Oct 11

Today’s News 11th October 2020

  • Western Allies Block Ex-OPCW Chief's Explosive Testimony On Syria Chemical Weapons
    Western Allies Block Ex-OPCW Chief's Explosive Testimony On Syria Chemical Weapons

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 10/11/2020 – 00:00

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    This past Monday at the UN Security Council, the US, the UK, France, and allies blocked testimony from a former director-general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Jose Bustani is a Brazilian diplomat and was the first director-general of the OPCW, which was formed in 1997.

    Bustani was pushed out of the organization in 2002 by the Bush administration for his efforts to negotiate with Saddam Hussein. The Brazilian was prepared to deliver testimony to the UN Security Council on Monday over the OPCW’s investigation into an alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria, in April 2018.

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    The US, UK, and France responded to the alleged Douma attack with airstrikes on Syrian government targets. After the strike, OPCW inspectors arrived in Douma to investigate.

    Since the OPCW released its final report on the alleged Douma attack in March 2019, a trove of leaked documents have surfaced. The leaks, along with whistleblower testimony, suggest the OPCW suppressed evidence and ignored the findings of senior inspectors to fit the narrative that the Syrian government carried out a chemical attack in Douma.

    In October 2019, Bustani attended a panel hosted by the Courage Foundation that heard testimony from an OPCW whistleblower who presented evidence that the Douma investigation was corrupted. After hearing the evidence, the panel released a statement urging the OPCW to revisit its investigation into the Douma incident.

    The Grayzone published Bustani’s prepared statement that he was blocked from delivering at the UN Security Council. In his statement, Bustani urges Fernando Arias, the current OPCW director-general, to hear out the inspectors who were on the ground in Douma and had their findings suppressed:

    “I would like to make a personal plea to you, Mr Fernando Arias, as Director General of the OPCW. The inspectors are among the Organization’s most valuable assets. As scientists and engineers, their specialist knowledge and inputs are essential for good decision making.”

    “Most importantly, their views are untainted by politics or national interests. They only rely on the science. The inspectors in the Douma investigation have a simple request – that they be given the opportunity to meet with you to express their concerns to you in person, in a manner that is both transparent and accountable.”

    Read the full transcript of Bustani’s testimony here.

  • Visualizing The State Of 5G Networks Worldwide
    Visualizing The State Of 5G Networks Worldwide

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 10/10/2020 – 23:30

    By 2025, the world will reach 1.8 billion 5G connections – led by Developed Asia and North America, two regions that could each see nearly half of mobile connections operating on 5G networks.

    This sweeping rollout relies on infrastructure capacities, and, as Visual Capitalist’s Iman Ghosh notes, many operators are buying in big to usher in 5G adoption. This infographic from Raconteur covers where we are on the roadmap towards 5G becoming mainstream, and which regions are leading the way in connectivity.

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    Commercial Launches of 5G Networks

    From its earliest iterations to the Internet of Things, we’ve surpassed three generations of wireless networks. Now, 5G is at a tipping point.

    5G is unique in that in order to actually start using the network, you need a device that works on it—unlike previous generations where they could simply switch over. Moreover, carriers need to invest in the infrastructure to optimize network access and the density of devices using it.

    As more operators buy into the technology, the latter is finally beginning to happen in some areas. Here’s how the total numbers break down across the world, as of mid-September 2020:

    • 397 operators are investing in 5G mobile or 5G fixed wireless access/home broadband networks

    • 118 operators have announced the deployment of 5G within their live network

    • 96 operators have announced 3GPP (protocols for mobile telecomms) 5G service launches

    Major phone operators and even tech companies are behind accelerating this change, from Vodafone to Verizon—and most recently, Microsoft has entered the playing field.

    Cross-Generational Mobile Connections, By Region

    As Cisco highlights, there’s more room to grow yet. By 2023, North America will have the highest share of 5G networks, at 17% within the region.

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    *Low-power wide-area (LPWA) networks are a generic type of network that can coexist across 2G, 3G, and 4G. Network shares may not add up due to rounding.

    Meanwhile, the Middle East and Africa could have the most catching up to do, with 73% of the region still operating on 3G networks or less in 2023. The good news? Commercial 5G trials in Nigeria may signal the potential of networks leapfrogging ahead.

    Need for Speed

    As the number of 5G networks tick up, there will be an undeniable boost to mobile and broadband speeds (Mbps) across regions by 2023. In particular, Asia Pacific will have the fastest broadband speeds at 157 Mbps while Western Europe will lead with 62 Mbps on mobile.

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    Faster speeds is one of several factors catapulting the promise of 5G networks to unlock transformations across entire industries, from manufacturing to healthcare.

    What further advancements could dial reach region’s share of 5G networks all the way up?

  • 'Non-Partisan' Chairman Of Presidential Debate Commission Linked To Steele Dossier & More…
    'Non-Partisan' Chairman Of Presidential Debate Commission Linked To Steele Dossier & More…

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 10/10/2020 – 23:00

    White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany dared to ‘spew’ what many call ‘hate speech’ this week when she tweeted about the extreme and obvious bias (some might say it’s systemic) from the Commission on Presidential Debates…

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    What drove Kayleigh to such un-presidential comments? Hmm, let’s see… <sarcasm off>

    • Chris Wallace, moderator of the first presidential debate, was widely panned for his non-centrist bias during the chaotic to and fro. Having expressly stated before the event that he wouldn’t operate as a fact-checker, that’s all he did for at least the first hour of the debate;  interrupting Trump but not Biden at nearly every turn, blocking the incumbent before he could correct mischaracterizations and flat-out lies from Biden, to full-throated arguments with the president despite lobbing soft-ball questions — or no questions at all — to the former vice president, Wallace’s presentation was appalling.

    • Susan Page, moderator the vice-presidential debate, was far better than Wallace but, aside from the fact the fact she is Nancy Pelosi’s biographer, her bias was exposed numerous times including highlighting the horrid state of the economy without mentioning that the economy was historically booming before COVID-lockdowns were enforced, cutting off VP Pence numerous times and allowing Senator Harris to escape answering key questions (will you pack the courts?).

    • Steve Scully, moderator for the second presidential debate, had previously interned for Joe Biden and tweeted a ‘Never-Trump’ article in 2016 “No, Not Trump, Not Ever”, was caught red-handed in an accidental public tweet to none other than disgrintled former White House Comms Director Anthony Scaramucci on “responding to Trump” (which he later claimed was a hack – the third time the so-called reporter’s account had been hacked).

    • And finally, the Commission on Presidential Debates has now refused to change the format of the second presidential debate from ‘virtual’, directly ignoring the ‘science’ and the words of the ‘doctors’ who plainly said Trump is healthy (all of which has led to the cancellation of the second debate).

    So, is it just us that puts all of this together and suspects an ever-so-modest amount of systemic bias within the commission against the president and for ‘anyone-but-Trump’?

    Well, it just got a whole lot more real, as Revolver.com reports, it turns out the chairman of the Presidential Debate Commission is co-founder an organization called “Color Revolution” which has strong links to the Steele Dossier and more…

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    The nominally Republican Chairman of Presidential Debate Commission, Frank Fahrenkopf, is both a co-founder and current board member of the International Republican Institute (IRI), a top “Color Revolution” propaganda outfit. The IRI was run by Never Trump neoconservative John McCain for decades. It is closely linked to the thoroughly discredited Steele Dossier at the center of the Russia Hoax.

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    Frank Fahrenkopf, Co-Chair of Commission on Presidential Debates, Co-Founder of National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and International Republican Institute (IRI).

    At first glance, it might appear as though Fahrenkopf’s Republican Party membership, combined with his board membership at the International Republican Institute, lends him, and by extension the Debate Commission, some semblance of balance.

    The Debate Commission’s board has a Republican Co-Chair and a Democrat co-Chair, creating the appearance of fairness and bipartisanship. Nothing could be further from the truth. Bipartisanship in the Trump era all too often means that the corrupt establishment elements of both parties join arms to undermine Trump and his agenda. A Debate Commission consisting of John McCain and Hillary Clinton would be technically bipartisan, but it would not be balanced when it comes to Trump and his supporters. Globalist Republicans and globalist Democrats have far more in common with each other than they do with Trump.

    Our choice of John McCain in this example was not arbitrary. As it turns out, the late Senator John McCain served as the Chairman of the Board of the International Republican Institute for 25 years.

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    Just months before he died, John McCain took to Twitter to scold the Trump Administration for allegedly defunding the organization.

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    The Washington Post article in the above tweet reveals that George Soros’ Open Society Foundation was furious that Trump would dare to “downscale” a “democracy promotion event” at the State Department.

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    Source: The Washington Post

    Perhaps McCain was just standing up for his friend Soros, who, incidentally, was a major contributor to the McCain Foundation.

    That the current Co-Chair of the Debate Commission Frank Fahrenkopf is himself a sitting board member and Co-Founder of IRI offers insight into just what kind of Republican he is and what sort of balance his Chairmanship really provides — in reality it weighs the scales even more heavily against Trump.

    Fahrenkopf’s colleagues on the IRI board include Lindsey Graham, H.R. McMaster, and Senator Mitt Romney. This does not exactly inspire confidence for Trump supporters. By now, it is very clear exactly the type of Republican this organization caters to.

    One of Fahrenkopf’s colleagues on the IRI board is especially outrageous — a man by the name of David Kramer.

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    David Kramer, Board Member, International Republican Institute.

    Kramer was an aide to the late Senator John McCain. He is most notorious for spreading the completely discredited Steele Dossier that served as the basis for the Russia Hoax.

    David Kramer, the John McCain aide who leaked the discredited Christopher Steele dossier on President Trump, testified in a libel case that he spread the unsubstantiated anti-Trump material all over Washington during the presidential transition.

    Mr. Kramer, a former State Department official and a Trump detractor, leaked dossier material to the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post’s Fred Hiatt, CNN’s Carl Bernstein, National Public Radio, McClatchy news service and others, he said. [AP]

    Prior to his role at IRI, Kramer served as head of yet another “democracy promotion” NGO called Freedom House. In the following clip, Kramer offers some additional insight on where he stands politically. He notes that Freedom House was founded to fight four “isms” — fascism, nazism, communism and … isolationism. Isolationism is of course a smear word used to refer to the position of people like President Trump and the majority of the American people who reject the Bush-McCain foreign policy of forever wars and democracy promotion. That Kramer would conflate this position with nazism and communism is quite remarkable.

    We could go into quite a bit more on this maniacally unhinged globalist, but for now we will turn to another recent member of IRI’s board named Scott Carpenter:

    Scott Carpenter is the director of free expression at Google Ideas where he drives implementation of the team’s overall strategy to make online repressive censorship irrelevant.  Prior to joining Google, Carpenter founded and directed Project Fikra as the Keston family fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, where he remains an adjunct scholar. [IRI]

    For those unfamiliar, “Google Ideas” is the precursor to Google Jigsaw, which is Google’s in-house think tank tasked with developing Artificial Intelligence technology to censor so-called “toxic hate speech” online. Revolver briefly covered the Jigsaw program and its founder Jared Cohen in a recent piece as follows:

    Infamously biased anti-Trump Tech behemoth Google sponsors a project known as Jigsaw whose main purpose is to develop Artificial Intelligence capabilities to censor so-called “hate speech” online. Of course, hate speech is weakly defined, and almost always ends up casting a wide net. Inevitably, those censored tend to be Trump supporters concerned with law and order, fighting open borders, and ending America’s wars. The man who runs Jigsaw, Jared Cohen, is a veteran of Hillary Clinton’s State Department. Cohen made a name for himself in developing digital strategies to advance American national security objectives. [Revolver News]

    CNBC has more on Jigsaw.

    Jigsaw, a technology incubator within Alphabet, says it has developed a new tool for web publishers to identify toxic comments that can undermine a civil exchange of ideas. Starting Thursday, publishers can start applying for access to use Jigsaw’s software, called Perspective, without charge.

    “We have more information and more articles than any other time in history, and yet the toxicity of the conversations that follow those articles are driving people away from the conversation,” said Jared Cohen, president of Jigsaw, formerly known as Google Ideas. [CNBC]

    Carpenter’s name no longer appears on IRI’s listing of board members. His official Twitter page now lists his current title as Managing Director at Jigsaw. To get a sense of what this (former?) board member of the International Republican Institute and current managing director of Google’s AI tool to censor “hate speech” thinks about Trump, see the following tweet.

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    “Bipartisan” opposition to Trump, just as we suspected. Here is another instructive tweet, retweeted and endorsed by Carpenter.

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    Michael Hayden, readers will recall, is a virulently anti-Trump former head of the CIA and NSA.

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    This consummate Deep State operative oversaw the development of the massive domestic surveillance program that he lied about both to foreign leaders and to the American people.

    Hayden has a long history of making misleading and outright false statements, and by the estimation of many lawyers, likely committed countless felonies during the Bush administration. It is something of a wonder that someone responsible for so many reprehensible acts is now considered a totally above-the-fray, honest commentator on all issues intelligence. [Columbia Journalism Review]

    While we don’t know whether Scott Carpenter is still on the board of IRI, we do know that he was recently appointed to the board of its parent NGO, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

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    The IRI is one of four grantees of the NED, and is therefore entirely dependent on it for its funding. The NED is one of the major NGO arms advancing US Government objectives abroad, particularly by supporting the Color Revolution regime change model (more on that later). NED was founded to function as a new, improved CIA.

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    This provides more context to NED and Scott Carpenter’s approving quote of former CIA Director Hayden.

    NED’s mandate is to focus on “democracy promotion” (Color Revolutions) abroad, but it couldn’t keep from weighing in on the death of George Floyd as BLM and Antifa terrorists were burning down Minneapolis.

    The brutal killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis has provoked an outpouring of anger and rage that the United States has not seen since the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. more than fifty years ago. Our democracy is  being tested as never before in the memory of most living Americans. We will not overcome this crisis and begin to heal our divided nation unless the four police officers responsible for the killing of George Floyd are prosecuted to the full extent of the law,
    and unless America commits itself fully to the principles of racial justice and equality for all citizens.

    The NED’s mission of supporting people around the world who are fighting for democracy is
    based upon the same values of freedom and human equality that inspired the movement for civil rights that ended the Jim Crow system of legalized racial segregation and discrimination in the United States. Those values are rooted in the American creed, and it was by appealing to them that the civil rights movement achieved its historic breakthrough. But much more needs to be done to carry forward the struggle to end racism. By doing so, we will be more united and stronger as a country. [NED]

    The current President of the International Republican Institute, the grant subsidiary of NED, fully concurs.

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    Twining, the current head of the IRI, was previously at the Soros-funded German Marshall Fund, whose Vice President recently had this say about President Trump.

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    Prior to his employment at the German Marshall Fund, Twining distinguished himself as a legislative aide for arch-neoconservative and Trump nemesis Senator John McCain!

    By now we have a good idea of what the IRI is about, and have gained a deeper sense of just what a scandal it is that the “Republican” co-chair and co-founder of the Debate Commission, Frank Fahrenkopf, is also a sitting board member and co-founder of this shadowy organization. The IRI is deeply and intimately associated with one of Trump’s most vicious rivals, whose board members have promoted the discredited Steele dossier and are openly supporting Biden on Twitter.

    IRI’s official stated position on the George Floyd issue is directly in keeping with the rhetorical narratives fueling the Antifa and BLM fires that are part and parcel of the Color Revolution against Trump. The notion that Fahrenkopf’s status as a registered Republican provides any kind balance when it comes to the presidential debates is laughable and absurd.

    But the story is actually much bigger and more sinister than even the above would suggest. Indeed, the IRI and the Debate Commission are not merely partisan. Careful readers will have already picked up a disturbing national security element to the IRI and its parent NGO, the National Endowment for Democracy.

    Both the IRI and the NED function primarily as organizations to promote Color Revolutions abroad. The term “Color Revolution” requires a brief bit of explanation for readers who have not yet read Revolver News’ series on the Color Revolution regime change model and its role in the coup against Trump.

    First, a quick note on Color Revolutions. A “Color Revolution” in this context refers to a specific type of coordinated attack that the United States government has been known to deploy against foreign regimes, particularly in Eastern Europe deemed to be “authoritarian” and hostile to American interests. Rather than using a direct military intervention to effect regime change as in Iraq, Color Revolutions attack a foreign regime by contesting its electoral legitimacy, organizing mass protests and acts of civil disobedience, and leveraging media contacts to ensure favorable coverage to their agenda in the Western press.

    It would be disturbing enough to note a coordinated effort to use these exact same strategies and tactics domestically to undermine or overthrow President Trump. The ominous nature of what we see unfolding before us only truly hits home when one realizes that the people who specialize in these Color Revolution regime change operations overseas are, literally, the very same people attempting to overthrow Trump by using the very same playbook. [Revolver News]

    The IRI is clearly a Color Revolution outfit, as it is one of the most prominent United States government-linked NGOs tasked with providing “democratization support” abroad. Rudimentary research on the IRI — or even a brief scroll through its Twitter feed — reveals its obsession with such efforts overseas. Here is a representative tweet from IRI President Twining.

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    The fixation on Belarus, whose combination of a contested election scenario and massive “peaceful protests” bears all the hallmarks of a Color Revolution, is revealing. We urge readers to read Revolver’s first Color Revolution installment, The Curious Case of George Kent, for further context:

    The similarity between the Atlanticist-backed Belarus riots and the way the organized ANTIFA and BLM protests operate in the United States is impossible to ignore. Indeed, many of the Color Revolution experts currently fixated on Belarus have explicitly made this comparison in relation to the United States. The Transatlantic Democracy Working Group (more about them later) is a deeply anti-Trump so-called “bipartisan” group that is essentially a Who’s Who of every influential Color Revolution regime-change NGO in the World.

    …

    Many have noticed theoretical parallels and similarities between how US State Department and associated Atlanticist NGOs run color revolutions in foreign countries, and the sustained operations targeted against Trump in the United States. The case of George Kent — and many others to be exposed in this series — demonstrates that these similarities are not merely theoretical—they literally involve the same people! The very same people running cover revolution operations in Ukraine and Eastern Europe have been using the very same playbook to overturn 2016 and destroy the legitimacy of President Trump’s election.

    And guess who runs the Belarus station at the State Department? If you guessed star never Trump impeachment witness George Kent, the “color revolution professional,” you might be right. [Revolver News]

    In his tweet above, Twining favorably quotes David Kramer, his fellow board member at IRI who shopped the Steele Dossier. Kramer once served in a diplomatic post in Eastern Europe. In fact, almost every major operative in the effort to overthrow Trump has or has had a diplomatic post in Eastern Europe. Kramer happened to serve from 2005-2008 as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of European and Eurasian Affairs — working on issues related to Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. George Kent currently occupies this very same post. What a coincidence!

    Revolver’s Color Revolution thesis explains why there is such an overlap between State Department officials focused on Eastern Europe and key never-Trump operatives — from Lt. Colonel Vindman to Fiona Hill to Yovanovich to George Kent and David Kramer. They are running an Eastern European-style Color Revolution against Trump because they are Color Revolution professionals used to deploying the same strategies and tactics against target regimes in Eastern Europe.

    Note the name McFaul in the above Belarus Tweet. Michael McFaul is yet another professional covered in Revolver’s previous reports. Also note the wording of the title of the NBC News piece referenced in the Tweet: “Belarus is on the edge of a democratic breakthrough.”

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    McFaul elucidated precisely what he meant by a “democratic breakthrough” in a deleted tweet that was perhaps too honest about his intentions.

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    If you are still unconvinced that IRI and its parent NGO, the National Endowment for Democracy aren’t principally Color Revolution outfits, consider these passages from the Senate Subcommittee on European Affairs from July 29, 1999. In this remarkable exchange, Soros representative J. Fox explains to Senator Joe Biden the role of organizations like IRI, NED, and IRI’s sister NGO, NDI in the “democracy promotion” process.

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    Here Biden calls to give Serbia’s “peaceful protesters” walking money to facilitate their overthrow of Milosevic.

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    And here is Biden learning about the NED, IRI, and NDI from Soros Foundation representative Fox, who details the IRI-NDI operational procedures to Biden.

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    Continuing along this line, Fox complains that the resources devoted to Color Revolution NGOs like NED and IRI in Croatia have not yet been deployed in Serbia (Spoiler Alert: they got their way and effected a Color Revolution against Milosevic called “Otpor!”).

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    It is worth noting that in Color Revolution craft, the terms “democracy” and “democratization,” like the term “peaceful protest,” are actually terms of art. As McFaul’s own tweet suggests, “democratic breakthrough” is the preferred euphemism for Color Revolution. Here is additional insight on how and why these people use the word “democracy,” taken from the third installment of Revolver’s Color Revolution series.

    And there we have it, folks—Norm Eisen, former Obama Ethics Czar, Ambassador to Czechoslovakia during the “Velvet Revolution,” key counsel in impeachment effort against Trump, and participant in the ostensibly bi-partisan election war games predicting a contested election scenario unfavorable to Trump—just happens to be a Color Revolution expert who literally wrote the modern “Playbook” in the explicitly acknowledged tradition of Color Revolution Godfather Gene Sharp’s “From Dictatorship to Democracy.” 

    Before we turn to the contents of Norm Eisen’s Color Revolution manual, full title “The Democracy Playbook: Preventing and Reversing Democratic Backsliding,” it will be useful to make a brief point regarding the term “democracy” itself, which happens to appear in the title of Gene Sharp’s book “From Dictatorship to Democracy” as well.

    Just like the term “peaceful protestor,” which, as we pointed out in our George Kent essay is used as a term of craft in the Color Revolution context, so is the term “democracy” itself. The US Government launches Color Revolutions against foreign targets irrespective of whether they actually enjoy the support of the people or were elected democratically. In the case of Trump, whatever one says about him, he is perhaps the most “democratically” elected President in America’s history. Indeed, in 2016 Trump ran against the coordinated opposition of the establishments of both parties, the military industrial complex, the corporate media, Hollywood, and really every single powerful institution in the country. He won, however, because he was able to garner sufficient support of the people—his true and decisive power base as a “populist.” Precisely because of the ultra democratic “populist” character of Trump’s victory, the operatives attempting to undermine him have focused specifically on attacking the democratic legitimacy of his victory.

    In this vein we ought to note that the term “democratic backsliding,” as seen in the subtitle of Norm Eisen’s book, and its opposite “democratic breakthrough” are also terms of art in the Color Revolution lexicon. We leave the full exploration of how the term “democratic” is used deceptively in the Color Revolution context (and in names of decidedly anti-democratic/populist institutions) as an exercise to the interested reader. Michael McFaul, another Color Revolution expert and key anti-Trump operative somewhat gives the game away in the following tweet in which the term “democratic breakthrough” makes an appearance as a better sounding alternative to “Color Revolution.” [Revolver News]

    We conclude this installment by returning to the key subject of the piece, Debate Commission Co-Chair and Co-Founder Frank Fahrenkopf.

    The fact that Fahrenkopf is chair of the Commission on Presidential Debates and a co-founder and current board member of IRI takes on a more interesting and sinister overtone when we consider the affiliation of his co-chair, Kenneth Wollack.

    Prior to his appointment as Co-Chair of the Commission on Presidential debates, Wollack Served as President of the National Democratic Institute (NDI). Like the IRI, the NDI is also an NGO whose purpose is to aid “democracy” efforts overseas — in other words, to serve as a propaganda arm promoting Color Revolution efforts on behalf of the US Government.

    Although the IRI is staffed mostly with Republicans and NDI mostly with Democrats, the IRI and NDI are “sister organizations” as two of the four core grantees of the National Endowment for Democracy, which is itself a major umbrella group responsible for aiding Color Revolution efforts. In fact, Debate Commission Co-Chair and Co-Founder Frank Fahrenkopf also co-founded the National Endowment for Democracy, and served as board member and vice chair from 1983-1993.

    What does all of this mean? For one, it is rather odd that the commission would have one chair, Fahrenkopf, who co-founded NED and who still sits on the board of IRI, which he also co-founded, and another Chair, Kenneth Wollack, who previously ran NDI. In fact, Fahrenkopf co-founded the Commission on Presidential Debates with Paul Kirk, who, like Wollack, had previously served as President of NDI. Taken alone, the deeply rooted connections between the Commission on Presidential Debates and Color Revolution NGOs (IRI, NDI, NED) would be suspicious in its own right.

    This connection becomes positively explosive, however, when one considers it within the context of Revolver’s thesis that the coup being run against Trump is based on the Color Revolution regime change model. The same people, the same networks, and the same institutions tasked with Color Revolutions abroad are the key players in deploying the same strategies here at home against our democratically elected President, Donald J. Trump. As we have shown in this fourth installment of the series, these biased debates are literally being run by the people and institutions tasked with revolutionary propaganda efforts abroad — and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

    Stay tuned.

  • 50 Richest Americans Now Worth More Than Poorest 165 Million 
    50 Richest Americans Now Worth More Than Poorest 165 Million 

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 10/10/2020 – 22:30

    If readers want more evidence that the current economic system is rigged towards the working poor, well, look no further: New Federal Reserve data shows how these monetary wizards exacerbated the wealth gap during the virus pandemic via unprecedented quantitative easing programs. 

    Never before has the Fed unleashed so much monetary stimulus in a given quarter (2Q20) to shield the economy from the virus-induced downturn. The result is a “K-shaped” recovery, disproportionately affecting low-wage service workers and households of color, while billionaires, cent millionaires, and millionaires added record wealth. The Fed’s monetary interventions resulted in surging stock and other asset prices, while those who owned no assets did not participate in the “V” recovery. 

    Earlier this week, Swiss bank UBS and accounting firm PwC published a new report that showed the wealth of the world’s 2,189 billionaires jumped to a new record high of $10.2 trillion in July, surpassing the $8.9 trillion record at the end of 2017. 

    It was only when the world’s central banks aggressively expanded their balance sheets, beginning in March, that the rich got richer… 

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    Bloomberg notes that the Fed data shows the top 1% of Americans are worth $34.2 trillion, while the poorest 50%, around 165 million people, control about $2.08 trillion, or less than 2% of all household wealth. 

    Meanwhile, the 50 wealthiest people in the country are worth almost $2 trillion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, up $339 billion from the start of 2020. Tesla’s Elon Musk is a prime example of a billionaire who saw his wealth rapidly increase this year, up $75.6 billion year-to-date, to $103 billion. 

    50 Richest Americans Wealth Surge 

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    Bloomberg Billionaires Index

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    Covid-19 has exacerbated the already worsening inequality issues in the U.S. If it’s monetary or fiscal, the transmission of stimulus has primarily flowed to society’s wealthiest. The rich got richer, and the working-poor got poorer. Tens of millions of working poor households were handed lousy $1,200 checks, with many folks still without jobs, depleted emergency savings, food insecurity issues, and millions at risk of eviction.

    The wealthiest 1% saw their wealth erupt earlier this year as they own about 50% of all stocks and mutual funds. The top 9% own about a third of stocks, which means the top 10% of Americans own about 88% of stocks. 

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    Fed Chair Jerome Powell warned Tuesday that the “pandemic is further widening divides in wealth and economic mobility,” calling for more “government aid” to thwart a waning recovery.

    “A long period of unnecessarily slow progress could continue to exacerbate existing disparities in our economy,” Powell said. 

    The system is deeply flawed. The “K” recovery is the result of socialism and central planning. The Fed and federal governments coming blowback by enriching the elites via failed policy during the virus pandemic on the backs of the financially crushed working poor could result in additional social instabilities. 

  • Crane Counts In North American Cities Drop For First Time Since 2017
    Crane Counts In North American Cities Drop For First Time Since 2017

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 10/10/2020 – 22:00

    By Zachary Phillips of ConstructionDive,

    Data in brief:

    • For the first time since July 2017, the number of cranes in North American cities has decreased, according to Rider Levett Bucknall’s newest crane count. The biannual count dropped by 40 cranes, 455 to 415, from Q1 to Q3 2020.

    • Toronto still holds the crown for most cranes in a North American city, with 124, towering above all other metropolitan areas recorded. Of the 14 measured cities, only Phoenix, Seattle, Toronto and Washington, D.C., saw an increase in the number of cranes.

    • Five of the 14 cities — Chicago, Denver, Las Vegas, New York and San Francisco — experienced what RLB called a “significant decrease,” dropping between 27% and 76%.

    Although projects across North America have resumed after being stalled by coronavirus restrictions this spring, RLB’s report said “the pandemic-induced recession is expected to have far-reaching effects.” For example, lenders are less likely to provide support for large developments and projects in significantly impacted sectors like sports and hospitality.

    “The next weeks are going to be crucial for the future of the construction industry, especially regarding the provision of another economic support stimulus package from the federal government,” Julian Anderson, president of RLB’s North American region, told Construction Dive.

    “If there is [a stimulus package], then I am hopeful that the recession will be shallow; if not, then I am concerned that the construction industry will be in for tough times in the new year.”

    The RLB data is in line with other recent reports showing that construction starts in some U.S. metro areas have been negatively impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak. Starts in the top 20 metropolitan areas posted a decline of 22% through the first six months of 2020 compared to the same period a year ago, according to Dodge Data and Analytics. After a normal start to the year, the drop began in March as a direct result of the coronavirus pandemic.

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    The Dodge analysis showed that out of the country’s major markets, only Phoenix was spared from declines brought on by COVID-19. 

    Meanwhile, Toronto’s vastly higher number of cranes likely has to do with high-rise condos, Anderson said. The strength and local importance of the condo market makes Toronto a “localized anomaly” in the North American market, though the trend is the same in other parts of the world, such as Australia, he said.

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    Other key findings of the report include: 

    • Healthcare projects experienced an increase of 38% compared with Q1 data.

    • Residential projects accounted for 40% of all cranes counted, the most of any sector.

    • Mixed-use projects accounted for the second most of any sector at 25%.

    • Transportation projects increased by 80% compared with Q1.

    • Civil projects dropped by 40% 

    • Cultural projects saw a 38% decrease.

    • Sports projects dropped from seven to zero.

  • White House Doctor Says Trump No Longer At Risk Of Transmitting The Coronavirus
    White House Doctor Says Trump No Longer At Risk Of Transmitting The Coronavirus

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 10/10/2020 – 21:35

    In a statement posted at 8:50pm on Saturday night, Trump’s personal physician Sean Conley said that President Trump meets  “CDC criteria for the safe discontinuation of isolation”, “is no longer considered a transmission risk to others” and and that advanced diagnostic tests show “there is no longer evidence of actively replicating virus.”

    Trump has been fever-free for well over 24 hours and all symptoms have improved, Conley said in the memorandum published by the White House. Also, testing throughout his illness has shown “decreasing and now undetectable” viral loads.

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    Members of the anti-Trump press were quick to point out that the statement does not mention when last negative Covid-19 test was…

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    … while some pedantically mused whether Trump had a fever yesterday based on the letter’s phrasing.

    The statement came just hours after the Pres addressed a campaign-style rally on the South Lawn from the WH Balcony.

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    The announcement is unlikely to change the view of the Commission on Presidential Debates, which on Friday canceled the second debate between Trump and Biden after the President declined to do a virtual debate over alleged concerns about his Covid-19 diagnosis, resulting in ever louder allegations that the “bipartisan” commission is anything but bipartisan in the aftermath of “Never Trump” C-Span anchor Steve Scully’s “hacked” twitter gaffe, and Bob Dole’s tweeted admission that none of the Republicans on the commission support Donald Trump.

  • The US Plans To Deliver Weapons Anywhere On Earth In 1 Hour
    The US Plans To Deliver Weapons Anywhere On Earth In 1 Hour

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 10/10/2020 – 21:30

    The United States military wants to be able to deliver massive amounts of advanced weaponry and military cargo to any location across the globe in less than one hour.

    The Department of Defense announced this week it is teaming up with Elon Musk’s SpaceX in order to develop a rocket capable of traveling 7,500 miles per hour, but which can simultaneously transport 80 tons of cargo.

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    SpaceX/NASA file image

    “Think about moving the equivalent of a C-17 payload anywhere on the globe in less than an hour,” General Stephen Lyons, head of US Transportation Command, said in a virtual defense conference this week. “I can tell you SpaceX is moving very, very rapidly in this area. I’m really excited about the team that’s working with SpaceX.”

    This would essentially involve aircraft which is capable of hauling military cargo through orbit, further with hardware the size of tanks aboard.

    The example being widely cited is that while currently the fastest large military transport plane would complete a 7,652-mile journey from Cape Canaveral, Florida, to Bagram airbase in Afghanistan in 15 hours, the new SpaceX planned system could be capable of accomplishing it merely one hour.

    The US government also signed a contract with a company called Exploration Architecture Corporation (XArc) for work on the at this point highly theoretical concept.

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    The plan was announced on the heels of SpaceX also landing a $149 million contract for developing missile-tracking satellites with the Pentagon.

    Meanwhile, Gen. Lyons touted that a “proof of principle” test could be unveiled to the world as soon as next year, though clearly such an ambitious technological innovation is likely decades away from being realized and put into operation. 

    Should such a technology become operational, it would likely fall under the domain of Trump’s recently establish Space Force, the DoD’s sixth military branch to be established.

  • "Patriot Rally" Attendee Killed By Security Guard In Denver
    "Patriot Rally" Attendee Killed By Security Guard In Denver

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 10/10/2020 – 21:21

    Update (2230ET): The shooter has been reported to be a bodyguard for a local news reporter with no affiliation to Antifa, according to the Denver Police.

    The private security guard in custody was contracted through Pinkerton by 9NEWS. It has been the practice of 9NEWS for a number of months to contract private security to accompany staff at protests.

    DPD originally took two people into custody and later found the second individual, a 9NEWS producer who works in the investigative unit, was not involved in the incident. The producer is no longer in police custody and is not a suspect. –9News

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    It appears that during an altercation, the Patriot rally attendee slapped the bodyguard, who pulled his gun, got maced, then fired on the man.

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    (Photos: Helen H. Richardson/MediaNews)

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    *  *  *

    Update (2205ET): Shortly after shots rang out, at least one presumed leftist could be heard celebrating that the man was “shot right in the fuckin’ dome.”

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    *  *  *

    A man initially reported as a participant in a Denver “Patriot Rally” was shot and killed by another man on Saturday near the Denver Art Museum, according to the Denver Post.  A suspect, an employee of 9News, is in custody. Early reporting suggested that the suspect was an Antifa participant in an anti-police counter-rally, however the Post has updated their report to say that the shooter’s affiliation is unknown after police took issue with the initial characterization.

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    Video of the incident appears to show the man drawing and spraying pepper spray at a shot rang out.

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    Update: A Denver Post staff member witnessed the fatal confrontation. This story has been updated after authorities called into question the accuracy of that journalist’s report concerning the affiliation of the shooter.

    In a news conference after the incident, division Chief Joe Montoya, said police could not confirm the shooter’s or the victim’s affiliations, but said the incident started as a verbal altercation. Two guns were found at the scene, he said, as well as a mace can.

    When asked about the 9News report, Montoya said he could not confirm any connection, only saying that the department was still interviewing witnesses. One of those witnesses was a Denver Post photojournalist.

    “We’re hopeful that as soon as possible we can get the factual information out as to what led to this — who the individuals involved were,” Montoya said. “We’re hopeful that that information will help kind of calm the waters a little bit.” –Denver Post

    According to The Denver Channel, several police officers in riot gear were already on the scene when the shooting occurred attempting to perform crowd control.

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    Suspect surrendering

    The shooting his being investigated as a homicide, while charges have yet to be filed against the suspect.

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  • Doug Casey On What Happens After The Election
    Doug Casey On What Happens After The Election

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 10/10/2020 – 21:00

    Authored by Doug Casey via InternationalMan.com,

    Whenever a really radical group takes over—and the Democrats are serious radicals—they try to cement themselves in power. I’ve explained my reasons for believing the Democrats are going to win, and it only takes a small number of people working as a cadre to do it. I’d like to discuss what happens next.

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    At the time of the Russian Revolution, the hardcore Bolsheviks only numbered in the hundreds. That was enough to take control of a hundred million Russians and stay in power for 70 years until they totally ran the wheels off the economy.

    The same thing happened with Fidel Castro in Cuba. He landed with only 50 or 60 guys, but once he took over the country, his apparatchiks were able to keep control of it.

    Serious populists, socialists, Marxists, and other authoritarians can pull that off because they’re completely unbound by conventional notions of morality. They sincerely believe the ends justify the means, and nothing is off the table when it comes to gaining and maintaining power. They always say they’re working for the people and invariably promise lots of free stuff. The hoi polloi want to hear that during a crisis—like the one we’re entering. When things get tumultuous, once they’re in, it’s almost impossible to get them out. Democracy—which is a sham anyway in today’s world—be damned.

    If the positions discussed by the twenty final contenders for their presidential nomination are any indication, the Democratic Party has been completely captured by leftists like AOC and her gang of four, who really want to change the very nature of the US. If they win, they’ll be able to do so.

    In order to succeed in an American Purple Revolution, they’ll need to cement themselves in place. It takes time for cement to dry. Even though the Republicans are just ineffectual and spineless “me too-ers” with no core beliefs, the Democrats will see there’s no point in letting them regain power.

    How will they ensure that?

    • First, it seems almost certain that the Democrats will make both Washington DC and Puerto Rico states; there will then be 104 senators voting—and they will without question be left-leaning Democrats. That will also help assure control of the Electoral College—assuming it’s not abolished—since it will have two more reliably Democratic states.

    • Second, the 20 million undocumented people—illegal aliens—now in the US will undoubtedly be made citizens; they lean heavily toward the Democrats.

    • Third, they’ll expand the size of the Supreme Court and pack it with leftists, so any new laws they pass can’t be challenged effectively.

    There could be more, of course. Perhaps they’ll reduce the voting age to 16; such is already the case in Argentina and a growing number of other countries. Young people, especially once they’re freshly indoctrinated by the State schools, always tend to favor socialist ideas. Maybe they’ll even engineer a new Constitutional Convention to change everything. The 2nd Amendment will go, of course, and the rest of the Bill of Rights would be heavily modified. Most of it is already a dead letter—but that would formalize the change once and for all. There will probably be “free” college in order to ensure an extra four years of intense leftist indoctrination for all. State-administered and paid medical care is a sure thing, as well.

    These things would cement the Democrats into office for at least a generation. But please don’t think I support the Republicans. That would be like supporting tuberculosis just because it’s better than terminal cancer. Could things get violent? Yes.

    There are quite a few examples, and these things can come out of almost nowhere, like the witch hysteria in Salem in the late 17th century. It was completely irrational, of course, and couldn’t have been predicted. But if you argued against the prevailing hysteria, you too could be accused and hung.

    Sometimes, these things are ethnic. Look at what happened in Rwanda a generation ago. The Hutus and Tutsis had lived together, more or less amicably, for generations. Then, all of a sudden, a million people were hacked with machetes. The wave blew over, and now things are peaceful again. But if you weren’t out there slaughtering Tutsis during the hysteria, you might be accused of being a sympathizer and be killed yourself.

    Sometimes, these things are religious, like the war between Christians and Muslims in Bosnia, or Lebanon, or the Central African Republic—among other places.

    Sometimes, conflict is political, like the gang warfare between the National Socialists and Communists in 1920s Germany.

    But what the US seems to be facing isn’t so much political, or religious, or ethnic as it is cultural, which is much more serious. The country is on the cusp of a full-blown cultural revolution. It happened during the Terror of the French Revolution. In a short period, perhaps over 20,000 people were murdered, mostly guillotined. Who would have guessed that simple regime change could get so out of control? It did, however, because it wasn’t just a political revolution. It was a cultural revolution, right down to changing the names of the months.

    It famously happened in Russia in 1917, when the Bolsheviks succeeded in changing the basic structure of society. And it happened in Cambodia in the late 1970s with Pol Pot, when a quarter of the population was murdered. Who would have thought that even possible in modern times? That was also a cultural revolution against the educated and essentially anyone who wasn’t a peasant.

    Of course, the mother of all social convulsions was Maoist China’s Great Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. The whole country, or at least what looked like the whole country, was bamboozled into overthrowing what they called the Four Olds—old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas. It went on for ten years, killed perhaps two million people, and destroyed the lives of tens of millions more.

    Right now, the same meme is spreading in the US. Absolutely anything could happen after the November election, no matter who wins. But with the serious financial, economic, and social problems the US is facing, authoritarians will know how to use them to their own advantage.

    The people promoting a US cultural revolution aren’t getting much resistance. The old regime—the conservatives, the Republicans—are totally intimidated. They’ve been brainwashed into accepting the righteousness of the Left’s cultural, political, economic, and social agendas. They don’t like it, but they sheepishly accept it. The schools, the NGOs, corporations, Hollywood, and the media are completely controlled by leftists and have inculcated their notions into society.

    This is a real problem. When these things get out of control, the consequences can be genuinely terrible. Trends in motion tend to stay in motion—and this one is even accelerating.

    America was unique among the world’s countries because it was founded on the premise of individualism and capitalism, free minds, and free markets. More than any other country, it’s lived up to those ideals.

    But these people don’t want just a change of government; they want to overturn the actual things that have made America—America. There’s no other place to go once America goes.

    Where can you run? In fact, the whole world is moving in the same direction.

    That’s really dangerous because the president has a lot of power, including the power to make several thousand direct appointees with immense influence. Trump has been very unsuccessful in all his appointments. Most of them turn on him viciously. He might as well have picked random names out of the telephone directory. The Democrats, however, can be counted on to plug in fully vetted idealogues.

    If Biden wins, he’ll probably get the Senate and the House, too. The Democrats will get a vast array of programs and departments approved. The changes will be much more radical than either Roosevelt’s New Deal or Johnson’s Great Society. Taxes will skyrocket, along with unlimited money in a world of Modern Monetary Theory. The US will get a makeover. America will cease to exist.

    I don’t know how the red areas of the country will react if/when the Dems win. They’re culturally conservative, so I doubt there will be serious counterviolence. But if Trump does wind up in office, after a seriously contested election, we can count on more Portlands and Kenoshas. A domestic version of the leftist saying during the ’60s: “Two, three, many Vietnams.” It’s really serious.

    The consequences of the Greater Depression will go far beyond a simple bear market. If Trump does win, no doubt the Republicans will crack down on the country in an attempt to keep order. The Dems will have cause to say they were right about his dictatorial tendencies. Then, assuming we have an election in ’24, we’ll certainly get a leftist Democrat in office.

    On the (kind of) bright side, gold will go a lot higher. So will Bitcoin, partly because FX controls will be installed. And the next financial bubble will be in gold mining stocks. They’re very cheap right now; those in production are coining money. Ten-to-one shots will be thick underfoot. Buy them now, so you have the capital to insulate yourself from the bad things to come.

    Then it’s game over for the Old America. Even if we don’t have an actual civil war.

    *  *  *

    Right now, the US is the most polarized it has been since the Civil War. 

    If you’re wondering what comes next, then you’re not alone.

    The political, economic, and social implications of the 2020 vote will impact all of us.

    EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: The Day After—How to Prepare for What’s Coming After the 2020 Election

    That’s exactly why bestselling author Doug Casey and his team just released this urgent new video about how to prepare for what comes next. Click here to watch it now.

  • China Blasts Latest US Navy Deployment Near Paracel Islands: "Halt Provocations!"
    China Blasts Latest US Navy Deployment Near Paracel Islands: "Halt Provocations!"

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 10/10/2020 – 20:30

    China again put the United States on notice on Friday, warning the Pentagon to “halt provocations” in the South China Sea.

    This after the latest incident involving the US destroyer John McCain sailing near the disputed Paracel Islands administered and militarized by China. 

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    Illustrative image: Guided missile destroyer USS Forest Sherman, Wiki Commons.

    A PLA military spokesperson denounced the sail-by, saying Washington must seek permission to navigate the area. “We demand the US immediately stop such provocative actions, (and) strictly control and restrict military operations in the sea and air,” the spokesperson said.

    This constitutes the latest notable incident after last summer there was a major uptick in US military flights over the region, however, during the past month there seems to have been fewer of these provocative sail-throughs.

    Prior angry denunciations from Beijing related to American spy aircraft observed in the region, sometimes even shielding any identifying characteristics to appear like civilian aviation, which the PLA has said is dangerous given the possibility of ‘mistaken’ incidents.

    The Chinese military has repeatedly charged that the US Navy has ‘frequently’ deployed warships in the South China Sea to “show off its force and severely infringe upon China’s sovereignty and security interests,” according to a quote in The Daily Mail. 

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    The Pentagon response has typically been that it’s conducting peaceful ‘freedom of navigation’ operations to ensure adversaries adhere to international law for open waters.

    China has over the past years used both artificial islands as well as expanding military bases on the tiny land masses to extend its maritime claims, butting up against that of American allies in the region like the Philippines or unrecognized Taiwan.

  • Welcome To Bergeron!
    Welcome To Bergeron!

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 10/10/2020 – 20:00

    Via EricPetersAutos.com,

    America is becoming Bergeron – a new country based on the principles laid out in Kurt Vonnegut’s depressingly prescient short story, Harrison Bergeron.

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    It is a country in which – as in the book – you may not act if anyone of lesser strength or ability or drive cannot act at the same level. You must accommodate yourself to their level.

    Everything is leveled – ever downward.

    Until all are depressingly . . . equal.

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    In misery. In poverty. In thrall to suffocating edicts limiting what they are permitted to do – and told they must not do – on the basis of what others can’t do. Or resent you for being able to do, which they can’t.

    One of the most obvious expressions of this principle is on the road, where the law punishes competence as a kind of affront to the incompetent. If some people can’t handle making a right turn on red without creeping out in front of right-of-way traffic and causing a wreck thereby, no one else is allowed to make a right-on-red. If someone ignores the law forbidding it and makes a right-on-red safely and competently, by judging the flow of traffic and applying the necessary degree of acceleration to merge with it smoothly, he is punished for being competent.

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    For having ability – and daring to use it.

    Some will say that, no, the offender ignored the law. True – but only superficially.

    Consider that the competent execution of the action isn’t a mitigating factor. Just as health is no excuse for not Diapering.

    Which is proof positive that the true offense – not mentioned but nonetheless – is lack of obedience premised on the acceptance of incompetence (and sickness) even in its absence.

    At the first hint of snow, the roads are now inundated with liquid brine – if they’re not closed outright, as in my part of Virginia – where the Blue Ridge Parkway is closed even before it snows, stays closed if it doesn’t actually snow . . . because it might snow.

    Because some people can’t deal with snow.

    Highway speed limits are today what they were 60 years go – notwithstanding 60 years of improvements in tire/brake/suspension technology and half a dozen “safety assists” in addition to that.

    Glaucomic granny sets the pace.

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    And now – because granny might die – everyone is treated as if they, too, were a granny and might die.

    Healthy people at very little to no risk of death from catching a cold must live in perpetual fear of death. If they don’t fear it, having no reason to – they must be forced to act – and look – as if they did.

    For the sake of those who do fear it.

    Instead of sequestering granny, everyone else is sequestered.

    And Diapered.

    Soon, they will be Needled. Not because they need it – being healthy – but because some people aren’t. Everyone must be made unhealthy – by injecting them with substances that make them so, which suppress the competence of their own healthy immune system to ward off colds.

    A public sneeze will soon be treated the same as spraying a crowd with machine gun fire – and there are Bergeronites who equate the two. Even if you don’t sneeze. Because you might.

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    Ergo, the Diaper.

    It’s as vindictive a policy as forcing people who can drive to operate at the level of those who can’t – and punishing them if they don’t.

    It all flows from the same ugly principle. The Sickness Regime is merely the latest and entirely predictable evolution of least common denominatorism – the Bergeroning of America.

    It has been evolving for a long time, gradually – until it reached a critical mass – gesundheit! – this year.

    Decades before the locking-down of the healthy population to protect the unhealthy portion of the population, it became common practice – in government schools – to limit the progression of instruction of the bright kids to accommodate the dullest kids.

    It was called “mainstreaming.”

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    When kids played team sports, participation trophies were handed out to everyone in lieu of  trophies for winning.

    Adults lacking ability were hired for jobs over those with ability. This was called “affirmative action” – and it worked in the same way (and on the basis of the same motives) as forcing a champion sprinter to run in boots so that a mediocre rival could keep up with him.

    Because some people can’t use a rearview mirror, everyone must be forced to buy a back-up camera. Because some people are terrible drivers when sober, the slightest amount of alcohol in the system of a good driver subjects him to a charge of “drunk” driving without regard to his actual driving.

    Everything has to be idiot-proofed . . . for the sake of the idiots at the expense of those who aren’t.

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    People with the foresight to live below their means, who set aside money for their own retirement, are punished for their prudence by being forced to “contribute” money to subsidize the retirement of the imprudent, thereby rendering them just as dependent.

    People who can competently handle a firearm – having never given reason to believe otherwise – are presumed incompetent to handle a firearm on account of the demonstrated incompetence of other people.

    And now, the healthy must pretend they are sick – and be treated as presumptively sick. The fact that they aren’t isn’t a mitigating factor. In fact, it is a kind of perverse crime in that they are punished for living normally – on the basis of the fact that they aren’t sick.

    This is being characterized as “selfish.”

    It is an actionable offense in many areas.

    Granny isn’t forced to enter a restaurant – and can enter wearing a Face Diaper if she likes.That’s not Bergeronic enough. The restaurant must force all of its employees and patrons to wear a Face Diaper.

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    Every level of American society is being pulled toward the floor like a tablecloth grabbed by a temper-tantruming toddler – who will never be allowed to grow up – by making the adults at the table sit on the floor, amid the spilled soup and broken plates.

    *  *  *

    If you like what you’ve found here please consider supporting EPautos.  We depend on you to keep the wheels turning!  Our donate button is here.

  • Now Biden Says Filling Ginsburg Seat 'Not Constitutional' – And Americans Don't 'Deserve To Know' If He'll Pack Court
    Now Biden Says Filling Ginsburg Seat 'Not Constitutional' – And Americans Don't 'Deserve To Know' If He'll Pack Court

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 10/10/2020 – 19:55

    Update (1617ET): In the latest round of malarkey over whether or not Biden will pack the Supreme Court (he will), the former Vice President confidently said on Saturday that filling the current vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court is unconstitutional.

    “Look, the only court-packing is going on right now. It’s going on with the Republicans packing the court now. It’s not constitutional what they’re doing,” said Biden while traveling to Pennsylvania for a campaign stop.

    “The fact is that the only packing going on is this court is being packed now by the Republicans after the vote has already begun,” he added. “I’m going to stay focused on it so we don’t take our eyes off the ball here.”

    As Politico‘s Jake Sherman asks: “What’s not constitutional here?”

    Watch:

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    Will some brave journalist ask Biden to elaborate? 

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    Update (1500ET): On the insaneness of modern politics amplifier, things just went to ’11’, when presidential candidate Joe Biden told a reporter, who asked him the question everyone wants answered currently – “will you stack the courts?” – that voters “don’t deserve” to know his stance until after the election…

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    You cannot make this up!

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    In a rather stunning admission of malarkey, Joe Biden told a group of so-called ‘reporters’ this week, “You’ll know my opinion on court-packing when the election is over.” 

    But, we already know Joe’s “opinion” on packing the courts – he thinks it’s a “bonehead idea.”

    As David Harsanyi reminds us, via RealClearPolitics, President Franklin Roosevelt revived a Woodrow Wilson plan to arbitrarily place political allies into the courts, one for every judge over 70 years old, which would have meant 50 additional political allies on the federal bench, and six additional Supreme Court justices. Like today’s Democrats, he first softened up the public by attempting to delegitimize the Court — claiming, for instance, that the justices were incompetent geriatric cases incapable of performing their duties. (It is somewhat ironic that the most reliably pro-New Deal justice at the time, Louis Brandeis, was the only octogenarian on the Court.)

    In those days, there were still enough politicians who valued the separation of powers to stop him.

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    Of the 10 members of the Senate Judiciary Committee who signed a document opposing FDR’s scheme, seven were Democrats.

    They didn’t merely maintain that FDR was wrong or misguided; they argued that the court-packing plan was an “utterly dangerous abandonment of constitutional principle,” a transparent scheme to punish justices whose opinions diverged from the executive branch, and “an invasion of judicial power such as has never before been attempted in this country.”

    If enacted, the senators wrote, court-packing would create a “vicious precedent which must necessarily undermine our system.” They concluded that the plan “should be so emphatically rejected that its parallel will never again be presented to the free representatives of the free people of America.”

    FDR, whose popularity would plummet to historic lows after the court-packing threat, ultimately went on to appoint eight justices, and to largely have his way in fundamentally changing American governance. But he was prevented from destroying the Court as an institution, and modern-day Democrats are now seeking to finish that job.

    Wit that as background, fast forward to a 1983 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on whether to allow President Ronald Reagan to replace members of the Commission on Civil Rights.

    Specifically, as The Washington Free Beacon detailed, Biden opposed the nominated commissioners not because he viewed them as unqualified, but because he thought Reagan’s takeover of the commission would damage its legitimacy.

    He compared it to Roosevelt’s court-packing push, which he called a “terrible, terrible mistake.”

    “President Roosevelt clearly had the right to send to the United States Senate and the United States Congress a proposal to pack the Court,” Biden said during the hearing. “It was totally within his right to do that—he violated no law, he was legalistically absolutely correct.”

    “But it was a bonehead idea. It was a terrible, terrible mistake to make, and it put in question, for an entire decade, the independence of the most significant body—including the Congress in my view—the most significant body in this country, the Supreme Court of the United States of America.”

    In his own words…

    Of course, the real question is – especially given Pelosi’s unveiling of a 25th Amendment-seeking panel this week – will a President Joe Biden have anything to do with the decision to pack the courts as he is ousted for a leftist revolution and one of the gravest threats to the constitutional order in modern American history?

    “We are on the verge of a crisis of confidence in the Supreme Court,” Kamala Harris said last year following the Justice Kavanaugh hearings.

    “We have to take this challenge head on, and everything is on the table to do that.”

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    As Andrew Wynne ominously concluded, forgive us if we’re rightfully skeptical that Biden will stand up to the radical left when they ram through Congress an institution-crumbling, court-packing scheme.

  • "Big Tech Has Become A Tool Of Totalitarian Fascism" – Google Has 'Memory-Holed' The Great Barrington Declaration
    "Big Tech Has Become A Tool Of Totalitarian Fascism" – Google Has 'Memory-Holed' The Great Barrington Declaration

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 10/10/2020 – 19:45

    The bureaucrat/scientists who have been guiding the American response to the coronavirus – even Dr. Fauci acknowledges that the Trump Administration has accepted most of his recommendations (even if Trump hasn’t always followed them on a personal level).

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

    Many who have been closely following coverage of the 2nd wave of the virus hammering Europe have heard Europe’s leaders explain to indignant reporters how their lockdown-free approach differs from an outright ‘herd immunity’ strategy question, as well as the growing acceptance of lockdown-free approaches to tackling the coronavirus (even as Sweden imposes new restrictions as Europe’s second wave looms). Just yesterday in the UK, London Mayor Sadiq Khan said a return to ‘lockdown’ status within London was “inevitable”, even as London’s infection rate lags the hot spots in northern England (in and around Manchester, as well as a few other areas) by a sizable margin.

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    Leaders in Europe have all warned that returning to a national lockdown would be an absolute last resort, as their economies struggle to recover from the springtime mass closures that wrought unprecedented havoc on the real economy (even if it hasn’t always translated over to the market).

    But an even bigger threat to the status quo engineered by Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx and their colleagues around the world is the sudden emergence in academia of a credible, and vocal, chorus of dissent, as researchers who are luminaries in their field speak out against lockdowns.

    Since the spring, libertarians have criticized governors and even President Trump for following in the footsteps of communist China, which clearly allowed the virus to spread unchecked for weeks, or even months, before stepping in. Fewer than 100k cases have been confirmed in China – a figure that many observers suspect is far short of the real number.

    But we digress. As many of the springtime hotspots from around the world – densely populated areas like Madrid and Paris – suffer through second waves that are equally, if not more, punishing than the first round, more laypeople are starting to question: what was this all for?

    And whatever happened to Dr. Fauci saying that the goal was to “flatten the curve” so hospitals aren’t overwhelmed? Not force businesses to close for longer than 6 months, destroying the livelihoods of millions, as we hope and pray for the FDA to expedite approval of a vaccine.

    Well, on Oct. 4, a group of scientists from Oxford, Harvard, Stanford and other distinguished academic institutions from around the world published the Great Barrington Declaration, a brief statement offering an alternative public policy approach. Instead of mandating business closures, lockdowns should be lifted, and a shift to “focused protection” should be implemented. Resources should be focused to protect the vulnerable (the elderly and those with CDC-designated risk factors). The young and health population should be allowed to live normally, with the hope that they would eventually build up immunity.

    Critics have attacked the statement’s recommendations, but their criticisms are mostly superficial or easily addressable. The most salient, in our view, is the notion that we don’t yet know how long immunity from COVID-19 lasts, now that confirmed cases of reinfection have been found around the globe. To be sure, those cases are few and far between, and there’s a substantial amount of anecdotal and scientific data suggesting that health care workers have developed lasting immunity.

    But since the approach challenges the status quo in the US, a position that Democrats have embraced at risk of their political reputations, big tech has rallied to try and censor the Great Barrington Declaration. First Reddit buried discussion of the declaration; now Google has “memory holed” the declaration, as one Twitter user explains.

    Here’s the thread, courtesy of @boriquagato:

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    He continues:

    Simple, right?  Here’s the declaration, and here’s the wiki page.

    You can see the authors, kulldorf, gupta, bhattacharya’s names and know this this was written by medical professors at harvard, stanford, and oxford.

    there’s no slant, not editorializing, it’s primary source info.

    now let’s have a look at google.

    pretty different looking results, huh?  not only do they not lead with the declaration itself or its authors, they lead with dishonest hit pieces.

    they try to tie it to climate denial and fake science.

    um, no.  this is “fake search.”

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    the google results for “great barrington declaration” are simply not search results at all.

    it’s a propagandistic hit piece ducking the science, ignoring the credentials of the authors, failing to show the declaration, and spinning it as some kind of fringe cabal of “deniers.”

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    it’s staggeringly blatant once you see it, but will anyone?

    or will they be fooled by this because it’s subtle and you think google is a search engine, not a radicalized editorial column.

    and it’s now EVERYWHERE.

    Reddit will not allow users to see it.

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    know what a man fears by watching what he tries to silence.

    these groups know they have lost the debate.

    they know that the facts and the science are not on their side.

    and now they want to win by lying.

    what choice have they left themselves?

    when you have hitched your wagon to “credentialism” from buffoons like fauci and brix and ding and topol and then the REAL credentialed crowd shows up and calls you out, what can you do?

    you’re cornered by your own argument. so you have to hide this fact. it’s fatal to you.

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    and oh how they are going to try to hide it.

    at the risk of sounding tinfoil hatty: big tech has become an apparatus of totalitarian fascism.

    this is what that looks like. you push a government line and “right-think” while politicizing all things.

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    government and business in the same bed to shape society for “it’s own good.”

    that’s what fascism is.

    “Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.”

    when mussolini said that, he meant it as a positive.

    “totalitarian” was a complement.  and make no mistake, big business LOVES this.

    it’s profitable and certain and protects your market position and entrenches oligopoly.

    big business does not like free markets. it likes “less competition and a thumb on the scale.”

    they LOVE fascism.  this fascism is always and everywhere a leftist youth movement. it’s not right wing, it’s left. (yes, i know what wikipedia says, it’s wrong. read your history on where these parties came from. they all emerged from socialist parties)

    now it comes from san francisco.  and this is the part we need to understand:

    they thought they were the good guys. hitler, stalin, mussolini, all of them

    they thought there were the way forward to a greater society, a more perfect nation, justice, & progress.

    and the companies that helped them thought so too  they are not sitting around twirling their moustaches in sinister fashion plotting the the downfall of the world.

    it’s far worse.

    they honestly believe that they are the anointed whose great wisdom & intellect gives them a right & a duty to tell the benighted masses how to live

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    they have convinced themselves that calling fascism “antifa” means they are the good guys

    but make no mistake, this is an attempt to rule you and it’s showing its true colors now

    they, like all despots, believe that they will be benign.

    history is not kind to that presumption.

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    we seem to be at a crossroads.

    we can either see this for the power play that it is and seek out new ways to get information and communicate and take back our data and our speech, or we can fall under this spell and become lost in this propagandistic house of mirrors.

    search and social media do not have to be like this.

    the can be peer to peer, open source, and provide personal agency.

    remember that you are not google’s customer, nor twitter’s.

    you are their product.

    they sell you to their customers.

    did you not ask who pays the bills?

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    but this can change and will change.

    the more they adulterate and censor, the more incentive there is to leave their walled gardens and find a better way.

    this is going to be the awkward adolescence of internet and social media.

    but it needs to happen.

    it’s time to grow up.

    * * *

    Source: @boriquagato

  • A New Problem Emerges If Congress Can't Agree On A Fiscal Stimulus Deal
    A New Problem Emerges If Congress Can't Agree On A Fiscal Stimulus Deal

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 10/10/2020 – 19:30

    Back on May 4, in its then-latest estimate of Marketable Borrowings the US Treasury shocked markets when it unveiled that in the April-June quarter it would borrow a humongous $2.999 trillion, exponentially higher than what it had expected to borrow during the quarter in its previous estimate in February when it forecast a $56 billion decline in debt. And while the projected debt number stunned the market, it barely registered on the price or yield of US Treasurys for the simple reason that just weeks earlier the Fed announced it would monetize all gross debt issuance for the US when it unveiled Unlimited QE, something it has been doing since.

    This massive surge in debt issuance would also result in a far higher Treasury cash balance which would be used to pre-fund various fiscal stimulus programs, and as the chart below shows, that’s precisely what happened with the Treasury cash balance exploding from $400BN at the end of March to an record high just above $1.7 trillion currently, an amount that is just waiting to be spent as soon as Congress gives the green light.

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    In retrospect the cash surge was too much: in fact, more than double what the Treasury had expected on May 4. While the Treasury had forecast a $3 trillion increase in marketable borrowing for the quarter ending June 30, it also expected the cash balance to grow to $800 billion on that same date (shown highlighted in yellow on the table below).

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    And yet the final number ended up being approximately $900 billion higher, meaning that the Treasury had substantially overshot its funding need and suddenly found itself with a record cash buffer.

    So with all this extra cash in hand, did the Treasury reduce its debt needs? As shown above, five months ago the Treasury expected that it would need to borrow $677BN in the final fiscal quarter of the year ending Sept 30, which while a massive number, was still well below the $2.753 trillion it ended up borrowing (just shy of the $2.999 trillion initial forecast, a number which was not hit due to “lower-than-projected expenditures and higher receipts largely offset by the increase in the cash balance.”)?

    The answer, as we pointed out in August, was a resounding no because as it disclosed in its latest estimate of Marketable Borrowing needs, the Treasury once again surprised markets by announcing it would borrow a whopping $947BN last quarter, $270BN more than it had forecast a quarter ago, even though the Treasury started this quarter with a cash balance that is $922 billion higher than it had expected one quarter ago!

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    Source: US Treasury

    Why this unexpected increase in debt even though the Treasury was starting off with nearly $1 trillion more in cash than originally budgeted? This is how it explains it.

    During the July – September 2020 quarter, Treasury expects to borrow $947 billion in privately-held net marketable debt, assuming an end-of-September cash balance of $800 billion.  The borrowing estimate is $270 billion higher than announced in May 2020.  The increase in privately-held net marketable borrowing is primarily driven by higher expenditures, due to a shift from the prior quarter and anticipated new legislation, largely offset by the higher beginning-of-July cash balance and higher receipts.

    In other words, not only will the Treasury draw down on $922 billion in cash in the calendar quarter the ends in less than two months…

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    … but it will also sell enough debt to raise an additional $881 billion (net) which will also end up being spent, suggesting that in the current quarter the Treasury plans on spending a gargantuan $1.8 trillion, something which as we learned last week was the latest Trump offer to Pelosi and House Democrats (an offer which Pelosi just turned down earlier today).

    But that’s not all, because in its first glimpse of the current Oct-Dec quarter’s funding needs, the Treasury now expects to borrow another $1.216 trillion in privately-held net marketable debt, once again assuming that the end-of-December cash balance remains unchanged from the Sept 30 balance of $800 billion. This means that the Treasury will spend an additional $1.2 trillion in the quarter ending Dec. 31, assuming every dollar it raises in the open market is then promptly spent (since the cash balance remains unchanged).

    According to the Treasury, “these estimates assume $1 trillion of additional borrowing need in anticipation of additional legislation being passed in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.”

    So what does this mean?

    First, when putting together the actual data for the first three quarters of fiscal 2020 and adding the Fiscal Q4 estimate of $947BN in new issuance, the Treasury will borrow a record $4.5 trillion in Fiscal 2020, more than it borrowed in the previous view years combined!

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    Second, it means that for calendar Q3 and Q4, the Treasury planned on spending almost $3 trillion consisting of:

    • i) a drawdown in cash from $1722 billion to $800 billion, for $922 billion, in the quarter ending Sept 30
    • ii) new debt issuance of $947 billion in the same quarter and
    • iii) new debt issuance of $1,216 billion in the quarter ended Dec 31

    … for a grand total of $3.085 trillion in new funds (either from spending cash or raising debt).

    And even if the Treasury uses some of this cash to pay down maturing Bills (which we doubt as it will most likely keep rolling this short-term debt indefinitely with rates at all time lows), it means that as recently as August, the Treasury was budgeting for nearly $3 trillion for Congress and Trump to spend as they fit in order to boost the economy to ensure that there is no “double dip” economic crash. It also meant that for all the posturing about whether the $1 trillion Republican or $3 trillion Democrat stimulus package is accepted, the Treasury was already budgeting for the latter.

    * * *

    Alas, a problem emerged: with less than 4 weeks left until the elections, Congress and Trump remain hopelessly deadlocked on when – and if – a new stimulus will take place. And while that in itself is a major problem for an economy and for Trump’s re-election chances (which explains why Democrats are playing hardball on a new deal and will only accept it if it includes bailouts of insolvent state pensions in Democratic states), something we explained two weeks ago, “Failure To Launch New Fiscal Stimulus Would Have Catastrophic Consequences For The US Economy“, another major problem has emerged.

    The growing uncertainty over a new, fifth fiscal deal raise significant questions about the Treasury’s plans for managing its cash balance – which as shown above, is at $1.69 trillion and remains more than double its projected target of $800 billion at Dec 31 – between now and year end.

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    So, as BofA first hinted last week, if no deal is reached this quarter, the Treasury would need to pay down nearly $1 trillion worth of bills in the next two months to reach its year-end cash target of $800bn, writes Barclays strategist Joseph Abate.

    And yet, another fiscal stimulus deal remains just a matter of time, the only question is whether before the election, or after. That however is a key wildcard for the massive cash holdings at the Treasury, which Trump was hoping to use up before the election and prop up the economy.

    Indeed, as Abate writes, a spending package is still likely in the new year, and since “the purpose of the Treasury’s cash stockpile was to have immediately available resources to finance a portion of any new stimulus, we see no reason for the Treasury to cut bill issuance aggressively this quarter.”

    Moreover, the decline in bill rates over the summer means the Treasury may have a harder time selling large amount of bills next year. “This may be an additional reason why the Treasury has not decided to pay down bills or run down its cash balance in case it would be forced back into the bill market,” according to Abate.

    For its part, Barclays expects the Treasury will flag a one-year note linked to SOFR at the November refunding announcement, with the first sale delayed until February. The Treasury will probably need to trim bill issuance to make room for the new note, in addition to any potential supply changes created by a stimulus package.

    Maybe, but there’s more: as BofA rates strategist Marc Cabana wrote last week, the Treasury will ultimately target a $400bn cash balance after stimulus needs are met & PPP loan forgiveness is complete, suggesting a $1.2 trillion drawdown from current cash levels. Making matters worse, and why the Treasury could face material pressure to get their cash balance even lower by the summer of next year is that the Treasury will need to lower their cash balance to $133bn by end July ’21 to be in compliance with the existing debt limit law (the 2019 Bi-Partisan Budget Act suspended the debt limit through end July ’21 but when the debt limit is reinstated UST needs to hold no more cash on hand vs when the bill was originally signed into law which is $133bn).

    As a result, if a new debt ceiling is not instituted before end July ’21 – due to continued Congressional bickering for example – it could imply less financing need from bills, all else equal. The impact of different TGA levels on expected Q420 and 1H21 net bill supply in tables 3 and 4.

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    What all of this boils down to, simply said, is that depending on the trajectory of stimulus discussions, the Treasury could see vast swings in its cash balance which in turn would affect its Bill financing strategy. As we discussed last week, there is a range of bill supply outcomes between now & 1H ’21 as shown in Table 2. Much of the bill supply impact will be a function of the Treasury cash balance level, which remains near record levels. The implications of a few bill supply scenarios are listed below:

    • Pre-election stimulus: In Q4 ’20 bill supply would likely total $250-$300bn. The Treasury will drop their cash balance to $1tn, which would add ~$600bn of cash into the banking system. The expected increase in banking system cash would likely overwhelm bill supply & keep front end rates stable to lower.
    • Base case (no stimulus pre-election, $1.5tn post inauguration): In Q4 ’20 bill supply will likely be flat or slightly negative with a Treasury cash balance at year-end of $1.6tn. This is lower vs prior forecasts due to a downward revision in deficit estimates and the TGA ending September higher than BofA had previously anticipated. In 1H ’21 bill supply will also likely be flat on net but there may be one notable variation; Cabana “might anticipate” $200-$300bn bill supply after stimulus is passed in Feb or March but expect this would be paid down after the April tax date. The decline in Treasury cash balance will limit the need for elevated bill supply.
    • Extreme scenarios: in 1H ’21 a “supersized” or “skinny” deal could see bill supply range from positive $350-$400bn to negative $1tn. In a “supersized” scenario the bill supply increase would likely be greatest after a bill is passed in Feb or March ’21. In a “skinny” deal the risk of sharply negative bill supply stems from a potential “forced” reduction of the Treasury cash balance. 

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    The bottom line is that depending on the outcome of the ongoing stimulus discussions, the Treasury may end up injecting approximately $600 billion of cash into the banking system as existing Bills mature and are not rolled over, which according to Cabana “would likely overwhelm bill supply & keep front end rates stable to lower.” It would also mean that banks suddenly have to allocate a massive amount of excess cash into various securities, which if previous instances of such capital reallocation inflection points are an indicator, would – together with the Fed’s ongoing injection of at least $120BN in reserves each month courtesy of QE – result in a wholesale meltup across the entire risk spectrum.

    The irony of all this is that should there be no fiscal deal, and should Trump lose the election, the market may end up exploding higher in the last weeks of the year… just as the US economy – starved for more stimulus capital – careens into a double dip depression.

  • Don't Assume Gen Z Will Show Up
    Don't Assume Gen Z Will Show Up

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 10/10/2020 – 19:00

    Authored by Samuel Abrams via RealClearPolitics.com,

    As the November presidential election approaches, stories abound showing overwhelming support among Generation Z for former Vice President Joe Biden over President Trump, with claims like “Young voters backing Biden by 2-to-1 margin.”

    While many may assume widespread electoral support for Biden among younger voters is a fait accompli, a surprising number of Gen Z voters may have already chosen to opt out of voting come November.

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    The idea that these voters would essentially “stay home” on Election Day is counterintuitive, given their heightened interest in our polarized times, but my ideas changed once the fall school year reopened and I had a chance to speak with scores of students around the country. Their stories were consistent: Gen Zers were having trouble accepting Joe Biden as their candidate of choice and staying home and opting out was appealing to them. Despite my comments that this could lead to a second Trump term, students consistently said that Biden did not inspire them. New survey data suggests that Gen Z’s turnout may be overstated. Politicos should take note.

    First, the fall youth poll from Harvard’s Institute of Politics finds a significant enthusiasm gap between the candidates: 56% of America’s 18-to-29-year-old likely voters who support Trump are “very enthusiastic” about voting for him. This stands in stark contrast to just 35% of likely voters who back Biden. Those in Gen Z are generally not excited about the Democratic nominee and tell me that they were deflated when more progressive candidates dropped out of the race. Such low levels of enthusiasm may not translate to actually casting a ballot.

    Second, as the American Enterprise Institute’s new “Socially Distant: How Our Divided Social Networks Explain Our Politics” survey reveals, just 7% of Gen Zers have a very favorable view of Biden while another 40% have a favorable view – making for a 47% overall favorability rating. While this is appreciably higher than Trump’s 20% favorability rating, it is anything but a landslide of support from younger Americans for Biden. My students regularly share the fact that they have trouble getting behind Biden given his  history of inappropriately touching women and his less than consistent left-of-center positions. This fact, along with the Harvard enthusiasm data, again suggests that the drive to vote for Biden may indeed be lower than many narratives assert; candidates need to inspire voters to drive turnout.

    Relatedly, the survey asks if it has been easy or hard to make a decision about who to vote for this year (2020). Given the polarized climate and the overall disdain for the Trump administration among young people, one would think that making a decision about voting in a few weeks should be fairly easy. However, 30% of Gen Zers and Millennials state that their decision was hard – this is significantly higher than their parents (21%) and grandparents (14% for Boomers and 10% of Silents) – and again provides a hint of evidence that Gen Zers may opt out of voting entirely.

    Going further, when asked who they’d vote for if the election were held today, Gen Z is not uniformly in support of Biden: 57% would vote for Biden and 18% for Trump. But 6% state someone else and another 19% say that they will sit this election out. And compared to the older cohorts, this intention to sit out is very different: Just 8% of Gen Xers and 5% of Boomers do not intend to vote.

    Moreover, when asked about how certain they are about their choice, those in Gen Z are less certain compared to older cohorts. Just 51% of those in Gen Z state that they are absolutely certain that they will vote in the 2020 election; this shows that Biden’s support in large numbers is not assured. In contrast, 71% of those in Gen X and 80% of the Boomers state that they are absolutely certain that they will vote.

    Finally, the survey data makes it clear that those in Gen Z are politically engaged, but not necessarily with the election. Two-thirds (67%) have been following the election fairly or very closely, notably lower than the 88% who have been paying attention to the COVID-19 pandemic and the 80% who are following the BLM protests. Gen Zers are not ignoring current events, but they may be increasingly disinterested in the election itself.

    Collectively, these data points confirm a story that my students have been sharing with me for the past month: Do not assume that Gen Zers will vote this fall. Excitement for Biden is low and large numbers of Gen Zers already report that they do not intend to vote in November. Given the fact that survey data on vote intentions often over-report turnout intention, it is quite possible that participation will be far lower among our youngest cohort of voting-aged Americans. The electoral implications could be significant and help swing the nation back to Trump for another four years.

  • "Schools Aren't Superspreaders" – The Atlantic Explains Why Students Should Be Back In School, Now
    "Schools Aren't Superspreaders" – The Atlantic Explains Why Students Should Be Back In School, Now

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 10/10/2020 – 18:30

    After months of waging war, mainstream media outlets recently started to seriously address the reality of herd immunity, or at least the type of “focused” approach described in documents like the Great Barrington declaration, as a credible alternative to the lockdown-first strategy embraced by Dr. Fauci and the public health establishment around the world, to varying degrees of success.

    So far, we’ve seen WSJ (these are just a couple of examples), the FT and now the Atlantic, with its “Schools Aren’t Super Spreaders” article about why schools – at least for minor students – haven’t emerged as the COVID-19 breeding grounds that many feared.

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    The article was written by Emily Oster, an economist at Brown University. In it, she makes some surprising points. Before readers can write her off as an “economist” and not a “subject matter expert”, Oster explains that she has been working with national teacher and principal associations to collect data on school reopenings as part of a sprawling research project, which was also recently profiled in the NYT.

    While Brown acknowledges that she has seen a deluge of stories and datas about small (but decidedly not deadly) outbreaks on colleges campuses, she notes that there has been vanishingly little evidence of outbreaks in K-12 schools, whether private or public.

    Data on almost 200,000 kids in 47 states from the last two weeks of September shows an infection rate of 0.13% among students and 0.24% among staff. That translates to 1.3 infections over two weeks in a school of 1,000 kids, or 2.2 infections over two weeks in a group of 1,000 staff. Even in the most high-risk areas where schools were open, the risk to students was always well under half a percent, Oster explains.

    What’s more, researchers in Texas and other states have arrived at similar conclusions.

    Since early last month, I’ve been working with a group of data scientists at the technology company Qualtrics, as well as with school-principal and superintendent associations, to collect data on COVID-19 in schools. (See more on that project here.) Our data on almost 200,000 kids in 47 states from the last two weeks of September revealed an infection rate of 0.13 percent among students and 0.24 percent among staff. That’s about 1.3 infections over two weeks in a school of 1,000 kids, or 2.2 infections over two weeks in a group of 1,000 staff. Even in high-risk areas of the country, the student rates were well under half a percent. (You can see all the data here.)

    School-based data from other sources show similarly low rates. Texas reported 1,490 cases among students for the week ending on September 27, with 1,080,317 students estimated at school—a rate of about 0.14 percent. The staff rate was lower, about 0.10 percent.

    Of course, as Oster readily acknowledges, while these infection numbers are low, and deaths (among the children, at least) have been rare, they’re not zero.

    But for everybody who insists on 100% safety, Oster warns, it comes at a serious cost to the long-term well-being of children. And this burden is felt most intensely by low-income families and students, as parents simply don’t have the time and resources to supervise their child’s education from home.

    While infection numbers across the US have picked back up since Labor Day, Oster claims there’s no evidence connecting this to schools reopening. Indeed, even with schools still virtual in the nation’s largest districts, cases have still rebounded.

    The risk to children, at this point, has been well documented.

    One might argue, again, that any risk is too great, and that schools must be completely safe before local governments move to reopen them. But this approach ignores the enormous costs to children from closed schools. The spring interruption of schooling already resulted in learning losses; Alec MacGillis’s haunting piece in The New Yorker and ProPublica highlights the plight of one child unable to attend school in one location, but it’s a marker for more. The children affected by school closures are disproportionately low-income students of color. Schools are already unequal; the unequal closures make them more so. Virtual school is available, but attendance levels are not up to par. Pediatricians have linked remote schooling to toxic stress.

    Parents are struggling as well, not just children. Cities have recognized the need for child care for parents who cannot afford to quit their jobs to supervise their kids, but this has led to a haphazard network of options. Houston, for example, has opened some schools as learning centers. L.A. has learning centers set up for low-income students in alternative locations. These spur the questions: If school isn’t safe for everyone, why is it safe for low-income students? And if school is safe for low-income students, why isn’t it safe for everyone?

    From all the data she’s collected and distilled, Oster concludes simply this: “We do not want to be cavalier or put people at risk. But by not opening, we are putting people at risk, too.”

    It’s just another example of how research is challenging credentialed experts’ initial assumptions about COVID-19. With publications like the Atlantic already starting to take this line of thinking seriously, why is Silicon Valley still trying to suppress dissenting thinkers on similar issues like the Great Barrington Declaration?

  • Transportation Capacity Hits New Lows, "No Relief In Sight" For Pricing
    Transportation Capacity Hits New Lows, "No Relief In Sight" For Pricing

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 10/10/2020 – 18:00

    By Todd Maiden of FreightWaves,

    A September supply chain survey shows transportation capacity has reached new lows. The Logistics Managers’ Index (LMI), a survey of leading logistics executives, showed capacity fell to new lows, dipping another 770 basis points during the month to a 23.8% reading.

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    The LMI is a diffusion index, wherein a reading above 50% indicates expansion and a reading below 50% indicates contraction. The survey captures the rate of change in activity for key supply chain trends in areas like transportation, inventory and warehousing.

    The September transportation capacity reading was the lowest level ever for any of the eight metrics the survey tracks. The capacity situation was even worse for “downstream firms,” or those closest to the consumer, at 16.3%.

    “Clearly consumer-facing firms are struggling to find the capacity needed to meet the increasing consumer appetite for home delivery,” the report stated. “It is interesting that logistics capacity is already this pressed at the end of Q3. Traditionally Q4 is when we see peak logistics demand, so the fact that it’s already close to maximum utilization calls into question whether or not missed or late deliveries will become an issue through peak retail times in November and December.”

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    The lack of available capacity was also “reflected in the premium firms are paying.” The transportation pricing subindex increased 410 basis points in the month to 87.9%, the highest reading since October 2018. “Observing the last two years of transportation prices shows a U-shaped trend, with September’s rate of growth representing a return to the heady days of mid-to-late 2018,” the report stated.

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    The overall index increased 450 basis points from August to 70.5% in September, the first reading north of 70% since October 2018 and only the sixth time the index has breached 70% since its inception in 2016. The index bottomed during the depths of the pandemic-induced shutdowns in April at 51.3%.

    “Growth rates in the logistics industry are roaring” because of e-commerce, the report said. 

    “Digital-heavy retail methods allow concerned shoppers to avoid in-person stores but are also more logistics resource intensive. Logistics-intensive commerce becoming a more significant proportion of retail activity explains why the metrics tracked in the LMI are increasing at rates not seen since mid-2018, in spite of the relatively modest overall economic growth,” it said.

    Capacity declines to moderate, pricing to remain high

    The survey captures 12-month forward-looking expectations as well. Respondents indicated that they expect capacity to continue to contract over the next year but at a more subdued pace. The future indication for capacity registered at 48.1%, still in contraction territory, but up significantly from the August prediction of 31.7%.

    However, increases in transportation pricing show no signs of letting up. Survey respondents registered an 85.8% reading for the index one year from now, implying that the current high rate at which transportation pricing is increasing is expected to continue. “Respondents clearly expect the continued tightness in the freight market to result in increasing costs – with no relief in sight.”

    Inventory and warehousing

    The rate of inventory growth moved higher, up 330 basis points to a 61.4% reading during the month. Inventories have remained in expansion territory since March. “Bustling port activity as firms move to replenish the inventory from international suppliers that they were unable to procure early in the summer” was listed as the primary reason. Additionally, the costs to hold inventory remain on an upward trajectory, up 110 basis points at 65.8%

    All of the warehousing metrics – capacity, utilization and prices – continued to show tightening in the logistics real estate market.  Capacity declined 740 basis points to contraction territory at 43.1%, with utilization increasing 590 basis points to 71.1%. The warehousing prices component increased 190 basis points to 70.5%.

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    “At this point it seems likely that these high rates of growth will continue even if the overall economy is slow in Q4. The dramatic reliance on logistics services due to the pandemic may insulate the industry from moderate economic downturns in the near future.”

    The LMI is a collaboration among Arizona State University, Colorado State University, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rutgers University and the University of Nevada, Reno, conducted in conjunction with the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals.

  • Flint Councilman Proposes Shutting Down Gas Stations, Liquor Stores At Night To Reduce Crime
    Flint Councilman Proposes Shutting Down Gas Stations, Liquor Stores At Night To Reduce Crime

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 10/10/2020 – 17:30

    After surging violent crime in Flint, Michigan, in the first half of 2020, Flint City Councilman Maurice Davis has had enough with the chaos on the streets. He recently proposed a new ordinance to shutter business operations by 9 p.m. to help reduce crime, reported NBC 25. 

    Councilman Davis believes forcing liquor stores, corner stores, and gas stations to close by 9 p.m. will help prevent the loitering outside of these establishments, which sometimes result in arguments and or shootings. 

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    If his ordinance is passed, Councilman Davis expects violent crime in the evening and night hours could slump as there would be no need for some to leave their homes when gas stations, liquor stores, and corner stores are closed at night. He said it could give peace and comfort to some in the community who fear leaving their homes at night. 

    “If they can get an ordinance passed to close down liquor stores, and gas stations at 9 o’clock I wouldn’t be mad about it,” said Robert Massie Jr., a Flint resident.

    Massie hopes the ordinance is passed but believes it could cause some frustration among some. 

    “It’s going to be people that’s going to be mad, and then you’re going to have some people that’s going to like it because they can feel like they can be a little safe out here. But that’s not going to stop anything. It’ll just calm it down,” he explained.

    Councilman Davis told ABC 12 that he’d proposed the new ordinance for months now as gun violence kills loved ones in the city. 

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    A 2018 crime data report via the FBI found Flint was the sixth most dangerous US city with a population of at least 50,000. 

    University of Michigan-Flint Associate Professor of Criminal Justice Kenneth told Flint Beat that the surge in violence over the summer could be due to increased temperatures and COVID-19 woes. 

    Michigan State Police Lt. David Kaiser told Flint Beat that “this year’s violent crime is even worse and the only difference between this year and last year is COVID-19 keeping people cooped up.” 

    There’s also depressionary unemployment in Flint, as many people forget, recessions typically drive up violent crime. 

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    Councilman Davis plans to meet with Flint City Council on Oct. 12 to push his new ordinance into law.  

    Shutting down businesses, which would decrease economic activity in the local economy, is likely not the solution in curbing Flint’s violent crime issues. Flint residents desperately need jobs, not closed businesses. 

  • America Has An Epic Choice
    America Has An Epic Choice

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 10/10/2020 – 17:00

    Authored by MN Gordon via EconomicPrism.com,

    “There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion.  The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.” 

    – Ludwig von Mises, Human Action [1949]

    Crisis Now or Total Catastrophe Later?

    On Tuesday, while still hopped up on anti-coronavirus goofballs, President Trump had a moment of clarity.  After 40 years of near uninterrupted credit expansion, it was finally time to cut it off.  And he was just the guy to do the cutting.

    Trump took to Twitter to make his first snips.  He announced that stimulus bill negotiations were severed.  Minutes after, the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a 400 point air pocket.  Several hours later, and perhaps following a little tutelage from Mnuchin and Kudlow, Trump reversed course.

    We don’t know what Mnuchin and Kudlow said to Trump.  But we suppose they informed him that, at this point, the immediate health of the American economy is contingent on delivering printing press money to citizens and non-citizens alike…who cares if the long-term consequences are catastrophic?  Thus, Trump called on Congress to approve a second round of $1,200 stimulus checks.

    This course of action eschews voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion.  This, no doubt, is the path of least resistance for politicians.  Unless Trump wants to lose the election, he can’t tell voters there’s no more free money.

    The choice is real simple.  Voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion and a crisis now.  Or further credit expansion and the final and total catastrophe of the dollar system later.

    For a politician this isn’t really a choice at all.  If you recall, Nero clipped coins in 64 A.D. and fiddled as Rome burned.  The decision every president makes is to avoid a crisis now and, with a little luck, leave total catastrophe for some other sucker.

    We’ll have more on this in a moment.  But first, some perspective…

    Between a Rock and a Hard Place

    In the Spring of 2003, 27-year old Aron Ralston found himself between a rock and a hard place.  While solo canyoneering within the rock fissures and tapered caverns of Bluejohn Canyon, in eastern Utah, something heinous happened.

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    While negotiating a 10 foot drop in a 3 foot wide canyon, Ralston dislodged a boulder he thought was stable.  As he fell back, the boulder crashed down and crushed his right hand and lower arm.  What’s worse, the 800 pound rock pinned him in the canyon.  He was entombed.

    Ralston was carrying a small rucksack with just one liter of water, two burritos and a few chunks of chocolate.  He also had his rock climbing ropes and a small multi-purpose knife.  He hadn’t bothered to tell anyone where he was going.  He knew he was invincible.

    Over the next 127 hours (more than 5 days), Ralston rationed his water and fruitlessly chipped away at the massive boulder with a dull multi-tool knife.  He slowly slipped into a state of delirium.  As Ralston weakened and his supplies faded, he was faced with a grim question: Your hand or your life?

    Ralston concluded his only way out was to tourniquet his arm with his climbing ropes, and cut off his hand.  But when he cut through the flesh with his dull knife he encountered another problem.  His bones!

    By the fifth day, as Ralston later recounted, he had found “peace” in “the knowledge that I am going to die here, this is my grave.”  However, the following morning he had reservations.  His peace was gone.

    What happened next?

    With death staring him in the face, Ralston went into a rage…resulting in another stark revelation.  He could fling himself against the boulder to break his own bones.

    The snap of his bones “like, pow!” was a horrifying sound “but to me it was euphoric,” recalled Ralston.  “The detachment had already happened in my mind – it’s rubbish, it’s going to kill you, get rid of it.”

    After snapping his bones and severing his hand (it took about an hour to hack through his flesh), Ralston somehow managed to scale a 65 foot cliff to escape the canyon.  He then hiked out to his rescue – minus a hand.

    America Has an Epic Choice

    America has an epic choice.  And it has nothing to do with who will be the next president of the United States.  It has nothing to do with if the new stimulus bill is $1.6 trillion or $2.2 trillion.

    To review, the choice is as follows: Voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion and a crisis now.  Or further credit expansion and the final and total catastrophe of the dollar system later.

    The President, Joe Biden, Congress, the Secretary of Treasury, the Federal Reserve, economic advisors, the political class, lobbyists, government contractors, Wall Street, pensioners, CalPERS, transfer payment recipients, social security and Medicare beneficiaries, and so on and so forth, including…

    Jamie Dimon, the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, Arlington Virginia, bureaucrats at the Department of HUD, Anthony Fauci, mortgage brokers, Edward Jones, Lockheed Martin, the staff at the IRS, public private partnerships, teachers unions, and much, much more.

    The whole lot – and then some – are firmly on the side of further credit expansion and the final and total catastrophe of the dollar system later.  Just this week, for example, Fed Chair Powell offered the following words of encouragement:

    “The US federal budget is on an unsustainable path, [and] has been for some time.  [But] this is not the time to give priority to those concerns.”

    In other words, avoid a crisis now in exchange for total catastrophe later.

    The choice, by all measures, is heinous.  But sometimes, like Aron Ralston, one must cut off their hand if they want to live.  By this, voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion is the way out of the current financial predicament.  Stop the madness.  Bring on the crisis.

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Oct 10

Today’s News 10th October 2020

  • Escobar: Shedding Light On The Limits Of Chinese Power
    Escobar: Shedding Light On The Limits Of Chinese Power

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 10/09/2020 – 23:40

    Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,

    Academic Lanxin Xiang is no fan of Trump’s China policies but also sees where Beijing has miscalculated and overreached…

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    Everything about US-China hinges on the result of the upcoming US presidential election.

    Trump 2.0 essentially would turbo-charge its bet on decoupling, aiming to squeeze “malign” China on a multiple Hybrid War front, undermine the Chinese trade surplus, co-opt large swathes of Asia, while always insisting on characterizing China as evil incarnate.

    Team Biden, even as it professes no desire to fall into the trap of a new Cold War, according to the Dem official platform, would be only slightly less confrontational, ostensibly “saving” the “rules-based order” while keeping Trump-enacted sanctions.

    Very few Chinese analysts are better positioned to survey the geopolitical and geoeconomic chessboard than Lanxin Xiang: expert on relations between China, US and Europe, professor of History and International Relations at the IHEID in Geneva and director of the Center for One Belt, One Road Studies in Shanghai.

    Xiang got his PhD at SAIS at Johns Hopkins, and is as well respected in the US as in China. During a recent webinar he laid out the lineaments of an analysis the West ignores at its own peril.

    Xiang has been focusing on the Trump administration’s push to “redefine an external target”: a process he brands, “risky, dangerous, and highly ideological”. Not because of Trump – who is “not interested in ideological issues” – but due to the fact that the “China policy was hijacked by the real Cold Warriors”. The objective: “regime change. But that was not Trump’s original plan.”

    Xiang blasts the rationale behind these Cold Warriors:

    “We made a huge mistake in the past 40 years”. That is, he insists, “absurd – reading back into History, and denying the entire history of US-China relations since Nixon.”

    And Xiang fears the “lack of overall strategy. That creates enormous strategic uncertainty – and leads to miscalculations.”

    Compounding the problem, “China is not really sure what the US wants to do.” Because it goes way beyond containment – which Xiang defines as a “very well thought of strategy by George Kennan, the father of the Cold War.” Xiang only detects a pattern of “Western civilization versus a non-Caucasian culture. That language is very dangerous. It’s a direct rehash of Samuel Huntington, and shows very little room for compromise.”

    In a nutshell, that’s the “American way of stumbling into a Cold War.”

    An October Surprise?

    All of the above directly connects with Xiang’s great concern about a possible October Surprise: “It could probably be over Taiwan. Or a limited engagement in the South China Sea.” He stresses, “Chinese military people are terribly worried. October Surprise as a military engagement is not unthinkable, because Trump may want to re-establish a war presidency.”

    For Xiang, “if Biden wins, the danger of a Cold War turning Hot War will be reduced dramatically.” He is very much aware of shifts in the bipartisan consensus in Washington:

    “Historically, Republicans don’t care about human rights and ideology. Chinese always preferred to deal with Republicans. They can’t deal with Democrats – human rights, values issues. Now the situation is reversed.”

    Xiang, incidentally, “invited a top Biden adviser to Beijing. Very pragmatic. Not too ideological.” But in case of a possible Trump 2.0 administration, everything could change:

    “My hunch is he will be totally relaxed, may even reverse China policy 180 degrees. I would not be surprised. He would turn back to being Xi Jinping’s best friend.”

    As it stands, the problem is “a chief diplomat that behaves as a chief propagandist, taking advantage of an erratic president.”

    And that’s why Xiang never rules out even an invasion of Taiwan by Chinese troops. He games the scenario of a Taiwanese government announcing, “We are independent” coupled with a visit by the Secretary of State:

    “That would provoke a limited military action, and could turn into an escalation. Think about Sarajevo. That worries me. If Taiwan declares independence, Chinese invade in less than 24 hours. “

    How Beijing miscalculates

    Unlike most Chinese scholars, Xiang is refreshingly frank about Beijing’s own shortcomings: “Several things should have been better controlled. Like abandoning Deng Xiaoping’s original advice that China should bide its time and keep a low profile. Deng, in his last will, had set a timeline for that, at least 50 years.”

    The problem is “the speed of China’s economic development led to hot headed, and premature, calculations. And a not well thought of strategy. ‘Wolf warrior’ diplomacy is an extremely assertive posture – and language. China began to upset the US – and even the Europeans. That was a geostrategic miscalculation.”

    And that brings us to what Xiang characterizes as “the overextension of Chinese power: geopolitical and geoconomic.” He’s fond of quoting Paul Kennedy: “Any great superpower, if overstretched, becomes vulnerable.”

    Xiang goes as far as stating that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – whose concept he enthusiastically praises – may be overstretched: “They thought it was a purely economic project. But with such wide global reach?”

    So is BRI a case of overstretching or a source of destabilization? Xiang notes how, “Chinese are never really interested in other countries’ domestic policies. Not interested in exporting a model. Chinese have no real model. A model has to be mature – with a structure. Unless you’re talking about export of traditional Chinese culture.”

    The problem, once again, is that China thought it was possible to “sneak into geographical areas that the US never paid too much attention to, Africa, Central Asia, without necessarily provoking a geopolitical setback. But that is naiveté.”

    Xiang is fond of reminding Western analysts that, “the infrastructure investment model was invented by Europeans. Railways. The Trans-Siberian. Canals, like in Panama. Behind these projects there was always a colonial competition. We pursue similar projects – minus colonialism.”

    Still, “Chinese planners buried their head in the sand. They never use that word – geopolitics.” Thus his constant jokes with Chinese policy makers: “You may not like geopolitics, but geopolitics likes you.”

    Ask Confucius

    The crucial aspect of the “post-pandemic situation”, according to Xiang, is to forget about “that wolf warrior stuff. China may be able to re-start the economy before anyone else. Develop a really working vaccine. China should not politicize it. It should show a universal value about it, pursue multilateralism to help the world, and improve its image.”

    On domestic politics, Xiang is adamant that “during the last decade the atmosphere at home, on minority issues, freedom of speech, has been tightening to the extent that it does not help China’s image as a global power.”

    Compare it, for instance, with “unfavorable views of China” in a survey of nations in the industrialized West that includes only two Asians: Japan and South Korea.

    And that brings us to Xiang’s The Quest for Legitimacy in Chinese Politics – arguably the most important contemporary study by a Chinese scholar capable of explaining and bridging the East-West political divide.

    This book is such a major breakthrough that its main conceptual analyses will be the subject of a follow-up column.

    Xiang’s main thesis is that “legitimacy in Chinese tradition political philosophy is a dynamic question. To transplant Western political values to the Chinese system does not work.”

    Yet even as the Chinese concept of legitimacy is dynamic, Xiang stresses, “the Chinese government is facing a legitimacy crisis.” He refers to the anti-corruption campaign of the past four years: “Widespread official corruption, that is a side-effect of economic development, bringing out the bad side of the system. Credit to Xi Jinping, who understood that if we allow this to continue, the CCP will lose all legitimacy.”

    Xiang stresses how, in China, “legitimacy is based on the concept of morality – since Confucius. The communists can’t escape the logic.

    Nobody before Xi dared to tackle corruption. He had the guts to root it out, arrested hundreds of corrupt generals. Some even attempted two or three coups d’état.”

    At the same time, Xiang is adamantly against the “tightening of the atmosphere” in China in terms of freedom of speech. He mentions the example of Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew, an “enlightened authoritarian system”. The problem is” China has no rule of law. There are a lot of legal aspects though. Singapore is a little city-state. Like Hong Kong. They just took over the British legal system. It’s working very well for that size.”

    And that brings Xiang to quote Aristotle: “Democracy can never work in bigger countries. In city-states, it does.” And armed with Aristotle, we step into Hong Kong: “Hong Kong had rule of law – but never a democracy. The government was directly appointed by London. That’s how Hong Kong actually worked – as an economic dynamo. Neoliberal economists consider Hong Kong as a model. It’s a unique political arrangement. Tycoon politics. No democracy – even as the colonial government did not rule like an authoritarian figure. Market economy was unleashed. Hong Kong was ruled by the Jockey Club, HSBC, Jardine Matheson, with the colonial government as coordinator. They never cared about people in the bottom.”

    Xiang notes how, “the richest man in Hong Kong only pays 15% of income tax. China wanted to keep that pattern, with a colonial government appointed by Beijing. Still tycoon politics. But now there’s a new generation. People born after the handover – who know nothing about the colonial history. Chinese elite ruling since 1997 did not pay attention to the grassroots and neglected younger generation sentiment. For a whole year the Chinese didn’t do anything. Law and order collapsed. This is the reason why mainland Chinese decided to step in. That’s what the new security law is all about.”

    And what about that other favorite “malign” actor across the Beltway – Russia? “Putin would love to have a Trump win. The Chinese as well, up to three months ago. The Cold War was a great strategic triangle. After Nixon went to China, the US sat in the middle manipulating Moscow and Beijing. Now everything has changed.”

  • Life Is Unfair…
    Life Is Unfair…

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 10/09/2020 – 23:20

    At a time when the constant narrative from Washington is one of ‘inequality‘ (of outcomes, not opportunities) and just how much redistribution is required to “fix” that, the following words from JFK seem worth a re-listen:

    “…there is always inequity in life.

    Some men are killed in a war and some men are wounded, and some men never leave the country, and some men are stationed in the Antarctic and some are stationed in San Francisco.

    It’s very hard in the military or personal life to assure complete equality. Life is unfair.”

    -“President’s News Conference of March 21, 1962 (107),” Public Papers of the Presidents: John F. Kennedy, 1962.

    Of course, when your life is predicated on raging against the machine (and projecting that rage on various social media feeds), no amount of facts or common sense will change one’s mind about self-responsibility…

    h/t Global Macro Monitor

  • Thousands Of Mathematicians Call For Boycotting Predictive Crime A.I. From Police
    Thousands Of Mathematicians Call For Boycotting Predictive Crime A.I. From Police

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 10/09/2020 – 23:00

    Authored by Aaron Kesel via ActivistPost.com,

    After a flurry of police brutality cases this year and protests swarming the U.S. streets, thousands of mathematicians have joined scientists and engineers in calling for boycotting artificial intelligence from being used by law enforcement.

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    Over 2,000 mathematicians have signed a letter calling to boycott all collaboration with police and telling their colleagues to do the same in a future publication of the American Mathematical Society, Shadowproof reported.

    The call to action for the mathematicians was the police killings of George Floyd, Tony McDade, Breonna Taylor, and many more just this year.

    “At some point, we all reach a breaking point, where what is right in front of our eyes becomes more obvious,” says Jayadev Athreya, a participant in the boycott and Associate Professor of Mathematics at the University of Washington. “Fundamentally, it’s a matter of justice.”

    The mathematicians wrote an open letter, collecting thousands of signatures for a widespread boycott of police using algorithms for policing. Every mathematician within the group’s network pledges to refuse any and all collaboration with law enforcement.

    The group is organizing a wide base of mathematicians in the hopes of cutting off police from using such technologies. The letter’s authors cite “deep concerns over the use of machine learning, AI, and facial recognition technologies to justify and perpetuate oppression.”

    Predictive policing is one key area where some mathematicians and scientists have enabled the racist algorithms, which tell cops to treat specific areas as “hotspots” for potential crime. Activists and organizations have long criticized the bias in these practices. Algorithms trained on data produced by racist policing will reproduce that prejudice to “predict” where crime will be committed and who is potentially a criminal.

    “The data does not speak for itself, it’s not neutral,” explains Brendan McQuade, author of Pacifying the Homeland: Intelligence Fusion and Mass Supervision. Police data is “dirty data,” because it does not represent crime, but policing and arrests.

    “So what are its predictions going to find? That police should deploy their resources in the same place police have traditionally deployed their resources.”

    Several, if not all, U.S. states and major cities are thought to use some type of predictive policing or pre-crime software with known users including — Chicago, Atlanta, Tacoma, New York, and LA, though not without protesting its use. As Activist Post previously reported, many of these states are using Palantir software for their predictive crime algorithms and have been exposed for doing so, like Florida, whose police terrorized and monitored residents of Pasco County.

    These police organizations across the U.S. have been using what is known as “heat lists” or pre-crime databases for years. What is a “heat list,” you may ask?

    Well, “heat lists” are basically databases compiled by algorithms of people that police suspect may commit a crime. Yes, you read that right — a person who might commit a crime. How these lists are generated and what factors determine an individual “may commit a crime” is unknown.

    Activists and journalists sued the Chicago Police Department in 2017 for failing to disclose how these programs operate, as Activist Post reported.

    Chicago wasn’t the only major police department exposed using predictive crime algorithms. The Los Angeles Police Department was also caught one year later in 2018 by activists from the Stop LA Spying Coalition, as Activist Post reported.

    This heat list idea in local law enforcement actually originated in Miami then was rolled out in Chicago in 2013. However, Activist Post may have missed other cities that gained less media attention; and as this writer will discuss shortly, the idea comes from a federal database.

    A paper released last year by MIT entitled “Technical Flaws of Pretrial Risk Assessments Raise Grave Concerns” has been signed by some of the highest level university experts in the field of A.I. and law who warn about the “technical flaws” of these pre-crime based systems, Activist Post reported.

    Fortunately for us, as Nicholas West noted, the pushback has already started in several cities, and a few police departments have dropped their programs after becoming aware of the inaccuracies. In 2018, for example, New Orleans suspended its 6-year running pre-crime program after its secret predictive policing software was exposed.

    The scariest part of all this is that the New Orleans and LA police departments were actually both linked to Palantir Technologies, which directly works with the CIA and is suspected of being the current fork of PROMIS Main Core software. PROMIS pre-dates all of these local police heat lists, with algorithms that put suspected “domestic terrorists” into their own round-up lists and highly scrutinized tracked purchases, created at first by Oliver North for President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George H.W. Bush under FEMA’s Readiness Exercise — 1984 (REX-1984.)

    The use of Palantir’s pre-crime algorithm software posits that other police departments may be utilizing the same software for their own pre-crime programs. Palantir is also the same company working with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency on its own lists to catch illegal immigrants, as Activist Post and investigative journalist Barrett Brown originally reported.

    You may remember Palantir from journalist Barrett Brown, Anonymous’ hack of HBGary, or accusations that the company provided the technology that enables NSA’s mass surveillance PRISM which is the successor to PROMIS. Palantir’s software in many ways is similar to the Prosecutor’s Management Information System (PROMIS) stolen software Main Core and may be the next evolution in that code, which allegedly predated PRISM. In 2008, Salon.com published details about a top-secret government database that might have been at the heart of the Bush administration’s domestic spying operations. The database known as “Main Core” reportedly collected and stored vast amounts of personal and financial data about millions of Americans in the event of an emergency like Martial Law.

    PROMIS was forked into many reported use-cases for the U.S. government, including an intelligence application onboard nuclear submarines of the United States and Great Britain, and the use by both the U.S. government and certain allied governments for inventory tracking of nuclear materials and long-range ballistic missiles. But the most bizarre and frightening use was to keep track of dissident Americans under Main Core.

    The Main Core database isn’t just a rumor or conspiracy theory; PROMIS software was used by Iran-Contra fall guy then-National Security Council, Lt. Col. Oliver North to create the dissidents list for Rex-84 that would later evolve to Main Core. North used PROMIS software in 1982 in the Department of Justice, and at the White House, to compile a list of American dissidents to invoke if the government ever needed to do so under Ronald Reagan’s Continuity of Government (COG) program as a liaison to FEMA.

    In 1993, Wired described North’s use of PROMIS in compiling the Main Core database:

    Using PROMIS, sources point out, North could have drawn up lists of anyone ever arrested for a political protest, for example, or anyone who had ever refused to pay their taxes. Compared to PROMIS, Richard Nixon’s enemies list or Sen. Joe McCarthy’s blacklist look downright crude.

    This Main Core database of individuals was given to a handful of individuals, meaning most government officials had no knowledge of the program ever existing. The database was passed off from administration to administration through National Security channels, according to sources.

    This writer wrote extensively on Main Core and PROMIS in an investigation on the cover-up of stolen Inslaw software and murders of journalists Danny Casolaro and Anson NG Yonc, CIA intelligence operative Ian Spiro and NSA employee Alan Standorf. See: “Octopus PROMIS: The Conspiracy Against INSLAW Software, And The Murders To Cover Up A Scandal Bigger Than Watergate.”

    Palantir was founded with early investment from the CIA and heavily used by the military, and Palantir is a subcontracting company in its own right. The company has even been featured in the Senate’s grilling of Facebook, when Washington State Senator Maria Cantwell asked CEO Mark Zuckerberg, “Do you know who Palantir is?” due to Peter Thiel sitting on Facebook’s board.

    Palantir’s Gotham software allows Fusion Center police to track citizens beyond social media and online web accounts with people record searches, vehicle record searches, a Histogram tool, a Map tool, and an Object Explorer tool.

    According to DHS, “Fusion centers operate as state and major urban area focal points for the receipt, analysis, gathering, and sharing of threat-related information between federal; state, local, tribal, territorial (SLTT); and private sector partners” like Palantir. Further, Fusion Centers are locally owned and operated, arms of the “intelligence community,” i.e. the 17 intelligence agencies coordinated by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). However, sometimes the buildings are staffed by trained NSA personnel like what happened in Mexico City, according to a 2010 Defense Department (DOD) memorandum.

    Tarik Aougab, an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Haverford College, one of the many mathematicians who saw recent protests against police as a an opportunity to take action against these practices said. “If there is already disproportionately large amounts of time and energy being spent criminalizing Black and brown people,” Aougab continues, “the predictions the algorithm puts forth are just going to reflect that. It’s a way to perpetuate that over-criminalization.”

    The mathematicians question if predictive policing is just a self-fulfilling prophecy.

    “There’s a big question here: is predictive policing really getting ahead of events, or is it just a self-fulfilling prophecy?” McQuade explains that “crime statistics” are more accurately referred to as “arrest statistics.”

    They measure police behavior, which is not directly correlated with crime and violence. These arrests justify and perpetuate more arrests.

    Athreya explains the boycotters will accomplish their goals by collaborating with criminal justice organizations.

    We want to work through issues of how various algorithms are used in the criminal justice system, for things from facial recognition to DNA matching algorithms, where community groups and mathematicians can have a say.

    In fact, one study conducted by the AI Institute last year investigated predictive policing systems and determined “in numerous jurisdictions, these systems are built on data produced during documented periods of flawed, racially-biased, and sometimes unlawful practices and policies.”

    Another subsequent 2019 audit on predictive A.I. use in Los Angeles found a serious lack of oversight or procedures around the tools, rendering them utterly useless. Researchers have also noticed police tend to pursue their own “hotspots” rather than follow the technology making the tech become an enabler to police labeling and categorizing individuals without reason, Science Mag reported.

    This is only the beginning of the fight, and it’s going to be a drawn-out battle to prevent the use of this technology, not just here in the U.S. but worldwide as well. There’s no telling how long these projects have been active, and trusting the police to honestly tell us is like trusting the wolf guarding the henhouse. However, with mathematicians as well as scientists and engineers on our side we have a fighting chance.

    *  *  *

    Become an Activist Post Patron for $1 per month at Patreon.

  • 59 Million Americans Expect Income Losses Ahead Of Presidential Election  
    59 Million Americans Expect Income Losses Ahead Of Presidential Election  

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 10/09/2020 – 22:40

    The Census Bureau’s latest Household Pulse Survey speaks volume to the “K-shaped” recovery, where high-income Americans saw their jobs immediately return and “V-shaped” recoveries for stock and other asset prices, while middle- and lower-class people continue to experience job loss, food insecurity, unable to pay bills, and eviction or foreclosure. 

    The survey, conducted from Sept. 16-28, shows 59.2 million Americans expect someone in their household to have a loss in employment or take a pay cut ahead of the presidential elections. Bloomberg points out that the working poor, more specifically, minority households continue to struggle the most economically from the coronavirus pandemic. 

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    The survey found 32% of Americans were “somewhat” or “very” concerned about their ability to cover basic household expenses. These figures were alarmingly high for Hispanic and Black households. 

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    Minneapolis Fed President (as well as former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability under the Bush and Obama administrations, former PIMCO and former Goldman Sachs employee) Neel Kashkari was out this week addressing the dire need for more stimulus to support the economic recovery. 

    “Whatever Congress can do with the executive branch — come together aggressively to put money in the hands of people who have lost their jobs and to support small businesses so that we don’t have this continuing wave of bankruptcies across the economy — it’s just vital that they move quickly,” Kashkari told CNBC.

    On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi signaled there wouldn’t be any more financial support for airlines without a much larger stimulus package. Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said many Republican senators believe the economy has already seen enough stimulus. 

    With stimulus talks stalled, how is it that poor people and minority households continue to suffer while millionaires and billionaires are getting richer and richer? 

    Well, it has to do with the flawed economic system, as what the virus exposed for all the world to see, where monetary and fiscal stimulus flows directly to the wealthiest people, thus creating the “K” recovery. The “K” is the result of socialism and central planning – so far its been disastrous for the bottom tier of society. 

  • Space Helmet Muzzle Launched Just-In-Time For 'New Normal' Travel
    Space Helmet Muzzle Launched Just-In-Time For 'New Normal' Travel

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 10/09/2020 – 22:20

    Via 21stCenturyWire.com,

    If the constant onslaught of calls for more PPE weren’t enough, there’s now a burgeoning industry of ‘pandemic’ gear hitting the market with a mission to make all the ‘New Normals’ feel safer while traveling.

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    The “AIR” is a space helmet looking muzzle meant for savvy ‘New Normal’ travelers. (Image via Microclimate)

    The new line of ‘Microclimate’ muzzles are being pushed out by Hall Labs, a Utah-based firm. They are retailing online for pre-order at $199 and will begin shipping in just a few weeks time.

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    Keep your AIR space helmet on all the way to your final destination. (Image via Microclimate)

    Hall Labs markets the Covid-inspired helmet as a mask alternative for “safer and more comfortable travel,” equipped with an internal ventilation system so you will not leave to chance the possibility of directly breathing in any of the fresh air around you.

    There is one major design flaw the company is still working out – the ventilation system’s fans muffle your hearing while you’re muzzled.

    According to an article in Fast Company, other future plans for the product include “adding a straw port so you can drink from your personal bubble.”

    Yes, these are troubling times indeed.

  • Mainstream EV Adoption: 5 Speedbumps To Overcome
    Mainstream EV Adoption: 5 Speedbumps To Overcome

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 10/09/2020 – 22:00

    Many would agree that a global shift to electric vehicles (EV) is an important step in achieving a carbon-free future. However, as Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu details below, for various reasons, EVs have so far struggled to break into the mainstream, accounting for just 2.5% of global auto sales in 2019.

    To understand why, this infographic from Castrol identifies the five critical challenges that EVs will need to overcome. All findings are based on a 2020 survey of 10,000 consumers, fleet managers, and industry specialists across eight significant EV markets.

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    The Five Challenges to EV Adoption

    Cars have relied on the internal combustion engine (ICE) since the early 1900s, and as a result, the ownership experience of an EV can be much more nuanced. This results in the five critical challenges we examine below.

    Challenge #1: Price

    The top challenge is price, with 63% of consumers believing that EVs are beyond their current budget. Though many cheaper EV models are being introduced, ICE vehicles still have the upper hand in terms of initial affordability. Note the emphasis on “initial”, because over the long term, EVs may actually be cheaper to maintain.

    Taking into account all of the running and maintenance costs of [an EV], we have already reached relative cost parity in terms of ownership.

    – President, EV consultancy, U.S.

    For starters, an EV drivetrain has significantly fewer moving parts than an ICE equivalent, which could result in lower repair costs. Government subsidies and the cost of electricity are other aspects to consider.

    So what is the tipping price that would convince most consumers to buy an EV? According to Castrol, it differs around the world.

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    Many budget-conscious buyers also rely on the used market, in which EVs have little presence. The rapid speed of innovation is another concern, with 57% of survey respondents citing possible depreciation as a factor that prevented them from buying an EV.

    Challenge #2: Charge Time

    Most ICE vehicles can be refueled in a matter of minutes, but there is much more uncertainty when it comes to charging an EV.

    Using a standard home charger, it takes 10-20 hours to charge a typical EV to 80%. Even with an upgraded fast charger (3-22kW power), this could still take up to 4 hours. The good news? Next-gen charging systems capable of fully charging an EV in 20 minutes are slowly becoming available around the world.

    Similar to the EV adoption tipping price, Castrol has also identified a charge time tipping point—the charge time required for mainstream EV adoption.

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    If the industry can achieve an average 31 minute charge time, EVs could reach $224 billion in annual revenues across these eight markets alone.

    Challenge #3: Range

    Over 70% of consumers rank the total range of an EV as being important to them. However, today’s affordable EV models (below the average tipping price of $35,947) all have ranges that fall under 200 miles.

    Traditional gas-powered vehicles, on the other hand, typically have a range between 310-620 miles. While Tesla offers several models boasting a 300+ mile range, their purchase prices are well above the average tipping price.

    For the majority of consumers to consider an EV, the following range requirements will need to be met by vehicle manufacturers.

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    Fleet managers, those who oversee vehicles for services such as deliveries, reported a higher average EV tipping range of 341 miles.

    Challenge #4: Charging Infrastructure

    Charging infrastructure is the fourth most critical challenge, with 64% of consumers saying they would consider an EV if charging was convenient.

    Similar to charge times, there is much uncertainty surrounding infrastructure. For example, 65% of consumers living in urban areas have a charging point within 5 miles of their home, compared to just 26% for those in rural areas.

    Significant investment in public charging infrastructure will be necessary to avoid bottlenecks as more people adopt EVs. China is a leader in this regard, with billions spent on EV infrastructure projects. The result is a network of over one million charging stations, providing 82% of Chinese consumers with convenient access.

    Challenge #5: Vehicle Choice

    The least important challenge is increasing the variety of EV models available. This issue is unlikely to persist for long, as industry experts believe 488 unique models will exist by 2025.

    Despite variety being less influential than charge times or range, designing models that appeal to various consumer niches will likely help to accelerate EV adoption. Market research will be required, however, because attitudes towards EVs vary by country.

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    A majority of Chinese and Indian consumers view EVs more favorably than traditional ICE vehicles. This could be the result of a lower familiarity with cars in general—in 2000, for example, China had just four million cars spread across its population of over one billion.

    EVs are the least alluring in the U.S. and Norway, which coincidentally have the highest GDP per capita among the eight countries surveyed. These consumers may be accustomed to a higher standard of quality as a result of their greater relative wealth.

    So When Do EVs Become Mainstream?

    As prices fall and capabilities improve, Castrol predicts a majority of consumers will consider buying an EV by 2024. Global mainstream adoption could take slightly longer, arriving in 2030.

    Caution should be exhibited, as these estimates rely on the five critical challenges being solved in the short-term future. This hinges on a number of factors, including technological change, infrastructure investment, and a shift in consumer attitudes.

    New challenges could also arise further down the road. EVs require a significant amount of minerals such as copper and lithium, and a global increase in production could put strain on the planet’s limited supply.

  • Has Our Luck Finally Run Out?
    Has Our Luck Finally Run Out?

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 10/09/2020 – 21:40

    Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

    We are woefully unprepared for a long run of bad luck.

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    Long-term cycles escape our notice because they play out over many years or even decades; few noticed the decreasing rainfall in the Mediterranean region in 150 A.D. but this gradual decline in rainfall slowly but surely reduced the grain harvests of the Roman Empire, which coupled with rising populations resulted in a reduced caloric intake for many people.

    This weakened their immune systems in subtle ways, leaving them more vulnerable to the Antonine Plague of 165 AD.

    The decline of temperatures in Northern Europe in the early 1300s led to “years without summer” and failed grain harvests which reduced the caloric intake of most people, leaving them weakened and more vulnerable to the Black Plague which swept Europe in 1347.

    I’ve mentioned the book The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire a number of times as a source for understanding the impact of natural cycles on human civilization.

    It’s important to note that the natural cycles and pandemics of 200 AD didn’t just cripple the Roman Empire; this same era saw the collapse of the mighty Parthian Empire of Persia, the kingdoms of India and the Han Dynasty in China.

    In addition to natural cycles, there are human socio-economic cycles of debt and decay of civic values and the social contract: a proliferation of parasitic elites, a weakening of state finances and a decline in the purchasing power of wages/labor.

    The rising dependence on debt and its eventual collapse is a cycle noted by Kondratieff and others, and Peter Turchin listed these three dynamics as the key drivers of decisive discord of the kind that brings down empires and nations.

    All three are playing out globally in the present.

    In this context, the election of Donald Trump in 2016 was a political expression of long-brewing discontent with precisely these issues: the rise of self-serving parasitic elites, the decay/corruption of the social contract and state finances and the decades-long decline in the purchasing power of wages/labor.

    Which brings us to karma, a topic of some confusion in Western cultures more familiar with Divine Retribution than with actions having consequences even without Divine Intervention, which is the essence of karma.

    Broadly speaking, the U.S. squandered the opportunities presented by the end of the Cold War 30 years ago on hubristic Exceptionalism, wars of choice, parasitic elites and an unprecedented waste of resources on unproductive consumption.

    Now the plan–for lack of any real plan–is to borrow trillions of dollars to fund an even more spectacular orgy of unproductive consumption, on the bizarre belief that “money” can be conjured out of thin air in essentially infinite quantities and squandered, and there will magically be no consequences of this trickery in the real world.

    Actions have consequences, and after 30 years of waste, fraud and corruption being normalized by the parasitic elites while the purchasing power of labor decayed, the karmic consequences can no longer be delayed by doing more of what’s hollowed out the economy and society.

    Which brings us to luck. As a general rule, historians seek explanations which leave luck out of the equation. This gives us a false confidence in the predictability and power of human will and action and cycles. Yes, cycles and human action influence outcomes, but we do a great disservice by shunting luck into the shadows as a non-factor.

    If Emperor Pius had chosen someone other than Marcus Aurelius as his successor, someone weak, vain and self-absorbed like so many of Rome’s late-stage emperors, then Rome would have fallen by 170 AD as the Antonine Plague crippled finances and the army, and the invading hordes would have swept the empire into the dustbin of history.

    It can be argued that only Marcus Aurelius had the experience and character to sell off the Imperial treasure to raise the money needed to pay the soldiers and spend virtually his entire term in power in the front lines of battle, preserving Rome from complete collapse.

    That was good judgement by Pius but also good luck.

    As we ponder luck, consider the estimate that had the meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago struck the Earth 30 minutes earlier or later, it would not have generated the Nuclear Winter that destroyed the dinosaurs. (A direct hit in deep water would have spawned a monstrous tsunami, but no dust cloud. A direct hit on land would have raised a dust cloud but without the water vapor / steam generated by the vaporization of millions of gallons of sea water, the cloud wouldn’t have risen high enough to encircle the planet.)

    That was bad luck for the dinosaurs, and good luck for the mammals who replaced them.

    The global economy has been extraordinarily lucky for 75 years. Food and energy have been cheap and abundant. (If you think food and energy are expensive now, think about prices doubling or tripling, and then doubling again.)

    In our complacency and hubris, we attribute this to our wonderful technologies, which we assume guarantee us permanent surpluses of energy and food. The idea that technology has reached hard limits or that it could fail doesn’t occur to us.

    We’ve taken good luck to be our birthright because it’s all we’ve known. We attribute this good fortune to things within our control–technology, wise investments and policies, etc. The possibility that all these powers that we consider so godlike are insignificant doesn’t occur to us because we’ve enjoyed the favorable winds of luck without even being aware of it.

    We are woefully unprepared for a long run of bad luck. My sense is the cycles have turned and the good luck has drained from the hour-glass. Energy and food will no longer be cheap and abundant, our luck in leadership will vanish, and our vaunted technologies will fail to maintain an abundance so vast that we can squander the finite wealth of soil, water, resources and energy on mindless consumption.

    I’m reminded of a line from an Albert King song, 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 next five years might have us singing this line with feeling.

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    *  *  *

    My recent books:

    A Hacker’s Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $8.95, print $20, audiobook coming soon) 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).

    *  *  *

    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.
     

  • Virgin Hyperloop To Test High-Speed Rail System In Abandoned West Virginia Coal Mine
    Virgin Hyperloop To Test High-Speed Rail System In Abandoned West Virginia Coal Mine

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 10/09/2020 – 21:20

    According to Reuters, a former coal mine in West Virginia is the new location for Virgin Hyperloop’s new Hyperloop Certification Center and test track for billionaire Richard Branson’s high-speed rail system. 

    Hyperloop’s new testing-ground will begin construction in 2022 on a former coal mine site in Tucker and Grant Counties, West Virginia, with safety certification by 2025 and commercial operations by 2030. 

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    … so much for President Trump reviving this coal mine. 

    The center will be the first U.S. regulatory proving ground for a hyperloop system to test floating travel pods, eventually meant for passengers, traveling through vacuum tubes at 600 mph.

    Reuters said Hyperloop and the Transportation Department Secretary Elaine Chao, Branson, and U.S. Senators from West Virginia Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican, and Joe Manchin will host a press conference unveiling the new $500 million certification center and six-mile test track.  

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

    Today’s announcement comes three months after the Transportation Department published new rules for hyperloop systems across the country. 

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

    “Today is one of the most exciting days in Virgin Hyperloop’s history,” said Branson. “The Hyperloop Certification Center is the start of the hyperloop journey for West Virginia, for the United States, and for the world. We’re one step closer to making hyperloop travel a reality for people everywhere.”

    By 2030, if all goes well, and commercialization is seen, the hyperloop system could allow commuters to travel between New York City and Washington, D.C., in just 30 minutes.

    As for the coal industry, Trump promised to save – well – maybe Hyperloop is offering job opportunities for miners? 

  • Report Shows Where Gen Z Spends Their Money
    Report Shows Where Gen Z Spends Their Money

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 10/09/2020 – 21:00

    Submitted by Market Crumbs

    Generation Z is typically described as those born between the mid-to-late 1990s and the early 2010s. A Bloomberg analysis of United Nations data found that Gen Z represents nearly one-third of the world’s population.

    As Gen Z teenagers move towards adulthood and represent a larger portion of consumer spending, a lot of attention is paid to their habits and preferences when it comes to spending.

    Piper Sandler released its 40th biannual “Taking Stock with Teens” report, which showed teenagers’ “self-reported” spending hit at an all-time survey low of $2,150, marking a drop of 9% from last fall’s survey. Annual self reported spending hit an all-time high of $3,023 in the spring of 2006.

    Piper Sandler surveyed 9,800 teens with an average age of 15.8 years old across 48 states online between August 19 and September 22. 48% of the respondents believe the economy is getting worse compared to 47% in the spring and just 32% last fall. 33% of those surveyed said they are currently part-time employed, while 23% of those not working said Covid-19 affected their ability to work.

    Regardless, teens still did spend and Piper Sandler’s report provides some interesting insight into their spending habits. 54% of respondents chose Amazon as their favorite e-commerce website, followed by SHEIN and Nike with 5% each. 90% of those surveyed said they’ve shopped online during the fall, while just 33% of teens said they’ve shopped in a department store or specialty retail store.

    Nike is the favorite footwear brand by a mile as 52% of teens named it their favorite, followed by Vans and Adidas with 17% and 11%, respectively. Nike’s clothing continues to rank high among teens with more than a quarter of respondents ranking it their favorite brand. Teens in the survey have now ranked Nike as their favorite clothing brand for a decade straight.

    Teens overwhelmingly prefer Chick-fil-a as 21% of teens selected it as their favorite restaurant. 10% of respondents chose Starbucks, while 9% picked Chipotle as their favorite. The report found that 47% of teens either consume or are open to consuming plant-based meat and even prompted the firm to raise its price target on shares of Beyond Meat from $130.00 per share to $178.00.

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    “This suggests plant-based eating is more on-trend with younger consumers, which could drive growth over time as consumers age. Our teen survey results suggest Impossible and Beyond are the early leaders in plant-based meat brand awareness, as they had the most mentions among brands tried by teens,” Piper Sandler senior research analyst Michael Lavery wrote.

    As Gen Z gets older it will be interesting to see if they remain loyal to these companies and if their spending habits change.

  • Michigan Homeowner Under Fire For 'Boobytrapping' Trump Yard Sign That Kept Getting Stolen
    Michigan Homeowner Under Fire For 'Boobytrapping' Trump Yard Sign That Kept Getting Stolen

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 10/09/2020 – 20:40

    A family at a Michigan residence say they grew tired of people stealing Trump campaign signs from their private property, likely often under cover of night, so it appears they decided to make sure the thieves would pay a price. 

    A homeowner in Commerce Township decided to tape sharp razor blades to the bottom of the next sign they put out. The blades lined the bottom of the Trump-Pence 2020 sign, so that the next vandal would be in for a surprise. 

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    Trump sign with razor blades lining the bottom, via Oakland County Sheriff’s Office

    A 52-year-old man later did approach the property to remove the sign, getting his fingers sliced open in the process, but it turns out the man was a civic worker who had been ordered by Township Supervisor David Scott to remove the sign for violating town ordinances. 

    The ordinance specifies how close a political sign can be to a public roadway, and the sign on private property was deemed ten feet too close. 

    The bizarre incident is now subject of intense controversy, making national news. CNN reports that the town employee had first thought he was being electrocuted when he reached down to pull out the sign: 

    Scott said his employee thought he was being “shocked electrically” when he went to touch the sign. Instead, three fingers on his left hand were sliced open by a line of razor blades taped to the campaign sign. The man began “aggressively bleeding” and drove himself to a nearby hospital, Scott said.

    Although there was no damage to any nerves or tendons in his fingers, the man required a tourniquet on one of his fingers to stop the bleeding and still only has limited use of his hand at this point, Scott said.

    A statement by the city alleged that the homeowner had “boobytrapped” the yard sign.

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    Via Oakland County Sheriff’s Office

      “You can’t boobytrap them with the intent to hurt, harm or maim someone,” the township supervisor said. “For whatever reason, (someone felt the need to) protect this like it’s the Crown Jewels.”

      The local county sheriff’s office is currently investigating the incident. The homeowner has since issued ambiguous statements as why the sign was lined with razors, denying they were behind it. Police later found at least two signs with razors protruding from them: 

      Two campaign signs on were found with razor blades taped to them, according to the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office.

      The homeowner, who was also not identified by authorities, said the signs had previously been stolen from their property and when they returned from out of town the signs were back in their yard, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

      Local media reports indicated upon being questioned by police, “The homeowner said she didn’t know anything about the razor blades. Some of her signs supporting President Trump had been stolen, she said, then were returned and put back in the yard.” 

      The township said that civic workers routinely pull up yard signs deemed in violation of ordinances and typically leave them beside trash bins.

      Last month the AP reported on a Trump sign in Massachusetts being protected by an electric fence:

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      Via AP: Last month a sign in Bedford, Mass. had been rigged with an electric fence protecting it.

      Local media called it an example of “politics getting bloody”:

      However, it doesn’t appear there was any attempt to contact and notify the homeowner of the supposed “violation” – which many would argue should be protected free speech in the first place.

      Instead, it remains that the worker entered private property with the intent to dispose of someone’s personal possession, getting injured in the process. The final legal outcome of this episode will be interesting, but we don’t expect either the town or police to come down on the side of property rights.

      Local media also reports that the homeowner may be facing charges related to endangerment. 

    • Confidence In Accuracy Of U.S. Election Is At Record Low: Gallup
      Confidence In Accuracy Of U.S. Election Is At Record Low: Gallup

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/09/2020 – 20:20

      By Justin McCarthy at Gallup,

      Fifty-nine percent of Americans say they are “very” (19%) or “somewhat confident” (40%) that votes in the upcoming presidential election will be accurately cast and counted throughout the country, matching the low Gallup recorded in 2008.

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      The latest figure, collected in Gallup’s Sept. 14-28 poll, comes at a time when President Donald Trump has repeatedly questioned the validity of voting this year, which will include widespread mail voting amid the coronavirus pandemic. As in 2008, the country is grappling with a global economic crisis, and Americans’ satisfaction with the way things are going in the U.S. is near its historical low point.

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      As would be expected given Trump’s view, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (44%) are expressing far less confidence than Democrats and Democratic leaners (74%) in the accuracy of the election.

      The 11-percentage-point drop since 2018 in the national figure on confidence in election accuracy is largely driven by a 34-point drop among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. The GOP’s current 44% level of confidence is the lowest Gallup has recorded for identifiers/leaners of either major political party in its trend dating back to 2004.

      Democrats, on the other hand, have become slightly more confident in election accuracy since 2018, though this falls short of this group’s high of 83% in 2016.

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      Americans More Confident in Local Vote-Counting

      Americans are more likely to express confidence in the accuracy of voting counts where they personally vote. About four in five say they are “very” (47%) or “somewhat confident” (32%) that votes will be accurately cast and counted locally. The percentage of Americans who are “very” confident in local vote counting is more than double the level for votes counted nationally.

      The combined percentage of Americans who are at least somewhat confident in accurate local vote counting has waned over time, however, from a high of 91% in 2006 to a new low of 79% today.

      Postal Service Delays, Fraudulent Means of Casting Votes Seen as Biggest Problems

      Of four possible complications that could occur in the election, absentee ballots not being counted because they arrive late is the one that Americans see as the most problematic, with 55% predicting it will be a “major problem.” Nearly as many, 53%, say people casting fraudulent votes is a major problem.

      Forty-seven percent of U.S. adults say that eligible voters not being allowed to cast a vote is a big problem for the election — much higher than the 25% to 34% range Gallup recorded between 2004 and 2016. Forty-five percent say that ineligible voters casting votes is a major problem, similar to the previous high of 44% in 2008.

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      Late-arriving absentee ballots are the only voting issue that majorities of both major political parties see as a major problem: 51% of Republicans and 63% of Democrats.

      Republicans are more than twice as likely as Democrats to express concern about fraudulent means of casting votes and ineligible voters casting votes, while Democrats are about twice as likely as Republicans to anticipate that eligible voters not being allowed to cast a vote will be a major problem.

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      Bottom Line

      Though most Americans have confidence in the accuracy of vote counting nationwide in the upcoming presidential election, the latest figure is lower than it has been in most prior elections. Confidence is particularly low among Republicans, likely reflecting the repeated warnings of their party’s standard-bearer to be on the lookout for fraud. As is often seen in public attitudes, Americans are much more confident about vote-counting in their local area than they are about the national situation, but even this is down in the past decade.

      Sizable percentages of U.S. adults see major problems with voting in the coming elections, but these views vary: Republicans are more concerned about issues of voter fraud, and Democrats are more concerned about eligible voters being kept out of the voting process. The one uniting issue is late deliveries of ballots from the U.S. Postal Service, which is something the Postal Service itself has raised concerns about.

      Even before the challenges posed by COVID-19 and Trump’s open skepticism of the process, the Gallup World Poll in 2019 found that the U.S. had “one of the worst ratings across the world’s wealthiest democracies” when it came to confidence in the honesty of elections.

    • Organizers Cancel Next Week's Trump-Biden Debate
      Organizers Cancel Next Week's Trump-Biden Debate

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/09/2020 – 20:05

      Update (2000ET): Trump’s camp has responded to the news of the cancellation by insisting that President Trump is still willing to participate in three debates.

      • TRUMP CAMPAIGN: WOULD BE GLAD TO DO 1-ON-1 DEBATE W/NO MEDDLING
      • TRUMP CAMPAIGN: NO REASON NOT TO HAVE 3 DEBATES AS PLANNED

      There’s no reason not to do three debates…Trump can only theoretically remain contagious for a few more days, tops.

      * * *

      When the Commission on Presidential Debates announced last night that it had rejected the Trump Campaign and Biden Campaign’s compromise plan to simply push back the debate schedule by a week (moving the second debate to Oct. 22, and the third and final debate until Oct. 29), we figured that was all she wrote for the second presidential debate.

      And as it turns out, we were correct.

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      WSJ got the scoop, but it wasn’t long before the “nonpartisan” Commission, which has organized every presidential debate since 1988, issued a statement confirming that the second debate would not move forward.

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      Instead, the CPD will shift its focus to the third presidential debate, set for Oct. 22 in Nashville at Belmont University. That debate will be divided into six 15-minute segments.

      It’s notable that the cancellation follows last night’s mini-scandal set in motion when Steve Scully, the chosen debate moderator, sent a tweet to Anthony Scaramucci that many suspect should have been a DM.

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      When press for an explanation, he said his account was hacked.

      Needless to say, while most Americans are probably relieved that they won’t need to sit through another chaotic spectacle like the first debate, conservatives are lashing out at the commission.

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    • The Circle Is Complete: BOJ Joins Fed And ECB In Preparing Rollout Of Digital Currency
      The Circle Is Complete: BOJ Joins Fed And ECB In Preparing Rollout Of Digital Currency

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/09/2020 – 20:00

      First it was the Fed, then the ECB, and now the BOJ: the world’s central banks are quietly preparing to unleash digital currencies on an unsuspecting population in one final last-ditch attempt to spark inflation and do away with the current monetary orthodoxy which has failed to push living conditions for the masses higher (but most importantly, has failed to inflate away a growing mountain of insurmountable global debt). 

      On Friday, the Bank of Japan joined the Fed and ECB when it said it would begin experimenting on how to operate its own digital currency, rather than confining itself to conceptual research as it has to date.

      Digitalization has advanced in various areas at home and abroad on the back of rapid development of information communication technology. There is a possibility of a surge in public demand for central bank digital currency (CBDC) going forward, considering the rapid development of technological innovation. While the Bank of Japan currently has no plan to issue CBDC, from the viewpoint of ensuring the stability and efficiency of the overall payment and settlement systems, the Bank considers it important to prepare thoroughly to respond to changes in circumstances in an appropriate manner.

      The bank explained that it might provide general purpose CBDC if cash in circulation drops “significantly” and private digital money is not sufficient to substitute the functions of cash, while promising to supply physical cash as long as there is public demand for it

      The move, as Reuters reports, came in tandem with an announcement by a group of seven major central banks, including the BOJ, on what they see as core features of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) such as resilience and a clear legal framework. It also falls in line with new Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s focus on promoting digitalization and administrative reform to boost the country’s competitiveness.

      In a report laying out its approach on CBDC, the BOJ said it will conduct a first phase of experiments on basic functions core to CBDCs, such as issuance and distribution, early in the fiscal year beginning in April 2021. The experiments will be part of the BOJ’s efforts to look more closely into how it can issue general-purpose CBDCs, intended to be used widely among the general public including companies and households.

      Naturally, to avoid sparking a panic that paper money is on its way out – and thus prompt the population to hoard it – the BOJ said that CBDCs “will complement, not replace, cash and focus on making payment and settlement systems more convenient.” However, how exactly it is “more convenient” for the central bank to be able to remotely extinguish any amount of money in one’s digital wallet without notice, remains a mystery.

      Unlike the Fed, the BOJ plans to have financial institutions and other private entities serve as intermediaries between the central bank and end users, rather than have companies and households hold deposits directly with the BOJ.

      “While the BOJ currently has no plan to issue CBDC … it’s important to prepare thoroughly to respond to changes in circumstances,” the report said.

      In the second phase of experiments, the BOJ will look at the potential design of CBDCs such as whether it should set a limit on the amount issued and pay a remuneration on deposits.

      In the final step before issuance, the BOJ will launch a pilot program involving private firms and households, it said.

      The BOJ added it would be desirable for the CBDC to be used not only for domestic but cross-border payments, in short don’t worry, this is just an experiment… but once operational it will take over the entire existing monetary system.

      To be sure, having complete control over the entire monetary transmission mechanism, all the way to each quantum of currency in circulation has been a central banker dream. A key reasons for negative rates was for banks to force consumers to pull their money out of the bank and spend it, thus lifting the velocity of money. Alas, as we showed previously, the lowest interest rates in history merely prompted even more savings and less spending, resulting in catastrophic consequences for the financial sectors wherever negative rates were adopted, such as Japan and Europe.

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      Until now, Japan had been cautious about moving too quickly on digital currencies given the social disruptions it could cause in a country that has the world’s most cash-loving population. But China’s steady progress toward issuing digital currency has prompted the government to reconsider, especially if China takes the lead in sparking a new reflationary tide once it converts its entire population to digital currency, and pledged in this year’s policy platform to look more closely at the idea.

      Of course, the real reason behind central bank urgency to implement digital currencies is simple and has nothing to do with serving the population, increasing facility of transfers, or enhancing stability and efficiency of payment and settlement systems. It has everything to do with having discrete control over inflation, and enabling worldwide “helicopter money.” This is how DoubleLine fixed income portolio manager Bill Campbell described it in his latest must-read note “The Pandora’s Box of Central Bank Digital Currencies.”

      With QE, central banks have printed excess reserves that have benefited  only  the  very  wealthy  and  large  institutions.  The innovation of a digital currency system as described by Mastercard could deliver stimulus directly to consumers. Such a mechanism could open veritable floodgates of liquidity into the consumer economy and accelerate the rate of inflation. While central banks have been trying without success to increase inflation for the past decade, the temptation to put CBDCs into effect might be very strong among policymakers. However, CBDCs would not only inject liquidity into the economy but also could accelerate the velocity of money. That one-two punch could bring about far more inflation than central bankers bargain for.

      When first implementing QE, central banks promised that this measure would be temporary and would be unwound after the crisis ended, a pledge that I have doubted for a while.  Central  banks as we know have perpetuated QE as part of their updated toolbox of monetary policies. The first use of digital currencies in monetary policy might start small as policymakers, out of caution, seek to calibrate this experiment in quasi-fiscal stimulus. However, such initial restraint could give way to growing complacency and greater use of the tool – just as we saw with QE. The temptations of CBDCs are not limited to excesses in monetary policy.  CBDCs  also  appear  to  be  an  effective  mechanism  for bypassing the taxation, debt issuance and spending prerogatives of government to implement a quasi-fiscal policy. Imagine, for example,  the  ease  of  enacting  Modern  Monetary  Theory  via CBDCs. With CBDCs, the central banks would possess the necessary plumbing to directly deliver a digital currency to individuals’ bank accounts, ready to be spent via debit cards.

      Let me quote again from Charles I. Plosser’s warning in 2012: “Once a central bank ventures into fiscal policy, it is likely to find itself under increasing pressure from the private sector, financial markets, or the government to use its balance sheet to substitute for other fiscal decisions.” With a flick of the digital switch, CBDCs can enable policymakers to meet, or cave in to, those demands – at the risk of igniting an inflation conflagration, abandoning what little still survives of sovereign fiscal discipline and who knows what else. I hope the leaders of the world’s central banks will approach this new financial technology with extreme caution, guarding against its overuse or outright abuse. It’s hard to be optimistic. Soon our monetary Pandoras will possess their own box full of new powers, perhaps too enticing to resist.

      Here is another reason why it is hard to be optimistic: without virtually any public discourse or debate, central banks are now so far down along in the process that they are just steps away from rolling out a private-sector venture with one of the largest digital payments processors in the world. Below is a press release that virtually nobody noticed in early September from none other than electronic payment giant MasterCard, in which it revealed that it had launched “Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) Testing Platform, Enabling Central Banks to Assess and Explore National Digital Currencies“

      With the global economy racing to embrace digital payments, central banks also are looking to the future and investigating how to support innovation while maintaining monetary policy and financial stability as they issue and distribute currency. In fact, 80 percent of central banks surveyed are engaging in some form of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) work, and about 40 percent of central banks have progressed from conceptual research to experimenting with concept and design, according to a recent survey by the Bank for International Settlements.

      Today, Mastercard announced a proprietary virtual testing environment for central banks to evaluate CBDC use cases. The platform enables the simulation of issuance, distribution and exchange of CBDCs between banks, financial service providers and consumers. Central banks, commercial banks, and tech and advisory firms are invited to partner with Mastercard to assess CBDC tech designs, validate use cases and evaluate interoperability with existing payment rails available for consumers and businesses today.

      Mastercard is a leader in operating multiple payment rails and convening partners to ensure a level playing field for everyone – from banks to businesses to mobile network operators – in order to bring the most people possible into the digital economy. Mastercard wants to harness its expertise to enable the practical, safe and secure development of digital currencies.

      “Central banks have accelerated their exploration of digital currencies with a variety of objectives, from fostering financial inclusion to modernizing the payments ecosystem,” said Raj Dhamodharan, Executive Vice President, Digital Asset and Blockchain Products and Partnerships, Mastercard. “Mastercard is driving innovation with the public sector, banks, fintechs, and advisory firms in the exploration of CBDCs, working with partners that are aligned to our core values and principles. This new platform supports central banks as they make decisions now and in the future about the path forward for local and regional economies,” Dhamodharan added.

      Sheila Warren, Head of Blockchain, Digital Assets and Data Policy at the World Economic Forum, said: “Collaborations between the public and private sectors in the exploration of Central Bank Digital Currencies can help central banks better understand the range of technology possibilities and capabilities available with respect to CBDCs. Central banks can benefit from support in exploring the option set available to them with respect to CBDCs, as well as gaining insight into what opportunities may be forthcoming.”

      Finally, why are central banks using blockchain as the backbone for all digital currency efforts? It has nothing to do with their fascination with bitcoin, or their fear that cryptocurrencies can become dominant (although there certainly is an element of that). The real reason is that blockchain allows every single discrete currency unit, whether it is the digital dollar, digital euro, digital yen or digital yuan, to be tracked from its digital inception, through every single transaction, and to which wallet it can be found in at any given moment. In short, blockchain-based digital currencies will allow central banks to have a real-time map of absolutely every monetary unit in circulation, and every single economic transaction, something they can’t do with trillions in anonymous paper money still sloshing around (the inverse process was launched by the ECB when it did away with the notorious €500 banknote which allowed European to easily circumvent Europe’s negative interest rates). And, of course, when push comes to shove, central banks will also be able to “warn” the public the digital money in their digital wallets may soon expire, sparking an inflationary flood of spending with the flick of a switch.

    • Rosenberg: We Are In A Depression
      Rosenberg: We Are In A Depression

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/09/2020 – 19:40

      Authored by John Mauldin via MauldinEconomics.com,

      Disney is laying off 28,000 workers. American Airlines and United Airlines plan to cut 31,000 workers. Last week’s disappointing unemployment report shows that we have a long way to go. Perhaps a lot longer than we think.

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      I’m going to quote at length from my friend David Rosenberg, who I believe is absolutely spot on:

      “You tally up these sectors and before the crisis, they supported 32 million jobs, or about a third of the private sector workforce, and it looks to me as though half of them are not going back to their old jobs.

      “And I’m not sure many people understand that amusement parks, airlines, hoteliers and restaurants cannot stay in business at 50% capacity (or even 75% in the case of restaurants).

      “… As it stands, the US Chamber of Commerce said that 25% of small businesses have already shut down. Another survey by Ipsos concluded that two-thirds are still nervous about leaving their homes; 59% say they intend to remain locked down on their own until signs emerge that the virus is ‘fully contained.’ A YouGov/CBS poll concludes that 85% of American households say they wouldn’t get on an airplane even if they could. That’s why the industry needs a bailout!

      “A Washington Post/University of Maryland poll shows that only 56% of consumers across the nation intend to shop at the supermarket, which I suppose is a continuous bullish data point for delivery services but that’s about it. Just 33% say they are comfortable entering a retail store. And a mere 22% say they are willing to dine in a sit-in restaurant.

      “All these polls say basically the same thing – it will not be ‘business as usual,’ as the bulls will try and convince you, and the best we can hope for is a partial recovery. I mean, at best. What we had on our hands was a vertical down economic decline with job losses an order of magnitude higher than anything we have witnessed since the Great Depression. So, even as the stock market is telling you it has it all figured out, I can assure you that what we face at this very moment is a very uncertain economic future. And unfortunately, most of the longer-term risks are to the downside.

      “We are in a depression – not a recession, but a depression. And I think the dynamics of a depression are different than they are in a recession because depressions invoke a secular change in behavior. Classic business cycle recessions are forgotten about within a year after they end – the scars from this one will take years to heal.”

      Even though the unemployment rate went down to 7.9%, that was largely due to a drop of almost 700,000 in the labor force. We have regained just over half the jobs lost between February and April. The pace of gains, both total and private, slowed for the third-consecutive month and looks to get slower.

      There will be a recovery. Those hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs who have closed their businesses? They’ll open new ones.

      But not in six months. Where will they get capital?

      It’s one thing to bail out airlines with multiple billions of dollars. What about the local bakery with 15 employees? Where do they get the capital to reopen when the time is right?

      You can repeat that story a million (or more) times.

      Know this: That which can’t go on, won’t. We can’t keep piling on debt at this rate forever, and we can’t repay what we have.

      *  *  *

      I predict an unprecedented crisis that will lead to the biggest wipeout of wealth in history. And most investors are completely unaware of the pressure building right now. Learn more here.

    • Goldman Offers Workers Free On-Site COVID-19 Testing After Latest Trading-Floor Outbreak
      Goldman Offers Workers Free On-Site COVID-19 Testing After Latest Trading-Floor Outbreak

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/09/2020 – 19:20

      In September, Goldman Sachs employees in New York became the latest to suffer a trading floor outbreak as Wall Street banks called their investment banking workers back into the office before pretty much every other white-collar industry. But now that Microsoft is claiming that it plans to allow some employees to work from home permanently (well, at least some of the time), Goldman is touting its plans to offer all US-based employees antibody tests and saliva-based PCR tests and other on-sight screening for staff at 200 West Street, according to Financial News.

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      The report cited a memo sent to staff dated Oct. 8, which was Thursday.

      Goldman is considering rolling the program out to other officers around the world, but it hasn’t made any final plans yet.

      In New York, the tests will be available to workers first returning to the office, while those remaining at home can be reimbursed for any costs they incur related to their private health care programs and COVID-19 testing.

      CEO David Solomon is also introducing internal daily screenings and a “tracking and tracing” program to help prevent any future outbreaks.

      “As high-quality testing has become more available, we have engaged vendor partners to offer off-site COVID-19 tests to eligible people in the US at no cost,” reads the memo sent out to staff on Thursday. “Testing is one part of a comprehensive prevention strategy that includes wearing masks, following general hygiene and handwashing best practices, and practicing social distancing.”

      The New York Post reports that Solomon is also imposing a new program that will allow employees to return to work on a rotational basis.

      “The future remains uncertain, requiring us to stay nimble and pivot as needed.”

      Maybe Jamie Dimon and JPM could learn a thing or two from Goldman’s approach? That is, if they’re still insisting on bringing their employees back to the office sooner rather than later.

    • Bitcoin, The Great Reset, And Systemic Failure
      Bitcoin, The Great Reset, And Systemic Failure

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/09/2020 – 19:00

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

      It’s been a whirlwind week in the cryptocurrency world. There have been a rash of news items all pointing towards the same thing – attempts to rein in alternatives to the future of central bank digital currencies (CBDC) that are quickly creeping up over the horizon.

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      It started with the CFTC’s indictment of the owners of crypto-exchange BitMex after more than a year of investigation last week.

      Even if its founders are not convicted, this might still spell the end of the embattled BitMEX. In tandem with the criminal indictments, the CFTC also launched a civil action against the BitMEX network of companies and its founders.

      The formal counts on which the CFTC seeks relief are:

      1. Executing futures transactions without registering with the CFTC

      2. Offering illegal off-exchange commodity options

      3. Failure to register as a futures commission merchant

      4. Failure to register as a designated contract market/swap execution facility

      5. Failure to supervise in relation to its lack of KYC and AML procedures and failing to ensure that its partners and employees lawfully handled BitMEX accounts

      6. Failure to implement KYC and AML procedures as required under the CEA

      That put a lid on a nascent rally in Bitcoin which was beginning to challenge $11,000. The net result was a $500 move down and killing any potential short-term bullish momentum. It should have seen a breakdown below support at $9800 (orange line, see chart) but that didn’t happen.

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      Since then Bitcoin has been bouncing around between $10,400 and $10,900 without any real direction, continuing to coil and consolidate.

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      But despite the violent intra-day reaction Bitcoin weathered that news item well, with last week’s volatility dropping off to next to nothing.

      You Can’t Win

      Today the market shrugged off two major pieces of news from officialdom. The first was the U.K.’ Financial Conduct Authority banning the sale of all products that move with the price of crypto-assets.

      From Zerohedge:

      The Financial Conduct Authority said there is “no reliable basis for valuing cryptoassets” that act as the underlying for derivatives and exchange-traded notes. 

      The FCA had already alluded to the idea in a public consultation on the industry last year and the regulator claims it the ban will save retail investors $69 million. The ban is scheduled to take effect on January 6, 2021. 

      The FCA further claimed there is a, “lack of legitimate need to invest” in products like Bitcoin.

      What I want to know who determines where the legitimate needs of investors lie? I thought that was supposed to be up to investors to assess the risks and make their bets.

      I guess they are now only allowed to invest in openly rigged markets like U.K. Gilts because that serves the legitimate needs of a U.K. government in serious financial trouble.

      What’s clear from this move by the FCA is that the U.K. and City of London are far more worried about further leakage of funds out of their nigh-criminal Ponzi schemes and into the world of cryptocurrencies they have little to no control over.

      This is another tell, just like the Fed intervening deeply into the TIPS markets at the end of Q3 to mask that real interest rates have been rising, that there is groundwork being laid for a seismic shift in the monetary system due to the continued deterioration of asset price supports post-Coronapocalypse.

      Martin Armstrong has been warning crypto-enthusiasts, like myself, for a long time that governments would move to make them illegal to own and/or transact in.

      And I don’t disagree with Martin. Here is an open example by a major government regulator to stymie competition to not only the existing failing monetary system but also to the one they have planned to replace it with.

      The ECB is obviously accelerating their digital euro plans with the latest move to trademark it.

      The European Commission recently published a comprehensive 168-pages draft proposal on how the digital assets can be integrated into the European legal framework. The document covers various aspects of the new financial tool and touches upon the benefits of the central bank-issued digital currencies (CDBC) over the fiat money.

      Notice how that new ECB report talks about the benefits of a central bank digital currency, but never the downside, because the benefits are all to them.

      You Can’t Break Even

      It’s the same shuck and jive Attorney General William Barr is doing by having the U.S. Attorney’s Office issue its guidelines on digital currencies called Cryptocurrency: An Enforcement Framework (full text at the link above).

      I skimmed the rules and the justifications for this legal framework and all it does is list the reasons why private cryptocurrencies are bad. We all know the drill — money laundering, financing terrorism, tax evasion, sanctions evasion etc.

      Given that we can’t seem to go more than a week without another major bank getting a slap on the wrist and a fine for laundering hundreds of billions of dollars, usually for some intelligence agency, again I have to wonder why should the private crypto-world be any different than the supposedly legitimate one.

      The problem with all of this is that when government intervenes in any market it creates both the incentive and the profit opportunity to evade that intervention.

      The mere existence of Bitcoin and the muti-hundred billion dollar equivalent cryptocurrency market is damning evidence of government malfeasance as a steward of our money.

      But we’re the criminals in wanting to avoid the worst of their bad policy?

      Of course, the real criminals are the ones that lie, cheat and steal by managing the monetary system badly but for their benefit. Which is why their enforcers, like Barr and the FCA, have to step in and tell us how they will prosecute us for wanting something better or outright make it illegal to make a market in them via futures and options.

      These rules are an open admission that the current system is failing and the Bitcoin and the tokenization of assets collectively known as DeFi — Decentralized Finance — are real threats to the ultimate power of the their state apparatuses.

      These rule systems are designed not to protect investors and consumers but to protect the existing beneficiaries of the existing system and whatever they are planning next.

      And what they are planning is their version of Bitcoin, but with none of the trust, privacy, or lack of counterfeiting and counter-party risk that Bitcoin and other private cryptos offer.

      In fact, they will be the exact opposite of this with absolute chain-of-custody, zero-privacy, and ability to be seized from a holder’s account for whatever reason they deem appropriate.

      You Can’t Get out of the Game

      In a time when politics is so divisive people are literally cheering the unpersoning and deplatforming of people they disagree with does anyone really think those drunk with power in D.C., Westminster, Beijing or Brussels wouldn’t use the new power afforded by a non-convertible digital cash for the most extreme political leverage?

      Every day that passes as we approach this election in the U.S. brings the story of the Great Reset more sharply into focus. And that future looks a lot like the world depicted in Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report but without the three precogs.

      That film’s future was designed in consultation with ‘all the best experts on where we were headed’ in terms of surveillance, technology, robotics, everything. And who do you think Spielberg, a Davos man if there ever was one in Hollywood, consulted?

      It surely wasn’t the underground cryptography enthusiasts guys like Neal Stephenson was hanging around with when he wrote Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle (highly recommended as the last decent things Stephenson wrote before he too was infected with the shitlib virus after spending too much time in Seattle).

      That was a future in which a person became an unperson in the time it took for one person to issue a command and press a button. It also was a world envisioned before the advent of private, trustless digital currencies like Bitcoin.

      And therein lies the difference in how we move through this next period of history.

      There is no doubt in my mind today that the Great Reset of the World Economic Forum is in process and that nothing — not Brexit, Bitcoin or the re-election of Donald Trump — will stop the attempt to pull it off.

      Because the System of the World (as Stephenson called it) is failing. The cost of maintaining the illusion of prosperity dwarfs the return on the investment in it. This is why we are drowning in debt and why the system has, for all intents and purposes, stalled.

      Regaining the Reactionary Gap

      What is happening is happening in real time, right in front of us as the powerful move to protect themselves and work through their plans to set up their neo-feudal Utopia.

      I don’t know that they’ll pull it off and I sincerely hope they don’t because that’s a world too terrible to contemplate. But what I do know is that the harder they push the harder the push back will be.

      Because while they can manipulate the Overton Window and the rules of engagement the laws of physics they can’t repeal. You know the one I’m talking about, Newton’s Third Law – for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

      And while Newton may have been the most famous Master of the British Mint who re-established the legitimacy of Britain’s coinage the irony is his doing so allowed the Bank of England to get established and touch off the Era of Central Banking.

      Today Bitcoin is the natural reaction to the end of that era, where Central Banks have been exposed as running immense Ponzi schemes which have created the conditions which have the world teetering on the edge of systemic collapse.

      Will it and those that are building its parallel infrastructure be the ones who ultimately reboot the System of the World when this latest attempt to retain control fails?

      Or will we muddle along for another generational cycle under the boot heel of venal men?

      *  *  *

      Join My Patreon to keep up to date with how the Great Reset unfolds. Install the Brave Browser to regain a little control over the flow of your information in a world without privacy.

    • Amherst's Largest Hotel Is For Sale: Top Bid Comes At Only 18% Of Securitized Value
      Amherst's Largest Hotel Is For Sale: Top Bid Comes At Only 18% Of Securitized Value

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/09/2020 – 18:40

      Over the past seven months we have repeatedly discussed the plight of commercial real estate which unlike most other financial assets, failed to benefit from a Fed bailout or backstop (but that may soon change). It culminated in June when we wrote that the “Unprecedented Surge In New CMBS Delinquencies Heralds Commercial Real Estate Disaster.” The ongoing crisis in structured debt backed by commercial real estate in general and hotel properties in particular, prompted Wall Street to launch the “Big Short 3.0“ trade: betting against hotel-backed loans, which had the broadest representation in the CMBX 9 index, whose fulcrum BBB- series has continued to slide even as the broader market rebounded.

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      Underscoring the plight of the hotel industry are two recent developments, which suggest that shorting CMBX 9 may well be the trade that keeps on giving.

      First, Reuters reported that Manhattan’s iconic Roosevelt Hotel, which strangely enough is owned by Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), will shut down for good by the end of this month. With more than $4 billion in accumulated losses, PIA was already struggling financially when flights were grounded in March because of the pandemic. Just as it resumed operations in May, a domestic PIA flight crash in Karachi killed 97 of 99 people on board.

      “Due to the current economic impacts, after almost 100 years of welcoming guests to The Grand Dame of New York, The Roosevelt Hotel, is regretfully closing its doors permanently as of Oct. 31, 2020,” the hotel said on its website.

      The Roosevelt Hotel will close just shy of a century after its opening in Sept. 23, 1924, when it was built by Niagara Falls businessman Frank A. Dudley and operated by the United Hotels Company.

      However, away from iconic Manhattan hotels whose downfall is more a reflection of the owner’s bad management practices, in a more ominous development commercial real estate experts Trepp points us to the Marriott Buffalo Niagara hotel – which Amherst’s tallest and largest hotel – which received a top bid of only $10.5 million during an auction held by Ten-X. That price – which was not accepted – was 82% lower than the value of the hotel in 2011.

      And while we wish the hotel well with subsequent sale attempts, we fail to see how, or who, emerges as the greater fool outside of the auction which began Oct. 5 at $6.5 million and closed on Oct 7 just $4 million higher, and far below what the owner had hoped to secured. Instead, owner Procaccianti Cos. of Cranston, R.I., will privately market the 356-room, 10-story hotel.

      Hospitality and commercial real estate insiders blame the soft hotel market — a direct byproduct of the Covid-19 pandemic that has gutted the tourism marketplace.

      “Look at that hotel and where it is located,” said A.J. Baynes, Amherst Chamber of Commerce president and CEO. “The clientele it is serving still is not traveling. We’re seeing it with airlines and airports. We’re seeing it with hotels.”

      Procaccianti bought the hotel 13 years ago, paying $31 million for the property which according to Trepp was appraised at $58 million in 2011. TPG Hotels & Resorts — a Procaccianti Cos. affiliate — still owes $21.9 million on a $25 million loan it took on the property nine years ago. The loan is due next year, according to Trepp LLC, and since the hotel is itself cash flow negative, we fail to see a happy ending here.

      Pre-Covid, the hotel was operating at a 66.5% occupancy rate and had a net operating income of $2.5 million, and so it hopes that travel and tourism returns back to normal very soon. Unfortunately, with every passing day the hotel continues to burn money and soon – absent a miraculous cure that is made cheaply available to all – it will hit a point where the only optimal outcome is to follow the Roosevelt into the void.

      But whether or not hotel defaults today or 6 months from now, its current “market-test” valuation is nothing short of devastating for the securitization market: if hotel values are indeed 80% below securitized valuations, if the current economic malaise and covid shutdowns continue for the next year, the hit to the CMBS market will be nothing short of biblical once cash reserve buffers are depleted in a few months and the scramble to offload properties begins in earnest.

    • Only Trump Can Keep America Together
      Only Trump Can Keep America Together

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/09/2020 – 18:20

      Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,

      Nothing partisan today, sorry, and thank you very much, just an observation. Which is that Trump keeps an unparralledly (can I buy a vowel?) divided America together simply because the entire nation focuses on him.

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      One half out of support, the other out of “hatred”, but still.

      Anyone who saw even part of yesterday’s VP debate knows exactly what I mean. Boring! And that’s one thing Trump is not.

      There was this headline that said: “Joe Biden will be a president who brings our country together”, and I thought: does anyone believe that, anywhere on the political spectrum? The purpose of Biden is to give the Democrats the power, not to unite the nation, that’s just rubbish. But yeah, they dragged him all the way out to Gettysburg, to claim some sort of link to Abraham Lincoln. Hoping nobody remembers that Lincoln was a member of the Republican party. Joe even quoted the Republican Lincoln verbatim:

      ‘Again We Are A House Divided’: Biden Calls For Unity In Gettysburg Speech

      Joe Biden delivered a forceful appeal for national unity from the battleground state of Pennsylvania on Tuesday, as the nation lurched from crisis to crisis and the president continued to downplay the severity of the coronavirus after being hospitalized for Covid-19. From the storied civil war battlefield of Gettysburg, a symbol of the divisions that nearly tore the nation in two, Biden cast the election as a “battle for the soul of the nation” and emphasized the stakes this November. “Today, once again we are a house divided,” Biden said, framed by a row of American flags with the rolling hills of Gettysburg behind him.

      “But that, my friend, can no longer be. We are facing too many crises. We have too much work to do. We have too bright a future to leave it shipwrecked on the shoals of anger and hate and division.” In a sweeping speech – one that drew on Abraham Lincoln’s address at the same spot, the site of one of the war’s bloodiest battles, and Lyndon Johnson’s remarks from there one hundred years later – Biden warned of the “cost of division” and his fears that partisanship threatened to undermine the central pillars of American democracy. Biden vowed to govern as an “American president”, one who would seek bipartisan solutions to the nation’s most consequential problems, including the coronavirus pandemic, racial injustice and economic turmoil.

      Joe Biden is a non-entity. Same for Kamala Harris and Michael Pence. They don’t count in a universe that is also home to Donald Trump. Nothing to do with their opinions or politics or plans or whatever, it’s about attention value. If you ask someone who they think people will pay more attention to, Donald Trump or Kim Kardashian, it’s maybe a toss-up, and it depends on age groups. Ask the same for Joe Biden vs Kim Kardashian, and they’re going to say: what the fcuk are you talking about?

      Hillary, the press could spin into something, but she lost to Trump once already. It’s all, all of it, about clickbait. Trump generates more of it than anyone, and none of the other protagonists seem to have any clue as to why that is. But the press do.

      It’s the anti-Trump media that focuses on him even more than the pro-Trump one. Because they know that’s where the money is. Write about Trump, anything, even anything that is not true, and the money will be flowing in. Call him a rapist, racist, misogynist, fascist, anything’s fair game. I saw the term “Little Mussolini” float by when Trump stood on the White House balcony post-Walter Reed and thought again: you guys have no idea about memes. Trump is 6’3, Mussolini was 5’7, and you’re going with “Little Mussolini”? That’s your best shot?

      A few days ago, before the VP debate, a commenter here on the Automatic Earth said:

      It doesn’t seem Trump will croak from covid, but this image…

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      …seems more relevant than this one…

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      And I said:

      “As long as Trump is part of the game, there’s nothing more relevant than Trump. That’s not an opinion. His presence has driven everything for 4+ years. It’s kept the NYT and CNN/MSNBC alive; they would be gone without him. The Dems’ only message 4+ years in is they are not Trump. That’s it, no other message. If he would be voted out, the MSM would be too. Politics would stop attracting viewers and readers by 50-80%.

      Trump generates clickbait; Pence and Biden do not. Pence will never win anything. People detest Kamala more than they did Hillary. I’m afraid that even prior to the election, why wait?, there will be the first instances of a civil war in America. The only thing that still ties the nation together is Trump. Love him or hate him.”

      The very same people who most “hate” Trump are the ones whose income most depends on him “Being There”. CNN head Jerry Zucker made it very clear to his staff during the so-called impeachment hearings that the only thing he wanted them to report on was impeachment. Not because he hates Trump, but because he knew that’s where the money is in present-day America: Yes, Trump.

      CNN, WaPo, NYT, they’re altogether being busy killing their golden goose. You think these outlets, saved from bankruptcy by the appearance of Trump on the scene, don’t understand the dynamics? Of course they do. But they’re too far gone into their anti-Trump game to turn around. They know they themselves potentially initiated their own downfall by going all-out against Trump and for Joe Biden. But they have nowhere left to turn anymore.

      If Biden wins, they’re done, nobody cares about him, nobody would read or watch a single thing about him, or about Kamala if she would take over, even if that switcheroo would give them a short attention “span”.

      Trump said, coming out of Walter Reed: don’t let COVID19 dominate your life. Which the so-called left wing MSM turned into: “Don’t let tRump DOMINATE your life”. Bit late for that, guys and gals. You volunteered to let him dominate your lives for 4+ years now.

      There doesn’t appear to be much of a plan in the Democratic party, and what plans there are differ hugely from each other. The gaps between Biden, Sanders and AOC are huge, on fracking, health care, you name it. They just find themselves together in the same party, for no obvious reason, other than, you guessed it, Trump. They stand for nothing together, there’s just one thing they agree on: Trump. Orange Man Bad: “I’m the one who ran against the socialists” Joe Biden said when asked about whether a vote for him is a vote for the radical left, despite the fact that Bernie campaigned for him in Michigan today”.

      You can only keep that sort of thing together with a common enemy. Trump not only keeps the nation together, he literally keeps the Democratic Party together.

      *  *  *

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    • Daily Briefing – October 9, 2020
      Daily Briefing – October 9, 2020


      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/09/2020 – 18:10

      Real Vision CEO Raoul Pal is joined by senior editor Ash Bennington to look back at market action and make sense of several secular trends. Raoul shares several of the lessons from his interview with “The Bond King” Jeffrey Gundlach, which leads into a discussion about changes to risk appetite and time horizon within the hedge fund industry. Raoul and Ash then discuss the latest banning of crypto derivatives for amateur investors. They close by discussing wage deflation and software’s ever-tightening grip on the economy.

    Digest powered by RSS Digest

    Oct 09

    Today’s News 9th October 2020

    • Credit Suisse Apologizes For Hiring Dancing Black Man Dressed As Janitor At Chairman's Birthday
      Credit Suisse Apologizes For Hiring Dancing Black Man Dressed As Janitor At Chairman’s Birthday

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/09/2020 – 02:45

      When Credit Suisse chairman Urs Rohner held a party at a Zurich restaurant to celebrate his 60th birthday last year, he could have had any kind of entertainment he wanted.

      Apparently, out of all of his options, he somehow wound up choosing to have a black performer, dressed as a janitor, come onstage and dance to music while pretending to sweep the floor. 

      While this may have somewhat fit the motif of the party, which had a 1970’s Studio 54 theme according to Bloomberg, it was enough to cause the company’s former CEO, Tidjane Thiam to leave the room. We also can’t honestly think that Rohner would have known a year later, the entire country would be obsessively focused on the issue of race and identity politics.

      Having said that, it’s still not a great look for Rohner, or the bank. 

      <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

      Rohner, shown here, thinking that maybe he’ll just skip his 61st birthday party altogether next year. 

      A bank’s spokesperson said this week: “There was never any intention to cause offense, and we are sorry for any offense caused. This is a total mis-characterization of the evening.”

      The incident, like every single thing that happens anywhere nowadays, has “sparked a debate about racism” in Switzerland, according to Bloomberg. 

      The bank said: “Credit Suisse is strongly committed to equality, diversity and supporting all our employees. Over the past year Credit Suisse has taken additional strides to show our commitment to under-represented groups within the firm, and is putting in place broader initiatives to further this. As a company, we are proud to be a geographically and culturally diverse group, and we strive to further strengthen this culture, which supports all our colleagues.”

    • Driven By Delusions: The West's Nagorno-Karabakh Hypocrisy
      Driven By Delusions: The West’s Nagorno-Karabakh Hypocrisy

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/09/2020 – 02:00

      Authored by Danny Sjursen via AntiWar.com,

      Something stands out in recent U.S. and most Western reporting on the ongoing bloodletting in Nagorno-Karabakh (NK). Well, two things actually: ignorance and hypocrisy. Having shuttered most of their foreign bureaus long ago, there’s a distinct lack of expertise in the mainstream press on this – and many other – regional hot spots. That’s translated to a series of Nagorno-Karabakh “explainers” that read like Wikipedia-ripoffs hastily filtered through Washington’s built-in “blame Russia” conflict-colander.

      <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

      Peddling in platitudes, they assume binaries that aren’t and Russian aggression that isn’t. All the while missing the core cause of this far worse than standard flare-up along the unmonitored Azeri-Armenian “line of contact.” In other words, the Erdogan elephant in the regional room. High-intensity air and armored combat has entered its tenth day, with little sign of abatement. Hundreds have been killed, including civilians, and major cities shelled, along with credible and corroborated reports that Turkey has indeed shipped in Ankara-paid Syrian mercenaries to support the Azeri army.

      In other words, while the current conflict has largely local roots, and is prolonged by subpar political leaders on both sides of the frontlines, the real inciter this time around is Turkey. That is, the violence is heightened and widened by a NATO member state that’s led by an ethno-national-chauvinist president who’s stretched that alliance’s ostensible purpose and utility well past breaking point.

      Nevertheless, the media cries Russia-foul, or at best implies guilt-parity between Moscow and Ankara. Yet it’s a mistake to equate the proxy-patron relationships fostered by Russia and Turkey. They are of a totally different character; frankly, in completely different leagues. The Russo-Armenian – and equally existent Russo-Azeri – connection is characterized by Moscow’s restraint, caution, and sure, perhaps a touch of the cynical. Turkey, conversely, now acts as though bonded by (mutual-Turkic) blood with Azerbaijan. It is an affair defined by Ankara’s aggression, risk-taking, and more than a dose of ethno-religious toxicity.

      Russia starts its Armenian relationship calculus with the assumption that it should avoid military intervention – even though Yerevan and Moscow are Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) allies – then comes up with reasons not to. For example, by not recognizing de facto Armenian-controlled Nagorno-Karabakh as de jure Armenia, Moscow can brush off collective defense treaty obligations so long as the Azeris don’t seriously attack across the internationally-recognized border. Believe you me, Baku understands the rules of this game of pretend. The Turkish position is completely different. Ankara is encouraging the Azeris’ game-change-seeking conquest campaign, and actively sending guns, bombs, drones, and armed human Syrians Baku’s way.

      Would that it were only the corporate media pushing this purposeful – though sometimes just uninformed – obfuscation and misinformation. We the People’s pretend leaders, and their pretend opposition, in Washington are about as awful as the pretend free press. The Trump administration has been pretty quiet about the NK-blowup. That wouldn’t be such a bad thing, per-say – and would certainly the reflect real limits of America’s capacity and capability to do good in far-flung lands. That is, it might be fine if the president and his team were at least willing to name and shame Turkey, or support congressional calls and resolutions condemning Azeri-aggression and halting arms sales to Baku.

      Trump’s Democratic presidential opponent, Joe Biden, was initially no better on the NK-crisis. Plus, per usual, Uncle Joe sprinkled a bit of Russia-reminder dust over the whole affair. That bit was really irksome. See, pretty much right off the bat – after obligatory nods to peace and negotiations – the Biden campaign statement quipped that the U.S. should be “calling for Russia to stop cynically providing arms to both sides.” Those Biden Boys just couldn’t help themselves. OK, so let’s try something new – for the modern media, at least – and dig into that statement just a bit.

      “Cynical” Russian Arms Sales: Pot Meet Kettle

      For starters, it’s hard to take seriously any arms sales-aspersions tossed by the globe’s number one gunrunner. According to a March report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), during 2015-19, the U.S. accounted for 36 percent of world arms exports, up five points from the previous 2010-14 cycle. Russia is the world’s second leading “merchant of death,” naturally, but it only shipped-off 21 percent of global arms – and that’s down six points since the last cycle.

      America also plied its lethal wares to 96 different states – surely none of those countries could’ve been on opposing sides of a conflict, right? Well, about that: you know, actually Washington’s customers were, are, and will ever be antagonists. A few examples should suffice:

      India and Pakistan have lived in a state of cold, proxy, and occasional mass-blood-letting conventional war, for 73 odd years now. No matter, Uncle Sam arms both. In the same 2008-18 period, American defense companies shipped $3.1 billion over to Delhi and $2.5 billion to Islamabad. And speaking of those Pakistani customers, remember that they alternate between active and tacit backing of the Taliban insurgents trying to overthrow the U.S.-installed and allied Afghan government. That tottering regime received just a tad less in American arms largesse, $2.40 billion, though that’s 70.8 percent of Kabul’s total arms imports.

      Tiny Qatar has recently been at odds, and even blockaded, by the main Gulf State powers of Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. Yet all were top US arms-recipients in the same period: $2.63 billion for Qatar (68.3 percent its total imports); $7.60 billion for the U.A.E. (63.7 percent of its total); and $13.72 billion for America’s top global customer, Saudi Arabia (59.6 percent of total). Of course, the Saudis and Emiratis haven’t directly unleashed most of that hardware on Qatar just yet. Instead, they’ve preferred to bombard mostly helpless Yemenis for five full years of terror war now – to the tune of a couple hundred thousand dead; including a minimum of 85,000 starved-to-death children.

      Besides, the USdoes provide economic aid, including ample security assistance, to both Armenia and Azerbaijan. According to a 2014 Congressional Research Service report, all three countries in the South Caucasus received security aid from Washington: During 1992-2010, Armenia trailed the pack at $223 million; its Azeri antagonists grabbed $327 million; meanwhile, Georgia – NATO/EU-aspirant and legit combat foe of bordering Russia – blew both out of the water at $896 million.

      Plus, the same report – stop me if this sounds familiar – noted that “some [congress] members have maintained that the Armenian-Azerbaijani military balance is preserved by providing equal amounts (parity) in IMET [International Military Education & Training] and FMF [Foreign Military Financing] assistance to each country.”

      Remember how, when pressed on the dual Armenian-Azeri arms deals in 2016, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev argued that if Moscow stopped, “They would buy weapons in other countries, and the degree of their deadliness wouldn’t change…at the same time, this could to a certain degree destroy the balance.” Of course, it’s always worse when someone named Dmitry says it.

      Since then, Congress appropriated far more “peace and security” funding – as the US government politely labels it – for both antagonists during Obama’s second term than in Trump’s first (and maybe last). Azerbaijan received $39 million in direct security assistance during 2013-16, compared to $8.5 million during 2016-19. Armenia got $61 million from Obama II, versus $19 million from Trump I – though much of Yerevan’s aid was related to combating WMD, and thereby not much use for war in Nagorno-Karabakh.

      Anyway, it’s hard to see how any of that’s so different from – if not much worse than – Russia’s sales to Armenia and Azerbaijan. Apparently arms sales are only cynical if the contract’s signature is in Cyrillic.

      Christian Sorensen – an Air Force veteran and researcher focused on the US war industry – noted in recent conversations with the author, that there is a rank hypocrisy inherent in American defense companies’ “tons of sales to Turkey.” After all, Ankara is hardly watching from the sidelines, but is rather the region’s prime Azeri-accelerant – encouraging President Aliyev’s bad behavior. That hasn’t stopped Washington from blessing off on $3.82 billion in arms sales to Ankara from 2008-18, or 45.8 percent of total Turkish weapons-imports. As for that “cynically arming both sides” bit, Turkey is also coming dangerously close to conflict with another American ally, Egypt – $2.8 billion in arms sales (2008-18); $1.3 billion annually in direct US security aid.

      In addition to these historic macro stats, Sorensen emphasized the nefarious nature of recent arms deals with Ankara. “What stood out most,” he said, “were repeated sales of ordnance (and ordnance equipment and repair) to Turkey,” including Javelin JV anti-tank missiles (a joint Raytheon and Lockheed Martin project), four other Raytheon missile systems (AMRAAM, RAM, ESSM, AIM-9X), and Boeing-produced small diameter bombs. Incidentally, Defense Secretary Mark Esper made some good bank as a longtime lobbyist for Raytheon before joining his West Point ’86 classmate Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in the administration’s inner circle.

      Mr. Sorensen knows a thing or two about such “revolving door” corrupt-cronyism, having detailed the crooked system in his recent book, Understanding the War Industry. Reviewing recent Turkish purchases, he noted that “the sheer variety of US corporations that sell to Turkey is another salient feature…[including] Honeywell, CAS, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, SAIC, and Boeing.” As for contemporary relevance, and Nagorno-Karabakh crisis connections, Sorensen offered a biting and decidedly disturbing conclusion: “In the same month [September] that Biden officially commented on irresponsible [Russian] arms sales, the US government sold Turkey advanced technology for torpedoes and engineering services for shipborne fire control systems.” In other words: Biden pot, meet Putin kettle.

      Then there’s the mercenary factor – which is increasingly an American business, as ex-U.S. soldiers have, since 9/11, eclipsed the old British, French, white Rhodesian, and apartheid South African staples. It seems the Turks aren’t the only ones offering hired guns Azeri autocrat Ilhan Aliyev-the-younger. Enter Erik Prince [of infamy], Donald Trump’s favorite fundamentalist, right-wing zealot of a mercenary, and the male-gendered half of the administration’s in-house sibling power-couple. (His sister is Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.). According to various reports, including one in the Washington Post, back in 2015 Prince planned to peddle crop-duster planes modified to carry guns and rockets to Baku “for use by the government of Azerbaijan in its decades-old conflict with ethnic Armenians, according to the former Prince associate.”

      The kitted-out crop-dusters never made it there – probably due to an internal investigation started by Prince’s nervous partners, including ominous legal warnings that “The evidence strongly suggests that Mr. Prince was offering a foreign defense article (i.e., an attack aircraft) for sale” to Azerbaijan’s defense ministry, thus “brokering activities without being registered with [the State Department]. This presents potential violations of International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR)” – the relevant US statute law. Nevertheless, according to his former associate, Prince did help set up a mercenary unit for Baku, to – per another 2018 report – “help it keep watch on the Nagorno-Karabakh region.”

      In other words, the US and its officialdom-line-straddling gang of mercenaries could – and perhaps did – teach the Turks a trick or two about sending soldiers of fortune off to do their government’s bidding. Which brings us to NATO’s resident regional madcap: Turkey and its would-be Ottoman sultan, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

      Our [Mad] Man in Ankara

      Neither of the two official State Department statements, nor that of the opposing Biden campaign, fingers – or even mentions – Turkey by name. The initial release from State’s spokesperson referred only to “external parties,” whose intervention would be “unhelpful” and “exacerbate regional tensions.” Talk about a cop-out. On Monday, the second State Department overture – a joint statement “by the Governments of the United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the Republic of France” – didn’t even bother with euphemisms. Not a single external actor was mentioned. The Biden campaign masked its Turkey reference with talk of “third parties” who “must stay out of this conflict.” Of course, it offered that rather veiled rebuke only after taking that shot at Russia in the statement’s second sentence.

      In a rational country, one whose leaders even occasionally peered over their Russia-goggles, that might seem strange. After all, by any measure Ankara has always – but especially now – held the more aggressive, interventionist, and one-sided position on Nagorno-Karabakh. Only intellectual consistency, or honesty, isn’t really Washington’s thing.

      Here’s an illustrative thought experiment, for example: How do you think the Biden campaign’s statement would have read if Putin, not Erdogan, were shipping Moscow-paid mercenaries into the current fray? Something tells me it’d merit a mention or two. To be fair, a later Biden tweet did call on Turkey by name – “to stay out of this conflict” – but didn’t mention the mercenary-deployment or retract the earlier statement’s Russia-baiting. So there we are again, the duopoly offering Americans platitude over principled-policy; partisan-hedging instead of honesty.

      The straw that breaks the back of Russian patience will likely relate to Moscow’s own oft-forgotten “dirty war” on Islamist terror in the nearby North Caucasus fiefdom of its federation. Though admittedly a sometimes self-inflicted wound of Soviet and Russian repression, remember that exorbitantly bloody Islamist-inspired attacks reached Moscow not so long. Overall, while hard data is difficult to come by, around 1200 members of the Russian security forces, and 600 civilians were killed in the North Caucasus insurgency from 2009-17 alone.

      During the Second Chechen War (1999-2006) that preceded this insurgency, the Russian Defense Ministry admitted to 3,603 servicemen deaths – though a committee of soldiers’ mothers insists Moscow severely downplayed the casualty statistics. In other words, even by modest official counts, more Russian troops died over 18 years in North Caucasus conflicts than American troopers died in Iraq over a similar timespan. The Kremlin, and its common citizenry, are unlikely to take lightly even the potential of any additional Islamist intrusion from the south.

      Putin’s early popularity-rise was partly related to average Russians’ sense that he – sound familiar? – would be, and was, tough on terror. Only a strongman in the Kremlin – not some booze-soaked Western-stooge like Boris Yeltsin – could ensure their safety from the Islamic-crescented Caucasus hordes. The American-induced “shock therapy” of crony capitalism masquerading as democracy hadn’t worked out so well for an increasingly impoverished and crime-ridden post-Soviet citizenry, thus if the cost of Putin’s “peace” was a bit of liberty…so be it.

      In past decades, Ankara and Moscow mostly cooperated in Russia’s anti-Islamist – though equally anti-secessionist – campaign in the North Caucasus, but the sometime antagonists’ paths have since diverged. Erdogan and Putin aren’t always implacable foes – even the tinpot-sultan is too smart for that – and have made trade deals, talked Syrian peace, sealed some air-defense arms deals, and often defused conflict-area tensions at the eleventh hour. Still, there’s something exceedingly precarious about relatively overt Russian and Turkish interventionism on-the-ground, and on different sides, in the contemporary ungoverned spaces of Libyan and Syrian proxy/civil wars.

      The Russians regard themselves – not altogether incorrectly – as the more rational and realistic actors in both conflicts, backing admittedly incorrigible strongmen that (generally) oppose Islamist influence. Turkey, on the other hand, has proven more amenable to both Muslim Brotherhood types (like Libya’s GNA, Government of National Accord) and outright Sunni jihadis (Al Qaeda-esque fighters in the last rebel strongholds – like Idlib – of Northwest Syria). It is from the latter element – and their massive refugee detritus within Turkey’s borders – that Ankara pulls its private hired army, and ships them off to Libya, and now apparently Azerbaijan. If that infusion continues and/or escalates, or if Turkish troops or aircraft truly intervene in the NK-combat, expect the so far remarkably restrained Putin to pronounce “this far and no further.”

      Some combination of those Turkish provocations might prove Russia’s “red line,” and unlike the more wobbly Barack Obama – expect Putin to stick to his guns once he’s delineated said boundaries. On Tuesday, the head of Russia’s SVR Foreign Intelligence Service hinted at this, warning that Turkey’s infiltration of Syrian mercenaries into Nagorno-Karabakh risks creating a launch pad for – what Moscow views as – jihadi elements entering Russian territory. Tehran agrees, apparently, as hours later Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif joined a phone call with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, during which both expressed concern over the involvement of Turkish-paid Syrian – and potentially Libyan! – fighters in the NK-conflict.

      For all that, Brussels pretends that Turkey is still salvageable – whether in Karabakh, Libya, Syria, Cyprus, or wherever else Erdogan wildly diverges from the alliance’s purported positions or principles. In a joint news conference with Turkey’s Foreign Minister on Monday, NATO’s Secretary-General said: “I expect Turkey to use its considerable influence to calm tensions.” He failed to mention how or why that’s anything more than fantasy.

      Perhaps the secretary-general forgot that NATO couldn’t even avoid two top members – with the second (Turkey) and third (France) largest alliance armies – from nearly duking it out on the high seas off the coast of another proxy war, Libya, in June. And wouldn’t you know, the very next day after his joint NATO press conference, Ankara’s foreign minister rejected the entire concept of internationally-brokered peace or ceasefires short of an outright Azeri victory!

      Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at least opened the door for “mutual concessions’ with Azerbaijan on Nagorno-Karabakh. Plus, Armenia’s president – though no peach himself – also offered a more reality-attuned analysis: that Turkish interference is “taking the conflict an order up in magnitude” and “creating something that will eventually become another Syria of the Caucasus.”

      Speaking of Syria – yea, I’ll say it – President Bashar al-Assad’s read isn’t exactly wrong either – and certainly less delusional than the naive NATO-line. In an interview published Tuesday, Syria’s strongman called a spade a spade, specifically that “[Erdogan]…was the main instigator and the initiator of the recent conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh between Azerbaijan and Armenia.”

      Even the most flawed messenger can deliver a dead-on message.

      Because here’s the rub: if Russia ever does roll into Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia, and/or Azerbaijan – in other words, if this thing really gets out of hand – it will be on account of the obscene offensive of a key Turkish member of NATO’s purported “defensive” alliance. Ankara will have done so, have caused it, through the sale – and maybe direct use – of mainly NATO-standard-issue, and largely U.S.-manufactured, weapons systems.

      Of course, that’s as uncomfortable as it is unsatisfying. So instead, count on Washington to blame Russia – which is always worth its weight in comfort, satisfaction, and political point-scoring…if not sound strategy. But hey, that’s future America’s problem: appropriate as ever for a nation as strategically-leveraged as it is financially debt-ridden.

      You know, back in the late Ottoman Imperial Era – when that bygone empire was doing the Armenian genocide Ankara still denies – it was common to refer to Turkey as “the sick man of Europe.” Forgive the COVID-age pun, but if Washington and its media lackeys keep up their delusion and overreach, it may not be long before folks start dubbing Uncle Sam the “sick man of planet Earth.”

    • Does The Coronavirus Make Our Constitutional Freedom Of Assembly Obsolete?
      Does The Coronavirus Make Our Constitutional Freedom Of Assembly Obsolete?

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/09/2020 – 00:10

      Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

      Over the past couple of weeks a trend has become apparent in the state of Idaho, specifically in Moscow, Idaho in Latah County. The city council of Moscow has issued a mandatory mask order, and they are using police to enforce it. Bizarrely, the city had ZERO deaths from Covid at the time the mask order was instituted, meaning their action was in response to…nothing.

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      Idaho has had a total of 500 deaths from Covid since the beginning of the outbreak. To put this in perspective, the state also has around 400 deaths from diabetes every year, and 250 deaths from the flu/pneumonia according to the CDC. Perhaps they should ban sugar, and make masks mandatory for the flu as well, just to be safe…

      The residents of Moscow are not too happy with the city council attempt to unilaterally enforce such mandates. Church congregations in particular are fighting back by holding outdoor services without masks. The city has responded by ARRESTING the pastors of any church that dare to defy mask laws.

      I bring up this specific instance of coronavirus enforcement because the circumstances surrounded it are disturbing…

      First, it is not surprising that Latah County is one of the ONLY counties in Idaho that leans to the far-left politically, and the majority of the city council of Moscow is made up of leftists. Moscow is also the home of the University of Idaho. It seems wherever the political left sets up shop, constitution violating mandates on the coronavirus are prevalent. Even if a state government is predominantly more conservative and less antagonistic on lockdowns, left leaning city and county officials have decided they are going to enforce their own restrictions anyway.

      Second, the mask rules are being used against people who held meetings outdoors, and this is something I am seeing all over the world right now. Why is the science of virus behavior in outdoor open air environments not being discussed AT ALL in the mainstream? Why is no one talking about the fact that open air and UV rays from sunlight KILL microorganisms? The chance of contracting the coronavirus outdoors is next to zero, yet mask rules are being strictly instituted from Melbourne, Australia to New York, New York to Moscow, Idaho.

      Government officials must surely be aware that the science contradicts these orders. And if this is the case, then this only confirms that such restrictions are not about saving lives; they are about control.

      Third, the use of targeted arrests against organizers of group events is clearly an attempt to frighten the public into compliance without confronting their concerns directly. The goal is to encourage self censorship and to manipulate citizens to avoid public assembly without coming out openly and saying “We are banning public assembly”. It’s an end-run around the constitution, and these actions are increasing in the US.

      As I have noted in past articles, I have been watching the draconian coronavirus measures in Australia and New Zealand very closely. My concerns rest on the other side of the world because what I see happening there is perhaps a beta-test for high intensity lockdown restrictions in other western nations including America.

      Restrictions in these countries are rooted in what they are calling “Level 4 lockdowns”, and include mandatory mask orders (even outside), mandatory social distancing, bans on public assembly, church closures, citizens are not allowed to travel more than 3 miles from home (essentially people are under house arrest, with only one hour per day outside to exercise), people who contract the virus or are suspected of being infected can be locked up in Covid camps for as long as government officials deem it necessary, and in New Zealand these camps are managed by the military.

      People speaking out against the lockdowns online are being arrested for “incitement”. Free speech in Australia is nearly dead.

      I believe the establishment of medical tyranny is moving so quickly in Australia because the vast majority of the population has been disarmed and they have limited means to fight back. It’s an easy place to test out control measures. Protests are taking place, but without a means of self defense the citizenry is at the mercy of government and law enforcement. If the government wants to crack down violently on anti-lockdown groups, there will be little the public can do to stop them.

      What I see happening in places like Moscow, Idaho is the initial stages of medical tyranny similar to what is happening in Australia. What I see is an incremental form of totalitarianism, and it simply cannot be tolerated.

      We have heard it often during this pandemic event that we are “all in this together” and the lockdowns are “serving the greater good”, but this is nonsense. The constitutional rights of public assembly and freedom of religion in particular are being stifled, and these rights ARE the greater good. They are far more important than the lives of the select few people who are susceptible to the virus.

      Beyond that, why are we not talking about the number of people that are losing their jobs due to the lockdowns? How about the number of people that will die over time from poverty or depression or economic collapse because of the lockdowns? Is it not a matter of the “greater good” that we end the restrictions rather than increase them?

      No virus is worth this. It would not matter if we were talking about the Black Plague. Ultimately, though, Covid affects a very small portion of the US population. The real solution to the pandemic is simple:

      The people who are most susceptible should voluntarily stay home and quarantine, and the rest of us should get on with our lives with an open economy and normal constitutional rights. Why is this option not being presented?

      Mask laws in particular are truly bizarre. There is little evidence that cloth masks are effective in the slightest, but the idea that “everyone must wear a mask” in order for the masks to work reveals the true nature of the restrictions.

      If your mask is useless unless I also wear a mask, then the masks we are wearing are not offering much protection and their enforcement should be questioned. The fact that numerous states and counties across the US have had infection spikes even with strict mask mandates suggests to me that the masks are pointless. Even the CDC questions the effectiveness of cloth masks and recommends N95 masks for healthcare workers until there is some evidence that cloth masks function.

      If the CDC doesn’t believe they work very well, then why are people even wearing them, and why are people being arrested for refusing to use them? Again, the science does not support the mandates, so they must be about control rather than saving lives. If you can get a population acclimated to having the government involved in the smallest intricacies of their lives on a daily basis then freedom goes out the window and the establishment enjoys total power to do whatever they please.

      Don’t get me wrong, if a person WANTS to wear a mask, or take other precautions no matter how dubious, then I have nothing bad to say about them. That is their decision. If a business wants to require masks before entering, then that is also their right as property owners. I can choose to not shop there if I don’t like it. But it is not anyone’s right to attempt to force others to comply with their baseless rules just so they can personally feel safer. If I’m not wearing a mask and you don’t like it, then don’t come near me; it’s very easy.  As leftists like to say:  My body my choice.

      Take note of how many instances we have seen so far of Mask Nazis physically attacking people not wearing masks. Isn’t this the exact opposite of what they have been preaching?  Also take note that Mask Nazis tend to be avid supporters of BLM and Antifa mobs that ignore pandemic restrictions.  Again, they don’t care about health issues, they are angry because you are not submitting to their control.

      Another terrifying development during the pandemic is the use of executive orders and executive authority to initiate restrictions without public oversight. Here is the bottom line: No government, whether it be federal, state or local, has the power to violate your constitutional rights. Period. If a law or executive order tramples on the Bill of Rights, then it is automatically null and void and should be defied. National emergencies do no supplant the constitution, regardless of what statists might claim.

      Executive orders in particular are based on nothing other than color of law. In most cases they do not legally apply to the citizenry, only to government employees. Real laws are passed by the legislature, and are often added to a ballot to be voted on by the public. No governor, mayor, city council or president has the authority to assert new laws without oversight like a dictator.

      The political left has been quick to point out these facts whenever Donald Trump issues executive orders, yet they are also quick to defend those orders issued by states and cities to enforce unconstitutional and illegal lockdowns.

      In the end, whether you respect the Bill of Rights or not, laws are meaningless unless they are backed by principles. A law that is immoral and unjust should not be followed. Government representatives that abuse their positions to assert powers that are not granted them by the constitution should be unseated. The coronavirus changes nothing – Not a thing.

      I would suggest that anyone who lives in a place that is trying to enforce restrictions that are contrary to the Bill of Rights act now to disrupt what is likely an incremental march towards medical tyranny. If you don’t stand in opposition to these actions now, they will only grow over time until a majority of people become conditioned to accept them.

      *  *  *

      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.

    • Global Food Prices Rise As Famine Threat Emerges 
      Global Food Prices Rise As Famine Threat Emerges 

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/08/2020 – 23:50

      Food prices continue rising during the coronavirus pandemic, jeopardizing food security for tens of millions worldwide.

      On Thursday, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations said world food prices rose for the fourth consecutive month in September, led by surging prices for cereals and vegetable oils, reported Reuters. 

      FAO’s food price index, which tracks the international prices of the top traded food commodities (cereals, oilseeds, dairy products, meat, and sugar), averaged 97.9 in September versus a downwardly revised 95.9 in August.  

      FAO’s cereal price index jumped 5.1% in September and is 13.6% above its value one year earlier. 

      “Higher wheat price quotations led the increase, spurred by brisk trade activity amid concerns over production prospects in the southern hemisphere as well as dry conditions affecting winter wheat sowings around Europe,” FAO said.

      Vegetable oil price soared 6% in September, over August prices, due to rising palm, sunflower seeds, and soy oil prices, hitting 8-month highs. 

      Dairy prices barely budged over the month, with moderate price increases for butter, cheese, and skim milk powder, offset by a decline in whole milk powder. 

      Sugar prices declined 2.6% over the month, mainly because of a global glut expected to persist through the 2021 season. 

      Meat prices slipped .9% on the month and were +9.4% year-on-year, with prices for pork slumping due to China’s ban on pork imports from Germany after several cases of African swine fever were recently found. 

      As outlined by The World Bank in September, rising food costs because of the virus pandemic have significant impacts on vulnerable households, many of which are being crushed into poverty and hunger. 

      “As the coronavirus crisis unfolds, disruptions in domestic food supply chains, other shocks affecting food production, and loss of incomes and remittances are creating strong tensions and food security risks in many countries,” The World Bank said. 

      In August, UN World Food Program (WFP) Director David Beasley warned that $5 billion in emergency funds are needed within six months to avert a global famine. 

      UN secretary-general, Antonio Guterres recently said the world is experiencing one of the worst food crises in five decades. The virus-related downturn is driving wealth inequality to extremes and pushing millions of people into extreme poverty. 

      Here are the highest at-risk areas for a food crisis breakout: 

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      Food insecurity risks, produced by soaring prices and disrupted supply chains because of the virus pandemic, are not limited to the US. A top food bank in the country recently warned of a nationwide “meal shortage” in the next 12 months. 

      And throughout history, food price volatility and disruptions have often resulted in social unrest. An unintended consequence of the global downturn could be a continuation of the social unrest, seen across the world. 

    • Masking, Propaganda, & The Outrage Mob's Murder Of Academic Freedom
      Masking, Propaganda, & The Outrage Mob’s Murder Of Academic Freedom

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/08/2020 – 23:30

      Via Off-Guardian.org,

      If you believe in academic freedom, as well as free speech overall, please consider signing this petition, and sharing it with others who believe that higher education must be free from censorship of any kind, whether by the state, corporations, foreign interests, pressure groups, or by the university itself.

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      A full professor in NYU’s Department of Media, Culture and Communication (since 1997), and a recipient of fellowships from the Rockefeller, Guggenheim and Ingram Merrill Foundations, Prof. Miller teaches a course on propaganda, focusing not only on the history of modern propaganda, but – necessarily – on propaganda drives ongoing at the time.

      The aim is to teach students to identify such drives for what they are, think carefully about their claims, seek out whatever data and/or arguments have been blacked out or misreported to protect those claims from contradiction, and look into the interests financing and managing the propaganda, so as to figure out its purpose.

      On Sept. 20, after a class discussion of the case for universal masking as defense against transmission of SARS-COV-2 (in which discussion she did not participate), a student took to Twitter to express her fury that Prof. Miller had brought up the randomized, controlled tests – all of those so far conducted on the subject – finding that masks and ventilators are ineffective at preventing such transmission, because the COVID-19 virions are too small for such expedients to block them.

      Prof. Miller urged the students to read those studies, as well as others that purport to show the opposite, with due attention to the scientific reviews thereof, and possible financial links between the researchers conducting them, and such interests as Big Pharma and the Gates Foundation. Prof. Miller followed up by providing the links to the former studies (not easily found on Google, though they have all appeared in reputable medical journals), and other materials, including a video of a debate on the subject.

      The student was so outraged by Prof. Miller even mentioning those studies that she called on NYU to fire him:

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

      Having contacted NYU’s bias response line to report him, and getting no satisfaction there, the student kept on tweeting her demand for Prof. Miller’s termination, due to his “unhealthy amount of skepticism around health professionals,” and a range of other posts that she had seen on News from Underground, Prof. Miller’s website, and found no less insidious, misreporting that their sources were “many far right and conspiracy websites,” and therefore, evidently, not worth reading.

      The student’s call provoked a storm of tweets, many attacking her, and others thanking her – one of which was posted by Prof. Miller’s department chair, promising to act on her demand:

      “Julia, thank you for reporting this issue. We as a department have made this a priority and are discussing next steps.”

      Soon after this pledge of institutional support, the dean of NYU’s Steinhardt School (in which Prof. Miller teaches), together with a doctor who advises them on COVID-19 policy, emailed each of Prof. Miller’s students (without putting him on copy), starting with a ritual nod to “academic freedom,” then hinting that the studies noted in that class were dangerous misinformation. To set them straight, the two advised the students to consult the “authoritative” CDC—specifically, its list of several recent studies finding that masks are effective against COVID-19.

      (That the CDC itself, as well as Dr. Fauci, had, until April, publicly adhered to the consensus of those “dangerous” studies went unmentioned.) The two concluded with a stern reminder that the students are obliged to mask on campus (although Prof. Miller had made quite clear that he was not suggesting that they break NYU’s rule, which he observes himself.)

      Thus that student’s tweets immediately prompted NYU to take her side, and several media outlets to attack Prof. Miller for his dissidence, without interviewing him. The following week, NYU followed up by urging him to cancel his propaganda course next term, and, instead, teach two sections of his course on cinema. Their rationale was that it would be “better for the department,” because enrollment in the latter course is always high; but then so are the enrollments for Prof. Miller’s propaganda course, which has earned the highest praises from its students.

      For testimonials from Prof. Miller’s students click here.

      Below is the text change.org petition, you can sign it here.

      We the undersigned support the academic freedom of Prof. Mark Crispin Miller, now under siege at New York University for urging students in his propaganda course to read scientific literature on the effectiveness of masks against transmission of COVID-19.

      We see his situation as but one example of a growing global trend toward rigid censorship of expert views on urgent subjects of all kinds; so this petition is not just in his defense, but a protest on behalf of all professors, doctors, scientists and journalists who have been gagged, or punished for their rights to freely research, study, and interpret data on a variety of matters regardless of their controversial nature.

      Censorship is nothing new. We have been edging toward it ever more for decades, as both academia and the media have long discouraged free investigation and discussion of urgent public questions of all kinds, as those who would attempt to tackle them empirically have been slandered as “conspiracy theorists” or “truthers” and other slurs deployed to shut them up, or purge them as purveyors of “misinformation,” “fake science” or “hate speech.”

      Such censorship has blocked the sort of open, civil, reasoned give-and-take without which higher education—indeed, any education—is impossible, as is scientific progress overall.

      We see Prof. Miller’s situation as a flashpoint in the struggle not just to reclaim but to protect free speech and free inquiry. NYU officials have no right to intervene in Prof. Miller’s courses or message his students surreptitiously undermining his integrity as an instructor.

      They have no right to deprive him of the courses he was hired to teach and they should not join in a public smear campaign against the very rights they should uphold at a university.

      That so stated, we urge that NYU respect his academic freedom, and thereby set a good example for all other schools with faculty who dare contest official narratives. Otherwise, “education” there will be mere training for compliance, stunting students’ minds instead of opening them – a practice fatal to democracy, and, finally, to humanity itself.

    • Doomsday Camps Set To "Activate" Due To Risk Of Election Violence 
      Doomsday Camps Set To “Activate” Due To Risk Of Election Violence 

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/08/2020 – 23:10

      As the country inches closer to the Nov. 03 presidential election, federal agencies, city governments, and local police forces are preparing for political and social instabilities, no matter the election outcome. 

      Concerns are mounting that mass protests, violent confrontations between extremist groups, and widespread property damage could be seen on election day and days after. If the outcome of the election is undecided, chaos could linger for weeks, if not months. 

      The prospects of civil unrest around election day have prompted a chain of US survival communities to “activate” – opening their doors for members to hunker down in bomb shelters, with an abundance of weapons and ammo, and years worth of food.

      Reuters reports Fortitude Ranch doomsday camps in West Virginia and Colorado will open both facilities to members on election day because of the threat of social unrest. 

      Fortitude Ranch’s October newsletter suggested “looting and violence” across major US metro areas, similar to what was seen over the summer following the police killing of George Floyd, could follow the elections next month. The newsletter warned social instabilities could transform into long-term issues. 

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      Reuters quotes the survival camp’s CEO Drew Miller as pointing out that chatter on social media suggest election results could tilt the country into civil war. Miller did not rule out that possibility… 

      “This will be the first time we have opened for a collapse disaster, though it may end up not being so,” said Miller in an emailed statement. “We consider the risk of violence that could escalate in irrational, unpredictable ways into widespread loss of law and order is real.”

      Readers may recall, in April, we highlighted soaring demand for Fortitude Ranch’s doomsday bunkers came as the virus pandemic resulted in nationwide lockdowns. We then suggested, given the socio-economic implosion, that a “social bomb” was getting ready to explode across Western cities. And it wasn’t until late May, after Floyd was killed by police, that unrest broke out in Minneapolis and quickly spread across the country.

      Fortitude Ranch describes itself as “a survival community equipped to survive any disaster and long-term loss of law and order,” and its actual location(s) are unknown to non-members.

      “Fortitude Ranch is a survival community equipped to survive any type of disaster and long-term loss of law and order, managed by full-time staff. Fortitude Ranch is affordable (about $1,000/person annually) because of large numbers of members and economies of scale. Fortitude Ranch is especially attractive to join because it doubles as a recreation and vacation facility as well as a survival retreat. Members can vacation, hunt, fish and recreate at our forest and mountain locations in good times, and shelter at Fortitude Ranch to survive a collapse,” the company’s website said.

      At the moment, Fortitude Ranch has two locations in West Virginia and Colorado, with ten more locations expected in the coming years. The goal is to create a nationwide network of doomsday bunkers. 

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      The countdown has started. All levels of government to doomsday bunker facilities are now preparing for what could be a violent November. 

       

       

    • The Average American Is Recorded 238 Times A Week
      The Average American Is Recorded 238 Times A Week

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/08/2020 – 22:50

      Authored by Robert Wheeler via The Organic Prepper blog,

      Cameras are everywhere…

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      Do you have a cell phone? Unless it’s an old antiquated flip phone, there’s a camera. Public parks, roadways, the parking garage at your favorite shopping center, police officers wearing body cameras, school…they are everywhere.

      There was a time when Americans viewed the presence of security cameras in a private business as a creepy Orwellian intrusion into their private lives. They didn’t want to be recorded and watched as they did their shopping or when they went into the bank to cash their paychecks. Those days came and went and Americans accepted and adapted those cameras.

      Then along came public surveillance cameras and traffic light cameras. And, once again people felt their lives were being infringed upon. Not only were private businesses still conducting the surveillance, but the government was now watching too. This left many people feeling as though their privacy rights had been taken away from them.

      All that changed when 9/11 happened. Suddenly Americans couldn’t be stopped from stuffing their concerns over privacy as far down the toilet bowl as they could.

      Two decades later the “Privacy Train” has left the station.

      Everywhere we go, there are cameras. Whether it be a camera in a retail store, at a stoplight, inside a hospital, inside an Uber car, inside a restaurant, possibly even inside your own home. Oh, and let’s not forget the doorbell cameras. like the ones surveilling the entire neighborhood without their consent. If you have a smartphone, it’s tracking everywhere you go and that data is being used to compile incredibly detailed information about you.

      Cameras are everywhere…including in our own hands. While the images being posted on social media may just be static images, they are still pictures of someone who may not even know that image was posted.

      According to Social Media Statistics 2020: Top Networks by the Number Facebook alone has over 300 million photos uploaded DAILY.

      People are not only being recorded, they are recording themselves and one another.

      And this may sound like some crazy high-tech thing that doesn’t really affect us personally, but consider the ramifications on OPSEC if your every move is tracked and your every purchase is documented.

      You won’t believe how often the typical American is recorded every day.

      An article published by the Daily Mail reports that the typical American is recorded by security cameras 238 times a week. The information was obtained from Safety.com whose security team conducted a study on surveillance technology. That figure includes:

      • Video taken at work: average employee spotted on cameras 40 times per week

      • Video taken on the road: Americans are filmed 160 times while driving

      • Video taken in stores

      • Video taken in homes and neighborhoods: 14 times per week

      For Americans who travel a lot or who work in “highly patrolled areas,” the number of times they are recorded on film could reach over 1000 times per week. According to the research, it can be difficult to know how many traffic cameras are passively filming or permanently storing footage. Another result of the study was that people underestimate how often they are recorded.

      A survey from IPVM  in 2016 found that most people assumed they were being recorded less than five times a day. The example of a typical day was taken from that report:

      This example is a running total, including the number of cameras likely present at each stop:

      • 8:00AM: 4 Cameras – Get a cup of coffee –  4 cameras in Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts

      • 8:30AM: 24 Cameras – School or office – cameras in parking lot and interior, you will be picked up at various angles by 20 cameras at least.

      • 12:15PM: 30 Cameras – Stop at ATM before lunch for cash.  Bank will have exterior cameras, ATM will have close-up camera

      • 12:30PM: 38 Cameras – Go get lunch – 4 cameras at lunch spot, plus 4 more easily ay surrounding businesses

      • 5:00PM: 45 Cameras – Leave work, go to gym to work out. Camera at check-in desk, plus in 6-8 in workout area

      • 5:45PM: 46 Cameras – Stop to pick up dry cleaning.  Camera at front register

      • 6:00PM: 52 Cameras – Stop for gas.  Cameras at pumps and in store

      • 6:15PM: 54 Cameras – Quick car wash.  Cameras at entry and in-bay

      • 7:00PM: 58 Cameras – Pick up kids from practice/game.  Cameras in school parking lot or on building exterior

      Lawmakers and civil rights advocates are concerned about the growing state of surveillance.

      But, of course, civil rights advocates do not have a real voice in American society. And, lawmakers are the ones who have facilitated the surveillance state, to begin with. So, unfortunately, if you are someone who was hoping to get back some of your rights, don’t hold your breath.

      Dan Avery, author of the article on the Daily Mail writes reports that by next year, there will be approximately one billion security cameras operating around the globe. And 10 to 18 percent of them will be in the United States. In 2019, with 70 million cameras in the US, there was at least one security camera for every 4.6 Americans, putting the US as the second-highest ratio. China, being the first, has 4.1 cameras per person. (China, of course, is the country most infamous for social credit scores but many believe that the US is not far behind.)

      Some people advocate these surveillance cameras as a vital tool for safety and security, and an important law enforcement device. However, in an article on All Together concerns about inequality, false results, and unethical use of this technology:

      “There’s strong evidence that many of the systems in deployment are reflecting and amplifying existing forms of inequality,” said Sarah Myers West, a postdoctoral researcher at AI Now Institute, an interdisciplinary research center at New York University dedicated to understanding the social implications of artificial intelligence. “For this reason, it’s critical that we have a public conversation about the social impact of AI systems, and AI Now’s work aims to engage in research to inform that conversation.”

      Joy Buolamwini, an MIT graduate, AI researcher, and computer scientist, provided firsthand research to inform the conversation. Buolamwini, a Ghanaian American, wrote a thesis, “Gender Shades,” in 2017, after she was misidentified while working with facial analysis software. The software didn’t detect her face until she put on a white mask, she said, “because the people who coded the algorithm hadn’t taught it to identify a broad range of skin tones and facial structures.” The software returned worse results for women and darker-skinned persons.

      “We often assume machines are neutral, but they aren’t,” she said in a Time magazine essay about her discoveries. Her thesis methodology uncovered large racial and gender bias in AI services from such companies as Microsoft, IBM, and Amazon. In response, Buolamwini founded the Algorithmic Justice League to “create a world with more ethical and inclusive technology.”

      Owners of smart home security cameras may be in jeopardy.

      Those smart home security cameras may not make you as safe as you thought they would.

      “Some popular home security cameras could allow would-be burglars to work out when you’ve left the building, according to a study published Monday.” CNN Business

      An International study carried out by Queen Mary University of London and the Chinese Academy of Science discovered they could tell if someone was home, and even what they were doing in the home, just by looking at data uploaded by their home security camera, without monitoring the video footage itself. And of course as we just published, the microphones embedded in your smart devices can record you and are being used more and more often by police.

      An article written by Brandon Turbeville in 2011,“New Report: ‘Recording Everything’ Details How Governments Can Shape The Dynamics Of Dissent,” details how this data is being stored, at a surprisingly low cost to do so.

      According to Turbeville, given the prices (in 2011) and the projected decrease in cost in the future, the United States would be able to store the location data of everyone in the country for a whole year for approximately $18,000, the cost of a low-wage job.

      The average American is now videotaped and recorded more times in a day than a Hollywood star fifty years ago.

      Clearly, we are no longer entering a “growing” surveillance state, we are already in one.

    • US Security Adviser O'Brien Warns China Against Attack On Taiwan
      US Security Adviser O’Brien Warns China Against Attack On Taiwan

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/08/2020 – 22:30

      We detailed Wednesday that China’s state-run Global Times issued a major threat, saying China should “fully prepare itself for war” with Taiwan in the event it restores diplomatic relations with the United States. The tabloid’s chief editor Hu Xijin wrote in his latest English language op-ed that “We must no longer hold any more illusions. The only way forward is for the mainland to fully prepare itself for war and to give Taiwan secessionist forces a decisive punishment at any time.”

      On the same day National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien addressed just such a scenario at an event hosted at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas, describing as summarized by Al Jazeera that China is “engaged in a significant naval build-up probably not seen since Germany’s attempt to compete with Britain’s Royal Navy prior to WWI.”

      “Part of that is to give them the ability to push us back out of the Western Pacific, and allow them to engage in an amphibious landing in Taiwan,” O’Brien said. “The problem with that is that amphibious landings are notoriously difficult.”

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      Taiwanese Army exercise, via US Naval Institute

      As he specified this includes the fact of about a 100-mile distance between the mainland and Taiwan, adding to difficulties of a well-organized amphibious landing.

      “It’s not an easy task, and there’s also a lot of ambiguity about what the United States would do in response to an attack by China on Taiwan,” he said, referencing also that China hawks in Congressed have introduced the Taiwan Invasion Prevention Act bill. More directly he was referencing the US longtime posture of ‘strategic ambiguity’ regards defending Taiwan.

      “You can’t just spend 1 percent of your GDP [gross domestic product], which the Taiwanese have been doing – 1.2 percent – on defense, and hope to deter a China that’s been engaged in the most massive military build up in 70 years,” he said, during a week where Taiwan’s defense spending was up for question at the US-Taiwan Defense Industry Conference.

      O’Brien proffered a strategy that militarily Taiwan needs to “turn themselves into a porcupine” because ultimately “Lions generally don’t like to eat porcupines.”

      It didn’t take long for Chinese state media to respond in what it called out as Taiwan’s “weakness”:

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      Meanwhile, after much of a year which has witnessed Taiwan’s Air Force scramble its jets dozens of times, and conduct deterrence exercises and aerial patrol missions, Taiwan’s Minister of National Defense Yen Teh-fa on Wednesday announced the island has spent nearly $900 million scrambling its jets in response to PLA warplane incursions and provocations.

      In the end it appears that the message from Washington continues to be that Taiwan should dramatically boost defense spending, because it’s anything but clear that the Pentagon will be there when the Chinese military machine comes calling.

    • In Defense Of Keeping Politics Out Of Crypto
      In Defense Of Keeping Politics Out Of Crypto

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/08/2020 – 22:10

      Authored by Omid Malekan via Medium.com,

      Brian Armstrong, the CEO of the leading American crypto exchange, caused a stir recently when he announced a policy of keeping Coinbase out of political and social activism to better focus on its core mission. He backed up the decision with a generous buyout for any employees who disagreed. In his own words:

      Many companies never stand the test of time, because they decide to dabble in unrelated efforts, and distract and divide their workforce in the process. Paradoxically, by being laser focused on our mission, we will likely have an even greater impact on the world, through our products and growing customer base.”

      One should read the entire post before reacting, as some of the people who have responded negatively clearly have not. There’s more to his argument than “we are just here to make money,” and the online pundits who insist on reducing it to some caricature of capitalism just validate the overall argument.

      Armstrong says that he doesn’t want the pursuit of outside causes to distract Coinbase from the core work of building an open financial system that provides greater access to everyone, because executing on that mission will have a greater impact than activism.

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      I support this approach and hope that more crypto companies adopt it — leaving the tweeting, campaigning, protesting and every other kind of vocal activism to others.

      My reasoning starts with that famous proverb that Mohandas Gandhi — the man often credited for it — never said: to be the change we want to see in the world. It’s a powerful saying, regardless of who came up with it, but lacking in practical instructions. Thankfully, what Gandhi did say was more nuanced.

      “All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.”

      That last sentence makes all of the difference. There’s a false belief in today’s discourse that yelling about a problem, or shaming those considered responsible for it, go a long way toward solving it. They don’t. Outrage is the state of being upset over something and demanding somebody else fix it. Real change takes individual action — but not, as the Mahatma believed — the kind that impacts others, but rather the kind that impacts the self. A million people tweeting about the need to end racism wouldn’t change much. Those same people taking the time (and summoning the humility) needed to confront their own biases — the kind that all of us, myself included, suffer from — would make a genuine impact.

      But that’s doing, and doing is hard. Retweeting is easier. So everyone gets caught up in a recursive loop of posting and protesting, then being upset that nothing has changed, then getting louder. Sides are picked, battle lines are drawn, and little is accomplished. Doing is more effective, but easily distracted by the need for validation. A company deciding to have more minorities in executive positions is great. That same company issuing multiple press releases before the first promotion is less great.

      Which brings us back to crypto.

      One of the things that shocked me about Bitcoin when I first learned about it was its sheer openness. Anyone could do anything, from owning the coins to writing the code to participating in mining to building the supporting infrastructure (as Coinbase has). If you wanted to build the next great crypto wallet, all you had to do was build it. It didn’t matter if you were young or old, black or white, gay or straight, American or Iranian, an experienced coder or a total noob. The only thing that mattered to the rest of the community was the usefulness of your product, which you were free to build however you thought best.

      This was a stark contrast to the traditional financial system, where nothing could be done until you were given permission by a gatekeeper, and the first thing the gatekeeper would ask you to do was to fill out a form, and that form asked you to disclose your name, age and address — information which could easily be used (or misused) to make conclusions about your gender, nationality and race.

      Decentralization is often portrayed by the skeptics as a negative, an open invitation to the world’s anarchists or criminals to cause mischief. But decentralized also means “doesn’t discriminate.” When there is nobody in charge, there is no ability to oppress or exercise bias. Our existing financial system on the other hand is built on bias.

      Case in point KYC, or the almost universal requirement for traditional financial services providers to “know their client.” Such requirements are designed with good intent, to cut down on financial crime and prevent the use of the banking system for illicit activity. But they are costly, and that cost is borne disproportionately by the underprivileged. Even when executed fairly, KYC requirements mean that poor people who don’t have proper ID, migrants who don’t have a fixed address or undocumented workers trying to stay under the radar can’t get a bank account. That is the best case scenario. The worse case scenario is the personal information gathered for these requirements are used to practice racism, sexism and every other kind of discrimination.

      The blockchain doesn’t discriminate, because the blockchain doesn’t know, and better yet, doesn’t give a damn. All anyone needs to access bitcoins is free software — making the bitcoin platform the first digital platform that can’t pick favorites. As far as the protocol is concerned, a billionaire in America gets the same amount of access as a farmer in Thailand. Not because there are laws against discrimination or because miners have undergone sensitivity training, but because both users look exactly the same to every other participant.

      A more abstract, but arguably more insidious form of discrimination within the legacy financial system is the distribution of new money. In crypto, new coins are generated algorithmically and distributed to those who contribute the most, be they miners, coders or users. It doesn’t matter who they are, where they live or which political candidate they’ve contributed to. The fiat domain works on the opposite principle. Newly minted dollars, euros or pounds usually go to those who deserve it least, like “too big to fail” banks in the last economic crisis or any corporation that has access to public capital markets in this one.

      Central banks such as the ECB and Federal Reserve are now using printed money to subsidize the borrowing of large corporations, including that of mega tech companies like Apple and Microsoft, a corporate subsidy for highly profitable companies who have actually benefited from the pandemic. Since they don’t need the money, these companies will just use the subsidy to drive up their stocks via share buybacks. According to the Fed’s own data, stock ownership in the U.S. skews heavily towards the old, the white and the rich. That makes Fed programs that benefit the market (which is practically all of them) a form of systemic discrimination, executed to the tune of trillions of dollars.

      No wonder the current chairman has started giving speeches on the need to tackle racism. A little bit of saying to whitewash all of that tragic doing.

      All of these issues are amplified in developing countries where access to basic financial services are even more limited and government institutions are a lot more corrupt. But there is hope, because the same meritocratic and open approach to financial services that was pioneered by Bitcoin is now being applied to everything from fiat currencies to banking. Argentinians fed up with endless government defaults and devaluations could now save in a dollar-denominated stablecoin called Dai, and expats who are often can’t use banks will soon have much better remittance options, including Libra.

      Further out on the horizon are protocols for borrowing, lending and investing. Not just in crypto, but tokenized versions of every other asset class, from gold to real estate to collectible art. Such products are not available to the vast majority of people today, due to a tragic mix of poor infrastructure and bad policy. This lack of access has been a prime contributor to the explosion in the wealth gap over the past decade, and when combined with the other types of discrimination inherent to our financial system, form a de facto conspiracy by economic elites to make sure nobody else catches up to them. Put differently, the New York Stock Exchange, Sotheby’s and the SEC are not about to make investing a universal right, but the Ethereum blockchain just might.

      I don’t mean to exaggerate the benefits as they stand today. Bitcoin is still too small to make a difference and stablecoins and other forms of tokens are too new to make a dent. But they represent a new way of doing things, one that is superior along the axis that society increasingly cares about, such as equal treatment and universal access. Bringing that vision to the masses will take a lot more doing, and some of it will have to be done by companies like Coinbase.

      So Brian Armstrong was correct. The company can have a much greater impact on social justice by focusing on its core mission. As can everyone else in crypto.

    • Skynet Does The Office: Citrix Says By 2035, Workers With Implanted Chips Will Have "Labor Market Advantage"
      Skynet Does The Office: Citrix Says By 2035, Workers With Implanted Chips Will Have “Labor Market Advantage”

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/08/2020 – 21:50

      Just when you thought things couldn’t get more dystopian this year, American multi-national software company Citrix has quietly released into the internet ethos that it expects workers to have “implanted chips” by the year 2035. 

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      “Welcome to McDonald’s. Can I take your order?”

      Citrix has joined names like Zoom and Slack as popular talking points during the coronavirus pandemic, as more Americans work from home. The trend, while it may reverse course post-pandemic, is still widely considered to be secular in nature as software and technology has made it easier than ever to work from home.

      But just how easy should we be making it? Citrix seems to think that Americans should willingly start turning themselves into cyborgs – a decision that, as champions of liberty we are fine with if people want it – but at the behest of their corporate overlords. 

      The company Tweeted out about a week ago that those with “implanted chips” by 2035 will likely have a “labor market advantage”.

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

      Yeah, and if you turn yourself into a full on robot that never has to use the bathroom, eat or smoke a cigarette on a break, that would probably make you more appealing as well. 

      “By 2035 some workers will have taken technology augmentation a step further, choosing to be enhanced with implanted chips,” Citrix’s “Work 2035” report read. “Almost half (48%) of professionals would be willing to have a chip implanted in their body if it would significantly improve their performance and remuneration.”

      The report notes an obvious delta between business “leaders” and employees on their feelings about implants: “Almost eight in 10 business leaders (77%) believe that under-the-skin chips and sensors will increase worker performance and productivity by 2035, compared to just 43% of employees who share this view.”

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      The company followed up in a blog post on its website: “Seventy-seven percent of all surveyed professionals believe that by 2035, AI will significantly speed up their decision-making process. A majority of respondents agree that in the future, tech interfaces will increase human productivity and performance.”

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      And, like it or not, Citrix predicts AI will have a profound presence in office environments going forward: “Additionally, although over 3/4 of leaders believe that organizations will create functions like AI management departments and cybercrime response units, fewer than half of employees anticipate these business units by 2035.”

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      But while business leaders are obviously quick to embrace the cost savings that come with AI, the rank and file doesn’t seem to jazzed about the idea: “Whereas most business leaders anticipate a world of strong corporate structures powered by a flourishing human-tech partnership, employees foresee a much more fragmented world, with big corporations no longer dominant, and many roles replaced by technology.”

      You can read Citrix’s full “Work 2035” report here, though we’re not sure why you’d want to.

      Maybe just wait until 2021 to crack this one open.

    • "Clear Evidence Of Collusion Between Huawei And The Chinese State": British Defense Report
      “Clear Evidence Of Collusion Between Huawei And The Chinese State”: British Defense Report

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/08/2020 – 21:30

      Authored by Mary Clark via The Epoch Times,

      The British defense committee reported on Thursday that there is ‘clear evidence of collusion between Huawei and the Chinese state’ and urged the government to urgently rid the country’s telecoms infrastructure of Huawei’s kit by 2025.

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      In July Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered that Huawei be purged from Britain’s 5G networks by 2027 amid fears of spying and sabotage and following tough United States sanctions against the company affecting its supply of up-to-date chips.

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      A crew works on a cell tower to update it to handle the new 5G network in Orem, Utah, on Dec. 10, 2019. (George Frey/AFP via Getty Images)

      The defense committee report, however, said the purging should be done years earlier even if it involves recompense for current operators.

      “The Government should take necessary steps to minimize the delay and economic damage and consider providing compensation to operators if the 2027 deadline is moved forward,” it said.

      ‘D 10 Alliance’

      The defense committee report also said that the 5G roll out will increase mobile connectivity dependence, leaving the country more vulnerable to “espionage, sabotage, or system failure” but as yet with “no global rules regulating international cyber-attacks.”

      The report, therefore, urged the government to partner with allies on a system to hold “perpetrators” accountable.

      Democracies should also form a “D10” alliance of top world democracies as a counter to China and other non-democratic countries with malign intent, it said.

      “The Committee support the proposal to form a D10 alliance, consisting of ten of the world’s largest democracies, in order to provide alternatives to Chinese technology and to combat the technological dominance of authoritarian states.”

      “The Government must act swiftly and outline a joint 5G policy as soon as possible,” the report said and “continue to denounce and deter threats from adversarial states, such as Russia and China.”

      Telecoms Security Bill

      It said the proposed Telecoms Security Bill should be introduced into law before the end of the year and called on the government to explain why it is not already deploying a “cyberattack capability to deter aggressors.”

      Commenting in the Telegraph on Thursday Tobias Ellwood, chairman of the committee, said that the UK’s “growing dependence on an online world has created a virtual theatre of war where we have become increasingly vulnerable.”

      “Online espionage and sabotage are the new battlegrounds we must prepare for and defend against,” he said.

      “Our international rules-based order was crafted in a pre-digital age,”

      “But a major cyberattack, for example, could cause more harm than a dirty bomb but would not technically trip a NATO article 5 response.”

      ‘Modern Maginot Line’

      Ellwood’s comments are reflected in Defence Secretary Ben Wallace’s observations on the need for the military to modernize in response to the threat of cyber warfare.

      When speaking about cyber defense to ConservativeHome for the virtual Conservative party annual conference that ended on Oct. 6, Wallace said NATO is “still quite focussed on tank brigades, air squadrons, and ships” as a method of countering adversaries “as if mass on its own is somehow the solution.”

      “It’s not just about sitting in a static bunch of armored brigades waiting almost like you are a modern Maginot line waiting for somehow this great force to come out of the trees when in fact they’ve gone round you,” he said.

      “There’s a modernization program going on at the moment that … recognizes that’s how we need to change,” he added.

      Huawei has repeatedly denied collusion with the Chinese state and had not responded to a request for comment at the time of this report.

    • Commission Refuses Request For In-Person Debate, Ignores Trump Doctor
      Commission Refuses Request For In-Person Debate, Ignores Trump Doctor

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/08/2020 – 21:29

      (Update 2120ET): Despite President Trump’s doctor confirming that he will be healthy and virus-free enough to go back to “public engagements” by Saturday, AP reports that the Debate Commission will not change its decision to hold the debate “virtually”. Bloomberg’s Jennifer Jacobs reports that

      “The chair of the Commission on Presidential Debates says it is not reconsidering shifting the second debate from virtual back to in-person, despite a request from President Donald Trump’s team.”

      What is most confusing for us ‘lay-people’ who don’t understand the ‘science’ – why does the Oct 15th debate need to be virtual if the ‘science’ according the president’s doctor, confirms he will be fit and healthy by Saturday (Oct 10th)?

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      Trump 2020 campaign senior adviser Steve Cortes accused the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) of playing “pandemic politics” Thursday 

      “The Commission on Presidential Debates has revealed itself as a corrupt and complicit swamp cabal,” Cortes told “Special Report” host Bret Baier.

      “They are trying to put their thumb on the scale in favor of Joe Biden. They are trying to protect him and, in fact, bail him out.”

      Joe – listen to the doctors!?

      *  *  *

      (Update 1500ET): Now that the Biden and Trump campaigns have apparently agreed to delay the second debate by a week to Oct. 22, ABC News just announced that Biden will hold a town hall event with ABC News, which will be moderated by George Stephanopoulos.

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

      The town hall will be held in Philadelphia, and follow all safety regulations and guidelines.

      * * *

      (Update 1225ET): Like Larry Kudlow said earlier, the timing and circumstances of the second presidential debate has now become a negotiation. And after Trump said he’d rather walk away than do a virtual event, it looks like Biden called his bluff, and now the Trump camp has apparently acquiesced to potentially rescheduling the debate from Oct. 15 to Oct. 22 (while moving the third debate to Oct. 29).

      * * *

      Update (1140ET): Joe Biden’s campaign just released a statement saying he would find “an appropriate place” to take questions directly from voters on Oct. 15 instead of debating Trump. The campaign also added that it hoped the debate commission would agree to moving the debate to Oct. 22 to give President Trump more time to recover from the virus.

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

      * * *

      Update (0805ET): Well that didn’t take long – as we suspected – President Trump said on Foxthat the decision to change the format for the next presidential debate to virtual “is not acceptable to us,” adding that “I’m not going to waste my time on a virtual debate, that’s not what debating is all about. You sit behind a computer and do a debate, it’s ridiculous.”

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      Trump has decided to hold a rally instead…“We’ll pass on this sad excuse to bail out Joe Biden and do a rally instead.”

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      *  *  *

      According to a statement released minutes ago by the Commission on Presidential Debates, the second presidential debate, set for Oct. 15, will be held remotely, taking the form of a town hall meeting with both candidates participating remotely.’

      Moderator Steve Scully will still be located at the Miami venue where the debate was supposed to take place, but instead, both candidates will participate remotely, while the participants in the audience and the moderator ask questions from the main location.

      “In order to protect the health and safety of all involved with the second presidential debate, scheduled for October 15, 2020, the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) announced the following today: The second presidential debate will take the form of a town meeting, in which the candidates would participate from separate remote locations. The town meeting participants and the moderator, Steve Scully, Senior Executive Producer & Political Editor, C-SPAN Networks, will be located at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County in Miami, Fla. The White House Pool will provide coverage of the second presidential debate.”

      Yesterday, Joe Biden opined that there shouldn’t be a second debate if Trump still has COVID-19.

      Of course, the remote format could create serious problems for Trump, who was able to wrest control of the first debate thanks to his pugnacious approach, which included frequent interruptions and jabs lobbed at Biden. Afterwards, the Commission promised to change up the format and give moderators new “tools” to help manage the flow of conversation.

      The remote format will allow Scully, who once interned in Joe Biden’s Senate office, unprecedented control over the debate. if Trump is being piped in remotely, the moderator can simply mute the president’s feed to prevent him from talking out of turn. At any rate, expect the next debate to be a much more staid affair than the “sh*tshow” – as CNN described it – that tool place last time.

      Fortunately for Mike Pence, the one and only VP debate vs. “gaffe machine” Kamala Harris is already over.

      The decision comes after Trump’s team said earlier this week that he intended to participate in person during the next debate (the 2nd of three). The decision was made to “protect the safety of all involved” now that a White House COVID-19 outbreak has sickened dozens, including Trump and First Lady Melania Trump.

      Meanwhile, Trump is set to appear on Fox Business Network at 0800ET for his first TV interview since the announcement on Friday.

    • That Little Green Dot: Your iPhone Camera Is Spying On You
      That Little Green Dot: Your iPhone Camera Is Spying On You

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/08/2020 – 21:10

      Apple has rolled out with a new privacy protection feature on its iPhone, specifically with the new iOS 14 update, which many will welcome and consider crucial in the post Edward Snowden era, as well as the explosion of cases of unwanted corporate spying and tracking individuals for creepy product placement and data collection purposes.

      The Apple update will make a little green dot appear anytime an app actively uses the iPhone’s camera, Apple recently indicated in a statement. And further a similar orange dot will appear anytime the microphone is activated.

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      “An indicator appears at the top of your screen whenever an app is using your microphone or camera,” Apple said. “And in Control Center, you can see if an app has used them recently.”

      “Privacy is a fundamental human right and at the core of everything we do,” Apple explained, acknowledging the growing controversy and public outcry over apps that ‘spy’ on users without their known it, for example apps that gear adds based on the iPhone user’s vicinity to a particular store.

      “That’s why with iOS 14, we’re giving you more control over the data you share and more transparency into how it’s used,” Apple said previously during the update rollout.

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      When users download new apps, it’s often buried in the fine print of ‘permissions’ that they access a user’s video and audio features, or it’s most often hardly disclosed at all.

      Privacy activists have feared that for years such apps were already accessing iPhone cameras without users knowing about it, possibly also during very private moments. The Apple update can also allow users to disable apps’ ability to do that altogether, or examine a history of when video and audio were activated. 

      Facebook has also addressed recent controversy related to such unwanted snooping, denying that it regularly picks up users’ conversations for advertising purposes:

      Many Facebook users say they’ve spoken about something out loud, only for related adverts to appear on the app soon after.

      These users claim they’ve never searched for this sort of content before, and the only possible explanation is snooping.

      Users reckon Facebook is using your phone’s microphone to listen in on real-world conversations – to help target ads. But is it true?

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      However, Facebook did acknowledge in a statement that “We only access your microphone if you have given our app permission and if you are actively using a specific feature that requires audio.”

      But again it’s unclear how aware individual users are that they are granting such permission in the first place.

      Recall that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden went so far as to always put tape over his laptop camera or other devices which had camera or audio, given they were potential ‘snooping’ features that could also be used by government intelligence agencies. And no doubt now the ability for clandestine sweeping up of video and audio is even more advanced than when he first exposed sweeping NSA surveillance of the domestic populace on a massive scale over seven years ago.

      * * *

      The downloadable update iOS 14 is compatible with the following according to Apple’s website:

      • iPhone 11
      • iPhone 11 Pro
      • iPhone 11 Pro Max
      • iPhone XS iPhone XS Max
      • iPhone XR
      • iPhone X
      • iPhone 8
      • iPhone 8 Plus
      • iPhone 7
      • iPhone 7 Plus
      • iPhone 6s
      • iPhone 6s Plus
      • iPhone SE (1st generation)
      • iPhone SE (2nd generation)
      • iPod touch (7th generation)

    • Physicists Prove Time-Travel Is Theoretically "Possible", But Changing The Past Is Not
      Physicists Prove Time-Travel Is Theoretically “Possible”, But Changing The Past Is Not

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/08/2020 – 20:50

      Authored by Elias Marat via TheMindUnleashed.com,

      Researchers at the University of Queensland, Australia, claim to have proven that time travel is theoretically possible according to the laws of physics.

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      However, we needn’t fear that time-travelers would somehow travel to the past and alter the present-day, as is the case in myriad science fiction scenarios – instead, the future would remain the same, according to the researchers’ calculations.

      “Events readjust around anything that could cause a paradox, so the paradox does not happen,” study author Germain Tobar told IFLScience.

      His study, which was published in the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity, details how according to the rules laid down by theoretical physics, any changes impacting the past would be subsequently corrected by the events that followed. So don’t expect to succeed in drastically altering history, even if you do go back in time on a mission to kill Hitler in his crib.

      Physicists used mathematical modeling to reconcile classic dynamics with Einstein’s theory of general relativity. The contradiction between the two systems is a longtime flaw in time travel concepts, known as the grandfather paradox.

      “As physicists, we want to understand the universe’s most basic, underlying laws and for years I’ve puzzled on how the science of dynamics can square with Einstein’s predictions,” said Tobar. “Is time travel mathematically possible?”

      According to classical dynamics, any attempt by a time traveler to go back in time and, say, kill their grandfather, would result in the time traveler never coming into existence in the first place.

      Within Einstein’s theoretical framework, however, a person could go back in time to kill their grandfather. This is because he calculated that an object in our universe could travel through both time and space in a circular direction before ultimately ending up where it had been before – a path known as the closed time-like curve.

      Tobar and his colleagues used the ongoing coronavirus pandemic as their basis for the study, and imagined if a time traveler had gone back to prevent “patient zero” from being infected.

      “In the coronavirus patient zero example, you might try and stop patient zero from becoming infected, but in doing so you would catch the virus and become patient zero, or someone else would,” Tobar explained.

      “No matter what you did, the salient events would just recalibrate around you,” he continued. “This would mean that – no matter your actions – the pandemic would occur, giving your younger self the motivation to go back and stop it. Try as you might to create a paradox, the events will always adjust themselves to avoid any inconsistency.”

      “The range of mathematical processes we discovered show that time travel with free will is logically possible in our universe without any paradox,” Tobar added.

      In other words, any attempt to kill your grandfather would mean that something or someone would intervene to prevent this from happening – or, at the very least, your mother would already be a fetus in your grandmother’s womb by the time he did perish.

      Dr. Fabio Costa, the University of Queensland physicist who supervised the project, noted: “The math checks out – and the results are the stuff of science fiction.”

    • Rigged? Billionaire Wealth Surges As Working-Poor Struggle 
      Rigged? Billionaire Wealth Surges As Working-Poor Struggle 

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/08/2020 – 20:30

      The virus pandemic has exposed the rigged economic system we all knew about, where mega-corporations and their billionaire owners, a small group of elites, were handed trillions of dollars of stimulus money by their respective central banks and governments.

      Stimulus money was then plowed into financial markets, driving up stock and other asset prices from the depths of the crash in mid-March, which helped push total billionaire wealth to new record highs. 

      The “Riding the storm“ study, published on Wednesday by UBS and PwC, found that between April and July of this year, global billionaire wealth soared to $10.2 trillion, up from $8 trillion at the beginning of April. This increase reflected a 27.5% surge in total billionaire wealth over the three months.

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      As the Federal Reserve and other major central banks rapidly expanded their balance sheets, it becomes easily discernible that aggressive monetary policy benefited billionaires. During the three months, the number of billionaires worldwide hit a new record high of 2,189, surpassing the 2017 peak of 2,158. 

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      The study found diverging fortunes between billionaires, while all billionaires across all industries saw rising wealth, ones based in technology and healthcare saw the largest increase in new wealth. Most of the wealth creation occurred during coronavirus lockdowns, while working-poor folks were confined to their homes. 

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      If it’s monetary or fiscal, the transmission of stimulus to the world’s wealthiest is a tragedy in itself. The rich got richer, and the working-poor got poorer. In some countries, such as the US, tens of millions of households were handed lousy $1,200 checks, with many folks still without jobs, depleted emergency savings, food insecurity issues, and millions at risk of eviction. 

      “The economic crisis we are suffering because of the pandemic has been fuelled by a rigged economic model. The world’s largest corporations are making billions at the expense of low wage workers and funneling profits to shareholders and billionaires – a small group of largely white men in rich nations,” Oxfam International’s executive director Jose María (Chema) Vera told Al Jazeera.

      The flawed economic system has been exposed for the world to see. The result, well, it’s a “K-shaped” recovery, outlines how wealthy elites greatly benefited from stimulus but left the working-poor and small businesses with no recovery. The “K” recovery is the result of socialism and central planning. The coming blowback of such a reckless policy by governments and central banks enriching billionaires will continue to widen the wealth gap that results in continued social unrest.

    • 1 In 5 Americans Could Be "Out Of Money" By Election Day, Survey Finds
      1 In 5 Americans Could Be “Out Of Money” By Election Day, Survey Finds

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/08/2020 – 20:10

      Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

      This week we learned that there likely won’t be any more stimulus checks for the American people before the election, and that prompted tremendous eruptions of anger all over social media.  At first I didn’t understand why people were so angry, but now I do.  It turns out that a substantial portion of the population is desperate for another round of checks because they are almost entirely out of cash. 

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      In fact, a very alarming survey that was just conducted found that one out of every five Americans “could be out of money by Election Day”…

      In fact, nearly one-quarter of U.S. consumers say they have less than three weeks of financial runway before they run out of cash, according to a weekly survey on Americans’ finances by consumer finance company Credit Karma. With just four weeks until the election, 1 in 5 Americans could be out of money by Election Day, the data shows.

      This is yet more evidence that is consistent with the assertion that the economic downturn in the United States is starting to accelerate again.  The trillions of dollars of “stimulus money” that the federal government borrowed and spent earlier this year is starting to wear off, and tens of millions of Americans simply aren’t going to be able to make it without more emergency government assistance.

      But none is coming for a while, and so many American families are going to be faced with some really “tough choices”…

      “People are going to be forced to make tough choices,” says Colleen McCreary, chief people officer at Credit Karma. “There are a lot of Americans who either haven’t been in this situation in a long time or have never had to face this reality. Many will have to sacrifice and prepare because it could get worse before it gets better.”

      Sadly, I think that McCreary’s assessment is overly optimistic.

      There is absolutely no guarantee that economic conditions will get any better for the foreseeable future.

      With each passing day, more businesses are going under and more jobs are being lost.

      In fact, another recent survey found that approximately half of all small businesses in America will “need more aid from the government over the next 12 months to survive”…

      Half of all small businesses expect to need more aid from the government over the next 12 months to survive, according to a survey by the right-leaning National Federation of Independent Business. Sales for about one-fifth of small companies are still down 50% or more from pre-pandemic levels, the NFIB said.

      Please take a moment and let that sink in.

      We are talking about half of all small businesses in the entire country.

      How in the world can the mainstream media be using the term “recovery” when half of our small businesses are on the verge of going belly up?

      That doesn’t make any sense at all.

      Of course large businesses continue to deeply struggle as well.  For example, we just learned that Wells Fargo has eliminated 700 commercial banking jobs…

      Wells Fargo has cut more than 700 commercial banking jobs as part of workforce reductions that could ultimately impact ‘tens of thousands’ of staff, according to a new report.

      The San Francisco-based company has made layoffs for positions across the whole division, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

      And we also just learned that Ruby Tuesday has formally filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection…

      Hobbled by the pandemic and facing the same long-term challenges as other casual dining chains, Ruby Tuesday filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection early Wednesday.

      The company hopes to use the debt-cutting process to improve its finances and stay in business, saying in a statement that it had “reached an understanding with its secured lenders to support its restructuring.”

      Ruby Tuesday has already closed 185 locations, but they are hoping that a restructured company will allow the rest of their restaurants to stay open.

      I remember eating at Ruby Tuesday quite a few times when I lived out on the east coast many years ago, and I don’t remember ever having a bad meal there.

      If the chain completely collapses, that will definitely be a very sad day.

      Of course Ruby Tuesday is far from alone.  So far in 2020, a total of 509 large companies have filed for bankruptcy.  The following comes from Wolf Richter…

      In September, another 54 large companies filed for bankruptcy, after 54 had already filed for bankruptcy in August, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, bringing the total for the year as of October 4 to 509, the highest for the same period since 2010.

      These are companies that are either publicly traded (minimum $2 million in assets or liabilities), or are private companies with debt that is publicly traded (minimum $10 million).

      But this is just the beginning.  As I have discussed previously, we are being warned that a “tsunami of bankruptcies” is coming in 2021 unless the federal government steps in.

      At this point, just about every industry wants federal help, and not everyone will be able to get it.

      So we should expect to see more numbers like these as the months roll along…

      The American Hotel & Lodging Association has said that nearly three-quarters of hotels say they will have to lay off more workers without further financial aid.

      And American Airlines and United Airlines combined furloughed 32,000 employees last week. Airlines have already shed tens of thousands of positions through early retirements and buyouts. Delta Air Lines began the year with 91,000 employees, but 18,000 left voluntarily and 40,000 others agreed to take unpaid leaves of absence. The company may cut 1,700 pilots Nov. 1 unless their union agrees to contract concessions.

      Overall, more than 60 million Americans have filed initial claims for unemployment benefits this year.  It is a nightmare that never seems to end, and many experts expect the pace of layoffs to start increasing again as we head into 2021.

      Many Americans are hoping that the upcoming election will change things for the better, and right now everyone is buzzing about the VP debate.  But there have been bubbles of optimism around previous elections, and yet our long-term economic problems have just continued to get worse and worse.

      Over the past 12 years we have added 17 trillion dollars to the national debt, we have witnessed the greatest corporate debt binge in world history, and U.S. consumers have been borrowing and spending money like there is no tomorrow.

      But tomorrow always arrives, and our day of reckoning is now at hand.

    • For The Second Straight Month, The Fed Bought Zero Bond ETFs
      For The Second Straight Month, The Fed Bought Zero Bond ETFs

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/08/2020 – 19:50

      For much of the past seven months, the biggest story in capital markets was the Fed’s Blackrock-mediated purchases of corporate bonds, either in the primary or secondary market or via ETFs.

      As a reminder, while the Fed pre-announced its intention to purchase up to $750BN in corporate bond (including certain fallen-angel junk bonds) in March, it started purchasing bonds in May, and bond ETFs in June (among which such mainstays as LQD and HYG). By directly entering the corporate bond market – something none of his predecessors dared to do even at the depths of the financial crisis  – Powell created what many – us included – said the biggest corporate and junk bond bubble in history, because by backstopping prices the Fed terminally disconnected fundamentals from prices.

      And, as expected, bond prices, stocks, and ETFs all surged while yields plunged, even while the underlying cash flow fundamentals deteriorated as everyone was trying to front-run the Fed’s pending or concurrent massive purchases. In other words, by jawboning alone, the Fed accomplished its handiwork.

      Yet something odd happened last month: in all of August, when during the peak summer doldrums it was SoftBank’s turn to steal the spotlight with its now infamous gamma meltup, the Fed did not buy a single ETF, and barely bought any corporate bonds, which prompted us to ask: is Powell sending markets a message?

      In retrospect it appears he was, because after an early swoon in the first days of September, stocks suffered their first major bout of turbulence since June last month when they closed in the red for the first time since the covid pandemic broke out.

      So fast forward to today when the Fed released the latest monthly activity details under its Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility when we find that for the second month in a row, the Fed bought zero corporate ETFs…

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      … and logically, the number of ETF shares held was unchanged for the second consecutive month:

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      Looking at the bond level data showed a similar picture: here the Fed or rather Blackrock was just a bit busier, and bought just $420 million par value of bonds between Aug 31 and Sept 29, after purchasing just $421 million the month prior.

      However, unlike August when Blackrock purchased $7 million in Apple bonds across three CUSIPs with maturity dates in 2023, 2024 and 2025.

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      Why the Fed continues to buy Apple bonds – which are arguably the most liquid corporate bonds in the world – remains a mystery.

      In any case, the modest September purchases, the Fed’s total corporate bond holdings rose by $394 million from $3.988 billion to 4.382 billion, an amount which also included the redemptions of several issues.  And when combined with its $8.618 billion in ETF holdings, this means that as of August 31, the Fed owned just over $13 billion in bonds and ETFs.

      Why is this notable?

      Because this $13BN of bond purchases to date is a long way away from the $750BN figure the Fed initially said it was targeting and is far below the bogey the market has in mind. , as Johnson says “is currently in market participants psyche (i.e., 1.8% of what many continue to think the Fed will spend)”.

      What are the implications?

      The fact that the Fed stopped supporting the corporate bond ETF market during August and then again in September, appears to be a rather stark – if still unspoken – reversal in Fed policy stance, and one which we wish a “financial reporter” had asked Chair Powell to explain why during last month’s FOMC conference.

      The key question, as we asked one month ago, “could it be that the Fed is starting to telegraph to the market that it moved too far, too fast? We hope to have the answer one month from today when we will learn if the Fed bought no ETFs for 3 consecutive months, and remember: “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.”

    • McDonald's Had Its Best Month In Nearly A Decade In September
      McDonald’s Had Its Best Month In Nearly A Decade In September

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/08/2020 – 19:30

      By Jonathan Maze,

      It’s probably safe to say McDonald’s Travis Scott promotion was a success. The burger giant’s promotion with the hot-selling musician, along with the introduction of Spicy Chicken McNuggets, helped the chain’s same-store sales hit double digits in September.

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      The Chicago-based company said on Thursday that its same-store sales increased 4.6% in the third quarter ended Sept. 30. 

      That included “low double digit” increases in September, the company’s strongest month in nearly a decade and the result of what McDonald’s said was “promotional activity.”

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      That activity featured back-to-back marketing promotions that were both successful. The $6 Travis Scott Meal generated a rare amount of hype for the typically staid company—customers were seen stealing posters from McDonald’s restaurants to sell them on eBay, where people could also find receipts for the meal on auction.

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      The meal sold so well that many restaurants ran out of ground beef, bacon and even lettuce—the meal featured a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, lettuce and bacon, along with fries and a Sprite.

      McDonald’s followed that up with a limited time offer of Spicy Chicken McNuggets. The company ran out of that product on occasion, too.

      McDonald’s same-store sales have been improved in the U.S. largely because of the chain’s drive-thrus, which have thrived during the pandemic. It was a different story internationally, where same-store sales fell 4.4% in its larger international operated markets, featuring countries like the U.K., France, Canada and Australia. Its developing international markets saw same-store sales decline 10.1%.

      Globally, same-store sales fell 2.2%.

      McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski said the performance “demonstrates the underlying resilience of the McDonald’s brand.” He cited the company’s “unrivaled drive-thru presence around the world, advanced delivery and digital capabilities, and marketing scale” which have been “even more important during the pandemic.”

    • Doctors Say Trump Will Return To "Public Engagements" Saturday; 4th White House Reporter Sickened
      Doctors Say Trump Will Return To “Public Engagements” Saturday; 4th White House Reporter Sickened

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/08/2020 – 19:13

      Update (1900ET): As Nancy Pelosi rallies Democrats to try and push for a 25th amendment removal of power from President Trump’s hands, his medical team has just announced in their latest update that Trump plans to return to “public engagements” on Saturday, the 10th day since his symptoms began, at which point they say he will not be infectious.

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      We can’t help but wonder if Trump’s press team will later issue a “clarification” about Saturday being “day 10” since it’s actually 9 days.

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      Could this have something to do with why Nancy Pelosi wants to know exactly when Trump last tested negative?

      Trump released a video message a few hours ago in front of a green screen, though he definitely sounded healthier, and appeared less pale.

      * * *

      The White House Press Corps has just been informed that a 4th member of the White House press pool has tested positive for COVID-19. The reporter was last at the White House on Oct. 3, 6 days after the Amy Coney Barrett press announcement, which some have speculated might have been a super-spreader event.

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      We counted Stephen Miller, who tested positive last night, as the 33rd case from the White House outbreak. Earlier, a Marine Corp Assistant Commandant also tested positive after interacting with the Coast Guard Admiral Charles Ray who tested positive earlier this week.

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      That would make the 4th reporter sickened No. 34 on our list overall (we’re also counting 11 campaign aides who were sickened after the Cleveland debate).

      Bloomberg has its own list here.

      President Trump tweeted another video message from what appeared to be a green screen backdrop of the White House lawn promising that the antibody therapeutics he was treated with (among other things) would soon be available to “all”.

      In response to the news, one twitter user asked about VP Mike Pence cancelling a trip to his home state, Indiana.

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      The other night, the NYT reported that another White House official apparently tested positive back in September, and had apparently fallen “gravely ill”.

      White House reporters have slammed the WH press shop for wantonly putting their health at risk, as Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany and at least 4 aides have tested positive (including one of her husband’s cousins). Though the only people who have been seriously sickened so far appear to be the White House security official reported last night, and NJ Gov Chris Christie, who remains in the hospital.

      As far as President Trump is concerned, the White House told reporters a few minutes ago that they should be releasing another update on Trump’s health today.

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    Oct 08

    Today’s News 8th October 2020

    • Gazprom Blasts $7.6BN Polish Antitrust Fine On NS2 Pipeline As Move To Kill It "By All Means"
      Gazprom Blasts $7.6BN Polish Antitrust Fine On NS2 Pipeline As Move To Kill It “By All Means”

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/08/2020 – 02:45

      Polish authorities have fined Russia’s Gazprom a whopping and unprecedented $7.6 billion (or 6.5 billion euros) for constructing the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany.

      While Poland anti-trust authorities have claimed Nord Stream 2 is fundamentally a politically motivated attempt to punish Polish consumers while increasing European dependence on on Russian imports, Germany has stood by the project even amid the Navalny poisoning affair which has strained its relations with Russia over the past month.

      Poland’s Office of Competition and Consumer Protection decision seeks to legally force the six companies jointly building and financing the project to cancel their contracts, despite the gas pipeline being in its final phase of development. This includes European investors OMV, Wintershall, Engie, Shell and Uniper.

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      NS2 pipeline construction in the Baltic, file image.

      “Carrying out the project is tantamount to breaking the rules of law and of fair competition that will lead to an increased dependence of gas recipients on the internal market on one supplier – Gazprom,” the Polish antitrust office said.

      It charged that if allowed to go live it will result in “serious consequences for Poland’s and the EU’s economy,” by restricting the range of supplies while inevitably increasing gas prices for consumers.

      But no doubt defenders of NS2 also see this as part of Washington’s broader war on the project, which has included past sanctions on executive heads of European companies involved, given recent deepening US military ties to Poland.

      State-owned Gazprom, meanwhile has denounced the “unprecendented fine” as unlawful and unjustified. The fine’s “unprecedented amount evidences the decision to oppose implementation of the Nord Stream 2 project by all means,” the statement said, according to TASS.

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      Gazprom said flatly the project “did not breach anti-monopoly laws of Poland,” while Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov separately underscored Gazprom would “do everything that is possible” to legally oppose the decision.

      This will include counter-actions to get the Polish decision blocked, while the Kremlin warned this could have a lasting negative impact on Russian-Polish relations. Of recently strained relations with Poland, “Peskov noted that they can hardly be called thriving and it can hardly be assumed that something could spoil them even more,” TASS reported.

    • Armenians Fight Back Against Azerbaijani Advance, Strike Key Oil Pipeline
      Armenians Fight Back Against Azerbaijani Advance, Strike Key Oil Pipeline

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/08/2020 – 02:00

      Submitted by SouthFront,

      Armenian forces launched a missile attack on the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline, according to Azerbaijan. The country’s prosecutors said that Armenian forces had carried out the attack, which was prevented by the Azerbaijani military, on the pipeline in Yevlah at around 9 p.m. local time on October 6. The incident was described as a “terrorist act”.

      The BTC pipeline delivers Azeri light crude oil (mainly from the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli field) through Georgia to Turkey’s Mediterranean port of Ceyhan for export via tankers. Another crucial Azerbaijani energy infrastructure object, which could become a potential target of Armenian attacks is the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline, which connects the giant Shah Deniz gas field with Europe through Georgia and Turkey. The Armenian side denounced the Azerbaijani report as fake news. Both Azerbaijan and Armenia regularly accuse each other of striking civilian and infrastructure objects on their sovereign territory and denounce the opponent’s claims as propaganda and fakes.

      It is interesting to note that just a few hours earlier Vahram Poghosyan, the press secretary of the Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) President, claimed that Armenian forces had delivered powerful missile and rocket strikes on military objects in large Azerbaijani towns destroying multiple pieces of equipment and eliminating the enemy. The Azerbaijani official narrative provides a similar position that Azerbaijani forces are pulverizing Armenian military targets.

      Meanwhile, Azerbaijani Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov threatened Armenia with “using the weapons with great destructive power” to deliver strikes on “the military-strategic infrastructure” of Armenia if it employs its Iskander operational-tactical missile systems against Azerbaijani forces.

      However, it does not seem that the Armenian political leadership is ready to employ all the variety of its means and forces to fight back in the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region. Instead, the government of Nikol Pashinyan is now mostly focused on the diplomatic campaign in Western media in an attempt to convince the so-called international community to help it to keep control over Karabakh. Mr. Pashinyan, who just a few days ago was promising to inflict a military defeat on what he called the Azerbaijani-Turkish terror alliance even declared that Armenia is ready for mutual concessions. Nonetheless, Baku and Ankara do not seem to be ready for a new ceasefire and the resumption of negotiations at the present time.

      On the frontline in the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region itself, the main hot point is the district of Jabrayil. Using the worsening weather conditions (fog and thick clouds), which complicate the work of Azerbaijani combat drones, Armenian forces were able to stabilize the frontline and prevent further gains of the Azerbaijani military in this part of Karabakh. On October 7, Armenia even claimed that a large-scale Azerbaijani attack had been repelled in the area. The Defense Ministry claimed that over 60 dead and multiple equipment pieces were left by Azerbaijan on the battlefield.

      Meanwhile, Armenian forces and cities of the region are still subjected to intense artillery bombardment by the Azerbaijani military. Heavy destruction was inflicted on the city of Stepanakert. As soon as the weather improves, Azerbaijan with help from Turkey will likely resume active drone strikes and launch a new phase of the ground offensive along the contact line.

    • Left Wing Conspiracy Theories Go Mainstream, All Others Banned – Going Down The Rabbit Hole
      Left Wing Conspiracy Theories Go Mainstream, All Others Banned – Going Down The Rabbit Hole

      Tyler Durden

      Wed, 10/07/2020 – 23:40

      Authored by Tom Williams via RightWireReport.com,

      With just a few weeks to go before the 2020 presidential elections, politics are getting thicker than mud. The heavily politicized Coronavirus “pandemic” keeps dominating the news cycle – continuing lockdowns and mask mandates, with its subsequent devastating economic realities. Then came the Black Live Matter protest/riots that have rocked the nation – with the insane idea of defunding and eliminating the police with the lack of law and order largely supported by Democratic local officials. As a backdrop to this is all the ongoing investigations of all the malfeasance done by our politicians. And now an October surprise (perhaps not the only one to come), the diagnosis of President Trump’s COVID-19 infection. This political season has got everyone saying, “we have never seen anything like this before.”

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      All these events have driven many to speculate, and yes, driven many of the conspiracy theories (sometimes parading as truth) we see in the media. Who doesn’t like going down a rabbit hole for a really good juicy story? Part of investigative reporting does involve a bit of speculation (making a hypothesis and then seeking truth to prove or not prove), often called conspiracy theories. One can see the odd things in the news and try to smell “rats” to then expose them. So critical thinking on news events is not necessarily bad. However, one does need to keep a level head to find the truth and not use them to drive a political agenda. So all conspiracy theories are not necessarily false.

      And now the latest left-wing conspiracy theory concerning the diagnosis of President Trump’s COVID-19 infection.

      Left-wing activist Michael Moore has floated a conspiracy theory on his Facebook page that suggested that Donald Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis was fake. Moore justified his skepticism of Trump’s diagnosis by citing the supposed president’s many lies and incorrect statements.

      “There is one absolute truth about Trump: He is a consistent, absolute, unrelenting, fearless, and professional liar. A serial liar. A factually proven liar. How many lies now has the Washington Post proven in these four years? 25,000? A lie at least twice during every waking hour? Think of all the bad people you’ve known in your life. Even the worst ones you couldn’t say that about.,” he wrote.

      Moore then asked, “so why on earth would we believe him today? Has he earned your trust now?” He pondered why Trump would “all of a sudden just start telling the truth.”

      Not to be outdone, MSNBC’s Joy Reid chimed in and gave Moore’s conspiracy theory even more oxygen.

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      This conspiracy was broadcast all over many mainstream media outlets and amplified on social media with no restrictions. Few actually using a little critical thinking to see how utterly ridiculous the claims were. To make this conspiracy theory stick, this would mean both Melania and Donald Trump are liars. Then, count them, 11 diagnosed at the “supposed” superspreader event at the #RoseGardenMassacre would also need to be lying. Then what of all the doctors at the Walter Reed Medical Center and the most likely dozen or so staff? All part of this conspiracy? The idea is absurd. Something like this would be exposed immediately.

      And what of right-wing conspiracy theories? Facebook and Twitter promised to stop encouraging the growth of the “baseless” conspiracy theory QAnon, which fashions President Donald Trump as a secret warrior, against child-trafficking rings run by celebrities and government officials, after it reached an audience of millions on their platforms this year. But the social media companies still are having difficulties to stem the tide of what they deem “dangerous” QAnon material. A review by The Associated Press found that both platforms have vowed to stop “suggesting” QAnon material to users, a powerful way of introducing QAnon to new people. Facebook will ban any ads supporting QAnon and militarized social movements. One sure way to get banned on social media is to say anything supporting “Q” or “QAnon.” It is important to add the distinction that “Q,” or the entity or entities that sign to posts on a “Q Board” are not the same as “QAnons.” “QAnons” are the interpreters of “Q,” which theoretically could be anyone – and can and do say anything.

      So left-wing conspiracy theories go mainstream, and right-wing conspiracy theories get banned.

      But all this being said and we seem to want to go down the rabbit hole. What of this “supposed” superspreader event at the #RoseGardenMassacre? At least 11 people who attended a White House event on Sept. 26 have since tested positive for the coronavirus (see timeline). Eight of them, including the first lady, sat in the first several rows of a nomination ceremony for Judge Amy Coney Barrett in the White House Rose Garden. 

      It does seem rather odd that so many at one time would contract the COVID-19 virus all at the same time, to not even speak of the cluster of infections in the front rows within the gathering at the event. With about 150 people attending the event, the infection rate for the group was over 7%. An alarming and yet dubious natural infection rate. How can this be?

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      Let’s consider other potential superspreader events – Black Lives Matter protests/riots. Sometimes a small group of a few hundred, but many events numbered into the tens of thousands. A nearly estimated 26 million people, although not all are members or part of the organization, participated in the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in the United States, making Black Lives Matter one of the largest movements in United States history.

      Most likely, there would be someone in each of the events COVID-19 positive. At a 7% infection rate, this would mean that the Black Live Matter events potentially infected nearly 2 million people, not to even speak of the secondary potential infections once the protester/rioter went home. There have only been “supposedly” a total of about 7 million infections in the U.S. This would mean that the Black Live Matter events caused nearly one-third of all COVID-19 infections? Experts say no. So how could there be a 7% infection rate at the #RoseGardenMassacre?

      Are we ready to go down the rabbit hole?

      Considering all the charges of nefarious activities on both sides of the political spectrum and living in a “we have never seen anything like this before” era, is it so absurd to ask the obvious question? After all, look at all the time and resources Democrats spent investigating Trump via the sham Mueller Report and impeachment. Just how far would one go to stop the nomination of Judge Amy Barrett and the re-election of Donald Trump? Given the rather odd high infection rate at the #RoseGardenMassacre, could this indicate nefarious activities? How does one explain this seemingly odd statistic? Who or what was the superspreader?

      Was it the Trump fire dragon speaking breath at the #RoseGardenMassacr event that spread the COVID-19 to so many – especially on the front row? Or was there a nefarious COVID-19 accelerant? We did do a search for this and could find no media folks asking the question. Just how would one do this if they were even considering this type of activity? Was there a superspreader mole planted in the crowd? Or perhaps a low flying mini-drone spraying a fine mist over the crowd. Here are the videos of the event – we could see nothing, but perhaps you can.

      Officials at the White House are racing to contact trace who might have come in contact with President Trump after he was diagnosed with COVID-19. But look here, as the White House staff prepare the Rose Garden ahead of President Trump’s scheduled Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett’s announcement on that Saturday. Did anyone check the flowers… 😉

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      For the avoidance of doubt, the Right Wire Report does not make any claims to any conspiracy theories, rather merely pointing out the obvious biases to what mainstream media considers fact or fiction.

    • Pompeo Seeks 'Asian NATO' To Counter China In Talks With Japan, India & Australia
      Pompeo Seeks ‘Asian NATO’ To Counter China In Talks With Japan, India & Australia

      Tyler Durden

      Wed, 10/07/2020 – 23:20

      Amid Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s trip to Tokyo this week where he’s meeting with representatives from Japan, India, and Australia, he and top State State Department officials are actually floating plans for a NATO-type anti-China alliance in Asia.

      Beijing sees this as ‘shots fired across the bow’ from within the heart of its sphere of influence, given these very nations are so reliant on China for trade.

      “As partners in this Quad, it is more critical now than ever that we collaborate to protect our people and partners from the CCP’s exploitation, corruption and coercion,” Pompeo said Tuesday referring to China’s ruling communists. “We see it in the South and East China Seas, the Mekong, the Himalayas, the Taiwan Strait.”

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      Pompeo in Tokyo, via Reuters

      He later added while speaking to Japan’s Nikkei newspaper:

      “Once we’ve institutionalized what we’re doing – the four of us together – we can begin to build out a true security framework,” Pompeo told the Nikkei, suggesting other countries could be added to that “fabric” at “the appropriate time.”

      The US has already over the past months been shoring up international support for such an “Asian NATO” as it’s being provocatively called:

      China’s growing military prowess and increasingly aggressive foreign policy have revived talk among U.S. and European officials of creating an “Asian NATO” of regional powers to contain communist Beijing’s expansionist ambitions.

      Past efforts for an East Asian security alliance, such as the post-World War II Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) to guard against Cold War-era communism, failed to gain lasting traction.

      But such an initiative will no doubt prove much easier said than done, given last year Australia’s number one trade partner where it exported the majority of its goods was China.

      Also the number two destination for Japanese exports is China, while China is also India’s third top customer, according to IMF figures.

      However, US allies in the region do seem to be on board in identifying China’s growing military might and expansionist vision as a global economic powerhouse as a major long term threat.

    • Top Fed Economist Says Another $3.5 Trillion In QE Needed
      Top Fed Economist Says Another $3.5 Trillion In QE Needed

      Tyler Durden

      Wed, 10/07/2020 – 23:00

      Earlier today, in response to Neel Kashkari’s CNBC interview in which the Minneapolis Fed president said “I don’t see any moral hazard here” when asked if the Fed’s massive liquidity injections have blown a bubble…

      … we showed a chart of the Fed’s balance sheet, asking if he sees moral hazard here:

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      And while we doubt Neel would see moral hazard in the chart above, if it hit him on the head, or even after the biggest asset bubble in history funded by $90 trillion in central bank liquidity pops, his odds of a successful observation would increase drastically if the Fed follows the advice of senior Fed economist and deputy director of the bank’s financial stability division, Michael Kiley, who calculated that due to the Fed’s inability to cut interest rates further (spoiler alert: the Fed will eventually go NIRP), unless it unleashes another massive round of QE.

      How much? Well, according to a paper published by Kiley, the Fed will need to monetize deficit, pardon, purchase bonds equal to 30% of GDP, or $6.5 trillion, in order to offset the impact of the zero lower bound. And since the Fed has already purchased a record $3 trillion in bonds since March, that implies another $3.5 trillion in QE is needed.

      And while the Fed’s latest minutes did not hint at any adjustment to the Fed’s current $120BN in monthly bond purchases, the paper will likely be used to bolster the case for increasing the Fed’s bond purchases in coming months, and certainly once there is a more than 10% correction in the market which has emerged as the clear-cut Powell Put.

      But what is scariest is not that the Fed will continue monetizing every single dollar of US debt issuance for the foreseeable future, and perhaps indefinitely which considering the CBO’s latest forecast means a long, long time…

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      … but rather that the Fed no longer even pretends to know what it is doing: as the Fed economist admitted, his findings are based on models developed prior to the Covid-19 outbreak that “may fail to capture how pandemic shocks affect investment and other decisions.” In other words, as even Bloomberg concedes, “economists don’t really know how or whether the pandemic might disrupt the impact they expect from bond purchases on real economic activity.”

      Actually, we take that back: what is by far the scariest is that the US economy is now literally on perpetual life support. As recent events have shown too clearly, unless there is a fresh trillion in either fiscal or monetary stimulus, the economy and stock market would both disintegrate. And as Neel Kashkari said so clearly today in his CNBC interview, the Fed has – and never had – any other strategy of resetting this vicious cycle where ever more and more stimulus is needed just to avoid collapse – or as he put it, the Fed would never “start a forest fire now to avoid a far greater forest fire later.”

      The only thing that Fed does have is doing more of the same debt-buying can-kicking which guarantees with absolute certainty, that the entire financial and socioeconomic system collapses and not because of China, or Russia, or terrorist, but because of a group of clueless hack in the Federal Reserve.  

    • Watch: Russia Conducts Rare Ship-Launched Hypersonic Missile Test On Putin's Birthday
      Watch: Russia Conducts Rare Ship-Launched Hypersonic Missile Test On Putin’s Birthday

      Tyler Durden

      Wed, 10/07/2020 – 22:40

      Russia’s defense ministry (MoD) released video showing a rare ship-launched hypersonic missile test in action on Wednesday, which it said was successful. 

      The hypersonic launch of the Zircon winged missile was conducted from the Admiral Gorshkov frigate in the White Sea, and had reportedly traveled 280 miles after which it hit a mock naval target in the Barents Sea.

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      Via TASS/MoD: Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missile launched from the frigate Admiral Gorshkov during a test in the White Sea Wednesday.

      It further was described as flying at an altitude of 28km with the total flight lasting four-and-a-half minutes at speeds reaching more than Mach 8.

      The Russian Defense Ministry published video of the successful launch, which was described as also marking President Putin’s 68th birthday.

      In public remarks to chief of the general staff Valery Gerasimov, Putin hailed the “great achievement” and successful test of the missile which is expected to enter active service after more near-future tests.

      Watch the new hypersonic missile test below:

      “This is a big event not only for the life of the armed forces but also for all of Russia, for the whole country,” Putin said of the test, which grabbed international headlines.

      Given social distancing coronavirus measures, Putin observed the test remotely from his office.

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      Via Reuters

      Crucially it comes the same week that US and Russian negotiators are discussing the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty in Finland.

      The two major nuclear powers have yet to agree on the conditions for extending what’s widely considered the most significant nuclear arms reduction treaty, set to expire in February 2021 if the two sides don’t agree to renew it. So far ongoing talks between Moscow and Washington have failed to extend it by up to five years, despite pressure to strike an extension by America’s allies.

      After the collapse of the INF treaty as well as Open Skies, there’s been surprising word of “progress” made from these latest talks in Helsinki.

    • VP Debate Post-Mortem: Pence Trounces "Gaffe Machine" Harris
      VP Debate Post-Mortem: Pence Trounces “Gaffe Machine” Harris

      Tyler Durden

      Wed, 10/07/2020 – 22:35

      55-year-old Kamala Harris (22 years the junior of Joe Biden) faced off across a 12-foot void of ‘potentially-deadly-air’ and ‘plexiglass’ against 61-year-old Mike Pence (13 years younger than President Trump) with USA Today’s (and Nancy Pelosi biographer) Susan Page as the ‘moderator’ at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City… all without wearing masks!

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      Ahead of the debate, despite media’s constant crowing about Biden’s double-digit lead in national polls, Trump is slightly outperforming against Biden relative to Hillary in the battleground states…

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      Source: RCP

      Following a similar pattern – but with a notably higher probability of winning in November – relative to his performance against Hillary…

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      *  *  *

      It was not pretty!

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      *  *  *

      Summary (of the nine discussion topics):

      1. COVID Response – Pence won – a body-blow slamming Kamala on vaccines: “stop playing politics with people’s lives.”

      2. Health Of Candidates – Tie – neither candidate answered but if we had to pick, Pence shaded it as Kamala discussed herself.

      3. The Economy – Pence won – the vice-president crushed Harris on Biden taxes (briefly silencing her over Trump tax cut repeal).

      4. Climate Change – Pence won – perhaps surprisingly but Harris was unable to recover from being cornered on her sponsorship of the Green New Deal

      5. China – Pence won – Harris facts all over the place and Pence closed with Biden’s “cheerleading” for China.

      6. Foreign Relations – Tie – both candidates parried each other’s running mate’s performance

      7. The Supreme Court – Pence won – Harris refused to answer the question of packing the court and Pence was frank about being “pro-life.”

      8. Racial Justice – Pence won – again rather stunningly, Pence crushed Harris on misleading quotes and soundbites

      9. Transfer Of Power – Pence won – while Harris went “vote now”, Pence reminded the audience that Harris party spent the last four years trying to overturn the previous election

      Pence dominated Harris as finally, questions were asked and answered and facts were checked!

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      *  *  *

      Perhaps President Trump summed the first half best:

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      And WSJ’s Kimberley Strassel, the second half…

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      Harris spoke more (38:48 to Pence’s 35:22) but said less…

      *  *  *

      Moderator Susan Page reminded the audience that attendees were all wearing masks and that she hoped for a better behaved debate.

      An awkward moment as they both walked and didn’t want to sit down first…

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      The first question was about the coronavirus “not being under control.”

      Harris began on the offense, noting that

      “The American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country,” and adding a line about “sacrificial workers.”

      Harris accused Trump of “covering it up,” and “frankly this administration has forfeited their right to re-election because of this.”

      Harris said the Biden-Harris plan is testing, contact-tracing, and free vaccines.

      Pence’s response was heartfelt and factful as he explained the timeline of airline shutdowns “which Biden called xenophobic.”

      And the vice-president mocked that Biden had “plagiarised” their plan – as it is exactly the same as they have been doing.

      “It looks a little like plagiarism, which Joe Biden knows a little something about.”

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      Pence slams Harris for claiming that the plan “hasn’t worked” was a great misjustice, pinning the decisions on Fauci and Birx.

      Pence framed the plan as the American people fighting and being brave, forcing any counter to appear as Kamala is attacking Americans.

      Harris got frustrated and tilted back at Pence: “I’m speaking”:

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      The moderator went on to discuss the Trump administration following health protocols and the vaccines, with Pence slamming Harris for “politicizing the vaccine” after she said she would not take it if Trump said it was safe:

      “stop playing politics with people’s lives”

      Pence also pointed out the failure of the Obama-Biden plan to cope with the swine flu when 60 million people contracted it (and 2million Americans would have died).

      *  *  *

      The second question was on the health and age of the presidential candidates

      Page asked “Have you had a conversation or reached an agreement on issues of presidential disability considering Trump/Biden’s age?”

      Neither of the candidates responded directly to any questions about the health of their running mates, but Harris  listed off her credentials, and Pence smoothly congratulated Harris on being the first black woman on the ticket.

      Harris claims that Biden has been very transparent and that Trump has done nothing but cover things up. Pence says he respects Biden’s “47 years in public life,” a subtle dig at an opponent the Trump campaign has tried to portray as a Washington insider.

      *  *  *

      Topic three was the economy

      “There couldn’t be a more fundamental difference” between Trump and Biden, according to Harris who said Biden measures the health of the economy based on the average American worker.

      Pence says that Trump is a “job creator,” but he added that “you just heard Harris say on day one Joe Biden’s going to raise your taxes.”

      Pence totally shut Harris down on repealing Trump’s tax cuts.

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      Harris’ response was to try and paint the economic downturn from COVID lockdowns:

      “They rode the coattails of Joe Biden’s success,” Harris says of the economy. “Of course now the economy is a complete disaster, but Donald Trump did that.”

      Harris also tried to pivot to healthcare but Pence punched back that Harris said she would ban fracking and abolish fossil fuels.

      “More taxes, more regulation, banning fracking, abolishing fossil fuel, crushing American energy and economic surrender to China is a prescription for economic decline.”

      *  *  *

      The fourth topic was on climate change.

      Page asked: “Do you believe that man made climate change has made wildfires and hurricanes worse?”

      Pence responded by questioning the cause but not the fact that climates are changing, adding that

      “The US has reduced CO2 more than the countries that are in The Paris Accord.”

      The Paris accord and the Green New Deal “would crush” American energy, Pence says.

      Page noted that Harris cosponsored “The Green New Deal” while Biden flatly rejected that during last week’s debate.

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      Harris said “Joe Biden will not ban fracking.”

      Which is awkward…

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      “We’ve seen a pattern in this administration — they don’t believe in science,” Harris says. “Joe believes in science.”

      Pence cornered Harris once again on the Green New Deal cosponsorship and lack of consistency.

       

      *  *  *

      The fifth discussion topic was on China

      Harris tried to bring up the China trade war – “Lost the trade war with China? Joe Biden never fought it” – and Pence destroyed her with fact bombs about Biden being “a cheerleader for communist China.”

      “You said Trump lost a trade war with China, Joe Biden never fought one”

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      Pence says China has been hurting the U.S. “for decades.”

      “We’re going to hold China accountable for what they did to American with the coronavirus,” Pence says.

      Harris claims that “The Trump administration’s perspective and approach to China has resulted in the loss of American lives, American jobs and America’s standing.”

      Harris went on to claim that Xi was more respected (according to Pew) and China more respected – sadly that’s a lie:

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      Well that’s awkward!

      Pence added that China and the World Health Organization were not straight with the American people.

      Sadly, neither candidate answered the moderator’s question about how to define China: friend, competitor, enemy, or something else, but it’s pretty clear from their track records.

      *  *  *

      Foreign Relations dominated the sixth topic.

      Harris went straight for the Russia, Russia, Russia topic:

      “Donald Trump, the commander-in-chief of the United States of America prefers to take the word of Vladimir Putin than the word of the American intelligence community.”

      Furthermore Harris attempted to bring up the story about Trump’s disane for the military

      Harris says Trump has “betrayed our friends and embraced dictators around the world.”

      She cites Russia, says Trump “prefers to take the word of Vladimir Putin” than the U.S. intelligence community — and says that Trump’s pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal has made the U.S. less safe.

      Pence (as furiously as he gets) punched back:

      “President Trump reveres those who serve in our armed forces.”

      Pence cites Trump’s accomplishments, including defeating ISIS.

      *  *  *

      The seventh topic was The Supreme Court

      “President Trump and I could not be more enthusiastic about seeing Judge Amy Coney Barrett become Justice Amy Coney Barret,” Pence says.

      “We hope she gets a fair hearing.”

      Harris pivoted to Obamacare:

      “The contrast couldn’t be more clear: they’re trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. Joe Biden is trying to expand it.”

      Pence pivoted back to abortion and said “I am pro-life and make no apologies for it.”

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      Then Pence cornered Harris with the “pack the court” question?

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      Once again she refused to answer and Pence came out swinging.

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      Then this happened…

      Pence: “Will you and Biden pack the Supreme Court?”

      Harris: “Trump packed the district courts with white people!”

      Moderator: “Thank you, let’s move on.”

      Pence:

      “If you haven’t figured it out yet, the straight answer is they are going to pack the Supreme Court if they somehow win this election.”

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      Trump Jr summed it perfectly:

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      *  *  *

      Racial Justice was the controversial eighth topic

      “There’s no excuse for what happened to George Floyd and justice will be served,” Pence says.

      “Our heart breaks for the loss of any innocent American life,” Pence says of Taylor. “But I trust our justice system.”

      “I will not sit here and be lectured by the vice president on what it means to enforce the laws of this country,” Harris says.

      Pence hit back with comments on Harris’ track record…

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      Harris tried to bring up the Charlottesville comments by Trump again, adding that:

      the idea that America is systemically racist is “a great insult to the men and women who serve in law enforcement.”

      Pence says that Trump “has Jewish grandchildren” and “respects and cherishes all of the people.”

      Harris:

      “Joe Biden and I recognize that implicit bias does exist, Mr. Vice President contrary to what you believe. … I will not be lectured by the vice president on our record in what we have done in terms of law enforcement.”

      The moderator did a great job of controlling Harris as she kept repeating debunked media bites…

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      *  *  *

      Finally, the topic of the Transfer of Power was discussed.

      But Harris decided to shift to an infomercial:

      “here’s what I’d like to say to everybody: vote. Please vote. Vote early.”

      Pence came out swinging by bringing up the facts that the previous campaign spied on his campaign and has spent the last few years trying to overturn the last election:

      “Your party has spent the last three and a half years trying to overturn the results of the last election,” Pence says, bringing up the Mueller investigation and impeachment.

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      *  *  *

      And finally – bravo to Susan Page! A moderator who asked tough questions on both sides, politely stopped the candidates when their time was up and forced them to respond.

      *  *  *

      Oh, and there was a flay that ‘trended’ on Twitter briefly…

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    • Is Seattle Paying Antifa Militants To Write 'F**k Police' On BLM Mural?
      Is Seattle Paying Antifa Militants To Write ‘F**k Police’ On BLM Mural?

      Tyler Durden

      Wed, 10/07/2020 – 22:20

      Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

      The city of Seattle is literally paying Antifa militants to write “f**k police” and “all cops are bastards” (ACAB) on Black Lives Matter murals near the infamous CHOP zone, according to a far-left live streamer.

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      Kitty Shackleford shared clips from the individual’s live stream which went out on Monday, which show the mural tagged with phrases like “abolish capitalism,” “ACAB,” “no good cops in a racist system,” & “abolish ICE”.

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      “The funniest thing about this is… the city of Seattle is paying me to do this, so it’s beautiful, you know what I’m saying,” the live streamer says while laughing.

      He also makes clear that BLM is “coming for” Mayor Jenny Durkan next, despite her literally overseeing financial aid to the agitators.

      The mural is also tagged with the words “100% Antifa,” a reference to the manifesto of Antifa terrorist Michael Reinoehl who murdered Trump supporter Aaron Danielson in cold blood in Portland in late August.

      SDOT announced that it will maintaining the integrity of the mural, which deteriorates much faster than other surfaces, and that the total cost will remain unknown until the project is finished.

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      “Imagine thinking you’re a revolutionary fighting the system when you’re getting paid by the system to take part in said “revolution,” writes Chris Menahan.

      One fears for the future of cities like Seattle given that the controlling authorities, not merely the rioters, are pro-Antifa.

      As we highlighted yesterday, the likely next Mayor of Portland is also a vehement Antifa supporter and recently wore a skirt which championed the legacy of Chairman Mao, the Communist dictator who was responsible for the deaths of around 50 million people.

      *  *  *

      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. Also, I urgently need your financial support here.

    • CA Governor's Office Says To Wear Mask 'In Between Bites' At Restaurants
      CA Governor’s Office Says To Wear Mask ‘In Between Bites’ At Restaurants

      Tyler Durden

      Wed, 10/07/2020 – 22:00

      California Governor Gavin Newsom’s office has taken mask mandates to the next level – telling those eating out at restaurants that they should wear a mask “in between bites” in order to “keep those around you healthy.”

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      So, in addition to socially distancing in outdoor settings at a maximum 25% capacity, those dining out in California will have the pleasure of depositing escaped chewings on the inside of their masks.

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      New York has had the same rule for months, which most people ignore.

      A tweet from the Governor’s office depicts someone unmasking in between bites, as if California residents are too stupid to understand what they’re trying to convey, along with the text “Minimize the number of times you take your mask off.”

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      Do they make N95 oat bags? 

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    • Walmart Turns To Drones
      Walmart Turns To Drones

      Tyler Durden

      Wed, 10/07/2020 – 21:40

      Submitted by MarketCrumbs,

      Amazon and Walmart have been fighting each other for years to become the preferred shopping destination of millions. With the coronavirus pandemic fueling e-commerce spending and speeding up the e-commerce penetration of total retail spend, the two companies continue to innovate at a rapid pace.

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      The latest battle between the two is shaping up to be deliveries using drones. While Amazon won approval from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration in August to operate its fleet of Prime Air delivery drones, Walmart is signaling through a handful of partnerships that it wants to give drones a shot as well.

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      Over the last month, Walmart has struck three separate deals with drone operators to test delivering various items.

      Walmart announced a pilot program last month with Flytrex, an end-to-end drone delivery company, to deliver select grocery and household essential items to customers in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

      Walmart is also teaming up with Quest Diagnostics and drone services provider DroneUp to test delivering coronavirus tests to people’s homes using drones. Customers would administer the nasal swab test and then send it back to Quest Diagnostics for testing. A trial is underway in north Las Vegas, while a trial in Cheektowaga, New York is expected to begin this month.

      “There’s a lot we can learn from our drone delivery pilots to help determine what roles drones can play in pandemic response, health care delivery and retail,” Walmart said. “We hope drone delivery of self-collection kits will shape contactless testing capabilities on a larger scale and continue to bolster the innovative ways Walmart plans to use drone delivery in the future.”

      Walmart also struck a partnership with drone delivery company Zipline to deliver select health and wellness products in an attempt to go after the quickly-growing prescription management space. Trials using Zipline’s technology will take place near Walmart’s headquarters in Arkansas and are expected to begin early next year.

      “We’ll never stop looking into and learning about what the next best technology is and how we can use it to better serve our customers now and into the future,” Walmart senior vice president of customer product Tom Ward said.

      While Amazon began testing deliveries with drones in 2013, it’s not surprising to see Walmart decide to partner with drone operators instead of running its own fleet. With Walmart’s deep pockets, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Walmart acquire the companies if these trials prove to be successful.

    • Toronto Condo Supply Surges, Listings Skyrocket 215%, While Rental Prices Crash
      Toronto Condo Supply Surges, Listings Skyrocket 215%, While Rental Prices Crash

      Tyler Durden

      Wed, 10/07/2020 – 21:20

      The exodus out of major cities as a result of the pandemic and the civil unrest of months past looks to be very real in Toronto. The city, which was in the midst of a multi-year boom, has now seen massive condo supply hit the market with new listings surging in September.

      The Toronto Regional Real Estate Board and research firm Urbanation Inc. have shown a surge in units for sale and a sharp decline in rents, foreshadowing a gloomy future for the city’s real estate market, according to Bloomberg. The glut comes at the same time the city is seeing a boom in single family homes. 

      Active condo listings in the city hit a record at the end of September and were up 215% – a massive delta from the 5.3% rise in total housing listings across the city. This shows that condo prices are likely to fall on an annual basis. 

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      (Chart: Bloomberg)

      “Demand is just not keeping up with new supply right now,” said Urbanation President Shaun Hildebrand.

      6,480 condos were listed for sale in September, which was up from 5,599 in August and 3,403 the year prior. Prices fell for the second sequential month and are now down 1.8% since May. Rental units are now sitting on the market for 26 days in August, up from 14 days a year prior. The sales to new listings ratio for condos downtown has been below 40% for the past few months. 

      At the same time, values for detached homes “have surged” and rents have seen a “dramatic” decline. The cost of leasing unfurnished units is down 11% year over year, which marks the biggest YOY decline on record.

      Much of the weakness is focused on downtown, where it was spurred by the pandemic halting immigration and people leaving the city center to seek out more living space. This happened at a time when new supply was hitting the market and dramatically increasing inventory. 

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      Hildebrand commented: “The ratio of sales to new listings for condos in downtown Toronto fell to 24% in September, the lowest level since the early 1990s.”

      Simeon Papailias, co-founder of the Real Estate Center, said: “It’s simply because of all the new construction completions and absolutely no new blood of tenants coming in. We’re going to see people move to get cheaper rents.”

      Beth O’Donoghue, a broker at Brad J Lamb Realty, concluded: “It’s crazy slow. So much is on the rental market and it’s inevitably trickling down to the retail market.”

    • The Constitutional Reckoning Of State Lockdown Orders
      The Constitutional Reckoning Of State Lockdown Orders

      Tyler Durden

      Wed, 10/07/2020 – 21:00

      Authored by Ethan Yang via The American Institute for Economic Research,

      On October 3rd NPR reported that the Michigan Supreme Court struck down Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s state of emergency and the powers it granted. NPR writes 

      In a 4-3 majority opinion, the state’s high court said she did not have that authority. “We conclude that the Governor lacked the authority to declare a ‘state of emergency’ or a ‘state of disaster’ under the EMA after April 30, 2020, on the basis of the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, we conclude that the EPGA is in violation of the Constitution of our state because it purports to delegate to the executive branch the legislative powers of state government– including its plenary police powers– and to allow the exercise of such powers indefinitely,” wrote Justice Stephen J. Markman on behalf of the majority.

      Governor Whitmer has been one of the more heavy-handed executive figures during the pandemic. One of her policies went as far as to ban the selling of gardening supplies in stores that were still permitted to stay open.

      More importantly, however, this court ruling was not the first of its kind but the third in a series of legal victories against lockdown orders. The first was a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling that declared parts of Governor Tony Evers’ stay at home order unconstitutional and the second was by a federal court that struck down Governor Tom Wolf’s policies in Pennsylvania.

      There is no doubt that the governors across the country have gone off the constitutional deep end in response to Covid-19, exercising powers that are not only unprecedented but unproven. These cases, notably in Michigan and Wisconsin, all share some important legal themes that may suggest the beginning of a constitutional reckoning for governors across America.

      The Story in Michigan 

      Back in March, Governor Whitmer declared a state of emergency in response to the pandemic, much like many others across the country. Unlike many other governors, hers was particularly strict and arbitrary. The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, an organization that represented a number of healthcare firms in a suit against the state write,

      “One of the affected medical practices, Grand Health Partners, operates in the Grand Rapids area. It performs endoscopies and other elective surgeries, many of which were deemed nonessential by executive order. Due to the shutdown, many of their patients were not able to receive treatment and have suffered because of it.”

      This is one of the many unintended consequences that come with policies such as stay at home orders and deeming certain businesses “nonessential.” Interestingly, this had little to do with the Michigan Supreme Court’s ruling. Such claims would be justified under the equal protection clause guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. However, the court decided to take a different route.

      The court ruled that the governor lacked the very authority to continue her state of emergency. The Michigan legislature authorized the governor to declare a state of emergency in March but only until April 30. Governor Whitmer decided to invoke the Emergency Powers of the Governor Act (EPGA) of 1945 as well as the Emergency Management Act of 1976 to grant herself virtually unlimited power. This unilateral and unauthorized exercise of power without legislative oversight was what the court deemed unconstitutional. 

      The court not only struck down the governor’s emergency powers but it also declared the EPGA unconstitutional, albeit with a narrow margin. Record Eagle writes

      “Although the constitutionality of the ’45 law produced a split ruling, the justices unanimously agreed that any orders past April 30 without input from the Legislature were not valid.”

      Such a ruling is an absolutely necessary check on the powers of the executive branch by the judicial branch. The Michigan governor was essentially acting in contempt of the democratically elected legislature which did not grant her the power to continue her policies for as long as she did. Record Eagle writes,

       “Our Constitution matters, and this was a big win for our democratic process,” said Republican House Speaker Lee Chatfield of Emmet County.

      In a footnote to his opinion, Markman offered an optimistic message.

      “Our decision leaves open many avenues for the governor and Legislature to work together to address this challenge and we hope that this will take place,” he said.

      The Case of Wisconsin

      The ruling in Wisconsin was one of if not the first that challenged lockdown orders enacted by state governors. Way back in May, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that 

      “The Wisconsin Supreme Court has struck down Gov. Tony Evers’ order shutting down daily life to limit the spread of coronavirus — marking the first time a statewide order of its kind has been knocked down by a court of last resort.”

      The court took an angle similar to the Michigan Supreme Court in striking down parts of Wisconsin’s stay at home order because it was made without any legislative oversight. That is that lawmakers in the Wisconsin State Assembly did not grant the governor or his bureaucratic officers the power to enact lockdown policies.

      The Pacific Legal Foundation writes 

      “The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision should be seen as a victory for the principle that even in a crisis, the rulemakers must follow the rules. Regardless of how anyone feels about the orders themselves, if the governor and Health Secretary had worked with the legislature as they’re required to—even during crises—they could have crafted a constitutional law that the State Supreme Court likely would have upheld.”

      They also explain that 

      “The Wisconsin Governor issued an order granting Department of Health Services Secretary-designee Andrea Palm nearly limitless power to respond to the crisis without any form of accountability. Even though Palm is not elected by the people and has not yet been confirmed by the state legislature, she was authorized to issue orders to shut down broad swaths of the state’s economy. And Palm’s orders could continue indefinitely without being subjected to public scrutiny. In other words, Palm’s authority violated key safeguards put in place to ensure that rulemakers remain accountable.”

      The governor and his public health officials acted without the democratic consent of the people via their elected representatives in the legislature. Unilateral and quite frankly, rogue, actions such as this are a clear violation of the separation of powers doctrine that the Founders put in place to prevent tyranny. 

      The Case of Pennsylvania 

      AIER has already covered how a federal court held that Pennsylvania’s lockdown orders were unconstitutional in an article by Stacy Rudin. However, it is worth reiterating again because it is certainly an important case that differs from the rulings in Michigan and Wisconsin. Rudin gives some important context when she writes, 

      “Pennsylvania Federal Court in Butler County v. Wolf reviewed the indefinite “emergency” restrictions imposed by the executive branch of Pennsylvania government, declaring limitations on gathering size, “stay-at-home orders,” and mandatory business closures unconstitutional. Refusing to accept the alleged need for a “new normal,” the Court stated that an “independent judiciary [is needed] to serve as a check on the exercise of emergency government power.”

      About time. The Judicial Branch is coming to save us.”

      Pennsylvania implemented many of the lockdown measures that we see in the most draconian states such as stay at home orders and business closures. However, unlike Michigan and Wisconsin, Governor Wolf’s policies were struck down by a federal court, not a state court. Furthermore, the ruling was based not on a separation of powers argument but violations of the 1st and 14th Amendments, making it more of an individual rights case.

      A reporter writes 

      The declaratory judgment says “(1) that the congregate gathering limits imposed by defendants’ mitigation orders violate the right of assembly enshrined in the First Amendment; (2) that the stay-at-home and business closure components of defendants’ orders violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; and (3) that the business closure components of defendants’ orders violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

      Another key component to the ruling was the fact that such orders were not narrowly tailored, which is a key criterion for any policy that intends to restrict individual rights. 

      Reason Magazine explains that 

      “The fact that the governor’s orders allow people to visit malls, restaurants, and stores in greater numbers than what the state’s restrictions on gatherings permit showed that the latter were overly broad, (Judge William) Stickman wrote. His opinion also cites comments from Wolf’s chief of staff about how large protests—which the governor attended—didn’t lead to a “super spreader” event as evidence that restrictions on gatherings were overly broad.”

      Such policies have no logical foundation and reek of political favoritism. The court upheld the fact that such practices have no place in America. 

      Key Takeaways

      This country was built on fundamental rights and doctrines that were specifically crafted to prevent domestic tyranny, whether it be from the rule of the few or the mob. It may not be such hyperbole anymore to claim that governors across the United States have acted like tyrants. 

      In Michigan and Wisconsin, we have seen the affirmation of the separation of powers doctrine, which is an elementary school civics concept that forms the very foundation of a free society. There are three branches of government: the legislative, the executive, and the judicial. The legislative branch is a democratically elected and representative body that has the sole authority to write laws. The governor and the executive branch bureaucracy derive their powers from the legislative and their duty is to execute the mandate given to them by the legislature, not make up its own rules. Such a process may be cumbersome but in the end, it protects our liberty and ensures that the power wielded by government is accountable to the people. The governor is not representative of the people, just 50.1% of the vote. 

      Although we have seen the affirmation of these important constitutional rights and doctrines in these three states, it is clear that across the country there is much work to be done. What governors and mayors are getting away with violating the basic rights of their citizens? Has every executive officer acted with the powers granted to them by the legislature or are they acting as tyrants? Hopefully, these three rulings are just the first of many in what could become a constitutional landslide of justice.

      Covid-19 will come and go as all pandemics do. However, if we do not resolve the fundamental questions that have arisen regarding our liberties and the power of government, they will haunt this republic till its final days, if you can even call it one at this point.

    • Watch Live: Pence-Harris Vice-Presidential Debate
      Watch Live: Pence-Harris Vice-Presidential Debate

      Tyler Durden

      Wed, 10/07/2020 – 20:45

      Socially-distanced 12 feet apart and seated behind 7 foot high plexiglass barriers (presumably to stop them spitting at one another), Vice-President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris will square off mano-a-womano in tonight’s vice-presidential debate of this 2020 election circus campaign.

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      The stakes couldn’t be much higher for Mike Pence heading into his first (and luckily for many, only) face-off with Kamala Harris as the Biden-Harris ticket continues to expand their lead in the national polls. Although, while many mainstream media types proclaim Biden’s “unassailable” lead, we do have one ‘awkward’ chart to share before Trump-Pence are written off into the annals of history. They are performing considerably better than they did against the “guaranteed and deserved winner” Hillary Clinton…

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      The pattern is certainly very similar – but what will the outcome be this time?

      After the Trump-Biden dumpster-fire – with both candidates and the moderator repeatedly interrupting one another – tonight’s debate between Pence and Harris is far less likely to devolve into cacophony.

      Instead, it seems more likely Pence will highlight two extremely unflattering aspects of Kamala Harris: her prickliness and her radicalism.

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      And, as RealClearPolitics’ Susan Crabtree notes Harris will focus on attacking the vice president’s nice-guy reputation, pointing to Pence’s previous opposition to same-sex marriage and related issues impacting the LGBTQ Americans. The issue of LGBTQ rights could come up after Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito issued a broadside against the high court’s same-sex marriage decision on Monday when the court declined to hear a case brought by a former Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue a marriage license for same-sex couples.

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      By now, Pence is used to playing good cop to Trump’s bad one. As a former radio talk show host, he knows how to serve up disciplined sound bites aimed at a target audience. But, as RealClearPolitics’ Susan Crabtree notes, no one expects Harris to make it easy for him or to pull her punches after her record of fierce attacks against Biden and other opponents in the Democratic primary debates.

       

      And while the world and their pet rabbit is confident that this debate will not show the kind of moderator bias that Chris Wallace did, we suspect that may not be true…

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      Sigh!

      Watch Live (Due to start at 2100ET):

      And for those who – like us – will need a drink to get through this – here is some guidance from Jane Recker at Washingtonian.com:

      Grab a fifth (or a keg) and play along (responsibly)…

      Drink When Pence:

      • Talks about how he’s a Christian. Drink twice if he explicitly describes himself as “A Christian, conservative, and Republican, in that order.”

      • Mentions “Mother.” As in his wife, not his actual mother.

      • Shakes his head while Harris criticizes Trump

      • Brings up how Biden and Harris fought in the primary debates

      • Emphasizes the need to “restore American values”

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      Drink When Harris:

      • Mentions how close she was with Beau Biden

      • Criticizes Pence on his record as head of the coronavirus task force

      • Says “nobody is above the law”

      • Grills Pence on Trump’s response to his own Covid diagnosis

      • Says we need to end systemic racism but fails to explain how

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      Drink When Either

      • Says “the United States of America”

      • Precedes talking about their home state with “the great state of”

      • Describes their running mate’s health as “excellent,” “fantastic,” or likewise

      • Interrupts the other (advanced version, please drink responsibly)

      • Directly insults the other (advanced version, please drink responsibly)

      Chug for five seconds if:

      • Pence looks visibly uncomfortable trying to defend a Trump position

      • Harris waters down a position so much you’re unsure of what her platform is

      Click here to download a printable PDF of the Washingtonian VP Debate Drinking Game.

    • Goldman Finds The Pandemic Recession Was Actually Not That Bad
      Goldman Finds The Pandemic Recession Was Actually Not That Bad

      Tyler Durden

      Wed, 10/07/2020 – 20:35

      In a note which we are confident will go swimmingly with millions of Americans who lost their jobs in the past six months, Goldman’s economics team writes that “scarring effect” from the pandemic recession has been “surprisingly limited” and the “damage has so far been much less than initially feared” in what is likely the most upbeat take on the current economy and one wonders if it involved any research outside of Tribeca.

      After saying tthat the early weeks of the virus shock the Goldman economists “began to closely track measures of long-term damage to businesses and the labor force” with many businesses facing near-total collapses in revenue and 25 million jobs lost in little over a month, “the threat of deep scarring effects loomed over the US economy.”  Instead, things have been far better than expected.

      Looking at the business sector first, Jan Hatzius and team write that the “scarring effects on the business sector remain surprisingly limited” as commercial bankruptcy filings have run below the pre-pandemic trend, most business closures during the worst months of the pandemic have proved temporary, and new business formation has surged recently.

      A similar cheerful conclusion emerges when Goldman looks at the labor force, with the Goldman economists writing that “scarring effects on the labor force have also been less severe than feared” , as unemployment has fallen sharply, “and most of the remaining job losers are either still on temporary layoff or are in industries that should largely recover with a vaccine.”  In addition, Goldman observes, “labor demand has rebounded much more quickly than last cycle, reducing the risk of widespread long-term unemployment.”

      Ludicrous? Insane? Hilarious? Perhaps all three, yet here are some of the data Goldman used to reach its arguably offensive to tens of millions of Americans conclusion:

      The left side of Exhibit 1 shows that total commercial bankruptcy filings reported by the American Bankruptcy Institute have actually run below the pre-pandemic trend. While a recent San Francisco Fed report noted with alarm that Chapter 11 bankruptcies are running at the fastest pace since 2013, this largely reflects recent changes to the bankruptcy code and it has been more than offset by declines in other commercial bankruptcy filings.

      The right side of Exhibit 1 shows that Bloomberg’s count of bankruptcies at large companies did briefly spike to a level that approached the financial crisis peak.  But as our credit strategists have shown, the majority of these were firms already on a path to default before the pandemic, not otherwise healthy businesses needlessly sunk by an unprecedented shock.

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      In other words, Goldman contends that while there was a spike in defaults, it was largely among those companies that were already levered to the hilt and would have filed anyway. The covid crisis merely accelerated their demise, which come to thing of it, is what the covid virus is also doing with most of the elderly people it affects and who die not so much from the virus as due to other underlying, chronic or acute conditions, whose impact is merely accentuated to the point of lethality by covid.

      What about Goldman’s optimistic take on the labor market?

      Here the economists argue that the silver lining of the employment collapse was the very high share of temporary layoffs shown in Exhibit 3, historically something which they say is “a reliable signal of rapid recovery” even as those permanently laid off is an dangerously high number, the highest since 2013, Goldman’s spin notwithstanding.

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      To elucidate their point, Goldman next claims that just five months later, the number of newly unemployed workers since the virus shock has indeed declined dramatically, and about half still report that they are on temporary layoff.  While not all of these workers will return to their old positions, this nevertheless points to further outsized job gains in coming months.

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      Here Bank of America disagrees, and lays out three cyclical forces today that spell out far greater pain for the labor force than GOldman is willing to admit, to wit:

      • History repeats: skill mismatch yet again. Given the lack of demand for services-travel, entertainment, etc.-there will likely end up being discouraged workers in this sector. The skills are not easily transferrable to other sectors-particularly on the goods side of the economy where demand has been resilient.
      • Disengagement from the labor force due to health or childcare: the threat of the virus has left many people with extremely difficult decisions to make. Some may decide that the risk of falling sick with COVID in their workplace is too significant and thus will voluntarily leave the workforce, particularly for those who are close to retirement. Parents also struggle with child-care issues-it may be hard for parents to fully return to work until they are able to feel confident that their children can return to prior educational arrangements or daycare. This could make it difficult to have two working parents-the burden tends to be disproportionally on women. As long as the virus remains a threat, there will be a portion of the workforce on the sidelines.
      • Reengagment in the labor force because of the “telepresence revolution”: over the medium-term, the shift toward greater virtual / remote working could be a positive for the LFPR. According to the BLS’s Time-Use Survey, about 8% of the workforce worked from home at least one day a week prior to COVID. According to research from the Atlanta Fed in which the authors compared the Time-Use Survey results to current survey analysis, they find that the share of working days from home is set to triple after the pandemic. Similarly, the BofA Global Research data analytics team surveyed the companies across the research coverage for their latest expectations on the timing for return to the office – the results show that only 80% of employees will be expected to be fully back in the office by the end of 2021.

      While Goldman acknowledges this, saying that “not all workers who lost jobs in virus-sensitive industries will return to them when a vaccine becomes available, and many layoffs are likely to prove permanent” but then adds that “workers who have to switch jobs or even occupations already face much better prospects for re-employment than after previous recessions.”

      So it’s all good, see? Well, maybe not: even Goldman had to concede that long-term unemployment rose in September and is likely to rise somewhat further in the October jobs report as more workers who lost their jobs in the first month of the pandemic cross the half-year mark. But even here Goldman finds a silver lining, and writes that “the rapid recovery of labor demand and faster pace of labor reallocation is a striking contrast with past recessions that should help most workers avoid the very long unemployment spells seen last cycle.”

      In short, there is virtually nothing about the devastation endured by businesses and workers that Goldman’s well-trained economists can’t spin into a positive outcome, and as they summarize “scarring effects on businesses and the labor force have so far proven much less severe than initially feared.”

      This, they conclude, “bodes well for the economy’s medium-term recovery prospects and is one more reason for Goldman’s above-consensus 2021 growth forecast.” What about the withdrawal of fiscal support which has forced Americans to draw down drastically on their savings which were boosted by the massive fiscal stimulus…

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      … and to resume paying down credit card debt for the first time in months?

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      Surely at least that has to be positive? Well, as Hatzius agrees, it does raise some risks over the next few months, but then the chief economist counters that “we expect a vaccine and further fiscal support next year—including another round of small business funding, even in a divided government scenario—to limit the long-term damage and keep the economy on track for a much more rapid than usual recovery.”

      To this all one can say is wow: and while we certainly would urge the Goldman economists to read something like “A devastating experience:’ Temporary layoffs just became permanent for millions of American workers, and “Ex-Bankruptcy Judge Says Worse Is Yet To Come“, we have two questions: just why did Goldman publish such a puff piece – what does it stand to gain by gutting its reputation for at least pretend-objective analysis – and question number two: has anyone on the Goldman economics team actually stepped one foot outside their academic tri-state ivory tower in the past year?

    • "It’s A Civil War": Decade Of Covenant-Lite Deals Leads To Leveraged Loan "Panic"
      “It’s A Civil War”: Decade Of Covenant-Lite Deals Leads To Leveraged Loan “Panic”

      Tyler Durden

      Wed, 10/07/2020 – 20:06

      It was a little over two years ago that we last looked at the “covenant lite” insanity sweeping the loan market for the past decade, where as a result of a buying frenzy among yield-starved investors, corporations had managed to get away with selling “secured” debt that was anything but secured, and offered only the slimmest – if any – protections to investors. In fact, by early 2018, the amount of covenant-lite loans hit an unprecedented 75%…

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      … which meant that Moody’s Loan Covenant Quality Indicator (LCQI) dropped to its record-worst level in the first quarter of 2018.

      “While the rate of deterioration in covenant quality has slowed, protections remain distressingly weak on average,” said  Derek Gluckman, Moody’s VP-Senior Covenant Officer. “Investors should remain wary given the risks presented by most loan documents and the likelihood that any steadying of covenant protections is temporary.”

      But it wasn’t just the sheer volume of cov-lite outstandings that mattered: an analysis by LCD looked at the debt cushion of outstanding loans – the amount of debt in a borrower’s capital structure that is subordinated to the senior loan – and found that most cov-lite deals have little or no debt cushion beneath them. Consider that by mid-2018, an all time high 23% of all cov-lite loans did not have any debt, such as a mezzanine tranche, high yield bond, or other, below the cov-lite facility. That number was up from 18% in 2013 and from just 10% at the end of 2007, shortly before the financial crisis.

      This is also why we explicitly warned that “the lack of a debt cushion significantly lessens what an investor will recover on a loan, if that credit defaults” and left readers with the following:

      In other words, during the next default cycle, whenever the business cycle finally turns, loan investors not only will have virtually no “secured” protection, but are now the de facto equity tranche in numerous deals, or said otherwise, for the first time in history, loan investors are looking at 0 recoveries in default.

      Well, fast forward to today when the chickens from the covenant-lite euphoria of the past decade have come home… for the slaughter.

      In a transaction which has terminally tilted the “landscape in favor of distressed borrowers and pitted creditors against each other” a $120 million loan to cash-strapped restaurant supplier TriMark USA has “not only unilaterally placed the new lenders above everyone else in the repayment pecking order, but it also stripped some of the older creditors of safeguards they had written into the contracts to protect their investments” according to Bloomberg, which notes that when word of the deal spearheaded by Howard Marks and his distressed debt giant, Oaktree, first hit the market in mid-September, “it sparked a panic“, prompting investors to puke the old loan so fast it cratered 20 cents in days, an unheard of move in the world of secured finance where underlying assets never reprice so fast, even in bankruptcy.

      Of course, for those who had been following the degradation of creditor protections and the ascent of cov-lite deals over the past decade, what just took place is hardly a surprise: as investors bargained away most of their legal rights in hopes of getting a modest allocation in the latest “high yielding” note, they now find themselves with virtually no protection for their investments just as the pandemic is causing a wave of corporate bankruptcies across the country.

      And just to underscore that “anything goes” in the brave new world of leveraged (and unsecured) loans, the presence of Marks – who had long been seen as one of the more staid voices in a distressed-debt world full of pugnacious vultures – served to upend the market only further and spark fears about what is coming next as tens of billions of other “secured” loans are about to see their investors crammed down or otherwise wiped out, just as we warned in 2018.

      “It’s a civil war between lenders, and we’re going to see more of this,” said Thomas Majewski, managing partner and founder at Eagle Point Credit Management. “Nearly every company restructuring debt is looking at these possibilities.”

      So what exactly happened?

      The TriMark transaction, which according to Bloomberg was similar to another loan that surf-clothing maker Boardriders entered recently, followed in the “priming” footsteps of a divisive financing by Serta Simmons Bedding earlier this year. The mattress maker got $200 million of fresh capital from existing lenders including Eaton Vance Corp. and Invesco Ltd. Those lenders jumped to the top of the capital stack meaning they would be repaid first if the company defaulted, pushing Serta Simmons’ other lenders further back, in a process known as priming.

      There’s nothing new about priming – in fact it happens all the time in bankruptcy when a company issues what is known as a “priming DIP” – but the way lenders did it in the Serta Simmons deal resulted in litigation. The new investor group led by Eaton Vance and Invesco didn’t give all other lenders the right to participate in the new loan, a move that is allowed by many deals’ documents, but hadn’t really been done before. Lenders who were left out, including Apollo Global Management, sued the company but a state court let the deal go ahead, ushering in a new precedent in the market where existing “secured” creditors hiding behind the thin defense of non-existent covenants, realize they are in fact, unsecured.

      “Serta did open the floodgates in that regard,” said Tim Sullivan, an analyst at Xtract Research, “because it showed how provisions which are very common in agreements today can be used to incur priming debt.”

      Of course, creditors have only themselves to fault: nobody put a gun to their heads in 2010-2018 when they signed the dotted line on yet another high-yielding loan that offered no covenant protection. Yet they just had to do it. Well, now that the catastrophic event that nobody thought could possibly happen happened, and as investors pore through their covenant term sheets, they finally realize why all those warnings over the past decade hit home.

      The catalyst for this realization, of course, is the covid crisis, as a result of which countless companies in the U.S. are going broke as the pandemic saps their revenues. Fitch Ratings projects 7% to 8% of leveraged loans will default by the end of 2021, compared with 1.8% in 2019, a cataclysmic event for the $1.2 trillion loan market. Making matters worse, after years of the loan market growing rapidly, failing corporations that issued debt and pledged assets now have less in the way of income or assets to fork over to creditors, which is making fights among all parties more acrimonious.

      It also means that those investors with fresh capital can trample over the gullible ones who received a couple of years of interest payments and are now facing near complete losses on principal.

      In the case of Boardriders, Oaktree was one of the equity owners: as Bloomberg details, the company negotiated a $135 million financing including a $45 million loan that has priority over all others. The debt came from Boardriders’ bigger lenders, a group that included Brigade Capital Management, Canyon Capital and MidOcean Credit Partners, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

      The $45 million loan, which is effectively a pre-petition DIP, ranks ahead of all investors that didn’t participate in the new financing. Just as a secured bankruptcy loan does. The minority lenders that were primed argue that was unfair because they weren’t given a chance to participate in the deal, the people said. Good luck to them: meanwhile, the new loan which is secured by all the assets, is trading around 100 cents on the dollar; the old loan that was primed? About a third of that, or around 35 cents.

      The situation was similar for TriMark. The company saw its revenue falling and hired advisers to help it consider its options. It ultimately picked a transaction to raise $120 million from lenders including Oaktree and Ares Management Corp. The group of existing lenders also included Blackstone’s credit arm GSO Capital Partners, Sculptor Capital Management, and BlackRock. Their new loan is trading around face value, about 40 cents on the dollar higher than the loan that was primed. TriMark is owned by Centerbridge, which is about to get a big fat doughnut on its investment.

      So how did the new investors prime existing lenders? In both Boardriders and TriMark, minority lenders had covenants including limits on future company borrowings removed, while the debt amortization schedule was slowed down.

      According to Etract’s Sullivan, the additional step of removing covenants is highly unusual in the loan world and is a big loss for investors. On the other hand, such covenant stripping would never had been possible if the loans were not covenant-lite to begin with. 

      “It’s gone beyond Serta — now it’s worse. By stripping it down to the ultra bare bones, all that leaves you with is just a promise to pay,” he said.

      It also means that the entire $1.2 trillion universe of secured loans – because by definition first and second-lien bank debt is secured by company assets and has first dibs on them in case of default – is effectively no longer secured.

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      * * *

      To be sure the primed lenders are fighting back, and some companies are deciding not to embrace these transactions (they can of course do that, but one way or another a priming loan will come, the only difference is that if it is in bankruptcy, it is called a DIP Loan). Meanwhile, covenant lite deals have resulted in even more ingenious instances of asset stripping. In May debtholders rebelled against Elliott Management and Siris Capital Group, the owners of global travel reservation company Travelport, after those two firms tried to move assets out of the reach of creditors. And when Oaktree proposed a priming transaction for PSAV, the borrower elected to raise new capital through a loan that was in the same class as the existing facility.

      “Priming transactions such as those executed by Serta and Boardriders are still the exception and the priming play is not the ‘new normal,’” said Judah Gross, a director at Fitch Ratings. “That being said, the higher degree of frequency with which such deals get done may indicate that priming transactions are not as taboo as once assumed.”

      He is right, and the real kicker will take place some time in 2021 if there is no new fiscal stimulus, and a default wave washes over the leveraged loan market: only then will our warning from 2018 become clear – years of issuance of loans that were “secured” only in name, has ensured that recoveries for these unsecured creditors will be the lowest in history; in fact depending on the severity of the coming double dip, it is likely that “secured” lenders are looking at the unthinkable – a total wipeout on principal.

    • White House Security Official Reportedly Caught COVID-19 Weeks Ago, Is 'Gravely Ill'
      White House Security Official Reportedly Caught COVID-19 Weeks Ago, Is ‘Gravely Ill’

      Tyler Durden

      Wed, 10/07/2020 – 20:04

      Bloomberg just published a scoop that could upend the discussion around the White House outbreak, with barely an hour left before the start of Wednesday’s one-and-only VP debate.

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      White House security official Crede Bailey is reportedly gravely ill with the coronavirus, and has been hospitalized since September. The White House has not disclosed Bailey’s condition, but he became sick before the Sept. 26 Rose Garden event to honor Amy Coney Barrett.

      Bailey is in charge of the White House security office, which handles credentialing for access to the White House and works closely with the Secret Service.

      Though he has kept a low profile for almost the entirety of his career, Bailey was swept up in the controversy last year over security clearances granted to Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, and son-in-law Jared Kushner. Though the Hill reported at the time that Bailey privately testified to the House Oversight Committee that he hadn’t been pressured by others at the White House to grant clearances.

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      Details are scarce, but the implication thus far is clear: The White House outbreak may have started even before Barrett’s nomination event, which would suggest that the White House declaration that Trump’s illness is ‘untraceable’ is actually an attempt to cover up this fact.

      Thought for all we know, Bailey’s sickness could be totally unrelated to his work at the White House, and it may have been contained.

      Bloomberg broke the news shortly after President Trump declared that Regeneron’s experimental therapeutic was “a cure”. Though it was only one of several medications he took, with the others including Gilead’s remdesivir and the steroid dexamethasone. Though Bailey probably doesn’t see the virus as “a blessing” like Trump said.

    • Cultural Revolution: Woke Totalitarians Have Taken Over Campus
      Cultural Revolution: Woke Totalitarians Have Taken Over Campus

      Tyler Durden

      Wed, 10/07/2020 – 19:40

      Authored by John Staddon via Campus Reform,

      Podcaster Dave Rubin has the custom of going “off the grid” for a month each summer, to gain some perspective on changes.  As a scientist who has been retired from the lab for more than ten years, I feel in a similar position vis-à-vis the state of academic science.  To this campus Rip-van-Winkle, things now look very different. 

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      I didn’t notice much until the current anti-racism crisis, when I found that academe, as a place for free exchange of ideas, had become almost unrecognizable.  Higher education has begun a transformation along the same lines as the 1966 Maoist “Cultural Revolution” in China. Like the cultural revolution, the energized identity-politics movement presents itself as a cleansing force.  Pure Maoism was being corrupted by covert capitalist sympathizers. They had to be rooted out. 

      In U.S. academe, the problem was similar. The “party faithful” took for granted the permanence of “White privilege” and “systemic racism” which, for many, was also their livelihood. But then, in the decades following the civil rights acts, things got better. Measurable indices of racism seemed to be improving:  People of color were well represented on city councils, police forces, and state and national legislatures; Black faces were on many magazine covers and in ads for prestigious products; interracial marriages increased; Black entertainers and even opinion leaders were beloved. A Black president was elected and re-elected.  A survey showed a steady decline in objective measures of racism up until 2014. What’s not to like?

      Plenty, as it turned out.  The “woke” party saw its anti-racist cause going down to…anti-racism!  They have fought back, with some success. A survey published in 2017 showed that from 2014 onward people increasingly agreed that “more needs to be done” to achieve racial equality. This tendency was exaggerated in academe. From being relatively content with the state of race relations, administration, faculty, and students have become increasingly doctrinaire in their stance against racism. Unable to point to objective measures of increasing racism, they have turned their attention to something much harder to refute: systemic (aka institutional, structural) racism. 

      Systemic racism in higher education, a petition

      One bit of evidence for this is a currently circulating petition/op-ed that, Science (one of the two leading general-science journals) has apparently agreed to publish about combating systemic racism in STEM.  You can read Systemic Racism in Higher Education here but I will just discuss a few of its key assumptions. 

      Quoting from the petition:

      Everyone in academia must acknowledge the role that universities—faculty, staff, and students—play in perpetuating structural racism by subjecting students of color to unwelcoming academic cultures…The misuse of standardized tests, like the GRE, excludes students who could have otherwise succeeded. [emphases added]

      Structural (aka systemic, institutional) racism is not defined. The words could be replaced by evil spirits without loss of meaning. The idea seems like a way of deflecting attention from identifiable causes of racial disparities. Careful examination of a specific context (such as police brutality) can usually point to measurable causes with no need to invoke an abstraction.  Nevertheless, we all must acknowledge that the GRE, like any predictive test, is not perfect: it fails some good people and passes a small number of weak ones. But the study cited in the petition seems to fault the STEM-related GRE more because women and minorities do worse on it than men than because it is an imperfect predictor of success in graduate school.  

      What does the petition mean by “unwelcoming academic cultures”? There are two obvious possibilities: racism, pure and simple, and a problem with the type and level of academic discussion compared with the environment to which some students are accustomed. 

      The evidence for any kind of overt racism in academe is negligible and if it emerged would surely lead to strong correctives. What remains is just that the disciplines of STEM are difficult, possibly too difficult for students who have been admitted with weaker-than-average qualifications.  Human beings are not equally good at everything. Mathematics, particularly, separates the wheat from the chaff in dramatic fashion.  Some people (your humble correspondent, for example) just can’t handle tough math.  If this is the “unwelcoming academic culture” some students will either drop out or – and this is the pressure now – will clamor for a simpler curriculum. If such changes are made, the results will likely be disastrous for the quality of science education.

      Reducing structural racism in higher education will require evidence-based, institution-wide approaches that focus on achieving equity in student learning. If we abandon the perception of “fixed” student ability, more BIPOC students will succeed.

      The petition assumes that essentially any student is capable of succeeding. But at what? Not at everything.  People are not equal; not everyone can master quaternions.  The petition assumes that ineradicable individual differences — “fixed” student ability — do not exist, which is simply false.  By all means, give the best education you can. But do not expect to educate everybody, especially in tough STEM subjects. People are not all equally able. An educational system aimed at this kind of “equity” is likely instead to end in mediocrity. 

      [These changes] will require making tenure dependent not only on excellence in research, teaching, and service, but also meaningful contributions to promote equity and inclusion…. Every scientist should commit to reporting unfair practices…All faculty should examine their courses for performance disparities based on ethnicity and gender…  

      Ready to submit? It is apparently not sufficient to teach well and do excellent research, faculty must also commit to eliminating disparities, disparities which are as likely to be the result of differences in interest and talent as inadequate teaching. Faculty are to scrutinize their grade distributions to see that BIPOC do not fall behind. What if they do? The temptation to adjust evaluation so as to eliminate disparities will be strong — will teachers act racist, but in a good way! They may be “reported” if they don’t! This is totalitarianism. not science.  There’s more, but you get the idea. 

      If these efforts to eliminate disparities in everything, to match racial proportions in STEM to those in society, if they succeed, it will be a cultural revolution indeed. Science is already in trouble; a successful effort to make it conform to political ends will destroy academic freedom and wreck the nation’s science base.   

      *  *  *

      John Staddon is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Neuroscience

    • Kissinger Warns: China-US Must Agree To "Limits" On Making Threats Or Risk War
      Kissinger Warns: China-US Must Agree To “Limits” On Making Threats Or Risk War

      Tyler Durden

      Wed, 10/07/2020 – 19:20

      Two major and relatable statements have been issued Wednesday on the question of US ties with Taiwan and China’s growing anger and increasingly bellicose rhetoric in response.

      First, the notoriously hawkish editor-in-chief of China’s state-owned news tabloid the Global Times issued a threat, saying China should “fully prepare itself for war” with Taiwan in the event it restores diplomatic relations with the United States. 

      Hu Xijin wrote in his latest opinion piece that “We must no longer hold any more illusions. The only way forward is for the mainland to fully prepare itself for war and to give Taiwan secessionist forces a decisive punishment at any time.”

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      AFP/Getty Images: China’s President Xi Jinping & former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at the Nov.2019 New Economy Forum at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

      The GT editor added that “As the secessionist forces’ arrogance continues to swell, the historical turning point is getting closer.” The secessionist forces he was specifically denouncing is the Taiwanese Kuomintang Party, or KMT, who he described as having “woken up on the wrong side of the bed. They have gone downhill and become vulgar.” 

      And the latest actions of its legislators is what he finds most alarming, according to his description: 

      The Kuomintang (KMT) group in Taiwan’s “Legislative Yuan” proposed two bills, asking the island’s authorities to request US assistance in resisting the Communist Party of China and to resume diplomatic ties with the US. The move is widely believed to checkmate the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and put the DPP in a difficult position. 

      Xijin was also responding amid US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s continued tour of Asia, where in Tokyo Tuesday he tried to shore up support for something akin to an ‘Asian NATO’ to counter growing Chinese influence, specifically among China trade partners Japan, Australia, and India.

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      Pompeo also bluntly told Nikkei Asian Review in response to a question on defending Taiwan from the mainland:

      “We’ve only come to recognize that appeasement’s not the answer,” he said. “If one bends the knee each time the Chinese Communist Party takes action around the world, one will find themselves having to bend the knee with great frequency.”

      Meanwhile, addressing the growing bellicose rhetoric for months coming out of Washington and Beijing, also given semi-regular military tensions in the South China Sea, but especially as competing defensive drills escalate around Taiwan and the Strait, ex-Secretary of State and famous veteran diplomat Henry Kissinger called for the United States and China to “agree on limits” when it comes to making threats.

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      During a roundtable discussion (done remotely) of the Economic Club of New York, Kissinger said such limits were urgently needed to avoid a situation similar to before World War I, when the world inadvertently tumbled toward war largely through unchecked threat-making, rivalries and alliances. 

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      Many have feared US tensions with China are on such an edge on multiple fronts, also through allies in the region, that war could easily erupt based on what in normal times might be seen as a small encounter or incident.

      When we previously heard from the former US secretary of state on the last couple of occasions, he was warning that a permanent conflict between Washington And Beijing would be unwinnable and lead to “catastrophic outcome”…

      “It’s no longer possible to think that one side can dominate the other… it will be worse than the world wars that ruined European civilisation,” said Kissinger.

      And after that in early April, just as the pandemic was devastating the US, he called on US leaders to protect citizens from disease while starting the urgent work of planning for a new epoch.

      The surreal atmosphere of the Covid-19 pandemic calls to mind how I felt as a young man in the 84th Infantry Division during the Battle of the Bulge. Now, as in late 1944, there is a sense of inchoate danger, aimed not at any particular person, but striking randomly and with devastation.

      The 96-year-old noted that there is an important difference between that faraway time and ours: “American endurance then was fortified by an ultimate national purpose. Now, in a divided country, efficient and farsighted government is necessary to overcome obstacles unprecedented in magnitude and global scope,” he had previously explained ominously. 

      “Sustaining the public trust is crucial to social solidarity, to the relation of societies with each other, and to international peace and stability,” he said.

      It appears he was referencing this prior theme in his newest Economic Club of New York comments in emphasizing “We need dialogue… I applied that principle very much to Europe, where I grew up.”

    • Despite "Craving For Normalcy", Here Are Nine Reasons Why Trump May Still Win
      Despite “Craving For Normalcy”, Here Are Nine Reasons Why Trump May Still Win

      Tyler Durden

      Wed, 10/07/2020 – 19:00

      Authored by Niall Ferguson, op-ed via Bloomberg.com,

      A Craving for Normalcy Spells the End of a Populist Presidency

      “America’s present need,” the candidate declared, “is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy… My best judgment of America’s need is to steady down, to get squarely on our feet, to make sure of the right path. Let’s get out of the fevered delirium.”

      The candidate was the Republican Warren G. Harding and the date was May 14, 1920. Six months later, Harding won a landslide victory over the Democratic nominee, James M. Cox, winning 60% of the popular vote and 404 Electoral College votes.

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      A return to normalcy: It’s an appealing prospect today, too, amid an ongoing pandemic, in the wake of an unprecedented economic shock, and after four years of political disruption. A century ago, to be sure, Americans had come through worse: the 1918-19 Spanish influenza, which killed around 675,000 people (the equivalent of 2.2 million today), and World War I.

      A century ago, there was no incumbent to defeat, as Woodrow Wilson – having been struck down by the flu during the 1919 Paris peace negotiations and then by a severe stroke – was judged by his party to be unfit to run. (It remains to be seen if President Donald Trump’s admission to hospital for Covid-19 presages a premature exit for him.) But the parallel with today is still striking. In the so-called Red Scare of 1919-20, the country had been swept by strikes, protests and race riots. A severe recession had begun in January 1920. By November, what most Americans craved was indeed normalcy.

      I have been thinking a lot about the election of 1920 in trying to predict that of 2020. Four years ago, chastened and educated by the experience of Brexit, I felt that Trump had at least an even chance of winning the presidency. Recall that in the week before the Nov. 8, 2016, the left-wing Daily Kos website put Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the presidency at nearly 90%. According to The Upshot in the New York Times, the number was 85%. Betfair said 79%. Nate Silver said 65%.

      So what do I think now, when even the ultra-cautious Silver puts Joe Biden’s chance of beating Trump at around 80%? Spoiler: I always said the half-life of populism was short.

      Donald Trump is a classic populist, who offered disgruntled voters a heady cocktail of protectionism, nativism, easy money, isolationism and anti-elitism. Comparisons with European fascists between the World Wars always struck me as wide of the mark. Historically, it has generally been hard for mercurial figures such as Trump to win the highest political office, at least in the northern hemisphere. (I never bought former White House adviser Steve Bannon’s analogy between Trump and Andrew Jackson.) From Georges Boulanger to William Jennings Bryan to Huey Long, the history of populism is mostly of near misses — which was part of the reason most pundits assumed Trump would be a near miss four years ago.

      When populists do get elected, they almost never deliver all they have promised to their supporters, and are often exposed as even more corrupt than the people they ran against. South America has a lot of experience in this regard, from Juan Peron in Argentina to Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Latin American populists get re-elected not because they deliver higher living standards to their supporters (they may do so in the short run, but it always ends in some kind of financial crisis). They get re-elected by repressing their opponents and, when necessary, changing the constitution — a regional pastime. 

      To read the mainstream press, you would be forgiven for thinking something similar is about to happen in the U.S. According to Barton Gellman in the Atlantic, there is going to be voter suppression, voter intimidation, a declaration of emergency, the bypassing of election results in battleground states, and finally martial law. Trump’s going to steal the election somehow — and it may even be constitutional if he does, Fareed Zakaria has argued. Only a Biden landslide can save the Republic from violence and a constitutional crisis. Forget Hitler and Mussolini; now Trump is Richard III.

      It must be said that Trump did everything possible to validate these narratives in last Tuesday night’s debate, short of opening with “Now is the winter of our discontent.” But, as Biden likes to say, “Come on, man.” Trump may have the instincts of a caudillo, but this isn’t Venezuela. 

      The debate would have mattered only if Biden had looked unmistakably senile. He didn’t. Instead, Trump came across as an insufferable bully. Even my ex-cop friends Mike and Gerry — who backed Trump in 2016 and were infallible guides to that year’s politics — felt their man had been too aggressive. And now it turns out that Trump was mocking Biden for wearing a mask, when he himself was probably already infected with Covid-19. (Not just mocking him, but yelling at him indoors from just six feet away. We won’t be sure for roughly a week that Trump didn’t infect Biden.)

      Far from being in peril, I would guess, the Constitution is about to do what it was designed to do: Having successfully constrained a demagogic president throughout his term, in the usual ways — courts striking down executive orders, Supreme Court appointees acting independently, midterms handing the House to the Democrats — it is going to allow voters to eject him from the White House and install in his place dear, old Joe Normal.

      For any of the “end of the Republic” scenarios to happen, this election needs to be close – close enough for the results in multiple states to be challengeable. But I struggle to see how this could come about.

      If Jimmy Carter couldn’t get a second term after the small recession of January to July 1980, and if George H.W. Bush couldn’t get one after the comparably minor recession of July 1990 to March 1991, how on earth can Donald Trump get a second term after the disaster that has befallen the U.S. this year? Who gets re-elected after a pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 Americans and a recession that sent unemployment up to 14.7% in April, compared with peaks under Carter and the elder Bush of 7.8%? Trump’s latest jobs report has unemployment at 7.9%.

      Even with the recovery that’s occurred since the lockdown low-point back in the spring, the U.S. economy is still on course to shrink by 3.8% this year, according to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development. The only example I know of a democratic leader getting re-elected under such economic conditions is Angela Merkel in 2009.

      Now let’s look at the polls, where Biden leads Trump by an average of around 7 percentage points. The remarkable thing here is the consistency of Biden’s lead: Over more than a year he has never been less than four points ahead. We’ve seen nothing like this in our lifetimes — in most presidential elections since 1968, the polls have bounced around, sometimes wildly. 

      Moreover, Biden’s lead right now is not just bigger than Clinton’s four years ago at this stage in the race; it is also bigger than Barack Obama’s 32 days out in both 2008 and 2012. If the news on the pandemic and the economy is bad between now and election day, Trump could end up where John McCain did, seven points behind. Or, if the news improves, he could somehow claw his way back, as Mitt Romney did in 2012, and still lose. What I struggle to imagine is Trump getting close enough to rerun the George W. Bush-Al Gore standoff of Florida 2000 in multiple states.

      Remember what happened in the final phase of the 2016 campaign. First, a relentless stream of negative news about Clinton throughout October ate away at her lead. Second, state polls seriously underestimated Trump’s support in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Finally, third-party candidates took 6% of the vote in 2016. Maybe there’s a secret stash of toxic opposition research waiting to be unleashed against Biden this month, but I doubt it.

      Instead, what we’re getting is a relentless stream of negative news flow about Trump, not the least of which is the New York Times expose of how insanely little income tax the guy has been paying. (As my friend Mike told me last week, “I heard a couple of blue-collar workers today, cops and firemen, talking about the Times story about him not paying any taxes … it was the first time I ever heard anything negative about Trump from this base.”)

      And that’s not the only bad news for Trump. He’s only one of nearly 300,000 Americans who tested positive for Covid-19 last week. The hospitals in Wisconsin are filling up with new Covid-19 cases. And Covid-19 is the main reason Trump is struggling with older voters, a key demographic for him four years ago.

      Trump clearly wanted to announce a successful vaccine before the election. That seems less and less likely. Jared Kushner wanted the economy to be “rocking” by now. But the refusal of the pandemic to “go away, like a miracle” is clearly having some adverse effects on the economy, preventing mobility from returning to normal in the most affected states, and slowing the recovery of the labor market. Finally, the finances of the Trump campaign appear to be in disarray (though being outspent did not stop him winning four years ago).

      Even if you allow for polling errors as bad as 2016’s in the key states, Trump is going to struggle to get above 240 Electoral College votes, 30 shy of victory. For all these reasons, I am inclined to think he is going to be a one-term president, and that the election result won’t be close enough for full-scale GOP lawfare to save him.

      What am I missing? What could make me wish I’d stuck to my contrarian position of four years ago?

      After all, only last December another populist, Boris Johnson, won a much bigger victory in the U.K. general election than almost anyone (including me) expected, sweeping a bunch of traditionally Labour-voting working class constituencies in the north of England. Could there be an equivalent surprise in this year’s U.S. election?

      Leaving aside the potential Covid-19 impacts on the candidates’ health, I can think of nine reasons why the polls might be even more wrong than last time.

      First, a striking 11.7% of Republicans say they would not report their true opinions about their preferred presidential candidate on telephone polls, while 10.5% of independents also fall into the “shy voter” category.

      Second, the law-and-order issue really matters to those shy voters. (It also gave Trump his best debate moments.) Polls give us a sample of voters’ stated preferences. Revealed preferences are in many ways more reliable. According to Small Arms Analytics, gun sales in August 2020 were 58% higher than in August 2019, continuing a surge of purchases (especially of handguns) since the spring. In 2016, gun ownership was very closely correlated with voting for Trump.   

      Third, the resumption of the so-called culture wars this summer was a godsend for Trump. Judging by Tucker Carlson’s ratings — not only on cable but also on YouTube — there are at least five million Americans who share his skepticism about the Black Lives Matter movement, to say nothing of “critical race theory.” 

      Fourth, check out whose Facebook posts have been getting shared the most this year. On the day of the first presidential debate, five of the top 10 posts were by conservative firebrand Ben Shapiro, not an unusual occurrence this year.

      Fifth, the third vacancy on the Supreme Court in as many years was another stroke of luck for Trump. Conservative voters care more about the makeup of the court than liberals, so Amy Coney Barrett was a near-perfect pick to boost Republican turnout.

      Sixth, Hispanic voters seem unenthused about Biden and indeed about voting generally. That matters in Florida, obviously, but there are 11 other states where Hispanics are more than 10% of eligible voters, including Arizona and Texas.

      Seventh, Republicans are winning the voter-registration game in key states, notably Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

      Eighth, as a significant percentage of mail-in ballots tend to be rejected because of errors, Trump should benefit from the higher proportion of Democratic voters intending to vote that way.

      Finally, don’t underrate the economy. A third-quarter bounce as big as the one projected by the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow would give Trump a second term if you simply plug the number into the wonderfully parsimonious model devised many years ago by Yale’s Ray Fair to predict U.S. elections with economic variables. 

      Usually, if you can think of nine reasons why a hypothesis might be wrong, it’s probably wrong. And yet, even when I add all these variables together, I still don’t think Trump can salvage the situation. There is a lot of overlap, after all: Most gun purchasers probably owned at least one firearm already, and they may be the same people watching Tucker Carlson, liking Ben Shapiro and rooting for the confirmation of Justice ACB. In terms of new votes in swing states, and therefore Electoral College votes, my nine reasons to be doubtful may sum to zilch.

      The probability of a repeat of 2016, when the votes of fewer than 40,000 people got Trump over the line in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, is simply too low. The probability of another 2000 or another 1876 (when the results in four states were contested) is also low. The probability of a contingent election — when no presidential or vice-presidential candidate receives an absolute majority of Electoral College delegates — is even lower: We haven’t seen one involving the presidency since 1824. None of these scenarios is remotely as probable as a victory for the “normalcy” candidate who has been out in front every single month of this annus horribilis.

      The irony is that if a Biden victory is accompanied by a Democratic majority in the Senate, then it could suddenly be the turn of Republicans to cry “Republic is in peril,” as projects such as packing the Supreme Court, getting rid of the filibuster in the Senate, and giving statehood to the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico (i.e., packing the Senate) will suddenly seem feasible to the progressives.

      But that’s the trouble with voting for normalcy. Remember, Americans did just that – overwhelmingly – a hundred years ago. What they got was the Roaring Twenties, followed by the Great Depression, followed by World War II.

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    Oct 07

    Today’s News 7th October 2020

    • Turkey To Conduct Major Test Of Russian S-400 Systems Despite US Sanctions Threat
      Turkey To Conduct Major Test Of Russian S-400 Systems Despite US Sanctions Threat

      Tyler Durden

      Wed, 10/07/2020 – 02:45

      Long after the Trump administration indefinitely suspended deliveries of Lockheed Martin’s advanced stealth F-35 fighter to Turkey over its controversial deal with Russia to obtained the S-400 missile defense system, Ankara is ready to go ‘live’ with its Russian anti-air missiles in a comprehensive test.

      Turkey was officially and finally kicked out of the F-35 program in summer of 2019, also amid threats of sanctions from Washington, as it was feared Russia could use the S-400 and its radar to obtain valuable and secret information from its Turkish partner on the Lockheed stealth fighter. This unwavering stance cost the United States at least half a billion dollars, according to reports at the time.

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      Via Russian Defense Ministry/AFP file

      Throughout the whole diplomatic saga and standoff which took US-Turkey relations to an all-time low, compounded by Turkey’s attacks on Syrian Kurds which were being supported by US troops in northern Syria, Ankara didn’t blink. This even as Washington offered the Patriot system as an alternative to Russian air defenses. 

      And now Turkey’s military is for the first time moving forward with field tests of the S-400. Bloomberg reports Tuesday that “Turkey is planning to conduct a comprehensive test of the S-400 missile-defense system it purchased from Russia next week, according to people familiar with the matter.”

      “The air force isn’t activating the batteries, but testing equipment as well as the readiness of Turkish personnel at a site in Sinop province on the Black Sea coast, the people said,” Bloomberg continues.

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      This has reportedly triggered a flurry of diplomatic activity and protest out of Washington, also as a new crisis is unfolding in the Eastern Mediterranean between Turkey, Greece, Cyprus and European allies. The EU and US have backed Greece and Cyprus in condemning expanded Turkish hydrocarbons exploration and drilling around Cyprus and near Greek islands. 

      According to Greek media reports, Turkey is already using radars provided Russia in connection with the S-400 systems to track Greek aircraft in the Eastern Mediterranean.

      The Greek daily Ekathimerini writes, “The indications that Turkey activated the radars of its Russian-made S-400 anti-aircraft systems in order to detect US-made Greek F-16 fighter jets on their return from the Eunomia exercise on August 27 off Cyprus apparently sounded the alarm in Washington about the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean and reportedly prompted the visits by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Cyprus on September 12 and Greece on September 27-29.”

      “The visits highlight how Ankara’s procurement of the S-400s is irking Washington, which has threatened to impose sanctions if the Russian system is activated,” Ekathimerini continues. 

      Thus whatever “message” Pompeo conveyed last month certainly appears to have gone unheeded given Turkey’s reported preparations to conduct tests of its S-400’s. Meanwhile Washington sanctions are still reportedly on the table. But of course Turkey could retaliate with measures of its own, including booting US forces from the country, as the inter-NATO rift continues.

    • CIA Director Gina Haspel And The British Role In The Anti-Trump Plot
      CIA Director Gina Haspel And The British Role In The Anti-Trump Plot

      Tyler Durden

      Wed, 10/07/2020 – 02:00

      Authored by Chris Farrell via The Gatestone Institute,

      We have raised and discussed serious matters of fact and questions about the role of CIA Director Gina Haspel in the Anti-Trump conspiracy.

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      It appears Haspel (while serving as London Chief of Station from 2014 to early 2017) was an active, knowledgeable party to the efforts to target candidate Trump with an FBI-instigated foreign counterintelligence operation. That seditious conspiracy carried forward to a more sophisticated and aggressive plan to carry out a soft coup against President Donald J. Trump.

      Looking back on news reporting concerning Haspel, we turn (with caution) to a Washington Post article from July 2019 by Scott Shane, titled: “The quiet director: How Gina Haspel manages the CIA’s volatile relationship with Trump”. We are supposed to believe that Haspel and her office did not cooperate with the reporter for the article. Shane disclaims Haspel involvement by writing:

      “This report is based on interviews with 26 current and former officials who have worked with Haspel in the United States, particularly when she served in senior management roles at headquarters, and in London, where Haspel served two tours as the CIA’s top representative — chief of station — a plum post that is usually the steppingstone to the agency’s highest ranks.”

      No Washington Post article in the last decade has contained such a scrupulous sourcing statement. Of course, Haspel had nothing to do with the article. Remember that, won’t you?

      Haspel, twice-over Chief of Station in London, had close connections with the British intelligence and security services. Given the nature of the “special relationship” between the two countries, that is hardly surprising. Shane’s interviews of British intelligence officers take things a step further, however:

      “… what she lacked in after-hours sociability she made up for with deep professional ties to the upper echelon of the British security establishment. ‘She had access to anyone in our service,’ the former British intelligence official said.”

      Shane goes on to explain:

      “Haspel has become the CIA’s linchpin to the Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6, its most important foreign partner. Her British colleagues say that she knows them so well — warts and all — that they call her the ‘honorary U.K. desk officer.'”

      In the next paragraph, Shane notes breathlessly:

      “… Trump has accused the United Kingdom of conspiring with American intelligence to spy on his presidential campaign.”

      President Trump certainly has made that claim, and one believes for very good reasons that seem to compound weekly. Reasons that make the “intelligence community” and 95% of “official Washington” extremely nervous. It is the sort of statement that presidential aides and counsels look nervous about, wring their hands and respectfully, earnestly plead: “But Mr. President, you just can’t say that sort of thing!” Truth be damned.

      Concurrent with the FBI’s anti-Trump foreign counterintelligence operation, launched from the United Kingdom (with Haspel’s affirmative “coordination”), keep in mind that the UK’s version of the National Security Agency — the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) — was engaged in an aggressive Signals Intelligence campaign later codified in UK law as the Investigatory Powers Act (and referred to colloquially as the “Snoopers’ Charter”). Having the British run an aggressive intelligence collection operation against Team Trump targets, bypassing US legal prohibitions, and then laundering the intelligence “take” back to US officials via the UK-US liaison relationship is precisely something an “honorary UK desk officer” might be good and adept at accomplishing.

      Certainly, these subjects and questions deserve closer examination, without the phony prophylactic defense of grave warnings about “sources and methods.” No one examining the coup against President Trump is seriously interested in the precise technical collection techniques of GCHQ — they just want to know if the Brits were involved in an attempt to subvert a presidential campaign and then overturn the results of an election. CIA Director Gina Haspel can answer all of those questions, and she does not even have to touch upon classified information to do so. The American public is due her answers.

    • Financialization & The Road To Zero, Part 4: Wars, Waste, Wall Street, Welfare, & What's Next
      Financialization & The Road To Zero, Part 4: Wars, Waste, Wall Street, Welfare, & What’s Next

      Tyler Durden

      Wed, 10/07/2020 – 00:05

      Authored by ‘ICE-9’ via The Burning Platform blog,

      This is Part 4 of a 4-part series.

      Read Part 1 here…

      Read Part 2 here…

      Read Part 3 here…

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      What Financialization Really Is

      But what really is financialization?  Its simplest definition is, separated from the buzz and energy of its surface world, the present hedging of an entire nation’s aggregate asset value plus the hedging of all future profits derived from these assets in every sector of the economy, both public and private.  This hedge is accomplished through maximizing the amount of debt leveraged against every conceivable tangible, intangible, and imaginary asset class, including the national citizenry.  In perfectly efficient financialization, all accumulated liabilities eventually balance to zero against the aggregate net present value of the national asset base, plus all future profits generated by that asset base.  Maximizing this leverage is accomplished through a coordinated program of zero real interest rates (or less), combined with the creation of tens of trillions in new fiat money used by first-tier recipients – i.e., Federal Reserve System member banks – to monetize this national asset base.  Thus financialization is, at its core, the national descent into zero aggregate net present value and is, for lack of better terminology, the great cashing-in of an entire nation by its financial overlords.

      When this national asset base and all its future profits are fully monetized with debt, the entire ownership and control of the national economy are transferred from stock owners (second tier unsecured liens) to bond owners (first tier secured liens).  Therefore, full and efficient financialization turns the entire focus of national economic endeavor away from generating profits that fund discretionary capital investments that lead to collective economic growth, towards generating revenue to cover ever increasing non-discretionary interest payments for a concentrated select group of bond holders.  Growth sustaining capital investments eventually evaporate as these increasing interest payments devour more and more discretionary spending, and thus “business” becomes a quest to continually whittle away at its remaining discretionary cost base, like labor and innovation, while simultaneously acting out a facade surrounding “shareholder value” for the decreasing number of shareholders who become increasingly irrelevant with every new corporate bond issue and share buy-back.  This change in the national asset base ownership therefore turns the stock market into a giant casino as “profits” derived from short positions are just wealth transfers from one party to another in a zero sum game, and long positions become entirely dependent upon the amount of inflation generated by increased fiat money creation that drives up both asset “values” and net cash flows from stagnant unit sales in a declining wage environment.  The nation is hollowed out as capital spending dries up, economic growth in real terms turns negative, and the entire investment “economy” is dependent upon ever increasing inflation driven by ever increasing Federal debt sales.  Thus in a perfectly financialized private sector, the lien holders control the “value” and the stock owners hold the bets.

      As capital spending and real growth evaporate, it falls to government to provide more and more of the “stimulus” that drives economic endeavor.  But as government is ultimately concerned only with politics, their spending programs serve to primarily sustain the Four Pillars of the new economic model – Wars, Waste, Wall Street, and Welfare.  As financialization matures, it establishes a permanent decline in the national standard of living as efficient financialization demands either minimal wages or foreign outsourced labor arbitrage.  For those occupations that cannot be outsourced, wages get reduced below that required to support one’s self and family, so government steps in with its “Great Society” that is in reality a subsidy for the transfer of wages into interest payments.  Thus all welfare is ultimately a corporate subsidy as efficient financialization matures.  So when private economic endeavors are squashed through regulation or competition with corporate entities and the majority of the national citizenry are welfare recipients, discretionary capital spending will end, growth will cease, and real economic activity grinds to a halt. 

      So financialization is not only a national descent into zero net present value, it is a national descent into zero collective drive, zero collective motivation, and zero coordinated direction.  It is fundamentally opposite to that of the natural human state of people within a complex society practicing the social interactions of labor barter and trade among individuals.  As financialization matures through the destruction of individual economic endeavor, the formation of corporate monopoly cartels, and the transformation of society into a pool of government dependents, it cancels the fundamental underlying conditions of individual membership within society and replaces social intercourse not only with alienation from the means of production, but alienation from one’s fellow members in society. 

      Thus financialization is, ultimately, the national descent into zero coherence and zero rationality. 

      It is in fact, the breakdown of society its self.  It is the Road to Zero.

      This perfectly efficient financialization works equally in the public sector through all levels of government and has been working nearly undetected in the United States for 149 years.  The District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871 incorporated and privatized THE UNITED STATES when the country was bankrupt due to its insurmountable Civil War debts.  It was by no coincidence that a bankrupt United States, depleted of its gold reserves, reemerged six years later as THE UNITED STATES and, although bankrupt, was able to pass the Coinage Act of 1873, end bimetallism, and magically have enough gold to return to both a gold standard and a fully functioning fractional reserve banking system – i.e., mature classical capitalism out of the ashes of war and bankruptcy.  This sudden appearance of gold was likely the original Faustian deal to sell out the American people, and in return this new privatized form of Federal government and all its departments – including the military – were placed into unspecified ownership, likely the same parties that assumed the Civil War debts, and put a permanent end to Federalism “for the People”.  The nation’s new owners lay relatively dormant until they forced through the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and pushed America into WWI to destroy Germany on behalf of the central bank cross ownership nexus.  Since 1913, the nation’s owners have raised their heads from time to time – the Roaring 20s stock market bubble, the Great Depression, the Roosevelt coup plot, WWII, the Cold War, Kennedy’s assassination, and 9/11.  But the final bill came due 100 years after the deal with the Devil was struck and those Civil War debts were finally called in.  So for 100 years, Americans have been living within a great hypothecation until the starting gun of the Nixon Shock signaled the beginning of cashing-in on THE UNITED STATES.  Thus much of the national angst that has accumulated since 1971 can be explained as the conflict between the true national owners and those who believe they are its owners.  And much of the national citizenry still believe they are the national owners because they have yet to perceive that The United States “for the People” has transformed into THE UNITED STATES “of the People” and is now nothing more than a bank with a standing army.

      The public sector’s main financialization vehicle is the Federal issue of US Treasury bills.  In perfectly efficient financialization, real interest rates are zero or below and discounting is not required, so cumulative federal debt issuance can equal the “value” of the national asset base plus annual national GDP times the remaining number of years a nation is expected to function.  E.g., if a nation’s asset base is worth $225 trillion and annual GDP is $25 trillion per year, and the central bank cross ownership nexus has set a remaining national life of 10 years, when Federal debt issuance reaches a cumulative $475 trillion at zero real interest rates, that nation’s public sector has been efficiently financialized.  These zero real interest rates are important as they do not erode through discounting the cumulative expected national GDP and thus allow maximum Federal debt issuance, and therefore maximum “value” extraction over the remaining functional life of a nation.

      Other public sector financialization mechanisms include bond issuance at successively lower levels of government.  These bond issues allow for maximizing macroscopic debt issuance at a cumulative national level as they are merely successive re-hypothecations of underlying asset “values” and their future income streams already pledged at the Federal level.  E.g., debt issued at state level backed by state assets and future income streams have already been pledged in the Federal US Treasury bill issuance and accounted for in national GDP.  County debt issuance backed by county assets and future income streams have already been pledged in the state debt issuance and accounted for in state GDP, and so on down through city bond issues, utility bond issues, school district bond issues, et cetera.  Thus from this multi-level re-hypothecation of over-lapping pledged assets and future income streams, through the magic formula of fiat money working together with financialization, the national asset base plus total cumulative future GDP can be leveraged at multipliers greater than one.

      Yet another public sector financialization mechanism is public civil infrastructure at all levels of government.  Water corporations, storm drain networks, government buildings, passenger rail services, sewage plants, hospitals, highways, and fresh water aquifers are sold off – usually for cents on the dollar – and turned into quasi-bond issues for interest generating entities paid for by “public use fees”.  Public land confiscation under pretense of environmental conservation is also a common public sector financialization mechanism.  The 1973 Endangered Species Act – passed by Congress soon after the Nixon Shock – legalized the termination of private lease-holdings and confiscated vast tracts of public land to create scores of nondescript national monuments, national forests, preserves, wildlife sanctuaries et cetera.  This expanding federally owned land portfolio is used to increase the collective national asset base for monetization and is, in actuality, a collateral pool of last resort for use in the next Federal default comprising 28% of all US territory.  Similar land confiscation programs exists at the state, county, city, and school district levels where the primary mechanism of confiscation here are tax nonpayment liens and eminent domain.  Thus public sector financialization is, in unadorned language, the process by which a nation is strip mined by the central bank cross ownership nexus and where its children one day really do wake up homeless on the continent their forefathers conquered.

      There are five processes that facilitate financialization – the legal framework, de-industrialization, inflation, propaganda, and a creeping police state.  Several significant individual acts of law have already been described that allowed the transition from capitalism into financialization to proceed unopposed, but the most relevant legal elements are contained within the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871 that not only turned The United States into a private corporation under undisclosed ownership, but also established a dual Constitution without ratification via an Article V Convention.  This illegal constitution altered the scope of Federal governance from that acting “for the People”, to that acting “of the People”, which is a meaningless legal term that renders the entire American population disenfranchised from the scope of Federal governance objectives.  Since 1871, the true ownership of THE UNITED STATES has remained unstated, and legally this is important as an unstated corporate ownership here has the equivalence of stating that “We the People” do not own our own country.  So it is no wonder that for most of the last 129 years the actors within Federal government may change but their outcomes never do.  Only when one realizes that the primary purpose of Federal government since 1971 is to pile as much debt as possible onto the heads “of the People” can financialization be truly understood, and one can finally make logical sense from the perspective of who ultimately benefits from this national journey down the Road to Zero.

      De-industrialization was necessary to support the growing issuance of US Treasury bills needed to achieve perfectly efficient financialization of the national asset base.  The coarse workings of the American Fiat Empire’s “virtuous cycle” had to be altered after the Nixon Shock as US economic growth in value added exports had stalled, the aggregate US industrial base was too expensive to modernize, and a run on US gold reserves had left the country technically bankrupt under the constraints of a fractional reserve banking system.  Thus by the beginning of the 1970s the usefulness of the American industrialization cycle to the central bank cross ownership nexus had played itself out, but some alternative to American value added exports was needed to keep the “virtuous cycle” functioning lest the Soviet Union and its ruble expropriate world reserve currency status.  So outsourcing the US value added export economy to the likes of Japan, Taiwan, and Korea was the solution, with America now the importer of value added goods paid for in US dollars that generated foreign US dollar earnings that returned to the United States through the “soft” avenues in the Fiat Empire’s “virtuous cycle” to buy US Treasury bills.  Thus Federal government policy post-1971 was to aid and abet the destruction of the US American value added export capacity along with the elimination of millions of well-paying skilled factory jobs in order to pass US dollar earnings on to foreign nations that would then return these US dollars to the United States with the purchase of US Treasury bills.  But despite all this destruction of American factories and their well-paying jobs, the Fiat Empire’s “virtuous cycle” kept operating as before at the macroscopic level.  But once down the de-industrialization path, the Federal government could never allow the return of US value added export capacity as these exports would compete for foreign held US dollars with US Treasury bills, and if enough value added export goods were produced and sold in US dollars to foreign nations, that would reduce the amount of US Treasury bills sold, strengthen the US dollar, and put the American financialization project at risk by neutering the facilitating process of inflation.

      As perfectly efficient financialization progresses and the national net present value approaches zero, the inflation generated through continuous US Treasury bill issuance drives the aggregate national asset base “value” higher, and each uptick in aggregate asset “value” underwrites ever more Federal debt issuance against what would otherwise be, in an inflation-less world, a static aggregate asset “value” with a finite amount of potential liens.  As inflation churns away and aggregate asset “values” rise, the national zero net present value point gets pushed further into the future and thus more cumulative debt can be issued over a longer period of time.  If inflation were to run high enough for long enough, Federal debt issuance could theoretically go on indefinitely and fund Wars, Waste, Wall Street, and Welfare forever despite the country producing next to nothing of true value.  Inflation also has the same effect on national aggregate revenue streams, and this is why deflation can grind the financialized economy to a halt as its entire workings are dependent upon the inflation that drives an increasing national asset “value” that drives the never ending issue of US Treasury bills that drives the inflation circulus in probando.  But with deflation, the aggregate national asset “value” shrinks, and US Treasury bill issuance can either stop – which means no more Wars, Waste, Wall Street, or Welfare – or continue and trigger hyper-inflation yet still salvage the Wars, Waste, Wall Street, and Welfare.

      Deflation is also the Achilles Heel of US national security since crippling economic crises can be easily engineered by foreign players that, either willingly or by coincidence, collectively do not buy US Treasury bills as did happen starting in 2014.  Thus as the Fiat Empire goes, not buying US Treasury bills is in effect a declaration of war “by other means” and is why since 2019 the Federal Reserve System has been frantically buying up its own debt to save the Wars, Waste, Wall Street, and Welfare at all (socialized) costs.  So the magic formula of creating money out of thin air births the creation of even more money out of thin air through inflation, and when the magic runs out and the rabbit insists on staying inside the hat, the abomination of deflation is released.  Thus inflation is the secret ingredient that drives asset prices ever higher and makes the wealthy asset holders even wealthier with every multi-billion dollar US Treasury bill auction.  But the cost of inflation is borne primarily by those who do not hold assets and cannot afford inflation, so inflation is thereby socialized through the mugs and dupes that make up “of the People”.  Deflation on the other hand, although the bringer of immediate economic carnage to a financialized economy, is over the long term the ultimate re-distributor, the bringer of equity and equilibrium, and the destroyer of the wealthy.  So, financialization is, by design, socialism for the rich, and deflation is thus the unwinding of this socialism and the cleansing reversion to the mean.

      We are all familiar with the sustained and incessant propaganda campaign that we experience every day.  That unsolicited red, white, and blue bunting on city streets, the spectacular 4th of July fireworks display, the F-35 flyover at the football game, and a special appearance by Uncle Sam on Stilts at this year’s patriotic flag waving parade.  But what we often do not perceive is our willing participation in these displays, the need to be drawn into rituals that block our subconscious knowledge that something really is seriously wrong with the nation, and these things that are seriously wrong will never be fixed.  So as this collective subconscious block grows, the more manufactured and elaborate these patriotic displays become – the harder we wave those flags, the louder we sing the Star Spangled Banner, the more ferociously we vote, and the more vigorously we do what effectively amounts to nothing.  It is when this collective block descends over our collective impotence that we then enter the final stages of financialization and the police state.

      When financialization matures to the point where in its real world underbelly tens of millions have been disenfranchised from participating in economic activity, while its surface world screams about new all-time highs and the exotic travel tastes of tech trillionaires and their celebrity friends, the police state becomes the final, logical solution to keep “of the People” in check while the final pennies are plucked from the national carcass.  It is no coincidence that the Patriot Act was passed by Congress a mere 45 days after the 9/11 controlled demolitions, and it will be the vehicle by which the dissenting and disenfranchised will find themselves branded as “terrorists”, gathered up into the box cars, and shipped away to be disappeared by the millions.  Clean, efficient, cheap elimination, sustainable and always environmentally friendly.  And it will be at that point, in these cramped box cars, within these hot and stinking quarters during that collective silence where time is suspended between repeating clanks of iron on iron and the hypnotic rhythm of the carriage roll, it is here where “of the people” will ponder upon why they did not wake up, why they did not wise up, and why they did not rise up.  And so these thoughts go, box car after box car, train after train, day after day.  And as the trains slow into the camps, “of the People” will finally experience the epiphany of just how few individuals there were who ruled over the world, but will also discover too late just how few bullets would have fixed things early, how little blood need be shed to derail this Road to Zero.

    • Top US Food Bank Warns Of Nationwide "Meal Shortages" In Next 12 Months
      Top US Food Bank Warns Of Nationwide “Meal Shortages” In Next 12 Months

      Tyler Durden

      Tue, 10/06/2020 – 23:45

      The virus pandemic and resulting recession, crushing millions of households, has produced a new era of hunger nationwide. After seven months of the coronavirus chaos, triggering widespread unemployment and the collapse of small businesses, millions of Americans are going hungry for the first time in their lives ahead of the holiday season. 

      Tens of millions of Americans have turned to their local food banks as food insecurity spirals out of control. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey from late August, about 10% of adults, 22.3 million, reported they didn’t have enough to eat or lacked food. This figure is up from 18 million in early March. 

      Now, Feeding America, a nationwide network of more than 200 food banks, serving more than 46 million people, is warning it may experience a massive food shortage within the next twelve months, reported WaPo. 

      Feeding America said it could face a deficit of “10 billion pound shortfall between now and June of 2021 – the equivalent of 8 billion meals.” 

      In July, the nonprofit organization “estimated the total need for charitable food over the next year would be an unprecedented 17 billion pounds, more than three times the food bank network’s last annual distribution of 5 billion pounds.” 

      Rising food insecurity comes as the economy faces a tidal wave of long-term unemployment as millions of people who lost jobs early in the pandemic and remain out of work, unable to find a job, as job losses increasingly become permanent.

      At the moment, nearly 4 million jobs have vanished forever. Two problems are developed: rising long-term unemployment and permanent job losses, the combination of the two create deep economic scarring and immense financial pain for households. 

      The Salvation Army recently launched its annual holiday fundraising campaign early this year, for the first time in 130 years, in a bid to “rescue Christmas” to support those households financially ruined by the economic downturn. 

      As concerns over economic recovery grow, with a flurry of corporate layoffs in recent weeks, we’ve reminded readers that food bank lines are increasing once again: 

      The grim reality is that economic revival touted by President Trump is merely an election campaign mirage of hope that will quickly fade after the elections. The economy is desperately in need of another round of stimulus. The problem with fiscal injections used for consumption is that it’s only a short-term sugar high that ends in a crash if more is not seen.

      America’s food insecurity crisis is getting worse, not better, as millions of folks now rely on food banks as the virus-induced recession is will be felt for years. 

    • Sellin: Are Global Scientific Elites Trying To Bury The Truth About COVID-19's Origin?
      Sellin: Are Global Scientific Elites Trying To Bury The Truth About COVID-19’s Origin?

      Tyler Durden

      Tue, 10/06/2020 – 23:25

      Authored by Col. Lawrence Sellin (Ret.) via Citizens Commission on National Security,

      There may be some culpability involved, but the huge resistance being mounted by the international scientific elite, the media and vested financial interests against conducting an objective analysis of the origin of the COVID-19 virus is primarily about money.

      If it would be determined that the COVID-19 pandemic resulted from a laboratory leak of a genetically engineered virus, it would not only disrupt the flow of huge sums of research funding, but adversely affect the investments of those vehemently opposed to President Donald Trump’s efforts to make the U.S. economy less dependent on China and, therefore, make the U.S. less vulnerable to Chinese geopolitical blackmail.

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      There is growing scientific evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic may have resulted from a vaccine development project gone wrong.

      Live-attenuated vaccines are a type of vaccine used for smallpox and childhood diseases like measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox, in which a weakened or “attenuated” form of the virus that causes the disease is manufactured.

      Because such vaccines are so similar to the natural infection that they help prevent, they create a strong and long-lasting, even lifetime immune response.

      Live-attenuated virus vaccines must possess certain characteristics to be safe and effective.

      They must have lower virulence and replication capability than the natural pathogenic form of the virus, but be able to induce a pronounced immune response.

      Of additional importance is that the live-attenuated virus vaccines should clear quickly from the body and not revert or mutate back to the natural pathogenic form.

      To fulfill those characteristics, certain modifications providing protection strategies, or “circuit breakers,” must be engineered into the viral genome, which are also potential markers of artificial manipulation.

      An ad hoc group of scientific investigators known as DRASTIC have compiled a 36-point list to buttress their claim that the COVID-19 virus could have originated in a vaccine development program.

      For example, a central mechanism for controlling immune responses is mediated by interferons. The COVID-19 virus seems to have some signatures in its genome which indicate interferon hypersensitivity compared to the coronavirus responsible for the 2002-2003 pandemic.

      Another indication that the COVID-19 virus may have been the product of an attempt to produce a live-attenuated virus vaccine is the accumulation of “synonymous mutations” in the spike protein compared to RaTG13, which the global scientific elite claim is the nearest bat coronavirus relative.

      The artificial accumulation of synonymous mutations has been described as one method of producing live-attenuated virus vaccines by “deoptimizing” the genetic code and inhibiting replication.

      The most striking indication of genetic manipulation of the COVID-19 virus is the presence of the furin polybasic cleavage site, which does not exist in any closely-related bat coronavirus yet identified.

      Given its role in the virus-cell or cell-cell membrane fusion process, the DRASTIC team suggests that the insertion of the furin polybasic cleavage site may have been related to a high-risk attempt to produce an intranasal “self-spreading” vaccine spray.

      “Self-spreading vaccines are essentially genetically engineered viruses designed to move through populations in the same way as infectious diseases, but rather than causing disease, they confer protection.”

      Obviously, much could go wrong using such an approach.

      To avoid the scientific equivalent of the Russia collusion hoax, the Trump Administration should not rely on the international scientific elite, the media and vested financial interests to shape the debate, but should appoint an independent and objective task force to determine the true origin of the COVID-19 virus.

      Given the power of genetic engineering and the enormous danger when it is recklessly applied, the stakes are just too high not to address this issue honestly and directly.

      *  *  *

      Lawrence Sellin, Ph.D. is retired from an international career in business and medical research with 29 years of service in the US Army Reserve and a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq. He is a member of the Citizens Commission on National Security. 

    • "On Some Measures, Inflation Is Already Above 2.5%": Inflationary Lessons From The Used Car Market
      “On Some Measures, Inflation Is Already Above 2.5%”: Inflationary Lessons From The Used Car Market

      Tyler Durden

      Tue, 10/06/2020 – 23:05

      Last week, when discussing an emerging problem facing the Fed which is desperately trying to find inflation, we said that “inflation is already here” as the latest PCE data showed prices rebounding significantly, rising 0.4% over three months compared with the prior three months, on an annualized basis. CPI was still showing prices falling on that basis, although in August the reopening of the economy pushed three-month annualized CPI inflation above 3%.

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      Today, UBS economist Paul Donovan made precisely that point, writing that “Fed President Evans yesterday indicated the Fed may be comfortable with 2.5% inflation” but “Inflation is over 2.5% already—on some measures. Inflation inequality causes most people to experience inflation that is higher than reported. And the growth of online retail means that different consumers can be charged different prices for the same things. The signal from central banks is that rates stay low if some inflation measures rise, but there is more to inflation than giving out random numbers greater than 2.0%.”

      He’s right… and one place where the Fed can learn some lessons about surging inflation is the used car market, which as BofA chief economist Ethan Harris writes, “tells us a lot about the nature of the COVID shock, and it is having a notable impact on macro data.”

      Pointing to the “confluence of supply and demand forces which has created a shortage of used cars”, Harris notes that “given the state of the world, perhaps it is appropriate that used cars are an important factor driving the economy.”

      As Harris elaborates, on the supply side the two month shutdown in auto production has created a shortage of new cars that spilled over into the used market. In addition, the weak economy is encouraging car owners to delay trading up into a new car. Meanwhile, on the demand side, the COVID crisis has caused people to shy away from public transportation and ride services. These supply and demand shifts have more than offset the increase in supply from rental car companies selling some of their fleet.

      As a result, used cars are impacting both inflation and real activity: in July and August combined, used-car prices soared by 7.7%, the biggest two-month increase since 1969.  And since used cars and trucks make up 2.75% of the CPI basket, this surge alone has added 0.2% to the overall index, which as BofA notes, is “a lot when inflation is this low.” 

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      Meanwhile, used cars have also contributed to the V-shaped recovery in goods consumption, falling a cumulative 31% from February to April and then jumping 68% in the next two months.

      Yet what goes up must come down, and the cooling off of the used car market is already in the works: auto manufacturers did not have their usual summer shutdown this year, and are starting to restore inventories to normal. Fleet sales continue to be weak as there is no rebound in the rental market in sight. At the same time, a good chunk of the normal cost advantage in buying a used car has been eroded as new car companies push for greater sales.

      According to the Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index, used car inflation is already slowing, a leading sign of weaker retail prices.

      Finally, the used car market has benefited from the big tax cuts and increased transfer receipts in the spring. Low income families benefitted the most and those benefits are fading. Real spending on used cars actually slowed in both July and August

      And now that a new stimulus bill seems unlikely until the election, and potentially well beyond, it is only a matter of time before the sugar hike spending surge from this summer reverses with a bang, sending prices sharply lower over the coming months.

    • "There Are Trillions At Stake…" – How Washington Really Works, & Why Its Denizens Despise Trump
      “There Are Trillions At Stake…” – How Washington Really Works, & Why Its Denizens Despise Trump

      Tyler Durden

      Tue, 10/06/2020 – 22:45

      Authored by ‘sundance’ via The Burning Platform blog,

      With 30-days left before the election perhaps it’s worthwhile remembering what all of this opposition is about… Something 99% of American voters do not quite understand.

      Congress doesn’t actually write legislation. The last item of legislation written by congress was sometime around the mid 1990’s. Modern legislation is sub-contracted to a segment of DC operations known as K-Street. That’s where the lobbyists reside.

      Lobbyists write the laws; congress sells the laws; lobbyists then pay congress lucrative commissions for passing their laws. That’s the modern legislative business in DC.

      When we talk about paying-off politicians in third-world countries we call it bribery. However, when we undertake the same process in the U.S. we call it “lobbying”.

      CTH often describes the system with the phrase: “There are Trillions at Stake.” The process of creating legislation is behind that phrase. DC politics is not quite based on the ideas that frame most voter’s reference points.

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      With people taking notice of DC politics for the first time; and with people not as familiar with the purpose of DC politics; perhaps it is valuable to provide clarity.

      Most people think when they vote for a federal politician -a House or Senate representative- they are voting for a person who will go to Washington DC and write or enact legislation. This is the old-fashioned “schoolhouse rock” perspective based on decades past. There is not a single person in congress writing legislation or laws.

      In modern politics not a single member of the House of Representatives or Senator writes a law, or puts pen to paper to write out a legislative construct. This simply doesn’t happen.

      Over the past several decades a system of constructing legislation has taken over Washington DC that more resembles a business operation than a legislative body.

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      Here’s how it works right now.

      Outside groups, often called “special interest groups”, are entities that represent their interests in legislative constructs. These groups are often representing foreign governments, Wall Street multinational corporations, banks, financial groups or businesses; or smaller groups of people with a similar connection who come together and form a larger group under an umbrella of interest specific to their affiliation.

      Sometimes the groups are social interest groups; activists, climate groups, environmental interests etc. The social interest groups are usually non-profit constructs who depend on the expenditures of government to sustain their cause or need.

      The for-profit groups (mostly business) have a purpose in Washington DC to shape policy, legislation and laws favorable to their interests. They have fully staffed offices just like any business would – only their ‘business‘ is getting legislation for their unique interests.

      These groups are filled with highly-paid lawyers who represent the interests of the entity and actually write laws and legislation briefs.

      In the modern era this is actually the origination of the laws that we eventually see passed by congress. Within the walls of these buildings within Washington DC is where the ‘sausage’ is actually made.

      Again, no elected official is usually part of this law origination process.

      Almost all legislation created is not ‘high profile’, they are obscure changes to current laws, regulations or policies that no-one pays attention to. The passage of the general bills within legislation is not covered in media. Ninety-nine percent of legislative activity happens without anyone outside the system even paying any attention to it.

      Once the corporation or representative organizational entity has written the law they want to see passed – they hand it off to the lobbyists.

      The lobbyists are people who have deep contacts within the political bodies of the legislative branch, usually former House/Senate staff or former House/Senate politicians themselves.

      The lobbyist takes the written brief, the legislative construct, and it’s their job to go to congress and sell it.

      “Selling it” means finding politicians who will accept the brief, sponsor their bill and eventually get it to a vote and passage. The lobbyist does this by visiting the politician in their office, or, most currently familiar, by inviting the politician to an event they are hosting. The event is called a junket when it involves travel.

      Often the lobbying “event” might be a weekend trip to a ski resort, or a “conference” that takes place at a resort. The actual sales pitch for the bill is usually not too long and the majority of the time is just like a mini vacation etc.

      The size of the indulgence within the event, the amount of money the lobbyist is spending, is customarily related to the scale of benefit within the bill the sponsoring business entity is pushing. If the sponsoring business or interest group can gain a lot of financial benefit from the legislation they spend a lot on the indulgences.

      Recap: Corporations, mostly modern multinationals (special interest group), write the legislation. The corporations then contract the lobbyists.  Lobbyists then take the law and go find politician(s) to support it. Politicians get support from their peers using tenure and status etc. Eventually, if things go according to norm, the legislation gets a vote.

      Within every step of the process there are expense account lunches, dinners, trips, venue tickets and a host of other customary financial way-points to generate/leverage a successful outcome. The amount of money spent is proportional to the benefit derived from the outcome.

      The important part to remember is that the origination of the entire process is EXTERNAL to congress.

      Congress does not write laws or legislation, special interest groups do. Lobbyists are paid, some very well paid, to get politicians to go along with the need of the legislative group.

      When you are voting for a Congressional Rep or a U.S. Senator you are not voting for a person who will write laws. Your rep only votes on legislation to approve or disapprove of constructs that are written by outside groups and sold to them through lobbyists who work for those outside groups.

      While all of this is happening the same outside groups who write the laws are providing money for the campaigns of the politicians they need to pass them. This construct sets up the quid-pro-quo of influence, although much of it is fraught with plausible deniability.

      This is the way legislation is created.

      If your frame of reference is not established in this basic understanding you can often fall into the trap of viewing a politician, or political vote, through a false prism.

      The modern origin of all legislative constructs is not within congress.

      “We have to pass the bill to, well, find out what is in the bill” etc. ~ Nancy Pelosi 2009

      “We rely upon the stupidity of the American voter” ~ Johnathan Gruber 2011, 2012.

      “If Congress isn’t going to convene until the bill is ready to vote on… who the hell is writing the bill?” ~ Tom Massie, 2020

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      Once you understand this process you can understand how politicians get rich.

      When a House or Senate member becomes educated on the intent of the legislation, they have attended the sales pitch; and when they find out the likelihood of support for that legislation; they can then position their own (or their families) financial interests to benefit from the consequence of passage. It is a process similar to insider trading on Wall Street, except the trading is based on knowing who will benefit from a legislative passage.

      The legislative construct passes from K-Street into the halls of congress through congressional committees. The law originates from the committee to the full House or Senate. Committee seats which vote on these bills are therefore more valuable to the lobbyists. Chairs of these committees are exponentially more valuable.

      Now, think about this reality against the backdrop of the 2016 Presidential Election. Legislation is passed based on ideology. In the aftermath of the 2016 election the system within DC was not structurally set-up to receive a Donald Trump presidency.

      If Hillary Clinton had won the election, her Oval Office desk would be filled with legislation passed by congress which she would have been signing. Heck, she’d have writer’s cramp from all of the special interest legislation, driven by special interest groups that supported her campaign, that would be flowing to her desk.

      Why?

      Simply because the authors of the legislation, the originating special interest and lobbying groups, were spending millions to fund her campaign. Hillary Clinton would be signing K-Street constructed special interest legislation to repay all of those donors/investors.

      Congress would be fast-tracking the passage because the same interest groups also fund the members of congress.

      President Donald Trump winning the election threw a monkey wrench into the entire DC system…. In early 2017 the modern legislative machine was frozen in place.

      The “America First” policies represented by candidate Donald Trump were not within the legislative constructs coming from the K-Street authors of the legislation. There were no MAGA lobbyists waiting on Trump ideology to advance legislation based on America First objectives.

      As a result of an empty feeder system, in early 2017 congress had no bills to advance because all of the myriad of bills and briefs written were not in line with President Trump policy. There was simply no entity within DC writing legislation that was in-line with President Trump’s America-First’ economic and foreign policy agenda.

      Exactly the opposite was true. All of the DC legislative briefs and constructs were/are antithetical to Trump policy. There were hundreds of file boxes filled with thousands of legislative constructs that became worthless when Donald Trump won the election.

      Those legislative constructs (briefs) representing tens of millions of dollars worth of time and influence were just sitting there piled up in boxes under desks and in closets amid K-Street and the congressional offices. Legislation needed to be in-line with an entire new political perspective, and there was no-one, no special interest or lobbying group, currently occupying DC office space with any interest in synergy with Trump policy.

      Think about the larger ramifications within that truism. That is also why there was/is so much opposition.

      No legislation provided by outside interests means no work for lobbyists who sell it. No work means no money. No money means no expense accounts. No expenses means politicians paying for their own indulgences etc.

      Politicians were not happy without their indulgences, but the issue was actually bigger. No K-Street expenditures also means no personal benefit; and no opportunity to advance financial benefit from the insider trading system. Republicans and democrats hate the presidency of Donald Trump because it is hurting them financially.

      President Trump is not figuratively hurting the financial livelihoods of DC politicians; he’s literally doing it. President Trump is not an esoteric problem for them; his impact is very real, very direct, and hits almost every politician in the most painful place imaginable, the bank account.

      In the pre-Trump process there were millions upon millions, even billions that could be made by DC politicians and their families. Thousands of very indulgent and exclusive livelihoods attached to the DC business model. At the center of this operation is the lobbying and legislative purchase network. The Big Club.

      Without the ability to position personal wealth and benefit from the system, why would a politician stay in office? It is a fact the income of many long-term politicians on both wings of the uniparty bird were completely disrupted by Trump winning the 2016 election. That is one of the key reasons why so many politicians retired in 2018.

      When we understand the business of DC, we understand the difference between legislation with a traditional purpose and modern legislation with a financial and political agenda.

      When we understand the business of DC we understand why the entire network hates President Donald Trump.

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      Lastly, this is why -when signing legislation- President Trump often says “they’ve been trying to get this through for a long time” etc. Most of the legislation that is passed by congress, and signed by President Trump in his first term; is older legislative proposals, with little indulgent value that were shelved in years past.

      Example: Criminal justice reform did not carry a financial benefit to the legislative bodies, and there was no financial interest funding the politicians to pass the bill. If you look at most of the bills President Trump has signed, with the exception of a few economic bills, they stem from congressional construction many years, even decades, ago.

      Think about it carefully and you’ll see it. The “First step act”, “Right to Try”, etc. were all shelved by Boehner, Pelosi, Ryan, McConnell, Reid and others before them. When the value of legislation is measured by the financial underwriting and payoffs behind it, what type of legislative calendar does that require?….

      Repeal the 17th amendment and watch what happens.

    • Smart Homes Of 2040 Could Have Hanging "Butler Robots" To Assist Elderly 
      Smart Homes Of 2040 Could Have Hanging “Butler Robots” To Assist Elderly 

      Tyler Durden

      Tue, 10/06/2020 – 22:25

      Researchers at Toyota Research Institute (TRI) have unveiled the future of robots for the smart home, with a collection of new machines trained to assist the elderly, reported The Verge. 

      TRI is concerned about the upcoming worldwide demographic Armageddon. From 2020-2040, growth will be flat among the child-bearing population. Meanwhile, 40-70-year-olds will rise in total population size, but 70-80-year-olds, and particularly the 80+-year-olds, will see large increases. 

      The older population’s future surge will be a demographic timebomb that will strain many western economies. TRI believes it could alleviate some of the pressure by providing at-home robots to assist older generations.  

      TRI recently offered the world a glimpse into a mock-up home environment built in its labs in California, where it has been testing its prototype robots. One of the robots it’s testing is called the “gantry robot,” which is suspended from the ceiling and can complete basic kitchen tasks like cleaning dishes.  

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      “Toyota says the robot’s design was inspired by trips to Japanese homes, where researchers found that limited floor space would constrain a robot’s ability to help. Their solution was to imagine a future home built with robots directly integrated into the architecture. Building new robot-assisted homes from scratch would create its own problems, of course, but the design itself does solve some issues,” said The Verge. 

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      Dan Helmick, co-lead of robotics fleet learning at TRI, said the robot navigates the ceiling and avoids clutter on the floor. 

      “What if instead of needing a robot to navigate the cluttered floor, it could travel on the ceiling instead, and be tucked out of the way when it’s not needed,” said Helmick. 

      And imagine, by 2040, the oldest millennial will be roughly 63 years old, which means they could very likely have these butler robots suspended from their ceilings, aiding them in daily tasks around the house. 

      But will the broke millennials of today be able to afford these future robots?

    • Only Full Transparency Will Save The CIA And FBI Now
      Only Full Transparency Will Save The CIA And FBI Now

      Tyler Durden

      Tue, 10/06/2020 – 22:05

      Authored by Roger Simon via The Epoch Times,

      If The Federalist’s Sean Davis’ informants are even half right, director of the Central Intelligence Agency Gina Haspel is making a big mistake – for herself, for the CIA, and, above all, for the country.

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      Davis wrote:

      “Haspel is personally blocking the declassification and release of key Russiagate documents in the hopes that President Donald Trump will lose his re-election bid, multiple senior U.S. officials told The Federalist. The officials said Haspel, who served under former CIA Director John Brennan as the spy agency’s station chief in London in 2016 and 2017, is concerned that the declassification and release of documents detailing what the CIA was doing during the 2016 election and the 2017 transition could embarrass the CIA and potentially even implicate Haspel herself.”

      What Haspel seems to be missing here is that the CIA, and the FBI, of course, have already been embarrassed, greatly, their reputations tarnished almost beyond recognition with tens of millions of U. S. citizens by the Spygate/Russiagate scandal.

      She and FBI director Christopher Wray, deluding themselves that they are protecting vital institutions of our society, are apparently waiting with the proverbial bated breath for a Biden administration so that all revelations and potential indictments that might come via John Durham and William Barr are flushed down the equally proverbial memory hole.

      It won’t work. The only way to resuscitate those reputations is for them, Haspel and Wray, to be fully transparent, now, before the election.

      Even if everything Durham and Barr are investigating is flushed away before reaching fruition, even if the Biden-Harris administration instantly installs a new attorney general and cleanses the DOJ and the intelligence agencies of all remnants of the dreaded Trump over night, tens of millions of Americans already know.

      They have already seen at least parts of the story and they won’t forget. How could they?

      They know their new president Joe Biden and many allied with him have been implicated in a treasonous plot of previously unheard of proportions to upend the prior administration.

      These same people, these millions, now distrust the CIA and the FBI, and, to a great extent, their government. They consider these pivotal institutions their enemies, working against their interests and, more importantly, the interests of the country. And these people are some of the most deeply patriotic of all Americans.

      What a situation for our county! How can we then function as a democratic republic?

      Did Ms. Haspel think about that? Did Mr. Wray consider that as he withholds or endlessly redacts documents, allegedly to protect… who exactly?

      (Wray has taken his desire for a Biden victory to such lengths that he tried to downplay the importance of Antifa.)

      Haspel and Wray are doing the reverse of safeguarding their vital institutions. They are increasing public distrust of them, a distrust so great that many of us see our society moving inexorably in the direction of China, a high-tech tyranny of “social credit scores” and obedience to a Big Brother Orwell could never have conceived.

      What is the road back from that?

      We should be heartened, however, by reports today as President Trump was exiting from Walter Reed Hospital that the president was planning on declassifying and releasing many of these documents himself within days. His chief of staff Mark Meadows was said to have a briefcase stuffed with them.

      Perhaps, by the time you read this, you will know more.

      If so, Haspel and Wray, to use another old proverb, will have missed the boat. Everyone will know that their agencies need a thorough house cleaning and it will be done, as it should be, without them.

      And I will add, although the media will shout the contrary to the hills, though this is October, revealing these documents is in no way an October Surprise. This is information We the People (remember them?) were owed years ago.

      When you have been deliberately deceived, that’s no October Surprise. That’s justice.

    • Hyliion Electric Truck SPAC Mints 28 Year Old Billionaire CEO
      Hyliion Electric Truck SPAC Mints 28 Year Old Billionaire CEO

      Tyler Durden

      Tue, 10/06/2020 – 21:45

      Arising out of the smoke and rubble of Nikola’s recent battle with short sellers, one electric truck company has casually made its way onto the public markets via a SPAC, making its 28 year old founder a billionaire in the process. 

      Does it feel enough like 1999 yet?

      “We were fortunate on timing,” Hyliion Holdings Corp. CEO Thomas Healy told Bloomberg. His company, founded just 5 years ago in 2015, went public through a SPAC with Tortoise Acquisition Corporation and started trading publicly last Friday. Healy is now one of the world’s youngest self-made billionaires. 

      He started his company after watching Tesla while growing up and says that spurred an interest in electric vehicles. “I thought: Why do we have electric technology in cars and not in trucks yet, since trucks are where you can have the biggest impact?” he told Bloomberg. 

      Healy had originally planned to go public at the time the coronavirus struck. “If we were trying to close right when the stock market was on that downswing, we might have been having different discussions,” he admitted.

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      The deal has not only garnered scrutiny due to Nikola’s recent fall from grace, but also because the SPAC phenomenon is now being watched closer and through a more skeptical lens. Recall, days ago, we noted that SEC Chair Jay Clayton had said on CNBC that the regulator would “look closer” at the deals. 

      Like many others who have used SPACs, Healy said the lack of regulation was an obvious benefit. He told Bloomberg:

      In the first quarter, we kicked off our next financing round. Going public and being able to bring in more capital than we would staying private was attractive. From that, we considered: do we go down the conventional IPO route? Or do we want a SPAC process? We saw a lot of efficiencies with SPACs. You’re really negotiating a deal with an organization as opposed to going on a roadshow for an IPO that may — or may not — be successful. We met with the Tortoise team introduced to us through investment bank Marathon Capital. That was the moment of ‘OK. Let’s do this!’

      “From our end, it was a very natural process with Tortoise. We were just going through a conventional financing fundraising process, and then we saw this as the best path,” he continued.

      “Our goal is you’ll be driving down the highway and the trucks you see will have Hyliion powertrains,” Healy said. “There will be other trucks that are electric as well, taking a different approach. We hope all these technologies are successful as ultimately we’re trying to make this shift to electric. The more people are focused on that, the better off we’ll all be.”

      But don’t worry Thomas – even if they don’t – you’ll still be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. 

    • "Political Hit Job!" – Trump Slams FDA's Guidance Precluding COVID-19 Vaccine Before Nov. 3
      “Political Hit Job!” – Trump Slams FDA’s Guidance Precluding COVID-19 Vaccine Before Nov. 3

      Tyler Durden

      Tue, 10/06/2020 – 21:30

      Update (2115ET): Clearly bored at the residence with nothing on his calendar and nothing to do really but take his meds and rest, President Trump has been on fire, tweeting throughout the day, beginning early in the morning on the East Coast, and continuing well into the night.

      In his latest tweet, sent just minutes ago, Trump bashed the FDA’s newly released guidance on the requirements for receiving emergency-use approval for any and all of the many COVID-19 vaccine projects underway. The FDA published the guidance earlier, but cautioned that top officials had spoken with all of the drug companies and that they are well aware of what’s expected of them.

      Of course, the provision requiring at least 2 months worth of data pretty much precludes the possibility of approval before election day. Trump clearly doesn’t want that. So – as he often does – he’s using twitter to push back. He even tagged FDA head Dr. Stephen Hahn, who has already apologized profusely for appearing to kowtow to Trump’s political whims.

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

      The irony is that by bashing the FDA so publicly, Trump is effectively backing the agency into a wall, forcing them to resist his overtures, or risk losing the faith and support of the public. Though, to be fair. The agency knows public trust in the vaccine process is alarmingly low to begin with, and they need to help build it up any way they can.

      * * *

      Update (1550ET): After the FDA stiff-armed the White House’s attempt to remove a provision from the public-health agency’s emergency use authorization guidelines, White House insiders are telling WSJ that they accept the FDA’s plan, bolstering claims made by FDA Director Dr. Stephen Hahn that the agency wouldn’t be swayed by Trump after appearing to kowtow to the administration.

      * * *

      Last night, both the NYT, Associated Press and Politico published “scoops” detailing an alleged effort from within the West Wing to improperly shape the FDA’s protocols and policies surrounding granting emergency-use authorization (EUA) to COVID-19 vaccines, with the goal of eliminating a provision that would effectively preclude a vaccine before election day.

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      Politico’s report claimed that the White House was interfering at the behest of the big drug makers hoping for more lax restrictions.

      Since they were published during President Trump’s return to the White House, the reports didn’t get much oxygen on cable news. But on Tuesday morning, the FDA surprised observes by releasing the new guidance.

      Also, Bloomberg reported last night that the FDA had communicated its new standards directly to the drug makers, eliminating the need to release the new guidance, which was still under White House review.

      A spokesman for the FDA told the press that the agency has already reviewed the requirements with individual manufacturers, and any interference with the guidance is really more of a PR issue.

      “This does not change how the FDA would evaluate an emergency use authorization request for a Covid-19 vaccine,” said Michael Felberbaum, an agency spokesman. “The FDA has already communicated with individual manufacturers about its expectations, data the agency intends to consider, and what we expect to see in a request for an emergency use authorization to demonstrate safety and efficacy.”

      But as the public backlash intensified, the FDA decided to release a document on its website Tuesday morning making clear that the requirement for two months’ of safety data would remain, as would a requirement for an independent panel of experts to weigh in on each candidate before a final decision can be made.

      Here’s more from Bloomberg:

      The document is the agency’s most detailed public statement yet on what it will take to get a vaccine cleared under a fast-track emergency use authorization, or EUA. The agency has been working on a separate “guidance” document that details the requirements, but it remains under review by the White House and it’s not clear when or if it will be released.

      While the exact contents of that guidance document haven’t been released, the FDA has said that it’s already communicated the requirements to drugmakers. Publishing those requirements in the document released Tuesday essentially makes them public, even if the official document is lodged at the White House. It also makes clear that the FDA will add an extra step to the review.

      In Tuesday’s document, the FDA said it will require an additional, follow-up meeting of its Vaccine and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee to look at specific applications by drugmakers. “This discussion will be specific to the particular vaccine that is the subject of the EUA request and will be separate from, and in addition to, any general discussion by the VRBPAC regarding the development, authorization and/or licensure of vaccines to prevent Covid-19,” the FDA said in the document.

      Then again, whether the agency requires 8 weeks or 6 weeks of safety data may not make much of a difference. Vaccine approval is a tedious process that typically takes years. The speedy approval process virtually guarantees there will be no study of long term ramifications and side effects.

    • John Lennon at 80: One Man Against The Deep State "Monster"
      John Lennon at 80: One Man Against The Deep State “Monster”

      Tyler Durden

      Tue, 10/06/2020 – 21:25

      Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

      “You gotta remember, establishment, it’s just a name for evil. The monster doesn’t care whether it kills all the students or whether there’s a revolution. It’s not thinking logically, it’s out of control.”

      – John Lennon (1969)

      John Lennon, born 80 years ago on October 9, 1940, was a musical genius and pop cultural icon.

      He was also a vocal peace protester and anti-war activist, and a high-profile example of the lengths to which the Deep State will go to persecute those who dare to challenge its authority.

      Long before Julian Assange, Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning were being castigated for blowing the whistle on the government’s war crimes and the National Security Agency’s abuse of its surveillance powers, it was Lennon who was being singled out for daring to speak truth to power about the government’s warmongering, his phone calls monitored and data files illegally collected on his activities and associations.

      For a while, at least, Lennon became enemy number one in the eyes of the U.S. government.

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      Years after Lennon’s assassination it would be revealed that the FBI had collected 281 pages of files on him, including song lyrics. J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI at the time, directed the agency to spy on the musician. There were also various written orders calling on government agents to frame Lennon for a drug bust. “The FBI’s files on Lennon … read like the writings of a paranoid goody-two-shoes,” observed reporter Jonathan Curiel.

      As the New York Times notes, “Critics of today’s domestic surveillance object largely on privacy grounds. They have focused far less on how easily government surveillance can become an instrument for the people in power to try to hold on to power. ‘The U.S. vs. John Lennon’ … is the story not only of one man being harassed, but of a democracy being undermined.”

      Indeed, all of the many complaints we have about government today—surveillance, militarism, corruption, harassment, SWAT team raids, political persecution, spying, overcriminalization, etc.—were present in Lennon’s day and formed the basis of his call for social justice, peace and a populist revolution.

      For all of these reasons, the U.S. government was obsessed with Lennon, who had learned early on that rock music could serve a political end by proclaiming a radical message. More importantly, Lennon saw that his music could mobilize the public and help to bring about change. Lennon believed in the power of the people. Unfortunately, as Lennon recognized: “The trouble with government as it is, is that it doesn’t represent the people. It controls them.”

      However, as Martin Lewis writing for Time notes: “John Lennon was not God. But he earned the love and admiration of his generation by creating a huge body of work that inspired and led. The appreciation for him deepened because he then instinctively decided to use his celebrity as a bully pulpit for causes greater than his own enrichment or self-aggrandizement.”

      For instance, in December 1971 at a concert in Ann Arbor, Mich., Lennon took to the stage and in his usual confrontational style belted out “John Sinclair,” a song he had written about a man sentenced to 10 years in prison for possessing two marijuana cigarettes. Within days of Lennon’s call for action, the Michigan Supreme Court ordered Sinclair released.

      What Lennon did not know at the time was that government officials had been keeping strict tabs on the ex-Beatle they referred to as “Mr. Lennon.” Incredibly, FBI agents were in the audience at the Ann Arbor concert, “taking notes on everything from the attendance (15,000) to the artistic merits of his new song.”

      The U.S. government, steeped in paranoia, was spying on Lennon.

      By March 1971, when his “Power to the People” single was released, it was clear where Lennon stood. Having moved to New York City that same year, Lennon was ready to participate in political activism against the U. S. government, the “monster” that was financing the war in Vietnam.

      The release of Lennon’s Sometime in New York City album, which contained a radical anti-government message in virtually every song and depicted President Richard Nixon and Chinese Chairman Mao Tse-tung dancing together nude on the cover, only fanned the flames of the conflict to come.

      The official U.S. war against Lennon began in earnest in 1972 after rumors surfaced that Lennon planned to embark on a U.S. concert tour that would combine rock music with antiwar organizing and voter registration. Nixon, fearing Lennon’s influence on about 11 million new voters (1972 was the first year that 18-year-olds could vote), had the ex-Beatle served with deportation orders “in an effort to silence him as a voice of the peace movement.”

      Then again, the FBI has had a long history of persecuting, prosecuting and generally harassing activists, politicians, and cultural figures. Most notably among the latter are such celebrated names as folk singer Pete Seeger, painter Pablo Picasso, comic actor and filmmaker Charlie Chaplin, comedian Lenny Bruce and poet Allen Ginsberg.

      Among those most closely watched by the FBI was Martin Luther King Jr., a man labeled by the FBI as “the most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country.” With wiretaps and electronic bugs planted in his home and office, King was kept under constant surveillance by the FBI with the aim of “neutralizing” him. He even received letters written by FBI agents suggesting that he either commit suicide or the details of his private life would be revealed to the public. The FBI kept up its pursuit of King until he was felled by a hollow-point bullet to the head in 1968.

      While Lennon was not—as far as we know—being blackmailed into suicide, he was the subject of a four-year campaign of surveillance and harassment by the U.S. government (spearheaded by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover), an attempt by President Richard Nixon to have him “neutralized” and deported. As Adam Cohen of the New York Times points out, “The F.B.I.’s surveillance of Lennon is a reminder of how easily domestic spying can become unmoored from any legitimate law enforcement purpose. What is more surprising, and ultimately more unsettling, is the degree to which the surveillance turns out to have been intertwined with electoral politics.”

      As Lennon’s FBI file shows, memos and reports about the FBI’s surveillance of the anti-war activist had been flying back and forth between Hoover, the Nixon White House, various senators, the FBI and the U.S. Immigration Office.

      Nixon’s pursuit of Lennon was relentless and in large part based on the misperception that Lennon and his comrades were planning to disrupt the 1972 Republican National Convention. The government’s paranoia, however, was misplaced.

      Left-wing activists who were on government watch lists and who shared an interest in bringing down the Nixon Administration had been congregating at Lennon’s New York apartment. But when they revealed that they were planning to cause a riot, Lennon balked. As he recounted in a 1980 interview, “We said, We ain’t buying this. We’re not going to draw children into a situation to create violence so you can overthrow what? And replace it with what? . . . It was all based on this illusion, that you can create violence and overthrow what is, and get communism or get some right-wing lunatic or a left-wing lunatic. They’re all lunatics.”

      Despite the fact that Lennon was not part of the “lunatic” plot, the government persisted in its efforts to have him deported. Equally determined to resist, Lennon dug in and fought back. Every time he was ordered out of the country, his lawyers delayed the process by filing an appeal. Finally, in 1976, Lennon won the battle to stay in the country when he was granted a green card. As he said afterwards, “I have a love for this country…. This is where the action is. I think we’ll just go home, open a tea bag, and look at each other.” 

      Lennon’s time of repose didn’t last long, however. By 1980, he had re-emerged with a new album and plans to become politically active again.

      The old radical was back and ready to cause trouble. In his final interview on Dec. 8, 1980, Lennon mused, “The whole map’s changed and we’re going into an unknown future, but we’re still all here, and while there’s life there’s hope.”

      The Deep State has a way of dealing with troublemakers, unfortunately. On Dec. 8, 1980, Mark David Chapman was waiting in the shadows when Lennon returned to his New York apartment building. As Lennon stepped outside the car to greet the fans congregating outside, Chapman, in an eerie echo of the FBI’s moniker for Lennon, called out, “Mr. Lennon!”

      Lennon turned and was met with a barrage of gunfire as Chapman—dropping into a two-handed combat stance—emptied his .38-caliber pistol and pumped four hollow-point bullets into his back and left arm. Lennon stumbled, staggered forward and, with blood pouring from his mouth and chest, collapsed to the ground.

      John Lennon was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. He had finally been “neutralized.”

      Yet where those who neutralized the likes of John Lennon, Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Robert Kennedy and others go wrong is in believing that you can murder a movement with a bullet and a madman.

      Thankfully, Lennon’s legacy lives on in his words, his music and his efforts to speak truth to power. As Yoko Ono shared in a 2014 letter to the parole board tasked with determining whether Chapman should be released: “A man of humble origin, [John Lennon] brought light and hope to the whole world with his words and music. He tried to be a good power for the world, and he was. He gave encouragement, inspiration and dreams to people regardless of their race, creed and gender.”

      Sadly, not much has changed for the better in the world since Lennon walked among us.

      Peace remains out of reach. Activism and whistleblowers continue to be prosecuted for challenging the government’s authority. Militarism is on the rise, with local police dressed like the military, all the while the governmental war machine continues to wreak havoc on innocent lives across the globe.

      For those of us who joined with John Lennon to imagine a world of peace, it’s getting harder to reconcile that dream with the reality of the American police state.

      Meanwhile, as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, those who dare to speak up are labeled dissidents, troublemakers, terrorists, lunatics, or mentally ill and tagged for surveillance, censorship, involuntary detention or, worse, even shot and killed in their own homes by militarized police.

      As Lennon shared in a 1968 interview:

      “I think all our society is run by insane people for insane objectives… I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal means. If anybody can put on paper what our government and the American government and the Russian… Chinese… what they are actually trying to do, and what they think they’re doing, I’d be very pleased to know what they think they’re doing. I think they’re all insane. But I’m liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That’s what’s insane about it.”

      So what’s the answer?

      Lennon had a multitude of suggestions.

      “If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there’d be peace.”

      “War is over if you want it.”

      “Produce your own dream…. It’s quite possible to do anything, but not to put it on the leaders…. You have to do it yourself. That’s what the great masters and mistresses have been saying ever since time began. They can point the way, leave signposts and little instructions in various books that are now called holy and worshipped for the cover of the book and not for what it says, but the instructions are all there for all to see, have always been and always will be. There’s nothing new under the sun. All the roads lead to Rome. And people cannot provide it for you. I can’t wake you up. You can wake you up. I can’t cure you. You can cure you.”

      “Peace is not something you wish for; It’s something you make, Something you do, Something you are, And something you give away.”

      “If you want peace, you won’t get it with violence.”

      And my favorite advice of all: “Say you want a revolution / We better get on right away / Well you get on your feet / And out on the street / Singing power to the people.”

    • Bill Gates Contradicts Trump, Says Wealthy West Won't Get 'Back To Normal' Until Late 2021
      Bill Gates Contradicts Trump, Says Wealthy West Won’t Get ‘Back To Normal’ Until Late 2021

      Tyler Durden

      Tue, 10/06/2020 – 21:05

      Bill Gates sat down with WSJ Editor in Chief Matt Murray for a virtual chat during the paper’s CEO Council, part of the paper’s nascent push into conferences and events.

      This, of course, is just the latest installment in Bill Gates’ campaign to convince western governments to essentially “step up” and finance a global mandatory vaccination campaign, something that would cost trillions of dollars, given the 7 billion-plus people in the world.

      And he doesn’t hold back: Gates acknowledged that Western countries are “far ahead” of Russia and China when it comes to developing and testing various vaccine candidates – though China seems to draw nearer by the day – and if the leading candidates prove successful and win their FDA emergency approvals before year-end, the west could see life return to ‘some semblance of normal’ by the second half of next year.

      “By late next year you can have things going back pretty close to normal – that’s the best case,” Gates said. “We still don’t know whether these vaccines will succeed,” Gates said. “Now the capacity will take time to ramp up. And so the allocation within the US, and between the U.S. and other countries will be a very top point of contention.”

      Of course, Gates’s timeline is even longer than that unfurled by the Trump Administration and its top officials who have said a mass-produced vaccine could be ready by the beginning of Q2, suggesting vaccination campaigns could be well underway by the start of next summer.

      All this remains to be seen, however.

      Western companies are “far ahead” of their foreign competitors, and Gates predicted that Chinese and Russian vaccines likely wouldn’t be widely used in the West. Though, to be fair, Russia and China are already striking deals with countries to partner and produce doses as countries like India scramble to get their hands on a vaccine as quickly as possible.

      “The one Russian construct and six of the Chinese constructs are perfectly valid constructs actually with some similarities to what the Western companies are doing, but the Western companies are further ahead on doing these phase three studies,” Gates said.

      As he typically does, Gates took a minute to plug CEPI, the coalition for epidemic preparedness and innovations.

      The conversation soon turned to another one of Bill Gates’s favorite topics: the obligation of social media companies to combat “misinformation”, like the idea that SARS-CoV-2 was created in a lab.

      There’s a difference between claims that are deliberately “false and misleading” and the theory that the virus was either released from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a Biosafety Level 4 lab located a short distance from the market initially touted as ‘ground zero’ for the virus. US intelligence has lent some credence to the theory. So has a Chinese scientist who escaped to the West with claims that she has ‘proof’ that the virus was created in a lab.

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      Though her claims were given airing by Tucker Carlson, Twitter suspended her account in an attempt to silence her, just like Beijing tried to do.

      Circling back to Gates, he argued that social media companies should be responsible for “some level of fact checking”, though he advised that he didn’t want to see widespread censorship, like in China.

      “There’s certainly a human weakness that very titillating things can spread very quickly and the digital platforms allow them,” Gates said.

      “We’re seeing in a very urgent way the question of how do you restrict that weakness and still preserve free speech.”

      Put another way, social media companies should censor things that Gates wants censored, and leaving everything else pretty much alone.

      Watch the full interview below:

    • With Real Rates Rising, Is The Fed Preparing A Digital Dollar?
      With Real Rates Rising, Is The Fed Preparing A Digital Dollar?

      Tyler Durden

      Tue, 10/06/2020 – 20:45

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

      It pays today to never underestimate the venality of the people who think they run the world. It also pays to listen to them when they say the most outrageous things.

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      At virtual Jackson Hole this year FOMC Chair Jerome Powell redefined inflation for the third time in my lifetime. By removing the Phillips Curve from the landscape Powell will now guide monetary policy by the desire to create inflation expectations, a kind of first derivative of inflation under the mostly irrelevant Quantity Theory of Money (QTM).

      I talked about Powell’s dilemma and why he had to make this change in a post right after that speech. And I outlined what the Austrian criticism of the QTM was — a myopic focus on the supply of money rather than the interplay of it with the demand for money.

      The better definition of inflation expectations is to think of it as the velocity of human action.

      Now I’m sympathetic, for argument’s sake, to define inflation expectations as the first derivative of action. If you expect things to get better than you may make choices which lead to lower time preference behavior which, in turn, boosts investment in larger projects and an expansion of the division of labor.

      Economic growth.

      But that growth is dependent on your starting point. If things truly suck, making things somewhat better doesn’t mean you’ll put a new roof on your house or start a new business but it may mean that you spend a little more money on better food.

      Because of this systemic degradation of inflation expectations and the squeezing out of available investment capital, the Fed would always reach a point where it could not use interest rates to manipulate aggregate demand and boost GDP — Gross National Spending.

      The economy always reaches a point where interest rates are irrelevant to creating confidence to take on new debt. I like to use the term ‘debt saturation’ to describe where we are.

      Now with Jay Powell’s speech from virtual Jackson Hole, we have him openly admitting this, validating the Austrian criticism. And so, we have the new definition of inflation, freed from the shackles of the Phillips Curve.

      It’s still all about prices today but now the Fed is admitting that the economy runs on the time preference of individuals rather than arbitrary definitions of full employment.

      Powell uses the term ‘inflation expectations’ but time preference is still better.

      This change by Powell was presaged by a recent white paper which Zerohedge and others brought to wide attention about creating inflation through helicopter money, so-called digital dollars.

      This is nothing new now, we’ve been talking about this for weeks.

      Those digital dollars will be given to you to spend and you won’t be able to convert them to physical cash. Cash will be sunsetted and there will be no hiding from whatever policy The Davos Crowd wants to implement.

      To roll this ball forward there has to be a major impetus to change things and that means another phase to the financial crisis. So, with that in mind I bring you this tweet from Danielle DiMartino Booth from ten days ago, that finally showed up on my radar neatly reminding me that Twitter doesn’t have my best interests in mind.

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      Now why would the Fed be buying TIPS if not to manage inflation expectations?

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      TIPS are weird because both their price and their yield rise with rising inflation and conversely with deflation. Buying TIPS means the Fed is propping up their prices to tell everyone that real interest rates are not rising!

      Pay no attention to the deflation behind the curtain!

      But they are. And rising real yields is a real problem for the Fed if it wants to keep the monetary system from melting down globally. TIPS prices wouldn’t need supporting if real yields weren’t rising, which means inflation expectations are falling.

      And what happened in the all-important 10-year Treasury market in recent days after the end of Q3 ended with a Fed-induced whimper?

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      Now we have nominal yields rising, TIPS prices supported and one of the winners over the past few days has been gold? Gold is supposed fall with rising real yields, and yet, it’s rising because this notion that the Fed is buying TIPS means we’re getting safe haven inflows, not investment inflows into gold.

      This furthers the argument that gold only follows real yields when markets aren’t under stress. When faith in governments begin to fail for real, gold de-couples from financial assets of all types and trades to its own beat.

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      But back to this week’s bond market carnage. So, did the Fed finally stop buying TIPS or have we entered another short-lived reflation trade now that Q3 is behind us, thanks to Trump surviving COVID-19?

      Or were the temporary positions taken by banks to manipulate their balance sheets for earnings unwound and that’s causing a shock to the yield curve because real rates are rising faster than the Fed can schlorp them up?

      I think, honestly, it doesn’t matter no matter how explosive all of this may actually be. As the stimulus game of chicken continues on Capitol Hill the markets keep hoping for some sign of help. But the best they have is that Biden’s chances of winning the election are fading along with his cognition.

      Wall St. may be coming out trying to spin a Biden victory as good for the markets but that would only be because Pelosi will blackmail them with endless stimulus and the promise of the new Fed e-dollar.

      But what is most obvious to me is there is no appetite to give Trump any help in getting re-elected. Whether Powell bought tons of TIPS to keep the markets from crashing into the end of the quarter or not is a mostly academic question.

      What’s clear now is the agenda I’ve outlined previously as the Democrats’ and The Davos Crowd’s strategy for the future. If you want to eat, give us all the power. If you want to keep your house, give us all the power.

      And, more importantly, accept the new reality that is coming whether you like it or not. There’s a Great Reset coming and it won’t matter who you vote for.

      Jay Powell is just the bag man, folks. He’s a bystander in all of this.

      *  *  *

      Join My Patreon if you want help navigating the Great Reset. Install the Brave Browser if you think Google is part of The Great Reset.

    • California Wildfires Take "Unfathomable" Toll On Napa Wineries
      California Wildfires Take “Unfathomable” Toll On Napa Wineries

      Tyler Durden

      Tue, 10/06/2020 – 20:25

      The 2020 vintage in Napa Valley has been stressful for vineyards. There were virus-related lockdowns, severe droughts, heatwaves, and now unprecedented wildfires.

      The harvest season for Napa’s vineyards began in August and will last through October. But this year, some vineyards have been destroyed during the wildfire season, while others have had harmful smoke from the fires taint the grapes, reported Bloomberg. 

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      Cal Fire’s latest fire report shows 4 million acres across the state have burned this year. 

      “The 4 million marks is unfathomable. It boggles the mind, and it takes your breath away,” Cal Fire spokesman Scott McLean said Sunday. “And that number will grow.”

      Last week, we pointed out that attention should quickly turn to a “fast-moving wildfire is ripping in Northern California’s wine country. Called Glass Fire, which ignited a little more than a week ago, has been burning in Napa and Sonoma counties. As of Monday, the fire has scorched 66,840 acres and is 41% contained. 

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      The blaze has damaged or destroyed at least 18 wineries in Napa Valley as more than 215 are under mandatory evacuation orders or evacuation warnings. 

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      Some of the wineries that have sustained fire damage include Chateau Boswell, Hunnicutt, Hourglass, Dutch Henry, Fairwinds, Burgess Cellars, and Castello di Amoros. Damage has also been reported at Behrens, Newton, Cain, Flying Lady, Sherwin, School House, Fantesca, and Spring Mountain Vineyard. 

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      Philippe Melka, a winemaking consultant for high-profile wineries, told Bloomberg that chemical compounds in smoke could easily be absorbed into grapes’ skin, making the wine smell and taste like ash. 

      Melka estimates around 80% of vineyards in Napa could be affected by smoke. He said wineries in the south of Napa could have escaped smoke damage. 

      “But in a year like this,” he said, “who will pay $300 for any wines?” 

      Napa wineries contribute about $34 billion in revenue to the US economy, provide thousands of jobs, and create a stable local economy for Napa. Moving forward, that could all change, as damaged vineyards could take years to recover. Melka doesn’t expect premium cabernets from Napa this year, given the widespread smoke damage. 

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      Some wineries are not even considering picking grapes this harvest season for cabernet. Schramsberg Vineyards, which bottles under the J. Davies brand, said there will be no cabernet this year. 

      Wine entrepreneur Jeff Smith, the owner of Hourglass Winery, said, “we don’t know if the grapes are smoke tainted, because it now takes 24 to 30 days to get results… The labs are inundated. The industry has never had anything like this amount of smoke.”

      Winemaker Chris Howell of Cain Vineyard and Winery, said, “we’ll reprune some vines, but we won’t learn the truth of the vineyard until 2021… If the damage is only from smoke, they may recover for the next growing season.” 

      Howell said if the vineyard has to be replanted, and it could take two to three years and cost $50,000 to $85,000 an acre. And for top cabernet, the plants must be at least 5-7 years old before grapes can be used. 

      Given the immense smoke damage or at least the preliminary estimates, while other vineyards have been burned to the ground, the 2020 vintage could quickly produce a shortage of premium cabernets from Napa.

    • The Pandemic That Killed Debate
      The Pandemic That Killed Debate

      Tyler Durden

      Tue, 10/06/2020 – 20:05

      Authored by Stacey Rudin via The American Institute for Economic Research,

      arl Sagan famously said, “the cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.” This wisdom has been sadly forsaken during the COVID19 pandemic, when one powerful narrative has taken not only the public, but the scientific community, by storm.

      The story is that societies cannot survive the pandemic without society-wide lockdowns until we have a vaccine, despite the fact that we have never had a vaccine for a coronavirus, vaccines usually take many years to develop, and many of them are not all that effective once made.

      Penetrating this narrative has been incredibly difficult even for impeccably credentialed scientists.

      One might even say that this pandemic killed scientific debate.

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      Even as evidence proving that lockdowns do not stop the virus rolls in by the truckload, the scientists who argue for a different approach are marginalized, censored, affixed with disparaging labels, and ostracized. Sweden’s chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell was accused of “leading Sweden to catastrophe” and of “experimenting” on the Swedish people. Nobel Laureate Michael Levitt’s careful studies and models were labeled “lethal nonsense” as he weathered attacks left, right and center. John Ioannidis, one of the world’s most productive scientists, found his studies smeared and ignored. Sunetra Gupta, one of the world’s foremost epidemiologists at The University of Oxford, found that expressing her wide-ranging infectious disease knowledge suddenly made her “unethical and dangerous.”

      The latest smear target is neuroradiologist and health policy expert Dr. Scott Atlas, formerly of Stanford.

      A longtime lockdown dissenter, his principal and latest offense seems to be agreeing to serve on The White House’s coronavirus task force, although Anthony Fauci – a researcher who funds grants, and who is not a public health expert – is permitted to do so without adverse media coverage. Where Dr. Atlas and Dr. Fauci differ is in their fundamental approach to the virus:

      Fauci believes we can never return to normal, while Atlas believes all low-risk groups should do just that, with protective measures targeted towards vulnerable populations.

      Atlas believes epidemics end with herd immunity, while Fauci apparently believes they end if you lock down well enough for long enough, and then fundamentally change your way of life because you now have the insight that more pandemics will occur.

      Many of Atlas’s former Stanford colleagues publicly took issue with his age-focused pandemic management strategy on September 9, when 98 of them signed a letter leveling the serious accusation of “[fostering] falsehoods and misrepresentations of science.” Omitted from the letter are the alleged misrepresentations and lies, “making scientific discourse difficult.” This injustice was noted by infectious disease expert Martin Kulldorff of Harvard Medical School, who responded with his own letter published – not without some gentle prodding — in the Stanford Daily on September 16. Kulldorff explained his longstanding agreement with Atlas’s position that an age-targeted strategy is needed to minimize casualties as well as collateral damage during the pandemic – “the most compassionate approach . . . is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection”— and invited the letter’s signatories to publicly debate this strategy.

      Among experts on infectious disease outbreaks, many of us have long advocated for an age-targeted strategy, and I would be delighted to debate this with any of the 98 signatories. Supporters include professor Sunetra Gupta at Oxford University, the world’s preeminent infectious disease epidemiologist. Assuming no bias against women scientists of color, I urge Stanford faculty and students to read her thoughts.

      Professor Kulldorff received no reply to this offer, so The Soho Forum — a highly respected debate platform — took up the case, personally inviting the scientists to participate in an online, one-on-one debate via Zoom, taking the negative on this resolution:

      To minimize mortality and optimize public health, the U.S. should implement a targeted coronavirus strategy that better protects the old and other high-risk groups, while letting children and young adults live close to normal lives.

      This offer was emailed to Dr. Philip Pizzo, the chief signatory of Stanford’s letter in opposition to Atlas, who replied simply:

      “Thank you for the invitation. We have conveyed what we have to say in our letter and do not have additional comments to offer.”

      From both a public policy and scientific standpoint, this blanket refusal to engage in discourse is concerning.

      When someone can level an accusation of dishonesty at a public figure, refuse to debate the substance with the accused, and suffer no consequences for this behavior, this stifles the free expression of opinions and ideas. This is not good for anyone except entities trying to control a self-serving narrative, which never turns out well for anyone else — especially those with the least power.

      The best system for a humane and compassionate society is one that encourages the free expression of ideas. This practice must be encouraged and rewarded, not stifled and penalized. Ideas should be openly expressed, disagreement voiced, and the undecided parties credited with the intelligence they possess: they listen to both sides, and come to their own conclusions. The alternative — some narrative-maker decides the information that will be provided, withholds contradictory relevant information, and forbids the defense from speaking at all— is fascism. It is tyranny. It is certainly not American. Americans have always known that it is dangerous to restrict debate while placing “authority” in one person or entity: that is why our government is built on checks and balances, on divided bodies of congress, on term limits and the electoral college and and separation of powers.

      Experts differ and disagree, on every subject. Intelligent people, coming from various backgrounds and with all manner of life and professional experience, will choose their own side, and once this goes on for long enough, the correct result will arrive. Neither public policy or science is ever completely settled, so the restriction of debate hurts everyone. The voicing of innovative ideas and solutions is what helps us.

      We should celebrate people like Scott Atlas who are willing to take the unpopular, minority view — maybe we can learn from them. We should pay careful attention once we know their opponents will not only sling mud, but will not even appear for a debate.

    • Stephen Miller Latest White House Official To Test Positive For COVID-19
      Stephen Miller Latest White House Official To Test Positive For COVID-19

      Tyler Durden

      Tue, 10/06/2020 – 19:56

      Angry lefties are taking to social media to express their glee over the news that Stephen Miller, a senior aide to President Trump widely seen as the architect of his immigration policy (known to liberals as “kids in cages”), has become the latest White House staffer to test positive with COVID-19.

      By our count, that makes him the 33rd person infected in the White House outbreak by our count, which includes 11 staffers who tested positive after the debate in Cleveland. According to NBC News, the number stands at 23.

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      The applause from the left rolled in on Twitter.

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      Roxane Gay cheered news of Miller’s infection, claiming it as another example of the power of “Libra Season”.

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      Miller has released a statement to the press: “I have been working remotely and self-isolating, testing negative every day through yesterday. Today, I tested positive for COVID-19 and am in quarantine.” His plans regarding the length of his quarantine aren’t clear. According to the New York Daily News, it was “not immediately clear” whether Miller attended the Sept. 26 ceremony announcing Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination.

      Miller has been working from home since Friday.

      It also appears that the military aide who tested positive – reported earlier today – is among those responsible for carrying the “football” that contains launch codes for nuclear weapons has also tested positive, a person familiar with the matter said.

    • Biden Says "We Shouldn't Have Debate" Next Week If Trump Still Has Coronavirus
      Biden Says “We Shouldn’t Have Debate” Next Week If Trump Still Has Coronavirus

      Tyler Durden

      Tue, 10/06/2020 – 19:54

      Will there be another debate or won’t there?

      While Trump is certainly eager to get back on the podium, and certainly not in some virtual setting, his challenger is not so sure.

      Moments after the NYT published an Editorial Board op-ed arguing that “In-Person Debates Are Too Dangerous. Cancel Them”, Joe Biden spoke at a campaign stop in Pennsylvania, Joe Biden said Tuesday night that he and Donald Trump should scrap their next debate if the president is still infected with the coronavirus.

      “I think if he still has Covid we shouldn’t have a debate,” Biden told reporters.

      The next debate is scheduled for next Thursday, Oct. 15 in Miami. Which likely means that Trump will have to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that neither he, nor anyone on his debate prep team is contagious in just over a week. Considering that most of those people are, in fact, infected as of this moment, that could prove a tall order, and may force the next debate to be virtual.

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      Which simply means just as much shouting, only by zoom… unless of course the two agree to a mute button.

       

       

    • Taiwan Presents Weapons Shopping List To US At Key Defense Industry Conference
      Taiwan Presents Weapons Shopping List To US At Key Defense Industry Conference

      Tyler Durden

      Tue, 10/06/2020 – 19:45

      Taiwan is set to present a veritable weapons shopping list to American officials during the annual US-Taiwan Defense Industry Conference, which began Monday and is continuing Tuesday.

      The conference is yet another event attracting the ire and watchful scrutiny of China, given it is representative of the growing military cooperation between Taipei and Washington, and goes back to 2002.

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      Taiwan military drills, via CNN

      However, weapons sales will be a closed-door discussion issue. Among closed-door topics include “US defense cooperation with Taiwan, the defense procurement process and Taiwan’s defence and national security needs,” the council said according to South China Morning Post. It will also “provide opportunities to connect with others working on Taiwan defense and national security issues.”

      Also sure to catch Beijing’s notice following last month’s ratcheting PLA aerial and sea drills around the island is the following statement on the conference agenda: “Taiwan’s deputy defense minister Chang Guan-chung is expected to brief the US side on the weaponry most needed and urgently sought by the island after seeing growing military intimidation from Beijing.”

      Ahead of the conference Reuters pointed out last month the US is content to further build up ‘Fortress Taiwan’ while “needling China” – as it “plans to sell as many as seven major weapons systems, including mines, cruise missiles and drones to Taiwan, four people familiar with the discussions said, as the Trump administration ramps up pressure on China.”

      That prior extensive report previewed Taiwan’s ‘defense needs’ – some of which are in various phases of passing US legal hurdles and discussions, according to Reuters :

      • Drones that can see over the horizon for surveillance and targeting, coupled with advanced missiles and coastal defenses that include smart mines and anti-submarine capabilities to impede a sea invasion…
      • A Lockheed Martin-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), essentially a truck-based rocket launcher, is among the weapons Taiwan wants, people familiar with the negotiations said.
      • at least four large sophisticated aerial drones to Taiwan for what could be about $600 million.
      • under discussion are land-based Boeing-made Harpoon anti-ship missiles to serve as a coastal defense against cruise missiles.
      • Other systems include “underwater sea mines and other capabilities to deter amphibious landing, or immediate attack,” Taiwan’s de facto ambassador here to United States said in July.

      Anti-tank missile systems are also said to be under consideration, at a moment Chinese PLA naval and aerial drills near the island have been on the uptick. Beijing has repeatedly signaled that it considers reunification as a landmark mission and won’t stand idly by as external forces intervene in what it sees as inter-China affairs.

      For this week’s US-Taiwan Defense Industry Conference, no US official will need to visit the island given the talks are being done entirely by remote means due to the global pandemic.

    Digest powered by RSS Digest

    Oct 06

    Today’s News 6th October 2020

    • The Business Of Dismantling Old Cruise Ships At A Dock In Western Turkey Is Booming
      The Business Of Dismantling Old Cruise Ships At A Dock In Western Turkey Is Booming

      Tyler Durden

      Tue, 10/06/2020 – 02:45

      One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

      If you’ve ever asked yourself where cruise ships go to die after they are decommissioned, the answer is Turkey.

      At a dock in Western Turkey where they used to handle cargo and container ships, they are now focused on the dismantling of old and unused cruise ships for scrap metal. And business is booming, according to Reuters.

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      Kamil Onal, chairman of a ship recycling industrialists’ association, said: “But after the pandemic, cruise ships changed course towards Aliaga in a very significant way. There was growth in the sector due to the crisis. When the ships couldn’t find work, they turned to dismantling.”

      “We are trying to change the crisis into an opportunity,” Onal commented. No part of the ship goes to waste, he said. Even hotel operators come to the yard to buy useful materials, he told Reuters. 

      2,500 people will work at the yard dismantling a single ship, which takes about 6 months. Most of the vessels have come from the United States, Britain and Italy. The shipyard is even looking to up its volume of dismantled steel from 700,000 tonnes in January to 1.1 million tonnes by the end of the year. 

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      Cruise ships were the first point of contact for the pandemic to hit the travel industry, as they housed the first clusters of virus outbreaks back in the first quarter of 2020.

      In March, the U.S. government all but shut down the industry, issuing a no-sail order for all ships that remained in place.

    • Why Is The EU Still Siding With "World's Worst Human Rights Abuser"?
      Why Is The EU Still Siding With “World’s Worst Human Rights Abuser”?

      Tyler Durden

      Tue, 10/06/2020 – 02:00

      Authored by Majid Rafizadeh via The Gatestone Institute,

      The European Union is openly siding with the ruling mullahs of Iran and attempting to scuttle US efforts to pressure the rogue regime to stop. Britain, France and Germany, on September 18, told the UN Security Council that the EU is strongly committed to ensuring the continued lifting of sanctions against the Iranian government. The three European powers added that, as far as they were concerned, even if the United States reimposes all sanctions, their UN sanctions relief for Iran would continue beyond September 20.

      The EU has also been helping Iranian leaders to evade US sanctions through a payment mechanism labeled as INSTEX (Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges), which is designed to permit European firms and corporations to continue doing business with the Iranian government in spite of US economic sanctions against Tehran.

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      The EU is, despite all its sanctimonious lecturing about human rights, unapologetically assisting a regime that is publicly committing some of the worst human rights abuses ever. Did the European leaders hear about the latest executions of innocent protesters such as Navid Afkari, who was apparently tortured into a false confession? Did they hear about the four teenagers who will have their fingers amputated as a punishment for stealing, also, according to them, after being tortured until they “confessed”?

      Despite an international outcry, the theocratic establishment defiantly went ahead and executed wrestling champion Navid Afkari by hanging him in the southern city of Shiraz, according to Iranian state media. His execution was clearly carried out in a hurried manner and he was even denied a last visit from his family.

      After he was given two death sentences by the Sharia court, Afkari declared:

      “People! I will fight for my life because it is the logical and right thing to do. There are plenty of documents and evidence that prove my innocence. All the evidence and documents that we have collected and all the things that I am telling you right now, is to let you know that if I get executed, you should know that, in the 21st century, with all these human right organizations and expenses, with the United Nations, with the UN Security Council etc., an innocent human being, who tried his best and fought will all the power he had for his voice to be heard, was hanged.”

      The EU must know that Afkari, like many other political prisoners and those who participated in previous peaceful protests, was brutally tortured. The Iranian regime denies that it tortures prisoners, but an eyewitness, Shaahin Naaseri, recounted some of the torture that the wrestler endured while in detention:

      “One day, I heard screams, shouting, and pleas for help in the police department. The sergeant accompanying me asked me to wait in the corridor. He went and opened up a door. I followed him to see what was happening out of curiosity. I witnessed two officers who were dressed in unofficial uniforms cursing and hitting Navid with batons and metal pipes without mercy. They would tell him: ‘the truth is whatever we say, will you write what we are saying or not?’ Navid was also begging: ‘please, stop, please don’t hit me, I didn’t do anything.’ He was covering his head with his arms. And one of the officers, whose name I later learned was Abbasi, hit Navid with such strength that Navid let out a gut-wrenching scream and fell unconscious.”

      Iran’s leaders most likely wanted to make an example of the highly respected wrestler, to impose fear in society, and send a strong message to the people that anyone who dares to protest can face severe consequences.

      Amnesty International has documented some of the torture techniques that the Iranian regime is employing:

      “The organization’s research found that victims were frequently hooded or blindfolded; punched, kicked and flogged; beaten with sticks, rubber hosepipes, knives, batons and cables; suspended or forced into holding painful stress positions for prolonged periods; deprived of sufficient food and potable water; placed in prolonged solitary confinement, sometimes for weeks or even months; and denied medical care for injuries sustained during the protests or as a result of torture.”

      Navid Afkari’s case is not an isolated one. Last month, the Iranian regime also secretly hanged another protester, Mostafa Salhi. Amnesty International condemned his execution, stating that it “was carried out… despite serious unfair trial concerns incl torture & other ill-treatment & the denial of access to a lawyer during the investigation phase of his case.”

      Another high-profile figure that the regime arrested and tortured is 20-year-old Ali Younesi, a student who in 2018 won a gold medal as a member of Iran’s national team during the 12th International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics. He and his friend Amirhossein Moradi have been held without charge since April, accused by the authorities of having connections to the opposition.

      The European Union, in empowering a regime that is torturing and executing protesters and political prisoners, is making itself complicit in these crimes against humanity. Instead, the EU needs immediately to join the US in putting pressure on the mullahs and holding them accountable.

    • Financialization & The Road To Zero, Part 3: From Financialization To Breakdown
      Financialization & The Road To Zero, Part 3: From Financialization To Breakdown

      Tyler Durden

      Mon, 10/05/2020 – 23:40

      Authored by ‘ICE-9’ via The Burning Platform blog,

      This is Part 3 of a 4-part series.

      Read Part 1 here…

      Read Part 2 here…

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      August 15th, 1971.  America’s 108 year run with capitalism was over.  The Nixon Shock – or was it?  The dog that didn’t bark during the late 1960s gold run was the US Treasury, the only piece left in the Federal Reserve System that could claim some independence from the central bank cross ownership nexus.  Its lack of action to either raise official gold prices to slow the withdrawals, or close the gold window earlier as foreign dollars washed ashore onto its financial beachhead suggests collusion in the purposeful destruction of capitalism’s pre-eminent precious metal reserve.  We are led to believe that America was propelled by surprise and necessity into its new commercial model divorced from physical gold reserves and silver stockpiles, but when one follows the money what was originally billed as an unexpected emergency reveals a decade long ruthless history of preparation.

      The US Treasury wasn’t so passive during the early 1960s and had quickly transformed into a serious existential threat to the central bank cross ownership nexus.  Silver had become a contentious issue when the US Treasury’s silver stockpiles decline by 80% in a matter of months during a 1961 purchase run – possibly depleted by banking agents in an offensive action to create artificial scarcity and render it perceived unreliable as money.  But President Kennedy halted government silver sales in late 1961 and, after rebuilding the stockpile, signed his fateful Executive Order 11110 in June 1963 directing the US Treasury to issue debt free United States Notes based on a non-fractional 1:1 ratio to the silver stockpile.  Thus a new form of American money was born – one that did not pay interest to the central bank cross ownership nexus – and did not conform to the working definition of capitalism.  This interest free money was placed in direct competition to the heavily fractional and interest paying “gold based” Federal Reserve Notes in circulation and more than $4.3 billion of this new debt free money was issued.  But although these notes were only about 1% of the total M2 money supply, they represented a return to sound mercantile banking and put at risk the unlimited spending requirements of the growing special relationship between Congress and the Military and Industrial Complex.  Infinite fiat money was needed to expand and maintain the American Fiat Empire, and this new sound money limited by silver stockpiles could not stand in empire’s way – five months after signing Executive Order 11110, President Kennedy was dead.

      The Johnson administration got straight to work destroying silver as money starting with the oldest trick in the book – coin debasement.  The Coinage Act of 1965 was the nation’s first step towards a pure fiat currency.  The act initially removed silver from dimes and quarters, reduced silver content in half dollars from 90% to 40%, and suspended new silver dollar production until 1970.  Then in 1970, the Nixon administration eliminated silver from both half and full dollar coins, with the silver-less “silver dollars” minted again and put into circulation primarily for use in slot machines – a perfect metaphor for the coming commercial model.  With no silver in coins, their true value was guaranteed at only a fraction of their face “value”, and so the US Treasury quit trying to hide the underlying inflationary pressures created by increased fiat money printing combined with dwindling precious metal reserves and gave up suppressing the silver price which doubled between 1967 and 1968.  Thus by the beginning of 1971, the United States had created nearly pure fiat coins comprised of low value nickel and copper, and in November 1970 the US Treasury sold the last of its dwindling silver stockpile and all but removed its self from influencing future monetary policy.

      The 1960s was also a busy time printing money to build and protect the American Fiat Empire with wars both covert and declared.  These wars became increasingly expensive and the Federal spending trajectory through the 1960s indicated there were serious limits to the Fiat Empire’s expansion under the constraints imposed by a fractional reserve banking system.  Heavy funding commitments were made for proxy wars in Indonesia, Congo, Laos, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Iraq, Chile, and Cambodia.  These expenses were added to the costly and overt Korean occupation and declared war in Vietnam.  These war costs, increased spending on social engineering project, and late 1950s income tax cuts necessitated an increased reliance on US Treasury bill issuance to fund government aspirations.  Increased debt issuance, in turn, fueled domestic inflation as the fractional reserve nature of the Federal Reserve System still operated to some degree as it should.  The 1950s value added American export boom had acted like a sponge to dampen inflation at home, as the “virtuous cycle” inflated wages faster than the cost of domestic goods.  But when the growth of value added exports stalled in the 1960s, the inflation remained so domestic wages and consumer purchasing power stagnated.  This inflation in turn reduced both American domestic consumption and foreign consumption of American value added exports abroad, so more foreign held US dollars were available to go shopping for investments.  The 1960s “virtuous cycle” was not adsorbing all these foreign held US dollars and all the collective thinking of the learned monetary and political scientists could not foresee this coming run on cheap gold despite the US Treasury’s previous recent experience with the run on silver.  Thus any logical assessment can come to only two conclusions – either the monetary and political scientists were incompetent, or the US Treasury was complicit as its gold reserves steadily drained away.

      In the middle of all that 1960s war spending and stagflation, Congress got to work printing even more money and launched a plethora of expensive programs under the umbrella of the “Great Society”.  These programs laid the groundwork for adsorbing the coming tens of millions of unemployed de-industrialized factory workers and created a pool of docile voters focused on their own dependent and immediate material needs.  Large spending bills were enacted like the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, the Food Stamp Act of 1964, the Public Works and Economic Development Act of 1965, the Social Security Act of 1965 authorizing Medicare, the Social Security Act Amendment of 1965 Title XVIII authorizing Medicaid, and the Social Security Amendments of 1967.  Other large spending bills established government propaganda arms vested with influencing the coming pool of docile, dependent voters including the National Endowment on the Arts and Humanities Act of 1965 and the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967.  And although this “Great Society” did everything but create a great society, it got them voting on the welfare plantation for 200 years, and to ensure there was no resurrection of sound monetary policy, or for that matter, any serious economic policy discussion in public debate, in 1965 Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, the Nationality Services Act, and ratified both the XXIV Amendment in 1962 and the XXVI Amendment in 1971.  Never before in the history of a modern enfranchised people would a society be so devoid of monetary policy discussions, and thus the Federal Reserve System would dissolve further into invisibility with every carnival-like election cycle.

      All that war and welfare deficit spending got rolling while the American Fiat Empire’s “virtuous cycle” was unravelling with the nation both entrapped in its Bretton Woods Venus Flytrap commitment and unable to increase its value added export capacity with its aging industrial infrastructure.  Heavy investment by Anglo-American oil companies in the Middle East and North Africa during the early 1960s began to generate large US dollar royalty and profit oil streams to their host countries resulting in a flood of surplus foreign held US dollars looking for investments while US value added export capability flat lined.  Oil production from Saudi Arabia increased from 1.35 million barrels of oil per day (MM bopd) in 1960 to nearly 4.0 MM bopd in 1970.  Libya came on stream in 1965 at 1.2 MM bopd and by 1970 was producing 3.4 MM bopd.  Iran, Venezuela, Kuwait, and Indonesia all experienced similar production increases.  Billions of foreign held US dollars were generated from the sale of crude oil into the global US dollar denominated commodity market with no coordination by the US Treasury to head off a potential gold buying rush.  And when it was obvious the gold rush was on, America’s European “allies” piled in too – France, Germany, England, and Japan.  All this took place without the US Treasury raising the gold price or taking any action whatsoever to stem its rapidly accelerating gold depletion.  It was as if “free enterprise” were nearly free when it came to buying subsidized gold with foreign held US dollars.

      So on the morning of August 15th 1971, the United States’ “virtuous cycle” was sputtering, its precious metal reserves pilfered, and its value added export capability muddling along with an outmoded and inefficient industrial infrastructure.  Add to that rampant domestic inflation, unending foreign wars, civil unrest, high unemployment, and skyrocketing debt across all government levels when suddenly, with “no advanced warning”, the US Treasury went bankrupt – or more precisely, was constrained by a depleted gold reserve with no way to print the country out of its funding morass.  The magic formula had ceased to work, and Bretton Woods would have to be abandoned and a more abstract type of fiat money born to save the American “virtuous cycle” and soak up all those foreign held US dollars or the Soviets world gain control of the reserve currency status.  The United States faced an existential crisis comparable to its Fort Sumter decision – either continue to prosecute its Fiat Empire wars and ignore domestic economic troubles, or address domestic economic troubles and relinquish the Fiat Empire.  Nothing the monetary scientists did after August 1971 to salvage both options conjured up a false domestic prosperity that could also fund preservation of the Fiat Empire and wishful thinking had come to an end.  The Nixon Shock may have placated public opinion but did nothing to solve the underlying systemic problems in the “virtuous cycle”, so the US dollar plunged week after week against all major world currencies, stagflation settled in, and the “virtuous cycle” got a little more unraveled with every passing month.  And in early 1973 the entire national political apparatus was consumed with the Watergate scandal, so now nothing was going to get fixed.  The Powers Behind the Curtain would have to step out of the shadows to revive the American “virtuous cycle” and save its Fiat Empire on behalf of the central bank cross ownership nexus – enter the Globalists.

      The new fractional “reserve” would have to revive demand for US dollars on a world changing scale, be price-pliable through political pressure, and under full control of US military “influence”.  That influence meant a full and unequivocal commitment to both Fiat Empire and Endless War at a cost of never solving America’s domestic economic and social problems.  So the Powers Behind the Curtain got to work, the United States made its third Faustian deal, and signed on with its Globalist savior – crude oil.  Oil was the perfect fractional “reserve” substitute –plentiful, cheap to produce, concentrated in defendable geographic regions, everybody needed it, and nearly every barrel traded was denominated in US dollars.  So from August 15th forward, with the Treasury’s Gold Window permanently closed and the requirement to hold gold reserves eliminated, the United States could, in theory, immediately get to work printing infinite pure fiat money.  And it would have gotten to work right away testing that theory save for one problem – oil was cheap and wouldn’t sufficiently soak up all those European and Japanese held US dollars.  Some calamitous event had to be conjured to pull the US dollar out of its malaise, stimulate global demand, and strengthen it against a competing basket of foreign currencies.  What the Fiat Empire needed was a global shock to offset the Nixon Shock.  The Powers Behind the Curtain had a solution, and it could not wait for the monetary scientists to figure things out.

      That solution was war.  But not just any old war of attrition – a very unique, surgically placed Yom Kippur War in October 1973 of limited scope but tremendous global ramification.  After two years of muddling through stagflation with no solution in sight and Watergate coming to a boil, decisive proxy action was taken and during six months in 1973 oil prices rose from $3.56 per barrel to over $10.  The prologue OPEC embargo worked, and the denouement short war permanently established higher oil prices.  Now international demand for US dollars soared, and US domestic political confusion gave cover to its fiat money’s reversion to its true value in gold, rising unnoticed by a public stuck in odd-even gasoline lines from $41 per ounce at the Nixon Shock to $187 by the end of 1974.  And oil prices stayed high even as inelastic demand fell as the Middle East’s Kabuki Theater of rumors of war, terrorism, and threatened supply cuts culminated in the Powers Behind the Curtain’s pièce de résistance – the 1979 Iranian Revolution and $25 per barrel.  Mission accomplished, and the price of success was a decade of stagflation, costly long-term foreign aid payouts to the main actors, Endless Wars wherever there was oil, the rise of the Neo-Conservatives, and nationalization of Anglo-American Middle East oil concessions.  But Big Oil was quickly compensated – higher oil prices suddenly rendered frontier discoveries in the North Sea and Alaskan North Slope commercially viable.  Thus the Powers Behind the Curtain had achieved by politics what the monetary scientists could not with equations – a new fractional “reserve” that through the magic formula of inflation would soak up most of the European, Middle Eastern, and Japanese held US dollars to preserve the American “virtuous cycle” for the central bank cross ownership nexus and its new partner – The Military and Industrial Complex.

      But this flood of new PetroDollars coming into OPEC states had to be soaked up too, and the decrepit and outmoded US value added industrial export capacity would cost too much and take too long to modernize to be of any practical use.  So the Powers Behind the Curtain set America on a dual strategy – vastly increased US Treasury bill issuance auctioned to foreign buyers combined with domestic de-industrialization.  The US Treasury bill issuance would soak up much of those PetroDollars and deals were struck with the new Middle East national oil companies where in lieu of America “challenging” the expropriation of the Anglo-American oil concessions, these OPEC states would instead purchase large sums of US Treasury bills at regular intervals and pledge to sell every barrel of oil produced in US fiat dollars.  Domestic de-industrialization was more complex and relied on a combination of creeping punitive environmental regulations wielded by a weaponized Environmental Protection Agency, together with the Federal Reserve System setting ever skyrocketing interest rates that eventually reaching 22.36%.  This combination drove foreign demand for US Treasury bills and practically shut down new capital investments for domestic industrial activity, and by the start of the 1980s much of America’s domestic industrial base shut down and either relocated production overseas or sourced finished product from foreign suppliers.  This offshoring was important as it sent US dollars overseas to develop a new contingent of US Treasury bill buyers and soaked up their surplus US dollars back into the “virtuous cycle”, thus not only preserving, but growing the US dollar Fiat Empire at the expense of the domestic workers’ now inescapable decline in living standards.  Entire swaths of America’s Rust Belt began to wallow in unemployment and hopelessness, while countries like Japan, Taiwan, and Korea saw record GDP gains and unparalleled growth in domestic consumer demand all while under the all-expenses-paid protection of the US Military and Industrial Complex.  Thus Japan’s, Taiwan’s, Korea’s, and eventually China’s industrializations were subsidized by American wages through the purposeful de-industrialization of the United States, as government’s unspoken policy now dictated the United States remain non-competitive to these East Asian countries so long as their financial institutions made large, reliable purchases of US Treasury bills.

      During the late 1970s and early 1980s, both Britain and the United States respectively saw coordinated political shifts billed as the rise of “conservatism” but were in reality accelerations into more developed financialization commercial models.  Despite the economic hype surrounding Thatcherism and Reaganomics, both platforms continued each country’s de-industrialization project, deficit spending took exponential form, and foreign trade imbalances began their inextricable divergence.  And after interest rates peaked in 1981 and regular foreign buyers had been lured in, the Federal Reserve System reversed interest rate policy and began reducing rates combined with widespread media promotion of independent material success.  Together, these produced an explosion of US consumer credit and a shift in employment towards service sectors like finance, retail, and information technology.  To facilitate the rise in consumer credit, ambitious financial deregulation was enacted and the transportation industry de-regulated to accommodate nationwide distribution of rising foreign imports.  With reliable foreign demand for US Treasury bills established from Japan, Western Europe, and OPEC countries, the Powers Behind the Curtain could now crash the oil price to spur even more western consumer demand for imported goods, de-industrialize the American oil sector, and accelerate military spending to challenge the Russian fiat empire to a fiscal duel of attrition to the death.  The Globalist financialization plans had fallen into place, and Fiat Empire victory over Russia was just one fiscal quarter of deficit spending away.

      And that victory came in November 1989 with the collapse of the Berlin Wall and an end to the Russian fiat empire.  With its ever increased military spending requirements to fend off American threats, the Russians were unable to invest in modernizing their industrial infrastructure which had decayed to the point where it could no longer support the Soviet fiat empire’s “virtuous cycle”.  With insufficient value added exports coming out of Russia for purchase by its satellites, demand for rubles dried up, the ruble disintegrated, and the Russian fiat empire dissolved as trade vaporized.  Had the Russian commercial model transitioned into some form of Soviet financialization where it offshored its industrial value added capability to its satellites, while simultaneously adopting deficit spending with ever widening trade imbalances, backed with ruble denominated debt sales to these satellites, the Soviet “virtuous cycle” may have been salvaged and continued on.  Thus what we learn from the American and Russian experience is that financialization is the transition out of capitalism by which technically bankrupt fiat empires outsource the costs to modernize their industrial export capability to satellites with the fiat empire in order to keep the “virtuous cycle” operating.  This industrial outsourcing enables the fiat power to commit the maximum amount of spending to maintain its military capability in defense of its fiat empire using its tax base and the expanding money inflows received from Federal debt issuance to foreign holders of fiat money.  Thus financialization is in essence a commercial model of securing guns through tax dollars and butter through credit.

      With the Russian fiat empire vanquished, the start of the 1990s saw the American Neo-conservatives take over from the Powers Behind the Curtain and assumed full control of US – and therefore global – foreign policy.  They quickly filled the entirety of the political void left by the end of the Cold War with hot wars, and unleashed the shock and awe of Freedom across the unaligned no-man’s land throughout the Islamic fringes of the old Soviet fiat empire.  Almost overnight the world’s greatest enemies became those counties that the Cold War had kept the central bank cross ownership nexus from devouring.  War, chaos, and occupation-without-conquest led to a string of new US military bases across Asia and East Africa, a score of new countries added to the Fiat Empire, billion dollar arms deals with newly built “democracies”, and trillions of newly printed fiat money pouring into the Military and Industrial Complex.  Freedom exploded throughout the unipolar world, the red-white-and-blue was planted on nearly every meridian and longitude, and dissent was ground into ashes.  But payment for this great expansion of war was hedged on the back of the new “Information Economy”, an economy that produced nothing but more of itself that in turn produced more nothing but was the important receptacle for hundreds of billions of additional fiat dollars that created a simulation of economic growth and prosperity without generating operating profits.  And that simulation fueled the inflation that drove “valuations” ever higher that underwrote printing more billions to throw into the next round of the Next Big Thing that produced capital gains that funded the wars and death around the globe and delivered “You’ve Got Mail” on the home front.  Everyone partied like it was 1999 when the speculation floodgates were thrown wide open, the money printing presses were dialed up, and that Depression era relic Glass-Steagall finally repealed and that worked for a whole five months until April 2000 – the month that financialization broke.  Enter the monetary scientists to Wall Street’s rescue.

      It wasn’t supposed to happen.  The Fiat Empire was at grave risk as hedged capital gains dried up and war funding became uncertain.  But rather than fix anything – and how could anything be fixed at this point – the central bank cross ownership nexus doubled down on its financialization bets.  What the United States needed was an even bigger Fiat Empire and a massive monetary stimulus to blow an even greater investment bubble spread across many sectors – bonds, stocks, commodities, property, and much more valueless information technology.  Every conceivable thing of any perceivable “value” was called up to duty and commoditized, collateralized, capitalized, hedged covered and naked, hypothecated, leveraged, re-hypothecated, and securitized.  Financialization 2.0’s success depended heavily on a distracted populace unaware of its immersion within a simulation of economic “prosperity”, combined with dialing up the money printing presses to 10 and ridding the country of every last evil financial regulation and restraint.  Thus 9/11 inaugurated the initiation of Endless-Endless Wars in pursuit of conquering every unclaimed square foot of the planet for the US dollar Fiat Empire.  All pretense about fiat issuance and an underlying fractional “reserve” were discarded, and a hyper-financialized period of choreographed DLIA record highs and interest rate record lows was designed to give cover to the immense “wealth” concentration taking place into Wall Street hands during the fog of terror.  And to ensure success for Financialization 2.0 and complete the American de-industrialization cycle, China quietly gain full membership into the World Trade Organization just four months after the 9/11 controlled demolition.  Subsidizing this rise of China’s industrial economy would not only speed the US economic transition into pure financialization, but also make it a quasi-satellite of the US Fiat Empire’s “virtuous cycle”, replacing long anemic Japan and securing another source of increasing long-term demand for US Treasury bills needed to support years of additional deficit spending.  Thus 9/11 initiated the Great Hedge to monetize the national asset base and extract every dollar of future “value” creation from the remaining American simulacra of capitalism, and transfer the bulk of economic endeavors into four new grand domestic sectors – Wars, Waste, Wall Street, and Welfare.  And Financialization 2.0 worked for some until September, 2008. 

      Enter again the monetary scientists to Wall Street’s rescue.

      Financialization 3.0 got underway at the onset 2008’s Great Recession and ushered in the age of Hope and Change under the brave new centrally planned world of Modern Monetary Theory – TARP, UBI 1.0, QE1, QE1 Extension, QE2, Operation Twist, and QE3.  No one paid attention to the “economy” anymore as all eyes were transfixed on the next FOMC minutes release and that buzz the instantaneous HFT response to the DJIA 30.  The simulated American “economy” entered into a new uncharted phase of never ending toxic CDO and CLO backstops to save the mountains of accumulated CDSs that underpinned all manner debt issuance that supported the rising stock “values” that were now totally divorced from any profit generation, and the simulation was MMT goal-seeked towards data-driven macroscopic objectives inferred from biased and skewed statistically manipulated information.  The money printing presses were dialed up to 11, the failed and fungible “Information Economy” was rebranded into the “Sharing Economy”, and all national bets were triple-downed on intangibles and goodwill and non-GAAP enterprise values.  But again almost nobody created anything of tangible value to drive true recovery as getting onboard the money transfer mechanism was what passed for an “economy”.  Those few tangible things left in the real economy took a backseat their financing by the “smart money, as the creation of these tangible necessary and beneficial things was left to the mugs and dupes who had to assume risk and exist in what small element of the commoditized world that had yet to be de-industrialized.  The “Sharing Economy” shared no profits other than capital gains with a select few early investors and again produced nothing but more of itself that in turn produced more nothing but was the important receptacle for trillions of additional fiat money that now created a simulation of a simulation of “growth” and the perception of “prosperity” that generated negative operating profits despite ever increasing “valuations”.  And the central bank cross ownership nexus shrunk again leaving even fewer parties standing to reap the rewards bestowed by the monetary scientists.  This simulation of a simulation fueled even more inflation that drove “valuations” ever higher that underwrote printing more multi-trillions to throw into the next round of the next Next Big Thing that produced capital gains that funded the wars and death around the globe and delivered not only “You’ve Got Spam” on the home front, but now that spam came with a file attachment from a Nigerian Prince.  And Financialization 3.0 worked for even fewer until September, 2019.  Enter the crisis management professionals, not so much to rescue Wall Street but to put the American “economy” on life support  to give the central bank cross ownership nexus just enough time to exit their positions and grab what they could just before the Big Reversion to the Mean.

      Financialization 3.0 was not supposed to fail – the monetary scientists had promised the central bank cross ownership nexus it would transition successfully into Globalism.  America’s de-industrialization was not complete, there were still some things of real value left that did not yet have liens attached, and there were still vast profits to be hedged and brought forward from future “prosperity”.  However, financialization did break via the bond market’s exposure to its weakest links in Germany, so another round of monetary giveaways courtesy of the Federal Reserve System commenced.  Just unadorned REPO this time, no Hope and Change, no learned monetary scientists, no glowing Fourth Estate front page editorials, and no partying like it was 1999.  Then, by sheer coincidence, the World Military Games were held in Wuhan China where by accident Team USA stayed less that two blocks from a certain wet market and came in 35th like some bunch of biochemistry sissies and six weeks later there were dead Chinese in the streets.  No one noticed the bond market’s continuing implosion when the global shutdowns started and the REPO and PPP began, no one noticed it took a trillion in new money to get hundreds of billions in stock market appreciations, no one noticed tech billionaires getting billions more while they were infused with the excitement of a $1,200 UBI 2.0 direct deposit.  And how could anyone possibly imagine that one day all the bills would come due while they were sheltering in place and stuck in the middle of a flu virus transformed into a political pandemic scheduled to wipe out humanity?

      And that is where financialization stands today – outright unabashed money transfer to Wall Street and the ultra-rich, a window into the Globalism which we were supposed to smoothly transition.  There is no excited talk anymore about grand plans of industry, no more predictions about things like flying cars, no one gazes up at the moon in wonderment anymore.  Expectations have been managed downward and optimism has been crushed in preparation for the coming events.  Nothing remains of the American Exceptionalism except a pantomime of stock buy backs, over-hyped iShit rollouts, diversity and inclusion, LBOs, ETFs, HFT, HFT ETFs, and disrupting the world one Java script code block at a time using H-1B imported labor.  But despite the broken and adrift system, the financial surface world screams normality, there is still the perpetual urge and ever present push to “do something” even though everyone can perceive something is seriously different this time.  Everyone’s piling in – get in now or you’ll miss the big tech short.  Thirty year mortgage refi rates are at historic lows – hurry before you lose your job and can’t qualify.  It has never been a better time to buy a house – get out of the city now before the mob burns down your 900 square foot crap shack.  Zero commission brokerage accounts click here (fees and restrictions apply) – and…it’s gone.  Buy, sell, or hold?  What are you waiting for?  Another all-time high.  Synergies, paradigm shifts, raising the bar, the deal of a lifetime, low hanging fruit, win-win.  Get off the fence, get your ducks in a row, step up to the plate, and think outside the box and push the envelope because failure is not an option.  The business of America – is still business.  But that business now is the business of financialization, the gathering up of the remaining mugs and dupes who still own some disposable assets to be sucked into the giant wealth transfer vacuum that is Wall Street.  And when Wall Street has sucked up every last penny, our trip down the Road to Zero will be complete.  That is when the salvation of Globalism will be forced upon us.

    • Venezuela Orders 71 Tons of Paper To Print New Banknotes Worth 23 Cents Each
      Venezuela Orders 71 Tons of Paper To Print New Banknotes Worth 23 Cents Each

      Tyler Durden

      Mon, 10/05/2020 – 23:20

      One of the core tenets of MMT, or Magic Money Theory, is that a nation which prints its own fiat money can never go broke or be insolvent (unless a political decision to do so is taken). Well, that may be true, but in Venezuela things appears to have taken an unexpected detour into one of the more grotesque circles of economic hell as the hyperinflating country proceeded to print its way out of its endless economic crisis.

      So much so that according to Bloomberg, Venezuela is now importing 71 tons of paper from Italian money printer Fedrigioni (majority owned by US Private Equity giant Bain Capital) which it will use to print new bills with the highest, 100,000 new bolivar, denomination yet. In dollar terms: each new banknote is worth about 23 cents, courtesy of the raging hyperinflation that has been sweeping the nation for the past 6 years.

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      One recurring problem for Venezuela, which as we reported back in 2016 used 36 Boeing 747 cargo planes to deliver a batch of then freshly printed (and shortly thereafter, worthless) currency, is that by the time its currency is printed, it is worth almost nothing.

      Sure enough, as Bloomberg notes, the need for ever larger bills and constant devaluations in Venezuela is a direct result of an ever weakening currency and hyperinflation that now runs at over 2,400%, meaning that paying for a cart full of groceries now literally requires a bag of cash. The 100,000 bolivar bill would match the biggest bill ever printed in Venezuela, one made two years ago during the days of the bolivar fuerte (the latest version of the currency is called the sovereign bolivar). The central bank is considering introducing even larger denominations down the line, which will lose their value just as fast.

      What is truly absurd is that Venezuela has reached the point where it can’t even afford to pay its money printers: it ceased using De La Rue after racking up massive debts, at which point it turned to a state-owned money printer in Russia to purchase 300 million of new bills. Considering that Venezuela is now using an Italian money printer, leads us to conclude that even Putin turned down the Maduro regime.

      It gets worse: due to the total economic collapse in Venezuela, the national mint has to overcome a series of additional hurdles to introduce the new bill. These include reduced staffing due to the pandemic as well as a shortage of ink and technical challenges brought on by missing parts and frequent power outages have delayed attempts to get the printing equipment running.

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      According to Bloomberg, the shipment of bills will also be the last from the Bain-owned Fedrigoni, as it fulfills a contract signed in 2018, a year before Venezuela’s central bank was sanctioned by the U.S. in efforts to cut off Nicolas Maduro’s regime from the global financial system.

      After this shipment it is unclear if Venezuela can even afford to buy new currency as it slowly transitions barter. Many won’t notice: in 2020 the country’s economy will be in its seventh straight year of recession, forecast to shrink another 20% due to the coronavirus lockdown and the collapse of oil revenue. Previous attempts to bring stability to the currency by cutting off zeros and printing new bills have failed. Sadly for the Maduro regime, the can-kicking game is almost over as the socialist regime will soon run out of ink to run its own printing press.

      And with the local currency increasingly used only for toilet paper, local have been turning to crypotcurrencies and U.S. dollars, with Ecoanalitica estimating that some 60% of all purchases are now done using greenbacks.

      Finally, for the benefit of its advocates, this is what MMT is always reduced to in the end: Venezuela has been suffering from hyperinflation since 2017, crushing the ability of most Venezuelans to purchase even the most essential goods, much less save. The average family requires more than 100 times the official minimum wage to meet its basic needs. And since the locals don’t have the firepower to take on the Venezuelan military which remains in Maduro’s pocket, this particular Latin American socialist paradise will remain a living hell to the local population for years to come.

    • CIA Director Haspel And The Anti-Trump Conspirators
      CIA Director Haspel And The Anti-Trump Conspirators

      Tyler Durden

      Mon, 10/05/2020 – 23:00

      Authored by Chris Farrell via The Gatestone Institute,

      Gina Haspel is the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Haspel is the first career clandestine service officer to become director, and the first woman. She was the CIA Chief of Station in London — twice, and that repeat assignment is very unusual. What is most interesting is the timing of Haspel’s last tour as London Station Chief — from 2014 to early 2017. That is the same timeframe (specifically, the late summer of 2016) when the FBI approached foreign policy academic and “utility government operative” Stefan Halper to begin the operation targeting Carter Page and George Papadopoulos in an FBI-designed foreign counterintelligence operation, against Team Trump, to be launched in Cambridge, England.

      Nothing speculative here — the Justice Department Inspector General pegged the exact date of the FBI/Halper meeting as August 10, 2016. Halper had been on contract (again) with the U.S. government since the Iowa Caucuses began in October 2015. For the sake of brevity, I am not discussing Halper’s role in targeting former Defense Intelligence Agency Director, Lieutenant General Mike Flynn. That is another column for another day — and certainly Haspel knows a great deal about that, as well.

      The timeframe (2014-2017) matters, because Haspel, as London Station Chief would have been briefed on the FBI’s counterintelligence plan before any actions were approved to go forward. The CIA Station Chief is the top intelligence official in any given country. The FBI must inform the Station Chief of what they planned to do and get Station Chief approval. The FBI hates that, but those are the rules.

      Because the various intelligence agencies are sensitive, they do not use the word “approved.” Instead, they use the word “coordinated.”

      Jargon aside, nothing would have happened without Haspel’s okay.

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      Think about this for a while: The current CIA director was an active, knowledgeable party to the efforts to target candidate Trump with a contrived foreign counterintelligence investigation. That carried forward to a more sophisticated and aggressive plan to carry out a soft coup against President Trump. People around President Trump were prosecuted and/or had their lives destroyed based on a scheme of U.S. government lies. Who appears to have been “in on it” from day one? Gina Haspel.

      So, when we read in an article by Sean Davis, co-founder of The Federalist, that Haspel is personally resisting the declassification and release of records on “Russiagate,” we are not surprised. In fact, we are relieved, because a few of us have been shouting from the mountaintops about Haspel for years, to no avail. The smarmy James Comey is easier to identify and loathe than the elusive Haspel.

      For those seeking more information on Haspel, Shane Harris of the Washington Post wrote a nauseating hagiography of Haspel in July 2019. Consistent with WaPo‘s standards there are several factual errors and loads of opinion masquerading as “tough reporting.” Harris (and one assumes Haspel) makes sure readers know that Haspel and company “boils down” presidential intelligence briefings to “a few key points that they think Trump absolutely needs to know.” We are supposed to also believe that “Trump favors pictures and graphics over text.” Of course, the CIA director’s office did not cooperate with Harris. No, not at all.

      The FBI is not allowed to penetrate and subvert a presidential campaign. Executive Order 12333, Section 2.9, “Undisclosed Participation in Organizations in the United States,” prohibits it in plain language. Historically, the prohibition is a consequence of U.S. Army Counterintelligence penetrating Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) at the behest of the FBI during the 1960s — among other abuses of power and authority. That legal prohibition is the reason the FBI felt the need to manufacture a “foreign counterintelligence threat” in the UK and then “import” the investigation back into the United States.

      The FBI plotters needed to establish a foreign counterintelligence “event” to run their operation. The UK was the easiest and operationally safest/friendliest place to pull it off, especially with Stefan Halper’s connections to Cambridge. Haspel was clearly fully informed and had “coordinated” the operation. She also enjoyed cordial relationships with MI6 and GCHQ. Now we (largely, but imperfectly) know what transpired. Halper under oath, in public, would fill in a lot of blanks. Gina Haspel, under the same circumstances and conditions, might just complete the puzzle.

      Should President Trump be reelected, it might just happen. A President Biden guarantees we will never hear another syllable of the rest of the story.

    • More Melbourne Insanity: Mom Arrested At Beach For Traveling 'Outside Her Permitted 5km Radius'
      More Melbourne Insanity: Mom Arrested At Beach For Traveling ‘Outside Her Permitted 5km Radius’

      Tyler Durden

      Mon, 10/05/2020 – 22:40

      We’ve previously detailed protests that have sprung up in various major cities across the Australian continent over authorities’ ultra-restrictive coronavirus lockdown measures, which are especially stringent and far-reaching in the southeast state of Victoria.

      There’s been multiple instances caught on video of police cracking down on elderly people and even pregnant women for merely resting outside on park benches, supposedly in “violation” of coronavirus social distancing measures, even as case numbers have significantly dropped since August. And now here’s the latest incident to go viral as citizens flock to newly reopened beaches, after Victoria slightly relaxed some of its more severe lockdown restrictions: 

      <p content="Video has emerged of police officers clashing with beachgoers in a dramatic arrest of a woman at a Melbourne beach as hordes of residents headed outdoors to enjoy the good weather over the weekend.” type=”text”>Video has emerged of police officers clashing with beachgoers in a dramatic arrest of a woman at a Melbourne beach as hordes of residents headed outdoors to enjoy the good weather over the weekend.

      Officers approached a group of people at Altona Beach, in the city’s southwest, on Saturday evening after noticing they weren’t wearing masks, Victoria Police said.

      And here’s a description of how this “mask enforcement” unfolded, in which the police claim the group that included a pregnant woman acted “aggressively”:

      “She’s taken her kids for a swim and you f***ing arrest her for what?” one person says.

      “You’re f***ing pussies,” a man can be heard shouting.

      One of the group then alleges an officer pushed a pregnant woman in the group as they try to control the volatile situation. 

      It also comes as Aussies are growing sick and tired of essentially being locked indoors and confined to their local areas under tight regulations, even as cases drop and the weather grows better.

      Police were out in force this weekend looking for ‘excessive crowds’ and ‘mask rules violators’. And more outrageous is that Victoria is currently enforcing a law that says citizens cannot venture five kilometers from their home.

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      According to Yahoo News Australia:

      Victoria Police confirmed the arrested woman was further than five kilometres from her home and was issued with three infringement notices.

      Other members of the group also received fines while police will continue investigations into activities to determine whether others had breached current coronavirus restrictions.

      The detained woman received multiple citations and fines, according to Australian media.

      Local Channel 7 News Australia also confirmed that “Police took the woman into custody at Altona Beach on Saturday after she allegedly failed to wear a mask and travelled outside her permitted 5km radius.”

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      Aussies flocked to beaches this weekend, via Speed Media/REX

      The rule in restrictive movement and travel is source of fierce pushback by an increasingly angry public, however, authorities appear to be doubling down after the weekend beach incident, saying it “could be extended” past its Oct.19 expiration date.

    • Greenwald Asks "Why Are Democrats Praying For The Speedy Recovery Of A 'Fascist Dictator'?"
      Greenwald Asks “Why Are Democrats Praying For The Speedy Recovery Of A ‘Fascist Dictator’?”

      Tyler Durden

      Mon, 10/05/2020 – 22:20

      Authored by Glenn Greenwald via The Intercept,

      The typical reaction to the death of a tyrant – whether by revolutionary violence or natural causes – is not one of grief and sadness but joyous celebration.

      It is not hard to understand why: when a nation and its oppressed citizenry are finally liberated from the suffocating, savage grip of fascist dictatorship, they feel joy for themselves, their families and the future of their nation. That is the same reason people have always hoped for, or work toward, the death of despots: they want to rid themselves of those who impose tyranny on them.

      When Romanians learned in 1989 of the summary execution of their despised dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, “residents t[ook] to the streets to celebrate the downfall of the dictator.”

      In 2006, “many Chileans celebrated the death of dictator Augusto Pinochet,” as “a cacophony of horns sounded as hundreds of thousands took to streets and plazas across the country when it was announced the man who ruled ruthlessly for 17 years had died at age 91, a week after suffering a heart attack.”

       “Cuban dictator Fidel Castro is dead, so celebrate we will,” read a 2016 South Florida Sun-Sentinel op-ed by a Cuban-American who appeared to genuinely believe that Castro was a vicious dictator, and thus expressed the natural, normal reaction of someone who believes a country has been freed from the grip of a despot.

      So typical is this reaction to the death of a leader perceived as a dictator that history is replete with countless similar examples over many decades and across the world.

      Yet in the U.S., a radically different dynamic is playing out. Over the past several years, but particularly in the months heading into the 2020 election, it has become extremely common for prominent Democrats and their media allies to refer to President Trump as a dictator, a fascist, a tyrant hellbent on destroying U.S. democracy, a genocidal racist, and even a Nazi.

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      And yet, the overwhelming reaction in those mainstream precincts to the news that the fascist dictator has contracted a potentially lethal virus is to hope and pray that he makes a speedy recovery whereby he can resume his democracy-destroying, genocidal, tyrannical, fascist rule.

      In March of last year, as CNN put it, “two powerful House Democrats invoked Adolf Hitler’s actions in Germany and the treatment of Jews during World War I and in the 1920s to warn against the direction the US is moving in, with both saying Donald Trump’s presidency presents an unprecedented threat to democracy.” One of the Democratic lawmakers who explicitly invoked Nazism and Hitler as the proper prism to understand Trump’s rule was House Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina. Just two months ago, Clyburn went back on CNN and warned that Trump was preparing to hold despotic power even if he loses, pronouncing: “I feel very strongly that he is Mussolini, Putin is Hitler.”

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      CNN, March 20, 2019

      Yet when Clyburn learned this week that our modern-day Hitler who is on the precipice of ending democracy had contracted a fatal virus, he did not celebrate but instead, for some reason, lamented the news, wishing “the First Family a speedy and complete recovery.”

      Why would you possibly wish a speedy recovery — rather than a quick demise — to someone you believe is a Hitler-like perpetrator of genocide whose recovery would enable fascism to continue?

      That seems counter-intuitive and counter-productive.

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      MSNBC star Rachel Maddow began invoking Nazism and Hitler in connection with Trump as early as 2016, when Politico reported that, once Trump secured the GOP nomination, the on-air personality “has been reading up lately on Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in Germany, the MSNBC anchor told Rolling Stone, because that’s where she thinks the United States could be headed.” Maddow has notoriously spent the last four years manically obsessed with the claim that Trump has such a corrupt relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin that it is the Kremlin, thanks to Trump, which secretly runs the U.S. and is using that power to plot harm to large numbers of Americans by, for instance, seizing the power to cut off their heat in the dead of winter. Maddow was explicitly linking Trump to classic fascism as early as 2015.

      Yet upon learning that the fascist, Kremlin-controlled, Nazi-like dictator had become ill, Maddow launched a one-woman crusade demanding that her fellow liberals pray earnestly for his recovery. She first posted an extremely effusive tweet: “God bless the president and the first lady. If you pray, please pray for their speedy and complete recovery…” Presumably in response to widespread liberal confusion and criticisms — wait, you spent four years telling us he’s a fascist racist Nazi-like despot and now you insist that we pray for his health? — Maddow devoted a segment on her show in which, with great passion and emotion, she urged her viewers to react to Trump’s COVID diagnosis with the same compassion and through the same prism as if a friend who smokes cigarettes learned she had lung cancer:

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      These sentiments were not unique to Maddow. Indeed, that all decent people should hope and pray for Trump’s speedy recovery was the virtually unanimous consensus of leading Democratic Party figures, expressed by Barack Obama, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. “Jane and I wish the President and First Lady a full and speedy recovery,” said the Vermont Senator.

      How is this messaging — we hope the racist fascist genocidal Nazi-like dictator gets well soon and returns to work? — not creating extreme cognitive dissonance among those who believed that they actually were sincere in their maximalist denunciations and invocations of fascism and Nazism regarding Trump? Shouldn’t liberals not just be confused but overtly disgusted at their leaders who want Trump to survive and return in full health to imposing fascism and genocide on Americans?

      Here, for instance, is the fairly representative reaction of a left-wing political operative — the Democratic Socialist of America’s Jack Califano, who served as the 2020 Sanders Campaign’s Deputy Distributed Organizing Director — to Maddow’s segment urging that all good liberals pray for Trump’s recovery and avoid wishing ill on their fellow human being:

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      That reaction makes logical sense on its own terms. If one really does believe that Trump is a “genocidal Nazi” — a Hitler-equivalent fascist dictator engaged in the deliberate mass slaughter of a particular ethnic or religious group (genocide) — then it would be not just irrational but madness and moral bankruptcy to hope that the Nazi genocidal fascist makes a speedy recovery and returns to work. But that’s exactly what virtually every prominent Democratic Party leader is doing. Is Califano regretful about having worked for the presidential campaign of someone who sends warm wishes to a genocidal Nazi?

      There are a few potential explanations that may account for this extremely unusual and confounding behavior of praying for, rather than against, the well-being of a fascist dictator. Perhaps Democratic leaders are simply pretending to be hoping for Trump’s well-being for political purposes while secretly hoping that he suffers and dies. Or perhaps national Democratic politicians have ascended to a state of spiritual elevation rarely seen in modern political history, in which they are capable of praying for even those they most dislike, including ones they believe are imposing fascism on their nation? Or perhaps, maybe more likely, Democratic leaders do not really believe the things they have spent four years saying about Trump and, like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney before him, are applying such labels of historic evil to him for political advantage but still see him as one of them, whom they intend to rehabilitate and honor once he is out of power.

      Whatever else is true, their behavior upon hearing that someone they claim to regard as a genocidal racist fascist tyrant has contracted a fatal virus is extremely unusual when compared to how people throughout history react when learning of similar news. It is worth interrogating what accounts for such a baffling dynamic.

    • Investors Agree To Partial 5 Year Lock-Up As They Hand Another $2.5 Billion To Englander's Millennium
      Investors Agree To Partial 5 Year Lock-Up As They Hand Another $2.5 Billion To Englander’s Millennium

      Tyler Durden

      Mon, 10/05/2020 – 22:00

      Back in 2014, we speculated that as the market rose ever higher on ever lower liquidity and ever more central bank intervention, if and when the moment came that price discovery was permitted again, the avalanche of selling would be unstoppable and the entire market would be halted indefinitely, very much as what happened to 2014’s high flying penny stock CYNK. The recent unprecedented all-day trading halt in the Tokyo Stock Exchange was a reminder of just how easy it is to shut down all trading with the flip of a switch.

      Yet while a marketwide halt would not surprise us, what we find remarkable, is just how many investors now seem resigned, even if subconsciously, to never getting their money back after the next crash.

      Case in point, in mid-February – when stocks were trading at all time highs just ahead of the covid crash – Izzy Englander’s multi-billion “pod-based” fund, Millennium Management, managed to raise $3 billion without batting an eyelid, a remarkable achievement for a hedge fund at a time when its peers suffered nearly $100 billion in outflows in 2019, just shy of the biggest annual outflow since the financial crisis.

      Yet while Millennium’s ease at raising money was indeed impressive (the $40+ billion fund returned less than 10% last year, a third of the S&P, but has been consistently profitable for the past decade), what we found fascinating was not only the ease with which investors handed over their money to the 72-year-old former options guru Englander, but their willingness to be constrained by one of the most draconian lock ups in hedge fund history.

      According to a Feb 12 letter from the fund to investors, the share class open to new investments would limit the amount clients can pull to 5% of their money each quarter, meaning it would take them five years to fully cash out. The 5% quarterly redemption limit means that in a quarter in which markets tank and investors want to pull their money, they will only be allowed to pull just 5%. In other words, Millennium investors have pre-emptively agreed to be gated to at least 95% of their capital following a “market event.” And all this just to be allowed to invest in the vaunted Englander’s hedge fund. Or is that private equity fund now?

      One reason why Millennium pushed such draconian terms on new investors was that it already had a line of people waiting to give it money: the hedge fund raised $4.1 billion in 2019, when it opened to new capital for the first time in two years. Back in February, it expected new capital would reach $7.1 billion by March. The total would push its total AUM to roughly $50 billion, even as its regulatory assets under management surpass $200 billion (MLP is one of “those” hedge funds that rely a lot on bank repo arrangements).

      Millennium’s remarkably long lock-up, one which would put many private equity funds to shame, came as most other hedge funds were trying to secure investor capital over longer periods to avoid sudden mass redemptions if markets turn volatile (which they did just weeks after the new lock-up class was announced).

      Ironically, this is what we said in February, when the news of the lock-up class first emerged: 

      Millennium had withdrawals of at least $1 billion in 2008 as investors found themselves in need of capital during the financial crisis. One can argue that by effecting pre-emptive “gates” that allow investors to pull just 5% of their capital, Englander is telegraphing that the party is about to end and that investors will rush for the exits. The only problem: they won’t be able to as the fine print in their contract now says.

      Just days later, the party did end, with the S&P crashing as much as 30% before staging a record rebound on the back of the biggest monetary and fiscal intervention in history. Yet all those new investors who would have wanted their funds back were barred from doing so.

      * * *

      In any case, in the months following the March crash, Millennium’s capital raise was put on hiatus as most investors were more focused on holding on to liquidity than handing it over to hedge funds which have have once again failed to outperform the S&P500.

      Until today, that is because as Bloomberg reported earlier, Millennium has successfully resumed its new capital infusion, raising another $2.5 billion for the new longer-term share class, and furthering its plan to create an investor base that is has virtually no chance of withdrawing its funds if another rainy day comes.

      And since we are back to peak euphoria and potential LPs are once again lining up around the block to hand over their money to marquee names, Izzy Englander’s firm will cap fundraising through the end of the year at $4.5 billion, according to Bloomberg sources, up from its previous ceiling of $3 billion.

      As reported in February, Millennium started a 5%-a-quarter share class in 2018 that didn’t include the three-year window for capital calls. That class now accounts for about $8.5 billion of assets, a little under a fifth of the fund’s total AUM. To force investors to switch, Englander returned profits from Millennium’s older share class, which enables redemptions in full over 12 months. Clients who had money returned could reinvest it in the longer-term structure.

      Englander’s firm previously told clients it plans to return at least $5 billion to investors in 2020. That money was to come from its older share class, which represented about $37 billion of Millennium’s total $45.4 billion in assets.

      One reason why Millennium can pull this off is that unlike most of its peers, it has had another stellar year, returning 14.7% this year through September, far more than the average hedge fund, which according to the HFR Global Hedge Fund index is up a paltry 1.7% YTD.

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      Furthermore, Millennium’s steady returns over a three-decade history has made the new structure an easier sell.

      In a repeat of the fund’s February capital raise, under the newest share class, the firm has three years to call the pledged money from investors. Once that happens, clients will be able to withdraw only 5% of their holding each quarter, meaning it would take them five years to cash out completely. Effectively, investors limit themselves to having very limited access to their capital for years. And what happens if there is another crash in a few months, and this time the Fed fails to spark another monster rebound? For the sake of Millennium’s new batch of investors, we hope we won’t have to find out.

    • Equity Investors Are Betting On Fiscal Stimulus: Few Remember The Clinton U-turn Of 1992
      Equity Investors Are Betting On Fiscal Stimulus: Few Remember The Clinton U-turn Of 1992

      Tyler Durden

      Mon, 10/05/2020 – 21:40

      Submitted by Joseph Carson, former chief economist of Alliance Bernstein

      Equity investors think they are in a win-win position, regardless of the outcome of the 2020 election. Most believe that Congress and the Administration will agree to another round of fiscal stimulus before the election on November 3. And in the case that doesn’t pan out, investors believe a bigger stimulus plan waits on the other side of the election if the current polls are correct in showing a victory by former Vice President Joe Biden.

      In my view, odds of another fiscal stimulus package before the November 3 election remain relatively high. But odds of another stimulus package after the election are very low.

      Politicians on both sides of the aisle, especially those that are up for re-election, have the most to gain by passing legislation that helps people and boosts the economy. The holdup at the moment is on the scale of the stimulus package and not whether to pass something or not. House Democrats are standing firm on a $2.2 trillion package, while the latest offer from the White House and the Republican side is $1.6 trillion.

      If current negotiations stall, the risk of no additional stimulus jumps sharply higher. That’s because it is hard to see how a lame-duck Congress would see the urgency to act, as there would be no pay-off for those voted out. And if there were a change in the make-up of Congress with one party holding the majority in the House and the Senate, the new leadership would argue that the election gave them the mandate to draft and pass a stimulus plan.

      Contrary to conventional thinking a Biden victory does not offer a guarantee of a stimulus package, let alone a bigger one compared to what is being negotiated. That’s because campaigning is different than governing. The federal deficit and debt, the US credit rating, and the value of the dollar in the world markets are not hot topics during a campaign, but they are hot buttons when you are given the responsibility of running the federal government.

      The Biden platform of 2020 is very similar to that of the Clinton platform of 1992. Mr. Biden plan is based on building a stronger and fairer system, and he would accomplish that by reforming the tax code to benefit working families, increase taxes on corporations and close tax loopholes, improve the health care system by lowering costs and increasing coverage while boosting government spending on public infrastructure.

      In 1992, Mr. Clinton campaign slogan was “Fighting For the Forgotten Middle Class”. Mr. Clinton campaigned on cutting taxes for the middle class, raising taxes on the rich and corporations, designing a better and fairer health care system, and increasing government spending on infrastructure.

      But the economic plan proposed by President Clinton in February 1993 was the exact opposite of his campaign platform. The plan called for raising taxes to reduce the federal deficit rather than cutting taxes for the middle class.

      Mr. Biden is unlikely to do a complete flip-flop like that of Mr. Clinton. That’s because the budget deficit is not high on anyone’s radar and long-term interest rates are below 1% today versus near 7% in the early 1990s.

      But Mr. Biden and his economic team will still inherit a $3 trillion, or higher, federal budget deficit. And the risk is that a big stimulus package could trigger unwanted changes in the bond market or foreign exchange markets. So it would not be a big surprise if Biden’s fiscal plan were structured to be revenue-neutral. That would involve a re-alignment of taxes, lowering taxes for middle-income workers while raising taxes on higher-wage earners and corporations.

      The best bet for equity investors is for a stimulus package passed before the election. But the window for a stimulus package getting passed is less than 20 days as it is unlikely Congress would even be in session a week or so before the election on November 3.

      Equity investors need to realize that a Biden victory does not guarantee a bigger or better stimulus package, but it would create more uncertainty over the timeline for any new legislation. A new Administration would not be installed until January 20, and it would take a few months, at least, to design and pass new stimulus legislation. Equity investors don’t like uncertainty, and yet the risk of an uncertain future rises each day Congress fails to act.

    • "Browsing Is Dead" – Walmart Redesigns Stores Inspired By Airports And Contactless Environment
      “Browsing Is Dead” – Walmart Redesigns Stores Inspired By Airports And Contactless Environment

      Tyler Durden

      Mon, 10/05/2020 – 21:20

      Walmart has introduced a new store design and layout that will be rolled out in the near term. The new design was mostly inspired by fierce competition from Amazon, airport layouts, and the contactless environment produced by the virus pandemic. 

      In a recent blog post, Janey Whiteside, the retailer’s chief customer officer, wrote the new layout “spotlights products and end-to-end digital navigation that guides customers throughout their journeys.” 

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      The new design, which will be unveiled in nearly 200 of Walmart’s 4,500 US stores this year, will be seen at another 800 next year, incorporates technology to produce a contactless shopping environment. 

      There will be a lot of notable changes for customers. The first is the aisles will be labeled by numbers and letters to help customers find products guided by the Walmart app on their smartphone. The move is to produce a habit among customers to use the app rather than Amazon’s. The app will be loaded with helpful technology that will reduce instore frustration in product searches. 

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      Other store changes include electronic information boards that will help guide shoppers to sections, very much like signage at airports. 

      “We were inspired by airport wayfinding systems as best-in-class examples of how to direct large groups of people,” wrote Whiteside. “We developed simple yet thoughtful designs to replicate these navigation efficiencies, which will help us move customers through the store more quickly. We also optimized product layout, bringing greater visibility to key items throughout the store, including dedicated in-store sections for electronics, toys, baby products, and more.”

      For Fast Company, Walmart’s redesign “proves browsing is dead” in stores. The new design allows customers to navigate stores more efficiently. 

      “We’ve always known customers want to get in and out of a Walmart as quickly as they can. Not in a bad way. You don’t want to waste time,” Whiteside told Fast Company. 

      At the end of the shopping experience, customers will be greeted with self-checkout kiosks and have the option to use Walmart Pay to complete their purchase. Some stores will have Walmart’s Scan & Go technology. 

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      Besides changes within the stores, Walmart is also planning last-mile deliveries with drones. 

    • 15 Signs That America's Economic Depression Is Accelerating As We Head Toward The Holiday Season
      15 Signs That America’s Economic Depression Is Accelerating As We Head Toward The Holiday Season

      Tyler Durden

      Mon, 10/05/2020 – 21:00

      Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

      Hardly anyone expected that things would get this bad in 2020.  Once the pandemic hit and states all over the country started instituting lockdowns, economic activity collapsed dramatically.  U.S. GDP was down 31.4 percent during the second quarter of 2020, and that was a drop without parallel in all of U.S. history.  In fact, that decline was more than three times as large as the previous record.  But eventually states started to “reopen” their economies, and U.S. GDP for the third quarter is expected to show a significant rebound when the numbers are finally released.  Of course we still aren’t even close to where we used to be, but at least things weren’t as bad as they were in the second quarter. 

      But now as the fourth quarter begins, it appears that economic conditions are heading back in the wrong direction again. 

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      The following are 15 signs that America’s economic depression is accelerating as we head toward the holiday season…

      #1 All 546 Regal Cinema theaters in the United States are being shut down, and right now there is no timetable for reopening them.

      #2 It is being reported that AMC Entertainment (the largest movie theater chain in the U.S.) will “run out of liquidity” in 6 months.

      #3 Over the weekend, I was told by someone that works in the industry that he expects most movie theaters in the country to eventually close down permanently because of this pandemic.

      #4 The average rent on a one bedroom apartment in San Francisco is 20.3 percent lower than it was one year ago.

      #5 During the 3rd quarter, the number of vehicles delivered by General Motors was down about 10 percent from a year ago.

      #6 It is being reported that Anheuser-Busch will be laying off 400 employees in Loveland, Denver, Littleton and Colorado Springs.

      #7 Allstate has just announced that they will be laying off 3,800 workers.

      #8 JCPenney says that it will be cutting approximately 15,000 jobs as we approach the holiday shopping season.

      #9 At least one-fourth of the 28,000 layoffs that Disney will be conducting will happen in Florida.

      #10 Collectively, American Airlines and United Airlines let 32,000 employees go last week.

      #11 On Thursday, we learned that another 787,000 Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits during the previous week.

      #12 Overall, more than 60 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits so far in 2020.  That number is far higher than anything we have ever seen before in all of U.S. history.

      #13 Retail store closings in the United States continue to surge along at a pace that is absolutely unprecedented.

      #14 Bankruptcy filings in New York City have risen 40 percent so far in 2020.

      #15 This number is hard to believe, but it is being reported that almost 90 percent of New York City bar and restaurant owners couldn’t pay their full rent for the month of August.

      None of this was supposed to happen.

      By now, we were supposed to be well into a “V-shaped recovery” that would soon have Americans forgetting all about the dark days in the middle of 2020.

      But instead, millions upon millions of Americans have lost their jobs and are facing a deeply uncertain future.  One of those Americans is an unemployed cook named Juan Jose Martinez Camacho…

      Juan Jose Martinez Camacho, 59, has been a cook for 30 years, since he was asked to fill in one day when he was working as a dishwasher in a restaurant.

      He has worked as a cook at the Crowne Plaza in Redondo Beach, California, for 22 years. When he was laid off on March 23, he was thinking it would be only two or three months before things got back to normal. But late last month he was notified he had permanently lost the job, which paid $22 an hour. He has been looking for other cooking jobs without any luck.

      Can you imagine doing the same thing for 30 years and suddenly being out of a job?

      Like most Americans, he assumed that the pandemic would soon pass and he would be going back to his old routine.

      But that hasn’t happened, and so he is among the millions of restaurant workers that are not bringing in any income right now.

      With so many Americans out of work, food banks around the country have been dealing with a tsunami of demand.  In previous articles, I have written about the absolutely massive lines that we have been seeing in certain portions of the nation.  In some cases, people have started lining up at 2 AM in the morning and the lines have gotten up to 2 miles long.

      And every week we see more gigantic lines at food banks all over America.  The following is how one local news source described the massive lines that have been consistently forming in the state of Texas…

      Thousands of cars form tightly packed lines across the state every week now to receive food. From Chihuahuan Desert border towns and cities to the staked plains of the panhandle, across the piney wood of deep East Texas, down to the Rio Grande and back cars stack, growing into steel and fiberglass caterpillars, hungry.

      These events have distributed tens of millions of pounds of food over the past six months.

      If you still have your job and you haven’t been forced to visit a food bank during this crisis, you should be thankful for your blessings.

      Just like in the 1930s, we are witnessing colossal lines for food all over the nation, and this is just the beginning.

      If you have been waiting for a “recovery”, you can stop waiting, because what we witnessed during the third quarter was about all the “recovery” that we are going to get.

      Now we are less than a month away from a presidential election that promises to be incredibly chaotic, and the extremely deep divisions that already exist in our nation are likely to get even worse.  Many believe that this election will produce even more civil unrest, and that will likely depress economic activity even further.

      I truly wish that economic conditions would “return to normal” and that all of us could get back to our old patterns.

      But there isn’t going to be any “return to normal” any time soon.

      Instead, very dark days are ahead, and those very dark days will shake this nation to the core.

    • US & Russia Resume Stalled Nuclear Arms Talks In Finland
      US & Russia Resume Stalled Nuclear Arms Talks In Finland

      Tyler Durden

      Mon, 10/05/2020 – 20:40

      Russia and the United States will hold their latest round of nuclear arms control talks in Helsinki, Finland on Monday, following the last round in Austria over the summer. 

      The two major nuclear powers have yet to agree on the conditions for extending what’s widely considered the most significant nuclear arms reduction treaty, New START, set to expire in February 2021 if the two sides don’t agree to renew it. So far ongoing talks between Moscow and Washington have failed to extend it by up to five years, despite pressure to strike an extension by America’s allies. 

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      Via Yahoo News

      New START is the last major arms reduction agreement still in place. Over the past year the landmark Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty as well as Open Skies – which allows for agreed upon nuclear monitoring flights over the other country’s territory – have effectively collapsed after the Trump administration declared them obsolete.  

      The office of the Finnish President Sauli Niinisto issued this statement: “The round of discussions on strategic stability and nuclear weapons between the United States and Russia, which began in Vienna in the summer, will continue in Helsinki on Monday,” according to the AP.

      “Finland welcomes the negotiators, this time (U.S.) Ambassador (Marshall) Billingslea and (Russian) Deputy Foreign Minister (Sergei) Ryabkov,” the statement added. Niinisto is expected to meet with both sides after the talks.

      Washington’s position has been that New START and others remain somewhat obsolete given they fail to account for new leaps in missile technology, but especially because China is not involved.

      Pompeo’s State Department has been pushing for a new treaty that accounts for China, something increasingly looking to be unrealizable given US-China relations this summer have fallen off a cliff. Russia has said this is a separate issue that Washington has to resolve on its own.

      The Vienna talks resulted in no significant progress, according to multiple accounts, also given there are other “new” issues to be dealt with apart from whether it can include China, namely space security, after both sides have lately charged the other with turning space into “a war-fighting domain”. 

    • Venezuela's Oil industry May Never Recover
      Venezuela’s Oil industry May Never Recover

      Tyler Durden

      Mon, 10/05/2020 – 20:20

      Authored by Matthew Smith via OilPrice.com,

      Despite President Maduro’s claims of a looming recovery for Venezuela’s economically crucial oil industry in early 2020 production keeps declining. Even measures aimed at revitalizing the industry and circumventing U.S. sanctions are failing to trigger any sustainable recovery. According to the latest OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report, August 2020 oil output remained flat compared to a month earlier at 340,000 barrels daily.

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      This comes on the back of Maduro’s ongoing tussles with opposition leader, and U.S. backed interim president Juan Guaidó, for control of the opposition led National Assembly. Those are intensifying as the elections for the parliamentary body approach, which are scheduled to be held on 6 December 2020. The reasons for this conflict are quite simple; Maduros’ desire to control Venezuela’s last independent legislative institution, the National Assembly, which is the only government body that can legally approve oil-licensing deals. Venezuela’s worsening economic collapse makes it vital for the Maduro regime to revitalize the Latin American country’s oil industry, with petroleum being the only real source of income for the beleaguered government.

      The oil industry is responsible for more than a quarter of Venezuela’s GDP and 99% of all exports by value, making it a crucial economic driver. For this reason, the collapse of Venezuela’s oil industry has sounded the death knell for its economy plunging it into a deep crisis. This is highlighted by the IMF predicting Venezuela’s 2020 GDP will shrink 15%, even after contracting by a massive 25% during 2019. 

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      Source: OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report September 2020. IMF World Economic Outlook April 2020. * 2020 production is the daily average from January to August 2020 and the IMF GDP figure is an annual forecast.

      The Latin American country’s ever deeper economic crisis is directly correlated to the collapse of its oil industry and declining petroleum production. Venezuela only pumped a daily average of 340,000 barrels during August, less than half of the 712,000 barrels daily produced for the same month a year earlier and lower than a fifth of the 1,711 barrels daily pumped during 2017. For the first eight months of 2020 Venezuela’s oil output has averaged 542,750 barrels daily, which is 32% lower than 2019 and well below the nearly three million barrels daily reported for 2000.

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      Source: OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report September 2020. U.S. EIA. * 2020 production is the daily average from January to August 2020.

      There appears to be little that Maduro can do to revive Venezuela’s oil industry and curtail the country’s complete economic collapse. U.S. sanctions have made it almost impossible for his regime to access global capital and energy markets, forcing Caracas to look elsewhere for the funding and expertise required to restart Venezuela’s oil industry. That saw Moscow become a lender of last resort as Putin seized the opportunity to exert greater influence in Latin America, but it comes at a cost. Moscow has its own national agenda which is focused on reinstating Russia’s recognition as a great global power, partly by extending Moscow’s international influence by gaining control over Venezuela’s vast oil reserves. The financial assistance provided by Russia, with outstanding loans thought to total at least $4 billion, has seen Moscow take control of Venezuelan oil fields and even consider taking a lien over PDVSA’s crown jewel, its Citgo refinery business.

      Moscow’s loans in exchange for oil are doing little to revive Venezuela’s economy or crucial oil industry. This is because there is a severe shortage of the capital required to conduct urgent maintenance while rampant corruption and management malfeasance redirects what little funding is available away from development and maintenance activities. Those issues are magnified by the massive outflow of skilled industry workers which was triggered by Venezuela’s economic implosion. In a devastating blow for the Maduro regime India in response to tighter U.S. sanctions, aimed at cutting the flow of Venezuelan oil exports, ceased importing crude from the pariah state. That comes after exports to China slowed because of the same sanctions, although Beijing and Moscow along with assistance from Iran have been assisting Caracas in transporting oil to buyers. 

      As a result, Caracas is tightening its relationship with Teheran as it works on overcoming a wide range of obstacles and defeating U.S. sanctions. Recently, Venezuela flew gold to Teheran to pay for cargoes of fuel to stem fuel shortages caused by the breakdown of Venezuela’s refining industry. Caracas did the same in April to pay for Iran’s assistance with rebuilding its crumbling refineries to provide a longer-term solution to shortages of refined petroleum products, notably gasoline. 

      The decline of Venezuela’s petroleum industry appears terminal.

      Russian and Iranian assistance has done nothing to lift oil production, as the August 2020 numbers illustrate, while the volume of operational rigs remains low. Baker Hughes data shows only one operational oil rig for August, although national oil company PDVSA consistently claims that data to be incorrect. The data from Baker Hughes only counts operational rotary rigs drilling for oil. It excludes small truck mounted rigs or those not requiring a permit and does not count rotary rigs being used for well workovers and production testing.

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      Source: Baker Hughes.

      That means there could be a greater number of operational rigs in Venezuela, but they are simply not large enough or engaged in the activities to be counted. If the rig count along with petroleum production represent activity in Venezuela’s oil industry, then it appears to be in terminal decline. A major blow for Caracas was Chevron’s decision to pare down activities in Venezuela after pressure from the U.S. State Department. Chevron was the only international energy major to maintain a genuine presence in the Latin American country providing Caracas with access to the capital and technology to revitalize its oil industry. Venezuela cannot hope to rebuild its shattered petroleum sector without a massive injection of investment, technology and skilled labor. For as long as U.S. sanctions remain in place, which have the objective of initiating regime change, those requirements will not be met.

      So far, sanctions have done little to cause Maduro’s downfall or foment any major destabilization of his regime’s grasp on power. If anything, they have strengthened his grip on power and forced Caracas to find alternate means of supporting Venezuela’s deteriorating and extremely fragile economy including cozying up with other pariah states such as Iran. It appears that Maduro and his supporters in the government are determined to stay the course regardless of the pain being felt by the Venezuelan people.

      That means the country’s hydrocarbon sector will not recover any time soon, which is a positive development for global energy markets which are experiencing a multi-year supply glut that doesn’t appear ready to go away any time soon. This will keep Venezuela’s economy crippled with crude oil believed to be responsible for a quarter of its GDP and almost all desperately needed export earnings. As a result, hyperinflation, a lack of basic services, unemployment and starvation will remain the norm for Venezuela’s population. The sharp economic decline is preventing Caracas from effectively controlling its territory, allowing non-government armed groups from Venezuela and Colombia to fill the void, sparking further instability which is impacting the oil industry and creating additional hardship for Venezuelans.

    • After Returning To White House, Trump Implores Americans Not To Let COVID-19 "Dominate Your Life"
      After Returning To White House, Trump Implores Americans Not To Let COVID-19 “Dominate Your Life”

      Tyler Durden

      Mon, 10/05/2020 – 20:10

      Update (2000ET): In a video that was apparently filmed on the residence landing shortly after Trump arrived, the president lauded the world class medical care he received at Walter Reed before imploring Americans – for the second time today – to not let the coronavirus “dominate” or “beat” you.

      “Don’t be afraid of it,” Trump added. “Don’t let it dominate your life.”

      The treatment Trump received made him feel better than he has in years. “I feel better than I’ve had in 20 years.”

      He closed by saying that the FDA is in the process of approving all of the treatments he received for the virus, before saying that vaccines would be approved ‘momentarily”.

      Ironically, the NYT reported Monday evening that Trump Administration officials were trying to “block” a provision in the FDA’s revised vaccine guidelines that would make it almost impossible for a vaccine to receive approval before Nov. 3.

      * * *

      Update (1950ET): While Trump’s show of (personal) strength earned plaudits from his supporters, MSNBC, CNN seized the moment to once again compare Trump to a despot like North Korea’s Kim Jong Un or Italian fascist progenitor Benito Mussolini.

      During its live broadcast, MSNBC described Trump’s display as his “Mussolini Moment”.

      CNN called it “something out of North Korea”.

      Dozens of other blue-checks are criticizing Trump for removing his mask while looking out at the assembled press (who weren’t even anywhere near the residence).

      But when they think nobody’s watching, or the cameras stop rolling…

      …off goes their mask.

      Congressman Jim Jordan distilled this sentiment in a tweet from earlier.

      * * *

      Update (1920ET): The White House has released the footage of Trump exiting Marine One and returning to the White House Residence.

      It’s unclear when Trump will make his next public appearance, but as his doctors said earlier, he has a well-stocked medical unit at the White House with nearly 30 full-time doctors, nurses etc.

      Trump will receive his last dose of remdesivir on Tuesday. His doctors said he will also continue to take dexamethasone.

      * * *

      Update (1910ET): NBC and the other cable news stations just aired the official footage of Trump landing and walking up the White House steps.

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      NBC’s Lester Holt commented that Trump’s decision to remove his mask was either a “show of strenght” or an “act of defiance”.

      On social media, Trump’s decision to go mask-less elicited shrieks of indignation from Trump’s critics.

      We wonder what Trump thinks about the display?

      * * *

      Update (1900ET): Since news networks have been forced to keep their distance, the White House is expected to distribute footage of Trump leaving Marine One.

      After landing on the South Lawn, Trump walked up the steps to the residence, in an unusual rout that was clearly planned for a photo op. After walking up the stairs unassisted, Trump took off his mask and stood in the middle of the landing, waving to the press corp.

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      Trump saluted the pilot of Marine One as he flew away, before heading inside. Though he walked back out on the balcony shortly after.

      * * *

      Update (1855ET): Marine One just landed on the White House lawn, and the president is being escorted inside, roughly 72 hours after leaving on Friday afternoon.

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      * * *

      Update (1845ET): As Trump exited Walter Reed toward his motorcade, he flashed a thumbs up to the cameras. Though at times he leaned on the railing while walking down the steps, he was given a wide berth so the nation could see him walk on his own without any support.

      Before boarding Marine One, he uttered a quick “thank you, everybody” before sitting down and taking off.

      The flight to the White House, which we discussed below, is only a ten-minute journey, meaning he will be landing at the White House just before sunset.

      * * *

      Update (1840ET): President Trump is making his grand exit from Walter Reed.

      Watch Live:

      As Trump headed toward the presidential chopper, journalists noted that he was surrounded mostly by aides, not medical personnel.

      During the hour or so before he was discharged, Trump sent out a handful of Tweets quoting a New York Post article slamming Democrats over their reaction to Trump’s illness, before pledging that he would be back on the campaign trail “soon”.

      As Marine One – the president’s chopper – heads back toward the White House from Walter Reed, it will land on the south lawn before Trump heads inside.

      Trump is expected to quarantine in the residence, though that could change in the coming days.

      * * *

      Update (1730ET): President Trump plans to walk out the front door of Walter Reed when he leaves in about an hour, according to Bloomberg’s Jennifer Jacobs.

      Meanwhile, Trump is tweeting about today’s market gains, perhaps to show that he really is back.

      Circling back to the White House, VP Pence said he spoke to Trump and he sounded better, before the White House confirmed that Trump will be staying in the residence when he returns (with First Lady Melania Trump).

      After the NYT reported earlier that 2 housekeepers from the White House had been sickened, the CDC confirmed that it was detailing a squad of “disease detectives” to assist in the contact tracing efforts for the White House outbreak.

      * * *

      Update (1540ET): Alex Berenson, the former NYT reporter who has been one of the most vocal critics of masks, noted that Trump’s comment about not allowing fear to “dominate your life” was “one of the smartest things he’s ever said.”

      * * *

      Update (1515ET): Dr. Conley has confirmed that although President Trump isn’t out of the woods yet, he has recovered enough to warrant his safe return back to the West Wing, as the president announced via tweet roughly 30 minutes ago.

      Doctors said that Trump has maintained a full work schedule at Walter Reed. He will receive his fourth dose of remdesivir Monday evening, before taking the fifth and final dose on Tusday.

      When pressed by a reporter about the safety risks to the Secret Service agents during Trump’s ride outside Walter Reed Sunday evening, Dr. Conley said that the agents wore PPE, as they have in recent days, and that the trip took place over a “very short period of time”.

      Circling back to Trump’s mental acuity, reporters asked whether there had been any fogginess as a result of the medication, or the virus, Dr. Conley assured reporters that “he’s back” and that Trump has been a “great” patient.

      Looking ahead, Dr. Conley said advanced diagnostic techniques will be used to detect when the last traces of ‘live’ virus have left the president. Dr. Conley said that people are most at risk of shedding the live virus during the first 5 days of infection, but usually by ten days the last traces have left.

      Headlines are rolling in:

      • TRUMP MEDICAL TEAM SAYS TRUMP HAS MET OR EXCEEDED ALL DISCHARGE CRITERIA
      • TRUMP MAY NOT BE ENTIRELY OUT OF THE WOODS YET, DOCTOR SAYS
      • TRUMP WILL GET ANOTHER DOSE OF REMDESIVIR BEFORE GOING HOME
      • TRUMP’S CLINICAL STATUS SUPPORTS HIS GOING HOME, DOCTOR SAYS
      • TRUMP CONTINUES TAKING STEROID DEXAMETHASONE, DOCTORS SAY
      • TRUMP MEDICAL TEAM SAYS THERE IS NOTHING THAT IS BEING DONE AT WALTER REED THAT CAN’T BE DONE AT HOME FOR TRUMP
      • TRUMP MEDICAL TEAM SAYS WE REMAIN CAUTIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC AND ON GUARD
      • TRUMP MEDICAL TEAM SAYS TRUMP HAS NO NEUROLOGICAL SYMPTOMS
      • TRUMP MEDICAL TEAM SAYS TRUMP RECEIVED SUPPLEMENTAL OXYGEN TWICE

      Fortunately, once he returns to the White House, Trump will have a staff of more than 2 dozen nurses, doctors and APRNs to provide “world class medical care 24/7”. Aksed about when Trump last tested negative, Dr. Conely demurred, and also said he didn’t have Trump’s viral load data and earlier blamed HiPPA privacy laws for why he couldn’t go into “too much depth”.

      * * *

      Update (1455ET): Trump’s doctors, led by Navy Commander Dr. Sean Conley, are expected to deliver a briefing on Trump’s condition at 1500ET.

      Watch live below:

      * * *

      Less than 30 minutes before his medical team is supposed to update the public on the president’s condition, President Trump has just tweeted that he will be leaving Walter Reed at 1830ET.

      Just minutes earlier, Trump rebutted accusations from the mainstream press that he put secret service members lives ‘at risk’ by greeting his supporters in a presidential motorcade early Sunday evening.

      But if Trump leaves Walter Reed tonight and doesn’t return, his urging for Americans “not to fear COVID-19” will be remembered, as he personally has demonstrated that the virus is not a “death sentence”, even for older Americans.

      On CNBC, Tyler Mathisen suggested that one of the side effects of dexamethasone is a feeling of euphoria, meaning that Trump might be feeling better than his condition actually reflects. So, we now wait for Trump’s doctors to speak, to see whether they will parrot the narrative.

      Trump tweeted as the NYT was publishing a report claiming that at least two White House housekeepers have tested positive.

    • Las Vegas Records Alarming Surge In Apartment Tenants Unable To Pay Rent
      Las Vegas Records Alarming Surge In Apartment Tenants Unable To Pay Rent

      Tyler Durden

      Mon, 10/05/2020 – 20:00

      Nevada’s leisure and hospitality sector — which made up around a quarter of the state’s total labor market before lockdowns — has been one of the hardest hit by the virus-induced downturn. The labor market recovery in the state, nevertheless, Las Vegas, could take between 18 and 36 months to recover. 

      With no quick “V” shaped recovery expected in Vegas, rather one that could resemble a “U” or “L” – households are expected to remain severely pressured as job opportunity remains scarce. And due to months of stimulus checks earlier this year, deleveraging among households could be nearing thanks to a fiscal cliff (read: here). Only another stimulus check can delay the inevitable. 

      Bloomberg reports tourism on the Las Vegas Strip remains depressed. Now all those workers who were recently laid off can’t afford rent.

      RealPage, Inc., who develops multifamily property management software, revealed as of September, an alarming 10.6% of Vegas apartment tenants were unable to pay rent, up from 4.1% a year earlier, the most significant increase of any other metro area in the US. 

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      Los Angeles, New Orleans, Portland, and Seattle were other metro areas where the biggest annual increase in non-paying apartment tenants for the month of September. 

      Greg Willett, the chief economist at RealPage, said, “there’s more stress in hospitality-focused and expensive markets.” 

      “The wild card in everything is what happens in the economy, and what happens in the economy is dependent on what happens with the pandemic,” Willett said. 

      The ongoing rent crisis is a national issue. The CDC announced in early September that it was establishing a temporary ban on evictions across the country. As many as 40 million Americans could be booted from their rentals as the virus-induced downturn continues.  

    • U.S. Takes Stake In Battery Metals Miner To Counter Chinese Control
      U.S. Takes Stake In Battery Metals Miner To Counter Chinese Control

      Tyler Durden

      Mon, 10/05/2020 – 19:56

      By Mining.com, submitted via OilPrice.com

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      The US government is taking a $25 million equity stake in Dublin-based battery metals miner TechMet, as part of a push by President Donald Trump to reduce the country’s reliance on supply chains dominated by China. 

      The backing from the $60 billion US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) will help TechMet develop a nickel and cobalt mine in Brazil. Both metals are key in the production of the batteries that power electric cars and cell phones.

      TechMet’s Brazilian Nickel project, in the north-eastern state of Piauí, is estimated to hold as much as 72 million tonnes of nickel and cobalt.

      “Investments in critical materials for advanced technology support development and advance US foreign policy,” Adam Boehler, chief executive officer of the government agency, said in a statement.

      The move follows last week’s executive order declaring a “state of emergency” in the US mining industry. The directive, which seeks pushing a local battery metals industry forward, also called for a report evaluating possible measures such as tariffs, quotas, or other trade restrictions targeting China and “other non-market foreign adversaries.”

      Washington has expressed concern that China’s control of rare earths supply could be used as a tactic against US companies that depend on those elements.

      Breaking China’s hold

      China produces roughly two thirds of the world’s lithium-ion batteries and has taken steps to secure critical metals for them, particularly in Africa and Latin America.

      The US is trying to fight back, with the Pentagon promising to fund domestic mining of the essential materials, while also investing in projects abroad.

      Washington has also created the DFC to provide an alternative to Chinese overseas finance in Asia, Africa and Latin America. 

      The backing to TechMet marks the first time the US government has invested directly in a metals and mining company, the company’s chief executive, Brian Menell, said.

      TechMet was founded in 2017 by South African mining veteran Brian Menell, a former executive at Anglovaal and De Beers.

      The company has a tin and tungsten mine in Rwanda, a rare earths mine in Burundi, and a lithium-ion battery project in Canada. It also produces vanadium, a crucial metal for manufacturing nuclear reactors and military aircraft. 

      The US is not alone in its quest to reduce reliance on foreign producers. In September, the European Union stepped up its efforts to become less dependent on imported raw materials, including rare earths and, for the first time, lithium.

    • Iraq Confirms Trump's Troop Exit 'Achieved' With 2,500 Soldiers Already Gone
      Iraq Confirms Trump’s Troop Exit ‘Achieved’ With 2,500 Soldiers Already Gone

      Tyler Durden

      Mon, 10/05/2020 – 19:40

      Authored by Jason Ditz via AntiWar.com,

      Iraqi PM Mustafa Kadhimi has confirmed over the weekend that at least 2,500 US troops have already withdrawn from Iraq as part of what will ultimately be a three year period of pullout from the country.

      This came following the recent announcement of US troop cuts during Kadhimi’s US visit, and the more recent threats to close the embassy and withdraw outright after troops came under rocket attack from militias. PM Kadhimi called the move as part of “a great achievement”.

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      File image via AP

      Some Iraqi officials have objected to the US threats, and particularly to the way they were made, cautioning that US threats were liable, in such a public way, to have a spillover effect on other nations working with Iraq.

      Still, fear that the US might start a war with the militias probably is not such an immediate threat if the US is continuing to pull troops out. Many Iraqis have wanted the US out of Iraq for awhile now, and if the 3-year plan is in place, Kadhimi really just needs to try to keep things together while that works itself out.

      Underscoring that, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s most recent threats were to pull troops out if Iraq can’t protect them, which is giving the militias exactly what they want, and what Iraq has already negotiated, just on a faster time-frame.

      The US assumption seems to be that the loss of US troops is something to fear, and therefore something to threaten.

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

      That doesn’t make a lot of sense in Iraq, which already asked the US troops to leave and where Kadhimi confirmed securing a 3-year commitment after the US initially tried to sell him on an eight year process.

    • Millions Risk Losing Power Over Unpaid Utilities As Most States' Pandemic Grace Period Expires
      Millions Risk Losing Power Over Unpaid Utilities As Most States’ Pandemic Grace Period Expires

      Tyler Durden

      Mon, 10/05/2020 – 19:20

      Millions of Americans are facing a dire situation of being without power or water as their utility bills pile up, and as state and local protections which allowed for deferred payments amid the pandemic come to an end.

      After a summer of rising unemployment numbers brought on by the crisis, though seeing a promising potential softening of the trend in September, The Washington Post recently detailed some instances of people going as much as two months in the dark after falling behind on utility payments last spring.

      “The worst economic crisis in more than a generation has thrust potentially millions of Americans across the country into a similar, sudden peril: Cash-strapped, and in some cases still unemployed, they have fallen far behind on their electricity, water and gas bills, staring down the prospect of potential utility shut-offs and fast-growing debts they may never be able to repay,” the Post summarized of new National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association (NEADA) analysis.

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      AFP via Getty Images

      Soon following the start of the pandemic in the US and resulting state lockdowns, most states moved to ensure residents that they would prevent utility shut-offs for an extended grace period. But still the debts have mounted, and at this point, the NEADA finds, only 21 states along with the District of Columbia still have disconnection bans in place. 

      That means the majority of states are shutting off utilities over unpaid bills. And further, “Millions more in nine other states are set to lose their protections starting Thursday and throughout the fall, the group found,” WaPo reports.

      The study found that 179 million Americans are potentially at risk of shut-offs, though with the big and unlikely assumption that the vast amount of households would fail to pay their bills altogether. But still even a small percentage of this number means many hundreds of thousands of households, or even millions, face being in the dark. 

      Consider a single state, Indiana:

      In some cases, the delinquencies appear to be severe. In Indiana, for example, more than 112,000 households are behind 120 days or more on their power bills, a Washington Post analysis of the largest local energy companies’ records found. The debt, totaling millions of dollars, is four times greater than the arrears accrued during the same period in 2019, the data shows.

      <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

      The report further underscored that the nation’s electric and gas debts alone are likely to exceed a whopping $24.3 billion by year’s end.

      Likely adding to the utilities debt crisis for many families is that fact that lockdowns were in place throughout much of the early summer, keeping families indoors more than they would have been, and at a moment of high temperatures.

    • California Professor: "As A White American, I Am, By Definition, Racist"
      California Professor: “As A White American, I Am, By Definition, Racist”

      Tyler Durden

      Mon, 10/05/2020 – 19:00

      Authored by Ophelie Jacobson via Campus Reform,

      uring an online lecture focused on “Undoing White Supremacy in the Language Disciplines,” a professor from the University of California-Santa Barbara introduced herself as being “a white American” who is, therefore “by definition racist.” 

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      The professor encouraged audience members not to let anyone tell them they differently.

      The September 11 webinar was put on by the University of Wisconsin-Madison doctoral program in second language acquisition. UCSB Professor and Chair of the Department of Linguistics Mary Bucholtz was invited to “discuss the white-supremacist and colonial underpinnings of linguistics, applied linguistics, and the modern languages, both historically and in the present day.”

      “I am personally committed to continuing to learn how to be less racist. As a White American, I am by definition racist. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. I know there is this sort of rhetoric of White people in the United States rejecting the label of racism but I think we need to acknowledge that, and do better,” Bucholtz said during the webinar.

      Bucholtz started her presentation by describing white supremacy and its implications by saying “when I talk about the idea of white supremacy as a pandemic or as a disease, I don’t mean that as a metaphor.” However, she later says that “white supremacy is not a disease but a choice…”

      The UCSB professor also took the time to discuss whether or not she thinks the word “White” should be capitalized. This comes amid the Associated Press updating its style guide to advise journalists to capitalize “Black,” but not “White.”

      “I hate seeing when people capitalize ‘White..;’ it’s not the same kind of category. Also, white supremacists love capitalizing ‘White.’ So for me, it’s a political decision not to capitalize it and to recognize it as a construct that has built itself out of the racial system or at the top of the racial system by opting out of being racialized.”

      She went on to say that white supremacy “is a system that White people have built in order to oppress everyone else” and that “White people are not experts on white supremacy…We are experts in acting it.”

      At the University of Californa-Santa Barbara, Bucholtz is primarily affiliated with the Department of Linguistics, but she also works with the departments of Anthropology, Feminist Studies, Spanish and Portuguese, the Comparative Literature Program, the Latin American and Iberian Studies Program, and the Gervitz Graduate School of Education. She is the author of multiple publications, including a book titled White Kids: Language, Race, and Styles of Youth Identity and a journal titled The Public Life of White Affects.

      During the virtual lecture, Bucholtz pointed out that she believes “the notion of non-racism doesn’t exist. You’re either racist or anti-racist. You can’t be neutral about racism.” She continued to talk about the deficiencies that minority students experience within the language classrooms by pointing out that “Black students in the United States are underrepresented in foreign language classrooms and when they are in those classrooms, they may not get the opportunity to learn racialized varieties that are most meaningful to them.”

      Toward the end of her presentation, Bucholtz provided some questions for audience members to ask themselves and discuss amongst themselves as well.

      Bucholtz shared a link at the end of her lecture to a Google Drive with documents and presentations on how to be “a White ally, apprentice, and accomplice” in the linguistics department.

      Campus Reform reached out to Bucholtz but did not receive a response in time for publication.

    Digest powered by RSS Digest

    Oct 05

    Today’s News 5th October 2020

    • Thousands Protest Against German COVID-19 Restrictions
      Thousands Protest Against German COVID-19 Restrictions

      Tyler Durden

      Mon, 10/05/2020 – 02:45

      Thousands of demonstrators in southern Germany protested the federal government’s new social distancing restrictions over the weekend, reported Reuters. 

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      Demonstrators in Konstanz protesting against the federal government

      Demonstrators were seen in Konstanz, a city on Lake Constance, in southern Germany, on Saturday and Sunday, were displeased by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s new restrictions to limit the size of gatherings. 

      “We want to act regionally, specifically and purposefully, rather than shutting down the whole country again – this must be prevented at all costs,” Merkel told a virtual news conference on Tuesday. 

      Merkel said she wants to avoid a full national lockdown as infection numbers are rising again in Europe’s largest economy. The lockdown from earlier this year crushed Germany’s economy into the worst recession on record, decimating small and medium-sized businesses. 

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      Police said counter-demonstrators were also seen in Konstanz. These folks showed their support for the government’s virus response efforts to mitigate further spreading. 

      Between both groups, police said upwards of tens thousand demonstrators hit the streets over the weekend. By Sunday afternoon, the situation remained calm in southern Germany. 

      “So far, the situation is calm,” a police spokesman said. 

      Reuters said, “civil rights activists, anti-vaxxers, neo-Nazis and members of far-right groups, including the opposition party Alternative for Germany (AfD), were in attendance” this weekend. 

      Germany’s total cases surpassed 300,000 on Sunday as the reproduction value rose above 1.0 for the first time in about a week. Health Minister Jens Spahn recently announced new plans for rapid tests in critical areas, such as hospitals and nursing homes. 

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      The latest resurgence in virus cases has been challenging for Germany to reopen its economy, resulting in a waning economic recovery. 

      Germany is not alone in rising cases. France, the UK, and Spain face a similar threat in rising infections, crushing virus-induced recessions, and increasing resistance to tougher social distancing measures. 

       

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      h/t Bloomberg 

      Approval of virus strategies to mitigate the spread is severely waning in the UK, France, and Spain.

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      h/t Bloomberg 

       The longer the virus persists, and the more tougher governments become, the increasing chance social unrest could spark up again this fall.

    • Eyewitness To The Agony Of Assange
      Eyewitness To The Agony Of Assange

      Tyler Durden

      Mon, 10/05/2020 – 02:00

      Journalist John Pilger has spent the last three weeks watching Julian Assange’s extradition trial at London’s Old Bailey. He spoke with Arena Online’s editor, Timothy Erik Ström:

      Q:  Having watched Julian Assange’s trial firsthand, can you describe the prevailing atmosphere in the court?

      The prevailing atmosphere has been shocking. I say that without hesitation; I have sat in many courts and seldom known such a corruption of due process; this is due revenge. Putting aside the ritual associated with ‘British justice’, at times it has been evocative of a Stalinist show trial. One difference is that in the show trials, the defendant stood in the court proper. In the Assange trial, the defendant was caged behind thick glass, and had to crawl on his knees to a slit in the glass, overseen by his guard, to make contact with his lawyers. His message, whispered barely audibly through face masks, was then passed by post-it the length of the court to where his barristers were arguing the case against his extradition to an American hellhole.

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      Consider this daily routine of Julian Assange, an Australian on trial for truth-telling journalism. He was woken at five o’clock in his cell at Belmarsh prison in the bleak southern sprawl of London. The first time I saw Julian in Belmarsh, having passed through half an hour of ‘security’ checks, including a dog’s snout in my rear, I found a painfully thin figure sitting alone wearing a yellow armband. He had lost more than 10 kilos in a matter of months; his arms had no muscle. His first words were: ‘I think I am losing my mind’.

      I tried to assure him he wasn’t. His resilience and courage are formidable, but there is a limit. That was more than a year ago. In the past three weeks, in the pre-dawn, he was strip-searched, shackled, and prepared for transport to the Central Criminal Court, the Old Bailey, in a truck that his partner, Stella Moris, described as an upended coffin. It  had one small window; he had to stand precariously to look out. The truck and its guards were operated by Serco, one of many politically connected companies that run much of Boris Johnson’s Britain.

      The journey to the Old Bailey took at least an hour and a half. That’s a minimum of three hours being jolted through snail-like traffic every day. He was led into his narrow cage at the back of the court, then look up, blinking, trying to make out faces in the public gallery through the reflection of the glass. He saw the courtly figure of his dad, John Shipton, and me, and our fists went up. Through the glass, he reached out to touch fingers with Stella, who is a lawyer and seated in the body of the court.

      We were here for the ultimate of what the philosopher Guy Debord called The Society of the Spectacle: a man fighting for his life. Yet his crime is to have performed an epic public service: revealing that which we have a right to know: the lies of our governments and the crimes they commit in our name. His creation of WikiLeaks and its failsafe protection of sources revolutionised journalism, restoring it to the vision of its idealists. Edmund Burke’s notion of free journalism as a fourth estate is now a fifth estate that shines a light on those who diminish the very meaning of democracy with their criminal secrecy. That’s why his punishment is so extreme.

      The sheer bias in the courts I have sat in this year and last year, with Julian in the dock, blight any notion of British justice. When thuggish police dragged him from his asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy—look closely at the photo and you’ll see he is clutching a Gore Vidal book; Assange has a political humour similar to Vidal’s—a judge gave him an outrageous 50-week sentence in a maximum-security prison for mere bail infringement.

      For months, he was denied exercise and held in solitary confinement disguised as ‘heath care’. He once told me he strode the length of his cell, back and forth, back and forth, for his own half-marathon. In the next cell, the occupant screamed through the night. At first he was denied his reading glasses, left behind in the embassy brutality. He was denied the legal documents with which to prepare his case, and access to the prison library and the use of a basic laptop. Books sent to him by a friend, the journalist Charles Glass, himself a survivor of hostage-taking in Beirut, were returned. He could not call his American lawyers. He has been constantly medicated by the prison authorities. When I asked him what they were giving him, he couldn’t say. The governor of Belmarsh has been awarded the Order of the British Empire.

      At the Old Bailey, one of the expert medical witnesses, Dr Kate Humphrey, a clinical neuropsychologist at Imperial College, London, described the damage: Julian’s intellect had gone from ‘in the superior, or more likely very superior range’ to ‘significantly below’ this optimal level, to the point where he was struggling to absorb information and ‘perform in the low average range’.

      This is what the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Professor Nils Melzer, calls ‘psychological torture’, the result of a gang-like ‘mobbing’ by governments and their media shills. Some of the expert medical evidence is so shocking I have no intention of repeating it here. Suffice to say that Assange is diagnosed with autism and Asperger’s syndrome and, according to Professor Michael Kopelman, one of the world’s leading neuropsychiatrists, he suffers from ‘suicidal preoccupations’ and is likely to find a way to take his life if he is extradited to America.

      James Lewis QC, America’s British prosecutor, spent the best part of his cross-examination of Professor Kopelman dismissing mental illness and its dangers as ‘malingering’. I have never heard in a modern setting such a primitive view of human frailty and vulnerability.

      My own view is that if Assange is freed, he is likely to recover a substantial part of his life. He has a loving partner, devoted friends and allies and the innate strength of a principled political prisoner. He also has a wicked sense of humour.

      But that is a long way off. The moments of collusion between the judge—or magistrate, a Gothic-looking Vanessa Baraitser, about whom little is known—and the prosecution acting for the Trump regime have been brazen. Until the last few days, defence arguments have been routinely dismissed. The lead prosecutor, James Lewis QC, ex SAS and currently Chief Justice of the Falklands, by and large gets what he wants, notably up to four hours to denigrate expert witnesses, while the defence’s examination is guillotined at half an hour. I have no doubt, had there been a jury, his freedom would be assured.

      The dissident artist Ai Weiwei came to join us one morning in the public gallery. He noted that in China the judge’s decision would already have been made. This caused some dark ironic amusement. My companion in the gallery, the astute diarist and former British ambassador Craig Murray wrote:

      I fear that all over London a very hard rain is now falling on those who for a lifetime have worked within institutions of liberal democracy that at least broadly and usually used to operate within the governance of their own professed principles. It has been clear to me from Day 1 that I am watching a charade unfold. It is not in the least a shock to me that Baraitser does not think anything beyond the written opening arguments has any effect. I have again and again reported to you that, where rulings have to be made, she has brought them into court pre-written, before hearing the arguments before her.

      I strongly expect the final decision was made in this case even before opening arguments were received.

      The plan of the US Government throughout has been to limit the information available to the public and limit the effective access to a wider public of what information is available. Thus we have seen the extreme restrictions on both physical and video access. A complicit mainstream media has ensured those of us who know what is happening are very few in the wider population.

      There are few records of the proceedings. They are: Craig Murray’s personal blog, Joe Lauria’s live reporting on Consortium News and the World Socialist Website. American journalist Kevin Gosztola’s blog, Shadowproof, funded mostly by himself, has reported more of the trial than the major US press and TV, including CNN, combined.

      In Australia, Assange’s homeland, the ‘coverage’ follows a familiar formula set overseas. The London correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald, Latika Bourke, wrote this recently:

      The court heard Assange became depressed during the seven years he spent in the Ecuadorian embassy where he sought political asylum to escape extradition to Sweden to answer rape and sexual assault charges.

      There were no ‘rape and sexual assault charges’ in Sweden. Bourke’s lazy falsehood is not uncommon. If the Assange trial is the political trial of the century, as I believe it is, its outcome will not only seal the fate of a journalist for doing his job but intimidate the very principles of free journalism and free speech. The absence of serious mainstream reporting of the proceedings is, at the very least, self-destructive. Journalists should ask: who is next?

      How shaming it all is. A decade ago, the Guardian exploited Assange’s work, claimed its profit and prizes as well as a lucrative Hollywood deal, then turned on him with venom. Throughout the Old Bailey trial, two names have been cited by the prosecution, the Guardian’s David Leigh, now retired as ‘investigations editor’ and Luke Harding, the Russiaphobe and author of a fictional Guardian ‘scoop’ that claimed Trump adviser Paul Manafort and a group of Russians visited Assange in the Ecuadorean embassy. This never happened, and the Guardian has yet to apologise. The Harding and Leigh book on Assange—written behind their subject’s back—disclosed a secret password to a WikiLeaks file that Assange had entrusted to Leigh during the Guardian’s ‘partnership’. Why the defence has not called this pair is difficult to understand. 

      Assange is quoted in their book declaring during a dinner at a London restaurant that he didn’t care if informants named in the leaks were harmed. Neither Harding nor Leigh was at the dinner. John Goetz, an investigations reporter with Der Spiegel, was at the dinner and testified that Assange said nothing of the kind. Incredibly, Judge Baraitser stopped Goetz actually saying this in court.

      However, the defence has succeeded in demonstrating the extent to which Assange sought to protect and redact names in the files released by WikiLeaks and that no credible evidence existed of individuals harmed by the leaks. The great whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg said that Assange had personally redacted 15,000 files. The renowned New Zealand investigative journalist Nicky Hager, who worked with Assange on the Afghanistan and Iraq war leaks, described how Assange took ‘extraordinary precautions in redacting names of informants’.

      Q: What are the implications of this trial’s verdict for journalism more broadly—is it an omen of things to come?

      The ‘Assange effect’ is already being felt across the world. If they displease the regime in Washington, investigative journalists are liable to prosecution under the 1917 US Espionage Act; the precedent is stark. It doesn’t matter where you are. For Washington, other people’s nationality and sovereignty rarely mattered; now it does not exist. Britain has effectively surrendered its jurisdiction to Trump’s corrupt Department of Justice. In Australia, a National Security Information Act promises Kafkaesque trials for transgressors. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has been raided by police and journalists’ computers taken away. The government has given unprecedented powers to intelligence officials, making journalistic whistle-blowing almost impossible. Prime Minister Scott Morrison says Assange ‘must face the music’. The perfidious cruelty of his statement is reinforced by its banality.

      ‘Evil’, wrote Hannah Arendt, ‘comes from a failure to think. It defies thought for as soon as thought tries to engage itself with evil and examine the premises and principles from which it originates, it is frustrated because it finds nothing there. That is the banality of evil’.

      Q: Having followed the story of WikiLeaks closely for a decade, how has this eyewitness experience shifted your understanding of what’s at stake with Assange’s trial?

      I have long been a critic of journalism as an echo of unaccountable power and a champion of those who are beacons. So, for me, the arrival of WikiLeaks was exciting; I admired the way Assange regarded the public with respect, that he was prepared to share his work with the ‘mainstream’ but not join their collusive club. This, and naked jealousy, made him enemies among the overpaid and undertalented, insecure in their pretensions of independence and impartiality.

      I admired the moral dimension to WikiLeaks. Assange was rarely asked about this, yet much of his remarkable energy comes from a powerful moral sense that governments and other vested interests should not operate behind walls of secrecy. He is a democrat. He explained this in one of our first interviews at my home in 2010.  

      What is at stake for the rest of us has long been at stake: freedom to call authority to account, freedom to challenge, to call out hypocrisy, to dissent. The difference today is that the world’s imperial power, the United States, has never been as unsure of its metastatic authority as it is today. Like a flailing rogue, it is spinning us towards a world war if we allow it. Little of this menace is reflected in the media.

      WikiLeaks, on the other hand, has allowed us to glimpse a rampant imperial march through whole societies—think of the carnage in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen, to name a few, the dispossession of 37 million people and the deaths of 12 million men, women and children in the ‘war on terror’—most of it behind a façade of deception. 

      Julian Assange is a threat to these recurring horrors—that’s why he is being persecuted, why a court of law has become an instrument of oppression, why he ought to be our collective conscience: why we all should be the threat.

      The judge’s decision will be known on the 4th of January.

    • China Still Fears Three Things About America. The Dollar Is One Of Them
      China Still Fears Three Things About America. The Dollar Is One Of Them

      Tyler Durden

      Sun, 10/04/2020 – 23:45

      Authored by Mark Dittli via TheMarket.ch,

      Few Western observers know China better than The Honorable Kevin Rudd. As a young diplomat, the Australian, who speaks fluent Mandarin, was stationed in Beijing in the 1980s. As Australia’s Prime Minister and then Foreign Minister from 2007 to 2012, he led his country through the delicate tension between its most important alliance partner (the USA) and its largest trading partner (China).

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      Today Mr. Rudd is President of the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York. In an in-depth conversation via Zoom, he explains why a fundamental competition has begun between the two great powers. He would not rule out a hot war: «We know from history that it is easy to start a conflict, but it is bloody hard to end it», he warns.

      Mr. Rudd, the conflict between the U.S. and China has escalated significantly over the past three years. To what extent has that escalation been driven by the presence of two strongmen, i.e. Donald Trump and Xi Jinping?

      The strategic competition between the two countries is the product of both structural and leadership factors. The structural factors are pretty plain, and that is the continuing change in the balance of power in military, economic, and technological terms. This has an impact on China’s perception of its ability to be more assertive in the region and the world against America. The second dynamic is Xi Jinping’s leadership style, which is more assertive and aggressive than any of his post-Mao predecessors, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. The third factor is Donald Trump, who obsesses about particular parts of the economy, namely trade and to a lesser degree technology.

      Would America’s position be different if someone else than Trump was President?

      No. The structural factors about the changing balance of power, as well as Xi Jinping’s leadership style, have caused China to rub up against American interests and values very sharply. Indeed, China is rubbing up against the interests and values of most other Western countries and some Asian democracies as well. Had Hillary Clinton won in 2016, her response would have been very robust. Trump has for the most part been superficially robust, principally on trade and technology. He was only triggered into more comprehensive robustness by the Covid-19 crisis threatening his reelection. If the next President of the U.S. is a Democrat, my judgement would be that the new Administration will be equally but more systematically hard-line in their reaction to China.

      Has a new Cold War started?

      I don’t like to embrace the language of a Cold War 2.0, because we should not forget that the Cold War of the 20th century had three big defining characteristics: One, the Soviets and the Americans threatened each other with nuclear Armageddon for forty years; two, they fought more than twenty proxy wars around the world; and three, they had zero economic engagement with each other. The current conflict between the U.S. and China on the other hand is characterised by two things: One, an economic decoupling in areas such as trade, supply chains, foreign direct investment, capital markets, technology, and talent. At the same time, it is also an increasingly sharp ideological war on values. The Chinese authoritarian capitalist model has asserted itself beyond China and challenges America.

      How do you see that economic decoupling playing out?

      The three formal instruments of power in the U.S. to enforce decoupling are entity listing, the new export control regime, and thirdly, the new powers given to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, CFIUS. Those are powerful instruments which potentially affect third countries as well, through sanctions imposed under the entity list. You can take the example of semiconductors, where the recent changes of the entity list virtually limits the exports of semiconductors to a defined list of Chinese enterprises from anywhere in the world, as long as they are based on American intellectual property.

      These measures have cut off Chinese companies like Huawei or SMIC from acquiring high-end semiconductor technology anywhere in the world. The reaction in Beijing has been muted so far, with no direct retaliation. Why?

      In China there is a division of opinion on the question of how to respond. The hawks have an «eye for an eye» posture, that’s driven both by a perception of strategy, but also with an eye on domestic sentiment. The America doves within the leadership – and they do exist – argue a different proposition. They think China is not yet ready for a complete decoupling. If it’s going to happen, they at least try to slow it down. Plus, they want to keep their powder dry until they see the outcome of the election and what the next Administration will do. That’s the reason why we have seen only muted responses so far.

      Isn’t it the case that both sides would lose if they drive decoupling too far? And given that, could it be that there won’t be any further decoupling?

      We are past that point. Whoever wins the election, America will resolve in decoupling in a number of defined areas.

      • First and foremost in those global supply chains where the products are of too crucial importance to the U.S. to depend on Chinese supply. Think medical supplies or pharmaceuticals.

      • The second area is in defined critical technologies. The Splinternet is not just a term, it’s becoming a reality.

      • Thirdly, you will see a partial decoupling on the global supply of semiconductors to China. Not just those relevant to 5G and Artificial Intelligence, but semiconductors in general. The centrality of microchips to computing power for all purposes, and the spectrum of application in the civilian and military economy is huge.

      • Fourth, I think foreign direct investment in both directions will shrink to zero.

      • The fifth area of decoupling is happening in talent markets. The hostility towards Chinese students in the U.S. is reaching ridiculous proportions.

      Do you see a world divided into two technology spheres, one with American standards and one with Chinese standards?

      This is the logical consequence. Assume you have Huawei 5G systems rolled out across the 75 countries that take part in the Belt and Road Initiative, then what follows from that is a series of industry standards that become accepted and compatible within those countries, as opposed to those that rely on American systems. But then another set of questions arises: Let’s say China is effectively banned from purchasing semiconductors based on American technology and is dependent on domestic supply. Chinese semiconductors are slower than their American counterparts, and likely to remain for the decade ahead. Do the BRI countries accept a slower microprocessor product standard for being part of the Chinese technological ecosystem? I don’t know the answer to that, but I think your prognosis of two technology spheres is correct.

      China throws huge amounts of money into the project of building up its semiconductor capabilities. Are they still so far behind?

      Despite their acts to buy, borrow or steal intellectual property, they constantly remain three to seven years behind the U.S., Taiwan and South Korea, i.e. behind the likes of Intel, TSMC and Samsung. It’s obviously hard to reverse engineer semiconductors, as opposed to a Tupolev, as the Soviets had to find out, which can be reverse engineered over a weekend.

      Wouldn’t America hurt itself too much if it cut off China from its semiconductor industry altogether?

      There is an argument that 50% of the profits of the US semiconductor industry come from their clients in China. That money funds their R&D in order to keep three to seven years ahead of China. The U.S. Department of Defense knows that, what’s why the Pentagon doesn’t necessarily side with the anti China hawks on this issue. So the debate between the US semiconductor industry versus the perceived national security interest has yet to be resolved. It has been resolved in terms of AI chips, and Huawei is the first big casualty of that. But for semiconductors in general the question is not solved yet.

      Will countries in Europe or Southeast Asia be forced to decide which technology sphere they want to belong to?

      Until the 5G revolution, they have managed to straddle both worlds. But now China has banked on the strategy of being the technology leader in certain categories, and the one they are in at the moment is in 5G technology and systems. If you look at the next five years, and if you look at the success of China in the other technology categories in its Made in China 2025 Strategy, then it becomes clear that we increasingly are going to end up in a binary technology world. Policy makers in various nations will have to answer questions around the relative sophistication of the technology, industry standards, concerns on privacy and data governance, and of course a very big question: What are our points of exposure to the U.S. or China? What will we lose in our China relationship by joining the American sphere in certain fields, and vice versa? Those variables will impact the decision making processes everywhere from Bern to Berlin to Bangkok.

      But in the end, they will have to choose?

      Yes. India for example has done it in the field of 5G. For India, that was a big call, given the size of its market and China’s desire to bring India slowly but surely towards its side of the Splinternet.

      The third field of conflict after trade and technology lies in financial markets. We know that Washington can weaponise the Dollar if it wants to. So far, this front has been rather quiet. What are your expectations?

      Two measures have been taken so far by the Trump Administration. One, the direction to U.S. government pension funds not to invest in Chinese listed companies; and two, the direction to the New York Stock Exchange not to sustain the listing of Chinese firms unless they conform to global accounting standards. I regard these as two simple shots across the bow.

      With more to follow?

      Like on most other things including technology, the U.S. is divided in terms of where its interests lie. Just like Silicon Valley, Wall Street has a big interest in not having too harsh restrictions on financial markets. Just look at the volume of business. Financial market collaboration between the Chinese and American financial systems in terms of investment flows for Treasuries, bonds and equities is a $5 trillion per year business. This is not small. I presume the reason we have only seen two rather small warning shots so far is that the Administration is deeply sensitive to Wall Street interests, led by Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin. Make no mistake: Given the serious Dollars at stake in financial markets, an escalation there will make the trade war look like child’s play.

      Which way will it resolve?

      The risk I see is that if the Chinese crack down further in Hong Kong. If there is an eruption of protests resulting in violence, we should not be surprised by the possibility of Washington deciding to de-link the U.S. financial system from the Hong Kong Dollar and the Hong Kong financial market. That would be a huge step.

      How probable is it that Washington would choose to weaponise the Dollar?

      We don’t know. The Democrats in my judgement do not have a policy on that at present. Perhaps the best way to respond to your question is to say this: There are three things that China still fears about America. The US military, its semiconductor industry, and the Dollar. If you are attentive to the internalities of the Chinese national economic self-sufficiency debate at present, it often is expressed in terms of «Let’s not allow to happen to us in financial markets what is happening in technology markets». But if the U.S. goes into hardline mode against China for general strategy purposes, then the only thing that would deter Washington is the amount of self-harm it would inflict on Wall Street, if it is forced to decouple from the Chinese market. If that would happen, it would place Frankfurt, Zurich, Paris or the City of London in a pretty interesting position.

      Would you say that there is a form of mutually assured destruction, MAD, in financial markets, which would prevent the U.S. from going into full hardline mode?

      If the Americans wanted to send a huge warning shot to the Chinese, they are probably more disposed towards using sectoral measures, like the one I outlined for Hong Kong, and not comprehensive measures. But never forget: American political elites, Republicans and Democrats, have concluded that Xi Jinping’s China is not a status quo power, but that it wishes to replace the U.S. in its position of global leadership. Therefore, the inherent rationality or irrationality of individual measures is no longer necessarily self-evident against the general strategic question. The voices in America to prevent a financial decoupling from China are strong at present, but that does not necessarily mean they will prevail.

      China’s strategy, meanwhile, is to welcome U.S. banks with open arms. Is it working?

      The general strategy of China is that the more economic enmeshment occurs – not just with the U.S., but also with Europe, Japan and the likes –, then the less likely countries are going to take a hard-line policy against Beijing. China is a master in using its economic leverage to secure foreign policy and national security policy ends. They know this tool very well. The more friends you have, be it JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley or the big technology firms of Silicon Valley, the more it complicates the decision making process in the West. China knows that. I’m sure you’ve heard it a thousand times from Swiss companies as well: How can we grow a global business and ignore the Chinese market? Every company in the world is asking that question.

      You wrote an article in Foreign Affairs in August, warning of a potential military conflict triggered by events in the South China Sea or Taiwan. Do you really see the danger of a hot war?

      I don’t mean to be alarmist, not at all. But I was talking to too many people both in Washington and Beijing that were engaged in scenario planning, to believe that this was any longer just theoretical. My simple thesis is this: These things can happen pretty easily once you have whipped up nationalist narratives on both sides and then have a major incident that goes wrong. A conflict is easy to start, but history tells us they are bloody hard to stop.

      Of course the main argument against that is that there is too much at stake on both sides, which will prevent an escalation into a hot war.

      You see, within that argument lies the perceived triumph of European rationality over East Asian reality. All that European rationality worked really well in 1914, when nobody thought that war was inevitable. The title of my article Beware the Guns of August referred to the time between the assassination in Sarajevo at the end of June, the failure of diplomacy in July, and then miscommunication, poor signalling and the dynamics of mobilisation in the end led to a situation that neither the Kaiser nor the Czar could stop. Nationalism is as poisonous today as it was in Europe for centuries. It’s just that you’ve all killed each other twice before you found out it was a bad idea. Remember, in East Asia, we have the rolling problems of our own version of Alsace-Lorraine: it’s called Taiwan.

      Influential voices in Washington say that the time of ambiguity is over. The U.S. should make its support for Taiwan explicit. Do you agree?

      I don’t. If you change your declaratory policy on Taiwan, then there is a real danger that you by accident create the crossing of a red line in Chinese official perception, and you bring on the very crisis you are seeking to avoid. It’s far better if you simply had an operational strategy, which aims to maximally enhance Taiwan’s ability to deter a Chinese attack.

      Over the past years, the Chinese Communist Party has morphed into the Party of Xi. How do you see the internal dynamics within the CCP playing out over the coming years?

      Xi Jinping’s position as Paramount Leader makes him objectively the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao. During the days of Deng Xiaoping, there were counterweighting voices to Deng, represented at the most senior levels, and there was a debate of economic and strategic policy between them. The dynamics of collective leadership applied then, they applied under Jiang Zemin, they certainly applied under Hu Jintao. They now no longer apply.

      What will that mean for the future?

      In the seven years he’s been in power so far, China moved to the left on domestic politics, giving a greater role to the Party. In economic policy, we’ve seen it giving less headroom for the private sector. China has become more nationalist and more internationally assertive as a consequence of it becoming more nationalist. There are however opposing voices among the top leadership, and the open question is whether these voices can have any coalescence in the lead-up to the 20th Party Congress in 2022, which will decide on whether Xi Jinping’s term is extended. If it is extended, you can say he then becomes leader for life. That will be a seminal decision for the Party.

      What’s your prediction?

      For a range of internal political reasons, which have to do with power politics, plus disagreements on economic policy and some disagreements on foreign policy, the internal political debate in China will become sharper than we have seen so far. If I was a betting man, at this stage, I would say it is likely that Xi will prevail.

    • Measuring The Emotional Impact Of COVID-19 On The U.S. Population
      Measuring The Emotional Impact Of COVID-19 On The U.S. Population

      Tyler Durden

      Sun, 10/04/2020 – 23:20

      The COVID-19 pandemic has ripped through almost every country on the planet, causing devastating decay to the mental health of millions of people.

      While most of us are experiencing higher levels of emotional distress than normal, Visual Capitalist’s Katie Jones details below that the severity of stress may change based on factors such as age, race, education level, or even where you live. This graphic uses data from the National Pandemic Emotional Impact Report to illustrate how each demographic subgroup in the U.S. is feeling.

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      The Methodology

      The emotional upheaval of such a unique event impacts people in different ways, and is difficult to measure given the many direct and indirect factors associated with it.

      For the report referenced in the graphic, researchers created a detailed methodology to measure the impact of COVID-19 across a sample of 1,500 adults. Surveys were conducted in May 2020, when the majority of people were under strict lockdown orders. Unemployment levels mirrored those seen only during the Great Depression, and of course, the death rate was rising quicker than anyone could have anticipated.

      A Pandemic Distress Index Score (PDIS) was calculated based on participant’s responses, which were then divided into low (bottom 25%), moderate, and high (top 25%) quartiles of pandemic distress.

      Emotional Distress Levels, by Demographic Group

      Findings uncovered that almost 40% of participants have lost their jobs, or experienced a reduction in income due to the COVID-19 outbreak. However, the reverberations of such stressors vary by demographic subgroup.

      Age

      According to the report, pandemic-related emotional distress decreases by age group. People in the 18-34 year bracket reported the most pandemic-related distress overall—with respondents citing high stress at nearly double the rate of people over 50 years old. Meanwhile, respondents in the 65+ age group had reported the lowest distress scores of all.

      Race

      Of all ethnicities in the survey, Hispanics/Latinos and Blacks had the highest average Pandemic Distress Index Scores, and Whites had the lowest average scores.

      It is also worth noting that the research concluded five days after the death of George Floyd, so the majority of responses may not include the influence of this event, and the subsequent movement against systematic racism.

      Other Categories

      In other subgroups, there were slight differences worth mentioning. For example, from a communities perspective, people who live in rural areas were less likely to experience high pandemic distress compared to people living in towns or cities.

      When it comes to the battle of the sexes, men and women experience similar levels of distress. Moreover, the level of emotional distress related to COVID-19 did not differ much between people with children under 18 and those with older children. However, women with children under 18 reported more symptoms of anxiety compared to women with no minor children.

      What Does the Data Mean?

      While the research presents several important insights, understanding what it means is crucial in providing people with the support they need.

      For example, participants with high pandemic-related distress are 40 times more likely to have clinically significant levels of anxiety and 20 times more likely to have clinically significant symptoms of depression, compared to those on the lower end of the spectrum.

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      In fact, a report from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention shows that 1 in 4 people in the 18-24 age bracket have seriously considered committing suicide at some point during the month of June 2020, which is in line with the emotional distress scores for this age group.

      Building Immunity

      While nobody can escape the devastating impacts of COVID-19 on mental health, it is clear that some people are more at risk than others.

      Unfortunately, younger adults and people of racial and ethnic minorities have carried higher psychological burdens from the pandemic so far, and we have yet to see the long-term effects that could transpire as a result.

      “Even when the pandemic is brought under control, grief, anxiety and depression will continue to affect people and communities.”

      —António Guterres, United Nations

      Although at times the pandemic may feel inescapable, we must continue to prioritize both our physical and mental health—so we can build immunity for what’s to come.

    • Financialization & The Road To Zero, Part 2: From Capitalism To Financialization
      Financialization & The Road To Zero, Part 2: From Capitalism To Financialization

      Tyler Durden

      Sun, 10/04/2020 – 22:55

      Authored by ‘ICE-9’ via The Burning Platform blog,

      This is Part 2 of a 4-part series.

      Read Part 1 here…

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      …but 4,500 years of mercantilism were not going down without a fight.  Fractional reserve banking had been steadily growing since the 14th century but was exclusively a private business affair unrelated to the state.  These early fractional reserve “banks” began as safe stores for gold and silver but it did not take long for their unscrupulous owners to start speculating with their customers’ deposits, thus the nascent fractional reserve nature of these deposits where redemption coupons in circulation outnumbered physical gold and silver held in “trust”.  After many rounds of speculative losses with other people’s gold and silver, “banks” crashed, losses accumulated, and the Renaissance city states ultimately stepped in to ban this fractional reserve practice and re-enforce the Catholic prohibitions against usury.  As a result, the early 16th century mercantile “banking” industry evolved into a transparent and audited business based upon fees received for the facilitation of foreign coin exchange, notary services, and the provision of letters of account credibility.  With usury removed, the business of transparent and audited mercantile banking spread from Northern Italy throughout Western Europe and control of the banking industry transferred to Catholic and later, Protestant businessmen.  So from 1585 to 1650 the golden age of transparent and audited mercantile banking laid the groundwork for the rise and exploitation of the Dutch and English colonial empires, and the success of mercantile banking also sowed the seeds for its eventual corruption by unscrupulous players in usury friendly Protestant England.

      With the resurrection of the European super-state after centuries of dormancy, the various crowns found it increasingly difficult to secure funding to fight their continental wars of ego, secure their growing colonial empires, and fund their increasing opulence at home, so sovereigns began to form nascent “central banks” within their court administrations.  These nascent “central banks” served the crown and the crown alone and existed as polite shake-down operations as wealthy subjects placed themselves in peril if they refused to lend their gold and silver despite high probability the sovereign would default as was his divine right.  So after depleting the royal treasury during the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the English crown initiated a shakedown of the goldsmith bankers when Parliament passed The Great Stop of the Exchequer in 1672 which repudiated all outstanding loans and all but destroyed the English mercantile banking system.  What gold and silver was left to the Exchequer immediately went to use in prosecuting both the Third Anglo-Dutch War and the Franco-Dutch War, which by 1678 left the Exchequer in such dire financial circumstances that it put national security at serious risk.  A funding void followed where loans to the crown in gold and silver were nearly impossible to secure, so a first attempt at pure fiat money promoted as “legal tender” followed without success.  Then in 1685 Charles II died and the Catholic James II ascended the throne putting usury and national finances at risk of eliminating any recourse at replenishing the depleted Exchequer.  So under cover of religion, the Catholic king’s authority was nullified, his Protestant daughter ascended the throne, usury was preserved, and Parliament with its powers to raise funds acquired legal supremacy over the crown.

      With a weakened monarchy, new relative strength in Parliament, and a depleted Exchequer, Parliament pulled itself together and got to work and, once lingering legal succession issues surrounding James II were resolved, it passed the Bank of England Act of 1694.  The overt exigencies in this act were related to funding the new war with France and controlling rebellion in Ireland.  But the act also replaced the old rarely used pure fiat money of Charles II with bills redeemable in gold which also paid interest to their holders.  Thus usury was legally preserved by an act of Parliament which a weakened future potentially Catholic monarch could not overturn.  These bills backed with gold gained in popularity and filled the Exchequer’s immediate funding gap and allowed England to continue prosecuting its wars against the Dutch.  For a brief eleven years, from 1696-1707, England had returned to sound mercantile banking practice and acceptance of these interest bearing bills spread, filling the Exchequer with physical gold and silver.

      But then enter one Sir William Paterson.  This same Sir William – chief organizer of the ill-fated Darien Scheme where investors lost everything and 1,200 Panamanian colonists perished – in 1694 was the primary promoter behind the joint stock incorporation and charter of the privately owned Bank of England.  A major conflict of interest – not recognized by divine right – arose here whereby King William III was himself a major shareholder in this newly chartered bank.  But this bank was merely one of many banks chartered at the time operating under the ruinous fractional reserve practice, and nearly all these banks eventually failed save one – the Bank of England.  What made this bank charter special was its inside connection to the House of Stuart and its location inside the untouchable City of London Corporation – that one square mile of sovereign within a sovereign ceded in 1067 by William the Conqueror to the inhabitants of London.  And, this special Bank of England had discovered the magic formula that transformed Parliament into a perpetual debtor, turned the bank’s liabilities into assets, and as the money they created had zero cost, afforded the owners of this special Bank of England an infinite rate of return on fiat issuance.  Not since the Pharaohs convinced the Egyptians they were Gods had such an elaborate fraud been perpetrated upon mankind.

      To coincide with the Union of England and Scotland in 1707, this special Bank of England – one of many chartered banks at the time – was awarded responsibility for managing the issue and redemption of the popular interest bearing bills of what was now the Exchequer of Great Britain.  Given the enticement of near infinite rates of return, it did not take the Bank of England long to begin issuing its own fiat money for use by Parliament and to retire the old interest bearing bills with redemptions.  The magic formula was set – the Bank of England had figured out not how to receive interest from lending its own money, but how to receive interest by creating new money.  And the opaque nature of the magic formula with its unknown gold and silver reserves held in “trust”, together with pomp and trappings, gave the fiat money financial process the appearance of authority and legitimacy.  Parliament got its means to fund a new round of wars of attrition with France, the people got taxed at a slower rate of increase, and the House of Stuart and their banker friends got wealthy beyond belief.  And to the holders of accumulated fiat money, they discovered a way how to transfer the bulk of a society’s real wealth – land, gold, labor, and raw materials – into their own possession for free, using this fiat money of no inherit value to purchase things having real intrinsic value.  Therefore, at its most fundamental level, capitalism became the mechanism by which one trades the family cow for a bag of magic beans.

      This special relationship between Parliament and its wars of attrition and the House of Stuart and its banker friends had solved the riddle of Exchequer funding so Great Britain could now focus on its primary 18th century endeavor – war with France.  From 1701 to the final defeat of Napoleon in 1815, Great Britain prosecuted eighteen officially declared wars against France.  The stakes were serious now as France and its livre had wrested control of the world’s reserve currency from the mercantile banking Dutch after their late 17th century wars with both England and France had exhausted the Dutch treasury and the Dutch, with their mercantile banking model, could not print their way back from defeat.  The House of Stuart and its banker friends now saw defeating France and appropriating the world reserve currency to their Bank of England as the overriding collective purpose of Great Britain, and Parliament was ready and eager to assist for the “Glory of Britannia”.  But neither France’s nor Great Britain’s empires contained large quantities of gold or silver, so privateers on both sides played a large role in wartime funding but this stolen loot was especially important to the French corsairs and their mercantile banking system.  Thus the inherent empire self-destruct mechanism latent in all physical money based commercial models – depleting the crown treasury – would play a major strategy in the prosecution of Great Britain’s prolonged wars of attrition with France.  Thus 18th century Europe pitted infinite paper fiat money versus limited physical gold and silver to the death in winner-take-all stakes for control of the world reserve currency.

      The first Industrial Revolution from 1760–1820 did not create a large “virtuous cycle” for British fiat money, and given the fractured nature of the British chartered banking system, this early land empire was not yet conducive to establishing a fiat money empire.  For an idea of the imbalance in economic scale versus land size existing within the 18th century British colonies, at the cusp of the 1755 tobacco price crash the tiny Caribbean island of Barbados brought in more customs and excise income to the crown than all American colonies combined.  And, economic depressions in the colonies caused by events in and taxes imposed by the home country were common which prompted early colonialists to build up a high degree of productive diversification and self-sufficiency.  However, after more than 100 years of war against France and the final defeat of Napoleon, the mantle of world reserve currency passed to the House of Hanover and its banker enablers, so Parliament’s favorite charter bank began in earnest to churn out incredible amounts of bank notes that were now no longer needed to fund wars of attrition.  Other charter banks knew well of this special relationship between Parliament and the Bank of England so these banks began accumulating the Bank of England fiat money to use as their “reserves” held in “trust”.  The inflation caused by this round of excessive money printing, combined with little to no increase in wages, reached the point of starvation in the London streets, and Parliament’s disastrous Corn Act of 1815 drove grain prices even higher resulting in food riots and complete economic stagnation.  Thus to this point first the House of Stuart and their banking friends, then the House of Hanover and its banker enablers, through the magic formula of fiat money, had brought the United Kingdom 121 years of near continuous war, recurring national bankruptcies, and now open starvation.  Something had to be done.

      So Parliament set about to save its favorite banking charter.  Six years after the London food riots, it required the Bank of England to maintain a minimum reserve held in “trust” and to facilitate conversion of its fiat money into gold.  So the House of Hanover and its banker enablers discovered the new magic trick of borrowing gold to fulfil this new inconvenience, and promptly went back to churning out more fiat money and by 1825 had precipitated a collapse of the United Kingdom banking system that effectively eliminated nearly all competing charter banks.  For their disastrous actions, in 1833 the Bank of England was again rewarded by Parliament with the Bank of England Act granting its fiat money monopoly status as “legal tender” for a “limited period” under “certain conditions”, which over time became unlimited and unconditional as no certain conditions were ever enumerated.  Thus the act wiped out all competing charter banks and forced every person and entity in the British empire to either use or pay exchange fees to use the Bank of England’s fiat money.  And on top of all this, the House of Hanover and its banker enablers, ensconced within the untouchable City of London Corporation, from the safety of this “anachronism gifted by the Normans”, found even more profitable ventures than fraudulent banking and war funding in the forms of the slave and opium trades.  So by 1833 the same people behind slavery and opium were handed gratis sole control over the fiat money that would soon engulf 26% of the world’s land surface.  What could possibly go wrong?

      The Bank of England itself, that’s what went wrong.  Another major financial crisis initiated by the House of Hanover and its banker enablers’ boom-bust magic formula was “solved” by Parliament’s Bank Act of 1844 that set a fictional amount of imaginary gold as a fabricated “reserve” held in opaque “trust” and thereby “limited” the amount of fake fiat money the Bank of England could issue out of thin air against its imaginary gold reserves, but excluded loans to the public whose losses bothered no one in the House of Lords.  The Bank Act worked so well that by 1847 the Bank of England itself teetered on the brink of insolvency, so to retain their special relationship, Parliament repealed the Bank Act of 1844 and now the Bank of England was legally free again to print as much fiat money as it wanted.  And so economic crises and near collapse followed again from 1857-8, 1867-9, and 1873-96, each time fixed by Parliament with a tweak here, and act there, and a new unenforced regulation or two.  Thus following the 1833 grant of “legal tender” status, during their 67 years of 19th century money monopoly the House of Hanover and its banker enablers gave the United Kingdom 32 years of recession, depression, bankruptcy, and financial collapse.  But despite its delivery record its special relationship with Parliament continued into the 20th century where it once again found its raison d’être – war funding.

      One side benefit inadvertently derived from the never ending 19th century financial crises precipitated by Bank of England fiat money mis-managers was Parliament spent so much time dealing with economic problems at home and unrest in the colonies abroad that it had little time to prosecute new European wars of attrition.  With the Crimean War excepted, a sort of Pax Decoctur gripped the United Kingdom’s European aspirations as it focused on its Second Industrial Revolution at home and small scale conflicts abroad to secure far flung provinces against both people that mostly didn’t use money and people that mostly did use opium.  This “Peace through Insolvency” enabled the United Kingdom to continuously reduce its national debt without exception from a level of about 265% of GDP in 1820, down to around 40% of GDP at the start of the 20th century.  As a result, the House of Hanover and its banker enablers were able to finally develop the “virtuous cycle” necessary for the proper function of a true fiat money empire – the colonies ship raw materials to the home country and receive fiat money in payment, the home country took those raw materials and produces value added manufactured goods, then exported those manufactured goods back to the colonies that paid for these value added goods with fiat money received from the sale of raw materials.  All value added activities remained in the home country, and with European populations increasing across the colonies, this “virtuous cycle” generated economic “growth” and “profit” across the United Kingdom’s industrialized areas.  However, these cheap raw materials from abroad also sealed the demise of domestic producers, promoting urbanization at home that stagnated factory wages and led to large scale emigration to the colonies abroad, both phenomena adding to the “virtuous cycle” and increasing “value add” to those with access to capital and ownership of the means of production.

      A key component to this British “virtuous cycle” was the House of Hanover and its banker enablers were able to capture the bulk of world raw material sales and thus expand its fiat money empire outside the colonies by the process of commoditization.  Large brokerage houses, often controlled by subsidiaries of the Bank of England, bought and sold such huge quantities of these raw materials on forward contracts that they were able to manipulate their prices.  These hedge purchases and sales not only provided trading income, but also ensured all contracts were settled in Bank of England fiat money regardless of point of sale or purchase.  To squeeze even more profit from this “value chain”, other Bank of England subsidiaries expanded into corporate plantation holdings throughout the colonies, especially in India following the 1862 Cotton Famine.  This practice then spread to mining tenements following the discovery of huge gold deposits throughout Australia and the annexation of the Transvaal.  Thus the vast majority of the “virtuous cycle” was captured and maximum “value” squeezed out the entire “value chain” and into the hands of the House of Hanover and its banker enablers.  And so began a new line of exploitation for capitalism – the manipulation of commodity prices via the coordinated bulk purchase and sale of these commodities in concert with the manipulation of the “value” of fiat currency.  Entire sectors of commodity production around the world were sent into financial ruin by a coordinated attack from both the brokerages and Bank of England monetary policy, these sectors bought nearly en toto for a shilling on the pound, then pumped and dumped using the same coordinated mechanism but in the opposite directions.  Large swaths of entire industries like cotton, land, oil, wheat, coal, iron ore, et cetera regularly passed into and out of the hands of the House of Hanover and its banker enablers generating tremendous profits for them and debilitating losses for others.

      At the dawn of the 20th century, capitalism had fully matured, sound money mercantile banking no longer existed, and the magic formula had made the United Kingdom the most powerful financial, economic, and political empire ever assembled.  The covert secret formula however was it had fought only one major European war – The Crimean War – since the defeat of Napoleon, and since then the Exchequer had reduced its outstanding budget deficit relative to GDP a full 85%.  And for the first time in the fiat empire’s history, it began delivering large amounts of gold into the City of London Corporation.  The sun never set on Britannia, it ruled the waves, it had commoditized every basic raw material important to the Second Industrial Revolution, and it had subjugated nearly every primary producer on the planet to its service through price manipulated contracts denominated in Bank of England fiat money.  The United Kingdom was in a commanding position but had not yet proven itself as undisputed world military power, and the German Empire was beginning to accumulate victories and influence on the Continent.  So it was inevitable that the egos in Parliament would go back to their old bad habits of 100 years ago and start looking for a major fight to revive the “Glory of Britannia”.  And thus began a 50 year effort to destroy the rising European star of Germany, with its formidable military, efficient and technologically advanced industry, growing colonial empire, and Hegelian guiding principles of “objectivity, truth, and ethical life” which now threatened to not only swallow up and assimilate all the Germanic peoples of Europe, but to swallow up and eliminate their privately owned central banks as well.  The City of London Corporation would tolerate no fiat money rival and Germany could not continue to grow unchecked in influence – nigh, could not continue to exist – and put at risk ownership of the Bank of England’s magic money formula.

      This is where the banking story of the United States merges with that of the House of Hanover and its banker enablers.  To its great credit, the United States had three times in its early history repelled the external imposition of a privately owned central bank.  After Andrew Jackson allowed the Federal charter for the den of vipers – aka Second Bank of the United States – to expire in 1837, the existing network of disunited state chartered banks grew across the young country with the addition of every new state, each charter issuing its own semi-fiat money backed by reserve requirements dictated by each state.  Fiat money from the states varied in exchange value and bank failures were common, but the distributed and discretized nature of this Free Banking Era localized the crises and generally did not lead to national economic disasters as did the regular and recurring management failures of the Bank of England.  It was during this laisse-faire period that the United States experienced incredible growth of territory, population, political clout, and economic output, and the Federal Treasury had financially strengthened to the point where the country had the temerity to negotiate for territory, wage its own wars of conquest, and purchase new territories without serious economic repercussion.  With regards to banking it seemed the United States had found the magic money formula by not finding the magic money formula and had instead wandered into a kind of balanced budget quasi-capitalism where state charter banks issued local fiat money that few wanted as it had to compete with the gold and silver specie put in circulation by the Federal Treasury.  But then every balanced budget just begs for a good war of attrition and that’s exactly what came next.

      At the cusp of the American Civil War, the Bank of England had coopted the South into its commoditized fiat empire as most of their raw cotton exports went to British textile mills.  Thus the Bank of England’s fiat empire had crept quietly into America when the London financiers gave full support to Confederate war funding by purchasing its heavily subscribed and sterling denominated Cotton Bonds.  To facilitate war funding at home, both the Union and Confederacy resorted to fiat money issue, with the Confederacy printing greybacks and the Union printing greenbacks.  To enforce these new greenbacks as Union fiat money, Congress passed the National Banking Act of 1863 establishing a system and network of national banks using a uniform fiat money with a stipulated uniform fractional reserve requirement mandating these banks purchase and hold US Treasury bills as “reserves”.  Both sides struggled with inflation, but the Confederacy, if not defeated in battle, would likely have succumbed eventually to inflation that by war’s end ran at 9,000% of prewar levels rendering the greybacks effectively worthless.  But the old magic money formula of turning liabilities into assets worked just well enough for the Union and with this National Banking Act their greenbacks replaced the former hocus pocus uncoordinated sideshows from state charter bank fiat issue antics commonly backed with no more than borrowed gold.  Ironically, counterfeiting during the Civil War was a persistent problem, so the National Banking Act not only removed gold convertibility and gold and silver reserve requirements, but also established the United States Secret Service to ensure the Union’s new fake paper money was not fake fake paper money.  And just like the creation of its progenitor the Bank of England, greenbacks were only to be in circulation for a limited time, which in 1878 became legally unlimited time but with the re-imposition of convertibility into gold.  America had officially entered into the world of capitalism, and for the first time had a uniform national banking system under the control of the US Treasury using a single fiat currency convertible into gold with a fractional reserve requirement.  But the greenback was finding itself more and more controlled by Wall Street proxies of the City of London Corporation, Wall Street’s influence was growing immensely within the US Congress, and the bankers of the City of London Corporation had set their sights on gaining control of the levers of America’s new magic formula.

      But full control of that magic formula would take some time to acquire as the American people proved more intractable than the pliant Dickensian subjects of the City of London Corporation.  The weakened post bellum United States with its new national bank network, huge Federal budget deficit, new fiat money empire throughout the defeated Confederate States, and fast expanding Northern modern industrial base presented the City of London Corporation bankers with proverbial low hanging fruit.  After both sides weathered the depression caused by the Panic of 1873, the City of London Corporation bankers’ first salvo at usurping the American money creation mechanism was the financially engineered Panic of 1893 where a coordinated commodity price crash was timed with a run on the US Treasury gold holdings that nearly drew down the country’s entire gold reserve and sent the United States into prolonged depression.  But there’s no depression a good war can’t fix, so the politically popular 1898 Spanish-American War was prosecuted and with a quick victory the US spirits and economy sprang back to life.  The City of London Corporation bankers’ initial crude efforts was thwarted, so a second better organized salvo was launched in 1907, this time at the undertaking of Wall Street proxies, complete with a ready-made plan to fix everything and paid agents ready in Congress to promote the benevolence and virtue of the Money Trust.  And to show the American people their selfless good intentions, both J. P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller magnanimously gifted their own money to acquire and “save” insolvent banks after the US Secretary of the Treasury secretly pledged taxpayer bailout money should Morgan’s and Rockefeller’s bank investments fail.  Wall Street began its marketing campaign through Congress for the privatization of both the national currency issue and monetary policy, promising America that once control of these powers passed into secret hands all these recurring depressions caused by these very same secret hands would immediately cease.  But not all members of Congress were yet paid agents of Wall Street, and in 1913 the Pujo Committee released the results of its scathing Money Trust investigations.  The American public was in no mood to submit their sovereignty to the Wall Street Money Trust on behalf of the City of London Corporation bankers, and time was running out for the bankers to get America ensnared into their plans to deal with the new, powerful Continental upstart that threatened the Bank of England’s fiat empire gravy train – Germany.

      The second half of the European 20th century following the brutal wars of unification saw the Prussian state and its German coalition fiefdoms start to grind out military victories over first Denmark and next Austria, but it wasn’t until the German Empire coalesced after its decisive and highly efficient defeat of world power France in 1871 that alarms began ringing in the City of London Corporation.  The German people, united under one state and the Hegelian principles of “objectivity, truth, and ethical life”, was one thing, but this Hegelian destiny to unite all Germanic peoples under that state – including Germanic peoples living in states with privately owned central banks – was another thing entirely.  But the German Empire with its sound monetary policy, advanced high tech ground based military capability, and expanding colonial empire presented a formidable adversary, one that guaranteed mutually assured destruction if challenged alone.  Initial efforts to destabilize the German Empire from within using communist agitators all fell flat as the German government enacted liberal labor and social reforms blunting each new call for a general strike.  Against this rising German Empire stood a United Kingdom that had won just one major war in 85 years, was crawling out of the 20 years Long Depression, and whose banks and investment houses were clear culprits in ever recurring financial panic, one after the other, that had disastrously rippled throughout the global economy.  The limits of growth had been reached with the industrial-colonial model of the British Empire, the system was devolving into stasis, and the Exchequer’s budget deficit had been reduced to the point where a new major war of attrition could now be prosecuted.

      On the American home front the Jekyll Island conspiracy between the Wall Street proxies for the City of London Corporation bankers and the US Congress had been in play since 1910.  Its success was a crucial step for the Exchequer to gain a reliable overseas source of credit and for the Ministry of Defense to establish a supply chain prior to prosecuting its coming war of attrition against the German Empire.  It is likely these conspirators knew full well their plans would commit the United States to not only massive war funding to Great Britain, but also pit the Americans as enemy against whatever countries Parliament might declare war upon for the “Glory of Britannia”.  So in practice, when Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act in August 1913 despite the Pujo Committee findings, it not only robbed the American people of control over its monetary policy, but to a large extent robbed it of control over much of its foreign policy as well.  Thus this fateful act of betrayal to both American citizens and British subjects joined the eventual downfall of the British fiat empire with an American commitment to Endless Wars in defense of its coming fiat empire.  This was a master stroke for the City of London Corporation bankers that brought the Federal Reserve System into its cross ownership nexus that now facilitated trans-continental coordination of both monetary and foreign policies that assured aggregate coordinated outcomes always resulted in a net gain to the City of London Corporation bankers, regardless of which side of the Atlantic experienced victory or defeat.  And this new Federal Reserve System was isolated from all direct European land based military threats and had the ability to create huge quantities of fiat money adsorbed by a brand new tax base within the expanding American industrial economy which was now inescapably locked into ever growing Federal debt by the XVI Amendment.  Thus not since the fall of Troy had a free and independent people willingly invited such unseen dangers into their midst, and by subterfuge the Federal Reserve Act ended 137 years of fierce American independence with a single unconscionable law and just 30 words contained in a new constitutional amendment.

      Within four years of the Federal Reserve Act’s passage, the City of London Corporation bankers were victorious, the German Empire crushed absolutely, and the flame of “objectivity, truth, and ethical life” extinguished.  There would be no consolidation of the Germanic peoples under a single state controlled central bank, and no challenge to the Bank of England’s control over its fiat empire.  The costs were staggering – 20 million dead, 21 million injured, 1.2 million Queen’s subjects killed, USD $3.2 trillion.  Despite these losses, the combined ownership nexus of the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve System saw the City of London Corporation bankers in an even more powerful position that before the war, and for the first time since wresting control of the world reserve currency from France in 1815, the Bank of England began to share this status with the United States dollars it also controlled.  And to ensure the permanent dominance of the Federal Reserve System and avoid any resurrection of populist economic policy threats like the Free Silver Movement, or for that matter, to forever eliminate serious economic policy discussion from public debate, in 1920 Congress ratified the XIX Amendment.  Accumulated post-WWI budget deficits on both sides of the Atlantic ballooned – the Exchequer’s climbed from a prewar 20% of GDP to 180%, and the Treasury’s increased from 10% to 40% of GDP, with both countries finding themselves in the usual post-war recessions.  Time to fire up the post-war printing presses – but this time, only on the other side of the Atlantic as the City of London Corporation had grand plans for its new American vassal.

      And for all that post-war M2 fiat money now flooding into America – from a total of $18 billion circulating in 1915 to $47 billion in 1929 – the United States got things like flappers, guys going over waterfalls in barrels, jazz clubs, ultra-rich organized crime families, a mass entertainment industry, and through that cultural miasma somehow managed to build thousands of factories, make millions of cars, pave thousands of miles of roads, erect skyscrapers, and electrify cities.  But the average Queen’s subject didn’t even get so much as an extra helping of pudding.  What were the Roaring 20s in America, where industrial and service jobs abounded with the flood of fiat money created out of thin air, were more like the Boring 20s in the United Kingdom, where the printing presses remained idle and recession and mass unemployment were the order of the decade.  But then under orders from the City of London Corporation bankers the Federal Reserve System raised interest rates from 4% to 6%, and suddenly the jazz music stopped, the flappers quit flapping, and the bills for all that art deco came due in October 1929.  We all know the story of what happened next.

      One side benefit of the Great Depression in the United States was so many people were unemployed that few paid income taxes, so Congress could not immediately start a new war of attrition to right the ship of finance at Wall Street’s behest.  Learned advisors first had to resort to their old bag of tricks with a tweak here, a Congressional rider there, a new regulation or two, and even introduced the new academic driven massive Keynesian make-work stimulus programs.  Nothing worked no matter how rarefied or how many respected monetary scientists offered lofty solutions, so with the Federal Reserve insolvent and out of gold, President Roosevelt resorted to the old goldsmith shakedown tactic and issued Executive Order 6102 in April 1933, followed by Congress and its Gold Reserve Act of January 1934.  The EO effectively confiscated all gold in the United States, gave it to the privately owned Federal Reserve System at $20.67 per troy ounce, removed the gold standard again, then raised the gold price to $35 a troy ounce and began printing massive amounts of pure fiat money.  That gave the appearance of working, and industrial output slowly rose to greater than 1929 pre-crash gold standard levels entirely on the back of the inflation unleashed by pure fiat issuance until everything collapsed again in 1937.  It began to look more and more like the fog of war was the only solution to pull America out of this depression and unbeknownst to most, the country had been rearming itself since early 1940, nearly two years before the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

      The United Kingdom was in serious economic trouble too, having spent the entirety of the 1920s in deep recession and now hopelessly mired in a depression it could not shake.  The old 18th century playbook would have to be dusted off, but at a great cost – financial destruction of the British Empire and sacrifice of the Bank of England for the greater good of the City of London Corporation’s central bank cross ownership nexus.  Starting in the early 1920s, the City of London Corporation bankers had recalled their communists to kick in the teeth and pick whatever flesh was remaining from the bones of the Weimar Republic, and the now worthless Reichsbank was put to work printing up never before seen hyper-inflation.  These actions not only plunged Germany into the economic stone ages, but deprived nexus owned Bank of France of war reparations desperately needed to modernize its industrial base.  Such was the threat posed by even the remains of a German Empire that such actions were deemed acceptable losses so long as “objectivity, truth, and ethical life” were sent to the unequivocal dustbin of history.  Now, on its knees before the world’s creditors and on the brink of devolving into a failed state, Germany was needed once again by these same creditors – and needed fast by Great Britain.  Despite having few natural resources within its borders, Germany’s military machine would be resurrected from the dead and come roaring back with a vengeance on a mission to once again unite all Germanic peoples under the banner of a revisionist version of “objectivity, truth, and ethical life”, and it could only do that through the magic formula of central banking foreign credit.

      Within six years of Hitler’s ascension to the German Chancellery, Wall Street and the City of London Corporation bankers had financed the greatest mechanized military ever assembled – the Wehrmacht.  The Dawes plan of 1924 had initiated the linkage between German industry and Wall Street finance for which the American banker Charles G. Dawes shared the 1925 Nobel Peace Prize.  Under the Dawes Plan, prior to the 1929 crash, the Weimar Republic had paid its war reparations not to France or England, but to a consortium of Wall Street investment banks.  This Dawes Plan gave Germany a life-sustaining infusion of US dollar credit that would in theory produce trade that would hypothetically generate customs and excise taxes that were surmised to eventually go towards war reparations to England and France.  But then Hitler repudiated the Versailles Treaty, and the Gold Reserve Act allowed millions more pure fiat US dollars to flow out of Wall Street to their agents in “neutral” Stockholm and into the Nazi controlled Deutsche Reichsbank.  Wall Street and the City of London Corporation loved Hitler and the House of Windsor openly saluted him.  Nazism was to be a great boon to the trans-Atlantic financiers as Hitler would devoured the expendable and unprofitable Slavic peoples and ensured a never ending stream of new revenue with every eastern conquest.  It was a foolproof plan – the Atlantic Ocean was wide, the Kriegsmarine small, the Luftwaffe would run out of gas before it arrived over New York City, and the communist martyrs installed in Russia would put up a fierce and expensive fight until Lebensraum ran out of room.  But what Wall Street had not figured into its equations was that Hitler would sign an Anti-Comintern Pact, a Phony War would transform into a hot war, and another go at uniting all the Germanic peoples of Europe would commence under the new banner of Blut und Boden.  The City of London Corporation bankers would have to fix this Wall Street mess themselves and call up the blue blooded true believers, those who existed for one purpose and one purpose only – the “Glory of Britannia”.

      We all know the story of what happened next and how WWII dragged in the entire central bank cross ownership nexus to secure victory for the “Glory of Churchill”.  But for all the tens of thousands of pages published in the learned journal tomes, there is not one observation made how the Federal Reserve System failed to deliver the expectations sold to America that it would end the boom-bust cycles inherent under post bellum 19th century quasi-capitalism.  There was not one erudite call to re-examine the “special relationship” now cemented between Congress and the Federal Reserve System, and not one monetary scientist noticed the Federal Reserve System cross ownership nexus came out of the Great Depression – the depression it created – more powerful than when it entered.  Instead, the world got lofty excuses like The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money proclaiming that more of the same failures would make everything indubitably jolly good.  Not one political scientist noticed the Great Depression was used to eliminate banks not in favor with the elite ownership hierarchy within the trans-Atlantic central bank cross ownership nexus.  And, not one scholarly paragraph examined how depressions are, and have always been, financially engineered mechanisms to destroy competitor banks and consolidate increasing power into a handful of fewer banks owned by a shrinking secret ownership pool.

      With the conclusion of WWII, the Exchequer was broke as it had issued such an immense quantity of debt to finance the war that it could never be repaid without resorting to harsh austerity measures at home that would threaten social unrest during a period of national weakness.  But with the Bank of England in control of monetary policy, any semblance of economic recovery would be impossible, so after 252 years of their “special relationship”, Parliament made the only logical choice available to it and in 1946 the Bank of England was nationalized and played no further dominant role in world capitalism.  But the central bank cross ownership nexus made out just fine as the Bank of England wiggled out of holding the bag on all those unpayable war debts as the nationalization dumped them onto the backs of the Queen’s subjects in another miraculous “heads they win, tails you lose” event.  Thus 1946 begins the British period of state controlled capitalism that was in effect a transition period into de-industrialization where large segments of its economy were nationalized to ensure they were not revived through modernization and thus would never be placed into competition with industry in the United States or other European countries that were using their post-WWII rebuilding programs to modernize their industries.

      After both the Bank of England and Bank of France were lost to nationalizations, Wall Street tool the pre-eminent role within the central bank cross ownership nexus and got straight to work on elevating the US dollar to the status of undisputed world reserve currency, thus ending the 130 year run of the pound sterling. 

      And a modern world reserve currency needed a colonial fiat empire, so the United States started with Western Europe via the Anglo-American Loan Agreement of 1946 and later the Marshall Plan of 1948 to kick off its “virtuous cycle”.  The Russian financial system remained unchanged, and it absorbed Eastern Europe into its new expanded fiat empire.  Thus, the true winners at the cessation of hostilities from a purely financial perspective were the United States and the Soviet Union.

      In 1951 during the fog of the Korean War and with the Secretary of the Treasury in the hospital, the Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury – not Congress – handed the power to set interest rates independently of government economic policy entirely to the Federal Reserve System.  Like the original Federal Reserve Act, this additional power grab was sold to the American people on the premise the privately owned Federal Reserve System would “tame inflation” and “foster economic stability without responding to short-term political pressure”.  This single act by an adjutant set the stage for the Federal Reserve System to wield incredible power over government policy and essentially hold Congress to ransom, where although the US Treasury was responsible for raising government money, the privately owned Federal Reserve System was now responsible for setting that money’s price paid to it for creating it out of thin air.  So the Federal Reserve System now had the power to create or destroy national wealth by reducing or raising interest rates and there was no legal stipulation for whom their policies should benefit.  Thus unbeknownst to the American people, this unnecessary power relinquishment was, in effect, the crucial piece that would set the stage for enabling the financialization of the America economy.

      Post-WWII capitalism under the American fiat leadership functioned much like it did prior to the war except where the fiat empire was concerned.  Instead of conquest and physical occupation of resource rich lands and filling these lands up with colonists, the United States resorted to a proxy conquest model where it initiated coup d’états, assassinations, foreign espionage, fraudulent elections, and foreign propaganda campaigns to install pliable dictators and friendly juntas.  These leaders were amicable to pursuing “growth” policies, allowed American military bases on their soil, and had no qualms about crushing dissent at home or piling billions of US dollar denominated debt onto the heads of their citizenry.  In exchange for their compliance, these dictators and juntas were kept in power with generous foreign aid packages, and they in turn doled out lucrative resource development concessions, purchased US made military hardware, and awarded contracts to US corporations for industrial, civil, and defense projects.  In a new twist on colonization, many of these American proxy conquests created large numbers of emigres into the United States and provided a mechanism to ensure the consumer base at home continued to grow and devour excess production capacity as American living standards rose and native born birth rates declined.  A new “virtuous cycle” evolved whereby industry in the conquered fiat empire eventually began to generate export income sold into the US dollar denominated commodity markets, and those US dollars returned to the United States to purchase US value added exports and services.  And to secure this new “virtuous cycle”, in 1947 the Central Intelligence Agency was born out of the National Security Act, and it quickly evolved into its main directive of waging clandestine foreign hybrid wars to consolidate and grow the American fiat empire, install and keep friendly governments investing in US exports – especially military equipment – and defeat the competing Soviet fiat money empire.  Thus with its responsibility of maintaining its new global fiat empire, the United States entered into its historical phase of Endless War.

      The United Kingdom on the other hand could no longer afford control over its fiat empire as it had no viable value added export capability at war’s end and thus its “virtuous cycle” stopped functioning.  It instead resorted to de-colonialization, but only in terms of physical land holdings.  The City of London Corporation bankers either kept effective control over these former colonies’ new central banking systems or was its primary beneficiary, and in either case it retained the majority of financial profits derived from these newly created banking systems.  This “de-colonized” banking model was similar to the false “independence” of the Federal Reserve System, but here the City of London Corporation bankers retained control through majority stock ownership of the member banks that comprised the new banking systems.  In the English speaking constitutional monarchies where the serious financial profits were generated, an additional failsafe was guaranteed by the Queen’s appointment of Governor Generals who could – and once did in Australia – sack recalcitrant duly elected governments that did not put the City of London Corporation’s interests above those of their own people.

      One post-WWII change with huge repercussions to American capitalism was the US dollar denomination takeover of global commodities trade from the pound sterling.  As world population and industrialization increased and Western Europe crept back into consumer manufacturing, the volume of forward contracts traded in dollars grew in step.  However, all that American ingenuity put into its fiat empire’s “virtuous cycle” began to work too well in the Middle East and North African oil sectors.  By 1965 the combined dollar revenues received from new oil exports, taken together with all Western European dollar revenue streams, were greater than what the US domestic export capacity could absorb through its “virtuous cycle”.  Instead of buying US value added exports, these surplus overseas dollars went searching for investments and with limited low risk opportunities available, they eventually found the US Treasury Gold Window.  The 1934 Gold Reserve Act had ended domestic dollar convertibility into physical gold but not international convertibility, which was retained as per the Bretton Woods agreement, and during the second half of the 1960s these foreign dollars began to drain the US Treasury of its gold reserves.  Despite the gold rush, the US Treasury held its official exchange price constant at $35 an ounce – the same price set after the depression era Gold Reserve Act.  When the House of Rothschild finally raised the gold price in 1968, it signaled US gold reserves were in decline and prompted frenzied buying from Western Europe up until the day that American capitalism ended.

    • Why Is Nobody Talking About This…
      Why Is Nobody Talking About This…

      Tyler Durden

      Sun, 10/04/2020 – 22:30

      Far be it from us to try and ruffle feathers on a Sunday, but the inescapable reality of the events over the last four days continues to nag at us; and in news that should come as a surprise to nobody, reality isn’t being covered by the mainstream media.

      The uncomfortable reality of the situation is that the President of the United States – arguably the most powerful man on the planet – has contracted COVID-19 and, for one reason or another, it is serious enough for him to put in a semi-permanent stay at Walter Reed Medical Center.

      To say that the sitting President of the United States isn’t in a more vulnerable or precarious state than normal would simply be false. Ergo, to some degree, the country is also in a slightly more precarious and vulnerable state, despite numerous well thought out succession plans. 

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      From there, one has to examine exactly how the President of the United States wound up being in a situation where he has been compromised.

      As we have reported on this site numerous times (here, here and here), there is a growing mountain of evidence – aside from simply common sense – that COVID-19 may have not have originated from bats; but instead was altered, engineered, or created at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. (As a reminder, for our efforts in trying to discover the truth – and have civil discourse around one of the biggest issues of our time – we were rewarded by being ‘mistakenly’ banned from Twitter for months.)

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      Then there was this “rogue” Chinese virologist who published a paper just weeks ago that contained “smoking gun” evidence that the virus was man made. For her thoughts, she was also promptly kicked off Twitter.

      Given this information, the uncomfortable reality may be that there is a greater than zero chance that a Chinese made virus may be in the process of dethroning a sitting US president.

      And while the rest of the mainstream media is busy trying to find conflicting reports between Trump’s doctors about meaningless minutiae and gleefully detailing succession plans for what would happen if Trump was incapacitated, nobody appears to have the guts, bravery or plain old common sense to examine and question what could be the uncomfortable reality of the situation.

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      Based on the mainstream media‘s handling of the Wuhan Institute of Virology story, we aren’t especially confident that anybody will ever broach the subject. But at some point in the future, we’re going to look back and it’s going to be crystal clear to us that a Chinese-made virus – or at the very least a virus-born-out-of-China – has nearly incapacitated a sitting US president.

      There are tons of conspiracy theories that can run amok from here, none of which we will entertain at this point.

      But one great question is whether or not US media is so enamored with communism that they will dispense with the patriotic duty of at least considering this scenario, when it could be one of the most important issues many generations face during their lifetime.

      We hope we’re wrong about everything.

      But we sure won’t stray from our patriotic duty to at least broach the subject anymore.

      Get well soon, Mr. President. 

    • The Police Are Requesting Data From People's Smart-Speakers At An Alarming Rate
      The Police Are Requesting Data From People’s Smart-Speakers At An Alarming Rate

      Tyler Durden

      Sun, 10/04/2020 – 22:05

      Authored by Robert Wheeler via The Organic Prepper blog,

      Remember all those conspiracy theorists and Luddites who told you they didn’t want Echo or Alexa devices in their home because those gadgets were spying on them? Well, they were right. That’s not even up for debate. 

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      If you were one of those friends who mocked them and called them crazy, you were wrong. Just admit it.

      If you are bewildered by what you just read, please, read on.

      Nearly ten years ago, writers like Brandon Turbeville and others were warning that “smart technology” and the “internet of things” were being developed for surveillance and manipulation purposes. (Despite the companies’ claims of greater convenience.) We’ve been in a virtual dragnet for years.

      Those devices and technologies are ubiquitous and are being used to soak up data, private and personal conversations, interactions, and even movement. All of this openly discussed in mainstream outlets. Lately, this website has reported on the Nest, your phone’s location tracker, and other “smart” technology. We’ve even talked about how we all have “surveillance scores.“

      Take a look at WIRED’s article by Sidney Fussell, “Meet the Star Witness: Your Smart Speaker.” In this article, Fussell details a murder case in which an Amazon Echo device was presented as evidence.

      He writes, 

      In July 2019, police rushed to the home of 32-year-old Silvia Galva. Galva’s friend, also in the home, called 911, claiming she overheard a violent argument between Galva and her boyfriend, 43-year-old Adam Crespo. The two lived together in Hallandale Beach, Florida, about 20 miles from Miami.

      When officers arrived, Galva was dead, impaled through her chest by the 12-inch blade at the sharp end of a bedpost. Police believe Crespo tried to drag Galva from their bed. She held onto the bedpost to resist, but the sharp end snapped, somehow killing her. Police charged Crespo with second-degree murder. He pleaded not guilty and was released on $65,000 bail, awaiting trial. In the months since the arrest, Crespo’s lawyer has presented a surprising piece of evidence in his defense: recordings from a pair of Amazon Echo speakers.

      “I had a lot of interviews where people said, ‘Oh, are you aware that this could be the first time Alexa recordings are going to be used to convict somebody of murder?’” says Christopher O’Toole, Crespo’s lawyer. “And I actually thought of it the opposite way, that this could be the first time an Amazon Alexa recording is used to exonerate somebody and show that they’re innocent.”

      When police and prosecutors collect smart home or speaker data, it’s typically used as evidence against suspects. The Hallandale Beach Police Department filed a subpoena for Crespo’s speakers, as they may have picked up audio of the argument Galva’s friend overheard.

      The incident shows the growing role of smart home devices and wearables in police investigations.

      In 2016, police in Bentonville, Arkansas, requested Amazon Echo data in connection with a man’s death, believed to be the first such request. Amazon initially tried to block the request, but later handed over the data. A murder charge against the defendant was later dropped, but the speaker, smart home, and wearable data has figured into multiple cases since then.

      Requests for smart and wearable data has increased rapidly.

      Fussell continues,

      Earlier this month, Amazon said it had received more than 3,000 requests from police for user data in the first half of this year, and complied almost 2,000 times. That was a 72 percent increase in requests from the same period in 2016, when Amazon first disclosed the data, and a 24 percent jump in the past year alone.

      Amazon doesn’t provide granular data on what police are seeking, but Douglas Orr, head of the criminal justice department at the University of North Georgia, says police now look for smart home data as routinely as data from smartphones. Data on a smartphone often points officers towards other devices, which they then probe as the investigation continues.

      By amending a search warrant, police can “keep going to keep collecting data,” Orr says. “That usually leads to an Echo or at least some other device.”

      As Orr explains, officers are getting more savvy about smart home devices, creating templates that simplify requesting data. Police departments often share these templates, he says, tailoring requests for the specifics of the case they’re investigating.

      Google’s Nest unit reported increasing police demands for data from its smart speakers through 2018. Google then stopped reporting Nest data separately, including such requests in its broader corporate transparency report, which shows increased requests for Google user data.

      In their terms of service, most major apps and websites include a clause warning users that companies may hand over their data if requested by the government. Law enforcement agencies file subpoenas or search warrants for data, detailing to judges what evidence they expect to find on the devices and how it may serve the investigation. Amazon and Google both notify users of a request for data unless the order itself forbids it. Any number of entities can request user data, but the companies say they prioritize requests based on urgency.

      “Things like Homeland Security, they’re going to take high priority,” explains Lee Whitfield, a forensic analyst. “Other law enforcement requests will come in under that. And then things like divorce cases or civil cases, they have a lower ranking.”

      In an emailed statement, an Amazon spokesperson said the company “objects to overbroad or otherwise inappropriate demands” from law enforcement and referred WIRED to its policy on government requests. A Google spokesperson also referred WIRED to its updated policy on requests.

      Forensic experts tell WIRED that information from the devices is valued because it can offer a timeline of a person’s activities, their location, if they’re alone, and can verify statements made during questioning.

      . . . . .

      Orr has studied the types of data police can pull from smart speakers like the Amazon Echo. “Voice clips are only the beginning,” he says. Speakers keep time-stamped logs of user activity. Police can examine these logs to get a sense of what someone was doing around the time of an alleged crime.

      Fussell then provides another example of how these devices are used by law enforcement.

      He writes,

      Consider a potential suspect who can’t prove where they were at 11 pm on a Thursday, because they live alone. Something as simple as ordering pizza through a speaker would show the time and location of the request and, if voice recognition is enabled, who made the request. “It might be benign information that someone was ordering a pizza, but it might also be an alibi for somebody,” Orr says.

      Police increasingly rely on wearables and smart devices to verify the claims people make during an investigation. Sometimes, the tools can reveal a lie.

      Heather Mahalik, a forensics instructor, recalls a Florida case in which a man killed his wife, then tried to impersonate her. The husband sent texts and Facebook messages from his wife’s phone in an attempt to blur the timeline of her disappearance. While the woman’s phone activity continued, her Apple Watch showed a sudden drop in heart rate activity that the husband claimed was due to a dead battery. Activity on the man’s phone synced perfectly with when he used the wife’s phone to post to Facebook. Her phone showed no activity except for when the husband picked it up to post, with timestamps matching his activity to the use of the wife’s phone.

      “We were able to tell from his device that he would pick up the phone, take 18 steps, and it corresponded with the time he posted a Facebook post,” Mahalik says.

      Connecting information from multiple devices is a common practice, analysts say. Information on one device can suggest evidence on another. This ability to string together discoveries leads to what another expert calls a phased approach to digital forensics.

      “They ask for something, the investigation moves along, they find something else interesting, and then they request the next thing,” says Whitfield, the forensic analyst.

      O’Toole, Crespo’s lawyer, says police subpoenaed Crespo’s social media accounts right away, then requested his voice recordings about four weeks later. Officers wrote in the search warrant that the speaker data may include “audio recordings capturing the attack on victim Silvia Crespo.”

      O’Toole says he intends to introduce the smart speaker recordings in his client’s favor. Via email, a spokesperson for Hallandale Beach Police confirmed the case was still active but did not provide further comment.

      O’Toole says smart speaker recordings are part of several cases he’s working on, including a divorce in which a woman subpoenaed data from a smart speaker that may have picked up the sounds of her husband with another woman..

      Whitfield says police are becoming more savvy about the information in the smart speakers’ activity logs. He recalls a case where police found drugs in a household with multiple residents. Officers identified a suspect after seizing data from a smart speaker. Its log not only listed recent queries related to drugs but identified who spoke them. Google and Amazon speakers let users create profiles so the devices recognize their individual voices. This information helped police identify the suspect.

      “I just don’t see this going away,” Whitfield says. “I think this is going to be more and more prolific as time goes on.”

      Whitfield is right.

      It will never go away.

      Advertisement of these technological devices as a tool for convenience was a manipulative tactic to introduce technological devices for their real purpose – the tracking, monitoring, and recording of citizens so that no action – no matter how small – goes unnoticed. We are already living in a surveillance state and it’s only going to get worse.

      Once begun, this bell cannot be unrung.

    • Trump Taps Conservative Watchdog Tom Fitton For Court Oversight Agency
      Trump Taps Conservative Watchdog Tom Fitton For Court Oversight Agency

      Tyler Durden

      Sun, 10/04/2020 – 21:15

      President Trump plans to appoint conservative legal watchdog Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch to serve on a D.C. court oversight body which has the power to remove judges within the district, according to Politico.

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      Fitton’s upcoming appointment to the D.C. Commission on Judicial Disabilities and Tenure was announced by the White House in a Friday afternoon letter. The commission includes four attorneys, one federal judge and two laypeople who can vote to remove judges for misconduct, or force judges into retirement if they become mentally or physically incapacitated.

      The president can appoint one of the members to a five-year term.

      Fitton heads up Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog organization founded in 1994, which has made headlines bringing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits to force the government to release evidence which may point to misconduct by government officials.

      The groups has sued both Republican and Democratic administrations, including the Clinton IRS alleging a retaliatory audit, the Bush administration and former Vice President Dick Cheney and his former company, Haliburton, and the Obama administration over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails, after she deliberately circumvented the Freedom of Information Act with a private server in order to conceal her communications from public records requests.

    • How The DNC Hired CrowdStrike To Frame Russia For The Hack: Excerpt
      How The DNC Hired CrowdStrike To Frame Russia For The Hack: Excerpt

      Tyler Durden

      Sun, 10/04/2020 – 20:50

      Submitted by Thomas Farnan, originally published in The National Pulse

      U.S. Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe recently declassified information indicating the CIA obtained intelligence in 2016 that the Russians believed the Clinton campaign was trying to falsely associate Russia with the so-called hack of DNC computers. CIA Director John Brennan shared the intelligence with President Obama. They knew, in other words, that the DNC was conducting false Russian flag operation against the Trump campaign. The following is an exclusive excerpt from The Russia Lie that tells the amazing story in detail:

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      On March 19, 2016, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, surrendered his emails to an unknown entity in a “spear phishing” scam. This has been called a “hack,” but it was not.  Instead, it was the sort of flim-flam hustle that happens to gullible dupes on the internet. 

      The content of the emails was beyond embarrassing. They showed election fraud and coordination with the media against the candidacy of Bernie Sanders. The DNC and the Clinton campaign needed a cover story.

      Blaming Russia would be a handy way to deal with the Podesta emails. There was already an existing Russia operation that could easily be retrofitted to this purpose. The problem was that it was nearly impossible to identify the perpetrator in a phishing scheme using computer forensic tools. 

      The only way to associate Putin with the emails was circumstantially. 

      The DNC retained a company that called itself “CrowdStrike” to provide assistance. CrowdStrike’s chief technology officer and co-founder, Dmitri Alperovitch, is an anti-Putin, Russian expat and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. 

      With the Atlantic Council in 2016, all roads led to Ukraine. The Atlantic Council’s list of significant contributors includes Ukrainian billionaire Victor Pinchuk. 

      The Ukrainian energy company that was paying millions to an entity that was funneling large amounts to Hunter Biden months after he was discharged from the US Navy for drug use, Burisma, also appears prominently on the Atlantic Council’s donor list. 

      Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the Western puppet installed in Ukraine, visited the Atlantic Council’s Washington offices to make a speech weeks after the coup. 

      Pinchuk was also a big donor (between $10 million and $20 million) to the Clinton Foundation. Back in ’15, the Wall Street Journal published an investigative piece, “Clinton Charity Tapped Foreign Friends.” The piece was about how Ukraine was attempting to influence Clinton by making huge donations through Pinchuk. Foreign interference, anyone?

      On June 12, 2016, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange announced: “We have upcoming leaks in relation to Hillary Clinton . . . We have emails pending publication.” 

      Two days later, CrowdStrike fed the Washington Post a story, headlined, “Russian government hackers penetrated DNC, stole opposition research on Trump.” The improbable tale was that the Russians had hacked the DNC computer servers and got away with some opposition research on Trump. The article quoted Alperovitch of CrowdStrike and the Atlantic Council.

      The next day, a new blog – Guccifer 2.0 – appeared on the internet and announced:

      Worldwide known cyber security company CrowdStrike announced that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) servers had been hacked by “sophisticated” hacker groups.

      I’m very pleased the company appreciated my skills so highly))) But in fact, it was easy, very easy.

      Guccifer may have been the first one who penetrated Hillary Clinton’s and other Democrats’ mail servers. But he certainly wasn’t the last. No wonder any other hacker could easily get access to the DNC’s servers.

      Shame on CrowdStrike: Do you think I’ve been in the DNC’s networks for almost a year and saved only 2 documents? Do you really believe it?

      Here are just a few docs from many thousands I extracted when hacking into DNC’s network.

      Guccifer 2.0 posted hundreds of pages of Trump opposition research allegedly hacked from the DNC and emailed copies to Gawker and The Smoking Gun. In raw form, the opposition research was one of the documents obtained in the Podesta emails, with a notable difference: It was widely reported the document now contained “Russian fingerprints.”

      The document had been cut and pasted into a separate Russian Word template that yielded an abundance of Russian “error “messages. In the document’s metadata was the name of the Russian secret police founder, Felix Dzerzhinsky, written in the Russian language. 

      The three-parenthesis formulation from the original post “)))” is the Russian version of a smiley face used commonly on social media. In addition, the blog’s author deliberately used a Russian VPN service visible in its emails even though there would have been many options to hide any national affiliation.

      Under the circumstances, the FBI should have analyzed the DNC computers to confirm the Guccifer hack. Incredibly, though, the inspection was done by CrowdStrike, the same Atlantic Council-connected private contractor paid by the DNC that had already concluded in The Washington Post that there was a hack and Putin was behind it. 

      CrowdStrike would declare the “hack” to be the work of sophisticated Russian spies. Alperovitch described it as, “skilled operational tradecraft.” 

      There is nothing skilled, though, in ham-handedly disclosing a Russian identity when trying to hide it. The more reasonable inference is that this was a set-up. It certainly looks like Guccifer 2.0 suddenly appeared in coordination with the Washington Post’s article that appeared the previous day. 

      FBI Director James Comey confirmed in testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee in January 2017 that the FBI’s failure to inspect the computers was unusual to say the least. “We’d always prefer to have access hands-on ourselves if that’s possible,” he said. 

      But the DNC rebuffed the FBI’s request to inspect the hardware. Comey added that the DNC’s hand-picked investigator, CrowdStrike, is “a highly respected private company.” 

      What he did not reveal was that CrowdStrike never corroborated a hack by forensic analysis. In testimony released in 2020, it was revealed that CrowdStrike admitted to Congressional investigators as early as 2017 that it had no direct evidence of Russian hacking. 

      CrowdStrike’s president Shawn Henry testified, “There’s not evidence that [documents and emails] were actually exfiltrated [from the DNC servers]. There’s circumstantial evidence but no evidence that they were actually exfiltrated.”

      The circumstantial evidence was Guccifer 2.0.

      This was a crucial revelation because the thousand ships of Russiagate launched upon the positive assertion that CrowdStrike had definitely proven a Russian hack. Yet this fact was kept from the American public for more than three years.  

      The reasonable inference is that the DNC was trying to frame Russia and the FBI and intelligence agencies were going along with the scheme because of political pressure.

      Those who assert that it is a “conspiracy theory” to say that CrowdStrike would fabricate the results of computer forensic testing to create a false Russian flag should know that it was caught doing exactly that around the time it was inspecting the DNC computers. 

      On Dec. 22, 2016, CrowdStrike caused an international stir when it claimed to have uncovered evidence that Russians hacked into a Ukrainian artillery computer app to help pro-Russian separatists. Voice of America later determined the claim was false, and CrowdStrike retracted its finding. 

      Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense was forced to eat crow and admit that the hacking never happened. 

      If you wanted a computer testing firm to fabricate a Russian hack for political reasons in 2016, CrowdStrike was who you went out and hired.

      To read the rest of the story, click The Russia Lie: How the Military Industrial Complex Targeted Trump and buy the ebook for just $5.

    • "Don't Tell Anyone" – Trump Didn't Disclose Initial Positive COVID-19 Test Results: Report
      “Don’t Tell Anyone” – Trump Didn’t Disclose Initial Positive COVID-19 Test Results: Report

      Tyler Durden

      Sun, 10/04/2020 – 20:25

      The White House Correspondents Association is having a full-blown fit over President Trump’s decision to leave Walter Reed and do a little drive-by visit for the “Great Patriots” gathered outside.

      And as if that weren’t enough, WSJ late Sunday published a “scoop” reporting what anybody who watched Dr. Conley’s Saturday press briefing probably had already expected: That President Trump didn’t immediately inform the public of the results of a rapid COVID-19 test taken Thursday.

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      Trump revealed in a tweet sent early Friday morning that both he and the First Lady had tested positive for the virus. But in a press briefing on Saturday, Trump’s physician, Dr. Sean Conley, “misspoke”, saying Trump was 72 hours in already, suggesting that Trump may have known about his illness as early as Wednesday.

      So far, there’s no evidence to suggest that Trump tested positive Wednesday. But according to WSJ, Trump first tested positive via a rapid test (probably the Abbott Labs rapid test) for the first time on Thursday evening, shortly before he sat for a phone interview with Fox News Host Sean Hannity. During the interview, Trump acknowledged that his aide, Hope Hicks, had tested positive. But he claimed that he wouldn’t get his test results back until “either tonight or tomorrow morning”.

      “I’ll get my test back either tonight or tomorrow morning,” Mr. Trump said during the interview. At 1 a.m. on Friday, the president tweeted that he indeed had tested positive.

      To be sure, WSJ reported that the White House protocol is to first test Trump and his staff with the Abbott Labs test, then – if that test comes back positive – they’re tested again with a more accurate test. WSJ’s sources claimed that Trump’s tests followed this protocol. After testing positive for the first time, Trump reportedly told one of his aides: “Don’t tell anyone”.

      Apparently, “anyone” included other top officials in the West Wing and the Campaign. One source told WSJ that Bill Stepien, Trump’s campaign manager, wasn’t aware of Hope Hicks’ positive test until he read about it on Twitter.

      Stepien has since tested positive. Now, other WSJ sources are saying that a sense of anxiety has gripped the West Wing, as nobody is willing to talk about positive tests, even among their colleagues.

      The initial secrecy within Mr. Trump’s inner circle has created a sense of anxiety within the West Wing. Publicly, the White House has issued evolving and contradictory statements about the president’s health that has some officials worried about their own credibility.

      “I’m glued to Twitter and TV because I have no official communication from anyone in the West Wing,” an administration official said.

      The White House didn’t respond immediately to a request for comment.

      Before closing out the story, WSJ offered a hint that Trump’s team was already curtailing access to the president on Wednesday. Despite this, when Trump arrived in Minneapolis, he shook hands and posed for photos, confounding his greeters’ expectations.

      Minnesota state Rep. Kurt Daudt said Saturday he was awaiting a Covid-19 test after greeting Mr. Trump at the Minneapolis airport on Wednesday. Mr. Daudt and other greeters had been tested before meeting the president, and were instructed not to shake hands with him or get close to him, but when the president came down the stairs from the plane, he offered to take photos.

      “You’ve been tested, right?” Mr. Trump said, according to Mr. Daudt.

      Several of the greeters posed for photos with the president, with some standing less than a foot away from him, according to photos from the event. None wore a mask. Mr. Trump then attended a fundraiser at the home of Mike Davis, owners of a quartz countertop company, according to his campaign schedule.

      Notably, the timeline offered by WSJ at least confirms that Trump didn’t test positive until after returning from a fundraiser at his golf club in Bedminster, NJ. When pressed by reporters, WH press secretary Kayleigh McEnany only said that Trump didn’t test positive until after returning from Bedminster.

      None of this is damning evidence that Trump lied to the country, of course. Though we wouldn’t be surprised to see the NYT follow this up with a similarly anonymously sourced report claiming that Trump actually tested positive Thursday morning – or perhaps even Wednesday evening.

    • Report A Social Worker For Sexual Harassment And He Might Take Your Kids
      Report A Social Worker For Sexual Harassment And He Might Take Your Kids

      Tyler Durden

      Sun, 10/04/2020 – 20:00

      Submitted by Sovereign Man

      Natia Sampson volunteered to become the legal guardian of her niece after the girl’s parents were incarcerated. And the social worker on the case took a liking to Natia.

      At first she politely rejected his advances, fearing that reporting these instances would be met with retaliation. But soon it turned into sexual harassment, and she was forced to contact his superiors. But nothing changed. Until one day, the social worker exploded at Natia, saying, “I don’t know where you get off sending all these complaint emails and making all these calls, but you are going to find out that we at [Child Services] stick together, and cover for each other.”

      Soon after, he lodged claims of child neglect against Natia. She eventually fought off the completely unsubstantiated charges.

      Natia then sued the social worker and the Department of Children and Family Services for so obviously violating her rights. But the case was dismissed last month. The Judge’s decision reads:

      “the right of private individuals to be free from sexual harassment at the hands of social workers was not clearly established at the time of defendants’ conduct in this case.”

      What this means:

      Clearly if the parents are in prison, this family has some problems. It is easy to dismiss these cases as the stuff of broken homes. But we have also highlighted a case in the past where children were kidnapped by a SWAT team after the parents disagreed with a doctor over the seriousness of a fever.

      Then there was the child taken away because a father wouldn’t cooperate with a civil asset forfeiture proceeding– when the cops steal your money without a conviction, or even a criminal charge.

      A town in Alabama removed countless children from innocent parents because a lab owner falsified drug test results for years.

      One judge removed a child from the home in an attempt to force a confession from her parents. The courts found no evidence of abuse, but didn’t return the child to her parents for two years.

      This same judge removed a child from a home because the court hearing was running too late into the evening. In another case, she arbitrarily denied placing a child with his grandparents, instead placing him in a stranger’s foster home where he was sexually abused.

      While hopefully these cases are rare, you can’t deny that foster care horror stories exist. It’s terrible enough to be separated from your child. But to imagine what could be happening to your child in a stranger’s care is even more terrifying.

      Earlier this year, the US Marshal Service launched a national effort to rescue trafficked children. They recently confirmed that the majority of sexually trafficked children they rescued came from foster care.

      In the Ohio operation, “25 of the 31 children recovered were in DCFS [foster] care in either a group homes or foster case… in Georgia: 28 of the 39 recovered were in the care of DFACS [Department of Family and Children’s Services].”

      What you can do about it:

      There has recently been a massive increase in homeschooling because of COVID. In the past, you could reasonably worry that homeschooling would make you a target of the state, just for being outside the mainstream. But these days, homeschooling is more likely to shield you from any incidents in the first place.

      Just this past Friday we talked about a case where a social worker was brought in because a teacher saw a BB gun in a child’s bedroom during virtual learning.

      Teachers peering into your home through the child’s computer screen is already ensnaring innocent kids and parents in the social services system. So it’s reasonable to assume that states with the highest homeschool freedom are some of the safest from social services overreach as well.

      The following states do not require any notice that you are homeschooling: Alaska, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Texas. (Usually in these states you do have to formally withdraw your child from public school if they were previously enrolled.)

      Also, joining the Home School Legal Defense Association (or a similar group) gives you legal protection, resources, and a network with strength in numbers if Child Protective Services does ever unjustly target you.

      But when it comes to something as important as having agency over your own children, you may want to look outside the US entirely.

      In a Sovereign Man Confidential Alert from August, we profiled a man who we referred to as David. As a child, he witnessed the government kidnap his five-year-old nephew. David’s parents had been raising the little boy– their grandson– because the boy’s parents were unable to do so. But the boy’s father (David’s sister’s ex) didn’t like the arrangement. He convinced his girlfriend, a Child Protective Services official, to remove the child from the home. The little boy was never returned.

      “I saw first-hand that child welfare in the US is a Soviet-style system,” he says. “They got away with it. I vowed at that moment never to have a child in the US.”

      David and his wife opted to have their first baby in Brazil, where they have been living for most of this year. And for their next child, they are considering Argentina or Chile. In the meantime, the family plans to live in Spain.

      Of course, this is only anecdotal information. But as someone who witnessed the abuses of the US child services system first- hand, David feels better about his parental rights in these countries. And even when a country’s official child services laws look similar to laws in the US, in practice, it may be much more rare for a child to be removed without actual serious cause.

      In that sense, you may want to look at a country’s culture regarding parental rights, rather than just its laws.

    • DHS Grants Millions To Groups Fighting 'Right-Wing Extremism'
      DHS Grants Millions To Groups Fighting ‘Right-Wing Extremism’

      Tyler Durden

      Sun, 10/04/2020 – 19:30

      Since the largest threat facing the country is white supremacists, according to FBI Director Chris Wray and Homeland Security acting chief Tom Wolf, the Department of Homeland Security has agreed to provide $10 million in grants to organizations which combat ‘far-right extremism and white supremacy,‘ according to the Wall Street Journal.

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      The department’s Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention program will fund groups such as Life After Hate – founded by reformed white supremacists, which helps people trying to do the same. Another group, the School of Communication at American University, will develop a strategy to combat disinformation ‘circulated by the far right online,’ and others. Life After Hate was awarded nearly $750,000, while the School of Communication received a $500,000 grant.

      One of the largest grants, nearly $750,000, went to Life After Hate, which was founded by former white supremacists and neo-Nazis and works with people trying to leave violent far-right movements. The group was first awarded funding under the Obama-era program but had its grant rescinded soon after Mr. Trump took office. –Wall Street Journal

      Life After Hate says they will use the funding for its ExitUSA initiative. Executive director Sammy Rangel says their work “has never been more important,” adding “This project follows years of innovation in a space that was largely uncharted.”

      Another group, the Counter Extremism Project, was awarded $277,755 to collaborate with Parallel Networks, which works with inmates at a San Diego County correctional facility who adhere to both white supremacist of jihadi ideology.

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      Former al Qaeda recruiter Jesse Morton’s group will work to help pull inmates away from extremist mindsets and give them the tools to reintegrate into society.

      The organizations will develop a curriculum—one for white supremacists, and the other for jihadis—aimed at providing alternative narratives to extremist ideology that will be administered both in person and through email correspondence.

      Jesse Morton, a former recruiter for al Qaeda in New York who now heads Parallel Networks, said the goal is to help pull these inmates away from an extremist mindset and give them the tools to reintegrate into society after leaving prison. –Wall Street Journal

      According to a DHS spokesman, the funding is targeted at preventing “violent white supremacy alongside a number of recognized and emergent forms of terrorism and targeted violence.”

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      Joe Biden holds hands with former White Supremacist and mentor, Sen. Robert Byrd

      In September, FBI Director Christopher Wray told the House Homeland Security Committee that the majority of deadly or violent incidents against others in 2018 and 2019 were racially and ethnically motivated, and are “the most lethal of all domestic extremists since 2001.”

    • Nasdaq Shorts Collapse By 40% From 2nd Highest Ever After SoftBank-Inspired Squeeze
      Nasdaq Shorts Collapse By 40% From 2nd Highest Ever After SoftBank-Inspired Squeeze

      Tyler Durden

      Sun, 10/04/2020 – 19:16

      Last weekend, we pointed out following the recent modest correction in the Nasdaq, institutional traders had gone full bear – at least in NQ futures – pushing the net non-commercial contracts to the second shortest position ever, which prompted both us and others to caution that a short squeeze in NQ futs was imminent. This is what the otherwise bearish (on tech) Bear Traps Report said last week after observing our chart:

      Nasdaq non-commercial futures positioning is now the shortest since 2008, the index has rapidly blown through the March lows. We are definitely not bullish Nasdaq, but this certainly gives us pause. It is quite possible that this is just momentum players hedging their FANG gains etc, but still quite a move. Keep in mind, that was out a week ago. We’d imagine most dealers and former dealers are bearish risk and are short futures because every piled into puts very quickly (i.e dealers had to hedge themselves on the other side of the trade). Setting up for a squeeze to short into…

      A few days later, that’s precisely what happened because according to the latest CFTC Commitment of Traders report, the Nasdaq 100 mini net spec short position in the week ending Sept 29 indeed collapsed by almost 40%, as the net future position shrank from -134.3K to -79.6K.

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      What happened? Well, as we reported on Friday using both SpotGamma data and a report from CNBC’s David Faber, SoftBank appears to have attempted another forced short squeeze, this time not so much in gamma but in actual future shorts, although it may well have been aiming for both. As SpotGamma observed on Friday, “this chasm between call & put gamma is starting to look similar to that of early August” while CNBC’s David Faber explained what caused it: on Thursday SoftBank bought $200M worth of calls in NFLX, AMZN, FB and GOOGL.

      This likely explains why the Nasdaq ripped higher on Thursday after trading water for much of past week…

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      … however, SoftBank probably did not expect the Friday fireworks, when Trump’s covid diagnosis actually resulted in a pro-cyclical trade sweeping market as traders assumed (perhaps erroneously) that a fiscal stimulus deal (and its associated inflation) is now more likely.

      In any case what we find most notable, is that while the Nasdaq indeed rose modestly last week (vs the Sept 25 Friday close), the fact that a whopping 40% of NQ short were covered and the Nasdaq barely rose, likely means that any future attempts by Softbanks to spark a gamma or futures squeeze could have very painful consequences for Masa Son… and potentially all those who furiously keep buying tech stocks and QQQs (and even the 3x levered TQQQ) after every dip.

    • "This Is A CDO": Cerberus Selling $300MM In "Potentially Worthless" BBB- Rated CMBS IO-Strips As AAA Securities
      “This Is A CDO”: Cerberus Selling $300MM In “Potentially Worthless” BBB- Rated CMBS IO-Strips As AAA Securities

      Tyler Durden

      Sun, 10/04/2020 – 18:40

      Back in May, when the Fed was struggling to rekindle animal spirits and force investors into every possible toxic debt instrument it could find, we explained how through the magic of modern monetary alchemy, a portfolio consisting of 96% Junk Loans had been converted into 87% investment grade bonds.

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      The magic catalyst in question: CLOs, which are structured credit products that take a portfolio of mostly junk loans – which are used to fund much of corporate America – and repackage them in such a way that the resulting product looks and feels much higher in credit quality, even though it consists of the exact same junky underlying securities, just presented in a different way.

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      Of course, this is hyperbole there is nothing “magical” about what CLOs do – in a nutshell, such structured products merely take advantage of the diversification nature of a broad pool of loans and make the assumption that absent a catastrophic economic crash, it is unlikely that more than a given percentage of loans will default at any one time. Now, we got perilously close to just such a mass default event after the covid shutdowns, which is also why the Fed had no choice but to step in and effectively bailout both corporate bonds and loans, or else it risked a complete collapse of the corporate bond and loan markets, and trillions of downstream losses in the CLO space.

      In retrospect, and looking where risk assets trade now, the Fed has succeeded in kicking the can (whether it can continue doing that even as we head into the peak turbulence period of the US election and a potential second wave and new shutdowns, remains an open question).

      One company which is not waiting to see what happens to the economy or to euphoria investor risk appetite, is the iconic distressed investor, Cerberus Capital, which has taken the CLO example above one step further, and instead of selling repackaging loans, has taken a bunch of freefalling, and potentially worthless, CMBS interest-only tranches and repackaged this steaming pile of dogshit into a $300 million product that the rocket scientists at DBRS rated, drumroll, AAA.

      The product? A CDO, or Collateralized Debt Obligation, very much of the type that led to the collapse of the financial system in 2007/2008 when a handful of banks repackaged subprime mortgages into CDOs (and CDO squareds), giving the impression of riskless securities, which were virtually all wiped out once the housing market crashed, and one-hit wonder investors such as John Paulson made billions.

      As Bloomberg details this latest “Wall Street alchemy” enabled by the Fed’s idiotic bubble-blowing policies, “in a maneuver that recalls the complex home mortgage investments in the mid-2000s, Cerberus Capital Management has used relatively low-quality commercial mortgage bonds to create triple-A debt.” In doing so, it is taking advantage of the greed and stupidity of the prevailing investor, because as we have repeatedly noted, the commercial real estate market has been clobbered especially hard by the pandemic, and a CMBX series focusing on hotels has emerged as the “Big Short 3.0” trade.

      Just how bad is the CRE market? Consider that according to Trepp, around 9% of all commercial mortgages that have been bundled into bonds were delinquent in August, as Covid-19 keeps shoppers out of malls, travelers away from hotels and workers home from offices. The real number is far higher, and only the fact that $20 billion in CMBS forbearances have been granted is preventing this chart from exploding.

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      This is why hedge funds that find themselves holding to these securities are looking for creative ways to offload them to the army of idiot investors spawned by Jerome Powell’s monetary idiocy, while also making money from flipping them. Sure enough, Cerberus will likely strike gold in both regards: the securities sold by the hedge fund mature in 2.2 years, and the AAA portion is being marketed at a price of between 1.4 and 1.5 percentage points over benchmarks, according to Bloomberg sources. The high ratings combined with relatively high yields and short-term maturity could attract some investors.

      Specifically, Cerberus – where Dan Quayle is Chairman of Global investments and may explain how Cerberus ended up with this pile of steaming horseshit in the first place – is taking derivatives of commercial mortgage bonds, known as interest-only strips, and packaging them into around $390 million of notes, about $300 million of which have top ratings from DBRS Morningstar.

      As Bloomberg explains the structured product “alchemy” we first deconstructed back in May, “most of the commercial mortgage securities at the foundation of this transaction have the lowest investment-grade rating, BBB-, but through the magic of securitization they’re transmuted into AAA instruments, similar to subprime mortgage bond derivatives that were bundled into top-rated collateralized debt obligations during the U.S. housing bubble.”

      Attempting to explain why investors have once again learned absolutely nothing from the financial crisis, Jason Callan, head of structured assets at Columbia Threadneedle Investments said “I’m sure the ratings are what’s driving the demand.” He is right, although it’s worth remembering that rating agencies rated hundreds of similar CDOs AAA in the summer of 2007, only to see them completely wiped out less than a year later.

      “This is a CDO,” said Jen Ripper, an investment specialist at Penn Mutual Asset Management. “There could be a real risk of some principal loss at the BBB- level, which most of these interest-only tranches are ‘stripped’ off of.”

      As Bloomberg adds, the transaction is being referred to as a “resecuritization”, according to deal docs, which say it’s structured so that cash flows have some protection from early repayment of principal through refinancing, and losses due to defaults. By some protection it likely means 1-2 months of capital buffer after which buyers are on their own. And in a world where a $700 million mall-backed CMBS portfolio is about to become the first mega casualty of the covid crisis, they will be on their own very soon.

      Not convinced yet? Well, the deal is backed by about 9,300 mortgages, 27.6% of which are office, 25% retail and 15.5% hotel – the three hardest hit sectors in the post-covid age – while the rest is a mix of other commercial real estate sectors, initial marketing materials show.

      Worse, CMBS “interest-only strips” are linked to the performance of corresponding bonds with the same ratings that pay both principal and interest. They represent securities backed by the excess interest generated from a pool of commercial mortgages. In other words, these securities default first, before any other impairments hit the capital structure. It also means that anyone who investors in such a “resecuritization” will lose money, guaranteed… unless of course the Fed buys it all.

      Completing the farce, the Cerberus deal is being arranged by Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, the three banks that have the worst criminal record in the world and which collectively have paid tens of billions of legal fees, penalties and settlements. And soon, once this deal also blows up, we can add a few more billion in legal penalties.

      But don’t worry, nobody will go to prison, because if anyone is guilty of anything, it is the Fed for allowing this kind of financial crisis stupidity to make a triumphal return.

    • Military Bases On The Moon: US Plans To Weaponize The Earth's Satellite
      Military Bases On The Moon: US Plans To Weaponize The Earth’s Satellite

      Tyler Durden

      Sun, 10/04/2020 – 18:15

      Authored by T.J.Coles via Counterpunch.org,

      In July, Dmitry Rogozin, Director General of Roscosmos, cited the U.S. “retreat from principles of cooperation and mutual support” to justify Russia’s refusal to join the latest U.S. space initiative: to build lunar bases. Rogozin was likely referring to the U.S. refusal to renew the Intermediate-range Forces Treaty and its intention to back out of the Open Skies Treaty.

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      Russia responded by declaring that Venus is a “Russian planet.” The U.S. continues to reject Sino-Russian efforts to strengthen the Outer Space Treaty 1967, to prohibit the weaponization of space. Doing so would interfere with U.S. plans for “full spectrum dominance.”

      MOON LANDING 2.0

      Last week on 22 September, the National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA) signed a memorandum with the Department of Defense (DOD). The signers were NASA’s administrator, Jim Bridenstine, and the U.S. Space Force Chief of Operations General, John Raymond.

      The signing of the memo took place in the broader context of NASA’s Artemis program. In December 2017, Donald Trump signed the Presidential Memorandum on Reinvigorating America’s Human Space Exploration Program. It was an update of Obama’s space policy, adding that the U.S. will: “Lead an innovative and sustainable program of exploration with commercial and international partners to enable human expansion across the solar system and to bring back to Earth new knowledge and opportunities.”

      NASA’s Artemis program oversees the U.S. mission to exploit the moon, including the construction of the Artemis Base Camp at the lunar South Pole, probably near the Shackleton Crater. This will serve as a forerunner to building a base on Mars. It “builds on a half-century of experience and preparation to establish a robust human-robotic presence on and around the Moon,” says NASA. Artemis includes a Space Launch System and the Orion spacecraft. These operations will enable “U.S. commercial companies and international partners to further contribute to the exploration and development of the Moon.”

      International partners, at present, include Canada, Japan, and the EU. Though, as we shall see, weaponization and competition remain serious threats to international peace and human survival. Other elements of the program include a Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) and the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO), which Artemis hopes to finalize by 2023. The international efforts include deploying “science payloads” and CubeSats, as well as refueling the Gateway: an orbiting lunar outpost.

      WEAPONIZED MOON

      Contracts for the Human Landing System (HLS) have gone to Blue Origin, Dynetics (Leidos), and SpaceX. The HLS team includes Draper, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman. Draper will provide avionics, guidance, navigation, and software. The Integrated Lander Vehicle will launch on United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan heavy-lift rocket. Maxar Technologies will develop the PPE. HALO is an initial crew cabin for astronauts visiting the Gateway and will likely be built by Northrop. Pressurized and unpressurized cargo, including space instruments and food, will be delivered by SpaceX.

      The recent NASA-DOD memorandum of understanding references the proposed lunar base and says that NASA and the Space Force “reaffirm and continue their rich legacy of collaboration in space launch, in-space operations, and space research activities, all of which contribute to the Parties’ separate and distinct civil and defense endeavors”—the latter are classified. The Space Force will act as the NASA’s guarantor. Space Force’s responsibilities “include developing military space systems and doctrine, as well as presenting space forces to support the warfighting Combatant Commands.” The memo reiterates common NASA-DOD interests.

      The memo also seeks to establish a Foundation for Broad Collaboration. General Raymond says:

       “A secure, stable, and accessible space domain underpins our nation’s security, prosperity and scientific achievement. Space Force looks forward to future collaboration, as NASA pushes farther into the universe for the benefit of all.”

      The Space Force states that it “will secure the peaceful use of space, free for any who seek to expand their understanding of the universe, by organizing, training and equipping forces to protect U.S. and allied interests in space.” “Peace” means U.S. dominance unimpeded by commercial rivals, like China, India, and Russia.

      NASA AS STIMULUS FOR HI-TECH

      As the BBC acknowledges: 

      “Many practical products developed by NASA during the Apollo years are well known: cordless drills, PV (solar) panels, freeze-dried food, thermal insulation material, heat coatings and so on.”

      Having learned their craft at the Fairchild Semiconductor company, NASA scientists formed Intel, which later worked on personal computers with Microsoft. The so-called Apollo Effect, in reference to the first moon landing, indirectly and reportedly inspired Tim Berners-Lee, who is credited with creating the World Wide Web, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, and Elon Musk of SpaceX, which is now contracted to work on the latest program.

      NASA says of the future that taxpayer dollars will fund research and development for corporate, hi-tech innovation: “Space Technology investments will stimulate the economy and build our Nation’s global economic competitiveness through the creation of new products and services, new business and industries, and high-quality, sustainable jobs,” like those above. It notes more broadly:

      “Knowledge provided by weather and navigational spacecraft, efficiency improvements in both ground and air transportation, super computers, solar- and wind-generated energy, the cameras found in many of today’s cell phones, improved biomedical applications including advanced medical imaging and even more nutritious infant formula, as well as the protective gear that keeps our military, firefighters and police safe, have all benefitted from our nation’s investments in aerospace technology.”

      Colonel Eric Felt, Director of the Air Force Research Laboratory Space Vehicles Directorate, says: “The space renaissance happening on the commercial side is fantastic, there is innovation we can use.” Felt also notes the link between civilian-commercial and military technology: “We have limited funding in our budget for science and technology … We have to leverage dual-use technologies”—which means weaponized civilian and commercial products.

      CONCLUSION

      As pundits analyze what was arguably the lowest point of U.S. electoral politics in the mont of September, namely the “debate” between The Donald and Creepy Joe, Sky News reports on the Space Command’s first foreign deployment to Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar:

      “Their mission is to confront new threats in the region from Iran’s missile programme – as well as attempts to jam, hack and blind satellites.”

      Confront threats means maintain dominance.

      The Space Force has also seen the transfer of Air Force personnel to the Marine Expeditionary Unit, indicating that the Force will integrate into all levels of the U.S. military, realizing the U.S. elite dream of “full spectrum dominance.”

    • AMC Theaters Will "Run Out Of Liquidity" Within Six Months: S&P
      AMC Theaters Will “Run Out Of Liquidity” Within Six Months: S&P

      Tyler Durden

      Sun, 10/04/2020 – 17:50

      AMC Entertainment, the largest movie theater chain in the world, will “run out of liquidity” in six months, according to debt ratings agency S&P Global Ratings, which downgraded AMC’s credit rating from CCC+ to CCC- and slapped it with a negative outlook, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

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      “Given our expectations for a high rate of cash burn, we believe the company will run out of liquidity within the next six months unless it is able to raise additional capital, which we view as unlikely, or attendance levels materially improve,” said the agency.

      “The negative outlook reflects our view that a default, distressed exchange, or redemption appears to be inevitable within six months, absent unanticipated significantly favorable changes in the issuer’s circumstances.”

      Box office sales have cratered in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, despite 70% of US movie theaters estimated to have re-opened with social-distance seating as of Labor Day.

      After major theater re-openings on Labor Day pulled in a collective $28.4 million for 25 film releases, according to IMDB’s Box Office Mojo.com, the next two following weekends saw declines: $12.6 million for 24 releases (September 11-13) and $11.3 million for 28 releases (September 18-20). –MediaDailyNews

      In July, AMC completed a debt restructuring with bondholders which saw $200 million in fresh cash, as well as the purchase of $100 million in new senior notes by the Silver Lake Group. The chain also raised $77 million by selling nine theaters in Europe’s Baltic region.

      According to S&P Global, AMC “continues to struggle operationally and financially because U.S. attendance remains weak after reopening, additional major theatrical releases are delayed and its cash burn might accelerate now that its theaters are open,” and that continued reduced capacity combined with customers who are increasingly embracing streaming platforms, is likely to persist into next year.

      Most exhibition companies — or 93 percent — weathered losses of 75 percent in the second quarter of 2020 after moviegoing came to an unprecedented stop in mid-March. While more than half of theaters are now reopened, Hollywood continues to delay its major fall releases out of concern that many moviegoers aren’t yet ready to return. –The Hollywood Reporter

      On Wednesday, the National Association of Theatre Owners, the Directors Guild of America and the Motion Picture Association were joined by dozens of influential filmmakers to beg Congress for money, warning that many cinemas may not survive.

    • How Three Prior Pandemics Triggered Massive Societal Shifts
      How Three Prior Pandemics Triggered Massive Societal Shifts

      Tyler Durden

      Sun, 10/04/2020 – 17:25

      Authored by Andrew Latham via TheConversation.com,

      Before March of this year, few probably thought disease could be a significant driver of human history.

      Not so anymore. People are beginning to understand that the little changes COVID-19 has already ushered in or accelerated – telemedicine, remote work, social distancing, the death of the handshake, online shopping, the virtual disappearance of cash and so on – have begun to change their way of life. They may not be sure whether these changes will outlive the pandemic. And they may be uncertain whether these changes are for good or ill.

      Three previous plagues could yield some clues about the way COVID-19 might bend the arc of history. As I teach in my course “Plagues, Pandemics and Politics,” pandemics tend to shape human affairs in three ways.

      First, they can profoundly alter a society’s fundamental worldview.

      Second, they can upend core economic structures.

      And, finally, they can sway power struggles among nations.

      Sickness spurs the rise of the Christian West

      The Antonine plague, and its twin, the Cyprian plague – both now widely thought to have been caused by a smallpox strain – ravaged the Roman Empire from A.D. 165 to 262. It’s been estimated that the combined pandemics’ mortality rate was anywhere from one-quarter to one-third of the empire’s population.

      While staggering, the number of deaths tells only part of the story. This also triggered a profound transformation in the religious culture of the Roman Empire.

      On the eve of the Antonine plague, the empire was pagan. The vast majority of the population worshipped multiple gods and spirits and believed that rivers, trees, fields and buildings each had their own spirit.

      Christianity, a monotheistic religion that had little in common with paganism, had only 40,000 adherents, no more than 0.07% of the empire’s population.

      Yet within a generation of the end of the Cyprian plague, Christianity had become the dominant religion in the empire.

      How did these twin pandemics effect this profound religious transformation?

      Rodney Stark, in his seminal work “The Rise of Christianity,” argues that these two pandemics made Christianity a much more attractive belief system.

      While the disease was effectively incurable, rudimentary palliative care – the provision of food and water, for example – could spur recovery of those too weak to care for themselves. Motivated by Christian charity and an ethic of care for the sick – and enabled by the thick social and charitable networks around which the early church was organized – the empire’s Christian communities were willing and able to provide this sort of care.

      Pagan Romans, on the other hand, opted instead either to flee outbreaks of the plague or to self-isolate in the hope of being spared infection.

      This had two effects.

      First, Christians survived the ravages of these plagues at higher rates than their pagan neighbors and developed higher levels of immunity more quickly. Seeing that many more of their Christian compatriots were surviving the plague – and attributing this either to divine favor or the benefits of the care being provided by Christians – many pagans were drawn to the Christian community and the belief system that underpinned it. At the same time, tending to sick pagans afforded Christians unprecedented opportunities to evangelize.

      Second, Stark argues that, because these two plagues disproportionately affected young and pregnant women, the lower mortality rate among Christians translated into a higher birth rate.

      The net effect of all this was that, in roughly the span of a century, an essentially pagan empire found itself well on its way to becoming a majority Christian one.

      The plague of Justinian and the fall of Rome

      The plague of Justinian, named after the Roman emperor who reigned from A.S. 527 to 565, arrived in the Roman Empire in A.D. 542 and didn’t disappear until A.D. 755. During its two centuries of recurrence, it killed an estimated 25% to 50% of the population – anywhere from 25 million to 100 million people.

      This massive loss of lives crippled the economy, triggering a financial crisis that exhausted the state’s coffers and hobbled the empire’s once mighty military.

      In the east, Rome’s principal geopolitical rival, Sassanid Persia, was also devastated by the plague and was therefore in no position to exploit the Roman Empire’s weakness. But the forces of the Islamic Rashidun Caliphate in Arabia – which had long been contained by the Romans and Sasanians – were largely unaffected by the plague. The reasons for this are not well understood, but they probably have to do with the caliphate’s relative isolation from major urban centers.

      Caliph Abu Bakr didn’t let the opportunity go to waste. Seizing the moment, his forces swiftly conquered the entire Sasanian Empire while stripping the weakened Roman Empire of its territories in the Levant, the Caucasus, Egypt and North Africa.

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      Muslim forces of the Rashidun Caliphate captured the Levant – a region of the Middle East – from the Byzantine Empire in A.D. 636. Wikimedia Commons

      Pre-pandemic, the Mediterranean world had been relatively unified by commerce, politics, religion and culture. What emerged was a fractured trio of civilizations jockeying for power and influence: an Islamic one in the eastern and southern Mediterranean basin; a Greek one in the northeastern Mediterranean; and a European one between the western Mediterranean and the North Sea.

      This last civilization – what we now call medieval Europe – was defined by a new, distinctive economic system.

      Before the plague, the European economy had been based on slavery. After the plague, the significantly diminished supply of slaves forced landowners to begin granting plots to nominally “free” laborers – serfs who worked the lord’s fields and, in return, received military protection and certain legal rights from the lord.

      The seeds of feudalism were planted.

      The Black Death of the Middle Ages

      The Black Death broke out in Europe in 1347 and subsequently killed between one-third and one-half of the total European population of 80 million people. But it killed more than people. By the time the pandemic had burned out by the early 1350s, a distinctly modern world emerged – one defined by free labor, technological innovation and a growing middle class.

      Before the Yersinia pestis bacterium arrived in 1347, Western Europe was a feudal society that was overpopulated. Labor was cheap, serfs had little bargaining power, social mobility was stymied and there was little incentive to increase productivity.

      But the loss of so much life shook up an ossified society.

      Labor shortages gave peasants more bargaining power. In the agrarian economy, they also encouraged the widespread adoption of new and existing technologies – the iron plow, the three-field crop rotation system and fertilization with manure, all of which significantly increased productivity. Beyond the countryside, it resulted in the invention of time and labor-saving devices such as the printing press, water pumps for draining mines and gunpowder weapons.

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      The Black Death created massive labor shortages. Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

      In turn, freedom from feudal obligations and a desire to move up the social ladder encouraged many peasants to move to towns and engage in crafts and trades. The more successful ones became wealthier and constituted a new middle class. They could now afford more of the luxury goods that could be obtained only from beyond Europe’s frontiers, and this stimulated both long-distance trade and the more efficient three-masted ships needed to engage in that trade.

      The new middle class’s increasing wealth also stimulated patronage of the arts, science, literature and philosophy. The result was an explosion of cultural and intellectual creativity – what we now call the Renaissance.

      Our present future

      None of this is to argue that the still-ongoing COVID-19 pandemic will have similarly earth-shattering outcomes. The mortality rate of COVID-19 is nothing like that of the plagues discussed above, and therefore the consequences may not be as seismic.

      But there are some indications that they could be.

      Will the bumbling efforts of the open societies of the West to come to grips with the virus shattering already-wavering faith in liberal democracy, creating a space for other ideologies to evolve and metastasize?

      In a similar fashion, COVID-19 may be accelerating an already ongoing geopolitical shift in the balance of power between the U.S. and China. During the pandemic, China has taken the global lead in providing medical assistance to other countries as part of its “Health Silk Road” initiative. Some argue that the combination of America’s failure to lead and China’s relative success at picking up the slack may well be turbocharging China’s rise to a position of global leadership.

      Finally, COVID-19 seems to be accelerating the unraveling of long-established patterns and practices of work, with repercussions that could affet the future of office towers, big cities and mass transit, to name just a few. The implications of this and related economic developments may prove as profoundly transformative as those triggered by the Black Death in 1347.

      Ultimately, the longer-term consequences of this pandemic – like all previous pandemics – are simply unknowable to those who must endure them. But just as past plagues made the world we currently inhabit, so too will this plague likely remake the one populated by our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

    • With White House In "Vulnerable" State, North Korea Seen Moving 'Largest' ICMB To Date
      With White House In “Vulnerable” State, North Korea Seen Moving ‘Largest’ ICMB To Date

      Tyler Durden

      Sun, 10/04/2020 – 17:00

      South Korean media is reporting that Korean intelligence as well as US intelligence are closely monitoring the movement of an ultra-large intercontinental ballistic missile along with four mobile launchers by the north. 

      The Korean Herald describes, citing a Seoul government official, “South Korean and US intelligence have spotted North Korea moving an intercontinental ballistic missile, along with four mobile launchers, at an auto plant on the outskirts of Pyongyang, a Seoul official told a local media outlet on Saturday.”

      The official said, “The missile is larger than the one they fired in 2017 and we believe they will showcase that at a military parade on Oct. 10,” the official said.

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      KCNA-Yonhap: “Intercontinental ballistic missiles, Hwasong-15, are seen at a military parade marking the 70th founding anniversary of the Korean People’s Army at Kim Il-sung Square in Pyongyang in February 2018.”

      That 2017 test had been the Hwasong-15, widely considered the most powerful missile North Korea tested to date, and purported to be capable of hitting anywhere on the continental United States.

      Korea watchers say that Seoul is deeply concerned that Pyongyang could be readying the unveiling of an even more advanced, larger ICBM.

      There’s also of course the sensitive timing of President Trump’s admission to Walter Reed Hospital after becoming sick with COVID-19. A Friday report in Politico cited US intelligence and Pentagon officials who say they are closely monitoring how America’s rivals and enemies “react” to Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis, and to ensure they don’t “exploit” the situation.

      One former CIA officer emphasized that “Our enemies will see us in a vulnerable state.” The report specifically cited heightened US intelligence monitoring of China, North Korean, Iran, and Russia. 

      Also of note is that Kim Jong Un on Saturday sent a message for President Trump and the First Lady, wishing them a speedy recovery from COVID-19, according to state media. “He sincerely hoped that they would recover as soon as possible. He hoped they will surely overcome it,” the Korean Central News Agency said. “He sent warm greetings to them.”

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

      But could the unveiling of a new ICBM at this moment of the US Commander-in-Chief being vulnerable and possibly less than ready to deal with such a threat erase these warm feelings sent by Kim? 

    • Morgan Stanley: The 2020 Market Cycle Is Actually… Normal
      Morgan Stanley: The 2020 Market Cycle Is Actually… Normal

      Tyler Durden

      Sun, 10/04/2020 – 16:30

      By Andrew Sheets, chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley

      This Normal Cycle

      Of all the adjectives to describe 2020, ‘normal’ seems pretty far down the list. The year has witnessed a global pandemic and the worst quarter for global growth on record. Those emergencies produced the highest levels of government and central bank support ever seen. And beyond these obvious extremes are the daily disruptions that remain impossible to ignore. The family and friends not seen. The offices sitting empty. The stadiums filled with artificial noise.

      All this (and more) has made it tempting to think of 2020 as so unusual and extreme that any historical playbook needs to be thrown out the window. Don’t. We think that this current market cycle is surprisingly normal, a view that continues to underpin our investment strategy. While we expect choppy, range-bound markets between now and the US election, reflationary, early-cycle strategies should ultimately prevail.

      Although all economic cycles are different, they often share characteristics which drive similar patterns of market performance. This is a central tenet of our cross-asset framework, which combines cycle-adjusted return expectations with our bottom-up strategy forecasts. We think that this still applies in these unusual times:

      First, ‘normal’ late-cycle markers had emerged before the recession of 2020 hit, and we’d disagree with the notion that all was well before the arrival of COVID-19.

      Consider the following: Prior to the US recessions of 1990, 2001 and 2007, core CPI had risen above the five-year trend, unemployment had dipped below trend and the yield curve had inverted. On average, those recessions started 15 months after the last Fed rate hike.

      And prior to February 2020? Core CPI had risen above trend, unemployment was below trend and the yield curve had inverted. February 2020 was 14 months after the last Fed rate hike. Eerie.

      Other ‘normal’ late-cycle patterns were also apparent. Consumer and investor confidence were high, expected volatility was low and equity leadership was narrow. And while markets hadn’t reached dotcom or subprime levels of excess, we had an unusually large late-cycle fiscal stimulus and record levels of corporate gearing, which suggest at least some animal spirits.

      The second sign of normalcy came in what followed: The argument that ‘this time is different’ is rooted in just how extreme this recession was. But if we look at the way markets performed relative to these extreme data, the pattern is, again, eerily familiar.

      Back in late March, we looked at where asset classes made their ultimate lows in the prior five US recessions, relative to when the data bottomed.

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      Assuming a data ‘low’ in April, the prior five recessions would have suggested the following months for bottoms in the S&P 500, US high yield, US 10-year yields and the 2s10s curve:

      March 2020, March 2020, April 2020 and August 2019.

      And when were the actual lows?

      March 2020, March 2020, August 2020 and August 2019.

      In other words, even with the most extreme decline in data on record and a global pandemic, markets mostly led the data by the ‘normal’ interval.

      * * *

      The final chapter of this story is how markets have behaved following the March lows: This recovery has seen its share of ‘unusual’ events, especially the stunning outperformance of the NASDAQ. But plenty of familiar post-recession patterns are on view: EM equities have performed well, the US dollar has weakened, inflation expectations have risen, yield curves have steepened, small caps have outperformed and defensive stocks have lagged (even as yields have remained range-bound).

      So yes, there’s a lot about 2020 that is unusual, extreme and unprecedented. A lot that is scary. A lot that tempts one to throw out the rulebook. There’s more uncertainty to come, not the least of which is the outcome of the US election in less than a month. But for investors, we think the inquiry into whether this cycle will be ‘normal’ needs to begin with the presumption of innocence, especially when so many historical patterns are evident.

      We think plenty of skepticism remains about that ‘normality’, which means that valuations for many early-cycle winners remain attractive. In equities, that’s in places like US small over large caps, US financials, European cyclicals and Australian equities. In macro markets, it’s why our strategists like being short US 30-year duration.

      Twists and turns as the US election nears, the uncertainty regarding additional US fiscal stimulus, a rise in global COVID-19 cases and a still-unresolved Brexit saga all create significant uncertainty, and should keep markets volatile and range-bound over the next month. But amid that volatility, we maintain our central tendency – this cycle is more normal than appreciated, and should be treated as such until proven otherwise.

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    Oct 04

    Today’s News 4th October 2020

    • Financialization & The Road To Zero, Part 1: The Evolution Of Commerce
      Financialization & The Road To Zero, Part 1: The Evolution Of Commerce

      Tyler Durden

      Sat, 10/03/2020 – 23:30

      Authored by ‘ICE-9’ via The Burning Platform blog,

      This is Part 1 of a 4-part series.

      fi·nan·cial·i·za·tion

      /fəˌnanCHələˈzāSHən, fīˌnanCHələˈzāSHən/

      noun

      The process by which financial institutions, markets et cetera increase in size and influence.

      This definition is about as complex as one finds in the popular financial media, nestled in a hyperlink somewhere between a continuous onslaught of graphs, numbers, and opinions shouted from frenetic podcasts.  One enters financialization’s surface world as if it is the natural and evolved state of things, and leaves believing every increase in that buzz and energy must be good, progressive, and lead to some kind of a collective better tomorrow. 

      There is this perpetual urge and ever present push to “do something”.  Everyone’s piling in – get in now or you’ll miss the boat.  Thirty year mortgage refi rates are at historic lows.  It has never been a better time to buy a house.  Zero commission brokerage accounts click here (fees and restrictions apply).  Buy, sell, or hold?  What are you waiting for?  Another all-time high!  Synergies, paradigm shifts, raising the bar, the deal of a lifetime, low hanging fruit, win-win.  Get off the fence, get your ducks in a row, step up to the plate, and think outside the box and push the envelope because failure is not an option.  The business of America – is business.

      Somewhat “deeper” discussions about financialization exist within the Fourth Estate front page editorials filled with explanations of its effects and non-explanations of its causes penned by an assortment of well-compensated Nobel Laureates, PhDs, think tank advisors, and Wall Street promoters.  After reading such well-crafted pieces one barely senses the authors’ constrained yet directed criticisms of financialization nudging one’s doubts towards acceptance of “reforms” and away from underlying systemic issues.  Adjustments and a minor compromise are always the solutions.  A tweak here, a Congressional rider there, a new regulation or two should patch things up.  Who could possibly argue against such esteemed credentials?

      And then there are the “learned” journal tomes full of lofty enumerations of financialization’s effects, theories as to its complex workings complete with equations full of Greek letters and predicate logic, and so many competing ideas that the sum total of all this erudite thinking is a zero sum non-consensus that for all the tens of thousands of pages does not definitively identify causa principalis.  Here are some random examples –

      “Financialization refers to the increasing importance of finance, financial markets, and financial institutions to the workings of the economy.”

      “A pattern of accumulation in which profit making occurs increasingly through financial channels rather than through trade and commodity production.”

      “The fusion of the interests of domestic and foreign financial capital in the state apparatus as the institutionalized priorities and overarching social logic guiding the actions of state managers and government elites, often to the detriment of labor.”

      The above three sentences penned by distinguished scholars took a combined twenty-four years of college to construct, so it is little wonder why it is so difficult for the uninitiated layman to compile the true workings and objectives of financialization.  The more one reads, the closer one comes to this educated zero sum non-consensus and no closer to unlocking the secrets of not only why does financialization exist, but also why has a mass edifice of confusion been purpose built to hide these secrets?

      Profits and risk mitigation are standard replies to that existential why, spoken with all the confidence bestowed by Fourth Estate economists.  Mockery and conspiracy theory accusations follow every mention of the purpose built mass edifice of confusion surrounding financialization.  But these are the ground level foot soldier answers that push one squarely back into financialization’s surface world, just more of that buzz and energy that is the perceived natural and evolved state of things.  Profit motive – case closed.  But profit and risk mitigation were achieved with the old industrial production and export model, so why has financialization today risen to supremacy?  Higher profits and greater risk mitigation – just more begging the question, ad infinitum.  But could there be hidden mechanisms at work facilitating this rise of financialization and, is there a larger opaque objective to it?

      At a ground level perspective one generally sees the accumulation of money as power.  But when one looks at “wealth” from a higher level perspective, it is actually vouchsafed, gathered up in that “free market” scrum called “competition” from the invisible hands of those with the ability to conjure money out of thin air and throw it into the general arena.  And the working mechanisms within “wealth” accumulation also hold the mechanisms of “wealth” destruction and confiscation, so “wealth” cannot be power in of its self, as it can be both granted and denied, and therefore is only a tenuous grant of privilege.  And granted by whom, by what higher authority?  What class of people are above the power of money, control the mechanisms of “wealth” accumulation and destruction and confiscation, and are able to both vouchsafe and expropriate this privilege that money provides?  Is there a higher order level design at work within financialization, and if so, what are its means and end goals?

      This series examines and defines what financialization is, identifies what has enabled it to rise above all other economic activity in stature, and binds together financialization with the role it plays in this higher order design for the nation.  The preceding essay The Evolution of Fiat Money, Endless War, and the End of Citizenship provides much of the underlying philosophical premises upon which this present work is constructed.  It is necessary background towards a comprehensive understand of how financialization is ultimately regressive, dehumanizing, and will not lead to a better collective tomorrow – rather, it will serve as an evolutionary societal dead end for the bulk of humanity.

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      The Evolution of Commerce

      For untold millennia the human economic condition remained that of the hunter-gatherer where simple goods of utility were produced and consumed by their users.  Sharing produced goods among tribal members or stealing them from other tribes were probably about as complex as commerce got during this long stretch of pre-history.  Then roughly 40,000 years ago cave paintings and sculpted objet d’art began to appear in the archeological record indicating some amount of leisure was afforded our ancient ancestors.  This advent of leisure appears to have led to the development of other time consuming and non-essential activities like ritualistic burial practices and simple jewelry craft.  Soon afterward the first instances of proto-industrial labor specialization appears where flint, chert, and obsidian were quarried to mass produce a surplus of sophisticated arrowheads, stone axes, spear tips, and implements used to skin and dismember hunting kills.  It is this first indication of surplus that suggests some form of trade existed between our Mesolithic brethren and is supported by the wide distribution of these manufactured tools far beyond their quarry and production sites.   From analogy to Mesolithic peoples encountered during European colonialization of the Americas, our ancestors did not use money and therefore, surplus was not produced to obtain profit, but instead was an ancient form of “foreign policy” that brought the various scattered tribes together and served as a means of maintaining cordial relations.  Thus in the Mesolithic world, our ancestors did not prosecute trade wars, but likely practiced a kind of trade peace.

      Our Neolithic ancestors developed additional survival skills like animal husbandry and proto-farming so they tended to spend more time in one place and their settlements began to take on a permanent nature.  They depended less on hunting and gathering and more on tending animals and crops for their existence.  Surplus food was stored as reserve for times of scarcity and individual private ownership is not well defined in the archeological record.  Proto-industry now matured into industry where labor specialization expanded with the rise of cities requiring large amounts of standardized building materials, pottery stockpiles, and large scale meat, cooking oil, and grain processing capabilities.  Within these cities we begin to see the development of a managerial class – the priests and their administrators – who control the cities’ collective food surplus but do not own it.  Using this control over food surplus the theocratic-managerial class were able to entice workers away from their own food producing activities to instead undertake civil works projects like digging and maintaining irrigation canals, excavating cisterns, constructing perimeter fortifications, erecting public buildings, the provision of sanitation, and maintenance of a bureaucracy to provide project services like design, procurement, and execution.  Again by analogy with Neolithic peoples encountered during colonialization, all of this occurred in a world without money and would not have been possible without the rise of barter trade and most importantly – the advent of labor barter.

      The civilized Neolithic world had a quasi-collective property ownership structure evidenced by large repositories of unearthed clay pots used to store grain, cooking oil, and wine with no identifying ownership markings, a prevalence of communal buildings in the city layout – possibly mess halls, interconnected housing units et cetera.  Barter was the sole form of commerce, and is defined here as the mutually agreed exchange of goods and / or services between individuals without the aid of an intermediate exchange means (i.e., money).  Thus barter suggests some nascent concept of private ownership, and labor barter implies a notion of independence from the collective where one “owns” his labor to offer in exchange for rations from the collective stores.  With the growth of cities and the collection of groups of cities into civilizations, labor barter became the primary economic transaction in the civilized Neolithic world where money and private ownership of large surplus does not appear to exist.  Thus labor barter is one of humanity’s oldest and most fundamental social interactions and is a critical component to what it means for an individual to belong to a complex society – a necessary part of being human among one’s fellow men.

      Labor barter allowed individuals to temporarily walk away from their personal food producing activities to provide collective labor for civil projects, yet still procure food from the city surplus for them and their families and was the necessary prerequisite for the development of both cities and industry.  E.g., it was common practice in ancient Egypt for Nile Valley farmers to move to the mountain quarries during the flood season and work there until the waters subsided, where they would then return home to survey their fields and plant, sow, and harvest that year’s single crop.  A societal equilibrium was established where the laborer received food for his labor and the theocratic-managerial class got the manual labor they needed for their public works projects, and more elaborate benefactor schemes were provided to full time skilled laborers and the administrative bureaucracy.  This equilibrium worked successfully for several millennia as archeology suggests there was no need for slavery in the civilized Neolithic world, nor was there the need to force people into a labor corvée to accomplish these ancient civil works projects.

      As cities grew and our Neolithic ancestors entered the Bronze Age, it did not take long for larger families to become predominate under the barter trade system as they could pool their superior collective resources to accomplish more ambitious endeavors.  Over time these large families accumulated a surplus to themselves and used it to purchase the labor of others in pursuit of accumulating further surplus to themselves with which they then exchanged for land, animals, implements, and materials to build larger homes.  This development is evident in the archeological record in Bronze Age cities where for the first time there are clearly demarcated housing units and the clay pots in grain repositories bear ownership markings.  With the advent of bronze in faraway mountain lands these families assembled some of their surplus into caravans for export and trade with early metallurgists, salt workers, and native metal and gem miners.  Laden with goods for their return journey, these early traders picked up other exotic goods from cities along the route home.  Once home, these traders then exchanged the metals, salt, and exotic goods with other families possessing surplus and generated a “profit” in these exchanges  – e.g., 50 jars of commonly available wine could be traded for scarce brass ingots that were brought back home and traded again for 200 jars of wine.  Thus begins the dawn of private property and private enterprise embodied in this surplus of goods accumulated through one’s own endeavors – the mercantile period of human history.  Mercantilism is defined here as the exchange of goods for the purpose of generating a profit where the merchants and creditors of goods assume full liability and risk in the event of loss, theft, spoilage et cetera.  There is no mechanism within mercantilism to lessen or adsorb these potential risks and real losses.

      Trade between cities and civilizations flourished through the Bronze Age into the Iron Age with labor barter, goods and service barter, and mercantile commerce all practiced simultaneously and settling into a similarly ordered societal hierarchy with the theocratic-managerial class now replaced at the highest level with kings and their royal lieutenants.  These kings assumed ownership over the collective surplus that was used more and more to provision standing armies and provide for a coterie of advisors and enforcers.  And for the first time, we observe not only a surplus in food stuffs but a surplus in gold and silver accumulated by the sovereign obtained through war, tribute, and the collection of taxes.  Thus it appears that this change in ownership of the communal surplus is the seminal factor in the formation of standing armies and prosecution of wars of conquest.  And with the advent of standing armies and taxes, we also observe the first instances of slavery and people forced into a labor corvée.

      With rising Iron Age trade, networks of extensive, well maintained, and secured overland trade routes were constructed complete with toll and excise stations, and port cities proliferated for the transport of goods by sea.  It is safe to assume that with the expansion of trade facilities, the profits from mercantile endeavors were expanding as well and so too was the tax take from these activities as cities grew larger and better fortified and offered increased public amenities.  So the rhythm of civilized Iron Age humanity was established by the activities of trade, supported by the actions of agricultural, pastoral, and industrial producers with piracy, highway robbery, and war always lurking to disrupt this rhythm.  And thus the mercantile story remains consistent for approximately 4,500 years from the kings of Akkad to the French Revolution where the mercantile model operated and spread to nearly every corner of Eurasia and North Africa.  Despite the many advents and inventions to facilitate mercantile trade – usury, credit vehicles, precious metal coins and their use as a store of value in of its self, coin debasement and inflation, et cetera – this commercial model in its essential form as defined earlier continued unabated despite a kaleidoscope of empires, peoples, and technologies rolling through it.  That was, until the late 17th century arrived to the City of London Corporation and a small group of bankers and promoters would change the world forever.

      At the onset of the end of mercantilism all modes of commerce described up to this point were practiced at some place in the world.  The hunter-gatherers remained active with the Bushmen of southern Africa, the arctic Eskimo, and the Australian Aborigine.  Mesolithic cultures were predominant in what was to become the United States and Canada, and civilized Neolithic peoples were predominant in Mesoamerica and the northern Andes mountains of South America, although they had declined significantly from their technological and cultural zeniths.  Thus a great swath of the world lay open to musket, canon, and credit based ventures seeking unlimited stocks of exotic goods and undiscovered gold and silver reserves for the taking.  But that taking was expensive, dangerous, and represented a significant risk and not unlikely loss of large quantities of gold and silver to both entrepreneur and creditor.  To get at these exotic goods and untouched mineral resources, one had to first invade and subjugate these regions, and due to the extreme investment risk inherent in colonization, a new commercial model was needed to make these endeavors profitable – to generate a “positive expected value”.  And that new commercial model was capitalism.

      The imperative for the development a new commercial model was presented with the “conquest funded by physical money” rapid rise and failures of the Spanish and Portuguese states.  Although the 16th century Spanish conquest of the Americas brought the crown tremendous amounts of silver and gold, the costs to support their navy flotillas to protect and transport these riches were great, and losses through piracy and storms at sea occurred regularly.  These losses could have been adsorbed and profits maintained had colonial extraction been the only pursuit of the Spanish kings.  However, these riches soon drew the envy of rivals and grew the European continental aspirations of the Spanish kings themselves.  So when the high operating costs of colonial wealth extraction were combined with the very high costs of prosecuting wealth depleting wars closer to home – wars paid for in physical silver and gold – the mercantile commercial model began to show its flaws when applied to modern super-states as the Spanish treasury depleted with every battle.  This mature mercantile commercial model could not simultaneously secure extensive colonial trade networks and simultaneously prosecute large scale wars of attrition, and it inevitably led to state bankruptcy and military defeat.  The sovereign existing in the mercantile commercial world therefore had to choose between either trade or war, but ego generally led to the sovereign choosing both and therefore secured the downfall of many prosperous mercantile states.  And, as Spain was a Catholic country, foreign creditors were rare that would lend money to a nation that had banned usury and had not long before expelled its nascent bankers en masse.  The Portuguese experience was even more convoluted as their empire delivered little in the way of silver and gold and all commodities extracted like spices and textiles had to first be sold and converted into physical gold and silver to cover the costs to secure its colonial holdings and fund its wars on the European continent.  So if there were no buyers, there was no secure colonial empire and no European wars other than defensive, which did not last long as national gold and silver reserves depleted.  In the end, when the silver ran low, defeats at home and abroad mounted and the bankrupt states fell to those countries that could afford to continue to pay for these wars of attrition.  Some other funding solution was needed if a nation was to conquer the world, keep hold of it while extracting every conceivable thing of value from it, while at all times prosecuting wars of attrition on the European home front.

      Capitalism is specifically defined here as a commercial model whereby investment risk is not wholly borne by entrepreneurs and their creditors, but instead spread over the entirety of society through the deployment of fiat money connected to a fractional reserve banking system.  Fiat money acts as the mere representation of some physical underlying store of value held in trust by the controllers of this fractional reserve banking system.  Under capitalism, investment losses transacted in fiat money do not jeopardize the physical holdings of real value – stockpiles of gold and silver – but only depreciate the perceived exchange “value” of that fiat money relative to some unit price, again in fiat money, of the underlying gold and silver reserve assuming a transparent and impartial banking system.  Thus as credit based business ventures in the aggregate progress into “profits” or “losses”, in the transparent and impartial banking system, fiat money will either appreciate or depreciate in purchasing power relative to the underlying unit reserve of real value held in gold and silver.  For those who control this fiat money, capitalism is a risk free proposition as the real value – gold and silver held in “trust” – never leaves their possession as fiat money losses accumulate.  It is instead the populace and especially the peripheral fiat empire satellites that bear the full effects of inflation and inevitably “pay” for aggregate commercial losses through their erosion of purchasing power.  Unlike mercantilism, losses are pushed onto both participants and non-participants in commerce which makes capitalism the ultimate “heads we win, tails they lose” banking hedge.  This hedge against any real value loss is the core mechanism of modern “free enterprise” as it is indeed enterprise free of risk and loss at the highest level of its system – the central bank cross-ownership nexus.  So unlike mercantilism where creditors lose physical gold and silver, under capitalism entrepreneurs lose chits of paper and credibility, and the central banks lose only chits of paper and continue to hold their gold and silver reserves regardless of all aggregate gains or losses transacted in fiat money.

      Three mechanisms were required to enable this new capitalism to operate effectively – an opaque central bank, an empire forced to import value added goods from and export raw commodities to the home country, and a fiat currency used throughout the empire to pay for all these goods exchanges that tolerates no rival.  The central bank exercises full macroscopic control regarding who it will issue credit to or withhold credit from, is the sole agency that sets interest rates to its primary dealers who then devolve this fiat money down to all hopeful debtors, and provides the only store and account for gold and silver held in “trust” that theoretically gives fiat money its “value”.  Private ownership of the central bank is required to ensure the home country government does not interfere in monetary policy and risk the central bank’s power and profitability.  And besides discretely making its owners the most powerful unseen men in their home country, private ownership provides the opacity required to shield the true amounts of gold and silver held in “trust”, allows the initiation of economic “crises” as political weapons with reduced interference from the home government, and enables the covert manipulation of foreign exchange rates and commodity prices.  The empire was needed to cycle the fiat money out of and back into the home country via a “virtuous cycle” that provided underwriting to the aggregate credit-based export ventures domiciled in the home country.  The home country’s value added export economy was necessary for the return of the fiat money as this “virtuous cycle” underpins “growth” within the home country, increases the “value” of all goods and services including labor simultaneously through inflation, and acts as a dampener on inflationary pressures for imported raw materials at home.  And the fiat currency itself required only a printing press and a formidable standing army to assure its supremacy.

      A special note on communism.  Both communism and capitalism are unnatural commercial models invented by monetary and political scientists and forced upon the world through conquest, revolution, legislation, incrementalism, and subterfuge.  Capitalism is no more a natural and evolutionary progression from mercantilism as is communism a natural and evolutionary progression from capitalism.  As capitalism is not a natural commercial evolution, it follows that neither is communism.  When one compares the nature of both commercial models using the definition of capitalism provided earlier, one finds that in both systems investment risk is not wholly borne by entrepreneurs or state entities and their creditors, but instead spread over the entirety of society through the deployment of fiat money connected to a fractional reserve banking system.  The aggregate accumulating gains or losses in fiat money from commercial activity in both systems never puts the underlying reserves of gold held by either capitalist or communist central banks at risk.  Furthermore, both systems employ opaque central banks to set monetary policy and both systems have fiat empires attached to their home countries.  Additionally, as both systems issue loans at interest, the accumulating amount of loans grows much faster than the underlying value of reserves held in “trust”, and this widening disparity depreciates the “value” of each systems fiat money equally.  This depreciation generates the inflation required in each system to simulate economic “growth” and the illusion of “prosperity”.  All aggregate losses from individual or state commercial activities are socialized to both participants and non-participants of commercial activity through this process of inflation.  Both systems tax their subjects, both systems rely heavily on war for economic “stimulus”, and both systems will tolerate no rival to their fiat empires.  Both see the other as the enemy, both strive for the destruction of the other, and both claim the moral and righteous prerogative.  Despite nearly 100 years of animosity, wars both hot and cold, and entire military infrastructures designed at the ready to destroy the other, there is at their fundamental cores no operating difference between communism and capitalism, and for all practical purposes they are identical systems.  Thus communism and capitalism are, in fact, the equivalence of choice between baked and boiled potatoes in political economy.

      Thus with the advent of the capitalist commercial model of debt-based fiat money enterprise, the world stage was set for the consolidation of the colonial empires into an integrated nexus, the industrial revolution was set to proceed, and the prosecution of endless wars that no longer depleted national treasuries could be undertaken in earnest all thanks to the magic formula of unlimited fiat money…

      Read Part 2: From Capitalism to Financialization tomorrow…

    • Here's What Happens Every Minute On The Internet In 2020
      Here's What Happens Every Minute On The Internet In 2020

      Tyler Durden

      Sat, 10/03/2020 – 23:00

      In 2020, an unfathomable amount of digital activity is occurring at any given moment. As Visual Capitalist’s Aran Ali details below, this ongoing explosion in activity is the aggregate output of 4.5 billion internet users today, a number that’s projected to increase even further in coming years.

      This powerful visual from Domo helps capture what happens each minute in today’s hyper-connected internet era, and it’s actually the eighth edition produced since the year 2012.

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      What can we learn from the evolution of what happens in an internet minute?

      How Times Have Changed

      Over its relatively short history, the internet has been a catalyst for both the rise and demise of new companies and platforms.

      By looking at which brands have appeared in the graphic in earlier years, we can roughly chart the prominence of certain tech segments, as well as observe brands with the most staying power.

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      As you can see above, platforms like Tumblr, Flickr, and Foursquare showed some promise, but eventually got omitted from the graphic as they dropped off in relevance.

      Meanwhile, tech companies like Facebook, Amazon, and Google have had impressive staying power, evolving to become some of the biggest companies in the world. In the process, they’ve caught up to longer-standing titans like Apple and Microsoft at the top of the food chain.

      The New “New Thing”

      Not surprisingly, much of the internet landscape looks different in 2020. Here are a few of the digital hot spots today.

      Cash Transfers
      Nearly $240,000 worth of transactions occur on Venmo per minute. This has served as a catalyst for parent company PayPal, which evolved along successfully with fintech trends. PayPal’s stock now trades at near all-time highs.

      E-Commerce
      Even before COVID-19 resulted in shuttered storefronts and surging online orders, e-commerce was a booming industry. It’s now estimated that $1 million is now spent per minute online. Amazon ships an astounding 6,659 packages every minute to keep up with this demand.

      Collaboration Tools
      In a predominantly remote-working environment, tools like Zoom and Microsoft Teams host 208,333 and 52,083 users each minute respectively. Particularly in the pandemic era, it seems that this trend is here to stay.

      Accelerated Turnover

      The accelerated world we are in today means that many companies do not sustain a competitive advantage for as long. Social media companies have dwindled as observed above, and this is similarly reflected in the average lifespan of an S&P 500 company.

      A typical company’s tenure on the S&P 500 is expected to shrink rapidly in the next few years:

      • 1964: 33 years

      • 2016: 24 years

      • 2027E: 12 years

      Companies are shaving anywhere between 15-20 years off those highs, with estimates of further declines. This metric symbolizes the rapid evolution of the business landscape.

      What Lies Ahead

      It’s seemingly easy to forget mankind is still very early in the developments when it comes to the internet. But in this short period, its rise to prominence and the broad digitization of the world has left us with a very eventful timeline.

      If the last decade serves as a reference point, one can expect further and intensifying competition among tech companies. After all, the reward—winning in today’s digital economy—reaps much greater value.

      All signs point to internet activity advancing to further heights, if not because of 5G and its associated breakthroughs, then perhaps due to the steady rise in people gaining internet access.

    • No News Is Good News: Media Willfully Ignore Hunter Biden Scandal
      No News Is Good News: Media Willfully Ignore Hunter Biden Scandal

      Tyler Durden

      Sat, 10/03/2020 – 22:30

      Authored by Mark Hemingway via RealClearPolitics.com,

      Last week, a Senate Intelligence Committee report detailed how the son of a major presidential candidate, who has an extensive history of shady foreign business dealings, received a $3.5-million wire transfer from the wife of a Russian politician.

      The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, and most major media outlets didn’t cover the wire-transfer story at all. Four years ago, not reporting such a story was a possibility too absurd to even contemplate – but then again, no one would have predicted the candidate with the shady Russia ties is not Donald Trump, but Joe Biden.

      People often talk about how Trump is responsible for destroying political norms, and that’s a valid concern. However, one of the truly frightening things about the Trump era is how institutions have exploited a perceived crisis in truth-telling to justify abandoning their own standards by blaming it on Trump. Increasingly, we see major stories break where the media establishment decides on a collective omertà because the story undermines its own credibility or might sway voters in directions it doesn’t approve of. When that happens, no news is good news.

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      The problem with hiding the truth is that you can’t suppress it forever, let alone a week, in this news environment. After the initial blackout, we are finally starting to see some coverage of Hunter Biden’s suspect wire transfer – but only after Trump himself raised the issue in the recent presidential debate and forced the media’s hand. The little coverage the issue has received is instructive, and not in a good way.

      When Trump raised the issue at the debate, Joe Biden responded by saying the claim was “Totally discredited. Totally discredited.” Given that it’s a direct allegation in a government document and Biden is flatly denying it, you’d think this would be a perfect opportunity for the media to dig in and sort out the truth of the claim. Instead, they have essentially punted on the issue.

      According to PolitiFact, which refused to rate the claim either true or false, the facts are in dispute because “Biden’s lawyer says he did not co-found the partnership [that received the money] and had no stake in it,” and “Democrats say they reviewed the Republicans’ documentation but did not find a specific link to Hunter Biden.”

      Serious journalists would see this for the artful dodge that it is. Essentially, no one disputes Treasury documents showing $3.5 million was wired to the Rosemont Seneca Thornton firm from the wife of the former mayor of Moscow for a vague “consultancy agreement.” Hunter Biden’s lawyer is suddenly disputing his client’s involvement in Rosemont Seneca Thornton without providing any tangible evidence to back up the denial. Senate Democrats have a partisan interest in separating Hunter Biden from the source of the tainted cash and their denial is obviously parsed.  

      So why does the Senate intel committee report that Biden was a “co-founder” of the firm in question? Well, one clue might be that committee members read it in the media. A lengthy New Yorker profile of Hunter Biden from last year, which clearly had extensive cooperation from the Biden team, reported the following: “In June, 2009, five months after Joe Biden became Vice-President, Hunter co-founded a second company, Rosemont Seneca Partners, with Christopher Heinz, Senator John Kerry’s stepson.” That was 15 months ago. For the Biden camp to be disputing this key fact now seems awfully convenient. Further, in that same magazine article, Hunter Biden admits to taking an $80,000 bribe from a Communist Chinese Party-connected tycoon, in the form of a 2.8-carat diamond delivered to his hotel room.

      If the Biden camp is denying Hunter’s role in the firm in question, the media should note the denial, while investigating the truth of the claim. In the meantime, the press is probably obligated to note his history of taking money from foreign sources, a pattern which tends to undercut the denials. And then there’s still the issue of what his father said at the debate.

      For Joe Biden to tell the American people this accusation is “totally discredited,” when the media hadn’t even touched the story, well, honest fact-checkers would tell it like it is: Joe Biden stood up in front of tens of millions of Americans on Tuesday night and told a self-serving lie – a lie that would have been called a four-alarm trouser conflagration if Trump had said it.  

      Naturally, there are consequences for the decision not to report major news such as the Hunter Biden story until you are forced to. The most obvious one is that media credibility takes a huge hit. The media have adopted a fairly jejune attitude toward their own institutional decline, blaming it on an increase in partisanship and polarization, but they’re quick to mix up cause and effect. They never seem to ask how much their skewed coverage is fueling that same polarization.

      Exhibit A here would be the media’s QAnon fascination – the right-wing, largely pro-Trump online cult centered on a bunch of deranged conspiracies about a pedophile ring running the country. There’s a case to be made that the blizzard of media coverage has vastly overstated the influence of QAnon, but it’s caused enough real-world problems that the media are understandably baying for relevant Republicans and conservative activists to make it clear this lunacy is “totally discredited,” in the literal, as opposed to Joe Biden meaning of the phrase.

      The rise of QAnon, however, is also partially a result of a media environment where supposedly authoritative sources of information aren’t credible. If you can’t trust, say, the New York Times to do straightforward reporting on Hunter Biden’s obvious corruption, you’re going to be a lot more inclined to stumble across fringe sources of information while searching for facts online.

      Unfortunately, the Hunter Biden story is practically the new normal in terms of how it illustrates media willingness to suppress or ignore inconvenient truths. The credulous groupthink coverage of Trump-Russia collusion, as well as the unwillingness to pursue Jeffrey Epstein – an actual pedophile cabal involving very powerful people – also goes a long way toward making QAnon’s nutjobbery seem more credible than it should be.

      None of this is to say that the mainstream press is responsible for anything QAnon does or says, but the media can still do something about America’s information crisis. If citizens lacked valid reasons to suspect the truth is being hidden, they wouldn’t go looking for it on parts of the information superhighway where it’s a good idea not to roll down the window.

      Edicts need to come down from major media outlets about reporting the news when it happens, not when political circumstances necessitate or dictate how a story is covered. One way of preventing such obvious imbalances in coverage is to pursue ideological diversity in newsrooms along with actual diversity – if no one in your newsroom attends church weekly, owns a gun, or regularly votes Republican, you don’t have reporters who are going to raise objections about imbalanced coverage, much less understand half the country.

      Right now, any understanding of half the country begins and ends with the fact they loathe and distrust the media. Perhaps not all of that anger at the media is justified, but it’s righteous enough, especially after last week. For once, the media were handed a Russian influence-peddling scandal on a silver platter and the vast majority of major outlets declined to even mention it. Such bad behavior makes the calculus for determining who’s a bigger threat pretty clear for a lot of Trump supporters. Even if the president does and says things that make them uncomfortable, he’ll be gone in four months or four years. A media that hides the truth this brazenly is going to be much harder to get rid of.

    • Trump's Condition Substantially Improved, But He's "Not Out Of The Woods Yet", Doctor Says
      Trump's Condition Substantially Improved, But He's "Not Out Of The Woods Yet", Doctor Says

      Tyler Durden

      Sat, 10/03/2020 – 22:08

      Update (2200ET): White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has apparently decided to “come clean” to the American public, and, in an interview with Fox News on Saturday evening, acknowledged publicly for the first time that Trump’s condition appeared to be rapidly deteriorating on Friday.

      “Yesterday, we were real concerned. He had a fever and his blood oxygen level dropped rapidly,”

      Meadows added that it was Trump’s doctors who made the “recommendation” that Trump travel to Walter Reed “out of an abundance of caution,” adding that “there was never a consideration and never even a risk with the transition of power.” The Chief of Staff confirmed that the latest video published on Trump’s twitter feed was filmed a few hours ago.

      White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany released another statement from Dr Sean Conley, who said that Trump’s condition had improved Saturday, that his blood-oxygen levels have been between 96% and 98%. Though Trump isn’t “out of the woods yet”, doctors remain “cautiously optimistic”. They also noted that Trump has completed his 2nd dose of remdesivir.

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      Meanwhile, dozens of the president’s supporters gathered outside Walter Reed earlier waving signs and flags bearing well wishes for the president.

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      In other news, three Minnesota congressmen are facing backlash over taking a commercial flight home from Washington, DC on Friday night just two days after they shared Air Force One with President Donald Trump.

      Apparently, police were called in to investigate a bomb threat, but found nothing.

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      Finally, CNN’s Jake Tapper has reportedly spoken with an administration offiial who confirmed that investigators believe Trump was infected during the ceremony announcing his choice of Amy Coney Barrett to succeed Ruth Ginsburg on the Supreme Court at the Rose Garden last weekend. The current thinking is that it “may have come from the Hill”.

      * * *

      Update (1900ET): In the latest video from Walter Reed, undoubtedly prompted by media rumors that the president might be in “very serious” condition, Trump (once again looking notably pale and sounding hoarse and congested) said he “came here, wasn’t feeling so well, but I feel much better now.” Trump added that the doctors are doing an excellent job to get him back to 100%, adding that he’ll be “back soon” to the White House.

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      However, during the 4-minute recorded speech, Trump acknowledged that the real test will be seeing how the infection develops over the coming days. He also offered a terse explanation about why him being exposed to COVID-19 was inevitable. “As a leader, you have to confront problems.”

      Before Trump addressed the rumors, anonymous reports about his condition had gotten pretty out of hand.

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      In other news, NJ Gov Chris Christie has reportedly checked himself into a hospital as his COVID-19 systems worsen. The governor’s history of asthma and obesity make him a ‘high risk’ patient.

      Reactions on social media were pretty positive, with many hailing it as one of the finer moments of his presidency.

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      If nothing else, it should put all speculation about his condition to rest.

      * * *

      Update (1530ET): Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman, best known for breaking the story about the history of sexual abuse allegations against Roger Ailes, has just  launched himself to the front of the pack of left-wing reporters reporting scurrilous rumblings about the president’s condition.

      The “am I going out like Stan Chera?” line is almost too on the nose; perhaps it was said in jest.

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      Why is Trump doing all this? He doesn’t want to invoke the 25th amendment, which he could do voluntarily, or – if he’s incapacitated, like put on a ventilator – could be done by his cabinet working with Pence, without the president’s consent.

      Such a transfer of power would be perfunctory and impermanent. And at any rate, if Trump’s condition truly does worsen to that point, it might become inevitable.

      Meanwhile, at CNN.com.

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      * * *

      Update (1420ET): Apparently, the fact that Dr. Conley’s memo included a prominent typo (it misspelled the name of the pharma company Regeneron) set off a fact-checking spree that has led Regeneron to issue another correction.

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      Thanks for clearing that up.

      * * *

      Update (1400ET): Dr. Conley has unsurprisingly confirmed the White House’s claims that he “misspoke” about Trump being 72 hours in, saying that Saturday is the start of Day 3, meaning Trump is 48 hours in.

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      Dr. Conley also reaffirmed that Trump was diagnosed Thursday night as the MSM continues to speculate that Trump either wasn’t tested right away after developing symptoms, or that he had concealed the true timing of his diagnosis until news of Hope Hicks’ infection hit.

      * * *

      Update (1355ET): President Trump is showing the world that the market isn’t far from his mind. While some on Wall Street have suggested that Trump’s illness could change the calculus for another stimulus deal, Mitch McConnell’s decision to shut down floor activity Saturday probably means that stimulus talks are effectively over for now, as the GOP’s Congressional leaders focus on their top priority: the Supreme Court.

      But in a tweet sent minutes ago, Trump urged both sides to come together and get a deal done.

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      Expect more tweets like this one between now and 1800ET tomorrow.

      * * *

      Update (1340ET): Here’s the timeline from Dr. Conley’s press conference and the comments made yesterday that the White House is now trying to dispute.

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      We will likely learn more as the weekend drags on.

      * * *

      Update (1320ET): As the MSM pushes questions about Trump’s condition, the president has once again chimed in on Twitter to tweet that he’s “feeling well”.

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      Shortly before, CBS’s Paula Reid claimed the fact that the White House and Trump’s doctors apparently “can’t keep their stories straight”.

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      Trump’s backers are accusing the media of “sow doubt” about the president’s condition, while the press are insisting that the White House is trying to down play the severity of Trump’s sickness, and also possibly disguising the timeline of when Trump was infected, and when he first suspected that he might be infected.

      * * *

      Update (1300ET): The AP has just apparently “confirmed” what Dr. Conley suggested – but didn’t confirm ooutright – during this morning’s briefing: That Trump received supplemental oxygen at the White House on Friday.

      • TRUMP WAS ADMINISTERED SUPPLEMENTAL OXYGEN AT THE WHITE HOUSE ON FRIDAY BEFORE GOING TO THE HOSPITAL : AP SOURCE

      Dr. Conley said during the press briefing that Trump’s blood-oxygen level was 96% on Saturday, which is normal.

      Here’s Ryan Lizza, seemingly confirming it.

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      Dr. Conley insisted earlier that as of Saturday morning, Trump’s oxygen levels were normal and he needed no assistance breathing.

      Meanwhile, CNN is reporting that there are “more questions than answers” as Trump’s condition “remains unclear”.

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      * * *

      Update (1255ET): The “anonymous” source of the note contradicting Dr. Conley’s report is suspected to be none other than White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who was caught on video asking that some comments be given “off the record”.

      LIKELY SOURCE OF THE ANONYMOUS INFO TO THE PRESS POOL ABOUT TRUMP’S CONDITION WAS CHIEF OF STAFF MARK MEADOWS

      Another White House official also reportedly offered some “clarifications” of Dr. Conley’s timeline, which suggested that Trump had been diagnosed earlier than he had revealed.

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      To sum up: It looks like Trump’s inner circle are trying to minimize Trump’s condition as much as possible, likely to prevent markets from taking another panicked leg lower. Unfortunately, as we’ve seen time and time again, these attempts at pumping the market might pan out for a little while – but eventually, that debt to the truth is paid.

      * * *

      Update (1210ET): Just minutes after Trump’s doctors insisted the president is doing well and that his fever had disappeared, while refusing to confirm that Trump had been treated with oxygen (though their refusal to deny it clearly suggested that he had), Reuters led a flurry of anonymously sourced reports claiming the president’s condition is much worse than his team is letting on.

      Reuters said Trump’s vital signs are in reality “very concerning” and that the next 48 hours will be “critical”.

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      CNBC’s Eamon Javers confirmed that an “odd note” from an anonymous administration official had been shared with the entire White House press pool. The note claimed Trump was more ill than the doctors had let on.

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      One Twitter wit noted that these kind of tactics are simply “not acceptible” right now.

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      Then there was this: White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows asking to speak to reporters “off the record” before allegedly giving “an entierly different account”.

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      The report added that the president was still not on the path to a full recovery. In other words, the description of his condition was a gross exaggeration by an administration determined to make the president look “strong” at all costs – because that’s clearly what Trump wants.

      One reporter also noted that Dr. Conley ended the briefing when a reporter asked whether Trump had been treated with steroids.

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      Still, this isn’t exactly saying much. The White House is trying to make it seem like Trump is completely fine, the reality is probably closer to ‘the president is suffering from moderate flu-like symptoms’, but that’s still a far stretch away from requiring prone positioning and intubation.

      * * *

      Update (1150ET): Trump’s doctors have just concluded a lengthy press briefing offering updates about the president’s condition. The takeaway: Trump is doing “very well” and doesn’t currently have a fever although it appears he did briefly receive oxygen before he traveled to Walter Reed. Whether that was the catalyst for the decision to send him to the hospital remains to be seen.

      CNN and the rest of the mainstream media are also going off about another tacit admission: While Dr. Conley didn’t offer many specifics about the timeline of Trump’s infection, he let slip that we’re approximately 72 hours in, which means Trump may have been infected for an entire day and a half before he informed the public about his condition.

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      Then again, because of Trump’s busy travel schedule, it’s possible he may have skipped some tests, like how he wasn’t tested before arriving at the debate on Tuesday.

      * * *

      Update (1130ET): As the press briefing from Trump’s medical team began, Chris Christie took to twitter to confirm that he is, in fact, COVID-19 positive. That was after he said so on Fox News earlier, then retracted it.

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      Will Rick Scott now do the same?

      * * *

      Update (1125ET): Amazingly, Chris Christie is now saying he “misspoke” during an appearance on Fox, and that he too also tested negative, not positive.

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      It’s the same misstake that Sen. Rick Scott made earlier this am.

      * * *

      Update (1100ET): Former NJ Gov. Chris Christie, who helped Trump with debate prep before his face off against Biden on Tuesday, has become the 25th person in Trump’s orbit to test positive.

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      A reporter for ABC News just revealed that, according to their anonymous sources, the president is feeling “well rested”.

      * * *

      Update (1100ET): While we await the update from Dr. Conley, here’s an update on Fla. Sen. Rick Scott.

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      If you had Scott under the ‘positive’ column, please move him over to the ‘negative’ side.

      Here’s a recap of all the meds Trump has received, according to his doctor and the White House.

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      * * *

      Update (1050ET): As we await an update from President Trump’s doctor, Dr. Sean Conley, anxieties are spreading about Trump’s condition – that it might be worse than the White House is letting on – after initial denials about Trump’s condition turned out to be false.

      In addition to Pence, Don Jr. said he has tested negative again Saturday morning.

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

      Biden fired off another tweet urging Americans to wear their masks.

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

      Meanwhile, Sen. Marco Rubio called for more transparency from the White House to help combat the spread of “conspiracy theories” and misinformation.

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

      Hopefully, the medication and world-class treatment Trump is receiving will help him beat back the virus quickly.

      * * *

      Update (1015ET): VP Mike Pence (along with his wife, First Lady Karen Pence) has tested negative again Saturday morning, according to his office.

      The VP is ready to take over the president’s duties, and according to the most recent statement from the campaign, Pence will take part in Wednesday’s VP debate in Salt Lake City.

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

      Meanwhile, the administration’s critics insisted that Pence should quarantine and keep testing for at least another few days (though technically the quarantine period is 10 days. Both Pence and AG Bill Barr have tested negative, despite both having attended last Saturday’s potential “super spreader” event at the White House.

      * * *

      Update (1000ET): Trump’s doctor, Dr. Sean Conley, will deliver another update on the president’s condition at 1100ET, according to Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany.

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

      * * *

      There have been quite a few major developments in the White House COVID-19 outbreak late Friday and into the early hours of Saturday morning. When we last checked in, an anonymously sourced reports from NBC News claimed Trump had developed “shortness of breath” after arriving at Walter Reed.

      That news followed reports that Thom Tillis, another member of the group of observers who attended a White House event on Saturday where Trump announced Judge Amy Coney Barrett as his nominee for the Supreme Court seat left by the deceased Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

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      Photos like this have circulated widely since Tillis became the 6th member of the group to test positive.

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      As of Saturday morning, 24 people have tested positive in the White House outbreak, as the number of infected staffers who attended the Cleveland debate climbed from 1 to 11.

      1+2. President & Melania Trump

      3. Bill Stepien, Trump campaign mgr

      4. Hope Hicks

      5. Kellyanne Conway

      6. Sen. Ron Johnson

      7. Sen. Mike Lee

      8. Sen. Thom Tillis

      9. Ronna McDaniel

      10. Notre Dame Pres. Jenkins

      11-13. Three WH reporters

      14-24. Eleven staffers from Cleveland debate

      But as the list above also reflects, three additional major figures in TrumpWorld have tested positive: Former White House advisor Kellyanne Conway, Trump Campaign Manager Bill Stepien, and Sen. Ron Johnson.

      Johnson’s announcement hit just minutes ago on Saturday morning with a statement from his office.

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

      He is the third GOP senator to test positive, and – like Lee and Tillis – he also attended Saturday’s event in the Rose Garden.

      Preempted by her teenage daughter Claudia, who made headlines earlier this year by speaking out against both her parents before asking AOC to “adopt” her, Conway announced late Friday evening that she had tested positive, becoming at least the 10th person connected to the White House to contract the virus. Conway left the White House over the summer after her daughter’s outbursts created a national scandal. She has apparently become the 7th person to attend that event to also come down with the virus. Three White House reporters have also tested positive.

      News of Conway’s diagnosis was preempted by her daughter Claudia, who once again took to TikTok to embarrass her mother, claiming in a series of videos that Kellyanne once told her “masks are stupid”. Claudia also implied her mother got them all sick “for that stupid Amy Coney Barrett thing”.

      @claudiamconway

      bye i’m done i’ll see you all in two weeks

      ♬ smack my blank like a drum – andy war

      https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js

      @claudiamconway

      ##duet with @claudiamconway

      ♬ original sound – linds

      https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js

      @claudiamconway

       

      ♬ KC CHIEFS TECH N9NE – TinkGrrl

      https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js

      Meanwhile, George Conway, a longtime critic of Trump and the administration in which his wife serves, tweeted that he was “Livid” about the White House’s cavalier attitude toward the virus.

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

      Though the investigation into the origins of the cluster is only just beginning, contact tracers appear to be focusing on Saturday’s White House event, which Vox News opined increasingly has the making of a “super spreader” event.

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

      That would at the very least account for why no Democrats have gotten sick in the outbreak, since none of them were invited to the press conference. It would also suggest that Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi are probably in the clear. They’ve both already tested positive as of Friday.

      But in a sign that the outbreak might already be spreading beyond Saturday’s gathering, Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien, who announced last night that all Trump campaign events involving the president and the first family would be cancelled, or transitioned to virtual format, has also tested positive. Stepien took the reins over the summer, taking over from Brad Parscale following the Tulsa comeback event disaster. One aide told Politico that Stepien was experiencing “mild flu-like symptoms”. They also reported that Stepien plans to quarantine until he recovers. Deputy Campaign Manager Justin Clark is expected to oversee the campaign from its Arlington Va. headquarters while Stepien works remotely.

      With Stepien and GOP leader Ronna McDaniel sickened, two key players of Trump’s political machine are now out of commission.

      Though he didn’t attend Saturday’s event in the Rose Garden, Stepien traveled to and from Cleveland for Tuesday’s presidential debate, and joined Trump and Hope Hicks aboard Air Force One. The campaign manager was also with the president in the White House on Monday.

      Stepien’s role as campaign manager means participating in dozens of meetings per day. If he was contagious, then many more may need to quarantine, though top Trump cabinet officials including Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and AG Barr have already said they won’t quarantine.

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

      All Trump campaign events through next week, when Trump was supposed to swing through the West, have been cancelled as everybody awaits more information on Trump’s condition.

      Trump’s doctor released a statement late Friday claiming Trump was “doing well” and that he did not require any “supplemental oxygen”, though he was being treated with Gilead’s remdesivir.

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

      Trump was also treated with a battery of anti-virals and other meds earlier in the evening as well.

      Incidentally, the president set off a mini firestorm when he tweeted last night that he was doing “WelI” – with a capital “I” instead of an “L” – spawning a torrent of quasi-serious speculation that the president was sending a secret message by saying he was “going Weli”.

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

      Some are going off the “A Beautiful Mind” deep-end.

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

      At any rate, WSJ says White House contact tracers are scrambling to test hundreds of people who may have come into contact with those infected. Trump’s doctors insist that his hospital stay will only last “a few days” as a precaution.

      Trump walked out of the White House Friday evening wearing a mask and gave a thumbs-up to reporters but did not speak before boarding Marine One at 1816ET and heading to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Already, the Washington Post is reporting that Trump’s team made the “preemptive” decision so that he could be seen boarding the helicopter while he could still walk – an attempt to present an image of strength to the American people.

      Still, White House communications director Alyssa Farah told reporters that there would be no transfer of power with Trump’s trip to Walter Reed, and that the presdient would continue to govern remotely. Sens. Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham, the GOP leader and the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, respectively, have said they plan to push ahead with Barrett’s nomination proceedings to try and get her on the court before election day, as Dems called for the proceedings to be postponed. It’s still not clear how many aides who were with Trump this week are quarantining. CDC guidelines call for an individual to quarantine for up to 14 days after coming into contact with an infected individual. Trump traveled during each of the three days leading up to his diagnosis, dragging countless aides and advisors with him, along with party officials and members of Congress.

      As we explained yesteday, if Trump’s condition worsens, he could transfer power to VP Mike Pence under the proceedings outlined in the 25th Amendment. That has happened only three times in US history: When Ronald Reagan and George W Bush underwent colonoscopies in the White House. When Reagan was shot in 1981, Power was never formally transferred.

    • Autonomous Indoor Serving Robots Set To Invade Restaurants Near You
      Autonomous Indoor Serving Robots Set To Invade Restaurants Near You

      Tyler Durden

      Sat, 10/03/2020 – 22:00

      Before readers know it, restaurants of the future will have their entire front-end automated, nevertheless, the backend where the food is prepped will be operated by robot chefs. 

      For years we’ve spoken about the automation wave that is set to sweep across the food industry, but it wasn’t until the virus pandemic when demand for automation, producing a contactless environment between patron and employee, absolutely erupted. 

      Two companies making robots for restaurants are Bear Robotics, a robotics and artificial intelligence company, and SoftBank Robotics Group, a robotics manufacture. They have jointly designed a new robot named Servi that will be sold to foodservice and hospitality companies. 

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      Both companies expect “skyrocketing demand for these autonomous indoor robots in restaurants and other dining venues,” stated a Bear Robotics and SoftBank Robotics Group press release.  

      “Servi has been developed to be a new member of the food service workforce to assist staff and elevate the overall customer experience. Servi’s agility and object detection put its safety in a class of its own. This has resulted in significant interest in from the hospitality market in Japan, Korea, and the United States. Servi comes with additional features like bussing, drink delivery, and patrol mode. This will allow restaurant and dining hall owners to maximize their operating efficiency, while also elevating service quality to customers,” the press release said. 

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      For more color on the restaurant of the future, we recently noted how Kentucky Fried Chicken unveiled a new automated storefront. The trend in the fast-food industry will be a move to swap out humans with automation and artificial intelligence. 

      “But it’s not just KFC, and it’s not just China where automation, robots, and artificial intelligence is taking the place of human workers. If and when these automated restaurants gain traction in places like China, they are sure to be implemented in the U.S., as well. In fact, they already are — though to a lesser extent, for now. McDonald’s and other food chains are experimenting with digital kiosks similar to the self-checkout machines already found in many grocery stores,” said Nick Bernabe via TheAntiMedia.org. 

      The inevitable automation of the food industry will displace millions of minimum-wage jobs. The question everyone needs to be asking, what will elites do with these unskilled workers. Keep giving them Trump stimulus checks, retool their skills, or send them off to war? 

    • Doug Casey Debunks Four Myths About Trump, Taxes, & The Economy
      Doug Casey Debunks Four Myths About Trump, Taxes, & The Economy

      Tyler Durden

      Sat, 10/03/2020 – 21:30

      Via InternationalMan.com,

      International Man: For many years, President Trump has made no apologies for trying to pay the least amount of taxes possible. He’s clearly stated this in many interviews.

      His desire to minimize his taxes has brought scorn from many in the mainstream media, and politicians from both sides of the aisle. These people are of the opinion that paying taxes is an honorable and necessary responsibility. It brings to mind the wrongheaded saying “taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society”, which came from US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. Many people believe this.

      But if that’s true, how come low tax locales like Singapore, the Cayman Islands, Monaco aren’t backward hell holes, but rather sophisticated and civilized?

      Doug Casey: Almost any lie can be accepted as truth if it’s said often enough and with enough certainty. That absolutely applies to what Holmes said. It’s shameful how people don’t think about its meaning, but slavishly repeat it.

      Taxes aren’t the price we pay for civilized society. They’re a sign of the fact that society is becoming uncivilized. A civilized society is based on voluntarism. Taxes are all about coercion.

      People don’t seem to recognize or remember that before 1913 there was no income tax in the US. There was no reporting of any kind to the US government. It was a much more civilized and far freer country then.

      As far as Trump minimizing his taxes, congratulations to him. The object should be to cut the size of the US government in half, and cut it in half again, and again. And along with it, cut the tax burden that it imposes on the average American.

      Trump should be proud of himself for cutting his taxes. It’s your patriotic duty as an American citizen to deny revenue to the State and the kind of people that are drawn to it and populate it.

      The fact that some people resent others for not paying taxes is just evidence that they’ve been consumed by the vice of envy, which is one of the worst of the vices. Jealousy says “if you have something that I want, I’ll try to take it from you, just because I want it.” Envy says “if you have something that I want, and I can’t take it from you, I’ll destroy it and hurt you.”

      It’s speaks poorly of the ethics of the average American, that they’ll self-righteously shame their neighbors for not paying “enough” taxes to the State.

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      International Man: We often hear from politicians and the media that some people aren’t paying their “fair share” in taxes. Who gets to define what “fair” is, and based on what justifications?

      Doug Casey: Whenever you hear the word fair, start running the other way. Everybody has a different idea of what’s “fair”— it’s an arbitrary concept. People manipulate its definition to their advantage. The only way to determine what might be fair is voluntary mutual agreement. That’s not possible with taxes—there’s no voluntarism involved. They are, in fact, a levy enforced at the point of a gun.

      The most creative and productive people tend to have the highest incomes—unless they’re crony capitalists, which means they’re basically using the government to steal from everybody else.

      Productive people shouldn’t be penalized for supplying more goods and services to their neighbors—to the market. The money they give to the government in taxes would have otherwise been used to create more wealth for the whole world. When it’s taken from them by taxes it’s mostly squandered on welfare and warfare.

      The bottom half of the US really doesn’t pay any income tax. They only pay Social Security taxes, roughly a flat 15%. It’s theoretically a pension program, although in fact it’s a Ponzi scheme. Social Security is bankrupt. If anyone gets it in the years to come it will be at the expense of future taxpayers—not because any capital has been set aside.

      Social Security is, and always has been, a swindle. It makes it harder for people to save on their own. And makes them feel they don’t have to. But it’s not a real pension plan; it’s a highly politicized welfare program. People have been propagandized into believing not just what isn’t true, but actually believing the opposite of the truth. The situation is actually pretty hopeless from a philosophical point of view and it’s getting worse. The average American believes Social Security and the income tax are both moral and necessary.

      International Man: Doesn’t this system—which diverts wealth from productive use into government, which is naturally unproductive—make everyone worse off? You would think the lower and middle classes would be clamoring for more wealth creation that would also benefit them. Instead, many are asking for more wealth to be destroyed.

      It seems this sort of thinking helps solidify a backwards system.

      Doug Casey: Absolutely. The US government and its welfare programs are actually cementing the lower classes to the bottom of society.

      You get what you encourage. When you give people free money for doing nothing, that’s what they’ll do. Take personal responsibility away from a man, and he’ll tend to act irresponsibly. The next step seems to be a guaranteed annual income for everybody where—presumably—where everybody can just sit around Starbucks all day sipping latte and playing with their iPhones, and be paid for it.

      This trend has been building almost 100 years, and the curve is starting to go parabolic. To use a fashionable word, it’s “unsustainable” for everyone to try living at the expense of everyone else.

      International Man: Another misnomer we often hear is that “deficits don’t matter”, a saying popularized by Dick Cheney, an ostensible fiscal conservative.

      Doug Casey: Well, deficits do matter. In order to become wealthy you have to produce more than you consume and save the difference. Saving the difference builds capital. And you need capital to create more wealth.

      Countries without capital are poor. Places like Zimbabwe, Cuba, and Mauritania. The only capital they have is sticks and stones.

      The US government is in effect training people to consume more than they produce. Now, you can do that in basically two ways. One, by borrowing capital that’s been saved and created in the past, and consuming it. Or, two, you can do it by mortgaging your future.

      It’s not a pro-survival policy to consume more than you produce. It’s possible for a while, of course, but will wind up in disaster. The US government is encouraging people to do just that, however, directly and indirectly.

      International Man: Yet another misguided, yet popular, saying is that we shouldn’t worry about the national debt because “we owe it to ourselves.” What’s your take Doug?

      Doug Casey: It’s another glib, gigantic, lie. “We” don’t owe it to ourselves. Some people owe it to some other people. If it’s not paid back somebody is going to walk away disappointed.

      In fact, most of the debt is owed to non-Americans. Directly, in the form of the national debt. And indirectly, in the form of US dollars outside the US. For many years the major export of the US hasn’t been Boeings, or IBMs, or wheat. It’s been US dollars. We run a trade deficit of about $800 billion every year. In exchange, foreigners send us electronics, Mercedes, cocaine, and other real goods. This has artificially propped up the average American’s standard of living.

      Those dollars circulate in other countries; the US dollar is the de facto currency of 50 other countries around the world.

      At some point—since the US dollar is backed by nothing—if confidence goes away, those foreigners are going to want to get rid of their dollars. They’ll necessarily come back to the US where legal tender laws force Americans to accept them.

      There are many trillions of dollars that are now abroad are a liability. Someday they’re going to be traded for US shares of stock, US real estate, US technology, and US labor.

      Americans, who have grown accustomed to an artificially high standard of living for many years, are going to have a very real drop in their standard of living when those dollars come home.

      We’re sending dollars to the Chinese and other foreigners. We’re also selling US government debt to the Federal Reserve, which then credits the government’s accounts at commercial banks with dollars. But that’s another story. It’s all a moving paper fantasy. It’s going to end badly, and end soon.

      It could easily destroy everybody’s savings. And that, in turn, could destroy the very basis of society.

      *  *  *

      The days of the US Dollar as the reserve currency are numbered. When that happens, the US will experience an economic crisis unlike we’ve seen before. The window to prepare yourself is still open. That’s why Doug’s Casey and his team have created this urgent new report on what to expect and how to protect yourself. Click here to download it now.

    • "Extremely Rude" – American Jailed Over Bad Tripadvisor Review In Thailand
      "Extremely Rude" – American Jailed Over Bad Tripadvisor Review In Thailand

      Tyler Durden

      Sat, 10/03/2020 – 21:00

      A reminder to all readers: While visiting Thailand, don’t leave bad reviews for restaurants and spas – you may end up in a Thai jail. 

      This is exactly what happened to one American, who goes by Wesley Barnes, wrote a one-star review on TripAdvisor about a recent restaurant experience, was jailed over a defamation lawsuit filed by the owner, according to The Jakarta Post.

      Barnes was sued by the owner of the Sea View Resort & Spa, Kah Change in response to the negative review. Here’s what was said: 

      Unfriendly staff, no one ever smiles. They act like they don’t want anyone there. The restaurant manager was the worst. He is from the Czech Republic. He is extremely rude and impolite to guests. Find a another place. There are plenty with nicer staff that are happy you are staying with them. – Wesley Barnes wrote on TripAdvisor

      <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

      The resort/restaurant manager, Tom Storup, immediately responded to Barnes’ review. Here’s the response:

      We are sad to see that you have decided to post 2 negative reviews (the first one removed by Tripadvisor for violating their review guidelines) with the only purpose to defame our Food & Beverage Manager and the resort. We are certain, however, that everyone that reads and compares your review to that of all our other guests will see that your comments are far from the truth. We think it is very unfair for that you have chosen to try to give a very negative image of our wonderful resort and our very friendly staff so we would like to shed some light on what made you go this far… – Tom Storup, Rooms Division Manager at Sea View Resort & Spa, Kah Chang

      According to Colonel Thanapon Taemsara of Koh Chang police, he told AFP News, that the “Sea View Resort owner filed a complaint that the defendant had posted unfair reviews on his hotel on the Tripadvisor website.” 

      Taemsara said Barnes was accused of causing “damage to the hotel’s reputation.” He said Barnes had a brief yelling spat with the restaurant over not paying a corkage fee. Barnes was recently arrested by immigration police, where he was detained and then freed on bail.

      Richard Barrow, a British ex-pat living in Thailand, tweeted that his friend, presumably Barnes, “was arrested at his school for posting a one-star review on Google maps about a resort he visited on Koh Chang.” 

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

      As for Thailand’s strict anti-defamation laws, the American faces up to two years in prison if found guilty. 

    • Microchip'd? DARPA Biochip To "Save" Us From COVID Can Control Human DNA
      Microchip'd? DARPA Biochip To "Save" Us From COVID Can Control Human DNA

      Tyler Durden

      Sat, 10/03/2020 – 20:30

      Authored by Robert Wheeler via The Organic Prepper blog,

      While half of the American voting public is no doubt waiting in earnest for the announcement of a release of the COVID vaccine and as totalitarian states and governments the world over attempt to require proof of negative tests before travel, a new tool in the shed of government surveillance and control is revealing itself.

      <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

      The microchip has arrived.

      While many are still attacking anyone warning of the “coming Microchip” as a conspiracy theorist, Luddite, or religious fanatic, that microchip has arrived.

      But governments aren’t having to market the chip as a method to track, trace, and control their populations. Instead, they are marketing the chip as a way to track and detect COVID and other coronaviruses. Clearly, this is a much easier sell to a public literally terrorized by their governments and mainstream media outlets for the last six months.

      Raul Diego details the creation and coming rollout of the new biochip in his article, “A DARPA-Funded Implantable Microchip to Detect COVID-19 Could Hit Markets By 2021,” where he writes,

      The most significant scientific discovery since gravity has been hiding in plain sight for nearly a decade and its destructive potential to humanity is so enormous that the biggest war machine on the planet immediately deployed its vast resources to possess and control it, financing its research and development through agencies like the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and HHS’ BARDA.

      The revolutionary breakthrough came to a Canadian scientist named Derek Rossi in 2010 purely by accident. The now-retired Harvard professor claimed in an interview with the National Post that he found a way to “reprogram” the molecules that carry the genetic instructions for cell development in the human body, not to mention all biological lifeforms.

      These molecules are called ‘messenger ribonucleic acid’ or mRNA and the newfound ability to rewrite those instructions to produce any kind of cell within a biological organism has radically changed the course of Western medicine and science, even if no one has really noticed yet. As Rossi, himself, puts it: “The real important discovery here was you could now use mRNA, and if you got it into the cells, then you could get the mRNA to express any protein in the cells, and this was the big thing.” (Source)

      Here’s what the technology can do

      This new technology amounts to the remote control of biological processes.

      Diego continues:

      As early as 2006, DARPA was already researching how to identify viral, upper respiratory pathogens through its Predicting Health and Disease (PHD) program, which led to the creation of the agency’s Biological Technologies Office (BTO), as reported by Whitney Webb in a May article for The Last American Vagabond. In 2014, DARPA’s BTO launched its “In Vivo Nanoplatforms” (IVN) program, which researches implantable nanotechnologies, leading to the development of ‘hydrogel’.

      Hydrogel is a nanotechnology whose inventor early on boasted that “If [it] pans out, with approval from FDA, then consumers could get the sensors implanted in their core to measure their levels of glucose, oxygen, and lactate.” This contact lens-like material requires a special injector to be introduced under the skin where it can transmit light-based digital signals through a wireless network like 5G.

      Once firmly implanted inside the body, human cells are at the mercy of any mRNA program delivered via this substrate, unleashing a nightmare of possibilities. It is, perhaps, the first true step towards full-on transhumanism. (Source)

      Patrick Tucker of Defense One goes into a few more specifics of how the biochip works. He describes it as follows:

      The sensor has two parts. One is a 3mm string of hydrogel, a material whose network of polymer chains is used in some contact lenses and other implants. Inserted under the skin with a syringe, the string includes a specially engineered molecule that sends a fluorescent signal outside of the body when the body begins to fight an infection. The other part is an electronic component attached to the skin. It sends light through the skin, detects the fluorescent signal and generates another signal that the wearer can send to a doctor, website, etc. It’s like a blood lab on the skin that can pick up the body’s response to illness before the presence of other symptoms, like coughing.

      You won’t be surprised by who supports this.

      It is clear this project has support in the halls of the corporate world and the American government.

      The private company created to market this technology, that allows for biological processes to be controlled remotely and opens the door to the potential manipulation of our biological responses and, ultimately, our entire existence, is called Profusa Inc and its operations are funded with millions from NIH and DARPA. In March, the company was quietly inserted into the crowded COVID-19 bazaar in March 2020, when it announced an injectable biochip for the detection of viral respiratory diseases, including COVID-19. (Source)

      Diego writes,

      The only obstacle is a delivery system, which though Moderna claims to be developing separately, is unlikely to get FDA approval before the federal government’s own DARPA-developed hydrogel technology, in tandem with Profusa’s DARPA-funded light sensor technology, which is expected to receive fast track authorization from the Food and Drug Administration by early 2021 and, more than likely, used to deploy a coronavirus vaccine with the capacity to literally change our DNA.

      In addition, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is currently investigating Moderna’s patent filings, claiming it failed to disclose “federal government support” in its COVID vaccine candidate patent applications, as required by law. The technicality could result in the federal government owning a 100 percent stake in mRNA-1273. (Source)

      Take a microchip or face the consequences.

      Activists and concerned citizens need to stop talking about the “coming microchip” and how they will refuse to be chipped when the time comes. That time is now. Soon, people all over the world are going to have a very difficult decision to make – take a microchip or face the consequences. Judging by the amount of people walking around in masks during my trips to the supermarket, I’d say the odds are not in the favor of free humanity. Most people will line up for it willingly.

      Note: Listen to researcher Alan Watt of CuttingThroughTheMatrix.com discuss the biochip and much more in a historical and analytical context here:

    • Motorcyclist Facing Multiple Felony Charges After Being Caught Doing 181 MPH On San Diego Freeway
      Motorcyclist Facing Multiple Felony Charges After Being Caught Doing 181 MPH On San Diego Freeway

      Tyler Durden

      Sat, 10/03/2020 – 20:00

      A motorcyclist in San Diego was caught doing 181 miles per hour on a San Diego freeway and is now facing felony charges of evading, reckless driving, street racing and being an unlicensed driver, according to NBC. 

      The driver, 32 year old Scott Meiner, was riding in the HOV lane back on March 29 when officers chose not to pursue him due to the speed he was traveling at. He was seen near the Mira Mesa Boulevard exit at the time, before running a red light on Mira Mesa Boulevard. 

      CHP spokesman Salvador Castro said: “Our units were conducting a lidar incident and, basically, they got this motorocycle going 181 and weren’t able to catch up to it.”

      <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

      He continued: “So we forwarded all the information to our investigators, and a couple of months later, they were able to identify the [rider] and link them to several street-racing and reckless-driving incidents, and also running from several police officers from various law enforcement agencies on numerous occasions.”

      Meiner’s Facebook page lists “motorcycles, golf, cars and work” as his interests. It also shows him selling a Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10 motorcycle, which retails for $15,399. That bike has a top speed of 180 mph. Meiner wrote on his Facebook paged that he is “Training to circuit race in the Isle of Man TT and MGP by ’22.”

      Even at the famous Isle of Man Tourist Trophy race, however, the top lap speed is 135.4 miles per hour, set in 2018. 

      Meiner was taken into custody on Tuesday after investigators executed search warrants. He was booked into the San Diego County Jail and released on Wednesday of last week. 

      No word if the bike was on “Autopilot” and if he plans on using “unintended acceleration” as a defense…

    • A Crisis Of Competence
      A Crisis Of Competence

      Tyler Durden

      Sat, 10/03/2020 – 19:30

      Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

      Things Change

      “Doing more of what’s hollowed out our economy and society” is a slippery path to ruin.

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      Things change, supposedly immutable systems crumble and delusions die. That’s the lay of the land in the The Empire of Uncertainty I described yesterday.

      It’s difficult not to be reminded of the Antonine Plague of 165 AD that crippled the Western Roman Empire. The exact nature of the virus that struck down as many as one-third of the Empire’s residents is unknown; it’s thought to be an early variant of measles or smallpox.

      One would have guessed the populace achieved “herd immunity” after the first wave devastated the Empire, but that’s not what happened. The plague continued until 180 AD, and recurred a decade later, continuing to sow misery and economic costs.

      Valiant co-Emperor Verus fell ill and died in 169 AD, leaving his adopted brother Marcus Aurelius to struggle on as the sole leader of Rome’s efforts to repel invasions and maintain its defenses.

      What’s different now is the extreme fragility of America’s financial and social orders. The apparent strength of the economy rests on increasing extremes of financialization and its corrupting fruit, soaring wealth/power inequality.

      “The market” would have us believe corporations profiting from “engagement” (i.e. divisiveness and turmoil) are the most valuable assets in the land. If the Empire’s most precious assets are the derangements of “engagement,” then what else do we need to know about its advanced fragility?

      If data stripmined from debt-dependent consumers is the most profitable resource in the nation, that’s a definition of distortion and delusion. It’s almost as if the American economy and social order have discounted the material world, as if financial leverage, data-mining and “engagement” are all that really matters and the material world will magically take care of itself

      Just as we can’t eat an iPad, we also can’t eat “engagement” or burn data to keep warm or use leverage and other tricks to conjure up productive wealth. The rising tide of dysfunction and incompetence in America’s institutions can be monitored by tracking how functionaries are rewarded for navigating the bureaucratic thickets and padding budgets, not for achieving the institution’s purpose.

      The Crisis of Competence is increasingly visible, but delusions of grandeur still hold. As everyday life decays into developed-world status, we’re told the problem is the hospital or university or corporation no longer has sufficient revenues to cover its bloated expenses, and so the nation must borrow additional trillions to bail out virtually every entity in the land.

      The concept of financial viability without access to ever-expanding debt has been lost, and with that lost, resilience and competence have also been lost. The status quo’s “solutions” are nothing more than doing more of what’s hollowed out our economy and society.

      Things change. We can’t freeze change in its tracks, we can only respond: either competently and effectively, fully aware of our limitations and the risks of relying on debt to paper over our weaknesses, or incompetently, clinging on to delusions of magical thinking, misguided faith in failed leadership and institutions and seeing debt and money created out of thin air as our savior rather than the source of our downfall.

      Here’s the projection I made on February 2, 2020, a week after Covid-19 was finally acknowledged by authorities as a global threat. By my reckoning, this projection is still on track, and we’re approaching “Wave 2 outbreaks around the world, half-measures fail, vaccine months away.”

      “World finally awakens to the pandemic, global economy slides into depression” is on tap for 2021. Things change. Doing more of what’s hollowed out our economy and society is a slippery path to ruin.

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      *  *  *

      My recent books:

      A Hacker’s Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $8.95, print $20, audiobook coming soon) 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).

      *  *  *

      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.

    • "Space Bubbles" Line The Street At This NYC Restaurant 
      "Space Bubbles" Line The Street At This NYC Restaurant 

      Tyler Durden

      Sat, 10/03/2020 – 19:00

      “With everything going on in this world, eating in a bubble is about one of the best experiences we can have,” Valerie Worthy, a customer who ate a meal in what is being called a “space bubble” at French restaurant Cafe du Soleil, on Broadway and 104th Street, told Reuters. 

      Cafe du Soleil’s Facebook page uploaded a video in early September, showing these protected domes lining the sidewalk in front of the eatery.  

      Another video shows patrons enjoying live jazz in their bubbles on a rainy night. 

      Cafe du Soleil owner Alain Chevreux told Reuters the bubbles caught his eye in July. He paid upwards of $400 per bubble, purchasing fifteen bubbles in total. 

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      Chevreux said, “families love it. Kids love it. Friends who want to get together love it… It was raining a couple of weeks ago, midweek, pouring, raining. Everybody that was inside those bubbles were having a blast.”

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      The bubbles could come in handy for the fall time when eateries across Manhattan’s Upper West Side; nevertheless, the entire city, will be at the mercy of Mother Nature. Readers may recall, the seasonal shift to much colder temperatures could make outside dining challenging for some eateries. 

      We noted Monday, a cold airmass will encompass all U.S. Plains, Midwest, Southeast, and Northeast, where temperatures could hover 8 to 15 degrees below normal through the first week of October. 

      At limited indoor capacity, Chevreux said the bubbles had worked well, though he still isn’t generating enough revenue to cover his chef, cooks, and other staff salaries. 

      Chevreux made no mention if the bubbles would be heated come fall/winter. 

    • Free Speech Crisis On Campus: 60% Of Students Keep Quiet Due To Fear How Others Would Respond
      Free Speech Crisis On Campus: 60% Of Students Keep Quiet Due To Fear How Others Would Respond

      Tyler Durden

      Sat, 10/03/2020 – 18:30

      By Nathan Harden of RealClearEducation

      A university should be a place where students can be exposed to new ideas, where they can engage freely in debate and discussion. But do college students really feel free to speak their minds on campus? Newly released College Free Speech Rankings show that, at most colleges, the answer is no.

      RealClearEducation launched the College Free Speech Rankings, with an interactive website, so parents and students can see how schools they’re interested in stack up.

      The rankings are based on a survey of nearly 20,000 students at 55 schools across the country. The survey reveals some startling facts. Almost 20% of students say that using violence to stop an unwanted speech or event is in some cases acceptable. Among Ivy League students, 36% said that it was “always” or “sometimes” acceptable to shout down a speaker one doesn’t like.

      Self-censorship is also a major problem. Sixty percent of college students say they have kept quiet due to fear of how others would respond. Among conservative students, that number is 72%.

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      Colleges have become perilous places to express unpopular ideas. Professors and students fear being shouted down, shunned, or, in some cases, fired or expelled. This has a chilling effect on the classroom.

      Jonathan Haidt, a professor at New York University, frames the problem this way: “At my university we have a ‘bias response line.’ Students are encouraged to anonymously report anyone who says anything that offends them. So, as a professor, I no longer take risks; I must teach to the most easily offended student in the class. I therefore avoid saying or doing anything provocative. My classes are less fun and engaging.”

      The University of Chicago received the highest score in the College Free Speech Rankings. Both liberal and conservative students there say that the administration supports tolerance for a wide range of views and opinions. Rounding out the top five in the rankings are Kansas State, Texas A&M, UCLA, and Arizona State.

      Most of the schools in the top 10 are large public universities. Only one Ivy League school, Brown University, made it into that group.

      DePauw University came in last in the College Free Speech Rankings, with both liberal and conservative students rating the school poorly. DePauw had the highest percentage of students who self-censored, a whopping 71%.

      Coming in at No. 52 out of the 55 schools surveyed, Dartmouth received the worst ranking among Ivy League members. Rounding out the bottom five were Syracuse, Louisiana State University, and the University of Texas at Austin, which ranked only slightly above DePauw.

      The bottom 10 in the rankings includes seven private universities and two Ivy League schools.

      RealClearEducation developed the College Free Speech Rankings in partnership with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a leading advocacy group for free speech and academic freedom. Data research firm College Pulse conducted the survey that forms the basis of the rankings.

      At 80% of the schools included in the rankings, liberalism is the dominant political ideology among students. Students say that racial issues are the most challenging topics to discuss.

      Chicago’s top ranking is no coincidence. University President Robert J. Zimmer has taken a proactive approach to defending free speech, releasing the influential “Chicago Statement” in defense of freedom of expression on campus, which has been adopted by dozens of other universities.

      The rankings demonstrate that academic administrators have real power to create a culture of free speech and open inquiry. Students who attend colleges where their political opinions line up with the majority naturally say that they are more comfortable sharing their beliefs. The University of Chicago has one of the most liberal student bodies of any school in the rankings. Seventy-four percent of students there self-identify as liberals, while only 12% identify as conservatives. Yet both liberal and conservative students rate the university relatively highly in the area of free speech.

      Still, even Chicago has plenty of room for improvement. It won the top spot with an overall score of only 64.19 out of a possible 100 on the scale developed for these rankings. That shows just how poorly most other schools are doing.

      The College Free Speech Rankings paint a clear picture of the speech crisis on America’s colleges and universities. Most schools are failing to protect open inquiry, academic freedom, and free speech. The good news is that now, for the first time, students and parents have a tool they can use to find out which colleges and universities are doing a better job of living up to those ideals.

    • "Skinny" Or "Supersized": What Happens To The Treasury Market When The Next Stimulus Bill Passes
      "Skinny" Or "Supersized": What Happens To The Treasury Market When The Next Stimulus Bill Passes

      Tyler Durden

      Sat, 10/03/2020 – 18:00

      While Congress remains gridlocked over the fifth covid stimulus bill (demanded by 90% of all Americans), rcent headlines suggested on-going discussions for a stimulus breakthrough between Democrats and Senate Republicans prior to the election. And while chances for a deal finalized prior to the November election are slim to nil, Bank of America acknowledges that the chances have improved from near zero at the start of the week. To be sure, timing is critical since the Congressional recess through the election starts on Oct 2 for the House & Oct 9 for the Senate (while Congress can always be called back for a vote but a pre-election deal seems most likely to happen in the next few days if it happens at all).

      Yet while the political and calendar dynamics of any new stimulus deal have been widely discussed, one aspect that remains an open question are the market implications of said deal: just how will the Treasury fund the proposed stimulus and what will its impact be on Treasury spreads, either before or after the election.

      In a recent analysis of just this issue, Bank of America concludes that most scenarios will see little change to coupon or bill sizes unless there is a “supersized” stimulus plan following a Democratic sweep, the same scenario that prompted Goldman to expect a surge in yields.

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      As BofA’s Mark Cabana writes, “the limited supply impact is due to the very large existing UST cash balance and recent coupon supply increases that generate sizeable net cash raises each month ($200bn / month thru end ‘21).” And, for those curious where on the curve is the fulcrum point for new stimulus, Cabana expects “most of the supply impact from stimulus will be concentrated at the front-end of the UST curve.”

      Before we get into the specifics, we fast forward to the bank’s conclusions which, similar to Goldman’s recent thoughts on the matter, find that “any sizeable stimulus would support higher back end UST rates & a steeper curve due to improved growth expectations & higher longer-run deficits.” At the same time, front end rates will continue grinding lower in most scenarios since bill supply will be limited and Treasury is sitting on $1.65+tn of cash which will likely be used to fund new stimulus: “A paydown of this cash results in more money in the banking system which will offset bill supply.”

      * * *

      With that in mind, we focus on the scenario matrix proposed by Cabana, which breaks down roughly as follows – now vs later, supersize vs skinny.

      The BofA rates strategist considers 5 potential scenarios for his supply analysis:

      1. no stimulus
      2. a near-term $1.5tn package agreed to prior to the election
      3. a $500bn “skinny” package post inauguration
      4. a $1.5tn package post inauguration
      5. a $3.5tn “supersized” package post inauguration.

      With the Treasury having already increased coupon sizes substantially this year, only in the “supersized” stimulus package post-inauguration does BofA see a compelling case for higher coupon sizes, although another small coupon supply increase at the Nov refunding is not ruled out if stimulus is passed pre-election; In either scenario, any coupon increase will be relatively small and is unlikely to have a large impact on markets. Bill supply outcomes are more varied across the proposed scenarios. In most cases the bill need should be relatively small and are unlikely to offset the impact from a lower Treasury cash balance & ongoing Fed UST purchases.

      Going back to the three key post-stimulus scenarios, Cabana writes that he expects Congress to “eventually” address the need for more fiscal stimulus. If the stimulus does pass before the election, BofA expects it to be around $1.6TN, which would suggest Democrats concede on their demand for state and local bailouts (i.e., a taxpayer bailout of underwater pensions).

      Here it is worth noting a brief report in Saturday’s Politico Playbook, according to which “PELOSI and Treasury Secretary STEVEN MNUCHIN are expected to work through this weekend. Everyone understands that one of the main issues is funding for state and local governments. The last offers traded were Dems offering $436 billion, and Republicans countering at $250 billion. ON THURSDAY, PELOSI and MNUCHIN held a private phone call with Fed Chair JAY POWELL to discuss state and local funding, and municipal lending. This call has not yet been reported, and underscored the lengths to which the two principals are going to try to get a deal.“

      As such, the odds of a deal where the Fed comes up with some “inert” source of funds to placate Senate Republicans suddenly looks quite real.

      Alternatively, if the stimulus is delayed until after the election, there are 3 most likely sizes as shown in the table below; the BofA base case is a $1.5tn stimulus package after the election but there is a great deal of uncertainty over the size, timing and makeup of any bill.

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      • “Supersized” ($3.5tn): This scenario assumes the Democrats sweep the November elections and pass a bill that closely resembles the $3.4tn Heroes act passed by the House Democrats in May. The bill would include a second round of stimulus checks, $1tn in State and Local aid paid out in two installments and an extension of the $600/week additional unemployment. Even under a Democratic sweep, the likelihood of a bill of this magnitude passing is low given that the economic recovery has been much faster than what was anticipated in May.
      • “Baseline” ($1.5tn): This is our current assumption and assumes that Biden wins the presidential election and Congress control remains split. Similar to the extreme scenario, the bill is expected to include another round of stimulus checks, $500bn in aid for state and local governments and an extension of the additional unemployment benefits but at a lower rate. Expect a similar sized bill if Trump were to be reelected and Congress control remains split.
      • “Skinny” ($0.5tn): This scenario assumes a Republican sweep of the elections, Under this scenario, the Republicans would move forward quickly with a skinny deal targeted primarily at money for the PPP program and unemployment insurance. Expect an earlier passage than the other two scenarios even though Democrats would still hold the House until January.

      According to the Cabana, the two “extreme scenarios” are more illustrative than anything else as they underscore the differences in stimulus approach between the two parties.

      However, they are useful for our discussion around the deficit and Treasury supply issuance. For each of the above scenarios, we have included a lower bound and upper bound estimate of the two month deficit impact following the passage of the bill. The key difference between the two is that in the upper bound scenario we assume that the added UI benefit is retroactive to October 1.

      As shown in Table 1, whether or not this provision is retroactive could be a significant swing factor for the deficit, which could amplify or compress depending on the pace of the labor market recovery over the coming months.

      Another important swing factor is the tax filing deadline. As a reminder, in 2020 the deadline was shifted from April 15 to July 15, which shifted around $250bn in revenue from April to July. If the deadline is again moved to July, then one should anticipate another revenue shift of a little under $250bn from April to July. BofA’s Treasury financing projections currently assume the tax date is kept in April which reduces UST financing need in 1H ’21.

      In sum, Cabana – a former NY Fed Markets Group staffer – “easily” sees a bill that increases the near-term deficit by over $1tn following its passage. And while he is rather bizarrely optimistic, saying that “in the long-run”, he expects the deficit to decline “significantly” in 2022 (good luck with that), he concedes that the deficit will be very elevated compared to the pre-virus levels as the government deals with the lingering scars of the virus.

      * * *

      What about the stimulus bill impact on rates markets and financing needs?  In Table 2, BofA outlines the impact of these stimulus scenarios on Treasury financing needs.

      Coupons: As noted above, the Treasury has already increased coupon sizes substantially this year to all time highs and most scenarios should see little change to coupon sizes unless there is a “supersized” stimulus plan following a Democratic sweep. Additionally, a $1.5tn stimulus bill passed pre-election could see Treasury pursue one last modest round of coupon size increases at the November refunding but it’s probably unnecessary. Any coupon size increase after a “supersized” or pre-election deal would likely include $1bn/month growth for 2/3/5/7Y notes and $1bn increase in 10/20/30Y offerings for new issue & reopening auctions; any coupon growth would only last for one quarterly refunding cycle.

      Bills: there is a range of bill supply outcomes between now & 1H ’21 as shown in Table 2. Much of the bill supply impact will be a function of the Treasury cash balance level, which remains near record levels. The implications of a few bill supply scenarios are listed below:

      • Pre-election stimulus: In Q4 ’20 bill supply would likely total $250-$300bn. The Treasury will drop their cash balance to $1tn, which would add ~$600bn of cash into the banking system. The expected increase in banking system cash would likely overwhelm bill supply & keep front end rates stable to lower.
      • Base case (no stimulus pre-election, $1.5tn post inauguration): In Q4 ’20 bill supply will likely be flat or slightly negative with a Treasury cash balance at year-end of $1.6tn. This is lower vs prior forecasts due to a downward revision in deficit estimates and the TGA ending September higher than BofA had previously anticipated. In 1H ’21 bill supply will also likely be flat on net but there may be one notable variation; Cabana “might anticipate” $200-$300bn bill supply after stimulus is passed in Feb or March but expect this would be paid down after the April tax date. The decline in Treasury cash balance will limit the need for elevated bill supply.
      • Extreme scenarios: in 1H ’21 a “supersized” or “skinny” deal could see bill supply range from positive $350-$400bn to negative $1tn. In a “supersized” scenario the bill supply increase would likely be greatest after a bill is passed in Feb or March ’21. In a “skinny” deal the risk of sharply negative bill supply stems from a potential “forced” reduction of the Treasury cash balance. 

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      When considering Treasury supply scenarios, one must also consider 2 wildcards: (1) Treasury cash balance (2) PPP forgiveness options. A few details on each:

      Treasury cash balance: As we have shown previously, the Treasury currently sits on $1.65trillion of cash, well above historical norms and near a record high.

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      These funds will likely be used to pay for a large portion of any fiscal stimulus plan and the Treasury will ultimately target a $400bn cash balance after stimulus needs are met & PPP loan forgiveness is complete, suggesting a $1 2 trillion drawdown from current levels. Treasury will face material pressure to get their cash balance down by the summer of next year. Specifically, as BofA notes, Treasury will need to lower their cash balance to $133bn by end July ’21 to be in compliance with the existing debt limit law (the 2019 Bi-Partisan Budget Act suspends the debt limit through end July ’21 but when the debt limit is reinstated UST needs to hold no more cash on hand vs when the bill was originally signed into law which is $133bn). If a new debt ceiling is not instituted before end July ’21 it could imply less financing need from bills, all else equal. The impact of different TGA levels on expected Q420 and 1H21 net bill supply in tables 3 and 4.

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      PPP loan forgiveness: a sizeable amount of the Treasury cash balance is being held for PPP loan forgiveness. Recall, the PPP approved $525bn of loans for which the largest Treasury financing draw does not occur until the loans are forgiven. According to BofA estimates, a maximum of $30bn in PPP loans has already been forgiven since most large banks did not start accepting PPP loan forgiveness applications until August and there have only been $30bn of additional Small Business Administration withdraws from Treasury since then. As such, one can assume another $100bn in PPP loan forgiveness + UST outflows in Q4 ’20 and $400bn of PPP loan forgiveness + UST outflows in 1H ’21.

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      Wildcard bottom line: the base case of $400bn standard TGA operating balance + $500bn of PPP loan forgiveness needs leaves UST with roughly $700-$800bn of “unencumbered cash” at present to fund the next round of stimulus

      * * *

      Putting all of the above together, Cabana writes that “the most striking takeaway” from his simulations is “the relatively limited impact stimulus has on Treasury’s expected near-term debt issuance, even under the “supersized” supply scenario.” This is due to prior coupon auction size increases & available financing from the Treasury cash balance. “These scenarios also offer limited hope for a supply driven increase in front-end UST rates” which means that any action – assuming there is one – will be entirely in the long-end.

      One final – and interesting – note raised by Cabana is his claim that the choice of who is the next US Treasury Secretary after the election “matters for debt management policy.” According to the BOfA strategist, “debt management practices under Treasury  Secretary Mnuchin have been “regularly unpredicatable” in contrast to Treasury’s more typical practice of ‘regular & predictable’.” This view was formed by the unusual means by which the 20Y UST issue was introduced & the post-COVID larger-than-expected long-dated coupon sizes vs market & TBAC guidance

      According to Cabana, “debt management decisions made under Mnuchin are likely to favor long-end issuance while a new Treasury Secretary would likely favor issuance more concentrated towards the belly of the UST curve.  If President Trump  wins re-election we expect that Mnuchin will remain Treasury Secretary based on some of the Treasury Secretary’s prior
      comments. If former Vice President Biden wins we expect a new Treasury Secretary and one that would likely follow more “orthodox” debt management practices. We think a new Treasury Secretary would likely favor TBAC’s recommended strategy of concentrating issuance at the belly of the curve to minimize interest cost and interest rate variability. A focus on issuance towards the belly would also be easier since the weighted average maturity of Treasury debt is expected to normalize or exceed pre-COVID levels by the end of FY ’22 under the existing coupon trajectory.”

      The reason why this is important is that it partially offsets the adverse consequences for long-end prices in the scenario presented by Goldman at the end of September, as such a shift in debt management strategy might lessen the extent of UST cheapening at the long end of the curve and concentrate the impact of any coupon increases at the  belly of the curve. Those who wish to trade, or hedge, a change in Treasury Secretary, are advised to “consider” 5s30s swap spread steepeners “or greater tightening potential concentrated at the 5Y part of the curve as a part of any trade to position for a potential Democratic sweep.”

    • Texas Taxpayers Face $117 Billion Bill For Orphaned Oil Wells
      Texas Taxpayers Face $117 Billion Bill For Orphaned Oil Wells

      Tyler Durden

      Sat, 10/03/2020 – 17:30

      Authored by Josh Owens via OilPrice.com,

      The state of Texas and its taxpayers could be on the hook for paying up to US$117 billion for the cleaning-up of abandoned wells as a growing number of U.S. oil companies go bust, and the guarantees for paying for the cleanup cover only 1 percent of estimated costs, a report by climate finance think-tank Carbon Tracker showed on Thursday.  

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      U.S. oil and gas producing states and taxpayers may have to pay in total as much as US$280 billion in cleanup costs, with Texas leading with US$117 billion, followed by Oklahoma with US$31 billion and Pennsylvania with US$15 billion, Carbon Tracker’s report says.

      The US$280-billion estimate is for 2.6 million unplugged onshore oil and gas wells in the United States, while there may be another estimated 1.2 million undocumented onshore wells, Carbon Tracker said.

      While operators are obliged to pay for the cleanup of oil and gas wells, the so-called surety bonds – the guarantee that the operator will indeed pay those costs – currently cover around 1 percent of the closure costs for plugging and cleanup of the wells, the think-tank said.

      The growing number of defaults in the U.S. shale patch may put taxpayers “at risk of picking up costs in excess of available bonds,” Carbon Tracker said.

      The lower-for-longer oil prices and the high debt levels of many U.S. oil companies resulted in as many as 16 filings for bankruptcy protection in the shale patch in July alone, bringing the total since the price crash to 50, the latest bankruptcy monitoring data from law firm Haynes and Boone showed at the end of August.

      According to Carbon Tracker, “States can lower their orphan well liability risk and protect taxpayers by demanding higher bond rates and forcing companies to plug long-inactive ‘zombie’ wells. These actions will shift responsibility for oilfield cleanup costs to industry and also position states to qualify for U.S. federal aid.”

    • Cruise Industry Bust Sparks Global 'Ship-Breaking' Boom
      Cruise Industry Bust Sparks Global 'Ship-Breaking' Boom

      Tyler Durden

      Sat, 10/03/2020 – 17:00

      As the virus pandemic rages around the world, the cruise ship industry remains in rough waters. The question everyone has, especially Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy and Robinhood traders, is when the Great Cruise Shutdown of 2020 will end? 

      While some cruise ship operations have resumed in Europe, many operations in North America remain closed. The CDC recently extended a no-sail order for U.S.-based cruise ships through Oct. 31, which could pave the way for a possible November restart. 

      However, a November restart seems unlikely as the U.S. has made little progress in lowering its baseline of COVID-19 cases. After President Trump announced Friday that he and his wife tested positive for the virus, the U.S.’s average daily new cases on Friday stood around 46,300. 

      Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the NIAID and member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, said not too long ago, that “no matter how you slice it, that’s not good.” He referred to the plus 40,000 caseloads per day, warning that the U.S. is headed “into a more problematic winter.”

      Reuters notes a sea dock in western Turkey is absolutely booming with cruise ship dismantlings with the cruise ship industry in the Western world unlikely to resume full operations this year. 

      On Friday, at the docks in Aliaga, a town on Turkey’s west coast, five massive cruise ships are being stripped down for scrap, as cruise ship operators reduce fleet sizes. Three more cruise ships are expected to arrive in Aliaga in the near term. 

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      Before the virus pandemic, ship-breaking yards in Turkey mostly concentrated on dry bulk carriers and container ships. Now there’s been an increase in cruise ships since the industry has gone bust, Kamil Onal, chairman of a ship recycling industrialists’ association, told Reuters.

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

      “But after the pandemic, cruise ships changed course towards Aliaga in a very significant way,” Onal said of the town. “There was growth in the sector due to the crisis. When the ships couldn’t find work, they turned to dismantle.”

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      Onal said 2,500 people work at the scrapyard in teams that take around six months to dismantle an entire cruise ship. He said most of the ships arrived from Britain, Italy, and the U.S.

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      Here’s a cruise ship recently arriving at Aliaga. 

      With no end in sight in containing the virus, cruise ship passenger volumes will likely remain depressed for the next 12-24 months. Portnoy and Robinhood traders are likely to become bagholders of cruise ship stocks.

      Carnival

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      Norwegian Cruise Line

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      Royal Caribbean Cruises 

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      If you want any more confirmation, the cruise ship industry is going bust. A snippet from Carnival’s latest SEC filing outlines how the operator is accelerating plans to dispose of at least 18 vessels. 

      “In total, the 18 ships represented approximately 12 percent of pre-pause capacity and only three percent of operating income in 2019,” Carnival wrote, in an SEC filing.

      The cruise ship bust will linger for years as recovery is nowhere in sight. Expect more operators to trim fleet sizes, either selling the vessels or completely writing down the asset and sending it to a ship-breaking yard.  

    • Feds Close Investigation Into Yet Another 'Hate Crime' Hoax
      Feds Close Investigation Into Yet Another 'Hate Crime' Hoax

      Tyler Durden

      Sat, 10/03/2020 – 16:30

      Authored by Rick Moran via PJMedia.com,

      Federal authorities have closed their investigation into a “hate crime” incident in Madison, WI where a black woman claimed 4 white men threw lighter fluid on her and set her on fire after shouting a racial epithet at her.

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      Eighteen-year-old Althea Bernstein claimed she was the victim of a hate crime attack. Her story was uncritically reported across the nation. CNN, NBC, Good Morning America, and most major print publications told a horrific story.

      Althea Bernstein, 18, told investigators she was stopped at a traffic light in the city at around 1 a.m. Wednesday when she heard someone yell a racial slur through her rolled-down window, according to a police department incident report

      “She looked and saw four men, all white. She says one used a spray bottle to deploy a liquid on her face and neck, and then threw a flaming lighter at her, causing the liquid to ignite,” the report states.

      But after an investigation by the FBI, which included examining every scrap of video available, no evidence ever emerged of a “hate crime” and, indeed, Bernstein was nowhere to be seen.

      Washington Free Beacon:

      “After reviewing all available evidence, authorities could not establish that the attack, as alleged by the complainant, had occurred,” U.S. attorney Scott Blader said in a Friday statement. A statement from Madison’s chief of police stated that “detectives were unable to corroborate or locate evidence consistent with what was reported.”

      In a statement released by police, Bernstein and her family said they “appreciate the detailed investigative efforts by all involved in this case.”

      You’d think the media would have been taught a lesson after the first 50 hate crime hoaxes. Instead, they doubled down on this one, reporting every detail with that hysterical tone they get when they think America needs to be taught a lesson.

      It’s them that need to go back to school and learn how to be journalists.

      In addition to earning national headlines, Bernstein was interviewed on ABC’s Good Morning America, included in a floor speech by Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D., Mass.), and received a phone call from Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. She was also included in the NFL’s list of “victims of systemic racism, victims of police brutality, and social justice heroes,” and her name has been featured this season on the helmet of players such as the Atlanta Falcon’s Todd Gurley.

      Hate crime hoaxes will continue as long as the media reacts this way. And as long as authorities let the criminals get away with it.

      I love this statement from “community leaders” who, like Bernstein’s family, never mention the investigation’s findings.

      “This morning the Mayor and the Police Chief briefed myself and other community leaders about the investigation surrounding Althea Bernstein and I appreciate the time federal authorities and local law enforcement officials put into this case,” Johnson told the Washington Free Beacon. “In the meantime, we will continue to provide support to Althea and hope and pray for her healing and well-being.”

      CNN and NBC haven’t gotten around to issuing a correction yet.

    • JPMorgan: "A Trump Win Would Constitute A Big Surprise For Markets"
      JPMorgan: "A Trump Win Would Constitute A Big Surprise For Markets"

      Tyler Durden

      Sat, 10/03/2020 – 16:00

      How quickly people forget.

      With the narrative across both media and markets driven by the latest polling data turning to the “guaranteed” victory of Joe Biden over Donald Trump on Nov 3, it’s worth remembering that exactly this time 4 years ago, Trump’s betting odds to defeat Hillary Clinton were about half where they are now, as the following chart from JPMorgan shows.

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      But while most have forgotten Trump’s dismal polling in 2016, when the NYT declared Hillary’s chances of victory at 92% just days before the election, everyone remembers what happened on Nov 8, 2016, even if the NYT and the entire polling industry would like to forget.

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      And yet, despite this clear lesson from the very recent past that polling and political prediction markets are total garbage, we are going through all the motions again, and as JPMorgan’s “other” quant, Nick Panagirtzoglou writes in the latest Flows and Liquidity report, “markets have been factoring in greater probability of Biden winning the election” which naturally “implies that a potential Trump win  would constitute a big surprise for markets”… just like in 2016. At the same time, with hopes for a fiscal deal before the election now effectively dead, “a large fiscal package under a Democratic sweep could also constitute a significant surprise for rate markets.”

      Addressing the main news this week, i.e., Trump testing positive for Covid, the JPM strategist writes that this “news create some uncertainty as, in the scenario where the US President and Presidential candidate gets ill, potential succession issues could be raised on multiple fronts should it prove to be serious.” In response, Panigirtzoglou notes that following this news betting odds for the US election widened even further from this week’s debate, with Trump’s odds already below 40% on Oct 1st and likely lower today according to preliminary indications, down from 46% a week ago. Of course, as discussed at the top, even with the Friday drop to around 40%, Trump’s winning chances are still nearly double the 25% betting odds seen a month before the 2016 election.

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      Curiously, just yesterday, the “other” JPM quant, Marko Kolanovic laid out a case where Trump’s illness could actually boost the president’s odds, to wit: “a combination of voter sympathy, turnout and an asymptomatic or mild virus outcome boosts Trump’s election chances (e.g. vindicating his strategy of opening by example).”

      In any case, as JPM’s Panigirtzoglou writes, the sharp decline in Trump’s betting odds over the past week is raising questions about what is priced in across markets. To answer this question the bank looked at various markets to assess whether the market pricing has moved in similar direction to US presidential election betting odds over the past weeks.

      Starting with stocks, to gauge how equity markets are positioned, JPM uses baskets constructed by the bank’s equity strategists for US equities. In particular, it focuses on the Democratic Agenda Outperformers and Underperformers baskets and the ratioof the two baskets is depicted in Figure 2. It shows relatively flat performance until September. After the tech-led correction in early September, the Democrat Agenda Outperformers have gained 10% relative to the Underperformers baskets, suggesting the US equity markets have been pricing in a higher probability of a Biden Presidency.

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      Next, we look at European equities, where JPM again looks at thematic baskets that include companies with higher US sales exposure, ESG underperformers and defence in a European ‘Trump winners’ basket. And the European ‘Biden Winners’ includes companies in the tech (including green tech) and healthcare sectors as well as companies with greater exposure to trade and Asia. These baskets suggest that European equities have also been gradually pricing in a higher chance of a Biden Presidency.

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      A third way to assess market pricing of a US election is to look at the performance of Asian equities and FX, “given that a  continued Trump Presidency would mean further US/China conflict on trade, technology and investments.” JPM looks at the Bloomberg JPM Asian Dollar Index (ADXY) as well as the relative performance of the MSCI Asia Free float index vs. the MSCI AC World.

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      The figures show the performance over the past three months as well as the performance around the same stage ahead of the 2016 election. Both of the charts show that in 2016 the bulk of the reaction came after the election result, consistent with the low odds betting markets were assigning to a continued Trump Presidency outlined above. This year, the charts suggest increased chances of a Biden Presidency up until mid-September, after which there has been some retracement. In other words, after mid-September Asian equities and FX appear to have diverged somewhat from US and European equities that continued to price in a greater probability of a Biden Presidency.

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      But enough about stocks, what about rate markets? Given the backdrop of endless continued Fed QE purchases, and that the implications for fiscal policy of a Biden or Trump Presidency under a split Congress are less likely to be significantly different, it is not as clear cut how different market pricing ought to be in either of those scenarios. In other words, when it comes to monetary policy, the name of the US president is completely irrelevant (once again demonstrating that the Fed Chair is far more powerful than the US president). Indeed, a clear victory by either candidate could reduce uncertainty and hence term premium priced in longer maturity yields. That said, there is a question over how rate markets would react to a ‘Democratic Sweep’ scenario. Recall that Goldman recently predicted a sharp spike in yields in the case of a Blue sweep. However, JPM counters by warning that the immediate reaction could be to add uncertainty given the prospect of changes to tax policy and potentially pushing yields lower.

      Then again, over the medium term JPM agrees with Goldman, that “the prospect of a significant fiscal stimulus package could add to steepening pressure by adding to the already increased issuance needs of the US Treasury as well as potentially higher inflation expectations via infrastructure spending and minimum wage increases.” The chart below shows the change in the 2s/10s slope around the election date in 2016 and in 2020, with 0 representing the current level in 2020 and the equivalent period ahead of the 2016 election.

       

      It shows that in the 2016 election, markets only began to price a prospect of significant fiscal stimulus in the form of then-candidate Trump’s tax cut agenda after the election, consistent with the above.

      Putting it all together, JPmorgan find “that markets have been factoring in greater probability of Biden winning the election” just like in 2016.  “This implies that a potential Trump win would constitute a big surprise for markets” according to the largest US commercial bank. 

    • The Absurdity Of COVID "Cases"
      The Absurdity Of COVID "Cases"

      Tyler Durden

      Sat, 10/03/2020 – 15:30

      Authored by Jeff Deist via The Mises Institute,

      Today’s headlines announced Donald and Melania Trump “tested positive” for covid-19. Another claims nineteen thousand Amazon workers “got” covid-19 on the job. Both of these pseudostories are sure to ignite another absurd media frenzy. 

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      As always, the story keeps changing: Remember ventilators, flatten the curve, the next two weeks are crucial, etc.? Remember Nancy Pelosi in Chinatown back in February, urging everyone to visit? Remember Fauci dismissing masks as useless? Why should we believe anything the political/media complex tells us now?

      So what do these headlines really mean? What exactly is a covid “case”? 

      Since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, most US media outlets have been exceedingly credulous and complicit in their reporting. Journalists almost uniformly promote what we can call the “prolockdown” narrative, which is to wildly exaggerate the risks from covid-19 to serve a political agenda. They may be motivated to hurt Trump politically, to promote a more socialist “new normal,” or simply to drive more clicks and views. Bad news sells. But the bias is clear and undeniable. 

      This explains why media outlets use the terms “case” and “infection” so loosely, to the point of actively misinforming the public. All of the endless talk about testing, testing, testing served to obscure two important facts. First, the tests themselves are almost laughably unreliable in producing both false positives and negatives. And what is the point? Are we going to test people again and again, every time they go out to the grocery or bump into a neighbor? Second, detecting virus particles or droplets in a human’s respiratory tract tells us very little. It certainly does not tell us they are sick, or transmitting sickness to anyone. 

      Take a perfectly healthy person with no particular symptoms and swab the inside of their nose. If the culture shows the presence of staphylococcus aureus, do we insist they have a staph infection? When someone drives to work without incident or accident, do we create statistics about their exposure to traffic?

      A virus is not a disease. Only a very small percentage of those exposed to the virus itself – SARS-CoV-2 – show any kind of acute respiratory symptoms, or what we can call “coronavirus disease.” 

      The only meaningful statistics show the incidence of serious illness, hospitalizations, and deaths. The single most important statistic among these is the infection fatality rate (IFR). Data collected through July shows that the IFR for those under age forty-five is actually lower than that of the common flu. The covid-19 IFR rises for those over fifty, but it is hardly a death sentence. And the data does not segregate those with preexisting health issues caused by obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. If we could see data only for reasonably healthy people under fifty, the numbers would be even more reassuring. 

      Mild or asymptomatic covid cases are effectively meaningless. The world is full of bacteria and viruses, and sometimes they make us a bit sick for a few days. There are millions of them in the world all around us, on our skin, in our nose and respiratory tract, in our organs. We are meant to live with them, which is why we all have immune systems designed to help us coexist and adapt to ever-changing organisms. We develop antibodies naturally, or we attempt to stimulate them through vaccines, but ultimately our own immune systems have to deal with covid-19. The virus will always be out there waiting, on the other side of any lockdown or mask—so we might as well get on with it. 

      From day one the focus should have been on boosting immunity through exercise, fresh air, sunlight, proper dietary supplementation, and the promotion of general well-being. Instead our politicians, bureaucrats, and media insisted on business lockdowns, school closures, distancing, isolation, masks, and the mirage of a fast, effective vaccine. As with almost everything in life, state intervention made the situation worse. We can only hope many governors are removed from office, either by impeachment or at the next election. Several, including Andrew Cuomo in New York and Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan, should face criminal charges for their lawless edicts. There is no due process exception for “public health.”

      Lockdowns were never justified, either in terms of the covid-19 risk or the staggering economic tradeoffs, which will be felt for decades. They certainly are not justified now, given seven months of additional data showing that the transmission and lethality of covid-19 are not particularly worse than previous SARS, swine flu, or Ebola pandemics. We still don’t know how many of the reported two hundred thousand US covid-19 deaths were actually caused by the SARS-CoV-2 respiratory disease, or simply reflect people who died of other causes after exposure to covid-19. We do know that the harms caused by the lockdowns far outweigh the harms posed by the covid-19 virus.

      We have had nearly eight months of life and liberty stolen from us by politicians and their hysteria-promoting accomplices in media. How much more will we accept?

    • Iranian Fuel Seized By US For Venezuela 'Sanctions-Busting' Discharges In New York
      Iranian Fuel Seized By US For Venezuela 'Sanctions-Busting' Discharges In New York

      Tyler Durden

      Sat, 10/03/2020 – 15:00

      Recall that in July the US seized 1.1 million barrels of Iranian fuel aboard four privately owned tankers that had been bound for Venezuela. This after a federal court deemed the move was lawful in accord with sanctions on Iran and Venezuela. 

      That confiscated gasoline was previously bound for Houston, according to top US administration official statements; however, it was recently rerouted, with at least half of it discharged in New York on Thursday.

      Vessel tracking data shows that the Singapore-flagged Maersk Progress unloaded its cargo there, estimated at 557,000 barrels of gasoline, according to Reuters.

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      Venezuelan Oil Minister Tareck El Aissami (left), AFP via Getty

      “The Maersk Progress was due to arrive in Houston last month, but changed its route. Euroforce, a second tanker carrying some of the seized cargo, has been off the coast of Texas since Sept. 9,” Reuters writes.

      Meanwhile the private owners of four Iranian fuel cargoes are attempting to sue and get the seizure ruling overturned in US District Court, basing their argument primarily on claims that the customers are in Peru and Colombia, and not blacklisted Maduro’s Venezuela. 

      Meanwhile, officials in Tehran recently mocked the whole episode, claiming the seized fuel was not Iran’s at all, stating that it had already been sold to international customers.

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

      Even as the alleged Iranian fuel was being discharged in New York, Venezuela hailed a separate “victory” this past week : 

      Two Iranian fuel tankers have reportedly reached Venezuela with a third ship set to dock soon. Their arrival constitutes a success for the two nations sanctioned by the United States following an August seizure of such fuel.

      The Iran-flagged ship Forest reached a Venezuelan port Tuesday. A second Iranian ship, the Fortune, entered Venezuelan waters Wednesday. The Forest brought 275,000 barrels of gasoline, The Associated Press reported.

      A third Iranian ship, the Faxon, is expected to arrive this weekend; the three are collectively carrying around 815,000 barrels of fuel in total, the AP said.

      More such maneuvering and controversy regarding cargo on the high seas is expected in the coming months, given Iran and Venezuela’s deepening trade and military ties.

      Last summer multiple Iranian fuel ships were escorted safely to Venezuelan ports by Maduro’s armed forces, something which Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has vowed to stop.

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    Oct 03

    Today’s News 3rd October 2020

    • The Emerging Evidence Of Hyperinflation
      The Emerging Evidence Of Hyperinflation

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/02/2020 – 23:40

      Authored by Alasdair Macleod via GoldMoney.com,

      Note: all references to inflation are of the quantity of money and not to the effect on prices unless otherwise indicated.

      In last week’s article I showed why empirical evidence of fiat money collapses are relevant to monetary conditions today.

      In this article I explain why the purchasing power of the dollar is hostage to foreign sellers, and that if the Fed continues with current monetary policies the dollar will follow the same fate as John Law’s livre in 1720. As always in these situations, there is little public understanding of money and the realisation that monetary policy is designed to tax people for the benefit of their government will come as an unpleasant shock. The speed at which state money then collapses in its utility will be swift. This article concentrates on the US dollar, central to other fiat currencies, and where the monetary and financial imbalances are greatest.

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      Introduction

      In last week’s Goldmoney Insight, Lessons on inflation from the past, I described how there were certain characteristics of Germany’s 1914-23 inflation that collapsed the paper mark which are relevant to our current situation. I drew a parallel between John Law’s inflation and his Mississippi bubble in 1715-20 and the Federal Reserve’s policy of inflating the money supply to sustain a bubble in financial assets today. Law’s bubble popped and resulted in the destruction of his currency and the Fed is pursuing the same policies on the grandest of scales. The contemporary inflations of all the major state-issued currencies will similarly risk a collapse in their purchasing powers, and rapidly at that.

      The purpose of monetary inflation is always stated by central banks as being to support the economy consistent with maximum employment and a price inflation target of two per cent. The real purpose is to fund government deficits, which are rising partly due to higher future welfare liabilities becoming current and partly due to the political class finding new reasons to spend money. Underlying this profligacy has been unsustainable tax burdens on underperforming economies. And finally, the coup de grace has been administered by the covid-19 shutdowns.

      The effect of monetary inflation, even at two per cent increases, is to transfer wealth from savers, salary-earners, pensioners and welfare beneficiaries to the government. In no way, other than perhaps from temporary distortions, does this benefit the people as a whole. It also transfers wealth from savers to borrowers by diminishing the value of capital over time.

      Inflation of the money supply is now going into hyperdrive, so those negative effects are going to get much worse. It is time to move from empirical evidence to the situation today, which is the unprecedented increase in the global rate of monetary inflation and specifically that of the world’s reserve currency, the US dollar.

      The dollar’s inflation

      No doubt, the reluctance to reduce, or at least contain budget deficits is ruled out by the presidential election in November. But whoever wins, it seems unlikely that government spending will be reined in or tax revenue increased. For the universal truth of unbacked state currencies is that so long as they can be issued to cover budget deficits they will be issued. And as an inflated currency ends up buying less, the pace of its issuance all else being equal will accelerate to compensate. It is one of the driving forces behind hyperinflation of the quantity of money.

      Since the Lehman crisis in August 2008, the pace of monetary inflation has accelerated above its long-term average, and the effect is illustrated in Figure 1 below.

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      Figure 1 includes the latest calculation of the fiat money quantity, to 1 August 2020. FMQ is the sum of Austrian money supply and bank reserves held at the Fed — in other words fiat dollars both in circulation and not in public circulation. Because commercial banks are free to deploy their reserves within the regulatory framework, either as a basis for expanding bank credit or to be withdrawn from the Fed and put into direct circulation, whether in circulation or not bank reserves at the Fed should be regarded as part of the fiat money total.

      It can be seen that the rate of FMQ’s growth was fairly constant over a long period of time — 5.86% annualised compounded monthly to be exact — until the Lehman crisis when the rate of growth then took off. Since Leman failed in 2008 FMQ’s total has grown nearly 300%.

      Since last March growth in the FMQ has been unprecedented, becoming almost vertical on the chart, triggered by the Fed’s response to the coronavirus. And now a second wave of it has hit Europe and the early stages of a resurgence appears to be hitting the land of the dollar as well. With lingering hopes of a V-shaped recovery being banished, a further substantial increase in FMQ is all but certain.

      Already, FMQ exceeds GDP. If we take the last time things were normal, say, in 2005 when the US economy had recovered from the dot-com crash and before bank credit expansion and mortgage lending become overblown, we see that in a functioning relationship FMQ should be between 35%—40% of GDP. But with the US economy now crashing and FMQ accelerating, FMQ is likely to be in excess of 125% of GDP in the coming months.

      What is the source of all that extra money? It is raised through quantitative easing by the central bank in a system that bends rules that are intended to stop the Fed from just printing money and handing it to the government. Yet it achieves just that. The US Treasury issues bonds by auction in the normal fashion. The major banks through their prime brokers bid for them in the knowledge that the Fed sets the yield for different maturities through its market operations. The Fed buys Treasury bonds up to the previously announced monthly QE limit, only now there is no limit, giving the primary brokers a guaranteed turn and crediting the selling banks’ reserve accounts with the proceeds.

      This arm’s length arrangement absolves the Fed of the sin of direct money-printing but evades the rules by indirect money-printing. The Treasury gets extra funding through this roundabout arrangement. Participating banks generally expand their bank credit to absorb the new issue, which they then sell to the Fed, which in turn credits the banks’ reserve accounts. The Treasury gets the proceeds of the bonds to cover the deficit in government spending, and the banks get expanded reserves. The Fed’s balance sheet sees an increase in its liabilities to commercial banks and an increase in its assets of Treasury bonds. The Fed also funds agency debt in this manner, mostly representing mortgage finance.

      Under President Trump, the Treasury’s current deficit initially expanded as a planned supply-side stimulus to the US economy to the tune of just over a trillion dollars before covid-19 created additional financial chaos. Businesses experienced severe dislocation and have suffered a widespread collapse. Consequently, and together with the direct injection of money into each household, the Congressional Budget Office revised its trillion-dollar deficit for the financial year just ended as the following screenshot from its website indicates:

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      Note how half the government’s income arose from revenues and half is covered by sales of government debt to the public (i.e. the commercial banks), which at the end of fiscal 2020 (ended yesterday) is estimated to total $20.3 trillion. But given that the first half of that fiscal year was pre-lockdown and the annualised rate of the deficit at that time was about a trillion dollars, simplistically the annualised rate of the deficit’s increase since last March is in the region of $4.4 trillion. Incidentally, the CBO’s economic projections look too optimistic given recent events, in which case budget projections for this new calendar year will be adjusted for considerably lower revenue figures, and significantly greater outlays at the least. We shall address the price inflation estimates later in this article.

      Why QE is inflationary

      On 23 March the Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC) announced unlimited QE for both US Treasury stock and agency debt as well as however much liquidity commercial banks need.[i] While judging the expansion of the budget deficit to be inflationary, it is only inflationary to the extent that it is not financed by savers, either increasing the proportion of their savings relative to immediate spending, or to the extent they divert their savings from other investment media. In the latter case, citizens have been committing their savings more to equity markets than bond markets. The returns for discretionary portfolios managed on the public’s behalf have also found better returns in equities than in government and corporate bonds, though when assessing increasing investment risk Treasury stock is seen to be a safe haven in bond portfolios. Pension funds and insurance companies also allocate cash flow to US Treasuries and to the extent that this is the case, the issuance of further government debt is non-inflationary.

      Furthermore, if a bank does not increase its balance sheet by expanding bank credit, its participation in the Fed’s QE programme is not inflationary either. For this to be the case, it would have to sell existing stock, call in loans or subscribe on behalf of clients.

      By seeing them through a Nelsonian blind eye these factors give some encouragement to the Fed in funding the Treasury through QE, particularly since the statistics reflect a jump in savings, as the following chart from the St Louis Fed illustrates.

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      More correctly, the chart reflects the fall in spending when people locked down, as well as the $1,200 stimulus checks distributed to households at end-April, which marked the peak in the chart. Since then, there has been some downward adjustment, partly because some spending has returned, and the backlog of essential spending, such as property maintenance, is being addressed.

      The evidence is not yet strong enough to claim this statistical shift in savings habits is permanent. Furthermore, being calculated as the percentage of personal disposable income that is not spent and given the high levels of personal debt throughout the population, much of these so-called savings will have disappeared into credit card and debt repayments. It is more likely that with rising unemployment and roughly 80% of the American salaried population living paycheque to paycheque, that far from there being a higher savings rate, personal finances have deteriorated so much that money is being withdrawn from savings on a net basis, to acquire life’s essentials. In fact, the savings rate is one of those unmeasurable economic concepts, and the reality is that Joe Average is worse off in today’s contracting economy and is drawing down on savings in order to subsist.

      The non-inflationary element of QE then boils down roughly to increases in insurance company and pension fund investments in Treasury stock and the increase in bank holdings and reserves at the Fed not funded through the expansion of bank credit. But this creates another factor: the extent to which existing bond investments are sold in order to subscribe for Treasury stock inevitably undermines corporate bond markets and their ability to satisfy their funding requirements. And it is for this reason the Fed has appointed BlackRock to spearhead its purchases of corporate debt to ensure liquidity is available for those markets and to put a cap on risk premiums. Therefore, where banks do not expand credit to buy new Treasury stock, the Fed steps in to compensate with additional monetary inflation.

      It has been necessary to go into the mechanisms behind funding government deficits in some detail to establish the inflationary consequences of QE, and to refute claims by monetary authorities and others that QE is either not or only partly inflationary, and so is consistent with the Fed’s mandate. No, with the exception of insurance and pension fund subscriptions, the Fed’s QE is almost pure monetary inflation

      The relationship between inflation and prices

      Assuming no change in the average cash balances held by a population, over time there must be an inverse relationship between the expansion in the quantity of money in circulation and the diminution of its purchasing power. This is unarguable in logic and to argue otherwise is to subscribe to a version of monetary perpetual motion. By the same token, while the effects on individual prices also have to allow for changes in the factors specific to them, the effects of monetary debasement on the general level of prices should be clear. Now it is time to introduce a second factor; changes in the average cash balances held by a population.

      Changes in cash balances are an expression of relative preferences between money and goods. If a population as a whole is satisfied with the stability of money as the medium of exchange, it will be happy to retain balances surplus to its immediate needs. We see this even with inflating currencies, such as the Japanese yen, where irrespective of the level of interest rates monetary expansion merely accumulates as bank deposits. It is unusual for a population to go to the extremes evident in Japan, but equally, a population which realises its currency is declining in purchasing power has every reason to dispose of it in favour of goods, maintaining lower balances in consequence.

      The complete rejection of a currency as the medium of exchange renders it utterly valueless and is the common outcome to every hyperinflationary collapse. Governments that become ensnared by inflationary financing face the growing certainty of a Venezuelan outcome.

      For now, monetary authorities around the world are relying on public ignorance about money and the theory of exchange. Those who trouble themselves to consider how their currency’s purchasing power is actually changing will notice how it is declining more rapidly than official statistics say. This is deliberate. After the introduction of widespread indexation in the early 1980s governments devised methods to reduce the costs incurred. Changes in statistical methodology have achieved that, with consumer price indices now entirely suppressed, so much so that central banks claim to be struggling to get the CPI to rise to its two per cent target.

      The evidence from independent analysts in America such as Shadowstats and the Chapwood Index is that real world prices there are rising at closer to a ten per cent rate and have been for the last ten years. With the FMQ having grown at a monthly compounding annualised rate of 9.6% from the Lehman crisis to the end of 2019, the truth about price inflation appears closer to independent analysts’ calculation than the official CPI. Furthermore, there is little evidence of noticeable change in savings rates or cash hoarding over the period, which would have affected the general level of prices.

      The first to realise that the purchasing power of a currency is declining and will continue to do so are usually those who own it for reasons other than as a normal medium of exchange. These are foreign holders who have accumulated currencies other than their own government’s fiat money as a result of trade and have chosen to retain it instead of selling it in the foreign exchanges. And there is a second group of foreign holders which has diversified investment portfolios into foreign financial markets.

      These groups are primarily sensitive to external economic and financial factors, such as changes in the outlook for trade, financial asset values and their requirements to hold liquidity in their own currencies. It stands to reason that a state that manages to run continuing deficits on the balance of trade and retain an accumulation of foreign ownership of its currency is vulnerable to changes in international sentiment. This is the situation the dollar finds itself in, with US Treasury TIC figures revealing foreigners own financial securities worth approximately $20.6 trillion, and additionally bank deposits and commercial and US Treasury short-term bills totalling $6.15 trillion. In other words, foreign ownership of the dollar is 130% of the CBO’s estimate of current US GDP.

      The accumulation of foreign dollar positions was due to a number of factors: the dollar is the international reserve currency, trade expectations were of continual global growth, the perpetuation of US trade deficits, increasing portfolio investment and a rising dollar. Global trade is now contracting, and the dollar has begun to decline. Commercial priorities are changing from global expansion to conserving capital.

      With the global economic outlook deteriorating rapidly, the dollar is notably over-owned by foreigners, which is not counterbalanced by American ownership of foreign currencies. Most of US foreign financial interests are denominated in dollars with exposure to foreign currencies remarkably small at $714bn at end-June.

      China has already declared a policy of reducing her dollar investments in US Treasury bonds and is selling her dollars to buy commodities. Few realise it, but China is doing what ordinary people do when they begin to abandon a currency — dumping it for tangible goods which will cost more in future due to the dollar’s declining purchasing power. And as the dollar’s purchasing power declines measured in commodities more nations are likely to follow China’s lead.

      When you see a chart of the expansion of money supply, as illustrated in Figure 2 below and combine that with a falling dollar in the foreign exchanges, it is only a matter of time before increasing members of the domestic population begin to follow the foreigners’ lead.

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      Compared with the past, there is a generation of millennials which through their understanding of cryptocurrencies has learned about the debasement of fiat currencies by their governments. It remains to be seen whether this knowledge will bring forward the general public’s understanding of monetary affairs for an earlier abandonment of money for goods.

      Banking and its cyclical consequences

      Not only are some of the global systemically important banks (G-SIBs) highly leveraged on their balance sheets — which one would expect at the end of a period of bank credit expansion — but in most cases stock markets are valuing their equity at a fraction of their balance sheet book values, contrasting with outrageously high valuations for non-financial stocks in the most severe economic downturn ever seen in peacetime.

      Table 1 below illustrates the point by incorporating the combination of balance sheet gearing and stock market valuations for all the G-SIBs to give a multiple of balance sheet assets to market capitalisation, ranking them from most dangerous to the least on this measure. The only banks in the list with market capitalisations higher than balance sheet equity — price to book ratios of more than one — are North American banks, which might explain why critical leverages are not recognised as a systemic problem in US financial markets

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      The three highest leverages by a country mile are of Eurozone banks: remember these are just the G-SIBs — there will be many commercial banks as highly leveraged which are not on this list. To have your equity valued at only 15% of book value, which is the indignity suffered by the French bank, Société Générale, should send warning signals to French banking regulators. But they insist on only looking at the ratio of balance sheet assets to balance sheet equity; which for Soc Gen is still an eye-watering 21.4 times. Unlike the regulator, investors appear to think this bank is most likely bankrupt, its share price little more than a call option on its survival.

      It is a problem which particularly affects banks in the Eurozone. And experience tells us that the numbers reported by banks are bolstered by their gaming of the regulatory system, which is why when a bank fails the outcome is always worse than the pre-failure numbers would suggest possible.

      Large banks do not operate in national silos, having trade finance activities, foreign exchange and derivative trading, lending in foreign currencies and even substantial branches and subsidiary operations abroad. The idea that a crisis in the Eurozone, or Britain for example, can be contained to national boundaries is wishful thinking. With the exception of Wells Fargo, US G-SIBs come out better than those of other jurisdictions, but that will not save them from a systemic crisis originating elsewhere.

      While we can point to the end of the credit cycle, there is no doubt that Covid-19 has precipitated a more immediate crisis for commercial banks. The official talk is no longer of a V-shaped recovery, and businesses are on life support.

      In the near future, a banking crisis seems inevitable. The best case is it is contained by either governments nationalising all banks subject to failure, or they end up supported directly by their respective central banks, which given the crisis in the US repo market a year ago can be said to be already happening. For the inflationists there is the consolation that money-printing can then be used to support failing businesses through the banks with obstructive commercial considerations removed.

      Interest rates

      The principal control mechanism deployed by monetary planners is management of interest rates. They are under the delusion that a reduction of interest rates is a stimulus to industrial investment and therefore the betterment of the economy, whereas all their suppression achieves is the destruction of savings and the advancement of malinvestments.

      Their delusions were Keynes’s, and remain so with all his acolytes, among which monetary policy planners are numbered. Interest rates are simply the expression of time preference, the cost that a borrower pays to achieve temporary possession. All goods share this feature, and sound money in free markets reflects an average of the time preference of these goods.

      In Keynes’s General Theory, a search of the index reveals just one reference to time preference, which occurs three times on the same page and nowhere else. This vital topic is thus dismissed. Keynes accepted that there is time preference but became confused as to what it represents. He merely saw it as a psychological counterpart to his invention of the propensity to consume and failed to make the connection between time preferences for goods and their monetary representation. Since he judged it to be solely related to money as opposed to possession, for him it left open the possibility that interest rates can be managed for a desired economic outcome. This was despite the evidence of which he was otherwise aware, that managing interest rates with a view to controlling the rate of inflation did not work, and that the correlation was between wholesale borrowing costs and the general price level, not its rate of change represented by an inflation rate.[iv] Keynes named it Gibson’s paradox after its discoverer, but since he could not explain the paradox, he chose to ignore it as have all his followers.

      For these reasons, managing interest rates to achieve economic outcomes, including recent introductions of negative rates, has proved to be a lamentable failure. But as the currency loses purchasing power, the reflection of time preferences for goods will see an additional factor related to money itself. Thus, time preference expressed in dollar terms becomes significantly higher than justified solely by the deferred ownership of goods. The foreign exchanges insistence that future currency depreciation due to monetary inflation be taken into account will then render the authority’s task of suppressing interest rates impossible.

      The Fed will find that in the absence of a significant increase in savings — something it is determined should not happen anyway — as well as financing a deteriorating Federal deficit, it will have to absorb foreign sales of US Treasury, agency and corporate bonds. Foreigners are then reluctant possessors of surplus dollars.

      In the absence of a rising level of domestic savings, a rapidly deteriorating budget deficit feeds through to one or both of two outcomes. As an identity of national accounting and in the absence of an increase in savings, a budget deficit is mirrored by a trade deficit, both of which in this new fiscal year on present indications are likely to expand to anything between three and five trillion dollars. That is the first outcome, and if President Trump is re-elected next month this deterioration will likely lead to increased hostility against America’s importers.

      The second problem, in view of the first, is how importers already overloaded with dollars will respond to the increasing quantity of additional dollars accumulating in their bank accounts from an increasing trade imbalance. The answer must be that they have no reason to hold on to them. And unless the US Treasury buys these unwanted dollars, deflating the quantity in circulation, these dollars will end up driving the exchange rate lower and inflating prices in the domestic economy.

      We can see the conditions where the dollar is driven down against other currencies as only a first step, and we are now aware that China is in the vanguard of selling dollars for commodities, likely to be joined by others as the dollar declines. Consequently, the purchasing power of the dollar — already deteriorating at a ten per cent clip according to independent estimates — is bound to deteriorate at a greater pace.

      By its statements and actions, the Fed confirms a belief that an increase in price inflation can be controlled by raising interest rates. Consequently, a falling dollar in the foreign exchanges will present it with an insuperable dilemma: does it raise interest rates to protect the dollar and thereby burst the bubble in financial assets and force the Federal Government’s finances into insolvency? Or does it just let price inflation rip? The choice will be as black or white as that.

      Almost always, central banks in this invidious position end up with a compromise, raising interest rates too little too late. Just occasionally, they raise overnight interest rates to stratospheric levels in an attempt to restore order by squeezing the speculators. Other than the temporary effects of the latter expedient, we know from Gibson’s paradox that raising interest rates to control price inflation does not work. And with 130% of the GDP statistic currently represented by foreign ownership of dollars, the bulk of nearly $27 trillion like an elephant in the room is overhanging the foreign exchanges. Worse still for the Fed, Gibson’s paradox tells us that even if the Fed raised interest rates to compensate fully for loss of purchasing power it would not be sufficient to stabilise the currency: that requires the adoption of sound money policies and a stop to inflationism.

      The way to look at it is by understanding the foreigners’ assessment of time preference, comprised of a general level for the exchange of goods and an additional level peculiar to a depreciating currency. Therefore, irrespective of the Fed’s interest rate policy market forces represented by foreign interests will take over control of interest rates, and the Fed’s bond bubble will be burst. Rising yields for US Treasuries will collapse the equity market and the market for corporate debt. These events will threaten any remaining foreign interest in the dollar and its capital markets even further. In short, the policy of inflating a financial asset bubble becomes impossible to sustain and its failure will take the dollar down with it as well.

      This was why when John Law’s Mississippi bubble burst three hundred years ago, by October 1720 his currency, the livre, was worthless on the foreign exchanges. The collapse had started eleven months earlier, when Law accelerated the inflation of the livre to support a failing share price. The Fed embarked on a doppelganger acceleration of monetary inflation on 23 March for the whole US bond market. If we replicate the John Law experience, the dollar could become valueless in a matter of months.

      It is becoming clear to a growing audience that in the absence of a change in inflationary policies, the days of an unbacked dollar are rapidly coming to an end, and it will take down the international fiat order upon which it is based.

    • Gold Prices Supported By Western Investors As Consumer Demand In China And India Slows
      Gold Prices Supported By Western Investors As Consumer Demand In China And India Slows

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/02/2020 – 23:20

      Some of the world’s most well known investors aren’t being coy about wanting to get exposure to gold. In addition to Berkshire Hathaway’s addition of Barrick Gold, Bridgewater also invested in gold backed ETFs during the second quarter. 

      In fact, holding up gold’s price is interest from the West that is offsetting softer demand from the East, according to FT. The demand coming out of the West has been spurred by the impact of the coronavirus and, more specifically, the idea of a path to endless money printing. 

      David Tait, chief executive of the World Gold Council, told FT that gold’s rally “has focused a lot of people who had historically looked at gold as the Armageddon trade to look at it through a broader lens”.

      In places like India and China, however, demand for gold has been relatively soft. Buyers in the two biggest consumer markets have either been selling their holdings or borrowing against them. 

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      The question then becomes whether or not retail consumption can continue to drive gold’s strength – and what would happen if demand from the West dries up all of a sudden. The last time demand dried up heavily in the West, gold plunged from $1,920/oz. to $1,200/oz. in 2013. 

      One tailwind is the fact that gold ETFs now make up 35% of global demand compared to just 8% a year ago. But inflows into these funds look as though they could be slowing. For example the GLD registered withdrawals of money in September for the first time in eight months.

      A plunge in gold could trigger further selling by many of the same retail investors that have kept the commodity afloat. Gold is currently about 10% lower than its late summer highs. 

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      Adrian Ash, head of research at BullionVault, said: “One risk [scenario] here is that Asian buyers put a floor under the market. But with demand being so abject in the big consumer nations where will that floor be?”

      China and India account for more than half of global gold purchases, but demand has fallen 56% in India over the first half of the year. Suraj Popley, who owns a jewelry store in a busy neighborhood of Mumbai said: “People are coming to sell gold, in case they require cash, in case they require liquidity. Very few people are coming to buy.”

      Terence Lucien, head of mutual funds at PhonePe in Bangalore said: “There is an affinity towards gold. The way Indians have bought it traditionally, there have been people buying in excess.”

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      But demand has slowed, also as a result of pandemic-induced lockdowns. Weddings have been postponed and have reduced the appetite for lavish spending. Longer term consumer demand is also falling; down from 900 tons a year from 2010 to 2015 to about 700 tons last year. 

      Shekhar Bhandari, head of precious metals at Kotak Mahindra Bank, thinks the market will rebound eventually: “Have weddings been postponed? The answer is Yes. Is the number of marriages over the [long term] going to decrease? No.”

      China has seen a similar plunge in consumer demand. The country saw its lowest level of consumer demand since 2007 during the first half of this year at just 152.2 tons. 

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      Jeremy East, a Hong Kong-based former Standard Chartered banker, said: “There’s no gold going into China and very little going into India this year. That means the [western] ETF guys need to keep buying, [especially] if at the end of the year China and India are still not buying . . . That gold has got to find a home somewhere. The market needs more money to come in to keep absorbing this gold.”

      David Govett, a veteran precious metals trader concluded: “Covid-19 cases are on the rise, governments are starting to panic again, economies are facing down the barrel of a second lockdown. All in all, it should be a perfect storm for gold. There’s too much uncertainty in the world to be short gold.”

    • KNKX, Cliff Mass, & The Undermining Of American Democracy
      KNKX, Cliff Mass, & The Undermining Of American Democracy

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/02/2020 – 23:00

      Authored by Cliff Mass,

      Our democracy is threatened.

      It is threatened by rioters using violence as a political tool, by individuals intimidating politicians through aggressive home visits, by Presidential debates where name calling and incivility rule, by the loss of a sense of physical safety that is a necessity for a civil society, by destructive hyper-partisanship, and by the suppression of freedom of speech and diversity of viewpoints.

      There are few better examples of the suppression of freedom of speech and viewpoint diversity than the recent partisan actions by the management of KNKX, and this blog will review this issue.  I will discuss the termination of my weekly weather segment because of KNKX management’s unhappiness with my personal political free speech in social media.  And I will demonstrate the extreme hypocrisy of their actions, with their leadership’s use of nearly identical language for their own political advocacy.

      Freedom of speech and respect for viewpoint diversity is the foundation of our democracy.

      Only in a free society where differing ideas can be offered and compete, can citizens consider all sides of important issues and make wise decisions.

      If advocates of one side of an issue can silence the speech of others, the inevitable result will be poor decision making and the undermining of our democracy.

      The founders of our nation and subsequent political leaders recognized the central role of free, unfettered speech for the maintenance of our democratic system:

      “If men are to be precluded from offering their sentiments on a matter…. reason is of no use to us; the freedom of speech may be taken away, and dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the slaughter.”— George Washington

      “If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought — not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.”

      – Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., U.S. Supreme Court justice

      The management of public radio station KNKX made a decision in August that directly conflicts with the above principles. 

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      Brief Summary of the Situation

      On August 5th, I posted a blog (A City in Fear Can Be Restored) that talked about the boarded up City of Seattle and the irresponsibility of our city’s leaders; a blog that was also highly critical of violent rioters who were, and still are, destroying property, hurting people and their livelihoods, and intimidating individual political leaders.  I talked about the damage being “reminiscent” of 1930s Germany (broken glass and more) and that the violent rioters were acting in several ways like the “brownshirts” of the last century. 

      The day following my blog post, KNKX leadership received a number of messages from partisan individuals who called for my dismissal, and without discussing the situation with me, KNKX management immediately canceled my weather segment. Joey Cohn and Matt Martinez (station manager and program director) called me after the decision was made….no debate allowed, no conversation…my segment was cancelled. 

      There are few more obvious examples of cancel culture. 

      In a note on their website  they called my blog “misleading” and that it  “did not reflect what we stand for.”    I emailed both Joey Cohn and Matt Martinez, asking what I “got wrong”.   I asked them what was misleading.  They refused to answer.  They refused to interact in any way. 

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      Whether my blog was accurate was beside the point.   I was expressing my political viewpoint in social media completely outside of my contributions to the station.  And a public radio station, of all places, should not be in the business of suppressing free speech and limiting ideas. Imagine if your employer fired one of your coworkers for such a reason, and the chilling effects it would have on YOUR freedom of speech.   You would quickly become fearful of expressing your viewpoint on anything controversial.

      And after reading a half-dozen books on 1930s Germany, I believe the analogy I made is both compelling and reasonable, and I am ready to defend my comparisons.  Both the rioters in Seattle (and Portland) and the 1930s brownshirts were organized thugs with a violent anti-capitalist political agendas.   The revelations and continued violence of the past two months have provided substantial corroboration of my analysis, documenting the organized nature of the violence and that the goals of the rioters are far different than the peaceful protestors concerned about protecting black lives.  In fact, the rioters detract and obscure the valuable messages of peaceful protestors.

      Not only did KNKX’s actions contradict the essential principles of our democracy, but they also contradict Seattle civil law (Seattle Municipal Code Ch. 14.04) and the published principles of National Public Radio (NPR), something highlighted in the NPR Ethics Handbook:

      “Our journalism includes diverse voices that reflect our society and divergent views that contribute to informed debate…We aggressively challenge our own perspectives and pursue a diverse range of others”

      There are few more important roles of a public radio station than to foster diversity of viewpoint, and KNKX management acted to reduce diversity, not increase it. Destroying freedom of speech, not enhancing it.

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      For more details about the situation, please see a previous blog on the matter.

      While KNKX management removed my segment because they disagreed with my viewpoint, KNKX leadership used social media with the same analogies, but in support of a  different political narrative.  A stunning example of hypocrisy and partisanship.

      Hypocrisy

      Although it was problematic to KNKX management that I noted the similarity of recent violent rioters with 1930’s brownshirts, they are content for station leadership and on-air contributors to compare President Trump and his administration to Nazis and fascists.  In fact, there was a veritable Fuhrer-fest going on in the social media of KNKX leaders.

      Consider leading members of the KNKX advisory board.   Joan Tornow, a longtime member, climate activist, and one of the key advocates (for several years) of getting me ejected from the station because of my science-based communication on climate change,  posted many Trump-Nazi tweets such as:

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      Ms. Tornow has posted more tweets with references to “brownshirts” in the Trump administration.

      Another KNKX advisory board member and the moderator of the KNKX community facebook page, John Woltjer, constantly railed about Trump and that Trump voters were fascists (see below), and even called for the death of Republican Party.

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      In his leadership role as director of the KNKX community forum Facebook page, John Woltjer decided to prevent any additional comments about my situation or support for my retention on KNKX.  Absolutely contradictory to free speech (see below).

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      Or consider KNKX Board Member Scott Alhsmith, who has compared Trump and conservatives with Nazis. A few examples

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      Goebbels was Hitler’s propaganda minister.

      And the wonderful Art Thiel, KNKX sports commentator and in exactly the same position as I was as an outside contributor, tweeted about Trump being a Hitler-like goose-stepping character.

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      I could show you many more examples of KNKX leaders using Nazi references, but you get the message.  KNKX management believes it is ok to use Nazi, brownshirt, and fascist analogies if one is attacking Trump and Republicans, but a terrible offense and cause for expulsion if one uses these same analogies for violent rioters who are destroying the fabric of civil society with wanton property damage, malicious personal violence, and intimidating political leaders with different viewpoints.

      This not only reveals a disturbing political bias but profound hypocrisy in KNKX management.

      Partisanship has entered the KNKX “leadership circle,”  with tolerance for the viewpoints of only one side of the political divide.  KNKX management believes that those with differing viewpoints have no place at the station. 

      KNKX management might consider the situation in the late 1940s and early 1950s when media fired commentators with “communist sympathies” in their outside writings and speech.  

      Freedom of speech and honoring of diversity of viewpoint protects individuals of ALL sides of the political spectrum, and KNKX’s actions were deeply destructive to that protection.

      Next Steps

      KNKX leadership, in giving in to the cancel-culture mob, has undermined basic democratic principles that serve as the foundation for our society.  They did not show the tolerance for intellectual diversity that should be in the DNA of any public radio station.

      KNKX was saved for one reason:  to preserve diversity of viewpoint in our region.  KNKX leadership, acting as they did, rejected the station’s reason for existence.  Its birthright.  And they showed disregard for KNKX listenership that lost a valued program.

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      I have asked KNKX leaders to reconsider their decision.   Unfortunately, they have not been willing to engage.

      It is now up to all of you.

      If you believe KNKX management made a terrible mistake, one inconsistent with fostering freedom of speech/diversity of viewpoint, and contradictory to the essential role of a PUBLIC radio station, there are a few things you can do.

      If you are a financial supporter of KNKX, you can ask them to reverse their decision, and in the meantime put your contributions on pause. 

      You can write their leaders (see below) requesting that they pay more attention to the core values of our democracy, such as freedom of speech and protection of diversity of ideas.

      Or you can complain to the national leaders of National Public Radio (see contacts below).

      I do ask that in your interactions with KNKX leadership,  you do so in a civil, measured way. An intolerant mob stampeded KNKX to make a terrible mistake; hopefully, coherent reasoned arguments will persuade them to reverse their decision and to reclaim the ethical foundations of the station.

      And if you’ve missed my weekly segment, I’m now doing an even better weekly forecast podcast every Friday. You can find it on my blog and all major streaming services.

      *  *  *

      Contacts

      Joey Cohen:  KNKX General Manager: jcohn@knkx.org

      Matt Martinez:  Program Director: mmartinez@knkx.org

      Claire Grace: Chair, KNKX Board: info@knkx.org

      If you’d like to express your feedback via phone, I’ve included their contact number below:

      877-677-5659

      NPR Public Editor:  link here.

    • San Francisco Rents Crash Most On Record Amid Mass Exodus
      San Francisco Rents Crash Most On Record Amid Mass Exodus

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/02/2020 – 22:40

      A new report confirms what we’ve been talking about since the early days (read: here) of the virus pandemic, that is, an exodus out of major cities.

      According to real estate analytics company Zumper, the exodus, out of San Francisco has been so great, that the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment collapsed more than 20% in September from a year ago to $2,830. Month over month, September rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the city fell by 7%. 

      Referring to the plunge in rent prices in San Francisco, Zumper said:

      “Not only is this drop among the largest yearly decreases Zumper has ever recorded in our history of tracking rental prices, but it was also the first time the median 1-bed price in San Francisco was priced below $3000. These combined trends show just how drastically the market has changed in the nation’s most expensive city to rent.” 

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      Zumper CEO Anthemos Georgiades, who was quoted by CNBC, said a flood of supply is hitting the market: 

      “Some renters may be inclined to move to the suburbs to get more space, as the Covid-19 pandemic spurred companies to close offices and allow employees to work from home. Facebook and Google, for example, have told employees they can work remotely at least through next summer,” Georgiades said. 

      The virus-induced downturn, resulting in the collapse of small businesses citywide, the decimation of low-income households, and high-unemployment, is forcing many folks across the metro area to downsize or move to less expensive areas. He said wildfires and hazardous air conditions were some other reasons for “tipping the balance about their medium-term location choices.” 

      Social unrest and the rise of violent crime have made many folks uncomfortable about raising a family in the dangerous metro area. Many are moving to rural communities of the Bay Area, from Marin County to Napa wine country and south to Monterey’s Carmel Valley. 

      Georgiades said it could take years for San Francisco real estate to heal from its pandemic wounds:

      “Despite everything our data is showing, there are so many signals that it will recover, however contrarian this point may sound,” he said. “However, I think we’re talking years to fully recover, not months.”

      Georgiades’ view of a multi-year exodus is supportive of our piece titled “Real Estate Expert Warns’ Exodus’ From Cities Will Last Two Years.” 

    • Biden – A Catalyst To Accelerate US Decline?
      Biden – A Catalyst To Accelerate US Decline?

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/02/2020 – 22:20

      Authored by Egon von Greyerz via GoldSwitzerland.com,

      The Chinese understand the long game and they have infinite patience. They have always known that they never needed to attack the US, financially or militarily.

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      Because China has invariably understood that the US would self-destruct.

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      POLITICS AND PRINCES DON’T MIX

      The Duchess of Sussex who has dragged her poor husband, Prince Harry, into the US election has declared that this will be the most important election in history. She will most probably be right but for the wrong reason. Meghan Markle believes a Biden victory is the only way that the US can be saved, primarily because she can’t stand Trump (which is reciprocal). It probably doesn’t matter who wins the election when is comes to stopping the crash of the US economy and currency.

      But what is guaranteed is that Biden’s policies will bankrupt America much faster than Trump’s. The profligate democrats will forgive trillions of debt, increase spending and reduce taxes for the masses.

      The Chinese have waited patiently for this moment. They forecast the collapse of the “capitalist monetary system with the dollar as its prop” already half a century ago and how right they have been.

      THE DAYS OF THE DOLLAR ARE COUNTED

      A 98% fall in real terms – against gold – and a 78% fall against the Swiss franc tells the world that the days of the dollar are counted. So will we see the US bald eagle crash to the ground and a phoenix in the form of a new world currency emerge like in the 1988 Economist article?

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      Well, the dollar crash is guaranteed and a Biden victory will accelerate the move. But there is unlikely to be a new world currency in the near term. As the dollar falls and with it the US economy, China will gradually emerge as the next dominant economy and super power. But this will take time. Before that we will have chaos in the global financial system, economic collapse in many countries, political upheaval, riots, and wars.

      BIDEN – A CATALYST FOR ACCELERATED US DECLINE

      So is a Biden victory going to cause all this. No not solely. But just as the coronavirus sped up that fall of the US and world economy, Biden will be the catalyst for an accelerated decline of the US. Both events would have happened anyway but probably not as dramatically as with these two powerful catalysts – CV and Biden.

      The coming US election will have bitter consequences for the US and the world whoever wins. It is likely to be aggressively fought not just before November 4th but more so after the result is declared. There will be a plethora of forums where the election result will be disputed and fought like in the courts, the media, the streets, in families and in politics of course.

      CHURCHILL – WE SHALL FIGHT ON THE BEACHES

      The fighting everywhere reminds me of Winston Churchill’s speech in parliament in June 1940 after the evacuation of Dunkirk:

      “…… we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills;…”

      Churchill’s speech was obviously to unify and prepare the nation for the major war effort ahead. But the consequence of the US election will be extremely divisive and damaging for the US whoever wins.

      So 2021 is not just likely to be the start of a severe and long lasting economic downturn or collapse for the US but also an extended period of extreme political and social disharmony and discontent.

      REMINISCING OVER BETTER TIMES

      I have just entered my 52nd year of working life. But I can clearly remember life before that as a young boy in Sweden, back in the 1950s. This was a time when the family was the kernel of society and there was total respect for law and order. Mothers were at home and looked after the children. The wages of the father were sufficient to provide for the family. Very few people had debt and obviously there were no credit cards. Most things were paid for in cash. The police was unarmed and there was total respect for their authority. Sweden then was a very homogenous society with few immigrants. There was very little crime and virtually no violent crime. I remember visiting churches in the countryside and the doors were open and church silver would stand on shelves totally unprotected. Young children could move around freely without parental protection. Very few people went on holiday abroad or had cars or televisions. The economy was strong, based on real money with little debt. The quality of life was far superior to today. I am not talking about material things but people were much happier with less stress and strong respect for your fellow humans. There was integrity with strong moral and ethical values.

      THE END OF AN ERA

      I do realise that all of this could sound like a mature man nostalgically reminiscing and embellishing the past. There might be some truth in that criticism but I am quite convinced that the era we are now in is the end of a cycle when it comes to quality of life, values, crime, honesty, integrity. The current debt based economy with fake money and values is clearly creating a very unhappy society and many discontented people.

      This is why the current cycle needs to soon come to an end. The world needs a proper forest fire which destroys the debt and all the bubble assets financed by printed money and worthless debt. The coming fall of the global debt edifice will be a relief for the world but it will obviously involve a long period of suffering. But only after this fall can the world start a new cycle with green shoots based on a sound monetary and financial system which is based on real values, both moral and material.

      HALF A CENTURY OF DRAMATIC CHANGES IN THE WORLD

      Coming back to my half a century of working life, there have also been some dramatic changes in the world. The table below shows what has happened to debt, dollar, GDP & stocks during my 51 years’ involvement with financial markets, between 1969 and 2020. US federal debt is up 75x and GDP is only up 20x. There is no clearer evidence that the US economy is running on empty and that more and more debt is required to produce an increase in GDP in nominal terms.

      DEBT DEFAULT COMING

      US debt to GDP has now reached 135% against 35% in 1969 and growing. These debt levels are unsustainable for future growth. With falling tax revenues and rising expenditure, there is zero chance that this debt will ever be reduced. And when interest rates go up, the US will not even be able to service the debt. So a debt default is very likely in the next few years.

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      Whilst US GDP is up 20x since 1969, China’s GDP is up 175x. There can be little doubt that China will be the next global economic superpower. Only a revolution in China would stop that.

      Gold is up 53x since 1969 and the Dow 34x. If dividends after tax are included and reinvested, the rise of the Dow and gold would be fairly equal.

      I started the article with China’s view, in 1971, on the future of the dollar and the US economy. The debt explosion and slow GDP growth are clear evidence of how right China was.

      But the dollar’s 98% fall against gold and 79% against the Swiss franc confirms China’s 1971 prediction:

      “…..the seriousness of the US economic crisis and the decay and decline of the entire capitalist system.”

      “…..mark the collapse of capitalist monetary system with the US dollar as its prop…. Nixon’s new economic policy cannot extricate the US from financial and economic crisis.”

      So there we have it. The wise Chinese saw half a century ago what would happen to the US, the dollar and the capitalist system and they knew already then that they would be the main beneficiaries.

      But destruction of currencies and fall of empires is not new in history. Von Mises stated this phenomenon very eloquently:

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      2021 THE CHINESE YEAR OF THE GOLDEN OX

      2021 will be the Chinese year of the Metal or Golden Ox. It will also be the 50th anniversary of Nixon’s fatal decision to end the gold backing of the dollar.

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      As the golden ox rises in China, the US bald eagle will crash to the ground as a symbol of the crashing dollar and US economy.

      2021 is likely to be an ominous year in the global economy. We may not see the “final and total catastrophe of the currency system” completed already then but we are likely to see the start of the final dollar collapse and a major surge in gold and silver.

      Anyone holding depreciating dollars and other currencies will soon regret not holding real money in the form of physical gold and silver.

    • GM Deliveries Plunge 10% Year Over Year In Q3
      GM Deliveries Plunge 10% Year Over Year In Q3

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/02/2020 – 22:00

      In numbers that are massive for the auto industry, where comps are generally measured in basis points, General Motors saw a 10% plunge in deliveries for Q3 2020. 

      The company delivered 665,192 vehicles during the quarter, despite sales improving sequentially during each month within the quarter. September foreshadowed slightly less pain for Q4, with YOY sales increases toward the end of the month, the company said while doing damage control in its PR.  

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      Kurt McNeil, GM vice president, U.S. Sales Operations said: “Our dealers are doing exceptionally well utilizing a combination of customer-facing online technologies – such as Shop. Click. Drive. – and showroom sales to deliver vehicles safely to our customers. This is contributing to retail share gains while we continue to refill the pipeline.”

      He continued: “Industry-wide, dealers are selling a high mix of large pickups as the summer comes to an end. Our strong large pickup and all-new full-size SUV lineups from Chevrolet and GMC are selling extremely fast.”

      But that didn’t stop Fiat’s Dodge Ram from outselling GM’s Chevy Silverado line. Despite Ram deliveries slipping 3.4% YOY to 156,157 units, Chevy’s Silverado fell 5.4% to 145,525 units. The Silverado still has the edge in total number of vehicles sold for the year, but Q4 could see that lead upended. 

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      “GM’s large pickup trucks sold well,” their press release says, before calling the rebound in retail auto sales “resilient” heading into the fourth quarter. “Super low auto loan interest rates have boosted retail auto sales; yet more strength comes from pandemic-induced demand,” GM economist Elaine Buckberg said.

      In other words: the Fed saved our ass and the party goes on. 

      GM says the momentum behind the business now is due to:

      • Consumers seeing private vehicles as a safe space for both local and long-distance trips
      • Households using the money they saved from not taking vacations on buying vehicles
      • City residents buying vehicles, likely in an effort to get away from not just Covid, but the civil unrest across the country
      • The sharp rebound in housing permits is a positive signal for overall auto demand
      • Higher home construction activity and strong demand for boats and RVs are particularly favorable for heavy-duty pickups

      But given the poor comps and the company’s embarrassing involvement with Nikola, it just doesn’t seem like the GM of decades ago. Under Mary Barra, it’s tough to see GM as the American powerhouse it once was.

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    • Department of Labor Acknowledges Unemployment Checks Are Bouncing
      Department of Labor Acknowledges Unemployment Checks Are Bouncing

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/02/2020 – 21:40

      By VI Consortium,

      US Virgin Island residents earlier this week were reporting to the Consortium that unemployment insurance checks provided to them by the Dept. of Labor were worthless.

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      One resident, whose check was for over $300, said he realized the check had bounced Tuesday. “People here suffering and you’re telling me they are sending out checks and don’t have any money in the account,” he said.

      Another resident said via Facebook message, “My unemployment check bounced and now my bank account is in the negative. It’s really hard in a time of need.”

      A third person, also through the Consortium’s Facebook platform, said, “Two of my checks bounced from the Dept. of Labor.”

      In a release Thursday, D.O.L. said it met with bank representatives “to further ensure that payments made to unemployment recipients are being honored.”

      The department explained that checks bounced because D.O.L. did not replenish accounts before unemployment insurance beneficiaries attempted to clear the checks. 

      “There were reports of a timing issue, with the settlement of the draw made by V.I.D.O.L. and the transmission of funds to the bank, that affected the clearing process. Some checks deposited from banks other than Banco Popular may have incurred some issues,” D.O.L. said.

      “Bank representatives advise the department that individuals who are affected should retain and redeposit those checks,” the department concluded.

    • Airbnb Cancels Halloween Rentals In Bid To Halt Parties
      Airbnb Cancels Halloween Rentals In Bid To Halt Parties

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/02/2020 – 21:20

      Airbnb has canceled one-night rentals over Halloween weekend as part of an ongoing effort to crack down on party houses.

      The San Francisco-based company is now blocking new one-night reservations, and are offering refunds to any previously booked nights over the holiday weekend, according to ABC News.

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      In addition, the company will ‘look more closely’ at two and three-night reservations during Halloween – with some guests facing rejection if they try to book an entire house close to their own residence during that period, and have no history of positive reviews on the service.

      Airbnb has taken a series of steps to crack down on parties since last year’s shooting. Last November, it started manually reviewing U.S. and Canadian reservations to weed out suspicious rentals.

      The company’s efforts have intensified as it prepares for an initial public stock offering, which could come later this year.

      In July, the company banned U.S. and Canadian guests under age 25 with fewer than three positive reviews from booking entire homes close to where they live. That policy was later expanded to the United Kingdom, Spain and France. And in August, Airbnb banned parties worldwide and limited occupancy at its rentals to 16 people. –ABC News

      The company’s efforts come nearly a year after five people were killed in a shooting at an Airbnb Halloween party in Orinda, California.

      According to the report, guests and hosts who violate the new rules may face legal action – noting that in August the company launched legal proceedings against a guest who held an unauthorized house party in Sacramento, California.

    • Netflix's "Social Dilemma" Is Pure Deflection Because The Best Lies Always Contain Some Truth
      Netflix’s “Social Dilemma” Is Pure Deflection Because The Best Lies Always Contain Some Truth

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/02/2020 – 21:00

      Authored by Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com,

      This blogger sees Netflix in the same way “Godfather”, Vito Corleone, viewed his enemies.  In other words, I keep my books and blogs close, but television and movies closer.  This is because social narratives are the new religion.  As I’ve stated before in previous articles, I have a love-hate relationship with Netflix.  It offers a convenient and affordable access to an impressive library of film and documentaries – but not without its cultural bias.  It’s like anything else, buyer beware; or, rather, I simply slice off the meat and leave the bones when it comes to infotainment.

      Sure, Netflix is the home of the Obamas and the Obama Administration’s former National Security Advisor, Susan Rice; so it’s no surprise why the company’s subscriber base is being programmed into Cultural Marxism, totalitarian Agenda 21 mandated Gaia worship and global taxation schemes. Netflix, by and large, programs people with Progressivism in the relative safety and comfort of their own homes. Yet, at the same time, I can cook up some homemade popcorn and conduct my research without spending $60 at the movie theater; back when there were movie theaters, of course.

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      In any event, I received a hat-tip from one of my progeny regarding a Netflix documentary entitled “The Social Dilemma”.   The company’s website identifies the production as a “documentary-drama hybrid” that “explores the dangerous human impact of social networking, with tech experts sounding the alarm on their own creations”.

      The hybrid presentation included interviews of, mostly, techno whiz kids who designed software purposed to addict the masses to apps such as Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, et al, and paired to a background narrative of a young Caucasian boy being unintentionally politically radicalized by algorithms designed to increase the profits of technology corporations.

      In the documentary segments, the experts and former tech firm employees discussed the negative societal impacts of their creations while acknowledging their good intentions.  For example, the co-inventor of the Facebook “Like” Button said he initially believed the widget would deliver more positivity into the universe; as opposed to increasing middle-school children’s social anxiety and despair.

      In the film, the continuing fragmentation of America was attributed to separate groups of online users seeing different news feeds on their chosen online platforms.  The reasons for the diverse digital presentations were attributed to algorithms and, even, artificial intelligence, interpreting the data sets of online users and then prompting new clickbait meant to engage them for longer intervals –and all solely in the pursuit of profits.

      In fact, when one tech expert-turned-whistleblower was asked to state his greatest fear regarding the ultimate outcome of the aberrant algorithms and errant A.I., he said:  “Civil war.” And, that is, fundamentally, the gist of “The Social Dilemma” (TSD):  The natural pursuit of profits by tech companies sowing a technological wind of which western societies are now reaping the whirlwind.

      Or, stated another way, TSD is a whitewash for the surveillance state.

      In truth, the globalist elite have long planned the demise of the northern hemisphere’s (formerly) capitalist/industrial societies so a cashless (Marxist) system can rise from the ashes.

      And if 2020 vision has made anything clear it is this:  Free markets and the U.S. Constitution are gone baby gone.  They have, instead, been replaced by economic and social tyranny.   Yet, Netflix’s TSD would have us believe the fracturing of American society evolved as a result of Facebook’s news feeds and fake news.

      Ironically, I received the following this week from someone who actually saw it on Facebook:

      If you go to the southwest desert and catch 100 red fire ants as well as 100 large black ants and put them in a jar, at first, nothing will happen

      However, if you violently shake the jar and dump them back on the ground the ants will fight until they eventually kill each other

      The thing is, the red ants think the black ants are the enemy and vice versa, when in reality, the real enemy is the person who shook the jar

      This is exactly what’s happening in society today:

      Liberal vs Conservative

      Black vs White

      Pro Mask vs Anti Mask

      The real question we need to be asking ourselves is who is shaking the jar and why??

      Will ants behave as described in such circumstances?  Obviously, that’s not the point.  The point is who is actually fracturing the western societies today and why this is happening.   According to Netflix’s TSD, our current societal shaking is merely an inadvertent byproduct of deviant software tweaked to maximize the profits of tech companies.  Furthermore, according to the TSD tech “experts”, any other view of the societal “shaking” is the result of misguided faith in fake news and internet conspiracy theories.

      Well, here’s a newsflash for the hi-tech whiz-kid whistleblowers:  If the plans were published by the globalists decades ago… and they’ve since come to pass, then the conspiracies were more than just theories.  And, certainly, fake news is defined by those promoting diverse media feeds on popular online platforms.  Except those fooled still don’t understand the deception – or that the manipulation was not naturally occurring in the pursuit of profit; it was always part of the plan.

      Here are some other “issues” with the Netflix “docudrama”:

      • Most internet users are far more active, and less passively manipulated, than the TSD “experts” presume.

      • Those interviewed in the film claimed algorithms direct content as a means to reinforce existing worldviews when, in fact, the content and algorithms are designed to shape specific ideas and, even, entire belief systems.

      • TSD, via Netflix programming, seemingly, promotes leftist agendas and dog whistles like climate change and fake news. At the same time, the documentary delegitimized Pizzagate and skepticism of COVID-19 propaganda.  It is a fact that Pizzagate derived from actual e-mails released by Wikileaks and it’s true that widely disseminated COVID-19 agitprop has been debunked by respected medical professionals.

      • TSD identified Facebook as a primary facilitator of “fake news” and “conspiracies” like Pizzagate, Russian Facebook ads in the 2016 election, flat-earth theory, and COVID skepticism. Yet TSD completely ignored social media’s shameless propagation of the now-discredited Russian Collusion Hoax and the U.S. Democratic Party’s Ukrainian Impeachment gaslighting.

      So why the blatant bias?  Because Netflix is programming, pure and simple.

    • Watch Live: NASA To Launch World's Most Expensive Toilet For ISS Use 
      Watch Live: NASA To Launch World’s Most Expensive Toilet For ISS Use 

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/02/2020 – 20:40

      NASA has designed a $23 million titanium toilet that will better accommodate female astronauts is headed to the International Space Station (ISS), reported AP News. 

      NASA and Northrop Grumman are targeting Friday night (Oct. 2) to launch the Cygnus NG-14 mission atop its Antares rocket. The rocket, carrying ISS-bound cargo, will deliver nearly 8,000 pounds of supplies and equipment, including the “space toilet.” The original launch was expected on Thursday from Wallops Island, Virginia. But a delay was seen in the final countdown. 

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      The $23 million toilet weighs 100 pounds, measures 28 inches tall, and is half the size of the Russian-built toilets in use on the ISS.

      Here’s a closer look at the world’s, and now undoubtedly outer space’s most expensive toilet:

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      Since the new toilet is about 65% smaller than Russian-built ones, it will be the premier toilet for astronauts to take number 1,2,3 while on future missions to the moon. 

      At the moment, here’s the Russian-toilet currently in use on the ISS. 

      Melissa McKinley, the project manager at Johnson Space Center, who was quoted by The Guardian, said the older toilets cater more to men. The new ones will better accommodate women – as we recently mentioned, NASA is preparing to send the first woman to the moon in 2024. 

      “Cleaning up a mess is a big deal. We don’t want any misses or escapes,” McKinley said, adding that, let’s just say everything floats in weightlessness.

      Tonight’s launch is set for 9:16 p.m. EDT (0116 GMT). Readers from Washington, D.C. to Baltimore to Philadelphia to even New York City might be able to see NASA’s launch of the world’s most expensive toilet. 

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      Here’s a live feed for tonight’s launch:

      Readers may recall astronauts aboard the ISS are still hunting for a small air leak. They believe the leak could be coming from a Russian ISS module called Zvezda.

    • Medical Journal Calls For Mandatory COVID Vaccine: "Non-Compliance Should Incur A Penalty"
      Medical Journal Calls For Mandatory COVID Vaccine: “Non-Compliance Should Incur A Penalty”

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/02/2020 – 20:20

      Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

      A paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine has called for mandating a coronavirus vaccine, and outlined strategies for how Americans could be FORCED to take it.

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      The paper warns that an immediate mandate for the vaccine would spark too much resistance and backlash, so the writers suggest that at first it should be voluntary.

      However, it suggests that if not enough people are willing to get the vaccine within the first few weeks of it’s availability, it should be transformed into an obligation, with penalties put into place for refusal.

      The paper outlines “six trigger criteria” that need to be met before the vaccine is made mandatory, and that it should be rolled out to specific demographics of the population first.

      “Only recommended groups should be considered for a vaccination mandate,” initially, according to the paper, which cites “high risk groups” as the first set of people.

      “[T]he elderly, health professionals working in high-risk situations or working with high-risk patients…persons with certain underlying medical conditions,” as well as those in “high-density settings such as prisons and dormitories” should be mandated to get the jab, the paper says.

      It also suggests that active-duty military service members should be among the first that are forced into the vaccination.

      The paper proclaims that “noncompliance should incur a penalty” and notes that it should be a “relatively substantial” one.

      It suggests that “employment suspension or stay-at-home orders,” should be issued, but that fines should be discouraged because they can be legally challenged, and “may stoke distrust without improving uptake.”

      The paper also suggests that government health authorities should avoid making public their close relationship with vaccine manufacturers, to quell public mistrust.

      Just coincidentally, the authors of the paper reside at Yale and Stanford, institutions that have received substantial funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for vaccine development.

      The prospect of denying freedom of movement to those who refuse to vaccinate has been floated recently in the UK, where government health officials have also suggested that the jab should be made mandatory.

      In the US, calls have been made to make any vaccination mandatory with the likes of the New York Times expressing concern that half of Americans would refuse to take it.

      In Canada, a poll recently revealed that 60 per cent think that when a vaccine for coronavirus becomes available it should be made mandatory.

      In addition, Canada’s current Chief Public Health Officer appeared in a recently resurfaced 2010 documentary in which she advocated using mandatory “tracking bracelets” for people who refuse to take a vaccine after a virus outbreak.

    • DoJ, FBI Prepare For Election Night Violence, Voting Disruptions
      DoJ, FBI Prepare For Election Night Violence, Voting Disruptions

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/02/2020 – 20:00

      During an election year that was marred by an unprecedented global pandemic and some of the worst political violence witnessed in the US since the 1970s, it’s hardly a surprise that the DoJ is planning to station officials at an election night “command center” at FBI headquarters in the J Edgar Hoover building.

      With liberals still hysterical over President Trump’s answer to Chris Wallace’s final debate question about pledging to accept the election results, whatever they may be, the DOJ is intensifying its usual routine monitoring of election night activity to also brace for any problems with voting machines that might arise.

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      The DoJ has started preparing for a wide range of scenarios in recent weeks, though WaPo refused to go into much detail about the various ‘scenarios’ that the DoJ anticipates.

      “The Department of Justice takes election security and integrity seriously, and this year is no exception,” said Kerri Kupec, a Justice Department spokeswoman.

      The FBI said in a statement that, as in previous years, it is “committed to protecting the American public’s right to a fair and safe election by securing it” and that officials “are working closely with our federal, state, and local partners so everyone involved with safe-guarding the election has the information and resources necessary to respond in a timely manner to any violations that may arise.”

      “Of course our preparations for 2020 take into account the current climate of the country,” the statement said. “As always, the FBI has a responsibility to plan for a host of potential scenarios.”

      While one DoJ flak insisted that this type of planning happens any year, another assured WaPo that anxieties about widespread political violence on election day are much more intense this year, given the extremely toxic political environment.

      “There have been concerns raised about the possibility of civil unrest, and those are concerns raised on both sides, for different reasons, and because of that, we’re paying particularly close attention to that possibility,” the official said. “I think that we would be remiss if we didn’t take the monitoring of election security and integrity particularly seriously.”

      Individuals at the command center will include civil rights and national security experts who will monitor accounts of high profile incidents and news accounts for any signs of unrest.

      Plans for the ‘command center’ had been in place before Tuesday night’s debate. The president has repeatedly urged his followers to keep their eyes out for misconduct at the polls. And on Tuesday, he cited reports about an incident at a Philly polling station as support for his insinuations about the Dems trying to rig the election.

      Trump told Fox News back in August that he would like local law enforcement to patrol the polls. “We’re going to have sheriffs, and we’re going to have law enforcement and we’re going to hopefully have US attorneys…” Trump said, although federal law prohibits the presence of “armed men” at polling places. The DoJ does, however, employ specially trained poll monitors who watch for problems with voting. The FBI also regularly uses its command center for major events, like the State of the Union or a presidential inauguration. 

    • Do You Enjoy Beethoven? Then You Must Hate Women, Minorities, The Poor,…
      Do You Enjoy Beethoven? Then You Must Hate Women, Minorities, The Poor,…

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/02/2020 – 19:40

      Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

      Are you ready for this week’s absurdity? Here’s our Friday roll-up of the most ridiculous stories from around the world that are threats to your liberty, risks to your prosperity… and on occasion, inspiring poetic justice.

      Beethoven is a symbol of “exclusion and elitism”

      The woke mob is attempting to cancel one of the most famous pieces of music in history – Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

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      Their aim? To thwart “wealthy white men who embraced Beethoven and turned his symphony into a symbol of their superiority and importance.”

      Come again?

      Prior to Beethoven in the mid 1700s, lower class Europeans would regularly attend symphonies. And they were apparently quite a rowdy bunch– hooting and hollering all throughout the performance, like a modern day rock concert.

      Around the time that Beethoven rose to prominence in the early 1800s, however, the lower classes were excluded from attending symphonies because they didn’t keep quiet and applaud at the appropriate time.

      So today’s woke mob believes that by playing or enjoying Beethoven’s Fifth, you are glorifying the exclusion of poor people, and by extension, women and minorities.

      Click here to read the full story.

      UK authorizes undercover agents to commit crimes

      New legislation in the UK will allow undercover government agents to commit crimes.

      The undercover agents from a slew of UK departments– from MI5 to the Environment Agency– will have to ask a judge permission to commit a particular crime while undercover.

      But of course those authorizations will be hidden from the public, and even government prosecutors.

      Which makes you wonder, where is the limit? The legislation doesn’t even specifically forbid murder.

      It’s the ultimate inversion: the government can do literally whatever it wants, even break its own laws.

      But you could be thrown in prison for going out in public without covering your face.

      Click here to read the full story.

      California to ban gasoline-powered vehicles

      In a COVID world, Governors rule like kings with executives orders.

      Now these legally binding proclamations have moved beyond public safety.

      Using an executive order, the Governor of California decided to unilaterally ban the sale of  gasoline-powered vehicles starting in 2035.

      Maybe by then Californians will have a reliable electric grid.

      As it stands, the state has to ration electricity, and beg people to turn off their appliances to keep the lights on.

      Click here to read the full story.

      Video shows driver narrowly escape mob, arrested by police

      It’s apparently now standard in places like Los Angeles for police to stand down and allow protesters to block traffic and occupy entire streets and intersections.

      If you are a driver caught in one of these mobs, that can be pretty scary.

      The driver of a white Prius who found himself in this situation handled it pretty well. He looked for the quickest path out of the mob, and slowly and carefully drove through whatever small openings he could find.

      And because this driver DARED to drive a car down a street, the mob chased him.

      Video shows a pickup truck full of protesters speed after the Prius, cut him off, slam on the brakes, and then try to rip the man out of his vehicle. The protestors on foot catch up, and join the attempted lynching.

      The Prius manages to escape again, and still not injure any of the “peaceful protesters” in the process.

      But a short time later, police swooped in and arrested the Prius driver, NOT the woke vigilantes!

      Apparently it’s now illegal to flee a dangerous mob.

      Click here to watch the videos.

      School suspends 9 year old for BB gun in his bedroom

      Once again a school has punished a child for having a BB gun in his bedroom during remote learning.

      The fourth grade boy from Louisiana named Ka Mauri was suspended for six days.

      A teacher reported Ka after his brother tripped over a BB on screen during class. Ka picked up the fake gun, and moved it to the other side of his desk, where the barrel was visible on screen.

      The school called that a federal weapons law violation, as if he brought the gun to school.

      Ka was also subjected to an embarrassing mob attack when the school tasked his classmates to write letters about the incident.

      And he will now be evaluated by a social worker.

      Imagine the emotional toll this takes on a boy who did absolutely nothing wrong.

      Click here to read the full story.

      Spotify employees threaten strike if they can’t censor Joe Rogan

      Earlier this year, Joe Rogan signed a $100 million deal to host his popular podcast with Spotify, and Spotify’s stock price soared.

      Moving to the platform, certain episodes didn’t make the cut.

      For example, episodes were removed where Rogan interviews controversial conservative figures, or openly discusses transgender issues.

      In one transgender-themed episode, Rogan questions whether or not prepubescent children are capable of making far reaching decisions such as whether or not to take sex hormones. It was intended as an objective intellectual discussion. But the woke mob views this as “transphobic”.

      But pulling these episodes wasn’t enough for some Spotify employees.

      They want full editorial control to censor and edit Joe Rogan’s podcast episodes, add trigger warnings, and entirely veto particular episodes which they find upsetting.

      The employees are threatening to strike if their demands are not met… but so far Spotify hasn’t caved.

      Click here to read the full story.

      *  *  *

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

    • Six Months After The Pandemic Started: Manhattan Offices Are Only 10% Full
      Six Months After The Pandemic Started: Manhattan Offices Are Only 10% Full

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/02/2020 – 19:20

      A vibrant economic recovery of America’s largest city that is New York City, depends on the return of office workers; otherwise, the absence of white-collar folks means a painful recovery is ahead. 

      As of Sept. 18, about six months after the virus pandemic began, only 10% of Manhattan office workers were back, according to The Wall Street Journal, quoting commercial real estate services and investment firm CBRE Group Inc.’s latest report. That represents a slight uptick from the 6% to 8% level seen in July, a month after strict social distancing measures were eased because of the virus pandemic. 

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      Months and months of empty office buildings across the borough paralyzed the local economy, which resulted in a collapse in consumption as workers stayed home. The spillover effect has since led to a collapse in small businesses across the area. 

      CBRE’s report noted on a national level, about a quarter of office workers returned to their desks in September. The figure was higher in certain metropolitan areas such as Dallas at 40% and the Los Angeles metro area at 32%. The reoccupation rate across NYC is 32%. 

      The low rate of office workers returning to Manhattan is a significant disappointment for anyone who remotely thought NYC’s economic recovery would resemble a “V” by the fourth quarter of 2020. 

      With new clusters of cases emerging in Brooklyn and NYC’s northern suburbs in recent days, new fears of restrictions to businesses and schools could be nearing. 

      Already, mobility trends around the city, according to Apple’s Mobility Trends Tracker, shows driving, walking, and transit is slumping as the virus cases are increasing in the city. 

      Gov. Andrew Cuomo said “significant action” is needed to mitigate the spread of the virus in hot spot areas.  A continued rise in cases could affect the city’s reopening of schools. 

      New virus developments come as NYC prepares this week to reopen public schools and permit restaurants to allow some indoor dining. A surge in the virus and the slow return to the workplace suggests a vibrant recovery in the real economy won’t be seen this year. A direct consequence of the virus-induced downturn is the implosion of commercial real estate woes, an exodus of city-dwellers to suburbs, jump in murders and homelessness, and the collapse of small businesses. 

      So again, remind us how the real economy is in a “V” recovery? 

    • College Free Speech Crisis: "I Agree With You, But I Could Never Say It Publicly"
      College Free Speech Crisis: “I Agree With You, But I Could Never Say It Publicly”

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/02/2020 – 19:00

      By John Hirschauer of RealClearEducation

      Georgetown Promotes Free Speech, but Students Don’t Feel It

      Many Americans believe colleges and universities are failing to defend free speech and open inquiry on campus, as videos of student mobs shouting down speakers and undergraduates shrieking at their professors have helped to undermine popular faith in institutions of higher education.

      Those viral moments, however, fail to capture the state of free expression on campus in its full nuance and complexity. To provide a more detailed look at the state of speech at American colleges and universities, RealClearEducation collaborated with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and the survey-research group College Pulse on the 2020 College Free Speech Survey.

      Nearly 20,000 undergraduates at 55 major American colleges and universities participated in the survey. Students were asked a series of questions, meant to gauge their own commitment to free speech and their perception of their peers’ tolerance for diverse points of view. Institutions were ranked according to student sentiment on free expression. 

      The results were dispiriting. As RealClearEducation’s Nathan Harden highlighted on Tuesday, nearly “20% of students say that using violence to stop an unwanted speech or event is in some cases acceptable,” and some 60 percent of the undergraduates surveyed “say they have kept quiet due to fear of how others would respond.”

      One university in particular stands out for the discrepancy between its official posture on free speech and the views of its students on the state of speech on campus. Georgetown University, which hosts the Free Speech Project at Georgetown University and is apparently committed to promoting free expression, struggled mightily in the 2020 College Free Speech Rankings, ranking 48th out of the 55 colleges and universities included. 

      A granular look at the data from Georgetown is startling. Forty percent of Georgetown undergraduates surveyed were not confident that the administration would support an embattled speaker in a free-speech controversy. Sixty-eight percent of students felt that it might be acceptable to shout down a speaker on campus, while 17% felt it could be acceptable in some cases to use violence to stop a speech on campus. This atmosphere of intolerance extends to the classroom, many students said. When asked to share a moment where the student felt unable to express an opinion on campus, one Georgetown student wrote, “In almost every class, I feel like I [cannot] express my opinions.” 

      Georgetown’s code of conduct contains regulations that have the effect of stifling speech and negatively affecting the school’s overall score. For example, “incivility”– defined as any language that “disrespects another individual” – is forbidden at Georgetown, and “uncivil” students could face disciplinary actions for their remarks. This creates a potential chilling effect on speech, and “disrespect” can, of course, have an expansive definition in the hair-trigger world of undergraduate education. 

      Dr. Joshua Mitchell, who teaches political theory in Georgetown’s Government department, is not surprised that many students are uncomfortable expressing themselves candidly in class. “I’ll teach something in class that questions a politically correct position on a particular issue, and when I do, I’ll get crickets. No one will speak up and say anything. Then, students will come to office hours and say, ‘I agree with you, but I could never say it publicly.’” 

      “It is a complicated picture,” Mitchell said. “It’s not as though faculty and administration at Georgetown are actively suppressing conservative speech – it’s subtler than that, for the most part. When there is an opportunity to replace a conservative faculty member, for example, the faculty will decide that they’re not going to replace him. There is a quiet agreement not to reach out to people on the other side.” When the faculty is almost exclusively comprised of professors with one worldview, Mitchell said, students who disagree with the prevailing views of the faculty are less likely to speak up.

      A Georgetown University spokesperson responded to a request for comment by noting that the university “is committed to the free and open exchanges of ideas, even if those ideas may be found difficult or objectionable by some.” The spokesperson said that Georgetown’s “long-standing Speech and Expression policy has guided our approach to speech while maintaining the fundamental right of members of our community to free expression, dialogue and academic inquiry. We respect members of our community’s right to express personal views and are committed to maintaining the values of academic freedom and serving as a forum for the free exchange of ideas, even when those ideas may be controversial and objectionable to some.”

      While the university reaffirmed its commitment to free expression, Dr. Mitchell laments that many students “don’t see many alternatives” to the “hegemony of identity politics.” He thinks that the identitarian focus of many administrators is fostering an arid, “choreographed” conversation about difficult political issues on campus. Mitchell is hopeful, however, that things will improve. “There has been a subtle turn in the student body. There is a generational shift,” he said. “Many of the younger students at Georgetown know that the account identity politics gives is not adequate, and that you cannot build a society around it.”

    • "Out Of Control" Super-Pig Population Is Spreading Rapidly Across US 
      “Out Of Control” Super-Pig Population Is Spreading Rapidly Across US 

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/02/2020 – 18:40

      The U.S. wild pig population is rapidly increasing across the country, which has been characterized as a ticking “feral swine bomb,” according to a new report. 

      “I’ve heard it referred to as a feral swine bomb,” Dale Nolte, manager of the National Feral Swine Damage Management Program (NFSP) at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), told The Atlantic.

      Nolte said, “they multiply so rapidly. To go from a thousand to two thousand, it’s not a big deal. But if you’ve got a million, it doesn’t take long to get to 4 [million], then 8 million.”

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      Feral swine have caused significant damage to property, agriculture (crops and livestock), native species, and ecosystems, with an estimated damage cost of upwards $2.5 billion per annum. The hogs have a reputation for carrying at least 30 viral and bacterial diseases and at least 40 parasites. 

      Ryan Brook, a University of Saskatchewan biologist who researches feral pigs, estimates these highly invasive species will occupy 386,000 square miles across the country by the end of 2020. At the moment, the hogs are expanding at about 35,000 square miles per year.

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      Brook said many of the wild pigs are a crossbreed between domestic ones and European wild boar:

      “The problem with the hybrids is you get all of the massive benefits of all of that genetics… It creates what we’d call super-pigs.,” he said. 

      According to Nolte, these super pigs are highly intelligent and have a good sense of smell, along with a shield of bone, up to 2 inches thick, around their shoulders, which offers some protection against small-caliber bullets. 

      At least 1.5 million of these hogs roam Texas, according to Texas Parks and Wildlife; these pigs have four tusks and are brown and black color once they mature. They can weigh between 75 to 250 pounds on average, and run up to 30 mph. 

      “Pig populations are completely out of control,” Brook warned. 

    • A Swarm Of Nearly 600 Earthquakes Rattles Southern California Sparking Speculation About "The Big One" Again
      A Swarm Of Nearly 600 Earthquakes Rattles Southern California Sparking Speculation About “The Big One” Again

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/02/2020 – 18:20

      Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

      Over the last few days, a swarm of almost 600 earthquakes has shaken southern California, and a lot of people are becoming extremely concerned about what will happen next.  In fact, if you go on Twitter right now you will find a tremendous amount of speculation that “the Big One” could be coming.  The experts are trying to calm the general public by assuring them that it is probably not likely that “the Big One” is imminent, but they don’t know for sure.  Forecasting earthquakes is not like forecasting the weather, and experts will continue to tell us that a major event is not likely until the day when one finally happens.

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      But what everyone can agree upon is that earthquake swarms cause the probability of a major event to rise.  Of course that doesn’t mean that there will be a major event associated with this current earthquake swarm, and there may not be a major event if an earthquake swarm occurs next month.  But without a doubt what is going on in southern California right now is worth watching.

      According to the Los Angeles Times, this current swarm of quakes has been centered “around the town of Westmoreland in Imperial County”…

      A swarm of hundreds of small earthquakes struck in and around the town of Westmoreland in Imperial County over the past couple days

      The Southern California Seismic Network recorded nearly 600 earthquakes, the smallest a magnitude 1.1, as of 6 a.m. Thursday, according to a report from the project by Caltech and the U.S. Geological Survey.

      Most of the rumbling has been relatively minor, but during a period of less than three hours on Wednesday there were 45 earthquakes of at least magnitude 3.0…

      ‘In just 2.5hr Westmorland swarm has had 45 quakes of M≥3.0. One of the largest swarms we have had in the Imperial Valley – and it is historically the most active swarms in SoCal,’ seismologist Dr Lucy Jones wrote on Twitter on Wednesday night.

      A magnitude 4.9 quake has been the largest event so far, and we shall see what else happens over the next several days.

      According to Dr. Lucy Jones, this earthquake swarm has occurred along some small faults “that connect the San Andreas and Imperial faults”…

      None of the earthquakes that have been happening in the Imperial Valley are anywhere near the San Andreas fault. They are in the Brawley Seismic Zone – a network of small faults that connect the San Andreas and Imperial faults.

      This is an area that has had some pretty serious earthquake swarms in the past.

      In fact, the USGS is telling us that there were also large swarms in the area in 1981 and in 2012…

      The quake swarms “are located in an area of diffuse seismic activity between the San Andreas fault in the north and the Imperial fault to the south,” the USGS says. Previous swarms in the area happened in 1981 and 2012.

      “Past swarms have remained active for 1 to 20 days, with an average duration of about a week,” the USGS reported.

      Obviously the swarms of 1981 and 2012 did not produce something much larger, and hopefully this one will not either.

      But the USGS is warning that there is a “very small probability” that a quake of magnitude 7.0 or above could potentially happen…

      ‘The ongoing swarm could trigger an earthquake significantly larger than the M4.9 that occurred on the 30 September (i.e., M7.0 and above),’ they warned.

      ‘While this is a very small probability, if such an earthquake were to occur, it would have serious impacts on communities nearby and would be followed by aftershocks that would increase the number of smaller earthquakes per day.’

      However, as I noted above, the truth is that they don’t really know.

      None of the experts has any way to reliably forecast earthquakes in advance, and someday when “the Big One” finally strikes there may not be any sort of advance warning at all.

      But the experts do believe that it is inevitable that eventually “the Big One” will arrive, and one particularly alarming study concluded that the full length of the San Andreas fault could potentially “unzip all at once”….

      For years, scientists believed the mighty San Andreas—the 800-mile-long fault running the length of California where the Pacific and North American plates meet—could only rupture in isolated sections.

      But a recent study by federal, state and academic researchers showed that much of the fault could unzip all at once, unleashing a rare, singular catastrophe. Now, insurers have used that research to come up with a new analysis of the damage that could be caused by statewide break of the San Andreas.

      Could you imagine the utter devastation that such an event would cause?

      Scientists have discovered that enormous earthquakes in the distant past caused the ground to sink by as much as three feet in some portions of southern California, and some scientists have warned that if such an event happened today that “it could plunge large parts of California into the sea almost instantly”…

      The Big One may be overdue to hit California, but scientists near LA have found a new risk for the area during a major earthquake.

      They claim that if a major tremor hits the area, it could plunge large parts of California into the sea almost instantly.

      If you have read my new book, you already understand why I keep relentlessly warning people about these things.

      Unfortunately, one day the time for warning will be over and disaster will strike.  According to Cal State Fullerton professor Matt Kirby, a big enough quake could cause vast stretches of southern California to sink dramatically “relatively instantaneously”…

      ‘It´s something that would happen relatively instantaneously,’ Kirby said.

      ‘Probably today if it happened, you would see seawater rushing in.’

      Right now, most people living in California are not thinking about earthquakes because they are dealing with the worst wildfire season in the history of the state.

      Millions of acres have already burned, and the skies have been filled with smoke for weeks on end.

      For many residents, this has been the final straw and they are finally moving out of the state.

      But of course most Californians will just continue to stay where they are no matter what happens, and one day “the Big One” will turn all of their lives upside down in a single moment.

    • Daily Briefing – October 2, 2020
      Daily Briefing – October 2, 2020


      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/02/2020 – 18:10

      Real Vision CEO and co-founder, Raoul Pal, joins senior editor, Ash Bennington, to interpret the latest financial newsflow. Raoul explores the possibility of a top forming in U.S. equities through the lens of his “GMI crash pattern.” He and Ash then analyze President Trump’s diagnosis of COVID-19 and investigate its potential market impact. Raoul then talks about today’s interview with hedge fund legend Dmitry Balyasny as well as next week’s interview with bond kingpin Jeffrey Gundlach. Raoul and Ash briefly discuss the criminal charges brought against BitMEX, one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges. Lastly, Raoul shares his view on the enfeebled energy sector. In the intro, Real Vision’s Jack Farley breaks down the price action following the COVID-19 outbreak in the White House.

    • US Intelligence "Monitoring" Foreign Adversaries For Signs They'll Exploit President's Illness
      US Intelligence “Monitoring” Foreign Adversaries For Signs They’ll Exploit President’s Illness

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/02/2020 – 18:00

      US intelligence, the Pentagon, and national security officials are closely monitoring how America’s rivals and enemies “react” to Thursday night’s shock news of President Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis, for which he’s since said to be exhibiting mild symptoms.

      “The U.S. military stands ready to defend our country and its citizens,” Joint Staff spokesperson Col. Dave Butler said Friday, according to Politico. “There’s no change to the readiness or capability of our armed forces.”

      “What we are anticipating is that the Russian actors and probably the Iranians will play this up,” one anonymous defense official also added. Further the countries of China and North Korea are also being monitored, according to the report.

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      Defense Intelligence Agency foreign media monitoring room, file image.

      Specifically US intelligence will scrutinizing any “subtle increase in activity against us, knowing we are preoccupied, and the opportunity to test us, perhaps,” Marc Polymeropoulos, a former CIA Senior Intelligence Service officer, described to Politico.

      The former CIA officer emphasized that “Our enemies will see us in a vulnerable state.”

      And another defense official stated:

      “There is always the possibility that adversaries will seek to exploit the information space and talk propaganda…We are definitely monitoring and keeping aware.”

      Typically such “monitoring” takes place in foreign media observation rooms set up within most intelligence agency branch HQs, which reports to the chain of command major developments conveyed via foreign state news organizations abroad.

      Meanwhile Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who serves on the powerful Committee on Foreign Relations, had this warning for US adversaries:

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

      Other commentators wondered about the near future possibility of a 25th Amendment crisis being triggered, transferring head of state powers to the Vice President.

      Still others questioned whether the opaque and controversial ‘Continuity of Government’ protocols, which were subject to post 9/11 discussion and debate in media for a time, might eventually be triggered should the president’s health turn dire.

    Digest powered by RSS Digest

    Oct 02

    Today’s News 2nd October 2020

    • German Leftists Push Bill To Make "Working From Home" A Legal Right
      German Leftists Push Bill To Make “Working From Home” A Legal Right

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/02/2020 – 02:45

      In an interview with the FT, German Labor Minister Hubertus Heil, a Social Democrat MP and author of a bill granting new legal rights to workers who wish to work from home permanently, said that his bill would be published in a few weeks, marking an important step on its way to becoming a law.

      The law would be a landmark piece of legislation as Germany would become the first major European economy to give employees ‘the right to work from home’.

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      Heil insisted that the still-unpublished law would find other ways to to reinforce workers rights and set clearer boundaries for lives that no longer have the traditional separation between “home” and “office”. It also aims to offset some of the negative impact on collective bargaining and labor organizing.

      “We cannot stop the changes in the world of work, nor do we want to,” he said. “The question is how we can turn technological progress, new business models and higher productivity into progress not only for a few, but for many people. How do we turn technological progress into social progress?”

      Germany isn’t the only European country grappling with these issues. However, other countries have mostly relied on existing laws. France is relying on a 2017 law that limits work-related calls and emails after work hours.

      If it passes, the law would be part of a “wider rethink” on Germany’s stolid economy prompted by the virus. Once seen as opposed to “flexible” work schedules, Germans have embraced WFH en masse since the start of the pandemic, and they’ve found that they actually rather quite enjoy it.

      The virus has also forced Berlin to abandon its longstanding tradition of passing only balanced budgets – the “black zero”, as the rule is known. Meanwhile, Germany expanded the Kurzarbeit, its short-term unemployment insurance scheme, to help support workers in industries that have been shuttered by the virus.

      A WFH law was first announced back in June, and it’s still unclear whether it will find support among Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats – the CDU – as many small business owners complain that the legislation is unnecessary.

      Ingo Kramer, the president of the German Employers’ Association, has called the proposals “utter nonsense” and warned they would encourage German companies to outsource jobs to cheaper workers abroad.

      However, even the law’s backers concede that there are certain gender disparities that the law can’t address.

      “There is the cliché, which is unfortunately often true, that men go into their home office and close the door while women working from home are simultaneously taking care of children,” he said.

      If nothing else, the draft proposal is simply the latest example of how the virus has pushed Germany’s famously tight-fisted government to embrace more spending on the social safety net. But is this all a ruse to further strengthen the power of Germany’s unions by strengthening collective bargaining rights?

    • Gates, Kissinger, And Our Dystopian Future
      Gates, Kissinger, And Our Dystopian Future

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/02/2020 – 02:00

      Authored by Mike Whitney,

      “The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.”

      – George Orwell

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      Can we agree that there are two types of Covid-19?

      The first type, is Covid-19 ,”The Virus”, which is a fairly mild infection that most people don’t even realize they’ve contracted. They remain either asymptomatic or have slight flu-like symptoms that go away after a week or so. A tiny sliver of the population– that are mainly-older, vulnerable people with underlying health conditions– can develop complications, become seriously ill and die. But, according to most analysis, the chances of dying from Covid are roughly between 1 in every 200 to 1 in every 1,000 people. (CDC-IFR- 0.26%) In other words, Covid is not the Spanish Flu, not the Black Plague and the Genocidal Planetary Killer Virus it was cracked up to be. It kills more people than the annual influenza, but not significantly more.

      The second type of Covid-19, is Covid “The Political Contrivance” or, rather, CODENAME: Operation Virus Identification 20 19. This iteration of the Covid phenom relates to the manner in which a modestly-lethal respiratory pathogen has been inflated into a perennial public health crisis in order to implement economic and societal changes that would otherwise be impossible. This is the political side of Covid, which is much more difficult to define since it relates to the ambiguous agenda of powerful elites who are using the infection to conceal their real intentions. Many critics believe that Covid is a vehicle the Davos Crowd is using to launch their authoritarian New World Order. Others think it has more to do with Climate Change, that is, rather than build consensus among the world leaders for mandatory carbon reductions, global mandarins have simply imposed lockdowns that sharply reduce economic activity across-the-board. This, in fact, has lowered emissions significantly, but at great cost to most of humanity. Covid restrictions have triggered a sharp uptick in suicides, clinical depression, child abuse, domestic violence, alcoholism and drug abuse. The list goes on and on. Also, it has left economies everywhere in a shambles, increasing unemployment and homelessness exponentially, while setting the stage for massive famines in undeveloped countries around the world. Even so, key players in the Covid crisis– like mastermind Bill Gates– continue to marvel at impact these onerous restrictions have had on emissions. Take a look at this excerpt from a recent post at the Microsoft founder’s blog:

      “You may have seen projections that, because economic activity has slowed down so much, the world will emit fewer greenhouse gases this year than last year. Although these projections are certainly true, their importance for the fight against climate change has been overstated.

      Analysts disagree about how much emissions will go down this year, but the International Energy Agency puts the reduction around 8 percent. In real terms, that means we will release the equivalent of around 47 billion tons of carbon, instead of 51 billion.

      That’s a meaningful reduction, and we would be in great shape if we could continue that rate of decrease every year. Unfortunately, we can’t.

      Consider what it’s taking to achieve this 8 percent reduction. More than 600,000 people have died, and tens of millions are out of work. This April, car traffic was half what it was in April 2019. For months, air traffic virtually came to a halt.

      To put it mildly, this is not a situation that anyone would want to continue. And yet we are still on track to emit 92 percent as much carbon as we did last year. What’s remarkable is not how much emissions will go down because of the pandemic, but how little.

      In addition, these reductions are being achieved at, literally, the greatest possible cost.

      To see why, let’s look at what it costs to avert a single ton of greenhouse gases. This figure—the cost per ton of carbon averted—is a tool that economists use to compare the expense of different carbon-reduction strategies. For example, if you have a technology that costs $1 million, and using it lets you avert the release of 10,000 tons of gas, you’re paying $100 per ton of carbon averted. In reality, $100 per ton would still be pretty expensive. But many economists think this price reflects the true cost of greenhouse gases to society, and it also happens to be a memorable round number that makes a good benchmark for discussions.

      Now let’s treat the shutdown caused by COVID-19 as if it were a carbon-reduction strategy. Has closing off major parts of the economy avoided emissions at anything close to $100 per ton?

      No. In the United States, according to data from the Rhodium Group, it comes to between $3,200 and $5,400 per ton. In the European Union, it’s roughly the same amount. In other words, the shutdown is reducing emissions at a cost between 32 and 54 times the $100 per ton that economists consider a reasonable price.

      If you want to understand the kind of damage that climate change will inflict, look at COVID-19 and spread the pain out over a much longer period of time. The loss of life and economic misery caused by this pandemic are on par with what will happen regularly if we do not eliminate the world’s carbon emissions.” (“COVID-19 is awful. Climate change could be worse“, Gates Notes)

      Isn’t it curious that Gates has spent so much time calculating the impact lockdowns have had on carbon emissions? And look at how precise his calculations are. These are not “back of the envelop” type computations, but a serious bit of number-crunching. He even takes the number of people who have died of Covid worldwide (600,000) and painstakingly compares it to the projected “global mortality rates” (“on an annualized basis”) of people who will die from “increases in global temperatures”.

      Does it seem to you that Gates might have more than a passing interest in these estimations?? Does it look like he might be more than just a neutral observer impartially perusing the data?

      Let me pose a theory here: In my opinion, Gates’ interest in these matters is not merely speculative curiosity. He and his fellow elites are conducting an elaborate science experiment in which we– mere mortals– are the lab rats. They are deliberately using the Covid-scare to conceal their real objective which is to prove beyond a doubt that curtailing emissions by shutting down vast swathes of the global economy will NOT stave off catastrophic climate change.

      So, let’s just assume for the sake of argument that I’m right. Let’s assume that other elites read Gates report and agree with its conclusions. Then what?

      This is where it gets interesting, because Gates doesn’t really answer that question, but his silence gives him away.

      Let me explain: Gates says, “The relatively small decline in emissions this year makes one thing clear: We cannot get to zero emissions simply—or even mostly—by flying and driving less.”

      Okay, so we cannot stop climate change by doing what we are doing now.

      Then Gates says: “Let science and innovation lead the way….Any comprehensive response to climate change will have to tap into many different disciplines…. we’ll need biology, chemistry, physics, political science, economics, engineering, and other sciences.”

      Right again, we’ll follow the science.

      Gates then says: “It will take decades to develop and deploy all the clean-energy inventions we need.”

      Okay, so we have to move fast to avoid tragedy.

      Finally, Gates says: “Health advocates said for years that a pandemic was virtually inevitable. The world did not do enough to prepare, and now we are trying to make up for lost time. This is a cautionary tale for climate change, and it points us toward a better approach.”

      Got that? So, on the one hand, Gates is saying ‘We must act fast and follow the science’, and on the other he is saying, ‘Shutting down the economy alone isn’t going to work.’

      WTF? If it’s not going to work, then why bother? Why is Gates sending a mixed message?

      Ahh, but there’s the rub. It’s not a mixed message and it is not a contradiction. What Gates is doing is leading the reader to draw the same conclusion that he has, (wink, wink) that is, if reducing economic activity isn’t going to work, then we have to find an entirely different solution, like reducing the size of the population. Isn’t that the only logical conclusion?

      Yes, it is. So, the Great Lab Experiment of 2020 (Covid) has alot to do with population control; thinning the herd so our exalted Davos Overlords can ensure their blue-blooded offspring will have mild temps when they winter-over on their private islands in the Caribbean. But population control is just a small part of a much more ambitious plan to restructure the global economy, vaccinate everyone on the planet and dispose of those niggling civil liberties to which Americans have become so attached.

      The elitist strategy has been dubbed the “Great Reset” which refers to the World Economic Forum’s Covid Action Platform, a program that aims at restructuring “economic and social foundations” in a way that best suits the interests of “stakeholder” capitalists. Here’s a clip from their press release:

      “COVID-19 lockdowns may be gradually easing, but anxiety about the world’s social and economic prospects is only intensifying. There is good reason to worry: a sharp economic downturn has already begun, and we could be facing the worst depression since the 1930s. But, while this outcome is likely, it is not unavoidable.

      To achieve a better outcome, the world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions. Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed. In short, we need a “Great Reset” of capitalism…

      The level of cooperation and ambition this implies is unprecedented. But it is not some impossible dream. In fact, one silver lining of the pandemic is that it has shown how quickly we can make radical changes to our lifestyles. Almost instantly, the crisis forced businesses and individuals to abandon practices long claimed to be essential, from frequent air travel to working in an office….

      Clearly, the will to build a better society does exist. We must use it to secure the Great Reset that we so badly need. That will require stronger and more effective governments, though this does not imply an ideological push for bigger ones. And it will demand private-sector engagement every step of the way.” (“The World Economic Forum’s Covid Action Platform“, WEF)

      If it sounds like our illustrious leaders want to remake society from the ground-up, it’s because that’s exactly what they have in mind. And they’re not even trying to hide their real intentions. They say quite bluntly: “the world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions.”

      That sounds alot like marching orders to me and, indeed, that’s exactly what they are; orders.

      But how do they intend to affect these dramatic and revolutionary changes?

      Why Covid, of course. They’re going to use Covid to make fundamental changes to the existing system, including accelerating privatization (“stakeholder capitalism”), merging governments into a unified global regime, intensifying the elements of social control (via mass electronic surveillance, intrusive contact tracing, security checkpoints, lockdowns, internal passports, biometric IDs etc) and taking whatever steps are required to introduce a tyrannical Brave New World.

      It’s all there in black and white, they’re not even trying to hide it. In their own words, the “Great Reset” depends on the Covid Action Platform, right? In order to “build a better society” we need to “make radical changes to our lifestyles” including reductions in “frequent air travel to working in an office”. So just forget that trip to Italy next year Mr. and Mrs. WorkerBee. Ain’t gonna happen. Bill Gates says, “No.” And get used to working from home, too, because we don’t want your dog-eared Capri spewing carbon into our pristine-blue skies.

      The statement also makes clear that the obliteration of millions of jobs and small businesses was not an accidental casualty of the Covid lockdowns, but the planned demolition of business and workers these Mucky-mucks consider ‘non-essential’.

      And as far as who will participate in this new blueprint for Capitalist Valhalla? Well, everyone of course. According to the authors: “Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed.”

      There it is from the horse’s mouth: The glorious Biosecurity Slave State is emerging right before our very eyes and we just thought we were in another Great Depression rounded off with a pandemic.

      So, when we talk about Covid the “Political Contrivance”, we’re actually referring to the vehicle that elites have settled on to transition the country from its present condition to a full-blown “lock-down” police state. Covid is the smokescreen that’s being used to conceal the maneuverings of filthy-rich powerbrokers who want to implement their Grand Plan for humanity. So, if everything feels chaotic and upside-down at the present time, don’t be alarmed; it’s all by design. The more muddled and turbulent the world becomes, the easier it is to get people to submit to moronic activities like wearing a diaper on your mouth every time you leave the house or standing 6 feet apart at the grocery store so invisible pathogens don’t climb up your pant-leg and bite you. Psychologists know that –in a topsy-turvy world where uncertainty prevails — people are more apt to follow the directives of affable blockheads, like Tony Fauci, even though they may be abandoning their last-claim to personal freedom in the process.

      Looking back to April of 2020, we probably should have anticipated where all this was headed, after all, Mr. NWO himself, Henry Kissinger, announced what to expect in an op-ed he posted in the Wall Street Journal. Here’s what he said:

      “The reality is the world will never be the same after the coronavirus. To argue now about the past only makes it harder to do what has to be done…”(NOTE– Is Kissinger clairvoyant? How did he know the “world would never be the same again”?)

      “Enlightenment thinkers (argued) that the purpose of the legitimate state is to provide for the fundamental needs of the people… Individuals cannot secure these things on their own. The pandemic has prompted an anachronism, a revival of the walled city in an age when prosperity depends on global trade and movement of people.” (NOTE– In other words: Globalism is good, Nationalism is bad. The same refrain we’ve heard for the last 30 years.)

      While the assault on human health (from Covid) will—hopefully—be temporary, the political and economic upheaval it has unleashed could last for generations. (NOTE–Another peek into Henry’s crystal ball, eh?) No country, not even the U.S., can in a purely national effort overcome the virus. Addressing the necessities of the moment must ultimately be coupled with a global collaborative vision and program.” (“The Coronavirus Pandemic Will Forever Alter the World Order”, Wall Street Journal)

      As Kissinger clearly states, globalization is still alive and well among the Davos heavyweights who now see a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to put their plan into action. Parts of Australia and New Zealand are already under de-facto martial law while PM Boris Johnson is adding another 2,000 cops in London to enforce his goofy Covid mandates. Everywhere in the western world, freedom is collapsing faster than a corrugated lean-to in a Kansas tornado. Meanwhile in panic-stricken America, fainthearted proles continue to hide behind their sofas waiting for the faux-plague to pass. Do they even see the train-wreck just ahead? Author Gary D. Barnett summed it up like this:

      “At this moment in time we are standing on a precipice with the state attempting to push us over the edge. Once over that edge, there will be no coming back. This is why if the people fight back in mass, and withhold all support from the governing demons, we can awaken from this nightmare, and regain normalcy.” (“The State’s Covid Response Is a Cancer for the Freedom of Humanity”, Gary D. Barnett, Lew Rockwell)

      Bravo, Mr. Barnett. That says it all.

    • Futures Plunge, Gold Spikes After Trump Positive COVID Test
      Futures Plunge, Gold Spikes After Trump Positive COVID Test

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/02/2020 – 01:29

      Shortly after headlines hit that President Trump and the First Lady had tested positive for COVID-19, US equity futures plunged…

      Dow futures are down around 500 points but Small Caps are worst for now…

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      Gold spiked on the news…

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      Treasuries are bid with yields reversing all of the week’s rise…

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      Somebody wake up Steve!!

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    • Watch: Armenia's S-300 Missiles Active Over Yerevan As Azerbaijan Steps Up 'Suicide Drone' Use
      Watch: Armenia’s S-300 Missiles Active Over Yerevan As Azerbaijan Steps Up ‘Suicide Drone’ Use

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/02/2020 – 01:00

      The war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh border region appears to be spinning out into a broader conflict as footage of increasingly heavy and advanced military hardware is appearing.

      As of late Thursday there are reports that Armenia’s Russia-supplied S-300 systems are active near the capital of Yerevan. New viral video circulating on military channels purports to show S-300 missiles intercepting a possible enemy drone or inbound rocket in the vicinity of Yerevan. 

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      Specifically, the event is being widely said to have occurred over Abovyan, which lies about 16 kilometers northeast of Yerevan in the Kotayk Province.

      Within an hour of the footage appearing online, Armenia’s Ministry of Defense seems to have confirmed the dramatic escalation.

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      “An enemy drone was downed by the air defense forces in the air space of Armenia, Kotayk region,” the Armenian MoD wrote on Twitter.

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      Earlier in the day a separate Azerbaijan drone intercept video closer to the center of fighting in Karabakh was posted via official Armenian military channels.

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      Azerbaijan has a significant and advanced drone program, having been supplied for years by Israeli defense firms, including so-called Kamikaze drones.

      These ‘suicide drones’ appear to be in use by Azerbaijan’s army:

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      Though Azerbaijan’s security and arms relationship with Israel has been documented over the past few years, it’s unclear the degree to which Israeli intelligence or military advisors are still present in Azerbaijan, potentially still assisting with the deadly drone program.

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      “Harop” loitering munition (LM) system, via The Jerusalem Post

      However, it’s unclear what type of drone was intercepted near the vicinity of Yerevan on Thursday.

      There are also emerging reports that two or more projectiles may have been intercepted near the Armenian capital. 

    • Smith: Is The Pussification Of America's Youth Scientifically Engineered?
      Smith: Is The Pussification Of America’s Youth Scientifically Engineered?

      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 10/02/2020 – 00:00

      Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

      There’s been a lot of debate lately on what generation of Americans is the most to blame for the current failures of the US as a society.

      • Baby Boomers blame millennials for being weak, lazy and entitled;

      • millennials blame boomers for ruining the system before they were ever born while enjoying the fruits of a more prosperous economy.

      The real answer is that it’s partially the fault of BOTH generations, but not for the reasons often argued.

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      The boomer vs. snowflake conflict is a controlled narrative that deliberately avoids the greater issues at hand. Yes, the newest generations of Americans have been utterly pussified, but I believe this is part of a larger agenda, and baby boomer parents unwittingly and stupidly played a supporting role.

      In 4th Generation warfare the concept is to destroy a nation or civilization without using direct military confrontation, at least, not right away. Instead, the goal is to destabilize the target society from within and let the citizenry self destruct. Then, once the population is in sufficient chaos, you move in with your military forces and take over, meeting minimal resistance along the way.

      The strategy can also be used to undermine and control a population by it’s own government or by elites within that government as a means to stop potential rebellion against the establishment power structure. In other words, use controlled chaos to create panic and weakness, and then snatch up more power while the citizenry is distracted and disorganized.

      In order to create chaos and panic in a population, that population must be completely unprepared to deal with crisis events. They must be mentally soft and lack resolve, otherwise they might become self reliant and defiant rather than fearful and easy to control.

      I was recently studying psychological conditioning methods used to prepare people for combat and crisis scenarios. The phrase “stress inoculation” comes up often. In certain branches and units of the US military there is an increased emphasis on stress inoculation (beyond basic training) as a means to strengthen soldiers and their fortitude so that when they do eventually find themselves in a combat situation where they might die, they don’t panic and allow adrenaline to take over their motor and thought processes.

      Department of Defense think-tanks like DARPA have published extensive white papers on the subject, and stress inoculation is also used to some extent to treat people with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

      The ability to perform calmly under stress is the key to combat readiness. The most effective warriors, and the most successful people in life, usually have the ability to manage stress and perform at a high level while other people flounder in terror.

      Historically, many civilizations have been very careful in how they choose and train warriors for defense. Native American tribes, for example, would carefully vet their warriors and make sure they chose men that would NOT run away at the first sign of trouble; rather, they picked men they knew would confront trouble directly. A small force of psychologically prepared men was considered far superior to a vast army of potential bed wetters and hysterics.

      Mentally vetting people for stress management skills has been a common human practice for thousands of years.

      Some people are simply born with a greater capacity for it, but many others can be trained for stress inoculation using basic methods. The key is for people to start learning stress management when they are children. This requires them to go through experiences which cause short term acute stress, rather than long term chronic stress.

      Short term acute stress strengthens mental response time and increases confidence and psychological stability by acclimating a person to surprise and shock. Long term chronic stress does the opposite, never allowing the person to acclimate and causing them to revert to a constant state of fear.

      Acute stress events include physical exercise, competitive play, being placed in unfamiliar surroundings and being forced to adapt, regularly undertaking new and useful skill sets, sticking with a skill set until it is mastered, and even interactions with larger groups of unfamiliar people, such as public speaking.

      One could also apply the ancient philosophical concept of Zen to stress inoculation, particularly the practice of mastering a skill so completely that a person becomes “one” with that talent, and thus “one” with themselves and their place in the world. If you have ever met a person that is a true master of a useful skill, you know that they tend to be extremely calm and confident people that do not panic easily regardless of the situation.

      While researching stress inoculation methods, it struck me – What if a society was to do the exact OPPOSITE of this? What if an entire generation of children were deliberately sheltered from all forms of short term acute stress? What if they were encouraged to never work hard at anything? What if they were not given any incentive to accomplish any goals? What if competition was discouraged and children were taught to despise it as “barbaric” and “debilitating”? What if accomplishment was dismissed and the idea of “winning” was eliminated in the name of “fairness and equality”?

      What if a generation of kids were so thin skinned and untrained in stress management that they panic and run to the nearest authority figure for help at the first sign of trouble? What if they were so spoiled that they had never learned to take care of themselves? What if all of their life experiences were in the form of a safe, insulated digital fantasy world where there is no real risk?

      Now imagine you then take this highly coddled and sheltered generation and you suddenly expose them to a massive crisis event; such as an economic crash, or even the threat of a global pandemic? How would this group of children, now moving into adulthood without any practical skills or emotional toughness, respond to the situation?

      All of their actions would be reactionary and rooted in panic and terror. Because they have never trained to deal with acute stress events they are now a walking time bomb of fear. They might respond by running and hiding, or they might respond by lashing out violently, but in either case they will have no self-control and will be ruled by emotion and adrenaline rather than logic and reason.

      Wouldn’t this be the most effective way to destroy or dominate a nation over the span of a couple decades?

      In America today there is the more obvious trend of social justice warriors among younger generations and their complete inability to function in normal adult society without constant protection.

      What is the purpose of concepts like “safe spaces”, trigger warnings, forced diversity, intersectionality, critical race theory, micro-aggressions, implicit bias, etc., other than to artificially swaddle people so they never have to deal with negative experiences?

      The only reason for the existence of so-called “victim groups” is for people who have no stress management skills to continue to avoid any and all acute stress events for the rest of their lives by making it socially or legally unacceptable to criticize them, discriminate against them as individuals, or place practical demands on them. They become a protected class with special privileges.

      They deny the need to compete based on merit in the working world because they claim competition is “racist” and creates inequality. Anything that causes them stress is immediately deemed an “aggression” against them personally, and all stressors are treated as equally offensive; meaning, an insult or criticism becomes the same as a physical attack, and they react with the same level of emotional panic to both.

      I believe this is a major contributor in the rush by some young people to join the “trans movement”, as it represents an easy outlet to gain victim group status and thus attain protection from stress.

      Did this movement of perpetual childhood develop out of this air? The evidence says no. The social justice movement with all its Marxist underpinnings was funded and managed directly by elitist organizations like the Rockefeller Foundation and the Ford Foundation, it becomes clear that the pussification of America’s youth is not a natural progression but an engineered program.

      This is openly admitted in Alison R. Bernstein’s book ‘Funding The Future: Philanthropy’s Influence On Americas Higher Education’. Bernstein is the vice president of Education at the Ford Foundation and the former Associate Dean of Faculty at Princeton.

      It’s not just the SJW lunatics that are the problem, though. A vast number of young people are finding themselves completely unprepared for adult life and they blame boomers indirectly for their failings. Contrary to popular belief, boomers had nothing whatsoever to do with the decline of the US economy; if you want to find the culprits behind your financial pain, I suggest learning about the history of the Federal Reserve and how that institution has systematically destroyed our currency’s buying power and our economy over time.

      Where boomers are culpable is in their terrible parenting model. They raised a generation of weaklings and rarely questioned the establishment and media propaganda that told them that helicopter parenting and the “self esteem model” was the best way to raise their children. While perhaps done out of love, boomers spoiled their own kids so completely and shielded them from all acute stress that as young adults they now have no capacity to succeed in a world where survival instincts might be required.

      Consider the most common complaint among next-gen adults – That boomers all enjoy home ownership while they will never be able to afford the privilege because boomers ruined the economy. This, they claim, is the reason why boomers should not be allowed to criticize the inactivity and laziness of millennials. Yet, the majority of boomers had to leave home and become adults at age 18 (some of them even sooner), while a large number of millennials live with mom and dad well into their 30s, feeding off of them like parasites rather than working and saving. Gen Z appears ready to do the same. Boomers started their adult lives sooner, and thus they accumulated assets and wealth faster.

      Of course, boomers share the blame. Helicopter parents have helped to ruin American culture, even though numerous psychological studies indicate that sheltering children from short term stress destroys their ability to cope as adults.

      At bottom, though, boomers were encouraged at every moment to continue this style of parenting by the media and elitist foundations. The Ford Foundation in particular was a primary force behind the modern parenting and public education methodology of stress avoidance. The foundation was key in the development of such programs as Head Start and has spent hundreds of millions on the training of public school teachers in social justice methodologies.

      Ford was also the primary engine behind the creation of the National Education Television Center, which later became PBS, and funded such prominent children’s shows as Sesame Street and Mister Rogers. This is not to say the people that produced these shows had any nefarious agenda in mind, only that both shows often promoted stress avoidance rather than stress confrontation and management. To this day, stress inoculation training is becoming more and more rare among America’s youth, and it is quickly being erased in public schools.

      If history is any indicator, the weakest generations when faced with overwhelming crisis will demand protection, as they always have, whether it be physical protection or financial protection. And inevitably they will turn to government collectivism or the money elites for a feeling of safety in exchange for their liberties. They don’t value their freedoms because they have never enjoyed the feeling of independence anyway. The trade for comfort becomes easy for them.

      Not all younger Americans suffer from this affliction. Many are strong willed, but those that are usually admit freely that they feel isolated among the majority of their peers. I find it hard to believe it’s mere coincidence that perhaps the weakest generation of Americans ever is now facing the worst series of crisis events in our history. The whole thing seems planned…

      Stress inoculation is a lot like strengthening your own immune system – Sometimes you have to work through sickness when you are young in order to improve your immunity to sickness later in life. By the same token, you have to experience stress events when you are young so that you can better deal with crisis events later in life. Otherwise, you grow up as malleable as jello and just as easy to devour.

      The good news is, even as adults stress inoculation can be learned. As our world grows more and more unstable and uncertain, being able to manage our own fears is becoming paramount to our continued liberty and livelihood.

      *  *  *

      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.

    • Pandemic Special: "Don't Pay Rent Until 2021" For NYC Apartments 
      Pandemic Special: “Don’t Pay Rent Until 2021” For NYC Apartments 

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/01/2020 – 23:40

      The number of empty rental apartments in Manhattan has tripled compared with last year, forcing some landlords to become increasingly desperate as they struggle to find tenants amid an urban exodus. 

      Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel’s August report showed the number of empty rental apartments in Manhattan surpassed 15,000 units in August, up from 5,600 a year ago. 

      Facing a glut of inventory, with demand quickly collapsing, landlords are becoming desperate – consider this: 

      “Don’t pay rent until 2021, select properties now offering up to three months complimentary rent,” read the message banner of a New York City apartment listing’s website, operated by Related Rentals Corporate. 

      By the month, landlords are becoming more desperate to find tenants as an urban exodus, triggered by the virus pandemic, social unrest, and remote working has collapsed demand. There’s also a seasonal factor as colder weather blankets the region and makes it less likely that people would want to move. 

      Referring to the developing inventory glut crisis, Gary Malin, chief operating officer of brokerage Corcoran Group, which represents landlords, told Bloomberg, “You can’t hide it anymore… Owners are saying to themselves, ‘I’d rather be honest from the beginning, rather than play a game back and forth, and otherwise lose a tenant.'”

      Malin said the glut gives renters incredible leverage over landlords, with the ability to find “the best possible deal.” 

      “Tenants are filling out four to five applications at the same time and negotiating one offer against the other,” he said. “Owners want to lead with their best foot. If you sit and try to hold on for every last penny, for every last dollar, tenants are just going to go somewhere else.”

      Other properties in New York’s downtown area are offering similar free rent schemes, including Brookfield Properties’ Gehry tower. There’s also Equity Residential, who has deals at some of its luxury buildings, including Prism at Park Avenue South. 

      Ofer Yardeni, Chairman and CEO of Stonehenge NYC, said occupancy before the virus lockdown was about 99%. Shortly after, the figure fell to 85% as some tenants returned home to live with their parents, while others moved to the suburbs. He said remote working was also a significant factor in why people left the city. 

      “I’ve been in the business for over 30 years and I’ve never seen the market this way,” Yardeni said. “It’s almost like a falling knife.”

      We’ve focused on CMBS shorts from malls to hotels; maybe it’s time to start looking at apartment buildings… 

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      The next housing crisis is here, and this time, it’s about rentals. 

    • New Study Suggests Binge Drinking Could Damage Brain And Cause Lasting Anxiety
      New Study Suggests Binge Drinking Could Damage Brain And Cause Lasting Anxiety

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/01/2020 – 23:20

      Authored by John Vibes via TheMindUnleashed.com,

      A recent study suggests that binge drinking alcohol could seriously damage the brain in ways that increase the risk of cognitive-behavioral issues like anxiety.

      The study, which was conducted by researchers at the University of Porto, found that just ten days of binge drinking cause immune cells in the brain to destroy connections between neurons, which leads to anxiety and other mental health issues.

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      It is important to note that these were not human studies, as the test subjects were mice, but these types of experiments typically give significant insight into how different substances affect the brains of humans.

      Study co-author João Relvas, told Inverse that, “[We] don’t have any reason to believe that the same mechanisms will not be operating in the human brain. Even for a short period of time, excessive drinking is likely to affect the brain, increasing the level of anxiety, a relevant feature in alcohol abuse and addiction.”

      “The dangers of alcohol drinking, especially amongst the younger population, have been widely underestimated and excessive alcohol drinking is socially relatively well tolerated. Increasing public awareness and education of the young can, together with other measures, change the way society looks at alcohol intake,” Relvas added.

      In the study, the researchers broke the mice off into two groups. One group was given alcohol over a 10 day time period, while the other group was not. Half of the mice were given 1.5 grams per kilogram of ethyl alcohol each day, which is the equivalent of five drinks for an adult human that weighs 165 pounds.

      After 10 days, the researchers looked at the mice’s brain tissue and found that the mice who consumed alcohol had significant damage to the area of the brain that controls complex cognition and decision making, which resulted in increased anxiety.

      The researchers also determined the process that caused this damage in the brain. They believe that alcohol boosts the production of an inflammatory molecule called TNF.

      In further experiments, they used a drug called pomalidomide to block TNF and found that it prevented anxiety and reduced the impact that the alcohol had on the brain.

      The symptoms are “ultimately driven by increased secretion of TNF by microglia, as we show that reducing its production either pharmacologically or genetically can prevent synapse loss and anxiety,” Relvas says.

      Relvas also said that this drug could potentially be used to treat alcohol addiction.

      “This study suggests that regulating the levels of TNF might eventually be useful when treating alcohol addiction,” he said.

      However, the team does not recommend that anyone use TNF inhibitors while binge drinking, because further studies need to be done to confirm the safety and efficacy of the drugs for the purpose.

      Furthermore, TNF inhibitors would not prevent any of the other damage that alcohol can do to the rest of the body.

      “Alcohol abuse is a leading cause of disease with a massive impact on human life and should be treated as so,” Relvas says.

      His team’s findings were published earlier this month in the journal Science Signaling.

    • Small Firm Bust Accelerates As Bankruptcies Soar In September 
      Small Firm Bust Accelerates As Bankruptcies Soar In September 

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/01/2020 – 23:00

      Policies promoted by the White House and the Federal Reserve to support small firms have been widely insufficient as bankruptcy filings are back to levels not seen since the dark days of the virus pandemic, according to Bloomberg, citing a new report via bankruptcy court data firm Epiq AACER.

      At least 620 companies filed for Chapter 11 protection in the first 25 days of September, a 48% increase over the same period last year. Bankruptcy filings in June and July saw 609 and 644, respectively. 

      Chris Kruse, senior vice president at Epiq, said, “we’re seeing a continued strong flow of Chapter 11 filings in September, consistent with what we saw in June and July,” adding that “they range from businesses with small footprints to high street retailers.”

      Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has admitted the Fed’s lending program for smaller businesses has been challenging. 

       “Trying to underwrite the credit of hundreds of thousands of very small businesses would be very difficult,” Powell said.

      As a result, most of the Fed’s liquidity flowed to mega-corporations while smaller ones were shut out, leaving them widely exposed to bankruptcy as a fiscal cliff, which started on July 31, has ravaged small firms and households for the last two months.

      With Republicans and Democrats still far apart on agreeing on the next round of economic stimulus, downward pressure on small firms and households will continue. The failure to pass the next stimulus bill, in a timely fashion, could result in a double-dip recession. 

      Deirdre O’Connor, managing director of corporate restructuring at Epiq, said, “we will continue to see filings for companies that had been the most disrupted by Covid and are operating in a zero revenue environment.” 

      Data compiled by Bloomberg shows 193 bankruptcy filings year-to-date of companies with more than $50 million in liabilities were recorded for the first nine months of the year. If filings continue to accelerate into fall/winter, then this year could rival the 271 high, recorded in 2009.

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      For more color on small firm health nationwide via high-frequency data, we turn to Opportunity Insights’ Economic Tracker of the percentage change in the number of small businesses open as of Sept. 13, suggesting nothing but disaster for mom and pop shops ahead of the fourth quarter.

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      We noted in early September how seasonal shifts to colder temperatures would make it extremely challenging for restaurants, clubs, and entertainment venues to serve patrons in outdoor spaces.

      With consumers spending less and steering clear of brick and mortar retail stores because of the virus pandemic, the second round of the economic crash could be dead ahead. Stimulus and reopenings of the economy have proven worthless as the small business bust could erupt further in the fall/winter. 

      As a reminder, small firms are the lifeblood of the economy, without them, there can be no “V” shaped recovery. 

    • The Urban Exodus And How Greatness Goes Bankrupt
      The Urban Exodus And How Greatness Goes Bankrupt

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/01/2020 – 22:40

      Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

      The best-case scenario is those who love their “great city” will accept the daunting reality that even greatness can go bankrupt.

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      Two recent essays pin each end of the “urban exodus” spectrum. 

      1. James Altucher’s sensationalized NYC Is Dead Forever, Here’s Why focuses on the technological improvements in bandwidth that enable digital-economy types to work from anywhere, and the destabilizing threat of rising crime. In his telling, both will drive an accelerating urban exodus over the long-term,.

      2. Jerry Seinfeld’s sharp rebuttal, So You Think New York Is ‘Dead’, focuses on the inherent greatness of NYC and other global metropolises based on their unique concentration of wealth, arts, creativity, entertainment, business, diversity, culture, signature neighborhoods, etc.

      The core issue neither writer addresses is the financial viability of high-cost, high-tax urban centers.

      It’s telling that Seinfeld’s residency in Manhattan began in the summer of 1976, shortly after the federal government provided loans to save the city from defaulting on its debts and declaring bankruptcy.

      In other words, Seinfeld arrived at the very start of New York’s fiscal rebuilding, though its social decline would continue for another few years (the 1977 blackout and looting, etc.). Fiscal conservative Ed Koch was elected mayor in 1977 and by 1978, the city had paid off its short-term debt.

      This return to solvency laid the foundation for the eventual revival that attracted capital, talent and hundreds of thousands of new residents, replacing the 1 million+ residents who had moved to the suburbs in the tumultuous 1960s and 70s.

      This urban exodus had led to urban decay which had generated a self-reinforcing feedback: the greater the decline in livability, the more people who moved out, which then reduced commerce and taxes, further exacerbating urban decay, and so on.

      As I explained in How Extremes Become More Extreme, these feedback loops are one way that Extremes Become More Extreme until a tipping point / phase change is reached and livability and solvency both collapse.

      The other dynamic I discuss is the Pareto Distribution, the 80/20 rule which can be distilled to 64/4 (80% of 80% is 64%, 20% of 20% is 4%). Once the vital 4% act, they exert outsized influence on the 64%, far out of proportion to their numbers.

      Thus the expanding criminality of the 4% criminal class can dramatically change perceptions of safety and security of the 64%.

      Telling people who no longer feel safe in the city that crime only went up 10% will not change their minds.

      If 20% of the businesses in a district close for good, the district might retain enough of a concentration of commerce to draw customers.

      But once the number of businesses plummets below a critical threshold, the survival of the remaining enterprises becomes doubtful as the customer base drops below the level needed to sustain the remaining businesses.

      As I have repeatedly stressed, the surviving businesses are burdened by high fixed costs, none of which have declined even as commerce collapsed.

      Again, you cannot persuade people who no longer feel that shopping is safe and fun to get out there and spend, spend, spend like they did a year ago.

      Neither Altucher nor Seinfeld mention the macro-issues of demographics and the broader economy.

      Despite soaring inflation and a roller-coaster stock market, jobs were plentiful in the 1970s, partly because the Baby Boomers were entering the market for goods and services and partly due to low costs for employers.

      As late as the mid-1980s, it only cost me $50/month (one day’s pay for a moderate-wage worker) to provide good healthcare insurance for a single, young worker. Try buying a month of good healthcare insurance today for one day’s moderate-wage pay.

      Not only were rents much cheaper (measured by the number of hours of work needed to pay rent), there were “squats” where the rent was zero, and a variety of cheap “slum” dwelling options. These options have mostly disappeared from the housing inventory, so it now takes enormous sacrifices to live in a “great city”.

      Compare these positive demographics and cost structure then to the present. Not only are jobs no longer plentiful, many of the Millennials who flocked to a “great city” for jobs and the amenities can no longer afford to live there.

      Many found jobs in the dining-out and retail sectors that have been devastated, and they only survived financially by sharing flats with multiple roommates.

      Costs such as healthcare insurance and housing are “sticky:” insurers, landlords, etc. are reluctant to cut prices for fear that cost reductions may become permanent, hurting their profitability.

      These high costs are also endangering all the cultural institutions and commercial life that attracted people to the “great cities.” I doubt that every symphony, opera company, museum, music venue, etc. will survive the downturn, due to their incredibly high fixed costs of operation.

      As I’ve noted before, the patrons who are financially able to support these costly institutions are older and wealthier, and have the most to lose if they feel their basic security is no longer assured. They’re the first to join the exodus to safer, less risky homes elsewhere. Yes, they’ll miss all the amenities, but not enough to make them stay.

      I’ve also stressed the absolute necessity for any entity to be financially viable. If the entity isn’t viable in terms of income covering all expenses, it dissolves regardless of its greatness.

      Seinfeld is on solid ground arguing that great cities will never go away, as their benefits are simply too compelling. On the other hand, goats were grazing in Rome’s Forum, a few decades after the Western Empire collapsed.

      What collapsed wasn’t just Imperial authority; the city could no longer afford all the free bread and circuses which fed and amused much of its vast populace, not could it defend / maintain the long trade routes that fueled commerce or the political structure that secured the wealth of its nobility.

      Cities are not cheap to operate, and they must continually attract workers and capital / wealth which can both be taxed at a high rate. They also need a high volume of commerce that can be taxed.

      Most employers are facing a profound reset that will very likely require permanent cost-cutting to maintain profits, and remote work is very cost-effective, as commuting and office space are both unnecessary expenses that can be eliminated.

      In terms of financial viability, much of the activity that generated taxes for “great cities” is gone for good: downtown concentrations of tens of thousands of workers that supported hundreds of small businesses, commercial landlords paying high property taxes, and so on.

      The question nobody seems to be asking is: are cities no longer financially viable, given the enormous cost of living, the high taxes needed to run the city, and the strong economic and demographic headwinds?

      What kind of city is possible if half the small businesses close and tax revenues fall by 50%? What effect will those massive changes have on the livability of the city and its most compelling attractions? How will the city provide services on half the revenues?

      The worst-case scenario is only those who can’t afford to leave will be left. Unless great sacrifices are made by those remaining, that’s not a recipe for financial viability, it’s a recipe for goats grazing in the Forum.

      The best-case scenario is those who love their “great city” will accept the daunting reality that even greatness can go bankrupt, and that the city will have to adapt in new and wrenching ways to remain financially viable as tax revenues decline and some percentage of the wealthiest taxpaying residents have left or will leave.

      It’s not just the urban exodus that’s the challenge–it’s who’s in each successive wave of the exodus. If the wealthy, the entrepreneurs and the displaced small business owners leave in the first wave, the adaptation will have to be rapid and profound, as the modest, incremental reforms that typify the past 75 years will not be enough to be consequential.

      *  *  *

      My recent books:

      A Hacker’s Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $8.95, print $20, audiobook coming soon) 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).

      *  *  *

      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.

    • Payrolls Preview: The Last Report Before The Election
      Payrolls Preview: The Last Report Before The Election

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/01/2020 – 22:25

      While few expect major surprises from tomorrow’s payrolls report, the fact that it will be the last jobs report before the Nov 3 election makes it especially important if only from a political standpoint: a blowout number will be hyped aggressively by Trump; the opposite will fall right into Biden’s hands as evidence the economy is cooling rapidly.

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      That said, the odds may be in Trump’s favor because as Goldman writes in its payrolls preview, high-frequency labor market information “indicates strong September job gains, and the second derivative improvement in the public-health situation suggests scope for a pickup in Sun Belt job growth.” On the negative side, there has been a spike in recent mass layoff announcements, while the start of the school year will lower education payrolls by 200-300k, as many janitors and support staff did not return to work. Goldman also expects a roughly 50k drag to government payrolls from the wind-down of the 2020 Census.

      That said, here are the consensus expectations ahead of tomorrow’s number which will be released at 830am:

      • Nonfarm Payrolls exp. 850k (range -100k to +1.800mln, prev. +1.371mln);
      • Unemployment rate exp. 8.2% (range: 7.6-8.6%, prev. 8.4%);
      • U6 unemployment (prev. 14.2%);
      • Participation (prev. 61.7%);
      • Private payrolls exp. 850k (prev. 1.027mln);
      • Manufacturing payrolls exp. 35k (prev. 29k);
      • Government payrolls (prev. 344k);
      • Average earnings m/m exp. +0.2% (prev. +0.4%);
      • Average earnings y/y exp. +4.8% (prev. +4.7%);
      • Average workweek hours exp. 34.6hrs (prev. 34.6hrs).

      Here are some big picture observations ahead of tomorrow’s payrolls courtesy of NewsSquawk:

      • The rate of Initial Jobless Claims rose in the September survey week against expectations it would fall, while Continuing Claims fell less than hoped.
      • ADP’s payrolls gauge was more encouraging, rising more than expected, although it remains to be seen if it will correlate to the BLS following recent divergences.
      • The Manufacturing ISM came in slightly cooler than expected as the pace of the rebound begins to plateau, which was somewhat at odds with the strong regional prints; the employment sub-component rose but it still remains beneath the 50 mark.
      • Challenger Job Cuts were little changed from the August print, although have come down considerately since the record print in April.
      • There has been a slew of large job cuts announced this week but those will most likely be a matter for October’s report, somewhat balanced out by the pick-up in seasonal hiring.

      And some more in-depth observations:

      INITIAL JOBLESS CLAIMS: Weekly Initial Jobless Claims rose to 870k from the upwardly revised 866k level in the September employment survey reference week, against expectations for a decline to 850k. Continuing Claims fell to 12.580mln from the  pwardly revised 12.747mln. Pantheon Macroeconomics notes that the Initial Claims print has been flat lining now over the past four weeks following a one-time drop of 127k in the final week of August due to a change in the seasonal adjustment methodology, “Using the old seasonals, it looks as though the trend in claims has been unchanged since mid-August.” The consultancy affirms the labour market plateau against the daily small business employment data produced by Homebase, “pointing to flat payrolls in the sector in August and, more recently, a small outright decline.” The consumer-heavy US economy will struggle to continue recovering amid the roll-off of enhanced unemployment benefits, to which Pantheon doesn’t see the implementation of a “meaningful” relief bill until February given the divide in Congress; a pick-up of COVID cases only serves to cut output further. The consultancy warns, “Next week’s September payroll data likely will report a modest seasonally adjusted increase in private jobs, perhaps 500K or so, half the August gain, and October could easily see private payrolls fall.”

      ADP: The September ADP report was encouraging as it continued to rise, the headline for private sector employment growth came in at 749k, topping the 650k estimate; the previous was also revised higher to 481k from 428k. The report bodes well for Friday’s BLS report. Although the relationship between the BLS and ADP release has been questionable in recent months, Pantheon highlights that ADP has substantially understated the official figures since the pandemic hit, but the error is much smaller since spring. “We can’t be sure it will narrow again in September, but that seems to be a reasonable assumption”, Pantheon posits. The consultancy looks for 950k in Friday’s September jobs report, adding the homebase employment data points to significantly weaker payrolls in October, and perhaps even the first decline since April.

      MANUFACTURING SECTOR: The September ISM fell to 55.4 from 56.0, below the expected rise to 56.4. When comparing to the strong regional Fed surveys, the decline came in as somewhat of a surprise. Weighing the most was the fall in New Orders, which fell from the bumper 67.6 figure to 60.2, still a firm reading. The production component also fell to 61.0 from 63.3. Dampening the fall was the pick-up in the lagging indicators: Delivery Times, Inventories and Employment. The latter rose to 49.6 from 46.4, potentially boding well for the NFP print, although, noticeable, that figure still has not reclaimed the 50 figure. It’s also worth noting that we do not yet have the ISM Services survey to gauge the respective employment component; that is somewhat  unhelpful given the US economy is predominantly services-led.

      JOB CUTS: Challenger reported 118,804 job cuts in September, which was little changed from August’s 115,762, but was up 185.9% vs September 2019. However, the figure has come down significantly from April’s record 671,129, and note that prior to COVID, the highest reading was 186,350 in February 2009, although this month’s reading still sits heavily above the c. 50k average reading seen in “normal times” during the last decade. Challenger says, “We are setting new records for job cuts even though things have improved since the earliest days of the pandemic.” The report showed the heavily hit sectors such as entertainment and leisure continuing to lead in announced cuts, although there were several sectors outside those industries with large cuts such as Aerospace & Defense, as well as transportation, “We are beginning to see cuts spread to sectors outside Entertainment and Retail. Especially if another relief package fails to pass, employers are going to enter the fourth quarter hesitant to invest or spend.” The silver lining to the release was the pick up in hiring intentions to 929,860, compared to August’s 160,411, however, do note that at least a third of that is related to seasonal hiring and that hiring is heavily skewed to retailers with a strong online presence, with traditional brick and mortar retailers remaining under immense pressure

      Finally, some qualitative considerations from Goldman: factors arguing for a better than expected report:

      Arguing for a better-than-expected report:

      • Big Data. High frequency data on the labor market were generally strong in September (see Exhibit 1), with five of the six measures we track indicating significant job gains and four of the six consistent with a beat tomorrow of 500k or more. Additionally, the restarted Census Household Pulse survey is consistent with a 16mn decline in the level of unemployment from mid-May to mid-September (vs. -7.4mn in the official measure from mid-May to mid-August).
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      • Jobless claims. While still elevated, initial jobless claims declined significantly during the September payroll month (averaging 0.9mn per week vs. 1.2mn in August). Additionally, continuing claims declined by 1.9mn from survey week to survey week (after adjusting for biweekly filing schedules in Florida and California).
      • Employer surveys. Business activity surveys improved on net in September, as did the employment components of our survey trackers (non-manufacturing +2.8pt to 49.1; manufacturing +2.4pt to 53.8).
      • Job availability. The Conference Board labor differential—the difference between the percent of respondents saying jobs are plentiful and those saying jobs are hard to get—rose into expansionary territory (+2.9 in September from -2.2 in August and +2.2 in July).
      • ADP. Private sector employment in the ADP report rose by 749k in September, somewhat above consensus. We viewed the ADP report as incrementally positive news but broadly similar to expectations.
      • Census hiring. Census temporary workers are set to boost nonfarm job growth by 255k in August, as additional field staff were hired to conduct interviews.
      • Employer surveys. Business activity surveys improved on net in August, as did the employment components of our survey trackers (non-manufacturing +3.0pt to 46.3; manufacturing +2.6pt to 51.4).
      • Job cuts. Announced layoffs reported by Challenger, Gray & Christmas fell 65% in August to 116k after rising 68% in July and falling 43% in June (mom, sa by GS). They remain 114% above their August 2019 levels.

      Arguing for a weaker-than-expected report:

      • Education seasonality. We expect a seasonal drag in education categories related to the coronacrisis to lower September job growth by roughly 200-300k (public + private). Some of the janitors and other school staff who normally return to work in September did not this year due to virtual reopenings in much of the country. Reflecting this, we expect education payrolls to rise by less than the BLS seasonal factors anticipate, resulting in a sizeable drop in reported job growth in the sector. At the same time, the level of education employment is already considerably below its typical summer bottom (11.9mn vs. roughly 12.5mn in a normal year), which we expect to limit the drag to only a few hundred thousand. The inability to obtain childcare is also likely to weigh on job creation at the margin, though its effect may already be mostly reflected in the August payroll levels (given the cancellation of some in-person summer camps and an earlier reduction in childcare provider availability).
      • September seasonality. We also note that payrolls have exhibited a tendency toward weak September first prints, with a miss versus consensus in 8 of the last 10 years. However, the magnitude of the potential bias is small (between -30k and -50k) relative to the underlying inflections in the data this year.
      • Census hiring. Census temporary workers are set to lower nonfarm job growth by around 50k in September, as training and field operations began to wind down.
      • Job cuts. Announced layoffs reported by Challenger, Gray & Christmas rose 5.6% in September to 127k after falling 61% in August and rising 56% in July (mom, sa by GS). They remain 191% above their September 2019 levels.

      Neutral/mixed factors:

      • Second wave. The US experienced a dramatic resurgence of coronavirus during the second half of June—particularly in the Sun Belt states—and by the July Fourth holiday, nearly two-thirds of the country had paused or reversed their reopening plans. However, job growth remained firm in July and August despite a pause in the Sun Belt leisure and hospitality recovery (see Exhibit 2). With restrictions generally stable or easing over the last month, we note scope for a pickup in job growth in some segments. Illustratively, a 50% reversal of the late-summer leisure deceleration in the Sun Belt would boost monthly job growth by 320k. On the other hand, weaker demand for back-to-school apparel may have limited hiring in the retail sector (relative to a normal September).

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      And speaking of Goldman, this is what the vampire squid expects tomorrow:

      • 1.1mn nonfarm payrolls rose, above consensus of +0.875mn; private payrolls up 1.2mn vs consensus is +0.9mn.
      • Unemployment rate declined by three tenths to 8.1%, vs 8.2% consensus, a forecast reflecting another strong rise in household employment partially offset by higher labor force participation.
      • Average hourly earnings rose 0.1% month-over-month, boosting the year-on-year rate by a tenth to 4.8%

      Source: NewsSquawk, Goldman Sachs

    • Will The 2020 Election Be The Beginning Of The End For Our System Of Government?
      Will The 2020 Election Be The Beginning Of The End For Our System Of Government?

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/01/2020 – 22:00

      Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

      Most Americans assume that our system of government could never fail, but the truth is that it is failing right in front of our eyes.

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      In order for our system of government to work, people need to be able to believe that their votes will count and that the outcomes of our elections will be fair.  For over 200 years, most Americans did have faith in the system, but now things are rapidly changing.  Here in 2020, we appear to be heading for a hotly contested result in the presidential election, and many on the losing side are inevitably going to believe that the election was stolen from them. 

      And day after day we just continue to see more examples that indicate the security of our elections is being compromised on a widespread basis.  Not too long ago, I wrote about the military ballots for Trump that had been discarded in a dumpster in Pennsylvania and the ballots that were discovered in a ditch in Wisconsin. 

      And now today I came across a report about how memory sticks that are “used to program Philadelphia’s voting machines” were stolen from a warehouse…

      A laptop and several memory sticks used to program Philadelphia’s voting machines were stolen from a city warehouse in East Falls, officials confirmed Wednesday, setting off a scramble to investigate and to ensure the machines had not been compromised.

      Though it remains unclear when the equipment was stolen, sources briefed on the investigation said the items vanished this week. The laptop belonged to an on-site employee for the company that supplies the machines. It and the USB drives were the only items believed to have been taken.

      We will want to watch the results coming out of Philadelphia very carefully, because the winner of Pennsylvania is probably going to win the presidency.

      In 2012, 100 percent of the vote went to Barack Obama in precinct after precinct in Philly, and it will be very interesting to see if a similar pattern emerges during this election.

      Elsewhere, James O’Keefe has just exposed an absolutely shocking “cash-for-ballots harvesting scheme” in Minnesota.  Apparently people were being paid lots of money to collect absentee ballots from elderly individuals and fill them out for preferred Democratic candidates.  The following comes from a Newsweek report…

      “Just today we got 300 for Jamal Osman,” Mohamed says in the video. “I have 300 ballots in my car right now.”

      “Numbers don’t lie. You can see my car is full. All these here are absentee ballots. Look, all these are for Jamal Osman.”

      Mohamed can be seen showing white envelopes on his car’s dashboard in a video from July 1. Later in the Project Veritas video Mohamed says, “Money is the king in this world… and a campaign is driven by money.”

      How can an election be legitimate when there is this sort of vote buying going on?

      And now with tens of millions of ballots going through the mail in 2020, it is going to be easier to “harvest” ballots than ever before.

      I just have such a bad feeling about what is going to happen in November.

      For weeks, the mainstream media has been trying to convince us that President Trump will probably have a lead on election night but that Joe Biden will win once all of the mail-in ballots are finally counted.

      Of course it could take a really long time for all of those ballots to be counted, and meanwhile all sorts of monkey business could be happening in the background that we don’t know anything about.

      In the end, one side is going to end up bitterly disappointed and will feel like the election has been stolen.  If Trump wins many Biden supporters will believe it was because all of the votes were not fairly counted, and if Biden wins many Trump supporters will believe that there was widespread fraud involving mail-in ballots.

      We could very easily end up with a scenario where both candidates are declaring victory, and that could set up a very ugly constitutional crisis. 

      In one of his recent articles, James Howard Kunstler detailed one way that this could all play out…

      • The complicit newspapers and cable news channels publish polls showing Joe Biden leading in several swing states, even if it’s not true.

      • Facebook and Twitter amplify expectations of a Biden victory.

      • This sets the stage for a furor when it turns out that he loses on election night.

      • On cue, Antifa commences to riot all around the country. Meanwhile, a mighty harvest of mail-in votes pours into election districts utterly unequipped to validate them.

      • Lawfare cadres agitate in the contested states’ legislatures to send rogue elector slates to the electoral college. The dispute ends up in congress, which awaits a seating of newly-elected representatives on January 4, hopefully for Lawfare, mostly Democrats. Whoops…!

      • Turns out, the Dems lost their majority there too. Fighting in the streets ramps up and overwhelms hamstrung police forces in Democratic-run cities.

      • January 20 — Inauguration Day — rolls around, and the Dems ask the military to drag Trump out of the White House “with great dispatch!” as Mr. Biden himself put it so nicely back in the summer.

      I do believe that Trump will have a lead on election night.

      In fact, it could be a very big lead.

      Trump has been trashing voting by mail for months, and this is going to encourage most of his supporters to vote in person.  In fact, during the first presidential debate Trump once again talked about potential problems with mail-in votes…

      In the final segment of the contentious debate between Trump and Democrat Joe Biden, Trump launched into an extended argument against mail voting, claiming without evidence that it is ripe for fraud and suggesting mail ballots may be “manipulated.”

      “This is going to be a fraud like you’ve never seen,” the president said of the massive shift to mail voting prompted by the coronavirus pandemic.

      And the Republican National Committee has also been making disparaging statements about voting by mail…

      ‘We always expected to be behind at this point as Democrats have made it their mission to push for an all-mail election that brings fraud and chaos into the system,’ said Republican National Committee spokesman Mike Reed. ‘You’ll see Democrats predominantly vote by mail, and our voters will come out in droves to vote in person, especially on Election Day.’

      Those that follow my work on a regular basis already know how I feel about voting by mail.  I believe that Americans should be required to vote in person whenever possible, because voting by mail just opens up so many opportunities for things to go wrong.

      And many on the left are starting to realize this too.  For example, the following comes from a recent article by Derek Thompson…

      Mail votes require several steps, and different steps in different locations, including postmarking the ballots, signing in various places, and using the proper number of envelopes. For that reason, it can confuse first-time voters, and even experienced voters used to queuing at local high schools. Two studies of the 2018 midterm elections in Florida and Georgia found that young and minority voters are especially likely to have their mail ballots rejected.

      For most of 2020, Democrats have been relentlessly promoting voting by mail, but now they are beginning to understand that could result in hundreds of thousands of their votes being thrown out.  In fact, it is being reported that more than half a million votes were “disqualified” during the 2020 primaries…

      In the 2020 primaries, more than 550,000 mail and absentee ballots were disqualified, a much higher number than four years ago. The problem is especially severe in some swing states. More than 23,000 mailed ballots were rejected in the presidential primaries in Wisconsin—more than Donald Trump’s margin of victory in that state in 2016. Deep-blue districts have had the same problem: New York City alone threw out more than 84,000 ballots this primary season.

      In the end, Democrats could be sabotaging their own efforts by pushing mail-in voting so much.  If Democrats vote by mail in much higher numbers than Republicans, they will also likely have their votes disqualified in much higher numbers too.

      Right now, Democrats are requesting mail ballots at a much higher rate than Republicans are in quite a few key swing states…

      Of the more than 9 million voters who requested mail ballots as of Monday in five critical states where the data is available – Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Maine and Iowa – 52 percent were Democrats, 28 percent were Republicans, and 20 percent were unaffiliated.

      Additional internal Democratic and Republican Party data obtained by The Washington Post shows a similar trend in Ohio, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Wisconsin, the paper reported.

      Many Republican operatives are deeply concerned about these numbers, but perhaps they shouldn’t be.

      If Republicans show up in person at the polls in tremendous numbers, that could give Trump an enormous lead on election night.

      Of course Joe Biden will definitely not concede no matter how large the lead looks, and that will set the stage for weeks of legal wrangling over the counting of votes in multiple states.

      Ultimately, we will probably have to wait a long time to see if the Democrats can come up with enough “mail-in ballots” to overcome Trump’s lead.

      But this process is not going to be good for our nation no matter who ends up winning.

      In fact, it is likely that millions of Americans will be so turned off by what happens that they will lose faith in the system permanently.

      And once faith in our system is gone, it will be nearly impossible to get back.

    • Trump Executive Order Seeks To Combat China's Rare-Earth Minerals Dominance
      Trump Executive Order Seeks To Combat China’s Rare-Earth Minerals Dominance

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/01/2020 – 21:40

      On Wednesday President Trump signed an executive order which declared a “national emergency” in the US mining industry, highlighting America’s dangerous overdependence on China for what’s known as rare-earth minerals.

      China has been widely acknowledged as dominant in the rare-earth minerals market for decades, which includes a group of obscure minerals (typically 17 identified as such) often used in manufacturing anything from advanced electronics like flat screens to even weapons. For example, one of the most sought after – samarium cobalt – is used in precision guided missiles and fighter jets, and advanced communications systems.

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      Via Shutterstock

      The order says that  “our Nation’s undue reliance on critical minerals, in processed or unprocessed form, from foreign adversaries constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in substantial part outside the United States, to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States. I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.”

      China began cementing its global dominance in the 1980s after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency moved to severely restrict rare-earth mineral mining related to environmental concerns.

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      They are deemed “rare” precisely because there are no known alternatives to them, and given they’ve been key in developing specific technologies preponderant among industrialized populations.

      The order’s text specifically charges that Beijing has intentionally exploited its position in the market, especially regarding 35 minerals that are “essential to the economic and national security of the United States”:

      Our dependence on one country, the People’s Republic of China (China), for multiple critical minerals is particularly concerning. The United States now imports 80 percent of its rare earth elements directly from China, with portions of the remainder indirectly sourced from China through other countries. In the 1980s, the United States produced more of these elements than any other country in the world, but China used aggressive economic practices to strategically flood the global market for rare earth elements and displace its competitors. 

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      Rare-earth minerals file image

      As Reuters underscores, “While the United States used to be the leading producer of the minerals, China has used its heft in the industry to its advantage in the trade dispute between the two world leaders.”

      No doubt this remains a crucial US vulnerability weakening Washington leverage amid Trump’s ongoing trade dispute, as well as select sanctions on the mainland related to the Hong Kong issue and other geopolitical pressure spots.

      Just after Trump’s signing the order, Ellen Lord, the top acquisition official at the Pentagon, told a Senate hearing “We are on a trajectory to increase our national defense stockpile relative to rare earth minerals. The silver lining of COVID has been that I think most Americans now understand the importance of having domestic supplies.” 

      “We could certainly, especially under the auspices of the [executive order] that just came out yesterday, work with the interagency, because there is already a lot of work going on to look at expanding the national defense stockpile to include more rare earths,” she said in her Thursday remarks.

    • Debt, Zombies, And Geopolitics: China's Belt-And-Road Initiative During COVID
      Debt, Zombies, And Geopolitics: China’s Belt-And-Road Initiative During COVID

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/01/2020 – 21:20

      Authored by Jon (Yuan) Jiang via The Jamestown Foundation,

      Introduction

      The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been a focal issue for understanding the foreign policy of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Some observers view the BRI as representing a new phase of economic globalization and regional economic integration. Others argue that the BRI’s primary motivating factors are domestic and that the massive program is chiefly aimed at creating new markets, maintaining economic stability, resolving regional development imbalances, and transferring industrial overcapacity. Both views have their valid points, but overlook the BRI’s key role in supporting China’s domestic economic reforms. This article argues that the BRI should be understood as a major component of China’s program of “supply-side structural reform” (gongjice jiegouxing gaige).

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      The “Authoritative Person” and Supply-Side Structural Reform

      The BRI was first announced in 2013 and officially incorporated into the PRC constitution in 2017 (Xinhua, October 24, 2017). The concept of “supply-side structural reform” (SSSR) was reportedly introduced by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping in late 2015 and developed into a significant component of Beijing’s economic policy framework (Xinhua, April 3, 2018). In a speech to the 19th Party Congress, Xi stated that “We should pursue supply-side structural reform as our main task, and work hard for better quality, higher efficiency, and more robust drivers of economic growth through reform” (China Daily, December 18, 2019).

      Throughout 2015 and 2016, the People’s Daily, the CCP’s most authoritative newspaper, published a series of interviews with an anonymous “authoritative person” (quanwei renshi) that discussed the concept of SSSR (People’s Daily, May 25, 2015; January 4, 2016; May 9, 2016). It has been widely understood that the information presented in this series of interviews came either from the offices of Liu He (??), director of the General Office of the Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission (Zhongyang Caijing Weiyuanhui Bangongshi), or else from Liu himself. Liu is one of the PRC’s chief economic architects and has been described by party media as “one of the masterminds behind China’s supply-side structural reforms“ (People‘s Daily, March 20, 2018).

      In the interviews, the “authoritative person” concluded that a return to China’s former debt-stimulated growth rate of ten-plus percent a year would be impossible, and instead stressed the sustainable and qualitative development of the Chinese economy. To this end, the main tasks of the SSSR are to improve the quality and efficiency of supply; promote structural adjustments; correct the allocation distortion of factors of production; enhance the adaptability and flexibility of the supply structure to changes in demand; and advance total factor productivity (People’s Daily, January 4, 2016). More concretely, SSSR encompasses five core policy objectives:

      1) cutting excess industrial capacity;

      2) reducing leverage in the corporate sector;

      3) reducing property inventories;

      4) lowering costs for businesses, and

      5) addressing “weak links” in the economy (a euphemism for poverty reduction).

      China’s BRI is well-positioned to address the first and fourth goals of SSSR. Hu Huaibang, former Chairman of the China Development Bank, has argued that the BRI can offset the problem of increasing labor costs through the structural transformation of China’s economy (People’s Daily, July 16, 2018). In this way, the BRI alleviates industrial overcapacity by transferring low-end manufacturing industries to less developed countries with lower labor costs.

      SSSR and China’s Persistent Problem of Corporate Debt

      The most crucial objective of SSSR is reducing leverage in the corporate sector. At the 2017 National Financial Work Conference, Xi stated that “financial stability is the basis of national stability, and deleveraging state-owned enterprises is the top of the top priorities. ” Xi called on local officials to control debt and maintain social security, while declaring local government debt to be one of the greatest threats to China’s financial security (Xinhua, July 15, 2017). At the end of 2019, the global financial rating companies Moody’s Analytics and Fitch Ratings, Inc. both raised warnings about rising defaults in Chinese debt. Moody’s chief economist warned that Chinese corporate debt represented the “biggest threat” to the global economy (Business Times (China), December 18, 2019).

      Presciently, the “authoritative person” had warned two years earlier that the leverage issue, rather than unemployment, could cause disasters for China:

      The total labor force in China is decreasing year by year…Even if the economy is experiencing a significant downturn, social employment can remain generally stable… However, the issue of leverage is different… High leverage will inevitably bring high risks. Poor control over leverage will lead to a systemic financial crisis [and] negative economic growth, even causing ordinary people to lose their savings. This will be disastrous. (People’s Daily, May 9, 2016).

      Ma Guonan, a fellow at the Mercator Institute for China Studies, has found that China has had the fastest-growing ratio of corporate debt to GDP of any country in the world, rising by 65 percent following the 2008 global financial crisis. Ma’s calculations found that China’s total corporate, government, and household debt had doubled in ten years to a high of roughly 242 percent of total GDP, making China “the most indebted emerging economy” (MERICS, August 22, 2019).

      A 2019 OECD working paper found that China’s corporate debt was concerningly high, with state-owned enterprises (SOEs) accounting for over three-quarters of that debt in 2017 (OECD, February 7, 2019). A 2016 article in People’s Daily by Liu Yuanchun , Vice President of Renmin University, argued that SSSR should center on SOE reforms. Liu’s article was designated “essential reading” (renmin yaolun), again hinting at strong official support for controlling the risk of overleveraged SOEs (People’s Daily, February 25, 2016).

      The Belt and Road Initiative’s Role in Supply-Side Structural Reform

      Because of the BRI’s close association with the Chinese government, the program has mostly benefited SOEs, which have both the funding and connections to successfully lobby for contracts (Daily Economic News (China), September 20, 2018). In 2018, People’s Daily reported that central government-run SOEs had undertaken 3,116 BRI projects, with data from the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (Guowuyuan Guoyou Zichan Jiandu Guanli Weiyuanhui) (SASAC) showing that central SOEs were contracted on half of all current and planned future infrastructure projects related to the BRI (China Daily, November 12, 2018).

      PRC officials are looking to the BRI to help SOEs address the overcapacity problem, open up external markets, and offset rising domestic labor costs. BRI participation can also help SOEs carry out the SSSR-mandated goal of controlling corporate debt. As stated by Hong Shen of Carnegie Mellon University,  “Many BRI projects are directly funded by Beijing-backed financial institutions that often explicitly or implicitly require receiving countries to outsource projects to Chinese companies.”  Such project demands create a captive market for SOEs, providing an opportunity to pay down their over-leveraged debt.

      Despite its benefits, the external risks associated with the BRI may still be too much to bear for Chinese SOEs. In the last year, Beijing has invested less in the BRI, and the dream of creating a win-win network of “enhanced economic interconnectivity” has had limited effect in mitigating economic crises such as the U.S.-China trade war or the global pandemic (China Brief, September 26, 2019; November 1, 2019; March 16). In the wake of new foreign hostilities, and a slowing global economy exacerbated by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the CCP leadership has ramped up efforts to reduce China’s reliance on overseas markets and technology to drive economic growth. This drive has culminated in Xi Jinping’s recent push for a new “dual circulation” (shuangxunhuan) economic model (China Brief, August 14, 2020; Asia Times, August 24; Xinhua, September 2).

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      Image: Front page of the May 9, 2016 issue of People’s Daily, featuring an article by an unnamed “authoritative person” on China’s economic reforms. (Image source: Sina.com)

      In giving Chinese SOEs unprecedented access to overseas contracts, the BRI seemed well-positioned to aid debt reduction and job creation, two key issues for ensuring China’s economic survivability. But the BRI may have also revealed a grim truth: that China’s SOEs have difficulty competing in both domestic and overseas markets, even with the assistance of the Chinese government and the BRI. China’s SOEs are popularly called “zombie enterprises” because they rely on government subsidies or bank loans to stay alive (China Brief, March 16), a fact noted by the “authoritative person.” As a result, one of the most urgent tasks of the Chinese government is to deal with these “zombies” in order to reduce excessive production capacity, and free up valuable physical resources, credit resources, and market space (People’s Daily, January 4, 2016).

      From 2016 to 2019, the state-owned steel giants Dongbei Special Steel, Chongqing Iron & Steel, Henan Commerce & Trade, and Bohai Steel were either liquidated or went bankrupt. In 2019, Beijing issued a reform plan to speed up the improvement of the SOE exit system, promoting the bankruptcy and restructuring of state-owned zombies (Guancha, July 16, 2019). These concrete measures have had tangible results: SOE debt growth has declined since 2017 (OECD, February 7, 2019). A recent article by Guo Shuqing, Secretary of the Party Committee of the People’s Bank of China and Chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, also confirmed that the corporate sector’s leverage ratio has stabilized and declined (Qiushi, August 16).

      Conclusion: SSSR and the BRI after COVID-19

      The Rhodium Group has projected that Beijing can retain the high gear lending of the BRI because policy banks are able to maintain the loan pace of 2015-2019 (Rhodium Group, April 15). BRI loans form a minor part of the Chinese overall lending portfolio, and China Development Bank and China Export-Import Bank have ample political support to cover the cost. But Beijing is unlikely to enlarge its loans to BRI-participating countries in the short term. Due to the pandemic, some states may not be able to make their repayments on time, and the BRI may face financial losses. A June report by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted that COVID-19 had “seriously affected” nearly a fifth of projects along the BRI (SCMP, June 28). Beijing may either opt to reduce debt obligations or seek to postpone payments and extend terms, as sovereign lenders often do in response to a financial crisis. Renegotiating the terms of BRI-related debt will bring its own political and economic risks, and could raise the specter of debt-trap diplomacy, hurting China’s international prestige. Postponing payments would also increase the financial sector’s total debt, undermining the principles of SSSR.

      Fortunately, after several years of implementation, the ambiguously defined and constantly evolving BRI has shown its versatility and adaptability. In the aftermath of COVID-19, the PRC has promoted once-overlooked concepts such as the Digital Silk Road and the Health Silk Road to spur global economic recovery, as well as emphasizing “green” aspects of the BRI that parallel China’s leading role in international climate change dialogues (IIGF (Beijing), May 30). China’s leadership is also reframing the BRI to align with high-level policies to deleverage and carry out SSSR. In a speech at the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in 2019, President Xi Jinping said “we welcome the participation of multilateral and national financial institutions in BRI investment and financing and encourage third-market cooperation” (PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs, April 26, 2019).

      Recent testimony to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) has also underscored Xi’s claim that future funding for the BRI will no longer prioritize SOEs, instead opening up the playing field to private actors and foreign companies. (China-U.S. Focus, July 30). State media organs and leading economists have effectively disavowed China’s bloated “zombie” SOEs, leaving room for developments towards a multi-tiered, market-oriented financing system that will better support China’s domestic prioritization of SSSR.

    • Is 'Big Tech' Trying To Bribe Biden To Drop Trump's Anti-Trust Push?
      Is ‘Big Tech’ Trying To Bribe Biden To Drop Trump’s Anti-Trust Push?

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/01/2020 – 21:00

      Reuters has partnered with Open Secrets to explore an often-overlooked issue in American politics. While Democrats like Joe Biden have talked the talk when it comes to holding Big Tech accountable, many senior members of Biden’s circle have close ties to America’s largest tech giants, particularly Amazon, which has come to symbolize Silicon Valley’s corporate greed by paying no federal taxes, while its founder and CEO Jeff Bezos hardly paying any taxes, either.

      Anybody who believes that Joe Biden, if elected, would simply pick up where President Trump’s DoJ and FTC have left off when it comes to the anti-trust pressure facing Big Tech – pressure that could eventually lead to the breakup of Facebook and company – is probably ignoring these deep ties, which stretch all the way back to President Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign.

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      Starting with the most obvious: Amazon spokesman Jay Carney is a former press secretary for the Obama Administration. Amazon General Counsel David Zapolsky is a top Democratic bundler. The Biden transition team and various issue-based working groups have drawn heavily from Silicon Valley.

      Tech’s ties to Biden run deep.

      Amazon’s Carney worked in former President Barack Obama’s administration as press secretary for a little over three years. He was Vice President Biden’s communications director for the first two years of the Obama administration.

      Amazon General Counsel David Zapolsky is a top fundraiser for Biden, also known as a bundler who as individuals have raised more than $25,000. Bundlers are sometimes rewarded with plum positions in their beneficiary’s administration, such as key jobs in federal agencies and influential advisory commissions. Zapolsky has also directly contributed a little over $250,000 to different funds supporting Biden’s presidency, according to campaign finance records. Zapolsky did not comment.

      Meanwhile the Biden campaign’s transition team and working groups have added at least eight people who worked for Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple and others with ties to these companies.

      But it’s not just personnel: Silicon Valley firms are among the biggest donors to the Biden campaign, according to data gleaned from Open Secrets, a nonprofit that seeks to organize campaign finance data. The data show that while Amazon has taken an early lead, Alphabet and Microsoft are also among the largest corporate donors to the Biden campaign. Since companies can’t make these donations directly, these figures factor in money from company-affiliated PACs, as well as employees’ personal donations.

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      GOP Sen. Josh Hawley, a vocal critic of China and Big Tech, told Reuters that progressives hoping for Biden to hold people like Zuckerberg “accountable” are being naive. The ties between Team Biden and the top levels of Amazon, Facebook and Alphabet are simply too strong.

      Republican Senator Josh Hawley, a close ally of Trump and a vocal critic of large tech companies, said the progressives may get a “rhetorical nod in their direction now and then,” but the Biden campaign’s fundraising shows the progressives will struggle. “For Amazon in particular to be featured at a political convention is really, really worrisome,” Hawley told Reuters. “It’s taking their lobbying to a whole new level.”

      On the other hand, one source whom Reuters billed as a senior “advisor” to Biden on tech policy – a designation which of course means he has no official role inside the campaign – argued that the public outrage at Big Tech would force Biden’s hand.

      Donations from senior Amazon executives to the Biden campaign during the primaries were second only to Microsoft, according to data from the Revolving Door Project, which is part of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

      “I think all the fundraising we are seeing is probably going to buy them (Amazon) access, but in terms of policy results, I think it’s going to buy them very little,” said an advisor on tech policy to the Biden campaign, who did not wish to be named. “There is a lot of collective outrage against tech in Washington these days, and they simply cannot fly under the radar.”

      Still, progressives are clearly worried, as one aide to a “progressive” Senate Democrat added that opponents of Big Tech will need to focus on key administration appointments.

      A senior policy counsel for a progressive Senate Democrat, who did not wish to be named, said Big Tech’s closeness with the Biden campaign is worrying. The battle for the left wing of the Democratic party on this issue will be on whether they can get crucial appointments in the administration and less about moving Biden toward progressive options, the aide added.

      Finally, Sally Hubbard, identified by her affiliation with the Washington-based Open Markets Institute, which is working to combat Big Tech’s monopoly power, warned that all this money has probably bought Amazon and the rest of them plenty of inroads with the Biden people. That means a potential President Biden probably would treat Big Tech with kid gloves.

      Sally Hubbard, who has worked with Democratic lawmakers in the past and currently focuses on monopoly power of tech companies at Washington-based Open Markets Institute, does not want a Biden victory to translate into a repeat of what was widely viewed as President Barack Obama’s hands off approach to tech.

      “Are we going to see the same thing with a Biden administration?” she asked, adding there will be a significant amount of pressure from anti-monopoly groups and the progressive wing of the Democratic party to hold the companies accountable.

      While the DOJ’s anti-trust division head Makan Delrahim has expanded his targets to include securities exchanges data tier-ing, he’s also leading anti-trust investigations into Facebook, Amazon, Alphabet etc with the FTC taking on part of the workload.

    • Mapping Los Angeles' Homeless Encampment Challenge: Nearly 100,000 Cases Reported Since 2019
      Mapping Los Angeles’ Homeless Encampment Challenge: Nearly 100,000 Cases Reported Since 2019

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/01/2020 – 20:40

      Submitted by Adam Andrzejewski,

      Los Angeles represents the glitz and glamour of the California lifestyle. It’s a tourist mecca that boasted 50 million visitors in 2019 – an all-time high.

      The greater Los Angeles area can also claim Muscle Beach in Venice; the Hollywood movie studios; the rich and famous in Beverly Hills; and a previously booming economy that trailed only New York City and Tokyo.

      But the city itself is in trouble, and tourists should be advised to avoid some neighborhoods and streets entirely.

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      Today, Los Angeles hosts an estimated homeless population of nearly 40,000 people (the entire states of Texas and Florida have between 25,000 and 28,000 respectively). Affluent sections of the city have become dangerous with open-air drug use, human feces, medieval diseases, and, sadly, homeless encampments.

      Since 2019, there have been at least 94,430 reported complaints of homeless encampments in public spaces –an average of 4,500 per month.

      First elected in 2013, Mayor Eric Garcetti promised to clean things up. However, conditions are the same or worse. Last year, the number of encampment complaints spiked to 55,569. The same pace has continued in 2020 with 35,241 instances already reported through August.

      Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com plotted all reports of homeless encampments since 2019 (20 months) using latitude and longitude address coordinates of all cases opened by the city. Available data is the result of resident reporting to the city’s 311 dispatchers.

      Using our interactive map, just click a pin (ZIP Code) and scroll down to review the results rendered in the chart beneath the map.

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      The LA homeless encampment challenge 2019-2020: an interactive map with 94,000+ reports

      We reached out to the mayor for comment and his spokesperson, Alex Comisar responded:

      “Homelessness is the humanitarian crisis of our time, and confronting it has always been one of Mayor Garcetti’s top priorities. While we work to keep streets and sidewalks clean and safe for everyone, our focus must remain on efforts to build housing and bring our homeless neighbors indoors for good.”

      Although 106 city neighborhoods were affected, one in three encampments were reported in just ten neighborhoods. Here are the top five: 1. Downtown Los Angeles (5,264 cases); 2. Venice (4,817 cases); 3. Woodland Hills- Warner Center (4,339 cases); 4. Wilshire Center-Koreatown (3,917 cases); and 5. Van Nuys (3,426 cases).

      Across the city, 127 ZIP Codes reported encampment complaints. The top five locations had the highest concentration – between 2,200 and 4,500 encampments each. Those ZIPs were 90291 (4,497 cases); 90004 (2,980 cases); 91364 (2,549 cases); 90028 (2,352 cases); and 90020 (2,248 cases).

      #1 Neighborhood: Downtown Los Angeles (5,264 cases)

      Since 2019, over 5,200 homeless encampment cases were reported in the heart of Los Angeles. The downtown features art museums, hip restaurants and a mix of modern high-rise buildings and traditional landmarks.

      It also ranked first in homeless encampments since 2019.

      Affected police precincts include Central (3,138 cases); Newton (2,022 cases); and Rampart (104 cases). Avoid the entire length of Hill Street, which had 446 encampment complaints since 2019.

      #2 Neighborhood: Venice (4,817 cases)

      Encampments were reported 4,817 times within the Venice neighborhood. A buzzing beach community, Venice is known for its free spirit with the boardwalk, skate park, muscle beach, funky shops and street performers.

      Today, the homeless populations affect the quality of life.

      The only police precinct affected was Pacific. The city council member in the district is Mike Bonin. Avoid the entire stretch of Venice Boulevard with 650 cases since 2019.

      Plotting the case reports of homeless encampments in ZIP 91364 since 2019.

      #3 Neighborhood: Woodland Hills- Warner Center (4,339 cases)

      Since 2019, there were 4,339 instances of homeless encampment reported. That’s an average of 217 reports per month for the last 20 months in this area.

      This neighborhood is a master planned community and business district with a mix of small businesses, skyscrapers, and residential development in the San Fernando Valley.

      Police precincts affected include Topanga (4,295 cases) and West Valley (44 cases). Avoid Ventura Boulevard and Freeway with 1,242 cases.

      #4 Neighborhood: Wilshire Center-Koreatown (3,917 cases)

      There were 3,917 homeless encampment complaints within this neighborhood. Known for its casual dining, relaxed, fun atmosphere, and late nights, there are bars, grills, karaoke, speakeasies, and clubs.

      Police precincts affected include Olympic (3,765 cases) and Rampart (162 cases).  The elected council members in this area include Herb Wesson (3,247 cases), Mitch O’Farrell (626 cases), and David Rye (44 cases). Avoid Oxford and Serrano avenues, which had the most activity (around 150 cases each).

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      In recent years, the city council earmarked hundreds of millions of dollars to alleviate the homeless crisis. The 2020 budget, for example, allocated $430 million to homeless services.

      LA residents have also sought to alleviate the problem. In 2016, voters approved the mayor’s Proposition HHH – a tax hike to cover $1.2 billion in bonds to build 10,000 housing units for the homeless.

      However, it took three-years to put up the first unit, and a recent audit shows that each unit cost $700,000 to construct.

      Today, the city’s official data has 6,780 open and unresolved encampment complaints. The mayor’s administration admits to using a lighter touch during the pandemic and holding back on sweeps and cleanups.

      So, Los Angeles still faces a human health catastrophe, an uncertain future, and increasingly dangerous neighborhoods for residents and tourists alike.

    • House Democrats Pass $2.2 Trillion Virus Relief Bill, Crushing Hopes For Compromise Stimulus Before The Elections
      House Democrats Pass $2.2 Trillion Virus Relief Bill, Crushing Hopes For Compromise Stimulus Before The Elections

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/01/2020 – 20:36

      Just after 8pm ET, the Democrat-controlled House approved a massive, Democrat-proposed $2.2 trillion fiscal stimulus package, i.e., the HEROES Actin a move cementing the split between the two parties and designed to cast blame on Senate republicans for killing passage of the outsized stimulus after bipartisan negotiations failed to yield the fifth covid agreement.

      The vote, which passed 214-207 with no Republican support, effectively precludes any hope that a compromise fiscal stimulus can be passed before the elections even though Speaker Pelosi earlier insisted the vote wouldn’t slam the door on negotiations with the White House on a bill President Donald Trump could sign into law.

      The one page summary on the revised HEROS Act is presented below:

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      After sitting down with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnunchin Wednesday, she spoke with him several times by phone again Thursday, although talks far failed to bridge what’s been a gap of roughly $600 billion dollars between the two sides. Sharp differences also remain on components of coronavirus relief, with the Trump administration rejecting the scale of aid Democrats want for state and local authorities – which would effectively represent a taxpayer-funded bailout for decades of mismanaged pensions – while Pelosi demanded the end of tax breaks she says are devoted to the wealthy.

      Pelosi told reporters Thursday evening that she would review documents that Mnuchin had sent her to determine where to go next after several calls during the day, although when one strips away the theatrics, the answer is nowhere. “We are going back and forth with our paper,” she said, underscoring the importance of the language used in any deal.

      Pelosi said the House’s vote on its own bill would help present in a more public way what Democrats are unified in “pushing for” in the negotiations. Last month, Republicans in the Senate, where they have a majority, also attempted to pass their own $650 billion “skinny” package – but that in turn was blocked by Democrats.

      The bottom line is that unless Senate Republicans agree to state and local bailouts, and they won’t even if Trump demands they do, this likely marks the end of any hopes for a fifth and much needed fiscal stimulus, even as American savings generously built up in the aftermath of the covid lockdowns thanks to trillions in government handouts, are rapidly dwindling.

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      Indeed, as noted earlier, and as we warned back in June, the economic data is already sharply slowing due to the “fiscal cliff” – the fading impact of the $2 trillion stimulus enacted in March. Americans’ incomes fell in August by the most in three months after the government’s supplemental unemployment benefits expired.

      Meanwhile, with the presidential elections 33 days away and Congress expected to adjourn beforehand for the final leg of the campaign, time for a deal in the next month is effectively gone. Meanwhile, Wall Street economists have already sharply cut their growth forecasts for the fourth quarter after they wrongly predicted – much to our amusement – that a $1.5-$2 trillion deal would pass.

      “People say we should have a skinny package — no, we don’t have a skinny problem. We have a massive problem,” Pelosi said on the House floor Thursday, making it clear that Democrats intend to use the pandemic as a smokescreen for every single bailout they can cobble together, including state and local.

      While Democrats reduced their stimulus demands from a $3.4 trillion bill the House passed in May, the legislation just approved by the House is still more than Republicans have said they could accept. As reported previously, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said earlier that it was rife with “poison pills” that have nothing to do with pandemic relief.

      Meanwhile, Senate Republicans have expanded their proposed bid from $300 billion to $1.6 trillion, and while the difference is shrinking, at this point the bulk of its represents the state bailouts that is a redline for most Congressional republicans.

      That’s also why House Republicans cast the bill as pure political messaging, more of a left-wing, campaign-year wish list that showed how far apart the two sides are than genuine legislating.

      Top Appropriations Committee Republican Kay Granger of Texas characterized the package as a “damaging partisan bill.” She said it “was crafted without the input from members on our side of the aisle and does not have the support needed to pass the Senate or be signed by the president.”

      Meanwhile, Mnuchin said Trump instructed his negotiators “to come up significantly” from the initial GOP proposal of a $1 trillion pandemic relief plan, which they did but not enough to match the Democrat ask.

      “I can’t tell how much of this is genuine effort to pass a bill and how much is position-taking prior to the election,” said Josh Huder, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s governmental affairs institute. We can help you Josh: all of this is nothing more than theatrics.

      And since some analysts suggest Pelosi and House Democrats have less to lose politically from a stalemate on stimulus than the White House and Republicans – especially with Trump reportedly lagging in the polls – both sides now appear resigned to no new stimulus before the election, and – should Republicans retain the Senate – perhaps after as well.

      S&P Futures dropped about 13 points on the news but have since rebound, perhaps expecting that this is just a Democratic gambit to force the GOP to capitulate under added pressure from Trump.

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      Here’s the bottom line: unless we have another real crash – we are talking down more than 20% from here – nothing will change, and no bill will be passed in the immediate and not so immediate future.

    • President Trump, First Lady Test Positive For COVID-19
      President Trump, First Lady Test Positive For COVID-19

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/01/2020 – 20:26

      Update (0100ET): President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump have tested positive for COVID-19, according to a Thursday night tweet. “We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!” he added.

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      In a Thursday night memo from Trump physician Sean P. Conley said “This evening I received confirmation that both President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump have tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

      The President and First Lady are both well at this time, and they plan to remain at home within the White House during their convalescence.”

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      Some have noted that President Trump was traveling with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows all week – who met with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday, as well as Supreme Court Nominee Amy Coney Barrett.

      Update: Meadows has tested negative per Fox News’ Peter Doocy.

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      Conservative Twitter is full of well wishes and hot-takes.

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      Meanwhile, some Trump opponents are celebrating or cracking jokes.

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      *  *  *

      Update (2245ET): President Trump has just confirmed Hope Hicks positive COVID-19 test, and that he and the First Lady will begin a quarantine process:

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      What this means for the next debate is anyone’s guess at the moment.

      *  *  *

      Update (2030ET): The White House isn’t confirming or denying the Hicks story, though it did release one cryptic comment.

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      That’s definitely not a “no”.

      * * *

      Former White House Communications chief-turned-senior adviser Hope Hicks has tested positive for the coronavirus, reviving fears about President Trump, VP Mike Pence and other senior staffers being exposed, Bloomberg reports.

      Though the anonymous sources who spilled the beans to Bloomberg insisted there was no evidence that Trump was exposed, Hicks did ride with Trump aboard Air Force One to the debate in Cleveland on Tuesday. She also traveled with Trump to his rally in Minnesota on Wednesday.

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      Other senior staff have contracted the virus and recovered, including National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, though few spend as much time with the president as Hicks, who – according to BBG’s sources – is already experiencing symptoms of COVID-19, though they offered no insight into the nature of the symptoms.

      During the time she spent away from the White House, Hicks served as the head of comms at Fox News, a frequent venue for Trump’s interviews and scoops. She initially left the White House in March 2018, after testifying that she sometimes told ‘white lies’ on Trump’s behalf, before returning last year.

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      Hicks was reportedly seen on Tuesday riding maskless in a staff van with White House senior adviser Stephen Miller, campaign adviser Jason Miller and others, which means that they were likely exposed to the virus, though it’s no guarantee. The staffers will likely be tested, as all of the senior aides to Trump reportedly are regularly screened for COVID-19.

      Does this mean Trump will need to quarantine for 14 days? That, of course, would require him to miss the next debate.

    • Macau Gaming Revenues Remain Down 90% In September As Slump Continues
      Macau Gaming Revenues Remain Down 90% In September As Slump Continues

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/01/2020 – 20:20

      Casinos in the world’s biggest gambling hub Macau showed minimal signs of improvement in September, slumping for the six consecutive month, despite the easing of tourist visas for visitors from mainland China, reported Bloomberg. 

      Visitors from the mainland account for over 90% of Macau’s tourist inflows but given recent visa curbs by China, and the resurgence of the virus, travel to the gaming hub remains dead. 

      September’s gross gaming revenue fell 90% to $277 million from a year earlier, according to new data from Macau’s government on Thursday, missed the average analyst expectation of an 85-86% decline. 

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      “Fears China is broadening a crackdown on offshore gambling has sparked a rush to withdraw billions of dollars in Macau, threatening a recovery in the coronavirus-stricken economy,” executives told Reuters. Even though China relaxed travel restrictions to Macau on Sept. 23, by granting visas to mainlanders, executives warned that more arrivals to the gaming hub would result in an exodus of more cash. 

      With travel restrictions eased in the last couple of weeks, casino floors remain mostly empty as strict requirements to enter Macau from the mainland continue, such as virus testing, which has shifted many Chinese travelers to other destinations such as Hainan. 

      Linda Chen, vice chairman of Wynn Macau Ltd., said revenue during China’s Golden Week (begins Oct. 1) to be about 30%-50% of last year’s level. 

      Macau’s lackluster recovery has been widely hindered by slower visa processing, virus testing, the decline in overseas travel, the resurgence of the virus, and increased scrutiny on capital outflows by Beijing. 

      Shares of Wynn Macau trading on the HK stock exchange were around HKD 12.36, or about 41% below the mid-January high of HKD 20.8. 

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      For past Macau gaming reports this year, read: 

      The latest gambling revenues from Macau muddies the outlook for the world’s largest casino hub. 

    • Rising Homicides This Year May Be Yet Another Side-Effect Of COVID Lockdowns
      Rising Homicides This Year May Be Yet Another Side-Effect Of COVID Lockdowns

      Tyler Durden

      Thu, 10/01/2020 – 20:00

      Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

      During Tuesday’s presidential debate, former vice-president Biden attempted to paint Donald Trump as the bad-on-crime candidate when he claimed that crime had gone done down during the Obama administration, but increased during Trump’s term.

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      Whether or not this is a plausible claim depends on how one looks at the data. And given that law enforcement and criminal prosecutions for street crime are generally a state and local matter, it’s unclear why any president ought to be awarded blame or plaudits for short term trends that occur during his administration.

      Overall, however, it does look like homicides – which tend to be a good indicator of crime trends over all – are indeed rising this year. While many factors are likely at play, we may be seeing yet another side effect of the stay-at-home orders and resulting social fragmentation that have come to be part of the landscape of 2020. As workplaces were closed down, joblessness rose, and community organizations were shuttered, city and state governments may have been paving the way for more social conflict and crime.

      Homicide in 2019

      In assessing the larger context, we can turn to this week’s new report released by the FBI on 2019’s crime and homicides, and we have partial data from 2020 as well.

      There is no doubt that 2019’s homicides were up slightly from where they were six years earlier. Back in 2014, homicides in the United States hit a 51-year low, falling to 4.4 victims per 100,000 residents. That is, homicides that year fell to the lowest rate seen since the post-war days when homicides were exceptionally low, and at some of the lowest rates seen since the eighteenth century.

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      Since then, homicide rates have risen, but have remained well below the high rates the nation experienced from the 1970s into the 1990s.

      Nationwide, from 2018 to 2019, the homicide rate remained unchanged at 5.0 victims per 100,000 population. (That’s only about half the size of the homicide rates we saw during the late seventies and early nineties when homicides hovered around 10 per 100,000.)

      But homicides have certainly not been evenly distributed. Total homicides in recent years were largely driven by high levels in a relatively small number of big cities like Baltimore, Memphis, and Chicago.

      Nonetheless, homicide rates did increase from 2018 to 2019 in 24 states. Statewide homicide rates were unchanged in 7 states, and rates fell in 19 states.

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      As we’ve seen in similar analyses in the past, New England, the Pacific Northwest, and northern parts of the Midwest tend to report the lowest homicide rates. In 2019, the lowest homicide rates were found in Maine, Vermont, South Dakota, and Iowa. The highest rates were found in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alaska.

      What Is the Trend in 2020?

      When we begin to look at what data we have for 2020, it looks like the trend is upward. According to the Wall Street Journal the nation’s largest cities are seeing a lot more homicide in 2020 than in recent years:

      A sharp rise in homicides this year is hitting large U.S. cities across the country, signaling a new public-safety risk unleashed during the coronavirus pandemic , and amid recession and a national backlash against police tactics.

      A Wall Street Journal analysis of crime statistics among the nation’s 50 largest cities found that reported homicides were up 24% so far this year, to 3,612. Shootings and gun violence also rose, even though many other violent crimes such as robbery fell.

      Some cities with long-running crime problems saw their numbers rise, including Philadelphia, Detroit and Memphis, Tenn. Chicago, the worst-hit, has tallied more than one of every eight homicides.

      Less-violent places have been struck as well, such as Omaha, Neb., and Phoenix. In all, 36 of the 50 cities studied saw homicide rise at double-digit rates, representing all regions of the country.

      Among these cities, perhaps the most discussed is Chicago which has indeed shown a sizable increase in 2020 over the previous year. According to The Atlantic, a look at recent homicide data “shows this year’s rate (the red line) rising above the five-year baseline (the gray line and shading) at several points throughout the year.”

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      Note that homicides began to rise in the wake of the lockdowns, but before the riots and protests. Trends similar to Chicago’s don’t show up in all other cities. But the general trend in big cities is clear.

      But what is the cause? When it comes to homicide trends, it’s nearly impossible to prove any one thing is responsible. Criminologists and historians have been debating what drives homicide trends for more than a century.

      But given that 2019 was so relatively uneventful in terms of homicide growth, it does appear unlikely that government-imposed stay-at-home orders, business closures, and church closures have played no role at all in rising homicides. Yes, other factors are also at work. The unemployment resulting from business closures—not wholly attributable to forced lockdowns—is likely a factor. It is also likely that the civil unrest connected to anti-police protests and riots have played a part. As suggested in the research of criminologist Randolph Roth, homicides tend to increase as perceptions of the state’s legitimacy go into decline.1

      However, as the Wall Street Journal notes:

      Institutions that keep city communities safe have been destabilized by lockdown and protests against police. Lockdowns and recession also mean tensions are running high and streets have been emptied of eyes and ears on their communities. Some attribute the rise to an increase in gang violence.

      Homicides … are up because violent criminals have been emboldened by the sidelining of police, courts, schools, churches and an array of other social institutions by the reckoning with police and the pandemic, say analysts and law-enforcement officials in several cities.

      Schools let out young adults in March because of the pandemic and after-school activities largely stopped. Churches and other social institutions were restrained for the sake of social distancing.

      “Gangs are built around structure and lack thereof,” said Jeff La Blue, a spokesman for the Fresno police department. “With schools being closed and a lot of different businesses being closed, the people that normally would have been involved in positive structures in their lives aren’t there.”

      The Atlantic also suggests a role for the pandemic response among other proposed causes such as rising gun sales and rising unemployment.

      A Side Effect of Lockdowns?

      When it comes to lockdowns as a source of conflict, the problem lies in the fact that governments have forced the closure of the very institutions which do much to defuse violence within communities. Indeed, the connection between these social institutions and violence has been suggested for decades by sociologists.

      Known as “third places,” these institutions play a key told in encouraging peaceful human interactions. As noted by researchers at the Brookings Institutions:

      Third places have a number of important community-building attributes. Depending on their location, social classes and backgrounds can be “leveled-out” in ways that are unfortunately rare these days, with people feeling they are treated as social equals. Informal conversation is the main activity and most important linking function. One commentator refers to third places as the “living room” of society.

      Without these institutions, people living on the edges of criminality are more likely to feel alienated and lacking in community support of any kind. Violence often follows. During the worst of the lockdowns, city residents faced closed schools, closed churches, and closed businesses. As the Journal notes, under these conditions, violent gangs may offer a much-needed refuge from government-imposed isolation. Even with stay-at-home orders lifted, governments continue to impose restrictions on social institutions like churches and other meeting places and threaten them with police harassment in case of non-compliance. Yet, these third places cannot simply be shut down—or their services drastically reduced—without creating the potential for greater conflict and antisocial behavior.

      It is likely folly to try to pin rising homicides in 2020 on any single cause, but we should not be shocked that a rising homicide rate is accompanying the so-called “new normal.” After all, the government-imposed shutdowns have done far more than shut down community organizations. They have thrown millions of Americans out of work – with more than ten million former workers currently collecting unemployment benefits – and have set the stage for a rising tide of evictions and bankruptcies. History has shown that economic malaise does not necessarily come with rising crime. But unemployment rarely helps matters.

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