Province on Jan. 14 told all 38 million residents to self-quarantine at home, although they didn’t say for how long.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/17/2021 – 17:00

  • Luke Gromen: The Fed Has No Good Options Right Now As Yields Rise And Deficits Explode
    Luke Gromen: The Fed Has No Good Options Right Now As Yields Rise And Deficits Explode

    One of the biggest questions right now, especially as yields climb as Joe Biden promises trillions of dollars in additional COVID-19-inspired stimulus spending, is when the Fed and the Treasury, soon to be run by Janet Yellen, will conspire to stop the rise in yields and stave off another eruption of market chaos. With US deficits rising thanks to COVID, and the Fed reviving QE thanks to COVID, the global dollar-based financial system is in trouble, if for no other reason than that Europe, Japan and China are spending so much more domestically, they won’t have as much left over to spend on buying Treasury bonds to finance the US deficit and build up their foreign-exchange reserves.

    One of the biggest questions right now, especially as yields climb as Joe Biden promises trillions of dollars in additional COVID-19-inspired stimulus spending, is what’s going on with Treasury yields, and why hasn’t the US dollar strengthened like it’s “supposed to do” (according to the textbook). But in reality, situations can be a lot more complicated than one might expect.

    With US deficits rising thanks to COVID, and the Fed reviving QE thanks to COVID, the global dollar-based financial system is in trouble, if for no other reason than that the global economy is slowing (meaning Europe, Japan and China won’t have as much left over to pour back into Treasuries).

    And with countries like Russia moving unprecedented amounts of their foreign exchange reserves into gold, like Russia, which now holds more gold in its central bank reserves than at any point in its modern history, there’s a real mutiny against the dollar that’s driving the pace of de-dollarization.

    During the latest MacroVoices interview with Luke Gromen, a macro analyst who founded his own shop back in 2014, the longtime macro analyst shared his long-term outlook for the dollar, gold and Treasuries, and how global central banks will drive macro market dynamics during the post-COVID era.

    At one point early on during the interview, Gromen said “[w]hat’s been interesting to me in this whole process is that the dollar hasn’t responded to these yield increases at all. And I think Louis Gave said it best a couple of weeks ago in an interview, he said when I see a nation who has rising yields and a falling currency, alarm bells go off. That’s a symptom of a balance of payments problem.”

    Using Occam’s Razor, it’s clear: the reason the dollar is sinking is because the puppeteers who run the economy Jerome Powell and the rest of the Fed’s board of governors need it to sink so the US brings more dollars back in trade.

    And I think that’s a way – from the yield increases, which I think the Occam’s razor explanation for why yields are rising, particularly post-election, is on expectation of the stimulus.

    I think the reason behind the reason is that the reason we need the stimulus is because the US has a balance of payments problem in the aftermath of COVID. When you look at the hole that was blown in the US fiscal budget after COVID, it really looks, to our eyes, irrecoverable without some massive stimulus or a big devaluation in the dollar or something of that sort.

    As Gromen reminds us, central banks started pulling back on QE back in 2014 when the Fed said it would start tapering its asset purchases.  But even before COVID struck, purchases started trending higher. 

    The discussion then circles back to “deficits don’t matter…until they do.”

    Erik: Now, a phrase that I’ve heard you use a lot before, Luke, is deficits don’t matter until they do. The implication being that, at some point, if you no longer have the position of prominence that the US has enjoyed, with the rest of the world buying up its debt, all of a sudden the game is different.

    But, on the other hand, you can spend pretty much an unlimited amount of money if the Fed just buys all the Treasuries and you don’t have to depend on outside investors for that.

    How do you see this increased spending, lots and lots of stimulus planned, a growing political sentiment around MMT to say let’s just spend whatever we need to, we can always print the money to buy the bonds if necessary?

    How long does that game go on until deficits do matter?

    Luke: I think they’ve started to matter already. I think they started to matter in 3Q14 when global central banks stopped buying Treasuries on net.

    If you look at what they have bought from 3Q14 to present on net, they have not added any Treasury bonds on net to their FX reserves, which I think that is really the kickoff of when they started to matter.

    There have been on this front a couple of interesting op-eds in the Wall Street Journal in the last month, one by former Goldman CEO and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, one by former Fed governor Kevin Warsh last week.

    And both of them I think are really important op-eds because they both suggest that the Fed and the US government have a problem, which is that the US needs to refinance (call it) $7 to $8 trillion net this year.

    So, what does this mean for yields and the dollar?

    Readers can listen to the full interview below, courtesy of MacroVoices:

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/17/2021 – 16:35

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Jan 17

Today’s News 17th January 2021

  • The Gray Curtain Descends, Part 2
    The Gray Curtain Descends, Part 2

    Authored by Robert Gore via Straight Line Logic

    Read Part 1 here…

    It’s secession or war…

    Four days after the election, a woman calling herself OHMama posted “I Am Done” on The Burning Platform website. It was the site’s most read article of 2020. SLL and many other websites reposted it. It was raw, explosive anger and a profoundly moving lament; OHMama was clearly at the end of her rope. The closing paragraph packed a wallop.

    I was raised to be a lady, and ladies don’t curse, but fuck these motherfuckers to hell and back for what they’ve done to me, and mine, and my country. All we Joe Blow Americans ever wanted was a little patch of land to raise a family, a job to pay the bills, and at least some illusion of freedom, and even that was too much for these human parasites. They want it all, mind, body and soul. Damn them. Damn them all.

    OHMama gave voice to what’s beneath the surface for so many of us—abject disgust, barely contained fury, and dread of what’s to come. She claimed her own life to live it as she sees fit, and damn them, damn them all, who presume to rule us.

    That anger surfaced in Washington on January 6. The protest and raid of the Capitol were illuminating in several ways. They defined the two sides: the government, its string-pullers, and its allies versus those who despise and oppose them.

    The Saul Alinsky line was crossed, setting an important precedent. His acolytes insist their enemies live by their own rules while exempting themselves from any rules other than those that secure power. Playing by the rules when the opposition doesn’t is a guaranteed loser. Caring what they think of you is craven. Cowering when they call you hypocrites is unilateral surrender. Going forward, Alinsky’s acolytes may face an opposition that plays by the same rules they do—those necessary to secure power.

    The Capitol raid scared the crap out of uniparty politicians, witness the hysterical overreaction. Given what they and their accomplices have done to Americans and people around the world, they should live in perpetual, mortal terror. Unfortunately, their cowardice outruns their brains. Instead of responding to the message they’ll shoot the messenger and clamp down harder.

    Legacy media was filled with paeans to our “sacred” government and its “temples,” deploring the “sacrilege” of those who “desecrated” and “defiled” them. What absolute tripe! Washington is a Corruptocracy, a moral cesspool. Anything sacred would have been vandalized or torn down by the mobs allowed to run riot last year. They would have toppled the Washington Monument if they could have figured out how.

    Americans who build businesses or pursue careers honestly producing goods and services for voluntary trade are engaging in activities far more sacred than anything that goes on in the capital. Millions of parents instill moral principles in their children, only to see those principles defiled daily by the government. Washington delenda est—if it were leveled and sown with salt America and the world would be better for it.

    The corruptocrats’ ability to shore up the debt-riddled global financial and economic systems with ever more debt has astounded skeptics, among them SLL. The debt load is many times annual global production and debt service is sucking up that production like a tapeworm sucks up its victim’s meals. Every financial asset is a debt or equity claim, and virtually every income stream and real asset—factories, real estate, houses, warehouses, inventories, office buildings, malls, etc.—has been pledged or mortgaged, often several times over.

    We saw the global daisy chain unravel in 2008 and 2009 and the system is daisy-chainier now. If you’re looking for canaries in the coal mine, watch the yields on sovereign debt. Once they really start to climb it’s game over. The devastation will be unprecedented and epic.

    Collapse will decimate over-indebted, non-productive governments that have made promises they can’t keep to millions of their citizens. That may be part of a plan to destroy national governments and generate clamor for totalitarian global government. Yet, every tyranny confronts the question: who is going to host its predation and parasitism if the disobedient but productive (there is a correlation) have been imprisoned or executed? Slavery is notoriously unproductive.

    Globo-government will be in the same position as the national governments it supersedes—bankrupt, bereft of resources, and unable to produce anything other than fiat debt instruments. Dispensing a steadily depreciating universal basic income will be problematic. Not that it will bother globo-government if billions of its wards die of poverty and starvation. The bigger concern will be securing the resources necessary for surveillance and suppression of the remaining enslaved.

    Enfeebled or failed governments of any stripe engender both chaos and opportunity. Collapse and chaos will be huge blows to governments, the perpetual enemies of liberty, but could be a game changer for the liberty-minded, who are well-advised to wait for the bubble to burst.

    Chaos will require preparation by those who want to capitalize on the opportunity. Many alternative media sites stress personal preparation and establishing local networks, and offer valuable strategies and advice. Readers are invited to list their favorites in the comments section. No one can prepare for every contingency, but if you haven’t prepared for the most obvious ones—grid down, lack of access to food and water, etc.—now is the time to do so.

    If governments are the enemy and are destined to collapse, then the opposition should do everything possible to hasten that collapse. In the US, twenty-five million people, about a third of Trump’s voters, simultaneously withdrawing their financially intermediated assets would spread panic across our massively over-leveraged, inextricably interconnected globe. (For more, see Revolution in America, Robert Gore, SLL, January 7, 2015.)

    There’s a powerful inducement for preemptive withdrawal: the front of the line is the best place to be during a bank run (other than not being in line at all). The bank run is inevitable, the question is whether or not you want to be its victim. This strategy is legal, effective, nonviolent, and hits governments where they are weakest—their insolvency and inability to produce.

    Our opponents have clearly defined goal—absolute power—and they are absolutely committed to subjugating or eliminating anyone who stands in their way. Until recently most of those on our side didn’t even realize we were at war.

    Before such a war goes kinetic (the modern term for old-fashioned war where people get killed) and in the hope that it doesn’t, we need a clearly defined goal and a strategy to achieve it. The goal is the fundamental right of every human: the liberty to peaceably live one’s own life and pursue one’s own happiness. The strategy is more complicated.

    Peacefully splitting the US into two or more countries when it is so irretrievably and irreconcilably riven is almost breathtaking in its common sense. You go your way and we’ll go ours appeals to both logic and justice. What could be fairer than to give people a choice?

    Our side should never stop advocating for a peaceful split and our own territory. This does not mean advocating for insurrection and revolution, which would imply replacing the current government with one of our own. Why would we want to take possession of a cesspool government and rule over so many who hate us? Secession and liberty, not insurrection and revolution, are the goals. Leave the present government to the corruptocrats, their minions, and their dependents.

    Most productive people would opt for liberty. Absolute power would have to feed, subjugate, and terrorize masses of subsistence-level slaves. It would be counting on enslaving the productive without reckoning on what replacing incentives with fear and coercion would do to their willingness to produce or their desire to stay. The totalitarians cannot allow a free alternative to coexist just across the border. Unfortunately, peaceful secession is a remote possibility, which means contemplating the alternative.

    The government’s many senseless wars have demonstrated the effectiveness of guerrilla warfare against forces superior in every conventional metric: manpower, firepower, and technology. Among tens of millions of potential secessionists, many of them well-armed, there are members or veterans of the military with counterinsurgency experience. They’ve gone to school on guerrillas and their tactics. They’ll likely provide secessionist military leadership once the totalitarians’ war (and they will start it) goes kinetic.

    Modern, decentralized technologies and weaponry will be a key component of secessionist strength. The war will be won more with brains and creativity than troop strength or bravado. Teams that can design and assemble weaponized drones and robots, experts in artificial intelligence, remote-control munitions specialists, and computer hackers will be more important military assets than platoons of AR-15 toting commandos.

    These technologies will be essential to counter the opposition’s surveillance capabilities, infrastructure, and command and control systems. Secessionists who ignore next-generation technologies, believe they won’t be deployed against them, or fail to realize their offensive potential will be fighting the last war…and they will lose. These technologies are relatively cheap compared to traditional superpower weaponry; their biggest expense is the brainpower they incorporate. It’s a safe bet that among 70 plus million Trump voters and otherwise disaffected that kind of brainpower can be found.

    Don’t assume that those within the present power structure, or the emerging globalist one, won’t use every weapon in their arsenal to preserve their hold on power, even at the cost of their own and humanity’s extinction. While the police and military may refuse to fire on their own kin and countrymen, it’s impossible to overestimate the suicidal depravity of the so-called humans issuing their orders. Thus, while conventional armaments, remote technologies, committed secessionists, and guerrilla warfare will be important and essential when kinetic war breaks out, they won’t, in and of themselves, guarantee victory. Too much faith that they will could in fact lead to the opposite outcome.

    Along with a straightforward assessment of the opposition’s weaknesses and strengths and a realistic strategy for capitalizing on the former and neutralizing the latter, it’s time to convert current rage into a full-scale political movement. That doesn’t mean the pound-your-head-against-the-wall strategy of trying to win rigged elections. It does mean informing, persuading, and recruiting—the nitty gritty of building a political movement. Much of that building will have to be underground as public dissidence is canceled, corrected, and punished. One of the Viet Cong’s key assets was its political arm, the National Liberation Front, to which they gave much of the credit for their success in the Vietnam war.

    Most of the necessary technical brainpower will be found among the young. Right now, the average secessionist is over sixty, voted for Trump, owns plenty of firearms, and has vague notions of a mass movement of the like-minded either miraculously defeating the government or going out in a bolt-hole blaze of glory. That’s not a strategy, it’s a death wish.

    It’s easier to carp about snowflakes and SJWs than it is to reach out and educate the open-minded among the young (yes, they are out there) to show them that they will be the primary victims of totalitarianism. The gray curtain is descending over their futures. They have to be inspired by the vision of something far better—their own freedom—if that gray curtain is not to become their gray shroud. You can do worse than give them copies of the Declaration of Independence, The Road to Serfdom, and Atlas Shrugged.

    It’s not necessary to change the thinking of every member of Generations X, Y, and Z, or even a majority. What’s essential is to make connections and form alliances with some of the best, brightest, and bravest, to inspire their commitment to their own freedom and future. Start with your own children and grandchildren, and remember that listening is a big part of persuasion. To be understood one must first understand.

    Nothing will be fair about the coming fight. It’s no use whining about the other side’s lack of principles, its lies, hypocrisy, unfairness, ruthlessness, and control of virtually every important institution. They’re evil totalitarians, what the hell do we expect? Their principle is absolute power and they’ll do whatever is necessary to acquire and keep it.

    Ashli Babbitt’s death, if it is to mean anything at all, should be the cold slap of reality across the faces of those who haven’t grasped the nature of what we face. To ignore the risk that breaching an Imperial Sanctum would be met with violence was pure foolishness. The demonstrators who entered the Capitol could have been murdered en masse. Any expectation that their murderers would receive justice from the Corruptocracy would be delusional naiveté.

    No more foolishness or naiveté. Any supposedly peaceful protest will be infiltrated by agent provocateurs bent on making trouble for our cause (including the protests being advertised for next week). The totalitarians will do what they do until they’re completely defeated. This is war, which calls for the unremitting exercise of cold, ruthless rationality. We will administer justice and show mercy when appropriate, but we will expect or receive neither from the other side.

    Let’s get on with it.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/17/2021 – 00:00

  • 2020 Saw Unprecedented Murder Spike In Major U.S. Cities
    2020 Saw Unprecedented Murder Spike In Major U.S. Cities

    In late December the Associated Press reported that 2020 was on track to become the deadliest year in U.S. history with the total number of deaths forecast to rise 15 percent compared to 2019, primarily due to the coronavirus pandemic. There were also several other smaller contributory factors, however, including higher death tolls from heart & circulatory diseases as well as from the country’s opioid crisis. Additionally, as Staista’s Niall McCarthy notes, the U.S. also experienced its most violent year in decades with an unprecedented rise in homicides.

    The Gun Violence Archive reported that more than 19,000 people died in shootings or firearm-related incidents in 2020, the highest figure in over two decades.

    New Orleans-based crime analyst Jeff Asher took a closer look at the number of murders in 57 major American cities and he found that the number of offenses grew in 51 of them. He only focused on agencies where data was available and most of them had figures through November or December of 2020.

    Growth in violent crime varied by city with Seattle seeing a 74 percent spike in homicides between 2019 and 2020 while Chicago and Boston saw their offenses grow 55.5 percent and 54 percent, respectively. Elsewhere, Washington D.C. and Las Vegas saw growth in their murder offences, albeit at a slower pace of less than 20 percent.

    Infographic: 2020 Saw Unprecedented Murder Spike In Major U.S. Cities | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    New York’s homicide count went up by nearly 40 percent with Mayor Bill de Blasio stating that the figures should worry all New Yorkers and it has to stop.

    He attributed the situation “in part, to the coronavirus and to the fact that people are cooped up”, according to NPR, adding that “it’s certainly related to the fact that the criminal justice system is on pause and that’s causing a lot of problems”.

    The rise in homicide has not been confined to cities and Asher says that the problem is also increasingly rural. He told NPR that the numbers for 2020 are by no means final and that the official end of year statistics will tell a startlingly grim story. He also said that the U.S. is on course for the largest one-year rise in its murder count ever recorded.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 01/16/2021 – 23:30

  • What's The True Agenda Behind The Movement To Abolish The Electoral College?
    What’s The True Agenda Behind The Movement To Abolish The Electoral College?

    Authored by Trent England via InsideSources.com,

    One of Georgia’s 16 presidential electors cast her Electoral College vote for Joe Biden but says, if she had it her way, the United States would do away with the constitutional election process altogether—a radical and dangerous position. 

    “I support abolishing the Electoral College,” former Atlanta City Council President Cathy Woolard said during a recent interview.

    “I think all too often the popular vote has been overturned by the Electoral College and that doesn’t seem right to me.” 

    It may not seem right to Ms. Woolard, but the Electoral College purposefully forces would-be presidents to build nationwide coalitions, courting diverse voters across the country. It should remain in place. Otherwise, politicians would ignore the needs of people in ‘flyover country’ and focus even more on big cities and the coasts.  

    Failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was another elector who, like Ms. Woolard, called for eliminating the Electoral College even as she cast one of New York’s electoral votes for Democrat President-elect Joe Biden. 

    “I believe we should abolish the Electoral College and select our president by the winner of the popular vote, same as every other office,” she said in a tweet. “But while it still exists, I was proud to cast my vote in New York for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.” 

    Clinton is missing the fact that the presidency is not like other offices. Most major democratic nations use a two-step process (usually a parliamentary system) to elect their top executive. Our Electoral College, like those other systems, balances the interests of everyone across a diverse country while limiting the power of big-city elites.

    Our system also limits the power of Washington, D.C. As Thomas S. Kidd, history professor at Baylor University, says, “2020 has shown that the states still possess powerful checks on national executive power. That’s a good thing, and we should be exceedingly cautious about cutting the states out of the process of electing the president (i.e. the Electoral College).” 

    Complaints about the Electoral College often stem from Clinton’s loss in 2016. At various times, Clinton has blamed former FBI Director James Comey, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), President Barack Obama, Russia and, of course, the Electoral College for her loss.  

    Really it was Clinton’s own decisions that cost her the presidency, and the Electoral College worked just right. By design, the Electoral College rewards candidates who do the hard work of winning over Americans in many states, not just winning huge margins in a few states or giant cities. The American Founders believed the president should be a national candidate, not a regional one.  

    In 1888, Grover Cleveland won the popular vote but was blown out in the Electoral College because his support was concentrated in the South; he won huge margins there but lost almost everywhere else. Similarly, Clinton ran up huge margins in coastal states while failing to connect with middle America.  

    Clinton dismissed struggling voters as “deplorables” and lost their votes as a consequence. Marc Thiessen of The Washington Post argues, “Clinton still can’t seem to tell the difference between a white nationalist and working-class voters who are upset because their family incomes are stagnant or falling, they feel shut out of the labor force, and their communities are mired in substance abuse and despair. These ‘forgotten Americans’ had legitimate grievances that Democrats ignored.” 

    The Clinton campaign also squandered its monetary advantage by failing to invest enough in states like Michigan and Pennsylvania. According to one liberal activist, the candidate’s team was, “very surgical and corporate. Their thing was, ‘We don’t have to leave [literature] at the doors, everyone knows who Hillary Clinton is.’” 

    Joe Biden corrected Clinton’s errors, cultivating a working man persona and investing heavily in turning out the vote in key states. He received the Democratic nomination in part because primary voters believed he would appeal to those “forgotten Americans” who Clinton had ignored and demeaned.  

    In both 2016 and 2020, the Electoral College worked as intended. Serious presidential candidates were forced to build diverse coalitions rather than relying on one region or demographic group. For close to 250 years, the Electoral College has fostered a healthy and vibrant electoral system, and we shouldn’t throw that away because Hillary Clinton mismanaged her campaign.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 01/16/2021 – 23:00

  • Bill Gates Becomes America's Largest Farmland Owner While 'Great Reset" Says Future Is 'No Private Property'
    Bill Gates Becomes America’s Largest Farmland Owner While ‘Great Reset” Says Future Is ‘No Private Property’

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

    While Americans are being told by ‘Great Reset’ technocrats that the future is one without private property, Bill Gates and other billionaires have been buying up huge amounts of farmland.

    Indeed, Gates is now the biggest owner of farmland in America, according to a Forbes report.

    “After years of reports that he was purchasing agricultural land in places like Florida and Washington, The Land Report revealed that Gates, who has a net worth of nearly $121 billion according to Forbes, has built up a massive farmland portfolio spanning 18 states.”

    “His largest holdings are in Louisiana (69,071 acres), Arkansas (47,927 acres) and Nebraska (20,588 acres). Additionally, he has a stake in 25,750 acres of transitional land on the west side of Phoenix, Arizona, which is being developed as a new suburb.”

    Gates now owns 242,000 acres of farmland across the U.S., mostly “through third-party entities by Cascade Investments, Gates’ personal investment vehicle.”

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    According to Forbes, it is not known what Gates is doing with the land and Cascade Investments refused to comment on the issue.

    In terms of individual land owners, Gates is still far behind media mogul John C. Malone, who is in top spot with 2.2 million acres of ranches and forests and CNN founder Ted Turner, who owns 2 million acres of ranch land.

    Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is also “investing in land on a large scale,” according to the report.

    What billionaire philanthropists and technocrats are acquiring land at an accelerating speed, they appear to be telling the general public that in the future private property will virtually cease to exist.

    In his books, World Economic Forum founder and globalist Klaus Schwab makes clear that the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ or ‘The Great Reset’ will lead to the abolition of private property.

    That message is echoed on the WEF’s official website, which states, “Welcome to the year 2030. Welcome to my city – or should I say, “our city”. I don’t own anything. I don’t own a car. I don’t own a house. I don’t own any appliances or any clothes.”

    Apparently, you won’t be allowed to own any private property and your only recourse will be to live in a state of permanent dependency on a small number of rich elitists who own everything.

    That used to be called feudalism, which is a form of slavery.

    *  *  *

    New limited edition merch now available! Click here. In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. I need you to sign up for my free newsletter here. Support my sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown. Also, I urgently need your financial support here.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 01/16/2021 – 22:45

  • Biden To 'Immediately' Send Congress Bill That Would Offer Citizenship To 11 Million Illegals
    Biden To ‘Immediately’ Send Congress Bill That Would Offer Citizenship To 11 Million Illegals

    President-elect Joe Biden will ‘immediately’ send a legislative package to Congress which would provide a pathway to citizenship for some 11 million illegal immigrants, according to the Los Angeles Times, according to “immigrants rights activists in communication with the Biden-Harris transition team.”

    The bill would also provide a shorter pathway to citizenship for hundreds of thousands of people living in the United States under a temporary protected status and/or who qualify under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program who were brought into the US as children.

    And in what the Times calls a “significant departure from many previous immigration bills under both Democratic and Republican administrations,” the Biden plan would contain zero provisions for stepped-up immigration enforcement and security measures, according to Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center Immigrant Justice Fund, who was informed of the details by Biden staffers.

    Both Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris have said their legislative proposal would include a pathway to citizenship for millions of immigrants in the U.S. without legal status, and The Times has confirmed the bold opening salvo that the new administration plans in its first days doesn’t include the “security first” political concessions of past efforts.

    Hincapié, who was co-chair of the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force on Immigration — part of Biden’s outreach to his top primary rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, and his progressive base — said that Biden’s decision to not prioritize additional enforcement measures was probably a result of lessons learned from the Obama administration’s failed attempt to appease Republicans by backing tighter immigration enforcement in hopes of gaining their support for immigration relief. –Los Angeles Times

    “On Inauguration Day, President-elect Biden will sign roughly a dozen actions to combat the four crises, restore humanity to our immigration system, and make government function for the people,” reads a Saturday memo by incoming Biden chief of staff, Ron Klain, who said the incoming president’s agenda included “the immigration bill he will send to Congress on his first day in office.“

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    Under BIden’s plan – the most sweeping and comprehensive since President Regan’s 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act granting some 3 million people legal status (after which California flipped blue), immigrants would be eligible for legal permanent residence after five years, and US citizenship after three more years.

    Several immigration activists who spoke with The Times praised the reported scope and scale of the bill and expressed surprise at its ambition. A number of legislators and analysts had predicted that the new administration, at least in its first months in power, would be likely to pursue immigration measures that would stir the least controversy and could be achieved by executive actions rather than legislation. -LA Times

    Will it pass?

    Given the sweeping changes, Democrats are likely to face serious pushback despite holding slim majorities in both chambers of Congress – and the bill will likely face months of political debate as conservative members and immigration hard-liners push back.

    Meanwhile, Texas Democratic Rep. Juaquin Castro said in a Friday call with reporters that he’s formulating a bill which would offer illegals immediate protection from deportation and a fast-tracked path to citizenship for essential workers who are undocumented.

    “It’s time for essential workers to no longer be treated as disposable, but to be celebrated and welcomed as American citizens,” said Castro, adding “If your labor feeds, builds and cares for our nation, you have earned the right to stay here with full legal protection, free from fear of deportation.”

    And look at this – just in time:

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    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 01/16/2021 – 22:30

  • An OrWELLSian Purge? Why H.G. Wells' "The Shape Of Things To Come" Has Arrived Today
    An OrWELLSian Purge? Why H.G. Wells’ “The Shape Of Things To Come” Has Arrived Today

    Authored by Cynthia Chung via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    It is no coincidence that our entertainment industry today, so heavily saturated with the influence of Wells’ propaganda, is obsessed with the theme of a post-apocalyptic world…

    “It has become apparent that whole masses of human population are, as a whole, inferior in their claim upon the future, to other masses, that they cannot be given opportunities or trusted with power as the superior peoples are trusted, that their characteristic weaknesses are contagious and detrimental to the civilizing fabric, and that their range of incapacity tempts and demoralizes the strong. To give them equality is to sink to their level, to protect and cherish them is to be swamped in their fecundity. “

    – H.G. Wells’ in “Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon Human Life and Thought” 1901

    In “The Shape of Things to Come: The Ultimate Revolution” (published in 1933), H.G. Wells writes of the future predicting, rather optimistically, that there will be another world war in just a few years, followed by epidemic and famine. In this fictional future, war continues for thirty years into the 1960s, despite the people having forgotten why they started fighting. Humanity enters a new Dark Age. In a last bid for victory, the enemy deploys a biological weapon resulting in the “wandering sickness,” producing the first zombies, and by 1970 the global population has dropped to a little under one billion.

    Though this is depicted as horrific, it is at the same time depicted as a necessity – a “great reset,” to restore the “balance” so to speak. It is only with this reduced population size that the world can begin to build itself back together from the chaos that it was, and enter into its new phase of evolution as a biologically superior species (the inferior having been culled by war and disease), managed by a bureaucratic system under the form of a world government.

    This is the sci-fi fantasy of H.G. Wells and is the central theme to everything he wrote including his works of non-fiction. The subject on ways to reduce the world population was a troubling dilemma for Wells…not the reducing part, but the thought that there would be those so foolish as to forbid it.

    You see, it was considered by some that the human species had found itself in a crisis by the 1900s. Europe, up until the 17th century had a population size that never exceeded roughly 100 million. But nearly doubled to 180 million in the 18th century, and doubled again to 390 million in the 19thcentury. H.G. Wells wrote of this “the extravagant swarm of new births” as “the essential disaster of the nineteenth century.” Not war, not disease, not starvation, not abject poverty, but population growth was determined as the disaster of an entire century.

    Today the world population is 7.9 billion people, a far cry from Wells’ hopeful 1 billion. However, there is good news! The worldometers.info site predicts a decreasing net change in population growth, such that by year 2050 the yearly change will be 0.50% of what it is now! In other words, the rate of population growth will be cut in half 29 years from now! Those are striking projections and would entail a massive cap on growth! Obviously, this is a projection based off of the presumed success of “educational reforms.” Though I do wonder…what will we do if not all of the individuals agree to abide by these reforms? And what will we do if not all of the nations agree to abide by these reforms? Will we enforce it nonetheless, and if so…by what methods?

    The Ghosts of Wells’ Past

    “The knowledge of today is the ignorance of tomorrow”

    – H.G. Wells

    The Wells that we have come to know today started his journey as a young boy winning a scholarship to study at the prestigious Normal School of Science (now called the Royal College of Science). His subject of choice was biology and his teacher, and quickly thereafter mentor, was none other than Thomas Huxley, otherwise known as “Darwin’s bulldog” (his words).

    Through Huxley, Wells’ conception of the nature of humankind was formed with its foundation built upon the philosophies of Charles Darwin and Thomas Malthus.

    Because Wells is so very influenced by these men, in fact they form the very basis for his ethics; I thought it apt to share with you a few quotes.

    In Thomas Malthus’ “Essay on the Principle of Population” (1799), he wrote:

    “We should facilitate, instead of foolishly and vainly endeavoring to impede, the operations of nature in producing this mortality; and if we dread the too frequent visitation of the horrid form of famine, we should sedulously encourage the other forms of destruction, which we compel nature to use. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague.” [emphasis added]

    This approach seems not too different from a proposal to crowd people into a building with kindling and then proceed to light it on fire. After all, fire is a natural phenomenon. A much quicker and more effective remedy, I would think, if one is to take such an approach…

    In Charles Darwin’s “The Descent of Man” (no not his autobiography! Though he was very much spiritually conflicted with the social consequences of his philosophies…) stated his thoughts on directed breeding as such:

    “No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man itself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.” [emphasis added]

    To the credit of Darwin (though the damage was already done), he included a disclaimer in his “The Descent of Man,” that if humankind were to take upon itself the enforcement of the so-called “forces of nature,” it would be at the cost of our “most noble qualities”, as Darwin states:

    “Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil.” [emphasis added]

    Out of Malthus, Huxley and Wells, Darwin was by far the most troubled by the social consequences of what he believed to be an unavoidable necessity. Yet he could never resolve why something necessary could be so morally destructive and this failure to rectify the two opposing veins of thought would cost him dearly. In his later years he described his spiritual crippling inability to find joy in anything he once did, as he states in his autobiography:

    “I have said that in one respect my mind has changed during the last twenty or thirty years. Up to the age of thirty, or beyond it, poetry of many kinds…gave me great pleasure, and even as a schoolboy I took intense delight in Shakespeare, especially in the historical plays…music [was a] very great delight. But now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry: I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have also almost lost my taste for…music…My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive… The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.”

    What is the value of life, if in striving for our supposed “survival” we lose our most noble qualities? Why should we sacrifice our best qualities in a humiliating trade-off for a “contingent benefit” and “an overwhelming evil”?

    Britain’s Ministry of Propaganda

    Soon after the outbreak of the First World War (1914), the British government discovered that Germany had a Propaganda Agency- and thus it was only reasonable that a British War Propaganda Bureau be established. David Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was to head the task.

    On Sept. 2nd, 1914, H.G. Wells (who was 48 by then) was invited amongst twelve other participants (including Arthur Conan Doyle and Rudyard Kipling) to discuss ways of best promoting Britain’s interests during the war. All the writers present at the conference agreed to the utmost secrecy and it was not until 1935 that the activities of the War Propaganda Bureau became known to the general public. It was agreed that pamphlets and books would be written to promote the government’s view of the situation.

    Other than writing books for the Ministry of Propaganda, Wells also did some dabbling as a journalist under the supervision of Lord Northcliffe, the owner of The Times and the Daily Mail (the largest circulating newspaper in the early 20th century), among other newspapers.

    Northcliffe’s newspapers propagandized for creating a Minister of Munitions, which was held first by David Lloyd George (1915), and played an instrumental role in getting him appointed as Prime Minister of Britain in 1916. Lloyd George then appointed Lord Northcliffe as Director of Propaganda.

    Thus, H.G. Wells not only participated in the British War Propaganda Bureau but worked directly under the Director of Propaganda. And thus, much of his writing from 1914 on, should be regarded in service (and certainly not counter) to the interests of the British Empire.

    Among the plethora of books Wells wrote, was “The New World Order,” (1940). It appears that Wells was indeed the first to pioneer the now-infamous term.

    Wells’ Vision for a New Republic vs the People of the Abyss

    In Wells’ “Anticipations” published in 1901, he writes the “vicious, helpless and pauper masses” have appeared, spreading as the railway systems have spread, and representing an integral part of the process of industrialization, like the waste product of a healthy organism. For these “great useless masses of people” he adopts the term “People of the Abyss” and he predicts that the “nation that most resolutely picks over, educates, sterilizes, exports or poisons its People of the Abyss” will be in the ascendant.

    The ethical system laid out in Wells’ New Republic forbids the further growth of the “People of the Abyss”. In the past, Nature killed these off, and in some cases killing will still be necessary. And we should not be appalled by this task, as per Mr. Wells. Death for such people will mean merely “the end of the bitterness of failure, the merciful obliteration of weak and silly and pointless things.” Clearly the effecting of this will be morally justifiable according to Wells:

    “The new ethics will hold life to be a privilege and a responsibility, not a sort of night refuge for base spirits out of the void; and the alternative in right conduct between living fully, beautifully and efficiently will be to die. For a multitude of contemptible and silly creatures, fear-driven and helpless and useless, unhappy or hateful happy in the midst of squalid dishonour, feeble, ugly, inefficient, born of unrestrained lusts, and increasing and multiplying through sheer incontinence and stupidity, the men of the New Republic will have little pity and less benevolence.” (5) [emphasis added]

    If “the whole tenor of a man’s actions” shows him to be unfit to live, the New Republicans will exterminate him. They will not be squeamish about inflicting death because they will have a fuller sense of the possibilities of life.

    “They will have an ideal that will make killing worth the while.” The killing, Wells explains, will not be needlessly brutal. “All such killing will be done with an opiate.”

    Whether this will be administered forcibly or whether the victim will be persuaded to swallow it, he does not reveal. Selected criminals will be destroyed by the same means. The death penalty will also be used to prevent the transmission of genetic disorders. People suffering from genetically transmissible diseases will be forbidden to propagate, and will be killed if they do.

    As for the “swarms of black, and brown, and dirty-white, and yellow people”, who do not meet the new needs of efficiency, will, he insists “have to go”. It is “their portion to die out and disappear”.

    In 1938, Wells’ “War of the Worlds” was broadcasted as a radio drama and narrated by Orson Welles. Apparently, during the broadcast it had not made itself clear to its audience that it was in fact a radio drama and not the actual news. Suffice to say the reporting of a man-eating alien invasion caused quite the panic in its London boroughs, and I am sure the British Propaganda Bureau got quite the chuckle out of it. It was great news for them, for it showed how easy it would be to control the narrative even if it were to be carried out to an absurd degree. It confirmed to them that the public will believe anything.

    Wells wrote of the panic caused by the radio drama in the London boroughs:

    “If one could have hung that June morning in a balloon in the blazing blue above London, every northward and eastward road running out of the infinite tangle of streets would have seemed stippled black with the streaming fugitives, each dot a human agony of terror and physical distress…Never before in the history of the world had such a mass of human beings moved and suffered together…without order and with a goal, six million people, unarmed and unprovisioned, driving headlong. It was the beginning of the rout of civilization, of the massacre of mankind.” [emphasis added]

    I think it no coincidence that our entertainment industry today, so heavily saturated with the influence of Wells’ propaganda, is obsessed with the theme of a post-apocalyptic world, the ever-revolving death game where its avatars are tested on their ability to survive at all cost. Through these adventures, we the audience are brought along and are taught how to feel the thrill of the hunt, the catharsis of the bludgeoning, the release that comes from mayhem. For we are the children of the ultimate revolution… the dawn of the great Purge.

    Modern Religion: A Collective Orwellian Mind

    In H.G. Wells’ “Open Conspiracy: Blue Prints for a World Revolution”, he makes no qualms in declaring his trilogy: “The Outline of History” (1919), “The Science of Life” (1929), and “The Work, Wealth, and Happiness of Mankind” (1932) as the new Bible:

    “I have told already how I have schemed out a group of writings to embody the necessary ideas of the new time in a form adapted to the current reading public; I have made a sort of provisional “Bible,” so to speak, for some factors at least in the Open Conspiracy.”

    The reader should be aware that Julius Huxley was a co-author of “The Science of Life”. Julian was also a prominent member of the British Eugenics Society, serving as its Vice-President from 1937-1944 and its President from 1959-1962. Interesting life choices from the authors of the new Bible.

    Of Wells’ vision for a “Modern Religion” he wrote:

    ‘…if religion is to develop unifying and directive power in the present confusion of human affairs it must adapt itself to this forward-looking, individuality-analyzing turn of mind; it must divest itself of its sacred histories…The desire for service, for subordination, for permanent effect, for an escape from the distressful pettiness and mortality of the individual life, is the undying element in every religious system.

    The time has come to strip religion right down to that [service and subordination is all Wells wants to keep of the old relic of religion]…The explanation of why things are is an unnecessary effort…The essential fact…is the desire for religion and not how it came about…The first sentence in the modern creed must be, not “I believe,” but “I give myself.” ‘ [emphasis added]

    And to what are we to “give ourselves” to without any questions asked, but with a blind faith to worship what we are told is the good?

    Wells explains it to us thus:

    “The character of the Open Conspiracy will now be plainly displayed. It will have become a great world movement as wide-spread and evident as socialism or communism. It will have taken the place of these movements very largely. It will be more than they were, it will be frankly a world religion. This large, loose assimilatory mass of movements, groups, and societies will be definitely and obviously attempting to swallow up the entire population of the world and become the new human community.”

    Conclusion

    In Alfred Hitchcock’s film “The Rope” (1948), two Harvard students murder one of their friends as an experiment in committing the “perfect murder” and a display of their intellectual superiority. They stuff the body in a large chest in the middle of the dining room and hold a party, the idea being that all of their guests will be too daft as to figure out that they are dinning in a room with a fresh corpse, that is, everyone except Rupert Cadell (played by James Stewart), a former teacher of theirs. Rupert, they recognise will be their real challenge and their greatest proof of intellectual superiority if they succeed in pulling the wool over his eyes.

    In fact, it was Rupert who taught the two men this manner of thinking that “murder is a crime for most men, but a privilege for the few.” This is reasoned by the belief that “moral concepts of good and evil do not pertain to the superior being.”

    This subject is discussed at the dinner party, the guests think at first Rupert is kidding, but he assures them that the world would be a better place if the superior were permitted to commit murder, and that such a murder would be an “art form.” He states “think of what this would mean for unemployment, poverty, waiting in long lines.” He thinks open season for murder would be too much, and suggests shorter durations such as “cut a throat week” or “strangulation day.”

    As the evening progresses, Rupert, the astute man that he is, observes a series of odd behaviour from the two men. David (the murdered young man) was in fact invited to the party, his father and his fiancé are amongst the guests and there is a growing concern for why David has not shown up.

    Long story short – after all the guests had left, only Rupert and the two young killers remain in the apartment. Rupert discovers that they have murdered David (who was also a student of Rupert’s), and he opens the chest to find the body. Horrified and disgusted, he asks “why did you do it?” They of course responded, “we simply acted out what you always talked about.”

    Confronted with the reality of his words, Rupert is ashamed at being partially responsible for this macabre scene. However, Rupert states, “there was always something deep within me that prevented me from ever acting out my words,” in other words, he never thought it possible that anyone would actually have it in them to act them out.

    It is in this moment that Rupert realises that it is not in fact the superior being who is capable of committing murder, but the criminally insane. That the idea of purging the world of its “inferiors,” would in fact rid the world of its most loving and moral beings, their traits regarded as intolerably foolish and weak.

    In the end, we would be left with the worst of humankind, a human race that had cannibalised itself.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 01/16/2021 – 22:00

  • "Tough Months Ahead" – NYC's Lackluster Recovery Continues To Decimate Businesses And Livelihoods
    “Tough Months Ahead” – NYC’s Lackluster Recovery Continues To Decimate Businesses And Livelihoods

    Indoor dining is banned; offices are empty; city dwellers are fleeing the metro area. 

    The virus pandemic has deeply scarred New York City’s economy that will have long-lasting effects. Many small and medium-sized firms, entire industries, and livelihoods continue to unravel as the economic toll continues to rise nearly one year after the pandemic began. 

    Bloomberg reports the Bronx’s unemployment rate stands around 16%, which is much higher than the national average of 6.7%. The virus-induced downturn could result in at least 33% of the city’s businesses going under as the vaccine rollout has been incredibly slow. 

    “It is really going to be tough still in the coming months,” said Tim Tompkins, former head of the Times Square Alliance, which hosted its annual New Year’s Eve celebration without the public for the first time in more than a century.

    Jobless rates across all five of the city’s boroughs remain stubbornly high but off the highs seen in June.

    Source: Bloomberg 

    New Yorkers shouldn’t be shocked if a multi-year economic downturn unfolds. 

    “This is an event that struck right at the heart of New York’s comparative advantages,” Mark Zandi, the chief economist for Moody’s Analytics, recently said. “Being globally oriented, being stacked up in skyscrapers and packed together in stadiums: the very thing that made New York the pandemic undermined New York, was upended by it.” 

    Zandi said while the US economy “will be a long slog” from here, with estimates of a downturn lasting until 2023 – New York might not experience a recovery until 2025. 

    Zandi said NYC’s recovery could take two years longer than the rest of the country as the virus-induced downturn has severely damaged five key industries – restaurants, hotels, the arts, transportation, and building services – most of which heavily rely on travel and tourism. 

    Airbnb Chief Executive Officer Brian Chesky explained that a significant problem is developing for large cities. He said this summer people would vacation not in big cities like New York but in small towns and rural communities. The shift in domestic travel trends will continue to pressure New York City’s key industries, resulting in stubbornly high unemployment. 

    A recovery in the city is unlikely this year. As explained by the World Bank Chief Economist Carmen Reinhart on Wednesday, don’t confuse the latest economic rebound with a “recovery.” 

    Making matters worse, New Yorkers are leaving en masse – reports already indicate 300,000 people have fled the metro area because of the virus pandemic, social unrest, and increasing violent crime. 

    With the services industries decimated and a rapidly shrinking city, remaining businesses may add back fewer than 30% of the 662,000 jobs lost in 2020. 

    What does this mean? 

    Some New Yorkers’ livelihoods will be permanently destroyed as hundreds of thousands will be financially devastated as the labor market shrinks. Many have resorted to food banks and government assistance programs to survive. The situation is even becoming even direr for the working-poor as they owe a whopping $2 billion in back rent. 

    New York financial district gets it. They are also leaving as they understand the city is descending into years of socio-economic chaos. 

    Wall Street firms are packing up their bags and moving elsewhere. Other firms are shrinking their corporate footprint as work-at-home dominates. 

    The latest high-frequency data shows foot traffic inside the financial district is rolling over as Manhattan transforms into a ghost town once more. Check out some of the data showing recovery is nowhere in sight to begin the new year:

    Source: Bloomberg 

    Apple mobility data for New York City is rolling over. 

    Source: Apple

    All of this has crushed the residential and commercial real estate markets. 

    Manhattan apartment rents have dived to decade lows as inventory swells to record highs. As for Manhattan’s office space supply, well, inventory has hit highs not seen since the 2000s.

    There are concerns that some CMBS tranches heavily exposed to New York City hotels and shopping malls could experience defaults as there is no significant improvement in the metro area’s economic recovery. 

    To sum up, Paul Joseph Watson said, “New York City is dead, and it’s not coming back.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 01/16/2021 – 21:30

  • What Will WHO Experts Find During Their Wuhan Trip?
    What Will WHO Experts Find During Their Wuhan Trip?

    Authored by Wang Youqun, op-ed via The Epoch Times,

    On Jan. 14, a team of experts from the World Health Organization was finally allowed to travel to Wuhan and investigate the origin of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus. The announcement issued by the National Health Commission on Jan. 11 contained only a short sentence. It did not mention the length of the trip, nor specified a detailed itinerary. This trip takes place more than a year after the virus first emerged. It has since spread to 191 countries and regions.

    Can WHO experts find the source of the CCP virus in Wuhan?

    I think it is unlikely.

    The reasons are as follows:

    First, tracing the virus origin and tracing who’s responsible for its global spread are closely linked.

    If Wuhan is found to be the source of the global pandemic, but the CCP allowed virus carriers to fly from Wuhan to other parts of the world—causing at least 93 million infections and over 2 million deaths to date—the CCP will be held accountable. This is something the CCP is absolutely unwilling to face.

    On May 19, 2020, under strong pressure from the international community, the World Health Assembly passed a resolution to investigate the source of the virus. However, for the WHO experts to go to Wuhan, the CCP dragged its feet again and again for more than 7 months. Why did it take so long? Some experts believe that it is to clean up all the evidence at the scene of the virus outbreak.

    Since the outbreak in 2020, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department repeatedly offered to send experts to China, but was rejected time and time again. In the end, China only agreed that the U.S. experts would go to China with the WHO expert team. In February 2020, after a 9-day trip, Canadian Bruce Aylward, the team leader of the WHO China Joint Mission, was asked by reporters in Geneva why he did not go through quarantine after visiting Wuhan. His answer accidentally revealed the fact that he had not been to any “dirty areas” of the Wuhan hospital. In other words, the expert group only went where the CCP allowed and anything they saw and heard was carefully arranged.

    Also, the CCP will silence all relevant personnel. Yan Limeng, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong School of Public Health fled to the United States to reveal the truths about the CCP virus. Officials from the Ministry of National Security went to her hometown of Qingdao to harass her family. She said that since mid-May, the CCP began to attack her on the internet, spread rumors, and destroy her reputation. The CCP set up a fake Facebook account with her name and resume, she alleged. The CCP lied about her being kidnapped in the United States, and claimed that she was lying and mentally ill. Yan’s mother was subsequently arrested.

    The CCP has brutally clamped down on those Chinese citizens who requested to investigate the source of the virus and hold leaders accountable. For example, Ren Zhiqiang, former business tycoon and “red princeling,” was sentenced to 18 years for his outspoken criticism of the CCP; Zhang Zhan, a citizen journalist who went to Wuhan to investigate the epidemic, was sentenced to four years in prison; and citizen journalist Fang Bin has disappeared, with many suspecting that he has been detained by authorities.

    The CCP has repeatedly retaliated against Australia, which proposed an independent investigation into the source of the virus. The Chinese regime has banned imports of Australian barley, imposed tariffs of 107.1 to 212.1 percent on Australian wine, blacklisted six Australian beef suppliers, and placed other restrictions on imports of Australian coal, cotton, and lobster.

    The CCP continues to blame other countries on the source of the virus. On March 12, 2020, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian posted a tweet claiming, without evidence, that the virus was brought into Wuhan by the U.S. army. After that, the “blaming” wars commenced. Chinese state media have claimed, on different occasions, that the virus originated in Italy, Spain, Germany, France, India, Bangladesh, Australia, Italy, Russia, Greece, and Czech Republic.

    Since the Australian government proposed in April last year that a global independent investigation into the source of the virus must be conducted, the international community has begun the research.

    In early July last year, the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response was set up with the former Prime Minister of New Zealand Helen Clark and the former President of Liberia Ellen Johnson Sirleaf serving as co-chairs.

    And some experts and officials outside of China have raised the possibility that the CCP virus leaked out of a virology lab in Wuhan.

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

    The CCP will definitely do everything possible to conceal the truth about the source of the virus – deceit is in its nature. But nothing can be kept hidden forever. The truth will eventually come to light.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 01/16/2021 – 21:00

  • Goldman Sounds The Alarm On Stocks: When Euphoria Is This High, "It's A Good Time To Reduce Risk"
    Goldman Sounds The Alarm On Stocks: When Euphoria Is This High, “It’s A Good Time To Reduce Risk”

    The past few months can best be characterized as a period of unprecedented market optimism and sheer euphoria, and we have done just that with several recent articles…

    … and so on. But whereas in the recent past, the euphoria was always bounded by the upper limit reached during the insatiable buying spree of the dot com bubble, the first week of 2021 is when we went off the chart. Literally. As we showed last week, Citi’s latest Panic/Euphoria model hit a record reading of 1.83 versus an upwardly revised 1.69 in the prior week. 

    What does this mean? It’s simple: as Citi chief economist Tobias Levkovich wrote last Friday when looking at market returns following previous euphoria extremes, there is now a “100% historical probability of down markets in the next 12 months at current levels.”

    Judging by the market action in the subsequent week which saw the S&P slide 1.5%, the Citi economist may be right, and the selloff is only just starting. Then again, the market has a tendency to do the opposite of what consensus expects it to do – and right now consensus among even the most bullish banks is that the next move in stocks will be lower – which is why the fact that Citi’s call for a selloff becoming consensus, make us wonder if the next move in stocks won’t be much higher instead.

    Case in point, in the latest Goldman Portfolio Research Strategy report, Christian Mueller-Glissman writes that Goldman’s Risk Appetite Indicator (RAI) reached a reading of 1 this week – the highest in 4 years and just shy of an all time high – after a large increase in risk appetite since Q4 last year.

    How did we get to such a high reading?

    As Goldman explains, this was largely on the back of growth optimism in 2021, and while the bank expects monetary policy to remain supportive, “we see less potential for much more positive impulses from here. Following the news of a successful COVID-19 vaccine in November, growth optimism has broken out and shifted further into positive territory since Q4 as markets have become more optimistic on the prospects for reflation.” These various dynamics are shown below:

    The Goldman strategist then notes that he has “seen a similar bullish shift in other sentiment and positioning indicators” and explains that while “sentiment and positioning alone are seldom a catalyst for a reversal, at extremes they increase that risk in the event of shocks.” Furthermore, “they are often a better contrarian signal on the way down as markets tend to overshoot faster during ‘risk off’ episodes – on the flipside risk appetite tends to build up slowly and can remain positive for a long time with a supportive macro backdrop.”

    At this point, Goldman basically repeats what Citi said last week, warning that “from RAI levels close to 1 the asymmetry to add risk is worse: subsequent equity returns, especially in the near term, tend to be more negatively skewed and there is increased risk of drawdowns.”

    Furthermore, at current RAI levels the market is more vulnerable to negative growth nor rate shocks in the near term, such as monetary and fiscal policy disappointments or more negative COVID-19 news. The key driver of risk appetite in the coming months is likely to be growth and reflation sentiment –we don’t expect more positive impulses from monetary policy.

    That said, Goldman isn’t telling its clients to sell just yet because as Glissman writes, “risk appetite can stay at elevated levels for prolonged periods as long as the macro backdrop remains supportive” and explains further:

    the RAI only tends to be at extremes for short periods of time: for example, the RAI has spent just 1.1% of the time below -2 and 1.7% of the time above 1. Still, adjusting equity allocations tactically based on RAI signals has enhanced returns: Exhibit 17 and Exhibit 18 show strategies that only invest 80% in the S&P 500 (the rest in T-Bills) if the RAI is high and 120% (with leverage) if it is very low. But the improved performance was captured only on a few days – for example, the RAI on average time spent only 6 consecutive days above 0.9.

    On the other hand, “periods when the RAI declined back to zero from elevated levels have on average delivered positive, albeit slower, returns for risky assets.”

    This is Goldman’s base case for the rest of 2021, and is why the bank remains pro-risk in its asset allocation, and expects the S&P to rise to 4,100 by the end of the year, and 4,400 in two years.

    Which is odd, because Glissman also warns that a backtest of extreme RAI readings, shows that it is a good contrarian signal.

    The problem is that while the right move here may well be to sell, the question is when: as Goldman explains, market timing with the RAI alone is difficult as it tends to spend little time at extremes. Still, not even Glissman can deny that what is coming won’t be pleasant – contrary to the recos from Goldman’s chief equity strategist David Kostin – and concludes that “when the RAI is above 0.9 and until it normalizes below 0.75, it has been a good time reduce risk tactically.”

    So… time to buy?

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 01/16/2021 – 20:30

  • Tech Supremacy: Silicon Valley Can No Longer Conceal Its Power
    Tech Supremacy: Silicon Valley Can No Longer Conceal Its Power

    Authored by Niall Ferguson via The Spectator,

    ‘To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle,’ George Orwell famously observed. He was talking not about everyday life but about politics, where it is ‘quite easy for the part to be greater than the whole or for two objects to be in the same place simultaneously’.

    The examples he gave in his 1946 essay included the paradox that ‘for years before the war, nearly all enlightened people were in favour of standing up to Germany: the majority of them were also against having enough armaments to make such a stand effective’.

    Last week provided a near-perfect analogy. For years before the 2020 election, nearly all American conservatives were in favour of standing up to big tech: the majority of them were also against changing the laws and regulations enough to make such a stand effective. The difference is that, unlike the German threat, which was geographically remote, the threat from Silicon Valley was literally in front of our noses, day and night: on our mobile phones, our tablets and our laptops.

    Writing in this magazine more than three years ago, I warned of a coming collision between Donald Trump and Silicon Valley. ‘Social media helped Donald Trump take the White House,’ I wrote. ‘Silicon Valley won’t let it happen again.’ The conclusion of my book The Square and the Tower was that the new online network platforms represented a new kind of power that posed a fundamental challenge to the traditional hierarchical power of the state.

    By the network platforms, I mean Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Google and Apple, or FATGA for short — companies that have established a dominance over the public sphere not seen since the heyday of the pre-Reformation Catholic Church. FATGA had humble enough origins in garages and dorm rooms. As recently as 2008, not one of them could be found among the world’s largest companies by market capitalisation. Today, they occupy first, third, fourth and fifth places in the market cap league table, just above their Chinese counterparts, Tencent and Alibaba.

    What happened was that the network platforms turned the originally decentralised worldwide web into an oligarchically organised and hierarchical public sphere from which they made money and to which they controlled access. That the original, superficially libertarian inclinations of these companies’ founders would rapidly crumble under political pressure from the left was also perfectly obvious, if one bothered to look a little beyond one’s proboscis.

    Following the violent far-right rally at Charlottesville in August 2017, Matthew Prince, chief executive of the internet service provider Cloudflare, described how he had responded: ‘Literally, I woke up in a bad mood and decided someone shouldn’t be allowed on the internet.’ On the basis that ‘the people behind the [white supremacist magazine] Daily Stormer are assholes’, he denied their website access to the internet. ‘No one should have that power,’ he admitted. ‘We need to have a discussion around this with clear rules and clear frameworks. My whims and those of Jeff [Bezos] and Larry [Page] and … Mark [Zuckerberg] shouldn’t be what determines what should be online.’

    But that discussion had barely begun in 2017. Indeed, many Republicans at that time still believed the notion that FATGA were champions of the free market that required only the lightest regulation. They know better now. After last year’s election Twitter attached health warnings to Trump’s tweets when he claimed that he had in fact beaten Joe Biden. Then, in the wake of the storming of the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters, Twitter and Facebook began shutting down multiple accounts — including that of the President himself, now ‘permanently suspended’ from tweeting. When Trump loyalists declared their intention to move their conversations from Twitter to rival Parler — in effect, Twitter with minimal content moderation — Google and Apple deleted Parler from their app stores. Then Amazon kicked Parler off its ‘cloud’ service, effectively deleting it from the internet altogether. It was a stunning demonstration of power.

    It is only a slight overstatement to say that, while the mob’s coup against Congress ignominiously failed, big tech’s coup against Trump triumphantly succeeded. It is not merely that Trump has been abruptly denied access to the channels he has used throughout his presidency to communicate with voters. It is the fact that he is being excluded from a domain the courts have for some time recognised as a public forum.

    Various lawsuits over the years have conferred on big tech an unusual status: a public good, held in private hands. In 2018 the Southern District of New York ruled that the right to reply to Trump’s tweets is protected ‘under the “public forum” doctrines set forth by the Supreme Court’. So it was wrong for the President to ‘block’ people — i.e. stop them reading his tweets — because they were critical of him. Censoring Twitter users ‘because of their expressed political views’ represents ‘viewpoint discrimination [that] violates the First Amendment’.

    In Packingham vs North Carolina (2017), Justice Anthony Kennedy likened internet platforms to ‘the modern public square’, arguing that it was therefore unconstitutional to prevent sex offenders from accessing, and expressing opinions on, social network platforms. ‘While in the past there may have been difficulty in identifying the most important places (in a spatial sense) for the exchange of views,’ Justice Kennedy wrote, ‘today the answer is clear. It is cyberspace —the “vast democratic forums of the internet” in general … and social media in particular.’

    In other words, as President of the United States, Trump could not block Twitter users from seeing his tweets, but Twitter is apparently within its rights to delete the President’s account altogether. Sex offenders have a right of access to online social networks; but the President does not.

    This is not to condone Trump’s increasingly deranged attempts to overturn November’s election result. Before last week’s riots, he egged on the mob; he later said he ‘loved’ them, despite what they had done. Nor is there any denying that a number of Trump’s most fervent supporters pose a threat of further violence. Considering the bombs and firearms some of them brought to Washington, the marvel is how few people lost their lives during the occupation of the Capitol.

    Yet the correct response to that threat is not to delegate to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and their peers the power to remove from the public square anyone they deem to be sympathetic to insurrection or otherwise suspect. The correct response is for the FBI and the relevant police departments to pursue any would-be Trumpist terrorists, just as they have quite successfully pursued would-be Islamist terrorists over the past two decades.

    The key to understanding what has happened lies in an obscure piece of legislation, almost a quarter of a century old, enacted after a New York court held online service provider Prodigy liable for a user’s defamatory posts. Congress then stepped in with the 1996 Telecommunications Act and in particular Section 230, which was written to encourage nascent firms to protect users and prevent illegal activity without incurring massive content management costs. It states:

    1. No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

    2. No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of … any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable.

    In essence, Section 230 gives websites immunity from liability for what their users post if it is in any way harmful, but also entitles websites to take down with equal impunity any content that they don’t like the look of. The surely unintended result of this legislation, drafted for a fledgling internet, is that some of the biggest companies in the world enjoy a protection reminiscent of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. Try to hold them responsible as publishers, and they will say they are platforms. Demand access to their platforms and they will insist that they are publishers.

    This might have been a tolerable state of affairs if America’s network platforms had been subject to something like the old Fairness Doctrine, which required the big three terrestrial TV networks to give airtime to opposing views. But that was something the Republican party killed off in the 1980s, seeing the potential of allowing more slanted coverage on cable news. What goes around comes around. The network platforms long ago abandoned any pretence of being neutral. Even before Charlottesville, their senior executives and many of their employees had made it clear that they were appalled by Trump’s election victory (especially as both Facebook and Twitter had facilitated it). Increasingly, they interpreted the words ‘otherwise objectionable’ in Section 230 to mean ‘objectionable to liberals’.

    Throughout the summer of last year, numerous supporters of Black Lives Matter used social media, as well as mainstream liberal media, to express their support for protests that in many places escalated into violence and destruction considerably worse than occurred in the Capitol last week. One looked in vain for health warnings, much less account suspensions, though Facebook says it has removed accounts that promote violence.

    Compare, for example, the language Trump used in his 6 January speech and the language Kamala Harris used in support of BLM on Stephen Colbert’s show on 18 June. Neither explicitly condoned violence. Trump exhorted the crowd to march to the Capitol, but he told them to ‘peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard’. Harris condemned ‘looting and… acts of violence’, but said of the BLM protestors: ‘They’re not going to stop. They’re not. This is a movement. I’m telling you. They’re not going to stop, and everyone, beware. Because they’re not going to stop. They’re not going to stop before election day in November, and they are not going to stop after election day. And everyone should take note of that on both levels.’ What exactly was the significance of that ‘beware’?

    Earlier, on 1 June, Harris had used Twitter to solicit donations to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which posted bail for people charged with rioting in Minneapolis after the death of George Floyd. It would be easy to cite other examples. ‘Destroying property, which can be replaced, is not violence,’ Nikole Hannah-Jones of the New York Times told CBS in early June, at a time when multiple cities were being swept by arson and vandalism. Her Twitter account is still going strong.

    The double standard was equally apparent when the New York Post broke the story of Biden’s son Hunter’s dubious business dealings in China. Both Twitter and Facebook immediately prevented users from posting links to the article — something they had never done with stories damaging to Trump.

    You don’t need to be a Trump supporter to find all this alarming. Conservatives of many different stripes — and indeed some bemused liberals — have experienced the new censorship for themselves, especially as the Covid-19 pandemic has emboldened tech companies to police content more overtly. In the UK, TalkRadio briefly vanished from YouTube for airing anti–lockdown views that violated the company’s ‘community guidelines’. A recording of Lionel Shriver reading one of her Spectator columns on the pandemic was taken down for similar reasons. Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson, two Oxford academics, fell foul of Facebook’s censors when they wrote for this magazine about a briefly controversial paper on the efficacy of masks in Denmark.

    You might think that FATGA have finally gone too far with their fatwa against a sitting president of the United States. You might think a red line really has been crossed when both Alexei Navalny and Angela Merkel express disquiet at big tech’s overreach. But no. To an extent that is remarkable, American liberals have mostly welcomed (and in some cases encouraged) this surge of censorship — with the honourable exception of the American Civil Liberties Union.

    True, during last year’s campaign the Biden team occasionally talked tough, especially about Facebook. However, it is increasingly clear that the most big tech has to fear from the Biden-Harris administration is protracted antitrust actions focused on their alleged undermining of competition which, if history is any guide, will likely end with whimpers rather than bangs. Either way, the issue of censorship will not be addressed by antitrust lawsuits.

    It is tempting to complain that Democrats are hypocrites — that they would be screaming blue murder if the boot were on the other foot and it was Kamala Harris whose Twitter account had been cancelled. But if that were the case, how many Republicans would now be complaining? Not many. No, the correct conclusion to be drawn is that the Republicans had their chance to address the problem of over-mighty big tech and completely flunked it.

    Only too late did they realise that Section 230 was Silicon Valley’s Achilles heel. Only too late did they begin drafting legislation to repeal or modify it. Only too late did Section 230 start to feature in Trump’s speeches. Even now it seems to me that very few Republicans really understand that, by itself, repealing 230 would not have sufficed. Without some kind of First Amendment for the internet, repeal would probably just have restricted free speech further.

    As Orwell rightly observed, ‘we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality.’

    Those words sum up quite a lot that has gone on inside the Republican party over the past four years. There it was, right in front of their noses: Trump would lead the party to defeat. And he would behave in the most discreditable way when beaten. Those things were predictable. But what was also foreseeable was that FATGA — the ‘new governors’, as a 2018 Harvard Law Review article called them — would be the true victors of the 2020 election.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 01/16/2021 – 20:00

  • UFO In Cape Hatteras? Viral Video Sparks Debate Of Mysterious Flying Object
    UFO In Cape Hatteras? Viral Video Sparks Debate Of Mysterious Flying Object

    Days before the CIA released a large cache of files involving unidentified flying objects (UFOs), following a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by podcaster John Greenwald Jr., social media was a buzz about a UFO last week over North Carolina’s Outer Banks area. 

    According to the regional newspaper The News & Observer, photographer Wes Snyder captures what appears to be a mysterious object in the night sky. 

    “The object was visible for just under 3 minutes total, so I doubt it’s a meteor, (or) shooting star as those typically only last a few seconds,” Snyder posted on YouTube.

    Judging by the video, the object appears to have corners. Here’s the video in full. 

    “I spent a night at the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse shooting time-lapse photos to create an upcoming video. While I was looking through my footage, I realized there was something in the video that I could not explain,” he wrote on Facebook. “It’s much larger than your typical plane appears, and it’s moving way faster than clouds.”

    Snyder said the best explanation is that it may be “space junk or a satellite burning up in the atmosphere.”

    Comments on Snyder’s Facebook post agreed that it certainly wasn’t a meteor. 

    “It’s not a meteor,unless somebody reported one crashing somewhere within the surrounding towns or counties, cuz it was way to close. Anybody with common sense knows that it cannot a shooting star. WavyTv 10 did a special a while back about the pilots at Norfolk Air Force Base and the unidentifiable things they have witnessed over the years. So I’m gonna say it’s Extraterrestrial. I bet that the airport on Hatteras Island would have some sort of record of it. So would NASA and the Air Force Base,” wrote Regan Wynne.

    Someone else wrote, “I’d say the best bet would be a stage of the space x rocket.” 

    Another said, “Space station or a satellite fly by.” 

    Authorities have yet to identify what exactly flew by the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. 

    But with the recent CIA dump of UFO files, it certainly makes you wonder if life beyond Earth actually does exist. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 01/16/2021 – 19:30

  • Iran Releases Rare Footage Of Prior IRGC Ballistic Missile Attack On US Forces
    Iran Releases Rare Footage Of Prior IRGC Ballistic Missile Attack On US Forces

    Via AlMasdarNews.com,

    Iran’s military has published on social media a new video clip of the Iranian missile strike on the Ain Al-Assad base in western Iraq, where US forces are stationed.

    This attack, which took place on January 8th, 2020, was carried out by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on the US forces at the Ain Al-Assad base, targeted one of the largest installations in the country.

    The video shows an Iranian operations room and the moment of pressing the launch button for the missiles that fell on the base where many US personnel were stationed in the Al-Anbar Governorate of western Iraq, causing huge explosions at the site, where the flames escalated to tens of meters.

    The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps carried out this powerful attack on the US forces in response to the assassinations of Major General Qassem Soleimani of the IRGC’s Quds Force and Abu Mahdi Al-Mohandis of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units.

    Later in the year, the US military deployed Patriot missiles to the country, amid the increase in attacks on the Green Zone in Baghdad, which have been blamed on the Iraqi forces allied with Iran.

    Via NPR/Planet: A satellite photo from the commercial company Planet shows damage to at least five structures at the Ain al-Assad air base in Iraq.

    While Iran had previously published footage of the missiles soaring through the air from Iranian airspace (see below), the new video published Friday is the first to provocatively show the command center and under-surface rocket silos from where they were launched.

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    Tensions have remained high between the US and Iran, as several reports surfaced last month about the American President Donald Trump’s interest in possibly striking the nuclear facilities of the Islamic Republic.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 01/16/2021 – 19:00

  • LA County First In US To Top 1MM Cases: Live Updates
    LA County First In US To Top 1MM Cases: Live Updates

    Summary:

    • LA County tops 1MM cases
    • Global deaths top 2M
    • Norway sees cases of vaccine-related health complications rise to 80
    • 29 people over 75 have died after receiving the first vaccine dose
    • India vaccinates 165K+ as vaccine rollout begins
    • US hospitalizations, cases continue to slow
    • Ireland blames Christmas for latest outbreak
    • Russia lifts some travel bans
    • Israel rolls out COVID “breathalyzer”

    * * *

    Update (1830ET): As the COVID-19 picture has improved across the US, LA County has just crossed the 1MM case mark, becoming the first county in the country to cross that benchmark. Public health officials have also confirmed that there’s at least one case confirmed case of the new mutant first discovered in the UK. The man who first had the strain is now quarantining in Oregon. .

    “The presence of the U.K. variant in Los Angeles County is troubling, as our healthcare system is already severely strained with more than 7,500 people currently hospitalized,” said Dr. Barbara Ferrer, LA county’s public health director, in a statement. “Our community is bearing the brunt of the winter surge, experiencing huge numbers of cases, hospitalizations and deaths, five-times what we experienced over the summer.”

    On Saturday, Los Angeles reported 1,003,923 confirmed Covid-19 infections and 13,741 deaths.

    California has reported more than 2.9MM confirmed cases, according to NBC News counts. Texas, with 2MM cases, and Florida, with 1.5MM, are the next two states with the most infections. New York, which was one of the country’s first and biggest hot spots, has recorded 1.2MM.

    * * *

    Global coronavirus deaths have passed 2MM as of Saturday morning, while the US has topped 23.5MM. As daily case totals slowed in the US, Norway revealed that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine contributed to the deaths of more than 2 dozen people. But the biggest news overnight comes from Norway, where the government says 29 elderly people have died, and 80 have seen their health seriously impacted, due to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

    Of course, readers of Zero Hedge won’t find this at all surprising. And deaths haven’t been confined to Norway, either. Another 55 have been reported in the US as well.

    But in the US and most of Europe, the vaccine story hasn’t registered like fears of the mutated COVID-19 strains. B117, the strain first discovered in the UK, is believed to have contributed to the higher death rate in the UK.

    India, meanwhile, is embarking on the largest vaccination campaign in the world, according to Bloomberg (at this point, it’s pretty clear that China has vaccinated millions more than the official numbers from Bloomberg and other US media outlets have published). On Friday, hospitals and vaccination centers across all of India’s major cities vaccinated 165,714 Indian patients who fit the priority category.

    While PM Narendra Modi has insisted that Indians must ignore anti-vaccine propaganda, questions about the vaccine’s safety have swirled since India’s drug regulator gave the green light to Bharat Biotech International’s indigenously produced Covaxin shot this month even though it has yet to clear final-stage trials.

    Global cases have topped 93.4MM people, and a growing number appears to be caused by the newer mutated strain, since the virus is “evolving”‘ much more quickly than the scientific community had expected. In Vienna, 17% of new cases are believed to be caused by the British variant. The number was derived from a survey of a random sample of COVID patients (closely examining a sample’s genetic makeup is more time-consuming and costly than simply running a test).

    Circling back to the US, while deaths have moved higher over the past couple of weeks, new cases and hospitalizations are falling.

    The chart below reflects the rate in average hospitalizations across the US.

    Some more encouraging data: cases are falling in all four US regions (the northeast, southeast, midwest and the west).

    Here are some more stories from overnight and Saturday morning:

    Ireland is blaming Christmas and related gatherings for the fact that the country is now seeing the highest rate of new cases in the world. Rampant infections since Christmas forced Micheál Martin’s government into a series of drastic lockdown measures that have closed schools, construction, hospitality and retail, leaving tens of thousands jobless again (Source: FT).

    Russia decided to restart flights to Vietnam, India, Finland, Qatar on Jan. 27 after reviewing its stance on the pandemic. But Russia’s ban on flights to and from the UK will remain in place until Feb. 1 (Source: Bloomberg).

    Portugal on Saturday reported the biggest daily increase in confirmed coronavirus cases since the start of the outbreak. There were 10,947 new cases in a day, more than the previous record of 10,698 announced on Thursday, taking the total to 539,416. The total number of deaths rose by 166 to 8,709, also a record daily increase (Source: Bloomberg).

    Scentech Medical has developed a test that works like a blood-alcohol breathalyser that detects Covid-19 with 98% accuracy in preliminary testing, the Jerusalem Post reported on Saturday (Source: Bloomberg).

    * * *
    Looking ahead, the there’s no question that the news out of Norway has rocked the world’s hope that the vaccine will end the COVID pandemic. The WHO and others have repeatedly warned that even people who have already vaccinated are still vulnerable, particularly if they have only had one dose.

    The question is, will that stop the world from adopting “immunity passports”?

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 01/16/2021 – 18:48

  • 89 Year Old Donald Tober, Who Popularized Sweet N' Low, Jumps To His Death From Park Ave. Apartment
    89 Year Old Donald Tober, Who Popularized Sweet N’ Low, Jumps To His Death From Park Ave. Apartment

    An 89 year old business magnate who was “struggling with Parkinson’s disease” leapt to his death from the top of his Park Ave. apartment building last week, 

    Donald Tober, who was CEO and co-owner of Sugar Foods – the company best known for Sweet n’ Low – jumped from his building just after 5AM on Friday, according to the NY Post.

    He was found “in the courtyard of the luxury Upper East Side building between 65th and 66th streets”, the report notes. 

    Tober was responsible for taking the Sweet n’ Low brand and making it into a restaurant and home mainstay. His company also produced “Sugar in the Raw” and “N’Joy” coffee creamer. 80% of all foodservice establishments used Sweet n’ Low by the mid 1990’s, the Post said. 

    He had described his company in 1995 by saying: “Basically, we’re concerned with everything that surrounds the coffee cup. We’re tightly focused.”

    “Donald IS Sweet’N Low,” the company’s President, Steve Odell, had said at the time. “Don’s had as much to do with building Sweet’N Low into a household name as anyone ever has with a product. Every packet of Sweet’N Low sold today can be traced back to a single sales call that he probably made or at least had a part in.”

    Odell continued: “He was bigger than life. He made everybody feel special — everybody. He’s an icon and he’ll always be.”

    “I talked to him yesterday and certainly, no. There was no indication whatsoever,” he said, when asked about the suicide. 

    Odell concluded: “He was much more than just one product. A thousand people a second use our products. Donald left us with eight words, and we live them every day. The first two words are ‘Be prepared.’ The second are ‘Show up.’ The third two words are ‘On time.’ And the last two are ‘Follow through.’”

    “He did that every day, all day, through his career.”

    Rest easy, Donald. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 01/16/2021 – 18:30

  • 55 Americans Have Died Following COVID Vaccination, Norway Deaths Rise To 29
    55 Americans Have Died Following COVID Vaccination, Norway Deaths Rise To 29

    Amid increasing calls for suspension of the use of mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines produced by companies such as Pfizer, especially among elderly people, the situation in Norway has escalated significantly as the Scandi nation has now registered a total of 29 deaths among people over the age of 75 who’ve had their first COVID-19 vaccination shot.

    As Bloomberg reports, this adds six to the number of known fatalities in Norway, and also lowers the age group thought to be affected from 80.

    Until Friday, Pfizer/BioNTech was the only vaccine available in Norway, and “all deaths are thus linked to this vaccine,” the Norwegian Medicines Agency said in a written response to Bloomberg on Saturday.

    “There are 13 deaths that have been assessed, and we are aware of another 16 deaths that are currently being assessed,” the agency said.

    All the reported deaths related to “elderly people with serious basic disorders,” it said.

    “Most people have experienced the expected side effects of the vaccine, such as nausea and vomiting, fever, local reactions at the injection site, and worsening of their underlying condition.”

    Norway’s experience has prompted the country to suggest that Covid-19 vaccines may be too risky for the very old and terminally ill… the exact group that ‘the science’ shows are actually at risk from this virus.

    Pfizer and BioNTech are working with the Norwegian regulator to investigate the deaths in Norway, Pfizer said in an e-mailed statement. The agency found that “the number of incidents so far is not alarming, and in line with expectations,” Pfizer said.

    However, it’s not just Norway as The Epoch Times’ Zachary Stieber reports that fifty-five people in the United States have died after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, according to reports submitted to a federal system.

    Deaths have occurred among people receiving both the Moderna and the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, according to the reports.

    In some cases, patients died within days of receiving a COVID-19 vaccine.

    One man, a 66-year-old senior home resident in Colorado, was sleepy and stayed in bed a day after getting Moderna’s vaccine. Early the next morning, on Christmas Day, the resident “was observed in bed lying still, pale, eyes half open and foam coming from mouth and unresponsive,” the VAERS report states. “He was not breathing and with no pulse.”

    In another case, a 93-year-old South Dakota man was injected with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on Jan. 4 around 11 a.m. About two hours later, he said he was tired and couldn’t continue with the physical therapy he was doing any longer. He was taken back to his room, where he said his legs felt heavy. Soon after, he stopped breathing. A nurse declared a do-not-resuscitate order.

    In addition to the deaths, people have reported 96 life-threatening events following COVID-19 vaccinations, as well as 24 permanent disabilities, 225 hospitalizations, and 1,388 emergency room visits.

    It’s not just the old and frail, in Israel, which proudly lays claim to the greatest vaccination effort in the world (largest percentage of the population inoculated),

    As RT reports, at least 13 Israelis have experienced facial paralysis after being administered the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine, a month after the US Food and Drug Administration reported similar issues but said they weren’t linked to the jab.

    Israeli outlet Ynet reported, citing the Health Ministry, that officials believe the number of such cases could be higher.

    “For at least 28 hours I walked around with it [facial paralysis],” one person who had the side effect told Ynet. 

    “I can’t say it was completely gone afterwards, but other than that I had no other pains, except a minor pain where the injection was, but there was nothing beyond that.”

    Ynet quoted Prof. Galia Rahav, director of the Infectious Diseases Unit at Sheba Medical Center, who said she did not feel “comfortable” with administering the second dose to someone who had received the first jab and subsequently suffered from paralysis.

    “No one knows if this is connected to the vaccine or not. That’s why I would refrain from giving a second dose to someone who suffered from paralysis after the first dose,” she told the outlet.

    Finally, as we noted yesterday following the news of rising post-vaccination deaths in Noway, health experts from Wuhan, China, called on Norway and other countries to suspend the use of mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines produced by companies such as Pfizer, especially among elderly people.

    China’s Global Times reports Chinese experts said the death incident should be assessed cautiously to understand whether the death was caused by vaccines or other preexisting conditions of these individuals.

    Yang Zhanqiu, a virologist from Wuhan University, told the Global Times on Friday that the death incident, if proven to be caused by the vaccines, showed that the effect of the Pfizer vaccine and other mRNA vaccines is not as good as expected, as the main purpose of mRNA vaccines is to heal patients.

    …

    A Beijing-based immunologist, who requested anonymity, told the Global Times on Friday that the world should suspend the use of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine represented by Pfizer, as this new technology has not proven safety in large-scale use or in preventing any infectious diseases.

    Older people, especially those over 80, should not be recommended to receive any COVID-19 vaccine, he said.

    All of which is a problem since it is the elderly who are at most risk (quite frankly at any real risk at all) and thus who need the protection the most.

    The Chinese health experts instead say that the most elderly and frail should be recommended to take medicines to improve their immune system.

    Of course, one cannot help but note the irony of scientists from the source of the plague that has killed millions around the world and destroyed lives/economies almost everywhere, is now calling for the cessation of the process to protect against the plague.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 01/16/2021 – 18:01

  • Designed To Fail, Failure Guaranteed
    Designed To Fail, Failure Guaranteed

    Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

    Yet it still comes as a great surprise to everyone when ‘doing more of what’s failed spectacularly’ ends up collapsing the whole rotten structure.

    Systems and nations are designed to fail without anyone even noticing: nobody set out to design the current broken system to fail at critical points, but now failure can’t be avoided because the incentive structure has locked in embedded processes that enrich self-serving cartels and insiders at the expense of the nation and its populace.

    Nobody chose America’s insanely perverse healthcare system–it arose from a set of initial conditions that generated perverse incentives to do more of what’s failing and protect the processes that benefit cartels and insiders at the expense of everyone else.

    In other words, the system that was intended to benefit all ends up benefiting the few at the expense of the many.

    The same question can be asked of America’s broken higher education system: would any sane person choose a system that enriches insiders by indenturing students via massive student loans (i.e. forcing them to become debt serfs)?

    Students and their parents certainly wouldn’t choose the current broken system, but the lenders reaping billions of dollars in profits would choose to keep it, and so would the under-assistant deans earning a cool $200K+ for “administering” some embedded process that has effectively nothing to do with actual learning.

    The academic ronin a.k.a. adjuncts earning $35,000 a year (with little in the way of benefits or security) for doing much of the actual teaching wouldn’t choose the current broken system, either.

    Now that the embedded processes are generating profits and wages, everyone benefiting from these processes will fight to the death to retain and expand them, even if they threaten the system with financial collapse and harm the people who the system was intended to serve.

    How many student loan lenders and assistant deans resign in disgust at the parasitic system that higher education has become? The number of insiders who refuse to participate any longer is signal noise, while the number who plod along, either denying their complicity in a parasitic system of debt servitude and largely worthless diplomas (i.e. the system is failing the students it is supposedly educating at enormous expense) or rationalizing it is legion.

    If I was raking in $200,000 annually from a system I knew was parasitic and counter-productive, I would find reasons to keep my head down and just “do my job,” too.

    At some point, the embedded processes become so odious and burdensome that those actually providing the services start bailing out of the broken system. We’re seeing this in the number of doctors and nurses who retire early or simply quit to do something less stressful and more rewarding.

    These embedded processes strip away autonomy, equating compliance with effectiveness even as the processes become increasingly counter-productive and wasteful. The typical mortgage documents package is now a half-inch thick, a stack of legal disclaimers and stipulations that no home buyer actually understands (unless they happen to be a real estate attorney).

    How much value is actually added by these ever-expanding embedded processes?

    By the time the teacher, professor or doctor complies with the curriculum / “standards of care”, there’s little room left for actually doing their job. But behind the scenes, armies of well-paid administrators will fight to the death to keep the processes as they are, no matter how destructive to the system as a whole.

    This is how systems and the nations that depend on them fail. Meds skyrocket in price, student loans top $1 trillion, F-35 fighter aircraft are double the initial cost estimates and so on, and the insider solutions are always the same: just borrow another trillion to keep the broken system afloat for another quarter.

    Yet it still comes as a great surprise to everyone when doing more of what’s failed spectacularly ends up collapsing the whole rotten structure.

    Consider a spacecraft as a metaphor for a system which is designed not to fail but that can fail anyway. There are two basic ways the spacecraft can fail: a single essential component can fail, or a single failure can trigger a domino-like cascade which leads to the entire craft failing.

    If the craft’s single oxygen tank ruptures, the crew dies. 99% of the spacecraft is still working perfectly, but the system failed in its primary purpose: keeping the crew alive.

    If an electrical failure causes a cascade of subsystem failures, you end up with the same result: a powerless craft and a dead crew.

    But 99% of the system is working just fine is little solace to the expired crew.

    *  *  *

    If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

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    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 01/16/2021 – 18:00

  • Billionaire Benjamin de Rothschild Dies At 57
    Billionaire Benjamin de Rothschild Dies At 57

    Billionaire Baron Benjamin de Rothschild, chairman of the iconic Edmond de Rothschild Holding and the 22nd richest man in France with a net worth of €4.3 billion, has died at 57.

    Baron Benjamin de Rothschild, his wife Ariane and daughter Noemie attend the dinner hosted by Chateau Mouton Rothschild on June 16, 2013 in Pauillac.

    “Ariane de Rothschild and her daughters are deeply saddened to announce the death of husband and father, Benjamin de Rothschild, following a heart attack in the family home in Pregny (Switzerland) in the afternoon of January 15, 2021” the family said in a press release on Saturday.

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

    The namesake company confirmed his death on Saturday, offering condolences to his wife, children and family. In a statement on its website it said that the entrepreneur developed the entity “in an exceptional way during all these years” and was “passionate about finance, speed, sailing and automobiles, wine enthusiast, Benjamin de Rothschild was also an active philanthropist.”

    Visionary entrepreneur, passionate about finance, speed, sailing and automobiles, wine enthusiast, Benjamin de Rothschild was also an active philanthropist, namely involved in developing innovation within the Adolphe de Rothschild Foundation Hospital. With his unique character, Benjamin de Rothschild never ceased to transform and modernise his legacy, in line with the family’s values.

    Born on July 30 1963, Benjamin de Rothschild was the son of Edmond – scion of the Rothschild banking family of France – and Nadine de Rothschild. He headed the group created by his father since 1997. Benjamin de Rothschild was chairman of the board of directors at Edmond de Rothschild Holding SA, the umbrella entity of the Edmond de Rothschild Group, specializing in private banking and asset management.

    Benjamin de Rothschild most recently made the news in early 2019 when he took the Swiss Bank Edmond de Rothschild (Suisse) S.A. private. The Swiss branch of the sprawling Rothschild banking dynasty – once one of the world’s richest families, and according to some, still the richest – was created by Baron Edmond de Rothschild, whose parents fled to Switzerland during World War II. He created the group in 1953, later buying a Swiss private bank and branching out into asset management.

    The banking dynasty has spawned countless labyrinthine and convoluted financial entities which have helped obfuscate its financial exposure. The Edmond de Rothschild Group has financial assets distributed around the globe and in the form of investments in hedge funds via a fund of funds operation with over 173 billion francs in AUM.

    The Chateau de Pregny –  also known as the Rothschild Castle – where the banker died, is located near Lake Geneva.

    The estate has belonged to the family since it was built in 1858 by the Swiss banker, Adolphe Carl de Rothschild. He bequeathed to a cousin, Maurice de Rothschild of the Rothschild banking family of France, who in turn left it to his son, Edmond Adolphe de Rothschild. The property remains in the family and as at 2013 is the principal residence of Edmond’s widow, Nadine.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 01/16/2021 – 17:54

  • TSA To Reveal Security Plan For Air Cargo Industry
    TSA To Reveal Security Plan For Air Cargo Industry

    By Eric Kulisch, of American Shipper,

    Companies that purchase and provide transport on all-cargo aircraft will be closely watching whether the Transportation Security Administration on Wednesday offers an alternative security arrangement many believe is designed to help one company — Amazon — avoid screening every outbound shipment for explosives.

    How to comply with pending international airfreight security standards is reopening a  long-running policy debate over whether supply chains are best protected through a risk-based approach or comprehensive physical checks. Freight forwarders, pilots and some security experts say everyone should adhere to the same screening standards, but major cargo airlines argue the system should be flexible to prevent airport backlogs and contain costs.

    Carriers such as Atlas Air, FedEx and UPS view a trusted trader approach as a way to spread the security burden and benefit of manufacturers, e-commerce retailers and other shippers — not just Amazon.

    “Anytime you can push the screening responsibility upstream it’s a good thing for the carrier because it’s an on-time business. If you don’t get cargo on the plane when it departs the customer isn’t happy and Atlas isn’t happy because we’re losing revenue,” Gary Wade, Atlas Air’s vice president of global security, said in an interview. “Secure throughput is key for us.”

    The International Civil Aviation Organization is requiring member states by June 30 to screen 100% of all export cargo before loading on commercial freighters, creating an equivalency with the passenger environment in which for a decade all cargo, domestic or international, has been screened prior to loading. Until now, the primary focus of security measures for freighters has been preventing the “jack-in-the-box” threat — someone stowing away in a crate and accessing the cockpit from the main deck.

    National authorities, however, can also allow regulated companies — airlines and logistics providers —  that apply approved security controls throughout the supply chain to have their shipments cleared to fly. A third option would allow manufacturers, retailers or other entities outside the TSA’s normal regulatory reach to prove they have highly secure facilities that provide an equivalent level of security as a substitute for X-ray scanning, explosive trace detection or sniffer dogs.

    That appears the direction TSA officials are headed. 

    The agency has six months to develop and implement a rulemaking that addresses how freighter operators should screen cargo and other options. It likely will expand the Certified Cargo Screening Program (CCSP) that allows logistics providers, ground handlers, shippers or independent security companies that follow TSA-approved criteria to inspect the cargo themselves and tender it to the airlines following strict chain-of-custody requirements. 

    The CCSP program was established to prevent airlines, many of which have constrained airport warehouses, from getting crushed with inspection responsibilities and being unable to load planes on time. Three years ago, the TSA also created a popular third-party canine screening program that allows airlines and forwarding agents to use certified companies with bomb-sniffing dogs in lieu of physical screening.

    And during a virtual meeting with industry representatives Wednesday, TSA officials are scheduled to unveil a proposal for secure packing facilities whereby manufacturers, fulfillment centers and other entities with strict security protocols can have shipments deemed secure that are exempt from 100% screening. Security criteria are expected to cover building access, personnel security, in-transit security, employee training and information technology. The facilities would also be subject to periodic TSA audits and inspections.

    Amazon loophole?

    Some stakeholders believe the alternative security framework is being pushed by Amazon and that the online retail giant will be the only one to qualify as a secure package facility. 

    The Airforwarders Association and others say the TSA should expand the CCSP to allow greater participation by manufacturers, suppliers, e-commerce fulfillment centers and others. Going beyond that would create an uneven playing field and possible security gaps, they claim.

    But several airlines, in comments submitted last year to the TSA, also expressed strong support for self-policing by shippers as a way to ease their burden as the ultimate party responsible for ensuring security.

    They recommended against a one-size-fits-all approach because of the large variety of cargo, airlines and shippers in the system.

    “We firmly believe that an alternative framework is necessary in part because … requiring 100% screening of export cargo moving on all-cargo aircraft would not be justified under any cost/benefit review,” Atlas Air wrote. “If the risk is relatively small, the benefits gained from applying a draconian measure like 100% screening of all U.S. outbound air cargo transported on all-cargo carriers will not be great and cannot be justified when compared with the anticipated costs. Given the fact that available data indicate that there have been no attempts by terrorists to introduce explosives into cargo outbound from the United States, the finding that there is relatively low risk mandates the conclusion that TSA should move forward with its program to provide an alternative to a 100% screening regime.”

    The Air Line Pilots Association countered that improvised explosive devices in 2010 got onto two planes — one flown by FedEx and one by UPS — in the Middle East and reached the U.S., showing there is a terrorist threat to all-cargo aircraft even if the bombs were discovered and malfunctioned. The union complained that the options for third-party screening and security packing facilities both “allow the commercial entities who benefit from the rapid and efficient movement of cargo, to police their own operations with limited oversight, which has previously proven to be a significant vulnerability.”

    Purchase, New York-based Atlas, which operates 117 freighter aircraft — including 44 747 jumbo jets — recommended the alternative approach mirror the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, a government program under which ocean shippers with approved supply chain security plans and vetted transportation partners, can avoid port inspections of their containers and other trade facilitation benefits. 

    Carriers noted that flexibility is the only way to meet the mandate because many types of cargo — pharmaceuticals, hazardous materials, perishable foods, live animals or items shipped in steel drums — are too big to pass through existing X-ray machines or can’t be recognized by them or canines. And packages below a certain size or weight are incapable of containing dangerous explosives.

    Atlas is one of Amazon Air’s key flying partners, with about 25 aircraft under lease-operating agreements. Amazon also owns 5% of Atlas and has warrants allowing it to increase its share. Wade said the companies cooperated on developing an alternative screening proposal, but that Amazon has not asked for help pitching the idea.

    UPS Airlines also strongly supports an alternative approach, saying companies with adequate security controls should be able to inject cargo into the air transport system without the need for additional screening.

    “If the entity applies the required security protocols established by TSA, including chain of custody from the warehouse or fulfillment center to the air carrier, the consignment should be deemed secure,” it said. But most companies will rely on certified cargo screening facilities and airlines to secure their export cargo because of the substantial capital and human resources needed to meet TSA standards for security controls, the express carrier predicted.

    One well-connected industry source, who spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to upset professional ties with multiple parties, suggested FedEx and UPS could easily accommodate outbound screening of international shipments, but worry a scan-all mandate will become a slippery slope leading to calls for similar rules on the domestic side, where much greater volumes, aircraft and flights are involved.

    Opponents also raise concern that other countries may not allow shipments from the alternative program to enter. While ICAO gives countries the option to use an enhanced trusted shipper approach, the European Union and other states are requiring 100% screening and could expect the same treatment in return.

    Wade dismissed that notion, saying, “I don’t know that they’re going to refuse commerce based on someone not dotting the ‘i’ the way they did.” 

    With so much still unknown about what the regulatory requirements will be, cargo airlines are trying to figure out how much they will have to screen and how much volume will be handled by the freight forwarding community and the alternative program.

    Atlas Air plans to use outsourced canine teams, “but we’re just not sure how much we’re going to have to do,” Wade said. “At least it won’t be all on us.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 01/16/2021 – 17:10

  • Tesla Tells Employees To "Liquidate" Model S, X Inventory Hours After NHTSA Recall
    Tesla Tells Employees To “Liquidate” Model S, X Inventory Hours After NHTSA Recall

    On January 14, we wrote an article explaining that the NHTSA had asked Tesla to recall about 158,000 Model S and Model X units that could potentially suffer from failing display consoles. When a display console in a Tesla fails, drivers can experience “loss of audible and visual touchscreen features, such as infotainment, navigation, and web browsing and loss of rear camera image display when in reverse gear,” the regulator said at the time.

    Then, something interesting happened. About 24 hours later, on January 15, pro-Tesla blog electrek put out an article noting that Tesla was telling its employees to “liquidate” their Model S and Model X inventory by the end of the month – which is about 2 weeks away.

    The blog had “learned from sources familiar with the matter” that the company was telling employees “to sell all Model S and Model X inventory in stores across all markets.”

    The goal, the report said, is for Tesla to have “absolutely no Model S or Model X in inventory by the end of the month.” The blog speculates that the inventory liquidation could be due to an upcoming refresh. Meanwhile, the Semi and the Roadster we were promised years ago have still not hit the road. 

    “The move is unusual at the beginning of a new quarter and it intensifies rumors of a design refresh,” the blog says. More unusual than the move was its timing, we first thought. 

    Recall, we wrote about the forced recall last week, when the NHTSA told Tesla that: “The lack of a functioning windshield defogging and defrosting system may decrease the driver’s visibility in inclement weather, increasing the risk of a crash. If Tesla decides not to conduct the requested recall, it must provide ODI with a full explanation of its decision, including any additional analysis of the problem beyond Tesla’s past presentations.”

    The agency also said Tesla’s over-the-air fixes for the problem weren’t enough. “[T]hese updates are procedurally and substantively insufficient,” the NHTSA concluded.

    Tesla had reportedly “balked” at moving forward with the recall, according to NBC, who said: “Experts say the letter means that Tesla has resisted doing a recall that NHTSA feels is necessary.”

    And so now, the game plan goes from balking at the recall, to getting all of the affected models out of showrooms and into the hands of customers? Sounds like par for the course for Tesla. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 01/16/2021 – 16:45

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Jan 16

Today’s News 16th January 2021

  • Here's How Much Your Income Will Change Under The Biden Tax Plan
    Here’s How Much Your Income Will Change Under The Biden Tax Plan

    While the market has so far focused exclusively on the temporary economic sugar high that the Biden fiscal stimulus will unleash on the US economy, which however may be far below Biden’s bogey of $1.9 trillion with Goldman now expecting just $1.1 trillion being enacted due to republican opposition, traders are starting to focus on the cost side of the “cost-benefit” analysis.

    And, as Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid writes, while “for now it’s all about the size of the stimulus juices flowing into the economy” the pips will likely be squeezed later in the year as the Democrats craft broader infrastructure and tax legislation.

    That’s why today’s Chart of the Day from Reid shows the distributional impact of Biden’s pre-election tax plan, according to the Tax Policy Center.

    At the moment, economists see a joint infrastructure and tax reform bill being passed in late 2021; at that point revenue rises will potentially offset half of the extra spending, although maybe only raising a quarter of the revenue estimated by the tax plan that today’s chart was based on.  This is based on the political realities of a split senate and the then looming mid-terms.

    In short: the chart shows whose income group will benefit, and which will end up with the tax bill, after Biden’s record stimulus is enacted.

     

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 01/15/2021 – 23:58

  • Is Impeachment More Dangerous Than Trump?
    Is Impeachment More Dangerous Than Trump?

    Authored by Michael Tracey via UnHerd (emphasis ours),

    The most apt parallel for the second impeachment of Donald Trump may not be any other of the three previous presidential impeachments, including his own just over a year ago. It may instead be the PATRIOT Act, which was passed in the heated emotional aftermath of the September 11 attacks, with negligible debate afforded to the long-term implications of what Congress was enacting. Reason and deliberation had given way to a collective desire for security and revenge, and thus the most sweeping curtailment of civil liberties in the modern historical record was approved. Those who departed from the swiftly assembled consensus could expect to be denounced as sympathisers to terrorists.

    Likewise, if you deign to raise concerns about the implications of this sudden impeachment sequel — or any of the other extraordinary actions taken in the past week, such as an ongoing corporate censorship purge of unprecedented proportions — you can expect to be accused of defending or supporting the “domestic terrorists” who carried out the mob attack on the Capitol.

    Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, rationalised rushing through Wednesday’s impeachment resolution at spell-binding speed — by far the fastest impeachment process ever — on the grounds that Trump posed a “clear and present danger” to the country, and needed to be removed immediately. “Imminent threats” of various stripes also have a long history of being cited to justify sweeping emergency action, such as the invasion of Iraq. Often upon further inspection, the purported “threat” turns out to have been not so “imminent”, or in fact to have never existed at all.

    But as rushed as the impeachment was, if the purported emergency conditions were truly so dire as Pelosi maintained, she could have theoretically summoned the House to convene the day after the mob attack and impeach Trump right away. Congress convened the very next day after the attack on Pearl Harbor to declare war on Japan, for example. Instead, Pelosi waited a full week, and gave everyone the weekend off in the interim. Trump, alleged to be in the process of orchestrating a violent “coup”, was allowed to remain in office unimpeded with access to the nuclear codes for seven days.

    Nonetheless, with a total of two hours of perfunctory debate — and no hearings, fact-finding or meditation on the relevant Constitutional Law considerations — Trump was impeached for the second time. As such, the text of the impeachment article will now be permanently embedded in the fabric of American governance.

    One wonders who even had a chance to actually sit down and read it. The article, which charges Trump with “incitement of insurrection”, is far-reaching in its potential implications. “Incitement” is an extremely narrowly circumscribed doctrine in US law, and for good reason: anyone who engages in inflammatory but protected political speech could theoretically be said to have engaged in criminally punishable “incitement” without the shield of the First Amendment. If someone who hears your speech chooses on their volition to engage in violent or criminal conduct, you in almost all circumstances cannot be prosecuted.

    This new impeachment changes that equilibrium. The one quote cited from Trump in the article to demonstrate his alleged “inciting” speech was: ‘‘If you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country anymore.’’ That line — which could have been uttered by Trump in about a thousand different contexts over the past five years — is alleged to have “foreseeably resulted in… lawless action”.

    I witnessed countless instances of political speech expressed by activists, journalists, and others during last summer’s protests and riots which under the same standard could have been deemed to have “foreseeably resulted” in “lawless action”, such as attacks on police or destruction of property. But there was always a presumption that the speech was nonetheless protected under the First Amendment. The new “Trump standard” codified by this impeachment could have drastic implications for the the future, should it be applied more widely throughout US jurisprudence. Impeachable “incitement” is also unlikely ever to include statements by a president “encouraging” violence by way of, say, military force.

    Still, Trump’s statements on 6 January  — just like a seemingly infinite number of others over the past five-plus years — could surely be worthy of political rebuke or censure. Indeed, Trump has already been rebuked. He’s been roundly condemned by his own party and administration. His main communications platform, Twitter, has banished him. His high-profile supporters are being systematically nuked from social media writ large. He’s been made to issue several humiliating statements conceding defeat and “disavowing” the MAGA mob which marched in his name. The bozo rioters at the Capitol were undoubtedly inflamed by a barrage of lies and conspiratorial delusions that Trump churned out on an almost hourly basis since losing the election — that’s beyond dispute.

    But it was still clear pretty soon after the mob intrusion began last week that the most significant consequences from what occurred would arise not from the intrusion itself, which was dispersed by agents of the state in a matter of hours. Rather, the real consequences would stem from the predictably rash over-reaction. The more extreme the characterisation of last Wednesday’s events, the more emotional ammunition that lawmakers have to demand whatever extreme remedial action they had been ideologically committed to pursuing anyway. This goes well beyond the expedited impeachment, and into the corporate censorship purge which has now radically altered the principles undergirding the open internet.

    Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the most high-profile member of the Left-wing Congressional “#squad”, has claimed that she narrowly escaped assassination at the Capitol and has thus been “traumatised”. Evidently she will be publicly working through this “trauma” on Instagram. It is also her contention that half of the House of Representatives (over 200 people) had been on the verge of mass execution. This style of political rhetoric has already been marshalled by “AOC” and others to demand corporate censorship on a vast scale, and successfully so; last week she tweeted pressure on Apple and Google to expel the alternative social media platform Parler from their app stores, and the corporations quickly obliged.

    Amazon, falling like a domino, then completely terminated Parler from its web hosting service — effectively killing the site. As perhaps the country’s most influential Democrat by online following, AOC is someone who these tech corporations have an interest in appeasing, especially as Democrats enter full control of the federal government on 20 January. Her exceedingly dramatic recounting of what transpired during the mob intrusion is a powerful tool in her arsenal.

    Curiously, the most putatively “progressive” members of Congress seem to be the most exercised about resurrecting concepts that sound like Woodrow Wilson suppressing dissidents in wartime. Mondaire Jones, a highly touted “progressive” incoming freshman Congressman, took to fulminating on the House floor during the impeachment proceeding about “treason and sedition”.

    Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney further declared from the floor of the House that Trump had “wilfully incited an armed insurrection”. Which is again another curious characterisation, because while a Capitol Police officer was in fact killed in the melee, the only person against whom armed, deadly force was used against was Ashli Babbitt, a Trump-supporting Afghanistan and Iraq War veteran who was shot dead at point-blank range by an officer.

    Any rational observer who has the capacity to detach from the temporary passions of the moment should be able to recognise that the United States government was never at risk of being “overthrown” by the chaotic band of yahoos who stormed the Capitol. All they accomplished was to delay the certification of Joe Biden’s victory by a few hours. They also humiliated the man they apparently thought they were valiantly coming to the defence of; even Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader of the House, took to the floor during the impeachment session to declare that “Antifa” was not to blame for the chaos which unfolded, and blamed Trump as bearing responsibility for the events. Indeed, the full force of state and federal law enforcement power is now being deployed against the intruders, and many — perhaps hundreds — will be going to prison.

    Reminiscent of the post 9/11 period, the “crisis” of the past week has been seized upon to execute a pre-existing agenda. Impeachment, purges, the militarisation and lockdown of the Capitol — it’s only the beginning, and it’s all happening with hardly even a peep of criticism or moment for reflection. Given this historical continuity with the events of 2001, it was therefore fitting when Steny Hoyer, the Democratic Majority Leader in the House, went out of his way Wednesday afternoon to herald the valour of Liz Cheney — daughter of the architect of US policy after 9/11, Dick — who was one of the ten Republicans to vote along with Democrats to impeach.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 01/15/2021 – 23:40

  • M1 Abrams Tank Gets New Round That Can Destroy Almost Anything 
    M1 Abrams Tank Gets New Round That Can Destroy Almost Anything 

    The US Army’s main battle tank, the M1 Abrams, is about to receive a new multipurpose super tank round that can breach concrete walls, pulverize obstacles, and destroy bunkers, according to Forbes. 

    The Advanced Multi-Purpose, or AMP, is specially designed for the M1 Abrams to replace the rapidly aging inventory of tank munitions. 

    The new round is long overdue as tank crews on the modern battlefields in the Middle East have been confronted by new evolving threats. 

    Unlike the M829 depleted uranium round, which can punch through almost anything – it tends to have difficulties blowing up vehicles or houses, as it just zips right through those types of targets. The new AMP can destroy everything the M829 cannot. 

    “The AMP adds an important new capability. The existing canister round is only for short-range use with a maximum reach of about 500 meters. This makes it useless for dealing with one of the biggest threats to tanks, infantry equipped with anti-tank guided missiles like the Russian-made AT-14 Kornet, used in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. When used in airburst mode, the AMP can target groups of personnel at ranges of up to 2,000 meters: even if it does not disable a missile team, the round is likely to distract them enough so that they are not able to keep a missile on course.”

    Another important new capability is breaching walls. Currently, making a breach an infantry assault requires engineers to get next to the wall and emplace explosives. Three rounds of AMP will create a thirty-by-fifty-inch hole clean through a double-thickness reinforced concrete wall, big enough for troops to advance through. This includes cutting through the steel reinforcement bars, and breaching can be carried out from several hundred meters away,” said Forbes. 

    Forbes described the new round has “three different fusing options” for blowing up different targets. 

    “With Point Detonation, the round explodes on contact with the target — this mode will make it effective against targets like light armored vehicles. Set to Point Detonation-Delay, the round does not explode immediately on contact – this is the mode used against obstacles and bunkers, as it gives enough time to penetrate deeply into concrete or other material before exploding. In the Airburst mode, the round explodes at a pre-set height above the ground, spraying the area below with tungsten shrapnel – this is the antipersonnel mode,” said Forbes.

    Watch the new AMP round in action.

    To sum up, the AMP round is a significant advancement in tank ammunition technology as it provides additional capabilities to defeat opponents on the modern battlefield. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 01/15/2021 – 23:20

  • Woke Elementary: Critical Race Theory & California's "Inconvenient Minority"
    Woke Elementary: Critical Race Theory & California’s “Inconvenient Minority”

    Authored by Christopher Rufo via City-Journal.org,

    An elementary school in Cupertino, California – a Silicon Valley community with a median home price of $2.3 million – recently forced a class of third-graders to deconstruct their racial identities, then rank themselves according to their “power and privilege.”

    Based on whistleblower documents and parents familiar with the session, a third-grade teacher at R.I. Meyerholz Elementary School began the lesson on “social identities” during a math class. The teacher asked all students to create an “identity map,” listing their race, class, gender, religion, family structure, and other characteristics. The teacher explained that the students live in a “dominant culture” of “white, middle class, cisgender, educated, able-bodied, Christian, English speaker[s],” who, according to the lesson, “created and maintained” this culture in order “to hold power and stay in power.”

    Next, reading from This Book Is Antiracist, the students learned that “those with privilege have power over others” and that “folx who do not benefit from their social identities, who are in the subordinate culture, have little to no privilege and power.” As an example, the reading states that “a white, cisgender man, who is able-bodied, heterosexual, considered handsome and speaks English has more privilege than a Black transgender woman.” In some cases, because of the principle of intersectionality, “there are parts of us that hold some power and other parts that are oppressed,” even within a single individual.

    Following this discussion, the teacher had the students deconstruct their own intersectional identities and “circle the identities that hold power and privilege” on their identity maps, ranking their traits according to the hierarchy. In a related assignment, the students were asked to write short essays describing which aspects of their identities “hold power and privilege” and which do not. The students were expected to produce “at least one full page of writing.” As an example, the presentation included a short paragraph about transgenderism and nonbinary sexuality.

    The lesson caused an immediate uproar among Meyerholz Elementary parents.

    “We were shocked,” said one parent, who agreed to speak with me on condition of anonymity.

    “They were basically teaching racism to my eight-year-old.”

    This parent, who is Asian-American, rallied a group of a half dozen families to protest the school’s intersectionality curriculum. The group met with the school principal and demanded an end to the racially divisive instruction. After a tense meeting, the administration agreed to suspend the program. (When reached for comment, Jenn Lashier, the principal of Meyerholz Elementary, said that the training was not part of the “formal curricula, but the process of daily learning facilitated by a certified teacher.”)

    The irony is that, despite being 94 percent nonwhite, Meyerholz Elementary is one of the most privileged schools in America. The median household income in Cupertino is $172,000, and nearly 80 percent of residents have a bachelor’s degree or higher. At the school, where the majority of families are Asian-American, the students have exceptionally high rates of academic achievement and the school consistently ranks in the top 1 percent of all elementary schools statewide. In short, nobody at Meyerholz is oppressed, and the school’s high-achieving parents know that teaching intersectionality instead of math is a waste of time—and potentially dangerous.

    One parent told me that critical race theory was reminiscent of the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

    “[It divides society between] the oppressor and the oppressed, and since these identities are inborn characteristics people cannot change, the only way to change it is via violent revolution,” the parent said.

    “Growing up in China, I had learned it many times. The outcome is the family will be ripped apart; husband hates wife, children hate parents. I think it is already happening here.”

    The small fight at Meyerholz reflects a larger development: for the first time, Asian-Americans on the West Coast have become politically mobilized. In 2019, Asian-Americans ran a successful initiative campaign against affirmative action in Washington State; in 2020, Asian-Americans ran a similar campaign in California, winning by an astonishing 57 percent to 43 percent margin. In both cases, they defended the principles of meritocracy, individual rights, and equality under the law—and roundly defeated a super-coalition of the states’ progressive politicians, activists, universities, media, and corporations.

    The stakes are high for the Asian-American community. For progressives insisting on the narrative of “white supremacy” and “systemic racism,” Asian-Americans are the “inconvenient minority”: they significantly outperform all other racial groups, including whites, in terms of academic achievement, college admissions, household income, family stability, and other key measures. Affirmative action and other critical race theory-based programs would devastate their admissions to universities and harm their futures.

    At Meyerholz Elementary, the Asian-American families are on high alert for critical race theory in the classroom. Since their initial victory, they have begun to consider campaigning against the school board.

    “We think some of our school board members are [critical race theory] activists and they must go,” said one parent.

    The capture of our public institutions by progressives obsessed by race and privilege deserves opposition at every level. The parents of Cupertino have joined the fight.

    This article is part of an ongoing series on critical race theory in American schools.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 01/15/2021 – 23:00

  • Stanford Scientist Can Tell If You're A Liberal Just By Looking At Your Face
    Stanford Scientist Can Tell If You’re A Liberal Just By Looking At Your Face

    Since the beginning of the 21st century, the surveillance state has utilized technology derived from Silicon Valley, such as facial recognition algorithms, to enhance society’s control. 

    Authoritarian regimes and unscrupulous corporations are leveraging these technologies to track citizens, stalk criminals, and monitor employees, but what if this technology, rapidly advancing in the last couple of years, can determine a person’s political views? 

    Imagine this; obviously, the Washington Metropolitan Area is lined with surveillance cameras, with some cameras that may already be employing facial recognition algorithms. Hypothetically speaking, what if these cameras could recognize an angry mob and accurately (to some degree) identify their political views by observing their faces and then alert authorities of potential social unrest in a specific area. 

    While that technology has yet to be deployed, it may certainly exists. 

    Researchers have developed a facial recognition algorithm that they claim can determine a person’s political views with reasonable accuracy. 

    Stanford University’s Michal Kosinski conducted a study published on Monday in the Nature journal Scientific Reports.

    “Ubiquitous facial recognition technology can expose individuals’ political orientation, as faces of liberals and conservatives consistently differ,” Kosinski said.

    He trained the facial recognition algorithm to accurately guess a person’s political view with an accuracy rating of about 72%. To do this, the researcher trained an algorithm with over one million profiles from social media websites across the US, UK, and Canada. 

    “Political orientation was correctly classified in 72% of liberal-conservative face pairs, remarkably better than chance (50%), human accuracy (55%), or one afforded by a 100-item personality questionnaire (66%). Accuracy was similar across countries (the U.S., Canada, and the UK), environments (Facebook and dating websites), and when comparing faces across samples. Accuracy remained high (69%) even when controlling for age, gender, and ethnicity,” he said.

    Kosinski said the algorithm is “high predictability” in determining political views from viewing faces, which implies a notable difference between the facial images of conservatives and liberals. 

    One of the most significant facial features that differentiate both political parties’ faces – aside from gender, age and race was head orientation and emotional expression. He also said liberals were more likely to stare directly at the camera and more likely to look surprised than disgusted.

    Here are the procedures used to predict political orientation from facial images. And by the way, she’s a liberal. 

    It was also explained that liberals tend to smile “more intensely and genuinely,” leaving them with a different wrinkle pattern as they age. Meanwhile, conservatives “tend to be healthier, drink less alcohol and smoke less, and have a different diet” – attributes that affected the skin’s health and texture.

    The thought that algorithms can determine your political views from a quick scan of your face is a frightening one. 

    Kosinski is known for his work with the data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica ahead of the 2016 US Presidential election. 

    He also worked as an adviser on Faception, a company that uses facial recognition algorithms to determine if someone is a terrorist, pedophile, or a criminal.

    China has been deploying facial recognition cameras for years to monitor its citizens. This sort of surveillance is coming to America – by the way – it’s already here. 

    Perhaps wearing a face mask could render facial recognition cameras useless… 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 01/15/2021 – 22:40

  • Americans Are Being Divided As The War On Domestic Terror Expands
    Americans Are Being Divided As The War On Domestic Terror Expands

    Authored by Derrick Broze via TheLastAmericanVagabond.com,

    Americans appear too divided and distracted to recognize that the architects of the Patriot Act and the failed War on Terror now have their sights set on the American homeland.

    The first week of 2021 kicked off with chaos at the Capitol in Washington D.C. Was it a protest, a riot or an insurrection? Were there provocateurs, and if so, were they Antifa, the cops, and/or the Feds? As usual, everyone on the internet thinks they know the answer within ten minutes. Unfortunately, this genuinely leads to the spreading of unfounded theories – many based on nothing but speculation and emotion. But while the public is debating over theories and arguing amongst themselves, the newly emboldened Military Industrial Complex is eagerly anticipating the incoming Biden Administration as an opportunity to expand the War on Domestic Terror.

    In the immediate aftermath of the “storming of the Capitol”, the media pundits, intelligence community, and politicians began foaming at the mouth in excitement over the chance to push through Domestic Terror legislation. Michigan representative Elissa Slotkin, also former Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense and CIA analyst, said, “the post 9/11 era is over. The single greatest national security threat right now is our internal division. The threat of domestic terrorism.” Slotkin went on to say that she urges the Biden administration to “understand that the greatest threat now is internal.”

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    TLAV writer Whitney Webb responded to Slotkin’s comment by reminding the audience that, “before Congress, Elissa worked for the CIA and the Pentagon and helped destabilize the Middle East during the Bush and Obama admins. What she says here is essentially an open announcement that the US has moved from the “War on [foreign] terror” to the “War on domestic terror”.”

    The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) also reportedly released a bulletin warning that “domestic extremists” are planning a nationwide protest to stop Joe Biden from being sworn in as President. According to ABC News, “The FBI has also received information in recent days on a group calling for “storming” state, local and federal government courthouses and administrative buildings in the event President Donald Trump is removed from office prior to Inauguration Day. The group is also planning to “storm” government offices in every state the day President-elect Joe Biden will be inaugurated, regardless of whether the states certified electoral votes for Biden or Trump.”

    Since the bulletin has not been publicly released the report should be viewed skeptically. However, it’s only one of many emerging reports and articles stoking the flames of civil war and internal chaos. The fact of the matter is that this is not a new attempt to demonize the American people. This current effort is simply a continuation of the effort to label Americans as terrorists that has been taking place since at least the mid-1990’s following the Oklahoma City bombing false flag. These efforts were expanded further after the attacks of 9/11. In fact, as most readers know by now, it was Joe Biden who wrote the anti-terror legislation in the 90’s which became the basis for the Patriot ACT after 9/11.

    While the “War on Terror” launched by the George W. Bush administration was focused on imaginary enemies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Iran, Syria, and elsewhere, there has also been a steady push to focus on the American public. In the first years of the Obama administration we saw the rise of the “Tea Party” movement, the American Libertarian movement, and Liberal Progressives who opposed the war machine, the surveillance state, and the militarization of the police. Organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) did their best to label activists “extremists” for constitutionally protected activism and organizing. In 2010, the SPLC even came up with a “Patriot Hit List” of so-called extremists.

    The post-9/11 era saw the creation of Fusion Centers; centralized systems that pool and analyze intelligence from federal, state, local, and private sector entities. The National Network of Fusion Centers was created after the 9/11 attacks to provide for more streamlined communication between federal and local agencies. The Fusion Centers have been criticized as violations of civil liberties and a danger to separation of federal and local governments. They have been exposed for targeting of protesters of the Dakota Access Pipeline and most infamously, in 2009 it was revealed that the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) was targeting supporters of third party candidates, Ron Paul supporters, anti-abortion activists, and “conspiracy theorists” as potential domestic extremists.

    The 2010’s also saw the passing of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act which included provisions allowing for indefinitely detaining Americans who have been labeled potential terrorists. Under these provisions, Americans lose the ability to have access to a lawyer and the right to a speedy trial. The measures were approved every year during the Obama and Trump administrations.

    The truth is that the United States has long been pushing for a focus on Domestic Terror and Extremism, and regardless of what really happened at the Capitol on January 6, the event is being used as a way to justify the push for strengthening domestic terror legislation.

    Another organization that is helping propel the “rise of domestic terror” narrative is the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), an organization with deep ties to the intelligence community and Western Military Industrial Complex. In October, the CSIS released a study claiming that two-thirds of the terrorist plots and attacks in the United States in the first eight months of 2020 were carried out by white supremacists and like-minded extremists. Coincidentally, journalist John Vibes recently reported that, “the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is listed as the “most recent employment” for three selections on Biden’s Department of Defense agency review team: Kathleen Hicks, who is a former defense official under President Barack Obama, as well as Melissa Dalton, and Andrew Hunter.”

    The most likely candidate for new domestic terror legislation is the “The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act”, originally passed by the House in 2020, would create “dedicated domestic terrorism offices within the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to analyze and monitor domestic terrorist activity and require the Federal Government to take steps to prevent domestic terrorism.”

    Illinois Senator Dick Durbin has already promised to reintroduce the bill in the coming days. “Senate Democrats, along with the Biden administration, will work together to investigate, expose, and hold accountable domestic terrorism threats in our country,” Durbin and Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a joint statement. The bill also has support from the Anti-Defamation League and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

    Another domestic terror bill that has previously been considered is the “Confronting the Threat of Domestic Terror Act”. The bill was introduced by Rep. Adam Schiff, who claimed that “the legislation is narrowly crafted and includes protections to ensure it is not misused.” However, the American Civil Liberties Union warned, “people of color and other marginalized communities have long been targeted under domestic terrorism authorities for unfair and discriminatory surveillance, investigations, and prosecutions. Law enforcement agencies’ use of these authorities undermines and has violated equal protection, due process, and First Amendment rights.”

    This is a crucial time for the American experiment. Will the American people allow themselves to be divided to the point of calling for domestic terror legislation to be used on their neighbors, co-workers, friends and family? With the public inundated with fears of civil war, stolen elections, rampant disinformation, and general exhaustion with COVID-19 measures, it appears to be a very critical moment which may decide whether America is destined for a renewed desire for liberty, truth, and free speech, or an accelerated push towards tyranny.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 01/15/2021 – 22:20

  • Amidst The Pandemic, Women Rush To Sell Explicit Photos Of Themselves On OnlyFans
    Amidst The Pandemic, Women Rush To Sell Explicit Photos Of Themselves On OnlyFans

    Perhaps someone needs to ask Jerome Powell during his next congressional testimony: What kind of a recession are we in when women can’t even successfully sell nude photos online anymore?

    Such is the case for a number of women who, the midst of trying to earn money during the pandemic, have turned to OnlyFans to try and sell explicit photos of themselves. Many of these women are still struggling, despite their extra “efforts”, according to the New York Times, who profiled several new creators who have taken to the platform to “provide for themselves and their families”. 

    The NYT claims the pandemic has taken “a particularly devastating toll on women and mothers” because the pandemic has “wiped out” industries like restaurants and healthcare, where women “dominate”.

    Angela Jones, an associate professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Farmingdale, said: “A lot of people are migrating to OnlyFans out of desperation. These are people who are worried about eating, they’re worried about keeping the lights on, they’re worried about not being evicted.”

    One of these creators was Lexi Eixenberger, who started an account in November. The 22 year old has been laid off three times during the pandemic and was forced to drop out of dental hygiene school. She has only made about $500 from the platform so far.

    Photos: NYT

    Jones said of the platform: “It is already an incredibly saturated market. The idea that people are just going to open up an OnlyFans account and start raking in the dough is really misguided.”

    The biggest successes on the platform are “often models, porn stars and celebrities who already have large social media followings,” the NYT says. They are able to use their other social media accounts as a funnel for business on OnlyFans. 

    One success story has been Savannah Benavidez, who has made $64,000 in just 6 months. She quit her job as a medical biller after her 2 year old son’s day care shut down and she needed to stay home and take care of him. 

    She told The Times: “It’s more money than I have ever made in any job. I have more money than I know what to do with.”

    “It’s a full-time job on top of your full-time job looking for work. Fans want to see you posting daily. You’re always churning. You’re always taking pictures to post,” said 36 year old Elle Morocco of West Palm Beach. She joined the platform after being laid off as an office manager this past July. 

    She has only made $250 on the platform so far, despite sometimes spending up to 8 hours a day managing her account. 

    She also worries about what OnlyFans could do to her future job prospects. She said: “If you’re looking for a 9 to 5, they might not hire you if they find out you have an OnlyFans. They may not want you if they know you’re a sex worker.”

    The Times cited two examples – one of a mechanic in Indiana and the other of a NYC medic – who both believed their OnlyFans account had negative consequences for their full-time jobs. 

    Melany Hall, another creator, said she was happy to have made $700 on the platform since December. She said: “This is the first year I didn’t have to choose between the electric bill and Christmas presents for my kids. This is the first year I’ve been able to do it all by myself.”

    But Barb Brents, a professor of sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said there are risks that go along with sex work – despite it happening on a virtual platform. “Online sex work is a much more appealing alternative to many people than going on the streets or selling direct sexual services. That said, anybody getting into this kind of work needs to be aware that there are dangers,” she said.

    Creators also have to deal with members posting their exclusive content elsewhere on the web – and some have even faced death and rape threats, the article notes.

    OnlyFans currently has 90 million users and more than 1 million content creators. The platform takes a 20% cut of any pay that creators get, excluding tips that creators can get on other payment platforms. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 01/15/2021 – 22:00

  • Trump's China Trade War Cost Up To 245,000 American Jobs: Study
    Trump’s China Trade War Cost Up To 245,000 American Jobs: Study

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    A new study estimates that President Trump’s trade war with China caused the loss of up to 245,000 American jobs.

    The study from the US-China Business Council (USCBC) and Oxford Economics said a moderate reduction of tariffs on both sides could lead to an additional 145,000 US jobs and an increase in $160 billion GDP by 2025.

    AFP/Getty Images

    The USCBC is an organization that promotes US-China trade relations and is made up of about 200 US companies that do business in China. The USCBC announced the study in a press release titled, “Decoupling with China Not Economically Viable For Americans.”

    “What we’ve seen over the past few years is that raising tariffs does little more than raise costs for American families and shrink their opportunities,” said USCBC President Craig Allen.

    Reuters describes further of the study:

    The group, which represents major American companies doing business in China, said the study by Oxford Economics also includes an “escalation scenario” which estimates a significant decoupling of the world’s two largest economies could shrink U.S. GDP by $1.6 trillion over the next five years. This could result in 732,000 fewer U.S. jobs in 2022 and 320,000 fewer jobs by 2025, it said.

    The study comes as the Biden administration is deciding how to pursue trade policy with China. In December, Joe Biden said that he does not plan to “immediately” lift tariffs on Chinese goods or scrap President Trump’s Phase One trade deal.

    Allen and the USCB are hoping Biden acts to lift tariffs. “If we don’t find ways outside of self-defeating tariff measures to address differences with China, American workers will continue to suffer,” Allen said.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 01/15/2021 – 21:40

  • How A US Nuclear Strike Works
    How A US Nuclear Strike Works

    In the wake of last week’s events in Washington, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, among others, began discussing the use of the 25th Amendment, amping up the hyperbole by voicing concerns about President Trump launching some kind of attack on a foreign adversary using nuclear weapons in order to create a state of emergency and halt the transition. Those concerns prompted her to contact the Pentagon’s leadership in order to receive assurances that safeguards are in place, assurances she reportedly received.

    So, that got us wondering, if President Trump decided to launch a nuclear strike, how swiftly could he put things in motion? Would he have the sole power alone to launch a nuclear missile? According to an analysis undertaken by Bloomberg, the U.S. president’s power is absolute in this situation – he or she gives the order and the Pentagon is obliged to go along with it. It remains unclear if that has now changed given Pelosi’s reported contact with the Pentagon’s leadership.

    This infographic, via Statista’s Niall McCarthy, provides an overview of the steps necessary to make a nuclear strike happen.

    Infographic: How A U.S. Nuclear Strike Works | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    It can take as little as five minutes from the president’s decision to strike to intercontinental missiles launching from their silos. When it comes to submarine-launched weapons, however, it takes a little bit longer – approximately 15 minutes.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 01/15/2021 – 21:20

  • Politics Won't Fix The American Decline
    Politics Won’t Fix The American Decline

    Authored by Zachary Yost via The Mises Institute,

    By any measure, 2020 was not a very good year for human freedom. By now everyone is very familiar with the assaults on liberty stemming from measures ostensibly in the name of stopping the spread of covid and the way in which such measures have threatened the very existence of the social order. Beyond such obscene and unprecedented measures, 2020 also demonstrated that the leaders of our society are truly incompetent and bungling. The ineptitude is truly staggering, even for skeptics of the state. When surveying the wreckage of last year one can’t help but feel a sense of dread and apprehension for the long-term health of our civilization.

    It is not only the state and its myriad of pathetic politicians and power-mad bureaucrats who are cause for concern. Culturally, the woke madness has been spreading like a malignant cancer throughout the body politic. Churches, universities, large companies, and cultural institutions have increasingly come under the sway of the reality-denying woke ideology. No doubt that a few hundred years in the future some enterprising author will make a fortune humorously documenting all the culturally accepted absurdities of our era, but unfortunately they are not so amusing to those of us forced to endure them.

    Now, 2021 has opened with even more chaos and uncertainty as a riotous mob supporting Trump stormed the capital building. This crazed lunacy has only furthered the idea that we are on the decline, not to mention that it will serve as a convenient excuse for any number of further government crackdowns.

    In short, disorder reigns.

    Looking around at the wreckage and continued decay of our society, it is easy to become discouraged and even to begin to feel desperate. In such desperation, it may seem necessary to redouble our efforts to affect political change and “save the country” from its present disastrous course.

    While such a position is easy to understand, I would posit that perhaps trying to roll back the state via electoral victory, which is what friends of liberty have consistently failed to do for decades, is not a viable strategy, and that it is actively contributing to the problem.

    While it is popular and accurate to blame our societal elites for being pathetic and inept, the truth is that these leaders, both political and cultural, are reflections of us. Leaders who do not reflect the character of the people they lead will not be leaders for long. In the final accounting, it is not the words written down on the parchment of the Constitution that govern the United States. Rather, the true constitution of a people is the one that is written in their hearts. A badly written constitution will not be an obstacle to a virtuous and ordered people, just as the most brilliantly organized constitution will not save an unvirtuous and disordered people.

    Perhaps, in the same way that the central government has sapped more and more of the strength and social power from all other institutions of social life, it has also sapped our attention and energies from where they truly belong. To what extent have efforts to stop the government merely made its job easier by leading us to neglect our families, churches, and communities? To what extent has it made us neglect our very own cultivation of virtue?

    In the first chapter of The Art of War, Sun Tzu counsels that if the enemy “is in superior strength, evade him….Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.” Constantly attempting to seize the power of the state in order to reduce it has been attacking the enemy where he is strong and engaging on his terms. In a sense, we have let the central government determine the battlefield. Political power is not the only repository of power in society, yet we have chosen to constantly engage the state in that sphere and have consistently lost. Even supposed victories tend to merely be rearguard-holding actions to delay rather than defeat.

    I would suggest that the time has come to consciously turn to an alternative strategy of cultivating social power outside of the state apparatus. Such an effort is likely to lead to much more success, although that is a low bar since the current strategy has led to no success at all. Unlike federal electoral politics, it begins with something entirely and completely under one’s control: oneself.

    The key to the cultivation of alternative poles of social power begins with order, specifically the ordering of one’s own life. This is not an idea original to me. Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson has recently popularized this idea in a secular manner with his refrain of “clean your room.” Less recently, though in a far more sophisticated manner that recognizes man’s spiritual nature, the political theorist Eric Voegelin has written voluminously about modern chaos as stemming from internal disorder that is the result of man’s loss of connection to the engendering experiences that serve to capture the truth of reality, the end result of which is the rise of totalitarian ideologies.

    Instead of a more traditional concern with cultivating oneself, with looking after the beam in one’s own eye, modern man has become obsessed with everyone else on the planet. Even friends of human liberty have fallen prey to this tendency, from time to time, in our excessive investment of time and attention to political issues that are far removed from our actual lived existence. In doing so, we have neglected to build up alternative bases of social power in our families and communities.

    One may respond that it is all well and good to order oneself, but that it is not enough or is even pointless in the face of the wider chaos that is engulfing the rest of society. However, it may be that such self-ordering is in fact the only thing that restores order to the rest of society. Philosopher Irving Babbitt argued that “there may be something after all in the Confucian idea that if a man only sets himself right, the rightness will extend to his family first of all, and finally in widening circles to the whole community.”

    If dark and illiberal days truly are ahead, as it seems reasonable to consider at least as a possibility, then these localized bastions of ordered liberty will become more important than ever. Perhaps instead of letting strangers in state schools and who knows what kind of wackos on the internet raise one’s children, now is the time to take the plunge into homeschooling, or at the very least to invest time in their education and moral upbringing. Perhaps now is the time to develop friendly relations with one’s neighbors and to begin attending local township meetings. Perhaps now is the time to begin to invest one’s time and energy in what the sociologist Robert Nisbet called the intermediary groups and associations that serve as a buffer between the state and the solitary and weak individual.

    This is not to say that federal politics should be ignored completely; the federal government is impossible to ignore thanks to the immense power it wields. But such engagement must not come at the cost of those areas of life that are truly under one’s control.

    Disorder increasingly reigns across the land and with disorder inevitably comes oppression and the curtailment of our traditional rights and liberties. The restoration of order begins with oneself and one’s home. Societal order will not be restored until order is restored in the hearts of those who make up the society. Even if the pessimists are correct and our country is too far advanced down the path of decay and collapse that every other empire has trodden in history, the cultivation of personal order is still imperative for survival in the dark and chaotic days to come.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 01/15/2021 – 21:00

  • Surprise! Chicago Mayor Pushes To Loosen Lockdowns Days Before Biden Inauguration
    Surprise! Chicago Mayor Pushes To Loosen Lockdowns Days Before Biden Inauguration

    A second Democratic leader is pushing for loosening COVID-19 restrictions, just days before President-elect Biden is set to be sworn in.

    Following on the heels of NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s call to “reopen the economy,” Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is now of the opinion that bars and restaurants need to reopen for indoor dining “as quickly as possible.”

    “I am very, very focused on getting our restaurants reopened. If we look at the various criteria that the state has set, we are meeting most if not all of those. So that’s a conversation that I will have with the governor,” she said at a Thursday press conference. “But I want to get our restaurants and our bars reopened as quickly as possible.“

    “Let’s bring it out of the shadows, let’s allow them to have some recreation in restaurants, in bars, where we can actually work with responsible owners and managers to regulate and protect people from COVID-19, so I feel very strongly that we are very close to a point where we should be talking about opening our bars and restaurants,” she continued.

    This would, as it turns out, help Chicago City Councilmember Tom Tunney (D), who was caught running an illegal ‘COVID Speakeasy‘ out of his Chicago restaurant last month.

    Lightfoot’s call for reopening comes after she told people to cancel Thanksgiving with family, while the number of case counts across the state reversing higher over the last two weeks from a January 1 bottom. Meanwhile, while the Mayor is calling to reopen indoor dining (and gradually reopen schools), she oddly extended a stay-home advisory until January 22. We’re unclear on exactly which science she’s following.

    The Chicago Tribune elaborates, saying it will ultimately come down to Governor. J.B. Pritzker (D) to make the call:

    On Thursday, Chicago’s test positivity stood at 10%, according to city statistics. Under the current pandemic rules, the city would have to have a positivity rate of 6.5% or less for three straight days in order for restaurants and bars to reopen.

    Ultimately, it’s Pritzker who will make the decision about when bars and restaurants can reopen for indoor service. The city can set rules that are stricter than the state’s but not rules that are looser.

    A Pritzker spokeswoman said in a statement Thursday that Chicago’s coronavirus numbers aren’t there yet, but the governor would “look forward to her call” on the matter.

    Pritzker, as you may recall, ignored Lightfoot’s “do not travel” order to  leave Chicago for Thanksgiving.

    “As the governor announced last week, beginning tomorrow, regions who meet the metrics to go back to lower tiers in the resurgence mitigation plan will be allowed to do so,” said Pritzker spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh. “Currently, the city of Chicago and Cook County do not meet the metrics to return to previous tiers.”

    Pritzker shuttered Chicago restaurants and bars for indoor dining in late October after the city surpassed the 8% benchmark for three straight days on average daily positivity.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 01/15/2021 – 20:40

  • Consent-Manufacturing For Patriot Act II Continues
    Consent-Manufacturing For Patriot Act II Continues

    Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

    It’s been obvious for a long time that the best way to stop the rise of right-wing extremism in America that everyone’s so worried about today is not to pass a bunch of authoritarian laws, but to reverse the policies of soul-crushing neoliberalism and domestic austerity which led to Donald Trump. Instead of doing this, the next president is already pushing a Patriot Act sequel and reducing the stimulus checks he’d promised the public before he’s even been sworn in.

    President-elect Biden promised unambiguously that if voters gave the Democratic Party control of the Senate by electing Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in Georgia earlier this month, checks of $2,000 would “go out the door immediately”. Warnock blatantly campaigned on the promise of $2000 checks if elected, literally using pictures of checks with “$2000” written on them to do so. This was not an unclear promise by any stretch of the imagination, yet when Biden unveiled the “American Rescue Plan” on Thursday, the number 1400 was written where the number 2000 should have been.

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    The argument being pushed out at the moment is that when Democrats were blatantly promising stimulus checks of $2000 what they really meant was that Americans would receive $1400 on top of the $600 checks they’d received earlier, and everyone should have just known this somehow (perhaps via some sort of psychic precognition or sorcery). Which of course makes as much sense as someone hiring you to do a job for a given amount of money and then paying you the amount promised minus the amount you’d made at your last job.

    It’s just so emblematic of US austerity policies, which are so normalized they don’t even use that word. Keep people stretched so thin that even a paltry $2000 after months and months of nothing can be spun as an excessively exorbitant indulgence which must be scaled back to keep it reasonable. In reality a grand total of $2600 in the richest nation on earth after all this time would still be a huge slap in the face, but generations of media spin have gone into keeping Americans from attaining that level of rightful entitlement.

    So as of this writing the internet is full of angry Americans actually typing the words “$1400 is not $2000”, which is totally bananas. People should not have to say that the number 1400 is not the same as the number 2000. It feels like if my Twitter feed was full of people saying “Cars are not birds”, or “Pogs are not iPhones”, or “Mimes are not salad”. People should not have to make such self-evident clarifications.

    But they apparently do need to make such clarifications, because scumbags like Adam Schiff are looking them right in the eye, sharing information that says “$1,400 checks” on it, and telling them that it says “$2000 relief checks”.

    2 + 2 = 5.

    So again, it’s pretty clear that America isn’t going to attempt to reverse the conditions which created Trump and all the extremist factions that everyone’s been freaking out about since the Capitol riot. Obama led to Trump, and the strategy going forward is to just keep tightening the neoliberal screws like both Obama and Trump did throughout their entire administrations. And, of course, to advance new “domestic terrorism” laws.

    As we discussed previously, Biden has often boasted of being the original author of the Patriot Act years before it was rapidly rolled out amid the fear and blind obsequiousness of the aftermath of 9/11. Now in the aftermath of the Capitol riot we are seeing a push to roll out new authoritarian laws around terrorism, this time taking aim at “domestic terror”, which were also in preparation prior to the event used to manufacture support for them.

    In a new article for Washington Monthly titled “It’s Time for a Domestic Terrorism Law”, Bill Scher argues against left-wing critics of the coming laws like Glenn Greenwald and Jacobin’s Luke Savage saying such “knee-jerk reactions” against potential authoritarian abuses fail to address the growing problem. He opens with the acknowledgement that “Joe Biden’s transition team was already working on a domestic terrorism law before the insurrection,” and then he just keeps on writing as though that’s not weird or suspicious in any way.

    Scher lists among the growing threat of domestic terror not just white supremacists and right-wing extremists but “extremist left-wing domestic terrorism” as well. He approvingly cites Adam Schiff’s Confronting The Threat of Terrorism Act, which “creates a definition of domestic terrorism broadly encompassing plots that carry a ‘substantial risk of serious bodily injury’ along with an ‘intent to intimidate or coerce a civilian population’ or ‘influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion.’” The ACLU has unequivocally denounced Schiff’s bill, saying it “would unnecessarily expand law enforcement authorities to target and discriminate against the very communities Congress is seeking to protect.”

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    Known CIA asset Ken Dilanian has also been trotted out to make the case that Americans have too many rights for their own good, co-authoring an NBC article titled “Worried about free speech, FBI never issued intelligence bulletin about possible Capitol violence”.

    “FBI intelligence analysts gathered information about possible violence involving the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6., but the FBI never distributed a formal intelligence bulletin, in part because of concerns that doing so might have run afoul of free speech protections, a current and two former senior FBI officials familiar with the matter told NBC News,” the article warns, making sure to inform readers that “experts say the lack of a domestic terrorism statute constrains the FBI from treating far-right and far-left groups the same as Americans who are radicalized to violence by Al Qaeda or ISIS ideology.”

    We can expect to see more such articles going forward.

    The only way to sincerely believe more Patriot Act-like laws will benefit Americans is to believe that the US will only have wise and beneficent leaders going forward, and the only way to sincerely believe the US will only have wise and beneficent leaders going forward is to be completely shit-eating stupid. The trajectory has already been chosen, and that trajectory is the one that has already given rise to Trump. Continuing along that same trajectory can only give rise to something far uglier, and that something far uglier will have whatever new authoritarian powers are added by Joe Biden.

    They’re not actually worried about “domestic terror”, they’re worried about any movement which threatens to topple the status quo. They want to make sure they can adequately spy, infiltrate, agitate and incarcerate into impotence any movement which provides a threat to America’s rulers and the system which funnels them wealth and power at the expense of everyone else. The movements which most threaten this are not rightists, who are generally more or less aligned with the interests of the oligarchic empire, but the left.

    This is who they’ll end up targeting going forward, and whatever Biden and Company wind up rolling out to fight “domestic terrorism” will help them do so.

    *  *  *

    Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my new book Poems For Rebels (you can also download a PDF for five bucks) or my old book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge.

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    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 01/15/2021 – 20:20

  • Restaurant Chain Transactions Tumble In December As Recovery Stalls 
    Restaurant Chain Transactions Tumble In December As Recovery Stalls 

    Dining restrictions and cold weather have derailed the restaurant recovery in December. 

    Market research firm NDP Group, which tracks 75 restaurant chains, said transactions at major chains slumped 10% in December versus the same month one year ago. 

    “Up until December, monthly restaurant transaction declines had been improving consecutively since April. November transactions were down just 8%,” CNBC said, citing the report. 

    A reemergence of the virus pandemic, new indoor dining restrictions, and colder weather dissuaded patrons last month from returning. 

    The full-service restaurant segment has been some of the hardest hit, unable to adapt, or has had a more challenging time overhauling their business models to accommodate delivery and takeout.

    In April, the full-service segment saw transactions plunge by more than 70%. In December, transactions fell 30% due to indoor dining limitations or bans. 

    UBS Evidence Lab found that even if these restaurants could pivot to takeout, many of these stores will still fall short of revenue to sustain operations. 

    Some of the latest Bank of America consumer spending data shows chain restaurants are fairing much better than mom and pop ones. 

    While the industry struggles and requests for more relief, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last Friday that food services and drinking places lost 372,000 jobs in December. 

    Goldman Sachs pointed out that colder weather would accelerate infections. This means local and state governments would be forced to limit or continue the ban through early 2021, crushing the industry even further. 

    With more than 110,00 restaurants already collapsed, the stage is being set for an epic bust in commercial real estate. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 01/15/2021 – 20:00

  • Rush To Judgment On Trump? Multiple Leftists Arrested For Capitol Riot
    Rush To Judgment On Trump? Multiple Leftists Arrested For Capitol Riot

    Authored by Monica Showalter via AmericanThinker.com,

    When the Capitol riots happened on Jan. 6, the blame of President Trump was all over. 

    Supposedly, he was the instigator. Supposedly, he’d egged the rioters on. The tape of his urging his supporters to stay strong and fight was Exhibit A in the press, and with no skepticism whatsoever, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared Trump guilty and rushed a crazily hasty second impeachment just days before Trump’s exit. She declared it was all about holding Trump “accountable” and she added, that her explicit aim at the uselessly late date was to prevent him from ever running from public office again.

    Never mind what the voters might want. In more ways than one, in Pelosi’s addled mind, their votes don’t count.

    The press also rushed to judgment, even the Wall Street Journal’s editorial writers, claiming that Trump’s political capital and credibility was now gone and he’d never run for president again.

    But as news of the arrests comes out, showing who these branded Trump so-called supporters are, the conventional argument is starting to splinter apart.

    The arrests made in the riots case are starting to show the kind of people who like to riot, which is to say extreme leftists.

    Start with this freak, as reported by Fox News:

    A left-wing activist who told Fox News last week that he’d followed a pro-Trump mob into the Capitol in order to “document” the siege is now the subject of a criminal complaint in connection with his alleged participation, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

    John Sullivan can allegedly be heard egging on protesters in video he provided to the FBI, according to a federal criminal complaint. He has also shared the video to his YouTube and Twitter accounts under the pseudonym Jayden X.

    He was charged Thursday in federal court in Washington after being arrested by the FBI. He remains in custody in Toeele County, in his home state of Utah, on a U.S. Marshals Service hold request.

    The Epoch Times reports that he was a Black Lives Matter activist. Andy Ngo notes that he’s been busted for BLM riot activity, too. GatewayPundit reported that he was caught on video bragging about posing as a Trump supporter.

    He had a pal, too, from CNN. According to this report from TrendingPolitics:

    On Thursday night, damning new footage showed CNN’s Jade Sacker inside of the Capitol with John Sullivan, the BLM member who was charged by federal prosecutors for inciting chaos on January 6th.

    Sacker co-conspired with the liberal activist in order to cause chaos and make Trump supporters look bad.

    The shocking video shows her and Sullivan celebrating and shouting “We did it!” when they got the footage they were looking for. When she asked Sullivan if he was filming, he said was going to delete it. He never did.

    Trending Politics ran a tweet of the actual video, and described this:

    As you can see, Sacker and Sullivan are overjoyed with the fact that they got footage of Trump supporters “rioting”.

    “Is this not gonna be the best film you’ve ever made in your life?!” Sullivan asks her.

    Verified twitter user Amuse breaks everything down in further detail in a series of tweets.

    “To make this clear. CNN was embedded with BLM/Antifa pretending to be Trump supporters taping them incite a riot. This is freaking huge. If CNN is allowed to maintain its press access anywhere in DC there needs to be a serious overhaul of our entire system,” he tweeted.

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    Here’s another one, who showed up with furs, and also got himself arrested. According to the New York Post:

    Aaron Mostofsky was busted Tuesday at his brother’s house in Brooklyn by federal agents on multiple charges, including theft of government property for allegedly stealing a police riot shield and bulletproof vest, the source said.

    Mostofsky, who is the son of Shlomo Mostofsky, a Supreme Court judge and a prominent figure in the Orthodox Jewish community, was photographed with both items.

    Video circulating on Twitter following Mostofsky’s arrest shows FBI agents swarming the home and carting out what appeared to be the fur pelts and walking stick he had on him during the insurrection.

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    His politics? According to this report, registered Democrat.

    Even the press is starting to notice that the pieces aren’t fitting together. Rather than a picture of all wicked and crazed Trump supporters, charging the Capitol, leftist news outfit Bloomberg reported that its survey of various parties involved, including those who died or were arrested, didn’t paint the desired picture. Conclusion?

    Many of those shown in news footage had no party affiliation and voted sporadically, if at all. 

    Bloomberg’s survey of the players showed that only the people who died of medical emergencies seemed to be fully normal Republican voters — the rest didn’t vote at all, voted sporadically, voted Libertarian, Independent or Democrat, and in general were fringe players. Bloomberg, missing that obvious conclusion, seemed to consider these mostly arrested characters “Trump’s people” and Trump’s “base,” in a bid to still pin the riots on Trump. But how anyone who votes Democrat or doesn’t vote at all could be a part of Trump’s rise and the huge crowds he draws was never actually explained. Trump supporters … vote for Trump. This isn’t rocket science.

    More and more, it looks like Trump was framed. This, in addition to transcripts not bearing out the claims that Trump called for an attack on the Capitol, as well as the inconvenient timeline — the FBI put out warnings of plans for disturbances days earlier, and the attack on the Capitol began before President Trump finished speaking and probably uttered the words the Democrats literally impeached him on.  

    It was a rush to judgment, a failure to look at facts. It happened in the aftermath of the event, and it turns out Trump had little or nothing to do with it. Even House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy blamed Trump for the riots. But he, too,disgracefully rushed to judgment, so we await his apology, please.

    The rush to judgment, incidentally, didn’t affect just President Trump, who got a second impeachment from it. There were many rushes to judgment in this leftist hysteria.

    Here’s a blameless man named David Quintavalle, a retired Chicago firefighter, who was falsely accused of being the person who hurled the fire extinguisher that killed police officer Brian Sicknick, who by the way, really was a Trump supporter.

    According to The Patch of Chicago:

    The retired Chicago firefighter from Mount Greenwood — whom social media trolls called a “terrorist” and accused of fatally wielding a fire extinguisher that killed a cop as a mob of Trump-supporting insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 — was grocery shopping and celebrating his wife’s birthday in Chicago, Patch has learned.

    Twitter exploded with unsubstantiated claims Tuesday that Quintavalle — who retired from the fire department in 2016 after 32 years — was the bearded “#extinguisherman” in a surveillance video wearing a “CFD” stocking cap wanted for questioning and “soon to be arrested” by the FBI regarding the fatal beating of U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick.

    Quintavalle had all his receipts and proofs. But this is how the left’s rush to judgment went for him:

    By Tuesday night, Quintavalle began getting angry calls from people saying he’s a “f—— murderer” who belongs in jail. TV news reporters had staked out his house. Chicago police dispatched a patrol car to keep watch overnight, as well, his lawyer said.

    Some folks got ridiculed for tweeting that Quintavalle wasn’t “the guy” and his facial features don’t match those of the man wanted for questioning by the FBI. One post claimed that tweets disputing Quintavalle’s involvement in the U.S. Capitol insurrection were pushed by trolling Twitter “bots with practically no followers coming out of the woodwork.”

    This is a hell of a sorry picture.

    The facts will continue to roll out and the picture that emerges will likely start to show that these rioters were hardly “Trump’s people” as a rule, or people who were egged on by Trump. They were, in general, leftists, political fringers and people who like to go to riots. There remains to be news of whether and how this fiasco was plotted out but expect news of that to roll out. 

    That leaves Congress and all the jerks who voted for impeachment of President Trump looking like boobs and losers. They’ve hitched their star to this leftist impeachment obsession, and now have seen it falling flat. Now they are about to sully and overshadow Joe Biden’s first days in office with increasingly discredited charges against President Trump and rest assured, the voters will notice just how bad it is. This rush to judgment will trash their own legacies for history.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 01/15/2021 – 19:40

  • New York Lawmaker Wants To Ban Bulletproof Vests 
    New York Lawmaker Wants To Ban Bulletproof Vests 

    In a world of surging violent crime, economic downturn, and a raging virus pandemic, one New York lawmaker has introduced a bill to outlaw body armor in the state, according to The Washington Free Beacon. 

    If the bill is passed, anyone who owns body armor would have to surrender their vests within 15 days of the law being passed or face severe consequences. 

    The bill introduced by assemblymember Jonathan G. Jacobson (D.) is attempting to outlaw the sale and possession of body armor across the state.

    New York already prohibits the use of bulletproof vests while carrying out “any violent felony offense.” Still, Jacobson’s proposal would make it criminal for anyone in possession of a vest. 

    So what’s the penalty if the new law is passed? 

    According to the law, “the purchase or possession of a body vest shall be a class A misdemeanor for a first offense and a Class E felony for each subsequent offense.” This could result in fines, probation, and even jail time. 

    This week, we noted that background checks for firearms hit record levels this year amid the virus pandemic, social unrest, and surging violent crime. 

    If Jacobson’s bill passes, body armor bans could sweep across blue states. Even before the bans may be seen, there could certainly be a run on vests. 

    * * * 

    Here’s Jacobson’s new bill in full:

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 01/15/2021 – 19:20

  • The Hottest Product At CES Is A Doggy Door
    The Hottest Product At CES Is A Doggy Door

    Submitted by Market Crumbs,

    While garage doors aren’t exactly the most exciting business to be in, it’s a strong business nonetheless for Chamberlain Group, the world’s largest manufacturer of automatic garage door openers.

    Chamberlain Group’s brands have embraced the trend of smart homes, for example its myQ brand has teamed up with Amazon to offer In-Garage Delivery, enabling Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market groceries to be delivered securely inside your garage.

    myQ stole the show at this year’s CES with the debut of its new Pet Portal as it hopes to capitalize on the booming pet industry. The myQ Pet Portal, which won the CES 2021 Smart Home Innovation Award, is designed to replace an existing exterior door so your pets can come and go as they please.

    The futuristic take on a simple pet door includes live video streaming and 2-way communication using the myQ Pet Portal app. The patent-pending, elevator style opening mechanism is unnoticeable from the exterior of a home and uses a smart collar to detect when your pet wants to come or go.

    myQ is taking deposits for the Pet Portal, which retails for $2,999 and will ship to the first customers this spring. The package includes a custom configured myQ | Kolbe Door integrated with Pet Portal as well as a 1 year subscription for video history.

    Chamberlain Group hopes to position itself for when people return to work and their pets are left at home alone. They argue that the lofty price is less than half of what pet owners would spend annually on a dogwalker.

    “A bright spot for many people in a challenging 2020 has been adding a furry friend to the family. But as COVID-19 restrictions begin to lift in 2021 many dogs will experience a dramatic change in their routine,” Chamberlain Group Director of Product Marketing Beril Altiner said. “The myQ Pet Portal can help alleviate some of the stress and expenses that might come along as schedules change. It’s a secure and convenient way to make sure your dog can go outside when they need to, while also giving you access to your best friend anytime through your smartphone.”

    While the idea may sound absurd, a team of a dozen employees at Chamberlain Group have been working on the idea for 16 months while conducting surveys and focus groups to perfect the technology. According to a national survey conducted by the company, just 8% to 11% of pet owners have a pet door in their homes. The survey also found that 68% of households who routinely let their pet outside don’t have a pet door.

    Despite the lofty price tag, it may not be long before this becomes a common door in new homes across America as they become increasingly connected and filled with pets.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 01/15/2021 – 19:00

  • In Historic First, FAA Approves Fully Automated Commercial Drones In US Skies
    In Historic First, FAA Approves Fully Automated Commercial Drones In US Skies

    In nothing less than a revolutionary step for aviation and which will forever alter the skies over America, on Thursday the Federal Aviation Administration for the first time issued approval for the first fully automated commercial drone flights.

    It’s been revealed Friday that the FAA granted a small Massachusetts-based company called American Robotics Inc. the authorization to operate automated drones, meaning they won’t need either hands-on piloting on the ground or direct observation while in flight.

    Commercial drone operation was already given approval under extremely limited conditions – for example as a remote inspection tool for agricultural areas or railroads, but so long as human operators were in the vicinity, along with spotters.

    The Wall Street Journal reports of the new approval:

    “…in its action Thursday, the FAA granted American Robotics Inc., based in Marlborough, Mass., permission to fly in U.S. airspace without anyone controlling or monitoring it on site, according to Lisa Ellman, a lawyer in the Washington, D.C., office of Hogan Lovells, who represents the company and also is executive director of the Commercial Drone Alliance, an industry trade group.”

    In particular its Scout drones will “operate under predetermined flight programs and use acoustic technology to detect and avoid drones, birds and other obstacles,” according to the WSJ report.

    The news also comes as the FAA this week is implementing new aviation rules which are expected to allow for eventual broad expansion of drone deliveries by companies like Amazon. However, authorities have remained cautiously slow given the immense safety concerns both to traditional aviation and air travel, as well as to bystanders on the ground, and the fact that commercial drone delivery traffic is likely to be most active over dense residential areas.

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    “The new rules make way for the further integration of drones into our airspace by addressing safety and security concerns,” FAA Administrator Steve Dickson earlier this week. “They get us closer to the day when we will more routinely see drone operations such as the delivery of packages.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 01/15/2021 – 18:40

  • Biden Reveals Plans To Speed Up Vaccine Rollout, Asks Americans To "Mask Up" For 100 Days
    Biden Reveals Plans To Speed Up Vaccine Rollout, Asks Americans To “Mask Up” For 100 Days

    For weeks ahead of the election, Joe Biden kept hammering Trump’s response to the covid pandemic without explicitly stating what or how he would do differently, besides “urging” Americans to wear masks (which is what California has been diligently doing even as the state now boasts the highest number of cases in the nation) and to “listen to scientists.” Today, for the first time, the president elect laid out in specific terms what will would do to eradicate the covid plague and how he plans to speed up the vaccine rollout.

    Addressing the nation near his home in Wilmington, Delaware, Biden said he would order increased production of syringes and other supplies to ramp up vaccinations against COVID-19 and improve upon the Trump administration rollout that he has called a “dismal failure.”

    Trump had aimed to give vaccine doses to 20 million Americans by the end of 2020. But only 11.1 million coronavirus shots had been administered as of Thursday out of more than 30 million doses distributed to states, amid widespread distrust and roughly 40% of the population refusing to get vaccinates.

    Biden promised to do better and to get 100 million vaccine shots into the arms of Americans during his first 100 days in office.  Federal officials have largely left states to manage distribution, resulting in big differences in vaccination rates. The Trump administration has said it expects 1 million shots to be delivered per day by the end of next week.

    “This is a time to set big goals and pursue them with courage and conviction because the health of the nation is literally at stake,” Biden said.

    Biden said he will instruct FEMA would to begin setting up community vaccination sites on his first day in office, in locations like gymnasiums, sports stadiums and community centers, where retired doctors would administer shots to teachers, grocery store workers, people over 65 years old and other groups who do not currently qualify.

    “Mobile clinics moving from community to community” will partner will local health-care professionals to get vaccinations to “hard-to-reach” communities, he said.

    According to a document released by his transition team, Biden would invoke the Defense Production Act to increase production of equipment needed to distribute the vaccines, such as glass vials, needles and syringes. He would also use the law to support vaccine refrigeration and storage. States that use their National Guard in the effort would be reimbursed by the federal government.

    As part of Biden’s “aggressive” plan to defeat covid, he called on all Americans to wear masks in public for 100 days to combat the spread of the coronavirus, saying it was “stupid” that face coverings had become a political issue.

    “This is a patriotic act,” Biden said in a speech in Wilmington, Delaware, on Friday outlining his plan to accelerate vaccinations against the virus. “We’re asking you, we’re in a war with this virus.” Biden also criticized Republican lawmakers who have refused to wear masks. “What the hell is the matter with them? It’s time to grow up.”

    “For God’s sake, wear a mask – if not for yourself, for your loved ones, for your country,” Biden said, despite a recent Danish study which found that masks provide the wearer with only limited protection against COVID-19 infection. That study, conducted in April and May in which 6,024 adults were divided into two groups, found that after one month, 1.8% of the people wearing masks had been infected, while 2.1% of the people in the control group had tested positive.

    Biden also called for increasing vaccine distribution in lower-income neighborhoods not currently well served by public health hospitals and pharmacies. Biden also plans a marketing campaign to encourage those skeptical of the vaccine to get inoculated.

    “The vaccine rollout in the United States has been a dismal failure so far,” he said. Five changes, he said, will help the U.S. meet his goal of 100 million doses in his first 100 days.

    “You have my word: we will manage the hell out of this operation,” he said. It was unclear who the “we” is though we suspect he means the Federal government, which explains just how “hellishly” this operation will be managed.

    That said, and similar to his pre-election promises, Biden’s pledges remain vague about timelines, reinforcing Biden’s previous warnings that there’ll be no quick fix.

    “We didn’t get into all of this overnight. And we won’t get out of it overnight, either,” Biden said. “We remain in a very dark winter.”

    According to an announcement Friday by his transition office, Biden would encourage states to abandon a complex series of priority groups that’s been used to triage vaccination and instead focus on giving shots to front-line essential workers and anyone over 65.  He plans to set up community vaccination centers and mobile clinics and “jump-start” an effort to make shots available at pharmacies.

    And so once again, the scientists – who originally urged a priority group rollout – were proven wrong.

    Implementation of priority groups was driven by science but “has been too rigid and confusing,” Biden said. “There are tens of millions of doses of vaccine sitting around unused in freezers across the country” while people who want vaccinations can’t get them, he said.

    “I’ve already asked the team and we’ve identified the suppliers who are prepared to work with our teams,” he said. Needless to say, companies like Pfizer which stand to make billions, were delighted: Pfizer CEO said he is “ready and able to support this plan” adding that “we are particularly aligned with the ideas of federally assisted vaccination centers, financial support to the States, mobile clinics to reach underserved urban areas and rural communities, vaccine availability in pharmacies and qualified health centers and an expanded public health workforce.”

    Biden’s fourth change is a previously announced plan to release more first doses of vaccines and hold less in reserve for second doses. The Trump administration announced it would make that change itself this week. Biden said his administration would not change recommended dosing schedules that call for people to receive a booster shot three or four weeks after their first dose.

    His fifth change, he said, will be more transparency for the vaccine program, including regular updates on progress toward vaccinating the population.

    Biden’s team on Friday appointed former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David Kessler as chief science officer of what it calls “Covid Response.” They’re retiring the “Operation Warp Speed” name President Donald Trump used for the vaccination effort. Kessler will replace Moncef Slaoui, who served as the initiative’s chief scientist, and Kessler will focus on administering the vaccine.

    Earlier in the day, his transition team said he will reorganize the vaccine distribution team currently called “Operation Warp Speed” and has asked former Food and Drug Administration chief David Kessler to work with manufacturers to boost vaccine availability. On Thursday evening, Biden unveiled a $1.9 trillion stimulus plan on Thursday that includes $20 billion for vaccine distribution as well as $50 billion for coronavirus testing, which experts and officials said should help speed the process up.

    Biden’s aggressive measures come just as the number of hospitalizations in the US declined for the first time in 4 months…

    … and as Bank of America predicted that, absent a major spread of a mutant variant, the vaccinations should bring the virus under control in just a few weeks. 

    A video of Biden laying out his plan is below.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 01/15/2021 – 18:20

  • Looking Forward at Interest Rates, the U.S. Dollar, Volatility, and the B117 Variant
    Looking Forward at Interest Rates, the U.S. Dollar, Volatility, and the B117 Variant

    Real Vision CEO and co-founder Raoul Pal joins Real Vision managing editor Ed Harrison for a nuanced discussion of how the economic recovery will evolve over the next few months. Raoul and Ed interpret today’s dismal retail sales figure, which indicate a contraction of total retail activity for the third straight month. With the new B117 COVID-19 variant on the move, Raoul expects economic activity to continue to decline, ebbing away at the dominant reflationary trades that are short U.S. Treasurys as well as the U.S. dollar. Ed asks Raoul his thoughts on the recent storming of the U.S. Capitol, the approaching inauguration of President Elect Joe Biden, and Biden’s new $1.9 Trillion stimulus plan. Lastly, Raoul and Ed wax philosophical about “the death of macro”: what would happen if the volatility of interest rates and currencies – the bread and butter of macro investing – were extremely low over the next decade? In the intro, editor Jack Farley provides context on bank earnings and the recent short squeeze of GameStop Corp ($GME).

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 01/15/2021 – 18:19

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Jan 15

Today’s News 15th January 2021

  • The Destructive Hypocrisy Of The Political Left Is What Caused The Capitol Protest
    The Destructive Hypocrisy Of The Political Left Is What Caused The Capitol Protest

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

    I want to start this analysis by first noting that I fully realize the political left is not the root of the problem in the US or the world, they are merely a grotesque symptom of a deeper disease called globalism. That said, the collectivist/totalitarian mindset of globalism is very appealing to these people, and even though they claim to despise the ultra-rich elites that promote globalism, leftists have become unwitting and useful idiots for their agenda.

    If you want to learn about what globalists really desire all you have to do is study the statements of the World Economic Forum and their “Great Reset” initiative. They openly admit to plans that would result in the total centralization of money and power along with the destruction of free and independent society.

    But, we cannot talk about the fight against globalist oligarchy without also acknowledging that the political left is the weapon the elites are using to maintain and expand that oligarchy.

    At bottom, extreme leftists do not care about authenticity or honesty. They do not care about logic or rationality. They do not care about being right, they only care about winning. In fact, their hypocrisy is probably not lost on them at all; many of them are well aware that they are hypocritical, biased and illogical and they revel in it. They love double standards and doubling down when they are wrong or caught in a lie. This is what they do, and they do it because they are convinced that they are virtuous in their cause, thus anything goes.

    Remember when leftists spent 4 years claiming that the 2016 election was “stolen by the Russians” despite zero concrete evidence ever found to support the conspiracy theory?

    Now they want any discussion of the 2020 election being stolen removed from the internet.

    Remember when the leftists adamantly supported and defended violence, looting and property destruction by BLM and Antifa all year long?

    Now they admonish conservatives as “insurrectionists” because of a single protest at the capitol that turned violent.

    Remember when leftists wanted to defund the police, many of them publicly calling for violence against officers on social media sites like Twitter?

    Remember when they called for burning down the whole system?

    Well now they are demanding that police and federal officers do their dirty work and arrest any conservatives involved in the protest.

    Weaponized hypocrisy is the philosophy of the zealot. There is no reasoning with a zealot. Diplomacy is wasted on them. Their goal is to destroy anyone that disagrees with them and the ends always justify the means. They are monsters who believe themselves to be heroes.

    Some might consider my statements to be extreme. What does the political left do that is so monstrous? Aren’t they fighting for “social justice” and the rights of “oppressed minorities”? Aren’t they the “underdog” working for “diversity” and a more fair and peaceful world? Well, this is the narrative they like to project, but their actions and rhetoric betray their true identities as narcissistic sociopaths that are willing to sacrifice any person and any value to get what they want.

    What do they want? Power and influence; this is all they want. True “justice” is meaningless to them.

    Look at it this way: If you have to constantly lie in order to convince people of the value of your ideology, then perhaps your ideology has no inherent value.

    Nothing has exposed this fact more than the conservative protests at Capitol Hill – The leftist response has been what I can only describe as weaponized hypocrisy. Meaning, they are pretending to be oblivious to their own roll in creating the anger that conservatives are unleashing, and now they are attempting to gaslight the public into thinking that the raid on congress was somehow “unprovoked” and out of left field.

    Yes, that’s right, the leftists are actually trying to pretend that the Black Lives Matter mass riots and looting that they PROMOTED and defended as “peaceful protests” never happened.

    That is an interesting take, but let’s consider the facts for a moment…

    FACT: BLM and Antifa protesters committed hundreds, perhaps thousands of violent acts and instances of criminal trespass in 2020. No one is buying the gaslight claim that BLM was “mostly peaceful”. Of course, there is an attempt being made by Big Tech to rewrite history. Finding footage of BLM riots is getting harder and harder. Search results on BLM only showcase mainstream news articles lavishing them with praise. Certain people are trying to bury the past and there is blatant bias in favor of the political left.

    I have no doubt that one day soon all evidence of leftist insanity will be redacted from Big Tech platforms, but for now you can still see the truth if you dig deep. Watch these compilations of BLM activity and ask yourself – Is this peaceful protest?

    BLM, the media and numerous Democrats defended the violent actions of rioters and even argued that such measures should continue. Those that did not openly defend BLM remained silent on their criminal actions. Kamala Harris, who is perhaps most famous as a prosecutor for locking up numerous black men in California on trumped up charges and trying to get them executed even when proven innocent, argued that the protests (riots) should continue and “everyone should beware”.

    All of this in light of a nonexistent bogeyman, a fantasy that “systemic racism” exists in America and somehow this ghost of a culprit is behind the failings of every minority regardless of personal integrity, merit or responsibility. No hard evidence of systemic racism has EVER been presented to support the claims of BLM. Every piece of evidence cited has been debunked. Every assertion proven false and every statistic taken out of context.

    BLM hijacks possibly legitimate cases of police brutality (which affects everyone including white people) and twists them into issues of race and “white supremacy”. This is what the political left does with almost everything; they conjure mass outrage from nothing while distracting people from the real problems.

    Juxtapose the BLM’s mass rioting with the protest at Capitol Hill, which was quite tame in comparison. Yet, suddenly the leftists are incensed and act as though they cannot comprehend that kind of aggression. They spent the entire year condoning it, only to now act indignant and flabbergasted when the people rioting are conservatives.

    In the face of a single protest the media and Democratic leaders are condemning conservatives as “terrorists”. Leftists are calling for Big Tech to erase conservatives from all social media platforms and companies like Amazon and Apple are seeking to undermine or destroy conservative websites like Parler. There have also been demands that the government add protesters to the No Fly List, and that people should be “hunted down”.

    Republican leaders that supported the protests are being accused of encouraging “insurrection”. But where was all this rhetoric last year?

    When leftists tried to take over entire swaths of Seattle and Portland and declare them “autonomous zones”, where were the Democrats and their outrage? Where were their calls to prosecute the protesters as terrorists? If there were any, the media certainly did not put a spotlight on them.

    Violence has occurred on both sides, but there is a big difference between the social justice left and the conservative right: Leftists are the only people that have consistently encouraged and condoned mass violence against the innocent. They are the only people that are calling for mass censorship. They are also the only movement that is supported by corporate oligarchs.

    And why is that?

    Leftists, riddle me this – Why are all the evil people on your side? Why is it that your side is supported by all the corrupt corporations you claim to despise? Why does the Ford Foundation and George Soros’ Open Society Foundation pump millions of dollars (THIS IS FACT) into BLM? Why has the Ford Foundation been backstopping the social justice movement for decades? Why are billion dollar Big Tech companies acting as the censorship arm of the social justice movement? Why is every major Hollywood studio regurgitating endless social justice propaganda even when they are losing money on it? Again, I ask, why are all the evil people on your side if your cause is so righteous?

    While leftists build their protests out of fallacies, Conservatives and moderates have every right to be angry, and to be clear, the people at capitol hill were not merely protesting or rioting because of Trump, or the election.

    They are angry over multiple years of leftist criminality that went mostly untouched by law enforcement, the government and the media. They are angry over the pandemic lockdowns enforced most harshly by Democrats in leftist states. They are angry because their businesses and jobs are being destroyed over a virus that is only a threat to 0.26% of the population outside of nursing homes. They are angry because their values and principles are being censored in social media. They are angry that the Democratic Party is adopting hard-left Marxist positions. They are angry because of the “Great Reset” agenda and the open calls to destroy free market capitalism and replace it with a socialist “shared economy” hellscape. There are plenty of reasons…

    The bottom line is this – The difference between leftists and conservatives is stark. Leftists consistently use violence, fear, intimidation, destruction and censorship to get what they want. Conservatives have not. Leftists and their corporate donors want to oppress and control people. Conservatives just want to be free.

    In the face of such zealotry, conservatives and even moderates are going to become violent because frankly, there are few other options. One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist. Labels are meaningless, it’s what a person fights for that matters.

    So, when I hear the political left and their screeching about the inhumanity of the Capitol Hill protest, I have to laugh. These people have no concept of what is right and what is wrong; they spit on the very idea of moral compass and conscience. They only seek to win at any cost. Their hypocrisy is unmatched, so why should we care what they think? Let the rebellion continue.

    *  *  *

    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, 01/15/2021 – 00:00

  • Mapping The World’s Largest State-Owned Oil Companies
    Mapping The World’s Largest State-Owned Oil Companies

    Oil is one of the world’s most important natural resources, playing a critical role in everything from transportation fuels to cosmetics.

    For this reason, as Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu details below, many governments choose to nationalize their supply of oil. This gives them a greater degree of control over their oil reserves as well as access to additional revenue streams. In practice, nationalization often involves the creation of a national oil company to oversee the country’s energy operations.

    What are the world’s largest and most influential state-owned oil companies?

    State-Owned Oil Companies by Revenue

    National oil companies are a major force in the global energy sector, controlling approximately three-quarters of the Earth’s oil reserves.

    As a result, many have found their place on the Fortune Global 500 list, a ranking of the world’s 500 largest companies by revenue.

    China is home to the two largest companies from this list, Sinopec Group and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). Both are involved in upstream and downstream oil operations, where upstream refers to exploration and extraction, and downstream refers to refining and distribution.

    It’s worth noting that many of these companies are listed on public stock markets—Sinopec, for example, trades on exchanges located in Shanghai, Hong Kong, New York, and London. Going public can be an effective strategy for these companies as it allows them to raise capital for new projects, while also ensuring their governments maintain control. In the case of Sinopec, 68% of shares are held by the Chinese government.

    Saudi Aramco was the latest national oil company to follow this strategy, putting up 1.5% of its business in a 2019 initial public offering (IPO). At roughly $8.53 per share, Aramco’s IPO raised $25.6 billion, making it one of the world’s largest IPOs in history.

    Geopolitcal Tensions

    Because state-owned oil companies are directly tied to their governments, they can sometimes get caught in the crosshairs of geopolitical conflicts.

    The disputed presidency of Nicolás Maduro, for example, has resulted in the U.S. imposing sanctions against Venezuela’s government, central bank, and national oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). The pressure of these sanctions is proving to be particularly damaging, with PDVSA’s daily production in decline since 2016.

    In a country for which oil comprises 95% of exports, Venezuela’s economic outlook is becoming increasingly dire. The final straw was drawn in August 2020 when the country’s last remaining oil rig suspended its operations.

    Other national oil companies at the receiving end of American sanctions include Russia’s Rosneft and Iran’s National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC). Rosneft was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2020 for facilitating Venezuelan oil exports, while NIOC was targeted for providing financial support to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an entity designated as a foreign terrorist organization.

    Climate Pressures

    Like the rest of the fossil fuel industry, state-owned oil companies are highly exposed to the effects of climate change. This suggests that as time passes, many governments will need to find a balance between economic growth and environmental protection.

    Brazil has already found itself in this dilemma as the country’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, has drawn criticism for his dismissive stance on climate change. In June 2020, a group of European investment firms representing $2 trillion in assets threatened to divest from Brazil if it did not do more to protect the Amazon rainforest.

    These types of ultimatums may be an effective solution for driving climate action forward. In December 2020, Brazil’s national oil company, Petrobras, pledged a 25% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030. When asked about commitments further into the future, however, the company’s CEO appeared to be less enthusiastic.

    That’s like a fad, to make promises for 2050. It’s like a magical year. On this side of the Atlantic we have a different view of climate change.

                                                                                        — Roberto Castello Branco, CEO, Petrobras

    With its 2030 pledge, Petrobras joins a growing collection of state-owned oil companies that have made public climate commitments. Another example is Malaysia’s Petronas, which in November 2020, announced its intention to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Petronas is wholly owned by the Malaysian government and is the country’s only entry on the Fortune Global 500.

    Challenges Lie Ahead

    Between geopolitical conflicts, environmental concerns, and price fluctuations, state-owned oil companies are likely to face a much tougher environment in the decades to come.

    For Petronas, achieving its 2050 climate commitments will require significant investment in cleaner forms of energy. The company has been involved in numerous solar energy projects across Asia and has stated its interests in hydrogen fuels.

    Elsewhere, China’s national oil companies are dealing with a more near-term threat. In compliance with an executive order issued by the Trump Administration in November 2020, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) announced it would delist three of China’s state-run telecom companies. Analysts believe oil companies such as Sinopec could be delisted next, due to their ties with the Chinese military.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/14/2021 – 23:40

  • Restart, Reset, Or Renew? The Strategy Against Iranian Nuclear Ambition
    Restart, Reset, Or Renew? The Strategy Against Iranian Nuclear Ambition

    Authored by Peter Schweizer via The Gatestone Institute,

    President-elect Joe Biden ran on a slogan to “restore the Iran nuclear deal.” For those voters desperate to undo every accomplishment of the Trump administration, which abandoned the deal and imposed sharp sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors, it must have sounded attractive.

    But now that Biden will be responsible for American security and not just criticizing Donald Trump, he would do well to slow down and consider alternatives.

    The mullahs in Iran, claiming to be freed from the deal by Trump’s 2018 decision to pull the United States out, have openly accelerated their nuclear research, and recently boasted that they have achieved uranium enrichment levels of 20%. The JCPOA restricted them, on paper at least, to 3.67%. Iran has vastly increased its stockpile of ballistic missiles, a grave concern to other countries in the region, particularly Israel.

    There is little hope that Iran will throttle back its advances in uranium enrichment, new deal or no deal. That genie is partially out of the bottle, and Iran remains a sworn enemy and a vicious threat to its neighbors. Even if the deal negotiated in 2015 by the Obama administration were worth the effort, it is impossible to imagine the Iranians willingly recommitting to enrichment levels they have long since blown past. No one believes in their professed “peaceful use” of nuclear energy. So why does a return to the deal make any sense?

    European foreign policymakers seem to be encouraging exactly such a delusion. Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said last month that the Obama administration-era deal still remains the “best instrument” to resolve any disputes about Iran’s nuclear program. He and his counterparts from Britain, France, China, Russia, and the European Union all declared it would be a positive step away from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s policy of crippling sanctions on the Iranian regime.

    In 1994, in a book called Victory that traced the success of the Reagan administration’s strategy against the Soviet Union. I showed how the combination of an immense military build-up by the United States and its allies combined with sharp economic sanctions against the USSR is what extinguished it from the map. The book is out of print but enjoyed a second life among Pompeo’s subordinates and associates at the State Department and the CIA in 2018. I am still convinced that economic sanctions are the most effective way to effect a safer world and consign the Iranian regime to the same ash heap as the Evil Empire.

    Iran’s economy remains a shambles and indications grow of the regime’s feathery grasp of power. Inflation is more than 40%, according to the Statistical Center of Iran. High unemployment and economic contraction have led to street protests against the regime, and harsh crackdowns on the people by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The country’s infrastructure and banking system continue to crumble, and the regime’s own corruption becomes more obvious as the plight of everyday Iranians worsens. The killing of top terror-funding IRGC official Qasem Soleimani by the US military and Iran’s relatively toothless retaliatory attack on two US bases in Iraq suggest that the regime fears what an escalation of tensions would mean to its own future more than it desires to stab at the “Great Satan.” The regime may finally be on the verge of collapse.

    Incoming National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in a CNN interview recently that restoring the US to the JCPOA deal remains the intention of the new Biden administration, though he did predicate it on Iran’s willingness to return to the enrichment limits of the previous deal. Both sides apparently want the other to readopt the agreement’s terms first. Sullivan said nothing specific about whether the US would drop those sanctions as an incentive to Iran’s putting their nuclear program “back in the box,” as he called it. Iran has already rejected this offer, insisting as usual that it is the U.S. that is the “rogue regime.” Iran wants sanctions eliminated as a precondition to deigning to return to the negotiating table.

    Those sanctions are the only leverage the U.S. really has to offer Iran, and Iran’s economy is now at the point where sanctions may finally succeed, just as the Reagan administration was able to do to the USSR in the 1980s. Now is not the time to reduce or remove them in exchange for paper promises born of a campaign slogan, from a regime whose movements suggest it fears its days are numbered.

    The resource crisis faced by the Soviet Union in the 1980s was inherent in the system, but as noted in Victory, the U.S. had a comprehensive and sustained plan to make it a terminal illness. Through covert operations, hidden diplomacy, an intense military buildup, and a series of actions designed to throw sand in the gears of the Soviet economy, American policy destroyed the USSR from its fingertips to its heart. Former Soviet leaders including Mikhail Gorbachev have admitted it with grudging admiration. The only ones who were wrong were those in the liberal foreign policy establishment who pretended it was all just a coincidence.

    Whatever course the new Biden administration chooses to combat Iran’s regional threat must feature the same skill, deep commitment and determination that marked the nine-year campaign to stop the Soviet Union from threatening the rest of the world. No one suspects the aged mullahs of Iran to be any less devoted to fomenting terrorism in the Middle East than the Soviets were of destabilizing Western democracies and emerging nations in Africa or the Middle East. The same commitment that brought down one can defang the other.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/14/2021 – 23:20

  • Air Force Fires First-Ever Swarming Munitions From Fighter Jet
    Air Force Fires First-Ever Swarming Munitions From Fighter Jet

    The first-ever test flight of swarming munitions fired from a fighter jet recently ended with partial success, according to the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).

    On Dec. 15, a General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon released two Collaborative Small Diameter Bombs (CSDBs) that were heavily modified with collaborative autonomy payload. 

    Both CSDBs were able to identify and locate high-value mock enemy targets but there was a problem. The test wasn’t a complete success. Due to “an improper weapon software load, the collaboration guidance commands were not sent to the weapon navigation system,” AFRL said. 

    “Without the updated target locations, the weapons impacted a fail-safe target location.”

    Chris Ristich from the AFRL said the swarming munitions demonstration, called Golden Horde, “is an important step on the path to Networked Collaborative Weapon systems, adding that the “completion of this first mission sets the stage for further development and transition to the warfighter.”

    The AFRL published a short video of how swarming munitions work. 

    “Networked collaborative weapons share data, interact, develop and execute coordinated actions or behaviors. They use shared data to improve information across an entire group of weapons – sometimes called a swarm – thereby improving the entire swarm’s effectiveness. When each weapon shares measurements of a target’s location, combining this information reduces errors since it creates a more accurate target location for all to reference. Ultimately, this supports the use of lower-cost sub-systems in place of more expensive systems without sacrificing capability,” the description of the video reads. 

    If weaponized drone swarms could one day be classified as a “weapon of mass destruction,” – then maybe swarming munitions fired from fighter jets should be labeled the same. Just imagine if these smart munitions had hypersonic capabilities… 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/14/2021 – 23:00

  • Facebook Blocking Ron Paul Shows Tech Censorship Is Not About Trump, It's About Suppressing Dissent
    Facebook Blocking Ron Paul Shows Tech Censorship Is Not About Trump, It’s About Suppressing Dissent

    Authored by Matt Agorist via TheFreeThoughtProject.com,

    Dr. Ron Paul who has been a champion of peace and liberty for decades was unceremoniously blocked from his own page on Facebook Monday. Facebook claimed Ron Paul, who has long promoted everyone getting along, civil liberties, police accountability, and ending US wars, was repeatedly going “against our community standards.”

    “With no explanation other than “repeatedly going against our community standards,” Facebook has blocked me from managing my page. Never have we received notice of violating community standards in the past and nowhere is the offending post identified,” Ron Paul tweeted out Monday afternoon.

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

    This happens to be the exact same notice the Free Thought Project received at the end of last year. We never once got a warning. We never once published anything false, and we always promote peace and liberty. Coincidentally, despite not supporting Trump and calling out his crimes and the deceptive tactics of Qanon for four years, nearly every single person involved with the Free Thought Project received a 30 day ban on Friday as part of the mass purge of Trump supporters on Twitter and Facebook.

    Dr. Paul’s ban is exceedingly egregious given the fact that he has never once advocated violence, nor did he support the march on the capitol last week. Instead, Paul has been an outspoken proponent for breaking through the two-party paradigm and addressing issues that actually affect our lives like the police state, big government, and the Federal Reserve’s control over the U.S. monetary system.

    Few people in modern history have spawned an awakening of the masses like the former Congressman. Throughout his tenure in Congress, Ron Paul was known as ‘Dr. No’ because he voted on 100% principle. Unlike any of his peers, Ron Paul was often the single ‘no’ vote on many issues. He never voted for wars, or to advance the police state, or to bailout big banks and corporations. He was a true hero to freedom.

    One of Ron Paul’s most defining moments of his career was waking people up to the corrupt history of the Federal Reserve and the problems this privately owned central bank causes throughout the world. He even wrote a book about it, while he was still in Congress, titled, End the Fed.

    Since his days in Congress have ended, Dr. Paul has dedicated his life after D.C. to continue spreading the message of liberty. For several years, he has run the Liberty Report which covers the current practices of government corruption along with many other issues.

    Through banning Paul, Facebook is essentially telling the world that it is pro-war, pro-police state, pro-Federal Reserve, and pro-cronyism in general. As he is non-violent, pro-peace, and pro-free speech, Ron Paul poses no threat of inciting violence or armed insurrection. For simply being anti-corrupt establishment, he was banned. This is huge problem.

    It is no secret that Facebook is a leviathan of corruption, censorship, spying, and an outright divide-stoking platform that has been a part of facilitating a massively bicameral society that is ripping apart. Thanks to its algorithms that keep users in their own partisan bubbles, billions of people across the planet who get most of their information from Facebook, have fallen into a bias-confirming slumber and react with anger, and sometimes violence, when presented with factual information that challenges their Facebook-constructed world view.

    It is leading to mass ignorance, the shouting down and eventual censorship of peaceful ideas, and hatred for our fellow man. Social media, and the mainstream media have almost single-handedly fanned the flames of the fire of divide in which we currently find ourselves.

    Even former high-level executives inside Facebook have come forward to attempt to alert the world to technocratic dystopia this social media platform is creating. For years, the Free Thought Project has been screaming this information from the rooftops. Yet it was never bad enough for most people to pay attention. Well, now it is.

    As anyone with half a brain understands, censorship does not stop ideas from spreading. Bad ideas need to be defeated in the public arena of debate. When you ban them, you not only prevent them from being defeated in the public arena, you give credence to those who espouse them. These tech giants know this, which is why the conspiracy theorist in me thinks they are attempting to provoke a horrifying response.

    As we reported this week, three individual, unelected, unaccountable corporate monopolies (Amazon, Google, Apple) colluded to silence political content with which they disagreed. Joe MAGA, who may be on the verge of snapping, whose been unemployed for a year, arguing about ridiculous Qanon theories on Facebook, only to be banned and pushed to Parler, and then banned once more, is thinking to himself right now that the establishment is out to get him and he’s right. Unfortunately, thanks to this attack on anti-establishment voices, thousands of Joe MAGAs are likely googling the ingredients for pipe bombs, right now.

    Just like the war on terror creates more terrorists, censorship is wind in the sails of extremism.

    The reaction to the chaos at the capitol by big tech and the establishment will undoubtedly make things far worse, thereby allowing the feds to roll out even more draconian measures in the name of national security. Most Americans will accept these measures in the name of “keeping them safe,” and freedom will die with nary a whimper.

    By banning Ron Paul they are letting the world know that it’s not just about Trump inciting riots or the raid on the capitol. They are letting the world know that they are who gets to decide what information can be shared online and they do not care about the potential for extremism and despotism these actions create.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/14/2021 – 22:40

  • UC San Diego Installs COVID Test Kit Vending Machines 
    UC San Diego Installs COVID Test Kit Vending Machines 

    With daily COVID-19 infections getting worse over the last couple of months in Southern California, one university has decided to introduce coronavirus testing vending machines, reported Reuters. 

    Students at the University of California’s San Diego campus were greeted with eleven vending machines over the winter semester packed with do-it-yourself COVID-19 tests. 

    School officials told Reuters the vending machines are the first of their kind to be installed on any college campus in the US. 

    There’s nothing special about these vending machines; in fact, they’re conventional vending machines that would typically hold snacks. School officials said these devices drive down the testing costs. 

    School officials said at least 10,000 students live on campus. They are required by school regulations to be tested once a week. 

    Test kits are free and easily accessible from the vending machine with a swipe by a student ID card. The test is simple enough that students cans swab their own noses’ then deposit the sample into a medical bag where it’s then sent to medical labs on campus. 

    UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep Khosla told Reuters that result turnaround is about 12 to 24 hours. 

    “They’re an amazing innovation – simple, effective, and impactful,” Khosla said, referring to the vending machines. 

    Deployment of the vending machines comes as Southern California has seen an uptick in infections. 

    San Diego County has exceeded 80% of its hospital beds due to a significant increase in virus patients. Simultaneously, and oddly enough, flu cases remain extremely low compared to this time in previous years. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/14/2021 – 22:20

  • Trump Declassifies 'Foot-High' Stack Of Russiagate, Obamagate Documents; Set For Release Within Days
    Trump Declassifies ‘Foot-High’ Stack Of Russiagate, Obamagate Documents; Set For Release Within Days

    President Trump has declassified and authorized the release of “more than a foot-high stack of documents” related to the Obama administration’s surveillance and espionage committed against the 2016 Trump campaign, as part of a larger campaign to discredit and undermine the incoming US president.

    According to journalist and Trump insider John Solomon, the documents would be released as soon as Friday, but no later than Monday.

    “He has delivered in a big way. More than a foot-high stack of documents he has authorized to be released by the FBI and the DOJ. These are the things that the FBI has tried to keep from the public for 4 years. They have amazing, big picture revelations,” Solomon told Fox News’ “Lou Dobbs Tonight.”

    According to Solomon‘s website, Just The News, the release will support claims that the entire Russia narrative was created and leaked to the news media to upstage concerns over Hillary Clinton’s email scandal.

    Watch (via Trending Politics):

    More from John Solomon Reports:

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/14/2021 – 22:00

  • EV Partnerships Continue To Be Forged As Industry Preps For Mass Adoption
    EV Partnerships Continue To Be Forged As Industry Preps For Mass Adoption

    There is no doubt that the concept of EVs has reached mass adoption within the auto industry. Every auto manufacturer knows that electric vehicles are no longer an option – but will likely be the reality and the future of driving for decades to come.

    As the industry jostles to set itself up for this enormous sea change, partnerships are being forged left and right, while legacy players look for new EV companies to pair with and while both new and old manufacturers seek out OEMs. 

    The latest of these partnerships includes Foxconn pairing with Geely and China’s SAIC pairing with retail giant Alibaba. Foxconn and Geely have set up a 50-50 joint venture to provide OEM production and consulting services for “whole vehicles, parts, intelligent drive systems and electric vehicle industry value chain to automakers,” according to Bloomberg.

    SAIC and Alibaba unveiled their first two models this week, which included one SUV and one sedan. “Cars the two companies to churn out together will be equipped with battery that can enable travel range of up to 1,000 kilometers on single charge,” Bloomberg reported Wednesday morning.

    Of course, the most headline-grabbing partnership of the last several months has been Apple’s reported tie-up with Hyundai. We wrote early this week that rumors of Apple and Hyundai working together got another shot in the arm when it was reported that the two companies would announce a partnership deal in March, according to StreetInsider.com.

    The two companies “plan to start production around 2024 in the United States,” the report says. “The first media report that appeared over the weekend in South Korea noted the companies plan to use Kia Motors’ factory in Georgia, or alternatively, build a new factory in the United States.” It is being reported that the partnership has a goal of producing 100,000 vehicles in 2024. 

    Around the same time, we noted that EV company NIO was partnering with NVIDIA to put self-driving “supercomputers” into new sedans. 

    “NIO, a pioneer in China’s premium smart electric vehicle market, and NVIDIA announced today that the automaker has selected the NVIDIA DRIVE Orin™ system-on-a-chip (SoC) for its new generation of electric vehicles, which will offer advanced automated driving capabilities,” a company release on Saturday said.

    Literally hours before that, we noted that Chinese tech giant Baidu had also paired with Geely Automotive to make its entrance into the EV market. 

    The tech company is reportedly going to make a standalone electric vehicle company as part of a joint venture with Geely automotive, the report says. Geely will make the hardware, while Baidu will make the software. 

    “Baidu relies heavily on advertising revenue but it has been looking to diversify its business to other areas such as cloud computing and autonomous driving software,” CNBC noted at the time.

    The company has already been testing driverless car software in Beijing. Baidu has its own map app and its own voice assistant technology. 

    Meanwhile, we also noted that the market for EVs in China continues to be ripe. EV sales from January to November of 2020 were up 4.4% this year versus a decline of 7.6% in overall passenger cars during the same period. Chinese auto sales had seen a full V-shaped recovery by October of this year, we noted at the time. 

    Recall, we noted in November that NEVs will be 20% of China’s new car sales by 2025. The “new energy” category includes battery electric, plug-in hybrid and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles. Sales will rise as the country’s “NEV industry has improved their technology and competitiveness,” according to a new policy paper reviewed by Reuters. 

    In the country’s 5 year plan to 2025, the State Council has pushed for improvements in EV technologies, building more efficient charging and implementing battery swapping networks. The Chinese government will also adopt quotas and incentives to to “guide automakers” (i.e. force them) to make EVs after Federal subsidies end in two years.

    The government is also looking at ways to implement EVs for public uses, commercial use and mass transit. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/14/2021 – 21:40

  • 25 Organizations Say Victoria Nuland Should Be Rejected
    25 Organizations Say Victoria Nuland Should Be Rejected

    Organization’s statement originally published at https://worldbeyondwar.org/nuland

    Victoria Nuland, former foreign policy adviser to vice president Dick Cheney, should not be nominated for undersecretary of state [for political affairs], and if nominated should be rejected by the Senate.

    Nuland played a key role in facilitating a coup in Ukraine that created a civil war costing 10,000 lives and displacing over a million people. She played a key role in arming Ukraine as well. She advocates radically increased military spending, NATO expansion, hostility toward Russia, and efforts to overthrow the Russian government.

    The United States invested $5 billion in shaping Ukrainian politics, including overthrowing a democratically elected president who had refused to join NATO. Then-Assistant Secretary of State Nuland is on video talking about the U.S. investment and on audiotape planning to install Ukraine’s next leader, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who was subsequently installed.

    The Maidan protests, at which Nuland handed out cookies to protesters, were violently escalated by neo-Nazis and by snipers who opened fire on police. When Poland, Germany, and France negotiated a deal for the Maidan demands and an early election, neo-Nazis instead attacked the government and took over. The U.S. State Department immediately recognized the coup government, and Arseniy Yatsenyuk was installed as Prime Minister.

    Nuland has worked with the openly pro-Nazi Svoboda Party in Ukraine. She was long a leading proponent of arming Ukraine. She was also an advocate for removing from office the prosecutor general of Ukraine, whom then-Vice President Joe Biden pushed the president to remove.

    Nuland wrote this past year that “The challenge for the United States in 2021 will be to lead the democracies of the world in crafting a more effective approach to Russia – one that builds on their strengths and puts stress on Putin where he is vulnerable, including among his own citizens.”

    She added:

    “…Moscow should also see that Washington and its allies are taking concrete steps to shore up their security and raise the cost of Russian confrontation and militarization. That includes maintaining robust defense budgets, continuing to modernize U.S. and allied nuclear weapons systems, and deploying new conventional missiles and missile defenses, . . . establish permanent bases along NATO’s eastern border, and increase the pace and visibility of joint training exercises.”

    The United States walked out of the ABM Treaty and later the INF Treaty, began putting missiles into Romania and Poland, expanded NATO to Russia’s border, facilitated a coup in Ukraine, began arming Ukraine, and started holding massive war rehearsal exercises in Eastern Europe. But to read Victoria Nuland’s account, Russia is simply an irrationally evil and aggressive force that must be countered by yet more military spending, bases, and hostility. Some U.S. military officials say this demonizing of Russia is all about weapons profits and bureaucratic power, no more fact-based than the Steele Dossier that was given to the FBI by Victoria Nuland.

    SIGNED BY:

    Alaska Peace Center
    Center for Encounter and Active Non-Violence
    CODEPINK
    Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
    Greater Brunswick PeaceWorks
    Jemez Peacemakers
    Knowdrones.com
    Maine Voices for Palestinian Rights
    Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
    Nukewatch
    Peace Action Maine
    PEACEWORKERS
    Physicians for Social Responsibility – Kansas City
    Progressive Democrats of America
    Peace Fresno
    Peace, Justice, Sustainability NOW!
    The Resistance Center for Peace and Justice
    RootsAction.org
    Veterans For Peace Chapter 001
    Veterans For Peace Chapter 63
    Veterans For Peace Chapter 113
    Veterans For Peace Chapter 115
    Veterans For Peace Chapter 132
    Wage Peace
    World BEYOND War

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/14/2021 – 21:20

  • Aussie Officials Fume At Google's "Experimental" Blocking Of Several News Media Sites
    Aussie Officials Fume At Google’s “Experimental” Blocking Of Several News Media Sites

    Perhaps surprising American liberals, German Chancellor Merkel and Emmanuel Macron chided Twitter for barring President Trump’s twitter account, accusing silicon valley stalwart of unduly censoring the leader of the free world.

    Well, as it turns out, leaders in Australia are also having their fair share of problems with the American tech giant dictating what can, and can’t, be hosted on their platform. Google is presently under fire for removing some local news content from its search results in Australia as part of an “experiment”.

    However, critics called this a “chilling illustration” of the firm’s power.

    The incident is the latest in an ongoing spat between Google and the Australian government, which is weighing whether to force Facebook to pay local publishers for sharing their content. On Wednesday, Google said it had been “running a few experiments that will each reach about 1% of Google Search users in Australia.”

    The Australian Financial Review, the country’ top business publication, broke the news on Wednesday.

    Google sought to play down the significance of some of these shutdowns, insisting that the company conducts experiments like these every year.

    In another statement, Australian publisher Nine Group said “Google is an effective monopoly and by withholding access to such timely, accurate and important information they show clearly how they impact what access Australians have.”

    “At the same time, Google are now demonstrating how easily they can make Australian news providers who fall out of their favor effectively disappear from the internet – a chilling illustration of their extraordinary market power.

    “The digital giants should focus on paying for original content, not blocking it. That’s my message to those digital giants,” said Australian treasurer Josh Frydenberg.

    “We have again introduced legislation that’s now before a Senate committee to put in place a world-leading mandatory code to see those digital giants pay traditional news media businesses a fair sum of money for generating original content.“

    In other words, there will be no more free rides.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/14/2021 – 21:00

  • BLM Bail Fund Promoted By Kamala Harris Refuses To Share Records Of Criminals Sprung From Jail
    BLM Bail Fund Promoted By Kamala Harris Refuses To Share Records Of Criminals Sprung From Jail

    A fund established to bail out Black Lives Matter protesters – which helped free at least six men accused of domestic violence in two months – is refusing to disclose exactly who they’ve helped spring from jail.

    The Minnnesota Freedom Fund (MFF), which was endorsed by Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris and has raised over $35 million, has bailed out an unknown number of accused thugs, rioters and other criminals. Finding information on exactly who they’ve bailed out has been an arduous task.

    Here’s what we do know about the Harris-endorsed bail recipients:

    In August, the fund posted $15,000 bail for the release of Shawn McClinton, a convicted sex offender facing rape charges. According to prosecutors, McClinton raped a woman just weeks after his July release – and was back in custody facing prosecution over alleged rape, kidnapping, strangulation and other charges.

    In September, the Daily Caller pored through court records, and found that the MFF had helped free several men suspected of heinous crimes – including accused child molester Timothy Wayne Columbus, who faces up to 30 years in prison on allegations that he sexually assaulted an eight-year-old girl.

    31-year-old Dexter Boone was arrested on May 2 after allegedly breaking into his son’s mother’s apartment and strangled her in front of her minor children.

    The fund also helped bail out 28-year-old Davlin Devonte Gates, who also allegedly strangled a woman just days after he moved in with her.

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

    Now, for what we don’t know.

    According to Just The News, the MFF has refused to provide information on the men it’s helped bail out.

    Official bail records hard to locate

    Yet a full accounting of the individuals bailed out by the fund last year was not available as of press time. 

    A representative of the Minnesota Freedom Fund told Just the News via email this week that the records of those it has helped bail out “are available via the Hennepin and Ramsey County jail rosters.” The group did not respond to repeated inquiries asking if it kept those records in its own files. 

    The records within the jail rosters, meanwhile, are not easily accessible. 

    Tom Lyden, a reporter with KMSP who originally broke that station’s coverage of the controversies surrounding the bail fund, said that the documentation “is difficult to find and it is not available online.”  

    “You must go through items in the file, which you can only do at a live terminal,” he said. 

    In short, the next Vice President of the United States actively promoted a murky bail fund, which has helped known criminals get back on the streets, and which won’t share details on exactly who they’ve helped. 

    We’re sure they’ll enjoy exposure on multiple big tech platforms and won’t face scrutiny for aiding rioters, thugs and other criminals.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/14/2021 – 20:40

  • Elon Musk's Chinese Fairy Tale Will Eventually Come To An End
    Elon Musk’s Chinese Fairy Tale Will Eventually Come To An End

    For the better part of the last year, we have speculated in numerous pieces as to how long the cozy relationship between Elon Musk and the Chinese government would last. One thing is for sure: the Chinese ass-kissing tour by Musk has continued in full throttle over the last 12 months, with the Tesla CEO praising China while backhandedly taking swipes at the U.S. with what seems like every chance he gets. 

    And the ass-kissing tour is more than just public relations: Musk needs China, the world’s largest auto market, to continue to be a powerful source of production and sales, if he wants to meet the growing metrics that Wall Street expects of Tesla. In fact, one could argue that Musk needs nothing short of mass adoption in China. 

    So far, Musk has been able to sidestep some ugly press in China, including out of control Tesla vehicles, forced recalls, constant price cuts and disgruntled customers. So far, Musk is holding it together in China.

    But now Bloomberg is starting to ask a lot of the same questions we have. Namely, “how long can the good times last?”

    The piece starts by highlighting the preferential treatment Tesla got in early 2020 when it was one of the first to be get back to production during the early stages of the Covid pandemic.

    In its first week after resuming production, with Toyota Motor Corp., Volkswagen AG, and other foreign carmakers still unable to fully reopen, Tesla Shanghai made about 1,000 cars. By March it was up to 3,000 a week, a higher rate than before the shutdown. Around that time, according to people familiar with the conversation, an executive remarked in an internal discussion that Tesla didn’t just have a green light from the government to get back to work—it had a flashing-sirens police escort.

    The feature in Businessweek attributed this to the company’s great relationship with the government. Among other things Tesla has been able to obtain from China have been “tax breaks, cheap loans, permission to wholly own its domestic operations, and assistance constructing a vast facility at astonishing speed,” the report says. 

    And obviously, this support has helped Tesla hit key metrics, like its 2020 deliveries numbers, which was helped along by its new factory in Shanghai. The company said it delivered 180,570 EVs in the fourth quarter, which beat its previous record and Wall Street’s expectations for the quarter, which averaged 174,000. It produced 170,757 vehicles during the same period.

    Musk has “done all the right things” for China, too, Bloomberg says, including praising the country and aligning itself with President Xi’s policy goals:

    Musk, who didn’t respond to requests to be interviewed for this story, has effusively endorsed China’s talent pool and its ambitious plans for EVs, remarks that go a long way in a country whose leaders are intensely sensitive to foreign judgments. Tesla’s local unit has also aligned itself explicitly with President Xi Jinping’s economic policy goals and forced China’s vast array of EV manufacturers to up their game, a crucial step in the government’s efforts to dominate the age of electric mobility.

    James McGregor, the chairman for Greater China at government relations firm Apco Worldwide, said: “Under Xi’s economic strategy, foreign companies are going to have pretty good opportunities, but they have to be aware that the ultimate plan is for all the advanced technologies to be Chinese. I hope that Elon is going in there with both eyes open.”

    The article also notes that discussions about production in China included “intense scrutiny” over dealings with Chinese suppliers or partners due to concerns about intellectual property and the integrity of supply chains. Additionally, Tesla may have abandoned its concerns about the environment when sourcing OEMs in China, according to three former senior managers:

    Tesla executives, two of the managers say, often didn’t feel they knew enough about the environmental records of some Chinese vendors—for example when it came to graphite, a critical battery component whose mining can cause severe pollution.

    Musk’s ties to China seemed to start in 2017 when Tencent Holdings took a 5% stake in Tesla and Musk announced their would be “an investor and advisor”. 

    As the trade war bubbled in the coming years, “China was looking for headlines to say that U.S. companies still want to come here,” said Kenneth Jarrett, a former U.S. consul general in Shanghai and now a senior adviser at the Albright Stonebridge Group. Tesla knew it could take advantage of this and bargain for a great deal, the report says:

    Musk held out for full control, and in April 2018 he got it. That month the powerful National Development and Reform Commission announced that the 50% foreign ownership cap for automotive businesses would disappear by 2022, with operations devoted entirely to EVs exempted almost immediately. Three months later Tesla sealed an agreement with the Shanghai government for a factory capable of producing 500,000 vehicles a year.

    Musk then started making plans for his factory in Shanghai in 2019. “Several state-backed banks finalized a deal with Tesla for as much as $521 million in construction financing,” and he was off to the races, despite some of the questionable terms of these financings that we noted in April 2020. 

    Later in 2019, the minister of transport, Li Xiaopeng, announced all Teslas would be exempt from a 10% purchase tax on new vehicles. Around the same time, Tesla was structuring its business in China to be an “independent division” that reported to U.S. headquarters. By then, “Tesla’s local operation was beginning to look like a domestic entity” and Tom Zhu, a Chinese-born executive, was put in charge of the factory. Zhu soon asked all emails to be written in Chinese and for most departments to report only to him. 

    This also gave more power to Chinese communication rep Grace Tao, who reportedly had a top priority of retaining support from the top of the Chinese state.

    How Musk is scratching the backs of the Chinese state, in addition to repeated praise, remains to be seen. All the while, Tesla has been cutting prices and is now exporting from its Shanghai factory – a sign that domestic demand may not be as robust as expected. 

    Meanwhile, the market for EVs in China continues to expand and evolve. Major players like Alibaba, Baidu, Nio and Geely are now heavily involved in EV production – and are arguably much closer to the Chinese state than Musk is. EV sales from January to November of 2020 were up 4.4% this year versus a decline of 7.6% in overall passenger cars during the same period. Chinese auto sales had seen a full V-shaped recovery by October of this year, we noted at the time. 

    Recall, we noted in November that NEVs will be 20% of China’s new car sales by 2025. The “new energy” category includes battery electric, plug-in hybrid and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles. Sales will rise as the country’s “NEV industry has improved their technology and competitiveness,” according to a new policy paper reviewed by Reuters. 

    In the country’s 5 year plan to 2025, the State Council has pushed for improvements in EV technologies, building more efficient charging and implementing battery swapping networks. The Chinese government will also adopt quotas and incentives to to “guide automakers” (i.e. force them) to make EVs after Federal subsidies end in two years.

    How much of a role will Tesla play in this expansion – especially when more domestic Chinese names get up and firing?

    Recall, in April 2020, we wrote an article called “Does Elon Musk Risk Becoming A Chinese Asset?”, raising pointed questions about Musk’s cozy relationship with the Chinese government. In August, we noted that “Elon Musk’s distaste for the U.S. appeared to be palpable after Musk said on a podcast that people of China were “smart” and “hard working” while at the same time calling U.S. citizens “entitled” and “complacent”.”

    Finally, just days ago, Musk said that the Chinese Government was “more responsible” to its citizens than the U.S. government. Musk – who had previously said that “China rocks”, said during a new interview that China’s government had been “very responsive” to its people’s needs and happiness and suggested they could be “better” than the U.S., according to Express UK. 

    Musk’s allegiance to China during a time of heightened tensions with the superpower seems to (so far, at least) not have lost him any credibility in the U.S., either. However, with a new administration taking hold in just days, that may change as Musk – a self proclaimed libertarian – may wind up in Democrat crosshairs.

    You can read Bloomberg’s full write-up here. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/14/2021 – 20:20

  • 2021: If It Wasn't For Bad Luck, We Wouldn't Have No Luck At All
    2021: If It Wasn’t For Bad Luck, We Wouldn’t Have No Luck At All

    Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

    If we have indeed begun a sustained “reversal of fortune”, it might be prudent to consider the possibility we’re only in the first inning of a sustained run of bad luck.

    In our self-deluded hubris, we reckon we’ve moved beyond the influence of fortune, a.k.a. Lady Luck: our technologies are so powerful and our monetary policies so godlike that nothing as random as luck could ever crush our limitless expansion.

    Thus does hubris beg for a comeuppance: the greater the hubris, the greater the reversal of fortune, the greater the confidence in our godlike powers, the greater the collapse of our prideful faith in technology and economic policies.

    So we’ve enshrined our hubris-soaked happy story: the virus will naturally weaken, vaccines will conquer the Covid virus in short order, and by opening the monetary spigots and flooding the global economy with trillions in newly created currencies, we’ll unleash the greatest boom in history, because it’s so righteously “green.”

    We seem to have forgotten that to elicit a laugh, tell God your plans. We confused a sustained run of good fortune with godlike powers that are impervious to mere luck.

    Unfortunately for all the true believers in our vaunted technology and human agencies, luck still matters, and after 50+ years of under-appreciated, fabulously good fortune, we’re in the first at-bat of a sustained reversal of fortune, for as noted here many times, the way of the Tao is reversal: good luck doesn’t last forever, nor is it some birthright of technologically advanced civilizations.

    Are we ill-prepared for seven lean years of increasingly bad luck? Absolutely. Whatever technology can’t resolve, trillions in newly issued currency will: either the magic of technology will work miracles, or the magic of limitless free money will work whatever miracles are left after technology wipes up the spot of bother.

    If you wanted to script an unprecedented collapse of faith in the false gods of technology and money-printing, you’d outline exactly what transpired in 2020: a reckless dismissal of the pandemic followed by a monumental financial crash that opened the floodgates of free money, which triggered a massive “recovery” rally in risk assets, driving gamblers’ confidence to new heights of fantasy.

    All hail our new secular gods, the Federal Reserve, the most powerful force in the Universe!

    Then you’d release miraculous vaccines that promised a permanent resolution to the pandemic and a measured return to the carefree pre-pandemic orgy of debt-based consumption. (Never mind the doubts of some experts about the vaccine protocols: Covid-19 Vaccine Protocols Reveal That Trials Are Designed To Succeed (Forbes.com) by William A. Haseltine)

    Then you’d script the opening inning of the tragi-comedy unfolding in 2021: rather than fading as so many were pleased to confidently predict, the Covid virus has made remarkable gains in function, becoming more contagious and more elusive as multiple variants emerge globally.

    Rather than conquering the virus, we’re unable to even keep pace. The variant ravaging Britain was finally identified in late December, and subsequent sequencing of previously collected samples indicates that it emerged (or arrived) in September. In the meantime, this variant (and other mutations with similar characteristics) have spread around the world with business travelers, tourists, etc. One or more of these variants may reduce the efficacy of the much-hyped vaccines. It’s all in this report from the New York Times:

    As Coronavirus Mutates, the World Stumbles Again to Respond (New York Times)

    Everything that was supposed to work smoothly due to our oh-so-advanced technological and administrative prowess in now either in doubt or in shambles. Consider the potential for less than 95% efficacy in the vaccines due to the interactions and mutually reinforcing dynamics of 1) vaccine hesitancy in those who understand the conventional processes of testing vaccines best, i.e. healthcare professionals; 2) the potential for consequential numbers of those who receive the first shot of vaccine failing to come back for the second shot due to unpleasant experiences after the first shot or other conditions such as being overworked, evicted, etc., and 3) variants further reducing the efficacy of the vaccines in unpredictable ways.

    So let’s say the efficacy drops from the promised 95% to 65%. Are you in the 2/3 camp who are protected by the vaccine from serious illness (though you may be a carrier and infect others, a possibility that was not tested by the trials protocols), or are you in the 1/3 camp who for whatever reason is no longer protected by the vaccine?

    Since we’re chasing a fast-mutating virus, there may not be a fast, accurate way to identify who’s fully protected and who isn’t. Since this may be unknowable, everyone will have to continue the behavioral methods of limiting exposure and transmission of the virus. In which case the vaccines will have accomplished very little in terms of returning the world to the pre-pandemic glory days of 2019.

    If we have indeed begun a sustained reversal of fortune, it might be prudent to consider the possibility we’re only in the first inning of a sustained run of back luck. We might want to consider learning a new theme song for 2021, Albert King’s Born Under a Bad Sign (composed by Booker T. Jones and William Bell): “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all.”

    The cycles of human history are amenable to a reversal of fortune: please consider historian Peter Turchin’s three indicators of systemic disorder: check, check and check.

    Suppressing discussions about the potentially lavish banquet of consequences set by a reversal of fortune won’t actually change the outcome of the next eight innings, it will only serve to increase the odds of catastrophically consequential decisions being made by those at the top of the hubris-heap.

    *  *  *

    If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

    *  *  *

    My recent books:

    A Hacker’s Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $8.95, print $20, audiobook $17.46) Read the first section for free (PDF).

    Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World (Kindle $5, print $10, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF).

    Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic ($5 (Kindle), $10 (print), ( audiobook): Read the first section for free (PDF).

    The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake $1.29 (Kindle), $8.95 (print); read the first chapters for free (PDF)

    Money and Work Unchained $6.95 (Kindle), $15 (print) Read the first section for free (PDF).

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/14/2021 – 20:00

  • Watch: US Nuclear Submarine Approaches Iranian Naval Drills, Standoff Ensues
    Watch: US Nuclear Submarine Approaches Iranian Naval Drills, Standoff Ensues

    On Thursday Iran’s state media condemned the action of a “foreign” vessel which it said “intended to approach the naval drill” that Iranian forces are currently conducting in the Gulf of Oman. 

    Later Iranian state media published rare footage of a submarine in the vicinity of the two-day naval exercise, specifically in or near the Strait of Hormuz. The submarine is said to have departed soon after the incident following an Iranian Navy warning.

    Though the US military has declined to comment, the AP is now reporting it appears to have been the USS Georgia nuclear submarine. “Helicopter footage of the exercise released by Iran’s navy showed what resembled an Ohio-class guided-missile submarine, the USS Georgia, which the U.S. Navy last month said had been sent to the Persian Gulf — a rare announcement aimed at underscoring American military might in the region,” according to the AP.

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    The fact that the US submarine surfaced so near to the Iranian naval drills suggests this was a bit of provocative high-stakes intentional messaging by the Pentagon. 

    Here’s more according to the AP:

    Iran’s navy did not identify the submarine, but warned the boat to steer clear of the area, where missiles were being launched from land units and ships in the gulf and the northern part of the Indian Ocean. When asked for comment on the reported submarine sighting, Cmdr. Rebecca Rebarich, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Navy’s Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, responded: “We don’t talk about submarine operations.”

    The direct overhead footage was taken from an Iranian military helicopter patrolling the area. It appears to have hovered over the sub as a warning message to leave.

    Indeed it appears to have been a brief but dangerous standoff which could have easily turned into a live-fire incident between the two enemy forces.

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    Such a direct encounter between an American submarine and Iran’s military is very rare to say the least, especially given it was caught on film.

    Maritime analysis news site Naval News explained of the video:

    The circumstances of the shallow pass are unclear. The submarine is shown at periscope depth. A single DDS (dry deck shelter) is seen on the port side of the casing behind the sail. This hangar can carry SEAL Delivery Vehicles (SDVs) used by the US Navy SEALs.

    The US Navy’s four Ohio Class SSGNs are by far the most heavily armed conventional strike platforms in the world. They can carry a total of 154 Tomahawk Land Attack Cruise Missiles (TLAM Block-IV) in their missile silos. When added to the torpedo room, this gives a total of 176 full-size weapons. Although the maximum load is reduced when the DDS is fitted.

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    The USS Georgia entered the Persian Gulf area sometime in mid to late December as tensions between the US and Iran rose amid reports that Trump was mulling some type of preemptive action, also at the urging of Israel.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/14/2021 – 19:40

  • 2017 Redux? DC Descends Into Dystopian Lockdown As Inauguration Day Looms 
    2017 Redux? DC Descends Into Dystopian Lockdown As Inauguration Day Looms 

    Remember what happened after the last inauguration? No, that isn’t excited Trump “domestic terrorists”…

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    It appears the authorities are expecting a replay as throughout downtown Washington, DC, roadblocks, metal fences, and National Guard troops are in the process of locking down the area around the Capitol complex ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20.

    USA Today reports the “entire National Mall in Washington could be shut down, more than a dozen Metro train stations will be closed” next Wednesday. 

    The nation’s capital now has 20,000 Guardsmen deployed on and around Capitol grounds. 

    The deployment of Guardsmen has been a continuing story since last weekend. On Sunday, 6,000 troops were expected to arrive in the metro area. One day later, on Monday, Politico’s Lara Seligmandit reported that Gen. Hokanson, chief of the National Guard Bureau, said the US Department of Defense approved 15,000 troops. The number quickly rose Wednesday to 20,000 as the DoD began ushering in box trucks of assault rifles, ammo, and riot shields to troops as credible threats lingered. 

    Politico reported yesterday that Guardsmen were briefed to prepare for extremists attacks, possibly using improvised explosive devices.

    Politico obtained an unclassified intelligence document from the Secret Service that warned at least one right-wing extremist group, Patriot Actions for America, “is organizing and encouraging a violent demonstration” on Jan. 16 at or near Capitol grounds. ‘

    University of Maryland historian Terry Bouton, who follows extremist organizations, said the federal government is preparing for more violence as many Trump supporters believe the election was stolen. 

    “Some people were so angry, screaming with outrage, yet it all seemed so well-organized and orchestrated,” Bouton said, referring to the Capitol raid by Trump supporters last week.

    “If they are using similar kinds of tactics elsewhere, they are going rile up a lot of people who had no plan to engage in violence.”

    Robert Pape, a political science professor and director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats at the University of Chicago, said the show of force via National Guard presence might deter violent activity next week.

    Pape warned that the inauguration could be the beginning of the resistance movement… like 2017 was?

    “All this might mean plan one is taken off the table, but it doesn’t mean others are taken off the table,” he said.

    “Domestic terrorists have the money and access to materials for chemicals and other types of attacks. And they have time.”

    Just like the guy who blew up his RV in front of an AT&T switch building in Nashville a couple of weeks ago, which makes you think if more serious attacks are being planned for next week. 

    For more clarity on the expanding lockdown of the nation’s capital – here’s a map of all the roadblocks – basically making it virtually impossible to navigate a vehicle around the Capitol or White House. 

    DC Lockdown 

    The heavy military presence around the Capitol.

    Metal perimeter fence installed around Capitol grounds. 

    The area around the Capitol is locked down. 

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    Concrete barriers and metal walls down the street from the Capitol. 

    Plenty of roadblocks across the metro area. 

    Meanwhile, Delta Air Lines, American, and United Airlines have prohibited passengers this week flying into DC area airports from checking guns or other weapons. However, United said active-duty troops could check weapons. 

    We suspect tighter lockdowns could be coming in the coming days. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/14/2021 – 19:20

  • Joe Biden Unveils $1.9 Trillion COVID Stimulus Plan
    Joe Biden Unveils $1.9 Trillion COVID Stimulus Plan

    Biden unveiled his 2-step plan of “rescue and recovery” in a 30 minute presentation, which was just as was leaked in advance: a $1.9 trillion stimulus proposal which will encounter immediate Republican opposition due to its big-ticket spending on Democratic priorities including aid to state and local governments, a hike in the minimum wage to $15, and expanded unemployment benefits.

    “We have to act and we have to act now,” Biden said, ahead of laying out a second, even broader economic recovery plan next month at a joint session of Congress. That initiative will include money for longer-term development goals such as infrastructure and climate change, the transition team said. So even more trillions.

    As Bloomberg summarized it, “Biden’s speech had the flavor of a shorter and more concise State of the Union address, focused of course on the pandemic and economic recovery. He laid out a number of goals and some plans yet basically set broad goals — and asked Congress to foot the big price-tag to achieve them.”

    Biden’s bill – which amounts to $400 billion for Covid-19 management, more than $1 trillion in direct relief spending and $440 billion for communities and businesses – is more than double the $900BN bipartisan bill approved last month, and only slightly below the March 2020 Cares Act. The bigger size, and inclusion of Democratic priorities such as a minimum-wage hike, also means that it will be next to impossible for Republicans to vote for Biden’s proposal.

    This is a problem because as we explained previously, certain key measures such aid to states and money for health care, will likely need 60 votes in the Senate. On the other hand, jobless benefits, stimulus payments and the minimum wage hike, could go through with a simple majority under a special budget tool. Amusingly,  progressives are already saying Biden’s bill isn’t big enough.

    While Biden didn’t mention Trump by name, but he took several swipes at the current administration, especially in terms of the vaccine rollout, which he called a “dismal failure.” That’s tougher language than other officials have been using.

    A brief recap of Biden’s proposal is below:

    • Direct payments of $1,400, on top of the $600 approved in December
    • $400 per week in supplementary unemployment benefits through September
    • $350 billion for state and local governments
    • Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour
    • $130 billion to help schools reopen
    • $160 billion in funding for a national program of vaccination, testing and other coronavirus containment efforts
    • $30 billion for rental and small-landlord support
    • $25 billion for childcare providers
    • Expanded food assistance
    • Expanded child tax credits
    • Expanded medical and family leave

    Of course, since none of the above addresses the primary reason for the destruction of the US middle class, namely the Fed and its moneyprinting abilities, nothing proposed by Biden will have any effect on US society besides a brief sugar high. Once that wears off, the polarization, the wealth and income divide, and the class hatred, will be even worse.

    There were no surprise in what Biden said after all of it was purposefully leaked in advance, and Eminis dropped 10 points, drifting near session lows after the speech.

    There is a distinct risk that the recent market euphoria will fade soon once traders realize, that Bide’s use of the phrases “paying their fair share” and “closing loopholes” could spark a tax-hike driven selloff since the stimulus boost is already fully priced in. This, as Bloomberg notes, is a moment “in which the market could pivot to some of the other risks associated with a Blue Wave like taxation or antitrust scrutiny.”

    His full speech is below.

    Here are the main highlights:

    Stimulus Checks

    • The plan includes a central promise of Democrats: boosting direct payments to individuals to $2,000 for most Americans, on top of the $600 that Congress approved in December.
    • The plan would also allow residents who are married to undocumented residents to receive stimulus payments — who were barred in prior rounds.

    Vaccinations, Testing

    • Biden’s plan includes $20 billion to create a national vaccine distribution program that would offer free shots to all U.S. residents regardless of immigration status.
    • The plan calls for creating community vaccination centers and deploying mobile units in hard-to-reach areas. Biden is also calling for $50 billion to ramp up testing efforts, including purchasing rapid-result tests, expanding lab capacity and helping local jurisdictions implement testing regimens.

    State Aid

    • Biden is pushing for $350 billion in funding assistance for state, local and territorial governments plus $20 billion for public transit systems.
    • Democrats for months have pushed for more money to help state and local governments that have faced higher costs and lower tax revenue during the pandemic. States and cities warn they’ll be forced to make deep cuts to public health, safety and education programs without more funding, because they can’t borrow money in the way the federal government can.
    • Many Republicans have chafed at more money for local governments, however, saying it amounts to a bailout for mismanaged government budgets.

    Unemployment Insurance

    • Biden’s plan would extend and expand unemployment benefits that are scheduled to run out in mid-March. The proposal increases a weekly federal benefit to $400 from $300 and extends it through the end of September.
    • It also extends benefits for self-employed individuals and gig workers, and those who have exhausted their regular jobless benefits.

    Minimum Wage

    • Biden is calling to more than double the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour from $7.25, a proposal that could alienate Republicans. In addition, he seeks to end the tipped minimum wage used widely by restaurants and the hospitality industry. At $2.13 an hour, it gives lower minimums to employees that get tips.

    Paid Leave

    • The Biden plan would create a requirement for employers, regardless of size, to offer paid sick leave during the pandemic to workers — a change that the transition team says will extend the benefit to 106 million workers. Parents and family members caring for sick relatives or out-of-school children could receive more than 14 weeks of paid sick and family leave.
    • The plan would provide benefits of up to $1,400 per week and tax credits for employers with fewer than 500 employees to reimburse them for the cost of the leave.

    Tax Credits, Childcare

    • Biden would expand tax credits for low- and middle- income families and make them refundable for 2021. He is proposing to expand the child tax credit to $3,000 from $2,000 for each child 17 and younger. Children under age six would be eligible for $3,600.
    • Biden is also requesting $25 billion for a stabilization fund to help open child-care centers and $15 billion in grants to support essential workers in meeting childcare costs.

    Schools

    • The plan is also calling for $170 billion to help schools to open — something Biden has said would allow many parents, especially women, to rejoin the labor force after they dropped out to care for children learning at home.
    • About $130 billion would go to K-12 schools to help them hire additional staff to reduce class size, modify spaces and purchase resources to help meet students’ academic and mental health needs. The plan would also direct $35 billion to colleges and universities and create a $5 billion fund for governors to direct help to schools most hard-hit by the virus.

    Rental Assistance

    • The proposal would extend the eviction and foreclosure moratorium through September. It would also provide $30 billion to help low-income households who have lost jobs pay rent and utility bills. The plan would also provide $5 billion to states and localities to offer emergency housing for families facing homelessness.

    Small Businesses

    • Biden is proposing to leverage $35 billion in government funds into $175 billion in low-interest loans to finance small businesses. He is also calling for $15 billion in grants for such employers. He is proposing to use laid-off restaurant workers to partner with federal nutrition programs to get those employees working again.

    While the plan may not receive Republicans support, Democrats are firmly on board, with Pelosi and Schumer both saying that the proposal is the “right approach.”

    * * *

    It may not be quite $2 trillion as CNN leaked last night, quoting “one lawmaker” in close contact with the Biden team who said it was “taking a shoot for the moon” approach with the package”, but it’s close.

    With less than 4 hours to go until Biden’s 715pm ET speech in Delaware, in which he is expected to unveil his fiscal program, the NYT reports that Biden’s spending package “to combat the coronavirus pandemic and its effects on the economy, with an initial focus on large-scale expansions of the nation’s vaccination program and virus testing capacity” will be $1.9 trillion.

    The first package, which “will cover the pandemic, the economy, health care, education, climate change and other domestic priorities” according to Brian Deese, the incoming director of the National Economic Council who spoke at the Reuters Next conference on Wednesday, will include money to complete $2,000 direct payments to individuals, and aid to small businesses and local and state governments.

    One thing that markets may not like is that contrary to previous expectations that the “stimmy” check will be $2,000, Biden will instead propose additional $1,400 stimulus checks, “topping up the $600 checks that Congress approved in December.” This means roughly one-third less purchasing power to buy out of the money call on stocks trading at all time highs.

    The NYT also notes that the first piece of legislation will include an extension of supplemental federal unemployment benefits, which are set to expire in March for many workers, and more help for renters.

    Plans for the first package also include a significant increase in spending on vaccine deployment, testing and contact tracing, Mr. Deese said, and Mr. Biden will seek enough money to allow most schools to open, in an effort to increase labor force participation.

    “We need to get the schools open,” Mr. Deese said, “so that parents, and particularly women, who are being disproportionately hurt in this economy, can get back to work.”

    Stocks dropped to session lows on news that instead of an $2,000 additional stimmy, the Biden plan will “only” include another $1,400, adding to the previously released $600 from the December $900BN stimulus plan.

    Meanwhile, the fact that Biden is indeed going through with an almost $2 trillion stimulus – contrary to that such an amount could be overly aggressive and be met with resistance even among centrist Democrats – has sent 10Y yields to session highs.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/14/2021 – 19:09

  • The Intercept Fires Co-Founder Who Publicly Discussed Reality Winner 'F*ck-Up'
    The Intercept Fires Co-Founder Who Publicly Discussed Reality Winner ‘F*ck-Up’

    Laura Poitras, co-founder of The Intercept, was fired from the publication two weeks ago in what she says was retribution for publicly discussing the outlet’s mishandling of a leak by former NSA intelligence officer, Reality Winner.

    The firing, outlined in a Thursday open letter, came after Poitras shared her frustrations with the New York Times regarding The Intercept‘s mishandling of the Winner matter, telling them that First Look (The Intercept’s parent company) engaged in “a cover-up and betrayal of core values,” and that the lack of accountability over what happened “promoted a culture of impunity and puts future sources at risk.”

    Winner, 28, mailed top secret classified intelligence to The Intercept on May 9, 2017. Three weeks later,  the outlet contacted a ‘government agency’ to let them know about the documents, and gave the FBI / NSA information which was then used to easily identify her.

    A Trump-hating radical who wanted to “burn Donald Trump down to the ground,” Winner had dreams of traveling Afghanistan where she would pledge allegiance to the Taliban. The intelligence she leaked suggested that Russia hacked the 2016 US election by accessing voter registration rolls in the US using a phishing operation. The Intercept then published a report on June 5th, 2017 ‘confirming’ that Russia hacked the election, and hours later, the FBI arrested Winner.

    Poitras, a 2012 MacArthur “genius” grant recipient who transitioned from The Intercept to sister organization Field of Vision, ” came to prominence for her 2013 Pulitzer-winning work with Glenn Greenwald bringing to light the blockbuster disclosures of National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden,” according to the Washington Post, which added that she’s always had an issue with how things went down, and the lack of accountability.

    “First Look Media and The Intercept were founded upon Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing and the investigative journalism that Glenn Greenwald and I all risked our lives to bring to the public, exposing the National Security Agency’s illegal global mass surveillance programs,” Poitras wrote in her Thursday open letter.

    First Look Media’s decision to fire me after I raised concerns about source protection and accountability – rather than to demote or seek the resignation of anyone responsible for the journalistic malpractice, cover-up, and retaliation – speaks to the priorities of The Intercept’s Editor-in-Chief Betsy Reed and First Look Media’s CEO Michael Bloom.

    Journalists make mistakes, sometimes with serious consequences. What is alarming about this case is the multitude of mistakes, the egregious disregard for source protection, and the mishandling of an internal review that ended with a cover-up. It goes without saying that no one should participate in an investigation into themselves, yet this is what happened at The Intercept. Editor-in-Chief Betsy Reed, who oversaw the reporting on Winner’s NSA leak, took an active behind-the-scenes role in the investigation, assigned staff who reported directly to her to gather facts, and, when the facts pointed to editorial failures, Reed removed the staff person from the investigation. –Laura Poitras

    As explained by former co-founder Glenn Greenwald, who left The Intercept in October, he and Laura spent months demanding an accounting over what happened with the Reality Winner ‘fuck-up.’

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    First Look reportedly conducted two internal reviews of the Reality Winner case, neither of which has been made public. However, in a 2017 statement, The Intercept’s Betsy Reed concluded that “our practices fell short of the standards to which we hold ourselves for minimizing the risks of source exposure when handling anonymously provided materials.”

    Reed says that Poitras’s claim of no accountability is wrong, noting that “there were two separate reviews, which were comprehensive and conducted by lawyers with a duty to remain independent and impartial. They both concluded that the errors we made in our handling of the story reflected institutional weaknesses, for which I took responsibility as the editor in chief.”

    That said, nobody involved in the Winner controversy was fired or demoted for burning their source to a crisp.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/14/2021 – 19:00

  • "Domestic Terrorist?" – Leftist BLM Activist Who Stormed Capitol On Jan. 6 Arrested, Charged
    “Domestic Terrorist?” – Leftist BLM Activist Who Stormed Capitol On Jan. 6 Arrested, Charged

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

    The Black Lives Matter activist who was seen storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 was arrested and charged, the Department of Justice said Thursday.

    A newly released court filing says John Earle Sullivan, 26, told FBI agents last week that he was at the Capitol when the breach happened. He said he entered through a window that had been broken out. He also said he was present when Ashli Babbitt, an Air Force veteran, was shot dead by a U.S. Capitol Police officer as she tried to climb into the House Speaker’s Lobby through a window.

    Sullivan showed agents some of the footage he captured inside the building, which he and others entered illegally.

    Videos showed Sullivan and others breaking through a barricade, with the Utah man shouting:

     “There are so many people. Let’s go. This [Expletive] is ours! [Expletive] yeah. We accomplished this [expletive]. We did this together. [Expletive] yeah! We are all a part of this history. Let’s burn this [Expletive] down.”

    h/t @Cernovich

    He was later heard encouraging protesters to climb a wall to get to an entrance to the Capitol and was seen entering the building.

    During one conversation with others while inside, Sullivan said, “We gotta get this [expletive] burned.” At other times, he said, among other things, “it’s our house [expletive]” and “we are getting this [expletive].”

    Sullivan told U.S. Capitol Police officers to stand down so that they wouldn’t get hurt, according to the court filing (pdf). He joined the crowd trying to open doors to another part of the Capitol, telling people “Hey guys, I have a knife” and asking them to let him get to the front. He did not make it to the doors. He later tried to get the officers guarding the Speaker’s Lobby to go home, telling them: “Bro, I’ve seen people out there get hurt.”

    A group of protesters enter the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

    Sullivan spoke to a slew of media outlets after the breach, including CNN and ABC.

    h/t @Cernovich

    He told The Epoch Times that he took steps to blend in with the crowd so he didn’t “get beat up.” He said he’s known in the activist community as being a member of the far-left, anarcho-communist group Antifa. He denied being a member of the network.

    He told The Epoch Times he knew of plans to storm the Capitol and that he saw them on “undergrounds chats and things like that.”

    He posted information about the plans on his social media, but didn’t inform the law enforcement. “I’m not a snitch,” he said.

    Sullivan has posted in support of Black Lives Matter. He leads a group called Insurgence USA, which says it was founded in the wake of the death of George Floyd, a black man, in police custody in Minneapolis last year.

    “The lack of care for the human life was unacceptable so we set out to end police brutality. We then set out to empower and uplifting black and indigenous voices,” the group’s website states.

    Sullivan was charged with rioting and criminal mischief in Provo, Utah, based on his activities around a protest last year in which a person was shot and injured.

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    Sullivan was charged this week with unlawful entry, disorderly conduct, and attempted obstruction of law enforcement.

    h/t @Cernovich

    He faces jail time if convicted.

    *  *  *

    ZH: Which leaves us with three questions:

    1) Does this mean CNN gave a platform to a domestic terrorist?

    2) Did Trump incite this man to commit insurrection too?

    3) If he was aware of riotous plans “on underground chats” before Trump’s speech, does that mean Trump did not incite “domestic terrorism”?

    We won’t hold our breath for the treasonous answers.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/14/2021 – 18:40

  • NYC Tenants Owe More Than $2 Billion In Unpaid Rent As Cuomo Extends Eviction Moratorium
    NYC Tenants Owe More Than $2 Billion In Unpaid Rent As Cuomo Extends Eviction Moratorium

    New shocking figures produced by a New York area landlord trade group, the Community Housing Improvement Program, finds half of all New York City apartment tenants are behind on rent to the combined tune of over $1 billion as the US begins to approach one year since the coronavirus pandemic hit America.

    The group surveyed landlords who oversee up to half of the city’s total rental apartments in order to assess the impact of coronavirus closures, historic unemployment, and resulting limited government assistance. “Tallying responses from landlords, the group estimated that as many as 185,000 households living in these apartments are more than two months behind on rent, with an average debt of more than $6,000,” The Wall Street Journal summarized of the findings.

    Getty Images

    Seeking to safeguard tenants during mandated lockdowns, state lawmakers have rushed to pass emergency regulations which bar evictions as well as foreclosures and negative credit ratings on small property owners. Governor Cuomo has extended the eviction moratorium all the way to May of this year, with the possibility it could be extended further.

    Meanwhile, building owners and landlords have been left holding the bag – after all, who would pay rent at this point with all the “protections” and no negative repercussions? Thus stories like the following will only continue to multiply:

    A landlord in Harlem is reportedly is facing his own eviction after tenants in a building he owns refuse to pay rent.  

    Family for David Howson, 88, told the NY Post that he relies on the rental income from the 10-unit building he owns at 9 West 129th St. to pay for his co-op apartment in Inwood. 

    The Community Housing Improvement Program assessed merely half of the city’s landlords, which suggests we’re more likely looking at over $2 billion of debt from missed rent payments.

    The WSJ report continues: “Jay Martin, executive director of CHIP, said rent debt from the rest of New York’s apartment inventory is probably the same or greater, meaning the total debt New York City renters are carrying is likely more than $2 billion.”

    Getty Images

    Landlords aren’t necessarily or simply proposing that there be no protections for tenants whatsoever, but they are livid that as local and state anti-eviction laws stand, there’s nothing that requires “proof” of pandemic-related hardship. The COVID relief package from December allocated to New York up to $1.3 billion for rental assistance, but it’s unclear the degree to which the bulk of that will actually reach unpaid landlords.

    A recent statement from the Rent Stabilization Association points precisely to this problem:

    “With no requirement of proof that the COVID-19 pandemic negatively affected their income, and no income limitation to qualify for eviction protection, a tenant whose household income went from a half-million dollars to $250,000 would qualify for eviction protection by declaring that their income has been ‘significantly reduced,’” president of the organization Joseph Strasburg said.

    So again, with the short-sighted rush to apply a quick fix band aid, which has proven no “fix” at all, who at this point would even pay the rent that’s owed? In the end it has sent all of New York housing to the brink of disaster – tenants, landlords, and potentially the banks that hold the property notes alike.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/14/2021 – 18:20

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Jan 14

Today’s News 14th January 2021

  • Iran Has Begun Assembling Key Material For Nuclear Warhead Production: UN Report
    Iran Has Begun Assembling Key Material For Nuclear Warhead Production: UN Report

    Israeli officials are once again making threats to launch preemptive strikes on Iran’s nuclear development facilities amid new reports the Islamic Republic is ramping up efforts to manufacture materials necessary for the production of nuclear warheads. 

    “In one of the most forceful statements made by an Israeli official, the Likud’s Tzachi Hanegbi, considered an ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, threatened that Israel could attack Iran’s nuclear program if the United States rejoined the nuclear deal, as US President-elect Joe Biden has indicated he plans to do,” The Times of Israel reports.

    And crucially a new confidential report by the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) alleges that Iran has initiated a major final step in the process necessary to make nuclear weapons. 

    Getty Images

    The secret IAEA document has been seen by The Wall Street Journal and is focus of a bombshell Wednesday report, which says:

    The International Atomic Energy Agency, in a report for member states viewed by The Wall Street Journal, said Iran has told the watchdog that it has started manufacturing equipment it will use to produce uranium metal at a site in Isfahan in coming months.

    Uranium metal can be used to construct the core of a nuclear weapon.

    The manufacture of uranium metal is prohibited under the terms of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal which Biden has vowed to return to. Iran signaling its intent to carry on with it may be a dramatic move aimed fundamentally at increasing leverage with the incoming Biden administration. However, still with a week to go in a turbulent Trump presidency, such declarations may trigger a last-minute US or Israeli attack on the Islamic Republic.

    Kazem Gharib Abadi, Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA, caught the West off guard in a surprising Wednesday tweet affirming the provocative step:

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    Here’s more on the unprecedented move to potentially produce uranium metal, according to the WSJ:

    Iran hasn’t made uranium metal so far, senior Western officials said. The IAEA said Tehran had given it no timeline for when it would do so. Still, the development brings Iran closer to crossing the line between nuclear operations with a potential civilian use, such as enriching nuclear fuel for power-generating reactors, and nuclear-weapons work, something Tehran has long denied ever carrying out.

    Last July the Isfahan was hit by a mystery blast near in time to when the nearby Natanz facility was also damaged.

    While Iranian officials blamed the Isfahan incident on a faulty “worn out transformer” that exploded, Tehran pointed the finger directly at Israel for the Natanz bombing.

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    Given the new UN/IAEA report has identified the facility involved in pursuing uranium metal production as Isfahan, it’s more than likely that Israeli military and intelligence is eyeing it for an attack, or some level of sabotage operation.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/14/2021 – 01:00

  • A Nation Imploding: Digital Tyranny, Insurrection, And Martial Law
    A Nation Imploding: Digital Tyranny, Insurrection, And Martial Law

    Authored by John Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

    “In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. [Y]ou can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization…filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort … to understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love… What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.”

    – Robert F. Kennedy on the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

    This is what we have been reduced to: A violent mob. A nation on the brink of martial law. A populace under house arrest. A techno-corporate state wielding its power to immobilize huge swaths of the country. And a Constitution in tatters.

    We are imploding on multiple fronts, all at once.

    This is what happens when ego, greed and power are allowed to take precedence over liberty, equality and justice.

    Just to be clear, however: this is not a revolution.

    This is a ticking time bomb.

    There is absolutely no excuse for the violence that took place at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

    Yet no matter which way you look at it, the fallout from this attempted coup could make this worrisome state of affairs even worse.

    First, you’ve got the president, who has been accused of inciting a riot and now faces a second impeachment and a scandal that could permanently mar his legacy. While the impeachment process itself is a political beast, the question of whether President Trump incited his followers to riot is one that has even the best legal experts debating. Yet as First Amendment scholar David Hudson Jr. explains, for Trump’s rhetoric to be stripped of its free speech protections, “The speaker must intend to and actually use words that rally people to take illegal action. The danger must be imminent – not in the indefinite future. And the words must be uttered in a situation in which violence is likely to happen.”

    At a minimum, Trump’s actions and words – unstatesmanlike and reckless, by any standards – over the course of his presidency and on Jan. 6 helped cause a simmering pot to boil over.

    Second, there were the so-called “patriots” who took to the streets because the jailer of their choice didn’t get chosen to knock heads for another four years. Those “Stop the Steal” protesters may have deluded themselves (or been deluded) into believing they were standing for freedom when they stormed the Capitol. However, all they really did was give the Deep State and its corporate partners a chance to pull back the curtain and reveal how little freedom we really have. There is nothing that can be said to justify the actions of those who, armed with metal pipes, chemical irritants, stun guns, and other types of weapons, assaulted and stampeded those in their path.

    There are limits to what can be done in the so-called name of liberty, and this level of violence—no matter who wields it or what brand of politics or zealotry motivate them—crossed the line.

    Third, you’ve got the tech giants, who meted out their own version of social justice by way of digital tyranny and corporate censorship. Yet there can be no freedom of speech if social media giants can muzzle whomever they want, whenever they want, on whatever pretext they want in the absence of any real due process, review or appeal. As Edward Snowden warned, whether it was warranted or not, the social media ban on President Trump signaled a turning point in the battle for control over digital speech. And that is exactly what is playing out as users, including those who have no ties to the Capitol riots, begin to experience lock outs, suspensions and even deletions of their social media accounts.

    Remember, the First Amendment is a steam valve. It allows people to peacefully air viewpoints, vent frustrations, debate and disagree, and generally work through the problems of self-governance. Without that safety mechanism in place, self-censorship increases, discontent festers, foment brews, and violence becomes the default response for resolving disputes, whether with the government or each other. At a minimum, we need more robust protections in place to protect digital expression and a formalized process for challenging digital censorship.

    Unfortunately, digital censorship is just the beginning. Once you start using social media scores coupled with surveillance capitalism to determine who is worthy enough to be part of society, anything goes. In China, which has been traveling this road for years now, millions of individuals and businesses, blacklisted as “unworthy” based on social media credit scores that grade them based on whether they are “good” citizens, have been banned from accessing financial markets, buying real estate or travelling by air or train.

    Fourth, you’ve got the police, who normally exceed the constitutional limits restraining them from brutality, surveillance and other excesses. Only this time, despite intelligence indicating that some of the rioters were planning for mayhem, police were outnumbered and ill prepared to deal with the incursion. Investigations underway suggest that some police may even have colluded with the rioters.

    Certainly, the lack of protocols adopted by the Capitol Police bear an unnerving resemblance to the lack of protocols in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, when police who were supposed to uphold the law and prevent violence failed to do either. In fact, as the Washington Post reports, police “seemed to watch as groups beat each other with sticks and bludgeoned one another with shields… At one point, police appeared to retreat and then watch the beatings before eventually moving in to end the free-for-all, make arrests and tend to the injured.” Incredibly, when the first signs of open violence broke out, it was reported that the police chief allegedly instructed his staff to “let them fight, it will make it easier to declare an unlawful assembly.”

    There’s a pattern emerging if you pay close enough attention: Instead of restoring order, local police stand down. Without fail, what should be an exercise in how to peacefully disagree turns ugly the moment looting, vandalism, violence, intimidation tactics and rioting are introduced into the equation. Tensions rise, violence escalates, and federal armies move in.

    All that was missing on Jan. 6 was a declaration of martial law.

    Which brings us to the fifth point, martial law. Given that the nation has been dancing around the fringes of martial law with each national crisis, it won’t take much more to push the country over the edge to a declaration and military lockdown. The rumblings of armed protests at all 50 state capitals and in Washington, D.C., will only serve to heighten tensions, double down on the government’s military response, and light a match to a powder keg state of affairs. With tens of thousands of National Guard troops and federal law enforcement personnel mobilized to lock down Washington, DC, in the wake of the Jan. 6 riots and in advance of the Jan. 20 inauguration, this could be the largest military show-of-force in recent years.

    So where do we go from here?

    That all of these events are coming to a head around Martin Luther King Jr. Day is telling.

    More than 50 years after King was assassinated, America has become a ticking time bomb of racial unrest and injustice, police militarization, surveillance, government corruption and ineptitude, the blowback from a battlefield mindset and endless wars abroad, and a growing economic inequality between the haves and have nots

    Making matters worse, modern America has compounded the evils of racism, materialism and militarism with ignorance, intolerance and fear.

    Callousness, cruelty, meanness, immorality, ignorance, hatred, intolerance and injustice have become hallmarks of our modern age, magnified by an echo chamber of nasty tweets and government-sanctioned brutality.

    “Despite efforts to curb hate speech, eradicate bullying and extend tolerance, a culture of nastiness has metastasized in which meanness is routinely rewarded, and common decency and civility are brushed aside,” observed Teddy Wayne in a New York Times piece on “The Culture of Nastiness.”

    Every time I read a news headline or flip on the television or open up an email or glance at social media, I run headlong into people consumed with back-biting, partisan politics, sniping, toxic hate, meanness and materialism. Donald Trump is, in many ways, the embodiment of this culture of meanness. Yet as Wayne points out, “Trump is less enabler in chief than a symptom of a free-for-all environment that prizes cutting smears… Social media has normalized casual cruelty.”

    Whether it’s unfriending or blocking someone on Facebook, tweeting taunts and barbs on Twitter, or merely using cyberspace to bully someone or peddle in gossip, we have become masters in the art of meanness.

    This culture of meanness has come to characterize many aspects of the nation’s governmental and social policies.

    “Meanness today is a state of mind,” writes professor Nicolaus Mills in his book The Triumph of Meanness, “the product of a culture of spite and cruelty that has had an enormous impact on us.”

    This casual cruelty is made possible by a growing polarization within the populace that emphasizes what divides us—race, religion, economic status, sexuality, ancestry, politics, etc.—rather than what unites us: we are all human.

    This is what writer Anna Quindlen refers to as “the politics of exclusion, what might be thought of as the cult of otherness… It divides the country as surely as the Mason-Dixon line once did. And it makes for mean-spirited and punitive politics and social policy.”

    This is more than meanness, however.

    This is the psychopathic mindset adopted by the architects of the Deep State, and it applies equally whether you’re talking about Democrats or Republicans.

    Beware, because this kind of psychopathology can spread like a virus among the populace.

    As an academic study into pathocracy concluded, “[T]yranny does not flourish because perpetuators are helpless and ignorant of their actions. It flourishes because they actively identify with those who promote vicious acts as virtuous.”

    People don’t simply line up and salute. It is through one’s own personal identification with a given leader, party or social order that they become agents of good or evil. To this end, “we the people” have become “we the police state.”

    By failing to actively take a stand for good, we become agents of evil. It’s not the person in charge who is solely to blame for the carnage. It’s the populace that looks away from the injustice, that empowers the totalitarian regime, that welcomes the building blocks of tyranny.

    This realization hit me full-force a few years ago. I had stopped into a bookstore and was struck by all of the books on Hitler, everywhere I turned. Yet had there been no Hitler, there still would have been a Nazi regime. There still would have been gas chambers and concentration camps and a Holocaust.

    Hitler wasn’t the architect of the Holocaust. He was merely the figurehead. Same goes for the American police state: had there been no Trump or Obama or Bush, there still would have been a police state. There still would have been police shootings and private prisons and endless wars and government pathocracy.

    Why? Because “we the people” have paved the way for this tyranny to prevail.

    By turning Hitler into a super-villain who singlehandedly terrorized the world – not so different from how Trump is often depicted – historians have given Hitler’s accomplices (the German government, the citizens that opted for security and order over liberty, the religious institutions that failed to speak out against evil, the individuals who followed orders even when it meant a death sentence for their fellow citizens) a free pass.

    This is how tyranny rises and freedom falls.

    None of us who remain silent and impassive in the face of evil, racism, extreme materialism, meanness, intolerance, cruelty, injustice and ignorance get a free pass.

    Those among us who follow figureheads without question, who turn a blind eye to injustice and turn their backs on need, who march in lockstep with tyrants and bigots, who allow politics to trump principle, who give in to meanness and greed, and who fail to be outraged by the many wrongs being perpetrated in our midst, it is these individuals who must shoulder the blame when the darkness wins.

    “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that,” Martin Luther King Jr. sermonized.

    The darkness is winning

    It’s not just on the world stage we must worry about the darkness winning

    The darkness is winning in our communities. It’s winning in our homes, our neighborhoods, our churches and synagogues, and our government bodies. It’s winning in the hearts of men and women the world over who are embracing hatred over love. It’s winning in every new generation that is being raised to care only for themselves, without any sense of moral or civic duty to stand for freedom.

    John F. Kennedy, killed by an assassin’s bullet five years before King would be similarly executed, spoke of a torch that had been “passed to a new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage—and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.

    Once again, a torch is being passed to a new generation, but this torch is setting the world on fire, burning down the foundations put in place by our ancestors, and igniting all of the ugliest sentiments in our hearts.

    This fire is not liberating; it is destroying.

    We are teaching our children all the wrong things: we are teaching them to hate, teaching them to worship false idols (materialism, celebrity, technology, politics), teaching them to prize vain pursuits and superficial ideals over kindness, goodness and depth.

    We are on the wrong side of the revolution.

    “If we are to get on to the right side of the world revolution,” advised King, “we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society.“

    Freedom demands responsibility.

    Freedom demands that we stop thinking as Democrats and Republicans and start thinking like human beings, or at the very least, Americans.

    Martin Luther King Jr. dared to dream of a world in which all Americans “would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

    He didn’t live to see that dream become a reality. It’s still not a reality. We haven’t dared to dream that dream in such a long time.

    But imagine…

    Imagine what this country would be like if Americans put aside their differences and dared to stand up—united—for freedom…

    Imagine what this country would be like if Americans put aside their differences and dared to speak out—with one voice—against injustice…

    Imagine what this country would be like if Americans put aside their differences and dared to push back—with the full force of our collective numbers—against the evils of government despotism.

    As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, tyranny wouldn’t stand a chance.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/14/2021 – 00:05

  • Israel Launches "Deadliest Airstrikes In Years" On Syria With US Intelligence Coordination
    Israel Launches “Deadliest Airstrikes In Years” On Syria With US Intelligence Coordination

    The Washington Post is calling the latest overnight Israeli airstrikes on Syria an “unusually intense” attack on “Iranian positions” there, while The Guardian is reporting “the deadliest airstrikes on Syria in years” which killed 57 Syrian government and Iraqi militia troops.

    The airstrikes reached deep into the country near the Syria-Iraq border in Deir Ezzor province, with the targets said to have been arms depots and military positions. The site is also considered a key weapons transit point between Syria and its allies in Iraq and Iran. 

    Explosion from suspected Israeli airstrike in eastern Syria on January 13, 2021. Via Times of Israel

    Syrian state media identified the area as in the vicinity of Albu Kamal while saying damage is still “being assessed”.

    The Israeli operation appears connected to Trump’s continued pressure campaign against Iran during his last week in the White House. According to an American intelligence source cited in Fox News:

    A senior U.S. intelligence official with knowledge of the attack told The Associated Press that the airstrikes were carried out with intelligence provided by the United States and targeted a series of warehouses in Syria that were being used as a part of the pipeline to store and stage Iranian weapons.

    The official said the warehouses also served as a pipeline for components that supports Iran’s nuclear program.

    The casualty count is uncertain and varying, but Fox also confirmed it as “massive” with up to 18 missile strikes along the border targeting several arms depots.

    It’s been widely reported that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently met with the head of Israeli Mossad, possibly to coordinate just such an attack.

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    Israeli sources further called it a clear “message” to Iran before Biden enters office:

    The head of the Israeli National Security Research Institute, Major General (res.) Amos Yadlin, said that behind its bombing of Syria’s Deir Ezzor Governroate, Tel Aviv wanted to convey a message to Iran.

    In a statement to Israel’s official Kan news channel, Yadlin said that the attack carried out by Israel in the Deir Ezzor Governorate is “important and the message to Iran is that Israel will not stop working (against Iran and Syria) even during the era of (US President-elect Joe) Biden.”

    “Tonight’s attack in Syria has unique characteristics – very long-range attacks in Deir Ezzor and Albukamal, a wide range of targets, including in an urban area, many casualties,” said Yadlin, who is the former head of Israeli Military Intelligence (AMAN).

    “Israel is determined to continue dealing with the military capabilities that Iran is building in the Syrian region, and with the infrastructure to transport weapons,” Gen. Yadlin added.

    Meanwhile, top Israeli officials are now warning the world that should Joe Biden reenter the Iran nuclear deal, the Israeli military would likely launch a preemptive attack on Iran.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/13/2021 – 23:45

  • How COVID Paved The Road To Serfdom
    How COVID Paved The Road To Serfdom

    Authored by Rob Sutton via TheCritic.co.uk,

    Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom maintains a near unrivalled influence on the political imagination of conservative and classical liberal thinkers. Published in 1943, at the height of the Keynesian consensus, it elaborated a worldview considered intolerable within academic economics. 

    The central thesis of The Road to Serfdom is that descent into tyranny is the ultimate and inevitable trajectory of a society in which the sovereignty of the individual is subverted in the accumulation of economic power by the state. Central planning leads invariably to authoritarianism. Hayek is not timid in making these claims.  

    Studying the seemingly disparate political systems which dominated Europe in the run-up to the Second World War (communism, fascism, socialism), Hayek concluded that they each had a common endpoint – the development of a totalitarian state. Despite their contrasting social and economic goals, each necessitated the central consolidation of power and the explicit planning of an economy to achieve those goals.

    As such, their distinct political flavours were largely irrelevant to their ultimate destination. Position along the political axis was less important than most commentators predicted. The binary Hayek was interested in, rather than left wing versus right wing, was whether the state uses its authority to promote individual freedom or to restrict it.

    Hayek saw that the wartime governments of Nazi Germany, fascist Italy and communist Russia all fell within the latter category: they sacrificed the freedom of individuals to empower the state to achieve its own goals. In doing so, their citizens suffered similarly. Repression, poverty and death are the consequence of a government which has taken ownership of those responsibilities previously held by individual citizens.

    Hayek’s argument faced an uphill struggle. Despite its enormous popularity among classical liberals and conservative policymakers, we continue to view the political machines of the first half of the 20th century through the lens of their self-assigned labels, rather than under Hayek’s consequentialist umbrella of totalitarian collectivism. 

    His criticism of socialism is not a left versus right argument, but a general observation of the tendency of systems of government who accumulate economic power to achieve social goals to veer towards repression. The different political labels are just different positions along the road to serfdom, valuing centralised economic planning over individual liberty.

    By transcending traditional political labels, and regrouping governments in terms of how they wield the formidable power of the state, The Road to Serfdom gains its enduring appeal. Its lessons are a stern warning to any who believe that a government can accumulate vast powers and maintain them for purely beneficent purposes.

    The road described by Hayek, one in which citizens entitled to commercial freedom, private property and the rule of law might ultimately see their individual sovereignty become secondary to the aims of the state, is worryingly benign in its superficial appearance. The transition is not particular to any time or place or political position. There is no discontinuity or abrupt transition of power. The passage by which individuals find themselves subservient occurs gradually, and often in places where commentators would not believe it possible.

    To Hayek, economic freedom is as inseparable from individual liberty. When the economic freedom of the individual is handed over to the state it is a key step towards totalitarian government. Economic freedom is a necessary condition of individual liberty. Individual liberty cannot long exist without economic freedom.

    Hayek observes that the transition of power from individuals to the state is almost always voluntary, at least initially. Military coups and political assassinations generally happen late along the road, after the state power has already amassed considerable power, and are more symptom than cause. More important is the steady and insidious sacrifice of economic liberty performed by citizens in exchange for security. Individuals expect their government to fill an ever-greater role within the economic function of their country and as such within their lives, and those in government desiring power are all too happy to accept.

    The transfer of power is too slow to set alarm bells ringing, but it is never without cost, and when it occurs steadily it allows the state to gradually acquire instruments of enormous social and economic influence. The nature of society is such that it eventually becomes psychologically reliant on the state; with every new problem its citizens turn to their central planners in expectation of a solution. Expedience takes precedence over personal responsibility.

    And as this power is accumulated, instead of the instruments of the states serving their citizens, a change begins to occur. Citizens are increasingly asked to serve the instruments of the state, rather than the other way around, often to fulfil some vague goal of general welfare.

    We have seen this during the current pandemic with the ever-present “Protect the NHS” slogan. Yet few have dared to ask why we are being asked to sacrifice those hard-won liberties in the name of a state institution. To those who would point out the apparent selfishness of such questioning, Hayek notes that those crises which precipitate the transition of power from the individual to the collective are often driven initially by conceptions of the “public good” in which a unified national response is demanded.

    The NHS was, of course, founded with the most noble of intentions. But that does not mean we should not question why we have now, over 70 years on from its birth, found ourselves in a situation in which every facet of public life has been redirected to protect an instrument of the state, to which the political careers of our central planners are intrinsically bound.

    The path towards an oppressive society generally begins with protective measures enacted with good intentions, as has happened with Covid-19. A common early step on the road is national emergency. This might be war, economic depression, political gridlock, or a pandemic. Citizens are willing to accept that a temporary curtailment of individual liberty is necessary to overcome a national crisis. 

    An asymmetry between the urgency the initial crisis demanded and the public’s hunger to protect their personal liberties is exploited. There is an assumption that freedoms lost will be quickly regained. This asymmetry, taken at the flood, allows early sceptics to be easily smothered. Yet power remains centralised even after the initial crisis passes. Arguments that “what’s good in wartime is good in peacetime” arise. Those individuals who might personally gain from the accumulation of power are reluctant to hand back controls to citizens who previously relinquished it in good faith. An exit strategy is not forthcoming.

    These difficulties are exacerbated in “advanced” nations. The institutions of the state in Britain have reached such a point that these is little aspect of public life not regulated by departmental oversight. Substantial influence is held over increasingly high-resolution aspects of individual lives. The bloat of party manifestos at each election is testament to this, and the growing intrusion of the state into our lives primes it for an executive who is willing to wield that power without restraint.

    A state which readily accepts responsibility for the minutiae of the lives of its citizens will inevitably infantilise them to a certain degree. And when new difficulties arise, citizens are emotionally conditioned to expect the state to intervene again. The individual’s sphere of influence is whittled away as the collectivist sphere of government expands to form an increasingly comprehensive political and moral narrative.

    Rather than face the difficulty of building a policy consensus during Covid-19, we have instead seen the concentration of executive powers outside the reach of parliamentary scrutiny. The policies implemented have no clear goal (“save lives” is vague, unhelpful, and, one would hope, the natural default goal of policy anyway) and no clear exit strategy.

    The scope has expanded beyond measures which might be considered within the realm of public health to absurdly detailed prescriptions for how we should live. Where we should go to work, what kind of businesses are sufficiently important to continue, who we should socialise with and within which hours, how democratic institutions can assemble, which causes may be legitimately protested.

    These goals clearly reach well beyond what could reasonably be described as within the bounds of public health. And with this amassed power, governments seem to implement pitifully detailed restrictions as they try to substitute themselves for common sense: which way to walk within a supermarket, which products are deemed “essential” by the government’s planners, how far apart we must stand, where grandma should sit at the dinner table.

    The measures rolled out in the name of a public health emergency are not public health measures. They are, instead, an all-encompassing social and economic prescription for how we must live and work, authorised by an executive using extra-parliamentary measures which they argue that the complexity and seriousness of the situation have necessitated.

    Any system of central planning is necessarily a poor imitation of the innumerable complexity captured by a free market economy. The attempts of central committees to assign to products and services values which can only be truly assigned by citizens introduces inefficiency. But Hayek is not advocating for laissez-faire economics. He argues that there does exist a natural duty of government “planning”: to level the playing field for those engaging in commerce and reduce barriers to market entry. This in opposition to a view of “planning” which uses economic control to achieve specific social goals.

    These two categories of planning are necessarily exclusive. Planning cannot be performed with a goal of some social intervention without necessarily distorting markets and producing barriers to free trade, regardless of the purpose. The sweeping measures introduced to reduce the transmission of Covid-19 demonstrate this clearly: small businesses have suffered terribly, while corporate giants such as Amazon have consolidated their grip on the market.

    Britain is generally a nation of political consensus. Since the Second World War, with the exception of the advent of Thatcherism, there has been a unidirectional and steady transfer of power from individual citizens into the hands of government. Being so willing to accept the prescriptions of government in regulating the most minute of aspects of our everyday lives, we prepared the stage for an event such as this current pandemic, precipitating a dramatic shift from a society in which the individual is sovereign to one in which their needs are secondary to those of the state and its institutions.

    Hayek’s ultimate message is that, as far as the relationship between the state and its subjects goes, nothing is free. That which the government gives us necessarily requires the sacrifice of individual responsibility. Security is not without cost, and freedom can only be protected at a price. The only truly progressive system is one which respects the individualism above collectivism.

    Those lives we might save by reducing transmission with lockdowns will ultimately be paid for down the line. Either through those conditions which we have decided secondary in priority to Covid-19, those heart attacks, strokes and cancer being diagnosed and treated too late, or through the innumerable opportunity cost of stifled innovation in a society whose government has obtained greater economic and social control since the Second World War. Freedom, hard-won, is easily lost.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/13/2021 – 23:25

  • Chinese Autos Continue V-Shaped Recovery To End 2020
    Chinese Autos Continue V-Shaped Recovery To End 2020

    It’s almost as if life is back to normal in China…

    The recovery in Chinese auto sales continued strong through the end of the year, with vehicle wholesales rising 6.4% and passenger vehicle sales rising 7.2% in December 2020. See if you can spot the V-shaped recovery below:

    According to data released on Wednesday by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, passenger vehicle sales totaled 2.375 million units while vehicle wholesales totaled 2.83 million units. 

    Heading into 2021, the CAAM expects the recovery to continue. They believe vehicle sales will increase 4% to more than 26 million units total in 2021, according to Bloomberg. This prediction is despite a current semiconductor shortage in the auto market that is causing production disruptions across the globe. 

    In December, new energy vehicle wholesales were up a massive 49.5% to 248,000 units. 

    This comes as we continue to note that the market for EVs in China continues is ripe. EV sales from January to November of 2020 were up 4.4% this year versus a decline of 7.6% in overall passenger cars during the same period. Chinese auto sales had seen a full V-shaped recovery by October of this year, we noted at the time. 

    Recall, we noted in November that NEVs will be 20% of China’s new car sales by 2025. The “new energy” category includes battery electric, plug-in hybrid and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles. Sales will rise as the country’s “NEV industry has improved their technology and competitiveness,” according to a new policy paper reviewed by Reuters. 

    In the country’s 5 year plan to 2025, the State Council has pushed for improvements in EV technologies, building more efficient charging and implementing battery swapping networks. The Chinese government will also adopt quotas and incentives to to “guide automakers” (i.e. force them) to make EVs after Federal subsidies end in two years.

    The government is also looking at ways to implement EVs for public uses, commercial use and mass transit. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/13/2021 – 23:05

  • Eye Of The Storm: United States And Iran Flex Muscles Expecting New Confrontation
    Eye Of The Storm: United States And Iran Flex Muscles Expecting New Confrontation

    Submitted by South Front,

    U.S. President Donald Trump and his entourage have evidently lost the “war at home”.

    The internal struggle is all but entirely concluded, and the victors are Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party.

    However, Trump and Co., in their last days in office are still dead set on proving they are in charge of the Middle East, and on guaranteeing that their “maximum pressure campaign” on Iran continues. And both sides are flexing muscles showing that they are ready for military confrontation at any moment.

    Tehran revealed its new helicopter carrier – the Makran, as well as a brand-new missile launching warship – the Zereh. Iran continues amassing forces along its sea border in the Persian Gulf and is tightening its grip on the Strait of Hormuz.

    US Satellite imagery has revealed an increase in activity by IRGC vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.

    In just the first days of the year, Iran carried out a large-scale drone drill, showcasing loitering munitions and more, closely followed by a naval exercise.

    The elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps revealed their own underground missile base near the Persian Gulf, promising to realize their threat of turning the US aircraft carriers into “sinking submarines.”

    On its part, the United States sent their nuclear submarine, the USS Georgia, loaded to the brink with Tomahawk missiles, accompanied by two guided missile destroyers, to the Persian Gulf.

    They joined the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier, which was initially set to depart, but which has instead remained.

    To top it all off, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed that the new “home base” of Al-Qaeda is Iran and went pretty close to claiming that Iran was even behind the organization of 9/11.

    That took place just days after Pompeo vowed to designate Yemen’s Houthis, longstanding Iranian allies, as a terrorist organization. Hezbollah is also on high alert. Its Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah vowed to support Iran and thanked it again for its support.

    Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabiei warned the US against “extraterritorial adventurism” and its actions do appear to be evidence of that.

    At the same time, Donald Trump is desperate for a “win” or at least to show himself as a decision-maker, after being banned from all social media. It could also be his aim to damage the relations between Tehran and Washington beyond repair.

    Incoming President Joe Biden is expected to attempt to rejoin the Iran Nuclear Deal in one way or another, which could lead to improving relations between the two sides and bring a semblance of calm to the Middle East.

    There is no certainty that this would happen and, depending on which actions would be undertaken by both Iran and the USA, this could also contribute to a deepening rift between the two.

    In regard to the conflict between Iran and Israel, the parliament in Tehran voted on a resolution to end the state of Israel by 2041. While Biden is expected to be less supportive of Tel Aviv than Trump, the United States will remain Israel’s key ally. Therefore, an end to the conflict between the sides is as unlikely as ever, but Israel may, for the first time in a while, be on retreat.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/13/2021 – 22:45

  • Facebook Played Major Role Coordinating 'Capitol Riot' As Sandberg Deflects Blame
    Facebook Played Major Role Coordinating ‘Capitol Riot’ As Sandberg Deflects Blame

    Over the last week, Twitter alternative Parler was summarily executed by Amazon, which kicked the conservative social media platform off of its servers due to ‘far-right’ users coordinating last week’s protest at the Capitol which turned into a riot after a small group split off, gained access to the Capitol building, and ran amok.

    Now we learn that Facebook also had a giant role in coordinating the so-called ‘Capitol Riots’ which President Trump was just impeached over on Wednesday for allegedly inciting the incident.

    According to the Washington Post, a “growing body of evidence shows that Facebook played a much larger role” than COO Sharyl Sandberg claimed in a Monday interview livestreamed by Reuters, in what the Post described as ‘deflecting blame.’

    “I think these events were largely organized on platforms that don’t have our abilities to stop hate, don’t have our standards and don’t have our transparency,” said Sandberg.

    She noted that last week the company took down content affiliated with the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory and the Proud Boys extremist group, as well as content affiliated with the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” movement seeking to delegitimize election results. She said there was likely to be some content on Facebook because the company’s enforcement was “never perfect.” –Washington Post

    Au contraire Sharyl, it’s far more than just ‘some’ content.

    According to the Post, the hashtag #StopTheSteal was still widely in use as of Monday, when a search revealed that 128,000 people were talking about it, and in many cases using it to coordinate for the rally, according to Eric Feinberg, Vice President with the Coalition for a Safer Web.

    What’s more, two dozen GOP officials and organizations in at least 12 states coordinated bus trips to the rally via Facebook, according to Media Matters.

    “BUS TRIP to DC … #StoptheSteal. If your passions are running hot and you’re intending to respond to the President’s call for his supporters to descend on DC on Jan 6, LISTEN UP!” wrote the Polk County Republican Party of North Carolina in a Facebook post which has since been deleted.

    Facebook is now backpedaling, with spokeswoman Liz Bourgeois saying in a statement that “Sheryl began by noting these events were organized online, including on our platforms — with the clear suggestion we have a role here,” adding “She was making the point, which has been made by many journalists and academics, that our crackdowns on QAnon, militia and hate groups has meant large amounts of activity has migrated to other platforms with fewer rules and enforcement,” while denying that Sandberg sought to deflect blame. 

    Feinberg’s searches for the banned hashtag #StopTheSteal and the affiliated hashtags #DoNotCertify, #WildProtest and #FightForTrump on Facebook and Instagram as recently as Monday revealed hundreds of posts promoting the rally, according to a review by The Washington Post.

    Some of that promotion included Instagram posts with detailed maps of the Capitol and a guide to the speakers there.

    A meme posted on Facebook on Jan. 5 called for “Operation Occupy the Capitol” and promoted the hashtag #1776Rebel, according to a screenshot posted by Media Matters, referencing the year America freed itself from British rule. The post also included a quote from Abraham Lincoln: “We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the Courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who would pervert the Constitution.” –Washington Post

    Based on recent precedent, this means Facebook should be shut down – right? Since they’re large enough to run their own servers, however, it may prove difficult even for the wokest of cloud hosts.

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

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/13/2021 – 22:25

  • California Is Worse Than You Think
    California Is Worse Than You Think

    Authored by William Anderson via The Mises Institute,

    My colleague from the philosophy department was becoming increasingly angry.

    He was trying to be polite, but it was clear that he was raging inside. After a few minutes, he smiled a very strained smile and excused himself.

    Our conversation was about California, or to be more specific, California governance. As readers can imagine, he was bullish on how the Democratic Party governs the state, California being perhaps the most one-party state in the USA. Every statewide election has gone to a Democrat in the last decade, and Democrats have a supermajority in the state legislature, which means that there is no meaningful Republican opposition and whatever the Democrats want, they get.

    Not surprisingly, California governance is squarely progressive. The unions representing government employees effectively run the legislature, and as a result, pay, benefits, and pensions for those workers increasingly are straining the state budgets. (Steven Greenhut, a libertarian journalist based in California has documented the unsustainable growth of government in that state for nearly two decades.) Yet, the state continues to march politically and economically in the progressive direction as though the laws of economics didn’t matter.

    For the most part, I have observed progressive California from far away, but my life took a different turn a few years ago, and the state is becoming my new home. I married a retired nurse from Sacramento in 2018, and because of health issues with her adult daughter, she has had to remain in that city, something not in our original plans. Because our campus either has been closed or severely restricted during the covid-19 lockdowns, I have spent most of the past year working from my wife’s home.

    Living and working in California has offered me the opportunity to observe California progressivism up close, and it has been an interesting experience. Yes, the state where I officially reside, Maryland, is famously one-party and progressive, but the progressivism of California makes Maryland’s legislature look almost red state by comparison and surreally so in some ways.

    For example, the California legislature in its progressive wisdom effectively decriminalized theft as long as thieves take less than $950 worth of merchandise, officially reducing such theft to a misdemeanor but in effect making it legal, since progressive California prosecutors don’t like to be bothered by petty criminals. In practice, that means consumer goods are much harder to find in California stores than one might experience elsewhere. For me, the difference was quite revealing, as I recently returned to Maryland after spending close to nine months in Sacramento.

    When I go to the Walmart near my wife’s home, I find that many things that openly are on display in Maryland are behind locked cases in California. Furthermore, California’s draconian labor laws mean Walmart has fewer employees, so if I wish to purchase something I easily could buy in Maryland, I have to wait for a long time and often I just walk away because no one is available to open the glass case. Yet, even with these provisions, shoplifting losses for California retailers are enormous, and the state’s protheft laws have encouraged organized grab-and-run rings.

    My progressive colleagues, like my philosophy professor friend, see no problem with such developments. To them, the real thieves are the capitalists, the retailers like Walmart that refuse to pay “living wages” to their employees, and, according to Senator Bernie Sanders, the capitalists have “been looting” Americans for years. Thus, the wave of theft in that state is a positive development, according to progressives.

    I can go on, but it isn’t difficult to expose the vast array of sins (economic and otherwise) committed by the California political classes, and I liken this kind of punditry to swinging a bat in a room full of pinatas—one simply cannot miss. Steven Greenhut has been exposing California’s follies for years. However, perhaps the best recent commentary I have read on the progressive mentality that governs the state comes from blogger Mike Solana, who deftly skewers progressive politicians from the Golden State who now are accusing the tech industry of having “extracted wealth” from California and then left for the greener pastures of lower-tax havens such as Texas and Florida.

    Solana’s rip is worth the read if for no other reason than that he exposes the cluelessness of progressive politicians and pundits, and one can be assured that progressive politicians will fit Tallyrand’s description of the Bourbons: “They had learned nothing, and had forgotten nothing.” Yet, Solana also is puzzled as to why Bay Area politicians who fail spectacularly also win landslide elections:

    Nothing in San Francisco can be set on a path to slow correction until at least six of the eleven district board seats along with the mayorship belong to sane, goal-oriented leaders cognizant of our city’s many problems, and single-mindedly focused on solving them. These politicians will likewise need to be extremely well-funded. This is to say we need a political class, funded by a political machine, neither of which currently exist. Even were both the class and the funding apparatus to rapidly emerge, and even were the new political coalition to win an undefeated string of miracle elections, it would take four years to seize meaningful political power from the resident psychotics in charge, who, as per the last election, appear to be very popular among close to ninety percent of voters (a curiosity for another wire). This is to say nothing of the broader Bay Area political toxicity, nor the state political dynamics, which are poised to exacerbate every one of our problems. It is a multi-front political catastrophe.

    During the covid-19 pandemic, which California politicians—and especially Governor Gavin Newsom—mismanaged spectacularly, California voters overwhelmingly chose the progressive status quo. While writers go on and on about the mind-boggling politics of California, the voters continue to send the left-wing progressives into office at all levels of government. While some might believe that “education” is the key to the so-called self-governance of democracy, voters in California clearly are choosing their candidates for reasons other than demonstrating wisdom in office. Indeed, why voters insist on putting the worst on top is perhaps the most intriguing question one asks about California politics.

    Typical wisdom says that voters “vote for their pocketbooks,” but the progressives whom the lower-income voters overwhelmingly choose to elect are responsible for California having the nation’s highest poverty rates. Furthermore, for all the antiwealth rhetoric that California’s progressive candidates spew out, the very poor and the very rich voters in California tend to choose and support the same candidates, and the Democratic Party is the party of choice of the state’s large number of billionaires.

    There is little or nothing that the current progressive state government has done that promotes the promotion of real wealth in California, yet even as state authorities actively destroy economic opportunities, the voters respond by demanding more of the same. That would seem to be a mystery, but maybe not. Let me explain.

    In the past few years, wildfires have ravaged huge tracts of mostly public land in California (and in much of the West, although California has been hit the hardest). There are many reasons for the fires, the most obvious being that most of California receives little rainfall and many fires occur in mountainous terrain, where it is difficult to fight them. But there is much more, and most of it has to do with progressive policies. Even the George Soros–funded Pro Publica recognizes the role of fire suppression-based land management practices in making the fires worse:

    The pattern is a form of insanity: We keep doing overzealous fire suppression across California landscapes where the fire poses little risk to people and structures. As a result, wildland fuels keep building up. At the same time, the climate grows hotter and drier. Then, boom: the inevitable. The wind blows down a power line, or lightning strikes dry grass, and an inferno ensues. This week we’ve seen both the second- and third-largest fires in California history. “The fire community, the progressives, are almost in a state of panic,” (Tim) Ingalsbee said. There’s only one solution, the one we know yet still avoid. “We need to get good fire on the ground and whittle down some of that fuel load.”

    Yet, the progressivist religion that defines the Democratic Party in California cannot acknowledge that the leave-nature-alone policies could have anything to do with the scope and intensity of the wildfires. Instead, the powers that be have decided that climate change—and only climate change—is responsible, and the way to deal with the problem is to impose draconian rules that make life difficult for most people living there, from outlawing new natural gas residential hookups to its infamous “road diets” imposed to discourage people from driving cars. Despite the fact that California politicians, such as Gov. Gavin Newsom, claim that these policies will significantly reduce global temperatures and make wildfires less intense, the reality is quite different, as California accounts for less than 1 percent of so-called greenhouse gases in the world.

    Perhaps the most symbolic action by California’s government of progressive arrogance is the continued development of the “bullet train,” an ambitious (to be charitable) project to build high-speed rail from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Under urging from then governor Jerry Brown, voters in the Golden State in 2008 agreed to permit a bond issue to begin funding what Brown claimed would require a maximum of $33 billion. California’s mountainous terrain forced design and route changes, turning the LA-SF “dream” into a train that would run between Bakersfield and Merced, two cities in the flat Central Valley. To make matters even worse, passenger rail service via Amtrak already exists in the valley, and even if everything were to go to plan (a heroic assumption, one might add), the bullet train would save only forty-five minutes in travel from the existing route.

    As the proposed length of the bullet train becomes shorter, the costs continue to skyrocket. The original $33 billion estimate now has ballooned to more than $100 billion—if the project even is completed. Yet the project continues to live. Last year I spoke to a former coworker of my wife who enthusiastically supports the rail project. When I asked her about the cost and the fact that there really is no demand for this service, her response was instructive: “But we NEED trains!” Never mind that this is a boondoggle that dwarfs almost anything else we know as government waste; never mind that California taxpayers are being forced to fund a massive wealth transfer to politically connected contractors in which there are all costs and no benefits. The state “needs” trains.

    My faculty colleague also became angry at my panning the California bullet train, and I have wondered why progressives are so defensive about this project. There is no doubt that it is a huge waste of money and that the passenger-mile costs are well above anything else that exists in public transportation, but that doesn’t seem to matter. One would think that “good government” progressives would see the disconnect here.

    One possible explanation comes from Murray Rothbard, who recognized that progressives ultimately are at “war with nature.” While Rothbard was writing about egalitarianism, nonetheless one can argue that progressive policies are aimed at producing very different outcomes than what would happen if people were free to make their own choices, and especially choices with their own money.

    Because of the rise of the tech industry, California has seen an increase in wealth that probably is unprecedented in the history of this country—and maybe the world. Not surprisingly, the state’s tax take has massively increased in the past two decades, with the percentage of income tax revenues rising dramatically as tech entrepreneurship has created a new billionaire class. While one can think of these new billionaires as a new class of wealthy, in many ways their outlooks (at least after they become wealthy) often reflect the outlooks of the wave of entrepreneurs such as Andrew Carnegie who developed new technologies, put them to economic use, created vast amounts of wealth, and then created the foundations that ultimately would be governed by a wealth-destroying philosophy of progressivism.

    In part, the wealth created permits foundation-financed “visionaries” to demand that resources be directed in a different way than would be done in a market economy, with “serve the people” and “make a difference” as mantras. We see that time and again in California, where tax-engorged “visionary” progressive politicians seize wealth created by private enterprise in order to pursue their own causes such as environmentalism.

    Of course, as we already have pointed out, progressive policies tend to make the original problems worse. Not only have progressives made mass wildfires more likely, but they also have been behind the rise in homelessness in California. In the late 1970s, the San Francisco city government instituted rent controls. Not surprisingly, housing shortages followed, and the real price of housing skyrocketed. As shortages became worse, progressive politicians doubled down on the controls. Today, more than five thousand people live on the streets in San Francisco, and the government—bound by its own progressive ideals—is helpless to do anything but hand out money and defend its policies. And this in the city with the most billionaires per capita in the world.

    There are three reasons why California governance will not change even as it heads toward a fiscal cliff.

    First, and most important, progressive ideology is intractable and does not yield to the laws of economics. Progressive politicians are feted in the mainstream media and in California’s left-wing education institutions, and voters don’t seem to want any alternatives. (After all, California “needs” trains.)

    Politicians who raise questions as to this model of governance can expect to be demonized in the media and will face violent protests if they show up in public venues—and especially on college campuses.

    The second reason is that California voters are drawn to progressive Democrats no matter what disasters these politicians might inflict. The highly educated voters do not support progressive Democrats just on economic issues, but also on the highly contentious social issues, and with the 2020 “revolt of the rich” dominating Democratic Party politics at the present, it is doubtful that this current wave of progressive-favoring voters will change direction.

    Democrats also have the immigrant vote in their back pockets, and California has seen a wave of immigrants help turn it into a one-party state. For now, the numbers are just overwhelming, and we can expect California to move even further to the left as its housing and poverty problems become worse and Democrats successfully convince voters that free markets are cause.

    The third reason things won’t change in California is that progressive government creates its own sets of monopoly rents that are distributed to politically connected interest groups. In the case of the Golden State, state-employee and municipal labor unions are by far the most powerful political entity, and they control vast blocs of voters. Their power was recently demonstrated by their support of the covid-19 lockdowns in the state—during which public employees continued to draw full pay even as the lockdown policies ravaged the state’s tax base.

    Should one doubt the power of California’s government-employee unions, witness the “success” of what was called AB 5, the law that almost killed the “gig” industries in the state, putting thousands of freelance writers and musicians out of work. Written by the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations) as a means of ending the Uber and Lyft rideshare services (and protect unionized taxi and public transportation workers), the fallout was so bad that even the legislature had to back off some of the restrictions. Voters did the rest last November when they beat back most of the most onerous provisions of the law. (One doubts that the musicians and writers that lost their jobs changed their progressive voting patterns in the most recent election. Such is the staying power of progressive ideology.)

    If one believes that perhaps the wave of progressive voters will become “converted” to a “free minds and free markets” approach (the “left libertarian” position), the experience of New York City should be instructive. In 1975, the economy was in recession, businesses were fleeing the city’s onerous tax rates and antibusiness climate, and city officials were fraudulently selling capital bonds to pay for previously issued capital bonds. (William E. Simon, the US secretary of the Treasury in 1975, laid out the entire scenario in his blockbuster A Time for Truth.)

    New York’s problem was obvious—except in the minds of progressives. Where most of us would understand that having unions running away with the budgets while suppressing productive private enterprises is a losing proposition, progressives see a nefarious capitalist plot. That New York City had a relatively brief renaissance in large part because of the deregulation of banking and finance (which was begun by President Jimmy Carter) plays no role in progressive thinking at all.

    Unlike New York City, California does not have an economic ace in its pocket. Even though much of the tech industry has prospered during the state’s draconian pandemic shutdowns, the state government (not to mention cities and counties) is facing the worst financial crisis perhaps in its history. Not surprisingly, the progressive response is to increase incendiary rhetoric toward wealth creators and demand even higher taxes and more business regulations.

    Progressivism is a utopian philosophy of governance that will never find nor create its utopia. If California voters and politicians do not understand the current crisis and how it came about, they probably never will understand. Instead, we will see the continuous march to perdition as California politicians refuse to acknowledge that they are killing the geese laying the golden eggs.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/13/2021 – 22:05

  • Yields Surge As Stunned Traders Learn Biden To Propose Massive $2 Trillion Stimulus
    Yields Surge As Stunned Traders Learn Biden To Propose Massive $2 Trillion Stimulus

    Last week, Goldman sparked a buying frenzy in the market (and selling in treasuries) when the bank said it expects the Biden admin would unveil a “modest” $750 billion fiscal stimulus plan, including some $300 billion in “stimmy” checks to Americans.

    However, as bank after bank tried to upstage Goldman and threw around stimulus estimates as high as $1 trillion or even more, the market barely noticed when late this afternoon, incoming Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer reportedly “pressed” (in Bloomberg’s words) Joe Biden to propose more than $1.3 trillion in spending for his initial round of Covid-19 relief.

    According to Bloomberg, “the two have discussed Biden’s plans ahead of the president-elect’s announcement on his economic-rebuilding proposals… Biden is set to speak at 7:15 p.m. Thursday to outline “his vaccination and economic rescue legislative package,” his transition team said in a statement.”

    But if markets ignored the Schumer report, they sure as hell noticed the CNN report which hit just after 9pmET, which prompted traders to take a double take because apparently Schumer “pressed” Biden so hard to expand the next stimulus round, he literally squashed the president-elect, who is now “expected to unveil a major Covid-19 relief package on Thursday and his advisers have recently told allies in Congress to expect a price tag in the ballpark of $2 trillion,” CNN reported citing two people briefed on the deliberations.

    The Biden team is taking a “shoot for the moon” approach with the package, one lawmaker in close contact with them told CNN, though they added that the price tag could still change.

    The proposal, which is just shy of the Democrats’ demand late last year when they sought a $2.2 trillion stimulus, only to agree on a $900 billion enacted last December, “will include sizable direct payments to American families, significant state and local funding – including for coronavirus vaccine distribution and other emergency spending measures – to help those struggling during the pandemic.”

    It wasn’t immediately clear just how big the “stimmy” checks would be, but it is safe to say they will be at least $2,000 and perhaps much more…. which while great news for stocks as much of this money will quickly find its way into Robinhood accounts, is very bad news for bond yields as $2 trillion is a number which just might spark the runaway inflation the Fed has been dreaming of all these years.

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    Brian Deese, Biden’s pick to lead the National Economic Council, said Wednesday at a conference that the package will include $2,000 stimulus checks, and address other relief measures like unemployment insurance.

    And sure enough, even after Clarida, Brainard and countless other Fed speakers jawboned mightily all day to talk back expectations of an early taper today, sending yields sharply lower, the 10Y soared almost 5bps in minutes, from 1.07% to 1.12% amid fears that $2 trillion just may be a “big enough” number. What is curious is how slow Treasurys were to react to the news: it took them about 3-4 minutes to realize the gravity of what Biden was planning.

    Brian Deese, Biden’s pick to lead the National Economic Council, said Wednesday at a conference that the package will include $2,000 stimulus checks, and address other relief measures like unemployment insurance.

    The yield spike predictably unleashed a jump in the dollar…

    … which coupled with the rise in real rates, hammered gold (which makes zero sense since the US deficit is about to explode, but that’s just how mechanistic algos roll)…

    … and while S&P and Nasdaq futures dipped, small caps – i.e., value names which are boosted by the reflation them – exploded higher.

    Biden is set to announce the details of his plan in Wilmington, Delaware, Thursday evening, and there is a chance the number may increase still.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/13/2021 – 21:55

  • Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Explains Why Trump Ban Was "Right Decision", Admits It Sets "Dangerous Precedent"
    Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Explains Why Trump Ban Was “Right Decision”, Admits It Sets “Dangerous Precedent”

    Heavy is the crown.

    That is probably the best way one can describe the belabored, meandering justification posted on twitter by its CEO Jack Dorsey, moments ago explaining why banning Trump was “the right decision” due to his “focusing all actions on public safety” yet one which Dorsey does not “celebrate or feel pride in.” Then after several sentences oozing with “virtuously” righteous self-flagelation, Dorsey laments, without a trace of irony, that banning Trump “sets a precedent I feel is dangerous: the power an individual or corporation has over a part of the global public conversation.”

    He is, of course, referring to himself because, as far as we know, the buck – and the decision to ban the sitting president of the US – stops with him. Here we won’t point out the immense monetary benefits twitter reaped for as long as Trump was president. It is only after he was literally one foot out of the door, that Twitter decided to play the ultimate virtue-signaling card, and succumbed to the calls so-called liberals had made for the past four years – to shut Donald Trump up. Permanently. And no, the timing of the ban is not lost on anyone.

    Jack then tries to deflect blame for his decision, reverting to the oldest excuse in the book: “If folks do not agree with our rules and enforcement, they can simply go to another internet service” which of course is wonderful… until the tech and media titans which effectively control the internet gang up on said “another internet voice” and shut it down overnight… as Parler found out the hard way can happen in less than 48 hours. Jack, himself, found the irony in this approach when in the very next sentence he said that “this concept was challenged last week when a number of foundational internet tool providers also decided not to host what they found dangerous. I do not believe this was coordinated. More likely: companies came to their own conclusions or were emboldened by the actions of others.”

    Alas, poor yorick, er jack, it was coordinated from the very top, but we certainly appreciate your delightful attempt to feign childish innocence as you unleashed a historic purge of conservative voices on twitter, or as it is now better known, a “blue check” echo chamber.

    Curiously, this was followed by moment of genuinely lucid clarity, when Jack claimed that while such a historic purge might be called for in “this moment in time… over the long term it will be destructive to the noble purpose and ideals of the open internet. A company making a business decision to moderate itself is different from a government removing access, yet can feel much the same.”

    Almost as if Jack anticipates that moment in the not too distant future when his Democrat friends won’t be in power any more, and a far more aggressive “government” force finally shuts down twitter.

    So in anticipation of such a moment, and to show his piety for his decision, Jack then veers off into the bizarre and argues that what the internet really needs, is a decentralized social media, not controlled by anyone or any thing: something like bitcoin:

    The reason I have so much passion for #Bitcoin is largely because of the model it demonstrates: a foundational internet technology that is not controlled or influenced by any single individual or entity. This is what the internet wants to be, and over time, more of it will be.

    Jack may be shocked to learn that just 2% of bitcoin addresses account for 95% of bitcoin holdings. Or maybe not, because in the very next sentence he admits casually that he would be delighted if he could also be in charge of said “decentralized” technology: bluesky.

    Twitter is funding a small independent team of up to five open source architects, engineers, and designers to develop an open and decentralized standard for social media. The goal is for Twitter to ultimately be a client of this standard

    And that in a nutshell is Jack’s expiation: he may have done the wrong thing by banning Trump (even if he thinks it was the right thing), but going forward he would much rather not bear the burden of this oh so heavy crown, and would much rather pass the decision to ban the president of the US on to someone else: in this case a simple majority… one which we assume will be shadowbanned just as twitter quietly mutes out all those voices it disagrees with, as even Jack admitted to Congress when he said Twitter’s shadow ban “was not impartial”. But fear not: bluesky – whatever that is – will be absolutely impartial.

    Jack’s conclusion was the same as the conclusion of any authoritarian who faces backlash over his actions – while such backlash is still permitted – whatever happened was for the common good, to wit:

    It’s important that we acknowledge this is a time of great uncertainty and struggle for so many around the world. Our goal in this moment is to disarm as much as we can, and ensure we are all building towards a greater common understanding, and a more peaceful existence on earth.

    Finally, to deflect the fury unleashed by banning public conservation because a group of ideologically biased and unchecked moderators felt that it was for the “common good”, Jack reverts to the oldest trick in the book: claiming that the only way out of the mess he created is by pretending it never happened: 

    I believe the internet and global public conversation is our best and most relevant method of achieving this. I also recognize it does not feel that way today. Everything we learn in this moment will better our effort, and push us to be what we are: one humanity working together.

    Good luck with that, Jack.

    * * *

    His full twitted statement is below:

    I do not celebrate or feel pride in our having to ban @realDonaldTrump from Twitter, or how we got here. After a clear warning we’d take this action, we made a decision with the best information we had based on threats to physical safety both on and off Twitter. Was this correct?

    I believe this was the right decision for Twitter. We faced an extraordinary and untenable circumstance, forcing us to focus all of our actions on public safety. Offline harm as a result of online speech is demonstrably real, and what drives our policy and enforcement above all.

    That said, having to ban an account has real and significant ramifications. While there are clear and obvious exceptions, I feel a ban is a failure of ours ultimately to promote healthy conversation. And a time for us to reflect on our operations and the environment around us.
    Having to take these actions fragment the public conversation. They divide us. They limit the potential for clarification, redemption, and learning. And sets a precedent I feel is dangerous: the power an individual or corporation has over a part of the global public conversation.

    The check and accountability on this power has always been the fact that a service like Twitter is one small part of the larger public conversation happening across the internet. If folks do not agree with our rules and enforcement, they can simply go to another internet service.

    This concept was challenged last week when a number of foundational internet tool providers also decided not to host what they found dangerous. I do not believe this was coordinated. More likely: companies came to their own conclusions or were emboldened by the actions of others.

    This moment in time might call for this dynamic, but over the long term it will be destructive to the noble purpose and ideals of the open internet. A company making a business decision to moderate itself is different from a government removing access, yet can feel much the same.

    Yes, we all need to look critically at inconsistencies of our policy and enforcement. Yes, we need to look at how our service might incentivize distraction and harm. Yes, we need more transparency in our moderation operations. All this can’t erode a free and open global internet.

    The reason I have so much passion for #Bitcoin is largely because of the model it demonstrates: a foundational internet technology that is not controlled or influenced by any single individual or entity. This is what the internet wants to be, and over time, more of it will be.

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

    We are trying to do our part by funding an initiative around an open decentralized standard for social media. Our goal is to be a client of that standard for the public conversation layer of the internet. We call it @bluesky:

    This will take time to build. We are in the process of interviewing and hiring folks, looking at both starting a standard from scratch or contributing to something that already exists. No matter the ultimate direction, we will do this work completely through public transparency.

    It’s important that we acknowledge this is a time of great uncertainty and struggle for so many around the world. Our goal in this moment is to disarm as much as we can, and ensure we are all building towards a greater common understanding, and a more peaceful existence on earth.

    I believe the internet and global public conversation is our best and most relevant method of achieving this. I also recognize it does not feel that way today. Everything we learn in this moment will better our effort, and push us to be what we are: one humanity working together.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/13/2021 – 21:25

  • Bagholder's Row: Condo At NYC's One57 Sells For A Record 51% Discount
    Bagholder’s Row: Condo At NYC’s One57 Sells For A Record 51% Discount

    Exemplifying just how bad things in New York have gotten – and just how willing many are to simply get out of Bill de Blasio’s city – a condo on NYC’s famed Billionaire’s Row sold for a record 51% discount this week.

    The property is a 58th floor apartment in New York’s One57 building, according to Bloomberg. The building was once viewed as a symbol of a luxury development boom in New York – a “boom” that ran face first into the Covid pandemic, as we have written about on Zero Hedge for the last year. 

    The condo in question is a 4,483 sq. foot parcel that was purchased in 2014 for $34 million. It was sold this week for $16.75 million. 

    The deal is the biggest loss by an owner at the building since it has been erected. In 2020, there were four other sales in the building in which the owner took a 40% loss, at least, according to Bloomberg.

    Development for One57 started in 2009 and the building became iconic in representing Manhattan’s luxury condo boom that has played out since the Great Recession.

    Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel said: “It’s a pricing reset for this building. It shows that the market is continuing to adjust for these properties and it suggests that there’s potential for more.”

    Gary Barnett, chairman and founder of Extell, said: “Clearly, over six years ago the buyer understood the value of this unit, Unfortunately, this was an estate sale and they decided to just dump it.”

    “It will affect the value in all the surrounding buildings,” he concluded.

    Similarly, Forbes had estimated this summer that unsold units at The Getty Residences, at 503 West 24th Street, had seen sharp price discounts of more than 40%, as demand collapses.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/13/2021 – 21:05

  • Blue Lives Matter Organization Calls Out Democrats Over Their Sudden Change Of Heart
    Blue Lives Matter Organization Calls Out Democrats Over Their Sudden Change Of Heart

    Authored by Joe Saunders via The Western Journal,

    When it comes to Democrats’ newfound support for police officers, Blue Lives Matter isn’t buying it.

    The pro-police group has rarely been shy about sharing its feelings with its 79,000 Twitter followers, but recent statements by Democratic leaders regarding law enforcement after last week’s violence in the nation’s Capitol left no doubt where the organization stands.

    And it’s safe to say that it’s not on the left.

    In a tweet Monday night, the group took aim at public declarations of appreciation for police from members of the same political party that stood by for most of last year as law enforcement officers nationwide were attacked – either physically in the streets or verbally in the mainstream media.

    Some Democrats even joined in, with ludicrous calls to “defund the police” and painting all men and women who wear the badge as potential white supremacists operating under cover of law.

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    “The showing of love & compassion today from Democrats & Liberals for the welfare of police officers is amazing,” Blue Lives Matter tweeted. “Too bad it never showed up while cops were being murdered by #BLM crowd while cities were being burned to the ground for months on end. Why now? Nevermind. We know.”

    It wasn’t clear if the post was referring to a specific event Monday or the general air of indignation that’s emanated from the left since Wednesday’s incursion into the Capitol by a mob of President Donald Trump supporters bent on disrupting the session of Congress intended to certify the results of the Electoral College vote for President-elect Joe Biden.

    One member of the Capitol Police force who was on duty during the violence, Officer Brian Sicknick, died Thursday night.

    The circumstances surrounding Sicknick’s death are unclear. While a New York Times report, citing unidentified “law enforcement officials,” stated that he was injured being struck in the head by a fire extinguisher, no official cause has been released. The officer’s family has asked that the death not be politicized.

    ABC News reported Friday that an underlying medical condition had “driven” Sicknick’s death, though it’s being investigated as a homicide.

    And there’s been no shortage of Democrats willing to take a stand now on behalf of police officers in a context that it can make the president — a man they’ve despised since before he even became the Republican nominee in 2016 — look bad.

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s statement was particularly cynical in this regard.

    “The violent and deadly act of insurrection targeting the Capitol, our temple of American Democracy, and its workers was a profound tragedy and stain on our nation’s history,” the statement said.  “But because of the heroism of our first responders and the determination of the Congress, we were not, and we will never be, diverted from our duty to the Constitution and the American people.”

    Funny how the “heroism of our first responders” wasn’t exactly high on Democrats’ list when the country was being rocked for months by riots by Black Lives Matter groups triggered by the death of George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis police in May and the fatal shooting of a Louisville, Kentucky, woman during a police raid in March.

    “The sacrifice of Officer Sicknick reminds us of our obligation to those we serve: to protect our country from all threats foreign and domestic,” Pelosi added, with an implicit accusation that Trump and his supporters are a “threat” to the country.

    Meanwhile, Rep. Don Beyer, a Virginia Democrat, issued a statement on Sicknick’s death praising the officer as a “constituent who made the ultimate sacrifice while protecting those trapped in the Capitol.”

    This is the same Rep. Beyer who released a statement praising the passage of a police reform bill in June by invoking the implicit stereotype that police departments are racist organizations that pose a particular threat to black suspects. Research by the Manhattan Institute’s Heather MacDonald has shown that black people actually make up a smaller percentage of police shootings than the crime rate would predict.

    “All lives will not matter until Black lives matter. I thank the Congressional Black Caucus for their leadership drafting strong, ambitious legislation that our country needs right now,” Beyer’s statement said.

    There was more, of course. Democrats, ever alert to a chance to attack the president and his supporters, would like nothing better than to pretend to love law enforcement while at the same time championing a strain of progressive liberalism that has made attacks on police departments part of its playbook — with disastrous results.

    But Blue Lives Matter, a “media company founded and run entirely by active and retired law enforcement officers,” wasn’t fooled — any more than any sane American should be.

    It followed up with a tweet tagging Trump’s Twitter account (the one that’s been permanently suspended by the social media giant).

    “You stood by us through it all and still do,” the tweet stated.

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    It’s worth pointing out here that not even the death of a Capitol Police officer could prevent the Democratic president-elect from telling a national audience that the largely white men and women who made up the pro-Trump crowd at the Capitol would have been treated much more harshly by the force if they had been with Black Lives Matter.

    “No one can tell me that if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting yesterday, they wouldn’t have been treated very, very differently than the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol,” Biden said Thursday.

    “We all know that’s true, and it is unacceptable. Totally unacceptable. The American people saw it in plain view. And I hope it’s sensitized them to what we have to do. Not many people know it.”

    Actually, we all don’t know that that’s even close to true. In fact, the evidence of the 2020 riots — when police stood by while anarchy reigned — suggests just the opposite.

    But a demagoguing Democrat can’t help being a demagoguing Democrat — even when he’s president-elect.

    No American who was awake for the second half of 2020 has any doubts which political party supports the police and which defames them, just as no one doubts which political party supports Trump.

    There’s a reason Trump’s re-election was endorsed by a host of law enforcement groups.

    Just like there’s a reason Democrats are trying to present themselves as champions of the men and women in blue.

    But Blue Lives Matter isn’t buying it — and neither should the rest of the country.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/13/2021 – 20:45

  • In Final Act, Trump Admin To Present 'Bombshell' Findings Blaming Wuhan Lab For COVID-19, WHO Cover-Up
    In Final Act, Trump Admin To Present ‘Bombshell’ Findings Blaming Wuhan Lab For COVID-19, WHO Cover-Up

    The Trump administration will present ‘dramatic new evidence’ that the virus which causes COVID-19 leaked from a Wuhan lab, according to the Daily Mail, which adds that outgoing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will make a “bombshell” announcement that SARS-CoV-2 did not naturally jump from bats to humans through an intermediary species – and was instead cultured by scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), where both Chinese and foreign experts have warned of shoddy bio-security for years.

    The Britsh government (Daily Mail and all), meanwhile, dismissed the claims in advance – saying that ‘all the credible scientific evidence does not point to a leak from the laboratory.’

    This is of course patently false, as several prominent microbiologists – including one who worked in the Wuhan lab – have said it was likely created there and likely escaped. Two weeks ago, US National Security Adviser Matthew Pottinger said there was a “growing body of evidence that the lab is likely the most credible source of the virus,” while French intelligence warned of the possibility of a ‘catastrophic leak‘ from the lab due to poor bio-security over a decade before the outbreak.

    The lab’s highest security ‘P4’ section was built with French help in a deal signed off by Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier. But after it opened in 2015, the French contingent due to work there were pushed out by China’s military. –Daily Mail

    Meanwhile, China scrubbed “hundreds of pages of information” spanning over 300 studies conducted by the WIV, including some which discuss passing diseases from animals to humans. Totally normal behavior from innocent people, we’re sure.

    Pompeo is also set to cite close links between the Institute and the People’s Liberation Army.

    He will point out its highest security section has always had a ‘dual use’ military and civilian purpose.

    He is also expected to accuse the World Health Organisation of assisting in a Chinese cover-up by refusing to probe the lab’s possible role.

    Its ten-person team tasked with investigating the pandemic’s origins will arrive in Wuhan tomorrow – but there is no mention of the lab in its official terms of reference. –Daily Mail

    “We don’t know whether this virus was natural or artificially created, and if it came from the lab, whether this was an accident or deliberate. It would be immoral and foolish to allow any sort of cover-up,” said former Brexit Secretary David Davis, who added that it was ‘vital’ that the WHO team investigate.

    “If it emerges the virus did come from the lab, China will become the pariah of the world,” he added.

    That said, MIT / Harvard doctor Alina Chan, who has been investigating the origins of the pandemic, doesn’t think the WHO is suited to conduct any investigation.

    “We have to take the necessary steps to do a proper investigation and, based on the available information, I don’t think the WHO is up to the task,” said Chan. Stanford professor of microbiology David Relman, meanwhile, has voiced fears that the WIV was genetically engineering natural viruses to make them more transmissible – writing in November that “If SARS-CoV-2 escaped from a lab to cause the pandemic, it will become critical to understand the chain of events and prevent this from happening again.”

    According to Sam Armtrong, China expert with the Henry Jackson Society think-tank, “The global public has a right to know exactly what was going on prior to the emergence of this deadly pandemic. The question cannot be shirked.”

    And as Edward Lucas writes via the Mail, “All the evidence points to cover-up…(but the truth can’t be hidden for ever):

    *  *  *

    Secrets, lies and thuggery are the hallmark of the Chinese Communist regime. And in the mystery of the devastating Wuhan virus, all three are combined.

    The strongest evidence of a crime is a cover-up. And the Chinese authorities have provided that.

    They have fought ferociously to prevent an international inquiry into the pandemic’s origins.

    Their repeated obstruction of the World Health Organisation’s fact-finding missions has provoked even that notoriously supine body to protest.

    Even now, WHO investigators are being prevented from accessing the vitally important laboratory in Wuhan that is likely to be at the heart of America’s allegations.

    Experts have been questioning the Chinese authorities’ account of events for a year. Now, it appears, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is to make a direct accusation.

    Was it really pure chance the virus first attacked the human race in the only city in China with a research lab specialising in manipulating the world’s most dangerous viruses?

    That would be as odd as a new disease emerging in the surroundings of Britain’s top-secret biological defence research establishment of Porton Down in Wiltshire.

    To this day, scientists who support the theory that the virus is a mutation that emerged from Wuhan’s ‘wet market’ have not been able to find a convincing candidate for the animal in which this mutation actually occurred.

    The official explanation is the new virus was 96 percent identical to a bat virus, RaTG13, found in Yunnan province in southern China.

    But as Chinese professor Botao Xiao pointed out in a paper in February, no such bats are sold at the city’s markets. And the caves where they live are hundreds of miles away.

    That paper disappeared from the internet. Mr Xiao — perhaps mindful of the fate that awaits those in China who promote inconvenient truths — disavowed it.

    Many scientists privately assumed an engineered virus released via a laboratory accident was at least as likely as the idea of a series of stunningly unfortunate chance mutations.

    After all, Shi Zhengli, the Chinese scientist nicknamed ‘Bat Woman’ was a regular visitor to those caves. When news of the outbreak broke, she initially feared that a leak from her research institute was to blame.

    That thought alone should have prompted a full-scale and searching inquiry. Instead, the Chinese Ministry of Education issued a diktat: ‘Any paper that traces the origin of the virus must be strictly and tightly managed.’

    But even the Chinese regime cannot hold back the truth forever. Over the past twelve months independent research, official leaks and news reports have strengthened the lab-leak hypothesis.

    In February a Taiwanese professor, Fang Chi-tai, highlighted a curious feature of the virus’s genetic code, which would make it more effective in attacking targeted cells. This was unlikely to be the result of a natural mutation, he suggested.

    Much scientific research involves modifying viruses to understand how they function. Many observers have worried for years that the risks of such experiments are not properly thought through.

    Lab safety procedures are riddled with potential loopholes and flaws: breakages, animal bites, faulty equipment or simple mis-labelling can all lead to a deadly pathogen reaching its first human victim. If so, such carelessness has now cost tens of millions of lives.

    Yet we should be clear. The Chinese authorities are ruthless. But even they would not unleash a global plague.

    Only in the fevered imagination of conspiracy theorists is Beijing deliberately waging biological warfare on the West.

    Paradoxically, such speculation — promoted by among others President Donald Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon — may have hampered the search for the truth, by making the lab-release theory seem racist and politically toxic.

    In February, in Britain’s politically correct medical journal, the Lancet, scientists published an open letter denouncing ‘conspiracy theories and rumours’, urging solidarity with Chinese colleagues.

    Yet it was just those colleagues who were bearing the brunt of the regime’s frantic attempts to censor the truth about the outbreak.

    The Chinese regime prizes self-preservation above all — certainly over the truth, or the health of its own people, let alone the lives of foreigners.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/13/2021 – 20:25

  • Another Mutant COVID Strain Discovered In Ohio
    Another Mutant COVID Strain Discovered In Ohio

    As public health experts around the world issue warnings about new mutant strains of SARS-CoV-2, it appears a new variant has been isolated in Ohio, likely originating from somewhere in the Midwest.

    One of these variants, dubbed the “Columbus strain,” has three gene mutations that haven’t previously been seen in other SARS-CoV-2 strains – the virus that causes COVID-19, according to a statement from The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. These mutations occur in the so-called spike protein of the virus, which enables the virus to bind to human cells more quickly.

    This strain quickly became the dominant COVID strain variant in Columbus over a three-week period between late December 2020 and early January, according to the researchers, who hope to post their findings soon on the pre-print database bioRxiv.

    A second variant found by the Ohio researchers has a mutation dubbed 501Y that is identical to one seen in the UK’s B117 variant. This mutation affects the receptor-binding domain, or part of the virus’s spike protein that latches onto the ACE2 receptor in human cells; in lab-dish experiments, the mutated receptor-binding domain binds more tightly to the ACE2 receptor, past research found.

    However, the researchers believe the Ohio-linked mutation independently evolved from a similarly mutated strain that was already a strain already in the US. So far, it has only been found in one patient from Ohio, so the researchers don’t yet know how prevalent it is in the population overall. A spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told CNBC that the agency is reviewing the new research. But the researchers believe the Ohio variant independently evolved that mutation from a strain already in the U.S. It was found in one patient from Ohio, so the researchers don’t yet know how prevalent it is in the population overall.

    Of course, with so many new “mutant” (deadlier, more contagious) strains of COVID-19 spreading around the country, the Biden administration will have the perfect excuse to extend lockdowns nationwide into late 2021 and beyond… reinforcing Americans’ dependence on government welfare (and implicitly the Democratic Party) even more.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/13/2021 – 20:25

  • Fed President: We Should Have A Discussion About Guaranteed Basic Income
    Fed President: We Should Have A Discussion About Guaranteed Basic Income

    Earlier today we briefly touched upon the recent chaos in 10Y yields and Eurodollars, sparked by growing source of much consternation and confusion at the Fed, namely the timing of the next QE taper, which if the 2013 example holds, would lead to a catastrophic market crash. We quoted DB’s Jim Reid who wrote that “we’ve only had 7 business days this year and we’ve already had a full 360 degree tapering debate played out by the Fed.” It’s not just tapering, mind you: the same clueless hacks who brought the global economy beyond the edge of collapse and only the injection of $4 billion in liquidity per day ($120BN/30) is keeping everything from imploding, are just as confused about when to hike rates. Consider the following recent statements:

    Bloomberg also picked up on this point and echoed our observations, writing that “Federal Reserve officials are beginning to split over when they may need to start pulling back on their massive monetary stimulus, drawing nervous glances from investors who remember how markets were roiled during the 2013 taper tantrum.”

    In the past week, four of the Fed’s 18 policy makers have publicly raised the prospect they may discuss reducing bond buying — currently running at $120 billion a month — by year’s end. In contrast, several others have called the debate premature and Fed Vice Chairman Richard Clarida, the most senior central banker to weigh in, has said he doesn’t expect any changes before 2022.

    He may not expect it, but traders are: investors ramped up yields on Treasuries to nearly 1.20%, before two strong auctions helped ease rates which were redlining to the point that stocks started selling off. It also prompted coordinated verbal intervention by two of the Fed’s top three officials: Fed vice chair Clarida and governor Lael Brainard spoke on Wednesday and each sought to assure markets that no tapering, and certainly no rate hikes are coming any time soon.

    To wit, Brainard pushed back against suggestions the central bank could taper its bond-buying program later this year, arguing the U.S. economy will need that monetary support for “quite some time.”

    “The economy is far away from our goals in terms of both employment and inflation, and even under an optimistic outlook, it will take time to achieve substantial further progress,” Brainard said Wednesday in a virtual speech to the Canadian Association for Business Economics. “Given my baseline outlook, I expect that the current pace of purchases will remain appropriate for quite some time.”

    Clarida went further – as in beyond the purposefully nebulous “quite some time” – and said that the Fed will not raise interest rates until inflation has been at 2% for a year.

    “I went into this quite skeptical about makeup strategies as a practical tool for central banks. And you’ll see that there really is not much of a make-up element in this at all, other than we’re not going to lift off until we get 2% inflation for a year.”

    Those two are the doves. What about the hawks?

    One among them is Atlanta Fed president, Raphael Bostic, who felt the need to make amends for his blasphemy from last week when he said last Thursday that the U.S. economy could be stronger than expected by midyear, which could lead to an earlier-than-expected tapering of bond purchases.

    “In our statement, we said we wanted to make significant progress towards the goal. I don’t think we necessarily have to get to the goal,” Bostic said in a televised interview with Fox Business recorded Wednesday and broadcast Thursday.

    He then shocked markets when he said that “I’m definitely open to the possibility that we may pull it back sooner than people expect” and added that “coming into the summertime, going into the fall, this economy should be rolling pretty well, if the vaccine distribution happens in an appropriate way. If it rolls well, we may see a lot more strength than I think some people are projecting.”

    The implication was clear: tapering could begin as soon as this fall.

    Oops: bonds immediately puked at this mere hint that tapering could start in just a few months, and sent 10Y yields surging until the Fed entered full jawboning and damage control mode.

    Yes bizarrely, not having learned his lesson, on Monday Bostic once again hit the newswires with his surprising forecast that the Fed could hike rates as soon as mid-2022 or early 2023.

    “I do think there is some possibility that the economy could come back a bit stronger than some are expecting,” Bostic said on Monday.

    “If that happens, I’m prepared to support pulling back and recalibrating a bit of our accommodation and then considering moving the policy rate. But I don’t see that happening in 2021. A whole lot would have to happen for us to get there. And then we will see into 2022, maybe the second half of 2022 or even 2023 where that might be more in play,” Bostic says in virtual discussion hosted by the Rotary Club of Atlanta

    And since tapering would need to take place at least 6-9 months before this, the rates selloff resumed. It’s also why both Clarida and Brainard had to step up today and explain there would be no rate hikes until 2023 at the earliest.

    Well, since “three times is enemy action”, Bostic – who wasn’t done – and made a third appearance within a week the very next day, took every precaution not to screw it up again, which is why – wearing his best viral expert hat – he said that the distribution of vaccines in the U.S. is off to a slow start and continued delays would lead to a weaker, more protracted economic recovery.

    “This is a huge logistical challenge and there have been hiccups to start,” he says. If there are delays, “then that real recovery is not going to start for that much longer and it will be more difficult and more protracted.”

    “Until the public-health issues get resolved, the economy will not be able to just move forward in a robust and strong way as possible” he said adding that getting the population vaccinated is “hugely important.”

    “We might actually see rebounds in inflation that are stronger than what people are expecting and we have got to leave ourselves open to that possibility. I’m going to be watching very closely to see how strongly inflation rebounds and I am hopeful we will get to our 2% target faster rather than slower.”

    Yes, yes… all predictable damage control for a central bank which is only obsessed with keeping risk assets high and yields low.

    But what did surprise us, is what he said at end of that presentation – which incidentally was in the form of a virtual Q&A session hosted by none other than Goldman Sachs. Because what the Atlanta Fed president briefly touched upon next, is precisely the endgame: namely guaranteed government income to those who want it… for life. Also known as Universal Basic Income.

    While Bostic was laconic and did not say much, what he did saw was sufficient revealing to know what’s about to come next:

    “The guaranteed basic income discussion is an important one. I think that conversation is one we should continue to have and think about.”

    What’s universal basic income, you ask? Think helicopter money and magic money tree, on steroids.

    And with that all discussions about rate hikes, “taperings”, or anything else for that matter is moot, because the only way the conversation about guaranteed basic income – where the Treasury sells unlimited amounts of debt to “fund” UBI, debt which is purchased by the Fed – makes any sense is if the Fed ensures that rates can never again rise. Which is why all those traders panicking about rising yields, or CTAs who are now shorting 10Y yields, and as the following chart from Goldman confirms, they are – just as we said they would once yields rose above 1.10%…

    …can relax: yes, yields can go up, they may hit 1.50%, even 2.00% or slightly more, but that’s it because at that point the Fed will have to regain control, and it will, as the alternative is the bursting of the biggest bubble in history and the end of the western way of life.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/13/2021 – 20:16

  • Nomi Prins: War Of The (Financial) Worlds
    Nomi Prins: War Of The (Financial) Worlds

    Submitted by Nomi Prins via Tom’s Dispatch

    War of the (Financial) Worlds… Or Let the Markets Go Wild While the People Go Down

    Sometimes things only make sense when seen through a magnifying lens. As it happens, I’m thinking about reality, the very American and global reality clearly repeating itself as 2021 begins.

    We all know, of course, that we’re living through a once-in-a-century-style pandemic; that millions of people have lost their jobs, a portion of which will never return; that the poorest among us, who can withstand such acute economic hardship the least, have been slammed the hardest; and that the global economy has been kneecapped, thanks to a battery of lockdowns, shutdowns, restrictions of various sorts, and health-related concerns. More sobering than all of this: more than 360,000 Americans (and counting) have already lost their lives as a result of Covid-19 with, according to public health experts, far more to come.

    And yet, as if in some galaxy far, far away, there also turns out to be another, so much more upbeat side to this equation. As Covid-19 grew ever worse while 2020 ended, the stock market reached heights that hadn’t been seen before. Ever.  

    Meanwhile, again in the thoroughly cheery news column, banks in 2021 will be able to resume their march toward billions of dollars in share buybacks, courtesy of the Federal Reserve opting to support such a bank-and-stock-market stimulus. The Fed’s green light for this activity on December 18th will allow mega-banks to return to those share buybacks (which constitute 70% of the capital payout that they provide shareholders). In June 2020, the Fed had banned the practice ostensibly to help them better navigate risks caused by the pandemic.

    Those very financial institutions can now pour money into purchasing their own stocks again rather than, say, into loans to struggling small businesses endangered by pandemic-instigated economic disaster. As soon as Wall Street got the good news from the Fed as 2020 ended, JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s biggest bank, wasted no time in announcing its intent to buy a staggering $30 billion of its own shares in the new year. And as if by magic, those shares leapt 5% that very day. Other mega-banks followed suit, as did their share prices.

    Now, for reasons you’ll soon understand, take a little trip back in history with me to the eve of Halloween, 1938, when Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre dramatized his adaptation of H.G. Wells’ 1898 sci-fi-meets-dystopia-meets-imperialism novel, The War of the Worlds, on the radio. As Martians “invaded” New Jersey (it had been London in the novel) with mayhem in mind, panic evidently ensued among some radio listeners who thought they were hearing perfectly real reports about an alien invasion of Planet Earth. Later accounts suggest that the media blew that reaction out of proportion (“fake news,” 1938-style?), yet people who tuned in late and missed the set-up about the fictitious nature of the program did indeed panic.

    And it’s not hard to understand why they might have done so at that moment.  There had already been surprises galore. The world, after all, had barely recovered from the aftermath of the 1929 stock market crash and the Great Depression that followed. It was also still reeling from the fiery Hindenburg disaster of 1937 in which a German airship blew up in New Jersey, as well as from the escalation of tensions and hostilities in both Asia and Europe that would lead to World War II.  Perhaps people already equated or conflated the Martian invasion on the radio with fantasies about a potential German invasion of this country. In some papers, after all, reports on the reaction to Welles’s performance were set right next to news of war clouds brewing in Europe and Asia. With or without Welles, people were on edge.

    Whatever the case, fear has been both a great motivator and an anxiety provoker when it comes to the media, whether in 1938 or today. At the moment, the focus is on economic and health-related fears in all-too-ample supply. It is also on the disconnect that exists between the real economic world that most of us live in and turbo-boosted stock markets. These distorted markets are the result of wealth inequality that once would have been unimaginable in this country. In a way, economically speaking, you might say that today we’re suffering the equivalent of an invasion from Mars.

    From the Financial Crisis to the Pandemic

    It’s not hard these days to imagine the chaos people would feel if their lives or livelihoods were threatened by an external, uncontrollable force like those Martians. After all, we’re in a pandemic age in which the gaps between the rich, the poor, and the middle class are being reinforced in endlessly stunning ways, a world in which some people have the means to remain remarkably safe, secure, and alive, while others have no means at all.

    Covid-19 is not, of course, from Mars or sent by aliens, but in terms of its impact, it’s as if it were. And the pandemic is, in the end, only exacerbating, sometimes in radical ways, problems that already were bad enough, particularly economic inequality. 

    Remember that, long before Covid-19 hit, the financial crisis of 2008 was met by a multi-trillion-dollar Wall Street bailout. At the same time, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates to zero, while purchasing U.S. Treasury and mortgage bonds from the very banks that had sparked the disaster.  Its own assets then rose from $870 billion to $4.5 trillion between August 2007 and August 2015. On the other hand, the U.S. economy never quite reached a growth level of, on average, more than 2% annually in the years after that near collapse, even as the stock market regained all its losses and so much more. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, aided by an ultra-loose monetary policy, steadily rose from a financial-crisis low of 6,926 on March 5, 2009 to 27,090 by March 4, 2020, which was when Covid-19 briefly trashed its rally.

    However, within a month of the market dip that followed widespread shutdowns, its climb was refortified by similar but larger maneuvers, as Federal Reserve policy was once again deployed to save the rich under the auspices of saving the economy. Rally 2.0 took the Dow to a new record of 30,606.48 as 2020 closed.

    On the other side of reality, I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that, according to recent Federal Reserve reports, the U.S. wealth gap continued to widen dramatically as economic inequality increased yet again in 2020 thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. That’s because the health and economic devastation it inflicted affected low-wage service workers, low-income earners, and people of color so much more than the upper-middle class and elite upper class.

    Meanwhile, as 2020 ended, the richest 10% of Americans owned more than 88% of the outstanding shares of companies and mutual funds in the U.S. The top 1% also controlled more than 88 times the wealth of the bottom 50% of Americans. Simply put, the less you had, the less you could afford to lose any of it. Indeed, the combined net worth of the top 1% of Americans was $34.2 trillion (about one-third of all U.S. household wealth), while the total for the bottom half was $2.1 trillion (or 1.9% of that wealth).

    And yet, American billionaires scored monumentally during the pandemic, due particularly to their lofty position in the stock market. The planet’s 2,200 or so billionaires got wealthier by $1.9 trillion in 2020 alone and were worth about $11.4 trillion in mid-December 2020 (up from $9.5 trillion a year earlier). Twenty-first-century tycoons like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos raked it in specifically because of all the money pouring into shares of their stock. Even bipartisan congressional stimulus measures meant for necessary relief turned into a chance to elevate fortunes at the highest echelons of society.

    If you want to grasp inequality in the pandemic moment, consider this: while the market soared, more than 25.5 million Americans were the recipients of federal unemployment benefits. The S&P 500 stock market index added a total of $14 trillion in market value in 2020. In essentially another universe, the number of people who lost their jobs due to the pandemic and didn’t regain them was about 10 million. And that figure doesn’t even count people who can’t go to work because they have to take care of others, their workplace is restricted, or they’re home-schooling their kids.

    The Martians and the Inequality Gap

    In The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells evokes a species — humanity — rendered helpless in the face of a force greater than itself and beyond its control. His depiction of the grim relationship between the Martians and the humans they were suppressing (meant to remind readers of the relationship between British imperialists and those they suppressed in distant lands) cast an eerie light on the power and wealth gap in Great Britain and around the world at the turn of the twentieth century.

    The book was written in the Gilded Age, when rapid economic growth, particularly in the United States, bred a new class of “robber barons.” Like the twenty-first-century version of such beings, they, too, made money from their money, while the economic status of workers slipped ever lower. It was an early version of a zero-sum game in which the spoils of the system were increasingly beyond the reach of so many. Those at the top ferociously accumulated wealth, while the majority of the rest of the population barely got by or drowned.

    A crisis of inequality had been sparked by the Industrial Revolution itself, which started in England and then crossed the Atlantic.  By the late nineteenth century, America’s “robber barons” were insanely wealthy. As economist Thomas Piketty wrote, there was a steeper increase in wealth inequality during the Gilded Age than ever before in American history. In 1810, the top 1% of Americans held 25% of the country’s total wealth; between 1870 and 1910 that share leapt to 45%.

    Today, the top 1% of Americans possess more wealth than the whole of the middle class, a phenomenon first true in 2010 and still the reality of our moment. By 2018, about 75% of the $113 trillion in aggregate U.S. household assets were financial ones; that is, tied up in stocks, ETF’s, 401Ks, IRAs, mutual funds, and similar investments. The majority of nonfinancial assets in that mix was in real estate.

    Even before the pandemic, only the richest 20% of American households had recovered fully (or, in the case of the truly wealthy, more than fully) from the financial crisis. That’s mostly because since that crisis, fewer households had participated in the stock market or owned real estate and so had no chance to capitalize on increases in the values of either.

    Much of the appreciation in stock market and real-estate values has been directly or indirectly related to the Fed’s actions. By the end of December 2020, its balance sheet had increased by $3.164 trillion, reaching a total of $7.35 trillion, 63% more than its book at the height of the decade following the 2008 disaster.

    Its ultra-loose policies made it cheaper to borrow money, but not as attractive to invest it in low-interest-rate, less risky securities like Treasury bonds. As a result, the Fed incentivized those with extra money to grow it through quicker, often riskier investments in the stock market or real estate. By 2020, there were bidding wars for suburban houses by urbanites seeking refuge from coronavirus-stricken cities with all-cash offers, something beyond the reach of most traditional buyers. 

    Though Congress passed two much-needed Covid-related stimulus packages that extended unemployment benefits, while offering two one-off payments and a Paycheck Protection Program support for smaller businesses, the impact of those acts paled in comparison to the tax breaks and power of investment the stock market provided the well-off and corporate kingpins.

    While markets leapt to record highs, poverty in the United States also rose last year from 9.3% in June to 11.7% in November 2020. That added nearly eight million Americans to the ranks of the poor, even as America’s 659 billionaires held double the wealth of the 165 million poorest Americans.

    The Martians Are Here

    The gap between incoming and outgoing federal funds rose, too. The U.S. deficit increased by $3.3 trillion during 2020. The size of the public debt issued by the Treasury Department reached $27.5 trillion.  Total federal revenue was $3.45 trillion, while the corporate tax part of that was just $221 billion, or a paltry 6.4%. What that means is that in an ever more unequal America, 93.6% of the money flowing into the government’s till comes from individuals, not corporations.

    And though many larger and mid-size corporations filed for bankruptcy protection due to coronavirus related shutdowns, the brunt of absolute closures hit smaller local businesses — from restaurants to hair salons to health-and-wellness shops — much harder, only exacerbating economic disparity at the community level.

    In other words, the real problem when it comes to inequality isn’t the total amount of taxes received versus money spent in a time of crisis, but the composition of federal revenue that’s wildly out of whack (something the pandemic has only made worse). Take the defense sector, for example. The U.S. government doled out $738 billion to the Pentagon for fiscal year 2020. The contracts to defense-related private companies in the last year for which data was available, fiscal year 2018, totaled roughly 62% of a full defense budget of $579 billion, or $358 billion. Now imagine this: that amount alone dwarfed the total of all corporate taxes flowing into the U.S. Treasury in 2019.

    Inequality is about the disparity between people and countries with respect to income, wealth, or power. The more that corporations keep relative to their bottom line when compared with ordinary citizens, the more the stock market rises relative to the real economy. The more that individuals, rather than corporations, shoulder the burden of tax revenues, the greater the inherent inequality in society. The more that financial assets appreciate on money seeking to multiply itself in the quickest way possible (think of it as like a virus), the greater the distortion created. 

    The Fed can focus on its inflation-versus-full-employment dual-mandate all it wants, while pushing policies that distort the value of the real economy compared to financial assets. But the reality is that the more those Fed-inflated assets grow relative to real ones, the greater the inequality gap. That’s plain math and it’s the ugly essence of the United States of America as 2021 begins.

    The market doesn’t care about politics. It’s a creature that acts in accordance with the goals of its largest participants. The real economy, on the other hand, requires far more effort — planning, prioritizing, and executing programs and projects that can produce tangible profits. We’re a long way from a world that puts investment in the real economy ahead of those soaring financial markets. That gap, in fact, might as well be like the distance between Earth and Mars. In the midst of a pandemic, as billionaires only grow richer and the markets soar, can there be any question that we’re experiencing a Martian invasion?

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/13/2021 – 20:05

  • Pompeo Tells Taxpayer-Funded News Outlet: "Time To Put Woke-ism To Sleep"
    Pompeo Tells Taxpayer-Funded News Outlet: “Time To Put Woke-ism To Sleep”

    Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged a major US government-funded news outlet to smash wokeness and censorship early this week at a moment Silicon Valley tech companies are going after pro-Trump media by taking down thousands of social media accounts. 

    In a controversial address to Voice of America staff on Monday — controversial given some staff members objected to it being broadcast live on the VOA network — he defended Trump and his foreign policy at the taxpayer funded media organization.

    “Censorship, wokeness, political correctness, it all points in one direction – authoritarianism, cloaked as moral righteousness,” Pompeo said. 

    He then called out major US social media giants by name just days after Twitter and a host of other platforms moved to ban Trump permanently:

    “It’s similar to what we’re seeing at Twitter, and Facebook, and Apple, and on too many university campuses. This is not who we are, as Americans. It’s not what Voice of America should be. It’s time to put woke-ism to sleep.”

    “The Trump Administration isn’t trying to politicize these institutions,” Pompeo said. “We’re trying to de-politicize them.”

    During the remarks Pompeo also chastized the VOA for having “lost its commitment to its founding mission” under past administrations. He said the broadcaster should focus on preserving and advancing a sense of ‘American Exceptionalism’ – however much of VOA’s focus is “too often about demeaning America,” he said.

    In response a group of staff members had attacked the speech as amounting to “propaganda” aired over taxpayer funded channels in a letter to VOA director Michal Pack. They attempted to prevent it from happening but to no avail. 

    Pompeo’s remarks were in part aimed at these VOA staff dissenters too:

    “I read that some VOA employees didn’t want me to speak today,” Pompeo said. “They didn’t want the voice of American diplomacy to be broadcast on… the Voice of America. Think about that.”

    “It’s morally wrong. And it’s against your mandate…”

    Meanwhile Joe Biden has promised to review a recent shake-up at VOA under Pack’s leadership, a close Trump ally who serves as head of the Global Media Agency, which oversees Voice of America.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/13/2021 – 19:45

  • "655 People Have $4 Trillion In Wealth, But 200 Million Can't Cover A $1000 Expense"
    “655 People Have $4 Trillion In Wealth, But 200 Million Can’t Cover A $1000 Expense”

    Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

    The COVID pandemic has caused the gap between the ultra-wealthy and the rest of us to grow larger than it ever has been before.  Thanks to the hyperinflationary policies of the Federal Reserve and our politicians in Washington, stock prices have soared to unprecedented heights in recent months.  This pushed the wealth of the uber-rich to dizzying heights, but for the rest of the country 2020 was an unmitigated nightmare.  As I have discussed previously, one survey found that 2020 was a “personal financial disaster” for 55 percent of all Americans.  More than 110,000 restaurants shut down permanently last year, Americans filed more than 70 million claims for unemployment benefits, and tens of millions are potentially facing eviction in 2021.  But even though we are mired in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, those at the very top of the economic pyramid are laughing all the way to the bank.

    Earlier today, I came across a tweet from Sven Heinrich that really struck an emotional chord with me…

    655 people have $4 trillion in wealth.

    200 million can’t cover a $1000 expense.

    I certainly don’t have any problem with people gaining wealth by working extremely hard and making society a better place in the process.

    But most of the people at the very top of the economic pyramid only increased their wealth in 2020 because the powers that be decided to open up the firehoses and rain obscene amounts of money on them.

    That isn’t right.

    As a result of the deeply flawed policies that were implemented because of the COVID pandemic, the gap between “gains in financial assets and the health of the economy” was the largest ever recorded last year…

    But as stock market indexes staged a huge rebound from the lows seen in March when the pandemic first hit, the gap between the wealthy and the poor extended an already widening trend to historic proportions.

    A report via BofA Global Research published on Friday notes that a measure of the differential between gains in financial assets and the health of the economy hit a record at 6.3X in 2020.

    My regular readers are probably sick and tired of hearing me say that the stock market has become completely divorced from economic reality, and now we have a hard number which backs up what I have been saying all along.

    As I write this article, the Dow is sitting just above 31,000, and that is utterly absurd.

    If the Dow were to fall to 15,000 it would still be overvalued.

    Meanwhile, a brand new survey has discovered that only 39 percent of all Americans “would be able to cover an unexpected $1,000 expense”…

    Just 39% of Americans would be able to cover an unexpected $1,000 expense, according to a new report from Bankrate.com.

    That’s down from 2020, when 41% of people said they could cover a $1,000 cost with their savings.

    If only 39 percent of Americans currently have enough money for such an unexpected expense, that means that 61 percent of Americans do not.

    According to Google, the current population of the U.S. is 328 million, and 61 percent of 328 million is just over 200 million.

    So that is where Sven Heinrich got that figure from.

    200 million of us have so little money that we are just barely scraping by from month to month.

    And according to one of Walmart’s top executives, many of their customers do not expect “any kind of speedy recovery”…

    Walmart Chief Customer Officer Janey Whiteside said Tuesday that many of its shoppers don’t expect the economy to quickly bounce back from the coronavirus pandemic.

    Almost half of customers surveyed in November told Walmart that they were worried about the current health of the economy, she said when speaking at the virtual National Retail Federation conference. She said 40% said they didn’t expect “any kind of speedy recovery.”

    Unfortunately, those that are pessimistic about how the U.S. economy will perform in 2021 are right on target.

    It is going to be a very painful year.

    Of course it isn’t just consumers that are concerned about the year ahead.  Small business optimism is falling as well…

    A popular gauge of small-business confidence in the US sank to a seven-month low in December as stricter lockdown measures and climbing daily case counts cut into economic activity.

    The National Federation of Independent Businesses’ index of small-business optimism fell 5.5 points last month to 95.9, according to a Tuesday release. The reading lands below the average index value since 1978 of 98 and marks the lowest level since May. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expected the gauge to dip slightly to 100.2.

    Americans generally tend to be quite optimistic about the future, but looking ahead there just aren’t any reasons to be optimistic about the U.S. economy in 2021.

    The COVID pandemic continues to get even worse, new lockdowns have been instituted all over the country, our federal government is in a state of chaos, and there will inevitably be more rioting, looting and civil unrest in the months ahead.

    Plus, there will undoubtedly be some additional unexpected surprises that most people are not anticipating.

    Before I wrap up this article, there is just one more thing that I wanted to mention.  A programmer in San Francisco named Stefan Thomas is the proud owner of 7,002 Bitcoin, but he can’t access his fortune because he forgot the password, and he only has two more tries before he is locked out permanently…

    Take Stefan Thomas, a programmer in San Francisco, who told The New York Times that he has 7,002 Bitcoin tucked away – currently worth about $236 million, nearly a quarter billion dollars — but that he has no idea how to access it and can only guess two more passwords before being locked out forever.

    Even setting aside the long term prospects for crypto, the key message of these horror stories is that taking digital finances into your own hands is a huge risk if you can’t manage your passwords.

    Can you imagine how you would feel if that happened to you?

    Sadly, it could be argued that essentially the same thing is happening to the nation as a whole.

    America has “forgotten the password” to what once made us so great, and we are running out of chances.

    Let us hope that we wake up before it is too late, because time is not on our side at this point.

    *  *  *

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

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/13/2021 – 19:25

  • In "Staggering" Lack Of Self-Awareness, Twitter Lectures Uganda On Principles Of 'Open Internet'
    In “Staggering” Lack Of Self-Awareness, Twitter Lectures Uganda On Principles Of ‘Open Internet’

    Twitter decided that now would be a good time to weigh in on how things are going in Uganda of all places, where Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has taken the drastic action of temporarily banning Facebook and Twitter in the final hours leading up to Thursday’s general elections for the presidency and parliament.

    Museveni argued that the US-based social media platforms are engaged in censorship that unfairly targets his campaign while propping up opposition frontrunner candidate Bobi Wine. After being on a days-long massive purge of pro-Trump accounts in the US which began when the president himself was permanently banned, Twitter had this to say, and without irony:

    “We strongly condemn internet shutdowns…”

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

    Billionaire co-founder of AQR Capital Management Cliff Asness immediately said exactly what was on everyone’s mind: “The lack of self-awareness is staggering.”

    It is indeed yet another example of Twitter being completely blinded by the hypocrisy as to the way it exercises its immense power in its own backyard (or worse, the major Silicon Valley moguls are quite aware and simply don’t care).

    This also after Amazon, Apple and Google agreed in unison to destroy Parlor as it was politically expedient, apparently. And now Twitter is actually lecturing the head of a foreign state on not violating the “principles of the Open Internet”.

    So much for that “open” internet….

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

    As for Uganda a long list of online platforms are currently down alongside Twitter and Facebook ahead of the election, including WhatsApp, Instagram, Skype, Snapchat, Viber, Google Play and others.

    Facebook actually admitted to the AP that it indeed took down many users promoting Museveni as it alleged his campaign “used fake and duplicate accounts to manage pages, comment on other people’s content, impersonate users, re-share posts in groups to make them appear more popular than they were. Given the impending election in Uganda, we moved quickly to investigate and take down this network.”

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

    Museveni responded by vowing “there is no way anybody should come and decide for our country” – in reference to the US tech oligarchs during a national address over the crisis.

    Again, Twitter is now oh-so-worried about principles of free speech and #OpenInternet – as it stated in its official message – in far away foreign countries like Uganda, but is not batting an eye while simultaneously shutting down thousands of conservative accounts.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/13/2021 – 19:05

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Jan 13

Today’s News 13th January 2021

  • Why OpSec Has Never Been More Important
    Why OpSec Has Never Been More Important

    Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

    If you’ve been in prepper circles for long, you’ve probably heard the term OpSec. It is taken from military jargon and it’s short for Operations Security. In the preparedness and survival world, it generally means not letting other people know that you are prepped, or if they know, they definitely don’t know the specifics of what you have.

    Not only do we want to keep the level of our preparedness private, these days, keeping our opinions private might be likewise beneficial from a security perspective. More on that in a moment.

    Trigger Warning: There’s no way I can write this article without ticking somebody off. Some readers will feel that I’m siding with the right and others will feel like I’m siding with the left. I’m not because I am not a Democrat or a Republic, nor am I a conservative or a liberal. I’m a critical thinker with diverse opinions that fall into all sorts of categories. Yet others will feel I didn’t go far enough or that there’s some “fact” or conspiracy that I didn’t reveal. I’m not an ice cream cone. I can’t make everyone happy. Also, there may be some swearing.

    What is OpSec?

    Here’s a definition for those who aren’t familiar with the concept.

    Operations security (OPSEC) is a process that identifies critical information to determine if friendly actions can be observed by enemy intelligence, determines if information obtained by adversaries could be interpreted to be useful to them, and then executes selected measures that eliminate or reduce adversary exploitation of friendly critical information.

    In a more general sense, OPSEC is the process of protecting individual pieces of data that could be grouped together to give the bigger picture (called aggregation). OPSEC is the protection of critical information deemed mission-essential from military commanders, senior leaders, management or other decision-making bodies. The process results in the development of countermeasures, which include technical and non-technical measures such as the use of email encryption software, taking precautions against eavesdropping, paying close attention to a picture you have taken (such as items in the background), or not talking openly on social media sites about information on the unit, activity or organization’s Critical Information List. (source)

    This article explains the concept more thoroughly.

    OpSec goes hand in hand with the gray man principle. Here’s Selco’s definition of being the gray man.

    It is a simple concept that comes to be very important when SHTF, and it is often completely opposite to how a lot of preppers are planning to look or act.

    In the shortest definition, it is staying uninteresting or simply looking and acting like most of the people around you in a particular moment.

    It can be used in a lot of situations when SHTF, during prolonged periods of time, or during short-term events. (source)

    As tensions increase dramatically in the United States, many people will find it more important than ever to practice these principles.

    Extraordinary things are happening.

    Over the past few years, the United States has become extremely polarized – so much so that violence can break out simply because two people or groups of people support different presidential candidates.

    We’re seeing “othering” on an extraordinary level as Big Tech and the Mainstream Media throw gasoline on the raging dumpster fire that is our recent election. There’s a purge of conservative voices that goes beyond anything I’ve personally seen – way beyond the purge of alternative media a couple of years ago.

    While Donald Trump is on his way out of the White House in just under two weeks, the fact remains that the two largest social media outlets in the world, Facebook and Twitter, have suspended the accounts of a sitting President of the United States. Now, they’re private businesses – they get to make their own rules and they’re protected from any legal fallout by Section 230, unlike the rest of us folks on the internet. However, the fact that they would take such an action is simply astounding in its audacity.

    Go to a different outlet, you said? Well, that would be a great idea so we did. Conservatives and libertarians went to Parler in droves and the MSM sobbed into their lattes that it was a threat to democracy. And guess what else happened? Google effectively killed Parler today by removing the app from the store. José Castañeda, a Google spokesperson, said:

    “In order to protect user safety on Google Play, our longstanding policies require that apps displaying user-generated content have moderation policies and enforcement that removes egregious content like posts that incite violence.

    All developers agree to these terms and we have reminded Parler of this clear policy in recent months.

    We’re aware of continued posting in the Parler app that seeks to incite ongoing violence in the U.S.

    We recognize that there can be reasonable debate about content policies and that it can be difficult for apps to immediately remove all violative content, but for us to distribute an app through Google Play, we do require that apps implement robust moderation for egregious content.

    In light of this ongoing and urgent public safety threat we are suspending the app’s listings from the Play Store until it addresses these issues.” (source)

    Apple has also given Parler an ultimatum to either moderate content or get nuked there too.

    And speaking of egregious things, the glaring double standard between the media coverage in Washington DC on Jan. 6th and the coverage of “protests” all over the country for the past year is particularly flagrant.

    This blatant silencing of dissent is heinous and reminiscent of Communist China or North Korea. I mean, the DoJ did just revive the legality of firing squads. While we’re not currently being executed for dissenting opinions, people are losing their livelihoods, having their homes vandalized, and being ostracized. ABC News literally called for a cleansing of Trump supporters.

    “Even aside from impeachment and 25th Amendment talk, Trump will be an ex-president in 13 days,” ABC’s Rick Klein and MaryAlice Parks wrote for The Note on Thursday. “The fact is that getting rid of Trump is the easy part. Cleansing the movement he commands, or getting rid of what he represents to so many Americans, is going to be something else.”

    It now reads, “Cleaning up the movement he commands, or getting rid of what he represents to so many Americans, is going to be something else.”

    Klein also shared the original phrase on Twitter before deleting it.(source)

    Do they wish to “cleanse” all 74,223,744 people whose votes were considered official? It’s rather reminiscent of a recent hullabaloo when another guy on Twitter wanted to send Trump voters to re-education camps. (See #7 here.)

    Incidentally – neither Klein’s account nor ABC News’s account were suspended by Twitter. Nor was that guy who wants to forcibly re-educate people. Just the President’s. Oh and a whole bunch of other people who had the audacity to be publicly supportive of him. But not those cleanser and re-education people. They’re cool.

    Know what you’re getting yourself into before taking action.

    If you’re anything like me, your initial reaction is, “F*ck this. I’ll say what I want.” I agree wholeheartedly that this is outrageous censorship on a massive scale, it’s virtual book-burning, and the double standard is utter bullsh*t and I’m furious about it.

    But this is, first and foremost, a website about survival and preparedness. This is not a site about staging a revolution and I have really limited the coverage of politics since the 2016 election. I want it to be a place where everyone feels welcome to learn about preparedness and the events that affect us, regardless of their political beliefs, their religious beliefs, or which foot they put in their pants leg first.

    There will be people out there who feel it is their duty to fight. There are people who support that and people who do not.

    Unless you are making a conscious decision to get out there in the thick of the battle, imperiling your livelihood and risking ostracization due to cancel culture, it may be time for you to consider strengthening your OpSec. If you are going into this with your eyes open, then more power to you all.

    Crackdowns like what we’re seeing now start with polarization and information blackouts. They can lead to far worse scenarios.

    Selco wrote:

    It is a situation where all stakes are much higher, and solutions-actions  that the government ( ruling  party, military leaders or whoever in your case) wants to achieve will be attempted with all means. That can include some new rules where what you think about it usually does not mean anything.

    A lot of preppers think about “martial law” but in reality, they think about it still in normal terms, with rights, law, constitution, and rules…

    You cannot defy military, at least not openly, because they will deal with you fast and efficiently. In times like that it is so easy to get labeled that you are dangerous, an enemy of the state, a terrorist or anything similar, and most probably you will not have any help.

    Forget about the movie illusions of openly being a freedom fighter.

    No matter how well-organized you are, those who impose martial law have better organization than you. Remember that martial law usually means an information blackout.  “They” will own information and present it to the public the way that they want to present it. (source)

    While I’m not suggesting we’re necessarily headed for martial law, we have stepped into a brand new world where our media is tightly controlled and our every decision or utterance can come back to haunt us.

    Why do we need to focus more stringently on OpSec now?

    I want to focus on the survival and preparedness aspects of this unbelievable situation we now find ourselves in.

    As I’ve written before, survival is about surviving. Some people find this philosophy cowardly and feel we should all be willing to choose the hill of their choice to die upon. Others believe that it’s better to be strategic, live to fight another day, and choose their battles. This is a personal decision.

    If you don’t wish to be involved in the political aspects of the things going on right now, if you want to quietly live out your life with limited conflict, and if your focus is on the safety of your family, you need to think about the information you are giving away about yourself. This is not just information for people of one political party or race. It’s for those who don’t want to be targeted because of their beliefs.

    • Don’t make a visual statement. Do you have any political paraphernalia on display? Bumper stickers? Yard signs? Banners? T-shirts or hats?

    • Avoid political conversations. Back when I was a kid, I was told that politics and religion were topics that were bad manners unless you were in the company of those you knew really well.

    • Keep your preps under wraps. Trust me, when The Great Toilet Paper Crisis of 2021 happens – and it will – you don’t want to be the house with all the toilet paper that the guy repairing your furnace saw. Nobody needs to see your preps. Put things in cardboard boxes with misleading labels like “Christmas” if someone is going to be in the area where you store supplies. Don’t have shelves and shelves of canned goods out in your kitchen.

    • Tighten your circle. If you thought 2020 was bad, 2021 is here and it’s old enough to drink. As expected, 2021 is not going to be a walk in the park. Selco recommends that the worse things become, the smaller your circle should be. Focus your efforts on the things you can control and your energy on the people in your inner circle.

    • Remember what you learned about people. We learned a lot about how those around us handled stress during the first round of lockdowns. Don’t forget the lessons you learned about those in your circle, as well as what you discovered about friends, neighbors, and coworkers. A lot of folks were really surprised by the behavior of others when they were under stress. Think about who you really want to let in – this may have changed after the past year. Do your best to make sure that people are truly worthy of your trust.

    • Be neutral on social media. Remember, the internet is forever. Even if you delete an ill-advised post, someone may have taken a screenshot or be able to find that post on the Wayback Machine. People don’t have to have the visible proof of those posts either to remember you dislike Trump or Biden, or that you’re super liberal or super conservative. Posting meme after meme expressing your adoration for certain political figures or beliefs is the digital equivalent of running your mouth in a crowded bar. You never know who’s watching or listening, nor do you know how that might come back to haunt you.

    Don’t make yourself a target.

    When people are hungry they’ll do things they might never have imagined doing before, like stealing food. Many of the jobs lost in 2020 are not going to be coming back in 2021, people are dealing with major financial problems, and we have supply chain issues. There’s a very real chance that we will see greater poverty in America happening to a greater number of people than we’ve ever seen in our lifetimes.

    Those people will be wracking their brains trying to figure out how to survive. Don’t give them a reason to think of your place as a supply nirvana.

    (If you are in that desperate position, check out this book – it’s free and it may help you make difficult decisions.)

    When people are angry, they’ll also do things they normally would not and mob mentality is contagious. Take this former CEO, for example.

    “My decision to enter the Capitol was wrong, and I am deeply regretful to have done so,” Rukstales said in a statement. “Without qualification and as a peaceful and law-abiding citizen, I condemn the violence and destruction that took place in Washington.”

    Rukstales also apologized to his family, colleagues and “fellow countrymen” for his actions.

    “It was the single worst personal decision of my life,” the exec’s statement continued. “I have no excuse for my actions and wish that I could take them back.” (source)

    Don’t make yourself a target for the rage of people who aren’t behaving rationally. Your memes and banners and bumper stickers aren’t going to change their minds.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/13/2021 – 00:05

  • Upbeat Xi Says "Time And Situation On China's Side" Amid Turmoil & Pandemic Rise In US
    Upbeat Xi Says “Time And Situation On China’s Side” Amid Turmoil & Pandemic Rise In US

    While the political gridlock and alarmist headlines out of Capitol Hill as well as a dramatic Democratic move to impeach look to define Trump’s final week in office, Bloomberg notes that China’s President Xi Jinping is sounding “unusually upbeat”. 

    According to the publication he issued an unusually upbeat assessment about China’s future, noting that “time and the situation” were on the country’s side in a new year marked by domestic turmoil in the U.S.

    The purpose of the speech before a top-level meeting of government officials in Beijing on Monday was to lay out the Communist Party vision over the next three decades, which included the presence of the Politburo Standing Committee, Beijing’s highest decision-making body.

    “The world is in a turbulent time that is unprecedented in the past century,” Xi said, striking a tone which many pundits observed stood in contrast to recent more dire sounding warnings. “But time and momentum are on our side. This is where we show our conviction and resilience, as well as our determination and confidence.”

    And further according to the Monday remarks in the closed-door meeting:

    “At the same time, we must see clearly that, for now and until this upcoming period of time, while our country is at an important period of strategic opportunity for development, there will always be changes to our opportunities and challenges,” Xi was quoted as saying.

    “The extensiveness of these opportunities and challenges is unprecedented but, all in all, the opportunities we face outweigh our challenges,” he added, calling for unity, diligence and flexibility to achieve the party’s goals.

    The cautious optimism continued, as South China Morning Post writes, while he made vague or remote references to both the pandemic and political turmoil and uncertainty afflicting the United States:

    In his speech, Xi also again emphasised Beijing’s new “dual circulation” economic strategy first announced in May amid global challenges brought by the pandemic and China’s slowing growth.

    “Only by being self-reliant and developing the domestic market and smoothing out internal circulation can we achieve vibrant growth and development, regardless of the hostility in the outside world,” Xi said.

    Elsewhere in the speech he continued urged that self-reliance would in part come through rapid technological innovation in order to build and maintain a “super-sized domestic market” to boost consumption.

    Meanwhile, Biden has previously issued vague promises to “get tough” on China via restoring and shoring up alliances in the region…

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

    One commentator who is cited in SCMP summarized of Xi’s address: “Xi is now cautiously very optimistic. He sees the general environment and development as positive for China to assert a new historical role and sees challenges but feels confident that China under him will be able to make the most of it.” 

    Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute at the University of London, continued: “It is a – to paraphrase Napoleon – declaration that the conditions are right for the previously slumbering lion to roar and he will see to it that it does.” He added: “Xi has not specified [the exact policies China will implement]. What he has declared is that the conditions are ripe, and if China will rally around the leadership and follow the leader it will get there. The world should take notice.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/12/2021 – 23:45

  • Without Freedom Of Speech, What Is Going To Happen To America?
    Without Freedom Of Speech, What Is Going To Happen To America?

    Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

    It is quite ironic that many of those that are always telling us that we need “diversity” in our society are also some of the strongest voices against a “diversity of viewpoints” on social media.  The founders of this nation wanted to make sure that nobody would ever take the right to freedom of speech away from us, and that is why it was enshrined in the Bill of Rights.  Unfortunately, courts have greatly eroded that right over the last several decades, and now we are facing an all-out assault on freedom of speech that is unlike anything that we have ever seen before.  And once freedom of speech is completely gone, all of our other rights will soon follow, because there will no longer be any way to defend them.

    When the United States was established, government was really the only major threat to free speech.  In early America, corporations were severely limited in size and scope, and that is because our founders were determined not to let them get too big or too powerful.

    Our founders knew that enormous concentrations of money and power would be great threats to freedom, and that has definitely turned out to be the case.

    In the old days, if you wanted to express yourself you could grab a soapbox and head down to a local street corner.  The reason why we use the term “marketplace of ideas” today is because people literally used to gather in marketplaces and town squares and exchange ideas with one another.

    In our time, the Internet has become the place where we all gather to exchange ideas, but unfortunately control of all of the most important gathering spaces is in the hands of a very small group of colossal tech corporations.

    When Facebook, Twitter and others were first growing, they generally allowed people to say pretty much what they wanted to say, and information flowed pretty freely.

    But censorship has escalated dramatically over the past four years, and it reached a crescendo the other day when Twitter announced that it would be permanently suspending President Trump’s account.

    How would our founders feel about that?

    Tech giants such as Facebook and Twitter now have more money than many entire countries do, and in many ways they also have the same level of power that many national governments possess.

    Just think about this – President Trump could never take away your ability to express yourself, but Facebook and Twitter can.

    Of course big corporations dominate just about every other aspect of our society as well.  These collectivist institutions have become extremely dangerous, and they are really starting to throw their weight around.

    Until the power of the big corporations is addressed, we will never have a truly free society again.

    Just like leftist governments, big corporations seek to gather as much money and as much power under a single umbrella as possible.

    Our founders wanted to empower the individual, and that is why they wanted to limit the size of government and that is why they also wanted to limit the size of corporations.

    Sadly, it wasn’t just President Trump that got booted off Twitter in recent days.  Hordes of conservative accounts have been wiped out, and this has led many to use the word “purge” to describe what has been happening.

    On my Twitter account, I have literally lost more than a thousand followers in just a few days.  Others have lost a lot more.

    Many conservatives have been fleeing to Parler, but over the past several days the big tech giants teamed up to take that entire platform down…

    Parler will likely go offline for “a while” Sunday evening given Amazon Web Services’ decision to suspend the upstart social media platform after Wednesday’s U.S. Capitol riot, executives said Sunday.

    “We are clearly being singled out,” Chief Policy Officer Amy Peikoff told “Fox & Friends Weekend” one day after Apple suspended Parler from its App Store even as it surged to the No. 1 spot in the free apps section earlier in the day.

    I was absolutely stunned when I heard that had happened.

    These people are not playing games.

    For the moment, Gab.com is still up, and their traffic has surged more than 750 percent in just the last few days…

    Gab.com, the free speech friendly social network, says traffic has increased by more than 750 percent in the past few days, following the blacklisting of President Donald Trump from most mainstream tech platforms.

    “Our traffic is up 753% in the past 24 hours. Tens of millions of visits,” said Gab in response to a question about slow loading speeds.

    But how long will it be before Gab is taken down as well?

    The big tech companies don’t want diversity, they don’t want competition and they don’t want dissent.

    What they want is complete and total domination.

    Cancel culture is not good for our society.  If everyone with viewpoints that are not “politically correct” is eventually “canceled” we will have a society that looks a whole lot like communist China.

    And I suppose that is precisely what a lot of people out there truly want.

    It is not always easy to listen to viewpoints that you consider to be offensive.  Personally, I do not like most of what my fellow citizens are saying in 2021.

    But in the United States we are not supposed to silence opposing viewpoints that we do not like.  Instead, we are supposed to strive for victory in the marketplace of ideas by showing that our viewpoints are better.

    Unfortunately, the big tech companies have decided that millions of Americans should no longer be allowed to participate in the marketplace of ideas because their viewpoints are just too offensive.

    Ironically, many of those that are doing the censoring have the most offensive and the most dangerous viewpoints of all.

    Needless to say, if we stay on the path that we are currently on there is no future for America.

    Without free speech, the system of government that our founders established simply won’t work.

    What is the point of even having elections if we can only express one point of view?

    In China, no dissent is allowed and one political party runs everything on a permanent basis.

    America appears to be heading in the same direction, and there are millions of people in this country that are actually quite thrilled that this is happening.

    *  *  *

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

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/12/2021 – 23:25

  • FAA Issues New Rule To Spur Commercial Supersonic Flight
    FAA Issues New Rule To Spur Commercial Supersonic Flight

    The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) published new regulations last week that streamline the US’ supersonic flight testing process. 

    “Today’s action is a significant step toward reintroducing civil supersonic flight and demonstrates the Department’s commitment to safe innovation,” said Elaine L. Chao, U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) Secretary, on Wednesday. 

    According to an FAA press release, the new rule will “help ensure that companies developing these aircraft clearly understand the process for gaining FAA approval to conduct flight testing, which is a key step in ultimately bringing their products to market.” 

    “The FAA supports the new development of supersonic aircraft as long as safety parameters are followed…the testing of supersonic aircraft at Mach 1 will only be conducted following consideration of any impact to the environment.” said Steve Dickson, FAA Administrator.

    Aerion Corp. and Boom Technology Inc. are two companies buikding commercial supersonic aircraft that could soar above the skies by the mid-2020s. Transatlantic travel between New York and London could be reduced by half, to around three hours. 

    Boom’s XB-1 Demonstrator In Development 

    XB-1 demonstrator. Source: Boom Supersonic

    Boom is expected flight testing sometime this year of its prototype XB-1 aircraft. 

    Boom’s XB-1 Demonstrator Design 

    XB-1 demonstrator. Source: Boom Supersonic

    A full-scale size of the craft could be produced as early as 2022. If current schedules hold, the company could begin its first commercial flights by 2026. 

    Overture. h/t Boom Supersonic  

    Since the Aerospatiale/BAC Concorde crash in June 2003 – Air France and British Airways have since retired their supersonic jet fleets. 

    By no means is supersonic commercial air travel new technology, though it could eventually lead to hypersonic travel in the 2030s. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/12/2021 – 23:05

  • Investment Ban Creates Windfall For Bargain Hunters
    Investment Ban Creates Windfall For Bargain Hunters

    By Ye Xie, macro commentator for Bloomberg Markets Live

    Is the S&P 500 still the go-to stock benchmark when the continued rotation toward value and small caps dominates the market? While the S&P 500 was little changed Tuesday, the Russell 2000 of small caps rallied 1.8%. In FX, the dollar was on the back foot again, helping the offshore CNH to trade at a premium to onshore CNY again. But one has to wonder how long the crowded short-dollar bets can keep working, now that real yields are on the rise.

    Back in China, lending data that came out after the market closed showed that while credit growth continued to moderate, it’s hardly a sudden stop in stimulus. Money supply (M2) has slowed to 10.1%, from a peak of 11.1% in June. Assuming 2% inflation, that’s consistent with GDP growth around 8%.

    Switching gears, mainland investors kept flocking to Hong Kong to scoop up sanctioned Chinese companies. China Mobile, SMIC, China Telecom and CNOOC topped the buy list again. Mainland investors are happy to take advantage of forced selling by U.S. funds and index followers that was triggered by Trump’s banning of U.S. investments in Chinese companies considered linked to the military. Stock ownership in these sanctioned names via the south-bound stock

    Indeed, the ban has created large price wedges in the same stocks trading in the domestic and Hong Kong markets. Take China Railway Construction. Its shares have rallied 12% in Hong Kong since Jan. 5 when MSCI removed sanctioned Chinese companies from its benchmarks. The H shares are still trading at a 50% discount to equivalent shares in Shanghai, the most since the peak of China’s stock bubble in 2015. A mere return to the average discount of some 30% would represent a windfall for investors.

    Retail Chinese investors are known for their gambling instincts. But they proved to be quite savvy bargain hunters over the past year. The south-bound flows to Hong Kong surged in March. It pretty much marked the trough of the global stock market. Chances are that they may have done it again in picking the bottom for sanctioned Chinese companies.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/12/2021 – 22:45

  • Army Receives Two Robotic Combat Vehicles That Will "Revolutionize" Combat Operations 
    Army Receives Two Robotic Combat Vehicles That Will “Revolutionize” Combat Operations 

    The US Army wants to field light, medium, and heavy robotic combat vehicles to prepare for future combat on the modern battlefield as part of a rapid modernization effort. 

    American defense firm Pratt Miller tweeted about a week before Christmas that it delivered two Robotic Combat Vehicle-Light unmanned ground vehicle prototypes (RCV-Ls) to the Army. 

    “RCV-L’s 3 and 4 were delivered to GVSC today, 2 weeks ahead of schedule. This completes the full contracted delivery of Robotic Combat Vehicle – Light in preparation for 2021 testing and experimentation,” Pratt Miller tweeted. 

    Pratt Miller partnered with U.K.-headquartered defense contractor QinetiQ. Both firms were awarded the contracts in January. 

    “Robots have the potential to revolutionize the way we conduct ground combat operations,” Brig. Gen. Ross Coffman, director of the NGCV CFT, told Defense News earlier this year. 

    “Whether that’s giving increased firepower to a dismounted patrol, breaching an enemy fighting position, or providing [chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive] reconnaissance, we envision these vehicles providing commanders more time and space for decisions and reducing risk to soldiers,” Coffman said. 

    RCV-Ls can operate in human or semi-autonomous modes and are equipped with hybrid-electric motors for longer-range reconnaissance or attack missions.

    The Army also awarded contracts to QinetiQ and Textron to build four light (RCV Light) and four medium (RCV Medium) sized robotic tanks.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/12/2021 – 22:25

  • Ron Paul Posts Criticism Of Censorship On Social Media Shortly Before Facebook Blocks Him
    Ron Paul Posts Criticism Of Censorship On Social Media Shortly Before Facebook Blocks Him

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    We have been discussing the chilling crackdown on free speech that has been building for years in the United States. This effort has accelerated in the aftermath of the Capitol riot including the shutdown sites like Parler.  Now former Texas congressman Ron Paul, 85, has been blocked from using his Facebook page for unspecified violations of “community standards.” Paul’s last posting was linked to an article on the “shocking” increase of censorship on social media. Facebook then proceeded to block him under the same undefined “community standards” policy.

    Paul, a libertarian leader and former presidential candidate, has been an outspoken critics of foreign wars and an advocate for civil liberties for decades.  He wrote:

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

    “With no explanation other than ‘repeatedly going against our community standards,’ @Facebook has blocked me from managing my page. Never have we received notice of violating community standards in the past and nowhere is the offending post identified.” 

    His son is Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) tweeted,

     “Facebook now considers advocating for liberty to be sedition. Where will it end?”

    Even before the riot, Democrats were calling for blacklists and retaliation against anyone deemed to be “complicit” with the Trump Administration. We have been discussing the rising threats against Trump supporters, lawyers, and officials in recent weeks from Democratic members are calling for blacklists to the Lincoln Project leading a a national effort to harass and abuse any lawyers representing the Republican party or President Trump. Others are calling for banning those “complicit” from college campuses while still others are demanding a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” to “hold Trump and his enablers accountable for the crimes they have committed.” Daily Beast editor-at-large Rick Wilson has added his own call for “humiliation,” “incarceration” and even ritualistic suicides for Trump supporters in an unhinged, vulgar column.

    After the riots, the big tech companies moved to ban and block sites and individuals, including Parler which is the primary alternative to Twitter.  Also, a top Forbes editor Randall Lane warned any company that they will be investigated if they hire any former Trump officials.

    The riots are being used as a license to rollback on free speech and retaliate against conservatives.  In the meantime, the silence of academics and many in the media is deafening. Many of those who have spoken for years about the dark period of McCarthyism and blacklisting are either supporting this censorship or remaining silent in the face of it. Now that conservatives are the targets, speech controls and blacklists appear understandable or even commendable.

    The move against Paul, a long champion of free speech, shows how raw and comprehensive this crackdown has become. It shows how the threat to free speech has changed. It is like having a state media without state control. These companies are moving in unison but not necessarily with direct collusion. The riot was immediately taken as a green light to move against a huge variety of sites and individuals.  As we have seen in Europe, such censorship becomes an insatiable appetite for greater and greater speech control.  Even Germany’s Angela Merkel (who has a long history of anti-free speech actions) has criticized Twitter’s actions as inimical to free speech.  Yet, most law professors and media figures in the United States remain silent.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/12/2021 – 22:05

  • Beijing Orders Passengers To Scan QR Health Codes Before Entering Uber 
    Beijing Orders Passengers To Scan QR Health Codes Before Entering Uber 

    The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and domestic tech companies are developing new techniques to track and mitigate the spread of COVID-19. One way this is being done is through health QR codes. 

    On Monday, Beijing authorities imposed a new rule for taxi firms and car-hailing platforms in the metro area that forces users to show their health QR codes before vehicle entry. 

    “The move is a response to drivers repeatedly testing positive for the coronavirus,” the state-run Global Times newspaper reported.

    The color-based health QR code system produces a code about the user’s health. 

    As explained by RT News, “A ‘green’ one means they are free to roam around the capital, while ‘yellow’ and ‘red’ codes call for self-isolation or supervised quarantine.” 

    Health QR codes have already become mainstream in Beijing. Before entering shopping malls, restaurants, and even riding public transportation, these codes must be shown. 

    This all comes as the polar vortex has split into two, and Arctic air pours into parts of China, especially into Beijing. According to Goldman Sachs, colder temperatures may increase the probability of COVID-19 outbreaks.

    So the Chinese are taking immediate precautions in mitigating the spread by widening the use of health QR codes. There’s also news of nearby cities to Beijing have instructed residents to stay home for the next couple of weeks as virus cases increase. 

    An alleged video has surfaced on Twitter of Chinese officials sealing people in homes amid the virus outbreak. 

    These new monitoring systems are leaving privacy experts worried that CCP is expanding their surveillance of health data to monitor citizens. 

    Americans should be terrified that President-elect Biden may follow CCP by implementing some sort of tracking program to mitigate the spread in the US. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/12/2021 – 21:45

  • Russia & US Are Building Up Their Forces In Syria Ahead Of Biden Inauguration
    Russia & US Are Building Up Their Forces In Syria Ahead Of Biden Inauguration

    Via AlMasdarnews.com,

    The large Russian landing ship, the Saratov, entered the waters of the eastern Mediterranean this week, en route to a Syrian port, the Interfax News Agency reported, citing local Turkish media.

    According to the report, the Saratov transited the Bosphorus Strait and moved closer to the Syrian port-city of Tartous, where it is expected to dock in the coming days. The Russian naval fleet currently in the Mediterranean consists of more than 10 combat and auxiliary ships, which are part of different units in the Navy.

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    This report was confirmed by the Turkish maritime observer and photographer, Yoruk Isik, who released a set of photos showing the Saratov transiting the Bosphorus Strait on Monday, January 11th.

    The large landing ships and auxiliary ships of the Russian Navy, in addition to ships chartered by the Russian fleet, are participating in the process of transporting supplies to the Russian aviation group stationed at Hmeimim Airport (Lattakia countryside).

    Over the last five years, the Russian Armed Forces have increased their shipments to the Syrian government, as they not only provide humanitarian aid, but also new weapons to the Syrian Arab Army (SAA).

    AFP file image: US convoy in Syria

    Just days prior to the Russian warship reinforcement, a large convoy of vehicles belonging to the U.S.-led Coalition entered northeastern Syria, making its way to an army base in the Deir Ezzor Governorate. The large convoy was observed entering from Iraq this past weekend.

    According to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), who cited local sources, the U.S.-led Coalition reinforcements sent military and logistical reinforcements to their base in Deir Ezzor after entering the Syrian Arab Republic from the Al-Waleed Crossing, which is controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces.

    Brett McGurk has been picked by the Biden administration to join the NSC as coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa.

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    The agency quoted local sources as saying that a column of about 30 vehicles, including trucks loaded with heavy weapons, including cannons, and tanks belonging to the U.S. army, entered Al-Hasakah from Iraq’s Nineveh Governorate, before making their way to the base in Deir Ezzor.

    The sources indicated that the convoy took the Al-Kharafi Road between Deir Ezzor and Al-Hasakah, accompanied by U.S. helicopters and military vehicles. This convoy of US military reinforcements is likely part of the troop rotation that takes place every few weeks; they often enter the country from neighboring Iraq and move supplies to one of their bases inside the Syrian Arab Republic.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/12/2021 – 21:25

  • Large Soleimani Statue Erected In Beirut Stirs Outrage, Divides Lebanese
    Large Soleimani Statue Erected In Beirut Stirs Outrage, Divides Lebanese

    A newly erected large bronze statue of slain Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in the middle of the Lebanese capital Beirut is driving outrage and division, causing deepening rifts in the population over the role of Hezbollah and Iranian influence in the country.

    The unveiling ceremony for the bust that’s about ten feet high occurred last week. It’s located in a roundabout in the area of Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs on a street that also bears his name, and the street is linked to a nearby highway named for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini.

    Via AFP

    In the days following the unveiling ceremony the statue created a social media storm of controversy.

    According to one Saudi-backed newspaper:

    Many Lebanese, mostly critics of Hezbollah, took to social media to lambast the celebration of a foreign military leader in Lebanon’s capital. “Occupied Beirut,” tweeted one Lebanese, Amin Abou Mansour, who posted it with the hashtag #BeirutFree_IranOut.

    Others lamented what they described as the cultural hegemony of the militant Hezbollah and its ally, Iran. Wael Attallah, a Lebanese Canadian, tweeted: “This is a cultural aggression being imposed on Lebanon. Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese today feel violated and powerless. The Schism is getting wider day by day, little by little.”
    One Lebanese media personality said she received death threats after her criticism on social media of the new statue.

    The criticism has triggered a backlash from supporters, who started a Twitter storm with the hashtag: #Soleimani-is-one-of-us.

    Much criticism has naturally centered on the fact that the Soleimani statue represents the presence and influence of a foreign power on Lebanese soil. However the small Mediterranean country has long been subject of foreign meddling in recent history, including the Saudis, Syrians, Israel, and the US – not to mention the French Mandate period in the 20th century.

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    And as another Gulf-based newspaper pointed out, Hezbollah in prior decades used to be against statues, considering them ‘un-Islamic’. Yet Soleimani’s face has become iconic throughout the Middle East, representing “resistance” to US and Israeli designs on the region.

    The Soleimani memorial has also no doubt angered the US Embassy in Beirut, given it’s such a prominent display of devotion to someone considered an archenemy of the US.

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    The Trump administration ordered a strike on the popular IRGC commander on January 3, 2020 – which resulted in his death as well as that of Iraqi paramilitary leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/12/2021 – 21:05

  • "I Will Not Yield To Political Games": Pence Responds To Pelosi, Won't Invoke 25th Amendment
    “I Will Not Yield To Political Games”: Pence Responds To Pelosi, Won’t Invoke 25th Amendment

    As we first reported last night, Vice President Mike Pence confirmed in a letter addressed to Nancy Pelosi late on Tuesday that he will not invoke the 25th amendment to remove President Trump from office, just hours before the House was set to vote on a resolution formally calling on him to do so.

    In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Pence said he does not “believe that such a course of action is in the best interest of our Nation or consistent with our Constitution”, and adding that he did “not yield to pressure to exert power beyond my constitutional authority to determine the outcome of the election, and I will not now yield to efforts in the House of Representatives to play political games at a time so serious in the life of our Nation.” Instead, Pence, urged Pelosi and “every member of Congress to avoid actions that would further divide and inflame the passions of the moment,” in reference to last week’s deadly Capitol riots.

    Pence’s full letter is below:

    Dear Madam Speaker:

    Every American was shocked and saddened by the attack on our Nation’s Capitol last week, and I am grateful for the leadership that you and other congressional leaders provided in reconvening Congress to complete the people’s business on the very same day. It was a moment that demonstrated to the American people the unity that is still possible in Congress when it is needed most.

    But now, with just eight days left in the President’s term, you and the Democratic Caucus are demanding that the Cabinet and I invoke the 25th Amendment. I do not believe that such a course of action is in the best interest of our Nation or consistent with our Constitution. Last week, I did not yield to pressure to exert power beyond my constitutional authority to determine the outcome of the election, and I will not now yield to efforts in the House of Representatives to play political games at a time so serious in the life of our Nation.

    As you know full well, the 25th Amendment was designed to address Presidential incapacity or disability. Just a few months ago, when you introduced legislation to create a 25th Amendment Commission, you said, “[a] President’s fitness for office must be determined by science and facts.”

    You said then that we must be “[v]ery respectful of not making a judgment on the basis of a comment or behavior that we don’t like, but based on a medical decision.” Madam Speaker, you were right.

    Under our Constitution, the 25th Amendment is not a means of punishment or usurpation. Invoking the 25th Amendment in such a manner would set a terrible precedent.

    After the horrific events of this last week, our Administration’s energy is directed to ensuring an orderly transition. The Bible says that “for everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven…a time to heal, … and a time to build up.” That time is now. In the midst of a global pandemic, economic hardship for millions of Americans, and the tragic events of January 6th, now is the time for us to come together, now is the time to heal.

    I urge you and every member of Congress to avoid actions that would further divide and inflame the passions of the moment. Work with us to lower the temperature and unite our country as we prepare to inaugurate President-elect Joe Biden as the next President of the United States. I pledge to you that I will continue to do my part to work in good faith with the incoming administration to ensure an orderly transition of power. So help me God.

    Sincerely

    Michael R. Pence

    Vice President of the United States

    Pence’s expected announcement paves the way for House Democrats to move forward with impeachment legislation.

    The House is currently weighing a resolution that would call on Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment, which allows a majority of the Cabinet to remove the president from office. House Democrats have previously said they will move forward on Wednesday with a vote on impeaching President Trump if Pence declines.

    Trump brushed aside calls for his removal over last week’s attack at the Capitol, saying the 25th Amendment is “of zero risk to me, but will come back to haunt Joe Biden.”

    “Be careful what you wish for,”  Trump said in Alamo, Texas, during a visit to the border earlier in the day. He said the impeachment effort mounted by House Democrats is “dangerous for the USA, especially at this very tender time.”

    Democrats have moved quickly in their efforts to remove Trump from office – and prevent him from running again in 2024 – following the assault last week on the Capitol. An article of impeachment introduced in the House on Monday and backed by more than 200 Democrats accuses Trump of “incitement of insurrection,” and says he “gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of government.” Three House Republicans, including House GOP leadership member Liz Cheney, said they will vote to impeach the president.

    Earlier on Tuesday, the House Judiciary released a 76-page impeachment report which claimed that “President Trump remains a clear and present danger to the Constitution and our democracy.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/12/2021 – 20:45

  • SoftBank Vision Fund CEO Speaks At Goldman Tech Conference: Key Highlights
    SoftBank Vision Fund CEO Speaks At Goldman Tech Conference: Key Highlights

    In recent months, Japan’s financial conglomerate-cum-VC giant, SoftBank, has repeatedly made the news, starting with its terrible investment in WeWork (and several other not defunct unicorns), proceeding through its penchant for repurchasing gobs of its own stock any time its share price drops, continuing through SoftBank’s infamous – and very expensive – attempt to corner tech stock gamma in the public markets, yet culminating with a stock price which is now at all time highs, wildly surpassing its previous dot com record (from which it plunged at barely recovered).

    With this “fascinating” background, one can see why any representative of Masa Son’s very “eclectic” SoftBank would be highly sought after for their thoughts on the market (and how to manipulate it best), which is probably why Rajeev Misra, EVP of SoftBank Group and CEO of the SoftBank Vision Fund (and a former Deutsche Banker of course – SoftBank has quickly emerged as the company where all the financial professionals who blew up the “real deal” DB with their financial genius ended up) was such a highlight when he presented at the Goldman Technology and Internet Conference 2021 this week.

    Below, courtesy of Goldman, are the main highlights from his speech:

    View on the market. Misra noted that low interest rates and asset-buying by central banks have significantly improved market liquidity, justifying much of the valuation support for the public equity markets, and driving higher relative valuations compared to the private markets. He believes the SPAC, while not a new concept, has been a way for companies to take advantage of this and get access to the public markets more quickly, though it’s a smaller component to the broader public equity story today than interest rates and central banks.

    Investment landscape. Misra highlighted that the last 12-months have dramatically changed the landscape, with many of the changes in consumer behavior unlikely to go back to normal. The pace of disruption has covered three years of ground in just one year, and eCommerce in particular has seen as much penetration growth in the last 9 months as it saw in the prior 10 years. Verticals like education, food delivery, eCommerce, life sciences, and entertainment have been key beneficiaries.

    When thinking about the future of a post-COVID world, Misra pointed to China and South Korea, both of which are operating 6-9 months ahead of much of the rest of the world in terms of COVID suppression, noting that there have been aggressive hiring and investment cycles by companies benefiting from online shifts, something that highlights the sustainability of shifting consumer behavior. In addition, even in verticals negatively impacted by the pandemic, like ridehailing, technology-enabled companies are gaining share in a post-COVID world. Mr. Misra noted that for Didi, a Chinese ridehailing company, rides-per-day today are higher than last year, despite total market-wide rides only being at ~70% of pre-COVID levels in China.  

    Fund management strategy. SoftBank Vision Fund has over 100 investments, 85 of which are in Vision Fund 1 and 25 of which are in Vision Fund 2. Misra highlighted that despite SoftBank being the largest shareholder in 95% of its portfolio companies, the company has been more open over the last year to outside investors supporting follow-on fundraising rounds which helps to validate the valuation levels of these businesses. For Softbank’s portfolio companies, catalyzing business opportunities across Softbank’s ecosystem, whether that be creating business relationships or expanding geographical opportunities, is a large part of the vision. The company facilitates both debt and equity funding, including asset securitization.

    Specific investment verticals. While SoftBank portfolio companies operate in a number of verticals and geographies, Misra discussed in particular SoftBank’s focus on mobility, real estate technology, and healthcare technology, with capital deployments made with a longer-term investment trajectory. In mobility, Misra highlighted the opportunity for autonomous vehicles to dramatically lower costs for transport of goods and people, something he expects will take 3-4 years to come to market. Even prior to that, however, he expects the phasing-out of car ownership to provide meaningful tailwinds to core rides in the category, creating meaningful operating leverage for ridehailing businesses as they rationalize costs (e.g., Uber with ATG, freight).  

    In real estate, Misra noted that there are meaningful opportunities in real estate, both residential and commercial, given the size of the asset class and level of technological disruption to date. He noted that the residential and commercial office categories were the nearest term opportunities, with hospitality and retail being further out. In healthcare technology, Misra discussed the meaningful changes expected throughout the value chain, from diagnostics to treatment and even areas like gene editing and cell therapies, the latter which he expects will take 5-6 years but is among the most exciting opportunities. With healthcare the number one component of U.S. GDP, he reiterated the focus on companies best positioned to disrupt large asset classes.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/12/2021 – 20:45

  • Senate Could Have Votes To Impeach, McConnell “Pleased” About The Idea
    Senate Could Have Votes To Impeach, McConnell “Pleased” About The Idea

    Update 2015 EST: Pence Against Using 25th Amendment

    Numerous sources are reporting that Vice President Mike Pence has “ruled out” using the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump from office. The Vice President has instead urged congress to “focus on Biden transition and avoid impeachment,” according to AP.

    Pence sent a letter to Speaker Pelosi stating “I do not believe that such a course of action is in the best interest of our Nation or the Constitution.”

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    Update 2001 EST: Senate May Have Enough Votes For Impeachment

    CNBC’s Eamon Javers is reporting that, according to a senior Trump official, there are enough Republican votes in the Senate to convict and remove President Trump from office if they receive articles of impeachment from the House on Wednesday.

    Update 1917 EST: GOP Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick Introduces A Resolution To Censure Trump

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    Update 1806 EST: Several Republicans Join Cheyney In Voting To Impeach Trump

    “At least three GOP lawmakers will move to charge the president from their own party with high crimes and misdemeanors,” CNBC reports. They will join Liz Cheney in calling for impeachment of the President. 

    Rep. John Katko, R-N.Y., earlier said he would support impeachment after the president stirred up a mob that attacked the Capitol last week while Congress counted President-elect Joe Biden’s presidential win. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., later joined Cheney and Katko. The riot left five people, including a Capitol police officer, dead.

    * * *

    Update: the GOP establishment has turned full anti-Trump: shortly after the McConnell report, House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney, the No. 3 Republican in the House, announced Tuesday that she plans to vote to impeach President Trump for inciting a violent mob at the Capitol last week.

    “On January 6, 2021 a violent mob attacked the United States Capitol to obstruct the process of our democracy and stop the counting of presidential electoral votes,” Cheney, of Wyoming, said in a statement. “The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing.”

    Cheney: I Will Vote To Impeach The President

    Washington – Wyoming Congresswoman and House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) released the following statement ahead of votes in the House this week:

    “On January 6, 2021 a violent mob attacked the United States Capitol to obstruct the process of our democracy and stop the counting of presidential electoral votes. This insurrection caused injury, death and destruction in the most sacred space in our Republic.

    “Much more will become clear in coming days and weeks, but what we know now is enough. The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the President. The President could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.

    “I will vote to impeach the President.”

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    Earlier on Tuesday, another Republican representative, New York’s John Katko, has also said he would back Trump’s impeachment.

    * * *

    Republican leader Senator Mitch McConnell is reportedly “pleased” about the idea of a second Trump impeachment, telling sources that he believes President Trump  “committed impeachable offenses”, according to a late Tuesday New York Times report.

    McConnell believes impeachment will make it easier to “purge [Trump] from the party” ahead of a Wednesday House vote to formally charge Trump with inciting violence against the country.

    Meanwhile, Trump ally and minority leader Kevin McCarthy of California has asked other Republicans whether he should call for Trump to resign in the aftermath of the events at the Capitol last week. McCarthy and others have decided not to formally lobby Republicans to vote against the impeachment. He is said to have reached out to Nancy Pelosi to gauge interest in pursing a censure vote, though Pelosi has reportedly ruled it out.

    McConnell has indicated that he “wants to see the specific article of impeachment that the House is set to approve on Wednesday,” the Times wrote. President-elect Biden even spoke to McConnell on Tuesday to ask about the possibility of “a dual track that would allow the Senate to confirm Mr. Biden’s cabinet nominees and hold a Senate trial at the same time”.

    The article is expected to draw support from “as many as a dozen” Republicans. 

    McConnell was outspoken after the Senate reconvened on Wednesday last week, stating “This failed attempt to obstruct the Congress, this failed insurrection, only underscores how crucial the task before us is for our Republic. Our nation was founded precisely so that the free choice of the American people is what shapes our self-government and determines the destiny of our nation.” 

    Taken together, McConnell and McCarthy’s respective stances represent a shift in sentiment and a break from Trump within the Republican party heading into the last days of the President’s term.

    Trump, on the other hand, has remained steadfast, stating on Tuesday that his remarks to his supporters were “totally appropriate,” and that the idea of impeachment was “causing tremendous anger”. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/12/2021 – 20:25

  • Gamma Energy: As XLE Call Buying Explodes, Energy Sector Braces For Huge Melt Up
    Gamma Energy: As XLE Call Buying Explodes, Energy Sector Braces For Huge Melt Up

    Remember the “gamma squeeze” in various tech names amid the unprecedented Robinhood/SoftBank call buying frenzy from the summer/late 2020? Well, while SoftBank’s market manipulation unit may have been “incapacitated” for the time being after suffering major losses, the record call buying has continued into 2021 as retail daytraders have put their $600 (and soon $2000) “stimmy” checks to “good” use. In fact, just last week we saw that 4th and 5th highest call volume days in history!

    Only this time there is a difference: unlike the FAAMG/tech euphoria that marked much of 2020, this time the rabid levered daytraders have turned their attention elsewhere. Surprisingly, it is to the one sector so many had left for dead in 2020 – energy.

    As Susquehanna’s Chris Murphy points out, “option investors have never been so bullish on energy stocks.” As shown in the chart below, open interest in call options for the most popular energy ETF, the XLE (or Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund) has exploded higher in just the last few days sending its ratio relative to puts to a record.

    This record energy call buying may explain why there has been a sharp spike higher in such energy names as Exxon in recent weeks; it’s also why the surge across energy names may be just starting.

    Curiously, this appears to be a phenomenon isolated within energy: other ETFs in cyclical sectors such as banks and small caps, haven’t seen a similar phenomenon in option activity.

    As Bloomberg notes, while President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to focus on green energy, which in turn has made such ESG ETFs as the TAN explode in late 2020, the potential for “trillions” more in  stimulus under a Democrats blue sweep, as well as Saudi Arabia’s shocking $1mm bbd crude-supply cut have sent WTI above $52 a barrel. The XLE ETF has already rallied 44% since Nov. 3.

    But if options traders have their way, this could be just the start of the next massive gamma squeeze.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/12/2021 – 20:25

  • The Great Social Silencing
    The Great Social Silencing

    Authored by Kalev Leetaru via RealClearPolitics.com,

    Last week Silicon Valley silenced the president. In unison, the social media giants, with an assist from Amazon and Apple, also eliminated their most popular conservative competitor and announced that their own moderation policies would now extend to other companies. Meanwhile, CNN openly called for Fox News to be banned from cable, while a major talk radio network issued new speech rules to its hosts, extending tech’s moderation policies to the offline world. Beyond all this, Congress and the European Union called for powerful new regulation of online speech.

    As a handful of unelected billionaires declare sovereignty over digital speech, where might the coming months take us?

    Twitter once touted itself as “the free speech wing of the free speech party” and rebuked Congress’ calls for it to ban terrorists, proclaiming that “the ability of users to share freely their views — including views that many people may disagree with or find abhorrent” — was its mission. Indeed, most of the early social platforms emphasized unfettered speech above all other considerations. Over the years, this utopian dream has given way to an emphasis on “healthy conversation” and ever-changing enforcement.

    Yet for most of their existence, social media platforms have largely avoided censoring elected officials in the U.S. even as they have deleted the accounts of foreign leaders. That all changed last year as Silicon Valley for the first time began labeling President Trump’s tweets as “disputed” and “false.” As progressive segments of the public embraced this new censorship, platforms moved from merely fact-checking posts to deleting them entirely and threatening to ban some lawmakers.

    The courts have repeatedly ruled that Trump’s Twitter account is an official government outlet and thus he is prohibited from blocking users with whom he disagrees. How then is a private company able to establish “acceptable speech” rules for a government publication or silence it entirely? 

    Perhaps more troubling is that speech rules no longer just govern social spaces. Uber, Lyft and Airbnb have all banned their services from being used by those whose online and offline political speech was deemed unacceptable. Facebook last year extended its reach to the offline world, banning certain kinds calls for protest while permitting others.

    It was a remarkable sight to behold Democratic lawmakers and the press lamenting that Congress does not have the power to silence voices with which it disagrees and instead urging Silicon Valley to exercise the power only it holds: the ability to silence any voice from the digital world. And this plea came from the very lawmakers who had once condemned social platforms as dangerous monopolies.

    Moreover, the companies’ announcements that they were permanently suspending the president referenced not potential illegal activity banned by law but rather the companies’ decision that permitting him to continue communicating with the nation posed too great a risk to democracy.

    The companies themselves had little choice but to remove Trump or face even greater wrath from the new Democratic majority in Congress. Even the ACLU, in its condemnation of Twitter’s suspension of Trump, acknowledged the “political realities” of the incoming administration. Activist groups rushed to claim credit for silencing Trump, touting the high-level discussions they had had with Twitter leadership.

    While there has been widespread support for Silicon Valley’s actions, German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned of the dangers in silencing a democratically elected head of state. Moreover, while Democrats are narrowly focused on the present, in a world in which lawmakers and activist groups can wield the monopoly power of social media to mute dissenting voices, what is to stop a future Republican Congress from using those very same powers to silence Democrats? Such is the slippery slope we find ourselves on.

    And what about alternatives to Silicon Valley’s platforms? Social media companies have long argued that they are not monopolies because it is possible for competitors to challenge them.

     

    Twitter clone Parler had emerged as just such a competitor, reaching number one on Apple’s App Store this week as conservatives flocked to its minimally moderated platform. Yet within days Apple and Google had banned the sale of it from their respective app stores and banishing it from mobile devices. Parler’s cloud hosting provider, Amazon Web Services, evicted it, taking the site offline until a conservative cloud provider agreed to host it. Yet even if it can rebuild in some fashion, without a smartphone app and blacklisted by most service providers, Parler will be merely a shadow of its former self.

    In taking these steps, Silicon Valley cited Parler’s lack of strong content moderation as grounds for elimination. In their letters to Parler, the companies demanded that it adopt acceptable speech policies identical to their own.

    Even offline media are not immune. Television channels must contract with cable carriers to transmit them into homes, syndicated radio shows must be hosted by stations, and even independent newspapers must have websites and mobile apps. With local news outlets diminishing, it is important to note that no matter how editorially independent some may be, all are still dependent on cloud providers, app stores, Internet service providers, etc. In the aftermath of Wednesday’s events at the Capitol, CNN openly called for cable carriers to drop Fox News, while Cumulus Media issued new acceptable speech rules to its conservative talk radio hosts.

    Where does this leave us?

    The nation’s founders chose not to give Congress the power to silence even a madman in the Oval Office, other than to remove him through impeachment. This week taught us that a handful of billionaires in California essentially have that power. Trump’s near-total disappearance from the digital world since his ban serves as a stark reminder of this.

    The near-unanimous support from the new Democratic majority for this ban means Silicon Valley is now emboldened to eliminate any voice, no matter how powerful. It creates a dangerous normalization of the silencing of dissent.

    The willingness of Uber, Lyft and Airbnb to ban some users for political speech shows that as technology companies’ tentacles reach into other industries, a new era of permanent societal exclusion, much like China’s “social credit” program, is emerging.

    To some, the newfound emphasis on combating “misinformation,” with private companies as curators of permissible speech and definers of “truth,” might seem like a positive development. After all, threats of violence, racism, sexism, doxing, sedition, harmful medical advice and the like are damaging to society. Yet billionaires that can silence presidents, a Congress that can silence dissent and private companies deciding what is “best” for the nation and what constitutes “truth” pose an existential threat to democracy. In the end, the very future of our shared society hinges on the ability of Silicon Valley to balance thoughtful moderation with freedom of speech. Perhaps the answer is for the tech companies to become democracies themselves and let society decide what is best.  

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/12/2021 – 20:05

  • Why Did These 40 Companies Continue To Fund Democrats Who 'Undermined Democracy' In 2005?
    Why Did These 40 Companies Continue To Fund Democrats Who ‘Undermined Democracy’ In 2005?

    An accelerating avalanche of companies have issued hurried press releases in recent days to signal how virtuous they are by cutting off political funding because – according to most of them – of the actions of various politicians (such as Rep. Hawley and Sen. Cruz) who, according to the mainstream media have “amplified the Big Lie”, “undermined democracy”, “inciting a riot”, and attempted to “delay Biden’s certification.”

    One example was as follows:.

    “The culpability for this untenable challenge to our Constitution and American values goes beyond the criminals that attacked our Capitol, and falls to a number of our elected leaders as well who, in effect, perpetuated the lies and untruths about the outcome of the 2020 presidential election,”

    The politicians ‘crimes’ – they dared to object to the certification of certain states’ Electoral College votes due to voting irregularities.

    What is a little odd – at least to us – is the fact these actions are certainly not unprecedented.

    As we noted previously:

    The last three times a Republican has been elected president — Trump in 2016 and George W. Bush in both 2000 and 2004 — Democrats in the House have brought objections to the electoral votes in states the GOP nominee won.

    In early 2005 specifically, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., along with Rep. Stephanie Tubbs, D-Ohio, objected to Bush’s 2004 electoral votes in Ohio.

    In fact, just for fun, let’s look at what none other than CNN did to report Sen. Boxer’s dastardly act (emphasis ours… to highlight the hypocrisy):

    Alleging widespread “irregularities” on Election Day, a group of Democrats in Congress objected Thursday to the counting of Ohio’s 20 electoral votes, delaying the official certification of the 2004 presidential election results.

    The move was not designed to overturn the re-election of President Bush, said Ohio Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones and California Sen. Barbara Boxer, who filed the objection.

    The objecting Democrats, most of whom are House members, said they wanted to draw attention to the need for aggressive election reform in the wake of what they said were widespread voter problems.

    In a letter to congressional leaders Wednesday, members of the group said they would take the action because a new report by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee found “numerous, serious election irregularities,” particularly in Ohio, that led to “a significant disenfranchisement of voters.”

    “How can we possibly tell millions of Americans who registered to vote, who came to the polls in record numbers, particularly our young people … to simply get over it and move on?” Tubbs Jones told reporters.

    …

    Wait… no denigration? No treason? In fact, it gets better, as none other than Nancy Pelosi herself praised “democracy” in action:

    “Today we are witnessing Democracy at work. This isn’t as some of our Republican colleagues have referred to it, sadly, as frivolous. This debate is fundamental to our democracy,” she said at the time.

    “The representatives of the American people in this house are standing up for three fundamental American beliefs: The right to vote is sacred; that a representative has a duty to represent his or her constituents; and that the rule of law is the hallmark of our nation.”

    So, given all of that, why did the following 40-plus companies wait 16 years before pulling their political funding? The Wall Street Journal reports that these 40 or so companies have temporarily halted all political action committee donations, or donations to lawmakers who voted against certifying Electoral College votes.

    The (witch) hunt is on for more corporations that practically funded this insurrection, as Bloomberg reports that six of the biggest money managers gave a combined $1.03 million to Republican lawmakers who objected to certifying results of the 2020 presidential election, a new study shows.

    Anyone with an open-mind might think these announcements – at a time in the Washington cycle when political contributions slump anyway – are nothing but yet more corporate virtue-signaling as the outrage mob pressures companies big and small.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/12/2021 – 19:45

  • PBS Lawyer Fired After Project Veritas Expose
    PBS Lawyer Fired After Project Veritas Expose

    Update (1840ET): Michael Beller, the attorney in the Project Veritas expose, has been fired by NPR for hateful comments calling for the children of Trump supporters to be “put into re-eduation camps”

    “There is no place for hateful rhetoric at PBS, and this individual’s views in no way reflect our values or opinions,” said a spokesperson in a statement.

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    Authored by Sara A. Carter via saraacarter.com

    This is what the leftists, along with those that support their agenda, think about Americans. It’s in their own words. Believe them when they say it.

    “Americans are so fucking dumb,” said PBS Principal Counsel Michael Beller, who was chatting with one of Project Veritas‘ undercover self-described guerilla journalists. “You know most people are dumb.”

    Beller is just saying what I would hear over and over again in Washington D.C. parties and pubs. He’s not the exception and his disdain for our nation makes my stomach turn because he, and others like him, are seizing power from the people every day. They hold positions of power that actually can affect our daily lives and that of our children.

    And to think PBS if funded with our taxpayer dollars.

    “Kids who are growing up, know nothing but Trump, for four years, you’ve got to wonder what they’re (Trump supporting children) going to be like, ” Beller told the undercover journalist. “They’ll (Trump supporters) be raising a generation of intolerant, horrible people – horrible kids.”

    Beller suggests removing the children from parents who supported Trump and then sending them to enlightenment camps.

    IS BELLER FOR REAL!

    This idea is similar to what is actually happening in China, as the Chinese Communist Party has been terrorizing and removing the Uighur Muslim population to supposed “re-education” camps.

    Beller needs to be fired by PBS. My daughter watches PBS and she won’t be anymore. This is absolutely intolerable.

    Oh, Beller also said that if “even if Biden wins, we go for all the Republican voters, Homeland Security will take their children away…”

    Folks, welcome to America’s worst nightmare.

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/12/2021 – 19:33

  • Peter Schiff: The Bond Market Is Rigged!
    Peter Schiff: The Bond Market Is Rigged!

    Via SchiffGold.com,

    You may have noticed that the financial media has started talking about inflation. But by and large, it’s not a warning. It’s reassurance. Many analysts are dismissive of any concerns raised about inflationary pressure. They often claim the bond market isn’t signaling inflation. But as Peter Schiff points out in a clip from a recent podcast, the bond market is rigged.

    The narrative is that the bond markets aren’t signaling much concern about inflation. Treasury yields have risen in recent weeks with the 10-year rate now above 1%. As Peter pointed out in a more recent podcast, the upward trend does indicate some investors are starting to get nervous about inflation, and at some point, we could see “an explosive move up in interest rates.” But so far, the broader market hasn’t caught on. Even though the trend is up, yields remain historically low and they don’t exactly scream “inflation problem.”

    After all, if investors were concerned about inflation, why would they be willing to loan money to the US government for 10 years at 1%?”

    Typically, inflation is a major concern for lenders. If you plan to lend somebody money for 10 years, you have to consider what that amount of money will buy when you get it back. In effect, you’re giving up the opportunity to buy something with your money today in order to lend it to somebody else. You’re willing to do this because the borrower is paying you for the service of loaning him that money. But if inflation is going to eat away your purchasing power over time, you will want to charge a higher rate of interest to compensate for that loss.

    So, the interest rate the lender charges typically reflects the expected rate of inflation over the term of the loan. If a lender expects higher inflation, he will build those expectations into interest rates. And from the borrower’s point of view, she’s fine with paying the higher rate because she knows that she’ll be repaying the loan in the future with money that has less value than it does today.

    Since we’ve not seen a huge spike in bond yields, most analysts assume inflation must not be a concern. But given the massive deficits and the ballooning money supply, why are the markets downplaying inflation? Peter said they’re missing the elephant standing in the middle of the living room.

    That is the Fed! And actually, there are a few elephants in the living room in the form of other central banks that are distorting the bond market. The bond market is not working the way it has in the past because the Fed is artificially manipulating interest rates. The biggest buyer is the Federal Reserve.”

    When the Fed buys bonds, it isn’t worried about losing money on a loan. The Federal Reserve isn’t lending money in the way an actual lender does. The Fed isn’t making a business decision. It’s making a political decision.

    The Fed is trying to affect policy. It’s trying to influence the economy, stimulate the economy, prop up the stock market. That is the purpose of the Fed buying Treasury bonds. So, the Fed is not looking at Treasury bonds yielding under 1% and thinking, ‘Wow, this is a lousy buy. Why do I want to buy these bonds at less than 1% and hold them for 10 years? We’re going to take a big loss.’ The Fed doesn’t care about losses. The Fed doesn’t have to work for its money. It creates it out of thin air. What do the guys at the Fed give a damn how much they lose by buying these low-yielding bonds? And so when you have the Fed in the market, the whole thing is distorted.”

    And the Fed has become a major player in the bond market. As we reported recently, the Fed now owns a record 16.5% of US debt. In just one year, the Fed doubled its holdings of Treasuries, adding a staggering $2.4 trillion in US government bonds to its balance sheet – most of that since March. The Fed’s total share of US debt has spiked from 9.3% in Q1 to 16.5%.

    It isn’t just the Fed itself that distorts the bond market. The central bank’s presence creates an environment ripe for speculators who are just in it for the short-run.

    Whenever there is a sell-off in the bond market and you see a backup in interest rates, what happens? Speculators who can borrow money real cheap, also thanks to the Fed, come into the market and buy the dip. Why do they do that? Because they know they can sell to the Fed. They can flip the bonds back to the Fed because the Federal Reserve is trying to keep a lid on long-term interest rates because the economy is so loaded up with debt – and again thanks to the Fed. The Fed has to keep interest rates at rock bottom so people can afford to pay. Also, the Fed is trying to maintain these excess stock market valuations. And the key to the overvalued stock market is the overvalued bond market because we keep comparing stocks to bonds, and so to make that comparison favorable, the Fed has to keep the bond market propped up and keep interest rates down.”

    Speculators don’t buy bonds because they think they’re a great long-term investment. They have no intention of holding them until maturity. They’re buying to flip to the Fed.

    On the other side of the equation, the Fed has to keep bond prices high (and therefore yields low) in order to create enough demand on the open market for the US Treasury to sell enough bonds to finance the massive budget deficits. With the Democrats controlling both houses of Congress and the White House, it seems likely the borrowing and spending will increase in the coming months – certainly not slow down.

    So that’s what’s going on in the bond market. You have speculators who are front-running the Fed. They have no intention of holding the bonds to maturity. And then you have the Fed that will hold to maturity and isn’t concerned about how much money it loses to inflation.

    In a nutshell, the bond market is completely rigged.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/12/2021 – 19:25

  • F-35 Stealth Jet Still Has 871 Flaws Including Some "Potentially Serious Issues"
    F-35 Stealth Jet Still Has 871 Flaws Including Some “Potentially Serious Issues”

    The Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth fighter jet has 871 software and hardware flaws that could affect combat operations, according to Bloomberg, citing a report from the Pentagon’s testing office.

    “The F-35 continues to have many flaws. Many of those flaws have already been discovered during the development and testing phase, which ended with 941 flaws in April 2018,” Robert Behler, the director of operational testing, said in a new assessment seen by Bloomberg.

    The assessment outlines the long list of flaws – down two from 873 that Behler reported last year.

    Ten out of the 871 unresolved deficiencies found by Boehler are “potentially serious issues,” Bloomberg writes. These “Category 1” issues could endanger the pilot or aircraft safety or diminish combat effectiveness against Chinese or Russian stealth fighters. 

    At least 70% of the flaws are considered “low priority.”

    To date, 970 F-35s have been built are being used by the US and eight more countries, including the Netherlands, UK, and Japan. The flaws will be addressed over time, much of which will come from software updates. 

    One of the flaws include a “stalled one-month simulation exercise required to certify the plane is combat-ready against the toughest Russian or Chinese threats and thus ready for a decision on full-rate production,” said Bloomberg. 

    Here are other unresolved glitches of the F-35 program (the partial list via Defense News):

    • When the F-35B vertically lands on very hot days, older engines may be unable to produce the required thrust to keep the jet airborne, resulting in a hard landing.
    • After doing certain maneuvers, F-35B and F-35C pilots are not always able to completely control the aircraft’s pitch, roll and yaw.
    • Supersonic flight in excess of Mach 1.2 can cause structural damage and blistering to the stealth coating of the F-35B and F-35C.
    • Cabin pressure spikes in the cockpit of the F-35 have been known to cause barotrauma, the word given to extreme ear and sinus pain.
    • The spare parts inventory shown by the F-35’s logistics system does not always reflect reality, causing occasional mission cancellations.
    • If the F-35A and F-35B blows a tire upon landing, the impact could also take out both hydraulic lines and pose a loss-of-aircraft risk.
    • Possible maneuvering issues when the aircraft is operating above a 20-degree angle of attack.
    • The F-35’s logistics system currently has no way for foreign F-35 operators to keep their secret data from being sent to the United States.

    And yes, did we mention the F-35’s 25 mm Gatling-type rotary cannon has “unacceptable” accuracy of hitting ground targets?

    An independent cost analysis shows the F-35 program will need tens of billions of dollars more over the next several years for upgrades, research and development, aircraft procurement, operations and maintenance. 

    Behler wrote, “the overall number of open deficiencies has not changed significantly” since early 2019, adding that “due to ongoing problems with initial software quality” and “limited lab and flight test capability, resulting in a high rate of problem discoveries” found in the field.

    Currently, the F-35 program is undergoing a “Block 4” upgrade costing at least $12 billion to correct some of the flaws. 

    Behler warned that the Block 4 process “is not working.” He said, “it’s causing significant delays to planned schedules and results in poor software quality, containing deficiencies.”

    Bloomberg noted defense officials who have seen the Behler assessment said many of the flaw will be resolved with production changes and software upgrades. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/12/2021 – 19:05

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Jan 12

Today’s News 12th January 2021

  • Are You Ready For Total (Ideological) War?
    Are You Ready For Total (Ideological) War?

    Authored (somewhat satirically) by C.J.Hopkins via The Consent Factory,

    So, welcome to 2021! If last week was any indication, it is going to be quite an exciting year. It is going to be the year in which GloboCap reminds everyone who is actually in charge and restores “normality” throughout the world, or at least attempts to restore “normality,” or the “New Normality,” or the “Great Normal Reset,” or “The New Normal War on Domestic Terror” … or whatever they eventually decide to call it.

    In any event, whatever they call it, GloboCap is done playing grab-ass. They have had it with all this “populism” malarkey that has been going on for the last four years. Yes, that’s right, the party is over, you Russian-backed white supremacist terrorists! You Trump-loving, anti-mask grandmother killers! You anti-vax, election-fraud-conspiracy theorists! You deviants who refuse to follow orders, wear your damn masks, vote for who they tell you, and believe whatever completely nonsensical official propaganda they pour into your heads!

    Oh, yes, you really did it this time! You stormed the goddamned US Capitol. You and your racist, Russia-backed army of bison-hat wearing half-naked actors have meddled with the primal forces of GloboCap, and now, by God, you will atone! No, do not try to minimize your crimes. You entered a building without permission! The building where America simulates democracy! You walked around in there waving silly flags! You went into the Chamber, into people’s offices! One of you actually put his filthy populist feet up on Pelosi’s desk … ON HER DESK! This aggression will not stand!

    OK, before I go any further with this essay, I need to explain to my regular readers (in case it wasn’t already clear) that I’ve decided to forswear every word I’ve ever written, and all my principles, and my common sense, and join the remainder of my old leftist and liberal friends in the orgy of online hate and outrage they are currently mindlessly indulging in.

    Yes, I realize this comes as a shock, but I have seen the GloboCap writing on the wall, and I don’t want to … you know, get ideologically “cleansed,” or charged with “extremism,” or “insurrectionism,” or “domestic terrorism,” or “populism,” or whatever. I’m already in enough trouble as it is for not playing ball with their “apocalyptic plague,” and whatever else I am, I am certainly no martyr, and I have a career in the arts to consider, so I have decided to listen to my inner coward and join the goose-stepping global-capitalist mob, which is why this column sounds slightly out of character.

    See, back in the old days, before my conversion, I would have made fun of my liberal friends for calling this “storming” of the Capitol a “coup,” or an “insurrection,” and for demanding that the protesters be prosecuted as “domestic terrorists.” I probably would have scolded them a bit for taking to the Internet and spewing their hatred at the unarmed woman shot dead by the police like a pack of soulless, totalitarian jackals. I might have even made a reference to that infamous scene in Schindler’s List where the crowd of “normal” German citizens all laugh and jeer as the Jews are marched away to the ghetto by the Nazi goons.

    But, now that I have seen the light, I see how bad and wrong that would have been. Clearly, trespassing in the US Capitol is a crime that should be punishable by death. And comparing contemporary American liberals to the “good Germans” during the Nazi era is so outrageous that … well, it should probably be censored. So, good thing I decided not to do that! Plus, the woman was a “devoted conspiracy theorist,” so she got what she deserved, right? (“Play stupid games, win stupid prizes” was the official liberal shibboleth, I believe.)

    In fact (and I hope my liberal friends are still reading this), the police should have shot the entire lot of them! All these Russian-backed Nazi insurrectionists should have been gunned down right there on the spot, preferably by muscle-bound corporate mercenaries and CIA snipers in Black Hawk helicopters with big Facebook and Twitter logos on them! Actually, anyone who trespassed in the Capitol Building (which is like a cathedral), or just came to the protest wearing a MAGA hat, should be hunted down by federal authorities, charged as a “domestic white-supremacist terrorist,” frog-marched out onto Black Lives Matter Plaza, and shot, in the face, live, on TV, so that everyone can watch and howl at their screens like the Two Minutes Hate in 1984. That would teach these “insurrectionists” a lesson!

    Or they could shoot them in one of those corporate-branded stadiums! We could make it a weekly televised event. It’s not like there is any shortage of Trump-supporting “domestic terrorists.” They could use a different stadium every week, deck the place out with big “New Normal” banners, play music, make speeches, the whole nine yards. Everyone would have to wear masks, of course, and strictly adhere to social distancing. Folks could bring the kids, make a day of it.

    How am I doing so far, leftist and liberal friends? No? Not fanatical and hateful enough?

    OK, so what is it going to take to convince you that I have changed my tune, got my mind right, and am totally on board with the New Normal totalitarianism?

    Trump?

    Sure, I can do Trump. I hate him! He’s Hitler! He’s Russian Hitler! He’s Russian White Supremacist Hitler! Yes, I know I’ve spent the last four years pointing out that he isn’t actually Hitler, or a Russian agent, and that he’s really just the same ridiculous, narcissistic ass clown that he has always been, but I was wrong. He’s definitely Hitler, and a Russian agent! He is certainly not just a pathetic old huckster without a single powerful ally in Washington who could not stage an actual coup if Putin nuked every blue state on the map.

    No, I soil myself in fear before his awesome power. Never mind that he’s just been banned by Facebook, Twitter, and numerous other corporate platforms, and made a fool of by the corporate media, the international political establishment, the Intelligence agencies, and the rest of GloboCap since the day he took the oath of office. Forget the fact that, although he holds the nuclear launch codes in his tiny little hands and is Commander in Chief of the US military, the most he could do to challenge his removal was file a buttload of hopeless lawsuits and sit around in the Oval Office eating cheeseburgers and tweeting into the night. No, none of that means a thing, not when he still has the power to “embolden” a few dozen pissed-off Americans to storm (or calmly walk) into the Capitol and take selfies sitting in the Vice President’s Chair!

    Look, the point is, I hate him. And I hate his supporters. I hate everyone who doesn’t hate him and his supporters. I hate everyone who won’t wear a mask. I hate the Republicans. I hate the Russians. I hate everyone who won’t get the vaccine. My God do I hate them! I am so full of hatred and mindless rage that it is making me crazy. I am so consumed with self-righteous hatred, propaganda, and manufactured hysteria that, if Rachel Maddow, or Chris Hayes, or whoever, told me that it was time to round them all up, these “domestic terrorists,” these “insurrectionists,” these “conspiracy theorists,” these “anti-mask extremists” (and anyone else who won’t obey us), and put them on trains and send them to camps, I’d probably be OK with that.

    How am I doing, liberals? Am I back in the club? Because, I get it. I swear! I’m cured! Praise God! I’m ready to pitch in and do my part. I believe in GloboCap’s final victory! I’m willing to work, if our leaders order me, ten, twelve, or fourteen hours a day, and give all I have for GloboCap victory! I am ready for total ideological war … an ideological war more total and radical than anything I can even imagine!

    Sure, our imaginary enemies are formidable (and this war will probably last forever … or at least until the end of global capitalism), but, in the words of one our greatest liberal heroes, George W. Bush, “bring it on!”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/11/2021 – 23:40

  • "Significant Uptick" In Natural Disasters Cause $210 Billion In Damage In 2020 
    “Significant Uptick” In Natural Disasters Cause $210 Billion In Damage In 2020 

    Natural disasters worldwide resulted in tens of billions of dollars in damage in 2020, according to catastrophe bonds firm Artemis, citing a new report from German reinsurer Munich Re. 

    On Thursday, Munich Re reported that the global insurance and reinsurance industry recorded a monstrous $82 billion loss thanks to an increase in natural disasters in 2020, up from $57 billion the year prior. 

    The reinsurer calculated the world’s economic losses from natural disasters last year was around $210 billion, up from 2019’s $166 billion. It added that only a small proportion of the damage was actually covered. 

    The US accounted for the largest percentage of damage in 2020, at $67 billion, up significantly from 2019’s $26 billion. This was due to relentless wildfires and hurricanes, contributing to one of the costliest years for natural disasters on record and is facing an economic toll of around $100 billion. 

    One of the major consequences of surging insurer losses could be upward pressure on customers’ primary insurance pricing. 

    Munich Re noted that about 60% of the natural disaster worldwide went uninsured in the year. 

    The insurer believes climate change is responsible for the explosion in natural disasters seen around the world. 

    Torsten Jeworrek, Member of the Board of Management at Munich Re, explained:

    “Natural catastrophe losses in 2020 were significantly higher than in the previous year. Record numbers for many relevant hazards are a cause for concern, whether we are talking about the severe hurricane season, major wildfires or the series of thunderstorms in the US.”

    Ernst Rauch, Chief Climate and Geo-Scientist at Munich Re, said, “if the weather disasters for one year cannot be directly linked to climate change, and a longer period needs to be studied to assess their significance, these extreme values fit with the expected consequences of a decades-long warming trend for the atmosphere and oceans that is influencing risks.”

    “An increasing number of heatwaves and droughts are fuelling wildfires, and severe tropical cyclones and thunderstorms are becoming more frequent,” said Rauch. 

    As natural disaster becomes more frequent, here are the US’ zip codes that are subjected to the most disasters. 

    The latest FEMA report ranks Los Angeles County as the riskiest county for natural disasters. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/11/2021 – 23:20

  • Keynes' Sleight Of Hand: From Fabian Eugenicist To World Government High Priest
    Keynes’ Sleight Of Hand: From Fabian Eugenicist To World Government High Priest

    Authored by Matthew Ehret via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    It is as if the battle lines of civil war have been drawn up between masses of Americans who have been led to believe in either a false “bottom up” approach to economics, as defined by the Austrian School represented by Friedrich von Hayek, or in the “top-down” approach of John Maynard Keynes. The former sacrifices the general welfare of the whole nation for the sake of the parts (i.e. individual liberties), while the latter sacrifices the individual liberties of each citizen for the sake of the general welfare (or at least some oligarch’s definition of what that should be).

    In my last article, I introduced, in broad strokes, a history of the American System of political economy as advanced by Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Henry Clay, Henry Carey, Lincoln, and McKinley. We reviewed how it was derailed by McKinley’s 1901 murder and was only revived 30 years later with Franklin Roosevelt’s 1932 presidential victory which put a stop to the 1933 Bankers Dictatorship.

    Finally, we briefly explored how and why both John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich von Hayek whose ideas so deeply influence the polarization of the USA today, not only despised FDR but hated everything the republic stood for.

    In this second installment of a three-part series, we will shed light on the anti-human ideas and the political operations that shaped the mind, the life and the politics of Lord John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946).

    Keynes the Fabian Eugenicist

    Although Keynes is heralded as the guiding light of the New Deal (and, as such defended by modern “Green New Dealers” and Great Reset technocrats wishing to impose a top-down system of governance onto the world), the fact is that Keynes not only detested Franklin Roosevelt, but also humanity more in general.

    This will be seen clearly in 1) his devotion to the theories of Thomas Malthus, 2) his promotion of eugenics as a science of racial purification and population control, and 3) his general devotion to World Government as a leading member of the Fabian Society.

    From his earliest days at Cambridge where he rose quickly to become one of the select Cambridge Apostles and shared, among other things, a lifelong friendship with Lord Bertrand Russell, Keynes devoted himself to the service of empire, becoming Knight of the Order of Bath and Order of Leopold by 1919.

    His early 1911 book on Indian Currency and Finance (conducted during his five-year foray in the Empire’s Indian Office) ignored all actual political reasons for the famines plaguing India and argued coldly for a greater integration of the Indian banking system into the City of London controls which would somehow solve India’s problems. The provable reality was that Indian famines were coordinated tools of population control by the Malthusian elite of the British establishment who considered “war, famine and disease” as the gifts nature gave the strong to manage the weak.

    While his later 1919 Consequences of the Peace appeared to be a reasonably sympathetic warning that the draconian Versailles reparations would do incredible damage and lead to a new world war, in reality, Keynes was displaying a cold sleight of hand. Serving as British Treasury representative to the Versailles Conference, Keynes never opposed fascism: he merely argued that a more liberal pathway to global fascism could be established under the direction of the Bank of England. His opposition, though, to the more violent approach preferred by conservative imperialists among the British Intelligentsia, was one of form more than substance.

    Keynes and his fellow Fabians H.G. Wells, Bertrand Russell and G.B Shaw preferred the “slow and steady” “long game”, reminiscent of the Roman general Quintus Fabius Maximus who famously fought his enemies by slow attrition rather than in full-scale confrontation. Due to the public’s general ignorance of this strategy, we celebrate these Fabian Society luminaries for their pacifism, though in reality they were just as racist, fascist and eugenics-loving as their more short-sighted, hard-stomached counterparts sir Oswald Mosley, Lord Alfred Milner and even Winston Churchill.

    Where the real solution to the hyperinflationary money printing and economic industrial shutdown of Germany during the post WWI years was to be found in the German-Russian Rapallo Agreement (destroyed with the assassination of American System Foreign Minister Walter Rathenau), Keynes and his ilk merely called for economic integration of the German banking and military system under Bank of England/League of Nations control.

    Malthus, Eugenics and Keynes

    Two theories advanced by the British Empire in response to the growth of the American System, first in the USA, and later internationally, were those of Thomas Malthus, and of Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin who coined the term “eugenics” in 1883. These sister concepts served as nothing less than religious precepts for the ruling elite as it desperately reorganized itself in the late 19th century.

    It must be kept firmly in mind that at this period the British Empire was weak, and incapable of stopping the electric spread of win-win cooperation as the American System was sped around the world bringing progress and full-spectrum economics in its wake. One of the leading voices of the American System in 1890 was Colorado’s first Governor William Gilpin whose The Cosmopolitan Railway laid out a practical vision for a world united by rail, development, and national banking [see map].

    Nevertheless, the Empire was determined to put an end to the spread of the American System.

    A new breed of think tanks was created to shape the Empire’s grand strategy in the face of this growth of independent sovereign nations: these were T.H. Huxley’s X Club (c.1865), the Fabian Society (c.1884), and the Roundtable Group (c.1902). Where Huxley’s X Club coordinated with Cambridge, and the Roundtable Group/Rhodes Trust interfaced with Oxford, the Fabian Society created a new school called the London School of Economics. All three worked together as one unit.

    Defining his misanthropic belief in overpopulation, Thomas Malthus (a British East India Company economist) stated in his famous 1799 Essay on Population:

    “The power of population is so superior to the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race.”

    How could this crisis be avoided? Malthus answers it like only a devout imperialist could:

    “We should facilitate, instead of foolishly and vainly endeavoring to impede, the operations of nature in producing this mortality; and if we dread the too frequent visitation of the horrid form of famine, we should sedulously encourage the other forms of destruction, which we compel nature to use. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague.”

    Darwin himself admitted in his autobiography that his theory of evolution arose only after his 1838 reading of Malthus’ Essay on Population in which he “at last got a theory by which to work”.

    So, Darwinism is really an extension of Malthus’s Hobbesian social theories onto all of living nature: a mere struggle for survival in a universe of entropy and diminishing returns. After a Malthusian version of biology was created, Darwin’s theories were in turn re-applied to human society as imperial tools for population control under the form of Galton’s Eugenics thus giving the same old evil practices of empire, war and slavery a “scientific validation”.

    Although some apologists considered Keynes an anti-Malthusian- due to his theory that overpopulation might be overcome by encouraging spending rather than savings, which would, in turn, somehow create markets and thence new factories and more growth, the reality was the opposite. Keynes not only spoke gushingly of Malthus throughout his life as one of the greatest minds of all time, but even plagiarized many of Malthus’ own theories, for instance that of “demand deficiency causing unemployment and recession” outlined in his 1930 Treatise on Money. In his 1933 Essay on Malthus, Keynes wrote:

    “Let us think of Malthus today as the first of the Cambridge economists—as, above all, a great pioneer of the application of a frame of formal thinking to the complex confusion of the world of daily events. Malthus approached the central problems of economic theory by the best of all routes.”

    In his May 2, 1914 lecture Population, Keynes argued that government should “mould law and custom deliberately to bring about that density of population which there ought to be” and that “there would be more happiness in the world if the population of it were to be diminished.”

    Saying that “India, Egypt and China are gravely overpopulated”, Keynes advocated using violence to defend the “superior white races” in this struggle of survival with the pacifist saying: “Almost any measures seem to me to be justified in order to protect our standard of life from injury at the hands of more prolific races. Some definite parceling out of the world may well become necessary; and I suppose that this may not improbably provoke racial wars. At any rate such wars will be about a substantial issue.”

    As Acting chair of the Neo-Malthusian League, Keynes stated in 1927: “We of this society are neo-Malthusians… I believe that for the future the problem of population will emerge in the much greater problem of Hereditary and Eugenics. Quality must become the preoccupation.”

    By 1946, Keynes, still a member of the British Eugenics Society (after serving as Vice President from 1936-1944) wrote in The Eugenics Review: “Galton’s eccentric, sceptical, observing, flashing, cavalry-leader type of mind led him eventually to become the founder of the most important, significant and, I would add, genuine branch of sociology which exists, namely eugenics.”

    This was not ivory tower theorizing, but concepts with very real-world significance.

    By 1937, Keynes’ General Theory of Employment was published in Nazi Germany. If anyone wishes to defend the idea that the economist was somehow an anti-fascist defender of “liberal values”, let them read his own words in the preface and then either redefine “liberal values” or their naïve idea of Keynes:

    “I may perhaps expect to find less resistance among German readers than among English ones, when I put before them a theory of employment and production as a whole… The theory of production as a whole which is the object of this book, can be much better adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state, than the theory of production and distribution of wealth under circumstances of free competition.”

    Hitler himself was not only a devout eugenicist (whose racial purification policies emerged through the funding of the Rockefeller, Carnegie Foundations as well as British establishment), but was also a devout Malthusian saying:

    “The day will certainly come when the whole of mankind will be forced to check the augmentation of the human species, because there will be no further possibility of adjusting the productivity of the soil to the perpetual increase in the population.”

    Keynes was by this time extremely frustrated that the intention-driven system of political economy defining the New Deal under the helm of FDR’s leadership was not absorbing his trojan horse theories on employment, demand, and inflation. However, by the end of the war, many Council on Foreign Relation (CFR)-affiliated operatives pushing Keynesianism were making successful inroads into all branches of U.S. bureaucracy and penetrated the highest levels of the state department and treasury. At one point in 1943, Franklin Roosevelt commented on his understanding of this British Deep State operation when he told his son Elliot:

    “You know, any number of times the men in the State Department have tried to conceal messages to me, delay them, hold them up somehow, just because some of those career diplomats over there aren’t in accord with what they know I think. They should be working for Winston. As a matter of fact, a lot of the time, they are [working for Churchill]. Stop to think of ’em: any number of ’em are convinced that the way for America to conduct its foreign policy is to find out what the British are doing and then copy that!” I was told… six years ago, to clean out that State Department. It’s like the British Foreign Office….”

    The Battle for Bretton Woods

    During the Bretton Woods conference (July 1-20, 1944), the two opposing paradigms, on the one hand the American System of anti-colonialism, and on the other hand the. British System of zero sum Malthusianism, went to war.

    This war took the form of the battles waged by FDR’s trusted collaborator Henry Dexter White against John Maynard Keynes at Bretton Woods, where 730 delegates representing 44 nations gathered to settle the terms of the post-war order.

    Although this conference is famously associated with the creation of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), it is falsely assumed to be a Keynesian creation. Keynes’ role as representative of the British Empire, much like his earlier role at Versailles in 1919, was defined by the intention at all costs to shape the conditions of a post-nation state world order on behalf of the City of London. Like Bertrand Russell and other Cambridge Apostles before and since, Keynes was trained in the sophistical deployment of statistics and mathematical logic to cover for the imperial rape of target nations.

    Where Dexter White and Franklin Roosevelt demanded a U.S. dollar-backed post-war system of fixed exchange rates (to block speculation on commodities as a tool of economic war), theirs was not an idea premised on imperialism which FDR’s recorded battles with Churchill attest. Unlike the hard vs soft imperialism of Churchill and Keynes, FDR and his allies rather looked to a post-war system defined by U.S.-China-Russia friendship, and the internationalization of the New Deal applying a win-win approach to foreign policy.

    At Bretton Woods, Dexter White and Henry Morganthau reached agreements to provide vast technology transfers to help South America industrialize. At the same time, large-scale programs modelled on the New Deal were presented by delegations from India, Eastern Europe, and China. It is noteworthy that the Chinese delegation introduced infrastructure plans first laid out by Sun Yat-sen in his 1920 International Development of China which both Mao, and Zhou Enlai endorsed alongside the Kuomintang’s Chiang Kai-Shek! Had these plans not been sabotaged, it is amazing to consider what sort of progress might have opened up for the Chinese 70 years before anyone heard of the “Belt and Road Initiative”.

    At this early stage, Russia was still happy to be a founding member of the IMF and World Bank which were designed to act as cheap lending mechanisms for long-term, low-interest, high-tech global development.

    Commenting on support for FDR’s post-war system of mutual interest, Stalin stated: 

    “Can we count on the activities of this international organization being sufficiently effective? They will be effective if the Great Powers who have borne the brunt of the burden of the war against Hitler’s Germany continue to act in a spirit of unanimity and harmony. They will not be effective if this essential condition is violated”.

    In opposition to this anti-imperial win-win system defended by Dexter White, and FDR, Keynes demanded a bankers’ dictatorship with a new supranational currency controlled by the Bank of England called the Bancor, as well as an international clearing house. The Bancor was later revived in a modified form when Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) were established, bringing the world closer to the sort of green synthetic hegemonic currency now promoted by the likes of Mark Carney, Klaus Schwab and George Soros under the veil of a Great Reset and Central Bankers Climate Compact.

    Similarly to the League of Nations’ earlier design for World Government, Keynes’ arguments entailed the virtual castration of nation states, preventing their involvement in their own economic planning. These arguments also demanded that the USA fully recognize the legitimacy of the British Empire in the post war age (something which Dexter White and Morgenthau refused to do). In Keynes’ view, nation states should relinquish their sovereign financial controls to Malthusian technocrats managing the levers of production and consumption through a system of globally interconnected central banks.

    Keynes’ model of governance would ensure that the sorts of INTENTION-driven large-scale projects that could finally end colonialism would not see the light of day.

    The Keynesian World That Emerged Over FDR’s Dead Body

    Under the Keynesian takeover of Bretton Woods that emerged during the Anglo-American special relationship created by Truman and Churchill, Trans Atlantic nations became increasingly dominated by bloated bureaucratic systems while plans for genuine development were undermined. With Roosevelt dead by 1945, Harry Hopkins dead by 1946, Dexter White dead by 1948, and Henry Wallace’s presidential efforts sabotaged by 1948, the last serious resistance to Britain’s reconquest of the USA had been put down.

    After the war, eugenics-promoting organizations and think tanks changed their names while continuing their work, morphing into new forms by the 1960s such as the environmental movement, transhumanist movement, while not even the pharmaceutical/healthcare sector was left untouched.

    In the next chapter we will close up this short series by reviewing the figure of Friedrich von Hayek and the Austrian School of Economics which emerged with the collapse of the Keynesian Bretton Woods in 1971 and the rise of the “Conservative Revolution”.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/11/2021 – 23:00

  • The Great Purge: Twitter Has Suspended More Than 70,000 Accounts Since Friday
    The Great Purge: Twitter Has Suspended More Than 70,000 Accounts Since Friday

    In a Monday night blog post, Twitter lays out all the latest details of a historic purge that started with the suspension of president Trump and has escalated into the ban of tens of thousands of conservative voices, or as Twitter puts it, “steps taken to protect the conversation on our service from attempts to incite violence, organize attacks, and share deliberately misleading information about the election outcome.” Odd how none of those considerations emerged during the summer when US cities were literally burning as a result of countless violent protests and frequent riots, but we digress. 

    In any case, In twitter’s own delightfully ironic words, “It’s important to be transparent about all of this work as the US Presidential Inauguration on January 20, 2021, approaches.” Which is a probably a good idea in the aftermath of the biggest censorship purge in twitter history, one which sent Twitter stock tumbling. So this is what how twitter justifies “the purge”:

    We’ve been clear that we will take strong enforcement action on behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm. Given the violent events in Washington, DC, and increased risk of harm, we began permanently suspending thousands of accounts that were primarily dedicated to sharing QAnon content on Friday afternoon.

    And with tens of thousands of accounts suspended (most of them permanently), banned, or merely disappeared, it will hardly be a surprise that according to Tiwtter, “more than 70,000 accounts have been suspended”. What is the justification? “These accounts were engaged in sharing harmful QAnon-associated content at scale and were primarily dedicated to the propagation of this conspiracy theory across the service.”

    More in the full blog post below. Meanwhile, as BofA warned today and as traders clearly agreed, Twitter now faces the risk of wholesale “churn”, i.e., exodus, by the conservative community in response to this unprecedented crackdown, which could see tens of millions of MAUs gone:

    More engagement risk for Twitter than Facebook

    Donald Trump had 88mn followers on Twitter, the 6th most followed account, and on Facebook he had over 33mn followers. President Trump’s follower count represents 47% of Twitter’s daily active users (DAUs) (though clearly not all followers are DAUs), with his account averaging 34 Tweets per day in 2020 (up from 21 in 2019). Additionally we see churn from the conservative community within Twitter as a modest 1Q DAU threat, however SensorTower suggests DAUs on Parlor (a conservative focused alternative) is roughly 130k (0.37% of Twitter’s US DAUs) as of January 8th. Our call is that after some deactivation newsflow near-term, strong political activists will stay on Twitter for other content.

    Content risk and Section 230 back in focus

    In June, The DoJ had a proposal to rollback some Section 230 protections, which specifies that Internet companies are generally not liable for user posted content. While a Democratic administration may be less focused on significant reform of Section 230, recent events may make content legislation more likely. While we think social platforms may welcome content guidelines, risks of a rollback of Section 230 include: 1) potential civil liability arising from victims of Online content, and; 2) expense risk from need to increase content review capabilities. Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has been vocal in embracing an update to Section 230, while Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey, noted “Eroding the foundation of Section 230 could collapse how we communicate on the Internet, leaving only a small number of giant and well-funded technology companies”.

    And now we wait to find out just how extensive the conservative user “churn” has been.

    Meanwhile, here is Twitter’s full statement on the Friday night purge:

    An update following the riots in Washington, DC

    Following the horrific events in Washington, DC, last week, here are some of the steps we’ve taken to protect the conversation on our service from attempts to incite violence, organize attacks, and share deliberately misleading information about the election outcome. It’s important to be transparent about all of this work as the US Presidential Inauguration on January 20, 2021, approaches.

    Updated our coordinated harmful activity policy

    We’ve been clear that we will take strong enforcement action on behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm. Given the violent events in Washington, DC, and increased risk of harm, we began permanently suspending thousands of accounts that were primarily dedicated to sharing QAnon content on Friday afternoon.

    Many of the individuals impacted by this updated enforcement action held multiple accounts, driving up the total number of accounts impacted. Since Friday, more than 70,000 accounts have been suspended as a result of our efforts, with many instances of a single individual operating numerous accounts. These accounts were engaged in sharing harmful QAnon-associated content at scale and were primarily dedicated to the propagation of this conspiracy theory across the service. 

    Our updated enforcement on QAnon content on Twitter, along with routine spam challenges, has resulted in changes in follower count for some people’s Twitter accounts. In some cases, these actions may have resulted in follower count changes in the thousands. 

    As stipulated in this policy that we announced ahead of the 2020 US election, accounts that have Tweeted or Retweeted associated content will continue to be subject to limited visibility across search, replies, and on timelines and are prohibited from being recommended to others by Twitter. It’s important that these types of accounts — that are not predominantly engaged in sharing this material — can see different perspectives in the open public conversation that Twitter uniquely provides.

    Our teams are discussing ways we can empower research into QAnon and coordinated harmful activity on Twitter. 

    Escalated enforcement measures for our civic integrity policy

    During the past several weeks, misleading and false information surrounding the 2020 US presidential election has been the basis for incitement to violence around the country. We took action on these claims in line with our Civic Integrity policy

    Now that the results of the election have been officially certified by Congress, we updated our Civic Integrity policy on Friday to aggressively increase our enforcement action on these claims. The updated policy provides details about how we enforce against violations of this policy, including repeated sharing of Tweets that receive warning labels. Ultimately, repeated violations of this policy can result in permanent suspension.

    Deployed tech to surface potentially harmful Tweets for urgent human review

    Our teams are continuing to aggressively deploy technology to surface potentially harmful Tweets for human review in an effort to take action as quickly as possible on violative content. Using this combination of technology and human review helps our teams work at scale during this critical time. We continue to update these tools as terminology and behaviors evolve on Twitter.

    Limited engagement on labeled Tweets

    On Tuesday, we limited engagement by no longer allowing any Tweets labeled for violations of our civic integrity policy to be replied to, Liked or Retweeted. People on Twitter are still able to Quote Tweet to share this content with additional context or their own perspective.

    Blocked violative keywords from Search and Trends

    We want Trends to promote healthy conversations on Twitter. This means, at times, we may prevent certain content from trending. There are rules for Trends, and if we identify Trends that violate these rules, we’ll take enforcement action.

    Since last week, we’ve prohibited certain terms from surfacing in Trends and Search suggestions based on the following Twitter Rules:

    We will also continue to prioritize reviewing and adding context to Trends. Our goal is to help people see what’s happening while ensuring that potentially confusing trends are presented with context.

    Fought spam and challenged potentially inauthentic accounts

    It is against the Twitter Rules to engage in spamming behavior, including bulk, aggressive, or deceptive activity. That’s why we routinely deploy anti-spam challenges to accounts to fight this behavior and protect the public conversation. During these challenges, account owners must verify their authenticity through a variety of measures, such as reCAPTCHA or providing a functional email address. 

    As always, while accounts are undergoing these challenges, they’re temporarily removed from follower counts. This, along with our updated enforcement around coordinated harmful activity, means some people may notice drops or fluctuations in their follower count. 

    Ahead of the inauguration, we’ll continue to monitor the situation, keep open lines of communication with law enforcement, and keep the public informed of additional enforcement actions.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/11/2021 – 22:42

  • Over 80% Surveyed Say Tokyo Olympics Should Be Canceled Or Postponed
    Over 80% Surveyed Say Tokyo Olympics Should Be Canceled Or Postponed

    Two new polls have found that over 80% of respondents in Japan thought the 2021 Tokyo Summer Olympics should be postponed or canceled, according to the Associated Press.

    Conducted by the Japanese news agency Kyodo and TBS, the Tokyo Broadcasting System, the TBS poll asked 1,261 people if the Olympics can be held this year while COVID-19 continues to spread. Just 13% answered “yes,” while the 81% said “no” – an 18% increase over a similar survey in December.

    The Olympics are scheduled to open on July 23, when 15,000 Olympic and Paralympic athletes will enter the country. On top of that, tens of thousands of “coaches, judges, officials, VIPs, sponsors, media and broadcasters” would likely attend, though it is unclear if fans from abroad – or even local fans – will be able to attend.

    Kyodo similarly found that 80.1% of respondents among 715 randomly chosen households said the Olympics should be rescheduled or canceled, an increase from 63% who gave the same answer in December.

    Japan is officially spending $15.4 billion to hold the Olympics, although several government audits show the number is about $25 billion. All but $6.7 billion is public money.

    The Switzerland-based IOC earns 91% of its income from selling broadcast rights and sponsorships.

    The American network NBC agreed in 2011 to a $4.38 billion contract with the IOC to broadcast four Olympics through the Tokyo. In 2014 it agreed to pay an added $7.75 billion for six more games — Winter and Summer — through 2032. –Associated Press

    Tokyo is currently experiencing a surge of COVID-19 cases which prompted the government to announce a state of emergency. That said, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said he was confident that the Olympics would still be held.

    Japan has had 3,600 deaths attributed to COVID-19 in a country of 126 million.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/11/2021 – 22:40

  • House Republicans To Call For Trump's Censure To Avoid Democrats' Rushed Impeachment "Damaging Our Democracy"
    House Republicans To Call For Trump’s Censure To Avoid Democrats’ Rushed Impeachment “Damaging Our Democracy”

    In seeking his removal for “incitement,” legal scholar and Constitutional expert Jonathan Turley warned earlier that Democrats would gut not only the impeachment standard but free speech, all in a mad rush to remove President Trump just days before the end of his term.

    Turley noted specifically that “Congress is about to seek the impeachment of a president for a speech that is protected under the First Amendment. It would create precedent for the impeachment of any president who can be blamed for the violent acts of others after the use of reckless or inflammatory language.”

    Nevertheless, on the heels of Vice President Pence’s confirmation this evening that he “pledges to work with Trump through the end of his term” thus confirming earlier reports that he would not acquiesce to Speaker Pelosi’s demands that he invoke the 25th Amendment; it appears House Democrats are raring to go on an impeachment vote on Wednesday.

    As Turley noted further on Fox News this evening, while remarking on the Democrats’ apparent rush to get this done:

    “They are suggesting impeaching a president over a speech that many of us called reckless. But it’s a type of vicarious impeachment in the sense that he doesn’t call for violence in his speech. He in fact tells his followers to be peaceful, he says the reason they should go to the Capitol is to support members who are challenging the election. And to encourage other members to join them.

    So the speech itself would not meet any definition, as a criminal matter, of incitement.”

    Which brings us to an interesting potential pivot by House GOP members that was elaborated by Republican New York State Congressman Tom Reed, who wrote in a New York Times op-ed:

    “If we make the wrong decision in holding the president accountable, it could damage our democracy,” somewhat echoing Turley’s warnings.

    But Reed, while condemning the president’s speech, has an option that while unpleasant, is not as draconian as the Democrats blood-baying needs.

    Reed begins by noting that this in no way reduces the wrongdoing:

    “All responsible parties, including President Trump, must face justice.”

    And, again echoing Turley’s Constitution-based warnings, Reed states that:

    “while the president’s words were unwise, intemperate and wrong, they may not qualify as incitement. And an impeachment on the grounds that they do will inevitably erode the norms around what may be considered constitutionally protected speech.”

    Reed goes on to note that a full impeachment hearing would delay much-neede efforts to tackle the nation’s COVID-19 crisis and furthermore would stymie any efforts at unity in a nation that is tearing itself apart.

    “We cannot give credibility to the belief that Washington chooses to hold people accountable only for mere political advantage, especially to the detriment of the Constitution.”

    And so Reed offers an alternative.

    “I implore our congressional leaders and Mr. Biden to take a moment to consider what is at stake. Work with us on constitutionally viable alternatives to ensure that no individual is above the law.

    Such options include censure…

    ...I intend to join with my House colleagues in the introduction of a censure resolution Tuesday to ensure accountability occurs without delay for the events of Jan. 6. We must also look at alternatives that could allow Congress to bar Mr. Trump from holding federal office in the future.”

    In the case of censure, this would be the first for a President since the Senate censured Andrew Jackson in 1834, and the offer of barring him from office likely meets the real desires of Democrats to ouster Trump from a run in 2024.

    Call it a “quid pro quo”.

    Reed concludes:

    “We cannot and should not support a rushed, divisive action simply because the emotions of the moment demand it. That is not the American way.”

    “The American Way” eh? Due process… innocent until proven guilty? We can only imagine “the squad’s” response to this ‘offer’ from the GOP.

    The question is – will Pelosi fold to it? This is her last term after all and she must know, as Turley warned, this rushed impeachment would tarnish her legacy just as much as she hopes to tarnish Trump’s.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/11/2021 – 22:20

  • More Iran Escalation: Trump Admin Designates Yemen's Shia Houthis As Terrorists
    More Iran Escalation: Trump Admin Designates Yemen’s Shia Houthis As Terrorists

    In continuing efforts to make any future softening toward Iran all the more difficult for the incoming Biden administration, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday night announced the US will designate Yemen’s Houthi rebels as a foreign terrorist organization.

    Officially named Ansarallah, he called the Shia group that’s been locked in a grinding war with the Saudi-UAE-US backed coalition government “a deadly Iran-backed militia group” which has routinely conducted “terrorist acts, including cross-border attacks threatening civilian populations, infrastructure, and commercial shipping.”

    Via AFP

    The war for Yemen has raged since at least 2015 and has seen civilian deaths mount into the many tens of thousands as the Saudi-US coalition has blanketed the country with airstrikes. The Houthis have simultaneously been known to mount ballistic missile attacks deep inside Saudi Arabia, which Washington has ultimately blamed on Iran, given it’s believed the Houthis would otherwise have no access to such advanced weaponry.

    “The designations are also intended to advance efforts to achieve a peaceful, sovereign, and united Yemen that is both free from Iranian interference and at peace with its neighbors,” Pompeo announced in the statement. “Progress in addressing Yemen’s instability can only be made when those responsible for obstructing peace are held accountable for their actions.”

    He indicated the State Department will soon notify congress, further to include the designation of three Houthi named leaders as Specially Designated Global Terrorists.

    A number of pundits immediately recognized this as no doubt part of the White House’s broader escalation with Iran.

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

    Late last year multiple reports said President Trump was actually mulling some kind of military action to ensure the Islamic Republic can’t ever acquire a nuclear weapon, given Biden has vowed to restore the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal (JCPOA).

    The US has constantly accused Iran of using the Houthis as a proxy force to mount “terror attacks” while attempting a takeover of the country on Saudi Arabia’s southern border. 

    The irony is that prior to the 2015 war which saw the US jump in with the Saudis in waging war on the Houthis, US forces at times actually partnered with the Houthis in fighting al-Qaeda in Yemen. For example a report in The Wall Street Journal at the time noted, “The US has formed ties with Houthi rebels who seized control of Yemen’s capital, White House officials and rebel commanders said, in the clearest indication of a shift in the US approach there as it seeks to maintain its fight against a key branch of al Qaeda.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/11/2021 – 22:00

  • Yellen Appoints Bloomberg Staffer And Former Geithner Advisor As Chief Of Staff
    Yellen Appoints Bloomberg Staffer And Former Geithner Advisor As Chief Of Staff

    Janet Yellen, the incoming Treasury Secretary who will “coordinate” closely with Jerome Powell now that the Treasury and Fed are effectively one as a result of MMT/Helicopter money, has picked as her chief of staff at the Treasury Didem Nisanci, an executive at Bloomberg LP.

    Nisanci has been offered the job and accepted, Bloomberg itself reported.

    Nisanci is currently global head of public policy for Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News. If Yellen – who recently disclosed payments of over $7.3 million for “speeches” from the same banks and financial firms she will soon be “regulating”…

    … is confirmed as Treasury secretary, Nisanci will be one of her closest aides; her appointment won’t require Senate confirmation.

    Nisanci, 47, was chief of staff at the SEC under Barack Obama, where she was the lead adviser to Chairman Mary Schapiro on all issues involving the SEC, including policy, legislative, strategy, and communication matters. Nisanci subsequently worked for Promontory Financial Group, a “revolving door” for government officials, before joining Bloomberg in 2018.

    Prior to the SEC, she was the lead adviser to Treasury Secretary Nominee Timothy Geithner after having been staff director for the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs subcommittee on Securities, Insurance and Investment.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/11/2021 – 21:40

  • More Good News On COVID Hospitalizations In The Northeast
    More Good News On COVID Hospitalizations In The Northeast

    A little over two weeks ago we showed that despite the continued rise in covid cases in the US, where BofA calculated that the 7-day average of new US cases hit a new record high of 241,600 yesterday with daily Covid-related deaths at 3,190 and hospitalizations at 4,840 at new highs, having risen 20% over the past week…

    … the trend in US hospitalizations was decidedly optimistic, with the second derivative of hospitalizations – or the daily number of new admission – continuing to moderate with the weekly increase well below 10,000 versus the peak of near 15,000 almost two weeks ago.

    As a reminder, in Mid-December, we reported why according to Goldman, covid-related hospitalizations are about to tumble – just as Biden gets inaugurated – as more vaccinations are rolled out, and the latest data validates this.

    To be sure, despite the increase in absolute terms, the hospitalization rate as a percentage of daily new infections has remained remarkably steady as the following charts from JPMorgan show:

    And while select hospital systems are indeed nearing overcrowded levels – which are due to numerous other factors in addition to covid – as the following chart of the ten most overcrowded hospital systems shows…

    … even Bloomberg now writes that “the pace of Covid-19 hospitalizations in the Northeast is showing some preliminary signs of easing, adding to hopeful indicators in the Midwest, where the latest viral wave began.“

    According to the report, the number of people currently hospitalized with Covid-19 in the Northeast was 21,494 as of Sunday, up 0.8% from a week earlier, the smallest seven-day percentage increase since Sept. 25, according to Covid Tracking Project data.

    Bloomberg’s admission that contrary to widespread fears that covid would crush the US hospital system comes as the virus is now raging once again primarily across the Sun Belt and as many states are finding tremendous challenges with the vaccine rollout.

    Based on U.S. Census Bureau definitions for each region, hospitalizations are up 6.1% in the past week in the South; up 4% in the West; and down 4.2% in the Midwest.

    And some more good news according to the Covid Tracking Project, as reported by Bloomberg: no states posted record cases on Sunday, but weekends are typically slower reporting periods.

    Finally, according to Bloomberg, Arizona now leads the nation in people currently hospitalized with the virus per capita, with 685 per million residents.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/11/2021 – 21:20

  • In Latest "Excess Borrowing" Crackdown, China Will Force Fintech Giants To Disclose Consumer Credit Data
    In Latest “Excess Borrowing” Crackdown, China Will Force Fintech Giants To Disclose Consumer Credit Data

    One theory that has emerged from Beijing’s crackdown on Jack Ma and his business and fintech empire, is that China’s true intention in bringing China’s richest man to heel was not so much the public humiliation in what has been widely seen as a giant clash of egos between Xi Jinping and Jack Ma, as the ability to peek inside the financial records of China’s biggest private financial company.

    Why? Two reason: i) China is a command economy and it needs to have discrete knowledge where every last yuan in new loans ends up and ii) China’s financial system is more than double the size of the US, which is why any gray zones in the financial sector which the PBOC is not aware of could have devastating consequences should a bad debt cascade begin without the central bank being aware.

    We bring all this up because in support of the first theory, Reuters today reported that China plans to push tech giants such as Jack Ma’s Ant Group, but also Tencent and JD.com to share consumer loan data to prevent excess borrowing and fraud, in Beijing’s latest tightening of scrutiny. Additionally, Chinese regulators, including the central bank, the People’s Bank of China plan to instruct internet platforms to feed their vast loan data to some of the nationwide credit agencies.

    The plan, if implemented, would effectively end the government’s “laissez-faire approach” to the industry and represent a de facto soft nationalization, as well as another sign of attempts to rein in the country’s technology champions. 

    Naturally, giant internet platforms have strongly resisted handing over their data, a crucial asset that helps them run operations, manage risk and lure new customers. However, in light of the crackdown on Jack Ma, they have no choice, as any continued resistance could cast them in the same unwelcome light as Jack “Uncle Horse” Ma.

    According to the report the agencies, which include the PBOC’s Credit Reference Center, China’s main, centralized credit scoring system, and the central bank-backed Baihang Credit, the country’s first licensed personal credit agency, will share the data more widely with banks and other lenders to adequately evaluate risks and prevent over-borrowing. Which is ironic for a country whose debt levels have absolutely exploded in the past year to keep the economy humming amid the covid lockdowns.

    “China seems to be making the unpopular, albeit right choice to sacrifice the current closed loop mentality financial paradigm in favour of a broader digital identity framework with potentially better access and greater efficiency in the long run,” said Alex Sirakov, founder of AquariusX, a Shanghai-based consultancy. Translation: even more central planning is just swell.

    The plan adds to recent proposals to sharpen scrutiny of the technology champions and rein in empire building, mainly in the financial sector, according to Reuters. The shift was also behind the dramatic collapse of fintech giant Ant’s $37 billion IPO in November, a collapse which is now also being leveraged to expose even more information from the sector. Since then, the regulators have launched an antitrust probe into Ant’s former parent Alibaba and ordered the fintech company to shake up its lending and other consumer finance businesses.

    The latest regulatory proposal for internet companies also comes as Beijing grows wary of loose risk controls at banks, mainly smaller ones, in terms of consumer loans and their excessive reliance on platforms such as Ant to find customers.

    “Smaller banks are generally in a weaker position when they partner with fintech giants like Ant. They have heavily relied on Ant’s data to underwrite loans and manage risks,” said one senior regulator.

    “When defaults happen, they have to shoulder most of the losses,” said the regulator, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter. “It’s crucial for lenders to have better access to more comprehensive and detailed credit data on borrowers.”

    And there it is: with SOE banks having lost control over a substantial portion of the loan-creation machinery, Beijing is now desperate to regain said control. And it is starting by forcing the “sharing” of all loan data.

    Naturally, the latest regulatory attempt would likely dampen the scale and profitability of the tech giants’ credit businesses which are among the biggest drivers of growth and revenue. That area is a cash cow, as the companies levy high service fees on banks in exchange for access to millions of customers using propriety data.

    Take Jack Ma’s Ant Financial: via its super-app Alipay, Ant collects the data of more than 1 billion people, many of whom are young and internet-savvy users without credit cards or sufficient credit records with banks, as well as 80 million merchants, according to the company’s prospectus and analysts. Ant also runs Zhima Credit which means “Sesame Credit” in English, one of China’s biggest private credit-rating platforms, with proprietary algorithms and methodology that score people and small businesses based on their use of Ant-linked services.

    The firm offers limited borrower information to about 100 banks, and takes the so-called “technology service fees” – a 30%-40% cut, on average, of the interest on loans it facilitates, analysts have estimated.

    Ant’s consumer lending balance stood at 1.7 trillion yuan ($263 billion) as of the end of June, accounting for 21% of all short-term consumer loans issued by Chinese deposit-taking financial institutions. Compared with Ant, rivals Tencent and JD.com run relatively smaller consumer-credit business.

    Tencent’s private lender WeBank has operated consumer-loans unit Weilidai since 2015, which made over 460 million loan drawdowns worth a total of more than 3.7 trillion yuan as of the end of 2019, according to WeBank’s 2019 annual report.

    JD.com’s fintech arm, JD Digits, operates two platforms – Baitiao and Jintiao – which had a combined 70 million annual active users and took in a total of 4.4 billion yuan in technology service fees during the first half of 2020. Jintiao facilitated consumer loans worth only 261 billion yuan in the same period of last year, as per JD Digits’ prospectus.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/11/2021 – 21:00

  • Jeffrey Epstein's Manhattan Mansion Underwent $23 Million Price Cut
    Jeffrey Epstein’s Manhattan Mansion Underwent $23 Million Price Cut

    Whether it’s the slump in Manhattan real estate or just nobody wants to purchase sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s mansion. WSJ reports Epstein’s Manhattan mansion has undergone a significant price cut. 

    Epstein’s estate executors first listed the 28,000-square-foot townhouse in Manhattan’s Upper East Side for $88 million in July. Estate executors have since slashed the listing price by $23 million, or about 23% to $65 million, a move to attract potential buyers. 

    Since the initial listing date, housing and rental markets in the borough have taken a steep dive as tens of thousands of New Yorkers have escaped to rural communities and or even other states amid the pandemic and surging violent crime.

    Brokerage firm Leslie J. Garfield said by the third quarter of 2020, townhouse sales were halved over the same period last year. For the luxury end of the market, only 22 sales for townhouses in the first three quarters of 2020 were compared with 64 during the period last year. 

    Real estate broker Donna Olshan told MarketWatch that the seven-story, French Neoclassic mansion was overpriced, to begin with. She doesn’t believe the stigma associated with Epstein would damage the property’s value. 

    Epstein died in 2019 before he could stand trial on sex-trafficking charges. It’s been reported that he has abused young women and girls at many of his properties, including the one in Manhattan. 

     

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/11/2021 – 20:40

  • Patriots' Belichick Refuses Trump's Presidential Medal Of Freedom
    Patriots’ Belichick Refuses Trump’s Presidential Medal Of Freedom

    It appears political pressure is tougher to handle than Super Bowl pressure as following comments from Democratic Massachussetts Congressman Jim McGovern, who said (on CNN): “Belichick should do the right thing and say, no, thanks,” the New England Partiots coach has turned down President Trump’s offer of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

    Trump has awarded the medal 25 times since taking office, including 14 times to sports figures. Golfers Gary Player and Annika Sorenstam drew criticism last week for accepting the medal.

    The award recognizes individuals who have made “an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”

    Full Statement from Bill Belichick:

    “Recently, I was offered the opportunity to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which I was flattered by out of respect for what the honor represents and admiration for prior recipients.

    Subsequently, the tragic events of last week occurred and the decision has been made not to move forward with the award.

    Above all, I am an American citizen with great reverence for our nation’s values, freedom and democracy. I know I also represent my family and the New England Patriots team.

    One of the most rewarding things in my professional career took place in 2020 when, through the great leadership within our team, conversations about social justice, equality and human rights moved to the forefront and became actions.

    Continuing those efforts while remaining true to the people, team and country I love outweigh the benefits of any individual award.”

    Considered the nation’s highest civilian honor, Trump also awarded it to Rush Limbaugh, Rep. Jim Jordan, and Rep. Devin Nunes – none of whom turned down the honor.

    We wonder if Tiger will be ‘pressured’ by the mob to return his medal now?

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/11/2021 – 20:26

  • Air Force Brass Order Removal Of All Offensive, Non-Inclusive Patches, Mottos And Emblems
    Air Force Brass Order Removal Of All Offensive, Non-Inclusive Patches, Mottos And Emblems

    Commanders have until Feb. 21 to review their units’ emblems, morale patches, mottos, nicknames, coins and other heraldry and insignia and remove any that are racist, sexist or derogatory, the Air Force announced.

    As Military.com reports, starting at the squadron level and moving up, commanders must abolish symbols that are derogatory “to any race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, age or disability status to ensure an inclusive and professional environment,” according to a memo from Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown, Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett and Gen. John “Jay” Raymond, head of the Space Force.

    “It is critical for the Department of the Air Force to embody an environment of dignity, respect and inclusivity for all airmen and guardians,” the memo states, according to a service release. “Our core values demand we hold ourselves to high standards and maintain a culture of respect and trust in our chain of command.”

    Air Force Instruction 84-105, last updated in 2019, directs units on how to best recognize their organizational lineage, honors and heraldry. Commanders should consult the AFI — which emphasizes that symbols and language should be original, “in good taste and non-controversial” — and their local historian, the release states.

    Disparaging language and symbolism “ostracizes our teammates, undermining unit cohesion and impeding our mission readiness and success,” according to the memo. “Our diversity of experience, culture, demographics and perspectives is a force multiplier and essential to our success in this dynamic global environment. … We must ensure all our airmen and guardians are valued and respected.”

    It was not immediately clear whether the latest memo applies to personal call signs — typically given to fighter pilots. In 2019, the Navy created a new process for approving and reviewing pilots’ call signs after two Black aviators at an F/A-18 Hornet training squadron in Virginia filed complaints alleging racial bias in the unit.

    The Air Force has had its own issues with call signs: A female airman was given an inappropriate call sign by fellow airmen during a drinking game in 2018, which came to light as officials looked into accounts of a separate threatening incident at the 47th Flying Training Wing at Laughlin Air Force Base in Texas.

    Last year, the Air Force announced it had removed all “male-only references” in its official song, known as “Wild Blue Yonder,” which is traditionally sung before service events. In September, the service encouraged airmen to submit ideas for improvements to uniforms, appearance standards, badges and patches, and even jewelry. Both efforts are aimed at creating a more inclusive culture among the ranks.

    The memo on symbols comes the same week as the service’s latest initiative to track lesser disciplinary actions by demographic to ensure impartiality.

    The service said Wednesday that it will collect data on how airmen and Space Force guardians who receive administrative counseling, admonishments or reprimands are treated, including a comparison based on rank, age, gender, race and ethnicity.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/11/2021 – 20:20

  • Clean Energy Hydro Plant In Canada Dubbed A "Boondoggle" After Economists Predict $8 Billion In Losses
    Clean Energy Hydro Plant In Canada Dubbed A “Boondoggle” After Economists Predict $8 Billion In Losses

    Today in “proof governments are horribly inefficient capital allocators” news…

    British Columbia is currently in the process of trying to erect a massive hydro dam called the “Site C Clean Energy Project” on the Peace River. The point of erecting the dam was to implement the province’s “green and clean” energy policy and try to create alternative clean energy while lowering carbon emissions. 

    But the economic price, and lackluster progress of the project had one op-ed in the Financial Post calling the project a “hydro power boondoggle” that “shows real cost of ‘clean’ energy”.

    The project has been under construction since 2015, the op-ed notes, and more than $6 billion has already been sunk into it. Despite this, there have been numerous problems identified with the project:

    Under foot, according to Premier John Horgan, “there is instability on one of the banks of the river.”  Early last year B.C. Hydro identified “structural weaknesses” in the project, which has been under construction since 2015. Site C is also said to suffer from “weak foundations.”  Vancouver Sun columnist Vaughn Palmer recently reported that new information on the precariousness of the project, structurally and financially…

    The op-ed asks whether or not it is time for the province to simply cut their losses and abandon the job, which would likely need at least another $6 billion to complete.

    A review of the project by three Canadian economists say “yes” and have concluded that “the whole project is uneconomic as an energy source and fails its major green and clean promise, which is to reduce carbon emissions.”

    Photo: Financial Post

    The breakdown of the numbers by the economists show how inefficient the project truly is:

    The worst numbers in the study: the total present value of the electricity produced from Site C is estimated at $2.76 billion against an estimated total cost of $10.7 billion, implying a loss of $8 billion. That’s bad. However, if the project were cancelled now, the loss would be cut in half to maybe $4.5 billion. The economists conclude that “policy makers should stop throwing money at a project that is likely to end up under water.”

    The economists found that the only way the hydro plant could be worth it, monetarily, would be in conjunction with a “massive national overhaul of the Canadian electricity system”:

    “In summary, we find that Site C can offer value, but only if the provinces aim for near complete electricity system de-carbonization and only if new transmission between provinces can be built to enable greater inter-provincial electricity trade. Decisions about the future of Site C should be made in this light; if it is not possible to commit to fully decarbonizing electricity generation, and if prospects for inter-provincial transmission are low, Site C offers little value in comparison to its costs. In contrast, if B.C. and Alberta are committed to achieving a zero-carbon electricity system, and building new inter-provincial transmission lines is feasible, then Site C can offer value in excess of its costs.”

    In light of there being a very small chance of that happening, it seems like the obvious decision to simply shut the project down and save several billion dollars.

    And of course, it comes as no surprise to us that such a project is horribly cost inefficient. Because if it wasn’t, the free market would have put hydro electric plants to work a long time ago. In other words, the free market shut this project down before it ever even started. 

    But instead, we get another real life example of how virtue signaling and petty worries over carbon emissions – which are all trending the in the “right” direction globally anyway – lead to frivolous spending, funded by the taxpayer. 

    We hope B.C. remembers this if Elon Musk ever comes calling, looking for property to build his next solar roof tile factory…

    You can read further analysis of the project and the full op-ed here. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/11/2021 – 20:00

  • The COVID Depression And "Food Insecurity"
    The COVID Depression And “Food Insecurity”

    Authored by Alice Salles via The Mises Institute,

    Americans are going hungry because of coronavirus, and they are turning to theft to survive – at least that’s what we’re supposed to believe…

    Nearly 26 million Americans did not have enough food through the month of November, according to survey data reported by the Washington Post. Covid-19 was solely to blame, until the article’s ending when government policies earned a mention. Under these conditions, many people were left with only one option: shoplift.

    “Shoplifting is up markedly since the pandemic began in the spring and at higher levels than in past economic downturns, according to interviews with more than a dozen retailers, security experts and police departments across the country,” the report claimed.

    Catch that? The newspaper essentially casts poor families in a bad light, as if they were only capable of stealing in order to overcome adversity.

    The claim, which the Washington Post has discussed in at least two articles since November, isn’t new.

    During a virtual town hall in mid-July, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) blamed the increase of crime in New York City on “desperate” people “stealing bread to feed their children.”

    The claim was made even as NY police data showed that shootings went up 130 percent the previous month, not petty theft.

    Does the data support what the Post implies? First, let’s look at how the Post got its own data.

    According to the publication, “more Americans are going hungry now than at any point during the deadly coronavirus pandemic.” Also, “experts say it is likely that there’s more hunger in the United States today than at any point since 1998, when the Census Bureau began collecting comparable data.” 

    The data in question was collected through the so-called “food insecurity” survey. Created by the left-wing advocacy organization Food Research Action Center (FRAC), the survey became a widely used tool by the U.S. Department of Agriculture during the Bill Clinton administration. Activists and pundits use this survey to claim that taxpayer-funded food programs should be expanded. 

    Despite what investigative journalist Jim Bovard calls the “mushrooming” of the federal government’s subsidized feeding programs since the 1930s and the fact that these programs feed millions, activists demand more.

    One wonders why there isn’t a peep from these do-gooders about the lockdown orders in most states causing widespread unemployment and destruction of capital. 

    A Survey Meant to Misinform

    Food stamps were declared “one of our most valuable weapons for the war on poverty,” over 56 years ago when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into the law the Food Stamp Act of 1964. 

    Thanks to the food benefits, Johnson added, the country would see a substantial improvement in “the diets of low-income families.” 

    Over the decades, however, it’s become clear that the war on poverty was a mistake. Worse, it hurt the very people it ostensibly was set up to help. This is to say nothing of the impoverishment “created” for much of the rest of society.

    Instead of giving poor Americans quality of life, it created and fueled dependency on government handouts, as Murray Rothbard pointed out. Social welfare spending increased dramatically from $2.2 million in 1955 to $11.2 million in 1976. In 2018, it totaled $1.03 trillion.

    Despite the welfare state, hunger is no longer a widespread problem in America. But to keep the narrative going, “hunger” officially became “food insecurity.” Now, politicians and activists use the updated term to ensure that those who don’t obtain the type of food they want at a particular moment (for a variety of reasons) will be portrayed as suffering from hunger. 

    And how do they obtain the data necessary to claim people are starving? They rely on the government’s “food insecurity” surveys. 

    “Over the past 15 years federal surveys have profoundly muddled Americans’ understanding of the hunger problem,” Bovard wrote in 2015.

    He continued:

    One of the USDA’s surveys’ preliminary screening question asks, ‘In the last 12 months, did you ever run short of money and try to make your food or your food money go further?’ Why should we be concerned that shoppers want their food dollars to go further? That was formerly taught as a virtue in high-school home-economics classes. Now it is a pretext for federal alarm.

    Noting that most households who claim to be “food insecure” aren’t lacking sufficient amounts of food but instead deal with “reduced quality and variety,” Bovard explained that “‘worry’ about being able to buy sufficient food is the number-one source of food insecurity.” 

    If someone states that he feared running out of food for a single day (but didn’t run out), that is an indicator of being ‘food insecure’ for the entire year—regardless of whether he ever missed a single meal. If someone felt he needed organic kale but could only afford conventional kale, that is another ‘food insecure’ indicator. If an obese person felt he needed 5,000 calories a day but could only afford 4,800 calories, he could be labeled “food insecure.”

    In the age of Covid, this narrative is being weaponized once again.

    Power for the State, Dependency for the Poor

    By now, we all know that lockdowns don’t work. We also know that lockdowns are the driving force behind the mass unemployment and destruction of capital that America suffered through 2020. What most of us have failed to realize, however, is that politicians are using the economic losses to push their agenda. 

    While the government stands in the way of those who want to work, it passes as the benevolent hero. As the main course is removed from the table by government enforcers, the crumbs offered to the public in return—such as the small $600 “stimulus” payments—won’t do much to “pay the bills.” Instead, they simply demoralize large numbers of Americans who find themselves more dependent on the dole and less capable to reenter the productive sector.

    With the government continuing to threaten to use lockdowns whenever necessary, these same folks will continue to struggle.

    Rothbard put it perfectly when he wrote that the only thing bureaucrats can do is to get out of the way. 

    Let the government get out of the way of the productive energies of all groups in the population, rich, middle class, and poor alike, and the result will be an enormous increase in the welfare and the standard of living of everyone, and most particularly of the poor who are the ones supposedly helped by the miscalled “welfare state.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/11/2021 – 19:40

  • Supreme Court To Take A Second Look At Case Involving "Insider Trading" On Government Healthcare Tip
    Supreme Court To Take A Second Look At Case Involving “Insider Trading” On Government Healthcare Tip

    The Supreme Court is taking a second look look at several men who were convicted of wire fraud, insider trading and conversion of government property in a 2018 insider trading case involving what are being called “government secrets”.

    The case, which involves “King of Political Intelligence” David Blaszczak, had previously lowered the bar for what constituted insider trading in a Federal appeals court, according to Bloomberg. It centers around Blaszczak giving two hedge funds advance notice of coming government reimbursement rates. A jury had found that he provided “tips he picked up from ex-colleagues who were still in government”.

    The government source was Christopher Worrall, his friend at the time. Blaszczak turned around and gave the tips to Robert Olan and Theodore Huber, who were partners with Deerfield Management at the time. For trading on the tips, they were sentenced to “at least 20 months in prison”. Everyone but Worrall was convicted of insider trading and all of the men were convicted of wire fraud and conversion of government property.

    Now, it appears the Supreme Court could be poised to reconsider. 

    While the case is definitely a look into how those in government can clearly use information to benefit themselves (which led many like Senators Feinstein, Inhofe, and Loeffler to become topics of discussion due to their trading records in advance of government action last year) the parties appealed on the grounds that proposed government regulations don’t fall under the umbrella for what constitutes the fraud at the center of the case.

    And regardless of the outcome of the case, we won’t be surprised when things return to the status quo: government officials facing little to no consequences for clearly trading on non-public information – and the little guy or run of the mill hedge fund manager – who gets the occasional “tip” on potential government action, winding up the scapegoat. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/11/2021 – 19:20

  • "Disgruntled Staffer" Hacks State Department Site, Changes Trump/Pence Bios
    “Disgruntled Staffer” Hacks State Department Site, Changes Trump/Pence Bios

    On the same day that House Democrats introduced an article of impeachment against President Trump on Monday for “incitement of insurrection” following a group of his supporters attacking the Capitol last Wednesday, something odd has happened on the U.S. State Department website under the president’s bio where it now says “Donald J. Trump’s term ended on 2021-01-11 19:49:00.” 

    NYT’s Seth Abramson first pointed out that President Trump’s presidency will “end” at 7:49 PM tonight.

    Source

    Abramson said, “FWIW, I accessed the site at 3:02 PM ET, so the time in the screenshot above (7:49 PM) is not—as some are saying—UTC time. There may well be a computer glitch here, I don’t know. Other screenshots have shown other times. But all are today, and State has not explained it yet.” 

    He then said, “Regardless of time-stamp, it’s not clear why the State Department would edit this presidency’s official biography in *any* way that would say it ended on January 11—let alone do so on a day the House tried to get the Vice President to become Acting President. It is bizarre.” 

    However, maybe it’s not so bizarre considering BuzzFeed’s Christopher Miller has confirmed with sources that a “disgruntled staffer” is behind the bio change of President Trump and Vice President Pence. 

    Source

    Buzzfeed reports that an investigation into the matter could be a challenge, considering how many people have administrative access to the content management system used for the State Department’s official website.

    It’s a “closed system” that is “nearly impossible to hack,” said one of the diplomats.

    Which makes us wonder – isn’t altering the President’s bio an “attack on American Democracy”? Or is it a ‘Threat’?

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/11/2021 – 19:15

  • Socialists Claim Their System Is Morally Superior. They're Wrong!
    Socialists Claim Their System Is Morally Superior. They’re Wrong!

    Authored by Bradley Thomas via The Mises Institute,

    In a December 23 article published on mises.org, Lipton Matthews made the compelling case for advocates of free market capitalism to prioritize the moral superiority of capitalism rather than making the case for capitalism’s superior productivity.

    “Demonstrating the impracticality of socialism is necessary, but is also an ineffective strategy to galvanize goodwill for capitalism, because objections to capitalism are usually predicated on moral grounds,” he wrote.

    Indeed, in the battle of emotions vs. rational justification in the human brain, emotions are king. You cannot penetrate emotional objections with more charts and spreadsheets.

    The most compelling case for economic freedom is not its economic efficiency but its consistency with fundamental moral principles, like voluntary exchange, property, and enhanced individual choice.

    To libertarians and other free market supporters, the case is clear. But why do so many still insist that socialism is a morally superior system?

    The term “socialism” was trending on Twitter on December 28 and 29, with the following tweet exemplifying the arguments made by many in support:

    Selflessness. Meeting people’s needs. These are the characteristics that socialists use to describe their desired system. Nothing about productivity or wealth creation. Theirs is a purely emotional appeal to moral sensibilities.

    It’s unwise to merely dismiss such adherents of socialism as being naïve or ignorant. Rather, an understanding of mankind’s historical development tells us that believing socialism to be the moral means of organizing society may be hardwired into our consciousnesses.

    Early Moral Codes

    In its most basic sense, morality is described as the principles defining “good” or “bad” behavior. But how does a society come to understand which is “good” or “bad” behavior?

    In his 2012 article “The Origins of Envy,” published by the American Enterprise Institute, Max Borders cites Max Krasnow, a postdoctoral researcher specializing in evolutionary psychology at Harvard University, who informs us that emotions are “the coordinated response of diverse psychological and physiological systems to a class of stimuli.”

    In other words, your brain reacts to things in the world around you, and these reactions have forged emotions in our brains over millions of years. This hardwiring of our emotions was developed based upon survival. And because each new generation can’t learn the right survival instincts from scratch, we have a certain level of emotional responses and learned behavior built into our cognitive systems. Think about reflexes such as jumping in fear when you think you see a snake—that response kicks in before your mind has a chance to reflect. This is a built-in instinct.

    Societal Evolution

    Throughout most of human history, mankind developed as small tribes of hunters and gatherers. Innate instincts were developed for survival purposes—creating the foundation for a moral code.

    A certain set of moral rules emerged, largely because they enhanced the survival chances of the group. These rules were shaped by the primary characteristics of man’s environment. The small tribes people lived in were largely self-sufficient and were small enough to share the same goal (survival).

    This moral code based on tribal instincts included these key characteristics:

    • Self-sacrifice (making oneself worse off to benefit another; a zero-sum exchange)

    • Intentionally helping others

    • Providing help to identifiable beneficiaries with shared goals (i.e., survival of the group)

    In this setting of small tribes, it was quite reasonable to believe that anyone accumulating wealth was doing so only at the expense of others. Hunters and gatherers were only able to accumulate a finite amount of food to sustain the group. So if John managed to take and accumulate more than his “share” of the day’s food supply, he could do so only at the expense of lessening Jane’s allotment. Jane’s very survival would be threatened because she may not get enough calories to survive.

    Tribal instincts established that for the good of the survival of the group (a common goal), John shares his fowl with Jane (intentionally helping an identifiable beneficiary) and gets nothing in return (zero-sum exchange).

    Thus, a moral code was established in early, tribal man.

    In their 2011 essay “Markets and Morality” in Cato Journal, economists J.R. Clark and Dwight R. Lee referred to this type of moral code as “magnanimous morality.”

    They chose this terminology because it is very easy to praise this type of moral behavior, and it is easy to observe and trace the benefits of such self-sacrifice.

    The instincts that developed from such scenarios formed emotions such as guilt and provided a foundation for the code of magnanimous morality. Tribes that developed these emotional and moral adaptations were more likely to survive than those that didn’t.

    Notice how closely this primitive moral code tracks with the Twitter socialist’s emphasis on “selflessness” and “meeting people’s needs.”

    The “Extended Order”

    As mankind evolved into larger societies that developed a growing diversity of individual goals, division of labor, trade, and new moral codes of conduct emerged.

    These new moral codes emerged because those practicing them were able to grow and prosper relative to other societies—given the changing social environment. These codes of just conduct were not consciously adopted or decreed by individuals—they evolved over countless generations.

    The new moral code that emerged included:

    • Self-ownership (i.e., individual rights)

      • Refraining from harming others

    • Property rights

      • No one has an entitlement to the property or effort of another

    • Equality before the law

    • Free voluntary exchange

    Recorded history over the last hundreds of years is crystal clear: those societies that adopted the above as priorities flourished far more than those that didn’t, and continue to do so.

    In short, in order to successfully transition from small tribes to large-scale civilization, society must adapt to new rules of interaction; i.e., a new moral code.

    Those still insisting that socialism is a morally superior system are appealing to innate moral instincts developed in primitive times, which many now recognize would spell disaster in today’s “extended order” of society. Inspired by Marx and Engels (among others), today’s socialists cling to a romanticized version of early tribal units that had to consciously share goods of value in order to survive.

    Why Capitalism Is Necessary to Fulfill the Goals of “Magnanimous Morality” Favored by Socialists

    As humankind evolves into large societies, the characteristics of magnanimous morality—as a means to organize society as a whole—break down, for several reasons:

    • The number of people we can meaningfully care for is small relative to the total population (i.e., there is a limited number of identifiable beneficiaries)

    • A wide diversity of skills and specialized efforts means a wide diversity of individual goals—not shared goals like in a small tribe

    • Zero-sum self-sacrifice (i.e., giving without getting anything in return) cannot expand to too many others without spelling one’s own demise. If you keep giving while getting nothing in return, eventually you will starve.

    • People cannot intentionally help others without knowing what their needs are

      • In a larger society, there are simply too many people to understand what each individual’s needs are

    • If economic exchanges were restricted only to those with whom we share personal bonds, the loss of gains from trades never occurring would drastically stymie economic growth

    Instead, a competitive market based on private property better enables entrepreneurs to meet the needs of other individuals in a large, diverse society:

    • Individuals acquire wealth through producing and exchanging goods and services that others want

      • To receive, one must first give

      • Therefore, they must first take into consideration what others need

    • Prices, conveyed by the free exchange of private property, communicate the needs of those we don’t know. Consumers bid up the prices of those goods most in demand, which signals to entrepreneurs, enabling them to intentionally provide goods valued by others

    • People become wealthy by making others better off, not by making others worse off. Market exchanges are decidedly not zero sum.

    • In a market economy, one must serve others in society if he wants to acquire riches, even those he may not like

      • Cattle ranchers in Wyoming who may hate New Yorkers still get up early in the morning to produce beef that will be enjoyed by New Yorkers because the rancher wants to earn income

      • Relying on pure self-sacrifice would not achieve these results; forcing such sacrifice would not only violate our rights but foster resentment and tension

    Conclusion

    In order to win in the arena of ideas, it is critical to understand what motivates our opponents. Socialists are motivated by a moral code that was hardwired into our brains in primitive times, and are mistakenly translating it into a means of organizing a much more extended society than the one in which that moral code emerged.

    Even granting the goals of “meeting people’s needs” and “selflessness” cherished by socialists, we can make the case that a competitive, property-based market economy is far superior at meeting those goals in modern civilization compared to a top-down, centrally controlled socialist system.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/11/2021 – 19:00

  • Chinese Tech Giant Baidu Is Going To Create Its Own EV Company
    Chinese Tech Giant Baidu Is Going To Create Its Own EV Company

    The good news for Tesla is that the company has definitely seemed to spur mass adoption of EVs across the globe. So, in converting the world to EVs, mission accomplished. The bad news for Tesla is, well, also that they have spurred mass adoption of EVs globally. This means competition will be robust. 

    And that competition isn’t just limited to legacy automakers. In addition to names like Apple and Google working on self-driving in the U.S., the latest tech giant to join the EV race in China looks like it could become search firm Baidu, according to CNBC. 

    The tech company is reportedly going to make a standalone electric vehicle company as part of a joint venture with Geely automotive, the report says. Geely will make the hardware, while Baidu will make the software. 

    “Baidu relies heavily on advertising revenue but it has been looking to diversify its business to other areas such as cloud computing and autonomous driving software,” CNBC notes.

    The company has already been testing driverless car software in Beijing. Baidu has its own map app and its own voice assistant technology. 

    Meanwhile, the market for EVs in China continues to be ripe. EV sales from January to November of 2020 were up 4.4% this year versus a decline of 7.6% in overall passenger cars during the same period. Chinese auto sales had seen a full V-shaped recovery by October of this year, we noted at the time. 

    Recall, we noted in November that NEVs will be 20% of China’s new car sales by 2025. The “new energy” category includes battery electric, plug-in hybrid and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles. Sales will rise as the country’s “NEV industry has improved their technology and competitiveness,” according to a new policy paper reviewed by Reuters. 

    In the country’s 5 year plan to 2025, the State Council has pushed for improvements in EV technologies, building more efficient charging and implementing battery swapping networks. The Chinese government will also adopt quotas and incentives to to “guide automakers” (i.e. force them) to make EVs after Federal subsidies end in two years.

    The government is also looking at ways to implement EVs for public uses, commercial use and mass transit. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/11/2021 – 18:40

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Jan 11

Today’s News 11th January 2021

  • The 'Woke' Purge Has Begun
    The ‘Woke’ Purge Has Begun

    Authored by Brendan O’Neill via Spiked-Online.com,

    Twitter’s suspension of Donald Trump is a chilling sign of tyranny to come…

    Cancel culture doesn’t exist, they say. And yet with the flick of a switch, billionaire capitalists voted for by precisely nobody have just silenced a man who is still the democratically elected president of the United States. With the push of a button in their vast temples to technology, the new capitalist oligarchs of Silicon Valley have prevented a man who won the second largest vote in the history of the American republic just two months ago — 74million votes — from engaging with his supporters (and critics) in the new public square of the internet age.

    Not only does cancel culture exist — it is the means through which the powerful, unaccountable oligarchies of the internet era and their clueless cheerleaders in the liberal elites interfere in the democratic process and purge voices they disapprove of. That’s what Twitter’s permanent suspension of Donald Trump confirms.

    The new capitalists’ cancellation of the democratically elected president of the United States is a very significant turning point in the politics and culture of the Western world. We underestimate the significance of this act of unilateral purging at our peril. It demonstrates that the greatest threat to freedom and democracy comes not from the oafs and hard-right clowns who stormed the Capitol this week, but from the technocratic elites who spy in the breaching of the Capitol an opportunity to consolidate their cultural power and their political dominance.

    Twitter’s ban on Trump is extraordinary for many reasons. First, there’s the arrogance of it. Make no mistake: this is the bosses vs democracy; corporates vs the people; exceptionally wealthy and aloof elites determining which elected politicians may engage in online discussion, which is where most political and public debate takes place in the 21st century. Those who cannot see how concerning and sinister it is that a handful of Big Tech companies have secured a virtual monopoly over the social side of the internet, and are now exploiting their monopolistic power to dictate what political opinions it is acceptable to hold and express in these forums, urgently needs a wake-up call.

    Secondly, there is Twitter’s deeply disturbing justification for why it suspended Trump. It says Trump’s account ran the ‘risk’ of ‘inciting violence’. And yet the two tweets of his that it cites do nothing of the sort. In one, Trump describes his voters as ‘great American patriots’ and insists they will have a ‘GIANT VOICE’ in the future. In the other he confirms that he will not be attending the inauguration of Joe Biden. That’s it. In what warped moral universe can such standard, boastful Trump-made statements be interpreted as calls for violence?

    In the warped moral universe of pre-emptive, precautionary censorship being built by our tech overlords, that’s where. Strikingly, Twitter says its censorship of the president is based on how other people might read and interpret his words. It says its censorious motivation is ‘specifically’ the question of ‘how [Trump’s tweets] are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter’. Trump’s comments ‘must be read’ in the broader context of how certain statements ‘can be mobilised by different audiences’, Twitter decrees. So Trump’s words, strictly speaking, are not the problem; it’s the possibility, the risk, that someone, somewhere might interpret them in a particular way.

    This sets a terrifying precedent for the internet age. It legitimises a new regime of online censorship which doesn’t only punish inflammatory speech — which would be bad enough — but which punishes normal, legitimate political speech on the grounds of how other, unnamed people or groups might respond to it.

    There would be no end to what could be censored. 

    Trans-sceptical feminists, already victims of Silicon Valley’s woke purges, would be completely wiped out on the basis that some idiot might interpret their intellectual, non-bigoted critiques of genderfluidity as an instruction to bash a trans person. Christians sceptical of gay marriage, pro-life campaigners furious about abortion, radical leftists who say ‘smash the system’ — all could potentially fall foul of this new diktat that says we are not only responsible for what we ourselves think and say, but also for the myriad interpretations that everyone else, from the man in the street to the weirdo incel, makes of what we think and say.

    On this basis the White Album should be banned, given its songs ‘Helter Skelter’ and ‘Piggies’ were ‘mobilised by different audiences’ to terrible ends — the killings carried out by Charles Manson’s Family. Catcher in the Rye? Censor it. Don’t you remember how it ‘mobilised’ Mark David Chapman to kill John Lennon? As for the Bible, the Koran and any number of political texts and anthems — the risks of ‘mobilisation’ that they pose are clearly too great, so, to be on the safe side, let’s scrub those too.

    It isn’t just Twitter. Mark Zuckerberg (zero votes) had already indefinitely suspended Trump (74million votes) from Facebook. Reddit has scrubbed its Donald Trump thread. All social-media accounts that promote the mad Qanon conspiracy theory are being suspended. Mike Flynn and Sidney Powell have been banished from Twitter. YouTube is now banning any video and account that says the American election was fraudulent. This shows how ideological Silicon Valley oligarchs have become. For four years leading members of the media and cultural elites in the US and the UK have said the American presidential election and the EU referendum of 2016 were frauds. That they were meddled with, illegitimate, should be overthrown. You’ll find tens of thousands of videos on YouTube featuring people saying the vote for Brexit was a fit-up by Ruskies or an ‘advisory’ vote fraudulently turned into an instructional one. They won’t be taken down. Because our tech overlords are engaged in acts of openly political censorship.

    And then there’s Parler, the libertarian alternative to Twitter. Google this week removed the Parler app from its store on the basis that it doesn’t control its users’ inflammatory speech strictly enough. Apple is threatening to do likewise. All those who said ‘Just make your own social-media platform’ clearly underestimated the tyrannical determination of the woke elites to erase ‘offensive speech’ from every quarter of the internet. This is a full-on purge of any voice that significantly runs counter to the worldview of the anti-populist elites.

    That the left is cheering this on is cretinism of the most remarkable kind. They are green-lighting the most thorough assault on freedom of speech that the capitalist elites have ever carried out. They are sanctioning the control of speech by billionaires. They are celebrating as corporate oligarchies interfere directly in the democratic process. They are making a fetish of private property rights, insisting that the corporate rights of virtual monopolies like Twitter and Facebook, in this case their right to throw people off their platforms, override the social, democratic good of free public debate.

    I know this is unlikely anytime soon — given the entirely bullshit and pseudo ‘leftish’ posturing of the Silicon Valley elites — but imagine if at some point in the future the tech overlords decide that Bernie Sanders or some rabble-rousing organiser of protests outside Google’s HQ might ‘mobilise audiences’ to do something bad and decide to ban them? What will the left say? Nothing, presumably. Or nothing that should be taken seriously, given they will have helped to create this web of tyranny. They have forgotten the cry of the true radical Thomas Paine: ‘He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.’

    There is danger in the current moment. It comes not from horn-helmeted idiots and racist scumbags who paraded through the Capitol Building for an hour, but from those who wish to turn that despicable incident into the founding myth of a new era of woke authoritarianism. The business and political elites, determined to crush the populist experiment of recent years, will busily launch wars on ‘domestic terrorism’, clamp down on inflammatory speech, purge from the internet and from workplaces anyone with ‘incorrect’ thoughts, and blacklist those who believe populism is preferable to technocracy. They’re already doing it. The Biden administration isn’t even in power yet and this is already happening. Imagine how emboldened the new oligarchies and their woke mobs will become once Biden and Co are ruling. Brace yourselves; the purge is only beginning.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/11/2021 – 00:10

  • The CIA Rebranded: Don't Worry, We're Woke Now!
    The CIA Rebranded: Don’t Worry, We’re Woke Now!

    The CIA unveiled a trendy new logo this week and it’s already being mercilessly mocked. As one graphic design commentary website put it:

    The CIA’s new rebrand includes a refreshed logo (below) which retains its predecessor’s circular shape – and very little else. With its bold, black-and-white typeface and wavy lines, the internet is wondering whether the CIA has been taking logo design inspiration from techno music posters. 

    And of course this is all supposedly in the name of “diversity” and appeasing the cult of the woke.

    The new logo can be found on the CIA’s new recruitment website which is part of a broader initiative to create a more culturally diverse and sensitive intelligence agency that includes “people of all backgrounds and walks of life”.

    The Associated Press writes of the new rebranding and culture shift within the agency: “while the CIA has been diversifying for years, intelligence agencies still lag behind the federal workforce in minority representation.”

    CIA’s verified Twitter account has also been busy virtue signaling its new “diverse faces” as part of the initiative:

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    “We’re woke now!” journalist Rania Khalek begins in a spoof video covering the major rebrand.

    “Don’t worry, we’ll still be overthrowing democratically-elected socialist governments and putting despots in power.”

    “But we’re moving with the times here at Langley and we don’t want the white patriarchy giving orders…. We want trans torturers… It doesn’t matter if you’re from a minority, as long as you have no moral code.” 

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

    The rebrand is further being widely laughed at on Twitter and other social media…

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    We highly doubt that any of this has foreign enemies or terrorists at all worried.

    Instead, it’s likely they’re laughing right alongside the internet, and all too glad the CIA appears to be this preoccupied with projecting with its ‘diverse’ image instead of focusing on gathering actual intelligence and engaging in national security matters. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/10/2021 – 23:45

  • Silent But Deadly: Marines See Biggest Deployment Of Rifle Suppressors Ever
    Silent But Deadly: Marines See Biggest Deployment Of Rifle Suppressors Ever

    The U.S. Marine Corps is fielding tens of thousands of suppressors designed for automatic rifles as a move to reduce noise signature on the modern battlefield, according to Military.com. 

    Marine Corps Systems Command (MCSC) is in the process of fielding the first of the suppressors designed for M4 and M4A1 carbines and M27 infantry automatic rifles to Marines stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. By 2023, the service expects as many as 30,000 suppressors will be fielded, which is the largest deployment of suppressors by any military. 

    “We’ve never fielded suppressors at this scale,” Maj. Mike Brisker, weapons product manager in MCSC’s Program Manager for Infantry Weapons, said in a recent press release. “This fielding is a big moment for the Marine Corps.”

    Suppressors on automatic rifles firing a 5.56mm round will reduce noise by 30-40 decibels. This means each shot will sound more like a 22 caliber. 

    Reducing noise adds stealth to Marines, making it harder for the enemy to locate them. 

    Suppressors help decrease their “audible and visual signature, making it more difficult for the enemy to ascertain their location,” Chief Warrant Officer 4 David Tomlinson, MCSC’s infantry weapons officer, said in the release. 

    Besides reducing sound, suppressors also eliminate muzzle flash, which adds to the stealthiness of Marines. 

    Another big reason for the adoption is that it makes it easier for Marines to communicate with each other in combat. 

    “I would say the most important thing the suppressor does is allow for better inter-squad, inter-platoon communication,” Tomlinson said in the release. “It allows the operators to communicate laterally up and down the line during a firefight.”

    Marine officials also hope the suppressors will reduce hearing damage suffered by infantry Marines in combat. 

    Watch as Marines conduct a training exercise using suppressors. 

    To sum up: Washington continues to modernize forces as uncertainty and risk of military conflict continue to rise in the early 2020s. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/10/2021 – 23:20

  • Whispers In The Wind
    Whispers In The Wind

    Authored By Kym Robinson via The Libertarian Institute, 

    As the fiasco of US democracy shreds at any sense of dignity the world watches on and pretends that the health of the American empire is vibrant, the opinionated social media activist and the interested expert all find outrage in the moment.  Biden and Trump drips from the chanting lips of those who are storming the halls of political might. Far in distant lands, inside the obedient nations of the American empire heads of state read out words of support and condemnation. Outraged citizens from abroad criticize the ousted president, or they cheer for him to troll from the platform of twitter. The social media giants had long ago shown their loyalties as they ban and limit elements of some perspectives of very much the same political monstrosity. But in the end, does it change anything?

    The outraged and protesting tug and pull for the reigns of rule. The mob that failed at the sort of works democracy now reveals itself as just that violent destructive blob of people who want more control, want more influence and want a government that does things for them often against others. Whether it is proud boys, ANTIFA, MAGA or BLM the government as it stands really does not change that much, perhaps ‘Amen’ is switched to ‘Awomen’ and pronouns are balanced with some sensitivity or maybe the jingoists get another minority group to blame for the decay of Western or American civilization. But in the end the empire is ever present abroad and at home.

    For the rest of the world, we are forced to watch the melodrama of US politics, again. As though the United States is the center of the world, or universe. Perhaps the world should care less about what happens inside the US with as much concern as the average American seems to care about the rest of the world.

    Millions of humans lead their lives despite the petty and often pathetic self importance of US partisan politics and yet somehow, the American empire finds them. Whether it is a drone hovering high above, visiting with random murder or a blockade of warships enforcing an almost ancient embargo, it is the American prevalence in all of our lives that seems to be destroying not only the US itself, but the wider world. And when a victor emerges, the world still gets war. Mostly American wars. These are not civil riots protests that waved a fist against state led bigotry, nor are they anti conscription riots over government forcing individuals to fight overseas in another war. Such past riots, have had limited impact in quelling the growth of government or in tempering its destructive might.

    Journalist Julian Assange is held captive in legal purgatory, punished for revealing the crimes of war mongers and lifting the up the skirt of many governments. Ross Ulbricht a prisoner because he created a website, the details of his conviction would  make for an unbelievable fiction and yet it was all too real. Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning are pariah patriots, believers in the religious texts that most Americans claim to uphold and yet most of the voting public and voted for rulers disregard the details of such a constitution and Bill of Rights. And millions of poor and desperate foreigners live and die in the frontiers of foreign policy, their homes and day to day ruined so that macho sounding politicians can profit by propping up tyrannies of maniacal madness. Inside the prisons of the US itself are thousands of convicts punished for victimless crimes, the prohibitions and regulations of a cancerous government that claims to be for freedom, when in fact it dissolves it at every chance. The protests are not for any of them.

    A small child, perhaps now dead, coiled in infant agony, starved as its innocent eyes bulged in anguish fronted recent articles covering the desperate situation in Yemen. A situation that would be impossible if not for the aid and assistance of the US and it’s imperial allies. Neither Trump of Biden would save that baby and the many others like it. The Saudi kingdom, is a profitable friend. The protesters that support the two coins of US partisan politics do not care about the children of Yemen either. One needs not look too far to find the victims of foreign policy, recent and distant to see the true outcome of such actions, but it seems few actually care to. And should they be presented with such facts and terrible images, a religious fog washes across their eyes, allowing them to either dismiss or contextualize the murder and suffering. But a slob tweeting from the toilet or a hair sniffing buffoon are both credible enough to lead, and be despised because they are not the other.

    Protests inspired by Greta Thunberg visited many cities across the planet, sort of serious protesters found more energy than the Kony2012 social media inspired activists. They chanted and spread hashtags, cheered for the Swedish teen to shame political masters and then as often is the case, the energy dissipated. Nature continues to suffer, but a new smart phone in the hand is more appealing than living inside a canvas tent among the trees. The fixation with taxing the problem away and regulating industry to ‘not pollute’ is one of often curiosity, ignoring the waste of government itself. Not to mention the destructive pollutant that is the war machine. There once was a time when green movements were anti-government and anti-war. Now many of the supposedly green champions are inside the cathedral of government and so long as biodegradable material is used to transport the depleted uranium shells or a tree is planted on a base somewhere as gas guzzling tanks trample trees in distant lands, then the message is sound.

    It seems that since the emergence of COVID-19 that the Peoples Republic of China has become popular to despise. An authoritarian government that had bashed human rights since before its inception, a nation of growing power and influence, that with patience managed to take advantage of the laziness and complacency of modern Western culture. Many inside the West profited from and helped to cultivate the communist planners of China. But now supposedly courageous journalists and politicians criticize the communist state. Those who had their fingers inside the red cookie jar are ousted, the many honey traps are revealed but before COVID-19, few cared about the organ harvesting, mass executions, forced labor camps and surveillance state. It is hard to reveal those things as Chinese money flowed so lavishly.

    The future unfortunately is China’s, not because of the billions of unique individuals of China but the regime itself. The culture of control, social credits, censorship, travel restrictions and surveillance. The nationalism of compromise communism that has developed in the decades since the death of Mao. It is a template by which other national governments may adopt, not by any devious design, but inevitable instinct. The protesters, voters and mobs that throw their violent tantrums do not stand opposed to that, unlike those in Hong Kong who feel the crushing tyranny grip them.  In the US and its partner nations, the coming tyranny is inevitable. It is often welcomed and it is one of elite insight, for your health, for your safety. The custodian government is here for the child citizen, and jobs, welfare will be available. Is that not Utopian?

    Just as the war on terror normalized the security state, the war on drugs introduced no knock raids and intrusive searches, the war on the virus will bring with it the ever controlling health state. One that had already been creeping in. A health state of supposed benevolence for those nations of Public Health will continue to see grow, where an ideological health care system trumps choice and efficiency. Instead it gives careers and less care and a generic approach to solutions, that seldom suits the many individuals in need. Then the many regulations strangling society to ensure that the consumer, employer and employee are all directed and guided into one homogenized pattern. Choice, freedom, independence and individual responsibility are all deemed to be selfish. To be dependent, to have fewer or no choices and to be part of a collective is considerate, altruistic or even woke. For many of those protest, the public tantrum is about themes of the same controls, not ending them.

    Whatever Americans think about their nation, whether they burn or worship their flag. How little or much that they know about their national history, it is insignificant to the perspective of those in foreign lands who understand the USA for what it actions reveal it to be. A war empire. When the mostly slave owners penned those words on that famous cannabis sheet it is unlikely that the republic that they envisioned would some day become greater than the British empire. And when the French sold lands on the North American continent, that never really belonged to them, to the young republic or when the British burned the capital building after defeating the US invaders of Canada it is unlikely that they could imagine their future dependence and partial obedience to mighty US empire. For those who have been visited by US warplanes, tanks and ships the rhetoric of freedom and liberty are bloody lies. Just as they are for most Americans. But that is not being protested about.

    So now as social media waffles on over the calamity in the streets of US cities, will it change a thing? In a few months it would have been but one in many riots that have ravaged US streets. Riots that have claimed lives and destroyed property. None of which changed the perpetual nature of the US government, domestically or abroad. The outraged don’t really care about much other than the shrillness of the other side. The dead children in Yemen or Afghanistan, the burning lands of foreign wars don’t get that much concern, such scars and tears belongs to others. So when one side stands atop of the heaped mess as winner of the US government, the business of war will go on. The dignity of the individual will be bludgeoned and those who want nothing more but to control, to rule and to be taken care of, shall be victorious. But too few really cared enough to stop it. And those who do care, they are but whispers in the wind.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/10/2021 – 22:55

  • Amid Soaring Food Prices, Vietnam And China Buy Indian Rice For First Time In Decades
    Amid Soaring Food Prices, Vietnam And China Buy Indian Rice For First Time In Decades

    One month ago, we reported that SocGen’s bearish analyst Albert Edwards, who is traditionally well ahead of the curve, looked at charts of soaring food prices and was starting to “panic.”

    Edwards’ research report concluded by urging his readers to “keep a very close eye as to whether we see a repeat of the 2010/11 surge in food prices” because “on the 10th anniversary of the start of the Arab Spring, and with poverty having already been made much worse by the pandemic, another food price bubble could well be the straw to break the very angry camel’s back.”

    And while it’s not quite the spring of 2011 just yet (give it a few months) it’s getting dangerously close.

    As Rithesh Jain from the World out of Whack blog writes, citing an article in the Reuters, “Vietnam, the world’s third biggest exporter of rice, has started buying the grain from rival India for the first time in decades after local prices jumped to their highest in nine years amid limited domestic supplies.”

    “For the first time we are exporting to Vietnam,” B.V. Krishna Rao, president of the Rice Exporters Association, told Reuters on Monday. “Indian prices are very attractive. The huge price difference is making exports possible.”

    Dwindling supplies and continued Philippine buying have lifted Vietnamese rice export prices to a fresh nine-year high.

    Vietnam’s 5% broken rice is offered around $500-$505 per tonne, significantly higher compared to Indian prices of $381-$387.

    This means that, as we have been warning for the past few months, food inflation is indeed back with a vengeance:

    The purchases underscore tightening supplies in Asia, which could lift rice prices in 2021 and even force traditional buyers of rice from Thailand and Vietnam to switch to India – the world’s biggest exporter of the grain.

    Indian farmers and exporter are big beneficiary.

    In December, the world’s biggest rice importer China started buying Indian rice for the first time in at least three decades due to tightening supplies from Thailand, Myanmar and Vietnam and an offer of sharply discounted prices.

    What happens next? Nothing good:

    Chronic and acute hunger is on the rise, impacting vulnerable households in almost every country, with the COVID-19 pandemic reducing incomes and disrupting supply chains, according to the World Bank.

    As Jain concludes, “food inflation is here and unlike base metals, agricultural items can be substituted leading to rise in the entire agri basket.” The following charts from Goldman show just how close we are to a rerun of the global “Arab spring” we are again.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/10/2021 – 22:30

  • Legal Wrangle Continues Over Possible Release Of Orange County Prisoners
    Legal Wrangle Continues Over Possible Release Of Orange County Prisoners

    Authored by Drew Van Voorhis via The Epoch Times,

    The fate of about 1,800 Orange County inmates remains unclear as legal proceedings continue into whether the prisoners should be released amidst an ongoing pandemic.

    During a Jan. 8 court hearing, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department (OCSD) answered questions regarding its plans to reduce a CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus outbreak among its prison populations. The hearing ultimately resulted in the court ordering future hearings to obtain more information.

    The case began last year, when Sheriff Don Barnes received a Dec. 11 court order requiring county jails to reduce populations by 50 percent. It was a move Barnes has warned could result in large consequences for the community.

    Barnes appealed the court order, but was denied Dec. 29. He filed another appeal, which led to the Jan. 8 hearing, overseen by Superior Court Judge Peter J. Wilson.

    County attorneys Kayla Watson and Kevin Dunn, as well as American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawyer Corene Kendrick, were in attendance. Barnes was not.

    During the hearing, Wilson asked county attorneys a list of pre-written questions about the precautions the department has taken to reduce the outbreak. Inquires related to jail inspections, available prison footage, and more.

    OCSD spokesman Sgt. Dennis Brecker told The Epoch Times via email that the jail’s COVID-19 numbers reduced by hundreds of cases Jan. 8 due to a backlog of tests being processed.

    “Our [positive case] numbers in the jail just went down by the hundreds, now at 465 [cases],” Breckner said. Just the day before, the department was reporting 1,062 cases.

    He continued, “The website is up to date and the explanation for the drastic decrease was simply that the number of tests being administered created a backlog for [Orange County Health Care Agency] and they are now catching up.  We anticipate the number continuing on a downward trend because of the mitigation efforts that we have put in place.”

    During the hearing, Kendrick offered to bring in a person the ACLU has worked with before as a court-appointed expert to go through the 34 boxes of inmate files the sheriff’s department transferred to Wilson to review on who to safely release, based on individual inmates’ records.

    Watson noted large disagreement with this.

    “I just want the record to be clear that we, on behalf of the sheriff’s department, strongly object to the appointment of any expert to perform the sheriff’s statutory duties,” Watson said.

    “We have not been given an opportunity to present current evidence on the ground, despite our repeated requests.”

    The court adjourned with the next court hearing being held January 19, where there will likely be more experts to testify.

    Barnes issued a statement on the Jan. 8 hearing.

    “The court is holding additional hearings to obtain information from experts regarding the conditions of the jail,” he said.

    “We will continue to highlight our efforts to mitigate COVID-19 in our jails and keep dangerous inmates out of the community,” he noted.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/10/2021 – 22:05

  • 6000 National Guard Troops Arrive In DC To Beef Up Security
    6000 National Guard Troops Arrive In DC To Beef Up Security

    Around 6,000 National Guard troops have been activated from multiple states. They are expected to arrive in the Washington Metropolitan Area within the next 48 hours to beef up security around the US Capitol complex, according to AP. 

    Update: They have started to arrive…

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    Deployment of Guard troops come in the wake of deadly riots at the Capitol building on Wednesday and ahead of the Presidential Inauguration on Jan. 20 that could incite another wave of violence. 

    AP has learned defense officials are reviewing restrictions on whether Guard troops will be allowed to carry weapons in the coming days as new threats materialize. 

    Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy told AP Friday that intelligence on potential threats continues to evolve. He said some Guard troops could carry M4 Carbines, but a final decision may come next week. 

    The review reflects concerns about the safety of Guard troops in the wake of the deadly riots. 

    “We’ll be looking at the intelligence and decide over the next day or so,” McCarthy said. “It’s just going to require us to get better intel, and then we’ll have to take a risk assessment.”

    This past week, Guard troops have been unarmed and will continue to be once a decision is made. So far, they’ve been tasked with guarding the Capitol building behind steel walls that limit them from directly contacting violent protesters. 

    About 850 Guard troops have been deployed to Capital grounds, working 12 hours shifts at more than 90 checkpoints. 

    Over the weekend, videos have emerged of Guard troops stationed around the Capitol complex.

    Guard troop presence increasing in DC. 

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    Guard troops patrolling perimeter fence around Capitol. 

    Guard troops patrolling buildings around the Capitol. 

    AFP shows several scenes of Guard troops outside the perimeter fence of the Capitol. 

    Considering top militia leaders have said they have placed “armed” members around DC to prevent a steal of the 2020 presidential election from President Trump – it’s likely some Guard troops will be armed as perhaps the last of the violence isn’t over. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/10/2021 – 21:40

  • FAA Slams Pro-Trump Demonstrators For "Disrupting" Flights Ahead Of Capitol Chaos
    FAA Slams Pro-Trump Demonstrators For “Disrupting” Flights Ahead Of Capitol Chaos

    A few days ago, a union of flight attendants called on US airlines to permanently ban all participants in the Capitol Hill riot from flying amid reports that planes full of Trump supporters traveling to Washington DC caused disturbances during flights. Now, as prosecutors across the country hunt down the participants of Wednesday’s Capitol riot, the FAA and its members are taking disciplinary matters into their own hands.

    According to Bloomberg, the FAA is vowing “strong enforcement” of any further violations tied to supporters of President Trump. In other words, if you wear a red baseball cap on a plane, well, you might as well yell “bomb!”…

    FAA Chief Steven Dickson issued a statement Saturday saying the agency will take any further “unruly” actions by passengers extremely seriously.

    “The FAA will pursue strong enforcement action against anyone who endangers the safety of a flight, with penalties ranging from monetary fines to jail time,” said Dickson, himself a former airline pilot.

    Passengers on aircraft must obey safety commands from flight attendants and pilots, and the FAA monitors reports of violations, Dickson said. “This includes unruly passenger behavior, which can distract, disrupt and threaten crew members’ ability to conduct their key safety functions,” he said.

    Numerous other incidents on flights were reported on social media as travelers visited Washington and flew home after Wednesday’s events. Flight attendant unions have also issued press releases condemning the behavior.

    Flight attendants with American Airlines were forced to confront passengers who were harassing others for their political views on one particularly difficult flight, according to Julie Hedrick, president of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants.

    “This behavior is unacceptable, and flight attendants should not have to deal with these egregious incidents,” Hedrick said in a press release.

    So, what’s the solution? Will Republicans no longer be allowed to travel to rallies and other events?

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/10/2021 – 21:15

  • Washington Chaos May Raise Tail Risks For Beijing
    Washington Chaos May Raise Tail Risks For Beijing

    By Ye Xie, Bloomberg Markets Live commentator

    Three things we learned last week:

    1. Trump is keeping the pressure on China amid Washington turmoil.

    Secretary of State Michael Pompeo provoked Beijing when he said that the U.S. will remove decades-old restrictions on how its diplomats approach Taiwan. The move raises tensions over the One China policy — a red line for Chinese leaders.

    It suggests that the Trump administration isn’t done taking on China, even as the president is besieged following a violent insurrection by his supporters at the Capitol. Lawmakers are pushing for him to be impeached, and a number of administration officials have resigned. Further hostility toward Beijing in his final days in office could set up more hurdles for Joe Biden to deal with China.

    While Alibaba and Tencent were left off an updated U.S. Treasury list of Chinese companies considered to be tied to the military, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the tech giants are off the hook. And more state companies, including oil firms, could be added to the list and kicked off of the U.S. exchanges. The risk of sanctioning a major Chinese bank also remains.

    2. Foreign investors cannot get enough Chinese stocks.

    Overseas investors bought a record net 21 billion yuan worth ($3.2 billion) of Chinese shares through the north-bound stock connection last week, as the CSI 300 hit a 13-year high. South-bound flows from mainland investors to Hong Kong also reached a record. China Mobile, which is excluded from major indexes and due to be delisted by the NYSE on Monday, was the most bought stock in the southbound program Friday. It looks like there are plenty of Chinese happy to take advantage of the forced selling from U.S. investors.

    3. Reflation trades are all rage.

    MSCI’s global stock benchmark notched records as the Democratic sweep of Congress increases the odds for another round of stimulus in the U.S. Ten-year U.S. Treasury yields climbed above 1.1% and narrowed a gap with Chinese bonds. That didn’t kept the yuan from rallying further, prompting Chinese policy makers to take more steps to slow inflows.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/10/2021 – 20:42

  • Thwarting The Next Attack On The Capitol
    Thwarting The Next Attack On The Capitol

    Authored by Robert Wright via The American Institute for Economic Research,

    Thirty shots rang out in the U.S. Capitol around 2:30 pm. Bullets struck five House Reps, all of whom survived, thanks in part to the valiant response of House Pages.

    If that sounds different from news accounts of the events of 6 January 2021, it is because the event briefly described above occurred on 1 March 1954, when four Puerto Rican nationalists fired the shots from the visitors’ gallery while unfurling the Puerto Rican flag. The assailants were all eventually apprehended, tried, and convicted and were serving long prison sentences commuted by President Jimmy Carter in 1978 and 1979. 

    The three men and one woman who gave half their lives were heroes to Puerto Rican nationalists and anti-imperialists but vile, failed assassins to those who wanted to maintain U.S. hegemony over the island it had taken from the Spanish Empire in 1898. Importantly, most of those who had given little thought to Puerto Rico’s status and likely could not find the island on a map also deprecated the attack because of the level of violence unleashed.

    Of course the people who some Americans still proudly call Patriots were nothing more than nationalist rebels to the Tories. Had the Patriots lost the Revolutionary War, they would have at best suffered the same fate as the Confederate Johnny Reb. George Washington would be remembered today as a scoundrel and an enslaver and his sidekick Alexander Hamilton would have never spawned a hit musical. (Recent rumors of Hamilton’s slaveholding, incidentally, remain empirically baseless.) 

    Today, obviously, matters are no different. If you think you will gain from the actions that some group takes, you will tend to rationalize its tactics and call its members good names. If you think the group’s actions will hurt you, then you will tend to oppose it and its tactics and call its members bad names. 

    “Praise and blame” historians call it. One partisan’s hero is another partisan’s zero.

    That is why it is so important for true supporters of “law and order” like myself to identify and reduce the causes of political violence before it becomes too late. In mid-March, I predicted rebellions if lockdowns continued for too long and many mass demonstrations, some quite violent, occurred throughout 2020 in many nations including, of course, our own. I also warned in December that trouble would ensue if the Supreme Court refused to hear the Texas election lawsuit … and here we are. If only the Capitol police had heeded my warnings they could have taken more effective precautions.

    It isn’t terribly difficult, actually, to see trouble brewing. All it takes is a little theory and some empathy. Theory, like one laid out by Eric Hoffer, suggests that frustration breeds violent protest. Frustration isn’t measurable precisely but if you listen to what people — real people not TV pundits — say, and think about how you would feel in a similar situation, you can start to get a sense for genuine frustration.

    Many Patriots, for example, felt that British policymakers were unresponsive to their concerns about how Imperial tax and monetary policies had led to the impoverishment and hence imprisonment of many colonists following the French and Indian War. They beseeched London elites not to tack the Stamp Act onto their many woes but were met with disdain. They won that one, with some violence and many threats, but the British soon piled on additional regulations. The colonists responded with remonstrances, trade embargoes, and so forth, but after the Boston “Massacre” (Patriot propaganda of course) and the mob insurrection against tea in Boston Harbor (British propaganda), violence soon escalated into full blown war.

    Puerto Rican nationalists were also frustrated. The island had gained some de jure independence from Spain in 1897, the year before the Yankee empire invaded and claimed jurisdiction over it. It took over half a century for the United States to grant limited autonomy to Puerto Rico, a reform that did not go far enough for nationalists, who in late October 1950 openly rebelled in several important towns and cities, including San Juan. Puerto Rican police and troops, bolstered by US military forces, quelled the uprisings, which resulted in scores of casualties. On 1 November, two Puerto Rican nationalists attacked President Truman in the Blair House, his temporary residence while the White House was being renovated. One LEO was killed in the attack, as was one of the attackers, while the other was captured, convicted, and imprisoned. 

    Unscathed in the attack, Truman supported a plebiscite on Puerto Rico’s status but, crucially, independence was literally not on the ballot. Nationalists boycotted the election, which overwhelmingly endorsed commonwealth status for the island. From their perspective, the election had been stolen even before it was held.

    None of that background excuses the 1954 attack but it does explain why some nationalists were frustrated enough to resort to violence.

    The same could be said of the small minority of peaceful protestors who attempted to overrun the White House in early June 2020. As I then wrote, those calling for redistribution of resources away from the police were rightly frustrated by continued state violence against poorer Americans, especially those of color, and offered a path toward reducing governmental power without encouraging criminal chaos.

    As for the events of 6 January, every politico lays blame on somebody else and moralizes instead of admitting their own role in causing, or at least not allaying, the frustrations that undergirded the attack. (All federal politicians should resign and donate their entire net worths to the Treasury because all are abject failures … but I won’t hold my breath on that.)  

    I have bad news — much like my news that 2021 would not necessarily be better than 2020 — things could get much, much worse. If you thought recent events were scary, imagine a million or more armed Americans storming the federal zone in DC and burning it to the ground regardless of upgraded security measures. (Vide the apparently insufficient 2017 upgrade.) That is not yet a prediction, and is certainly not a wish, but the probability of such an event is palpably higher than it was just a year ago.

    To reduce the probability of such a horror, America needs real statesmen (leaders of any gender who seek to implement rational policies instead of engaging in constant partisan pandering) to emerge from this mess.

    Real leaders should:

    1. Not use the attack on the Capitol as an excuse to further erode civil liberties. In fact, they should encourage frustrated individuals to engage in peaceful protest, like burning effigies, that is more cathartic than mere virtue signaling via haberdashery or social media posts.

    2. Stop lying about Covid-19. Read the Covid-related posts on this website for the last year for details.

    3. Lay bare the fact that most policy proposals redistribute resources from one group to another and encourage open debate about the tradeoffs involved.

    4. Focus policy on reducing frustration, even if that means cutting the power of corporate or party monopolies and duopolies, unions, and the government itself. 

    5. Chastise every media outlet that engages in partisan hyperbole and encourage the reestablishment of trusted, nonpartisan news sources.

    6. Chastise politicians who call for metaphorical “wars” on everything and anything (including viruses!) and constantly use martial words like “fight” when they really mean “work on behalf of.”

    7. Pass reforms that reestablish trust in elections. (I have long advocated a Constitutional amendment to tie representation in the House [and hence Electoral College weight too] to the number of people who cast ballots rather than on the number of residents, which frankly is already a tricky concept that will get trickier as online work becomes more common. This would give states incentives to encourage voting but also implicate the Census Bureau as a federal check. But other possible reforms abound.)

    8. Insist that any other reforms, say of SCOTUS, be completely nonpartisan by, for example, having any additional justices chosen by the next administration or, better yet, a random draw from a qualified group.

    Do any such real leaders exist in 2021 America? I doubt it, but sometimes existential threats birth greatness.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/10/2021 – 20:25

  • Here Are The Top 10 Questions Goldman Clients Have About China
    Here Are The Top 10 Questions Goldman Clients Have About China

    With Chinese stocks soaring in recent weeks, and the blue chip CSI 300 index surpassing its 2015 Chinese stock bubble highs..

    … momentum chasers investors from around the world are predictably once again poking around in Chinese markets (especially amid the recent confusion surrounding the bilateral crackdown on Alibaba, and the US-led sanctions on Chinese telecom and various megacap stocks), which is why Goldman’s top China strategist Kinger Lau writes that amid the “extensive client conversations” he had in recent days, investor interests and questions have revolved around ten particular topics. Here are the Top 10 China FAQs by Goldman clients, from the latest Goldman “China Musings” report:

    1. Upside and drivers? China rallied 26% in 2020. Strong EPS growth (21%/15% for 21E/22E) on stable PEs (GSe: 15.6x vs 15.5x now) will drive 17% total returns for MXCN this year. Goldman expects a more balanced return profile (New vs.Old China) and prefers China A tactically given its higher macro cyclicality and lower sensitivity to external and Internet policies.

    2. GDP growth and vaccine? China’s output has surpassed its pre-Covid levels. (GSe: 2%/8% GDPg in 20/21), with consumption being a key growth driver in2021. The first Chinese vaccine has been approved last week but should have only moderate growth impulse.

    3. Is China tightening? Policy stimulus should fade this year as growth recovers. However, the recalibration should be gradual and growth-dependent, and, in what may be the most laughable statement in modern history, Goldman claims that “moderating policy support doesn’t always deflate equity returns.” Brilliant.

    4. Industry regulation? Antitrust and FinTech regulations are top policy priorities for 2021, but unlike in 2018, regulatory oversight isn’t tightening across the board although it may pressure valuations for certain companies/sectors.

    5. US restrictions on Chinese stocks? Clarity has recently emerged for ADR de-listing risks but uncertainty remains regarding the Executive Order, notably the scope of restriction, index exclusion, and forced de-listing. 

    6. Rotating from Growth to Value? Goldman stays structurally positive on Growth, but have been scaling up cyclical exposures, instead of pure Value, in its allocation.

    7. Themes and sectors for 2021? Following the 14th Five Year Plan as the anchor for thematic investing, Goldman favors a hybrid of Growth and Cyclicals sectors to start 2021.

    8. Is China crowded? No, in fact, positioning is at all-time lows according to GS, which expects robust inflows on decent growth, continuing market reforms, and an appreciating Rmb.

    9. HSI revamp? More New China, less Old China and HK representation are likely after the index rebalancing in Mar.

    10. Risks? Sino-US tensions, private sector policy, leverage, and property tightening:

    • The developments of US-China relationship under a new US administration;
    • Over tightening in China property which contributes to around 20% of GDP via direct and indirect channels;
    • China leverage, which is at all-time highs with rising number of defaults;
    • POE regulation tightening which my present upside risk to equity risk premia.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/10/2021 – 20:00

  • Here It Comes: 'Patriot Act 2.0' Aimed At The UnWoke Enemy Within
    Here It Comes: ‘Patriot Act 2.0’ Aimed At The UnWoke Enemy Within

    Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,

    It’s not been often, in the five years OffG has existed, that we’ve had to cop to missing something important within 24 hours of publishing an article – but this is one of those times.

    In my article yesterday – “The Storming of the Capitol”: America’s Reichstag Fire? – I said this [my emphasis]:

    Although there is not yet any talk of legislation [in response to the Capitol Hill riots], it’s certainly true there are whispers of purges and other measures to “protect the constitution”.

    That quote did not age well, indeed it was wrong from the moment it went to print. Because, as it turns out, there has actually been “talk of legislation” for weeks – even months. Soon-to-be-President Joe Biden promised a new “domestic terrorism bill” back in November, according to the Wall Street Journal.

    That is why you’re seeing so much usage of the phrase “domestic terrorism” in the last couple of days.

    It’s the meme-phrase. The primary talking point for this whole exercise. It was underlined in all the memos sent out to all the media outlets.

    That’s why Joe Biden went to such lengths to distinguish “domestic terrorists” from “protesters” in his speech following the riots.

    That’s why the Council on Foreign Relations had an interview with a “counter-terrorism and national security expert” published within 24 hours of the incident, in which he spends 4 paragraphs arguing that the people who “stormed the capitol” were domestic terrorists.

    That’s why the Washington Post has got an article dedicated to “lawmakers and experts” arguing that the Capitol Hill protest was an act of “domestic terrorism”. And so have Vox. And Mother Jones.

    That’s why ABC had an article about how “domestic terrorism and hate crimes” were a growing problem in America…a week before the riot took place.

    And that’s why #TrumpisaDomesticTerrorist is trending on Twitter.

    Georgetown University, a well-known spook college, published a paper in September 2020 titled the “The Need for a Specific Law Against Domestic Terrorism”, and op-ed pieces bemoaning the lack of such a law have been dotted through the press going back to last summer and even late 2019.

    There was one published yesterday, in which a “senior FBI official” says “more could have been done” if there had been a “specific law outlawing” domestic terrorism.

    “Domestic Terrorism” is clearly where it’s at in early 2021, so we can expect a brand new law regarding it…probably by March, at the latest.

    What will “Domestic Terrorism” mean in this law?

    The answer to that is pretty much always “whatever they want it to mean.”

    Certainly, it will include “incitement” and “hate speech”, I would expect “denialism” to make an appearance, and be downright shocked if “spreading misinformation” doesn’t get a mention. Don’t be surprised if “questioning elections” or “bringing democracy into disrepute” is made an outright crime.

    It will probably be tied into the Covid “pandemic” in some way, too. After all, what is discouraging people from taking vaccines if not the very definition of “terrorism”, right? It’s possible that even climate change will get a mention as well. They like to slide that into every issue these days.

    Joe Biden has claimed multiple times to be the author of the original Patriot Act, saying it was based entirely on a bill he proposed in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995.

    Well now he has a chance to work on the reboot too, and they are always so much better when you can get the original creative team back together.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/10/2021 – 19:45

  • Biden Says He Will 'Defeat the NRA' While In Office
    Biden Says He Will ‘Defeat the NRA’ While In Office

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    President-elect Joe Biden on Jan. 8 promised to “defeat” the National Rifle Association while he’s in office.

    Biden’s official Twitter account was responding to former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.), who was among 14 people wounded in a shooting rampage by Jared Lee Loughner in Tucson in 2011; six people died in the attack. Giffords had recounted how her life and community “changed forever.”

    “But the attack did not break me—or the people I represented in Congress. We came together, turned pain into purpose, and found hope in each other,” she wrote, adding that she continues to work to “achieve a safer America.”

    Biden responded, saying: “Your perseverance and immeasurable courage continue to inspire me and millions of others. I pledge to continue to work with you—and with survivors, families, and advocates across the country—to defeat the NRA and end our epidemic of gun violence.”

    The NRA, which has more than 5 million members, seeks to protect and educate people about their Second Amendment rights.

    The National Riffle Association of America (NRA) headquarters in Fairfax, Va., on Aug. 6, 2020. (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)

    While the association didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Biden’s post, its lobbying arm recently published an article that says Biden would “begin a concerted attack on the rights of American gun owners” after being inaugurated.

    “We must be ready for the onslaught,” the post reads, adding that a Biden administration, if officials get their way, “will ban and confiscate the most-commonly-owned rifle in the United States” and “will arbitrarily limit the number of guns that can be bought per month,” among other measures.

    Biden’s website says he has a plan to end “our gun violence epidemic” and boasts that he has taken on the NRA twice and won, referring to his help passing the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act in 1993 and in passing a 10-year ban on some weapons and magazines the following year.

    “As president, Joe Biden will defeat the NRA again,” the site states.

    Some of the proposals include banning the manufacture and sale of so-called assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, restricting the number of guns one person may buy per month to one, and prohibiting people convicted of hate crimes from owning guns.

    Follow Zachary on Twitter: @zackstieber

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/10/2021 – 19:35

  • For The First Time Ever, Real US Investment Grade Yields Turn Negative
    For The First Time Ever, Real US Investment Grade Yields Turn Negative

    In late December, in our recap of a “year like no other” for credit markets, we showed a stunning chart which perhaps best summarized the “insanity unleashed by central banks.” The chart in question showed that a record-high number of European IG (investment grade) bonds were trading with negative yields. To wit, as of December 15, 41% of the EUR IG iBoxx index yields in sub-zero territory; a level that matches the previous record in August 2019.

    Even more impressive: more than 10% of the index now yields below -0.25%, and as Goldman concluded, “negative yields are likely remain a fixture of the EUR IG corporate bond market in 2021, even if bund bond yields back up in response to solid growth next year. Combined with the decent demand tailwind from ECB purchases, this would keep search for yield motives strong.”

    Fast forward a few weeks, when it’s not just the EU where the corporate bond market is trading at absurd levels.

    As Goldman’s credit strategist Michael Puempel writes, in early December, real yields on USD IG corporate bonds turned negative for the first time in history, against a backdrop of all-time high duration.

    As Goldman elaborates, the relentless march lower of real yields to negative territory “reflects the combined effects of the material decline in nominal corporate bond yields and the back-up in inflation expectations.”  The next chart shows how widespread negative real yielding corporate debt in the USD market is, with more than 25% of issues, representing more than 30%of index-eligible par value, priced with a real yield below -0.5%.

    This means that a large portion of IG-rated corporations are expected to be paid, on an inflation-adjusted basis, to borrow in the USD market today, according to Goldman. And although all-time high duration comes with its own risks, negative real yields will likely skew incentives for corporate issuers – encouraging them to issue even more debt – while at the same time mechanically increase risks for investors.

    A quick look at these two key factors starting with…

    Skewed incentives for issuers

    There is always competing interests between equity- and debt-holders when it comes to corporate issuance and the uses thereof. This tension will be exacerbated for corporates that can issue at very low, i.e. negative, real yields. Specifically, the lower the yield at which a corporation can issue debt, the higher the incentives are to return capital to shareholders, via either debt-funded M&A or share repurchases (or, more recently, by purchasing bitcoin). Meanwhile, Goldman forecasts that negative real yields for such a large portion of the IG universe has elevated the risk that “the significant increase in gross balance sheet leverage, which was meant to be a temporary response to the sudden stop in the economy, ends up being permanent.”

    Elevated risks for investors

    The risks for investors in this environment, as it relates to negative real yields is two-fold:

    First, and the most acute, is that investor returns are now very susceptible to even the slightest unexpected uptick in the inflation. While traded breakeven inflation is not a perfect proxy for expected inflation, as it embeds a risk premium, positive real yields have historically provided, at least to some degree, a cushion with respect to an unexpected inflation shock. This is no longer the case, because even if realized inflation falls below market expectations, it may not be enough to push ex-post real yields back into positive territory given current levels.

    The second risk for investors is related to the second-order effect of low yields; re-leveraging risk. That is, if firms take the “opportunity” presented by yields at historic lows to increase the size of their capital structures even further, this could in Goldman’s words, “manifest itself in heightened fallen angel/downgrade risk under a scenario in which the earnings recovery of highly levered issuers do not rebound at a pace commensurate with expectations.”

    While these risks should be manageable in the near-term given improving growth expectations for 2021 on the back of massive stimulus, as the economy reverts back to full-capacity, Goldman concludes that “it will be crucial for both corporate bond issuers and investors to shift their decision-making frameworks to account for real, as opposed to nominal, outcomes.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/10/2021 – 19:10

  • "A Huge Reversal" – Louis Gave Warns "Inflation Will Come Back With A Vengeance"
    “A Huge Reversal” – Louis Gave Warns “Inflation Will Come Back With A Vengeance”

    Authored by Mark Dittli via TheMarket.ch,

    Louis-Vincent Gave, CEO and co-founder of Gavekal Research, sees a dramatic paradigm shift playing out in the world economy. In this in-depth conversation, he explains how investors should position themselves for the future.

    Louis-Vincent Gave is a master of the big picture. The co-founder of Hong Kong-based research boutique Gavekal is one of the most esteemed writers about geopolitical and macroeconomic developments and their impact on financial markets.

    In this in-depth conversation with The Market NZZ, Mr. Gave shares his views on the Dollar, stock markets, oil and gold prices – and he explains why the United States are starting to act like a «sick emerging market».

    Mr Gave, 2020 has been a catalyst for some big shifts in the global investment environment. Looking into the future, what are the biggest topics for you?

    I’ve spent most of my career in Asia, so my lens is fundamentally biased towards Asia. With that disclaimer, I would say this: When the Covid crisis started, the view in the West was that this would be China’s Chernobyl Moment. That they completely screwed up, which would eventually weaken the regime. Fast forward to today, and China comes out of this looking much better than most Western countries. If there is one big divergence in the world, it is this: In most Western countries, the population is angry at how their government dealt with the pandemic, either because they think the government did too much or too little. But in China, there is a feeling that there were two big crises in the past 15 years, the Global Financial Crisis in 2008 and now Covid, and China in both cases came out ahead of the West. Most of Asia actually came out of this much better than the Western world.

    What else do you see?

    When I look at markets, there are three key prices in the world economy: Ten year Treasury yields, oil, and the Dollar. One year ago, yields were going down, oil was going down, and the Dollar was going up. Today, Treasury yields are going up, oil is going up, and the Dollar is going down. This is a huge reversal. When I see a market where interest rates are rising and the currency is falling, alarm bells go off.

    Why?

    This is what you would see in a sick emerging market. If you’re invested in, say, Indonesia, rising interest rates and a falling currency is a signal that investors are getting out, because they don’t like the policy setting there. Today, the US is starting to act like a sick emerging market. We even have a question mark over whether they have the ability to run a fair election. Suffice to say that at least 30% of Americans believe their election system is rigged. This is mindblowing.

    What’s the policy setting investors don’t like in the US?

    Government debt in the US has increased by more than $4 trillion this year, which adds up to $12,800 per person. This is a world record, but actually most Western governments have gone on a massive spending spree during this crisis. In a way, they’re using the playbook that China followed after 2008, when they allowed a massive increase in fiscal spending and monetary aggregates. Today, Beijing sits on its hands in terms of fiscal and monetary policy, while the West knows no limits.

    They’re doing it to soften the blow of the pandemic. What’s wrong with that?

    When China did this in 2008, they funded massive infrastructure projects: airports, railroads, roads, ports, you name it. Some of these projects turned out to be productive and some not, but I always thought they would be definitely more productive than social transfers. But this year, the debt buildup in the US has funded zero new productive investments. No new roads, no airports, railroads, nothing. They were basically just sending money to people to sit at home and watch TV. In the end, this buildup of unproductive debt can be reflected in one of two things: Either in the cost of funding for the government, i.e. in rising interest rates, or in a devaluation of the currency. This is what the French economist Jacques Rueff taught us years ago. Very soon, this is going to put the Fed in a quandary.

    In what way?

    They will have to decide whether to let bond yields rise or not. If they let them normalize to pre-Covid levels, 10-year Treasury yields would have to rise to about 2.5%. But if they do that, the funding of the government becomes problematic. A 50 basis point increase in interest rates is equivalent to the annual budget for the U.S. Navy. Another 30 bp is the equivalent for the U.S. Marines, and so on. The U.S. is already borrowing money to pay its interest today. If rates go up, they’re getting into the cycle where they have to borrow more just to be able to pay interest, which is not a good position.

    Do you expect the Fed to move in and cap interest rates?

    Yes, I do. And when they do, I’d say the Dollar will take a 20% hit.

    Ten year Treasuries currently yield around 0.95%. At what level will the Fed step in?

    I think they will have to cap interest rates at 2%, otherwise the drag on the government will become too big. That question will arise rather soon, because come this spring, the base effects for growth and for inflation will kick in. Growth will be very strong, and so will inflation, which means that yields will quickly try to get back up to 2%.

    You recently wrote a piece where you recommended buying gold and financials to prepare for this event. Why gold, and why financials?

    My base case is that Treasury yields will move up to around 2%, at which point the Fed will introduce some variant of yield curve control. In this case, the Dollar would tank, real interest rates would drop and gold would thrive. But maybe I’m wrong, maybe the Fed freaks out when they see inflation rising to 4%, and maybe they decide to let yields rise. If that’s the case, then financials will rip higher, driven by a steeper yield curve. So come this spring, if the Fed caps interest rates, gold will thrive, and if it doesn’t, financials will thrive.

    But you’d lean towards gold?

    Yes. It’s quite possible that in the coming weeks, the Dollar will rise while Treasury yields move up. This could provoke a sell-off in gold. If that were to happen, I’d take the other side of that trade, I would buy gold. But at the same time, you can buy out of the money call options on financials. That would be the hedge for the scenario of the Fed changing its mind and letting the yield curve steepen.

    The Dollar has been strong for the past ten years. Has it entered a new structural bear market?

    Yes, there is no doubt in my mind. A year ago, the Dollar was the only major currency offering positive real rates. My view is that capital flows into positive real rates, just like water flows downhill. Today, the U.S. has one of the most negative real interest rates worldwide. Given the year-on-year rise we will see in inflation this spring, real interest rates in the U.S. will drop even further.

    Apart from negative real yields, what are the other reasons for the Dollar bear market?

    We first have to ask ourselves why we even had a Dollar bull market in the past decade. The answer is the shale oil revolution. As the United States moved towards energy independence after 2011, its trade deficit shrank. The shale oil revolution meant that all of a sudden, the U.S. was no longer exporting money.

    And that tide has now turned?

    Yes. Oil production in the U.S. is collapsing. The Texan wildcatters have lost out in the price war against the Saudis and the Russians. U.S. oil production has already gone down 2.5 million barrels per day and is slated to go down by another 2.5 million over the next twelve months, because every major oil company is cutting capital expenditures. Just look at Chevron and Exxon, their capital spending plans over the next five years are at half the level they were in 2014. And so, as the U.S. economy picks up after Covid, America will be importing oil on a massive scale again. The U.S. will be back to exporting $100 to $120 billion to the rest of the world, mostly to places that don’t like America, who will turn around and sell those Dollars for Euros. This is bearish for the Dollar.

    When we see the oil price heading above $50 again, wouldn’t that cause US production to rise?

    You can’t turn up oil production like a tap. It will take at least a couple of years to come back. Plus, shale oil production in the U.S. was hugely capital destructive. More than $350 billion was lost in the shale oil patch over the past ten years. Look at the energy sector today, it’s at 2.5% of the S&P 500. When oil was at $10 per barrel, back in 1999, energy was 5.5% of the S&P 500. So I’m going to answer your question with another question: If oil prices go up, and the U.S. could produce more oil again, it would require hundreds of billions of Dollars in capex. Who will provide that kind of capital, with an incoming Democratic Administration that has been ambivalent about fracking? I don’t see it.

    So we are moving back into a world where the U.S. is a structural oil importer and a Dollar exporter?

    Yes. The seeds are planted. That’s a huge shift that I don’t think people are taking into account yet.

    When the world economy normalizes after the pandemic, where will the oil price settle?

    Before Covid, it seemed that the oil market had found a balance between 60 and 80 $ per barrel.

    Is that the range we’ll head back to?

    I think so, and for a pretty simple reason: Above 80 $, China basically stops buying. That’s a big difference relative to ten to fifteen years ago, when China hadn’t built any sizeable inventory and was a forced buyer of oil. This is no longer the case. In fact, you saw it during the Covid crisis: Between April and June, when the oil price collapsed, China imported about 13 million barrels per day, which was 40% more than normal. Clearly, they were building up inventory, taking advantage of the low price. China is the marginal buyer, and its behaviour is a key driver for the oil price: Above 80 $ they stop buying, and below 60 $ they buy in size. Incidentally, in that range, many oil companies make pretty decent money. Saudi Aramco makes a killing at this price level.

    You see the Dollar in a bear market. Meanwhile, the Renminbi has strengthened significantly. Is that also a structural shift?

    I think so. In the past, every time there was a crisis, the reaction of the People’s Bank of China was to freeze the exchange rate. During and after the global financial crisis, the RMB flatlined against the Dollar at 6.82 for two years. In 2015, when the Chinese equity bubble burst, the RMB was flat for several months. When things went bad, historically, they froze it. Not this year. This year, we saw the sharpest six month RMB rally in history. That is a clear change in policy.

    What’s behind that change?

    I don’t know, but the facts are clear. China today is the only major economy in the world that offers large positive real interest rates. Thus, capital flows into the Chinese bond market. The PBoC is the only major central bank publicly saying they won’t destroy their currency and they won’t proceed to the euthanasia of the rentier. The consequences of this are hugely important. A strong RMB is a fundamentally inflationary force for the world economy.

    How so?

    Manufacturers around the world have to compete with Chinese producers. Therefore, a weak RMB drives prices down, whereas a strong RMB drives prices up. You can compare it to the role of the Yen forty years ago. A stronger RMB means stronger consumption in China and Asia, and it means that whatever we buy from China is going up in price. It’s not surprising that as the RMB rerates, the U.S. yield curve steepens and oil prices go up: It’s all part of the same reflationary backdrop.

    Given this backdrop: Do you see a return of structural inflation in Western economies?

    Yes, I think inflation will come back with a vengeance. One of the key deflationary forces in the past three decades was China. I wrote a book about that in 2005; I was a deflationist then, as my belief was that every company in the world would focus on what they can do best and outsource everything else to China at lower costs. But now, we’re in a new world, a world that I outlined in my last book, Clash of Empires, where supply chains are broken up along the lines of separate empires. Let me give you a simple example: Over the past two years, the US has done everything it could to kill Huawei. It’s done so by cutting off the semiconductor supply chain to Huawei. The consequence is that every Chinese company today is worried about being the next Huawei, not just in the tech space, but in every industry. Until recently, price and quality was the most important consideration in any corporate supply chain. Now we have moved to a world where safety of delivery matters most, even if the cost is higher. This is a dramatic paradigm shift.

    And this paradigm shift will be a key driver for inflation?

    Yes. It adds up to a huge hit to productivity. Productivity is under attack from everywhere, from regulation, from ESG-investors, and now it’s also under attack from security considerations. This would only not be inflationary if on the other side central banks were acting with restraint. But of course we know that central banks are printing money like never before.

    What will that mean for investors?

    First, there will be two kinds of countries going forward: countries that massively monetized the Covid shock and those that did not. I’d compare the picture to the late 1970s, where countries like the U.S., the U.K. or France monetized the oil price shock, while Japan, Germany and Switzerland did not. This led to a huge revaluation of the Yen, the Deutschmark and the Swiss Franc. Today, the Fed and the ECB were among the central banks that massively monetized, while many central banks in Asia did not. So I expect a big revaluation of Asian currencies over the coming five years, which in itself is inflationary for the world. If you look at the U.S. today, inventories are at record lows. With the economy improving in 2021, companies will have to restock, and they will have to restock with a falling Dollar. The Dollar is down 20% to the Mexican Peso over the past six months, down 10% to the Korean Won, down 8% to the RMB, so whatever Americans buy from abroad will be more expensive. Countries with weak currencies, the U.S. first among them, will have higher inflation.

    Where will inflation rates settle?

    I don’t know. There is the idea among central bankers that they can engineer inflation rates around 2.5% and keep them there. I doubt that this will be possible to control. But just for the sake of it, let’s assume they manage to do what they say, that they are the perfect engineers they think they are and get inflation at 2.5% for the next five years. Why on Earth would you want to own Treasuries at 0.9% or German Bunds at below zero? You don’t even have to get to a scenario where inflation accelerates to 4 or 5% to see that bonds are madness today. Even if central banks just manage to do what they say, you are guaranteed to lose money with bonds.

    What should investors do to position themselves in this new world?

    In the old world, where interest rates were falling, the Dollar was strong and oil was weak, you bought Treasuries and U.S. growth stocks and went to the beach. Now, the world has changed. This means you have to stay away from bonds and U.S. growth stocks. In a world of Dollar weakness, you buy emerging market equities and debt, and within emerging markets, I prefer Asia. In a world where either the yield curve will steepen or the Dollar will collapse, either financials or the commodities sector will be doing well. Everything seems to point towards commodities, including energy, but as mentioned, I’d still buy financials as a hedge against a steepening yield curve. So, in a nutshell: Buy value stocks, buy the commodities sector, and buy emerging markets. And for the antifragile part of your portfolio, buy RMB bonds and gold.

    How about Japan?

    Absolutely, Japan is in a stealth bull market, it has been very strong, and nobody talks about it. We never get questions on Japan from clients. I’m a big bull on Japan, it’s not a crowded trade, so I feel comfortable in it. In a world that is reflating, Japan typically does well. And in this unfolding new Cold War between the U.S. and China, Japanese industrial companies are well positioned.

    Aren’t you a bit early in writing off big U.S. tech?

    Growth stocks have had their run in the past ten years, with falling bond yields and a rising Dollar. In a reflationary world, they will underperform. Plus, tech is the main battleground in the war between the U.S. and China. I see the tech world breaking into three separate zones, one dominated by America, one dominated by China and India evolving into a zone by itself. You can own the champions in each zone, which means you can own Amazon or Google for the West, or Tencent in China. In danger are companies that straddle the two worlds. Huawei tried, and we saw it being killed. I see Apple at risk, too. I know I said this to you a year ago, and I turned out to be completely wrong, but I still think Apple is in danger, as it straddles the U.S. and Chinese tech spheres.

    In the middle of this tech war sits Taiwan. What are your thoughts about Taiwan and the semiconductor industry?

    Taiwan today is what Alsace-Lorraine was 120 years ago. There were two hugely important events this year that most people have missed because of the Covid crisis. One, the market value of the global semiconductor industry has moved above the market value of the global energy sector. The market is telling us that semiconductors are more important than energy; they are the commodity of the future. We should think of Taiwan the way we used to think of Saudi Arabia.

    What’s the second important event?

    At the end of 2019, the market value of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing was $200 billion, while the market value of Intel was $350 billion. Today, TSMC is $450 billion, while Intel has dropped to $200 billion. Why? This summer, TSMC came out and said they can produce 7 nanometer chips and will be able to produce 3nm chips in 2023. A week later, Intel came out and said they won’t be able to produce 7nm chips by 2021. So in the summer of 2020, we witnessed the passing of the technological baton from Intel to TSMC. The leadership in the semiconductor industry now belongs to Taiwan.

    Why does this matter?

    It matters because Washington has decided to make semiconductors the battleground in its war against China. And that means that Taiwan is the battleground in the great conflict of the 21st Century, an island that Beijing regards as a renegade province, sitting 60 miles from its shore. Taiwan has always been a sore point between China and the U.S., even when Taiwan produced plastic toys and bicycles. Imagine if Saudi Arabia was a political uncertainty between America and China, where the regime depended on Washington for survival, but the territory was claimed by China. We’d be very worried.

    How will that conflict play out?

    I don’t know what will happen. But I’d just say that the fact that the Trump Administration decided to make semiconductors the battleground in its fight with China strikes me as extremely dangerous, given the fact that the U.S. has just lost the technology leadership baton to Taiwan. That, to me, will be the most important event in 2020, more important than Covid.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/10/2021 – 18:45

  • Watch: Likely Capitol Rioter Booted Off Plane For Being A "Terrorist" 
    Watch: Likely Capitol Rioter Booted Off Plane For Being A “Terrorist” 

    Some pro-Trump rioters who stormed the Capitol complex last week may have already been added to the federal No-Fly List. 

    Last Thursday, Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, released a statement requesting the Transportation Security Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to use their powers to add pro-Trump rioters to the No-Fly List.

    “Given the heinous domestic terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol yesterday, I am urging the Transportation Security Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to use their authorities to add the names of all identified individuals involved in the attack to the federal No-Fly List and keep them off planes,” Thompson said in a statement.

    He added: “Alleged perpetrators of a domestic terrorist attack who have been identified by the FBI should be held accountable.”

    Federal authorities have requested assistance in identifying people “related to violent activity” in the Capitol building. 

    For days, one after another, rioters who stormed the Capitol have been identified and arrested. In particular, the most iconic image of the chaos last week was a man sitting back with his feet on Nancy Pelosi’s desk.

    Days later, the man was arrested by federal authorities. 

    So here’s where things get interesting. 

    A video surfaced on Twitter Sunday via @RayRedacted who said, “People who broke into the Capitol Wednesday are now learning they are on No-Fly lists pending the full investigation. They are not happy about this.” 

    The unidentified man, yelling at an unknown airport about being kicked off a plane because he was labeled a “terrorist.” 

    In the video, the man could be heard saying, “They kicked me off the plane – they called me a f**king terrorist.” 

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    We should remind readers the video has yet to be confirmed.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/10/2021 – 18:33

  • "Don't Panic": Entire Nation Of Pakistan Loses Power In Massive Blackout
    “Don’t Panic”: Entire Nation Of Pakistan Loses Power In Massive Blackout

    Top government officials in Pakistan are urging calm after the entire country was plunged into darkness on Saturday night due to a breakdown in the national power grid.

    “A countrywide blackout has been caused by a sudden plunge in the frequency in the power transmission system,” Pakistan’s Power Minister Omar Ayub Khan announced, according to Reuters.

    Karachi, via AFP

    The blackout is nearly unprecedented as it has impacted over 200 million people across every city, town and village. The last power grid shutdown approaching this size hasn’t been seen since 2015. 

    According to CNN reporting:

    In a statement, the Ministry of Energy said that, according to an initial report, there had been a fault at the Guddu Thermal Power Plant in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province, which had caused power plants across the country to shut down.

    …Efforts are now underway to restore power to various parts of the country. Large swathes of Karachi, the largest city in Pakistan, still do not have power, according to information shared by K-Electric, the company supplying power to the city.

    The report further quoted residents who were witnessing hours-long lines outside gas stations where people were hoping to fuel generators. 

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    “There are long lines outside petrol pumps in the city, cars are queuing as people buy fuel for their back up generators. I was in the line, people have been waiting for hours with petrol cans in hand,” one Karachi resident said.

    A Pakistan airline industry official had said, “All major airports in the country have back up generators,” while noting airports and flights remained operational. 

    As of early Sunday evening (local time) Pakistan’s energy minister said that power had been restored to much of the country, and faulted a significant technical issue. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/10/2021 – 18:20

  • The Swamp Swallowed Trump
    The Swamp Swallowed Trump

    Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,

    You would think that if there’s one group of people who’d recognize a coup if they saw one, it would be the American people. Because their intelligence services have been involved in almost all coups in the world for many decades; let’s say since WWII, to keep it simple.

    Just in the most recent past, they staged and conducted coups in Libya, Ukraine, Syria, Venezuela and many other places (think Bolivia). Libya was the only real “successful” one, thanks to Gaddafi being sodomized with a bayonet, leading to Hillary’s giddy We Came, We Saw, He Died, the by far ugliest face of the US by a mile. That and the open-air slave markets that resulted from sodomizing to death the man who led Africa’s wealthiest country and gave his people benefits that Americans can only dream of.

    And now Hillary’s crew are about to be handed the reins again. Or as Michael Tracey put it: “The new corporate authoritarian liberal-left monoculture is going to be absolutely ruthless – and in 12 days it is merging with the state. This [is] only the beginning.” Duck for cover.

    The screwed-up coups in Ukraine, Syria, Venezuela etc. would appear to signal that the CIA is not very adept (anymore?!) at organizing coups, or maybe they just chronically overestimate their skills at it. Whichever way it may be, they have done more damage to America and its standing in the world than Donald Trump could ever have dreamt of doing.

    So you would think Americans would recognize a coup, but instead they’re the last group of people on the planet who would. Because their media doesn’t present them as coups. They’re labeled as spreading democracy, freedom etc., as standing up against the bad guys, and liberating innocent people -even if many of them die in the process.

    People dying is a feature of these coups, not a bug.

    People get shot, bombed, disappeared, in a word: killed.

    Anyway, it’s way more and better than ironic that all these very deadly CIA-led operations are not labeled coups, but then the clowns and actors spectacle that took place in Washington DC this week, is. Which is possible only because they never told people what a coup actually is. Only then can you make them believe that some wanker in a furry viking helmet outfit is trying to overthrow the government. At the initiative of the democratically elected president, no less.

    Are these people extremists and terrorists or are they clowns and actors? I would lean towards the latter option.

    A coup requires a plan, a playbook, most often elites who think they have a shot at taking over a country, which in turn requires support from at least part of an army. The best these folks could think of was sitting in Pelosi’s office and take selfies.

    That doesn’t make the march on the Capitol a good thing, far from it, but there are a lot of people out there who don’t like the way the president they elected in 2016 has been treated by the MSM, his political opponents, and US intelligence. And after the theater that has been Russiagate, the Mueller debacle and the Zelensky call-based impeachment, maybe that shouldn’t be too surprising.

    The main problem for Trump lately would appear to have been his legal representation. I’ve said all along: let the dice roll where they may, there are many questions surrounding the election and they have the right to go looking for answers to these questions.

    But if you look at what the status is today of what the likes of Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell and Lin Wood have come up with, you think they might as well have been working for the other side. Still, we’ve at least seen the dice roll, and they came up they way they did. The process was allowed to proceed, and this is the outcome. This has misled Trump as well as his followers. They thought there was something substantial -and tanglible- there, because that’s what they were told all along.

    This doesn’t mean the US should continue using voting machines, however. There are many countries that hold elections, and there are very few that either use those machines and/or see their elections contested. There’s a reason for that combination. These things can be manipulated, and they will be if they’re used. Get rid of them or this chapter will be repeated endlessly.

    Then again, it all plays out well for anyone but Trump. And perhaps a few GOP’ers who stood by him.

    You could say, Trump entered the swamp and drowned in it, it swallowed him whole.

    Which is not to say that he’s such a perfect character, hell no, but he was the one and only chance to get rid of the power cabal that is DC. Which is a much bigger danger than he could ever be.

    Where career politicians like Pelosi, Schumer, McConnell and Joe Biden can reside for decades, and be handed ever more handsome amounts of money by the lobbyists who write their laws, which benefit the corporations they work for. Trump was the chance to do at least something about this. They ate him alive.

    Now the story is that Trump is/was the main danger, and that he was attempting a coup against his own government. To finish off the job, after being hunted down by the MSM for 4+ years, social media, for whom unceremoniously dumping Trump, after he was their main attraction for years -at least for clickbait-, was just a business decision dressed in some vague set of moral principles, are now simply deleting him.

    And people cheer that.

    They don’t understand that from now on, as US president you serve at the behest, grace and kindness of the CIA, New York Times and WaPo, but even more that of @jack and Zuckerberg, and not that of the American people. As the noise about an attempted coup allows Team Biden to slip in Sally Yates, Susan Rice and Victoria Nuland and their whole gang of neocon warmongers.

    The entire media focus on Trump served to hide what those people were doing behind the scenes all along. And now it’s time to duck for cover. They’re going to try and impeach him again, and then prosecute him, and erase everything he’s done, cheered on by the same media who never told you what a coup actually is. Because they are a big club, and he’s not in it, and neither are you.

    And if you think you can vent an opinion on social media in the future that doesn’t coincide with that of the big club, perhaps you haven’t been paying attention.

    *  *  *

    We try to run the Automatic Earth on donations. Since ad revenue has collapsed, you are now not just a reader, but an integral part of the process that builds this site. Thank you for your support.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/10/2021 – 17:55

  • Capitol Police Officer Dies By Suicide Just Days After Siege
    Capitol Police Officer Dies By Suicide Just Days After Siege

    Another Capitol Hill police officer has died, just days after one officer was previously killed during the ‘Stop the Steal’ chaos when he was reportedly hit over the head with a fire extinguisher during the Capitol mayhem that has been driving global headlines.

    Officer Howard Liebengood, 51, reportedly died by suicide while off-duty on Saturday, the US Capitol Police (USCP) announced Sunday in an official statement.

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    The USCP has not disclosed the specific cause of death, and it’s unclear the degree to which Liebengood was involved in “front line” events of Wednesday, which saw five total people die, including one woman that was shot by an officer while attempting to breach a high secure area of Congress.

    However, the wording of police sources close to him strongly suggest Liebengood was on duty at Capitol Hill Wednesday, and may have indeed been at the center of events there:

    Punchbowl reporter Jake Sherman says his sources told him Liebengood’s death was a suicide. He died Saturday while off duty.

    Liebengood joined the Department in 2005.

    Former Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer calls Liebengood’s death a “line of duty casualty”… clearly meaning even if it was a suicide there’s a direct connection to the riot.

    “He was assigned to the Senate Division, and has been with the Department since April 2005,” the police statement noted.

    Officer Howie Liebengood in 2014

    “Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family, friends, and colleagues. We ask that his family and other USCP officers’ and their families’ privacy be respected during this profoundly difficult time,” the department’s statement said further.

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    Multiple Congressional leaders have issued statements offering condolences. 

    “I’m saddened to learn about the death of USCP Officer Howard Liebengood. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends. May he rest in peace. Thank you for your service,” Senator Mark Warner (D-Virginia) said.

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    Later in the day Sunday President Trump ordered all flags over federal buildings and US embassies to be flown at half-mast in honor of the two deceased Capitol police officers.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/10/2021 – 17:30

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