Sep 02

Today’s News 2nd September 2020

  • Lancet Study Finds US Has, By Far, The World’s Most Overpriced Medical Care
    Lancet Study Finds US Has, By Far, The World’s Most Overpriced Medical Care

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 09/02/2020 – 02:20

    Submitted by Eric Zuesse, originally posted at Strategic Culture

    The medical journal, The Lancet, is one of the world’s Big Three scientific journals of medicine; that’s the triumvirate of authorities for physicians worldwide, and the other two are the Journal of the American Medical Association, and the New England Journal of Medicine. On August 27th The Lancet published “Measuring universal health coverage based on an index of effective coverage of health services in 204 countries and territories”. Here is the visual that’s in it, which shows the United States as having, by far, the world’s costliest medical care, at around $9,000 per person per year, and yet as having lower quality of health care than virtually all other industrialized nations do:

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Here is another such study, showing the same thing, and calculating it more simply:

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    What explains this?

    Quite simply, the United States is the world’s most corrupt nation, and medical care is such an extreme necessity when a citizen needs it, so that they’ll pay whatever the system charges them for it — and investing in healthcare products and services is therefore enormously profitable in the United States. Actually, the only other market-sector that competes with it for providing simultaneously high returns and low risk (the combination that offers the best of both worlds to investors) is consumer staples, such as foods, which likewise are necessities of life. When people are desperate, they’ll pay, whatever the cost, because these are things they don’t just want — they need. Here, from Maksim Papenkov’s award-winning 6 February 2020 paper, “An Empirical Asset Pricing Model Accommodating the Sector-Heterogeneity of Risk”, is his sector-specific calculation of stock-market profitability during 2000-2018, showing that “HC” Health Care, and “CS” Consumer Staples, were the best at combining low risk with high returns, during that 19-year period:

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    (“CD” there is Consumer Discretionary and includes Automobiles and Hotels. It’s the only sector that has higher returns than Health Care, but those returns are twice as risky. The S&P500 have lower returns than Health Care and slightly higher riskiness. At the opposite end, “IT” Information Technology is both the riskiest and the least profitable; and “F” Financials are the second-worst sector for investors. The most-profitable sectors are the necessities, the sectors that take the most from the most-desperate.)

    In May 2017, Axene Health Partners published their actuary, Chris Slaybaugh’s, study, “International Healthcare Systems: The US Versus the World”, which stated:

    The United States is the only industrialized country in the world that does not have Universal Health Coverage for all citizens. … Rather than one system, United States citizens and residents are insured under a variety of sometimes overlapping systems. The United States is also the only developed country where a significant number of citizens are permitted to be uninsured and where a person’s employment can determine whether they have insurance and what insurance they have. … The extent to which medical bills contribute to bankruptcy is hard to tease out from other factors, but even those who are skeptical of the claim that medical costs cause the majority of bankruptcies concede that they are a significant contributor.13

    In the rest of the developed world, by contrast, medical costs are rarely or never cited as a driver behind personal bankruptcy.

    In fact, CNBC headlined on 11 February 2019, “This is the real reason most Americans file for bankruptcy” and reported that,

    Two-thirds of people who file for bankruptcy cite medical issues as a key contributor to their financial downfall.

    While the high cost of health care has historically been a trigger for bankruptcy filings, the research shows that the implementation of the Affordable Care Act [“Obamacare”] has not improved things.

    What most people do not realize, according to one researcher, is that their health insurance may not be enough to protect them.

    While Barack Obama was running for President in 2008, he was promising to provide Americans with a “public option” in order to reduce profits for health insurance companies and thus lower costs, but he dropped that proposal immediately when he won the 2008 election, and he never pushed for it (not even to use as a bargaining chip with the Republicans in shaping his Obamacare). (In fact, Obama chose the conservative head of the Senate Finance Committee, Democratic Senator Max Baucus, to draft his Obamacare, because Baucus was against there being a public option, and because the progressive Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy’s Health, Education & Labor Committee had just drafted an Obamacare with a public option — Obama refused to have Kennedy draft his healthcare legislation. Obama was actually against there being a public option; only his public rhetoric was for it. Joe Biden is apparently now following the same tactic, of lying promises to the public, and true promises to his billionaire backers, to win the White House.) Obama promised the public “universal coverage”, which means 100% of the population covered, like in all other advanced economies, and his Obamacare increased the percentage insured from 84.5% when he came into office in 2009, to 87.7% two years after Obamacare started in 2013 — around 3%, by 2015 (which was after two years). That was still far short of the promised 100%. He was lying through his teeth in order to win election, and the ‘news’-media still hide (instead of expose) the fact that he did, and that he was actually an agent of the billionaires. He’s now the big hero among Democrats, because maybe Trump is even worse. Trump is up-front about his fascism. And Trump’s opponent now is another hypocrite (after Obama), Obama’s V.P., Joe Biden, who was the U.S. Senate’s leading Democratic Party segregationist and won his nomination by claiming to have been instead a civil-rights champion. Everything in U.S. politics is bait-and-switch. That’s the reality in America’s ‘democracy’: a bait-and-switch ‘democracy’, which serves actually only the wealthiest few. The politicians who are elected serve only the wealthy and well-connected.

    America is the most libertarian, or “neo-liberal,” of the advanced industrial nations, and this is why it has the world’s most overpriced medical care. It provides the most liberty for the billionaires.

    One of the few extremely bold Americans who rose high in the U.S. healthcare system and tried to tell the public how intensely corrupt it is, has been Marcia Angell, M.D, who held numerous prestigious posts in the U.S. medical system, and she was for a while the Editor-in-Chief of the New England Journal of Medicine. On 15 January 2009, Dr. Angell headlined “Drug Companies & Doctors: A Story of Corruption”, and wrote:

    Conflicts of interest pervade medicine. … It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine. … So many reforms would be necessary to restore integrity to clinical research and medical practice that they cannot be summarized briefly. Many would involve congressional legislation and changes in the FDA, including its drug approval process. But there is clearly also a need for the medical profession to wean itself from industry money almost entirely. … Breaking the dependence of the medical profession on the pharmaceutical industry will take more than appointing committees and other gestures. It will take a sharp break from an extremely lucrative pattern of behavior. But if the medical profession does not put an end to this corruption voluntarily, it will lose the confidence of the public. …

    She had said, nine years earlier:

    If we had set out to design the worst system that we could imagine, we couldn’t have imagined one as bad as we have. … Our health care system is based on the premise that health care is a commodity like VCRs or computers and that it should be distributed according to the ability to pay. … That market ideology is what has made the health care system so dreadful, so bad at what it does. … That is a fundamental mistake in the way this country, and only this country, looks at health care. … The only way to both reduce cost and increase access and quality is to change the system, to scrap it and start over. … I would pay for health care in a single payer system, and what goes into that pot can vary. In Germany, employers have to contribute to that pot. I don’t think that’s a good idea. I would rather see it come straight out of tax revenues.

    Experts who are that public-spirited and knowledgeable about the system should be appointed by U.S. Presidents to lead the FDA and the Department of Health and Human Services, but the billionaires prevent that (of course).

    On June 27th, NPR headlined “After Pushing Lies, Former Cigna Executive Praises Canada’s Health Care System”, and interviewed a retired PR executive for America’s health insurance companies, who said that maybe the work that he had done smearing Canada’s socialized health insurance — “to spread misinformation about Canada or use cherry-picked data and anecdotes” so as to deceive Americans to accept America’s existing medical system — was partly to blame for America’s having performed significantly worse than Canada had done on the coronavirus crisis. (As of 29 August 2020, Canada had 3,378 cases per million and was the 76th worst out of 215 countries, whereas U.S. had 18,522 cases per million and was the 9th-worst. On deaths, Canada was the 27th-worst at 241, whereas U.S. was the 11th-worst at 564.)

    America’s billionaires derive the vast majority of their net worth from stocks (capital gains and dividends), and from interest that’s paid to them; and, since nothing does this for them better than healthcare investments, the current for-profit system in health care is terrific for them; and these few hundred people, billionaires, extract this wealth from the hundreds of millions of Americans, the general public, and want to continue doing so, and they consequently finance politicians such as Joe Biden and Donald Trump (and their predecessors, such as Bush and Clinton), and they also set up ‘charitable’ foundations, and donate to medical schools, so as to inculcate this libertarian belief, not just into the public, but especially into the students and professors, who receive that trickle-down from them, as employees and future employees. While many in academe are against it, they’re not the ones who get advanced to the prestigious and high-paid positions. “He that pays the piper calls the tune.” It’s top-down (aristocracy), and it only pretends to be bottom-up (democracy). And, so, the corruption continues, and Americans die younger, and poorer, because of this aristocratically controlled system. It’s the American way. It’s the American system. Of corruption. Americans call it “capitalism.”

    Of course, another area in which the U.S. Government is extraordinarily corrupt is its Military-Industrial Complex; and, on August 28th, a former top official of the NSA, Bill Binney, provided, online, an in-depth description of what he personally knows about that. His personal knowledge is enormous concerning within the Government itself, but not outside it — i.e., not regarding the corporations and billionaires who control the economic rewards system that the top public officials, who typically are agents of the “Deep State” (the billionaires), are serving. However, what he says there is informative and highly reliable regarding the way that the Government’s bureaucracy itself functions, and he is extraordinarily honest about the intense corruption within the official Government. He makes clear that the U.S. Constitution is being systematically and routinely violated by top U.S. officials; so, the U.S. Government routinely violates the U.S. Constitution, in this ‘democracy’, where the system functions like clockwork, for the billionaires.

  • Millions Of Americans Had Their Emergency Savings Wiped Out By Downturn
    Millions Of Americans Had Their Emergency Savings Wiped Out By Downturn

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 09/02/2020 – 01:30

    A new survey via CNBC and Acorns Invest commissioned by SurveyMonkey, found that the virus-induced recession wiped out 14% or about 46 million American’s emergency savings. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    About 17% had to tap into emergency savings to cover living expenses, 11% had to borrow money to cover everyday expenses, 6% stopped contributing to 401(k) or other retirement accounts, and 5% asked for rent relief. 

    The survey of more than 5,400 adults in August found that older millennials depleted their emergency savings the most. About 26% of those aged 25 to 34 said their savings had been drained as they struggled to survive the downturn. Only 6% of boomers drained savings; they’ve been through multiple boom/bust cycles and understand the importance of saving for a rainy day. Unlike millennials who have only been through one recession. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The survey’s findings outline a similar message from former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen last week, where she warned in an op-ed, published in The New York Times, that millions of Americans are suffering. She said monetary policy by itself could not save the economy from the downturn, and the solution will require additional rounds of fiscal stimulus to thwart a deepening fiscal cliff. 

    The virus-induced recession has caused unprecedented economic damage, while more than 30 million American’s are collecting unemployment benefits. The labor market recovery has stalled as the Fed’s new policy to raise the inflation target above 2% will result in a higher cost of living for tens of millions broke, jobless Americans. 

    What’s even more stunning is that a quarter of all personal income is derived from the government.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    This merely underscores the uneven, or K-shaped nature of the the recovery: where the political elites and ultra-wealthy were bailed out by the Fed, while millions of serfs, i.e., low-income folks, have (almost) completely run out of savings, depleted stimulus funds, and some can no longer afford food as the fiscal cliff  hits the 31 day mark on Tuesday.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Congress and the Fed better beware: stress low-income households enough, they will eventually assemble and revolt, striking at the one building that has so far avoided the protesters’ focus: the Marriner Eccles building.

  • New York Launches Unsecured Online 'Portal' For Requesting Absentee Ballots
    New York Launches Unsecured Online ‘Portal’ For Requesting Absentee Ballots

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 09/01/2020 – 23:50

    As New York, which successfully managed to hold most of its primary votes mostly by mail, has opened an online portal allowing residents to request an absentee ballot.

    Gov Andrew Cuomo acted unilaterally to allow any person concerned about COVID-19 risk to request an absentee ballot, even as some southern states rule that COVID-19 fears aren’t a valid reason to vote absentee. ;

    NYers have until Oct. 27 to mail in their ballots.

    The absentee ballot portal went live Tuesday, and Cuomo heralded the launch as a move toward ensuring free and fair elections.

    “As the November election approaches, we know that many voters feel vulnerable in the midst of this pandemic,” he said. “In line with the sweeping reforms we have implemented to make it easier for New Yorkers to exercise their right to vote, today we launch the online portal through which every registered voter concerned about COVID-19 can obtain an absentee ballot.”

    USPS has advised Americans to request ballots no later than 15 days before the Nov. 3 vote.

    To request a ballot, users must enter their birth date, county and ZIP code to confirm that you are already registered to vote. You are then taken to a page where you decide how you want the absentee ballot delivered.

    Interestingly, when we tested the portal, we found that it didn’t include any requests for sensitive private information like an individual’s social security number. An individual could request an absentee ballot simply by entering in another individual’s birthday, address and zip code – all information that’s easily attainable.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The screen shots below are from the website for NYC’s board of elections. City-dwellers are directed there to finish the application, but virtually all of the same questions, and the complete lack of security, are the same.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    We sincerely hope this doesn’t create a massive crush of fraudulent requests, as any motivated individual could use social media to fraudulently apply for absentee ballots, if only to prove a point.

    And NY isn’t alone.

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

  • One In Four Workers Say They Are Working Entirely From Home: Gallup
    One In Four Workers Say They Are Working Entirely From Home: Gallup

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 09/01/2020 – 23:25

    By Jeffrey Jones of Gallup,

    The coronavirus pandemic has led to a surge in remote work. However, that surge is more apparent in the number of remote working days for telecommuters than in the number of workers moving from on-site to at-home work.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Since Gallup last asked about remote work in October 2019, there has been a modest uptick in the percentage of U.S. workers who report having ever telecommuted for work, from 42% to 49%. The recent figures demonstrate the growth in remote work over recent decades from 9% in Gallup’s initial measurement in 1995.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    While the percentage of U.S. workers who have telecommuted has changed modestly, the average number of workdays telecommuters are working from home has more than doubled, from 5.8 days per month last fall to 11.9 days currently. Among all U.S. workers, the average number of telecommuting days has also more than doubled, from 2.4 per month to 5.8.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    These results are based on Gallup’s annual Work and Education poll, conducted July 30-Aug. 12.

    The poll finds 26% of U.S. workers currently saying they have worked entirely from home in recent weeks, while 51% are working entirely from a location outside their home, with one in five reporting a mix of on-site and remote work.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Nearly half of those who have ever telecommuted, 45%, say they have been working entirely from home in recent weeks, with another 14% working mostly from home. This question had not been asked previously, so it is not possible to know how those figures compare with before the pandemic.

    However, 13% of telecommuters and 5% of all workers in 2019 said they worked from home 20 days a month (assuming 20 monthly workdays). Now, the figures are 45% and 22%, respectively.

    College Graduates Much More Likely to Work Remotely

    As might be expected, telecommuting is much more common among Americans with a college degree than those without one. Employed college graduates are more than twice as likely as employees without a college degree to work remotely. This is seen in the percentages reporting that they have ever telecommuted, as well as in the number of days they report working remotely and in their self-reports of whether they are currently working entirely from home.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The survey also shows that working women are more likely than working men to be performing their job functions remotely.

    The differences between younger and older workers’ likelihood to work remotely are not statistically meaningful.

    An analysis of prior Gallup data on occupation finds that the vast majority of college graduates work in what can be considered white-collar occupations, and that women are much more likely than men to do so.

    Last year, an average of 63% of college graduates versus 29% of college nongraduates had ever telecommuted, so the growth in telecommuting has come almost entirely among those with higher educational attainment. Also, before this year, men and women were about equally likely to say they had ever telecommuted for work. The emerging gender gap in remote work probably reflects women’s greater presence in white-collar than blue-collar jobs.

    Implications

    The widespread closure of businesses and schools to control the spread of the coronavirus sent unemployment soaring. The jobs situation would have been much worse if not for advances in technology that allow many workers to complete their work remotely. Close to half of U.S. workers have now taken advantage of opportunities to telecommute, and currently about one-quarter are doing so every workday.

    Of course, not every job can be done remotely; therefore, the growth of telecommuting has a ceiling. Half of U.S. workers currently say they do their job entirely at a location outside their home. Given this, and that half of U.S. workers report they have never telecommuted, the growth in the proportion of the workforce that could telecommute may have reached that ceiling during the pandemic. Further growth in remote work may thus come in the amount of time workers spend outside the office or work site, rather than in the number of workers who do so.

    Having an expanded remote workforce alters the dynamics for employers in many ways. Remote work changes the considerations on where employers can find and attract new hires. For example, flexible work arrangements have special appeal to millennials and women. But remote work also can create both challenges and opportunities when it comes to worker engagement, worker productivity and maintaining company culture. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the trend toward remote work and has made companies’ policies toward it even more crucial to their success.

  • New York City's MTA Crisis Could Be "Catastrophic" For Housing Market 
    New York City’s MTA Crisis Could Be “Catastrophic” For Housing Market 

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 09/01/2020 – 23:00

    Readers may recall New York City’s MTA proposed drastic transit cuts and higher fares after losing an astonishing $200 million per week after a collapse in ridership following the virus pandemic. As a result, the transit authority is preparing for a “doomsday scenario” to include a 40% reduction in service for both commuter trains and busses, a move that would result in longer travel times and make commuting a nightmare. 

    A reduction in NYC’s transit system could be nearing if Washington doesn’t pass another coronavirus relief package. Both Republicans are Democrats have stalled for at least a month in agreeing on the dollar amount of the next round of stimulus, already resulting in a dangerous fiscal cliff that could soon jeopardize the nation’s economic recovery. 

    If transit cuts are seen, the effects could be devastating to the city’s economy, said Bill Rudin, CEO of Rudin Management, and chairman of the Real Estate Board of New York, who spoke with The Real Deal. 

    “The ability to move people effectively, expeditiously, efficiently is critical to our economic engine,” Rudin said.

    The latest mobility trends report via Apple shows people using NYC public transportation on Sept. 1 continues to remain halved of what it was before the virus. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    One look at Time Squares on Tuesday afternoon and foot traffic remains dead – the city is still a “ghost town.”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Nicole Gelinas, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, focused on transportation and infrastructure policy, said the transport authority “could not persist very long in continuing full service with just a fraction of their fare and toll revenue.” 

    Gelinas said, “I do think they need more money from the federal government and also need to look at rational cost-cutting.”

    Drastic cuts to the city’s transit system could slow the economic recovery in the metro area as the velocity of people moving around, transacting, and or just doing business that uses public transportation be much slower than pre-virus times. Longer travel times would undoubtedly lead to continued ridership losses and more future cuts to service. 

    Scott Rechler, chairman and CEO of RXR Realty, who is also chairman of the Regional Plan Association and a former MTA board member, claims transit cuts “would be catastrophic for the real estate industry,” as well as the city’s overall economy. 

    Already, real estate prices in Manhattan are pressured as folks and businesses are leaving the borough for rural communities amid depressionary unemployment, virus pandemic, social unrest, and surging violent crime. 

    If Congress can’t agree on the next round of stimulus in the near term, NYC’s MTA could undergo transit cuts, resulting in a chain reaction that would cripple the city’s already limping recovery.

  • The Real Reason The Oil Rally Has Fizzled Out
    The Real Reason The Oil Rally Has Fizzled Out

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 09/01/2020 – 22:35

    Submitted by Simon Watkins, of OilPrice.com

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    One of the themes that is emerging as we review investment candidates is the era of oil growth, which is at least going to take a substantial pause, if it is indeed, not totally in the rear view. Company after company has told us that “maintenance capex” is all they are allocating at current oil prices.  An example of this mindset is Parsley Energy, (NYSE:PE) which reduced its capex budget by 50% year over year. This new era of growth restraint has implications for the world energy market that isn’t reflected in the energy structure at present.

    Drilling and fracking each picked up slightly from the week prior. Hence the question I pose about seeing the bottom in activity. We saw a bump similar to this once before this summer, and then each category fell back into decline for a month or so. I am not betting that we’ll see another boost this week, as the trading range for WTI just isn’t supportive enough for a big activity inflection.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Source: Baker Hughes

    I remain committed to my previously established targets for shale exit production ~5 mm BOEPD. The next way point will be the EIA-914 on Monday.

    Why are we where we are?

    That’s a question I’ve been wrestling with regards to the pricing of WTI. Oil has definitely plateaued in recent weeks, after a nice run in the spring and early summer. A brief investigation reveals one likely source of the lack of volatility.

    The answer could be hedging. Using a trading strategy known as a Strangle, funds, and large institutions with exposure to commodities-oil in this case, can limit this with puts and calls. A put gives you the right to sell WTI-for example at a future price, while a call gives you the right to buy at a different price, thus limiting the impact of volatility on your position.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Note: The tight range since late April driven by hedging strategies

    Source  Hedging on this scale has a potential to result in a big dislocation in the market. In a recent WSJ article Marwan Younes, chief investment officer of Massar Capital Management commented: ‘’Hedging has the consequence to push prices back within that range. Historically, long periods of calm in financial markets have tended to end with a burst of volatility. It feels like we have two tectonic plates building up energy. The day it gives way will be a fairly eventful day.’’

    This is an interesting idea that is supportive of my general diatribe about oil going higher and breaking out of this range. Particularly as regards Younes final line that I have italicized. We need a catalyst for this to happen, and it’s hard to say just what that will be.

    I don’t trade futures contracts. I just don’t have the attention span or the temperament to stay that focused on the market. I figure the money I am missing out on in a success case, is more than compensated for by sleeping fairly well at night, and consuming less Maalox.

    Under-investment in supply, “Chickens” are coming home to roost

    Paul Sankey is a well-known securities analyst, formerly with a big firm-Mizuho, and now on his own. I’ve followed him for years. Sankey has some interesting ideas that coincide with my own. Chief among them is the idea that the oil market is approaching a precipice of supply short-fall that will simply be breath-taking when its full effects land out.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Sankey Research

    Another area of agreement between us is that years of under-investment in replacing barrels from aging Brown-field developments will ultimately constrict supply and drive prices higher.

    Focusing mainly on the decline rate of shale and the lack of new drilling, I’ve made the point repeatedly in OilPrice articles that the shale miracle in the U.S. is over. Here is a link to my most recent writing on this topic. Shale was thought to be impervious to decline by many. Some of us (speaking of myself here) always knew better as we understood the short-decline nature of the rock. Now companies are taking write-offs on shale as they did deepwater assets a few years ago, meaning there are reserves we thought would be available in the years ahead that will now be uneconomic.

    The short-lived era of the U.S as “swing-producer” for oil has ended.

    Why “war-premiums” for oil don’t last

    One thing we should be able to agree on is that the world currently assumes unlimited supplies of crude oil, now the norm thanks to overproduction the last few years, will continue to be the base case going forward.

    Is the world right? Obviously you know I don’t think so, but we are certainly getting mixed signals right now. It is worth noting when a giant hurricane that shuts down 80% of the GoM’s producing and refining capacity doesn’t move the market even a little higher it speaks strongly to the markets confidence about future supply.

    As noted in the EIA graphic below, last week we edged down still further toward the 500 million barrels mark in inventories, and still crickets from the oil market. It should be noted that this represents about a 30 day supply at current consumption rates.

    We think that the +/- 3-mm BOEPD supply/demand gap will accelerate as the year closes, and these inventory draws will continue.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    EIA-WPSR

    I have previously identified several hot spots that could explode at any time, creating an instant inflection for oil. You know them well. Iran, Venezuela, Iraq, Libya are all experiencing severe economic and social disharmony for various reasons, but no one is shooting at one another taking a war-premium completely out of the price. Should we be so complacent?

    One interesting aspect of a war-premium is that it doesn’t last for long. History tells us the sharp spikes in price due to conflict are short-lived, and oil driven higher by conflict reverts quickly to its previous range. The world continues to spin on its axis, infrastructure that may be damaged or destroyed is quickly rebuilt, and importantly no one goes without. A good example is the recent attack on Saudi oilfields in 2019 by Iran. Oil spiked to $80 from $60 overnight, and quickly fell back to $60, and then to $50, and then to $40. Fear comes out of the market as rapidly as it enters.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Macrotrends

    What the chart above tells us is that war premiums soon fade. Take the spike circa 1990 when the U.S. led coalition began the response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. A brief spike to $80 was quickly followed by a rapid collapse to the mid-$30’s and over most the next decade to a low below $20. It then took another 10 years for oil to peak again, this time in the financial collapse of 2008.

    One takeaway from this chart is that wars are over so quickly these days (Afghanistan excepted), that they don’t have much prolonged impact on the perception of supply security.

    Much more important are key producer decisions to restrict production. For example the Arab oil embargo of the early 1970’s led to a 30-year uptrend that was only broken when they opened the taps in 1998. A decision they quickly regretted when the oil price crashed. A “V” shaped rebound led to nearly another 20 years of higher prices, until in 2014, OPEC again opened the taps. This seems to be a mistake they are unable to stop making as they did it again earlier this year.

    In short while a shooting war changes the dynamic briefly, decisions by producers have a much more pronounced effect on oil prices.

    Your takeaway

    Inflation is on the horizon. It’s been ages since we had to worry about generally rising prices. The full effects of the dynamic imposed by the virus, lower employment, business failures, etc. have led governments around the world to print trillions of dollars to provide liquidity. A lesson perhaps learned in 2008 when governments were slow to provide this under-pinning to world markets. The net effect of this is always inflation.

    Last week the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, (Fed) Jerome Powell reinforced their position on employment vs inflation making a change to their historic stance of combating inflation. In this speech Powell let it be known that it will let inflation run…to a degree, in support of putting people back to work. Up to this point the Fed had established an arbitrary 2% limit for inflation before it would move proactively to tighten the money supply to drive it down.

    This is bullish for oil prices and oil equities in general, telling us we are on the right track with our overall thesis of higher oil prices. Interest rates will stay down hurting savers, but commodities and equities will rise. Oil is a commodity.

  • Australia Plunges Into First Recession In 29 Years Following Biggest GDP Drop On Record
    Australia Plunges Into First Recession In 29 Years Following Biggest GDP Drop On Record

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 09/01/2020 – 22:31

    Nothing good lasts forever, as Australia just discovered when after seemingly defeating the gravity of the business cycle and lasting a record 29 year without an economic contraction, the country tumbled head first into its first recession in almost 30 years, which also happened to be the worst on record as its Q2 GDP plunged -6.3% Y/Y, worse even than the consensus estimate of a -6.0% drop.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    GDP plunged 7% sequentially from the first three months of the year – hammered by the renewed Covid outbreak and lockdown in Victoria state – the first back-to-back quarterly declines since 1991. The sequential drop also was larger than economist forecasts of a 6% drop.

    As Bloomberg notes, “Australia’s record run of avoiding two consecutive quarters of negative GDP, which included avoiding recessions during the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, the Dot Com Bubble and the 2008 global financial crisis, has come to an end with the largest contraction on record according to ABS data dating back to 1959. It now joins much of the world in succumbing to a pandemic-induced downturn.”

    The report also showed:

    • Household spending plunged 12.1%, subtracting 6.7 percentage points from GDP; government spending rose 2.9%, adding 0.6 percentage point
    • Investment in new and used dwellings fell 7.3% in the quarter
    • Net exports contributed 1 percentage point to GDP
    • Just like in the US, the savings rate soared, hitting 19.8%, the highest rate since 1974

    Australia’s desire to declare an early victory against covid which was accompanied by an early lifting of restrictions and reopening of its economy, proved catastrophic and has been offset by an almost two-month lockdown in Melbourne, the nation’s second-largest city with about 5 million people, crushing any hopes of a recovery.

    In March, Australia’s Reserve Bank cut its cash rate to a record-low 0.25% and set the same target for the three-year bond yield as it aims to lower borrowing costs across the economy. As Bloomberg notes, the RBA predicts the renewed lockdown will lift unemployment to about 10% later this year.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    A ‘closing down’ sign fills the window of a homewares store in Melbourne, Australia; Photo: Bloomberg

    The government, meantime, has followed the rest of the world in flooding the country with fiscal stimulus, injecting tens of billions of dollars into the economy including its signature JobKeeper wage subsidy program designed to keep workers attached to firms as it tries to maintain employment connections until activity can resume.

    The silver lining is that the stimulus unleashed in China – Australia’s top trading partner (which is in jeoaprdy due to an escalating diplomatic feud) – to revive its economy is also fueling demand for Australian commodities and lifting prices, keeping the terms of trade elevated in the second quarter. In Q2, Australia saw a record current-account surplus of A$17.7 billion ($13.1 billion) aided by the weaker dollar and the country nation’s closed international borders which is keeping people from traveling abroad.

    Meanwhile, on Tuesday the central bank boosted a line of cheap funding to banks to A$200 billion. In addition to supporting the economy, that should also help ease some of the upward pressure on the currency by confirming the RBA’s commitment to keeping conditions accommodative until activity recovers.

    While the recession was widely expected, the aussie dollar slumped against the dollar, sliding from 0.7375 before the news to 0.7337 before paring some of the losses. The Australian dollar has benefited from Australia’s trade position, soaring almost 30% from a nadir in March.

  • Bipartisan Bill Seeks To Curb US Reliance On China For Rare Earths
    Bipartisan Bill Seeks To Curb US Reliance On China For Rare Earths

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 09/01/2020 – 22:10

    Ever since the first shots were fired in the US-China trade/tech/cold war in 2016, Beijing has frequently threatened to use its strategic position as the world’s pre-eminent supplier of rare earth metals – a group of 17 elements used in everything from sophisticated weapons to cell phones to wind turbines to electric cars – as potential leverage which it could wield in response to any perceived foreign (read US) aggression, even if it has so far refused to use this particular trump card. And with Sino-US relations deteriorating by the day, pushing China ever closer to the day it may in fact ban rare earth exports to the US, US House lawmakers are now taking advance measures for when that day finally comes, and have introduced a bipartisan bill aimed at seeking to curb US dependence on China for rare earths.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Rare earth elements are described as the ‘vitamins of chemistry’ — producing powerful effects in small doses

    The legislation was co-authored by Republican Lance Gooden and Democrat Vicente Gonzalez, both of Texas, and is similar to that introduced in May by Senator Ted Cruz. Republicans Will Hurd, Roger Williams, Pete Olson and Randy Weber, as well as Democrat Henry Cuellar, are co-sponsors of the bill. All are Texas representatives. The measure would give tax incentives for companies involved in the mining, reclaiming and recycling of critical minerals and metals from deposits in the US, Bloomberg reported.

    The bill is also part of a recent push in Congress to shift supply chains, especially in sectors viewed as critical for national defense, away from China and back toward the US; predictably, the effort has drawn broad support from domestic rare-earth companies which anticipate a major financial windfall should the bill pass.

    “The tax incentive seeks to level the playing field with regard to the subsidies China provides from mine to magnet,” Pini Althaus, chief executive officer of USA Rare Earth, which is developing the Round Top Mountain deposit in Texas, said in a phone interview. “It would significantly improve the bottom line of any domestic rare earth project.”

    Althaus also said the House measure which China would surely claim is a subsidy prohibited by the WTO, reduces the potential for China to dissuade investment in U.S.-based rare earth projects and supply chains, because those businesses will be better able to compete.

    Last year, amid mounting concerns China would limit shipments of rare earths as the trade war escalated, Trump ordered the Defense Department to spur production of rare-earth magnets.

    The legislation “lowers the cost of capital, which is the goal because China has lowered the cost of capital for their sector, and our sector needs to be able to compete,” Jim Litinsky, the incoming CEO of MP Materials, currently the sole U.S. miner of the minerals, said in a phone interview. “It’s probably the one thing I’ve seen everyone get behind.”

  • Joe Kennedy III Becomes First 'Kennedy' To Lose A Race In Massachusetts As Ed Markey Triumphs In Close-Fought Dem Primary
    Joe Kennedy III Becomes First ‘Kennedy’ To Lose A Race In Massachusetts As Ed Markey Triumphs In Close-Fought Dem Primary

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 09/01/2020 – 21:45

    As expected, the candidate with the best memes has carried the day.

    Sen. Ed Markey, best known outside Massachusetts as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s partner in the Senate – the pair co-sponsored the Green New Deal, which Biden has embraced  – has triumphed over Joe Kennedy III in a hotly contested Democratic primary. The race was remarkable for several reasons: Markey, the incumbent, and a longtime Congressman, became the ‘outsider’ candidate, while his challenger, the 39-year-old scion of the legendary Kennedy political family, was painted as the incumbent.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    When Kennedy first announced his candidacy last September, it provoked speculation that Markey might decide to retire rather than risk what many felt would be an inevitable victory in favor of Kennedy III.

    Apparently, these pundits had never seen that clip of Kennedy drooling all over himself while delivering the rebuttal to President Trump’s 2018 state of the union.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    This, along with conservative positions like his skepticism of legalized marijuana – now an institution in Massachusetts – helped Markey capture the sympathies of the liberals and the energetic young grassroots, thanks in large part to the help of AOC.

    Turns out, Markey was the first Senator to invite her to the Senate dining room after her primary victory over Joe Crowley. That meeting led to what has been a successful political partnership.

    In a piece published Tuesday, the Washington Post said: “there are Markey clubs at every major college, Markey memes splattered across social media and phone banks around the country organized by the Sunrise Movement, the youth climate-change activists who coined the Green New Deal shortly before Markey endorsed it.”

    A few minutes ago, Cook Political Report editor Dave Wasserman officially called the race for Markey, who entered the day with a slight edge in the polls.

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

    Markey has apparently carried nearly all the early reporting towns, along with sweeping East Boston, where Kennedy launched his primary campaign.

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

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

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

    Jokes flooded twitter…

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

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

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

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

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

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

    As one veteran reporter pointed out, Markey’s victory is historic because it marks the first time a Kennedy has ever lost a race in their home state of Massachusetts. Family Matriarch Ethel Kennedy – Joe’s grandmother – even hit the campaign trail as a surrogate for her grandson.

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

    In case you needed another reminder: American political dynasties have become intolerable to vast swaths of the electorate.

    To be sure, Tuesday’s Democratic primaries in the Bay State weren’t a sweep for the AOC-aligned progressive left. House Ways and Means Commission Chairman Richard Neal, the House’s top tax writer,defeated Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse, his progressive, AOC-backed challenger.

  • California DA Asks Police To Consider Whether Looters 'Needed' What They Stole Before Filing Charges
    California DA Asks Police To Consider Whether Looters ‘Needed’ What They Stole Before Filing Charges

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 09/01/2020 – 21:20

    Authored by Collin Jones via The Post Millennial (emphasis ours)

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    A district attorney in California reportedly told members of law enforcement that they should consider the needs of looters before deciding to charge them with looting.

    Costa County District Attorney Diana Becton expressed her view that officers should consider whether “the target business” was “open or closed” at the time the looting took place, and “what was the manner and means” by which the looters had managed to get inside the business, the Daily Wire reported.

    The charging guidelines were laid out by Jennifer Van Laar of RedState, which are as follows:

    1.) Was this theft offense substantially motivated by the state of emergency, or simply a theft offense which occurred contemporaneous to the declared state of emergency?

    2.) Was the target business open or closed to the public during the state of emergency? ii. What was the manner and means by which the suspect gained entry to the business? iii. What was the nature/quantity/value of the goods targeted? iv. Was the theft committed for financial gain or personal need? v. Is there an articulable reason why another statute wouldn’t adequately address the particular incident?

    Van Laar goes on to quote Shouse California Law Group: “Under Penal Code 463 PC, California law defines ‘looting’ as taking advantage of a state of emergency to commit burglary, grand theft or petty theft. Looting charges can be filed as a misdemeanor or a felony and is punishable by up to 3 years in jail.

    Becton’s ideas run counter to those in charge of Sacramento County, where Sheriff Scott Jones reportedly requested on Friday that the federal government send in the National Guard after “roughly 200 protesters broke windows at the downtown offices of the sheriff, district attorney and other government agencies the night before.”

    Jones was flanked by “blown-up photographs” depicting protesters dressed in body armor during a protest that took place Thursday, and he referred to the demonstrations as an “attempted insurrection.” Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert suggested that the actions of the demonstrators was planned.

    “It’s been one day and I’m already done with this,” Jones said during a Friday news conference.

    The Daily Wire reported that Becton is the same district attorney who charged a couple with a “hate crime” for painting over a Black Lives Matter mural in front of the Wakefield Taylor Courthouse.

    Becton has also garnered a name for herself in co-authoring an opinion piece for Politico alongside district attorneys Kim Foxx of Chicago, St. Louis’ Kim Gardener and two two others, writing: “Our criminal legal system was constructed to control Black people and people of color. Its injustices are not new but are deeply rooted in our country’s shameful history of slavery and legacy of racial violence. The system is acting exactly as it was intended to, and that is the problem. We should know: We’re Black, we’re female, and we’re prosecutors. We work as the gatekeepers in this flawed system. And we have some ideas for how to fix it.”

    Becton is not the only one supporting the idea of looting. Vicky Osterweil penned a book entitled “In Defense of Looting,” where she argued that “looting is a powerful tool to bring about real, lasting change in society.” Osterweil even denigrated small businesses, in writing: “When it comes to small business, family owned business or locally owned business, they are no more likely to provide worker protections. They are no more likely to have to provide good stuff for the community than big businesses.”

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

  • Ilhan Omar Demands Apology From MSNBC's Joy Reid Over "Islamophobic Comments"
    Ilhan Omar Demands Apology From MSNBC’s Joy Reid Over “Islamophobic Comments”

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 09/01/2020 – 20:55

    MSNBC personality Joy Reid is under fire once again after making an allegedly “Islamaphobic” comment”. But this time, her accuser is none other than controversial Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who herself has refused to apologize for comments that were heralded as anti-semitic, while once blithely – and publicly – dismissing 9/11 as “a thing that happened”.

    Omar and a anti-defamation league-type group called Muslim Advocates complained that Reid made callously Islamophobic remarks on air during a broadcast the other night.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Reid’s crime? She compared the way President Trump acts to the way “Muslims” act. She intended to compare Trump’s behavior to that of somebody like Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which is hilarious because in reality, there is no real grounds for comparison. Even their rhetorical styles differ markedly, though both have shown a penchant for “interfering” with the central bank.

    But that’s not how it came out.

    During her show, Reid said, “the leaders, let’s say in the Muslim world, talk a lot of violent talk and encourage their supporters to be willing to commit violence, including on their own bodies, in order to win against whoever they decide is the enemy. We in the U.S. media describe that as they are radicalizing those people—particularly they are radicalizing young people. That’s how we talk about the way Muslims act. When you see what Donald Trump is doing, is that any different from what we describe as radicalizing people?””

    In a statement, Muslim Advocates demanded that Reid “apologize on air tonight.”

    “Joy Reid must apologize on air tonight for spreading the false, dangerous myth that Muslims are inherently radical and violent. MSNBC also needs to take action to ensure anti-Muslim bigotry has no place on its network. Muslims have been gunned down in their homes and houses of worship by people who believe in the very same hateful, false smears that Reid shared on her program. This is deadly serious and it’s part of a dangerous, longstanding pattern. 

    Omar made a similar request.

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

    This isn’t the first time Reid has been in the cross-hairs of Islamic rights groups. Back in 2018, a furor was unleashed when several old blog posts bearing homophobic and Islamophobic messages were unearthed.

    Here’s an excerpt from one particularly “problematic” post:

    “My feeling is that the only reason that a world war between civilizations has not already broken out is that the vast majority of Muslims living in the world today are so desperately poor that they have the time, energy and resources for only the occasional burst of AK-47 fire into the air from the garbage and sewage laden streets outside of their mud huts. Give them resources and I fear that they will come after us everywhere that they can find us, which is to say everywhere.”

    Her use of the phrase “mud huts” is particularly appalling.

    Yet, Reid survived past scandals and managed to hang on to her job at MSNBC. It’s almost like the news organization can’t fire her.

    Last time around, Reid laughably made things worse by claiming that “hackers” published the offending blog posts under her name.

    Will Reid make history as one of the first people to mendaciously cry “deep fake?”

  • In Unprecedented Move, CDC Halts Most Rental Evictions Until End Of 2020
    In Unprecedented Move, CDC Halts Most Rental Evictions Until End Of 2020

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 09/01/2020 – 20:30

    In an unprecedented move on Tuesday, with Congress unable to reach a common ground on virtually any stimulus extension, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention unveiled today it would temporarily – at least through the end of 2020 – suspend most rental evictions for Americans struggling to pay rent due to the pandemic, in a step which CNN dubbed was “broader than eviction protections already in place.” The move comes as negotiations on further coronavirus aid have been stalled as Republicans and Democrats refuse to budge on topline numbers for what a new relief package would cost.

    In a phone call with reporters, officials said the order will apply to Americans who qualified for direct payments under the CARES Act.

    To be sure there are some hurdles: renters will have to prove that they’ve taken “best efforts possible to seek government assistance to make their rental payments,” and will have to “declare that they are unable to pay rent due to Covid financial hardship,” and must show they “will likely become homeless or move into congregate housing settings if they are evicted”, but that should not be a problem for anyone willing to live rent free indefinitely.

    Renters will also have to fill out several forms, found on the CDC’s website, and give them directly to their landlords to qualify for the program.

    “This will be a declaration presented to the landlord, if that landlord approaches a tenant with an intent to evict,” an official said. Because the move is federally mandated, it “would become a criminal offence” if the landlord chose to ignore the declaration. But it could still end up in courts, possibly leading to legal actions that could show up on background checks or credit reports.

    And while landlords are being effectively stripped of most if not all of their rights with this extraordinary intervention, they will still be able to remove tenants for “committing criminal acts, threatening the health and safety of other residents, damaging property or other health and safety considerations,” an official added although good luck getting through to the local police station and reporting a crime in a country where defunding the local law enforcement is seen as the pinnacle of progressive thought.

    “To the extent that there is a dispute between the landlord and the renter about whether or not an eviction protection is in place here, it can be filed, and that would be for the local courts, which are not federal to adjudicate,” an official said, without clarifying how long before defunding the local courts becomes the next progressive ideal. On the other hand, in places like Portland they won’t even have to do that: after all, everyone arrested for rioting is released the next day with the blessing of the judicial branch so they can resume rioting post haste.

    Under the CARES Act, only renters in federally-backed rental units were protected from eviction. “This covers any rental unit in United States, so long as the renter meets those requirements, where they’ve demonstrated that they are at risk of becoming evicted,” an official said. There’s also currently a moratorium on evictions for federally-backed, single family home mortgages.

    Realizing that this was nothing short of an invitation to stop paying rent, a CDC official said pointblankthis “is not an invitation to stop paying rent.” It was unclear how many in the audience laughed. “The order makes clear that a renter who cannot pay his or her full rent should pay an amount that is not unduly burdensome, and as close to payment as possible.”

    The landlords are surely holding their breath (their best and only recourse… although if they hold it long enough they will surely get a Fed bailout too).

    As for those asking just why on earth a decision to halt evictions is being made by the CDC and not say… Congress, an official said “the CDC director has authority to take measures that he’s reasonably necessary to mitigate the spread of communicable disease.”

    “Congress has delegated broad authority to HHS, the Surgeon General and CDC, to take reasonable efforts to combat the spread of communicable diseases, and frankly I think it makes sense for those authorities abroad because we don’t know for any given situation or scenario what steps will be needed to stop the spread,” an administration official said. “I think, in this particular order, the CDC has made a very compelling case that it is quite problematic at this particular time. It’s focused on this particular pandemic, which is obviously the uniquely powerful grasp in the nation’s entire history in terms of the effect it’s had that for a bunch of reasons in particular, that the home has been sort of the focal point of people social distancing and building, sort of a safe space themselves over the past few months, and also the fact that if people get kicked out, they may end up in overcrowded congregated living facilities or homeless shelters, and that is a potential recipe for a big spread of COVID-19.”

    Asked why that authority wasn’t being used to enact a federal mask mandate, officials refused to answer because the question didn’t “have to do with the call at hand.”

    Finally, confirming the political nature of the decision, deputy press secretary Brian Morgenstern said the action “means that people struggling to pay rent due to the coronavirus will not have to worry about being evicted and risk further spreading of or exposure to the disease due to economic hardship,” and attacked Democrats on the hill.

    Officials did not answer questions about how that legal action could impact credit or future housing options.

    And with that, we now wait for the CDC to start sending unemployment benefits and buying Apple bonds.

  • Systemic Chaos
    Systemic Chaos

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 09/01/2020 – 20:05

    Submitted by Jeff Thomas of International Man

    In the short time since the killing of George Floyd, demonstrations have taken place in all fifty US states. Riots have occurred in forty of them. In each of the incidents, many protesters held up signs saying, “Defund the Police.”

    Of course, no one wants to become a riot victim, but in those cities and states that are Democrat-run, there’s a bit of a hitch: Politicians must be seen to sympathize with protesters, or they will not appear to be sufficiently outraged by “systemic racism.”

    They must therefore choose between the safety of their constituents and appeasing protesters. This is not an enviable position to be in; yet, since most all politicians regard re-election as overshadowing all other concerns, they can be predicted to follow the irrational wishes of the protesters.

    Minneapolis, where the protests began, has a population of some 425,000 residents. Only a small fraction of them actually joined the protest, and in fact, even the Democratic governor of Minnesota has stated that 80% of the protestors were from out of town.

    There are conflicting theories as to whether these 80% were actual sympathisers or were hired by heavily funded organisations that hope to create a dysfunctional situation in Minneapolis and other cities in the US.

    Not surprisingly, Minneapolis is now the first city whose city council has voted to defund the police.

    In place of the police will be a department of community safety that will be staffed with people who have no police training whatever. There will, however, be people with expertise in mental health, social services and counselling.

    The reader could be forgiven if he is inclined to shake his head and say, “But the removal of the police entirely won’t decrease crime, it will invite more crime. Don’t those on the city council understand that?”

    Well, apparently, yes, they do. In fact, since they themselves will no longer have the protection of the police, they’ve arranged for the city to hire security guards to protect them. Over the past three weeks alone, it has cost the taxpayers of Minneapolis over $60,000 to protect council members.

    So how can it be that police are not needed by the general public to protect them from rioters and other criminals, whilst the city council members do? Well, one member has explained that need, stating that she has no fear from rioters, but that white nationalists have made her fear for her life.

    Without seeking to be judgmental, I think it’s safe to say that Minneapolis is in for a crime wave beyond anything it has ever experienced. Inner cities have a penchant for being breeding grounds for chronic street crime. And criminals in inner cities have a long-held record for creating as much crime as they can get away with. The only limitation on the crime level is whatever degree of arrests can be made.

    And it may be safe to say that social service counsellors will not be making many arrests.

    Those of us who are not American and don’t live in the US tend to be stupefied by such developments taking place, as the US had, for so long, been regarded by the rest of the world as a paragon of freedom and common sense.

    In recent years, however, that perception has been tossed in the dustbin.

    We tend to be stunned that such absurdly self-destructive decisions such as the recent one in Minneapolis could take place, and just as stunned that the majority of Americans, who surely have more sense, would not raise an immediate furor.

    But this view leaves out an important factor in US political culture.

    Beginning in the 1960s, American youth began to take their country in a new direction. In countless campus demonstrations, they championed causes such as peace and race relations. This was the baby-boomer generation, and whilst these university students may have been somewhat spoiled and self-focused, they were more numerous than the previous generation and had a huge impact on American society.

    Also, truth be told, the concepts of peace, racial equality and gender equality unquestionably were laudable and well worth protesting for.

    Indeed, it might be said that it would be perennially desirable for younger people to question the previous generation, and to offer possible alternatives. Not all would be workable, but it’s healthy for the grand social experiment to be questioned periodically.

    But, unfortunately, this is not what we’re seeing in today’s America.

    What we’re seeing is the maturation of political correctness – a movement that at first appeared to be relatively benign. However, from the very first, it contained a telltale dark aspect. Anyone who disagreed with a tenet of politically correct thinking was shamed and sometimes ostracized.

    Of course, our old friend George Orwell warned us of this approach. He understood that once it took hold – once it had firmly rooted itself in the culture – it would be almost impossible to stop.

    “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

    This motto was created by Orwell’s “Ministry of Truth,” which dictated whatever the State decided was true at any given time.

    Today’s Ministry of Truth actually has several outlets – primarily the twenty-four hour news programmes that repeat the same interpretations of events, ad nauseum.

    And it does seem that the result has been that a percentage of Americans have come to accept the often-ludicrous concepts that are put forward by the Ministry.

    This is how it’s possible for the politically correct but largely non-factual claim of systemic racism to soon be replaced by the very real systemic chaos.

    And worse, just as our friend Mister Orwell predicted, the great majority – who thoroughly understand that many politically correct concepts are nonsense – are so fearful of being singled out as not accepting such dogma that they simply remain quiet and allow their once-great country to be converted into a collectivist oligarchy.

    Of course, that term may startle some as possibly being an overstatement, but once those who value freedom and common sense have effectively been silenced, it’s safe to say that it’s game over.

    From that point forward, the political class may pass whatever legislation it wishes, with impunity, no matter how illogical or harmful.

    As Ayn Rand observed,

    We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.

    Editor’s Note: Disturbing economic, political, and social trends are already in motion and now accelerating at breathtaking speed. Most troubling of all, they cannot be stopped.

    That’s exactly why bestselling author Doug Casey and his team just released a free report with all the details on how to survive the crisis ahead.

    It will help you understand what is unfolding right before our eyes and what you should do so you don’t get caught in the crosshairs.

  • "Blowouts For Me, Not For Thee!": Pelosi Sneaks Visit To Closed San Francisco Hair Salon
    “Blowouts For Me, Not For Thee!”: Pelosi Sneaks Visit To Closed San Francisco Hair Salon

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 09/01/2020 – 19:40

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) – who invited people to tour Chinatown in late February to prove that coronavirus was ‘no big deal’ – has just been caught ignoring a San Francisco city ordinance ordering hair salons to remain closed during the pandemic.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    According to security footage obtained by Fox News, the 80-year-old lawmaker was seen at San Francisco hair salon “eSalon” Monday afternoon for a wash and blow-out at 3:08 p.m. according to a timestamp on the footage, which shows her walking through the salon without a mask over her mouth or nose.

    Her stylist, however, can be seen walking behind her with a black face mask.

    Salons in San Francisco had been closed since March and were only notified they could reopen on Sept. 1 for outdoor hairstyling services only.

    Salon owner Erica Kious, in a phone interview with Fox News on Tuesday, shared details of Pelosi’s visit. Kious explained she has independent stylists working for her who rent chairs in her salon.

    “One of the stylists who rents a chair from me contacted me Sunday night,” Kious said.

    A screengrab of the text message she received from one of her stylists, and obtained by Fox News, said: “I’ll be there at 2:45 tomorrow. Pelosi assistant just messaged me to do her hair.”

    Kious replied: “Pelosi?” –Fox News

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    “I was like, are you kidding me right now? Do I let this happen? What do I do?” Salon owner Kious told Fox News, adding that she “can’t control” what her stylists do if they rent chairs from her – as “they’re not paying” at this time.

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

    According to Kious, Pelosi’s visit was like a “slap in the face.”

    “It was a slap in the face that she went in, you know, that she feels that she can just go and get her stuff done while no one else can go in, and I can’t work,” Kious told Fox News, adding that she “can’t believe” the speaker didn’t have a mask on. (From the footage, it appears Pelosi had some kind of covering around her neck.)

    We’re supposed to look up to this woman, right? It is just disturbing.

    …

    The fact that they did this, and she came in, it’s like a slap in the face.“

    Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill told Fox that the speaker was simply following the rules.

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

    “The Speaker always wears a mask and complies with local COVID requirements. This business offered for the Speaker to come in on Monday and told her they were allowed by the city to have one customer at a time in the business. The Speaker complied with the rules as presented to her by this establishment.”

    Not so fast, says Kious, who said Pelosi received a wash and blow-dry, but added that “you’re not supposed to blow dry hair” according to COVID-19 safety precautions for hair salons.

    “We have been shut down for so long, not just me, but most of the small businesses and I just can’t – it’s a feeling – a feeling of being deflated, helpless and honestly beaten down,” Kious added. “I have been fighting for six months for a business that took me 12 years to build to reopen.”

    “I am a single mom, I have two small children, and I have no income.”

    Clearly Pelosi is taking this thing seriously…

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

    Read the rest of the report here.

  • Where Will The World’s Next Giant Gold Discovery Be Made?
    Where Will The World’s Next Giant Gold Discovery Be Made?

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 09/01/2020 – 19:15

    Submitted by Rick Sonenshein of OilPrice.com

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    With gold trading at an all-time high, and legendary investor Warren Buffet backing the precious metal for the first time, it’s time to consider where the next big gold discovery will emerge. And chances are it will be the same country that Buffett just bet on: Canada.

    Buffett wasn’t betting on discovery though, instead, he was betting on dividends. But dividends are for small, steady returns over a long period of time.

    But for investors looking for big returns, small-cap miners are where the risk-reward potential gets interesting. Especially when it’s a small-cap miner like Starr Peak Exploration  that was prescient enough to place itself right next to a huge gold discovery – before it happened.

    And now the company is doubling down with major new acquisitions in the heart of one of the friendliest mining regions in the world. The smart money is already circling the stock, with Starr Peak’s shares on a tear, gaining over 900% in 12 months.

    Even Buffett Believes The Time Is Right For Canadian Gold

    Buffett broke with his long-held negative stance on gold on August 17th when his Berkshire Hathaway disclosed a massive stake in Canadian Barrick Gold (NYSE:GOLD) at a time when gold is soaring.

    Berkshire Hathaway bought more than $560 million in Barrick Gold shares.

    Buffett has always called gold useless for the most part. 

    But with COVID-19 ravaging the economy, even if the dollar makes a few temporary comebacks, gold is on track for a 90% increase in a very short time frame. That makes gold one of the biggest opportunities in the past few months.

    Still, holding gold-mining stocks isn’t the same as holding physical gold, which is largely just a safe haven hedge against inflation – and nothing more. Buffett didn’t buy gold. He bought GOLD.

    Gold-mining stocks come with much bigger potential rewards, but the biggest risks and rewards of all are the small-cap stocks that are sitting on new potential resources that nobody knows about.

    That’s where small-cap Starr Peak Exploration Ltd. (TSX:STE.V; OTC:STRPF) shines in that sweet spot right between a major discovery and low exposure.

    The company is now trying to replicate a huge discovery made by its neighbor – Amex Exploration, whose own shares surged over 2,000% in the last year on new gold discoveries, and over 1000% in the last 12 months alone.  

    And it’s right in the heart of what is arguably the best gold venue in the world …

    Canadian Gold and the Quebec Heartland

    The future is bright for gold miners in Quebec, with a rich precious metals history and still a ton of unexplored and underexplored territory.

    And it’s got geology that makes the mining industry reel with anticipation. More than 90% of the province’s substratum consists of Precambrian rock, which is famous for rich deposits of gold – as well as iron, copper, and nickel.  

    That’s why the province has at least 30 major mines and some 160 exploration projects. And that is with only around 40% of the province’s mineral potential even known.

    The biggest prize is the Abitibi Greenstone Belt, home to some of the world’s largest gold and base metal deposits. These are “world-class” deposits – a dozen of them, including the recent giant discovery by Amex. And Starr Peak is working to repeat Amex’s success.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    When gold soars, the first – and biggest – beneficiaries are those stocks on Canada’s main index, the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX). And it’s been a phenomenal 2020 for these stocks. And the best way to look for the surges is what’s coming out of Quebec.

    Right now, we’re looking at the best conditions ever for new high-value gold discoveries. The soaring optimism has market values climbing uproariously since March for an entire lineup of Canadian miners, including Osisko Mining (TSX:OSK), IAMGOLD Corporate (NYSE:IAG), McEwen Mining Inc. (NYSE:MUX), and many others.

    After years of cost-cutting, gold miners are now ready to spend, spend, spend on exploration – globally.

    But what’s happened is this: Mining majors have largely given up exploration, standing by to let the junior miners do all the heavy lifting and then scooping them up on a major discovery, or once a discovery has been proved up. That makes some junior mining stocks worth far more than their market caps. And it makes millionaires out of some of their investors.

    And Quebec is one of the friendliest, most lucrative gold-mining venues in the world. This isn’t African gold, with the uncertainty of corruption and the lack of infrastructure. This is a superior mining country with massive infrastructure already in place.

    Welcome to the Discovery Zone: Past, Present & Future

    Starr Peak acquired its first property directly adjacent and joining Amex’s property back in June 2019. 

    That was prescient because it was done before Amex made its first big discovery, and even before it started drilling aggressively. 

    Anytime later and that would have been prime real estate with a prime price. Which is what it is, precisely, now. 

    Figure 1: Geological Map of the NewMetal property with the new acquired claims blocs with respect to Amex Exploration’s Perron Project.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Figure 1: Geological Map of the NewMetal property with the new acquired claims blocs with respect to Amex Exploration’s Perron Project

    Starr Peak’s NewMétal Property is immediately east of AMEX’s Perron Property, and also hosts the past-producing Normétal Mine, which Starr Peak just acquired on August 10th 2020. 

    The acquisition hunger here has been incredibly aggressive. Even though Starr Peak and its early staged investors were already confident that the company was sitting on an Amex-style re-run, they still moved fast to keep expanding their position. 

    It’s been a series of acquisitions over the past 12 months, including a huge package that looks like a pincer movement around Quebec’s  best-positioned gold play.  

    In June 2020, it expanded the first property by strategically acquiring a property that almost doubled its existing land position next to the world class deposit discovered by Amex.

    There were dozens of companies trying to get their hands on the property, but Starr Peak already had a leg up in the area.

    Then, in August, Starr Peak acquired a 100%-interest in three major gold properties, orchestrating what can only be described as a mining coup for a small-cap company like this:  

    • The Normetal/Normetmar gold, copper, zinc and silver property
    • The Rousseau gold property
    • The Turgeon Lake gold property

    Starr Peak now has 74 mineral claims on some 2,280 hectares in one of the world’s most exciting gold plays.

    As we speak, Amex is drilling closer and closer to Starr Peak’s property line–and the closer it gets, the higher the grades of gold and the shallower the depth.

    Right now, it’s only about 1.2 kilometers away from Starr Peak. 

    And Starr Peak is fully funded and ready to start drilling its own property, with the same top geological consulting firm in Quebec, Laurentia Exploration–the same one behind the Amex discovery–to ramp it up. 

    These are exciting times in the Canadian gold patch, and nowhere is more exciting than the untapped precious metals potential of the world’s favorite gold province–Quebec. This is where giant discoveries have a past, a present, and an even bigger future. If Normetal was a major player, and Amex a story of wild returns for investors, Starr Peak may be next in line.

    Other companies set to benefit from record-high gold prices:

    Freeport-McMoRan

    While Freeport-McMoRan is primarily known for its significant copper mining operations, the resource giant also has a fair influx of gold as well. In fact, its Grasberg mine in Indonesia holds of the world’s largest deposits of copper and gold. But that’s just scratching the surface of the miner’s global assets. Freeport-McMoRan also has extensive operations across the Americas, including mines in Arizona, Mexico and Peru.

    Though its business struggled as global demand for copper took a hit, panic-buying from China has lifted prices higher in recent months – and that’s good news for Freeport-McMoRan. In addition to climbing copper prices, gold prices hit record levels, which will add even more to the mining giant’s bottom line.

    Freeport-McMoRan has had a solid year, with the price of its stock bouncing off a low of $5.31 back in March to a high of $15.70 today, representing a strong 195% gain for shareholders.

    Gold Fields

    Gold Fields has catapulted itself into the global mining elite in recent years thanks to its forward-looking vision and exceptional management. Based out of Johannesburg, South Africa, Gold Fields is one of the de facto leaders in the region. With operations in South Africa, Ghana, Australia and Peru, Gold Fields is well-diversified.

    In 2019, Gold Fields produced over 68 tons of the precious metal, up nearly 8% from the year before. And thanks to this year’s rally in gold prices, it’s on track to produce even more by the end of 2020.

    Last September, Gold Fields was trading at only $5.12 per share, but thanks to its increased production, and the dramatic rise in gold prices, it’s now trading at $13.15, which means investors who held on have brought home over 150% returns – with many analysts suggesting the stock could go even higher.

    Compania de Minas Buenaventura

    It’s rare to see miners from outside of North America on the New York Stock Exchange, but Peruvian Compania de Minas Buenaventura is an exception. Listing on the NYSE in 1996, Minas Buenaventura has clawed its way up the ranks of the global mining elite. Currently valued at $3.51 billion, the mining giant is far from its all-time highs. But it’s not down for the count just yet.

    Minas Buenaventure is exposed to six different mining properties around the globe which bring in an estimated 945,000 ounces of gold every year. But that’s not all its got going for it. It is also has exposure to a number of silver mines which produce as much as 26.5 million ounces per year, and tens of thousands of metric tons of industrial metals such as zinc, lead and copper from its domestic mines.

    Harmony Gold

    Harmony Gold is another South African miner which has exploded onto the radars of investors this year. Though it’s only the third-largest miner in the country, it has made some stellar moves in the marketplace. Domestically, it has nine underground mines in the resource-rich Witwatersrand Basin and one open-pit mine in the Kraaipan Greenstone Belt. It also has a major joint-venture with Newcrest Mining in Papua New Guinea.

    Earlier this year, Harmony raised a whopping $200 million to partially fund a key acquisition of AngloGold’s assets in its home country. The deal is expected to more-than-triple its gold production to as much as 1.8 million ounces per year.

    This time last year, Harmony was trading at just $3.22, dropping to a low of $1.93 in March as a result of the wider market downturn, but it has since soared by 260% in a matter of months, now trading at $6.95 per share.

    AngloGold Ashanti

    AngloGold is the third-largest gold mining company by production volume. And though it has had some problems over the past decade, specifically in the early 2010s when the gold market took a major hit forcing many miners, including AngloGold to shutter operations, the mining giant has persevered.

    AngloGold is one of the more diverse miners on the planet, shielding itself from country-specific regulatory troubles or civil strife. It has operations on four continents including Africa, Australia, South America and North America.

    Though AngloGold hasn’t performed quite as well as some of its peers over the past year, it has shown that it still has the potential for long-term growth. Back in 2015, the company’s share price dropped to just $5.97, but since then, investors who have been able to hold onto the stock have seen a 401% return over a five-year period.  

    Canadian miners are in the race, as well:

    Yamana Gold

     Yamana, has recently completed its Cerro Moro project in Argentina, giving its investors something major to look out for. The company ramped up its gold production by 20% through 2019 and its silver production by a whopping 200%. Investors can expect a serious increase in free cash flow if precious metal prices remain stable.

    Recently, Yamana signed an agreement with Glencore and Goldcorp to develop and operate another Argentinian project, the Agua Rica.  Initial analysis suggests the potential for a mine life in excess of 25 years at average annual production of approximately 236,000 tonnes (520 million pounds) of copper-equivalent metal, including the contributions of gold, molybdenum, and silver, for the first 10 years of operation.

    The agreement is a major step forward for the Agua Rica region, and all of the miners working on it.

    Eldorado Gold Corp. is a mid-cap miner with assets in Europe and Brazil. It has managed to cut cost per ounce significantly in recent years. Though its share price isn’t as high as it once was, Eldorado is well positioned to make significant advancements in the near-term.

    In 2018, Eldorado produced over 349,000 ounces of gold, well above its previous expectations, and boosted its production even further in 2019.

    Eldorado’s President and CEO, George Burns, stated: “As a result of the team’s hard work in 2018, we are well positioned to grow annual gold production to over 500,000 ounces in 2020.  We expect this will allow us to generate significant free cash flow and provide us with the opportunity to consider debt retirement later this year. “

    First Majestic Silver

    Though First Majestic recently took a significant blow, as a strong dollar weighed on precious metals resulting in a poor quarterly earnings report, there’s still a lot of bullishness surrounding the stock. Adding to the negative numbers, however, was a string of highly valuable acquisitions which are likely to turn around for the metals giant in the mid-to-long-term.

    While it’s primary focus remains on silver mining, it does hold a number of gold assets, as well. Additionally, silver tends to follow gold’s lead when wider markets begin to look shaky. And with analysts sounding the alarms of a global economic slowdown, both metals are likely to regain popularity among investors.

    Wheaton Precious Metals Corp.

    Wheaton is a company with its hands in operations all around the world. As one of the largest ‘streaming’ companies on the planet, Wheaton has agreements with 19 operating mines and 9 projects still in development. Its unique business model allows it to leverage price increases in the precious metals sector, as well as provide a quality dividend yield for its investors.

    Recently, Wheaton sealed a deal with Hudbay Minerals Inc. relating to its Rosemont project. For an initial payment of $230 million, Wheaton is entitled to 100 percent of payable gold and silver at a price of $450 per ounce and $3.90 per ounce respectively.

    Randy Smallwood, Wheaton’s President and Chief Executive Officer explained, “With their most recent successful construction of the Constancia mine in Peru, the Hudbay team has proven themselves to be strong and responsible mine developers, and we are excited about the same team moving this project into production. Rosemont is an ideal fit for Wheaton’s portfolio of high-quality assets, and when it is in production, should add well over fifty thousand gold equivalent ounces to our already growing production profile.”

    Pan American Silver

    Pan American is a world-class mining operation with active projects in Mexico, Peru, Canada, Bolivia and Argentina. Though silver has seen better days, it is still a favorite among investors stocking up on safe haven assets.

    Recently, Pan American made a major acquisition of Tahoe Resources, absorbing the company’s issued and outstanding shares.

    Michael Steinmann, President and Chief Executive Officer of Pan American Silver, said: “The completion of the Arrangement establishes the world’s premier silver mining company with an industry-leading portfolio of assets, a robust growth profile and attractive operating margins. We are also now the largest publicly traded silver mining company by free float, offering silver mining investors enhanced scale and liquidity.”

  • A Deal To Sell TikTok Probably Isn't Happening Tuesday – Or Any Time Soon
    A Deal To Sell TikTok Probably Isn’t Happening Tuesday – Or Any Time Soon

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 09/01/2020 – 18:50

    CNBC assured us yesterday that despite Beijing’s latest attempt to stall any sale of TikTok, that Chinese conglomerate ByteDance could announce a deal with a chosen US partner by the end of Tuesday.

    Well, here we are: The business day has ended in North America, and Asia is just waking up on Wednesday morning, and while reporters have doubled down on their assurances that a deal just might be in the offing, this latest report from the Wall Street Journal highlighting new obstacles to a TikTok sale is a pretty obvious sign that we’re not going to get a deal tonight.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    But then again, we suspected as much earlier, when President Trump insisted that Sept. 15 would, in fact, be a hard deadline for TikTok to be sold (even though his last EO technically extended that deadline). Whatever the ‘deadline’ may be, Beijing has already clearly signaled that it won’t allow a “smash & grab” deal. For whatever reason, the CCP is pumping the breaks. The other day, we surmised that President Xi might be savoring the chance to stick it to Trump by embarrassing him politically. But in truth, this is probably an ancillary benefit.

    According to WSJ, which cited an anonymous source close to Beijing’s thinking, the goal of China’s latest attempt to obstruct the deal is simply to delay a deal, not to scuttle it completely.

    A delay, this source reasons, would create an opportunity for the Chinese government to have a say as well as to subject it to a level of Chinese government scrutiny similar to that imposed by CFIUS, as Beijing works to bolster the narrative that the US’s claims about national security threats stemming from China are brazen hypocrisies, and that Washington is the real threat to Beijing’s security.

    That Beijing is committing to this approach makes sense, considering what Peter Navarro said after warning his interviewer during an appearance on Fox Business that the US would soon expand its list of Chinese companies to target. After that, Navarro hinted that TikTok had stolen some of the AI technology it used to build its precious ‘core algorithm’ from Alphabet and Microsoft.

    CFIUS has killed several deals involving Chinese companies, including the sale of Grindr, the queer-focused hookup app, to a Chinese company, for fear that it could make members of the US military vulnerable to blackmail.

    Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian responded to a question about a TikTok sale by accusing the US of “economic-bullying and political-manipulation tactics against non-U.S. companies.”

    WSJ’s report noted that Beijing’s decision to force regulatory approval of any sale of TikTok by ByteDance would complicate the talks because the only option ByteDance would have to get around these restrictions would be to sell TikTok to Microsoft-Wal-Mart (or whoever) while retaining the algorithm – something that analysts say would pretty much invalidate the entire point of the deal, since the algorithm is so critical to TikTok’s success.

    Others argued that ByteDance could circumvent Beijing’s restrictions by just selling the shell of the business, allowing the buyer to simply build their own algorithm, like Facebook did when it launched Instagram Reels.

  • Flamethrower-Packing Antifa 'Entered Fetal Position And Began Crying' After Unsuccessful Escape From Cops
    Flamethrower-Packing Antifa ‘Entered Fetal Position And Began Crying’ After Unsuccessful Escape From Cops

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 09/01/2020 – 18:44

    A 23-year-old Wisconsin man carrying a flamethrower, smoke grenades and fireworks during a Saturday night demonstration in Green Bay ‘dropped into the fetal position and began crying‘ after he was chased down by police.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Matthew Banta of Neenah, WI – who is “known to be a violent Antifa member who incites violence in otherwise relatively peaceful protests,” was one of four individuals walking towards a protest with baseball bats, according to ABC2.

    Green Bay police say they were called for “a whole bunch of white people with sticks, baseball bats and helmets headed… towards the police” on Walnut St. near Webster Ave.

    A responding officer says he saw four individuals walking towards a protest with baseball bats. One man was wearing a metal helmet with goggles and military-style gear with multiple pouches, and was carrying an Antifa flag. When the officer pulled his squad car in front of the group, they ran away. The officer caught Banta, who was carrying the flag, and says Banta “dropped into the fetal position and began crying.” He accused the officer of lying on him; the officer replied nobody was on him. –ABC2

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

    Banta claims he wasn’t planning to incite a riot (with his flamethrower, smoke grenade and fireworks).

    The three other individuals Banta was with were caught trying to break into a house. When officers apprehended them, they dropped what they were carrying, with one of them telling the police that they were simply bringing items for self-defense.

    Last month, Banta was charged in Waupaca County with second-degree recklessly endangering safety and four other charges for pointing a loaded gun at a police officer, and biting and kicking another.

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

  • Trump Lashes Out At Drudge Over "Fake News Report On Mini-Strokes"; Suggests Selfish, Ulterior Motives
    Trump Lashes Out At Drudge Over “Fake News Report On Mini-Strokes”; Suggests Selfish, Ulterior Motives

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 09/01/2020 – 18:27

    Update (2030ET): In a late Monday statement, Vice President Mike Pence said there was “nothing out of the ordinary” about Trump’s visit to Walter Reed hospital last year, and that he doesn’t recall being told to be on standby.

    “There was nothing out of the ordinary about that moment or that day,” Pence told Fox News,” adding that President Trump is in “excellent health.”

    *  *  *

    President Trump lashed out at the Drudge Report on Tuesday, after the formerly right-leaning news aggregator headlined a rumor from New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt, who claimed that Trump had suffered a series of small strokes last year, requiring Vice President Mike Pence to be on ‘standby’ in case Trump was incapacitated.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    “Drudge didn’t support me in 2016, and I hear he doesn’t support me now. Maybe that’s why he is doing poorly,” Trump claimed in a Tuesday tweet, adding “His Fake News report on Mini-Strokes is incorrect. Possibly thinking about himself, or the other party’s “candidate”.

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

    Earlier in the day, Trump tweeted “Now they are trying to say that your favorite President, me, went to Walter Reed Medical Center, having suffered a series of mini-strokes,” adding “Never happened to THIS candidate – FAKE NEWS. Perhaps they are referring to another candidate from another Party!”

    Of course, it’s perhaps a bit of a stretch for Trump to suggest that Drudge wasn’t pulling for him in 2016. Could this be ‘4D chess’ to force a discussion on Drudge’s clear ideological shift over the past year?

    In April, President Trump retweeted conservative journalist Paul Sperry, who called a Drudge Report headline about coronavirus peaking “disingenuous,” to which Trump said “I gave up on Drudge (a really nice guy) long ago, as have many others. People are dropping off like flies!” His comment was a reference to conservative figures growing less popular, and Drudge losing web traffic, after breaking with Trump, and not the rising death toll in the U.S. from coronavirus.”

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

    Drudge responded, telling CNN “The past 30 days has been the most eyeballs in Drudge Report’s 26 year-history,” adding “Heartbreaking that it has been under such tragic circumstances.”

    Former Drudge employee Joseph Curl suggested that Matt Drudge simply wants ‘more turmoil’ and ‘doesn’t give a shit about America.’

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

  • Daily Briefing – September 1, 2020
    Daily Briefing – September 1, 2020


    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 09/01/2020 – 18:10

    Senior editor, Ash Bennington, hosts Tony Greer, editor of The Morning Navigator, to discuss how the Fed’s “inflation running hot” memo has been translated by the markets. With a weakening dollar, rally in TIPS, and a steeper yield curve, Tony argues that the asset price inflation happening is the way the Fed had intended it to be and that understanding how the Fed fits into the equation will shape the investor’s understanding of the sustainability of this rally. He and Ash examine the price action and continuous rotation across different sectors as well as how commodities continuing to rip is an expression of an ever-weakening dollar. Tony then provides his forward guidance for the remainder of the week. In the intro, Nick Correa goes over the newest U.S. manufacturing numbers as well as what’s happening with copper and other industrial metals.

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Sep 01

Today’s News 1st September 2020

  • Adele Sparks 'Cultural Appropriation' Backlash With Bizarre Jamaican Flag Bikini
    Adele Sparks ‘Cultural Appropriation’ Backlash With Bizarre Jamaican Flag Bikini

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 09/01/2020 – 02:45

    Pop singer Adele set the Internet on fire late Sunday when she posted a photo of herself following yet another spell of dramatic weight loss, while wearing an outfit that elicited cries of “cultural appropriation” from a legion of social media users.

    In a photo purportedly meant to mark Notting Hill Carnival, which was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, Adele posted the following photo.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    For those who aren’t familiar with Notting Hill, it’s a carnival that celebrates Caribbean and Black culture in the UK. 

    But apparently, something about Adele’s chosen ensemble of a Jamaican flag bikini top paired with Bantu knots, a traditional African hairstyle worn by black women, struck a chord, and the photo quickly went viral.

    In a since deleted tweet, one of Adele’s followers wrote: “Dear white people, please just be yourselves and stop it for good with cultural appropriation. Adele the bantu knots were unnecessary. The Jamaican flag bikini top was unnecessary… Please just stop it.”

    Some focused on good-natured jokes.

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

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

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

    The jokes really write themselves.

    When it came to light that most of the people dragging Adele were American blacks, things got a little complicated, as some tried to parse who actually has a right to criticize which aspects of Adele’s outfit.

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

    Contrast all of that with the naively simpleminded message Adele included in her original post: “Happy what would be Notting Hill Carnival my beloved London.”

     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

    Happy what would be Notting Hill Carnival my beloved London 🇬🇧🇯🇲

    A post shared by Adele (@adele) on Aug 30, 2020 at 3:17pm PDT

    //www.instagram.com/embed.js

    It’s almost as if foreigners aren’t nearly as sensitive to this ‘cultural appropriation’ nonsense as Americans.

  • On Sweden's 'High' COVID Death Rates Among The Nordics: "Dry Tinder" & Other Important Factors
    On Sweden’s ‘High’ COVID Death Rates Among The Nordics: “Dry Tinder” & Other Important Factors

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 09/01/2020 – 02:00

    Authored by Joakim Book via The American Institute for Economic Research,

    This year has been stupefying – only God knows what comes next! What has been so odd in the corona conversation is the persistent lack of nuance. Many have treated the responses to the pandemic with a one-dimensional argument that won’t pass even a rudimentary sniff test. The story goes something like this: The moral imperative of the day is to close down society because that will reduce social interaction, transmission, and deaths. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    And suddenly that most darling of countries, Sweden, is deviant and miscreant. Its lighter-touch approach is discussed as “the World’s Cautionary Tale,” a “A Very Swedish Sort of Failure,” and “The Grim Truth about the Swedish ‘Model’.”

    Allowing restaurants and schools and hairdressers to remain open in the midst of a contagious pandemic has attracted fierce international opposition. For keeping its society more open than most everyone else, Sweden has paid a hefty price, we are told: almost 6,000 dead in a population of just above 10 million. Had Sweden invoked the strict lockdowns of its Nordic neighbors, so many unnecessary deaths could have been prevented. The usually vaunted Scandinavian country sacrificed its elderly with nothing but kindergartens and some open-air cafés to show for it. An article in Business Insider is titled “Skeptical Experts in Sweden Say Its Decision to Have No Lockdown Is a Terrible Mistake that No Other Nation Should Copy.”

    But is the story true? 

    In a new paper, we consider 15 other factors that help to explain Sweden’s excessive death rate compared to its Nordic neighbors. Sweden was in a very different position than its neighboring countries at the onset of the pandemic – uniquely positioned, if you wish, to suffer a worse outcome from a coronavirus-like pandemic. 

    Many observers argue along the lines of the Latin expression post hoc ergo propter hoc, usually translated as “after this, thus because of this.” The idea is that because Sweden’s horrific death rates followed its refusal to lock down its society as strictly as other countries, the latter must have been the cause of the former. 

    We invoke another Latin expression as more pertinent to Sweden’s excess corona deaths: ceteris paribus, or “all things equal.” Many international observers, particularly Americans, might make the mistake of thinking that all the Nordic countries are the same – Minnesota-sized countries with roughly the same language and culture and social-democratic institutions. 

    Not so. Sweden differs in identifiable ways from Norway, Finland, and Denmark. Moreover, the pandemic is particular, and the particulars of time and place can matter enormously. 

    Some major factors behind Sweden’s corona deaths

    The epicenter of the pandemic in all the Nordic countries have been their capital cities: Stockholm, for instance, accounts for 42% of all Sweden’s corona deaths even though only some 20% of the population lives there. Similarly, metro-area Copenhagen holds about 35% of Denmark’s population but 58% of its corona deaths and Oslo 24% of the country’s population but 36% of its corona deaths.

    Other densely populated regions of Sweden, such as the borderlands to Denmark, have seen death rates indistinguishable from Danish regions across Öresund, suggesting to us that there’s something special about Stockholm’s outbreak that doesn’t reflect the Swedish policies more broadly. One is the relatively larger population and metro commuter area. As we’ve seen with New York City and the tri-state area, contagion increases rapidly with more people in closer vicinities. The Stockholm subway system has between three and five times the ridership that its Nordic neighbors do. 

    Another is the propensity of Stockholm residents to ski in the Alps. Also notable for Stockholm is the timing of Sweden’s “sport” break (sportlov), where families often go to Italy or Austria for skiing. The sport breaks are staggered for Sweden’s three largest metropolitan areas: Gothenburg, February 10-16; Malmö, February 17-23; Stockholm, February 24-March 1. Stockholm’s winter break corresponds with the booming infections in northern Italy, whereas travelers from the other two areas seem to have largely missed those. Karin Tegmark Wisell of Sweden’s Public Health Agency reported that when investigating the virus, they could “clearly see the enormous imports from Italy.” As the population in the three other Nordics don’t travel to the Alps as much, they would not have had as much early exposure through this infection channel.

    By using the timing of lockdowns, we discuss a more devastating argument against the belief that they would have helped Sweden much. The other Nordics rapidly closed their borders and societies around March 12, which is the date when a counterfactual Sweden could have followed its Nordic peers and done the same. According to the World Health Organization, it takes something like 12 days from first corona symptoms to death –add another few days from exposure to first symptoms. We simply calculate 18 days from March 12 (the red bar in the figure below) and suggest that spread and infections before then could not have been prevented by a lockdown:

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Source: Euromomo, Jacob Gudiol.

    Horizontal axis is calendar weeks. 

    The figure above is all-cause deaths. We see the same thing if we look only at the COVID deaths:

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Sweden’s Covid deaths

    Source: Adam Altmejd

    The horizontal red line spans deaths that were baked into the cake by March 12. Much of the statistical hill that Sweden was to climb had already been infected by March 12. On this date, the virus was already much more pervasive in Sweden than in the other Nordics: Actions taken on March 12 could not have undone the past, only altered the future. 

    In the paper, we also discuss the impact of immigrant populations, not only that infected non-Western immigrants are about 50% more likely than those of European descent to die from the virus, but that Sweden has a much larger population of citizens born in Africa or Asia – 9.8%, compared to Denmark’s 5 percent, Norway’s 7 percent, and Finland’s 3 percent. If that’s a higher risk factor, Sweden was worse positioned.  

    Also, elderly care workers are heavily staffed by immigrants. Like elsewhere, most of Sweden’s deaths have occurred in elderly care services, of which Sweden has more and larger facilities, with more vulnerable residents than does its neighbors. Also, we believe that cross-work among several care home facilities is more common in Sweden than in the other Nordics, offering another channel for transmitting the disease to those most vulnerable.

    “Dry Tinder”: Large and Crystal Clear

    But the single largest factor for why Sweden had it much worse than its Nordic neighbors during corona is the “dry tinder” hypothesis.

    We are sensitive about borrowing the “dry tinder” metaphor for the persons of human souls, but the metaphor is clarifying: Maybe a country has more forest fires this year than its neighbors because it had fewer fires in previous years, and dry tinder accumulated, awaiting a spark.

    For the previous year’s flu season, Sweden saw remarkably low death rates, relative to its own recent history and to that of its neighbors. Jonas Herby, of Denmark’s Centre for Political Studies, shows Sweden’s dry tinder situation by reporting mortality rates over the last five flu seasons:

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The dry-tinder situation in Sweden

    Source: Herby 2020, using data from Statistics Sweden.

    The dotted red line shows the unusually light death toll during the year 2018/2019 and into the first weeks of 2020; Sweden was loaded with “dry tinder” when the coronavirus arrived.

    A Twitter user (EffectsFacts) used the Human Mortality Database by demographers from Max Planck Institute and U.C. Berkeley to present the data in a number of ways. The following figure has a panel for each of the four countries. The critical thing in each panel is the 2018/2019 flu season peak straddled by two valleys. Look at the peak area compared to the two valley areas. It is graphically evident that Sweden’s ratio of peak-area/two-valleys-area is by far the lowest. It had fewer forest fires in previous years. The result was much more dry tinder heading into 2020. (The medical device engineer Ivor Cummins provides a splendid 2-min pedagogical video to illustrate those numbers).

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Sweden had a much lower peak/valleys ratio.

    Source: @EffectsFacts

    Going into the corona pandemic of 2020, Sweden already had an abundance of vulnerable elderly who would not have survived a harsher flu season – and whose Danish, Norwegian and Finnish counterparts did not survive the previous years’ flu seasons in those countries. 

    In our paper, we present and link to numerous other analyses of the “dry tinder” effect in Sweden. It is real, and it is very large. We provide some simple calculations to suggest that it might account for half of Sweden’s outsized COVID death toll. 

    Why is it that during previous years 2018-2019 Sweden did so much better – or perhaps was luckier – than the other Nordics in preventing deaths? We do not know. At any rate, “dry tinder” is why “Sweden Records Highest Death Tally in 150 Years in First Half of 2020” – and is something that any real journalist writing on August 19, 2020 would have learned of and informed readers of. That article in The Guardian epitomizes the lack of nuance marking the leftist media.

    Delivering the verdict on Sweden’s response to the corona pandemic must take this into account: going into 2020, Sweden was already in a more vulnerable position than its neighbors. 

    Even if one disregards new research suggesting that lockdowns don’t work (here, here and here), it is improbable that Sweden’s light lockdown is one of the main possible reasons for Sweden’s high COVID death rate. But we go on to list 15 other factors. The single-minded story that Sweden’s high death rate, relative to the other Nordics, stems from its relatively liberal corona policy lacks nuance. There are many other differences between Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland, including differences specific to the present. Compared to its neighbors, Sweden would have had a much worse death toll regardless of the policy measures it took in March 2020. 

  • Most Chinese EV Startups Are Now Being Bailed Out And Backed By The State
    Most Chinese EV Startups Are Now Being Bailed Out And Backed By The State

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 09/01/2020 – 01:00

    Just weeks after we reported that many EV manufacturers in the super-saturated Chinese market were going public to avoid bankruptcy, we are learning that China’s local governments are also doing everything they possibly can to keep the country’s EV projects afloat.

    For example, when NIO was under tremendous financial pressure just months ago, it was the municipal government of Hefei that stepped in to bail the company out by investing $1 billion in cash for a 24.1% stake in the company’s China’s entity – and getting the company to relocate its headquarters to its province. Hefei has “hopes of creating a powerful rival to Tesla,” according to Nikkei.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Similarly, other local governments have stepped into help China’s young EV names. Not unlike Elon Musk’s Tesla, China’s Nio, Xpeng Motors, Li Auto and WM Motor have also all relied on taxpayer/state money to push their visions forward. In China, the state backing could work to divide the country’s push to take on Tesla, instead of unify it, according to Nikkei. 

    But states are still broadly supporting an agenda that was set in Beijing that makes it clear that EVs are going to be a huge part of the country’s “Made in China 2025” initiative going forward. China has a goal of pushing NEV vehicles to 25% of all overall car sales by 2025.

    China is already the largest EV market in the world, making up 57% of the global market as of April 2020. In addition to Tesla, the market is dominated by well established names like BYD and GAC Group. Tesla has already carved out a 20% market share for themselves in China, demonstrating the appetite for smart vehicles in the country. If startups want to compete, they need the government help.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    He Xiaopeng, left, the founder of XPeng Motor, poses with Nio founder William Li, right, and Li Xiang, the founder of Li Auto/ Source: Nikkei

    Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the China Passenger Car Association said: “The regional governments are very strong investors. They will be the lifesaver for China’s EV startups.”

    The modus operandi of state government investments are that EV startups move their headquarters to the province and build factories in the region. “Hundreds of city-level governments are competing for big projects. There are not many good ones at the moments,” Cui continued.

    And regional investors have been access to capital than private investors. They can raise trillions in yuan from bonds while focusing more on the “benefits to the overall economy over financial return”.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    But the state backing could also cause additional scrutiny from the U.S. government, as tensions between the two countries continue to rise. In a day and age where the U.S. has grown increasingly skeptical of Chinese technology, there could also be growing skepticism about state backed Chinese EV makers looking to break into the U.S. market. That is, if the Chinese state already hasn’t done so with Tesla…

    Sujoy Sarkar, head of corporate development at Byton, said: “China is now a world power, and the U.S. government wants to protect its own interests, especially [concerning ] such technologies at a scale that affects everyone.”

    Sarkar continued: “Based on my own experience, I’d say most [Western] investors are capitalists, and most prefer limited to no government involvement.”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Wayne Shiong, partner at venture capital China Growth Fund, said: “The involvement of state capital is necessary because the automobile industry concerns the national interest and people’s livelihood. An industry consolidation will come much later.” 

    Recall, we wrote about the successful IPO of Li Auto on the U.S. markets. It has “received investments from several entities backed by municipal governments of Changzhou and Xiamen as well as state-run investment bank China International Capital Corporation.”

    Additionally, we reported weeks ago that competition in China’s EV market is starting to become super-saturated. But rather than actually allow the market to consolidate and eliminate some of the smaller players, Chinese EV companies were taking another route to stave off going under: going public.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    After all, what better way to put a company that’s not meant to survive on life support than to sell shares of it to a public that doesn’t know how to read financial statements? 

    Hozon New Energy Automobile was the latest name to launch an IPO, Bloomberg pointed out in a recent article, saying it wants to list in Shanghai next year. Hozon is trying to capitalize on lower priced vehicles, offering an electric SUV for less than $10,000. The company has already shipped more than 16,000 vehicles. WM Motor is seeking a valuation of about $4.3 billion and is backed by names like Baidu and Tencent. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Robert Cowell, an analyst at Shanghai-based private-equity firm 86Research Ltd. told Bloomberg: “The strength in Tesla and NIO shares is creating a window for new EV startups to list. The current conditions provide an attractive opportunity to raise funds, which can help some of these smaller startups sustain the investments necessary to compete effectively.”

    This has given hope to the dozen or so EV names that have been able to raise money in China. They have emerged from a group of nearly 100 EV startups, all helped along by the government’s promise of subsidies for the industry. But its likely that out of the dozen that will make it to the public markets, not even all of those candidates will be successful.

    For the rest, maybe they can fall back on the Chinese government…

  • 'Shoot On-Site': Chicago Gangs Form Pact To Execute Cops Who Draw Weapons On Suspects, Says FBI
    ‘Shoot On-Site’: Chicago Gangs Form Pact To Execute Cops Who Draw Weapons On Suspects, Says FBI

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/31/2020 – 23:55

    The FBI has warned Chicago-area law enforcement that nearly three-dozen street gangs “have formed a pact to ‘shoot on-site any cop that has a weapon drawn on any subject in public’,” reports ABC7.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    According to an August 26 ‘situation information report’ from Chicago-based FBI officials, “members of these gang factions have been actively searching for, and filming, police officers in performance of their official duties. The purpose of which is to catch on film an officer drawing his/her weapon on any subject and the subsequent ‘shoot on-site’ of said officer, in order to garner national media attention.”

    Alerts based on police intelligence, no matter how unspecific, are frequently distributed to law enforcement agencies according to investigators, especially when they involve threats to officers. The FBI’s “Potential Activity Alert” is from “a contact whose reporting is limited and whose reliability cannot be determined.” That could mean the information came from a police street source, a cooperating witness in an ongoing case, or from discussions overheard on a wiretap or other surveillance recording. –ABC7

    According to CPD Superintendent David Brown, there is an overall “sense of lawlessness” felt by local police, and the ‘danger to police officers is real and increasing.’

    “I think it’s bigger than a suggestion,” said Brown. “I think 51 officers being shot at or shot in one year, I think that quadruples any previous year in Chicago’s history. So I think it’s more than a suggestion that people are seeking to do harm to cops.“

    The alleged pact comes amid national protests over several high-profile incidents between black suspects and police officers which has resulted in arson, looting, murder and other violent acts in cities across the country sparked by the death of George Floyd – a black suspect who died in police custody after an officer knelt on his neck for over eight minutes.

    As ABC7 notes, the warning comes after 54 people were shot in the windy city last weekend – including two Chicago PD officers who are expected to live, while 10 victims died according to the report. That said, there is no indication that the officers were targeted as part of the alleged gang assassination pact described in the FBI alert.

    The FBI alert, headlined “Pact Made by People Nation Gang Factions to ‘Shoot On-Site’ Any Police Officer with a Weapon Drawn” lists street gangs that have become well-known in Chicago the past five decades, from the Latin Kings and Vice Lords to the El Rukns and Black P Stones.

    Supt. Brown said on Monday the spike in attacks on police makes it clear to him that “people are seeking to do harm to cops.”

    “We need police officers and as community members we need to push back fervently against lawlessness,” Brown said. –ABC7

    Chicago PD told the outlet that they are aware of the gang threat, and take all threats to officers’ safety seriously. Federal authorities have not provided additional information. 

  • California To Set Up Task Force To Examine Slavery Reparations
    California To Set Up Task Force To Examine Slavery Reparations

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/31/2020 – 23:45

    Authored by Rick Moran via PJMedia.com,

    The California Assembly will vote before Monday on a state Senate bill that creates a task force to look at the question of slavery reparations. The measure passed the state Senate in a bipartisan vote.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The radical left is getting ready for a Biden presidency and a Democratic Party takeover of the U.S. House and Senate by laying the groundwork for their agenda at the state level. Slavery reparations will be close to the top of the radical’s wish list if Biden wins.

    Associated Press:

    “Let’s be clear: Chattel slavery, both in California and across our nation, birthed a legacy of racial harm and inequity that continues to impact the conditions of Black life in California,” said Democratic Sen. Holly Mitchell of Los Angeles.

    She cited disproportionate homelessness, unemployment, involvement in the criminal justice system, lower academic performance and higher health risks during the coronavirus pandemic.

    This is a surprise. California was a free state when it entered the Union in 1850 as a result of the Compromise of 1850. But now we’re told there was “chattel slavery” in California.

    Well… sorta.

    Although California before the Civil War was officially a free state, Mitchell listed legal and judicial steps state officials took at the time to support slavery in Southern states while repressing Blacks.

    But what about the fact that white people alive today had nothing to do with slavery?

    Sen. Steven Bradford, a Democrat from Gardena who supported the bill, said he only wished it was more than a study.

    He noted that Friday marked the 57th anniversary of the March on Washington and The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

    “If the 40 acres and a mule that was promised to free slaves were delivered to the descendants of those slaves today, we would all be billionaires,” Bradford said.

    “I hear far too many people say, ‘Well, I didn’t own slaves, that was so long ago.’ Well, you inherit wealth – you can inherit the debt that you owe to African-Americans.”

    Reparations are inherently unfair and no proposal is workable. They are unfair because they assign guilt to an entire race of people. That’s absurd on its face and turns our concept of individual responsibility on its head.

    It will be impossible to fairly, not to mention intelligently, divvy up reparations in any rational manner. The questions don’t end with who gets what. How much do the descendants of former slaves get compared to families that arrived from Africa in the last 10 years? More prosaically, how “black” do you have to be to get your money? Will we go full Nazi and start looking at “pure blood” and “half breeds”? Should someone who is only one-quarter black get the same amount as someone who has a higher percentage of “black blood”?

    These aren’t idle questions. We’re talking about trillions of dollars in the most massive transfer of wealth in world history. It would be nice if we knew what we were doing before expropriating that kind of cash.

    We may get lucky and see the radicals – as radicals are wont to do – blow up their own proposal by squabbling over the details. But this is an issue that won’t go away. Logic doesn’t matter to these people. In fact, it makes them angry when you try to apply logic to the problem. And manipulating street violence to get their way will always be an option for them.

  • Colleges Are Testing Dorm Sewage To Detect Early COVID-19 Outbreaks
    Colleges Are Testing Dorm Sewage To Detect Early COVID-19 Outbreaks

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/31/2020 – 23:25

    Colleges and universities which are opening for in-person, on campus classes this week and the next are apparently stopping at nothing to ensure they can detect COVID-19 cases early, especially as they struggle to prevent total campus shutdowns as happened last March when the pandemic hit the US, also as in many cases the very financial survival of a number of institutions of higher learning is at stake.

    Already stringent virus testing measures are in effect for new and returning students, but some schools are going to more extreme lengths. Testing students’ shit – literally – is now a thing, apparently.

    “The University of Arizona found early signs of COVID-19 in a student dorm this week by testing wastewater and were able to head off an outbreak there, school leaders announced Thursday,” the daily newspaper Arizona Republic reports.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Sewage testing, via Getty Images

    “Researchers at the school have looked for traces of the virus in wastewater samples taken from the greater Tucson area since March and have gathered samples from 20 buildings on the UA campus since school started,” the report states.

    The campus has some 5,000 students currently moving into their on-campus dorms and housing. At least one of the dorms’ sewage water came back positive for traces of COVID-19.

    “Earlier this week, data collected from the dorms found higher viral loads in wastewater samples taken from Likins Hall,” AZ Republic writes further. This led the school to test all newly arrived 311 students in that dorm, resulting in discovery of two COVID-19 positive cases.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    University of Arizona Likins Hall, via Martin White Griffis

    The positive students were said to be asymptomatic, which suggests they could have spread the disease far and wide before any detection, if not for the new sewage monitoring.

    Meanwhile a report in The Washington Post notes that other schools like University of California are doing the same.

    This also as there are nationwide efforts underway to put some kind of wastewater COVID-19 detection tracking system in place, as the virus is believed to appear in feces often prior to the onset of symptoms like fever, coughs, and headaches.

  • A Critique Of Modern Socialism
    A Critique Of Modern Socialism

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/31/2020 – 23:05

    Authored by Alasdair Macleod via GoldMoney.com,

    Socialism has moved on from the Marxist version of the state owning the means of production to one whereby production remains in the hands of individuals but are heavily regulated – echoing Mussolini’s fascist-socialist model.

    But after nearly nine decades this model faces collapse, much like the Soviet collapse after sixty-seven years. This article explores the modern socialist model, updates the economic calculation problem identified by von Mises in 1920 and explains why it still fails in today’s socialism. And finally we predict the consequences for governments and their state-issued currencies.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Introduction

    It is presidential election year in the United States. The choice is between the Republican’s or the Democrat’s socialism, the former being a milder version of the latter. A further difference is President Trump’s administration increasingly pays the government’s bills by socialising money, while great-uncle Joe wants to tax the rich even more (which in practice means not the rich but the middle and lower classes) as well as defoliating  the magic money tree.

    In Britain, those of us who rejoiced at a free marketeer becoming Prime Minister with a strong electoral mandate have experienced a greater clampdown on personal freedom than imposed by any British government since post-war rationing. Admittedly, Covid-19 and its lockdowns were not foreseen, but will the British ever regain any of their hitherto restricted freedoms? And those of us with long memories are reflecting that the imposition of taxes — the socialising of our earnings — under the Conservatives is almost always more onerous than under Labour. It was not meant to be like that.

    One way or the other, the establishment’s socialisation of our wealth, money and freedom “creeps in this petty pace day to day until the last syllable of recorded time”. Whether we like it or not, we are all socialists now. It is a fact of our lives, if not our inclinations. The destruction of our money and what wealth we have left is claimed to be for the common good, as opposed to capitalism, which the socialists tell us enriches the few and is deeply immoral. They, the socialists, have captured the moral high ground, leading us to their higher plain. They allege it is progress towards a better humanity. Their utopian view sees the end of social inequality as its final goal, and as Man progresses towards it the human race will discard capitalism and the class wars that go with it.

    No longer should we define socialism by its post-Marxian objective, the acquisition by the state of the means of production and the ending of property ownership. The failure of the organising state to produce goods demanded by the consumer was fully exposed by the collapse of the USSR and the ending of the Chinese state’s monopoly on production. But that has not stopped socialism, which has simply evolved into a new form dominated by the social democratic model. The title is itself a contradiction. Social is laudable and democratic is inclusive but put them together and the state has been handed power over its electors by its electors.

    The social democratic philosophy begs some fundamental questions. If it is a better system than the alleged evils of capitalism, why does social cooperation not evolve towards it at the behest of ordinary people without the need for an organising government? Why are leaders required to coerce, organise and force people to part with their income and wealth for their own common good? Who benefits?

    Those who are said to benefit are the sick and the poor through the redistribution of wealth. But the evidence is overwhelming that a state bureaucracy is not better at this humane function than independent charities. The socialist’s rebuttal is that no one should have to rely on charity, to which those who value their freedom are normally too dull-witted to respond by asking, why not, when the alternative is state coercion backed by imprisonment?

    Claims of morality are a thin cover, a disguise for wealth transfer from ordinary people to the state. The state is now an organisation that leeches on its electors in order to pursue its own separate agenda. We must therefore put claims of morality to one side if we are to understand the damage socialism has done to ordinary people and their economic progress. No longer ambitious for the acquisition of the means of production, modern socialism has evolved into a fascist form, a fact which when pointed out to social democrats leads to instant denial and horror, because in their language it is right wing and extreme, wrongly associated with free market capitalism.

    Being fascists without knowing it

    The accusation that social democratic planning is fascism is easily proved. Some claim fascism’s origins were in the nineteenth century, when European philosophers expressed ideas which were only later described as fascist. But the fascist movement proper started in Italy, when Benito Mussolini, then an avowed Marxist, was the most forceful Italian proponent of the Marxian paradise to come.

    In 1914 on the declaration of the Great War Italian communists declared it to be a fight between imperialists and exploiters of the proletariat. In their view, the proletariat should stand aside and not be exploited by either side, waiting for the inevitable civil war which would pave the way to the destruction of capitalism, giving power to the workers.

    Having initially taken the Italian communist position of abstaining from war, Mussolini then aligned himself with the nationalists against the imperialist Austrians. It was an opportunist move and a grab for support from the communist rank and file. Following the First World War, the Italian communist party movement faltered, and Mussolini with his new fascist party stepped into the void. Members left the communists and joined Mussolini’s fascists in droves, because there was little discernible difference between Mussolini’s socialism and that of the Italian Marxists. His 1919 manifesto was anti-capitalist and posed as socialism with renewed vigour. From there, it evolved into advocating aggressive interventionism, and then towards Nazism which was developing in parallel. The Nazi economic creed was simple: capitalists can own the means of production so long as they obey the commands of the state. In other words, business was directed and regulated instead of owned by the state.

    It neatly describes the socialism of today. Socialists no longer deem it necessary for the state to own the means of production, it merely controls it by regulation, directing it by selective subsidies and taxes. It also exposes the intellectual ignorance of the useful idiots who blindly follow slogans.

    The loss of the means of economic calculation

    We have established that the objectives of today’s social democrats are little different in principal from those of the fascists in the interwar years. But this modifies our analysis from that of Ludwig von Mises in 1920, who wrote an important essay titled “Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth”, which sparked what became known as the socialist calculation debate. Mises demonstrated why public ownership of the means of production was bound to fail. Central to his argument was the state’s inability to make the calculations necessary to allocate the means of production, a function which can only be attempted successfully by independent entrepreneurs putting their own resources on the line.

    Today’s institutional socialism is now fascist instead of being on the Marxist lines which were debated between Mises and socialist economists a century ago. The failure of Marxist socialism was for the reasons Mises predicted. It must still apply today to that portion of a socialist economy that relates to government spending which is not redistributed in the form of welfare payments or put out to private sector contracts by means of competitive tender. What then remains of government expenditure will lack the basis of economic calculation, which cannot be performed. But welfare distributions and government contracts raise a separate issue, the distortion of an economy by state-directed spending into spending that would not otherwise occur, and the wasteful use of all forms of capital which would otherwise be deployed more efficiently by private enterprise.

    Economic activities that remain under free market principles, whereby entrepreneurs seek to profit by anticipating the needs and wants of consumers successfully, are now heavily regulated and restricted. State bureaucrats effectively control the forms and characteristics of goods and services offered by producers. They claim to protect the consumer from unscrupulous capitalist profiteers. Sometimes, regulations imposed by the state succeed in this objective, but it is wrong to argue that free markets would not have matched or even provided higher standards of product than those framed by the state’s regulatory regime, because it is manifestly in every producers’ interest to produce the best product for the market, unless, that is, the state regulator protects the producer from competition. This is too often the case.

    Why bureaucracy fails and free markets succeed

    The bureaucrats and their supporters — the socialists and trade unions — do not understand prices. They firmly believe in the cost theory of prices, whereby the price of a final product is set by the cost of production. It is also central to Marxist economics, which evolved before marginal price theory, and declared prices to be determined by the cost of labour and therefore exploitative. The Austrian economist, Carl Menger, was one of three independent discoverers of marginal price theory in the 1870s. Menger showed that in free markets prices are purely subjective: in other words, prices are set by consumer preferences and it is up to the producer to anticipate and then respond to them.

    It is this division between the bureaucratic-socialist belief and free market evidence that separates two entirely different propositions: the state’s bureaucratic management and free markets.

    It is only by understanding how the different systems operate that we can explain the flaws of bureaucracy in an economic context. Free markets work on the basis of the ownership of property and its unfettered deployment for the production of goods and services. Property used in production takes it value from it, which is why by giving property no value by monopolising it economic calculation cannot take place.

    It is a socialist myth that private ownership gives capitalists power over people. It is true that capitalists are in command of resources, but their masters are the consumer, who they must satisfy by organising their property and other resources effectively. In economic terms, it is the purest form of democracy.

    The regulatory burden on established sectors producing goods and services has become increasingly onerous. Being forced to satisfy the regulators instead of customers, businesses are decreasingly focused on customers. The regulator replaces the customer completely in the scale of importance when the provider of goods or services is guaranteed a margin over costs and given a monopoly by the state. These businesses extend the state’s control over the consumer, and while nominally in the private sector, should be regarded as part of the state for the purpose of economic analysis, because they operate on a statist cost plus regulated margin basis.

    Allowing for influences such as these, unfettered private sectors in modern economies are less important than commonly thought, most businesses being more burdened by bureaucratic management and control than is generally realised. Supposedly free markets are being directed by bureaucrats and administrators who have opted for an easy life of secure income and pensions, where they do not have to make judgements, but only to administer regulations without any further thought or responsibility for their actions.

    Who pays for it all?

    An economy run by the state owning the means of production cannot succeed because it cannot calculate. It can only resort to force, evidenced by the masses killed by the Soviets and Chinese communists in their attempts to get Marxist socialism to stick. Now that that form of socialism has been exposed by its failures, modern socialism is in a halfway house of some remnants of state ownership coupled with fascist control and regulation over private production.

    It is not difficult to see why contemporary economies are struggling under these burdens, and we do not need to resort to empirical evidence to assist with an explanation. But with modern economies overburdened by economic inefficiencies arising from state-directed malinvestment of scarce capital, they are heading for the same general failure experienced by the Soviets. A similar collapse of our socialistic governments has only been deferred so far by the partial existence of markets. But as an economic policy, increasing rates of wealth transfer from producers and consumers through taxation to sustain the socialistic state has finally run out of road.

    Cries to soak the rich by even higher taxes are failing to convince the wider public that that is a course to be followed. Now that we are in the grip of the Covid-19 crisis, ordinary people know that the ending of government support schemes cannot be replaced with higher taxes to recoup lost government revenue, without crashing the economy. It is only the bureaucrats in government offices, secure in their jobs and pensions acting as unthinking functionaries, who miss this vital point. There can only be one desperate solution, the one understood by central bankers who reaffirm they will print whatever it takes to fund government deficits.

    When socialists run out of people to rob of their wealth by overt taxation, they inflate. In modern times it has been a process that dates back to the depression in the 1930s. This fascist social construct has now been evolving for eighty-seven years in America, if we take Franklin Roosevelt’s socialising policies and his ban on owning gold as a starting point — even longer than the Soviet experiment which started with the foundation of the Soviet Union in 1922 and ended with the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

    Over the last forty years, the US economy has been financialised; that is to say economic resources have shifted from the non-financial economy to the financial. It is the consequence of the financial reforms in the 1980s, when London underwent its big-bang and America abandoned the Glass Steagall Act, which had banned retail banks from investment banking activities. Through the combination of these events banks took over all financial activities, including market making in securities, commodities and derivatives, using bank credit expansion to apply virtually unlimited capital resources to these functions. Being licensed by governments, it has become an extension of statist control over prices, with the benefit that through their banking agents governments could use the expansion of broad money supply to finance government spending and spread the wealth effect through rising stock markets, while suppressing commodity prices by increasing their synthetic supply.

    The cost of this financialisation has been economic stagnation in non-financial activities, with the production of goods exported to the savings-driven economies of Eastern Asia, while the banks have become dependent on financial speculation for their profits. They are now failing in their original mandate to sustain non-financial businesses.

    As well as its normal cyclical failures, the banking system now faces the consequences of the failure of socialism itself, from which they have benefited in the past through the socialisation of money through the inflation of bank credit.

    Covid-19 and its lockdowns have exposed the fragility of the whole system, bankrupting businesses and making the banks reluctant to lend, preferring to call in their loans. Any independent observer of economic developments can only come to one logical conclusion: financing economic expansion by bank credit has finally come to an end, and widespread bank failures are becoming impossible to avoid. The inflation of money as a means of financing the state now falls increasingly on central banks, even without a banking crisis. And here it is worth noting that US dollar bank credit is a current multiple of M1 money supply of 3.4 times[iii].

    Figure 1 shows how US dollar M1, principally currency and demand deposits, has increased at three progressively greater rates of growth since the 1980s: a steady rate until the Lehman crisis, a significantly faster pace since then, and finally a nearly vertical rate since last March, all indicated by the arrowed lines.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    We now must consider how inflationary financing will progress in the absence of bank credit being made available to the non-financial private sector. Bank lending to the private non-financial sector is currently $11 trillion[iv], twice the M1 figure, giving us an indication of how narrow money must increase from its current accelerated rate if the Fed is to prevent an imminent economic slump in the non-financial economy. And that is before we consider another important factor which requires inflationary financing, the maintenance of the financial asset bubble which is central to the illusion that all is well.

    The magnitude of central bank monetary inflation yet to come is far greater than hitherto and therefore bound to radically undermine the dollar’s purchasing power. In turn the US Government’s finances will be undermined by the quantity of dollars required and the effect on dollar interest rates. Other nations are in a far worse position, and like the USSR in the late 1980s are rapidly running out of options.

    Epilogue

    This analysis has exposed the failings of government intervention in free markets. Predictably, the increasing burden of government intervention on any economy will cause it to underperform, detracting from the primary function of free markets, which is to satisfy the needs and wants of consumers.

    Consumers consume because they are employed, specialising in their labour to maximise their output and therefore their ability to buy the things they need and want. But over the decades, consumers have become increasingly dependent on governments, either to employ them as bureaucrats, officials in nationalised education and health systems, or to guarantee their employment through regulations. They benefit most from free markets but lack an understanding and sympathy for them. The loss of free markets and their vilification by socialists is likely to ensure that when the current international socialist regime fails, free markets will be blamed.

    We appear to be rapidly approaching that point of failure. We can see from the chart in Figure 1 how narrow money supply has already accelerated in three phases, and how the failure of bank credit expansion will lead to an even greater debasement of the currency. And that is likely to be the most optimistic outcome, assuming bank failures will be strictly limited instead of systemically widespread. The statists’ dependency on inflationary financing is set to increase to the point where all confidence in fiat currencies will be lost.

    We have made comparisons with the failure of the USSR after sixty-seven years, noting that the current fascistic socialising model has already run for eighty-seven. When the USSR failed, there was a better economic model for which the Soviets could refer. The standard of living and plentiful supplies of food and consumer goods in Western shops were a ready comparison with Soviet misery and it was relative economic freedom that had delivered. Our failure will not have that comparison. Instead, it is likely that statists will point towards another economic model in the hope of continuing with state control.

    It will be a muddle that lasts for as long as governments in their bankruptcy try to maintain control over economic events. We will need as many people as possible to explain to the politicians that the way to national wealth is not through socialism but by free markets and small government.

  • "The Challenges Are Unprecedented": Chinese Bank Profits Crater Amid Bad Debt Surge
    “The Challenges Are Unprecedented”: Chinese Bank Profits Crater Amid Bad Debt Surge

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/31/2020 – 22:45

    First it was US banks. Now it’s China’s turn.

    Not long after the Big Four banks, and the US financial sector in general, reported the biggest jump in loan loss provisions following the covid crisis as millions of unemployed workers simply stopped paying down their debt, rent, car, phone and utility payments, which sent loss reserve among the megabanks to a near record $33 billion…

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    … which in turn led to the biggest tightening in loan standards since the financial crisis just as US consumers and small businesses desperately need cheap capital as the record fiscal stimulus has gradually unwound since July 31…

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    … it is now China’s turn to go through the same pain, with Reuters and Bloomberg reporting that China’s largest state-owned banks are bracing for a surge in bad debt and increased margin pressure in the months ahead as forbearance policies designed to give borrowers breathing space during the coronavirus crisis expire (similar to the US). And as Chinese banks set aside record amounts to counter an eruption of bad debt, they posted their worst profit declines in more than a decade as the government called on these state-owned enterprises to help backstop the slumping economy, while putting pressure on plans to pay dividends next year. Profit at Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, the world’s largest lender by assets, China Construction Bank Corp., the second-largest, Agricultural Bank of China and Bank of China dropped by at least 10% in the first half as loan loss provisions jumped between 27% and 97% at the four banks.

    In total, China’s more than 1,000 commercial banks posted a 24% decline in second quarter profits, with non-performing loans hitting a record 2.7 trillion yuan, resulting in an official average non-performing loan ratio for commercial banks of 1.94%, the highest since 2009. While it was unclear what the real NPL ratio is, some estimates have pegged it at 5-10x more than the official numbers.

    Non-performing loan (NPL) ratios rose at the big five banks during the reporting period, with ICBC’s increasing to 1.5% by the end of June from 1.43% three months earlier, and that of CCB rising by 0.07 percentage points in second quarter to 1.49%.

    This lead to a spike in Q2 loan-loss provisions which jumped 61% to 436% compared to the same period last year at ICBC, CCB, AgBank and BoC, data from China International Capital Corp showed. Meanwhile, as in the US, the crater in first-half profit was mostly due to provisioning ordered by regulators, CICC said, noting that second-quarter profit growth would otherwise have been 1.5% to 5.1% for those four lenders.

    “The external challenges in the second half are unprecedented,” Bank of China President Wang Jiang told Reuters on Monday.

    The bank’s gloomy forecasts highlight the devastating impact of the pandemic and the economic slowdown on China’s banks, despite Beijing’s best attempts to pretend it was “but a scratch” and brush the slowdown under the rug. If the plunge in profit wasn’t enough, the same banks have been asked by Beijing to step up and lend to flagging sectors, while sacrificing even more profits in a bid to revive the country’s fortunes.

    Contrary to Beijing’s official narrative that the covid shock is in the rearview mirror, millions of bank clients have struggled to repay debt after months of lockdown and some sectors, such as those in the travel industry, and are battling to survive under the shadow of coronavirus. “As forbearance policies that help companies to recover expire in the first half of next year, the impact of non-performing loans will increase,” Chief Risk Officer Jin Yanmin of China Construction Bank Corp said during a news briefing. Meanwhile, Ji Zhihong, CCB vice president, predicted that net interest margins, a key profitability indicator, will narrow further leading to further profit erosion.

    Agricultural Bank of China reported net income 108.8b yuan vs 121.4b yuan; its President Zhang Qingsong said bad loan pressure was rising, as short-term policies aimed at keeping firms afloat expired, adding its profit growth faces pressure from a “declining loan prime rate, fee cuts and an increase in loan loss provisions.”

    Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the world’s largest commercial lender by assets, reported net income 148.8b yuan vs 167.9b yuan year earlier; the bank said it will face higher pressure on loan risk controls in the second half and will increase efforts on provisions to guard against “significant turbulence,” its vice president Liao Lin said.

    Meanwhile, as Bloomberg notes, China’s $45 trillion banking system has been put on the front-line of helping alleviate the worst economic slump in 40 years, triggered by a large scale shutdown due to the virus outbreak. Authorities have required lenders to forgo 1.5 trillion yuan ($218 billion) in profit by providing cheap funding, deferring payments and increasing lending to small businesses struggling with the pandemic.

    Unfortunately for China, as well as the US, the pain is hardly over and banks are expected to keep boosting provisions in the third quarter, Everbright Securities analyst Wang Yifeng said. The banks themselves also warned that the second half would continue to be challenging: “The global economy faces unfavorable conditions including significant contractions in global trade and investments, volatile financial markets, limitations on interactions between countries, disruption of globalization and heightened geopolitical tensions,” ICBC said in its report.

    “Consumer behavior changes and reshuffle of industries accelerated by the pandemic will have an uncertain impact on the economy,” Moody’s Investor Service analyst Nicholas Zhu said.

    Citigroup last month slashed 2020 to 2022 earnings forecasts for major Chinese banks by more than 10 percentage points and expects them to suffer a 13% drop in profit this year.

    “Under mounting political pressure, China banks not only have had to further cut loan yields to subsidize the real economy, but also need to accelerate counter-cyclical provisioning and adopt more conservative NPL assumptions in setting provisions,” Citigroup analysts led by Judy Zhang wrote. “The potential negative earnings growth will overhang the China banks’ near-term share performance.”

    Speculation is also growing on whether Chinese banks will be able to maintain paying out about 30% of their profit in dividends. Another lender, Bank of Communications, on Friday reported a 15% decline in profit and said it was looking at its dividend policy ahead. “The dividend policy needs to be aligned with the external environment and conditions,” Bocom Vice President Guo Mang said on Friday. “It’s necessary for every bank to study their current policy — while trying to retain more capital we should also handle the relationship between bank growth and shareholder dividends.”

    As a result, investors have fled from Chinese lenders and shares of the biggest banks are trading at a mere 0.45 times their forecast book value, a record low valuation, after underperforming the benchmark indexes in Hong Kong and on the mainland for most of the past five years.

    * * *

    The hope, according to CICC analysts, is that the first-half is likely to mark the start of the sector’s bottoming-out and they expect the industry to post profit growth again in 2021 as economic activity gradually recovers. In the second half and early 2021, big banks are expected to step up the sale of capital bonds to help counter deteriorating asset quality.

    That won’t be enough, and Moody’s estimates that China’s biggest banks still have a estimated shortfall of $500 billion by 2025 to meet global capital requirements.

  • Escalation Of Force: How To Choose The Appropriate Response To Potential Violence
    Escalation Of Force: How To Choose The Appropriate Response To Potential Violence

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/31/2020 – 22:25

    Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

    “I’ll just pull out my Glock/HK/Ruger and deal with those punks. Once they see their buddies drop, they’ll back off soon enough.”

    “We could end this by just killing anyone who sets foot on our block.”

    “All good Americans need to do is start mowing down protesters with their cars if the roads get blocked.”

    Chances are, if you ever read the comments or visit any type of social media outlet online, you’ve read some comments pretty similar to the ones above. After all, this is America, land of the free, home of the brave. It’s up to all good patriots to defend our property and our country from scumbags with deadly force.

    But not so fast…

    Things are never as cut and dried as people with 3-second solutions like to make it seem in the comments.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    You can’t escalate directly to lethal force in every situation.

    Let’s take a look at the situation Terry Trahan wrote about the other day, where the lady was sitting in a restaurant having dinner when she got surrounded by an unruly mob who insisted she raise her fist in the air in support of a group of activists. The comments section is filled with people who are apparently ready to open fire on a city street into a crowd of people.

    Is that really the appropriate response? While I absolutely agree that the behavior of that mob is horrible and that these things shouldn’t happen, is this a moment that requires the use of uncensored deadly force?

    Have any of these folks stopped to think about what happens after they open fire?

    Because I can tell you what is very likely to occur if you unload a magazine in a public space in the middle of downtown Washington DC. At best, you will be arrested and charged with brandishing a weapon or illegal discharge of a weapon. At worst, one of your bullets will go through its intended target and hit an innocent bystander – maybe a child – maybe even your own child who is making his way back from the bathroom.  Or you’ll kill a member of the angry mob and someone will take the gun away and turn it on you and you’ll be dead. Or you’ll valiantly take down three attackers and find yourself awaiting trial for homicide, among other charges.

    And you know what else? Every idiotic off-hand comment you ever made online about blowing people away will come back to haunt you in court. If you think you’re anonymous online, I assure you that you are not. Even when you use a VPN, your actual IP can be traced given enough resources and time.

    Choosing how you escalate your response

    We’ve all heard the saying, “When your only tool is a hammer, you treat everything like it’s a nail.”  The same is true when your only tool is deadly force.

    Obviously there are life and death situations in which deadly force is the only possible response if you want to live. When someone bursts into your home waving a gun screaming that they’re going to kill you, when someone in a mask is trying to drag you into a van with dark-tinted windows, when someone is clearly intent on beating the crap out of you until you’re dead – all of these things are situations in which your use of a lethal response is entirely justified.

    But… a lot of situations require more finesse unless you want to risk a) spending the rest of your life in prison and praying you don’t drop the soap or b) vengeance from your adversary’s friends or family or c) criminal prosecution and civil lawsuits forever and ever until you die.

    You need to have an understanding of the appropriate escalation of force.

    A book I read last year has a place on everyone’s shelf during these times in which a conflict can arise for just about anyone, just about anywhere. That book is Scaling Force: Dynamic Decision Making Under Threat of Violence and it’s by Rory Miller. If you’ve been around here for a while, you may have seen my review of another of Miller’s books, and you may have seen Toby Cowern and Terry Trahan reference him as well. That’s because, in my opinion, nobody knows more about the science of violence than Miller. As well, he spent years working in law enforcement settings, so he knows a lot about what happens after the violence takes place.

    Identify what the threat actually is.

    If you are in a situation in which you may have to defend yourself, it’s important that you understand what the threat really is.

    • Are you just being yelled at or mocked?

    • Are people just trying to intimidate or embarrass you?

    • Are they trying to have an actual discussion or just shout over you?

    • Are you outnumbered?

    • Are they threatening to physically attack you?

    • Are they capable of physically attacking you?

    • Are they armed with firearms, items that could be used as bludgeons, or knives?

    While all of these things may make you angry, if you are not in physical danger, you have to temper your response accordingly.

    Part of the book is a detailed description of pre-assault indicators that can help you identify a potentially violent encounter before it happens. This goes a long way toward reducing the likelihood of you being injured, killed, or imprisoned due to your response.

    Here are some key steps to take during a potentially violent encounter.

    In Miller’s book – which I strongly recommend – he suggests a pattern that begins with simply leaving the situation, to verbal de-escalation when you are not in imminent danger, with other steps all the way up to and including lethal force. He discusses in detail how to rapidly assess your situation to see where you should start. You can find these steps on the internet but they’re not detailed. You should truly read the book to get a deep understanding of them – and you need that now more than ever.

    This is my personal take on what he wrote. Any mistakes or misinterpretations are mine alone.

    Presence: The encounter requires your presence and there are two components to this. First, is, don’t be there. Any time you ask Selco and Toby what you should do in a dangerous situation, their immediate response is “don’t be there.” And that is true of many of the things happening right now. Going to a protest, for example, is automatically putting you at high risk of being involved in a violent encounter.

    Your second option is to leave the situation. If you find yourself in a scenario in which you could be embroiled in a violent encounter, leave. This is like “don’t be there” but in action form. If you see a crowd gathering up ahead chanting and raising their fists in the air, turn around and go a different way. If you are in a setting in which someone makes you feel uncomfortable, trust your instincts and leave. Don’t talk yourself out of listening to your gut. You’re not being silly. (This is especially true for women.)

    Use your voice. First, you can try to de-escalate the situation. If you can’t avoid it and you can’t leave, verbal de-escalation is your next best bet. This depends heavily upon your understanding of psychology. You want to calm the situation down and one of the best ways to do that is setting up what Miller refers to as a “face-saving exit.” If you are dealing with one member of a crowd, that person will have a lot of personal investment in not being embarrassed in front of his or her friends. You’ll want to think of a way to defuse things while sparing the person from that humiliation. This, of course, sucks, because we all want to kick the butts of someone who is treating us unreasonably. However, your goal is to get away from this encounter without being hurt or killed. If you are alive and uninjured, you’ve won.

    Your other voice option is a sharp command if you seem like the kind of person who can back this up. Take me, for example, a middle-aged mama. A command from me is unlikely to have a huge effect on an angry group. However, a command from me backed up by a gun in my hand would be a lot more convincing. (This is something that has actually happened to me – you can read about it here.)

    Touch. In some situations, touch can be used to de-escalate a conflict. Touch can be soothing, it can help to distract someone fixated on potentially hurting you, and it can help to defuse situations that haven’t gone too far. If you are not stronger than your potential opponent, this should be used very cautiously, as touching them puts you within their reach as well. For many women, this is not going to be a viable option.

    Physical control. This is another thing that won’t work for everyone. But if it is within your wheelhouse, you might be able to prevent the violence from escalating by physically controlling the attacker. This prevents them from harming you or anyone else around you.  At this point, you’re beginning to get into territory that could have legal consequences.  This is also another thing that may not be particularly viable for women against a male assailant.

    Use less than lethal force. The next step up the ladder is less than lethal force. This might mean pepper spray, a taser, or a physical blow, to name a few options. This can be a defensive preventative that will work in some cases. If you are able to stun your attacker, it can be the thing that allows you to move back down the ladder to step one – not being there. Physically overpowering an assailant and injuring them to the extent they can no longer hurt you is an option but, again, you’ll very likely face legal consequences unless it is well-witnessed or provable that you had no less violent options.

    Use lethal force. The final solution in this hierarchy is lethal force. This should not be your first choice unless your life is in imminent danger. You can’t just shoot someone because you decide they “deserve” it or because you feel they’re inflicting an injustice upon you. Well, you can, but you can also expect a trial that will empty out your bank accounts and cause your family to potentially lose their home and any other assets while you finance your defense. Then, if you win, you get to start all over again economically. If you lose, you spend five years to the rest of your life in prison. Lethal force must be legally justified and even then, you can end up suffering immensely for having used it.

    Again – I strongly recommend you read Rory Miller’s book on this topic, as it is far more detailed than I can be in a quick article and filled with personal anecdotes that make it a very interesting read. You really do have far more options than just killing someone and most of the time, the other options will be better for your future as well as the future of your family.

    How do you plan to respond to the threat of violence?

    We’re living in a world where unruly groups of people are spending their evenings out trying to intimidate people who they feel “deserve” it, without actually knowing anything about their targets. Any of us could become a target.

    Understand that I sincerely believe in the right to armed self-defense. It is our basic human right to protect ourselves, our families, and our property. But I urge you to use temperance when making rapid decisions that could have long-term consequences. These aren’t problems with three-second solutions, and to look at them that way is both ignorant and short-sighted.

    Have you considered how you would respond to the threat of violence? To intimidation by an angry mob? To the looting of your property?

    It’s good to think these things through ahead of time and consider what your own options are. You’ll need to weigh your personal abilities and limitations against these steps. Remember that your response to potential violence can affect the rest of your life and make your decisions with this in mind.

  • Michael Moore: Trump Could Beat Biden In Yet Another "Reality Check" For Democrats
    Michael Moore: Trump Could Beat Biden In Yet Another “Reality Check” For Democrats

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/31/2020 – 22:05

    Michael Moore seems to be one of the very few liberals that understands that widespread looting and rioting, currently being enabled by left-wing politicians, may not be the best look for his party heading into November. 

    In fact, the liberal filmmaker seems to have made peace with the idea that President Trump could once again win election in 2020. 

    Citing “enthusiasm for the President”, Moore warned that he has “momentum in some battleground states” and that a “reality check” could once again be incoming for those who think Trump could lose the election. Moore was famously one of the very few to predict that Trump would win in 2016, the Guardian notes. 

    Moore posted on his Facebook page late last week: “Are you ready for a Trump victory? Are you mentally prepared to be outsmarted by Trump again? Do you find comfort in your certainty that there is no way Trump can win? Are you content with the trust you’ve placed in the DNC [Democratic National Committee] to pull this off?”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    He continued: “The Biden campaign just announced he’ll be visiting a number of states – but not Michigan. Sound familiar?”

    “I’m warning you almost 10 weeks in advance. The enthusiasm level for the 60 million in Trump’s base is OFF THE CHARTS! For Joe, not so much,” Moore said. “Don’t leave it to the Democrats to get rid of Trump. YOU have to get rid of Trump. WE have to wake up every day for the next 67 days and make sure each of us are going to get a hundred people out to vote. ACT NOW!”

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

    Moore also pointed to recent polls that show Trump closing the gap on Biden, stating that the two candidates were in a “virtual tie” in some battleground states. 

    Moore, who supported Bernie Sanders in 2016, said in October 2016: “Trump’s election is going to be the biggest ‘f*** you’ ever recorded in human history – and it will feel good. Whether Trump means it or not is kind of irrelevant because he’s saying the things to people who are hurting, and that’s why every beaten-down, nameless, forgotten working stiff who used to be part of what was called the middle class loves Trump.”

    President Trump noted Moore’s prognostication in an early Sunday morning Tweet:

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

     

  • Penn Profs Push To Probe President Trump's Admission To Ivy League
    Penn Profs Push To Probe President Trump’s Admission To Ivy League

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/31/2020 – 21:45

    Authored by Ben Zeisloft via Campus Reform,

    Six professors at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business School – President Donald Trump’s alma mater – asked for the administration to investigate claims that Trump cheated on his SAT exam.

    The Daily Pennsylvanian obtained the letter, as well as Penn’s rejection of the professors’ request. All six professors teach in Wharton’s Legal Studies & Business Ethics Department. The letter cites a claim in Too Much and Never Enough — a recently published book written by President Donald Trump’s niece, Mary Trump — that President Trump paid someone to take the SAT on his behalf.

    “Failing to investigate an allegation of fraud at such a level broadcasts to prospective students and the world at large that the playing field is not equal,” wrote the professors.

    They cited the university’s policy on revoking degrees, which states that Penn degrees can be revoked due to alleged fraud.

    However, the authors admit that there is “no conclusive evidence of the allegation made in Mary Trump’s book” and they stated that they recognize the accusations occur in the context of a family feud. Yet, citing a report by the Washington Post, they alleged that “President Trump has provided substantial evidence that he is not above lying and cheating in other contexts.”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Although “it is true that the truth of an event that occurred more than fifty years ago may be difficult to establish,” the professors nevertheless called for an investigation.

    University Provost Wendell Pritchett denied the professors’ request on behalf of Penn President Amy Gutmann.

    Although the administration shared the professors’ concerns “about these allegations and the integrity of our admissions process,” they “have determined that this situation occurred too far in the past to make a useful or probative factual inquiry possible.” 

    However, if new evidence emerges, the university will be open to starting an investigation.

    Professor Eric Orts was not pleased with the decision.

    “In my personal opinion, Donald Trump is the worst admissions mistake that the Wharton School has ever made,” he told the Daily Pennsylvanian.

    “Now it turns out that we may not have made a mistake after all: we may well have been just another victim among many who have had their reputations besmirched by his lifelong pattern of deception and fraud.”

    Wharton Assistant Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics Julian Jonker,  who was one of the six professors who signed the letter, told Campus Reform that he views the matter as one “for internal deliberation about application of the University’s code, and not a matter for partisan debate in the media.”

  • NPR Is Openly Promoting A Book That Celebrates And Encourages Looting
    NPR Is Openly Promoting A Book That Celebrates And Encourages Looting

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/31/2020 – 21:25

    In Defense of Looting: A Riotous History of Uncivil Action is a book by Philadelphia-based Vicky Osterweil that currently sits atop of the Amazon new release charts. The book encourages and makes excuses for property destruction and riots that are currently taking place across the country. 

    And for that, it was featured and promoted in an NPR article out last week called “One Author’s Argument ‘In Defense Of Looting'”. 

    But as the Post Millennial puts it: “This book promoting riots is a number one new release on Amazon, a mega-corporation that benefits every time a local shop gets torched.”

    The book celebrates rioting and looting at a time in the United States where many business owners have seen their life’s work go up in flames and innocent civilians have been assaulted or mortally wounded defending their property.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Osterweil, who looks as though she is barely twenty-something, was interviewed on NPR last week to make her point that looting is actually “a redistribution of wealth” and not theft. She argues that property damage is the same: just a “way to reapportion assets which she deems necessary in an unequal society.”

    Citing a socialist macro view and the goal of some type of ridiculous property re-distribution, she calls the riots a “mass expropriation of property, mass shoplifting during a moment of upheaval or riot.”

    Osterweil, who is white, argues: “Looting strikes at the heart of property, of whiteness and of the police. It gets to the very root of the way those three things are interconnected.” She calls looting “basically nonviolent” and claims that it provides for “poor people who want to live a better life.”

    “Most stores are insured; it’s just hurting insurance companies on some level. It’s just money. It’s just property. It’s not actually hurting any people,” she argues.

    But as many – other than Vicky – seem to notice, the looting and riots have real world consequences:

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

    The book cover features a crowbar; often used to smash windows and break into property.

    Perhaps those real world consequences will be on the minds of voters this November.

  • Kolanovic Says Trump Re-Election Odds Are Soaring, Prompting Nate Silver To Melt Down On Twitter
    Kolanovic Says Trump Re-Election Odds Are Soaring, Prompting Nate Silver To Melt Down On Twitter

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/31/2020 – 21:11

    On Saturday, we showed that Trump had received a healthy boost in support following the Republican National Convention (and just around the time of the latest rioting in Kenosha and elsewhere) while enthusiasm for Joe Biden has slipped, according to a new poll by Morning Consult.  We also showed that a far more dramatic race was reflected in Real Clear Politics‘ betting average between Trump and Biden, using data from oddsmakers Betfair, Bovada, Bwin, Matchbook, Smarkets and SpreadEx.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    This morning, in his latest note, JPMorgan’s Marko Kolanovic laid out “what is next for markets” and his contention was that as the data we showed over the weekend reveal, “investors should position for rising odds of Trump re-election” as “Trump’s re-election chances are rising and are already higher than currently reflected in investment styles.” This matters because “the impact on sectors and factors (momentum vs value, cyclicals vs tech, ESG) could be dramatic and investment portfolios should adjust for a potential Trump re-election.”

    “Over the past few days, Trump’s betting odds are rapidly increasing” Kolanovic said, stating that he analyzed and quantified “2 effects that we believe are driving this shift and may significantly impact the election outcome.” The JPM quant then explained that “Trump’s betting odds started plummeting with the onset of large protests in early June. During the month of August, Trump was as much as 25 points behind and investors took Biden’s election for granted (we cautioned this may be premature). However, during the month of August, Trump’s betting odds started improving, with the largest increase happening over the past week. Currently, betting odds have Trump virtually tied with Biden.”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Kolanovic then asks what caused this initial collapse and then full recovery of Trump’s odds. His response: “we believe it is largely due to two effects: 1) the impact of the degree of violence in protests on public opinion and voting patterns and 2) a bias in polls due to Trump voters being more likely to decline or mislead polls”, both factors we discussed extensively over the past week (here and here).

    Then, after laying out the dynamics our readers are already familiar with, Kolanovic says that “momentum related to the Wasow effect will continue in favor of Trump, unless Democrats pivot away from their stance regarding demonstrations. This may not be easy however, given that top Democrats have called for daily demonstrations (e.g. Kamala Harris) and rallied their base around the theme of defunding police and would need to effectively adopt Trump’s policy after 3 months as a reaction to polls. Some party officials already rationalized or promoted the behavior.”

    Then there is the question of turnout: here Kolanovic makes a critical point saying that “turnout strongly depends on the left wing of the party (‘Bernie bros’, Marxist elements, etc.), which would be alienated by such a shift” [toward demonstrations].

    Of course, the fading impact of Covid will also have an impact on the election: “Another important driver in determining both the market direction and election outcome is the progression of COVID-19. Figure 2 shows that daily US COVID-19 cases also correlate with Trump betting odds. New COVID-19 cases rate has been declining by about ~20,000 cases/day per month. Given that there are no very large states that have yet to see widespread outbreaks that can significantly boost new cases, this will likely set the pandemic on course to subside in time for the election. Declining cases may further provide a boost to Trump’s election odds.

    Finally, Kolanovic notes that the last important driver of election odds will be the outcome of presidential debates: “Currently, top Democrats are calling for the historically unprecedented action of cancelling debates. Cancelling debates would likely not bode well for Biden, as recent polls suggest that 61% of voters think Biden should address the question of dementia publicly, and 52% are either not sure or think that Biden has the condition.”

    And while the JPM strategist concedes that “a lot can happen in the next ~60 days to change the odds” he currently believes “that momentum in favor of Trump will continue, while the most investors are still positioned for a Biden win. Implications could significant for the performance of factors, sectors, COVID-19 winners/losers, as well as ESG.“

    * * *

    With just over two months left, it remains to be seen if Trump’s momentum persists but what we found unquestionably hilarious is that shortly after Kolanovic’s warning was publicized, none other than Nate Silver who predicted the 2016 would be won by Hillary (see here and here), though granted with some caveats and far less vocally than his even more clueless peers who had all predicted a Hillary landslide, had a meltdown on twitter, slamming the two core arguments behind Kolanovic’s opinion, proceeding directly to ad hominem attacks, calling Marko a “financebro” to wit:

    “both of these propositions are almost entirely lacking in evidence, to the point where they’re more superstitious than empirical, but are an interesting window into the mindset of techbros and financebros who are buying up Trump shares on prediction markets.”

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

    The meltdown continued for several more tweets, and culminated with the following scathing attack: “A chart like this is nonsense, and the analysis behind it is lacking any sort of empirical anchor and is otherwise hopelessly confused. It’s amazing that they shared it with a reporter because they thought it would make them look smart.”

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

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

    Nate, chill out “pollbro” and stop pretending like there is some profound, abstruse and complex science involved here – there isn’t – and that only certified grand druids of polling have a right to opine on the future. If anything, you are the one who should shut up, instead of trying to “look smart” by bashing Kolanovic, who at least lays out his logic and – ultimately – his clients will decide if he is right or wrong with their wallet. It’s called skin in the game: if Marko is right, he will be rewarded, if he is wrong he may lose his job. You, on the other hand, were hopelessly wrong in 2016 and yet here you are pretending you have some arcane “technical and domain expertise.”

    What really prompted Silver’s implosion? It appears that despite his catastrophic track record from 2016, Nate still believes he somehow holds a monopoly on forecasting and “analyzing” polls and thus Kolanovic’s upstaging of Silver was taken especially personally, even though we are shocked that people still care and listen to what Silver has to say. Incidentally, Nate, it wasn’t you but this website that explained for much of 2016…

    … why the polling results in 2016 were meaningless and why people should not rely on what they predicted. We were right, you were wrong.

    Oh and for those who care or keep record of such things, Silver’s latest take – perhaps having learned a thin gor two from the 2016 fiasco – is that “Biden is slightly favored to win the election.”

    So what does happen next? Well, the good news is that in just a few weeks we will know who is right and wrong. If Trump’s polling suddenly reverses and Biden steamrolls the president no Nov 3, well then it won’t be the first time that a “once in a decade” opportunity to bet on a reversal has gone wrong. On the other hand, we sincerely hope that if Trump is victorious on Nov 3 that Nate Silver finally finds a job that he is good at.

  • Oregon State Police Are Back In Portland – And This Time They Will Be Sticking Around
    Oregon State Police Are Back In Portland – And This Time They Will Be Sticking Around

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/31/2020 – 21:05

    While progressives, anarchists, socialists, agitators and their ‘woke’ enablers in the mainstream press blame right-wing – or ‘white supremacist’ – groups like ‘Patriot Prayer’ for the murder of one of the group’s own members, the reality is that Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler left an opening for violence to escalate when they pulled out the state police.

    Regular readers may remember that President Trump and Department of Homeland Security acting Secretary Chad Wolf finally withdrew federal troops from Portland after reaching a deal for the State Police to protect a federal courthouse in the city. Soon after, Oregon’s leading Democrats pulled the reinforcements. But now that a man has been killed, they’re realizing the downside of pandering to unstable anarchists.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    So – in accordance with the plan released by Brown Sunday night – Oregon’s State Police are returning to Portland on Monday, and this time, it looks like they’ll be there for a while. At least until the protests, which have endured for 3.5 months, quiet down.

    In order to try and make it seem like the police surge is intended to fight crime in the community, rather than serving as a ‘dangerous occupying force’ (as progressive critics will inevitably label it), Brown has secured “additional resources” from the FBI and the US Attorney’s office.

    Governor Kate Brown, a Democrat, released a plan Sunday night in response to violence that she said was stoked by an armed right-wing group called Patriot Prayer. In addition to bringing in state police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Attorney would commit more resources to prosecuting criminal offenders.

    “Every Oregonian has the right to freely express their views without fear of deadly violence. I will not allow Patriot Prayer and armed white supremacists to bring more bloodshed to our streets,” Brown said in a statement.

    The locals – and the professional agitators from out of town – gave the state troopers a hero’s welcome Monday night by pelting the with eggs and other projectiles. Police said 29 people were arrested at the “unlawful gathering” in northeastern Portland. Two of those arrested had loaded handguns on their persons. Others had knives, and rocks.

    While Brown, Wheeler and other Democrats continue to focus their rhetoric on dangerous “white supremacist” groups, the man identified as the shooter in Saturday’s fatal shooting described himself as “100% Antifa” during a recent interview.

    Gov. Brown underscored her kinder, gentler approach to policing Portland by confirming a new superintendent of the Oregon State Police.

    Her name is Terri Davie, and she’s a 24-year veteran of law enforcement in the state, according to the Oregonian.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    “Terri brings a wealth of law enforcement experience to this role and a strong record of leading by example,” Brown said during a statement. “She brings a focus on inclusivity and is dedicated to listening to community voices – including Oregon’s Black, Indigenous, People of Color, and Tribal communities – as we work towards a more fair and just law enforcement system in Oregon.”

    Meanwhile, as backlash to the shooting crystallizes national opposition to the professional protester class, a large group of agitators who have been heavily trading on their first amendment right to peaceably assemble, Eric Weinstein responded to a clip of one agitator gloating over the killing of the man on Saturday.

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

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

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

    Now that’s some sad commentary.

  • Kamala Harris Helped Bail Out Two Murder Suspects And Twice-Convicted Sex Offender
    Kamala Harris Helped Bail Out Two Murder Suspects And Twice-Convicted Sex Offender

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/31/2020 – 20:45

    Three months ago, Kamala Harris asked her 3.7 million Twitter followers (now 5.4 million) to contribute to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, whose mission is to ‘help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota.’

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

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

    Yet, as Fox 9 News in Minneapolis notes, the MFF has bailed out violent criminals who were rioting in Minneapolis following the death of George Floyd, a black man who had a ‘fatal level‘ of fentanyl in his system when he died in police custody, after a police officer knelt on his neck for over eight minutes during a stop.

    Fox 9 reports (via The Federalist):

    Among those bailed out by the Minnesota Freedom Fund (MFF) is a suspect who shot at police, a woman accused of killing a friend, and a twice convicted sex offender, according to court records reviewed by the FOX 9 Investigators.

    According to attempted murder charges, Jaleel Stallings shot at members of a SWAT Team during the riots in May. Police recovered a modified pistol that looks like an AK-47. MFF paid $75,000 in cash to get Stallings out of jail.

    Darnika Floyd is charged with second degree murder, for stabbing a friend to death. MFF paid $100,000 cash for her release.

    Christopher Boswell, a twice convicted rapist, is currently charged with kidnapping, assault, and sexual assault in two separate cases. MFF paid $350,00 [sic] in cash for his release.

    If Harris ends up as Vice President (or as some speculate, President) of the United States, will she promote initiatives with a similar lack of oversight – or even worse, which are actively working to put violent offenders back on the streets?  The Federalist‘s David Marcus sums it up as follows:

    Harris was so eager to be on the rioters’ team that she literally raised money for them in the hopes that they could be released and foster further mayhem.

    That on its own would be bad enough. But the fact that she is now attempting to pretend she was against all of this violence, and looting, and arson, and destruction from the get go is an insulting joke. Did Harris really think that peaceful protesters obeying the rules were the ones arrested in Minneapolis? Of course she didn’t. She just assumed that justifying the unrest would help Democrats’ political chances. Now that this has been shown to be false, she is trying to change her position. It’s way too late for that.

    Now, Harris has to own this – which is the first thing Vice President Pence should ask her about when they debate.

    (h/t @JackPosobiec)

  • Luongo: Did Trump's Federalism Just Win Him The Election?
    Luongo: Did Trump’s Federalism Just Win Him The Election?

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/31/2020 – 20:25

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

    For months we’ve been told that President Trump has trailed Democrat Joe Biden in the opinion polls. His odds of winning were vanishingly small.

    From the moment the George Floyd protests turned into violent riots, Trump refused the call of conservative pundits to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1878 in Minneapolis.

    They were wrong to jump the gun. Trump was being goaded into acting like a dictator which the Democrats would have pounced on him for. It was too early in the cycle.

    He had to, politically, take a punch in the mouth and allow things to get out of hand. There was no good decision for him back in May.

    The people were still fighting with the shock of the Coronapocalypse, stimulus checks were being mailed out and unemployment offices around the country were so overwhelmed they couldn’t process the claims quickly enough to make the weekly report even close to accurate.

    Trump, rightly, prioritized that while making his opposition to the looting and rioting plain for everyone to see on his Twitter feed, while allowing the local officials the leeway to deal with the problems as they saw fit.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    During two major concomitant crises Donald Trump acted as a President we’re supposed to have, one that governs via the principles of Federalism as laid out in the Constitution, rather than as a dictator.

    He may have publicly upbraided New York Governor Andrew Cuomo for his mishandling of the COVID-19 outbreak, but he didn’t usurp Cuomo’s authority.

    New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio may have purposefully allowed parts of his city to burn and undermine the authority and legitimacy of his police force, but Trump didn’t send in Federal troops to quell the situation.

    Rather he let DeBlasio and Cuomo hang themselves. Cuomo is done as he is now revealed to be a “Grandma Killer” for political reasons and under Dept. of Justice investigation for his actions.

    DeBlasio is now finished, revealed as a hyper-sympathizer with BLM who has now left Manhattan out to dry, sparking a mass exodus out of the city which was already underway thanks to Trump’s SALT deduction removal under the tax cut from 2017 and the new normal of people working from home thanks to the official story that COVID-19 will kill us all.

    The same thing happened in Minneapolis with the George Floyd riots and now Trump, according to the latest polling is up 5 points in Minnesota and six mayors of major cities there openly endorsed Trump’s re-election.

    This segment from Tim Pool is really good, going over the dramatic shift in the polling (polling stuff begins at 4:16).

    Weeks ago, I told you that I thought Trump was set to win re-election based solely on the DNC choosing Sen. Kamala Harris as Joe Biden’s running mate.

    At that point, the polling map, according to 270 to Win had Trump with just 107 Electoral College Votes locked down.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Today, after weeks of continued riots and escalating violence which, I hope, crested in Kenosha, Wisconsin last week with Kyle Rittenhouse’s life-changing evening, that map looks completely different. And the Democrats are officially freaking out.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    This map is far closer to what the truth was back in July if the polls were anything close to accurate, which they most certainly are not. Between Democrat over-sampling, bad pools of potential respondents and clear suppression of voter preference for fear of reprisal, most of these polls are still skewed between 3 and 5 points in Biden’s favor.

    Look, it’s bad for the media’s business if the election narrative is a blow out for either candidate. So the polls are primarily used to shape public opinion rather than reflect it to keep the story relevant.

    The last thing the Democrats and their allies in the media actually want is for people to accept as fait accompli that Trump will win.

    But with the abject panic on the faces of every major political operative in league with or campaigning as a Democrat, it’s clear this story is one they can’t create out of whole cloth and staged events.

    Now Biden is talking about finally coming out of his gimp cellar to campaign in battleground states like Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Arizona. But it won’t work.

    He’s already lost those states to the angry mob he sat back and encouraged. Trapped by his own incompetence, shrinking mental faculties and bad advice Biden is now facing the same problem that Hillary Clinton faced in 2016.

    He’s having to play clean up in states he thought he had won rather rather than attack states he needs to win. Biden going to Pennsylvania ensures Florida goes for Trump.

    Trump, like he did in 2016, campaigning in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, can now go into supposed Blue Wall states and really force the issue there.

    If the DNC has to spend one dollar in places like New Jersey, Oregon or New York, it’s a net win for Trump to go after those places, even if all he does is tweet a bit and show up for an event or two.

    Meanwhile, New Mexico comes back into play because Dopey Weed Guy, Gary Johnson, isn’t pulling big numbers away from Trump there.

    Sometimes the best thing a leader can do is nothing at all. It flies against modern political doctrine that a leader needs to be seen as pro active and engaged all the time.

    By keeping his head in the crisis at hand while staying it in local affairs Trump gained political points with people who were betrayed by the people they voted for.

    Remember, all politics is local. Political strategists removed from the scene tend to forget this. They think nationally, as Tim Pool pointed out in the video linked above. They forget that people in Portland Oregon voted for Ted Wheeler. People in New York voted for Bill DeBlasio and Andrew Cuomo.

    And voting for someone is a psychological barrier. People vote first for the person they most identify with or aspire to have in their lives. Upper middle class, midwit (H/T Michael Malice), Democrats hate Donald Trump because he is vulgar to them. Their votes won’t change, but at the same time, they also won’t abide someone failing to protect them from looting and rioting.

    And there is nothing worse than a voter scorned, especially a female voter scorned. This has been the real dynamic at play here. Trump doesn’t have to turn those folks to his side to win this fight, he just has to allow voters to feel betrayed by their people.

    Many of them will stay home, or vote third party. Those less committed will pull the lever for Trump and refuse to vote Democrat locally ever again.

    And it was clear that a few of Trump’s advisers understood what was really happening far better than the Twitterati who only play at being strategic thinkers.

    Jumping into the fray early, betraying the Constitution and undermining the authority of local officials was the advice of panicky losers, not those with a Gorilla Mindset.

    It takes a hard heart to let cities burn and people’s lives be destroyed in the short term to gain a strategic advantage in the longer term. Both sides thought they were doing this. Only one of them would be right about the outcome.

    The stage is set, now all that is left is to shore up how the votes are counted to put this insurrection to bed properly, peacefully.

    *  *  *

    Join my Patreon if you want clear-headed political analysis and not loserthink.  Install the Brave Browser to undermine Google’s panopticon

  • MIT Debunks Musk's Neuralink As "Neuroscience Theater" In Scathing Critique
    MIT Debunks Musk’s Neuralink As “Neuroscience Theater” In Scathing Critique

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/31/2020 – 20:05

    Scientists at MIT have wasted no time debunking Elon Musk’s Neuralink presentation from last week. 

    Neuralink has said that it aims to “implant wireless brain-computer interfaces that include thousands of electrodes in the most complex human organ to help cure neurological conditions like Alzheimer’s, dementia and spinal cord injuries and ultimately fuse humankind with artificial intelligence” – a line of thinking that Elon Musk touted last week, stating on Friday that “An implantable device can actually solve these problems.”

    Musk, of course, is neither a doctor, nor a scientist.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    And meanwhile, actual scientists at MIT appeared to take exception with Musk’s claims in a new article published in the MIT Technology Review on Sunday. “Elon Musk’s livestreamed brain implant event made promises that will be hard to keep,” the lede states. 

    “None of these advances are close at hand, and some are unlikely to ever come about,” the article stated, calling most of the company’s medical claims “highly speculative.”

    It also points out that – just like with solar panels, electric cars, reusable rockets, and busses on skates in tunnels – that Musk isn’t the first entrant into the space: “Researchers began placing probes in the brains of paralyzed people in the late 1990s in order to show that signals could let them move robot arms or computer cursors. And mice with visual implants really can perceive infrared rays.”

    Calling Musk on his nonsense, MIT was quick to point out that “Musk deftly avoided giving timelines or committing to schedules” during the presentation. They also stated that “Neuralink has provided no evidence that it can (or has even tried to) treat depression, insomnia, or a dozen other diseases that Musk mentioned in a slide.”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    They said of Musk’s pig demonstration that it was “nothing new” to neuroscientists. In fact, they noted that the technology was decades old: “…in their labs the buzz and crackle of electrical impulses recorded from animal brains (and some human ones) has been heard for decades.”

    “Despite the long list of medical applications Musk presented, Neuralink didn’t show it’s ready to commit to any one of them,” the article concluded. “During the event, the company did not disclose plans to start a clinical trial, a surprise to those who believed that would be its next logical step.”

    “It is unclear how serious the company is about treating disease at all,” the MIT piece concluded. 

    Recall, this past weekend, we highlighted how the Neuralink presentation was causing vulnerable and desperate people to hold out hope for miracle cures to all kinds of ailments. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    “We hope Elon Musk’s questionable Neuralink demonstration that was given days ago was legitimate,” we said. “Because otherwise, the hope Musk is drumming up in desperate people who suffer from ailments (and whose family members and close friends suffer from ailments) would only be akin to the faith healers and psychic hotlines of the 1990’s.”

    We concluded by stating that while we don’t necessarily endorse the idea that Musk faked the Neuralink presentation (although after Tesla’s Solar Roof Tile and battery swap presentations, we would certainly have good reason to), we wanted to highlight the gravity of claims that Musk has made about Neuralink.

    It appears MIT wanted to do the same.

  • California's Radical Brainwashing Curriculum Soon To Be Mandatory
    California’s Radical Brainwashing Curriculum Soon To Be Mandatory

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/31/2020 – 19:45

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,

    Look out. Radical brainwashing will soon start. California will lead the way.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Radical Indoctrination

    A new California bill would establish a K-12 curriculum mandating classes in the ‘four I’s of oppression,’ ideological, institutional, interpersonal and internalized.

    The bill has sailed through the Senate and Governor Gavin Newsom is expected to sign it according to a WSJ Editorial.

    Last year California’s Assembly passed its ethnic-studies bill known as AB 331 by a 63-8 vote. Then the state department of education put forward a model curriculum so extreme and ethnocentric that the state Senate’s Democratic supermajority balked. The curriculum said among other things that “within Ethnic Studies, scholars are often very critical of the system of capitalism as research has shown that Native people and people of color are disproportionately exploited within the system.”

    The bill was put on ice, but protests and riots in recent months gave Sacramento’s mavens of racial division more leverage. The model curriculum now on the education department’s website says the course should “build new possibilities for post-imperial life that promotes collective narratives of transformative resistance.” 

    Among the approved topics: “Racism, LGBTQ rights, immigration rights, access to quality health care, income inequality,” and so on.

    What about the fifth “I” of indoctrination? One course outline tips its hat at this. “Students will write a paper detailing certain events in American history,” it says, “that have led to Jewish and Irish Americans gaining racial privilege.” 

    This is ugly stuff, a force-feeding to teenagers of the anti-liberal theories that have been percolating in campus critical studies departments for decades. Enforced identity politics and “intersectionality” are on their way to replacing civic nationalism as America’s creed. 

    The 1619 Project

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The California Bill is related to thinking of the New York Times’ 1619 Project.

    The goal of The 1619 Project is to reframe American history by considering what it would mean to regard 1619 as our nation’s birth year. Doing so requires us to place the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are as a country.

    The WSJ Laments 

    Conservatives and fair-minded liberals are alarmed that high schools are drawing up plans to teach the “1619 project,” the New York Times ’ revisionist account of race and the American founding, in history classes. The reality is turning out to be worse. The largest state in the union is poised to become one of the first to mandate ethnic studies for all high-school students, and the model curriculum makes the radical “1619 project” look moderate and balanced.

    These writers do not understand capitalism, free markets, or the path of destruction  of countries like Venezuela. 

    Indoctrination Ideas

    • Capitalism is bad

    • The Irish and Jews unfairly got ahead

    • We need slave reparations  

    • We need to teach “collective narratives of transformative resistance,” whatever the hell that means.

    Radically Dangerous Ideas

    These indoctrination ideas are radically dangerous.

    Few understand the origins for what they are: union pandering for the primary benefit of the teachers who espouse the ideas. 

    Income Inequality is a Feature Not a Detriment 

    Indeed income inequality is actually a benefit of capitalism.

    History teaches us what happens when the states take over farms and mandate everyone get the same rewards no matter how much they produce. 

    The extreme nature now is largely due to government and Fed interference that distorts capitalism, not capitalism itself.

    That’s the curriculum that needs to be taught.

  • "Quartet" Of Tropical Disturbances Brewing In The Atlantic 
    “Quartet” Of Tropical Disturbances Brewing In The Atlantic 

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/31/2020 – 19:25

    The National Hurricane Center (NHC) is monitoring a “quartet of systems” brewing in the Atlantic. 

    Two systems are located in the western region of the Atlantic basin are likely to be upgraded to tropical depression status in the next few days. Two tropical wave systems are in the eastern Atlantic, near the coast of Africa and the Cabo Verde Islands.

    The two-day tropical weather outlook map labels all four tropical disturbances. 

    The first disturbance, called Disturbance 1, of the quartet of storms that are brewing in the Atlantic, is located over the eastern Caribbean Sea. Probabilities, at the moment, have the storm at 70-80% of developing into a tropical depression over the next 2-5 days.

    Disturbance 2 is located a couple of hundred miles east of Jacksonville, Florida, and has become more organized on Sunday. The storm is expected to be upgraded to a tropical depression by mid-week and move “northeastward or east-northeastward, initially parallel to the southeastern coast of the U.S. and then away from land,” the NHC said. 

    Disturbance 3 and 4 are tropical waves that have a low probability of forming over the next five days. Both systems are slow-moving in the eastern Atlantic, near the coast of Africa and the Cabo Verde Islands. 

    Here’s NHC’s latest briefing on all four disturbances.  

    If all four disturbances were to develop into named storms, they would be Nana, Omar, Paulette, and Rene.

    So far, the 2020 hurricane season has been extremely active (read: “La Nina Could Spark Active Hurricane Season As Trump Set To Drain FEMA Funds”), 13 named storms have already been seen, with the latest ones, Hurricane Laura and Marco, causing a ruckus in Lousiana. 

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Aug 31

Today’s News 31st August 2020

  • Sweden's Conservatives Warn Surging Violent Crime Has Become A "Second Pandemic"
    Sweden’s Conservatives Warn Surging Violent Crime Has Become A “Second Pandemic”

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/31/2020 – 02:45

    As the shooting of a man in Portland last night intensifies Americans’ fears about mounting violent crime and the increasingly out of control “protest movement” spawned by the killing of George Floyd, the Financial Times has chosen to write a story about Sweden that could offer some insight into the mindset of the American “silent majority”.

    Now that Sweden has successfully beaten back its coronavirus outbreak, politicians in the country are pivoting to focus on a new issue that has emerged in the aftermath of the economic destruction wrought by the global outbreak. Even though Sweden never locked down its economy, it suffered an even larger economic contraction than its Nordic neighbors.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    This, combined with years of heightened migration fueled by crises in the Middle East and Africa, has continued to fuel growth in crime across stodgy Sweden.

    When President Trump tweeted about the crime wave in Sweden, the mainstream media dismissed the president’s concerns as simply regurgitating a ‘bogus’ story invented by Fox News, a claim echoed by Sweden’s center-left political establishment. The truth, however, is much more complicated, and much more sensitive, than this denialism might suggest.

    And now that the COVID-19 numbers are down, the country is starting to focus on the rising rates of violent crime, spurred in part by a series of particularly brutal crimes that have taken place in recent weeks. Whether its reports about criminals setting up their own roadblocks in Gothenburg, a 12-year-old girl shot and killed in gang crossfire, or a beating that verged on torture, right-wing politicians, led by a right-wing party called the Sweden Democrats that was mostly shunned until a few months ago, have seized on this latest crime wave as Sweden’s “second pandemic.“

    “There is a big frustration and anger at the developments,” Mattias Karlsson, parliamentary leader of the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, the country’s third-largest political party, told the Financial Times. “Our laws are too soft, the police don’t have the means to investigate this very serious crime.”

    On Friday night, a large riot broke out in an immigrant suburb of Sweden’s third city Malmo after far-right sympathisers burnt a Koran. Ulf Kristersson, head of the main centre-right opposition party, the Moderates, used his summer speech on August 24 to accuse the government of failing to act after more than 200 shootings and 24 deaths this year. “The deadly violence is Sweden’s second pandemic,” he added.

    Interestingly enough, the issue of crime is becoming a bigger political liability for Sweden’s ruling Social Democrats than their handling of the coronavirus. And it’s a natural fit for the ‘anti-migrant’ right because most of the criminal suspects are immigrants.

    The governing Social Democrats had until recently enjoyed a boost in the polls from their handling of the coronavirus pandemic where they have largely followed the recommendations of state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell while ploughing billions of krona into the economy.

    But a nascent conservative bloc – involving Mr Kristersson’s Moderates and the Christian Democrats from the mainstream centre-right, plus the previously shunned Sweden Democrats – is increasingly attacking the government on law and order and migration as many of the suspected criminals are immigrants.

    One academic expert quoted in the FT story said that while the liberal government’s “libertarian” approach to tackling the pandemic had “discombobulated” Swedish conservatives, the crime issue is giving conservatives a rare opportunity to completely turn the tables on their competition.

    Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer in political science at Sodertorn University, said the Swedish right had been “discombobulated” by the country’s COVID-19 strategy where the centre-left suddenly rallied around a “libertarian” approach of not having a formal lockdown. But he argued the resurgence in violence had dented the centre-left hopes that coronavirus could tilt the debate more towards the economy and big government. “The violence is becoming so grotesque it is bound to displace pretty much everything else,” he added.

    The conservative line is pretty straight forward: attempts at integration and open migration were misguided idealism, and these failed policies have led to “segregation and violence”.

    Toward the end of the story, the conservative politician who appeared to be the FT’s main source made an interesting point. In Sweden – as in much of Europe today – the big political disagreements are no longer about economics. They’re about culture.

    Mr Karlsson said that “many people are feeling insecure in their everyday life” and argued that Sweden’s immigration and integration policies had failed, leading to “segregation and violence”.

    He added: “It’s not really economics or taxes that are the main sources of conflict in Swedish politics — values, identity, crime that is where the debate is.”

    And they’re about what kind of society famously open Sweden should become as the world advances further into the 21st Century.

  • The Fatal Attraction Of Techo-Fascism
    The Fatal Attraction Of Techo-Fascism

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/31/2020 – 02:00

    Authored by Mark Petrakis via Off-Guardian.org,

    “Those who are serious in ridiculous matters will be ridiculous in serious matters.”

    – Cato the Elder

    The enduring beauty of fascism is that it requires so little from us… so little independent thought; just our basic belief and adherence to a limited set of popularly-shared directives and narratives that once fully accepted, relieve us of the need to address stubborn questions or to fret over subtle differences of opinion and feeling.

    Propaganda reassures us that we are complete, that we know all there is to know, that we are rational, pragmatic and pure, that the science has been settled and that we are a part of something special.

    Such a surrender to reductionist narratives cuts across all classes and income brackets. Neither the most educated nor the least uneducated retain any special advantage in the face of powerful consensus-shaping propaganda.

    PROPAGANDA is, of course, the life-blood of fascist control. Maintaining the economic, governmental and scientific frameworks of a technocratic-fascist “operating system” is unthinkable without propaganda and disinformation. When truth is seen as a liability to power, it must always be disallowed, and all instances of it effectively penalized.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Radio and television and their constant enabler, popular “science” – operate today as their own religions, reliant for their success upon the devotion of the masses. As McLuhan told us, the experience of electronic media is always more powerful than the specific messaging it contains.

    The currency that we use to pay for the electronic spectacle is our attention, and in such hyper-mediated times as these, the charges mount up exponentially, until we find ourselves saddled with soul-crushing denial and disconnection.

    Three defining historical moments (among many) have defined the confluence of fascism, propaganda and technology.

    1. The fundamental principles of propaganda were first defined 100 years ago by Edward Bernays, often referred to as the father of public relations.

    2. Joseph Goebbels served as Reich Minister of Propaganda of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. The stunning successful lessons of his Nazi propaganda programs were not lost on the world’s political and economic leaders in the post-war era, and in the time since then.

    3. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was founded in 1947, for the expressed purpose of conducting secret intelligence operations that could serve political aims at the same time they generated huge and untraceable profits. The extent of the CIA’s illegal enterprises necessitated the creation and maintenance of a permanent ministry of disinformation, managed by our own taxpayer-funded “Shadow Government” and “Deep State.”

    In retrospect then, it is clear that these propaganda campaigns have proven SO successful, that even today, few of us ever realize how ongoing, vast and wide-spread they are.

    Propaganda’s efficacy is so indisputable, that it is commonly the case that those who are the most certain that they are NOT among the propagandized, are in fact its most overt victims.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Corporate media focuses on those stories they are paid to propagate, i.e., those which support the financial and ideological
    agendas of their owners, who themselves are all, without exception, central parts of the larger global ruling oligarchy.

    A key part of the propagandist’s handbook is to simply leave unexplored stories that they are NOT given approval to manage and control; stories which, we might assume, do not generate sufficient advantage for the owners. Such calculated sins of omission are essential to keeping the mass of believers unperturbed by the vagaries of complexity in the delivery of their daily dogmas.

    If an individual were to insist upon learning more about any of these less-discussed stories, they would soon arrive at the realization that while an abundance of relevant facts can easily be found, and often hidden in plain sight, the truth is that most people simply do not WANT to know, think or talk about any such truths that differ from those accepted by their peers, for whom cognitive dissonance causes such literal pain and disorientation, as to keep them docile and compliant to the dictates of the media.

    As McLuhan said:

    “Only the small secrets need to be protected. The large ones are kept secret by public incredulity.”

    Perhaps, the grandest illusion of all, and which must be maintained at all costs, is that both the world and the stories we tell of it, must be made to appear as though they are generated randomly. It must always appear that the media’s coverage and the comments of experts are entirely free from any preconceived manipulation.

    In the terminology of the media, news must always be “Breaking!” – even though in reality, we know the news more closely resembles a cooking show, where ingredients are chopped and sliced before-hand, after which they are mixed and served up live on camera in ways that keep the public hooked on happy hash-slinging and enticingly-scripted recipes.

    Technocratic-Fascism, the advanced fusion of the multinational technology-dominated corporatocracy with the authoritarian global and surveillance state, allows its initiates to believe they are a part of something bigger than themselves. Witness the magical left’s lockstep belief in the pure villainy of Donald Trump, or the magical right’s equally lockstep belief in Trump as a self-sacrificing national hero.

    Clearly both parties to the constant heist of human freedom need each other to better manage their greed for consumer profit and civilian control. Such mental assaults secondarily require that all truthful motives remain hidden and obfuscated in a fog of weaponized storytelling.

    This accounts of course for the abiding value of bullshit, does it not? Bullshit effectively misleads without upsetting the natural order of things, without irreversibly tearing apart the fabric of credibility. Nothing can stand in the way of the constant flow of messaging, profit and growth, which are after all, the primary justifications for all this deceptive disorder.

    This is another aspect of what makes technocratic-fascism so irresistible; in realizing how effective it is at knowing us better than we know ourselves. The assumption is that if we were to know ourselves better than the stories we are told, we would not be seduced by such obvious lies. Since we don’t, our “betters” are left with no choice but to keep up the constant barrage of lies, at least until our thinking eventually locks up and we capitulate and collapse, like a stack of wooden blocks.

    If for example, we did not always obey or give our attention to propaganda, we would soon grow alarmed by the many contradictions that we are told exist, say between the Covid monster and the daily vaporous disease statistics, or between maskers and non-maskers, between vaxxers and anti-vaxxers, between crushing economic destruction and the mewling need for safety, between the lunatic left and the lunatic right, between black and whites, between males and females… between one piece of orthogonal bullshit and another equally opposing piece of bullshit.

    ALL of these dichotomies, of course, are at some fundamental level FALSE… every last one of them, each constructed by skilled media professionals and put in place to overwhelm our critical thinking and that of millions of others from seeing what’s really going on in the limitless background.

    In this remarkably cost-efficient way, human energy and intelligence are siphoned off, and directed towards the task of turning us into helplessly confused and easily-controllable “lab rats,” forcibly cut off from each other, lest we experience ourselves as intelligent and sovereign beings. If something like that were to happen, the driving agendas of big business and global governance to keep us marching in lockstep towards a more divided and disempowered fate, would soon disintegrate.

    It is in such a state of debilitating surrender that we are divided one subset “targeted” demographic against another; all herded into a wicked mental trap with one side thinking one thing, while the other side thinks something else – such that half of us hate the other and the other half hate the other right back.

    At this point, and after so many years of unqualified victories for the industries supported by the propaganda industry, the pathetic truth is that propaganda doesn’t even NEED to be that entertaining anymore. Knowing they have the situation in tow, the purveyors of propaganda can save a ton of money by just being sensational, confrontational and redundant in their narratives.

    Recall this quote from the singular Frank Zappa:

    “The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”

    Once we have learned to carry on absent the need for verifiable truth, or without the need to discern authentic and honest voices from deceitful and manipulative ones, we gradually lose our interest in so-called “truth,” preferring instead to keep splashing about in unsubstantiated speculation, pompous judgments and opinionated fluff.

    Let’s be honest…the only people who might actually CARE what any of us think about the blaring big topics of the day (masks or vaccines or climate change or Black Lives Matter, etc.) are other equally thin-skinned victims of propaganda, who much like the majority of us, still believe that the government cares about them and that the mainstream media is telling them the truth.

    That is why a growing number of people have given up on the media’s crudely fictional depiction of reality, and are instead trying to figure out how to thrive and to reconnect energetically with others – and with truths that can only exist OUTSIDE the reach of the propaganda ‘spectacle.”

    The media, of course, with their sophisticated surveillance tracking tools knows full well when there is an uptick in negative reactions to their toxic narratives, but since it is also aware that it is after all pushing nothing but sugar water bullshit, it is left with little choice but to double-down and turn the levels up even higher… thus ramming even more bullshit at us.

    Whacky Joe Biden, Greedy Green Greta, Covid, Aunt Jemima Race Wars and endless offenses… all come at us so fast and so hard as to leave us bent and broke under the weight of it all, as we stumble around like headless chickens desperately trying to win the approval of our friends by looking like we are at least doing the only “acceptable” thing.

    Arriving at his frenzied point of screwball hyper-polarization, is the essential endgame of Propaganda… locking us into its agenda, at the same time it demands that we think we are making these choices of our own FREE WILL!

    To get us to that point though, they must keep us constantly preoccupied; agitated, offended, attacking each other and defending ourselves against all threats, both real and imagined. The more they can get us ensnared in mind-numbing opinions and outrages, the less energy and attention will be left to notice the deeper more manipulative agendas of techno-fascism.

    Mid 20th Century fascism was woefully limited in its capacities and in what it could extract from its victims… and yet still it worked! The new technocratic-fascism is here to mine the population for all the bio-capital commodification it can. Those who can invent the most efficient and ingenious means of converting human confusion, poverty, crime and illness into impact markets will quickly take their place among the prior generations’ titans of technology.

    Once you step back far enough though to experience the sheer SCALE of this ongoing and unlimited propaganda WAR on us, it grows a bit easier to see why so few are able to escape the media’s influence. Oh, for a while perhaps, you can rise above it… but eventually, you will get pulled back down into the muck. Even if you kill your TV, unplug yourself from your media feeds, and turn off the Wi-Fi, each of us, at some point, will relapse and fall off the wagon.

    This is because propaganda is not just about what’s in the news or in the media. It’s even more importantly about the broadly consensual layers of social hallucination that are created and shared across all of society, which make it difficult for any of us to function socially, absent those commonly shared reference points and signals that we have convinced ourselves are required in order to allay our anxiety, confusion and isolation… all of which are primary raisons d’etres for propaganda in the first place.

    I wish there was one simple way to break propaganda’s voodoo spell. There isn’t. I’m not even sure how to do that for myself, or how I can avoid falling prey to it again, just as I and most of us have done for the great majority of our lives.

    What seems obvious to me now is that propaganda in the service of a transhumanist-centered technology has become so pervasive and insidiously forceful, that in many ways, our thinking has ceased to be entirely our own, and that the portion of our soul that remains recognizable as uniquely us, is shrinking fast.

    The effect of all this leaves our spirits infected, and easily convertible into compliant puppets under the top-down control of truly diabolically puppet masters, who in order to keep us subservient to their untruths, and to doing whatever we are told, have become masterful at pretending to be something they are not.

    This is perfectly exemplified in the character of Bill Gates, who working with his Bain and Co. handlers and account managers, (who previously managed the Iraq War for Dick Cheney) have constructed these elaborate biopharma/ biocapital/ vaccine public health/fear narratives and investment pyramids that are then fed to the media and Wall Street, who reheat and serve them to the public, generating criminal profits while making such that Mr. Gates is always portrayed as an altruistic philanthropist and protector of the public… when any fool can see he is nothing of the sort.

    NOT seeing just how obvious and laughable propaganda campaigns have become in this one-size fits all era, leaves us painfully vulnerable and ready to be further subsumed by more of the same.

    The complexity of today’s master plans for disinformation are unparalleled compared to the past. Looking back to the 1950’s and 60’s, when all the above long-term plans for centralized and technocratic control were slowly being tested, being part of America’s growing middle-class was actually a pretty sweet deal. It is in a return to more bucolic and “normal” times as these that we pin our nostalgic hopes, by the media but especially by politicians.

    “Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in, can hope to escape.”

    – William S. Burroughs

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Looking at our world, we can see that the reach and authority of the transnational global capitalists who run the world’s nation-sized casinos has been cemented. All systems are now in place, up and running LIVE on that criminal syndicate’s vast web of networks. Each one of us has by now been targeted by them for some form of surveillance and financialization – just as “nature” has, just as “disease” has, just as “social justice” has, just as everything will eventually.

    The “A.I. control grids” are all active and expanding. The technocratic agendas are now fully ready for prime-time. We have been gradually “shepherded” by propaganda and psychological torture techniques, just as we have also been physically compromised by toxins in the geo-engineered air and water, by disruptive electromagnetic frequency radiation, by weaponized technologies that include the release of nano-particulates inside our bodies (either by way of inhalation or injection) which are then governed by oxygen-absorbing 5G which at the higher millimeter wave frequency, will bring remote alteration of our very DNA under the “persistent” control of A.I., which will guide the process of transmuting us into commodities, into plunderable assets, into digitally-regulated and genetically modified “livestock.”

    Sadly, this is where decades of constant acquiescence to propaganda and institutional hypnosis has brought us…bent over, staring at our shoes and bracing for the “BIG ONE.”

    I remember in my own youth, being convinced that the evil genius of Hitler and Nazism had somehow transformed the mass of decent German people into BEASTS, possessed by demons, as if in a dark fairy tale… into something less than human.

    We know that once we begin to regard others as LESS than us…as something OTHER than us, it is only a short step to unleashing our hate upon them, even to the point of becoming violent and criminal.

    Needless to say, these very same psychological imperatives are everywhere apparent today; in how we are instructed by propaganda to regard the Chinese, Russians, Muslims, white supremacist Trumpers, deluded depraved liberals, defective racists, misogynist sexists and quivering face-ists (with their acute disdain for anyone who questions the dogma of e-mask-ulation.)

    Same as it ever was, you might say, but as we approach the much-touted singularity with its accompanying convergence of man and machine, how will the media respond in the face of that Huxleyan “solution?” In that light, how might propaganda shift its focus?

    I expect it will change-up the pitch and tell us that THIS time, things will be different. This time won’t be like last time. No, this time, things will have changed, so that we will no longer be “brainwashed” by the media as we were before. No, when the coming big change happens to us, it will not be like that. We will rather be transformed into advanced independent humans augmented by perfectly blended combinations of technology, science and engineering.

    Our DNA will be carefully crafted by brilliant doctors and scientists to enhance only the “preferred” qualities in their human subjects, and under their wise direction, we will gladly do as we are told. For so great a future, we will willingly offer our support and so grow accustomed to our new life, lest we become like those poor unfortunate souls, so lost in their unreason, that they cannot fully appreciate the wisdom that derives from enthusiastically embracing PROGRESS.

    In our leaders inspired and time-tested plans, we will of course have every convenience at our fingertips, such that doors will magically open when we approach. We will be able to download all manner of rich media and data with the blink of an eye. We will be as supermen.

    Our definitions of what is valuable and what is not, will fluidly shift to suit changing circumstances. We will see ourselves as the very picture of modernity, and the envy of the world…just as we have always been. We will be as American as our multi-racial forefathers, even though they lived in unenlightened times…long before today’s great social justice transformation allowed us, their proud descendants, to wake each day into this glistening new world.

    In such a world, when we ask ourselves what we might be grateful for, we will no longer need to struggle for an answer. We will know exactly what is good, true and beautiful and we will commit ourselves to those lofty ideals each and every day.

    Therein too, and most mercilessly, resides the fatal beauty of technocratic-fascism.

  • Trump Dares Biden To Utter 'Antifa' After Feeble Response To Murder And Mayhem
    Trump Dares Biden To Utter ‘Antifa’ After Feeble Response To Murder And Mayhem

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/31/2020 – 00:48

    President Trump slammed ‘Slow’ Joe Biden in a series of Sunday night tweets, after the former VP issued a weak statement essentially blaming Trump for inciting national violence which has left at least 30 people dead in the wake of a series of police incidents involving black suspects who died or were injured in custody or in altercations.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Instead of condemning violent leftists such as Antifa, Biden instead blamed Trump for “recklessly encouraging violence” and failing to “lower the temperature.”

    Not once did Biden mention Antifa or single out the left for causing the vast majority of the violence gripping the nation. Instead, Biden simply used a broad brush stroke and condemned ‘violence of every kind by anyone, whether on the left or the right.’

    Biden’s comments – echoed by his running mate Kamala Harris, come after a suspected self-admitted member of Antifa murdered a Trump supporter Saturday night in Portland.

    Trump wasn’t having it.

    “When is Slow Joe Biden going to criticize the Anarchists, Thugs & Agitators in ANTIFA?” Trump tweeted hours later, adding “When is he going to suggest bringing up the National Guard in BADLY RUN & Crime Infested Democrat Cities & States? Remember, he can’t lose the Crazy Bernie Super Liberal vote!”

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

    Earlier in the evening, Trump suggested that Biden was being ‘forced out of the basement’ because his poll numbers are plunging – referring to a Politico report that Biden would be traveling on Monday (but not to Kenosha). Trump added that Biden has an ‘interesting’ problem – namely that “He must always be weak on CRIME because of the Bernie Sanders Radical Left voter. If he loses them, like Crooked Hillary did, he is “toast”, and many will vote for me because of TRADE (Bernie was good on trade). Joe MUST always be weak on crime!”

    We would note that Kamala Harris told Late Show host Stephen Colbert just days ago that the riots are never going to stop, and to beware.

    Harris also raised money last month to bail out Antifa and BLM arrested in the mayhem.

    Meanwhile, Biden’s refusal to condemn Antifa has not gone unnoticed:

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

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

    Now let’s see if Biden can salvage his basement blunder. After all, silence is complicity.

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

  • 2020's Economic Destruction Due To The State's COVID Response Will Pale In Comparison To What's Coming!
    2020’s Economic Destruction Due To The State’s COVID Response Will Pale In Comparison To What’s Coming!

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 23:45

    Authored by Gary Barnett via LewRockwell.com,

    “It is important to remember that government interference always means either violent action or the threat of such action. Government is in the last resort the employment of armed men, of policemen, gendarmes, soldiers, prison guards, and hangmen. The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning. Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom.”  

    – Ludwig Von Mises (1990). “Economic freedom and interventionism: an anthology of articles and essays”

    Concerning economics in the United States today, the hierarchy begins with the top tier of self-proclaimed elites, those in central and high level banking, those in the large corporate world, those at the top of the ‘healthcare’ pyramid, and those controlling monetary and economic policy above the level of government, including the class running the large tax exempt foundations. While government is below this level, it is nonetheless responsible for the economic carnage because it is the initiator and enforcer of policies meant to enrich the few at the top at the expense of the many. This could never be more evident than it is today.

    This country has gone through hell this year due to policies put into place to combat what has been called a deadly ‘pandemic.’ Considering our history, and current numbers of total death, this ‘pandemic’ has proved to be a fraud. Apparently, that matters not, as the public at large has accepted the propaganda, and has given in to immense draconian measures that have devastated this economy and the natural health of the population. So far, things have gone exactly as planned, and the people have surrendered to the hype to such an extent as to allow the destruction of their natural immune systems and in many cases their livelihoods. This does not bode well for the future if the current trend is not reversed.

    The bloated economic systems worldwide have been inflated by a constant increase in the money supply for at least the past 12 plus years. This year alone, that expansion has exploded exponentially, and with no end in sight, and was of course blamed on a virus outbreak. With this kind of expansion, and the coinciding response of lockdowns, business and travel closures, quarantines, and fear mongering, prices have dramatically escalated and unemployment has skyrocketed. Businesses across the country have been shut down, many permanently, and many have been forced into bankruptcy. These of course are small and medium sized businesses for the most part, the backbone of this country. The unemployment caused by this harsh and unwarranted government response, has been unimaginable, and has led to over 40 million people being out of work. This alone has the potential to destroy the economy of this nation, but this is just the beginning.

    The destruction of the economy is a necessary aspect of the plan to advance global governance. The more people out of work and dependent on government means that they will be much easier to control. Already mass poverty is evident, and with food supplies dwindling, and so many unable to support their families, starvation among a large part of the population is certainly possible if not probable. These are agendas sought by those in the ruling class that need total compliance in order to restructure the global economic system. This economic collapse coming was imminent, but now is being pushed forward at great speed in order to use this virus scare as the scapegoat for a desired economic reset.

    The biggest threat we face now is this coming fall and winter, as this flu season will most likely be much worse than normal due to the purposeful weakening of the immune systems of most Americans. Refusing to bow to state orders, and not accepting any political authority, would certainly stop this onslaught of tyranny in its tracks, even if just a small percentage of the population were to say no to this government response. That has not happened so far, but without that dissent, this country is doomed in my opinion. Imagine what has happened over just the past 6 months, and then double or triple that response. The response seen to date will be dwarfed by the response this winter if the death toll is higher as I predict, and most all those deaths will be blamed on this thing called Covid-19.

    It appears that a manufactured ramp up of the state response is coming very soon, as this has been telegraphed for some time by the government and the state run mainstream media. The warnings have been out in the open, and this is with no knowledge whatsoever of what will occur this season. A set up is in place, and the planned next wave is ready to launch in just the next few weeks. Already around the world, much more brutal and oppressive measures are being advanced for non-compliance of mask wearing, distancing, and quarantine evasiveness. It appears that this is in anticipation of much harsher measures to come, and the rulers need to get the public used to an amplification of enforcement so that necessary changes can be made.

    This fall and winter is the most important time for this country, maybe the most important time in history.

    If mass compliance continues, and if dissent by large numbers of Americans is not forthcoming, life as we know it could end before spring.  The global reset by that time could be advancing at such a pace as to be almost impossible to stop. That would be an untenable situation, as once this reset is in high gear, and even more people are destitute, it will be much more difficult to reverse this totalitarian plot.

    With more lockdowns, more quarantine, more isolation, and more destruction of the economy, unemployment will balloon to unheard of levels, causing even more sickness, death, and tyranny at the hands of the state. In addition, the more deaths that occur, the more draconian the policies will become, and the carnage brought by the evil response to this so-called virus will not relent, it will only get worse. Imagine unemployment at 50%, 60%, or more? Imagine no food on the shelves, and no ability to support or feed your families? Imagine hell on earth.

    This is all leading to a mandatory global vaccine that will be released some time this fall or winter. If most of the masses line up for this vaccine, something that is now looking possible, the resulting effects of these toxins that are unknown at this time will have already been put into play inside the bodies of most of the population. What harm will that bring, and will it be irreversible?

    At this stage, the plan for global governance will have advanced, and we would be on track to establish a cashless society, with all monetary systems becoming digital. This will signal the end of an era that began with freedom, but will end in death, destruction, slavery, and tyranny. This cannot be allowed to happen.

    “The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants.” 

    – Albert Camus (2012). “Resistance, Rebellion, and Death: Essays”, p.101, Vintage

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

  • 'Woke' Sex Workers Force Actress Bella Thorne To Apologize After $2MN 'OnlyFans' Debut
    ‘Woke’ Sex Workers Force Actress Bella Thorne To Apologize After $2MN ‘OnlyFans’ Debut

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 23:20

    After breaking the record for most money earned on OnlyFans in a single week, actress Bella Thorne, 22, has been forced by the ‘woke mob’ into apologizing to the ‘sex worker community’ for new restrictions imposed by the app following the former Disney Channel star’s resounding success.

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

    Here’s what happened: First, Thorne hyped up her decision to join the app, eliciting a deluge of subscriptions, even though she has pledged not to post any nude or explicit content. Then, an individual posing as Thorne scammed a pack of horny subscribers out of $200 for a “nude” photo that didn’t actually depict Thorne in the nude.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    After screengrabs of the scammers’ posts wen viral, OnlyFans decided to set new limits on the prices that creators can charge for pay-per-view content, as well as the amount that users can “tip” creators. Pay per view content can no longer be priced above $50, and tips top out at $100.

    Afterwards, the ‘sex workers’ and their ‘woke’ ‘allies’ took to Twitter to hound Thorne and her team into issuing an apology, which she did Saturday afternoon via Twitter.

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

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

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

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

    Some of these tweets even verge on inciting violence against Thorne.

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

    To be fair, Thorne’s claim that she joined OF not for the money but as a gesture of support to sex workers in an attempt to remove ‘the stigma’ associated with sex work (an obsession of woke feminist sex workers pushing for decriminalization of prostitution across the US).

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

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

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

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

    Thorne also claimed she has a meeting booked with OF to find out more about why the company imposed these new restrictions.

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

    Unfortunately, the ‘woke mob’ felt her apology was “performative af”.

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

    To be fair, even if Thorne does experience some career blow back, at least she has her OF income to carry her through.

  • Robocop Is Here – New "Smart" Police Helmet Scans For COVID-19 & Uses Facial Recognition
    Robocop Is Here – New “Smart” Police Helmet Scans For COVID-19 & Uses Facial Recognition

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 22:55

    Authored by Jack Burns via The Free Thought Project,

    It took 33 years but Robocop is now here. Well, not exactly, but the rise of the police state fueled by advancements in technology have given birth to a heads up display equipped helmet sure to please the most anxious of peace officers. It’s called a “Smart Helmet” and it can screen airport passengers for the COVID-19 virus as well as provide the scanning officer with other vital records.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Public officials in Flint, Michigan cannot provide clean drinking water to their residents but travelers to Bishop International Airport can get a glimpse of the new robotic cop helmets where they’re currently deployed.

    Under the guise of screening passengers for COVID-19, the Smart Helmet, produced by KeyBiz based in Italy, can scan travelers’ body temperatures from over 20 feet away.

    But the Smart Helmet is not limited to temperature body scans which any laser guided thermometer can do, not in the slightest. Facial recognition software is installed which can provide the police officer with information related to outstanding warrants, if an individual is identified on a terror watch list or a no-fly list, and can read license plates for outstanding warrants, stolen vehicle information, criminal histories, etc. Even if you are completely innocent, you will be subject to these scans.

    Temperature scans can be done at a distance of 21 feet or less. The helmets have already been deployed in Italy and elsewhere around the world. Michigan’s ABC12 reports if someone’s temperature is in excess of 100.4 degrees, more investigation into the traveler’s health will be conducted to determine if the passenger is too sick to travel.

    Anyone who isn’t a passenger who registers a temperature above 100.4 degrees will be asked to leave the terminal building after police conduct some limited coronavirus contact tracing to find out what areas of the building may have been exposed.

    We at TFTP have warned our readers for quite some time the COVID-19 pandemic would be used as an onus for a greater invasion of privacy. Some of us here at TFTP are old enough to remember when boarding a plane was a simple as buying a ticket and getting aboard.

    Fast forward nearly 20 years and there are quite a few things which happen the minute your ticket is purchased.

    First, your name, age, and birth date are checked to see if you’ve been added to a terror watch list, a no-fly list or otherwise. Then, when you’re cleared to travel, you must soon possess a “Real ID”. Without it (come October) you won’t be allowed to fly. Upon arrival to the airport, your identification is scanned and further checked in databases for any flags which may arise.

    Afterward, all of your pockets must be emptied, your shoes taken off, your belts, hats, and metal jewelry removed. You’re placed into a sniffing device to check to see if you’re carrying the scent of bomb making materials.

    Next, your entire body image is scanned. Later, a total stranger may pat you down and grope your private parts as you wait for the all clear sign to be given at which time you can retrieve your belongings. But that’s only if the x-ray technician doesn’t think your hand sanitizer has too many ounces in its container.

    Now, it seems Mr. Robocop will take your temperature against your will, search through your criminal history and examine your facial features. All of these things will likely be cataloged in another alphabet agency’s database.

    The entire invasion of privacy will fall under the auspices of fears surrounding a fairly mild pandemic using slogans like “it’s for your health and safety.” And you thought it was about keeping America safe from terrorism. Think again, this makes me long for the good ole days when the only danger in flying was smelling like cigarette smoke from all the puffers aboard.

  • Organized Crime, Drug Cartels, Illegal Hacking and Retaliation: A Tesla Whistleblower Tells All
    Organized Crime, Drug Cartels, Illegal Hacking and Retaliation: A Tesla Whistleblower Tells All

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 22:30

    In an explosive podcast interview with noted Tesla skeptics @TeslaCharts and @georgia_orwell_, former Tesla employee-turned-whistleblower Karl Hansen makes shocking allegations about what transpired at Tesla’s Nevada Gigafactory in the spring and summer of 2018. The interview was published earlier today on TC’s Chartcast as a two-part series.

    In Part One, the hosts establish Hansen’s credentials and the scope of his employment at Tesla as a member of their in-house security and investigations team.  Hansen describes his investigations into widespread theft of copper and other raw materials from the Gigafactory, and how Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, focused on the need to keep the existence of this theft out of the media. Hansen then shares how a tip from the Drug Enforcement Agency caused him to develop evidence of a widespread drug cartel operation inside the Gigafactory. As Hansen continued to press his investigation, his access to internal Tesla systems became restricted.

    In Part Two, Hansen alleges that a team of former Uber security experts, hired into Tesla by Musk and reporting to him directly, illegally hacked the personal devices of several employees, including the personal phone of Marty Tripp, another former Tesla employee-turned-whistleblower. Hansen then recounts his own experience as a whistleblower and how he was ultimately confronted by Musk directly after filing a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

    At one point, Hansen collaborated with the Federal Bureau of Investigation for several months after leaving Tesla, only to discover that the investigation was killed despite significant evidence of probable cause. The interview ends with a discussion about the devastating impact this has had on Hansen’s life.

  • The Attempt To Overthrow America
    The Attempt To Overthrow America

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 22:05

    Authored by Guy Millière via The Gatestone Institute,

    The death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020 might appear, looking back, as a pretext for mayhem. His reported killing by a white police officer was immediately followed by a wave of riots during which neighborhoods in several major cities were devastated. Stores were looted, buildings were burned and people were murdered as mayors and other local public officials chose to let the rioters run wild, whip up racial conflict and protect the criminals rather than the citizens being brutalized. The riots quickly appeared to have nothing to do with Floyd’s death and everything to do with groups seeking to overthrow America.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    In the past, members of the radical organization Antifa had committed acts of violence, but never before had been able to sow terror throughout major cities. This time, they could and they did.

    In addition, the Marxist movement Black Lives Matter (BLM), which seemed to have disappeared since the election of President Donald J. Trump — who, incidentally, did more for the black and Hispanic minority communities in three years than anyone had done for decades — suddenly reappeared, well-funded and well-organized, at the heart of the riots. BLM received further support from the mayors of several major cities and gained even more popularity while attacking first the statues of former slave-owners, such as George Washington, and then those of the escaped slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass. In Washington, DC and New York City, “Black Lives Matter” was painted on avenues in huge yellow letters – in New York by the mayor himself.

    This may have been the first time in US history that a Marxist movement received corporate support: Amazon, Microsoft, Nabisco, Gatorade, Deckers and other large American firms donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, now a major beneficiary of US corporate largesse. Many colleges and universities also joined in backing the movement. The trustees of Princeton University decided to remove Woodrow Wilson’s name from the university’s school of public policy. They said that they had examined the “long and damaging history of racism in America” and that Wilson’s “racist thinking and policies make him an inappropriate namesake for a school or college”. Calls to “#CancelYale” surged across social media, alleging that Yale’s namesake, Elihu Yale, was a slave-owner and slave-trader, and that the university must change its name, as well. Yale University President, Peter Salovey, however, said that would not be done, explaining that Yale was “relatively unexceptional in his own time.”

    Also for the first time, mayors of many cities and other local officials have deliberately protected criminals over law-abiding citizens and allowed the destruction to take place. Seattle’s Mayor Jenny Durkan abandoned an entire area of ​​the city, dubbed CHAZ (and later CHOP) to rioters and suggested that the police-free zone would create a “summer of love“, then did nothing while rapes, vandalism and murders took place. Portland’s Mayor Ted Wheeler has allowed for nearly three months an entire district fall prey to rioters. The city councils of New York and Los Angeles, America’s two largest cities, voted to cut the budgets of their police forces drastically. The Minneapolis City Council went even further and voted to disband the city’s police force altogether.

    Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, in a seeming surrender to the mob, began referring to the pandemonium in Portland as the “immense power of peaceful protests” and compared federal law enforcement officers trying to defend a federal building against marauding arsonists to Nazi-era “stormtroopers.”

    Former President Barack Obama, speaking at the funeral of a civil rights leader, Congressman John Lewis, compared President Trump to the segregationist governor of Alabama in the 1960s, George Wallace — who happened to be a Democrat. He spoke of “police officers kneeling on the necks of Black Americans,” distorting the facts. In Minneapolis, a single policeman had knelt on the neck of a single black American, once. The police officer is in jail, awaiting trial, and his abuse has been severely and universally condemned.

    The idea that the American police are “racist” has been used to justify riots and destruction. Some police officers may well be racist, but accusing all American police officers of racism does not align with the facts. Statistics show that the vast majority of black people killed by police officers are armed and dangerous. Moreover, the police officers involved are sometimes black. Statistics also show that, on average, 94% of the black people killed each year in the US are killed by other black people. But many people who talk about racism do not seem even slightly concerned about those black lives that have been taken. During the riots — in which people were killed by rioters or by looters who used the riots as cover — the main victims were black people, sometimes children.

    Already in 2017, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich had worried about the sporadic riots that were breaking out, for instance, when conservative speakers were invited to speak. The United States, he said , “is in the throes of a one-sided cultural civil war…. Surrender or fight – our country is at stake.”

    The situation, in fact, had become “worrying” even before the results of the 2016 presidential election were known.

    As we now can read in the report by Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz, the senior levels of government during the Obama Administration were colluding to prevent President Trump from winning the election, and then, after it, to frame him in an attempted coup d’état.

    On the day after the election, people took to the streets with signs saying, “Not my President”: President Trump’s legitimacy was immediately questioned. On the day of his inauguration, in the downtown area of Washington DC, violent riots and acts of vandalism took place.

    During the weeks that followed, President Trump was accused, with no evidence, of “collusion with Russia”. The false charges lasted for more than two years and may well have hampered the management of the country. Former CIA Director John Brennan claimed that President Trump had “worked with Russians” and was “treasonous“. When the accusations turned out to be unfounded, the president’s accusers, in the hope of impeaching him, turned to a telephone conversation between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. President Trump was described as having “endangered the security of the country”. An impeachment procedure, conducted in violation of all of the rules, followed. When law professor Jonathan Turley pointed out that the procedure was violating the rules, he received death threats. Retired Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz said that “For Congress to impeach President Trump for abuse of Congress would be an abuse of power by Congress”. Left-wing members of the House of Representatives went ahead impeaching the president anyway. They failed.

    In the effort to overturn the lawful 2016 election — and to coerce witnesses to “flip” and testify falsely against President Trump — the lives of others were ruined as well.

    Evidence now clearly shows that General Michael Flynn, an outstanding four-star general and war hero, was the victim of an entrapment plot that forced him to resign, ruined him financially, and came close to destroying his life. He is now in the throes of an attempt to entrap him again by a politicized judge, Emmett Sullivan, and a politicized judiciary. Although the prosecutor, the Department of Justice, dropped the case after it was disclosed that vast amounts of exculpatory evidence had been withheld — Judge Sullivan decided, illegally and in the finest tradition of the former Soviet Union, that he would be both the judge and the prosecutor, and continue to try the case that he was supposed to be impartially judging. The trial is still ongoing. Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi were among other innocent citizens who also had their lives upended.

    Attorney General William Barr recently said:

    “I thought things were partisan and tough 30 years ago — nothing compared to today. Things have fundamentally changed… [the left] represents a revolutionary Rousseauian party that believes in tearing down the system… They’re interested in complete political victory. They’re not interested in compromise. They’re not interested in dialectic, exchange of views… It’s a substitute religion. They view their political opponents… as evil because we stand in the way of their progressive utopia that they’re trying to reach…”

    As Barr said recently when testifying at House of Representatives committee: “Since when is it okay to burn down a federal court?”

    Thirty years ago, many things were indeed different. Destructive forces, however, were at work. A few authors attempted to sound an alarm, without success.

    In a book published in 1992, The Devaluing of America: The Fight for Our Culture and Our Children, former Secretary of Education William J. Bennett quoted prominent Democrat historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.:

    “The bonds of national cohesion in the republic are sufficiently fragile already. Public education should aim to strengthen those bonds not to weaken them… The alternative to integration is disintegration”.

    The same year, policy analyst Martin Anderson published Impostors in the Temple: American Intellectuals Are Destroying Our Universities and Cheating Our Students of Their Future. “They pretend to teach”, he wrote, “they pretend to do original, important work. They do neither. They are impostors in the temple. And from these impostors most of the educational ills of America flow.”

    The same year again, the esteemed economist and social commentator, Thomas Sowell, who happens to be black, wrote in his book, Inside American Education:

    “Whether blatant or subtle, brainwashing has become a major, time-consuming activity in American education at all levels”.

    There is arguably more at work than brainwashing. There is also the long march of the radicals through American institutions described by Roger Kimball in his book The Long March: How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Changed America. Now, as those students have graduated, they are now part of the government and large corporations, subverting Western culture from within.

    American author David Horowitz, described what has been happening since November 8, 2016 as “sabotage”, and wrote recently:

    “On the Rotunda of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington is inscribed these words: ‘I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.’ This statement by Thomas Jefferson is the heart of the democracy in whose founding he played so central a role. It is why the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights is the First Amendment and not the Second, or Fourth, or Fifth.

    “Today our nation is facing the most serious threat to establish such a tyranny in our entire history.”

  • No Al Gore, The Military Won't Remove Trump In Contested Election
    No Al Gore, The Military Won’t Remove Trump In Contested Election

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 21:40

    Last week, former Vice President and failed presidential candidate Al Gore claimed that if President Trump were to declare the results of the 2020 election illegitimate, the military would physically remove him from office.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    “I hear people saying, ‘Well, would he accept that decision?’ Well, it doesn’t matter because it’s not up to him. Because at noon on January 20th, if a new president is elected… the police force, the Secret Service, the military, all of the executive branch officers, will respond to the command and the direction of the new president,” gore told Reuters EIC Stephen J. Adler in an online interview (via the Daily Beast).

    Not so fast Al…

    According to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, the US armed forces will do no such thing.

    “I believe deeply in the principle of an apolitical U.S. military,” Milley said in written responses on Friday to several questions posed by two Democratic members of the House Armed Services Committee, according to AP.

    “In the event of a dispute over some aspect of the elections, by law U.S. courts and the U.S. Congress are required to resolve any disputes, not the U.S. military. I foresee no role for the U.S armed forces in this process.“

    Milley’s tone reflects the longstanding views of military leaders who insist that the nation’s military stays out of politics and that troops are sworn to protect the country and uphold the Constitution.

    But the two Congress members, Reps. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, said Friday that Trump’s recent comments and his efforts to use the military to quell protests have fueled their concerns. The two lawmakers released Milley’s answers.

    “These are just prudent questions to be asking given the things that the president has been saying publicly,” said Slotkin, pointing to Trump’s use of the military to clear protesters from Lafayette Square and his suggestions that he may put law enforcement at the polls to make sure voting is conducted professionally. Milley’s answers, she said, “demonstrated that the chairman recognized the military’s role in our elections is to essentially stay out; that the military’s role in the peaceful transition of power is to stay out.” –AP

    Last month President Trump demurred when asked whether he would accept the results of the election, to which he said: ” I have to see. Look … I have to see,” adding “No, I’m not going to just say yes. I’m not going to say no.”

    Trump then suggested that the election could be postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic which has made it likely that it will take ‘days or weeks’ to tabulate mail-in ballots. The idea was quickly dismissed by congressional GOP, as Congress is the only body that can change the election date.

    When asked if the military would refuse and order from the president if he was trying to score political points instead of for legitimate purposes, Milley said “I will not follow an unlawful order.”

  • College Director: "Every White Person In This Country Is Racist"
    College Director: “Every White Person In This Country Is Racist”

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 21:15

    Authored by Jezzamine Wolk via Campus Reform,

    Pacific University staff psychologist Dr. Shirley Ley is hosting a weekly webinar series called “Rising from the Margins.” Ley said the platform is “dedicated to those who have been perceived as inferior or less worthy” due to their background.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    In Episode 10 “The Intersection of Race, Class, and Disability,” Ley spoke with the Director of Accessible Education at Willamette University Sue Minder. During that episode,  uploaded to the university’s official YouTube channel on July 22, Minder said,

    “Every white person in this country is racist” because they “benefit from the structure of racism.”

    Relevant portion begins around 12:40 

    WATCH:

    When asked to confront privileges, she said that most people usually respond with “I’m not a racist, I would never use a racial slur.” 

    “I think the first step is we get over it,” said Minder of that reaction.

    “Stop trying to pretend we don’t have privileges of some sort, because most of us do have unearned advantages,” said Minder.

    In episode 11 “White Supremacy Work Culture,” Ley talked about the idea that “whiteness is the supreme standard by which all peoples of culture are measured.”

    “It is important for us, particularly racialized peoples, to understand how every single day of our existence is influenced and infiltrated by white supremacy ideals,” said Ley.

    She went on to list three “indicators of white supremacy culture.”  

    1. They are “perfectionism,” which she called “the need to get things done right all the time;”

    2. the “sense of urgency,” which she called “the idea that things should have been done yesterday;”

    3. and “quantity over quality,” which she said is “only focusing on parts of your life that are directed towards producing measurable goals.”

    The webinar currently has more than a dozen episodes. Some other available webinar episodes include “Racial Microaggressions,” “The POC Label,” and “Deconstructing the Model Minority Stereotype.”

  • "It's All One Big Trade"
    “It’s All One Big Trade”

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 20:50

    Following up on our earlier discussions of the myriad of market abnormalities observed in today’s market (here and here), Bank of America’s Research Investment Committee has come up with an alternative, somewhat simpler explanation for some of the most patently absurd events seen in markets in more than one generation.

    According to BofA’s Jared Woodard, the crowded trades – growth vs. value, large vs. small, US vs. EAFE, market cap vs. equal-weight, USD vs. EM FX, Treasury bonds – stay crowded because there is no alternative in a world of shrinking returns on capital.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    It gets better: BofA contends that in 2020 “Treasuries = tech & Tesla”: plunging discount rates & excess liquidity push the value of long-term cash flows toward infinity. That means that, as the chart below shows, bond yields – currently at all time lows – “have never before explained this much of tech returns.”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    This unprecedented dependence on ever lower yields is why defensive growth stocks (tech & health care) now account for just 18% of US jobs but now comprise >54% of the S&P 500 market cap (and, if projected at the current pace, 100% by 2024).

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Meanwhile, the Fed keeps injecting more and more liquidity even as growth is scarcer and scarcer. As a result of this maximum liquidity in a world of scarce growth. the Fed has created an ever larger series of asset bubbles.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    And when real interest rates are negative as they are now, there is every incentive to chase low-probability, high-impact upside according to Woodard. In short, any vehicle with a chance at large returns becomes a cheap call option.

    Just two examples: in 2020 investors are once again pouring cash into “blank check” IPOs or Special Purpose Acquisition Companies, just as they did in the summer of 2007. As we first discussed several weeks ago, SPACs have no operations but simply raise funds for undetermined future acquisitions. At the same time, one bitcoin costs more than $11,000. That’s more than the average US household makes in two months.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Despite the asset bubbles observed virtually everywhere, BofA says that economic stagnation remains its base case: “more stimulus and early vaccines at best get us to the 2019 ante of low growth and precarious wages/EPS.” A stagnant world also makes yields more valuable as interest rates everywhere trend toward zero. As such, today a record 79% of the S&P 500 offers dividends greater than the 10-year Treasury yield.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    In summary, “stagnant GDP, deepening inequality, and the threat of policy failure make us bullish on the things we don’t want to buy (growth, large caps, US) and bearish on the things we want to own (value, small caps, EAFE) because, without an economic transformation, any reversal in the ranks of market winners & losers can only last a season.”

    * * *

    Finally, speaking of things “nobody wants to buy but has to”, and how “it’s all one big trade”, here is an excerpt from the latest Bear Trap report citing a west coast CIO on the recent surge in Tesla:

    “Tesla is the key to this market, all are in Elon’s world, I am ignoring everything else, rates, dollar, etc.. for now. They are truly minor in comparison until Tesla breaks. And vol is underpriced on the upside still in my mind. Tesla’s run likely to end on a blow-off top, 100B volume, we are talking about a 300-400 dollar candle, no way this ends quietly, really think it ends with a flash crash in NDX. I still think October is badly mis-priced to the upside, TSLA can easily see 30% higher before it reverses. Puts are stupidly expensive if you go way out on the wing, you can sell a January $200 put for over 2 bucks, that’s insane. Crypto is the only asset with more convexity than Tesla. Outside bitcoin, TSLA defines parabola in terms of company in the history of stocks with any meaningful market cap. My gut tells me Elon does a massive secondary into SPX add, like $30B. Tesla would come out with the world’s best auto-balance sheet, on par with Toyota.”

  • Futures Hit New Record High After Buffett Reveals 5% Stakes In Five Major Japanese Trading Companies
    Futures Hit New Record High After Buffett Reveals 5% Stakes In Five Major Japanese Trading Companies

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 20:27

    There were audible gasps across Wall Street on August 15th when the latest Berkshire 13-F revealed that the Oracle of Omaha had cut his stakes in most US banks (and fully sold out of Goldman), while taking a new and unprecedented for Berkshire Hathaway position in Barrick Gold.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    But while Warren Buffett, who turns 90 today was dumping US banks, he was quietly building up sizable stakes in the five of the largest Japanese trading companies.

    In a press release published late on Sunday, Berkshire Hathaway revealed that it had acquired stakes in Itochu, Marubeni, Mitsubishi Corp., Mitsui and Sumitomo of “slightly more” than 5%, signaling it may increase those holdings in the future. These holdings were acquired over a period of approximately twelve months through regular purchases on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

    According to the statement, Berkshire  Hathaway’s  intention  is  to  hold  its  Japanese  investments  for  the  long  term. “Depending on price, Berkshire Hathaway may increase its holdings up to a maximum of 9.9% in any  of  the  five  investments.  However,  Warren  E.  Buffett,  CEO  of  Berkshire  Hathaway,  has  pledged that the company will make purchases only up to an ownership of 9.9% in any of the five investments.  The  company  will  make  no purchases  beyond  that  point  unless  given specific approval by the investee’s board of directors.

    Buffett expressed his pleasure with the investments:

    “I am delighted to have Berkshire Hathaway participate in the future of Japan and the five companies we have chosen for investment. The five major trading companies have many joint ventures throughout the world and are likely to have  more  of  these  partnerships.  I  hope  that  in  the  future  there  may  be  opportunities  of  mutual  benefit.”

    The release also noted that Berkshire Hathaway has 625.5 billion of yen-denominated bonds outstanding, maturing at various dates beginning in 2023 and ending in 2060. Consequently, the company has only minor exposure to yen/dollar movements.

    Following the report, the five named stocks spiked and Nikkei futures jumped by more than 1%…

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    … while S&P futures were last seen at a new all time high of 3,122.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    It wasn’t immediately clear what prompted Buffett to transition out of US money-center banks whose performance has been dismal in 2020 compared to the surge in tech, and into Japanese traders at a time when the BOJ dominates most capital markets (and was last seen in possession of 80% of all local ETFs), and just as Abe announced his resignation, putting the future of the entire Abenomics platform in question, but we are confident that some bullish spin will be forthcoming.

    On the other hand, the fact that Buffett – who famous has said “never bet against America” – just turned 90 today may be the more accurate explanation.

  • Watch Joe Biden Slam 'Fatherless Predators' While Promoting 1994 Crime Bill That Targeted Blacks
    Watch Joe Biden Slam ‘Fatherless Predators’ While Promoting 1994 Crime Bill That Targeted Blacks

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 20:00

    Joe Biden has quite the history with remarks about race that would make any Republican a non-viable candidate after the MSM was done with them.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The former Vice President, who insisted in May that African Americans ‘ain’t black‘ if they don’t vote for him, suggested last year that ‘poor kids are just as smart as white kids,’ and worried in 1977 that desegregation would force his children to grow up in a ‘racial jungle‘ – went on a tirade against minorities in 1993 while sponsoring the Democrats’ 1994 crime bill, which supercharged the mass incarceration of people of color.

    There’s also that clip of Biden speaking fondly of his work with segregationists which his running mate Kamala Harris slammed him for during the primary debates (and later dismissed as nothing more than politics).

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

    The crux of Biden’s 1993 argument: It doesn’t matter if minority criminals were “deprived as a youth,” or had a “background that enabled them to become socialized into the fabric of society,” or whether they’re the “victims of society,” they need to be taken off the streets.

    “The end result is, they’re about to knock my mother on the head with a lead pipe, shoot my sister, beat up my wife, take on my sons,”

    So I don’t wanna ask what made them do this. They must be taken off the street, that’s number one. There’s a consensus on that.

    Unless we do something about the cadre of young people – tens of thousands of them – born out of wedlock without parents, without supervision, without any structure, without any conscience developing because they literally have not been socialized. They literally have not had an opportunity. We should focus on them now.

    If we don’t, they will. Or a portion of them will become the predators 15 years from now…. we have predators on our streets that society has in fact in part, because of this neglect, created them. Again, it does not mean that because we created them, that we somehow forgive them or do not take them out of society to protect my family and yours from them.

    They are beyond the pale, many of those people. Beyond the pale. And it’s a sad commentary on society. We have no choice but to take them out of society. And the truth is, we don’t very well know how to rehabilitate them at that point. That’s the sad truth.”

    We must make the streets safer. I don’t care why someone is a malefactor of society. I don’t care why someone is antisocial. I don’t care why they become a sociopath. We have an obligation to cordon them off from the rest of society, try to help them, try to change the behavior – that’s what we do in this bill.

    They are in jail. Away from my mother, your husband, our families. But we would be absolutely stupid as a society if we didn’t recognize the condition that nurtures those folks still exists, and we must deal with that.”

    What would happen if Trump said that in 1993?

    And while Biden has since apologized for his role in the 1994 legislation, it’s hard to imagine the black community taking kindly to his decades-long history of anti-black comments.

    Three years later, Hillary Clinton was calling black criminals ‘super predators.’

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

  • DNI Ratcliffe Declassifying More Russia-Collusion-Coup & Media-Leak Documents
    DNI Ratcliffe Declassifying More Russia-Collusion-Coup & Media-Leak Documents

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 19:54

    John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence, told Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” that he has been coordinating with US Attorney John Durham and plans to soon declassify more documents related to the Trump-Russia probe.

    “I pledged to a bipartisan group of senators that I would look at all of the underlying intelligence surrounding the intelligence community’s assessment of Russia’s interference and this idea of Trump-Russia collusion, but I’m not going to prejudice John Durham’s work in connection with that, so we’ve had to coordinate with his office about the timing of that. But I’m optimistic that I’ll be declassifying additional documents soon.”

    As a reminder, Durham, the US attorney for Connecticut, is conducting a wide-ranging investigation into several aspects of the Obama administration’s surveillance activities against Trump associates. Ratcliffe went on, referring to Durham’s review of the investigation:

    “He’s looking at the same documents that I am,”

     “He’s not sharing his findings or the work that he’s doing. But I’m coordinating with him to make sure that he has the intelligence documents that he needs to do his work. And what I don’t want to do is declassify something that might prejudice his work. So we’re going to have to coordinate as we go forward with the completion of his work with my ability to declassify documents.”

    Additionally, Ratcliffe, said Sunday he has filed multiple “crimes reports” regarding alleged leaks of classified information to the media.

    “When I become aware of intelligence community information that is disclosed unlawfully, I do what’s called a crimes report. I’ve done that now on a number of occasions, and so those investigations are moving forward.”

    He said that the leaks were “for political purposes” to create what he said is a false narrative “that somehow Russia is a greater national security threat than China.”

    As Daily Caller’s Chuck Ross notes, Ratcliffe’s decision to limit election-related intelligence briefings prompted outrage from Democrats who say that he is withholding information about Russian meddling to provide political cover for President Donald Trump.

    Watch the full interview here:

  • US Passes 6 Million Confirmed Coronavirus Cases: Live Updates
    US Passes 6 Million Confirmed Coronavirus Cases: Live Updates

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 19:42

    Summary:

    • US tops 6 million COVID cases
    • Universities across US report nearly 9k cases
    • Global cases top 25 million
    • Deaths top 840,000
    • FDA director says vaccine can be fast-tracked
    • Dr. Fauci says vaccines could be proved ‘safe and effective’ by November
    • India tops 3.5 million cases

    * * *

    Update (1930ET): The US has officially surpassed 6 million coronavirus cases. While Brazil’s outbreak has slowed and India’s has accelerated, leaving both countries with roughly 3.5 million cases each (India is on track to surpass Brazil in the coming days), the US remains the undisputed COVID world leader, with a lead of more than 2 million confirmed cases.

    As the NYT points out, it took 22 days for the US to go from 5 million to 6 million coronavirus cases, compared to more than 3 months for the US to reach 1 million cases after reporting its first case on Jan. 21. However, in a sign that the US outbreak truly is slowing, it took 16 days for the number of cases to climb from 4 million to 5 million. And new daily cases have been declining steadily since the end of July.

    At last count, the US has just over 180,000 deaths. While deaths have once again been on the decline, the average number of deaths reported daily doubled in August compared with July.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Source: NYT

    In other news, FDA director Hahn’s assertion that the agency would be willing to approve a vaccine before clinical trials are complete – if the agency believed it was “appropriate” to do so – has infuriated the NYT, which is once again accusing Hahn of bowing before the politically expedient demands of the Trump Administration. Though Hahn did insist that “this is not going to be a politically motivated decision.”

    * * *

    By mid-morning on Sunday in the US, the number of confirmed cases reported worldwide surpassed 25 million, a psychologically important milestone, even though millions more cases have likely gone undiagnosed.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Deaths, meanwhile, have topped 840,000.

    In other news, Dr. Stephen Hahn, the FDA chief who caught flack, then apologized, for granting emergency-use approval to a blood plasma-focused COVID-19 treatment favored by President Trump, told the FT that he would be willing to “fast track” vaccine approval. This comes just days after he assured Bloomberg reporters that the agency would “stick to the science” and that any approval would be “data based”. Speaking to the Times of London, a different British broadsheet, Dr. Anthony Fauci reiterated his claims that the US should expect a vaccine by the end of the year, possibly sooner, and that we should know whether candidates are “safe and effective” by November.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said this weekend: “The way the pace of the enrollment is going on and the level of the infections that are going on in the United States, it is likely that we’ll get an answer by the end of the year.” He added, “It is conceivable that we would get an answer before that.”

    “I would say a safe bet is at least knowing that you have a safe and effective vaccine by November, December.”

    That’s good news, because America’s colleges have reported one COVID-19 outbreak after the next since the new semester began earlier this month. But as student newspapers castigate universities for “putting students’ lives at risk” (calm down kids), Bloomberg reports that a consensus is building among public health experts that it’s better to keep university students on campus following a COVID-19 outbreak rather than send them home, as many schools are – inexplicably – doing.

    It’s easier to isolate sick or exposed students and trace their contacts if they stay put, said Ravina Kullar, epidemiologist and spokesperson for Infectious Diseases Society of America. Sending them home creates obvious risks of further spread.

    Over in Europe, Germany’s daily infections fell after a streak of rising numbers, but that didn’t stop its transmission rate – or “R” – from rising above the critical threshold of “1”. The Robert Koch Institute reported 709 new cases in the 24 hours through Sunday morning, pushing Germany’s total to 242,835, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

    That’s less than half of Saturday’s increase of 1,555. Germany registered more than 7,000 cases per day during the pandemic’s peak in the spring. Germany’s reproduction rate climbed to 1.04 from 0.94 the prior day.

    After reporting another near-world record of new cases, India officially passed the 3.5-million case mark on Sunday, while its death toll exceeded 63,000. As India’s outbreak worsens, numbers in Brazil and the US continued to fall.

  • Why America's Poor Are Praying For A Market Crash
    Why America’s Poor Are Praying For A Market Crash

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 19:35

    Last week we showed that following the July 31 “fiscal cliff”, which saw the end of the $600 weekly emergency unemployment benefit and as a result, weekly unemployment insurance benefit payments were cut in half, from $25BN pre-July 31 to just over $10 BN after…

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    … spending among those most reliant on government stimulus – namely Americans who currently receive Unemployment Insurance payments  – had tumbled even as spending by all other social groups continued to recover. Bank of America examined spending trends of the population of card holders who receive UI through ACH (direct deposit) and compared to all other households. What it found was a dramatic divergence as the YOY rate of growth for UI recipients slowed dramatically but increased for the broader population since Aug 1st.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The drop in spending was also observed by income bucket: over the first two weeks since July 31, the YOY spending growth rate slowed by 12% for the unemployed cohort (formerly) earning under $50K vs. a roughly 5% drop for the middle and upper income cohorts.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Bank of America then reran the analysis one week later and found that total card spending, as measured by BAC aggregated credit and debit card data, continued to grind sideways, running at a 1.4% yoy rate for the 7-day period ending Aug 22nd, just fractionally higher than 2019.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    However, as was the case one week ago, there were two important distinctions: i) The decline in unemployment insurance continues to impact the lower income population disproportionately, and ii) The decline in UI is affecting discretionary spending.

    Some more details:

    • The decline in UI is impacting the lower income population disproportionately: BofA examined spending trends of the population of card holders who receive unemployment insurance (UI) through ACH (direct deposit) and when comparing that to all other households, saw a decisive differential – since July 31st, the YOY growth rate in total card spending for the UI cohort has declined while it has increased for the rest of the population. This is particularly clear when examining the income level data which shows a 17% slowdown in the yoy growth rate for the cohort earning under $50K – a deterioration from the -12% drop observed a week ago (see above), and a roughly 6% slowdown for the middle/upper income cohorts.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The decline in UI is affecting discretionary spending: Looking at the data by sector, the UI recipients cut back the most on clothing and home improvement spending and the least on gas and restaurants/bars (Chart 1). This compares to small increases in the growth rate of spending for the non-ACH UI recipient across these categories with the exception of home improvement.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    As time goes on, this decoupling in spending between recipients of unemployment benefits and everyone else will only gross, especially once Trump’s stopgap executive order fades away some time in late September, unless of course Congress gets off its ass and passes yet another stimulus package.

    When could that happen? Well, if Democrats get their way, certainly not before the Nov 3 election, but there is one catalyst that could wake Congress from its theatrical stupor and spark legislation much sooner. A market crash. 

    According to a separate note from Bank of America’s derivatives team led by Benjamin Bowler, the market once again finds itself in a Catch 22 – it is being held up by the promise of fiscal and monetary stimulus, which may not be forthcoming without pressure from a market selloff. In other words, for stocks to hit new highs they will have to crash again.

    From the report:

    On the fiscal side, the expiration without replacement of extended unemployment benefits may already be hurting economic and market fundamentals. The importance of this program to the recovery can’t be overstated. Quoting our US economists, “absent government support disposable income would have fallen the most in history; with that support it has risen the most in history.”

    * * *

    As markets continue their steady climb, two key engines of the rally may be running out of steam. The first is fiscal support – the critical but expired unemployment extension is unlikely to be restored soon. The second is the Fed, which stopped growing its balance sheet in June, deemed yield curve control a no-go last week, and faces new chances to step off the gas in Jackson Hole (27-Aug) and the Sep FOMC. Even if the Fed stands ready to act again, it will likely be in response to a market shock, which also looks needed to break the fiscal logjam.

    BofA’s conclusion: “perversely, a [market] shock looks increasingly necessary to force policy measures allowing the market to sustain these levels to begin with.“

    In other words, America’s poorest – those who rely on unemployment insurance to live – are (or should be) praying for a market crash which will force Congress to act. Which begs the question: will those same “poorest” stop killing each other across the US in the name of some ideological fallacy, and will they all finally congregate in front of the Marriner Eccles building and demand full accountability (a very polite way of putting it) from the Fed – the source of most of America’s troubles, as even Rabobank admitted last week.

  • Trump Goes After Failed Democrat-Run Cities As Violence Erupts In Chicago And NYC 
    Trump Goes After Failed Democrat-Run Cities As Violence Erupts In Chicago And NYC 

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 19:10

    President Trump emphasized at the Republican National Convention last week that Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is ignoring the surge in violent crime across major US metropolitan areas. 

    “When there is police misconduct, the justice system must hold wrongdoers fully and completely accountable, and it will. But what we can never have in America — and must never allow — is mob rule,” the president said. “In the strongest possible terms, the Republican Party condemns the rioting, looting, arson, and violence we have seen in Democrat-run cities like Kenosha, Minneapolis, Portland, Chicago, and New York.”

    With 64 days left until the Nov. 3 election, Trump is once again making the implosion of Democrat-run cities a centerpiece of his campaign against Biden. 

    “This election will decide whether we will defend the American way of life, or whether we allow a radical movement to completely dismantle and destroy it,” Trump said at the convention. 

    The continuing violence seen in Democrat-run cities, like Chicago and New York City, is alarming and explains why city-dwellers are fleeing for suburban life.  

    To Trump’s point, at least 40 people were shot, including ten fatally, during another weekend of soaring gun violence in Chicago, America’s murder capital. 

    The city’s most recent shooting occurred Sunday afternoon at the Lumes Pancake House in the 11600 block of Western Avenue. Five people were injured, and one died after an unidentified person in a white SUV opened fire at diners enjoying a weekend meal at the outdoor restaurant, reported NBC Chicago. 

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

    In response, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani tweeted Sunday: “4 police officers shot: 2 in Democrat St. Louis, 2 in Chicago.” 

    Giuliani continued, “@realDonaldTrump has offered both Federal assistance. Hidin’ Biden finally stated his basement. but said nothing about this violence at DNC. “Silence is assent.” (Biden, DNC, 2020.) ” 

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

    As for the city formerly governed by Giuliani, New York has yet to release official data of violent crime this weekend, but the union representing 50,000 active and retired NYPD police officers in the city said “25 people were shot from Saturday morning to 7 am today. That makes 58 people shot this week. That’s a 100% increase in shooting victims from the same week last year.” 

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

    While the Biden campaign has only just begun to condemn the ongoing violence in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and elsewhere, the Trump administration’s angle of attack should be very clear to readers: convince American voters Republicans can save imploding Democrat-run cities, just like Giuliani did in the early 1990s when exhausted voters handed him control o Democrat-dominated New York.  

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    So far, it could be working… 

  • Pinterest Pays $89.5 Million To Abandon Upcoming Lease In San Francisco
    Pinterest Pays $89.5 Million To Abandon Upcoming Lease In San Francisco

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 18:45

    Things are going so great in California that Pinterest just paid $89.5 million to cancel its 490,000-square-foot lease at the upcoming 88 Bluxome project in San Francisco. 

    The company blames working from home as a result of the pandemic as the reason for abandoning the lease – but we’re sure the state’s rising taxes, impending real estate market crash and conversion of the property to a temporary homeless shelter in March likely helped contribute to the decision making.

    Either way, Pinterest wanted out of the lease so badly they were willing to fork over a hefty sum to ensure they would not be held to it. The company’s total lease obligations for the property would have amounted to $440 million. 

    Pinterest’s CFO told the San Francisco Chronicle: “As we analyze how our workplace will change in a post-COVID world, we are specifically rethinking where future employees could be based. A more distributed workforce will give us the opportunity to hire people from a wider range of backgrounds and experiences.”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Rendering of 88 Bluxome as it would exist years from now. Today, the city has converted the property to a homeless shelter. 

    Pinterest appears to be following in the steps of companies like Facebook, who has also embraced the idea of remote work for its staff. Facebook aims to have half of its company working remotely “within a decade”, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said. 

    To us, it appears to be more of a statement about San Francisco’s real estate market than about Pinterest. After all, the company was the first and only lease commitment “in San Francisco’s 230-acre Central South of Market district, where numerous large commercial and residential projects have been approved after the city raised height limits last year,” the Chronicle said.

    They were to help contribute to 30,000 new jobs and 20,000 new residents in the district, which the city hoped would fuel more than $2 billion in public benefits. The project is “now in doubt”. The proposed 88 Bluxome project was supposed to start construction this year, but current plans for the project are now “unclear”. 

    And in peak San Francisco fashion, the city converted the tennis club currently on the lot to a homeless shelter in March. 

  • It's Time For A Geopolitical Reset
    It’s Time For A Geopolitical Reset

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 18:20

    Authored by José Niño via The Mises Institute,

    Foreign policy seems to have been placed on the back burner in the Trump era. Domestic issues, generic outrage politics, and the present covid-19 pandemic have sucked the oxygen out of American political discourse…

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The fact that the media opts to cover more sensationalist material does not make foreign policy a trivial matter. If anything, the lack of foreign policy coverage reveals the dilapidated state of contemporary political debate. When the Fourth Estate does bother to broach foreign policy it does so for the most hysterical reasons.

    The ongoing Russian hysteria is the embodiment of the media’s infantile coverage of foreign policy. Although the Cold War has been over for decades, pundits on both the left and right remain convinced that Russia—a country of nearly 145 million and with an economic output smaller than Canada’s—is hell-bent on reenacting its past Cold War aspirations.

    Iran has always been on neoconservatives’ minds as well. Suffering from the trauma of the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis, neoconservatives and their establishment liberal counterparts have spent decades slapping on sanctions and trying to push for regime change in Iran. Earlier this year, the neoconservative bloodthirst was partially quenched after the US government assassinated Major General Qasem Soleimani at the Baghdad Airport. In a surprising display of restraint, the Trump administration has not escalated any further in Iran and potentially thrust America into another disastrous intervention.

    Had Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush been at the helm, God knows where the US would find itself.

    The global crusading has been cranked up to another level by provoking the Chinese government in the South China Sea and prodding into China’s internal affairs. From its repression of ethnic Uighurs in the Xinjiang region to its steps to consolidate power over Hong Kong, China’s internal affairs have been subject to scrutiny from the West. Reasonable people can recognize that China, despite making some pragmatic reforms in the 1980s, is still a repressive regime. But does this merit a potential escalation in the South China Sea or worse yet, a full-blown kinetic conflict?

    Based on the fact that both China and the US are nuclear powers, cooler heads will likely prevail. But the fact that policymakers are entertaining the idea of risking a catastrophic conflict shows that politicians’ thirst for war and regime change destabilization has not gone away. Such delusions are the province of an empire in an inebriated state that prevents it from making rational judgments.

    Why American Foreign Policy Is Due for a Correction

    Frankly, it’s time to start talking about a geopolitical reset. A reorientation of American foreign policy priorities is long overdue. There are approximately two hundred thousand American troops in close to eight hundred bases in seventy countries stationed abroad.

    According to American University anthropology professor David Vine, it costs taxpayers $85–100 billion per year to operate overseas military bases. Meanwhile, the decades-long war on terror has cost Americans $5.9 trillion and has led to the deaths of 6,951 American troops and at least 244,000–266,000 civilians in the Middle East. As of 2020, US defense spending stands at more than $732 billion—a figure higher than the next ten countries’ military budgets put together.

    The Unipolar Moment Is Dead

    Thanks to the US’s location and vast nuclear arsenal, it is relatively safe from external threats despite all the fearmongering coming from the interventionist crowd. It’s becoming clear that the missionary model of exporting democracy abroad is a failure.

    Nonetheless, foreign policy hawks have remained adamant about pursuing regime change in Iran through stiff sanctions, saber rattling, and drawing first blood. We shouldn’t forget that US government meddling in the region goes deep. This all started when the CIA and British intelligence launched a successful coup against the populist leader Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953, resulting in the installation of the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

    Following the shah’s deposition in the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the US has seen Iran as one of its primary foes. Increased sanctions starting in the 1980s, combined with additional sanctions imposed in each decade, have only increased tensions. Not to mention the heightened military presence that encircles the country, which has compelled Iran to get crafty in its opposition to US foreign policy. Iran has responded to US regime change attempts not only by filling in the power vacuum that the US left behind after completely decimating Iraq, but also by expanding its operations in Latin America through the establishment of clandestine networks in the region. Though none of the networks pose existential threats to the US, they show the lengths Iran will go to counter US encroachments in its backyard. It is the height of imperial hubris to think that countries will just stand down and let the US steamroll them.

    Additionally, increased US hawkishness toward Iran has created the conditions for it to forge alliances with Russia and China—two countries that have also been hit with sanctions and subject to US bullying in the past decade. These ties have only strengthened amid the current covid-19 pandemic. Undoubtedly, Iran won’t go down easily and will seek alliances with countries such as China and Russia, who share similar grievances with the zealous nature of American foreign policy.

    It’s a New World out There

    The world’s emerging multipolarity allows for countries to band together against a common antagonistic hegemon like the US. As the unipolar era of yore becomes a distant memory, the US can’t go throwing its weight around the world without repercussions. Regime change operations in Syria demonstrated that countries such as Iran and Russia are willing to step in to defend their interests regardless of what DC foreign policy wonks think.

    Similarly, subtle machinations in Venezuela have seen countries like China, Iran, Russia, and Turkey respond by propping up the regime of the embattled strongman Nicolás Maduro. Any of the US’s attempts to try to topple governments it doesn’t like will be met with significant pushback. Regime change fanatics in DC can deny this all they want, but it’s part of the global realignment unfolding before our eyes.

    It is amazing what governments can get away with when they have a printing press at their disposal. We are not getting rid of central banking any time soon, but the US’s deluded foreign policy ambitions can still be restrained. At the end of the day, it’s a matter of political will.

    Policymakers should actually consider the costs of their foreign policy adventures before sending young people off to die in some ill-fated campaign and putting taxpayers—present and future—on the hook for such excursions.

    A geopolitical reset that involves scaling back US interventions and its military presence abroad will foster pragmatic foreign policy decisions and the prioritization of actual defense policies. Whether or not American foreign policy leaders will abandon their imperial hubris is another matter.

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Aug 30

Today’s News 30th August 2020

  • 'I'm Not Sad That A Fu*king Fascist Died Tonight': Portland Counter-Protesters Celebrate Murder Of Trump Supporter
    ‘I’m Not Sad That A Fu*king Fascist Died Tonight’: Portland Counter-Protesters Celebrate Murder Of Trump Supporter

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 01:13

    Update: (0300ET): Portland counter-protesters are now celebrating the death:

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

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

    *  *  *

    A man was shot in the chest and killed in downtown Portland Saturday night as violence broke out across the city between a participants in a pro-Trump caravan and a counter-protest organized by several opposing groups, including Antifa.

    Police are investigating the incident which occurred at around 8:45 p.m. when officers responded to the sound of gunfire.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    According to The Oregonian, police found “camouflage gear with infidel and thin blue line patches, which commonly indicate support for law enforcement, while the New York Times reports that he was “wearing a hat with the insignia of Patriot Prayer,” a right-wing group which has had frequent altercations with Antifa over the past several years.

    Patriot Prayer founder Joey Gibson showed up to the scene of the shooting, and was promptly chased down the street by counter-orotesters. Gibson took refuge in a gas station.

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

    Police eventually cleared the scene.

    Earlier in the day, pro-Trump supporters and counter-protesters squared off. At one point, a man reportedly filming the license plates of conservative attendees was beaten. As he falls, you can see his arms fly straight forward in the ‘fencing response,’ suggesting possible brain damage. He was later interviewed speaking coherently, however.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    As day turned to night, skirmishes continued between the factions.

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

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

  • Is COVID-19 The Trigger For A 'New World Order' Of Economic Stagnation & Social Destruction?
    Is COVID-19 The Trigger For A ‘New World Order’ Of Economic Stagnation & Social Destruction?

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 00:00

    Authored by Patrick Henningsen via GlobalResearch.ca,

    I can remember them saying that ‘everything changed after 9/11’. It did, but certainly not for the better. I think we can all agree on that.  I remember how everyone surrendered their rights and key aspects of democracy, all in the name of ‘keeping us safe’.

    Back then, world-changing decisions were made in reaction to an exaggerated threat, with sweeping ‘emergency measures’ and laws enacted. Usually, nothing good follows from a government that is making decisions and formulating permanent policy, suspending constitutions and rights – imposing all of this on a population operating from a position of fear. That much we did learn. Some of us did anyway.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    In January, like a leviathan sprung forth from the titans Oceanus and Ceto in ancient Greece, the global coronavirus pandemic was born. Like 9/11, it was a disruptive event, but this time on a scale unimaginable. Whether or not one believes this was naturally-occurring or a biologically-engineered pathogen (there is every reason to believe it could be), it is beyond argument that this ‘crisis’ is and will be used to advance a multi-pronged globalist agenda, likely to feature more wars between the great powers.

    Modern man is now entering realms of dystopia only imagined before by the likes of Aldous Huxley and George Orwell, with more than a hint of Philip K. Dick. What makes all of this difficult for so many is that the sudden transition has been almost instantaneous, leaving people in a near callow state of bewilderment, wondering what just happened to their old life.

    No matter which way this situation goes, it’s almost certain life will never be the same.

    COVID Crisis

    By now we should be familiar with the story: a novel coronavirus, scientifically known as SARS-CoV-2, or COVID-19, has made its way across the planet, infecting millions of people and registering over 100,000 deaths (as of the time of writing) across 180 countries. The victims of this outbreak are overwhelming elderly persons over the age of 70 and those in palliative care, most of who have severe and chronic underlying medical conditions.

    Make no mistake about it – this is a disruptive event on a scale the modern world has never seen before. The shock and awe began from the moment the story broke from the Chinese city of Wuhan in Hubei Province. Global audiences were inundated with images of Chinese authorities putting hundreds of people into biological suits, hosing down the outside of buildings, before quarantining themselves in their apartments. Then began a state-sanctioned medieval-style program that western media and politicians enthusiastically dubbed a “lockdown,” a term aptly borrowed from the prison industrial complex.

    Wuhan was an unforgettable spectacle which really impacted the western psyche, such that when the coronavirus made it to European and North American shores, the public was already conditioned to expect a Chinese-style response from their own governments. Not surprisingly, this is exactly what they got and, in fact, it was what they demanded.

    On 12 March, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called an emergency press conference where he took to the podium, flanked by his two leading science advisors, Sir Patrick Vallace and Chris Whitty, who proceeded to explain the government plan of action which was centred around the commonly known epidemiological concept of “herd immunity.” Their strategy was a familiar one because it has been the orthodoxy in modern epidemiology – allow a virus to go through approximately 60-80% of the population in order to achieve herd immunity, naturally extinguishing the virus in a single season.

    But Johnson made the fatal error of grossly overestimating the death rate at 1% of the total infected, an estimate that would have left the country with some 52 million infected and 500,000 fatalities. Of course, in hindsight, these numbers were pure fiction, but at the time everyone was so enveloped in fear that they believed the ‘experts’. Nonetheless, the herd immunity approach was more or less identical to the ‘no lockdown’ approach taken by European countries Sweden and Iceland, as well as Belarus, Mexico, and Japan. This would entail standard random sample testing nationally and for those exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms. The elderly and vulnerable people would be told to self-isolate for a period of time while studies were conducted.

    ‘Plan A’ didn’t last long. On 24 March, Johnson appeared on national TV, this time without his science team, to announce a nationwide lockdown – an effective shutdown of society and most of the country’s economy. The UK was now following fellow NATO member states France, Italy, Spain and others, which had already imposed draconian national lockdowns, including strict new ‘social distancing’ guidelines preventing people from being together.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    It appeared that Johnson’s sudden 180º degree turn was prompted in part by an alarmist report generated by one of the government ‘expert’ teams at Imperial College London, led by controversial computer modeler Neil Ferguson who was previously responsible for the 2001 ‘Foot and Mouth’ crisis, a debacle which ended in the unnecessary culling of some six million livestock in Britain.

    This time, Ferguson and his team worked their modelling magic to come up with an estimated half a million coronavirus deaths if the government did not implement “very intense social distancing and other interventions now in place.”

    While the figure was completely fictional, the media seized on it, as did government officials, which fuelled fear and panic across Britain’s government-media complex. Frightened and unsure, the public accepted the authoritarian measures, but the government never gave an end date to the quarantine; it was left open-ended at the discretion of the government’s scientific coterie.

    Once that bubble of fear had been sufficiently inflated, a medieval-style lockdown was a fait accompli in numerous countries including Australia and New Zealand. The impact of a full national quarantine is yet unknown, but it’s already becoming clear that it will be nothing short of cataclysmic for those countries who agreed to the voluntary self-destruction of their economies and the indefinite suspension of democracy.

    It’s worth noting this isn’t the first time the United Nations, the World Health Organization (WHO), and Imperial College tried conjuring a global panic over a flu virus. Back in 2005, the “range of deaths,” the UN warned of bird flu virus H5N1, “could be anything between five and 150 million.” Officials even drafted in Imperial’s most reliable doomsayer, Neil Ferguson, to help come up with another completely fictional death toll of 200 million people. His high school level math equation was breathtaking in its over-simplicity:

    “Around 40 million people died in the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak,” said Prof. Ferguson.

    “There are six times more people on the planet now so you could scale it up to around 200 million people probably.”

    That doomsday prediction led to the culling of tens of millions of birds in Southeast Asia, but the pandemic never really materialised. In the end, human fatalities numbered in the hundreds worldwide. It was a non event.

    Similar unremarkable numbers followed the global hype over the H1N1 swine flu in 2009. Thanks to the work of investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in the US was caught over-inflating the number of cases – a fraudulent move that had grave implications for government policy and stoking unfounded public fear.

    With COVID-19, the globalist medical industrial complex, led by WHO, hoped to repeat the previous public relations campaigns by hyping the novel coronavirus as the next Spanish Flu. This time they were given an extraordinary opportunity thanks to China which put on an incredible media performance and ‘show of strength’ in the month of January by ‘locking down’ Wuhan – inspiring western and other leaders to try the same big government approach.

    However, the results would turn out economically disastrous for western ‘lockdown’ countries.

    Economic Collapse

    All of this is certain to trigger a protracted global recession marked by at least 12 months of negative growth, with economic and social displacement the likes of which the world has never seen before. The decision by countries like the UK, France, Italy, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the US to voluntarily implode their economies and place most of their populations under house arrest will have a lasting impact not only on national economies but also the global economy for years to come.

    In terms of scale, the damage caused to markets and industry has already surpassed the 2008 financial crisis by orders of magnitude, and there’s no end in sight.

    To ‘fight the coronavirus’ governments have imploded their real economies and replaced them with nationalised pools of finance earmarked for each section of the economy. This emergency transformation is the same as a wartime mobilisation of an economy, with a heavy focus on the medical and pharmaceutical industrial complex, the military, and selected corporate partners hand-picked by the state. This hard fusion of state and corporate interests is classic corporatism or fascism. In this brutal and constrained environment, these are some of the only institutions strong enough to remain viable.

    The net effect of immediately putting millions of workers onto government welfare rolls and pushing hundreds of thousands of small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMEs) into bankruptcy will be the largest consolidation and transfer of wealth in modern history. Those with enough capital to ride out the crisis will be able to buy-up companies, and even whole industries, for literally pennies on the dollar. Monopolies like Amazon, Google and telecoms giants will consolidate and solidify their market shares as competitors gradually die off and are swallowed-up in receivership. Formerly independent contractors will now be reliant on government assistance, as will any business qualifying for government ‘relief’ grants and loans. Large corporations will now have governments covering the cost of their payrolls for the duration of the crisis.

    There is no semblance of any discernible sound economic model to describe what is now happening with government printing up record amounts of money to cover the enormous cost of the shutdown. For a wealthy country like the US, the Federal Reserve Bank will simply go into overdrive, creating trillions of dollars to be released through various ‘stimulus plans’ and bailouts. The New York Fed is now pumping trillions of new dollars into banks, with the Fed also issuing ‘bridge’ loans directly to businesses. This never happened before in history. The US is also buying up unprecedented amounts of corporate stock in order to keep Wall Street afloat. With these levels of quantitative easing, there are risks of hyperinflation and other systemic problems. This may be coupled with higher food prices due to supply shortages, and stagnant wages due to a glut in the labour market after the government’s domestic scorched earth economic policies. The end result of all these bailouts (if they ever end) will be exactly as with any war in history: a rapid wholesale transfer of power, control and ownership into centralised government and the central banking cartel.

    For individuals and families, this means your savings are wiped-out, your property collapses in value, and your future prospects are dim, at least in the short to midterm, and you will have no choice but to load up on personal and family debt to survive.

    Before this crisis, we saw the largest wealth gap in modern history since the Gilded Age (1870–1900), with the richest 1% now owning more than half of the world’s wealth. After the first phase of this crisis, that gap may double or even triple. With SMEs wiped out, the only jobs available will be with the government or with a handful of mega-corporations.

    As is often the case after any war, developed and developing countries are likely to become dependent on credit lines from either the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or from the United States itself which will have plenty of dollars and US Treasury bonds for sale or loan at near zero percent interest rates. Plenty of funny money to go around, mostly for the elites.

    The shutting down of the world’s airlines – along with biosecurity and financial stagnation hitting certain sections of global trade – will severely injure the dominant system of globalisation. This will no doubt encourage already existing regional trading blocs, like ASEAN in Southeast Asia, and the African Union, leveraging their interests to create more regionalised and resilient trading networks. As physical trade and relations are codified regionally, globalisation will increase in the online digital sphere and with international e-commerce, online learning and social networking.

    Now, with massive economic recession, marked by record levels of mass unemployment and debt, the balkanisation of formerly open globalisation routes, combined with a new global veil over scarcity of resources, all under a broad cloak of biological insecurity – the soil is fertile for more dismantling of democracy and a rise in fascist regimes, particularly in the West. The trend was already moving in this direction before the crisis, but now it will only accelerate.

    Historically speaking, the scene is now set for another world war in which the winner sets the agenda for a ‘new world order’ going into the 21st century.

    Full Spectrum Dominance: World War Footing

    Just as in 1914 and the onset of World War I, the year 2020 will be a major pivot point for the early 21st century and should be seen as a tangible prelude to a new world war. There are a number of reasons why this is likely.

    It is true that you can implement more change in two years of war than you can in twenty years of peace. In the case of the corona crisis, that two years was reduced to two months. Presently, events are being framed by western powers as the “global fight against an invisible enemy,” but the corona crisis has created a number of new paradigms some of which are classic precursors for war. The first and most obvious is the fact that virtually overnight, the western countries, especially NATO member states the United States, United Kingdom and France, have effectively mobilised all aspects of their country’s economy and restructured society to reflect both a wartime economy and a state of martial law.

    The western bloc countries are now prepared to bunker down for a long war if need be.

    The threat of a biological agent presents some serious problems for a globally-embedded military as America’s. Already the US had to cancel major NATO drills in Europe, and pull some of its naval fleet into dock because of the coronavirus and fears of infecting large numbers of military personnel. Other countries may have similar issues. In this sense, the disease has severely slowed fighting across the world – one of the more unexpected, albeit welcome, tertiary benefits of the crisis.

    The western powers first obvious choice for instigating either a hot or cold war is China, along with its allies. When US President Donald Trump refers to COVID-19 as “the Chinese virus,” he is signalling to his base and to the war hawks in the Republican Party that the White House is preparing a confrontation. Anti-Chinese rhetoric and media propaganda has increased substantially in the US since the onset of the corona crisis, with many Americans, particularly the right-wing, now blaming the Chinese for releasing this pestilence into the world.

    After a few more months of economic destruction, social malaise and an increasing death toll in the US, the new ranks of unemployed will be demanding a scapegoat for their terrible suffering, at which time a war with China could become more viable for Washington. This could take the form of an on-off, hot-cold war which lasts for 30 or 40 years, and pulls in other major powers using proxy battlegrounds in third party countries.

    For the US empire, one primary objective in confronting China would be to disrupt and possibly derail Beijing’s historic infrastructure and economic development known as the Belt and Road Initiative, designed to link Europe with Asia along various routes over land and sea. If successful, the global centre of gravity would shift away from the US and back towards Eurasia. In the event of a global depression post-corona, the US is geopolitically well-placed to weather the storm as it commands the control of both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. China’s Belt and Road would effectively upend Washington’s plans for Fortress America lording it over all global markets during this new tumultuous epoch.

    In some ways, the crisis has disrupted the emergence of a new multipolar world, but the imperative for multipolarism may also be propelled by the economic balkanisation and the fact that the US will continue withdrawing its military assets from stalwart outposts like the Middle East. Any US withdrawal from the world stage will be filled by other emerging powers like Russia, India, Turkey and possibly Japan. Many of these emerging powers require resources and materials, so the scramble to establish trading routes in Africa will be a post-corona feature.

    The corona crisis also provides a convenient cover for the aggressive roll-out of 5G networks around the world. These look to be the backbone of a new global surveillance state able to track and record everything in real-time. Along with millions of masts in towns and cities, the network will also feature an array of new satellites with the potential to flood our atmosphere and communities with even more untested high-frequency radiation.

    One World Health & Medical Martial Law

    The current ‘state of war’ extends internationally with blanket travel restrictions already in place. There looks to be a rapid drive to institute a streamlined global system of mandatory digital tracking and tracing, implemented under the auspices of ‘global health’ and spearheaded by the World Health Organization (WHO). They are joined by participating governments and the transnational corporations that will roll out these new ‘health surveillance’ systems.

    The real question that remains unanswered is what will happen once all the ‘lockdown’ measures are relaxed, and international air travel opens up again?

    There are already noises coming from governments and organisations about requiring citizens to pass some form of ‘immunity test’ for COVID-19 to be granted freedom of movement within society by carrying an ‘immunity passport’ or digital certificate stored on a microchip or smartphone.

    This dovetails with the rapid drive for a cashless society as a result of the corona scare. Due to corona contagion fears, paper money and coins are being stigmatised as ‘dirty’ with many retail outlets refusing to accept cash. Once this system is adopted domestically, it follows that these same restrictions will be extended to international travellers. Needless to say, this has grave implications for personal liberty and privacy. At present, this juggernaut seems difficult to stop.

    If allowed, this new bio regime will become the de facto governance for the world’s population. Microsoft founder Bill Gates (net worth $97.8 billion) has called for a national vaccine tracking system in the US, funded in part by an estimated $100 million he and his wife Melinda’s Gates Foundation have donated to fight the coronavirus to discover ‘a fix’ as quickly as possible. Gates is already heavily invested in vaccine research, development and production and, with his wife, they are a primary driver in the proliferation of vaccines globally. Gates says he will front the investment for seven new vaccine factories around the globe, and as he told Daily Show host Trevor Noah during an interview on 2 April, “until we get the world vaccinated.”

    Clearly, he has a vision for vaccinating every person on the planet, presumably for the coronavirus, or until the next big ‘outbreak’.

    “The only thing that really lets us go back completely to normal and feel good about sitting in stadiums with lots of other people is to create a vaccine and not just take care of our country but take that vaccine out to the global population,” said Gates.

    From oligarchs like Gates, the transnational pharmaceutical corporations, and the government officials in their pocket, the warning is clear: you will not be permitted to resume ‘normal life’ until you accept the latest vaccine. And do not expect the list of newly required vaccinations to end with the novel coronavirus. Once this first precedent is set, countries dependent on international travel and trade will be forced to adopt the regulatory framework of this new ‘one world health’ security complex. The trail is then blazed for a constant stream of vaccine requirements to ‘fight’ various and sundry outbreaks and ‘biothreats’, be they real, exaggerated or completely fabricated. This could be another disruptive force going forward.

    Combine this with naked authoritarian statements made by other self-appointed corona tsars like Dr Michael Ryan, Executive Director of WHO, who recently remarked that members of families may need to be removed from their homes by force. “Most of the transmission actually happening in many countries now, is happening in the household at family level…. In some sense, transmission has been taken off the streets and pushed back into family units. Now, we need to go and look at families to find those people who may be sick and remove them, and isolate them in a safe and dignified manner,” said Ryan.

    The obvious danger here is that this new state-corporate regime will discriminate against and marginalise citizens based on their immunity records, requiring them to take a new vaccine to receive rights and privileges. This would be a complete abrogation of personal liberty and human rights, effectively turning the clock back hundreds of years – all based on what many leading doctors and epidemiologists agree is no more of a significant public health threat, in terms of infections and fatalities, than seasonal influenza.

    A COVID Green New Deal?

    One of the clear main political beneficiaries of a COVID-19 global shutdown has been the climate change lobby.

    By forcibly shutting down millions of businesses and pulling tens of millions of cars off the road and grounding world commercial airlines, the crisis has delivered young Greta Thunberg the evidence she and her supporters need to demonstrate the virtues of a net zero carbon world in a real-life simulation.

    This will also accelerate the adoption of a so-called ‘Green New Deal’ internationally, which may have less to do with saving the environment or ‘changing the climate’, and more to do with the creation of new global financial bubble based on the commodification and financialisation of Earth’s ecosphere. This is essentially a new ‘green-backed’ and fully tradeable monetary credit, bond and derivatives market.

    Greta didn’t appear out of nowhere in 2018. She and her handlers have been tasked with a mission, and now in just three weeks they are very close to realising large pieces of their agenda, which also dovetails with UN Agenda 2030 sustainability goals.

    Who’s Winning: Globalism or Nationalism?

    Another unexpected byproduct of this crisis has been a number of European Union member states kicking Brussels to the curb, either for not reacting fast enough to help, or simply for not releasing enough funds for struggling public institutions and businesses. As a result, countries like Italy and Poland are exerting their nationalist power over Brussels’ relatively weak and ineffectual response to requested assistance from members states.

    At the same time, this new global control grid lends itself towards the implementation of a world government structure to be used to fund an international regime that regulates and adjudicates problems, as well as manage future ‘outbreaks’. In late March, former British PM and Chancellor, Gordon Brown, called for world leaders to create a provisional global government body in order to tackle the coronavirus pandemic and manage the global economic collapse.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Screenshot from The Guardian, 26 March 2020

    Whatever geopolitical and social engineering agendas were already in motion before the crisis, you can be sure that the coronavirus has accelerated many of them.

    In terms of power-grabs, this is the embodiment of “never let a good crisis go to waste.”

    Oh, and don’t forget –it’s really all about saving lives. 

  • "She Hasn't Done Her Job": Looting, Riots, & Mayoral Ineptitude Prompt Mass Exodus Of Chicago Residents
    “She Hasn’t Done Her Job”: Looting, Riots, & Mayoral Ineptitude Prompt Mass Exodus Of Chicago Residents

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/29/2020 – 23:40

    While mayor Lori Lightfoot continues to try and assure the public that she has everything under control, the exodus from Chicago as a result of the looting and riots is continuing. Citizens of Chicago are literally starting to pour out of the city, citing safety and the Mayor’s ineptitude as their key reasons for leaving. 

    Hilariously, in liberal politicians’ attempt to show the world they don’t need Federal assistance and that they don’t need to rely on President Trump’s help, they are inadvertently likely creating more Trump voters, as residents who seek law and order may find no other choice than to vote Republican come November. 

    And even though residents understand the looting and riots in some cases, they are not waiting around for it to get better on its own, nor are they waiting around for it to make its way to their house, their families or their neighborhoods. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    One 30 year old nurse that lives in River North told the Chicago Tribune: “Not to make it all about us; the whole world is suffering. This is a minute factor in all of that, and we totally realize that. We are very lucky to have what we do have. But I do think that I’ve never had to think about my own safety in this way before.”

    The city’s soaring crime has been national news this year and many residents are claiming they “no longer feel safe” in the city’s epicenter, according to the Tribune report. Aldermen say their constituents are leaving the city and real estate agents say they are seeing the same. 

    The “chaotic bouts of destruction in recent months” are the catalyst, the report says.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Residents of the Near North Side told a Tribune columnist that they would be moving “as soon as we can get out” and others “expressed fear” of returning downtown. The Near North Side is 70% white and 80% of residents have a college degree. The median household income is $99,732, which is about twice the city’s average. 

    Real estate broker Rafael Murillo says people are moving to the suburbs quicker than planned: “And then you have the pandemic, so people are spending more and more time in their homes. And in the high-rise, it starts to feel more like a cubicle after awhile.”

    Additionally, those who once planned on buying downtown are reconsidering, he said. He said over the last week he has talked to “three or four” sellers who live downtown and want out so they can move to the suburbs. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    He commented: “They want to feel safe. They want to be able to come outside their homes and enjoy their neighborhood amenities, whether it’s running at the park, enjoying a nice little dinner, shopping. But with everything going on, there are a lot of residents who are not feeling safe right now.”

    Resident Neil Spun, who has lived in Chicago for more than 30 years, said: “There have been riots before, and looting. It just seems to me now that the city isn’t doing anything about it. I don’t see this getting any better, and so I’d like to leave.”

    Philip Nyden, founding director of the Center for Urban Research and Learning and professor emeritus of sociology at Loyola University Chicago said: “One of the things around the immediate reaction to the looting: there is an undertone of race, I think. People don’t openly say ’those people’ from the South and West sides are coming downtown … (but) in Chicago, the looters shown on television were predominantly young and African American.”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    He continued: “Streeterville is one of the richest neighborhoods in the city — probably in the metro area. The looting of luxury stores on Oak Street earlier this month sort of freaked some people out. It’s not an image you normally see. And I think they’re reacting to that.”

    He said of the riots: “Folks start saying, ‘Well, we’re gonna go to the affluent neighborhoods and loot, and not wreck our own neighborhoods,’ (although) I don’t know if it was quite that conscious politically.”

    Nyden says he is not yet comparing the exodus to the “white flight” of the 1950s: “A lot of white flight was related to pure racism in many cases, or false fears being fed by realtors, who were doing all sorts of things to rev up fears. I’m not seeing that here.” 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Steven P. Levy, president of residential management firm Sudler Property Management wrote a letter to the mayor begging for change. It stated: “From Hyde Park to the Gold Coast to Edgewater, residents across the city are adjusting their daily routines out of fear. They’re avoiding neighborhood walks after 6 p.m. This is not a way to live, and I can’t fault homeowners when they tell me they’re considering leaving Chicago.”

    Charlie Ragusa, a real estate client of Murillo’s, said: “I don’t feel comfortable here in the city anymore. People have the right to get their message out there … whatever it might be. But beyond the protests, we have the violence that’s attached to the protests. Often times, we combine the two of them together, because they pretty much happen at the same time. The violence is overpowering the people who have a message to say.”

    He blames the Mayor: “She hasn’t done her job. Her job is to protect me and protect the city. And I just don’t see that she’s doing it. I can’t go out at nighttime anymore. I’m afraid to. That’s not normal; that’s not the way Americans are supposed to live.”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Another resident says she is looking to take her family and move about 50 miles outside of the city. “We’re just looking for more safety,” she said. Both her and her husband support the Black Lives Matter movement, she said, but living downtown it doesn’t matter. 

    Looting had broken our near her home on August 10 and came home from a late night dog walk to see people surrounding her parked car. “The cops were just going past, and people had shopping carts full of (stuff), and all you heard were sirens, glass shattering and shouting. And gunshots. It was just very jarring.”

    She concluded, in peak liberal hypocrisy fashion: “I think people forget that people do live here, too — it’s not just the Guccis and the Jimmy Choo stores. And I completely support it all. You stealing shoes means nothing to me — that doesn’t hurt me at all. It’s just the fact that that brings more crime, and that does endanger me.”

  • Weaponized Drone Swarms Should Be Declared As "WMD" 
    Weaponized Drone Swarms Should Be Declared As “WMD” 

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/29/2020 – 23:30

    A new study for the US Air Force argues that a large-scale adversarial drone swarm attack could be classified as a “weapon of mass destruction” (WMD), a term commonly used to describe chemical, biological, or radioactive weapon capable of causing widespread death and destruction, reported Intelligent Aerospace.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Zachary Kallenborn, a senior consultant at ABS Group, specializing in drone swarms, WMD terrorism, and WMD warfare, authored the report for the Air Force Center for Strategic Deterrence Studies at Air University Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama where he makes the case that some weaponized drone swarm attacks could be viewed as a WMD:

    “Drone swarms can also serve in traditional WMD roles. They would be highly effective as mass-casualty weapons, especially against soft targets,” writes Kallenborn.

    “They could also be strategic deterrent weapons, though the variety of defenses means nuclear weapons are likely to continue to be more reliable deterrents. Drone swarms could be effective in assassination attempts due to the ability to overwhelm defenses. 

    However, the lack of stealth means they are likely to only appeal to actors unconcerned with (or desire) their role being known. In some circumstances, drone swarms could function as an-access, area-denial weapons.”

    Drone swarming technology, one that is deployed in squadrons, able to autonomously operate in a pack, is the future of warfare on the modern battlefield. 

    Readers may recall, a rudimentary version of swarming technology made global headlines in 2018 after small drones attacked a Russian military base in Syria. 

    Back in 2017, artificial-intelligence researcher Stuart Russell presented a video on “Slaughterbots” to the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. He warned the development of lethal autonomous weapons could easily destabilize society if an attack was seen. 

    It’s only a matter of time before armed, fully autonomous drone swarms are labeled as WMD because of their ability to inflict highly precise damage on hard and soft targets. 

  • 'The Saker' Asks: Will Hillary & The Dems Get The Civil War They Are Trying To Provoke?
    ‘The Saker’ Asks: Will Hillary & The Dems Get The Civil War They Are Trying To Provoke?

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/29/2020 – 23:00

    Via TheSaker.is,

    If you have not already seen this, check out this video of Hillary Clinton stating that, quote, “Joe Biden should not concede under any circumstances“:

    “Any” means “any”.  That would include the (admittedly hypothetical) case of Trump clearly winning in by landslide.  Again, “any” means “any”.

    The direct implications of that is that the Dems should re-take the White House by any and all means and under any and all circumstances.

    That is also a direct appeal to sabotage the US democracy which, as flawed as it is, is the only rule of law based option currently available to the people of the USA.

    Will that result in a civil war?

    That is rather unlikely, because for a civil war you need to have at least two credible parties which can coordinate attacks and defensive operations on, at least, a regional scale.  I don’t see that in the USA.

    But I don’t see how local/regional violence (at times severe) and political chaos can be avoided.

    We already know that the Dems will never accept a Trump victory.

    We also know that the Trump supporters will claims that the USPS cannot be trusted with mail voting (I totally agree with them, the USPS is one of the worst postal services of any developed country on the planet).

    Then there is the following issue: as police departments are “defunded” and cops are resigning en masse (and I sure can’t blame them!), simple citizens will have to increasingly protect themselves, which many of them can do, but the problem here is that these citizens are then charged while the surviving BLM and/or Antifa thugs walk free, even if they attacked first.

    In some US states (like Florida, thank God for that!), the local Sheriffs will stand by their citizens and the local DAs will not prosecute those who used lethal force to defend themselves against a short list of forcible felonies (including home violations, carjackings, rapes, etc.). 

    Just listen to this selection of FL sheriffs:

    I have been a Florida resident since 18 years now and I can sincerely say that I don’t recommend BLM/Antifa try to loot or riot in Florida, because they will be met with a lot of force and a legal system which strongly favors the law abiding citizen, including in cases of self-defense.

    But in northern states?!

    So far, if I am not mistaken, most of the riots so far have taken place in northern states (Atlanta is in the south, but it is also not truly a “southern city” since it is run by BLM/Antifa sympathizers; the same could be said about Miami, FL, by the way).

    This is probably not a coincidence.  And this has nothing to do with “southern racism” (in my experience southerners are no more racist than northerners), but much more with a culture of self-defense, rooted in the land, which makes southern people much more likely to “circle the wagons” and act together.

    And while I never bought the (rather silly) arguments that “guns protect the people from tyranny” (tyrants typically have trained and professional forces which can make minced meat of any armed civilians!), I do believe that armed citizens can very effectively stop rioting thugs (just remember how the Koreans of L.A. defended themselves and their stores during the L.A. riots).

    Luckily, southern states are much more faithful to the US Constitution than those northern states which have “castrated” the 2nd Amendment “by a thousand (legislative) cuts” (there are, exceptions, of course).

    This is not widely known, but in about 25%-30% or so of cases or armed robbery by thugs, their guns either don’t work, or they are fake.  Their ammo often sucks too (either bad condition, or completely inadequate).  Why?  Because criminals are too stupid and too cheap to invest in quality firearms and training.  As a result, if BLM/Antifa thugs try to storm a residential neighborhood or some small town in the South, they might be “greeted” by a lot of very competent firepower.

    I think that it is pretty clear that the US deep state and the Dem Party are using BLM/Antifa as footsoldiers to create chaos and prepare for even worse violence should Trump win. 

    There are also some signs that the Dem leadership does not want to let the (totally senile) Joe Biden go against Trump in a debate.  Here is an excerpt from a ZeroHedge report:

    “I don’t think that there should be any debates,” Pelosi said on Thursday, one day after President Trump demanded Biden take a drug test before the two square off.

    “I wouldn’t legitimize a conversation with him – nor a debate in terms of the presidency of the United States,” she added. Pelosi said that Trump was “disgraceful” when he ‘stalked‘ Hillary Clinton during the 2016 debate by walking near her, and that he will probably “act in a way that is beneath the dignity of the presidency.”

    The message is clear: we do not recognize Trump as a legitimate opponent and should he win, this will be because of Chinese interference and/or and Russian interference and/or “Republican bullying” (whatever that is supposed to mean). 

    Bottom line: we will under no circumstances accept another defeat.

    Dunno about you, but to me this sounds like sedition.  Here is how Wikipedia defines this concept:

    Sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that tends toward insurrection against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent toward, or resistance against, established authority. Sedition may include any commotion, though not aimed at direct and open violence against the laws. Seditious words in writing are seditious libel. A seditionist is one who engages in or promotes the interest of sedition.

    I don’t see any evidence that Trump and/or the GOP leadership are guilty of sedition, at least not inside their own country – outside, of course, they are currently the single most subversive force on the planet.  In fact, I would argue that in spite of all the many major differences, Trump is facing a situation not dissimilar to what Lukashenko faces in Belarus.  The biggest difference is that Trump is not backed by Putin.  In fact, he is backed by nobody (besides bone fide nutcases like Jair Bolsonaro and Ivan Duque Marquez or cheap prostitutes like Andrzej Duda or Dalia Grybauskaite).

    I do see overwhelming evidence that the Clinton Gang & the US deep state & (pseudo-) “liberal” “elites” are all guilty of sedition.  As a result of this egging on of rioting thugs, things happen which would have been quite unthinkable just a year ago.

    For example: a US Senator and his wife almost got lynched by a mob just outside the White House.  Is that even possible?  Yes it is, see for yourself:

    Friends, this is not Afghanistan or the Central African Republic.  And a senator is one of the highest possible offices any man or woman can achieve.  Yet in this country capital city, right outside the White House, cops were unable to protect a senator from a mob.

    Yet this is how the mainstream media presented this:  “Protesters confront Rand Paul outside White House after Republican convention“. 

    Since when are criminal thugs who attempt to lynch a senator and his wife called “protesters”?!  And does “confront” not suggest that Senator Paul somehow deserved to be “confronted”.

    Can you imagine what the media would have said if this had happened to a black senator?

    Does this kind of mainstream “reporting” not show that this country’s political system is collapsing?

    Conclusion

    I don’t see a civil war happening in the US.  But I do think that this country can, and probably will, break-up into different zones so to speak.  In some regions, law and order will be maintained, by force is needed, while in others something new will appear: what the French call “des zones de non-droit“, meaning “areas of lawlessness” in which law enforcement will be absent (either because the political leaders will refuse to engage them, or because they will simply have to withdraw under fire).  Typically, such zones have a parallel “black” economy which can make the gangs which control such zones very wealthy (think of Russia in the 1990s).  Eventually, a lot of people will flee from such zones and seek refuge in the safer areas of the country (this process has already begun in New York).

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Right now, there are a little over two months before the election, and I think that it is safe to say that the situation will deteriorate even faster and much worse.  By November 2nd the country will be “ready” (so to speak) for a massive explosion of violence followed by months of chaos.

    Many will probably vote Trump just because they will (mistakenly) believe that he is the only politician who will stand against what the Dems promise to unleash against the majority of “deplorables” who want to keep their country and traditions.  

    At the core, the conflict we are now witnessing is a conflict about identity, something which most people deeply care about.  Sooner or later, there will be push-back against the Dems attempt to turn the USA into some kind of obese transgender liberal Wakanda run by crooks, freaks and thugs.

    The Dems won’t get their civil war – but they will suffer the blowback for their attempts to destroy the United States.

  • Late-Night Binge-Watching Lowers Sperm Count, Study Finds
    Late-Night Binge-Watching Lowers Sperm Count, Study Finds

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/29/2020 – 22:30

    Readers may recall we noted sperm counts in Western men had slumped nearly 60% over the decades. Though researchers have not been precise of what is causing the decline, some have suggested there’s a link with the use of electronics.

    “The last several decades have been characterized by the widespread usage of digital devices, especially smartphones. At the same time, there have been reports of male fertility decline. This study aimed to assess the relationship between evening exposure to the light-emitting screens of digital media devices and sperm quality,” said Amit Green, Ph.D., head of research and development at the Sleep and Fatigue Institute at the Assuta Medical Center in Tel-Aviv, Israel, who led the study titled “Light Emitted from Media Devices at Night is Associated with Decline in Sperm Quality.” 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Preliminary results showed men who use light-emitting media devices in the evening and or right before bed experienced a more significant decline in sperm quality:

    “Smartphone and tablet use in the evening and after bedtime was correlated with a decline in sperm quality. Furthermore, smartphone use in the evening, tablet use after bedtime, and television use in the evening were all correlated with the decline of sperm concentration,” Green said. 

    “The results of this study revealed a link between evening and post-bedtime exposure to light-emitting digital media screens and sperm quality. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to report these types of correlations between sperm quality and exposure time to SWL emitted from digital media, especially smartphones and tablets, in the evening and after bedtime,” he said. 

    For this study, researchers used semen samples from 116 men between the ages of 21 and 59. Participants were also asked about their electronic use and sleep habits. 

    Green also noted a relationship between sperm quality and sleeping habits. Men who slept longer had higher sperm counts, as opposed to men who had sleep disorders. 

    So here’s the big issue and why it matters for the next economic expansion: declining sperm quality and population growth slowdown, or in some countries, reversal, will directly affect GDP growth. 

    The Western world is plagued with a declining, aging, and heavily indebted population with zero interest rates, along with monetary drag, which will result in less future consumption, and force overcapacity to be cleared 

    So if men want to ‘make the Western world great again’ – put down the iPhone or tablet at night, your nation’s survivability depends on healthy sperm. 

  • How To Survive When You're The Target Of An Angry Mob
    How To Survive When You’re The Target Of An Angry Mob

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/29/2020 – 22:00

    Authored by Terry Trahan via The Organic Prepper blog,

    I’m sure you’ve seen the video below by now.

    Political activists/bullies, encroaching on people’s space to make their point, and, more importantly here, trying to intimidate the people into giving up their freedom to give the rioters their way.

    The first thing I want to say about this is it is a difficult situation. Especially the more middle class you are, or the more formal the setting you are in.

    The first difficulty is overcoming your upbringing and being able to shift gears out of the dining mindset into the confrontation/defense mindset.

    As I wrote about earlier, mindset is your friend here. You are just there to do the job at hand.

    Doing the job, however, requires a few things to find the proper response.

    You really need to be able to read the crowd, both the other diners and the thugs demanding your obeisance to their worldview. Can you count on help from others in the diner crowd? Maybe, but “hope” is not a plan, and you cannot count on it. The most important read you can do is on the thugs/activists.

    You need to assess, rapidly, their dedication to their cause. Look for obvious clues to how violent they might be:

    • Are there any weapons visible?

    • Are they patterned in a way that provides you a more clear route to exfiltrate?

    You need to be able to do this unobtrusively, quickly, and be able to process the information to make a plan of action.

    There are a few basic courses of action you can take.

    The first is to sit there and take it. This may sound glib, but it is not. If your threat assessment determined that they are just going to yell and scream, you can just wait it out. Obviously, threat assessment must be ongoing, because it can change at the drop of a hat.

    Always be looking for routes of escape, and don’t limit yourself to the obvious ones. If it gets bad enough, people make wonderful objects to break windows or drywall to make an emergency exit with.

    Sitting there and taking it was the course of action the lady in the video chose, and in this case, it worked.

    The next thing you can do is to get up and make your way inside the establishment and use that changed environment to get to the exit and leave. Unfortunately, you need to stay aware of the crowd you are escaping from. A mob is very susceptible to prey drive.

    As my friend Rory Miller says, they can and will escalate to violence for several reasons, including to prove they belong to the group, and you are an outsider.

    Using your cell phone to call the police is an option but seems to be a low return option at this point. Due to the civil unrest/riots everywhere, they may not have resources available to help you.

    What if none of these options work? Move to “desperate options”

    The next options are for when your threat assessment determines that it has the potential for violence, or it is now, actively, becoming violent. Beware, these options are hard and dark.

    Aggressive Escape is the first “desperate option” we will cover. Using this option, violence comes first but is not the main point of the exercise. Basically, what you are doing is picking one of the opposing crowd, and attacking them violently to make a hole you can get through.

    If you hurt one of the crowd, you need to make your escape as fast as you can, as the thugs will try to get payback on you for the damage and pain you have caused. If possible, use a weapon. If you do not have one on you, a restaurant is chock-full of useful tools. A water glass driven into an eye socket or the bridge of the nose. A dinner plate, edge first to the throat, or salt/pepper shakers to the temples, candles into the eyeballs.

    I’m sure you get the picture.

    The crowd has turned into a violent mob, what NOW?

    Next, we get to the most serious scenario. Your threat assessment has determined violence is imminent or the crowd is becoming a violent mob. This is the time to become very matter of fact and know what job you need to do.

    In my classes, I simply call these things ‘maiming’, and it is only for very serious situations. This is where you begin taking people apart. We have all heard the jokes about throat punching… This is what it is for. Steak knives, gouging eyes, ripping noses, fish hooking, vile things made to make your attackers back up so you can keep making your way to escape.

    There is no way to make this nice, and I want to reiterate, this is for the worst-case scenario, and it can be nasty. This is where you only do things if your life is truly in danger, and you are doing this to escape and get your people to safety.

    I’d like to close this by addressing things and questions that have come up in classes or emails.

    What about stun guns?

    I think they are worthless. My friends and I would play tag with them when we were younger. The only thing they are good for, in my opinion, is to make a quick hole to get through in a crowd. They are not a good choice.

    What about pepper spray?

    Pepper spray should be thought of as an eye jab in a can, a quick distraction to either escape or launch a stronger attack with a better weapon. It is a bonus that you can beat people with the can when it is empty. If you are going to use it to make an escape opening, please use 15% or better, and spray it either directly in to the face of one person, and make sure they get all of it, or, spray in a wide ‘S’ pattern too get more people.

    Bear spray or pepper grenades are awesome, but I don’t think even I would be carrying those to a nice dinner downtown.

    Is a gun the ultimate solution?

    Well, maybe. It depends. That would be a giant can of worms to discuss here. Suffice to say that during a mob encounter, there are some things you need to think about and practice. Be prepared for serious legal ramifications in our current climate.

    Mob violence is becoming more of a normal feature of modern life in the US.

    Unfortunately, the dynamics of crowd violence and mob mentality make dealing with or planning for this type of encounter difficult at best. There are no good options, and you must be able to switch tactics on the fly.

    As always, awareness is your best friend and primary warning system.

    Stay safe.

  • Kenosha Or Kosovo? Shocking Images Reveal Destruction After Race Riots Leave Buildings In Ruins
    Kenosha Or Kosovo? Shocking Images Reveal Destruction After Race Riots Leave Buildings In Ruins

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/29/2020 – 21:30

    Harrowing scenes of destruction have emerged from Kenosha, where several nights of BLM riots have left the Wisconsin town looking like it’s been through war.

    Entire buildings have been reduced to rubble, businesses have been destroyed, and parking lots full of burnt-out cars are all that’s left in some parts of the town, after riots over the shooting of 29-year-old black suspect Jacob Blake only came to a halt after President Trump sent the National Guard to restore order.

    Josh Glancy, Washington Bureau Chief of the Sunday Times documented some of the aftermath, which locals believe was caused largely by “out of towners.”

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

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

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

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

    Glancey closes by noting: As we were talking, a young man came to ask the owner where the nearest post box was. “There used to be two across the street,” he replied. “But they both just got burnt.”

    Meanwhile, the Kenosha News obtained aerial images from photographer Sean Krajacic.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    President Trump couldn’t have asked for a better campaign advertisement.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsMeanwhile, Trump will be in Kenosha on Tuesday…

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

    Will they cart Biden out of his basement to do the same? We would note that Trump visited flood-ravaged Baton Rouge when he was a candidate in 2016 following Louisiana’s worst natural disaster since Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

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

  • Doug Casey On Whether It's Possible To Find Freedom In An Unfree World
    Doug Casey On Whether It’s Possible To Find Freedom In An Unfree World

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/29/2020 – 21:00

    Via InternationalMan.com,

    International Man: Statism has become a new religion.

    A growing number of people are interested in using the State’s power to tell others how to live. They are also voting themselves freebies at the expense of others.

    It’s clear that those who want to be left alone won’t be. Is it possible to find freedom in an unfree place?

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Doug Casey: Back in 1973, my old friend Harry Browne wrote a really fantastic book called How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World, where he dealt with exactly that question.

    Remember, that was almost 50 years ago now—a lifetime.

    The book was timely, even though the world was much freer then than it is now. We now have vastly more financial and travel controls, however—many new penalties for saying, or even appearing to think, the “wrong” things. You’re now monitored in many more ways.

    Harry’s book is brilliant and actually more important to read now than it was then. His answers to how you find freedom in an unfree world are useful and relevant.

    But the fact is that you can run but you can’t hide.

    That’s because the world has been infected by a virus. I don’t mean the ridiculous COVID virus. I mean the virus of statism and collectivism.

    There’s really nowhere you can go to be safe from it – only some places that are better than others.

    For instance, the so-called Five Eyes countries – the US, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. They were once the major bastions of Western Civilization, the only civilization – ever – that held personal freedom as an ideal. But now they’re the very ones leading the route downhill.

    It’s a real problem for freedom lovers. We’re a smaller and smaller minority. Most people, however, prefer a strong leader promising the illusion of safety and security. Nothing has changed since the days of Rome. It devolved from a yeoman republic to a multicultural empire with onerous taxes in order to pay for bread and circuses to keep the capite censi under control.

    In the latter days of the empire, many of its citizens attempted to escape, to live among the barbarians – even while the barbarians were taking over the empire itself. Pretty much the same thing is happening now in the West in general and the US in particular.

    The best thing you can do to defend yourself—at least while it’s still possible—is to become rich enough to insulate yourself from the State. Rich enough so that even if they steal a lot from you—and they will— you still have enough. Enough to absorb the hit, keep moving, and live life as you’d like.

    Let me go off on a bit of a tangent here, and look at things from the viewpoint of class. That’s perhaps appropriate in a world where neo-Marxism is being promoted everywhere. I see classes according to how they align relative to the three most important, most basic verbs in any language—be, do, and have.

    If you’re lower class—which is to say have a lower class mentality— you just accept what you’re given. The lower classes are defined by psychological demoralization, apathy, and hopelessness. At best, they just think about having stuff—cars, houses, food, mates—but don’t even succeed at that very well because of their values. I doubt, however, that anybody now reading this fits into that category. Historically, they’re by far the largest group, and their numbers are now growing rapidly.

    I increasingly wonder if the US even has much of an upper class any more. Being upper class is all about values, primarily being something. Money, power, and prestige don’t make someone upper class—they’re consequences of upper-class values unless you win the lottery or have great athletic, entertainment, or sometimes even business ability. Then you can masquerade for a while. But those things tend to corrupt. It’s easy to descend and become effete, entitled. Ineffectual and stagnant.

    The fact is, most of us are middle class. Historically, the middle class is what America is all about; it made America unique. The work ethic, striving, and improving, doing. The middle class is being destroyed by inflation and taxes, which make it hard to save and build capital, and regulations, which make it hard to produce, to do. I’m afraid that ground between the millstones of taxes and inflation—as Lenin said—huge numbers of the middle class are descending into the ranks of the lower—the proletariat.

    The three classes are natural enough. But since the invention of mass democracy, since it was turned into a worldwide secular religion around the time of World War One, there’s arisen another class—the political class. Anyone can join it. They were always there but nowhere near as hugely important or virulent. I can’t think of a single verb to define them—all the possibilities are unflattering, though. They hate the middle class, though, because its members are, by definition, productive and independent.

    Anyway, these are just a few thoughts. Maybe I’ll expand on them in the future.

    To get back to the original question, what you should do is become rich so you can insulate yourself to the best degree that you can from the ongoing crisis. It will eventually pass, and you can reposition yourself – if you’ve maintained some capital.

    Money is far from everything, of course. It’s just a tool. But tools are helpful …

    International Man: Western Civilization seems to be going downhill economically, politically, and culturally at a rapid pace. The trajectory looks grim.

    However, much of the rest of the world outside of the West has their own problems. What
    can freedom-loving people do not only survive but thrive in the years ahead?

    Doug Casey: Once again, I’ve said this for many years, and it’s truer now than it’s ever been.

    The financial and economic problems in the world are serious and accelerating. But as we go deeper into the Greater Depression, your biggest risks aren’t financial or economic. They’re political.

    The only way to solve that problem from a practical point of view is to diversify politically the way you would diversify financially.

    That means you should have a crib in a second or third country—as well as businesses and financial assets in others besides your home country. That’s the only thing that you can do at this point. You can vote if it makes you feel good. But, as Stalin said, it’s not who votes that counts—it’s who counts the votes. Becoming a political activist is degrading and pointless. This coming election will be largely about cheating by both sides, IMO.

    The political classes everywhere are using the current COVID hysteria to cement themselves in place, and very few of the sheeple are resisting. To the contrary, they welcome it, because they think drastic actions make them safe. A degenerating society values safety above all.

    It’s true everywhere, though, even in increasingly primitive places like South Africa—in fact, almost all of Africa. India is totally locked down as is most of South America. These places don’t have enough capital stored to enable an enforced vacation of several years. And that’s what we may be looking at.

    It’s happening almost all over the world. The people that are being hurt the most, needless to say, are the people living hand to mouth. They’re going to be hurt even worse as all these governments destroy their national currencies—because poor people can only save the local national currency.

    When their pitiful paper currency savings are wiped out, then they’re really in trouble. Will they get violent, or just roll up into a ball and die? Good question.

    In the 21st century, East Asia, China, Vietnam, Korea are the best places to be. This is also true of Russia and Eastern Europe, notwithstanding the fact that China is going to have a financial collapse and may very well wind up divided into five or six smaller countries.

    We’re looking at worldwide chaos in the making. I was always half kidding when answering the question, “How bad do you think the Greater Depression will be?” and I’d say, “Even worse than I think it’s going to be.” But now, it’s no joke.

    International Man: Almost every government and country in the world is going in the wrong direction from a personal freedom standpoint.

    Are there any options for like-minded individuals to come together if there is no perfect country or place?

    Doug Casey: Everybody should read Neal Stephenson’s book, The Diamond Age.

    The ideas that he developed, essentially of nation-states falling apart and being replaced with phyles, was very prescient.

    Humans are social animals; we like to hang out with other people.

    This is especially true with people that are like us. In other words, people that believe in the same things, that have the same values, and have the same outlook on the world.

    It’s actually crazy to try to put diverse, disparate people together into the same political entity. That’s because, inevitably, any and all of the groups in that artificial political entity are going to try to get control of the apparatus of the State to benefit themselves and punish the others. Politics always results in a war of all against all.

    I think Stephenson’s novel was quite correct. People will increasingly find that their real countrymen are people with whom they share values and ideas—or whatever happens to be important to them. Not a national passport. That’s just government ID, like a driver’s license.

    Within that context, here in the US, Libertarians tried to put together a community, I think called the Free State Movement, centering around Keene, New Hampshire. I haven’t been there. So, I don’t know if it’s in any way successful or not, or whether the Libertarians are looked upon as some type of a weird religious cult by the locals. I don’t think it’s had any real effect on anything.

    Worse, if the wrong guys get in power, the thing could backfire.

    It might facilitate one-stop-shopping to find potential enemies of the State. If seriously dangerous political class types take over, as is likely in November if Biden wins the election, there’s no telling what might happen.

    Of course, I tried to put something together in an obscure but very pleasant part of Argentina, La Estancia de Cafayate.

    It’s been an artistic success, and it’s a great place to live. We’ve got a lot of great people living there—very enjoyable, mellow, easy-to-get-along-with company. But we attracted our share of antisocial and dogmatic nutcases. Just because someone is a political Libertarian doesn’t necessarily mean he has any other virtues. And he may be psychologically unbalanced in the bargain.

    Psychology and character are the real problems. Shangri-la doesn’t exist. And it won’t until the vast majority of humans are more like Harry Browne, Ron Paul, or Lao-Tzu, and less like AOC, Pelosi, or Obama. I guess my best suggestion at this point is to look at a small town, whether you’re in the US or elsewhere, one that has a frontier culture, where people are independent-minded.

    I suspect most of the people reading this now are what we’d call gamma rats.

    They’re not like alpha rats, which want to boss everybody else around, taking the best mates and best territory. And beat up the beta rats, who are the vast majority of the population.

    The gamma rats also tend to get the best possessions and so forth, but they don’t beat up the beta rats nor let themselves be beat up by the alpha rats. The trouble is that, in laboratory experiments, scientists found that gamma rats are only a very small portion of the population. Among humans, we’re an equally small portion of the population.

    International Man: Let’s discuss some potential bright spots.

    What role do you think the advancement of technology will play in empowering the individual?

    Doug Casey: From Day One, technology has been the friend of the average man, and hugely beneficial. Except the effect comes in two stages. The first is usually only good for the ruling political class and bad for the average guy.

    Let’s go to Stanley Kubrick’s movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Remember the scene where the hominids gathered around the watering hole, and the one hominid comes up with the idea of using a bone as a weapon to beat up the other group?

    That was early technology. The first guy that gets technology uses it to dominate. But then after a while, it’s monkey see, monkey do. The technology spreads from the inventor or the first utilizer to the population in general, and things equalize.

    It’s been that way for hundreds of thousands of years.

    It was true with gunpowder. The first people that got gunpowder ran the State; they used it to keep the peasants at bay. But when it got into the hands of the peasants, they were able to use firearms to take out armored knights, which they couldn’t do before. The tables were turned.

    That same was true with writing, and then the printing press. At first, they were hoarded by the political classes and priesthoods, who used them to maintain their power. The same with the computer. In the old days of ENIAC and the IBM 360, only a government or a giant corporation could afford them, and they could use them to keep track of all the little people. Now, everybody has a massively powerful laptop or cellphone. Hackers can counterattack.

    I go into that theme in some detail in Assassin, the third novel in the High Ground septet. It will be released in September—lots of political implications. I urge readers who are interested to get Speculator and Drug Lord now, so as not to fall behind. Speculator is especially relevant because of what’s about to happen with gold stocks.

    In other words, technology eventually turns the tables to the advantage of the average guy, even though it’s always used to suppress the average guy in the beginning.

    It was technology that liberated the masses to overturn whatever the current political class might have been at the time. It has nothing to do with democracy, which is just a sop to make the peasants believe they’re in charge. If voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let you do it.

    It’s a trend that’s going to continue. But it can be years, or even decades, before a new technology finally gets into the hands of the average guy. Then the political class wants to regulate it.

    The powers-that-be treat all technologies as dangerous. Like guns, they want to keep these things out of the hands of the average guy, basically to keep the peasants from defending themselves.

    But the cat always gets out of the bag in the long run. It’s a reason for long-term optimism. That said, there’s always a chance of a genuine Dark Age if the old order collapses seriously enough.

    International Man: Most people are familiar with large, centralized tech companies like Google, Apple, Amazon, etc.

    But we’ve also seen the development of decentralized technologies that empower the individual, such as encryption and the 3D printing of guns. One key example of this is bitcoin, which is a decentralized form of money.

    What promise do you think decentralized technologies have for wresting power out of the hands of the State, and what are the implications?

    Doug Casey: The mistake that people make with things like Facebook – a giant, amoral, and duplicitous corporation – is thinking that just because billions of people use it, it must be harmless. “Oh, it must be kind of decentralized and democratic because it lets everybody communicate with one another.”

    Giant media corporations like Facebook and Google are dangerous because they can actually form people’s view of reality itself. Much more than newspapers or even TV could. The average person’s understanding of the world, what’s happening, and what other people think is no longer a product of talking to his neighbors or even looking out the window. Their opinions and emotions are now formed by looking at their little screens. That makes them very easy to manipulate.

    The situation will get worse with Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Reality—somebody will program and control what goes into these things. Maybe subtly, or maybe very overtly. The situation is greatly aggravated by the COVID hysteria in many ways.

    The solution to the danger, however, is not to regulate them. That would be totally counterproductive. Regulation just means giving even more power to the State—which is innately vastly more dangerous than any corporation. At least corporations have to provide a worthwhile service to stay in business…

    What we really need is not just one Facebook where everybody goes, and can therefore be easily monitored. What we need is 10,000 Facebooks, so the power devolves to everybody and anybody.

    The problem will resolve itself in the long run, though. Giant corporations become dysfunctional. Apart from that, they’re subject to the second Law of Thermodynamics as anything else. It’s one of the few laws I believe in.

    That’s true, politically speaking as well. The world would have been much better off if Bismarck had not united about three hundred minor principalities and kingdoms in Germany in 1871. The world and the Germans would have been much better off in every possible way if they’d stayed three hundred fairly small, not powerful principalities.

    Same in Italy, with Garibaldi. Today they’d be much better off if there were still scores of little duchies and counties. The same with India, which would be much better off if their hundreds of kingdoms hadn’t been forcibly united by the British. It’s true everywhere.

    I hope, and actually expect, that places like Germany, Italy, and certainly India will once again devolve into smaller units. The way the Soviet Union broke up into fifteen, and Yugoslavia broke up into six, and Czechoslovakia split into two. The US, which has evolved into a multicultural domestic empire, should—and likely will—split up as well.

    *  *  *

    As these trends continue to accelerate, what you do right now can mean the difference between coming out ahead or suffering crippling losses. That’s exactly why bestselling author Doug Casey and his team just released a free report with all the details on how to survive the crisis ahead. It will help you understand what is unfolding right before our eyes and what you should do so you don’t get caught in the crosshairs. Click here to download the PDF now.

  • Most COVID-19 Deaths In Palm Beach County Can't Be Attributed To Coronavirus Alone, Medical Records Reveal
    Most COVID-19 Deaths In Palm Beach County Can’t Be Attributed To Coronavirus Alone, Medical Records Reveal

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/29/2020 – 20:30

    An analysis of deaths in Palm Beach County medical records late last month revealed that “most” of the county’s Covid-19 deaths cannot be attributed to Covid-19 alone. 

    Many of the deaths “involved comorbidity like diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, dementia, and more,” according to an I-Team investigation by CBS 12. 

    The investigation spanned 658 of the county’s “Covid deaths”. Investigators found that of the 658 cases, just 86 listed “Covid-19 pneumonia” without contributing causes as the reason for death. 3 were listed as “COVID-19 respiratory infection” without contributing causes. 

    94 cases were listed as a “combination of COVID-19 infection, pneumonia, and respiratory infection/failure”.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    All of the other deaths involved comorbidities, the data found. In 116 cases, the death involved three or more “serious health conditions in addition to a Covid-19 infection”. One woman, who was 94 years old and had “Type 2 Diabetes, Atrial Fibrillation, and Congestive Heart Failure” had her cause of death listed as “Accute Respiratory Failure and COVID-19 pneumonia”.

    Another record showed a 72 year old man who died from Sepsis and a urinary tract infection had Covid-19 listed as a “contributory cause.” 92 cases showed that Covid-19 was a contributor, but not the primary cause of death. 

    Dr. Terry Adirim, a Senior Associate Dean at the Florida Atlantic University College of Medicine commented: “The fact that it skews older and people with co-morbid conditions — that’s not surprising.”

    Yet, she still advises young people not to ignore the data: “The more you are exposed the more likely you are to have serious illness, the more likely you are to die. And if you have been infected, even if you are younger, you are going to bring it home and bring it into your community as well.”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    She continued: “I would not recommend feeling so good about getting it. We don’t have a vaccine, it’s a novel virus, and yes we are doing better treating it and yes it tends to affect people with comorbid conditions, but it’s like playing Russian roulette. It’s very likely you’re not going to shoot yourself, and it’s not likely you’ll get seriously ill and die [from COVID] but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.”

    “It’s much more likely that we are under-counting COVID deaths,” she said without offering up direct evidence, “and that’s something that we see in pandemics.”

    Investigators also found 8 erroneous deaths layered in the county’s tally. The average age of deaths in Palm Beach was 77.3 years old.

  • UAE And Israel Plan To Create Intelligence Bases On Yemen’s Socotra Island
    UAE And Israel Plan To Create Intelligence Bases On Yemen’s Socotra Island

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/29/2020 – 20:00

    By South Front,

    Israel and the United Arab Emirates are going to create a military intelligence-gathering infrastructure on Yemen’s Socotra Island, according to Arab and French sources.

    The 3,650km^2 island, located south of the Yemeni mainland in the Indian Ocean, overlooks the Bab al-Mandab Strait. The straight is a sea route chokepoint between the Horn of Africa and the Middle East, connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and Arabian Sea. Most exports of oil and natural gas from the Persian Gulf that transit the Suez Canal or the SUMED Pipeline pass through both the Bab el-Mandeb and the Strait of Hormuz.

    Since the start of the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen, the UAE, formally a Saudi ally, and the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council, a Yemeni separatist movement that is formally allied with the Saudi-backed government in Aden, have established control over most of Socotra Island. For years, the UAE has been seeking to annex the island due to its strategic location. The collapse of the Yemeni statehood due to the years-long instability and the foreign intervention paved a way for more direct actions. The creation of a military infrastructure there is a logical step in this strategy.

    According to reports, a delegation of Israeli and UAE officers recently visited the island and examined several locations for establishing the planned intelligence facilities. Earlier in August, the UAE and Israel with assistance from the United States reached a historical peace agreement relaunching diplomatic, economic and even military cooperation between the states on the highest level. The security and military cooperation in the Bab al-Mandab Strait was among the expected goals.

    Arab and Iranian media allege that in 2016 Israel started building an intelligence-gathering base at the top of Mount Ambassaira, south of the Eritrean capital of Asmara. The base, according to reports, is designed to monitor the conflict in Yemen, as well as the naval situation in the region, including movements of Iranian naval forces.

    The UAE, thanks to its support to the Southern Transitional Council, has already changed the balance of power in southern Yemen to its favor. If, additionally to this, Abu Dhabi succeeds in turning the Socotra Island into its outpost, the UAE will have all chances to shift the balance of power to its own favor even further.

    The Emirati leadership has been slowly but steadily taking an upper hand in the diplomatic, military and economic competition with the Saudi Kingdom, which has so far suffered most of negative consequences, including direct strikes on its territory, from the conflict with Yemen’s Houthis. The peace agreement and security, military cooperation with Israel will also contribute to this scenario.

    The tactical UAE-Israeli-US alliance has all chances to compete with the expanding Iranian influence in the region. Saudi Arabia, which for years was the key US ally against Iran, has been left outside of this plan. And this is very bad news for the Kingdom, which is passing through a deep economic and political crisis complicated by the barely successful invasion of Yemen.

  • Amazon Orders 1,800 EV Delivery Vans From Mercedes, Commits To Go Carbon-Neutral By 2039
    Amazon Orders 1,800 EV Delivery Vans From Mercedes, Commits To Go Carbon-Neutral By 2039

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/29/2020 – 19:30

    When Amazon made its decision to introduce hundreds of new electric vans to its delivery fleet, Tesla’s name didn’t appear to be part of the discussion. Rather, the online behemoth ordered 1,800 electric delivery vans from Mercedes-Benz, marking the biggest order of its kind to date.

    Mercedes announced the order on Friday and announced it would “join a climate initiative established by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. By signing up to The Climate Pledge,” according to Reuters. The pledge pins Mercedes to going completely carbon neutral by 2039. 

    The transport sector and shipping/delivery remains one of the biggest contributors of carbon emissions on the planet. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said: “We need continued innovation and partnership from auto manufacturers like Mercedes-Benz to decarbonize the transportation sector and tackle the climate crisis. Amazon is adding 1,800 electric delivery vehicles from Mercedes-Benz as part of our journey to build the most sustainable transportation fleet in the world, and we will be moving fast to get these vans on the road this year.”

    The order is Amazon’s biggest in Europe and compliments a contract it signed last year with Rivian for 100,000 delivery vans by 2030. The order consists of 1,200 large eSprinter vans and about 600 medium-sized eVito vehicles. Delivery is slated to begin next year. 

    Lucien Mathieu, an e-mobility and transport analyst concluded: “Amazon’s pledge shows there’s important demand for e-vehicles from delivery fleets.”

  • US Cases Stabilize As California Set To Become 1st State To Pass 700k COVID-19 Cases: Live Updates
    US Cases Stabilize As California Set To Become 1st State To Pass 700k COVID-19 Cases: Live Updates

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/29/2020 – 19:16

    Summary:

    • US cases broadly stable Saturday
    • India set to challenge Brazil for No. 2 worst outbreak, will reopen underground trains
    • UK health minister warns about lockdowns
    • Indonesia sees record numbers for 3rd day
    • US cases climb DoD on Friday
    • California imposes new restrictions on evictions
    • Victoria reports fewest new cases since July 4
    • India’s new cases slow slightly from record pace

    * * *

    Update (1900ET): The Sun Belt saw broadly stable numbers for cases, deaths and hospitalizations on Friday, as Texas reported 4,732 new cases, or +0.8%, to 606,530, which is less than the 0.9% average increase over the previous week. Deaths climbed by 154 to 12,420.

    California reported 4,981 new virus cases, the lowest daily count since Aug. 4, a level that was below the 14-day average of 5,725. There have been 693,839 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the state, while deaths climbed by 144 to 12,834.

    Over in Europe, police in Berlin scuffled with far-right protesters demanding an end to Germany’s COVID restrictions. and made about 200 arrests after tens of thousands of people rallied (mostly peacefully). Smaller protests were reported in London and Paris.

    Arizona reported 629 cases Saturday, a 0.3% rise, in line with the the average daily increase from the prior week. The state’s total now stands 201,287.

    The state reported 29 deaths, for a total of 5,007. The number of fatalities was fewer than the 49 the previous day.

    Florida cases climbed by just 0.5% on Saturday to 619,003, in line with the average daily increase of the previous week. Deaths among Florida residents reached 10,957, an increase of 148, and higher than the 89 reported during the prior day.

    New York saw hospitalizations drop to a record 458, the smallest number since March 16. Saturday also marks 22 days of testing positivity rate under 1%.

    Globally, at least 24.8 million people have had the virus, and 16 million have recovered, according to Johns Hopkins University, while more than 839,000 people have died.

    India’s government announced plans to reopen its underground train system in New Delhi despite the fact that it’s rapidly catching up to Brazil in terms of number of total cases. The train network will reopen in a phased reopening starting Sept. 7.

    * * *

    Coronavirus cases climbed in both Europe – where France reported a new post-lockdown record of new cases – and the US yesterday, prompting renewed fears of a second wave. Police in Berlin broke up a march against Germany’s coronavirus restrictions on Saturday because the thousands of demonstrators mostly refused to wear masks and adhere to social distancing rules.

    After French President Emmanuel Macron said yesterday that while he doesn’t want to impose new lockdown restrictions, he would if he felt there was no better alternative, UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock warned in an interview that Britons may face “very extensive” local lockdowns should a feared second wave emerge in the winter.

    Hancock added that he’s operating under the assumption that a vaccine will be widely available “some time next year”. Until then, the government will have to rely on three “lines of defense” to stop the spread of the coronavirus: social distancing, testing and tracing and local lockdowns.

    Meanwhile, the US added 47,860 virus cases Friday, bringing the total to 5,913,913, as more cases were reported at schools around the country. As President Trump demanded that college football return ASAP, the University of Alabama, a football powerhouse, reported more than 1,000 cases since classes began.

    With California on the cusp of becoming the first US state to pass the 700,000 confirmed cases mark, Gov Gavin Newsom said late Friday that the state would impose new rules protecting small business owners from eviction.

    Landlords in the state won’t be allowed to evict renters before Jan. 31, 2021, at the earliest, as long as partial payments and certain declarations are made. Meanwhile, landlords will be protected from foreclosure by the banks (though we suspect Wells Fargo will still find a way).

    Earlier in the day, Newsom unveiled new economic guidance that will allow industries and counties more flexibility around reopening.

    Victoria, the epicenter of the pandemic in Australia, reported 94 new infections for Friday, its lowest reading since July 4, as the outbreak in the region finally abates.

    The state’s health department also reported Saturday via Twitter that there were 18 deaths from the disease. The second-largest state has been under strict lockdown restrictions to combat the virus, and the central bank estimates the effective isolation is set to push the national unemployment rate up to 10% later this year.

    The country’s largest state, New South Wales, reported 14 new cases, eight of which were linked to an emerging cluster centered on a Sydney gym.

    While cases in the US climbed on Friday, Brazil saw case numbers continue to decline. Brazil reported 43,412 cases, fewer than the 44,235 from the prior day, for a total of 3,804,804. Another 855 deaths were reported, a drop from the 984 reported the day before. Brazil’s death toll has now reached 119,504.

    For the third straight day, Indonesia on Saturday reported a record jump in new coronavirus infections, with 3,308 new cases taking Indonesia’s tally of infections to 169,195, while 92 new deaths pushed its death toll to 7,261.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    After notching a string of its own records, including the most new cases reported in a single-day by any country on earth, India reported 76,472 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, slightly below its record numbers from the past couple of days.

    In Nearby Malaysia, the government extended its pandemic-inspired restrictions, including a ban on foreign tourists, until the end of the year.

    India has reported a total of 3.46 million cases during the pandemic, a tally that places it behind the US and Brazil in terms of total cases. However, India has reported more cases over the past 2 weeks than both the US and Brazil, making its outbreak the worst active outbreak in the world.

  • How Extremes Become More Extreme, Triggering Collapse
    How Extremes Become More Extreme, Triggering Collapse

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/29/2020 – 19:00

    Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

    The extremes are not visible to the vast majority of participants, and so they are exposed to high levels of risk they don’t see or understand.

    The question “Is the weather becoming more extreme?” opens up endless debates because our perceptions may differ from actual measurements since we’re prone to recency bias, where what happened recently looms much larger than events of a decade or century ago.

    In the realm of economics and markets, our perceptions of extremes are backed up with data: based on the ratio of stock valuations to GDP and corporate sales (not profits, because profits are easily gamed) to GDP, the stock market has never been as over-valued as it is today.

    The rally in global stocks off the March lows is the steepest such rally ever. The unemployment rate is equally extreme, as is the Federal Reserve’s money-printing: $3 trillion has been created out of thin air since February 26 as the Fed’s balance sheet rose from $4 trillion to $7 trillion.

    Financial/market extremes are becoming more extreme.

    The disruptive social and political consequences of systemic unfairness and extreme wealth inequality are still unfolding, as are the global consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic.

    Setting aside the specifics, can we discern systemic dynamics that could make extremes become more extreme?

    Feedback loops are one such dynamic. Somewhat counter-intuitively, when feedback arises to moderate the intensity of a trend, that’s negative feedback. When feedback intensifies the trend, it’s positive feedback.

    Why is this counter-intuitive? If a bad trend is moderated by negative feedback, that’s good (positive). If a bad trend gathers momentum due to positive feedback, that’s bad (negative).

    When an insect population explodes higher due to ideal conditions, birds and other predators feast on the over-supply, reducing the infestation. This negative feedback moderates the damage inflicted by the infestation.

    If a rapidly expanding insect horde has few predators and its range and mobility increase with every generation, allowing it to find new food sources, this positive feedback enables a vast expansion in each generation–exactly what’s we’re witnessing with locusts.

    Positive feedback leads to runaway systems, i.e. run to failure where the system accelerates until it collapses.

    If the system is isolated, then the damage is contained. But if the system is interconnected with others, then its failure could trigger the collapse of other systems, either as a direct (first-order) effect or as an indirect (second-order) effect.

    In other words, in highly inter-connected systems, one failure can trigger a domino effect that can become non-linear once second-order effects manifest.

    For example, consider the direct effects of the pandemic on small Main Street businesses. Surveys have found that around 40% of small business owners are planning to close permanently. The reasons were not surveyed, but the obvious reason is the owners don’t see a 100% return of their revenues as likely, and so it’s prudent to staunch the losses by closing now rather than risk catastrophic losses by re-opening.

    The first-order effect of urban disorder is the destruction of some small businesses. This may push indecisive owners into closing for good, or considering moving to a safer locale outside the city.

    The second-order effect is the re-assessment of business owners on the likelihood of further disorder in the future. If that seems probable, or even possible, the uncertainty that creates could cause customers to avoid downtown areas, even if no further disorder occurs. The uncertainty alone will diminish commerce that was already crushed by the pandemic.

    There is another class of dynamics I call hidden extremes because the long-term trend appears benign even as it reaches breaking points with the potential to collapse the system.

    Cost is my ongoing example. The costs of operating a small business have been rising far faster than official inflation or incomes for years. Rent, utilities, licensing fees, taxes, wages, labor overhead, insurance–virtually every category of expense has climbed inexorably for years.

    These increases in fixed costs (costs that are unrelated the number of customers served) have pushed many small businesses closer to the edge of insolvency. To compensate,owners have cut employee hours and shouldered more of the day-to-day work themselves. But there is a limit on this kind of workaround; the owner can only work so many hours a day, and every additional hour increases the odds of burnout, a complete collapse of the owner’s ability to continue over-working.

    I call this the Rising Wedge Model of Breakdown: costs ratchet higher effortlessly, but reducing costs encounters extreme resistance.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    In other words, a consequential percentage of small businesses were at their extreme limit in the rising wedge even before the pandemic. Now the wedge has broken as their revenues falling by even a modest percentage is enough to trigger losses they cannot sustain.

    Another dynamic that can make extremes even more extreme is the Pareto Distribution, a.k.a. the 80/20 Rule: the vital 20% wields outsized influence over the 80%, and the 20% of the 20% (4%) exerts outsized influence over 80% of the 80% (64%).

    Just as 80% of sales come from the top 20% of sales staff and the top 20% of households end up with 80% of the wealth, the top 4% can wield non-linear influence over the 64% if they gain the power to enforce a positive feedback loop to increase their power at the expense of the 64%.

    While we hope the best 4% will gain this influence, history suggests that the worst 4% (sociopaths, etc.) are highly motivated to seek power in a vacuum or when the opportunity presents itself.

    The 64% tend to hope for the best even as the 4% tighten their grip on the economy and social order. This is the totalitarian feedback loop illustrated by the rise of the Nazis in Germany and the Communists in Russia.

    But the 4% need not wield direct power; it is enough that they threaten or disrupt the certainty of the 64%.

    For example, if the movement to de-fund police departments triggers mass resignations of police officers, the 4% criminal element will quickly increase their predation on the 64%, who will then lose the presumption of relative safety required to conduct commerce.

    Again, uncertainty becomes a self-reinforcing feedback that disrupts the economy and the social order, because people make different decisions when they lack certainty in outcomes and the future.

    In other words, the actual crime rate need not increase by much to trigger a complete recalculation of risk and uncertainty that could then trigger a mass exodus from city centers by small businesses and the top 20% of households with the most to lose and the most mobility.

    Once these sectors abandon the city, the economy and social order collapse to levels that no one thought possible. Again, the point here is effects everyone thinks are linear quickly become non-linear: thus a 10% increase in crime doesn’t cause a linear 10% reduction in commerce, it triggers a 50% decline in commerce which then unleashes a second wave of decline as the loss of 50% of small businesses reduces the attractiveness and safety of the hollowed-out neighborhood.

    In my analysis, costs for small businesses and urban residents were already at extremes that were hidden or accepted as “normal.” What few understood was how pushing costs into the top of the rising wedge made the entire system vulnerable to non-linear breakdown. This breakdown is what I see unfolding in the economy and the social order.

    Extremes will become more extreme because the positive feedback loops of the Pareto Distribution are overwhelming the moderating negative feedback loops of resilience (i.e. buffers), certainty and institutional trust/credibility.

    The financial system is extremely vulnerable to disruption and collapse for the same reasons: the extremes are not visible to the vast majority of participants, and so they are exposed to high levels of risk they don’t see or understand.

    *  *  *

    My recent books:

    Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World ($13)
    (Kindle $6.95, print $11.95) Read the first section for free (PDF).

    Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic ($6.95 (Kindle), $12 (print), $13.08 ( 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.

  • Trump Gains In Post-Convention Poll As Biden Support Slips
    Trump Gains In Post-Convention Poll As Biden Support Slips

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/29/2020 – 18:30

    President Trump received a healthy boost in support following the Republican National Convention, while enthusiasm former VP Joe Biden has slipped, according to a new poll by Morning Consult.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    President Donald Trump needed a convention bounce — and he got one, emerging from the Republican National Convention with an improved standing against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, fueled by gains among white voters and those in the suburbs, though he still trails the former vice president nationwide.

    A new Morning Consult poll conducted Friday that asked 4,035 likely voters which candidate they would pick found Biden leading Trump by 6 percentage points, 50 percent to 44 percent. It marked a 4-point improvement from his standing heading into the convention on Aug. 23, when Biden led 52 percent to 42 percent. Friday’s poll had a 2-point margin of error, compared with a 1-point margin of error for responses gathered among 4,810 likely voters on Aug. 23. –Morning Consult

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Keep in mind, nearly 12% of Trump supporters won’t admit to supporting the president (though many argue that figure is much higher), while just 5.4% of Democrats won’t reveal their preferences.

    What’s interesting is that Biden received virtually no boost after the Democratic National Convention, while Trump’s numbers improved after the RNC. What’s more, fewer people tuned in to watch the Republican event.

    The poll results come after a convention that was less watched than the Democratic National Convention a week before. According to The New York Times, an average of 19.4 million people watched the Republican gathering each night on live TV, compared to 21.6 million who watched the DNC; Trump’s acceptance speech was viewed live by 23.8 million, less than Biden’s 24.6 million the week before.

    What’s more, Biden’s lead among suburban voters was nearly cut in half after the RNC – from 14 points (54 percent to 40 percent) to 8 points (50 percent to 42 percent).

    Meanwhile, a far more dramatic race is reflected in Real Clear Politics‘ betting average between Trump and Biden, using data from oddsmakers Betfair, Bovada, Bwin, Matchbook, Smarkets and SpreadEx.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Perhaps pollsters will stop oversampling Democrats this time around to give the false impression Biden is hugely popular, as they did with Hillary Clinton in 2016. Then again, it might be a catch-22 if they dare to reflect actual support for Trump, or lack of faith in Biden.

  • Schiff, Pelosi Livid After Intel Community Ditches 'Manipulated' Election Briefings For Written Updates
    Schiff, Pelosi Livid After Intel Community Ditches ‘Manipulated’ Election Briefings For Written Updates

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/29/2020 – 18:00

    House Democrats are livid after the Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, announced that US intel agencies would be pulling the plug on in-person congressional briefings on election security, and will instead be providing written updates ahead of November.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    In a verbal notification to the House Intelligence Committee, chaired by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Ratcliffe argued that the process will prevent the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive information, according to The Hill.

    Ratcliffe followed up with Friday letters addressed to top House and Senate lawmakers in which he emphasized that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) plans to continue Congressional oversight efforts.

    “The ODNI will primarily meet its obligation to keep Congress fully and currently informed leading into the Presidential election through written finished intelligence products,” read the letters, which were obtained by The Hill.

    “I believe this approach helps ensure, to the maximum extent possible, that the information ODNI provides the Congress in support of your oversight responsibilities on elections security, foreign malign influence, and election interference is not misunderstood nor politicized. It will also better protect our sources and methods and most sensitive intelligence from additional unauthorized disclosures or misuse.”

    Democrats are not happy

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Adam Schiff railed against the move, suggesting that it would help conceal public knowledge of foreign interference in US politics.

    “This is a shocking abdication of its lawful responsibility to keep the Congress currently informed, and a betrayal of the public’s right to know how foreign powers are trying to subvert our democracy. This intelligence belongs to the American people, not the agencies which are its custodian,” reads a joint statement.

    Pelosi and Schiff threatened that they will “consider the full range of tools available to the House to compel compliance” if the ODNI does not resume briefings, claiming it is a “shameful” attempt by the Trump administration to “withhold election-related information from Congress and the American people at the precise moment that greater transparency and accountability is required.”

    CNN first reported the shift from in-person briefings to written updates.

    The announcement comes after William Evanina, the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, released a statement detailing election security threats. –The Hill

    Former acting Director of National Intelligence, Richard Grenell, welcomed the move – tweeting on Saturday: “Career intelligence officials came to me to say they didn’t want to brief the Hill because the partial information leaks and manipulation of their words were detrimental to their careers,” adding “This is a very good reform.“

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

  • 84% Of CFOs Say Stocks Are Overvalued
    84% Of CFOs Say Stocks Are Overvalued

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/29/2020 – 17:30

    It’s not just Wall Street fund managers who, as the latest BofA fund manager survey  revealed, view stocks (along with bonds and gold) to be the most overvalued on record.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Corporate finance chiefs – those whose actions ultimately set the price of their public equity – agree, and in the latest quarterly survey conducted by Deloitte LLP, about 84% of CFOs said equities are too expensive, the second-highest level in the decade since the accounting and consulting firm began collecting the data. Only 2% of respondents said U.S. stocks look cheap (probably the CFOs of the gigacaps who continue to repurchase their stock hand over fist).

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Some 155 CFOs across North America, most of whom work at companies with more than $1 billion in annual revenue, participated in the survey which spanned Aug. 3 to Aug. 7. Since then, the S&P 500 is up another 3.8%.

    Of course, the CFOs are spot on, because at 27 times forward earnings, the S&P 500’s price-earnings ratio is just fractions below its all time high.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    As Bloomberg notes, “the data provide further insight into the views of corporate management, particularly the finance departments responsible for capital expenditures.” 

    While skeptical on stocks, the CFOs did grow slightly more optimistic on the economy, albeit from record lows as the U.S. began recovering from the depths of the Covid-caused recession. In the most recent report, 7% of respondents rated current economic conditions in North America as good, up from just 1% in the prior survey period. However, only 43% said they expect better economic conditions in a year – down 15 percentage points.

    “Economic expectations were improved from really historic lows in the 2Q survey, but more cautious,” Steve Gallucci, Deloitte’s U.S. leader of the CFO Program, said by phone. “Most CFOs felt like it was going to take a lot longer to get their operating capacity back up to pre-pandemic levels.”

    Yet just as the BofA Fund Manager survey reveals the sheer force of FOMO across Wall Street, where despite accepting a market that has never been more overvalued, most are rushing back into the stock market and the majority have recently changed their mind from “it’s a bear market rally” to “it’s a bull market”…

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    … we wonder just what the point of the CFO survey is: after all, as we laid out recently there has been a tidal wave of companies who in recent weeks have announced plans to resume stock buybacks, and certainly favor buybacks over dividends due to the immediate upside impact they have on the stock price and the resulting favorable impact on equity-linked comp plans.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    One thing is clear: if the vast majority of CFOs thought stocks were overvalued, they would be selling equity not buying stock back. Then again, with their own compensation on the line, and with relentless demand for bonds from both investors and the Fed, why not sell some bonds and use the proceeds to buy back some more stock, assuring even more equity levitation and also assuring that next month even more CFOs will find stocks to be overvalued.

  • NPR Claims That Calling A Riot A "Riot" Is Racist
    NPR Claims That Calling A Riot A “Riot” Is Racist

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/29/2020 – 17:05

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

    NPR published an article claiming that calling a riot a “riot” is offensive because it’s “rooted in racism.”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Yes, really.

    The article was written by Jonathan Levinson for Oregon Public Broadcasting, the Portland NPR affiliate.

    Portland has experienced 93 days of continuous rioting – last night was the first time in that entire period that the city has not seen unrest – but according to Levinson, merely calling a spade a spade is a racist dog whistle.

    Levinson’s argument for this position is vague to the point of being non-existent. He appears upset that police are able to declare a riot and use crowd control measures to disperse violent BLM mobs.

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

    His only point appears to be that because crowd control measures were also used in the 60s during the civil rights era, this means that using them today is racist, despite the fact that the clear majority of BLM protesters in Portland are white.

    The media now seems to be taking three different approaches to the riots.

    Claim that they are largely “peaceful,” as both CNN and CBS News did this week.

    Claim that the riots aren’t even happening at all or are minimal, as CNN political analyst Kirsten Powers did.

    Or as NPR has done, simply declare that anyone who dares use the words “riot” to describe the mayhem that has plagued American cities for the past 3 months is a despicable racist.

    Unfortunately for Democrats, the polls suggest that all three of these methods aren’t working because the unrest is turning voters away from Joe Biden in droves.

    *  *  *

    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.

  • NYC Landlords Wage War Against Remote Working
    NYC Landlords Wage War Against Remote Working

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/29/2020 – 16:40

    New York City’s biggest landlords have a major dilemma; that is, companies like Citigroup, JP Morgan, Google, Twitter, and Facebook all encouraged their employees to work remotely from home, which will result in a slower economic recovery. 

    Jeff Blau, chief executive officer of Related Cos., was on Bloomberg Television Thursday talking about the dire situation, and the campaign he is waging, along with other top landlords to convince companies that their employees should return to offices to avoid damaging the local economy. 

    “If you go to the business districts, Midtown, it’s deserted,” Blau said “If employers tell their employees that they don’t need to come back, they’re going decide to hang out at their parents’ or in the Hamptons and phone it in. Ultimately, businesses are not going to be able to survive that.”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Blau said big banks are bringing a new wave of recruits into the city this fall that will require them to work in offices. He said he’s spoken with top firms in the town, asking them to return their workforce to offices. 

    “You can’t run a business on Zoom,” he said. 

    Earlier this month, former hedge fund manager James Altucher told Fox Business that New York City is dead:

    “We have something like 30 to 50 percent of the restaurants in New York City are probably already out of business, and they’re not coming back,” Altucher said.  

    He said many offices in Midtown Manhattan are open but mostly empty as remote working has allowed employees to abandon the city for suburbia. 

    “This completely damages not only the economic eco-system of New York City…but what happens to your tax base when all of your workers can now live anywhere they want to in the country?” asked the fund manager. 

    Altucher warned the situation is “only going to get worse” – as Wall Street firms are now considering a mass exodus.

    When firms break their lease, or let ones expire, and or shrink their corporate footprint, rental income for landlords like Blau will see declines, and if their portfolio of buildings is highly leveraged, it could result in, as we explain in “Stunning Surge In New CMBS Delinquencies Heralds Commercial Real Estate Disaster,” the coming commercial real estate bust. 

    Blau and other landlords are waging war against remote working. The big question: Will they succeed? 

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Aug 28

Today’s News 28th August 2020

  • Germany Imposes Fine For All Non-Mask Wearers In New National Crackdown
    Germany Imposes Fine For All Non-Mask Wearers In New National Crackdown

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 08/28/2020 – 02:45

    It should surprise nobody that this happens first within the EU. While much of the world takes to mask-wearing more out of a social and health consciousness “most people are on board” type attitude, the government of Germany has announced fines as punishment for people not wearing them.

    Chancellor Angela Merkel announced during a virtual meeting Thursday with state governors that almost the entire country will be under a 50 euros minimum ($59) fine for breaching the national mask mandate. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Prior anti-lockdown protest in Germany, via Reuters.

    After the meeting it was announced that all federal states except the east’s Saxony-Anhalt agreed on setting a minimum fine.

    In her comments Merkel also urged Germans to stay home “wherever it is possible” and avoid traveling to “hot spots” like the United States.

    Berlin also agreed to impose a strict limiting on gatherings. Not only have many major public events been canceled outright, but police are enforcing a ban on private parties of more than 25 persons. 

    Large public events will not return until 2021. The new stringent measures including the mask fines go into effect by the end of the day Thursday.

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

    This also as most German schools are now back in session, though there’s been a handful of closures due to new coronavirus cases.

    It’s part of a broader initiative proposed by German health officials to crackdown on people flouting social distancing measures amid the pandemic, even though in recent weeks authorities say coronavirus clusters are due mainly to incoming vacationers.

    Germany’s confirmed COVID-19 numbers have been on the whole relatively low compared to other Western nations, at about 240,000 out of a population of 83 million.

  • NATO's "Unified Front" At Breaking Point
    NATO’s “Unified Front” At Breaking Point

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 08/28/2020 – 02:00

    Authored by Danny Sjursen via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

    Last month, a Turkish warship came one step away from firing missiles at a French naval vessel off the coast of Libya. In response, Paris suspended its involvement in Operation Sea Guardian — a multinational maritime effort to provide security in the Mediterranean Sea and halt the arms trafficking fueling Libya’s ongoing civil war. Initially, only eight member states — notably excluding both the U.S. and U.K. — supported France’s official complaint. This was only the latest incident in the increasingly frequent — and exceedingly awkward — tensions between several of Washington’s core North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies.

    Indeed, from South America to East Asia, NATO members stand divided over many critical foreign policy issues of the moment.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    On the subject of NATO — as with much else — President Trump is obtuse and ill-informed.  Only here he isn’t exactly wrong. In fact, recent events raise serious questions about the 70-year old alliance’s lingering relevance and utility — as in what, so to speak, NATO is for?

    Sure, The Donald is hardly a bridge-builder, but the media’s temptation to blame him alone for NATO’s growing fissures ultimately misses the mark — and the backstory. While his foreign policy fiascos have widened its divisions, the alliance’s inherent contractions and hypocrisies preceded Mr. Trump.

    Indeed, some of the current fracture traces back to NATO’s complicated genesis; the rest, mainly, to the problematic pivot after the collapse of its justification-boogeyman – the Soviet Union – and its leading American member’s hyper-imperial post-9/11 turn.

    NATO’s original sins

    NATO’s contemporary tensions have rather old roots, beginning with the original sins of its founding. Perennially and self-consciously justified as a defensive alliance, the oft-forgotten reality is that NATO was actually formed (in 1949) six years before the ostensibly expansionist Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. And, while the Red Army undoubtedly occupied and helped stifle real representative democracy in Eastern Europe, Washington’s misdiagnosis of Russian postwar capabilities, intentions, and supposed Soviet-led communist monolith counted as the alliance’s first foundational sin. The other was to expediently, but near-fatally, jettison preconditions for Western European members to meaningfully decolonize their anachronistic empires. The first error counterproductively heightened hostility and engendered an apocalyptic arms race; the latter ceded much moral high ground to the Eastern Bloc.

    These sins-at-the-founding manifested in early alliance tensions. In the mid-1960s, wary of unnecessary nuclear war, frustrated by U.S. hegemony, and seeking a “Third Way” in the binary Cold War, an ever-sovereignty-conscious France withdrew from NATO’s integrated command structure and booted out American troops (though officially remaining in the alliance).  Throughout the era, Paris even tenuously and haltingly courted Moscow, and vice versa.  Furthermore, Washington sometimes waged diplomatic battles over its European allies imperial intransigence. The 1956 Suez Crisis — the joint French-British-Israeli invasion of Egypt — and Paris’s obstinate brutality during Algeria’s War of Independence (1954-62), were just two notable examples.

    Due to the enduring utility of an exaggerated Soviet threat, NATO weathered these inherent contractions. Yet today, despite — or perhaps because of — the best efforts of Washingtonian hawks’ best efforts to revive the peril of Ronald Reagan’s “evil empire” in the form of Putin’s circumscribed Russia, it’s now America’s off-the-rails imperial delusions that risk spiking the alliance. The pivotal shift came after 1991, the very moment NATO’s Soviet raison d’etre officially transformed into its Russian Federation shell. Two climactic decisions conceived in Washington — one of inertia, the other betrayal — then set the stage for today’s farcical Cold War reprise and its related alliance-splintering.

    It is all too easy to forget that a crumbled Berlin Wall (1989) and collapsed Soviet Union (1991) very well could — and possibly should — have spelled the end of an inherently anti-Russian NATO. However, misreading internal Soviet collapse as a personal victory, Washington fell prey to triumphalist delusions and opportunistically maintained NATO to abet its unipolar destiny.  Then, even after Mikhail Gorbachev stunningly agreed to the reunification (within NATO!) of Germany — a two-time 20th century-invader of his Mother Russia — a succession of U.S. presidents reneged on the Soviet premier’s one requested (if informal) quid pro quo.  “Any extension of the zone of NATO is unacceptable,” Gorbachev had then warned, to which Secretary of State James Baker assured him “there would be no extension of NATO’s jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east” — though he and many analysts later quibbled about the promise’s exact meaning and scope.

    Instead, it wasn’t three years before President Bill Clinton kicked-off NATO’s eastward expansion that’s now reached into the formal boundaries of the old Soviet Union and to the very borders of the current Russian Federation. The rest, as they say, is history — though it’s a history which undergirds many or most NATO-tensions of the sort that surfaced in the Franco-Turkish naval standoff. For in addition to setting conditions for one past (Georgia, 2008), one present (Ukraine, 2014-), and another potential future war (Baltic States, ?), Washington’s provocations and adventurism have deeply divided the alliance’s member states. Faced with the rise of both China and America’s global unpopularity, and an increasingly multipolar world, NATO countries steadily hedge and diverge on today’s key challenges.

    NATO 2020: A survey in global divergence

    Which brings us back to the conflict between NATO’s second-largest (Turkey) and third-largest (France) militaries, over the fate of war-torn Libya. France and Turkey accuse each other of violating the arms embargo — which both probably do — as each not-so-secretly back equally-problematic opposing sides in a civil war catalyzed by NATO’s ill-advised 2011 regime change fiasco. Furthermore, in an imbroglio so complex one struggles to keep up, the Libyan debacle reflects — both literally and tangentially — many other cracks in the alliance.

    In a direct sense, Paris tacitly supports Moscow’s position since both — along with America’s non-NATO Saudi, Egyptian, and Emirati partners — back the forces of former CIA-asset turned warlord General Khalifa Haftar.  Conversely, Turkey (and to some extent Rome) and also non-NATO Qatar — all home to sizable U.S. military bases — actively assist Libya’s vaguely Islamist, but internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA). Bolstering the GNA’s defenses are some 3500 Turkish-paid Syrian mercenary veterans of their native country’s own proxy civil war, many recruited from the ample refugee camps within Turkey. Meanwhile, the Trump administration seemingly has no coherent Libya strategy.

    Nevertheless, this Syria connection illustrates the bewildering fluidity of NATO fracture. In Libya, Washington watches from afar as France sides with Russia against Turkey and its Syrian proxies. In Syria’s own bloody civil war, the Obama administration’s long — if halting — fanciful search and support for anti-regime “moderate rebels” initially cohered with the Turkish line. However, in recent years, as it became clear that Bashar al-Assad — with considerable Russian and Iranian assistance — would win the war, Washington’s and Ankara’s positions increasingly and dangerously diverged.

    While the Turks never overtly changed sides, they agreed to Tripartite Summit peace talks with the Russians and Iranians that conspicuously excluded Washington. Then, Ankara risked U.S.-sanctions to close a multibillion dollar arms deal with Moscow which included the purchase of sophisticated Russian S400 missile systems. Matters were even messier on the ground. Turkey hoped to carve a physical sphere of influence in Syria before an impending Assad-favorable war denouement. Fearful of both regime resurgence in the area and U.S.-backed Kurdish autonomy — given Ankara’s own conflict with its Kurdish minority — in October 2019 the Turkish military invaded Northeast Syria. Ankara launched threats (but thankfully not missiles) Washington’s way and its troops nearly traded blows with fleeing U.S. forces.

    Then, early this year, Russia apparently did draw Turkish blood as the two countries came to the brink of war in Syria. A tenuous March ceasefire seemed to — at least temporarily — avert a regional catastrophe. However, in yet another twist, both Russian and Turkish troops were injured in a July 14 rebel roadside bomb attack on their joint patrol of the agreement’s stipulated deescalation zone. Meanwhile, the U.S. remains openly hostile to Moscow’s (invited) presence.  Washington recently tightened callous sanctions that punish civilians unlucky enough to live in Assad’s sphere and complains of Russian encroachments near remaining U.S. troop positions. In Syria, Washington and Ankara hardly present a consistent or united NATO front.

    Still, the alliance’s fault lines extend beyond the Arab World. In most cases, these divisions trace back to member states’ unease with U.S. imperial overreach and pugnacious provocations. Early rumblings surfaced during the Afghan War, when many NATO allies proved unenthusiastic about — and attached combat-avoidance “national caveats” to — increased roles in the alliance’s first “out-of-area” expeditionary operation. Member states were quick, and correct, to point out that NATO was never designed for such missions.

    More recently, in ruptures that can be blamed on Mr. Trump, some NATO allies have proven lukewarm on Washington’s belligerence towards China, Iran, and Venezuela. For example, while the alliance has seemingly closed ranks against Beijing in the wake of COVID-fallout, it’s less clear that the previously wavering Europeans — on the Chinese telecom giant Huawei’s 5G network and China’s overall “Belt and Road Initiative” — will sign on to Trump’s desired Cold War 2.0 in the longer term.

    Furthermore, even the most traditionally supportive NATO allies publicly opposed The Donald’s frankly absurd 2018 decision to withdraw from the eminently workable Obama-era Iranian nuclear deal. Then, despite officially standing with the U.S., NATO leaders called for restraint and carefully distanced themselves from Trump’s actual decision to assassinate Iran’s top general Qasem Soleimani. Lastly, while most NATO members have joined Washington in recognizing Juan Guiado’s unelected Venezuelan shadow government, most are less enthusiastic about recent U.S. escalatory adventurism such as placing bounties on President Nicolas Maduro’s head and the confusing American mercenary coup attempt. In fact, NATO’s perennial frenemy, Turkey, has proved willing to violate U.S. sanctions to continue trading with the Maduro regime.

    None of this should come as a surprise.  Given the alliance’s problematic origins, inherent contradictions, plus its post-Soviet and post-9/11 American imperial stressors, its remarkable that NATO has endured this long.  It’s a safe bet that Donald Trump knows little of this history, and is even more blind to his own role in fracturing an already embattled alliance. If anything, he sees recent internal tensions as only confirming his frequent assertions that NATO is “obsolete.”  Yet the disturbing truth is that Trump is right, if even for all the wrong — and partly self-fulfilling — reasons.

  • The WEF Clarion Call: A Breakdown Of "The Great Reset"
    The WEF Clarion Call: A Breakdown Of “The Great Reset”

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 08/27/2020 – 23:45

    Authored by Steven Guinness,

    Last month I posted an article that looked at the World Economic Forum as the institution behind ‘The Great Reset‘ agenda that was launched in June. One of the main themes of the article was the WEF’s ‘Strategic Intelligence platform’, which the organisation describe as ‘a dynamic system of contextual intelligence that enables users to trace relationships and interdependencies between issues, supporting more informed decision-making‘.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    As I made reference to, Strategic Intelligence is the mechanism which brings all the interests that the WEF focus on together. This includes specific countries and industries, as well as global issues like Covid-19 and the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

    When you look into Strategic Intelligence, one aspect to it that quickly becomes apparent is how each global issue and industry intertwines with one another. For instance, Covid-19 is a strand of ‘The Great Reset‘ and vice versa. What this does is create the impression that only a collectivised approach incorporating all ‘stakeholders‘ has the capacity to deal with crises on a global scale. The WEF is built upon the belief that nations and corporations must be interdependent and seek to remedy the world’s problems through the medium of global institutions.

    So it is little surprise then that the WEF have devised through their Strategic Intelligence platform ‘The Great Reset‘. What this entails can be catagorised into two parts. First are the seven leading objectives for achieving the reset. In no particular order these are:

    1. Shaping the Economic Recovery

    2. Harnessing the Fourth Industrial Revolution

    3. Strengthening Regional Development

    4. Revitalizing Global Cooperation

    5. Developing Sustainable Business Models

    6. Restoring the Health of the Environment

    7. Redesigning Social Contracts, Skills and Jobs

    Next comes a mix of global issues and industries woven into ‘The Great Reset‘ agenda. At last count there were over fifty areas that make up the reset. These include:

    Blockchain; Digital Identity; Internet Governance; Development Finance; Sustainable Development; Future of Health and Healthcare; Global Governance; Financial and Monetary Systems; Public Finance and Social Protection; Climate Change; Drones; 5G; The Ocean; Banking and Capital Markets; Aviation, Travel and Tourism; International Trade and Investment; Covid-19; Biodiversity; Cities and Urbanization; Leadership in the 4IR; Geo-economics; Global Health; International Security; Geopolitics; Future of Food; Air Pollution; 3D Printing; Batteries; Circular Economy; Future of Mobility; Human Rights; Gender Parity; Taxation; Future of Media, Entertainment and Culture; Digital Economy and New Value Creation; Fourth Industrial Revolution; Future of Economic Progress; Workforce and Employment; Agile Governance; Global Risks; Advanced Manufacturing and Production; Environment and Natural Resource Security; Plastics and the Environment; Corporate Governance; Forests; Justice and Law; Civic Participation; LGBTI Inclusion; Inclusive Design; Future of Computing; Artificial Intelligence and Robotics; Systemic Racism

    As mentioned, all these subjects intermix throughout Strategic Intelligence. The distinction comes in the fact that the World Economic Forum have identified ‘The Great Reset‘ as the one issue that can bind all these other areas of concern together to try and bring about an economic and societal ‘new world order‘. So much so that when announcing the initiative in June, the WEF confirmed that the reset will be the theme of its annual Davos meeting in Switzerland come January 2021. In previous years the WEF have only published details of an upcoming theme a few weeks before the meeting takes place. This time, however, they have given over six months notice, which suggests the level of significance that the WEF have placed on ‘The Great Reset‘.

    Having ascertained the seven main objectives and the plethora of industries and issues tied to them, let’s now get a sense of the motivations behind the reset from those who are calling for it.

    The Founder and Executive Chairman of the institution, Klaus Schwab, and the IMF Managing Director, Kristalina Georgieva, are two of the most prominent voices.

    Beginning with Schwab, in articles posted on the WEF website (Now is the time for a ‘great reset’ and COVID-19’s legacy: This is how to get the Great Reset right) and during several interviews that can be found on the WEF’s Youtube channel, Schwab summarises why he considers an economic, societal, geopolitical, environmental and technological reset to be essential.

    From Schwab’s perspective, there are numerous reasons why a Great Reset should be pursued, but Covid-19 is the most urgent of them all. Not only has the virus demonstrated that existing systems are no longer fit for purpose, it has also ‘accelerated our transition into the age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution‘. For those unfamiliar with the Fourth Industrial Revolution, this was a concept that the World Economic Forum led with for their 2016 Davos meeting. Back in 2018 I published a brief overview of 4IR which can be found here.

    With systems not suited to the 21st century, Schwab spoke of the urgency to ‘restore a functioning system of smart global cooperation structured to address the challenges of the next 50 years.’ To achieve this, all stakeholders of global society will have to be integrated into a ‘community of common interest, purpose and action‘. No one, it seems, is permitted to be left behind. We go as one, as a collective, whether an individual likes it or not. Every country will need to take part. Every industry must be transformed. This, according to Schwab, will signify a Great Reset of capitalism and a new era of prosperity.

    But what if all stakeholders don’t band together behind the initiative? In Schwab’s view, to be dis-united ‘will lead to more polarisation, nationalism, racism, increased social unrest and conflicts‘. In short, a greater level of chaos and degradation of systems, leaving the world more fragile and less sustainable.

    Schwab has insisted that to avoid this scenario, minor changes will not suffice. Instead, ‘entirely new foundations for our economic and social systems‘ must be built. Covid-19, therefore, is an ‘historical moment to shape the system for a post Corona era.’ It is an opportunity that Schwab says must not be missed.

    Schwab went further a few weeks after the Great Reset was launched. As many are aware, using crisis as an opportunity to bring about major economic and societal change is a notorious strategy of global planners. And every so often some of those planners suggest as much.  According to Schwab, ‘acute crises favour introspection and foster the potential for transformation‘. The Prince of Wales, who fully endorses the Great Reset, said something similar in that ‘unprecedented shockwaves of crisis may make people more receptive to bigger visions of change‘.

    This begs the question – does the same level of potential for change exist without the onset of crises? To a small extent, perhaps, but more likely is that until a population is faced with a threat or danger that they believe risks being detrimental to them personally, the motivation to act and call for reform is not as urgent. Minds need to be concentrated on the seeming disaster at hand before sufficient support can be gained for the policies that global planners seek.

    And if minds can be concentrated, then as Schwab points out, ‘a new world could emerge, the contours of which it is incumbent on us to re-imagine and to re-draw‘.

    Many of the policies that global figureheads desire are within the purview of the the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which Schwab and his ilk have been promoting as essential since the back end of 2015. Now a global crisis of sufficient magnitude has presented an opening to further the goals of the global elite. Did this happen by coincidence or by design? Truthfully, no one can say for sure. Whilst the World Economic Forum were part of a pandemic simulation exercise a few months before the world entered into a live pandemic, this is not incontrovertible evidence of what some are now referring to as a ‘plandemic‘.

    When the Great Reset agenda was unveiled, one of the other leading proponents was IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva. She declared it of ‘paramount importance‘ that a future return to economic growth must encompass a ‘greener, smarter and fairer world‘. There is no need to wait, said Georgieva. The world must act now.

    One of the most important takeaways from Georgieva’s intervention was her admission that ‘the digital economy is the big winner of this crisis‘. We have seen this already through the exponential growth in central banks discussing the issuance of their own digital currencies and using Covid-19 as a reason to reinforce calls for a new global economic ‘architecture‘.

    In a speech to Italy’s National Consultation in June (Italy, Europe and the Global Recovery in 2021), Georgieva said that Covid-19 ‘may have accelerated the digital transformation by two or three years‘. The unproven fear of cash being a transmitter of the virus, along with people relying on contactless payments and online transactions, have no doubt contributed to her outlook.

    Georgieva’s focus is on ‘the economy of tomorrow‘, which is reason enough for her that the ‘economy of yesterday‘ should be consigned to history. Entirely new foundations are required, not a rework of the failed systems of old. If it sounds like Georgieva and Schwab are reading from the same script, I would suggest that they are.

    Georgieva believes that 2021 is a make or break year for the Great Reset. Either the world chooses more cooperation or more fragmentation.  According to her, ‘this is the moment to decide that history will look back on this as the Great Reset, not the Great Reversal‘.

    As you might have guessed, ‘the most important anchor of recovery‘ is for a Covid-19 vaccination, which Georgieva hopes will be available at scale by 2021.

    The implication is that without a vaccine the world will be unable to return to any sense of normality, particularly in terms of open interaction with your fellow man. Only with a vaccine and supplementary treatments can there be a ‘fully fledged recovery‘.

    To support the drive for a Great Reset, in July Klaus Schwab co-wrote a book with Thierry Malleret (who founded the Global Risk Network at the World Economic Forum) called ‘Covid-19: The Great Reset‘. In a follow up article I will be looking at some aspects to the book, and also will make an argument for why the idea of a ‘Great Reversal‘ might not be as detrimental to global planners as the likes of Kristalina Georgieva make out.

  • Fitness Watches Do More Harm Than Good For Heart Patients
    Fitness Watches Do More Harm Than Good For Heart Patients

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 08/27/2020 – 23:25

    Health apps and fitness watches provide incredible insight into one’s health but can also give rise to excessive anxiety, according to a new study. 

    Tariq Osman Andersen, an assistant professor at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Computer Science, said fitness watches that measure sleep, heart rates, and physical activity could have drawbacks for the wearer. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Andersen’s research team conducted a six-month study with 27 heart patients who used ‘Fitbit’ fitness watches. The team said some wearers experienced increased anxiety over misinterpret heart data:

    “Our study shows that, overall, self-measurements are more problematic than beneficial when it comes to the patient experience. Patients begin to use the information from their Fitbits just as they would use a doctor. However, they don’t get help interpreting their watch data. This makes them unnecessarily anxious, or they may learn something that is far from reality,” he said. 

    Published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, the study determined the “pros and cons of using Fitbit watches:”

    -More information calms, but also awakens doubt

    Patients have a sense that they are becoming more in tune with their overall health, but they link the information to their heart disease, for which there is no safe basis. For example, if they see that they aren’t sleeping as much as they should be, they become uncomfortable and fear that this may exacerbate their illness. Similarly, they often link fast hearts rate with an increased risk of a heart attack.

    “Conversely, the Fitbit watch can be calming, if data shows that you are sleeping well and have a low heart rate. The problem is that you cannot use data directly related to heart disease because the watch is designed for sports and wellness, as opposed to managing the disease,” explains Tariq Osman Andersen.

    -Patients gain the courage to exercise, while simultaneously experiencing feelings of guilt

    Another aspect of the Fitbit watch with both positive and negative aspects is exercise. On the one hand, patients were motivated to be active, but at the same time, the app revealed when patients did not attain the recommended 10,000 daily steps, which made many of them feel guilty. 

    As for heart patients using smartwatches, the data is prone to misinterpretation by the wearer as a medical professional is not examining it and could produce unwanted anxiety. 

    Sometimes, maybe too much technology is bad… 

  • Escobar: Definitive Eurasian Alliance Is Closer Than You Think
    Escobar: Definitive Eurasian Alliance Is Closer Than You Think

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 08/27/2020 – 23:05

    Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Saker blog (originally posted at The Asia Times),

    Beijing-Moscow is already on; Berlin-Beijing is a work in progress; the missing but not distant link is Berlin-Moscow..

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    We have seen how China is meticulously planning all its crucial geopolitical and geoeconomic moves all the way to 2030 and beyond.

    What you are about to read next comes from a series of private, multilateral discussions among intel analysts, and may helpfully design the contours of the Big Picture.

    In China, it’s clear the path ahead points to boosting internal demand, and shifting monetary policy towards the creation of credit to consolidate the building of world-class domestic industries.

    In parallel, there’s a serious debate in Moscow that Russia should proceed along the same path. As an analyst puts it, “Russia should not import anything but technologies it needs until it can create them themselves and export only the oil and gas that is required to pay for imports that should be severely restricted. China still needs natural resources, which makes Russia and China unique allies. A nation should be as self-sufficient as possible.”

    That happens to mirror the exact CCP strategy, as delineated by President Xi in his July 31 Central Committee meeting.

    And that also goes right against a hefty neoliberal wing in the CCP – collaborationists? – who would dream of a party conversion into Western-style social democracy, on top of it subservient to the interests of Western capital.

    Comparing China’s economic velocity now with the US is like comparing a Maserati Gran Turismo Sport (with a V8 Ferrari engine) with a Toyota Camry. China, proportionately, holds a larger reservoir of very well educated young generations; an accelerated rural-urban migration; increased poverty eradication; more savings; a cultural sense of deferred gratification; more – Confucianist – social discipline; and infinitely more respect for the rationally educated mind. The process of China increasingly trading with itself will be more than enough to keep the necessary sustainable development momentum going.

    The hypersonic factor

    Meanwhile, on the geopolitical front, the consensus in Moscow – from the Kremlin to the Foreign Ministry – is that the Trump administration is not “agreement-capable”, a diplomatic euphemism that refers to a de facto bunch of liars; and it’s also not “legal-capable”, an euphemism applied, for instance, to lobbying for snapback sanctions when Trump has already ditched the JCPOA.

    President Putin has already said in the recent past that negotiating with Team Trump is like playing chess with a pigeon: the demented bird walks all over the chessboard, shits indiscriminately, knocks over pieces, declares victory, then runs away.

    In contrast, serious lobbying at the highest levels of the Russian government is invested in consolidating the definitive Eurasian alliance, uniting Germany, Russia and China.

    But that would only apply to Germany after Merkel. According to a US analyst, “the only thing holding back Germany is that they can expect to lose their car exports to the US and more, but I tell them that can happen right away because of the dollar-euro exchange rate, with the euro becoming more expensive.”

    On the nuclear front, and reaching way beyond the current Belarus drama – as in there will be no Maidan in Minsk – Moscow has made it very clear, in no uncertain terms, that any missile attack from NATO will be interpreted as a nuclear attack.

    The Russian defensive missile system – including the already tested S-500s, and soon the already designed S-600s – arguably may be 99% effective. That means Russia would still have to absorb some punishment. And this is why Russia has built an extensive network of nuclear bomb shelters in big cities to protect at least 40 million people.

    Russian analysts interpret China’s defensive approach along the same lines. Beijing will want to develop – if they have not already done so – a defensive shield, and still retain the ability to strike back against a US attack with nuclear missiles.

    The best Russian analysts, such as Andrei Martyanov, know that the three top weapons of a putative next war will be offensive and defensive missiles and submarines combined with cyber warfare capabilities.

    The key weapon today – and the Chinese understand it very clearly – is nuclear submarines. Russians are observing how China is building their submarine fleet – carrying hypersonic missiles – faster than the US. Surface fleets are obsolete. A wolf pack of Chinese submarines can easily knock out a carrier task force. Those 11 US carrier task forces are in fact worthless.

    So in the – horrifying – event of the seas becoming un-sailable in a war, with the US, Russia and China blocking all commercial traffic, that’s the key strategic reason pushing China to obtain as much of its natural resources overland from Russia.

    Even if pipelines are bombed they can be fixed in no time. Thus the supreme importance for China of Power of Siberia – as well as the dizzying array of Gazprom projects.

    The Hormuz factor

    A closely guarded secret in Moscow is that right after German sanctions imposed in relation to Ukraine, a major global energy operator approached Russia with an offer to divert to China no less than 7 million barrels a day of oil plus natural gas. Whatever happens, the stunning proposal is still sitting on the table of Shmal Gannadiy, a top oil/gas advisor to President Putin.

    In the event that would ever happen, it would secure for China all the natural resources they need from Russia. Under this hypothesis, the Russian rationale would be to bypass German sanctions by switching its oil exports to China, which from a Russian point of view is more advanced in consumer technology than Germany.

    Of course this all changed with the imminent conclusion of Nord Stream 2 – despite Team Trump taking no prisoners to sanction everyone in sight.

    Backdoor intel discussions made it very clear to German industrialists that if Germany would ever lose its Russian source of oil and natural gas, coupled with the Strait of Hormuz shut down by Iran in the event of an American attack, the German economy might simply collapse.

    There have been serious cross-country intel discussions about the possibility of a US-sponsored October Surprise involving a false flag to be blamed on Iran. Team Trump’s “maximum pressure” on Iran has absolutely nothing to do with the JCPOA. What matters is that even indirectly, the Russia-China strategic partnership has made it very clear that Tehran will be protected as a strategic asset – and as a key node of Eurasia integration.

    Cross-intel considerations center on a scenario assuming a – quite unlikely – collapse of the government in Tehran. The first thing Washington would do in this case is to pull the switch of the SWIFT clearing system. The target would be to crush the Russian economy. That’s why Russia and China are actively increasing the merger of the Russian Mir and the Chinese CHIPS payment systems, as well as bypassing the US dollar in bilateral trade.

    It has already been gamed in Beijing that were that scenario ever to take place, China might lose its two key allies in one move, and then have to face Washington alone, still on a stage of not being able to assure for itself all the necessary natural resources. That would be a real existential threat. And that explains the rationale behind the increasing interconnection of the Russia-China strategic partnership plus the $400 billion, 25-year-long China-Iran deal.

    Bismarck is back

    Another possible secret deal already discussed at the highest intel levels is the possibility of a Bismarckian Reinsurance Treaty to be established between Germany and Russia. The inevitable consequence would be a de facto Berlin-Moscow-Beijing alliance spanning the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), alongside the creation of a new – digital? – Eurasian currency for the whole Eurasian alliance, including important yet peripheral actors such as France and Italy.

    Well, Beijing-Moscow is already on. Berlin-Beijing is a work in progress. The missing link is Berlin-Moscow.

    That would represent not only the ultimate nightmare for Mackinder-drenched Anglo-American elites, but in fact the definitive passing of the geopolitical torch from maritime empires back to the Eurasian heartland.

    It’s not a fiction anymore. It’s on the table.

    Adding to it, let’s do some little time traveling and go back to the year 1348.

    The Mongols of the Golden Horde are in Crimea, laying siege to Kaffa – a trading port in the Black Sea controlled by the Genoese.

    Suddenly, the Mongol army is consumed by bubonic plague.

    They start catapulting contaminated corpses over the walls of the Crimean city.

    So imagine what happened when ships started sailing again from Kaffa to Genoa.

    They transported the plague to Italy.

    By 1360, the Black Death was literally all over the place – from Lisbon to Novgorod, from Sicily to Norway. As much as 60% of Europe’s population may have been killed – over 100 million people.

    A case can be made that the Renaissance, because of the plague, was delayed by a whole century.

    Covid-19 is of course far from a medieval plague. But it’s fair to ask.

    What Renaissance could it be possibly delaying?

    Well, it might well be actually advancing the Renaissance of Eurasia. It’s happening just as the Hegemon, the former “end of history”, is internally imploding, “distracted from distraction by distraction”, to quote T.S. Eliot. Behind the fog, in prime shadowplay pastures, the vital moves to reorganize the Eurasian land mass are already on.

  • China Military Claims It Expelled US Destroyer From Its Territorial Waters, US Military Counters This Is Fake News
    China Military Claims It Expelled US Destroyer From Its Territorial Waters, US Military Counters This Is Fake News

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 08/27/2020 – 23:00

    In a bizarre exchange of what may or may not be fake news, today China’s Global Times claimed that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army “expelled a US warship that trespassed into China’s territorial waters in the Xisha Islands in the South China Sea on Thursday, near an ongoing Chinese military exercise zone that reportedly featured live-fire anti-ship ballistic missile launches.”

    The USS Mustin, a US Navy guided missile destroyer, trespassed into the China’s territorial waters in the Xisha Islands on Thursday, and the PLA Southern Theater Command dispatched naval and air forces to track, identify and warn it leave, said Senior Colonel Li Huamin, a spokesperson for the PLA Southern Theater Command on early Friday.

    The report went on to say that “the US ignored the rules of the international law, repeatedly stirred up troubles in the South China Sea, exercised navigational hegemony in the name of “freedom of navigation,” seriously undermined China’s sovereignty and security interests, and severely sabotaged the international navigation order in the South China Sea.”

    The allegation sparked an immediate response from the US military which said that the Global Times claimed was “without evidence” or basically fake news. According to American Military News, the 7th Fleet confirmed the destroyer performed a freedom of navigation operation despite Chinese territorial claims to the island chain.

    The press release comes after China’s Global Times state media outlet reported Chinese People’s Liberation Army claims, without evidence, that they expelled the U.S. warship.

    The 7th Fleet stated, “On Aug. 27 (local date), USS Mustin (DDG 89) asserted navigational rights and freedoms in the vicinity of the Paracel Islands, consistent with international law. This freedom of navigation operation (“FONOP”) upheld the rights, freedoms, and lawful uses of the sea recognized in international law by challenging the unlawful restrictions on innocent passage imposed by China, Taiwan, and Vietnam and also by challenging China’s claim to straight baselines enclosing the Paracel Islands.

    The 7th Fleet statement makes no references to challenges by Chinese forces in the area in which the FONOP occurred. Still, the Global Times quoted PLA Senior Colonel Li Huamin, who said the PLA Southern Theater Command dispatched naval and air forces to track, identify and warn the ship to leave but Li provided no evidence the U.S. warship acted in any way outside of its planned operations.

    The US military also accused Li of making similar false comments in past U.S. FONOPs around the Paracel Islands.

    In his statements Thursday, Li said, “The U.S. ignored the rules of the international law, repeatedly stirred up troubles in the South China Sea, exercised navigational hegemony in the name of ‘freedom of navigation,’ seriously undermined China’s sovereignty and security interests, and severely sabotaged the international navigation order in the South China Sea.” He added that “we urge the US to stop this kind of provocative action, to strictly manage maritime and aerial military operations and strictly restrain its frontline troops, so as to avoid accidents.”

    Separately, the U.S. Department of Defense issued a statement Thursday, criticizing Chinese ballistic missile launches near the Paracel Islands.

    “U.S. forces operate in the South China Sea on a daily basis, as they have for more than a century,” the 7th Fleet states. “They routinely operate in close coordination with like-minded allies and partners who share our commitment to uphold a free and open international order that promotes security and prosperity. All of our operations are designed to be conducted in accordance with international law and demonstrate that the United States will fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows – regardless of the location of excessive maritime claims and regardless of current events.”

  • 'Empty Highways' – About 61 Million Americans Have Stopped Commuting In Post-Covid World 
    ‘Empty Highways’ – About 61 Million Americans Have Stopped Commuting In Post-Covid World 

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 08/27/2020 – 22:45

    A new survey from ValuePenguin.com, commissioned by LendingTree, found 61 million Americans have stopped commuting to work due to the virus-induced recession. The reduction of motor vehicles on highways will result in deep economic scarring across the entire economy. 

    The coronavirus has upended nearly every aspect of life in the United States, and Americans’ driving behavior and commutes are no exception. ValuePenguin surveyed drivers to see how their habits have changed. We found a large number of drivers are no longer commuting to the office, whether because they are working from home or have lost employment due to COVID-19. -ValuePenguin

    The survey found three in 10 respondents with motor vehicles are no longer making the daily commute to work in a post-COVID-19 world: 

    About three in 10 consumers with a motor vehicle said they no longer have a commute due to COVID-19, either because they’re working from home (19%) or they temporarily or permanently lost their jobs (10%).

    On the other hand, 26% are back to their daily commute as of August, including essential workers (17%) and those whose employers reopened their offices (9%). (The remainder don’t have commutes either because they worked from home prior to the pandemic, or they were not working prior to the pandemic.) -ValuePenguin

    Millions of motor vehicles are missing from America’s highways since March. About 38% of respondents said traffic in their respective metro areas remains subdued, and 36% said traffic was reduced but trending back to pre-pandemic levels. 

    For more color on empty streets and highways, TomTom high-frequency traffic congestion data of New York City shows traffic levels remain subdued. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The decline in travel has resulted in respondents making fewer trips to the gas pump. Almost a third said they’re driving every day, compared to 50% of drivers pre-pandemic. The number of respondents who fill up their tanks every week dropped by 26% in August versus before the pandemic.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    While declining fuel consumption and oversupplied markets have subdued gasoline and diesel prices, a reduction in travel has resulted in a quarter of respondents to make cost-cutting changes to their auto insurance. 

    About 14% switched to another provider that was offering better deals, 12% reduced the amount of coverage since they are driving less and 3% took one of their household’s vehicles off the policy because their family is using fewer cars. –ValuePenguin

    The survey’s results of a reduction in commuting were echoed in a recent KPMG International report:

    The effects of COVID-19 will be felt for years. The response to the virus has accelerated powerful behavioral changes that will continue to shape how Americans use automobiles. We believe the changes in commuting and e-commerce are here to stay and that the combined effect of reduced commuting and shopping journeys could be as much as 270 billion fewer vehicle miles traveled (VMT) each year in the US. -KPMG

    The permanent loss of vehicles on highways will have a tremendous impact across the entire economy and is suggestive that a “V-shaped” recovery is not in the cards for this year or next.

  • America's Metastasizing Class Wars
    America’s Metastasizing Class Wars

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 08/27/2020 – 22:25

    Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

    Class wars are the inevitable result of an economic system in which ‘anything goes if you’re rich enough and winners take most’.

    The traditional class war has been waged between wage-earners (who sell their labor) and their employers (owners of capital and the means of production). These classes have been assigned various names (proletariat, bourgeoisie, capitalists, etc.) but these broad class definitions don’t describe all the class conflicts emerging in the modern U.S. economy.

    Before we dig deeper, let’s stipulate that ownership of various forms of capital still defines class: the wealthy live off unearned income skimmed from capital and everyone else lives off earned income from selling their labor. (Those without either source of income become dependents of the State).

    What you own or don’t own defines your class interests, but these have been fragmented into a multitude of sub-classes. Six years ago I took a stab at defining America’s Nine Classes: The New Class Hierarchy (April 29, 2014), to which I would now add a tenth class, gig economy precariat, who paradoxically may own one of the means of production such as the car needed to become an Uber driver, but the precariat doesn’t own the controlling means of production, which is the Uber platform.

    As a consequence, all the profits flow to the owners of the platform. Since the gig economy is not traditional hourly employment, there is no employer-provided security at all.

    My taxonomy of class in America:

    1. The Deep State.

    2. The Oligarchs.

    3. New Nobility.

    4. Upper Caste.

    5. State Nomenklatura.

    6. The Middle Class.

    7. The Working Poor.

    8. State Dependents.

    9. Mobile Creatives.

    To which we add a new category of the working poor who lack even the minimal security of the conventional Working Poor (such as Amazon fulfillment center workers):

    10. Gig economy precariat.

    For the purposes of today’s discussion, let’s focus on the conflicts between four classes:

    1. The Central State, which includes the elected government, the permanent Deep State, the Federal Reserve and and the managers/technocrats who run the State Nomenklatura.

    2. The owners of Capital and political influence (The Oligarchs and New Nobility).

    3. The Upper Caste, the top 10% of the private sector.

    4. The lower classes of wage-earners and state dependents.

    It comes as no surprise that there is no class conflict between the State and the Oligarchs / New Nobility since ours is a state-corporate system in which the state enforces the privileges of the super-wealthy /corporations, as the political class depends on the owners of capital for campaign contributions. In return, the super-wealthy and corporations are awarded tax breaks and subsidies which lower their tax burdens below the rates paid by wage-earners.

    The conflicts between the Central State and the Upper Caste which pays the majority of income taxes is sharpening. While Social Security taxes weigh heavily on lower-income workers, the bottom 50% pay almost no federal income taxes and those between 51% and 89% pay a modest percent of all income taxes.

    Unlike the managers/technocrats of the State Nomenklatura who are guaranteed benefit and pensions (since the state can always print the money to pay them), the private-sector Upper Caste must rely on 401Ks and their own private wealth–all of which is exposed to the hazards of state actions (raising taxes, firing up inflation, etc.) and whatever market forces are still outside the control of the Federal Reserve.

    The Upper Caste resents the heavy taxes they pay as the state fails to provide even the basics of security and infrastructure. From the point of view of the Upper Caste, the state provides substandard education for their children, potholed roadways, modest Social Security and no healthcare until retirement (Medicare).

    Upper Caste entrepreneurs resent the heavy regulatory burdens and the privileges lavished on corporations and the super-wealthy.

    The Upper Caste also resents the Oligarchs and New Nobility who pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes. The Financial Aristocracy can work the tax system to report income as capital gains (a much lower rate than earned income) and use a vast cornucopia of tax breaks and subsidies to reduce their tax burden.

    The wage-earning lower classes resent the Upper Caste and the Oligarchs for obvious reasons, but they also resent the State dependents, many of whom live better than those working one of America’s tens of millions of low-paid, few-benefits jobs.

    You might expect State dependents to love their servitude, but they have reasons to resent the State as well. Dependency breeds resentment, and this is exacerbated by loads of paperwork (imposed to weed out fraud and scammers) and the general inadequacy of many state benefits.

    Meanwhile, the state managers/technocrats and politicos live in the same bubbles as the New Nobility. (The Oligarchs live in a much more rarified bubble, of course.) For these Protected Few, the system works great for me so it must work great for everyone else. Alas, it only works for the top slice of American society which vigorously maintains the bubble separating it from the coarse realities of the bottom 80%.

    In summary, class wars are the inevitable result of an economic system in which anything goes if you’re rich enough and winners take most. While the working poor are recruited to fight and die in the Imperial Project, the super-wealthy focus on philanthro-capitalist foundations which are simply non-profit extensions of their for-profit power.

    Social Mobility between classes has decayed, and people grasp this. Go ahead and do all the right things–borrow a fortune to get a college degree, build your resume with low-paying jobs working ridiculous hours, and so on, and eventually conclude you’re a precariat just like everyone else. Maybe a better paid precariat, or maybe a poorly paid precariat, but that narrow band is all the Financial Mobility you’re ever going to get.

    The winners in this system are protected by the State, while the losers are stripmined by crushing taxes or humiliated by their abject dependence on the state. Even if they don’t understand the exact mechanisms of financial control–the Federal Reserve’s bag of tricks, for example–they understand the rich get richer and the state protects them from the lower classes.

    The danger to the state is not who rebels but who opts out. Outright rebellion suits the state, as it can turn its monopoly on force on the citizenry. But when those keeping everything glued together have had enough and find a way to quit, the entire system starts unraveling in ways the state is powerless to stop.

    If the Upper Caste starts opting out, the private sector loses its tax donkeys and managerial expertise. If what remains of the middle class opts out, what’s left of America’s civic glue disappears.

    If the working poor opt out, the scut work required to provide the upper classes with their comforts will not get done. (Hey, Mr. State Bureaucrat and Mr. Financier, here’s a saw and a knife. Butcher your own meat.)

    Those trapped in the lower reaches of America’s class system might decide to follow Johnny Paycheck and Take This Job And Shove It (2:31). Becoming a dependent of the State is looking better all the time.

    State Nomenklatura managers/technocrats also have reasons to opt out. Their efforts to keep the whole thing glued together are not appreciated, for as I’ve noted here before, governing in an era of unraveling discord is no longer fun.

    Conflicts within the upper reaches of the Deep State are also deepening as those seeking to extend the status quo regardless of cost are meeting resistance from camps who recognize the impossibility of maintaining the current trajectory of soaring inequality and the infinite demands of the Imperial Project.

    There’s only so much inequality and unfairness an over-promised populace can bear, and America is well past that point.

    To those who claim “people can’t afford to quit,” just watch. Those who’ve had enough will find a way to opt out. There’s plenty of woodwork to disappear into.

    Here’s a chart of the Oligarchy and New Nobility’s skim of virtually all gains in the economy. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Anything goes if you’re rich enough and winners take most.

    *  *  *

    My recent books:

    Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World ($13)
    (Kindle $6.95, print $11.95) Read the first section for free (PDF).

    Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic ($6.95 (Kindle), $12 (print), $13.08 ( 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.

  • Capital One Cuts Credit Card Borrowing Limits As US Reduces Support For Unemployed Americans
    Capital One Cuts Credit Card Borrowing Limits As US Reduces Support For Unemployed Americans

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 08/27/2020 – 22:05

    One month after credit card giant Capital One Financial disappointed investors after reporting losses more than $1 billion for the second consecutive quarter (with 80% of revenue coming from net interest income, of which 60% comes from the card business, the top line was hit really hard), there was more bad news. According to Bloomberg, Capital One – which is perhaps most exposed to the financial state of the US middle class of all US financial companies – is cutting borrowing limits on credit cards, and reining in its exposure as the U.S. reduces support for millions of unemployed Americans.

    “Capital One periodically reviews accounts based on a variety of factors and may make changes to existing credit lines,” the company told Bloomberg.

    Capital One, which is third-largest US credit card lender after JPMorgan and Citigroup, has been at the forefront of offering cards to people with riskier profiles, which while boosting the company’s value during expansions, has made it especially sensitive to economic downturns. Its management of credit is watched closely as a harbinger of what’s to come at other major banks according to Bloomberg, and sure enough the latest numbers were woeful: shortly after it slashed its dividend from 40 cents to just 10 cents, the company added reserves of $2.7BN in Q2, on top of the $3.6BN it added in the first quarter, making reserves 6.7% of total loans outstanding (in theory,t This should be enough to weather net charge-offs around 350bps per year in the next two years).

    And while the company’s 2008-2010 average was higher at around 450bps, peaking at over 500bps in 2010, the company has benefited from forbearance programs as customers are deferring auto payments but continue to pay down their credit cards, which also means less net interest income. Indeed, net interest income fell 9% QoQ (-5% YoY) as margins narrowed, making the company’s NIM contraction was the worst among large peers. Margins nosedived 100bps QoQ to 5.78% – the lowest in the past decade.

    All of that prompted the company to take aggressive measures ahead of what appears to be an almost certain double dip should fiscal stimulus not be extended in the immediate future. As Bloomberg notes, suspense has been mounting in the credit card industry in recent weeks, as Congress and President Donald Trump’s administration deadlocked on extending $600 in additional weekly unemployment benefits. That assistance has helped millions of households keep up with debts as the pandemic sent unemployment soaring above 10%. As we showed recently, spending by unemployed people who claim ongoing unemployment assistance from regular state programs – which amounts to some 14.5 million people – has tumbled since the July 31 fiscal cliff.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    That sharp drop in benefits raises the risk for banks that some cardholders won’t be able to make ends meet through the pandemic, maxing out credit limits as they spiral into bankruptcy.

    To an extent, Capital One’s move was expected: card lenders have been warning for months that rapidly shifting outbreaks and shutdowns have left them in the dark on which customers have lost work or their jobs, making it difficult for executives to assess risks. “I don’t think we have a rigorous measure of how many of our current borrowers are unemployed,” Capital One Chief Executive Officer Richard Fairbank said last month.

    “There are a lot of people that are in different degrees of unemployment right now.”

    To protect itself from the coming crunch, Capital One is doing the opposite of what corporations did in the immediate aftermath of the covid shutdowns, when countless companies drew down on their available revolvers to maximize liquidity. Unfortunately, for millions of ordinary Americans who rely on their credit cards to make ends meet, their borrowing base just got slashed.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The reduction in borrowing capacity set off a swift outcry on social media. Some customers have complained in recent days their limits have been slashed by a third to two-thirds, eroding their ability to borrow in an emergency during a pandemic or potentially hurting their credit scores. A spokesman declined to specify how many people are affected.

    In recent days, Capital One’s customers have flocked to platforms such as Twitter to complain after receiving emails with an “important update” on their account that turned out to slash their ability to borrow. Some were told their limits are being aligned with past spending patterns. Messages from Capital One explained users could still borrow “significantly above your highest balance over the last two years,” essentially allowing them to continue using cards as they have.

    Capital One is hardly unique: card issuers, learning from past downturns, often trim or close inactive credit lines to avoid becoming a borrower’s lender of last resort. This year, they have also been offering lower limits on new accounts.

    “We have been tightening credit at the margin as we have felt for some time that we are in late credit cycle,” Discover Financial Services Chief Executive Officer Roger Hochschild said in April. “But given the present environment, we are adopting a significantly more cautious view.”

    But what is most paradoxical about this situation is that even as the Fed cut rates to all time lows, a boon to companies which have borrowed a record $1.4 trillion in the investment grade bond market, if hurting savers who once again receive no income on their savings accounts, credit card interest rates remain at all time highs, just around 17%.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Bizarrely, the fact that credit card rates remain stratospheric for millions of Americans even as corporate borrowing rates have never been lower, has not been address by either the Fed – which allegedly is so worried about inequality – nor US politicians. Meanwhile, the Fed continues to directly purchase bonds of some of the biggest companies in the world including Apple, Berkshire, cutting their cost of capital even lower.

    Some have suggested that instead of the Fed buying AAA-rated corporate bonds from companies which can sell massively oversubscribed debt in the open market, a simple solution is to simply backstop Capital One’s credit card receivables. That way Capital One would not have to cut its limits, and it would also be able to cut rates assuring more people can end up affording to pay down their interest. Unfortunately, since the tens of millions of subprime Capital One credit card holders can’t afford to lobby Congress or have a direct line to the Marriner Eccles building, this will never happen.

  • Robot Generals: Will They Make Better Decisions Than Humans Or Worse?
    Robot Generals: Will They Make Better Decisions Than Humans Or Worse?

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 08/27/2020 – 21:45

    Authored by Michael Klare via TomDispatch.com,

    With Covid-19 incapacitating startling numbers of U.S. service members and modern weapons proving increasingly lethal, the American military is relying ever more frequently on intelligent robots to conduct hazardous combat operations. Such devices, known in the military as “autonomous weapons systems,” include robotic sentries, battlefield-surveillance drones, and autonomous submarines. So far, in other words, robotic devices are merely replacing standard weaponry on conventional battlefields.

    Now, however, in a giant leap of faith, the Pentagon is seeking to take this process to an entirely new level — by replacing not just ordinary soldiers and their weapons, but potentially admirals and generals with robotic systems.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Admittedly, those systems are still in the development stage, but the Pentagon is now rushing their future deployment as a matter of national urgency. Every component of a modern general staff — including battle planning, intelligence-gathering, logistics, communications, and decision-making — is, according to the Pentagon’s latest plans, to be turned over to complex arrangements of sensors, computers, and software. All these will then be integrated into a “system of systems,” now dubbed the Joint All-Domain Command-and-Control, or JADC2 (since acronyms remain the essence of military life). Eventually, that amalgam of systems may indeed assume most of the functions currently performed by American generals and their senior staff officers.

    The notion of using machines to make command-level decisions is not, of course, an entirely new one. It has, in truth, been a long time coming. During the Cold War, following the introduction of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) with extremely short flight times, both military strategists and science-fiction writers began to imagine mechanical systems that would control such nuclear weaponry in the event of human incapacity.

    In Stanley Kubrick’s satiric 1964 movie Dr. Strangelove, for example, the fictional Russian leader Dimitri Kissov reveals that the Soviet Union has installed a “doomsday machine” capable of obliterating all human life that would detonate automatically should the country come under attack by American nuclear forces. Efforts by crazed anti-Soviet U.S. Air Force officers to provoke a war with Moscow then succeed in triggering that machine and so bring about human annihilation. In reality, fearing that they might experience a surprise attack of just this sort, the Soviets later did install a semi-automatic retaliatory system they dubbed “Perimeter,” designed to launch Soviet ICBMs in the event that sensors detected nuclear explosions and all communications from Moscow had been silenced. Some analysts believe that an upgraded version of Perimeter is still in operation, leaving us in an all-too-real version of a Strangelovian world.

    In yet another sci-fi version of such automated command systems, the 1983 film War Games, starring Matthew Broderick as a teenage hacker, portrayed a supercomputer called the War Operations Plan Response, or WOPR (pronounced “whopper”) installed at the North American Aerospace Command (NORAD) headquarters in Colorado. When the Broderick character hacks into it and starts playing what he believes is a game called “World War III,” the computer concludes an actual Soviet attack is underway and launches a nuclear retaliatory response. Although fictitious, the movie accurately depicts many aspects of the U.S. nuclear command-control-and-communications (NC3) system, which was then and still remains highly automated.

    Such devices, both real and imagined, were relatively primitive by today’s standards, being capable solely of determining that a nuclear attack was under way and ordering a catastrophic response. Now, as a result of vast improvements in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, machines can collect and assess massive amounts of sensor data, swiftly detect key trends and patterns, and potentially issue orders to combat units as to where to attack and when.

    Time Compression and Human Fallibility

    The substitution of intelligent machines for humans at senior command levels is becoming essential, U.S. strategists argue, because an exponential growth in sensor information combined with the increasing speed of warfare is making it nearly impossible for humans to keep track of crucial battlefield developments. If future scenarios prove accurate, battles that once unfolded over days or weeks could transpire in the space of hours, or even minutes, while battlefield information will be pouring in as multitudinous data points, overwhelming staff officers. Only advanced computers, it is claimed, could process so much information and make informed combat decisions within the necessary timeframe.

    Such time compression and the expansion of sensor data may apply to any form of combat, but especially to the most terrifying of them all, nuclear war. When ICBMs were the principal means of such combat, decisionmakers had up to 30 minutes between the time a missile was launched and the moment of detonation in which to determine whether a potential attack was real or merely a false satellite reading (as did sometimes occur during the Cold War). Now, that may not sound like much time, but with the recent introduction of hypersonic missiles, such assessment times could shrink to as little as five minutes. Under such circumstances, it’s a lot to expect even the most alert decision-makers to reach an informed judgment on the nature of a potential attack. Hence the appeal (to some) of automated decision-making systems.

    “Attack-time compression has placed America’s senior leadership in a situation where the existing NC3 system may not act rapidly enough,” military analysts Adam Lowther and Curtis McGiffin argued at War on the Rocks, a security-oriented website.

    “Thus, it may be necessary to develop a system based on artificial intelligence, with predetermined response decisions, that detects, decides, and directs strategic forces with such speed that the attack-time compression challenge does not place the United States in an impossible position.”

    This notion, that an artificial intelligence-powered device — in essence, a more intelligent version of the doomsday machine or the WOPR — should be empowered to assess enemy behavior and then, on the basis of “predetermined response options,” decide humanity’s fate, has naturally produced some unease in the community of military analysts (as it should for the rest of us as well). Nevertheless, American strategists continue to argue that battlefield assessment and decision-making — for both conventional and nuclear warfare — should increasingly be delegated to machines.

    “AI-powered intelligence systems may provide the ability to integrate and sort through large troves of data from different sources and geographic locations to identify patterns and highlight useful information,” the Congressional Research Service noted in a November 2019 summary of Pentagon thinking.

    “As the complexity of AI systems matures,” it added, “AI algorithms may also be capable of providing commanders with a menu of viable courses of action based on real-time analysis of the battlespace, in turn enabling faster adaptation to complex events.”

    The key wording there is “a menu of viable courses of action based on real-time analysis of the battlespace.” This might leave the impression that human generals and admirals (not to speak of their commander-in-chief) will still be making the ultimate life-and-death decisions for both their own forces and the planet. Given such anticipated attack-time compression in future high-intensity combat with China and/or Russia, however, humans may no longer have the time or ability to analyze the battlespace themselves and so will come to rely on AI algorithms for such assessments. As a result, human commanders may simply find themselves endorsing decisions made by machines — and so, in the end, become superfluous.

    Creating Robot Generals

    Despite whatever misgivings they may have about their future job security, America’s top generals are moving swiftly to develop and deploy that JADC2 automated command mechanism. Overseen by the Air Force, it’s proving to be a computer-driven amalgam of devices for collecting real-time intelligence on enemy forces from vast numbers of sensor devices (satellites, ground radars, electronic listening posts, and so on), processing that data into actionable combat information, and providing precise attack instructions to every combat unit and weapons system engaged in a conflict — whether belonging to the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, or the newly formed Space Force and Cyber Command.

    What, exactly, the JADC2 will consist of is not widely known, partly because many of its component systems are still shrouded in secrecy and partly because much of the essential technology is still in the development stage. Delegated with responsibility for overseeing the project, the Air Force is working with Lockheed Martin and other large defense contractors to design and develop key elements of the system.

    One such building block is its Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS), a data-collection and distribution system intended to provide fighter pilots with up-to-the-minute data on enemy positions and help guide their combat moves. Another key component is the Army’s Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS), designed to connect radar systems to anti-aircraft and missile-defense launchers and provide them with precise firing instructions. Over time, the Air Force and its multiple contractors will seek to integrate ABMS and IBCS into a giant network of systems connecting every sensor, shooter, and commander in the country’s armed forces — a military “internet of things,” as some have put it.

    To test this concept and provide an example of how it might operate in the future, the Army conducted a live-fire artillery exercise this August in Germany using components (or facsimiles) of the future JADC2 system. In the first stage of the test, satellite images of (presumed) Russian troop positions were sent to an Army ground terminal, where an AI software program called Prometheus combed through the data to select enemy targets. Next, another AI program called SHOT computed the optimal match of available Army weaponry to those intended targets and sent this information, along with precise firing coordinates, to the Army’s Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System (AFATDS) for immediate action, where human commanders could choose to implement it or not. In the exercise, those human commanders had the mental space to give the matter a moment’s thought; in a shooting war, they might just leave everything to the machines, as the system’s designers clearly intend them to do.

    In the future, the Army is planning even more ambitious tests of this evolving technology under an initiative called Project Convergence. From what’s been said publicly about it, Convergence will undertake ever more complex exercises involving satellites, Air Force fighters equipped with the ABMS system, Army helicopters, drones, artillery pieces, and tactical vehicles. Eventually, all of this will form the underlying “architecture” of the JADC2, linking every military sensor system to every combat unit and weapons system — leaving the generals with little to do but sit by and watch.

    Why Robot Generals Could Get It Wrong

    Given the complexity of modern warfare and the challenge of time compression in future combat, the urge of American strategists to replace human commanders with robotic ones is certainly understandable. Robot generals and admirals might theoretically be able to process staggering amounts of information in brief periods of time, while keeping track of both friendly and enemy forces and devising optimal ways to counter enemy moves on a future battlefield. But there are many good reasons to doubt the reliability of robot decision-makers and the wisdom of using them in place of human officers.

    To begin with, many of these technologies are still in their infancy, and almost all are prone to malfunctions that can neither be easily anticipated nor understood. And don’t forget that even advanced algorithms can be fooled, or “spoofed,” by skilled professionals.

    In addition, unlike humans, AI-enabled decision-making systems will lack an ability to assess intent or context. Does a sudden enemy troop deployment, for example, indicate an imminent attack, a bluff, or just a normal rotation of forces? Human analysts can use their understanding of the current political moment and the actors involved to help guide their assessment of the situation. Machines lack that ability and may assume the worst, initiating military action that could have been avoided.

    Such a problem will only be compounded by the “training” such decision-making algorithms will undergo as they are adapted to military situations. Just as facial recognition software has proved to be tainted by an over-reliance on images of white males in the training process — making them less adept at recognizing, say, African-American women — military decision-making algorithms are likely to be distorted by an over-reliance on the combat-oriented scenarios selected by American military professionals for training purposes. “Worst-case thinking” is a natural inclination of such officers — after all, who wants to be caught unprepared for a possible enemy surprise attack? — and such biases will undoubtedly become part of the “menus of viable courses of action” provided by decision-making robots.

    Once integrated into decision-making algorithms, such biases could, in turn, prove exceedingly dangerous in any future encounters between U.S. and Russian troops in Europe or American and Chinese forces in Asia. A clash of this sort might, after all, arise at any time, thanks to some misunderstanding or local incident that rapidly gains momentum — a sudden clash between U.S. and Chinese warships off Taiwan, for example, or between American and Russian patrols in one of the Baltic states. Neither side may have intended to ignite a full-scale conflict and leaders on both sides might normally move to negotiate a cease-fire. But remember, these will no longer simply be human conflicts. In the wake of such an incident, the JADC2 could detect some enemy move that it determines poses an imminent risk to allied forces and so immediately launch an all-out attack by American planes, missiles, and artillery, escalating the conflict and foreclosing any chance of an early negotiated settlement.

    Such prospects become truly frightening when what’s at stake is the onset of nuclear war. It’s hard to imagine any conflict among the major powers starting out as a nuclear war, but it’s far easier to envision a scenario in which the great powers — after having become embroiled in a conventional conflict — reach a point where one side or the other considers the use of atomic arms to stave off defeat. American military doctrine, in fact, has always held out the possibility of using so-called tactical nuclear weapons in response to a massive Soviet (now Russian) assault in Europe. Russian military doctrine, it is widely assumed, incorporates similar options. Under such circumstances, a future JADC2 could misinterpret enemy moves as signaling preparation for a nuclear launch and order a pre-emptive strike by U.S. nuclear forces, thereby igniting World War III.

    War is a nasty, brutal activity and, given almost two decades of failed conflicts that have gone under the label of “the war on terror,” causing thousands of American casualties (both physical and mental), it’s easy to understand why robot enthusiasts are so eager to see another kind of mentality take over American war-making. As a start, they contend, especially in a pandemic world, that it’s only humane to replace human soldiers on the battlefield with robots and so diminish human casualties (at least among combatants). This claim does not, of course, address the argument that robot soldiers and drone aircraft lack the ability to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants on the battlefield and so cannot be trusted to comply with the laws of war or international humanitarian law — which, at least theoretically, protect civilians from unnecessary harm — and so should be banned.

    Fraught as all of that may be on future battlefields, replacing generals and admirals with robots is another matter altogether. Not only do legal and moral arguments arise with a vengeance, as the survival of major civilian populations could be put at risk by computer-derived combat decisions, but there’s no guarantee that American GIs would suffer fewer casualties in the battles that ensued. Maybe it’s time, then, for Congress to ask some tough questions about the advisability of automating combat decision-making before this country pours billions of additional taxpayer dollars into an enterprise that could, in fact, lead to the end of the world as we know it.

    Maybe it’s time as well for the leaders of China, Russia, and this country to limit or ban the deployment of hypersonic missiles and other weaponry that will compress life-and-death decisions for humanity into just a few minutes, thereby justifying the automation of such fateful judgments.

  • One Bank Finally Tells The Truth: "The Fed Policies Have Become Part Of The Problem"
    One Bank Finally Tells The Truth: “The Fed Policies Have Become Part Of The Problem”

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 08/27/2020 – 21:25

    In the aftermath of today’s announcement by the Fed of 2% Average Inflation Targeting there were numerous hot takes (such as this one from Goldman) simplifying what the Fed just did: namely a “new” stance of allowing inflation to run high and the unemployment rate to run lower for longer, which according to BMO meant that the “Fed’s dovishness appears to be in perpetuity.” The reason: avoid any market tremors for the next five years arising out of fear that the Fed may unexpectedly tighten financial conditions if inflation suddenly gets hot.

    What was not discussed is what the Fed did not say, namely that it is now compounding failure upon failure, and after 10 years of failed policies that were unable to spark higher wages (i.e., good inflation) while promoting a giant asset bubble, it will crush the living standard of the middle class further by running inflation hot even as asset prices scream to new all time highs. What was also not discussed is the Fed’s role in the catastrophic economic situation the world finds itself in.

    However, one banker did have to courage to address the elephant in the room, and that would be Rabobank’s Philip Marey who in his Fed post-mortem “The Wrong Kind of Symmetry”, writes that it took the Fed six years to describe symmetry of the inflation target in the Statement on Longer-Run Goals, noting that “while not completely irrelevant, it is the wrong kind of symmetry to focus on.”

    In one of the most overt criticism of the Fed we have read to date, Marey writes that “while the Fed’s step to make the inflation target “more” symmetric may benefit the wages of the average American somewhere beyond 2022, it does not really address the deeper problem with the role the Fed is playing in the US economy. It could be argued that the Fed’s policies have become part of the problem, instead of the solution.” And, as the Rabobank strategist suggests, “at least this should be a topic for debate in the FOMC, instead of talking a whole year about whether to use an average or not.”

    To this all we would add is that the Fed should take a long, hard look at its prefered metric of core PCE: as we have repeatedly explained in recent years, the Fed continues to purposefully undercount inflation, and on top of that, it now has openly said it will disregard the politically palatable core PCE/CPI number just so it can continue blowing an asset bubble of epic proportions.

    It was Marey’s conclusion however that was the piece de resistance:

    The much deeper problem for the US economy is the asymmetric impact of Fed policies on households and businesses. The Fed’s monetary and regulatory policies have contributed to a form of capitalism where the rewards are going to the 1% and the risks are borne by the 99%. The current crisis response has made it painfully clear again that the Fed’s policies benefit high income individuals and large corporations, while small businesses and low income individuals bear the burden. While the Fed likes to see itself as part of the solution to America’s economic problems, it should ask itself whether it is also part of these problems.

    Alas, as we explained yesterday, this won’t happen until the crowds of angry rioters are finally at their rightful place: in front of the Marriner Eccles building. Until then, it is just more smoke and mirrors.

    We republish Marey’s full must read note below:

    The Wrong Kind Of Symmetry

    • It has taken the FOMC six years to make the symmetry of its inflation target explicit in its Statement on Longer-Run Goals and Monetary Policy Strategy.
    • The Fed’s framework review will lead to a more dovish reaction function in the long run, but hardly seems relevant in the next few years.
    • What’s more, higher tolerance for inflation in itself does not cause inflation if slack is high or can’t be leveraged when it is low.
    • Unfortunately, the Fed is not taking a critical look at the asymmetric impact of its policies on households and businesses. This is the kind of symmetry that may be more important

    Symmetric means on average

    Nowadays everything is breaking news, even when it is old news. The Chairman of the Fed is giving a speech at Jackson Hole, so it must be important. “Symmetry means on average” that was about all he had to say.

    Let’s take a step back in history. The FOMC formally announced its 2% inflation target on January 25, 2012, in its Longer-Run Goals and Policy Strategy: “The Committee judges that inflation at the rate of 2 percent as measured by the annual change in the price index for personal consumption expenditures, is most consistent over the longer run with the Federal Reserve’s statutory mandate.” While this statement implicitly indicates that the Fed’s inflation target is symmetric, this was explicitly confirmed in the FOMC minutes of the October 2014 meeting: “there was widespread agreement that inflation moderately above the Committee’s 2 percent goal and inflation the same amount below that level were equally costly.” However, the doves were pointing out that inflation had spent more time below target than above target. In particular, Narayana Kocherlakota (Minneapolis Fed) pressed for an explicit recognition of the symmetry of the target. So he finally gets what he asked for. In other words, it took the FOMC 6 (!) years to get an explicit recognition of the symmetry of the inflation target from the minutes to the Statement on Longer-Run Goals and Monetary Policy Strategy. During the Q&A at the Kansas City Fed event Powell said the Fed intends to do this kind of monetary policy review every 5 years. Does this mean that we have to wait 5 more years for the next negligible progress?

    Anyway, the Fed released a revised Statement on Longer-Run Goals and Monetary Policy Strategy with the main change reflected in the following sentence: “In order to anchor longer-term inflation expectations at this level, the Committee seeks to achieve inflation that averages 2 percent over time, and therefore judges that, following periods when inflation has been running persistently below 2 percent, appropriate monetary policy will likely aim to achieve inflation moderately above 2 percent for some time.” However, Powell stressed that no exact formula will be used, so it will be ‘a flexible form of average inflation targeting.’

    Does it matter?

    One look at Figure 1 shows that the Fed certainly has not been able to steer PCE inflation symmetrically around the 2% target. In reality, inflation has been mostly below target.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    So does the explicit recognition of the symmetry of the inflation target really make a difference? In the short and medium run, definitely not. If we look at the FOMC’s own projections, they do not expect PCE inflation to get near the 2.0% target before 2023. And it may not occur soon after that with unemployment at 5.5% by the final quarter of 2022 well above the NAIRU of 4.1%. So even by their own projections this framework revision will not be relevant before 2023. Or do they expect inflation expectations to rise and cause inflation? This is very unlikely, with unemployment well above the NAIRU. Higher tolerance for inflation in itself does not cause inflation if slack is high or can’t be leveraged when it is low. While a higher inflation tolerance would allow for more wage growth, it will not create it.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    In the long run it will allow the FOMC to take more time to start hiking when unemployment gets low and threatens to push up inflation. After all, the undershoot of recent years may be compensated by a moderate overshoot. This will spread employment to low-skilled people. This stands in sharp contrast to the Fed’s mistaken belief in the Phillips curve in recent years, when they accelerated the hiking cycle in 2017 and 2018 despite any evidence of low unemployment leading to wage pressures causing a wage-price spiral. So perhaps the Fed has finally learned something. The Fed’s framework review will lead to a more dovish reaction function in the long run. However, Powell already mentioned this after the June meeting of the FOMC. So nothing new here either

    What really matters

    It took the Fed six years to describe symmetry of the inflation target in the Statement on Longer-Run Goals. While not completely irrelevant, it is the wrong kind of symmetry to focus on. While the Fed’s step to make the inflation target ‘more’ symmetric may benefit the wages of the average American somewhere beyond 2022, it does not really address the deeper problem with the role the Fed is playing in the US economy. It could be argued that the Fed’s policies have become part of the problem, instead of the solution. At least this should be a topic for debate in the FOMC, instead of talking a whole year about whether to use an average or not.

    The much deeper problem for the US economy is the asymmetric impact of Fed policies on households and businesses. The Fed’s monetary and regulatory policies have contributed to a form of capitalism where the rewards are going to the 1% and the risks are borne by the 99%. The current crisis response has made it painfully clear again that the Fed’s policies benefit high income individuals and large corporations, while small businesses and low income individuals bear the burden. While the Fed likes to see itself as part of the solution to America’s economic problems, it should ask itself whether it is also part of these problems.

  • Science Is Not About Consensus
    Science Is Not About Consensus

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 08/27/2020 – 21:05

    Authored by Jeff Harris via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

    Newsflash; real science is based on facts not “consensus”.

    I’m sick and tired of idiots beating me over the head with pseudoscience instead of sticking to the cold, hard facts.

    Show me the hard data that standing six feet from someone is necessary.

    Show me the hard data that wearing any old rag on my face is going to materially stop the spread of a virus.

    Show me the hard data that enjoying fresh air and sunshine outdoors could be an invitation to an early death.

    Please, stick to the facts and don’t dare lecture me about the “consensus” and here’s why.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Maybe you’ve heard of Ignaz Semmelweis, an Austrian-Hungarian obstetrician with a prickly personality. If not, you will quickly recognize his contribution to the medical profession with the three words he made famous:

    “Wash your hands.”

    This was way back in 1847.

    Dr. Semmelweis provided hard data clearly demonstrating that once he and his staff began washing their hands and disinfecting equipment between patients the number of infections and deaths dropped dramatically.

    Unfortunately, the scientific “consensus” at the time held that there was no benefit to these measures and his advice was almost completely ignored by the learned medical community. In fact, many of his medical peers were incensed with his suggestion that they could be responsible for transmitting illness and disease!

    At the time doctors took pride in their soiled gowns as a mark of their industrious work! It was commonplace for doctors who had just completed an autopsy to go to the maternity ward and deliver babies without ever washing up! After all it was the “consensus” and with so many doctors in agreement how could they be wrong?

    Dr. Semmelweis died in an insane asylum in 1865 knowing that untold numbers of patients had needlessly suffered and died because the medical community refused to accept his findings and instead chose to follow the “consensus”. Ironically, the same year Dr. Semmelweis died Dr. Joseph Lister, a British surgeon, began building on the work of French microbiologist Louis Pasteur regarding germ theory.

    Dr. Lister began experimenting with various means of disinfecting wounds. He instructed surgeons under his responsibility to not only wash their hands with a 5 percent solution of carbolic acid but also wear clean gloves. His work validated Dr. Semmelweis discoveries regarding the value of hygiene and cleanliness in medicine.

    Today we all benefit from Dr. Semmelweis groundbreaking work even though he was never recognized for his contribution during his lifetime. The moral to this story is that scientific “consensus” is often wrong. In no way can it justify the hysteria, lockdowns and wealth destruction that is being manufactured by the elites.

    The COVID hysteria is emotion based, not fact based. Instead of cold, hard facts backing up the “science” we’re told to shut up and accept the “consensus”. As Dr. Semmelweis discovered the consensus is often wrong.

  • South Korea Extends Short-Selling Ban To 2021 As Volatility 'Explosion' Could Be Nearing
    South Korea Extends Short-Selling Ban To 2021 As Volatility ‘Explosion’ Could Be Nearing

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 08/27/2020 – 20:45

    South Korea’s financial regulator on Thursday extended a ban on short-selling of listed shares for another six months, as COVID-19 cases jump to the highest level since the pandemic. 

    The current ban on short-selling Korea Composite Stock Price Index, or KOSPI, shares will be extended through March 15, 2021, as “widening of market volatility due to concern over the resurgence of the Covid-19” is expected, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) said in a statement, reported Reuters.

    The initial ban was first imposed on March 13 following an extreme surge in equity volatility due to the virus pandemic crashing the global economy.

    “Considering the rising volatility in markets with the fresh waves of Covid-19, we decided to extend the six-month short-selling ban imposed since March,” FSC said.

    “During the extended ban, we will seek to improve rules to offer retail investors’ better access to short-selling and tighten punishment for illegal practices for short sales on equities.”

    The KOSPI Volatility Index rose 7% to 27.22 on Thursday following a new report from the government of 441 new coronavirus cases, the highest since March. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    In relation to KOSPI price, here’s where FSC has imposed the short-selling ban and extension this year.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The extension of the ban suggests as global equities power to new highs (as measured by the MSCI World Index), effectively clawing back all losses from the February-March crash, that a renewed period of volatility could be ahead. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Morgan Stanley’s Michael Wilson explained this week why a growth scare could produce another round of volatility (see: “Morgan Stanley Warns “The First Tradable Correction Could Begin Imminently“”). 

  • Watch Live: RNC Day 4 "Land Of Greatness" – Dana White, Giuliani, & President Trump
    Watch Live: RNC Day 4 “Land Of Greatness” – Dana White, Giuliani, & President Trump

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 08/27/2020 – 20:30

    From “darker tones” to “drug-driven” enthusiasm and daring to suggest “patriotism” is good, the last three nights of the Republic National Convention have led to this… the big kahuna with President Trump headlining a star-studded field, with the theme “Land of Greatness“:

    The Vision for American Greatness

    This has been a momentous week as we honored the great American story and formally re-nominated President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Michael R. Pence. We have heard from some of our nation’s greatest trailblazers, leaders and patriots; we have applauded American workers, families, law enforcement officers, veterans and heroes; we have showcased our conservative principles and policies; and we have celebrated the historic success President Trump has achieved for all Americans.

    As they say, we have saved the best for last. Tonight, we will hear directly from America’s fiercest advocate, President Donald J. Trump.

    He has a lot to be proud of, and I can’t wait to hear his inspiring vision for American greatness. In his first four years, he has done more for our country than any president before him. He achieved the biggest tax cuts in history, dismantled ISIS, renewed the faith of our allies, stood up for the American worker and against the threat of socialism at every turn, and has supported our veterans, troops and police officers unlike those before him. 

    While President Trump and the Republican Party continue to champion an America first vision, Joe Biden and the Democrats promise a return to the Obama-Biden Administration’s doctrine: leading from behind. Democrats want to chip away at the foundation of our great country and reverse the return to American values we have seen under President Trump’s leadership. The right choice in this election could not be clearer. President Trump has restored hope, rebuilt opportunity and returned American strength. He has reminded us of what makes America great — our people.

    This week, that greatness has been at the forefront. We have witnessed patriots and plans; heard stories and dreams; and shared our hope for an even greater future together. We are one nation under God and one melting pot of greatness. Our enduring love of country is the thread that binds us all together. As Americans, we look to the future and join President Trump in championing the renewed American dream and our shared values of liberty and justice for all. As we embark on the road to November, we remember with renewed hope and optimism that this land of greatness unites us, and together we will continue to write the great American story for four more years.

    The fall campaign season officially kicks off when President Donald Trump formally accepts the GOP nomination for a second term as president in a speech he will deliver from the White House West Lawn, and the polls and bookies’ odds are coming back Trump’s way…

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Senior adviser Ivanka Trump will introduce her father with Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton and the president’s personal attorney and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani also expected to speak.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Additional speakers include:

    • Ja’Ron Smith, White House assistant

    • Ann Dorn, widow of former police officer killed in St. Louis

    • Debbie Flood

    • Representative Jeff Van Drew

    • Franklin Graham, evangelical leader

    • Alice Johnson, ex-inmate pardoned by Mr. Trump

    • Wade Mayfield

    • Carl and Marsha Mueller, parents of U.S. aid worker killed by ISIS

    • Dana White, president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship

    A fireworks display is expected to light up the sky above the Washington Monument at the conclusion of Trump’s remarks.

    Watch Live:

  • Is California Over?
    Is California Over?

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 08/27/2020 – 20:25

    Authored by John Rubino via DollarCollapse.com,

    By now it’s painfully obvious that we humans tend to ruin our favorite places by overrunning them. And no place makes this point better than California. An absolute paradise 25 million people ago, parts of it are now a hellscape of Mad Maxian proportions.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Consider:

    Rolling blackouts due in part to bad planning and in part to overpopulation are disrupting businesses and making homes unbearable in 100-degree summer heat.

    Wildfires, due in part to excess people being shunted into “suburbs” surrounded by brushland, are burning thousands of houses and roasting the unlucky wildlife that used to call those canyons and hillsides home. See Sanctuary for endangered condors burns in California wildfire.

    As for California’s cities, well, here’s podcaster Joe Rogan’s brutal discussion of LA’s homeless situation:

    And the above is just the physical manifestation of an unsustainable development model.

    The financial side of things is even uglier. Public-sector unions now control state politics and have engineered pension plans that are both wildly overgenerous and catastrophically unfunded.

    So even in the absence of fires, blackouts and rising homelessness, the state would be careening towards bankruptcy.

    What is California’s solution? Retroactive wealth taxes that reach out and pick the pockets of people who have already left.

    Now even the New York Times, which generally sympathizes with California’s political model, acknowledges that the left coast is sliding into the abyss. A snippet from NYT columnist Farhad Manjoo:

    California, We Can’t Go On Like This

    Across much of California in the last two weeks, many of my friends and neighbors have faced a dead-end choice: Is it safer to conduct your life outdoors and avoid the coronavirus, or should you rush inside, the better to escape the choking heat, toxic smoke and raining ash?

    Such has been the gagging unwinnability of life in the nation’s most populous state in the sweltering summer of 2020, in what I have been assured is the greatest country ever to have existed. The virus begs you to open a window; the inferno forces you to keep it shut.

    When the coronavirus first landed in America, California’s lawmakers responded quickly and effectively, becoming a model for the rest of the nation. But as the early wins faded and the cases spiked, each day this summer has felt like another slide down an inevitable spiral of failure. The virus keeps crashing into California’s many other longstanding dysfunctions, from housing to energy to climate change to disaster planning, and the compounding ruin is piling up like BMWs on the 405.

    Consider: To keep the pestilence at bay, many of California’s children began attending school online last week. But to satisfy surging energy demand linked to record-shattering heat (and a host of other mysterious reasons), state utilities had to impose rolling blackouts, forcing schools to come up with energy contingency plans to add to their virus contingency plans, now that millions of students face the threat of intermittent electricity.

    For decades, California has relied on conscripted prisoners as a cheap way to fight its raging fires. But to stave off coronavirus outbreaks in our long-overcrowded prisons, authorities released thousands of inmates earlier this year. Now, as climate change has ushered in a new era of “megafires” that includes some of the largest blazes the state has ever faced, the early release of inmates has left the state dangerously short of prisoners to exploit in battling the flames.

    What is California’s fundamental trouble? Neither socialism nor Trumpian neglect and incompetence, but something more elemental to life in the Golden State: A refusal by many Californians to live sustainably and inclusively, to give up a little bit of their own convenience for the collective good.

    Californian suburbia, the ideal of much of American suburbia, was built and sold on the promise of endless excess — everyone gets a car, a job, a single-family home and enough water and gasoline and electricity to light up the party.

    But it is long past obvious that infinitude was a false promise. Traffic, sprawl, homelessness and ballooning housing costs are all consequences of our profligacy with the land and our other resources. In addition to a hotter, drier climate, the fires, too, are fanned by an unsustainable way of life. Many blazes were worsened by Californians moving into areas near forests known as the “urban-wildland interface.” Once people move near forested land, fires tend to follow — either because they deliberately or inadvertently ignite them, or because they need electricity, delivered by electrical wires that can cause sparks that turn into conflagrations.

    As the fires blazed around us this time last year, I warned of the “end of California as we know it” — that if we didn’t begin to radically alter how we live, the climate and the high cost of living would make the state uninhabitable for large numbers of people.

    The take-away?

    Beyond a certain point even a place like California, blessed as it is with both Hollywood and Silicon Valley, can’t support the unsupportable. So either the state, along with most of its nearly-as-badly-managed peers, gets a bailout of historic proportions with all the currency crisis/moral hazard implications that that implies. Or California and its iconic car-centric/suburban lifestyle devolve into chaos.

    Here’s hoping for the latter, which will at least provide a cautionary tale for other places now traveling the same road.

  • Are The Tables Starting To Turn?
    Are The Tables Starting To Turn?

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 08/27/2020 – 20:10

    Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,

    A Pew Research Center poll that’s already a month old (and a lot happened since) concluded that violent crime is a major issue according to 59% of voters (almost as much as coronavirus): 74% of Republicans and 46% of Democrats. But during the DNC, held after the poll was already out, the issue wasn’t addressed at all. Democrats talked about police violence, but not riot violence.

    At this week’s RNC, this situation is -of course- very different. The DNC pushes the GOP into the role of the party of law and order, and they’re all too willing to take up that role. But I was wondering about something else, or “bigger”, this morning. That is, Joe Biden et al are very light on policies, because in their view their most important issue is to get people to vote *against* Donald Trump, rather than *for* Biden.

    And I’m thinking maybe that’s starting to boomerang, to blow up in their faces, whether perhaps people are beginning to lean towards NOT voting for Joe Biden, instead of NOT voting for Donald Trump, “at any cost”. In that context, it appears telling that according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, Biden saw no “convention poll bounce” in his numbers after the DNC, while ironically, Trump did.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Whereas according to a Zogby Analytics poll, Trump’s job approval numbers are now at record high levels. And I know polls -and pollsters- can be biased, and so can the press quoting them, but to see three in a row, Reuters/Ipsos, Rasmussen, Zogby, all reporting similar movement, may still be significant.

    Trump Job Approval Rating Hits Record At 52%

    Buoyed by blacks and independent voters, as well as urban dwellers shocked by the Black Lives Matter protest violence raging in some cities, President Trump’s approval rating has hit a new high, according to a survey heavy with minority voters. The latest Zogby Analytics poll just shared with Secrets had Trump’s approval at 52%. “The president has recorded his best job approval rating on record,” said pollster Jonathan Zogby.

    What’s more, his approval rating among minorities was solid and, in the case of African Americans, shockingly high. Zogby said 36% of blacks approve of the president, as do 37% of Hispanics and 35% of Asians. Approval among independent voters is also up, to 44%. And “intriguingly,” said Zogby, 23% of Democrats approve of Trump.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    It was the latest to show that Trump’s approval went up during the Democratic National Convention. Rasmussen Reports had it at 51% at the end of the convention. In a shock from past election years, Joe Biden got no convention poll bounce, according to a newly released Reuters/Ipsos poll. [..] Zogby, in his analysis, took a stab at the reasoning. First, he said, his and other polls are confirming that the nation is nearly evenly divided politically and that despite some showing a big Biden lead, the race is extremely close.

    He suggested that the battle is for the “10%-20%” who haven’t made their minds up on whom to vote for and who likely won’t make up their minds until Election Day, just like in 2016. “We are as polarized a nation, on a level not seen since the Civil War,” said Zogby. He also said that the violence playing out in cities such as Kenosha, Wisconsin, and Portland, Oregon, are pushing urban voters to Trump.

    A fresh Rasmussen poll about Biden’s lead in the polls (which reached double digits not long ago), indicates that there’s not much left of that lead. That, but the way, is similar to a CNN poll a number of weeks ago. Significantly, Rasmussen suggests that: Even if Biden’s now-slim lead in the polls were to remain frozen as of today, Trump would still have a clear path to an electoral college victory.

    Biden’s Polling Lead Has Collapsed

    Just a month and a half ago, Rasmussen Reports had Joe Biden 10-points ahead of President Donald Trump in the polls. Now he’s only ahead by one point, within the margin of error. Even if Biden’s now-slim lead in the polls were to remain frozen as of today, Trump would still have a clear path to an electoral college victory, as Hillary Clinton lead Trump in the popular vote by just over two points in the 2016 election. While it is impossible to know the exact reason (or reasons) for Biden’s polling collapse, it comes as the economy continues to rebound from the coronavirus, riots continue to ravage liberal run cities longer than anyone expected (to no condemnation from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris)..

    [..] Rasmussen was among the closest mainstream pollster in approximating the popular vote in the 2016 election. Rasmussen had Hillary Clinton up 1.7 points over Trump on election day 2016, while she ended up winning the popular vote by 2.1 points above him (48.2% vs. 46.1%). The Real Clear Politics average of polls had Hillary up for six points. Unlike the other polls, Rasmussen correctly saw Trump had a path to victory in the electoral college.

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

    And of course Don Lemon warned yesterday on CNN that Biden has to start addressing the riots, because by remaining silent he’s letting Trump run away with the issue. But it’s not entirely clear how Biden would do that: the Democrats have supported BLM and protesters -as well as rioters- in general for most of the year, and now they would have to turn against them?

    The sports boycotts that yesterday came seemingly out of nowhere all at the same time, look like they’re well intentioned but too late. There is too much news, and there are too many videos, out there to keep portraying what’s happening in the streets of Kenosha and Minneapolis and many other cities, as a one-sided problem. There is violence on both, or even many, sides.

    Tonight, Thursday August 27, it’s Donald Trump’s turn to address the RNC, and the entire press, the entire nation, will pay attention. Nobody feels they can afford not to. Almost half the country will already have their minds made up about what a terrible person he is, while the other almost half will think he’s doing great. It’s the “10%-20%” who haven’t made their minds up that he must reach, and given how the country feels about violence in the streets, he may well succeed in reaching quite a few.

    For which he can thank the DNC. “Orange Man Bad” may have once looked to be a winning strategy, but by now it feels mostly a limiting one.

    *  *  *

    We try to run the Automatic Earth on donations. Since ad revenue has collapsed, your support is now an integral part of the process. Thank you for your ongoing support.

  • Kenosha Shooter Hit With 6 Charges, Including First-Degree Murder
    Kenosha Shooter Hit With 6 Charges, Including First-Degree Murder

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 08/27/2020 – 20:02

    Now that 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse has been taken into custody in Illinois after he “fled across state lines” (drove 20 minutes back to his house in Antioch, Illinois), local prosecutors have unveiled the full boat of charges that the 17-year-old is facing, including first degree reckless homicide.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Kenosha County prosecutors charged the teenager with one count each of first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide and one count of attempted first-degree intentional homicide. He was also charged with two counts of reckless endangerment, and with possessing a dangerous weapon as a minor.

    Earlier, the names of Rittenhouse’s victims have been released to the media. They are: Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The Daily News and other MSM outlets are already trying to portray them as “sweet, loving” innocent victims who were “peaceful protesters” not “rioters”.

    Here’s more on the charges from Reuters:

    Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old who was arrested in connection with shootings in Wisconsin that led to the death of two people and injury of another, has been charged with six criminal counts, according to the criminal complaint disclosed on Thursday.

    The charges against Rittenhouse in Kenosha County include first degree reckless homicide in the death of Joseph Rosenbaum and first degree intentional homicide in the death of Anthony Huber, according to the complaint.

    Fortunately for Rittenhouse and his family, powerhouse Attorney Lin Wood, who also represented Covington Catholic high schools student Nick Sandmann in his battle against the MSM media outlets that slandered him, has agreed to take on his case.

    As some may know, Wood shot to fame after the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing when he represented Richard Jewel, who was falsely accused, and then slandered, by the mainstream press.

    Wood made the following statement on his Twitter account.

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

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

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

    The shooting victim who survived, Gaige Grosskreutz, 26, is a volunteer medic for Black Lives Matter protests in Milwaukee over the summer. Rittenhouse is being held at a Lake County juvenile detention facility. He will appear in court Friday morning, where he’ll face extradition to Kenosha.

    The violence took place in Kenosha on Tuesday night as the town was racked by a third night of violence following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a black criminal suspect.

  • The Fed's Policy Mistake: "Buying" More Inflation Will Lead To Financial Instability
    The Fed’s Policy Mistake: “Buying” More Inflation Will Lead To Financial Instability

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 08/27/2020 – 19:45

    Submitted by Joseph Carson, former chief economist at AllianceBernstein

    The Federal Reserve’s new policy of inflation “averaging “ is a mistake. The trade-off nowadays is between inflation and financial stability. Buying more inflation will eventually create, if it has not already, financial imbalances that will trigger an economic crash.

    The parallel to this is the misguided policies of the 1970s. Back then policymakers found buying more employment with a little more inflation did not work.

    Facts Don’t Support Policy Change

    Federal Reserve policymaker’s argument for the policy change is that consumer inflation has been consistently running below its 2% target. Also, sustained low inflation readings can over time depress inflation expectations, which can create “ever lower inflation and inflation expectations”. The evidence does not support these arguments.

    The Federal Government statistical branches publish two measures of consumer price inflation. The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes the consumer price index (CPI) and the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) publishes the personal consumption deflator (PCE).

    CPI is the basic measure of consumer price inflation. The PCE measure gets 70% of its price data from the CPI. But the PCE also includes items or services provided to consumers by businesses and government. BEA uses a lot of imputations (non-market prices) to value these items and services since these items are not “sold” to the consumer.

    In the 4 of the past 5 years, core CPI has been running above the Fed’s 2% target. The only year of the past 5 when core CPI ran below 2% was 2017 when it ran 1.8%. That small shortfall is not statistically significant and surely does not warrant a fundamental change in policy.

    Also, the argument the low reported inflation is undermining consumer inflation expectations are not supported by the facts. Consumer’s one-year inflation expectations from the University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey shows that people’s inflation expectations have consistently run above-reported inflation and the 2% target.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    In the past two decades, the only times consumer inflation expectations dropped below 2% was during 9/11 and the Great Financial Crisis. And each drop in expectations was short-lived. Consumer inflation expectations currently stand at 3%.

    The Federal Reserve has three mandates, maximum employment, price stability, and financial stability. Financial stability is often overlooked or ignored. The last two recessions were triggered not by inflation running too high or too low, but by real and financial asset prices running too hot. Current macro valuations asset valuations now exceed the high thresholds of the last two asset bubbles.

    Changes in monetary policy often have unintended consequences. Trying to buy more inflation is a mistake. It’s a policy mistake because actual inflation has been running above target. But the bigger problem is that the new policy will trigger more speculation and risks in finance at a time when asset values are already at nosebleed levels.

    The misguided policies of the 1970s eventually ended with an economic crash. Will this time play out differently? I have my doubts. That’s because over exuberance in finance or in the economy creates imbalances that naturally correct. The big difference today versus the 1970s is that the US does not have the policy defenses —with official rates at zero and budget deficits in the trillions— to cushion the fall.

  • Putin Says Worst Of Russia's Virus-Induced Recession Over As Recovery Nears
    Putin Says Worst Of Russia’s Virus-Induced Recession Over As Recovery Nears

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 08/27/2020 – 19:25

    President Vladimir Putin spoke with Rossiya 24 TV channel, transcribed by RT News, on Thursday, indicating the worst of the virus-indued recession is over for the Russian economy. 

    “We believe the peak of our problems has passed, and I hope we will gradually begin to recover,” Putin said. “We are not much different from other countries in the world – I think our recovery will be secured next year.”

    Putin said the country’s macroeconomic backdrop is stable following a deep plunge in economic activity earlier this year due to coronavirus lockdowns. He said low inflation levels and increasing gold reserves had put the national economy on a pathway towards recovery. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Putin reiterated, as he did in June (see: “Putin Says US Social Unrest Show “Deep-Seated Internal Crises”), his government’s quick response effort to contain the virus has been much better than the US. He noted then, that President Trump’s poor handling of the pandemic and social unrest signaled “deep-seated internal crises” in the West. 

    Just weeks ago, Putin unveiled the world’s first approved COVID-19 vaccine. However, safety and efficacy data of the drug has yet to be released. A vaccine widely available in the country could accelerate recovery in 2021. 

    Putin pointed out Russia continues to boost precious metals purchases and increase FX reserves to $590 billion. 

    “This creates an additional safety cushion … It’s not a panacea for all ills, but it is important,” he said, adding that the holdings allow the government to fund budgets and fulfill social obligations.

    The Russian economy is expected to contract eight percent this year. Putin said the plunge won’t be as bad at that, expected to fall around five and six percent range. 

    Recovery hopes in Russia were seen in a recent Reuters poll, with respondents revealing the MOEX stock index could hit new highs in 2021.  

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    As for the US, facing a double-recession with continued depressionary unemployment, along with no end to the virus pandemic insight, a recovery could be several years away. 

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Aug 27

Today’s News 27th August 2020

  • France & Italy Join Greece In Major Naval War Games 'Show Of Force' Against Turkey
    France & Italy Join Greece In Major Naval War Games ‘Show Of Force’ Against Turkey

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 08/27/2020 – 02:45

    President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to make “no concessions” with Greece amid the rapidly escalating eastern Mediterranian gas exploration dispute, declaring Turkey will “do whatever is necessary” to secure its territorial rights in Wednesday remarks commemorating an ancient battle which saw Seljuk Turks victorious during an engagement with the Byzantine empire in the 11th century. 

    “We don’t have our eye on someone else’s territory, sovereignty and interests, but we will make no concessions on that which is ours,” Erdogan said, while urging that Greece must “avoid wrongs that will be the path to ruin”. He underscored “We will not compromise what is ours… We are determined to do whatever is necessary.”

    This even as Macron’s France has jumped fully onboard to defend Greece and Cyprus’ cause in preventing breach of their maritime territory and Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ).

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Joint military drills, via Ekathimerini Drills

    France has since confirmed deployment of its ‘Lafayette’ frigate and three Rafale fighter jets to Cyprus, also as what’s being described as a “massive maritime exercise” is underway in the eastern Mediterranean on Wednesday involving Greece, Cyprus, France and Italy.

    Called the “Eunomia” military exercise, it’s a clear and firm signal to Turkey meant to – as Greece’s defense minister said, reinforce “the rule of law as part of the policy of de-escalating tensions.”

    Defense Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos spelled out specifically that—  

    “the initiative… aims to demonstrate the commitment of the four European Mediterranean countries to the rule of law as part of the policy of de-escalating tensions.”

    The drills are set to run from Wednesday through Friday of this week.

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

    Ironically enough this pits NATO allies against one another, with the EU recently firmly coming down on the side of defending Greek and Cypriot claims over and against an expansionist Turkey eager to gain hydrocarbon resources in the region, toward the goal of greater energy independence. 

  • Berlin Bans Protest Against Pandemic Restrictions, Deploys Thousands Of Police
    Berlin Bans Protest Against Pandemic Restrictions, Deploys Thousands Of Police

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 08/27/2020 – 02:30

    Authorities in Berlin have banned a series of planned demonstrations against the country’s COVID-19 lockdown measures – claiming they were organized by “right-wing extremists” and would lead to the spread of the virus. The city is deploying several thousand police around the German capital this weekend, citing threats.

    The German city notably did not ban a June Black Lives Matter protest  in which approximately 15,000 people turned out.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    June BLM protest in Berlin

    Meanwhile, the Assembly for Freedom had 17,000 registered demonstrators for the August 29 event before Berlin shut it down.

    “We are still in the middle of a pandemic with rising infection figures,” said Berlin Interior Minister, Andreas Geisel. “This is not a decision against freedom of assembly, but a decision in favor of infection protection,” he continued, adding that Berlin should not be “misused as a stage for corona deniers… and right-wing extremists.”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    About 20,000 people, including libertarians, constitutional loyalists, far-right supporters and anti-vaccination activists, marched in Berlin on Aug. 1.

    Geisel said the organisers of that protest had deliberately broken rules they had previously agreed with police, including wearing masks and maintaining social distancing.

    “Such behaviour is not acceptable. The state cannot be given the runaround,” he said, adding he did not want Berlin to be a stage for conspiracy theorists and right-wing extremists. –Reuters

    Meanwhile, Germany’s right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) has called for a protest at the Brandenburg Gate against the ban.

    “The Senate is trampling on fundamental rights,” AfD said in a statement.

  • Child Trafficking Protesters Gathered Outside Buckingham Palace To Condemn "Pedophile" Prince
    Child Trafficking Protesters Gathered Outside Buckingham Palace To Condemn “Pedophile” Prince

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 08/27/2020 – 02:00

    Authored by John Vibes via TheMindUnleashed.com,

    This Saturday in London, protesters gathered outside of Buckingham Palace as part of a demonstration against child exploitation. Protesters shouted accusations of “pedophile” outside the gates of the palace, in reference to Prince Andrew’s involvement in Jeffrey Epstein’s child trafficking ring.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The protests were organized through a Facebook event page called, ‘Freedom For The Children Global Walk London.’

    A post on the event page read:

     “The purpose of this walk for change is to bring awareness to the current reality of child exploitation within our own communities and around the world. Let’s show our devotion and determination toward protecting these children, our communities most vulnerable, by requesting change and reformation within our government and law enforcement agencies to ensure that justice is brought in such a manner that it will significantly reduce instances of child exploitation while promoting awareness in order to end this ongoing issue.”

    In footage later released of the protest, protesters can be seen waving banners with Prince Andrew’s face along with messages condemning his crimes.

    Meanwhile, Prince Andrew has been dodging investigators that want to question him about the accusations made by some of Epstein’s victims.

    New York prosecutors have said that the prince has “completely shut the door” on cooperating with authorities. They are now considering what further legal action can be taken.

    Andrew continues to deny any wrongdoing or knowledge of Epstein’s many crimes, despite a growing body of evidence indicating that he was involved.

    Manhattan Attorney Geoffrey Berman described the prince as a “co-conspirator.”

    “Contrary to Prince Andrew’s very public offer to cooperate with our investigation into Epstein’s co-conspirators, an offer that was conveyed via press release, Prince Andrew has now completely shut the door on voluntary cooperation and our office is considering its options,” Berman said, according to the Guardian.

    Andrew has previously promised to help investigators with the case, but has since removed himself from public life. He has also refused requests for interviews that investigators have sent him. He has stepped down from his official royal position and is now more than ever the black sheep of the royal family.

    After the arrest of alleged Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, who is also said to be good friends with Andrew, the prince has canceled all of his travels and business trips outside of the UK, likely out of fears that he will be arrested as well.

    According to a former member of the Royal guard who worked on Prince Andrew’s security detail, The London Metropolitan Police have destroyed evidence that could have revealed where Prince Andrew was on the night that he is accused of having sex with a teenager that was being trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell.

    The night in question is March 10th, 2001, as well as the morning hours of March 11. Virginia Giuffre, who was known by the name Virginia Roberts at the time, says that she was taken to London by Epstein and Maxwell and was expected to have sex with Prince Andrew. Giuffre says that she was just 17-years-old at the time.

  • Everything Changes After Kenosha… "Divided We Stand"
    Everything Changes After Kenosha… “Divided We Stand”

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/26/2020 – 23:59

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

    It would always come to this. At some point there would be a reckoning for BLM and Antifa.

    The shootings in Kenosha, WI are a dividing line for America.

    This is the moment where normal people finally said, “Enough. There will be consequences. “

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    This is a war between radicalized lunatics bathed in unquenchable envy and self-pity and those who refuse to act like victims.

    But they are victims.

    All of us are. On both sides of the divide.

    We are victims of a vicious program to divide and conquer the U.S. through a culture war designed to dehumanize each other.

    We fight among ourselves over scraps while the people who manipulated events to this point walk away laughing at the destruction.

    They want the violence. They love it. They relish it. It brings them power and prestige.

    To maintain their power, as the systems they’ve built fail, they have set us against each other: paid looters and rioters to become cannon fodder in their war against common decency, culture, communities and family.

    All for control over the levers of political power.

    In 2016 we tried to tell them, peacefully, enough was enough. We elected Donald Trump, of all people, to be our standard bearer. We did it the way we were taught was the right way, through the ballot box.

    It was supposed to be the hallmark of our enlightenment, the peaceful transfer of power. It’s been anything but.

    For four years we’ve endured a non-stop parade of political venality unmatched in modern history. The quest for regaining the power of the White House brooked no holds being barred.

    And if Trump wouldn’t go willingly and we didn’t learn our lesson, then they would activate every cell to flood the streets with disaffected and nihilistic youths to loot and rob; using their outrageous sense of entitlement as fuel for their rage against a machine they are, unwittingly, the main cogs of.

    But having watched one young man clear in his purpose to defend his town from roving thugs in Kenosha be forced (under clear conditions of self-defense) to kill two people is a dividing line we’re not coming back from.

    Wars are only profitable for those that promote them. Those that fight the wars are the real victims. This kid, a hero by my personal reckoning, is also a victim and there’s no coming back from what he’s had to do.

    Killing while justified is still killing. It scars you, no matter if you wear a blue uniform, fatigues or a green t-shirt.

    The animals I see on the streets under the auspice of what the media calls ‘peaceful protests’ beating people to within inches of their lives for the crime of being white and defending their property have no humanity.

    My livestock have more decency than these people.

    And yet, in order for us to survive this dark period of history, we will still have to reach out to them and offer them peace and assistance back from the insanity that grips them now.

    That will be the hardest thing for us to do, while also maintaining the resolve to do what we feel is necessary to preserve something of what we’ve built.

    That is the dividing line for many of us.

    Only you know where that limit is. There are a lot of people out there right now confronting that limit for the first time.

    As my dad used to say, as NYPD, “I’d rather be judged by twelve than carried by six.”

    We are up against people who brook no limit on their behavior. Everything is justified in the pursuit of their righteous cause. You can see in it all the video footage.

    And they know it. They know that we’d rather not fight back. That, unfortunately, to people empowered by the mob and turned into bullies, is misinterpreted as weakness.

    Having humanity is not weakness. It is strength.

    And nothing bursts the bubble of false bravado on display by Anfita/BLM at this point than strength of character, which defines limits, creates boundaries and establishes consequences.

    The sad truth is that this is only the beginning of what’s to come. The line is crossed and from town to town, that line will be more difficult to assess than ever before.

    The myth of policing is failing. There aren’t enough cops to quell these riots. The State has been revealed as their enablers.

    The law has been used against property owners told they shouldn’t defend themselves or their businesses.

    They’ve been afraid of being the ones who cross the line while the looters overwhelm the streets. That impulse will continue to wither. This anarcho-tyranny will not stand for much longer.

    That’s what we saw it on the streets of Kenosha.

    We’ll see more of it, until a new form of order asserts itself.

    *  *  *

    Join My Patreon to assist rebuilding our communities. Install the Brave Browser to make a dent in Google’s panopticon.

  • The Totalitarian Future Globalists Want For The Entire World Is Being Revealed
    The Totalitarian Future Globalists Want For The Entire World Is Being Revealed

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/26/2020 – 23:45

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

    All over the Western world ever since 9/11 there have been incremental steps towards what many liberty advocates would call a “police state”; a system in which governments are no longer restricted by the boundaries of civil liberties and are given the power to do just about anything they want in the name of public safety.

    The use of “the law” as a tool for injecting tyranny into a culture is the first tactic of all totalitarians.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The idea is that by simply writing government criminality into the law books, that criminality somehow becomes justified by virtue of legal recognition. It’s all very circular. Whenever government abuse of the people is initiated, it’s always initiated in the name of what’s “best for society as a whole”. To save society, the individuals that make up a society must be sublimated or destroyed. This mentality is the complete opposite of what the Founding Fathers in America fought and died for, but as Thomas Jefferson once said:

    “Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.”

    In countries like Australia, which claim to value Western democratic principles of liberty and rule by the people, the perception is that civil rights are codified into the legal framework just as they are in the US. However, there are some glaring differences and issues; specifically, Australian citizens (like many European citizens) have absolutely no means to compel their government or the elites that influence their government to limit themselves. It is these nations, in which the populations have been mostly disarmed and pacified, that any agenda for tyranny will first be established. But we will get to that in a moment…

    Make no mistake, there is a very OPEN and easily identifiable agenda on the part of globalists to establish a heavily centralized police state system in every country they are able. This is not “conspiracy theory”, this is conspiracy fact.

    For many years now there have been numerous analysts, economists and geopolitical experts in the alternative media that have predicted and warned the public about the globalist strategy of “order out of chaos”. In other words, the ultra-wealthy power brokers that hold influence over most governments on Earth seek to “reshape” the existing social order through the creation of crisis and disaster. By engineering public desperation, they hope to lure us into accepting restrictions on our freedoms that we would have never considered otherwise.

    The goal of a single global economy and government has been spoken of by elites time and time again, yet it is still to this day called “conspiracy theory” or “paranoid delusion”. I could quote these elites and their organizations all day long, but I’ll cite a few choice statements to make my point.

    As former Deputy Secretary of State under Clinton and Council on Foreign Relations member Strobe Talbot wrote in an article for Time Magazine in 1992 titled ‘America Abroad: The Birth Of The Global Nation’:

    “In the next century, nations as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority. National sovereignty wasn’t such a great idea after all.”

    As elitist and Fabian Socialist HG Wells outlines in his non-fiction treatise titled ‘The New World Order’:

    “…When the struggle seems to be drifting definitely towards a world social democracy, there may still be very great delays and disappointments before it becomes an efficient and beneficent world system. Countless people … will hate the new world order … and will die protesting against it. When we attempt to evaluate its promise, we have to bear in mind the distress of a generation or so of malcontents, many of them quite gallant and graceful-looking people.”

    And how about one of my favorite revealing quotes from Trilateral Commission member Richard N. Gardner, former deputy assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations under Kennedy and Johnson? He wrote in the April, 1974 issue of the Council on Foreign Relation’s (CFR) journal Foreign Affairs (pg. 558) in an article titled ‘The Hard Road To World Order’:

    “In short, the ‘house of world order’ will have to be built from the bottom up rather than from the top down. It will look like a great ‘booming, buzzing confusion,’ to use William James’ famous description of reality, but an end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece, will accomplish much more than the old-fashioned frontal assault.”

    Members of globalist foundations and think-tanks like the CFR have inhabited nearly every US government office and presidential cabinet for the past several decades. This includes the two dozen or so CFR members in Donald Trump’s cabinet.  Draining the swamp? Not going to happen.

    As Harpers Magazine candidly revealed in a 1958 expose titled ‘School For Statesmen’:

    “The most powerful clique in these (CFR) groups have one objective in common, they want to bring about the surrender of the sovereignty and the national independence of the U.S. They want to end national boundaries and racial and ethnic loyalties supposedly to increase business and ensure world peace. What they strive for would inevitably lead to dictatorship and loss of freedoms by the people. The CFR was founded for “the purpose of promoting disarmament and submergence of U.S. sovereignty and national independence into an all powerful one world government.”

    The easiest method for the globalists to get what they openly say they want is to either conjure a crisis or exploit an existing crisis in order to “erode sovereignty”. The current pandemic fits this plan perfectly, but before sovereignty can be eliminated on a national level they need to undermine sovereignty on an individual level first.

    Actions within the US and nations allied to the US suggest an accelerated attack on personal liberties is at hand.

    There are sister foundations to the CFR in many other countries. For example, in Australia they have the highly embedded and influential Strategic Policy Institute, which has been consistently advocating for complete centralization of government power in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Their stated plan is to concentrate policy administration in the hands of a new “commission” or “department” made up of the “brightest minds”. This commission would not be tasked with getting Australia back to normal, but convincing the public to ACCEPT the “new normal” beyond the pandemic.

    The ASPI enthusiastically heralds the idea in an article titled ‘Coronavirus Response A Chance To Reimagine Future For Australia’:

    “The agenda of such a department now is not about getting Australia back to normal after the pandemic. It’s about re-imagining what Australia can be and how we can thrive and prosper in our future beyond the coronavirus and in light of drought, bushfires and climate change. Think about the kind of new economy we can have after the forced, rapid adoption of dispersed home working and schooling through digital means. We can be the leading digital economy the prime minister desired before the pandemic, not by 2030 but much earlier.”

    This reminds me immediately of the post 9/11 push to rapidly remove constitutional protections while the public was blinded by fear and confusion.  As US globalist Rahm Emanuel would say:

    “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.”

    The ASPI reveals the true agenda, which is the complete federalization and unilateral implementation of law without public approval. The plan is to do this by exploiting the pandemic event to its full potential and then applying the rapid societal changes in government structure. This will then be carried on long after the coronavirus disappears in the name of the economy, welfare programs and so-called “global warming”. The pandemic response is just a means to an end, and the end game is total dominance of the population.

    I focus on Australia and the surrounding regions in particular because this seems to be the place where globalists are enforcing technocratic policies first. Or at the very least, they are test-running their strategy and using Australians as guinea pigs. When the ASPI says they plan to keep the pandemic changes in place well after the virus is gone, they aren’t just talking about shifting into a digital economy.

    Right now, Australia and New Zealand are slamming citizens with perhaps the most draconian measures yet in the Western world. These are policies that the elites want to introduce everywhere, but they are going full bore in Australia, and it just keeps getting worse.

    In various areas of Australia “Level 4” response measures have been enforced for at least the next six weeks, including curfews, strict mask policies including people being forced to wear masks OUTSIDE (contrary to everything science and virology has to say about low possibility of transmission in sunlight and open air), residents are not allowed to travel more than 3 miles from their homes and only one person from a household is allowed to leave at any given time. Citizens violating these rules are subject to $10,000 fines or arrest. And yes, people are being arrested simply for not wearing mask or being too far from home.

    In New Zealand, the situation has become exceedingly grim and I think it should be treated as a warning to Americans specifically as to our potential future is we allow the narrative of “public health security” to be turned into a vehicle for tyranny.

    While Australia has been using quarantine facilities to force people considered high risk to isolate, NZ quarantine camps are now fully under the control of the military, and ALL citizens that test positive or are suspected to have Covid can be separated from their families and placed in the camps, which are hotels converted into prisons.

    It is the complete erasure if personal liberties all because of an increase in cases which has amounted to a mere 525 deaths in Australia and 22 deaths in New Zealand.

    I believe the reason Australia and New Zealand have been targeted with this level of restrictions first is because they have been almost fully disarmed and have no means to defend themselves from government overstep. That said, I see signs that similar measures will be attempted in the US as well. In states like New York, there are low key programs to set up Covid checkpoints stopping and checking vehicles coming into the state. This is where heavier restrictions start.

    First, checkpoints will be established in the name of keeping infected people out of a state or city. Then, those same checkpoints will be used to keep people from leaving a state or city. Then, checkpoints will be set up at random to test people for fever or symptoms of illness. If allowed to continue, the natural progression of checkpoints is to terrify the population into not traveling anywhere for any reason. Like in Australia and NZ, people will effectively be imprisoned in their homes. At this stage, bringing in laws or executive orders punishing people for leaving home will be easier; they will have already acclimated to being trapped at home anyway.

    Furthermore, elites and globalists within the US are calling for hard lockdowns for at least six weeks, just like the Level 4 lockdowns in Australia. Federal Reserve member Neel Kashkari recently asserted that Americans are saving more, thus they should be subjected to hard lockdowns “because they can afford it”.

    Virginia is planning mandatory Covid vaccinations, even though vaccines for SARS like viruses have proven impossible to develop in the past, and rushed vaccines have a history of harming or killing people rather than protecting them. Set aside the issue that giving government the power to force citizens to inject anything into their bodies is immoral.

    What’s next? Covid camps? Well, yes, unless Americans make a hard stand. Mainstream media outlets have been suggesting this strategy for months. The Washington Post applauded the use of forced isolation camps in other nations and asks why the US has not yet used them beyond ports for foreign travelers? The reason is this: Many Americans will not go along with such measures, and will use force in-kind against anyone trying to lock them up because of a virus that is a moderate threat at most to a small percentage of the population.

    That said, don’t assume that the establishment will not eventually try it here. They will. Be ready when they do so. Look to the actions in places like Australia and NZ and ask yourself, am I willing to go along with that? And if so, for how long? Because the globalists intend for these restrictions to become the “new normal”. They intend for this nightmare to last forever.

    *  *  *

    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.

  • 'Rush-In' Interference: An Asteroid Is Heading For Earth The Day Before The 2020 Election
    ‘Rush-In’ Interference: An Asteroid Is Heading For Earth The Day Before The 2020 Election

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/26/2020 – 23:25

    In an event that is almost guaranteed to be called Russian meddling if President Trump wins re-election, an asteroid is expected to zoom “uncomfortably” close to the Earth the day before election day.

    Celestial object 2018 VP1 is expected to fly past earth on November 2, 2020 according to the Center for Near Objects Studies at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a new report from Fox. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The asteroid is “very small” and has an orbit that crosses the orbit of Earth. So far, computer simulations predict that there will be no collision.

    Hopefully, these aren’t the same computers that predicted Hillary Clinton having a 90% chance of winning the 2016 election. 

    The asteroid orbits the sun every 731 days and is said to be roughly the “size of a school bus” or smaller. The Center for Near Objects Studies says there is just a 0.41% chance of it entering the Earth’s atmosphere “based on 21 observations spanning 12.968 days.”

    Even if it does enter the atmosphere, it’ll burn up due to its small size, the group says. But hey, we can still hold out hope!

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

  • What Is Gilead's Role In The War On Hydroxychloroquine?
    What Is Gilead’s Role In The War On Hydroxychloroquine?

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/26/2020 – 23:05

    Authored by Antonio Chaves via AmericanThinker.com,

    Is Gilead, the maker of Remdesivir, waging war on HCQ (hydroxychloroquine)?

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Attacks on the drug have been continuous ever since Dr. Didier Raoult used this quinine derivative to save the lives of COVID-19 patients last March.

    The first attempt to discredit HCQ was a hastily compiled Veterans Administration hospital system study last April. Notably, one of the study’s authors had in the past received numerous grants from Gilead, with one grant in 2018 totaling nearly a quarter of a million dollars.

    After deep flaws in the VA study were exposed, Surgisphere came to the rescue in May with a “15,000 patient” megastudy allegedly compiled from hospitals all over the world.

    This strategy succeeded: Following its publication in the Lancet and the NEJM, all outpatient use of HCQ was severely restricted in the U.S., Australia, and most of Europe.

    When the Surgisphere scam was exposed, both articles were quietly retracted and the editor-in-chief of the Lancet tried to wash his hands of this embarrassing incident by denouncing Surgisphere’s “monumental fraud.”

    However only a few days earlier, Lancet editors played a major role in persuading WHO to suspend all trials for HCQ. Who put them up to it?

    The study’s main author, Mandeep Mehra, also apologized for his reliance on a third party for the data.  He may not have known the data was fabricated, but the hospital he directed was conducting two trials for Remdesivir. Was he under pressure from his sponsors?

    These are the stakes:

    • A five-day treatment with Remdesivir costs around $3,000.

    • A five-day supply of generic HCQ costs around $10.

    Drug companies have every right to recoup their cost of research and development, but lobbying to suppress access to a lifesaving treatment that is both cheaper and more effective is a crime against humanity.

    Progressives mistakenly believe that socialized medicine protects patients from the abuses of big pharma, but the first nation to severely restrict access to HCQ was France.

    This policy compelled Dr. Raoult to testify against Gilead’s disproportionate leverage over the medical community during a meeting of the French National Assembly last June.

    Notably in the U.S., a third of the FDA’s budget comes from pharmaceutical user fees, and according to the NIH’s website, eight out of 55 members of the panel responsible for COVID-19 treatment guidelines are currently affiliated with Gilead. These government ties to Gilead more than triple when you include panel members with past associations.

    Paradoxically, most opposition to HCQ in the U.S. comes from the left, but conservatives who know the ways of crony capitalism regard this as par for the course. After all, big pharma has given more to Democrats ever since the passage of Obamacare and up to now, Gilead employees donated three times more to the Biden campaign.

    Sooner or later there will be a reckoning for everyone who colluded in this disinformation campaign. If you are among the policymakers or physicians participating in this charade, you may want to dissociate yourself while you can credibly plead ignorance for tens of thousands of preventable deaths.

    *  *  *

    Access to HCQ varies by state. If you cannot get this drug from your doctor, America’s Frontline Doctors has kindly provided contact information for telemedicine physicians that are HCQ-knowledgeable. You can find these doctors by clicking on any state in their website and scrolling down to the bottom of the description.

  • Over Half Of San Francisco Storefronts Closed As Pandemic Downturn Rages
    Over Half Of San Francisco Storefronts Closed As Pandemic Downturn Rages

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/26/2020 – 22:45

    Morgan Stanley’s Michael Wilson warned a “growth scare” for markets could be imminent, if that is in the “next several weeks/months.” If so, then all the instabilities of a slowing recovery, deteriorating labor market, waning consumer sentiment, and small business massacre will come out of the woodwork and shock investors.

    On a micro-level, we want to share with readers a genuinely shocking, and deep economic scarring story developing in San Francisco.

    According to CBS San Francisco, citing a new survey via the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, “more than half of all storefronts in San Francisco are no longer in business due to COVID-19.” 

    “The survey showed only 46 percent of storefront businesses in San Francisco that were open at the beginning of the pandemic are still operating,” said Jay Cheng, spokesman of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce.

    Cheng said 1,300 stores have closed in recent months, with about 1,200 still open. 

    “There’s a lot of reasons for that. If you’re a fitness studio, you can’t open because of the pandemic. If you’re a retail space, you could open, but you might have decided that there isn’t enough foot traffic or enough customer base to make that worthwhile to reopen. So it’s become a very difficult situation,” he said.

    Cheng said business closures across the metro area have resulted in depressionary unemployment, with claims nearing 200,000, or four times then what was seen after the financial crash in 2008. 

    “And what’s really unique is that during the Great Recession, we knew what we had to do to get people back to work. We had to fix the housing market, and we had to get consumer confidence back up. Get people rehiring. Now, most of these 193,000 unemployment claims are unemployed because of the pandemic, said Cheng. “Until we get the public health crisis under control, we can’t get these folks back to work.”

    Video: More Than Half of San Fran Storefronts Closed Due To Pandemic

    When the growth scare strikes, sending markets into a panic, or mainly a blowoff of technology stocks, investors will search for evidence of deep economic scarring that has morphed the economic recovery from a “V-shaped” to one that resembles a “Nike Swoosh.” They will stumble upon the depressing situation in San Francisco of a business massacre. 

  • Trump And Pompeo Craft No-Win Solutions For The World
    Trump And Pompeo Craft No-Win Solutions For The World

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/26/2020 – 22:25

    Authored by Tom Luongo via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    You have to hand it to the sociopaths running U.S. foreign policy, they are very adept at creating no-win scenarios for their opponents. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was just handed a major defeat at the United Nations Security Council, who voted down a resolution to extend the arms embargo against Iran.

    That embargo is set to expire in October as part of the U.S. unilaterally pulling out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), known colloquially as the Iran Nuclear Deal.

    But Pompeo and President Trump only wanted that vote, in my opinion, to force out into the open their ability to impose the ‘snapback’ sanctions on Iran which is a major component of the JCPOA.

    Pompeo and Trump, with this vote, are now, disingenuously clawing their way back into the JCPOA by saying they have the right to invoke those sanctions on all signatories. This tact is unlikely to succeed so what’s the game plan then?

    Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif cuts to the heart of the matter in a recent article:

    The U.S. administration’s disinformation campaign — including false and forged claims regarding a regional consensus … is a ruse to disguise its real, more malevolent motivations: having failed to collapse Resolution 2231 after over two years of the most brutal “maximum pressure” ever imposed on a nation…the U.S. now hopes to abuse its mal-interpretation of the provisions of the same resolution it abandoned in 2018 to finally destroy it. This deeply malicious U.S. behavior is evident throughout the UN, where it seeks to use the UN itself to effectively destroy the world body.

    Trump wants the JCPOA gone and he’s willing to blackmail most of the U.N. Security Council to get it. Because if the arms embargo is lifted then he and Pompeo will then use their expanded sanctions capability under CAATSA to cut even more of the world out of the U.S. financial system.

    And I’m not talking about little things like cutting Iran and/or Russia out of SWIFT.

    Those are already on the table and game-planned for by both countries. He’s not stupid enough to cut China out of SWIFT no matter how badly relations deteriorate short of open, kinetic war.

    I’m talking about harsh sanctions on European persons and companies akin to what they’ve already done over something as miniscule as the Nordstream 2 pipeline to get the results in the U.N.S.C. they want.

    This feeds into Trump’s growing distrust of the EU and a resurgent Angela Merkel in Germany, who he knows is actively working against his re-election. There is zero love lost between these two, since Trump has clearly targeted Merkel as his biggest enemy in Europe.

    Now I’m no fan of the U.N. or most of the other post-WWII transnational institutions like the World Bank and the I.M.F. but this push by Trump and Pompeo to break the U.N. now that it no longer acts as a rubber stamp agency on U.S. foreign adventurism is the height of duplicity.

    The strategy employed by Trump and Pompeo here is so absurd even the U.N.’s harshest critic, madman John Bolton, thinks they are nuts to go this route.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The reason for this push to extend the arms embargo on Iran is simple, both Russia and China are deep in negotiations with Iran to upgrade both its air and air defense capabilities. China is ready to deploy over $400 billion in Iran while Russia stands ready to ‘sell’ the Iranians new Suhkois and S-400 missile defense systems.

    And there’s no way to pressure Iran to the negotiating table and create a new JCPOA to Trump’s liking if it can credibly defend itself from Israeli and U.S. aggression. But this feeds into Trump’s re-election strategy of brokering an historic peace deal between the UAE and Israel while making headlines with troop withdrawals in Afghanistan and Germany.

    Now at the same time, Trump and Pompeo have been very active across Europe rewriting the U.S. troop deployment map there to pressure Russia into signing new INF and START treaties under threat of U.S. expanded deployments in Poland.

    Is this just more aggressive posturing by Trump? We’ll see. I remain convinced that a lot of his foreign policy ‘blundering,’ as Philip Giraldi called it recently (which I don’t disagree with), is part of his purposefully blowing up the old order between the U.S. and Europe now that it’s clear to me the globalists’ goal of a Great Reset involves destroying the U.S. and moving the center of western power to the European Union.

    The recent upheaval in Belarus fits into this thesis perfectly.

    While I’m sure the re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko wasn’t as overwhelming as the official polls suggest, I don’t for a second believe he actually lost the election.

    That said, what is happening in Minsk is similar to what happened in Kiev in 2014, Venezuela in 2019, and what’s happening in the U.S. against Trump himself, a manufactured color revolution that can only reach the levels we’ve seen if the government itself wasn’t fundamentally corrupt.

    It’s a color revolution nonetheless and the hypocritical responses from the U.S., France and Germany over the ‘violence’ in Minsk verges on the cartoonish, especially given the level of civil unrest at home in all of those places.

    Things have progressed to the point in Belarus where Russian President Vladimir Putin also has no good options in the near term. Opposition to Lukashenko is strong enough, because he is a terrible leader, that Putin can’t openly support him while at the same time he can’t wait too long to make a move lest Lukashenko be ousted from power, bringing a U.S. puppet, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, to power.

    For his part, Lukashenko has finally seen the light. Caught trying, as The Saker so trenchantly put it, “to sit between two chairs.” Lukashenko has only himself to blame for this coup attempt.

    He’s the one that courted the West, inviting Pompeo to reopen the U.S. embassy, thinking he could blackmail Putin into giving him more treasure from Russia’s coffers. And he has resisted for nearly two decades Putin’s offers of a Union State where Belarus and Russia would be far more integrated partners than they are now.

    And now, after being set up by Pompeo, Lukashenko sees things clearly and is ready to cave to Putin immediately on everything because if he doesn’t Belarus will become another failed state just like Ukraine is today.

    It’s touch and go right now as to whether Lukashenko can hold onto power long enough to get this done but he’s already offered to leave office and reform the constitution, which is the only path he has left. From a report at TASS:

    Meanwhile the incumbent president vowed readiness to redistribute power through a constitutional process. “Of course, I will go away someday. In a year or two. But we can’t give up the constitution to some nobody. Because it will be a disaster. This is what I am afraid of the most,” Lukashenko pointed out, as cited by the BelTA news agency.

    Reiterating readiness to “share” powers, the incumbent head of state was clear though that this would never happen under pressure. “We need a new constitution. I’ve been proposed two variants, but rejected both of them, because they barely differ from the current one. The work on the third variant is underway. Come, let’s sit and work on the constitution and put it to a referendum. And I will relegate my powers to you by the constitution. But not under pressure and not through the streets,” he said.

    Trump will happily go along with this regime change operation in Belarus to get Russia to the bargaining table over energy, security and everything else. He won’t meet with Putin between now and the election because there is no upside to it for him politically.

    Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron want the situation in Belarus because it feeds the narrative that NATO is still necessary to ‘contain Russian aggression’ and counter Trump’s criticisms. Poland and the Baltic whiners love this as well.

    The EU would love to poach Belarus for the European Union.

    NATO itself wants this conflict for the same reasons.

    The problem is that Belarus is not Ukraine. There isn’t the same kind of ethnic division, there is a single language and long, historical ties to Russia. And this color revolution can be countered easily with swift negotiations of the Union State proposal and outlining a path for Lukashenko to leave office peacefully.

    The longer he stays in power the more likely the situation will defuse itself. The same goes for Iran and the JCPOA. The longer Iran does nothing in the face of Israeli and U.S. aggression the more likely the outcome moves in their favor. Pushing Iran today carries no weight after the events surrounding the assassination of General Soleimani in January.

    Everyone knows Trump is not going to war with Iran unless one of his rogue underlings, like Pompeo or a general, force his hand. This is not out of the question, especially if it looks like he’ll win re-election.

    That’s why I see these moves in the U.N. as being more directed against the EU than Iran itself. Trump has a bigger problem on his hands, however. The chaos he’s unleashed in his quest to remake European and U.S. relations is something his State Dept. under Pompeo can’t control either. And he won’t be in any position to do anything more than what he’s doing now, win short-term victories and lose the long-term war while global capital abandons the U.S. and moves east.

  • Traces Of COVID-19 Found In Abandoned Apartment Bathroom Offer New Clues About How It Spreads
    Traces Of COVID-19 Found In Abandoned Apartment Bathroom Offer New Clues About How It Spreads

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/26/2020 – 22:05

    Still haunted by the memory of SARS, contact tracers in Guangzhou, China, have worked diligently to monitor the outbreak in their community. So, when a group of researchers happened upon an unusual situation – a group of five family members who all tested positive living below an apartment that had been unoccupied for months.

    Researchers decided to do some research, and have published their findings as a case study in Environmental International, which was picked up by Bloomberg.

    In the latest research to support the notion that the virus coronavirus in the bathroom of an unoccupied apartment in Guangzhou, China, suggests the airborne pathogen may have wafted upwards through drain pipes, an echo of a large SARS outbreak in Hong Kong 17 years ago.

    According to the research, traces of SARS-CoV-2 were detected on the sink, faucet and shower handle of a long-vacant apartment situated near the apartment of the family mentioned above. The contaminated bathroom was located directly above the home of five people confirmed a week earlier to have COVID-19. The study was carried out by researchers at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

    The scientists conducted what they described as an “on-site tracer simulation experiment” to see whether the virus could be spread through waste pipes via tiny airborne particles created by the force of a toilet flushing.

    They found evidence of these aerosols in bathrooms 10 and 12 levels above the infected family’s apartment. Two cases were confirmed on each of those floors in early February, raising concern that SARS-CoV-2-laden particles from the infected family’s stool had drifted into their homes via plumbing and managed to successfully infect others.

    For those who don’t understand the physics behind aerosol particles, the study’s authors offered a visual guide.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Here’s an abstract from the report.

    As public health teams respond to the pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), containment and understanding of the modes of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission is of utmost importance for policy making. During this time, governmental agencies have been instructing the community on handwashing and physical distancing measures. However, there is no agreement on the role of aerosol transmission for SARS-CoV-2. To this end, we aimed to review the evidence of aerosol transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Several studies support that aerosol transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is plausible, and the plausibility score (weight of combined evidence) is 8 out of 9. Precautionary control strategies should consider aerosol transmission for effective mitigation of SARS-CoV-2.

    It’s just the latest piece of evidence suggesting that the coronavirus is indeed “airborne” – that is, it spreads via tiny particles called “aerosols”. Like the abstract reflects, the data collected in this experiment suggest that the chances of aerosols being a significant means of infection are 8 in 9.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    At one point in the paper, the Chinese researchers take a swipe at organizations like the WHO, which has been slow to recognize the risks surrounding aerosol transmission. This is a dangerous assumption, especially considering the fact that transmission via surface contact and large-droplet transmission (which inspired the mandatory mask orders) has almost no actual evidence to back it up, but rather are the results of early assumptions that have endured for various and sundry reasons.

    Current evidence on SARS-CoV-2 has limitations, but is strongly indicative of aerosols as one of several routes of COVID-19 transmission. It should be noted that the equivalent evidence for contact and large droplet transmission is not available, but has been an unproven assumption from the outset. Epidemiologic and experimental data continues to be obtained at a rapid pace, and the role of aerosols in COVID-19 transmission should be revisited in light of the emerging evidence.

    The study also attacks another alleged misconception: the notion that SARS-CoV-2 spreads mainly through respiratory droplets, spatters of saliva or discharge from the nose.

    But since the first weeks of the pandemic, scientists in China have warned that virus in an infected person’s stool can help spread it. Studies in Guangdong province have found evidence of the virus in the stool of the infected.

    This means that bathrooms could be a key breeding ground for coronavirus transmission, because they “may promote fecal-derived aerosol transmission if used improperly, particularly in hospitals,” the China CDC researchers said. They cited a fluid-dynamics simulation that showed a “massive upward transport of virus aerosol particles” during flushing. This creates a “fecal plume” that could be particularly infectious.

    Though, to be sure, the extent to which people are infected by these plumes isn’t known. But readers can find the study in its entirety here.

    1-s2.0-S0160412020319942-main (1).pdf by Zerohedge on Scribd

  • Robert Gore: Our Dystopia Is Their Utopia
    Robert Gore: Our Dystopia Is Their Utopia

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/26/2020 – 21:45

    Authored by Robert Gore via Straight Line Logic blog,

    No Lives Matter

    The only way to control a substantial population is to murder enough that the rest are terrified into submission. But it isn’t really the control that’s the objective, it’s the murder. At root, murder stems from a grotesque hatred of one’s self, which animates a craven fear of anything and everything, particularly death, and paradoxically, a psychotic desire to kill one’s self and every other value. Only by understanding our enemies do we have any chance of defeating them.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The twentieth century and the two decades of this one offer ample material to study the psychology of evil.

    In the nineteenth century, Fyodor Dostoyevsky masterfully plumbed those depths. In the barren desert that constitutes today’s intellectual life, the study of history has been discarded and great literature ignored or burned. They’re casualties in the war being waged on anything that helps us understand ourselves. In one sense Dostoyevsky couldn’t have anticipated the collectivist charnel houses of the century to follow, but in one sense he did. He knew charnel houses were the work of individual souls, and one couldn’t grasp the one without examining the other.

    With many minority groups claiming historical injustices against them and demanding remedial recognition and reparation, with official endorsement by many institutions of those claims and demands, and with their propagation via all major channels of communication, no voices have been raised in support of the indisputably smallest and most persecuted minority group – the individual. “Individual” and “individual rights” are words that must not be spoken.

    Any recognition of the individual draws attention to the fundamental and massive violation of individual rights stemming from coronavirus totalitarianism and governments’ encouragement of riots, vandalism, and violence. In a Peanuts cartoon, Linus exclaims, “I love mankind… it’s people I can’t stand.” The game is always the same. In the name of some collective greater good—safety, anti-racism, fill in the blank—the wealth, property, work, rights, freedom, and lives of individuals are stolen. Of course the alleged greater good is never realized, but that was never the point. The fountainhead of any collectivist ideology is the hatred these lovers of mankind have for people and their pursuit of happiness.

    For coronavirus, the blueprint has been to test restrictive measures in one jurisdiction, see if they fly, and then move to universal implementation. China’s lockdown was the model for global lockdown.

    Sweden was condemned and smeared for refusing to follow the crowd, but its condemners have no more concern for the Swedish population than they do for any other population.

    Sweden has demonstrated that lockdowns are unnecessary. Its death rate is no higher than other European countries, and would have been substantially lower, perhaps cut by one-half to three-quarters, had it done a better job of protecting its elderly and nursing home patients. Unlike Andrew Cuomo and several other Democratic governors who made the same mistake, Swedish officials have admitted theirs.

    Swedish openness is antithetical to coronavirus commissars bent on propagating propaganda and enforcing draconian dictates. However, the ultimate danger to their regime will come when a vaccine arrives. After almost five months of what were supposed to be two weeks of lockdowns ostensibly sold as necessary to “flatten the curve,” it’s obvious the lockdowns are meant to prevent herd immunity, keeping people away from sunlight and fresh air, both of which bolster the immune system, and enforcing isolation and loneliness, which impair it. In other words, they’re designed to make the outbreak worse. If you’re surprised—regular readers won’t be—welcome to reality.

    When the vaccine arrives, the Swedish people will have achieved herd immunity (apparently they already have in urban centers), which traditionally has been the way humanity has dealt with viruses. An immune herd doesn’t need a vaccine and while the Swedish government probably won’t prevent anyone who wants one from getting one, it probably won’t be mandatory, unlike most of the rest of the world.

    That will prompt unwelcome questions among the thinking remnant. If herd immunity works, why did we have to lockdown? Why can’t we just complete the herd immunization we’ve already started? Will a vaccine, like lockdowns, make the outbreak worse? Why are we running the risks and bearing the enormous expense of a vaccine that’s been rushed to market and inadequately tested, will be only partially effective, will be adulterated with unhealthy preservatives and adjuvants, and will undoubtedly have unanticipated side effects, some of which may be severe? What’s the rights-destructive, life-threatening agenda behind the vaccine?

    While China was the beta test for lockdowns, apparently New Zealand and Australia serve as such for the next iteration of totalitarianism. China’s draconian measures were instituted in Wuhan, which actually had a serious coronavirus outbreak. New Zealand’s and Australia’s coronavirus death rates are infinitesimal: 4 per million in the former, 18 per million in the latter (Worldometers.info). Despite these scant numbers, New Zealand is under lockdown and has postponed an election (nobody has died of the coronavirus since May) and Melbourne has instituted, “the harshest lockdown conditions of all Western democracies” (“Letters From Melbourne, a ‘Ghost Town Police State’ Under Brutal Covid Lockdown,” Robert Bridge, strategic-culture.org). Here are Melbourne’s restrictions, the preview of coming attractions that will eventually be rolled out around the globe:

    Despite the extremely low death rate, Melbourne residents – or shall we call them what they really are, prisoners – must adhere to the following rules:

    – No traveling more than 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) from their homes;

    – No traveling to other states inside of the country;

    – Those under house arrest are permitted to leave home for just one hour each day for exercise;

    – Only one person is permitted to go shopping per family each day; shopping is to be done within 5 kilometers from home;

    – Unlike traditional prisons, visitations are not permitted to house arrestees;

    – All school activities are to be conducted online;

    – All businesses, services and construction cancelled;

    – Organized sport, forget it;

    – In the case of funerals, try and delay your demise if at all possible, otherwise, expect just 10 guests;

    – Ditto for weddings;

    – Curfew in effect between 8 pm and 5 am.

    These restrictions will be in place for (at least) six weeks.

    “Letters From Melbourne, a ‘Ghost Town Police State’ Under Brutal Covid Lockdown,” Bridge

    So much for pompous invocations of the “traditional Anglo-American protection of freedom and individual rights.” It also gives the lie to the desperate delusion to which millions still cling: that these measures have something to do with health and safety. They are all about power and control, which is why their proponents are uninterested in research that demonstrates their measures are ineffective or counterproductive (or demonstrate that the cheap, readily available drug hydroxychloroquine, used with an antibiotic and zinc, is an effective prophylactic and treatment), and censor such research. In the US, that hypocritical indifference was made clear when coronavirus totalitarianism was relaxed for politically approved George Floyd protests and riots.

    The often unstated objective of power and control is death. It’s easier to see when rioters are allowed to loot, destroy, and murder with impunity. Coronavirus killers hide behind doctors, scientists, and public health officials making scary predictions and pronouncements, “greater good” justifications for bankruptcy, unemployment, and misery, cloying propaganda that turns professionals charged with caring for the afflicted into “heroes” for caring for the afflicted, and sheep-like compliance with draconian, ineffective, freedom-destructive edicts to combat tiny risks. It’s the difference between a quick execution and slow but deadly poisoning.

    You see it on the Internet videos of once great cities—New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, Portland, Detroit, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, St. Louis—in their death throes. Coronavirus totalitarianism and the riots should be listed as causes of death, but there is common underlying comorbidity: statist collectivism. The productive tax base is fleeing, but it’s been milked and extorted for years by profligate, corrupt Democrat politicians (all of the above cited cities have been run by Democrats for decades) to line their pockets and buy votes. From each according to his ability to each according to his vote.

    The heretofore insulated elites who prattle about social justice and defunding the police are now beset by “social justice warriors” destroying their neighborhoods, looting their shopping districts, and brutalizing innocents as pleas for protection go unanswered. The police-maintained barrier between the ghettos and the high-rent districts has been breached by thugs who drive, cell phones, instant messaging, flash riots, random destruction and violence, and plenty of cash and firearms. It won’t be restored and the elites know it. They can hire private security and hunker down or they can flee. A substantial percentage are fleeing.

    The rest of us watch the urban detritus videos in horror: homeless encampments stretching for blocks, boarded up stores and restaurants, beggars, food lines, thieves, random violence, impoverished mothers and children, people urinating, defecating, masturbating, and shooting up in full view, discarded needles, broken windows, abandoned and burnt-out buildings, decimated neighborhoods, and the ubiquitous cockroaches and rats. Only if you understand that this is what the collectivists had in mind can you understand the chaos and unfathomable evil enveloping the world. Our dystopia is their utopia.

    The carnage, chaos, and collapse in full bloom in American cities are the sum and substance of what the statist collectivists want. Is this the prelude to the imposition of a totalitarian order? By whom and with what? The cities are technically bankrupt, burdened with medical and pension promises they couldn’t pay when they had economies and tax bases, and now both are withering. They could turn to their respective states, but the states are in no better shape. That leaves the federal government—the world’s biggest debtor—and its magic central bank. They can create debt and exchange it between themselves but neither can create a dime’s worth of real production or employment. Anybody see the flaws in this arrangement?

    That supposedly leaves only a totalitarian global superstate, headed by statist collectivists, to impose its brand of order, which is just another brand of death. A totalitarian global superstate and its cash-abolishing, cryptocurrency-issuing, transaction-monitoring central bank will still have the same old problem: neither one can create a dime’s worth of real production or employment. A fiat cryptocurrency is still a fiat currency and will go the way of all fiat currencies—debasement to worthlessness (see “Doubling Down On Failed Policies With Central Bank Digital Currencies,” Alasdair Macleod, goldmoney.com).

    They’ll have what they call a demand management problem, that is, a lot of desperate, hungry people. One way to manage demand is to eliminate it, so expect them to take up the sport of tyrants—killing people—in earnest. They may clear homeless encampments with bulldozers without bothering to move the inhabitants out of their tents and boxes. Their vaccines might have side effects that wipe out a few million or billion—sacrifices must be made for the greater good (the tyrants will of course be exempt from such sacrifices). Perhaps a war or two. Records set by Hitler, Stalin, and Mao will be in jeopardy. They could Soylent Green their victims to feed the rest of the population; they’ll have to keep some of the drones alive.

    Free, self-interested, productive people in a capitalist economy will always figure out ways to feed themselves and make their lives better. Collectivist statism brings only poverty, starvation, horror, and death. Beneath their rhetoric that’s what its proponents want. It’s better to realize this before the boarding calls for the socially distanced cattle cars and the socially distanced line for the gas chambers.

    Power, as they like to remind us, grows out of a barrel of a gun, but moral legitimacy ends when that gun is aimed at the innocent. Nothing good has or ever will come from such evil. Dostoyevsky knew that it’s not history, or a socioeconomic system, or a political ideology from which evil flows, it’s the human soul. Recognize the homicidal-suicidal souls among us for what they are.

  • Xi's Fierce Anti-Graft Purge A Ploy To Enshrine Power As Restored "Chairman"
    Xi’s Fierce Anti-Graft Purge A Ploy To Enshrine Power As Restored “Chairman”

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/26/2020 – 21:25

    Is China’s powerful president Xi Jinping laying the groundwork to resurrect Mao Zedong’s historic ‘Chairman’ title once again with himself more powerfully ensconced at the Communist Party helm?

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Illustration: South China Morning Post, Henry Wong

    New analysis in FT, citing Beijing-based analysts, says yes concerning a title which hasn’t been used in decades, which like Mao would certainly grant Xi the prestige to permanently enshrine his power (well beyond his presidential mandate) and purge internal rivals and enemies with ease.

    Explains FT, this is likely ultimately what’s behind his ongoing his multiyear, anti-corruption battle which has just last month became more intensified. At moment, he enjoys the slightly less impressive title of General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party.

    “It’s preparation to establish Xi’s total authority over the party,” independent commentator and expert on China’s inner-workings, Wu Qiang, said.

    “We cannot rule out that there will be further changes to the party charter or that Xi will get a new title to further emphasize his status above other leaders on the politburo standing committee,” he added.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The report details further:

    The anti-corruption campaign launched last month to target the party’s legal and domestic security apparatus kicked into a higher gear last week when the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection announced a probe into Gong Daoan, the Shanghai police chief and the highest-ranking official to fall since Mr Xi’s second term began in 2017.

    At least thirty top party officials have already fallen in Xi’s anti-graft initiative, which some say is reminiscent of Mao’s infamous first major party purge in 1941, dubbed the “Yan’an rectification movement” which paved the way for the founding father of the People’s Republic of China being declared chairman.  

    Similar to what’s been speculated of his Russian counterpart Putin’s grand long-term ambitions – and it should be noted the two have been increasingly chummy over the past few years as they find a common enemy in the United States – Xi’s path to a resurrected chairmanship title would ensure his clinging to power far beyond a second term. 

  • Another "Oumuamua" Plot Twist: Leading Explanation For Interstellar Object Is Aliens Again
    Another “Oumuamua” Plot Twist: Leading Explanation For Interstellar Object Is Aliens Again

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/26/2020 – 21:05

    Authored by Jake Anderson via TheMindUnleashed.com,

    Last year, an extraordinary thing happened: for the first time in recorded history, astronomers and astrophysicists observed an interstellar object enter and leave our solar system. Over the years, they’ve documented plenty of comets, asteroids, and other cosmic bodies but all have been gravitationally bound to an orbit within our star system.

    This object, named ‘Oumuamua, came from outside our system, from a star or molecular cloud tens or even hundreds of millions of light-years away, and then left.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    However, the most mysterious aspect of ‘Oumuamua’ was the fact that it seemed to be gaining momentum, as though it were being propelled by some kind of propulsion system. At first, astronomers tried to explain this anomaly away by contending the object was a comet, which is often naturally propelled by the burst of gas caused by melting ice. But ‘Oumuamua didn’t have the tail so common to comets that are outgassing.

    So if it wasn’t a comet, how was it demonstrating non-gravitational acceleration through our cosmic neighborhood?

    There were other anomalies and unusual characteristics associated with ‘Oumuamua. Why had it just been discovered so recently, when the Pan-STARRS system should have been able to spot it before? Why is its local standard of rest (LSR) frame of reference, motion, and speed so unusual? Why is its extremely elongated, cigar-like shape – with a length up to 10 times larger than its width – so rare and unlikely? Why is its surface so shiny that it reflects brightness 10 times higher than usual asteroids?

    But by far, the biggest mystery was determining what was giving ‘Oumuamua that extra push of acceleration, which some scientists believed could indicate an artificial alien origin.

    Finally, a new hypothesis emerged that seemed to satisfy all the criteria. Astrophysicists Darryl Seligman and Gregory Laughlin wrote a paper in which they proposed that ‘Oumuamua is a frozen comet comprised almost completely of molecular hydrogen’. This would explain, they argued, why its outgassing wasn’t producing a visible comet tail and, more importantly, it would also explain the bursts of acceleration, as “hydrogen icebergs” are theorized to behave in such ways.

    “Even though the hydrogen iceberg thing is a little exotic, it explains every single mysterious thing about ‘Oumuamua,” said Seligman in an interview.

    But this explanation didn’t sit right with everyone precisely because of this exotic nature: hydrogen icebergs are hypothesized to be extremely rare in the universe.

    Now there’s a new twist in the mystery, as astrophysicist/cosmologist Avi Loeb is once again arguing that the hydrogen explanation is unlikely and that it’s just as possible that ‘Oumuamua really is a piece of advanced alien technology, such as a light sail-propelled spaceship. From the beginning, Loeb had argued that the object’s outlandishly rare characteristics made it seem artificial in nature

    The chair of Harvard University’s Astronomy Department has co-written a new article in which he argues that ‘Oumuamua really may be humanity’s first encounter with advanced aliens, even if there are no living biological beings on-board. Loeb attempts to debunk the hydrogen iceberg theory by pointing out that such a large size would not be able to sustain chunks of frozen hydrogen, as starlight would prevent them from sticking together. More importantly, he argues, the journey from a “giant molecular cloud” – the only place where a hydrogen comet could form – would be too long for such an object to have arrived here intact.

    Seligman and Laughlin countered by trying to find an origin for ‘Oumuamua, identifying relatively nearby molecular clouds formed 30 million to 45 million years ago.

    But Loeb says that doesn’t work either.

    “Shortening the distance that that H2 iceberg needs to travel does not solve the problems we outline in our paper, because the H2 iceberg would have formed when its parent planetary system formed, billions of years ago,” and in the time since then the comet would have fallen apart.

    Loeb says that as incredible as it may seem, the leading explanation for ‘Oumuamua is that it was created as some kind of transport system or interstellar observatory for an advanced alien species. His forthcoming book “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth,” will likely expand on his reasons for believing this.

  • Watch Live: RNC Day 3 "Land Of Heroes" – Kellyanne, Crenshaw, & Pence
    Watch Live: RNC Day 3 “Land Of Heroes” – Kellyanne, Crenshaw, & Pence

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/26/2020 – 20:45

    After the media described (oddly universally) night 1 as having a “darker tone,” and night 2 full of racists and abuse of power, RNC begins night 3 with the theme “Land Of Heroes“:

    Tomorrow history will be made by President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Michael R. Pence as they officially accept the Republican nomination for President and Vice President.

    Today, though, we pause to celebrate another national milestone: on this day in 1920, the 19th Amendment became law, finally granting women the right to vote.

    The first 100 years of women directly shaping our democratic system has fundamentally rewritten the American Dream to include women, which has proven critical to the prosperity of every American. And on this centennial, women continue to break barriers and shatter glass ceilings.

    As a former New Yorker, I built my career in a time when I was often the only woman in the room — sometimes the only woman on the entire team. Now, we see a major shift in that dynamic with women empowered to make their voices heard in seats at the head of the table. During my time serving in the White House as the Director of Management and Administration, I saw this firsthand. Just as the administration did then, the Trump-Pence Administration continues to prioritize the representation and respect of women in all roles, especially leadership.

    In the Republican Party, women are leading in historic ways. Our Republican women heroes, like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Staton and Lucy Stone, who spent their lives fighting for suffrage, would be so proud of where we stand today. As President and CEO of the Republican National Convention, I am humbled to be among the likes of Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and Chairwoman for the Committee on Arrangements Toni Anne Dashiell. Together, we make up the leadership team for convention, and for the first time in history, this team is composed entirely of women. Ronna and Toni Anne have been instrumental in paving the path forward in the Republican Party, and I am proud to lead alongside them as we work with President Trump and Vice President Pence to continue winning for the next generation of women.

    This president recognizes that women are action-oriented and results-driven. He knows that all issues are women’s issues. That is why the administration has negotiated trade deals to benefit all American workers, lifted countless Obama-Biden era burdensome regulations off small businesses and lowered drug costs to ensure all families can access the care they need. At the same time, the president has championed policies like paid family leave, passed landmark tax reform, which doubled the child tax credit, and has directed more than $200 million per year to technology education grants for women and programs that encourage participation in STEM careers. Leadership that produces results rather than pandering is what woman want, and that is what we have in President Trump and Vice President Pence.

    As we honor 100 years of “votes for women” and recognize the fierce allies women have in President Trump and Vice President Pence, we celebrate the heroes, rising stars and the next generation of Republican women. We hope that you join us in commemorating all that has been accomplished in the last 100 years and all that is still to come as we – women nationwide – answer the call and continue the fight our heroes began for our ideas in this democracy and the prosperity of our nation.

    Vice President Mike Pence is the headline speaker, joining the convention from Fort McHenry, the national monument in Baltimore best known as the site of a battle during the War of 1812 that inspired Francis Scott Key to write “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Other scheduled speakers include:

    • Second lady Karen Pence

    • Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn

    • Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst

    • South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem

    • Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw

    • New York Rep. Elise Stefanik

    • New York Rep. Lee Zeldin

    • Former Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell

    • Kellyanne Conway, adviser to the president. Ms. Conway said late Sunday she was leaving the administration at the end of the month, and it wasn’t known whether she would keep her slot at the convention.

    • Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, the vice president’s national security adviser

    • Madison Cawthorn, the Republican nominee for North Carolina’s 11th congressional district

    • Clarence Henderson, a civil rights activist who participated in the 1960 Greensboro Woolworth’s sit-in

    • Lara Trump, campaign adviser and wife of Eric Trump

    Watch Live:

  • 'He Had A Knife': Wisconsin DOJ Releases Update On Jacob Blake Shooting
    ‘He Had A Knife’: Wisconsin DOJ Releases Update On Jacob Blake Shooting

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/26/2020 – 20:38

    Update (2030ET): The Wisconsin Department of Justice has released a statement confirming that Jacob Blake had a knife in the driver’s side floorboard of his car, and that he was leaning into his car when he was shot seven times.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    “During the incident, officers attempted to arrest Jacob S. Blake, age 29. Law enforcement deployed a taser to attempt to stop Mr. Blake, however the taser was not successful in stopping Mr. Blake,” reads the statement.

    “During the investigation following the initial incident, Mr. Blake admitted that he had a knife in his possession. DCI agents recovered a knife from the driver’s side floorboard of Mr. Blake’s vehicle.”

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

    In 2015, Blake was charged with resisting arrest and “one misdemeanor count each of carrying a concealed weapon, carrying a firearm while intoxicated, endangering safety-use of a dangerous weapon, and disorderly conduct – and injuring a police officer” when he pulled a gun at a bar.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Update (1500ET): Kenosha Police Chief Dan Miskinis confirmed that a a teenager from Antioch Illinois was involved in last night’s incident, and that an “out of state” person is currently in custody. However, the investigation is still “very much ongoing”, he said. He wouldn’t confirm any names. “I will take complete ownership of the lack of media releases…in the past five days, I have slept 3 hours.”

    The shootings are being investigated by the FBI and the city police department.

    * * *

    Update (1450ET): When he finally got around to last night’s shooting, Sheriff Beth asserted that people are coming all over “for the show”, and “aren’t coming to protest” – “come wear your black outfits, bring your black masks and bring your backpacks filled with molotov cocktails and rocks…and whatever else”.

    Beth said that the man arrested in the shooting was part of a group that had been pressing the sheriff to “deputize” them. He said that the incident last night was a tragic example of why he wouldn’t deputize citizens with guns. He then explained that citizens walking around with guns creates opportunities for “conflict.”

    Meanwhile, here’s an extended video of one of the shooting incidents that offers yet another perspective.

    * *

    Update (1430ET): The Mayor of Kenosha started the presser by insisting that we are “not going to allow this violence to continue”. He also clarified that the federal government hasn’t been sent in like in Portland, although the FBI and some other agents have been assisting local police.

    “As a country, we are only as strong as the weakest city. We need to help stop the divide and the anger going on in this country,” Mayor Antaramian said. 

    The Kenosha sheriff is up next, he recounted the events, starting from the beginning of the riots on Sunday. He said that sheriffs from all around the state had volunteered to send help. While the police likely won’t be able to detain everybody, they will try their best to arrest anybody seen causing violence and throwing objects.

    * * *

    Update (1400ET): The Kenosha police are holding a press briefing that’s just starting. Watch live below:

    https://nbcchicago.com/portableplayer/?CID=1:6:2105763&videoID=16796972_169&lvshell=undefined&origin=nbcchicago.com&fullWidth=y

     

    As we await the start of the briefing, Gov Evers has authorized 500 more national guardsmen.

    * * *

    Update (1323ET): Just minutes after news of Rittenhouse’s arrest hit the web, President Trump tweeted that he had “just gotten off the phone” with governor Evers, who had finally agreed to accept federal help.

    “We will NOT stand for looting, arson, violence, and lawlessness on American streets. My team just got off the phone with Governor Evers who agreed to accept federal assistance (Portland should do the same!)…TODAY, I will be sending federal law enforcement and the National Guard to Kenosha, WI to restore LAW and ORDER!”

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

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

    We imagine this will be swiftly denied by Evers.

    * * *

    Update (1320ET): The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is reporting that an arrest has been made following an investigation into last night’s fatal shootings.

    • MILWAUKEE J.S. SAYS ARREST MADE RELATED TO THE KENOSHA SHOOTING

    Meanwhile, the Daily Dot has reportedly pulled court papers showing that 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse was arrested and charged with first degree murder and labeled a “fugitive from justice.” The complaint states that Rittenhouse “fled the state of Wisconsin with intent to avoid prosecution for that offense”

    Already, conservatives are criticizing the severity of the charge.

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

    According to the Milwaukee J-S, Rittenhouse is now jailed in Lake County, Illinois.

    * * *

    Update (1240ET): The Internet is scrambling to identify the young man who allegedly shot and killed two people during the mayhem in Kenosha last night, which was the third night of violence in the city where Jacob Blake was shot by a cop on Sunday.

    The alleged shooter has been identified by the left-wing mob (who are trying to tarry him as a “mass shooter”) as Kyle Rittenhouse, a local teenager who reportedly has ties to local law enforcement. After the shooting, the shooter (allegedly Rittenhouse) put his hands in the air and walked over to police nearby, but what happened next isn’t exactly clear.

    As of noon on Wednesday, nobody has been apprehended in the shootings, though the sheriff of Kenosha has said an arrest in the violence should be coming “soon.” Leftists are also trying to spread a “conspiracy theory” about the shooter accepting water from riot police, evidence that he was working with the local cops.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    According to RT, some have tried to tie Rittenhouse to the “Boogaloo Movement” a group of alleged “white supremacists” trying to start a new American civil war. So far, there appears to be no evidence that he was affiliated with the movement, and in an interview which we shared below, but which has since gone viral, a man who appears to be the teenaged Rittenhouse can be heard saying he was there to protect property, not because of any militia affiliation.

    * * *

    Update (1030ET): A second cell phone video of the officer-involved shooting of 29-year-old Jacob Blake on Sunday has emerged, showing the incident in a slightly new light.

    The footage showed Blake fighting with officers before he took off and ran to the driver’s door of his vehicle with police on his heels (video showed). The video suggests he may indeed have had a knife, and had ignored orders to drop it, before being shot.

    It also suggested that Blake’s girlfriend lied to police when she claimed he hadn’t been hostile.

    Another witness filmed part of the encounter between Kenosha police and Blake on his cell phone from across the street, but that video didn’t show any scuffle with police.

    * * *

    Update (0950ET): Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth held another press conference Wednesday morning to discuss the deadly shootings, and other crimes committed across the city during a third night of violence.

    The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported that police expect to make an arrest in a case stemming from the shootings “soon”, and that the FBI has been “assisting” local investigators, implying that the shooter will likely be taken into custody.

    No one has been apprehended, but Beth said he believed at least one person would be taken into custody soon based on video footage police have reviewed.

    “I feel very confident we’ll have him in a very short time,” Beth said.

    Beth attributed the progress to the “resources” provided by the FBI.

    The investigation of the latest shooting is being conducted by the Kenosha Police Department with the assistance of the FBI, Beth said.

    “We’ve got a lot of resources that are helping us pull this stuff together,” Beth said of the shooting investigation.

    Roughly 250 law enforcement officers and 250 National Guard members were on hand Tuesday night to try and quell the unrest, and property damage was much less intense during the third night of unrest – however, clashes between militia groups and hard-core progressive groups that resembled street violence appeared to play out in the streets of Kenosha.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The shooter

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Two of the three men who were shot in one photo

    The shooting took place right in the heart of the city, according to  MJS.

    The incident happened on Sheridan Road in the heart of Kenosha near the Froedert South hospital building. Many people were still on the streets in protest just before the shooting, walking up and down Sheridan Road, where protesters had been driven after being expelled from Civic Center Park.

    Here are some more interesting tidbits from the report.

    A Journal Sentinel reporter earlier in the evening observed a group of armed men with long guns standing guard at a dry cleaning business on Sheridan Road near 59th Street, some on the roof.

    Police told them to get off the roof and a person shouted back: “Officer, this is our business.” Police did not ultimately order them off the roof. Police did not ultimately make them get off the roof.

    […]

    It is unclear if the men seen by the reporter were members of the Kenosha Guard, or whether Beth, in his comments, was referring to that group, or similar groups of people.

    Before the shooting, someone from Kenosha suggested to Beth that he deputize ordinary citizens to help contain the unrest. Beth said he refused.

    “I said, ‘There’s no way I’m doing that,'” Beth said.

    Meanwhile, GOP Senator Ron Johnson, who represents Wisconsin in the Senate alongside Democrat Tammy Baldwin (who hasn’t said much of anything), urged Democratic Gov Tony Evers to accept President Trump’s offer for federal reinforcements.

    * * *

    Already, the riots in Kenosha inspired by the police shooting of unarmed Jacob Blake, who was shot in the back while trying to enter a car with his children in the back seat (Blake was hit by 4 of the 7 shots, some reports said he had been armed at one point), have led to the deaths of at least 2 people.

    Despite the governor’s decision to declare a state of emergency after a second night of violence, police and the national guard were once again largely absent in a stream of horrifying video from last night’s riots, which at times devolved into open street warfare between groups of rioters and armed people allegedly there to protect property.

    Several videos of at least one of the fatal shootings flooded Twitter last night.

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

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

    While video of the other, allegedly involving the same shooter, who was confronted by several other armed citizens.

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

    Police confirmed to the press that they responded to two fatal shootings and at least one non-fatal shooting during the third night of protests inspired by the shooting of Blake.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Evers said he authorized 250 Wisconsin National Guard troops to protect critical infrastructure and assist Kenosha authorities, but once again, these reinforcements stayed clear of local businesses and offered almost no assistance in the protection of private property.

    Kenosha officials said another 100 law enforcement officers from surrounding areas were brought in to assist local police. An 8pm curfew was in effect for the area.

    “We will continue to work with local, state and federal law enforcement in holding those criminals who are destroying our city responsible,” Kenosha Mayor John Antamarian said in a statement.

    And former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani had a response.

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

    Kenosha police said early Wednesday that they had responded to a report of multiple gunshots just before midnight. Authorities said two people were killed in the shooting, and a third gunshot victim was transported to the hospital with serious, a story that is more or less consistent with the videos we shared above. 

    An investigation into the shooting is reportedly ongoing. Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth told the NYT that police are investigating whether the shooting resulted from a conflict between demonstrators and a group of armed men there to protect local businesses. CNN reported that armed riot police fired tear gas and pepper spray into the crowd, while Blake’s family pleaded for calm on Tuesday.

    One Twitter user shared what she alleged was an interview with the shooter (who can be seen above being chased by another man with a gun) from before the attack. In the interview he can be heard saying he is armed with live ammunition.

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

    The protests have triggered gatherings of armed citizens, some of whom said they were protecting property against looting. Videos shared widely on social media have shown storefront after storefront ablaze, along with dozens of cars – rampant, indefensible, mayhem. And if the government won’t stop it – for whatever reason – sometimes people take responsibility into their own hands, which is one of the reasons the second amendment was enshrined in the constitution via the Bill of Rights.

  • Major Korean Crypto Exchange Seized After 99% Trading Volume Allegedly Faked
    Major Korean Crypto Exchange Seized After 99% Trading Volume Allegedly Faked

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/26/2020 – 20:25

    Submitted by CoinTelegraph,

    South Korea’s third-largest cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbit, has been seized by police following fraud allegations. According to an Aug. 26 report by the Seoul Shinmun, 99% of transaction volume on the exchange was faked through wash trading. The Seoul Metropolitan Police searched and confiscated a number of properties, including Coinbit’s headquarters in the Gangnam district of Seoul.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    image courtesy of CoinTelegraph

    Coinbit’s owner, Chairman Choi Mo, and his management team are accused of inflating transaction volumes and manipulating token prices using a number of ghost accounts.

    Police estimate that the fraudulent activities netted over 100 billion won ($84.26 million) in total.

    The Seoul Shinmun was alerted to suspected wash trading on the exchange by an insider in May. Following an investigation, it found that, between August 2019 and May 2020, 99% of transactions on Exchange 1, where major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC) were traded, had no corresponding deposit and withdrawal details.

    In addition, it found that Exchange 2, which mainly listed smaller cryptocurrencies, blocked coin transactions with other exchanges, enabling Choi and his team to control the supply of coins. This allowed the management team to directly realize market margin by buying and selling large quantities of coins at certain times.

    The publishing of the investigation findings was held back until after the police operation due to concerns about personal safety and destruction of evidence.

    Wash trading on exchanges is a major problem for the cryptocurrency industry, with many legitimate traders lured into using low-liquidity exchanges based on fraudulent daily volume claims.

  • Soy Boom? China Could Buy Record Amount of US Soybeans
    Soy Boom? China Could Buy Record Amount of US Soybeans

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/26/2020 – 20:05

    The prospects of strong Chinese demand has pushed Chicago soybean futures prices to a seven-month high this week.

    ​In a throwback to 2019 optimism on the US-China trade deal, the Trump administration has shifted from vaccine pump headlines to trade. Bloomberg cites several sources who say after top U.S. and Chinese trade officials reaffirmed phase one trade deal commitments earlier in the week, that China is planning to purchase a record amount of soybeans. 

    The sources estimate total purchases could be around 40 million tons this year, an amount that would be 25% more than the levels seen in 2017. 

    “China has been stepping up purchases of American agricultural goods since the end of April, with soybean sales for delivery next season currently running at their highest level for this time of year since 2013,” Bloomberg notes.

    China has been lagging behind purchase commitments laid out in phase one trade agreement. We outlined this in a piece titled “”Trade Deal” Farce Summarized In These Charts.”

    Bloomberg estimates that China’s purchase commitments of farm goods for the first seven months of the year were at just 27% of the target value implied by the deal.

    The USDA reported Tuesday that Chinese importers bought 408,000 tons of U.S. corn and 204,000 tons of U.S. soybeans. Then on Wednesday, China’s agriculture ministry said soybean imports were expected to rise into the late year. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    USDA sales for next season. h/t Bloomberg

    However, China has been sourcing much of its soybeans from top supplier Brazil. The expectation is that more U.S. bean shipments to China will be seen in the fourth quarter.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Super Highway of Soybean Vessels from LatAm To Asia. h/t Zerohedge

    With all the optimism around trade in recent days, Darin Friedrichs, a senior analyst at StoneX Group Inc. in Shanghai, believes China meeting phase one targets this year will be a tough challenge. 

     “I think the math is pretty hard to get to 40 million,” Friedrichs said. “Peak monthly loadings during the fall have typically maxed out around 7.5 to 8 million tons per month from the U.S. to China. I think 35 million is probably more reasonable.”

    He added that Chinese purchases of U.S. beans in the fourth quarter might not be as large as everyone thinks because a huge Brazilian crop is expected in 2021.

    The sources said China would import 96 million to 98 million tons of beans this year, with 40% to 50% of it coming from the U.S. 

  • 5 COVID-19 Charts That Democrats Definitely Don't Want You To See
    5 COVID-19 Charts That Democrats Definitely Don’t Want You To See

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/26/2020 – 19:45

    Amid his confirmation that he “shut the nation down” if scientists told him too, Joe Biden explained just what the Trump admin had got wrong (and how to ‘fix’ it)…

    “In order to keep the country running and moving and the economy growing, and people employed, you have to fix the virus, you have to deal with the virus.”

    Well the good news is… as the following five charts from John Merline’s Issues & Insights blog show, the US is ‘beating’ the virus…

    If the Democratic National Convention made anything clear, it is that Democrats are entirely invested in making the coronavirus pandemic look worse than it is in the United States.

    Almost every speaker decried the response and blamed President Donald Trump for the scale of the disease in the country.

    In his acceptance speech, Joe Biden said “Just judge this president on the facts. Five million Americans infected by COVID-19. More than 170,000 Americans have died. By far the worst performance of any nation on Earth.” Later he said, “We lead the world in confirmed cases. We lead the world in deaths.”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Fact checkers somehow missed Biden’s flagrant abuse of statistics. NPR’s “fact check” of Biden’s speech said only that, if anything, Biden undercounted the number of COVID-19 deaths.

    But the number of infections and deaths is meaningless out of context. What matters is how many have died per capita, how many who’ve been infected have succumbed to the disease and where the trends are right now.

    When you do that, the picture looks far less bleak.

    The U.S. is far from the worst in the world in terms of the death rate per million population. The U.S. ranks 10th for per capita deaths worldwide, and notably better than the United Kingdom with its socialist health care scheme, and Sweden, which adopted a much more laissez-faire approach to the pandemic than the U.S.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Source: Worldometers

    On confirmed cases per million, the U.S. ranks 9th, but this is in part due to the extensive testing we’ve done.

    In fact, despite what Biden and Co. will have you believe, we are in the top of the pack when it comes to COVID-19 tests per capita (19th out of 215 nations).

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Source: Worldometers

    (Note also that only four of the other 36 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations do better than the U.S. on tests per capita.)

    When it comes to the case fatality rate – the share of confirmed cases who have died – there is no comparison.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Source: Worldometers

    Not only does the U.S. outperform most countries – as well as the world overall – the case fatality rate in the U.S. has been steadily declining.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Source: Our World In Data

    Finally, there’s the chart Democrats really don’t want you to see: The number of new COVID-19 cases peaked a month ago and has been trending downward ever since.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Source: Bloomberg

    Not only is the epidemic becoming less deadly, but its spread has slowed.

    Democrats don’t want you to know any of this, and neither does the Trump-hating press. Democrats can’t let you know if they hope to reclaim the White Hosue and take control of Congress based on fear and panic.

  • US Cargo Thefts Erupt As Violent Crime Spreads Across America 
    US Cargo Thefts Erupt As Violent Crime Spreads Across America 

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/26/2020 – 19:25

    The latest trucking news from Overdrive is particularly disturbing, outlines how cargo theft across the US surged during the virus-induced downturn in the second quarter. 

    Overdrive, citing data from SensiGuard, a cargo theft recording firm aggregating data from transportation security councils, insurance companies and law enforcement organizations, said cargo theft surged 56% year-over-year in the quarter.

    “One significant note is that April, which was at the height of the supply chain disruption caused by COVID-19, experienced more than double the volume of April 2019 (+109%). While both May (+31%) and June (+30%) also beat their 2019 totals, it was by a decreasing amount in each case,” SensiGuard noted in its 2Q20 cargo theft report. 

    The cargo theft monitoring firm recorded 227 thefts over the three months ending June, with 96 in April, 67 in May, and 64 in June. In dollar amount, the average theft was about a quarter-million dollars. It said 23% of all cargo thefts were miscellaneous products for retailers. Food and drinks made up about 20% of all thefts.

    California, for the first time since 3Q17, was dethroned as the state with most cargo thefts. Texas became the epicenter of thefts in 2Q20, followed by California, Illinois, Florida, and Tennessee.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    In a separate report, we noted truckers on a popular trucking app called “CDLLife” polled its user base. They found an overwhelming number of drivers wouldn’t “pickup/deliver to cities with defunded/disbanded police departments.”

    A rapid increase in cargo thefts, robberies, and violent crime across US metros is not surprising whatsoever as a virus-induced recession has unleashed depressionary unemployment levels for the bottom 90% of Americans. Tens of millions of folks are still unemployed, and now, have not received Trump stimulus checks in three weeks as they go broke and hungry, also at risk of eviction.

    The recession has transformed America into a dangerous country as any hope for a “V-shaped” economic rebound this year has been dashed. 

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Aug 26

Today’s News 26th August 2020

  • Russian Military Expo Starts With A 'Bang'
    Russian Military Expo Starts With A ‘Bang’

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/26/2020 – 02:45

    The International military-technical forum “Army-2020” outside Moscow, Russia, began this week with a ‘bang’, as high-tech tanks, new lightweight assault rifles, stealth drones, and other advanced weaponry were displayed to foreign clients and visitors, reported RT News.

    On Sunday, as the week-long annual defense expo began, Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said this year’s event would merge military forum and an international military sports competition. 

    A record number of defense companies are attending the expo this week, showcasing more than 28,000 products. The Russian Defense Ministry has already said 39 contracts worth $15.6 billion have already been signed. 

    Here is some of the military tech featured at the expo this week:

    Kalashnikov’s new lightweight assault rifle called the AK-19. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Russian-made military drones 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Drone weapons

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Iranian officials are getting acquainted with helicopters and the S-400 missile system.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Called the “CyberBoat-330,” these vessels appear to be fully autonomous. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The MPT-2 ‘Terminator’ and T-90MS tank exhibit. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Amphibious military vehicle 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

     Kamov Ka-50 attack helicopter

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Here’s an overview of the facility housing the weapons expo.

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

    New dune buggy

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    More tanks and anti-aircraft weapon systems.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    A stealth aircraft of some sort.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    As for the competition side of the expo – the first round of annual tank biathlon competition was hosted on Sunday in Alabino, Moscow region. 

    “The 16 tank crew are divided into two divisions, depending on their results in the Army Games-2019. The Chinese crew showed the best result in Sunday’s individual races, finishing in just 19 minutes and 20 seconds, with the Belarusians coming in second, and the crew from Azerbaijan coming third.

    Teams from 32 countries are expected to participate in this year’s International Army Games in Russia, which consists of several contests involving tanks, snipers, and several aeronautical and naval disciplines. Notably, a team from South Ossetia will take part in the competition for the first time,” Ruptly said. 

    Watcch: Tank biathlon kicks off International Army Games 2020

    The defense expo will conclude on August 29 and the competition will end on September 5.

  • Are Turkey And Greece Heading For War?
    Are Turkey And Greece Heading For War?

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/26/2020 – 02:00

    Authored by Uzay Bulut via The Gatestone Institute,

    The Greek Armed Forces are on high alert on land, sea and air, closely monitoring Turkish movements in the Eastern Mediterranean, according to Greek media. After Turkey last month restarted prospecting for oil and gas in an area overlapping Greece’s continental shelf, Greece deployed warships between the islands of Cyprus and Crete. Since then, tensions have run high between Turkey and Greece.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    On August 12, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis warned about the possibility of an “accident” in the Eastern Mediterranean. Greek and Turkish naval forces deployed in the area after Ankara sent a vessel to conduct seismic research south of Kastellorizo.

    “The risk of an accident lurks when so many naval forces gather in a limited area, and responsibility in such a case will be borne by the one who causes these conditions,” Mitsotakis said in a televised address.

    Turkey has threatened to invade the Greek islands in the Aegean since at least 2018. A recent Egyptian-Greek maritime deal appears to have escalated Turkey’s regional aggression.

    The maritime deal, which was signed on August 6, set the Mediterranean Sea boundary between Egypt and Greece. It also demarcated an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) for oil and gas drilling rights. The Egyptian-Greek move was widely seen as a response to a disputed agreement between Turkey and Libya’s Tripoli-based administration, according to the newspaper Kathimerini.

    Meanwhile, Turkey has been systematically violating the territorial waters of Cyprus and Greece. In May, the foreign ministers of Egypt, France, Cyprus, Greece and the UAE issued a joint declaration “denouncing the ongoing Turkish illegal activities in the Cypriot Exclusive Economic Zone and its territorial waters, as they represent a clear violation of international law as reflected in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.”

    On May 15, the European Union announced that it “condemned the escalation of Turkey’s violations of Greek national airspace, including overflights of inhabited areas, and territorial sea, in violation of international law.” But the condemnation has not stopped the violations by Turkey. On August 5, for instance, eight Turkish military airplanes carried out a total of 33 violations of Greece’s national airspace over the course of one day, Greek military authorities said.

    After the deal between Greece and Egypt, Turkey again deployed a seismic research vessel to prospect for potential oil and gas reserves within Greece’s continental shelf. Greece has again placed its armed forces on high alert. Warships were sent to the spot between Crete and Cyprus, demanding the vessel’s withdrawal.

    Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, however, continues defying Greece and Cyprus. On August 14, referring to Greece and other Western states, Erdogan said:

    “They sent all terrorist organizations against us. We gave our response to these attacks in the language they understand through our operations in northern Iraq, Syria, Libya, and the Eastern Mediterranean. We gave [an answer] today too! We told them, ‘Look, don’t attack our Oruç Reis vessel. If you attack it, you will pay a heavy price’. And today they got the first answer.”

    “No colonialist power,” Erdogan said on August 19, “can deprive our country of the rich oil and gas resources estimated to exist in this region.”

    Turkey is a colonialist power that has been occupying Northern Cyprus since 1974. The Turkish government does not recognize the Republic of Cyprus as a state, and claims 44% of the Cypriot exclusive economic zone (EEZ) as its own. Another sizable section of that zone is claimed by the so-called “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” in the island’s occupied north — recognized only by Turkey.

    “Turkey has adopted a revisionist policy in the Eastern Mediterranean,” Dr. Giorgos Kentas, Associate Professor of International Politics and Governance at the University of Nicosia, said in an interview with Gatestone.

    “Turkey’s policy is part and parcel of a broader strategy to expand Turkey’s influence in the Middle East, the Gulf, and Africa. The aim is to impose geopolitical dominion: an undisputed regional hegemonic regime whereby Turkey is be able to determine big and important developments. That revisionist policy is pursued by a mixture of soft and hard power instruments.

    “With regard to Greece and Cyprus, Turkey clearly maintains an offensive posture. It appears willing to use military force in order to impose its revisionist plans. For almost two decades now, Turkey (under the leadership of Erdogan) has been developing a strategy to dominate over large maritime zones. [This] strategy is known as the ‘blue homeland’. It begins from the Black Sea and extends through the Aegean Sea towards the maritime zones of Libya, Egypt, Israel, and Syria. Turkey believes that Cyprus and Greece must voluntarily submit to the parameters of the blue homeland, otherwise they must face the consequences of its military might. Turkey plans against Greece and Cyprus under a strategic doctrine of a unified front.

    “As of the early 2010s, Turkey started an illegitimate program of seismic surveys in the maritime zones of Cyprus, supported by considerable aeronautic forces. In May 2019, Turkey launched an offshore drilling program in Cyprus’ EEZ. So far it started and/or completed 7 drillings, at least one in Cyprus’ territorial waters. Turkey has actually de facto extended its military occupation of Cyprus from the land it occupies as of 1974 to island’s maritime zones. All that went mostly unanswered with the exception of some statements by third states and some symbolic sanctions by the EU.

    “Turkey is currently attempting a similar policy of revisionism against Greece. The aim is to impose a hegemonic regime over Greece’s maritime zones and/or maritime zones that Greece claims in Eastern Mediterranean.

    “Turkey has developed the military might, and acquired the means, to challenge and revise the geopolitical momentum created by a series of delimitation agreements between Cyprus, Egypt, Lebanon and Israel. [Turkey] also undermines the hydrocarbon program of Cyprus. Greece now tops the agenda of Ankara in the framework of the blue homeland dominium.”

    According to Harris Samaras, an expert on the Cypriot EEZ and chairman of the international investment banking firm Pytheas, Turkey’s foreign policy in eastern Mediterranean is largely an extension of its Islamist domestic policies.

    “Turkey is an authoritarian country increasingly shaped by ultranationalist and Islamist forces,” Samaras told Gatestone.

    “Inspired by the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) have pursued policies that furthered the Islamization of the country, promoting religion, fundamentalism, and limiting individual freedoms and rights. Turkey globally supports Islamism and jihadism as in the cases of ISIS, Hamas, Boko Haram, al Qaeda and the Iranian regime, among others. It is thus accurate to state that Turkey is today among the most anti-American and anti-European countries in the world. It operates as a polarized engine of religious radicalism with a global reach.”

    According to Samaras, there are three main causes of Turkey’s aggression towards Greece and the general Turkish jingoistic behavior in the Eastern Mediterranean:

    “1. Erdogan desires to lead the Islamic world, a project aimed at fulfilling his ambitions – and better regional supremacy complexes – to seize the Muslim world’s political leadership legitimated by consciously assuming the mantle as successor of the ‘glorious’ history of the Ottoman empire. ‘Turkey’, as Erdogan has repetitively stated, ‘is a continuation of the Ottoman Empire’. This infers that as its leader, Erdogan is analogous to the Caliph. Note here the similarities with statements by ISIS leaders.

    “2. While the vast majority of European and US leaders from all parties, including the intelligence community and the Pentagon, recognize the reality of Turkey, certain EU leaders, US diplomats and appointees continue to apologize for and rationalize Turkish behavior. They dilute measures to hold Turkey to account. Their denial of evidence about Turkey’s regional malfeasance not only weakens the West and its credibility, but also benefits Russia, Iran and terrorism.

    “Furthermore, and over and above, those elements who intentionally turn a blind eye to Turkey’s violations of the Rule of Law not only encourage Erdogan to intensify his bullying and jingoistic policies, but also pressurize Greece (like they do with Cyprus) to strike an energy and sovereignty ‘sale’ deal. This is contrary to international law and an attempt to delaying to convicting Turkey, eventually justifying its atrocities.

    “3. Erdogan’s (and his AKP) popularity has slumped to the lowest level ever since his autocratic reign. This is a result of his systematic power grabbing, nepotism and corruption. The economy for one is in dire straits. Theatrics like the one with Hagia Sophia and the gunboat diplomacy in the Eastern Mediterranean, as well as bursts about the ‘tyrannical’ EU and Israel, are ‘required’ to direct the interests of his polarized compatriots elsewhere and away from the misery his foul administration has inflicted. Wrapping himself in a cloak of patriotism is part of Erdogan’s agenda and his regime’s propaganda narrative.

    “Erdogan, however, is now anticipating that Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, his best ally and in many ways his ‘accomplice’, will compel Greece into discussions. He is hoping that under Germany’s pressure Greece will ‘conform’ to selling part of its sovereignty. However, the Western world has to face and address the Turkish reality, the strategic reality that any possibility of a Western-leaning Turkey is gone.”

    Meanwhile, the US State Department has issued a statement concerning Turkey’s activities in the region. “The United States is aware that Turkey has issued a notification to other ships of survey activity in the Eastern Mediterranean. We urge Turkish authorities to halt any such plans for operations and to and to avoid steps that raise tensions in the region,” a State Department spokesperson said on August 10.

    “Turkish aggression against Greece is really nothing new,” Anna Koukkides-Procopiou, a Senior Fellow and Member of Advisory Board of the Center for European and International Affairs of the University of Nicosia, told Gatestone.

    “For example, there have been myriads of air space violations in recent years. Turkey is just taking everything to a different level nowadays. This gradual tension spiral, first, aimed at testing the waters, both literally and metaphorically. But Greece has proven it will not go quietly, despite Turkey trying hard to set a maximalist agenda on its own terms, before negotiations ensue at some point. Turkey considers her use of force both a carrot and a stick for Greece to succumb to its claims.

    “Second, there is no doubt that all the neo-Ottoman, anti-Lausanne rhetoric which Erdogan and his ministers have been making good use of should be taken seriously. It is part and parcel of a hegemonic bid to master regional leadership, as well as an attempt to woo audiences at home. An authoritarian ruler reigns by bread and games. Bread seems to be running out in Turkey at the moment, so there also needs to be a focus on games.”

    As for what the Europe and the US should do in the face of continued Turkish aggression, Procopiou said:

    “There has been enough talk and little action. If Europe and the US are serious about halting Turkey’s aggression, they need to show that they mean business. Europe keeps feeding Erdogan money while he is making a spectacle of democracy, international law and human rights. [These are] fundamental values which the European Union supposedly stands for.

    “In essence, Erdogan has been ridiculing the EU, NATO and the US with zero consequences. Why should he stop? If the only reaction he gets is a shamble of a sanctions list in Europe – with only two inconsequential individuals’ names on that list – and no enforcement of the American CAATSA [The Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act], he is taking everyone for a ride. So, we could begin at least with that. The Turkish economy found itself on its knees last time US President Donald Trump cared to send Erdogan a message over the arrest of American Pastor Andrew Brunson. What is keeping President Trump from doing that now?”

  • Escobar: For China, Everything Is Proceeding According To Plan
    Escobar: For China, Everything Is Proceeding According To Plan

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 08/26/2020 – 00:05

    Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Saker (originally posted at The Asia Times),

    The contours of China’s long-term strategy for the new Cold War are quickly coming into view…

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Let’s start with the story of an incredibly disappearing summit.

    Every August, the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) converges to the town of Beidaihe, a seaside resort some two hours away from Beijing, to discuss serious policies that then coalesce into key planning strategies to be approved at the CCP Central Committee plenary session in October.

    The Beidaihe ritual was established by none other than Great Helmsman Mao, who loved the town where, not by accident, Emperor Qin, the unifier of China in the 3rd century B.C., kept a palace.

    2020 being, so far, a notorious Year of Living Dangerously, it’s no surprise that in the end Beidaihe was nowhere to be seen. Yet Beidaihe’s invisibility does not mean it did not happen.

    Exhibit 1 was the fact that Premier Li Keqiang simply disappeared from public view for nearly two weeks – after President Xi chaired a crucial Politburo gathering in late July where what was laid out was no less than China’s whole development strategy for the next 15 years.

    Li Keqiang resurfaced by chairing a special session of the all-powerful State Council, just as the CCP’s top ideologue, Wang Huning – who happens to be number 5 in the Politburo – showed up as the special guest at a meeting of the All China Youth Federation.

    What’s even more intriguing is that side by side with Wang, one would find Ding Xuexiang, none other than President Xi’s chief of staff, as well as three other Politburo members.

    In this “now you see them, now you don’t” variation, the fact that they all showed up in unison after an absence of nearly two weeks led sharp Chinese observers to conclude that Beidaihe in fact had taken place. Even if no visible signs of political action by the seaside had been detected. The semi-official spin is that no get-together happened at Beidaihe because of Covid-19.

    Yet it’s Exhibit 2 that may clinch the deal for good. The by now famous end of July Politburo meeting chaired by Xi in fact sealed the Central Committee plenary session in October.

    Translation:

    the contours of the strategic road map ahead had already been approved by consensus. There was no need to retreat to Beidaihe for further discussions.

    Trial balloons or official policy?

    The plot thickens when one takes into consideration a series of trial balloons that started to float a few days ago in select Chinese media. Here are some of the key points.

    1. On the trade war front, Beijing won’t shut down US businesses already operating in China. But companies which want to enter the market in finance, information technology, healthcare and education services will not be approved.

    2. Beijing won’t dump all its overwhelming mass of US Treasuries in one go, but – as it already happens – divestment will accelerate. Last year, that amounted to $100 billion. Up to the end of 2020, that could reach $300 billion.

    3. The internationalization of the yuan, also predictably, will be accelerated. That will include configuring the final parameters for clearing US dollars through the CHIPS Chinese system – foreseeing the incandescent possibility Beijing might be cut off from SWIFT by the Trump administration or whoever will be in power at the White House after January 2021.

    4. On what is largely interpreted across China as the “full spectrum war” front, mostly Hybrid War, the PLA has been put into Stage 3 alert – and all leaves are canceled for the rest of 2020. There will be a concerted drive to increase all-round defense spending to 4% of GDP and accelerate the development of nuclear weapons. Details are bound to emerge during the Central Committee meeting in October.

    5. The overall emphasis is on a very Chinese spirit of self-reliance, and building what can be defined as a national economic “dual circulation” system: the consolidation of the Eurasian integration project running in parallel to a global yuan settlement mechanism.

    Inbuilt in this drive is what has been described as “to firmly abandon all illusions about the United States and conduct war mobilization with our people. We shall vigorously promote the war to resist US aggression (…) We will use a war mindset to steer the national economy (…) Prepare for the complete interruption of relations with the US.”

    It’s unclear as it stands if these are only trial balloons disseminated across Chinese public opinion or decisions reached at the “invisible” Beidaihe. So all eyes will be on what kind of language this alarming configuration will be packaged when the Central Committee presents its strategic planning in October. Significantly, that will happen only a few weeks before the US election.

    It’s all about continuity

    All of the above somewhat mirrors a recent debate in Amsterdam on what constitutes the Chinese “threat” to the West. Here are the key points.

    1. China constantly reinforces its hybrid economic model – which is an absolute rarity, globally: neither totally publicly owned nor a market economy.

    2. The level of patriotism is staggering: once the Chinese face a foreign enemy, 1.4 billion people act as one.

    3. National mechanisms have tremendous force: absolutely nothing blocks the full use of China’s financial, material and manpower resources once a policy is set.

    4. China has set up the most comprehensive, back to back industrial system on the planet, without foreign interference if need be (well, there’s always the matter of semiconductors to Huawei to be solved).

    China plans not only in years, but in decades. Five year plans are complemented by ten year plans and as the meeting chaired by Xi showed, 15 year plans. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is in fact a nearly 40-year plan, designed in 2013 to be completed in 2049.

    And continuity is the name of the game – when one thinks that the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, first developed in 1949 and then expanded by Zhou Enlai at the Bandung conference in 1955 are set in stone as China’s foreign policy guidelines.

    The Qiao collective, an independent group that advances the role of qiao (“bridge”) by the strategically important huaqiao (“overseas Chinese”) is on point when they note that Beijing never proclaimed a Chinese model as a solution to global problems. What they extol is Chinese solutions to specific Chinese conditions.

    A forceful point is also made that historical materialism is incompatible with capitalist liberal democracy forcing austerity and regime change on national systems, shaping them towards preconceived models.

    That always comes back to the core of the CCP foreign policy: each nation must chart a course fit for its national conditions.

    And that reveals the full contours of what can be reasonably described as a Centralized Meritocracy with Confucian, Socialist Characteristics: a different civilization paradigm that the “indispensable nation” still refuses to accept, and certainly won’t abolish by practicing Hybrid War.

  • Photos Emerge Of 'Secret' Stealth Drone Made By Boeing 
    Photos Emerge Of ‘Secret’ Stealth Drone Made By Boeing 

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 08/25/2020 – 23:45

    For the last couple of years, we’ve kept readers abreast of new developments concerning the Boeing Airpower Teaming System (ATS), a combat stealth drone also known as “loyal wingman” for fourth and fifth-generation aircraft.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Boeing Australia announced in early 2019 that ATS would be manufactured at the Boeing Phantom Works in Brisbane. Since then, not much has been revealed about the ‘top secret’ stealth drone project until now:

    Spotted on the tarmac at an undisclosed location, possibly at the RAAF Base Amberley, ATS was conducting taxi trials ahead of its first test flight, reported Australian Defence Magazine (ADM). 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    “The first ATS aircraft is currently undergoing ground testing, which will be followed by taxi and a first flight later this year,” a Boeing spokesperson told ADM and declined to provide a location and exact trial details. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    ATS is a stealth unmanned aerial vehicle that can autonomously fly with RAAF aircraft, such as the F-35, F/A-18E/F, and E-7A Wedgetail, to provide defense and surveillance support while on combat missions. It will be the first aircraft designed and developed in Australia in over five decades.

    Boeing ATS program director Shane Arnott told ADM that ATS’ payload would be dependent on the needs of the mission of the customer. He revealed the drone is powered by a commercial turbofan engine but wouldn’t disclose any other information. 

    Last week, DARPAtv held a live-streamed event that featured an AI-controlled virtual fighter jet beating a human pilot in a series of simulated dogfights.

    The rise of Skynet continues…

  • Attack Of The Tomato Killers: The Police State's War On Weed And Backyard Gardens
    Attack Of The Tomato Killers: The Police State’s War On Weed And Backyard Gardens

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 08/25/2020 – 23:25

    Authored by John Whitehead via The Rurtherford Institute,

    “They came again this morning at about 8:00 o’clock. A large cargo-type helicopter flew low over the cabin, shaking it on its very foundations. It shook all of us inside, too. I feel frightened … I see how helpless and tormented I am becoming with disgust and disillusionment with the government which has turned this beautiful country into a police state … I feel like I am in the middle of a war zone.”

    – Journal entry from a California resident describing the government’s aerial searches for marijuana plants

    Backyard gardeners, beware: tomato plants have become collateral damage in the government’s war on drugs, especially marijuana.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    In fact, merely growing a vegetable garden on your own property, or in a greenhouse on your property, or shopping at a gardening store for gardening supplies—incredibly enough—could set you up for a drug raid sanctioned by the courts.

    It’s happened before.

    After shopping for hydroponic tomatoes at their local gardening store, a Kansas family found themselves subjected to a SWAT team raid as part of a multi-state, annual campaign dubbed “Operation Constant Gardener,” in which police collected the license plates of hundreds of customers at the gardening store and then investigated them for possible marijuana possession.

    By “investigated,” I mean that police searched through the family’s trash. (You can thank the Supreme Court and their 1978 ruling in California v. Greenwood for allowing police to invade your trash can.) Finding “wet glob vegetation” in the garbage, the cops somehow managed to convince themselves—and a judge—that it was marijuana.

    In fact, it was loose-leaf tea, but those pesky details don’t usually bother the cops when they’re conducting field tests.

    Indeed, field tests routinely read positive for illegal drugs even when no drugs are present. According to investigative journalist Radley Balko, “it’s almost as if these tests come up positive whenever the police need them to. A partial list of substances that the tests have mistaken for illegal drugs would include sage, chocolate chip cookies, motor oil, spearmint, soap, tortilla dough, deodorant, billiard’s chalk, patchouli, flour, eucalyptus, breath mints, Jolly Ranchers and vitamins.”

    There’s a long list of innocent ingredients that could be mistaken for drugs and get you subjected to a raid, because that’s all it takes—just the barest whiff of a suspicion by police that you might be engaged in criminal activity—to start the ball rolling.

    From there, these so-called “investigations” follow the usual script: judge issues a warrant for a SWAT raid based on botched data, cops raid the home and terrorize the family at gunpoint, cops find no drugs, family sues over a violation of their Fourth Amendment rights, and then the courts protect the cops and their botched raid on the basis of qualified immunity.

    It happens all the time.

    As Balko reports, “Police have broken down doors, screamed obscenities, and held innocent people at gunpoint only to discover that what they thought were marijuana plants were really sunflowers, hibiscus, ragweed, tomatoes, or elderberry bushes. (It’s happened with all five.)”

    Surely, you might think, the government has enough on its hands right now—policing a novel coronavirus pandemic, instituting nationwide lockdowns, quelling civil unrests over police brutality—that it doesn’t need to waste time and resources ferreting out pot farmers.

    You’d be wrong.

    This is a government that excels at make-work projects in which it assigns at-times unnecessary jobs to government agents to keep them busy or employed.

    In this case, however, the make-work principle (translation: making work to keep the police state busy at taxpayer expense) is being used to justify sending police and expensive military helicopters likely equipped with sophisticated surveillance and thermal imaging devices on exploratory sorties every summer—again at taxpayer expense—in order to uncover illegal marijuana growing operations.

    Often, however, what these air and ground searches end up targeting are backyard gardeners growing tomato plants.

    Just recently, in fact, eyewitnesses in Virginia reported low-flying black helicopters buzzing over rural and suburban neighborhoods as part of a multi-agency operation to search for marijuana growers. Oftentimes these joint operations involve local police, state police and the Army National Guard.

    One woman reported having her “tomato plants complimented by the 7 cops that pulled up in my yard in unmarked SUVs, after a helicopter hovered over our house for 20 minutes this morning.” Another man reported a similar experience from a few years ago when police “showed up in unmarked SUV’s with guns pulled. Then the cops on the ground argued with the helicopter because the heat signature in the ‘copter didn’t match what was growing.”

    Back in 2013, an aerial surveillance mission spotted what police thought might be marijuana plants. Two days later, dozens of city officials, SWAT team, police officers and code compliance employees, and numerous official vehicles including dozens of police cars and several specialized vehicular equipment, including helicopters and unmanned flying drones, descended on The Garden of Eden, a 3.5-acre farm in Arlington, Texas, for a 10-hour raid in search of marijuana that turned up nothing more than tomato, blackberry and okra plants.

    These aerial and ground sweeps have become regular occurrences across the country, part of the government’s multi-million dollar Domestic Cannabis Eradication Program. Local cops refer to the annual military maneuvers as “Eradication Day.”

    Started in 1979 as a way to fund local efforts to crack down on marijuana growers in California and Hawaii, the Eradication Program went national in 1985, right around the time the Reagan Administration enabled the armed forces to get more involved in the domestic “war on drugs.”

    Writing for The Washington Post, Radley Balko describes how these raids started off, with the National Guard, spy planes and helicopters:

    The project was called the Campaign Against Marijuana Production, or CAMP… In all, thirteen California counties were invaded by choppers, some of them blaring Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” as they dropped Guardsmen and law enforcement officers armed with automatic weapons, sandviks, and machetes into the fields of California … In CAMP’s first year, the program conducted 524 raids, arrested 128 people, and seized about 65,000 marijuana plants. Operating costs ran at a little over $1.5 million. The next year, 24 more sheriffs signed up for the program, for a total of 37. CAMP conducted 398 raids, seized nearly 160,000 plants, and made 218 arrests at a cost to taxpayers of $2.3 million.

    The area’s larger growers had been put out of business (or, probably more accurately, had set up shop somewhere else), so by the start of the second campaign in 1984, CAMP officials were already targeting increasingly smaller growers. By the end of that 1984 campaign, the helicopters had to fly at lower and lower altitudes to spot smaller batches of plants. The noise, wind, and vibration from the choppers could knock out windows, kick up dust clouds, and scare livestock. The officials running the operation made no bones about the paramilitary tactics they were using. They considered the areas they were raiding to be war zones. In the interest of “officer safety,” they gave themselves permission to search any structures relatively close to a marijuana supply, without a warrant. Anyone coming anywhere near a raid operation was subject to detainment, usually at gunpoint.

    Right around the same time, in the mid-1980s, the federal government started handing out grants to local police departments to assist with their local boots-on-the-ground “war on drugs.” These grants (through the Byrne Grant program and COPS program, both of which started to be phased out under George W. Bush, only to be re-upped by Barack Obama) could be used to pay for additional police personnel, equipment, training, technical assistance and information systems. However, studies show that while these federal grants did not improve police effectiveness or drug deterrence, they did incentivize SWAT team raids.

    But how do you go from a “war on drugs” to SWAT-style raids on vegetable gardens?

    Connect the dots, starting with the government’s war on marijuana, the emergence of SWAT teams, the militarization of local police forces through the federal 1033 Program, which allows the Pentagon to transfer “vast amounts of military equipment—machine guns and ammunition, helicopters, night-vision gear, armored cars—to local police departments,” and the transformation of American communities into battlefields: as always, it comes back to the make work principle, which starts with local police finding ways to justify the use of military equipment and federal funding.

    Each year, the government spends between $14 and $18 million funding helicopter sweeps and police overtime to help the states track down illegal marijuana plants. These sweeps are even being carried out in states where it’s now legal to grow marijuana.

    The sweeps work like this: Local police, working with multiple state agencies including the National Guard, carry out ground and air searches of different sectors. Air spotters flying overhead in helicopters relay their findings to police on the ground, who then carry out a search-and-destroy mission.

    Mark my words: the use of police drones will make these kinds of aerial missions even more common.

    For the most part, aerial surveillance is legal. As Arthur Holland Michel writes for The Atlantic: “When it comes to law enforcement, police are likewise free to use aerial surveillance without a warrant or special permission. Under current privacy law, these operations are just as legal as policing practices whereby an officer spots unlawful activity while walking or driving through a neighborhood.”

    There have been a few notable exceptions.

    In 2015, the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled that surveillance from a low-flying helicopter conducting an aerial search for marijuana by state police and the national guard was illegal under the U.S. Constitution. The court reasoned that “when low-flying aerial activity leads to more than just observation and actually causes an unreasonable intrusion on the ground—most commonly from an unreasonable amount of wind, dust, broken objects, noise, and sheer panic—then at some point courts are c and require a warrant before law enforcement engages in such activity. The Fourth Amendment and its prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures demands no less.”

    In Philip Cobbs’ case, helicopter spotters claimed to have seen two lone marijuana plants growing in the wreckage of a fallen oak tree on the Virginia native’s 39-acre family farm.

    Cobbs noticed the black helicopter circling overhead while spraying the blueberry bushes near his house. After watching the helicopter for several moments, Cobbs went inside to check on his blind, deaf 90-year-old mother. By the time he returned outside, several unmarked police SUVs had driven onto his property, and police (ten in all) in flak jackets, carrying semi-automatic weapons and shouting unintelligibly, had exited the vehicles and were moving toward him.

    Of course, it was never about the two pot plants.

    What the cops were really after was an excuse to search Cobbs’ little greenhouse, which he had used that spring to start tomato plants, cantaloupes, and watermelons, as well as asters and hollyhocks, which he planned to sell at a roadside stand near his home. The search of the greenhouse turned up nothing more than used tomato seedling containers.

    Nevertheless, police charged Cobbs with misdemeanor possession of marijuana for the two plants they claimed to have found. Eventually, the charges were dismissed but not before The Rutherford Institute took up Cobbs’ case, which revealed that police hadn’t even bothered to secure a warrant before embarking on their raid of Cobbs’ property—a raid that had to cost taxpayers upwards of $25,000, at the very least—part of their routine sweep of the countryside in search of pot-growing operations.

    Two plants or two hundred or no plants at all: it doesn’t matter.

    A SWAT team targeted one South Carolina man for selling $50 worth of pot on two different occasions. The Washington Post reports: The SWAT team “broke down Betton’s door with a battering ram, then fired at least 57 bullets at him, hitting him nine times. He lost portions of his gallbladder, colon, bowel and rectum, and is paralyzed from the waist down. He also suffered damage to his liver, lung, small intestine and pancreas. Two of his vertebrae were damaged, and another was partially destroyed. Another bullet shattered his leg.” After security footage showed that most of what police said about the raid was a lie, the cops settled the case for $2.75 million.

    Monetary awards like that are the exception, however.

    Most of the time, the cops get away with murder and mayhem. Literally.

    Bottom line: no amount of marijuana is too insignificant if it allows police to qualify for federal grants and equipment and lay claim to seized assets (there’s the profit motive) under the guise of fighting the War on Drugs.

    SWAT teams carry out more than 80,000 no-knock raids every year. The vast majority of these raids are to serve routine drug warrants, many times for crimes no more serious than possession of marijuana.

    Although growing numbers of states continue to decriminalize marijuana use and 9 out of 10 Americans favor the legalization of either medical or recreational/adult-use marijuana, the government’s profit-driven “War on Drugs”—waged with state and local police officers dressed in SWAT gear, armed to the hilt, and trained to act like soldiers on a battlefield, all thanks to funding provided by the U.S. government, particularly the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—has not abated.

    Since the formation of the DHS post-9/11, hundreds of billions of dollars in grants have flowed to local police departments for SWAT teams, giving rise to a “police industrial complex” that routinely devastates communities, terrorizes families, and destroys innocent lives.

    No longer reserved exclusively for deadly situations, SWAT teams are now increasingly being deployed for relatively routine police matters, with some SWAT teams being sent out as much as five times a day. Nationwide, SWAT teams have been employed to address an astonishingly trivial array of criminal activity or mere community nuisances: angry dogs, domestic disputes, improper paperwork filed by an orchid farmer, and misdemeanor marijuana possession, to give a brief sampling.

    Unfortunately, general incompetence, collateral damage (fatalities, property damage, etc.) and botched raids tend to go hand in hand with an overuse of paramilitary forces.

    In some cases, officers misread the address on the warrant. In others, they simply barge into the wrong house or even the wrong building. In another subset of cases, police conduct a search of a building where the suspect no longer resides.

    SWAT teams have even on occasion conducted multiple, sequential raids on wrong addresses or executed search warrants despite the fact that the suspect is already in police custody. Police have also raided homes on the basis of mistaking the presence or scent of legal substances for drugs. Incredibly, these substances have included tomatoes, sunflowers, fish, elderberry bushes, kenaf plants, hibiscus, and ragweed.

    All too often, the shock-and-awe tactics utilized by many SWAT teams only increases the likelihood that someone will get hurt with little consequences for law enforcement, even when the raids are botched.

    Botched SWAT team raids have resulted in the loss of countless lives, including children and the elderly. Usually, however, the first to be shot are the family dogs.

    SWAT raids are usually carried out late at night or shortly before dawn. Unfortunately, to the unsuspecting homeowner—especially in cases involving mistaken identities or wrong addresses—a raid can appear to be nothing less than a violent home invasion, with armed intruders crashing through their door.

    That’s exactly what happened to Jose Guerena, the young ex-Marine who was killed after a SWAT team kicked open the door of his Arizona home during a drug raid and opened fire. According to news reports, Guerena, 26 years old and the father of two young children, grabbed a gun in response to the forced invasion but never fired. In fact, the safety was still on his gun when he was killed. Police officers were not as restrained. The young Iraqi war veteran was allegedly fired upon 71 times. Guerena had no prior criminal record, and the police found nothing illegal in his home.

    The problems inherent in these situations are further compounded by the fact that SWAT teams are granted “no-knock” warrants at high rates such that the warrants themselves are rendered practically meaningless.

    This sorry state of affairs is made even worse by U.S. Supreme Court rulings that have essentially done away with the need for a “no-knock” warrant altogether, giving the police authority to disregard the protections afforded American citizens by the Fourth Amendment.

    Clearly, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, something must be done.

    When the war on drugs—a.k.a. the war on the American people—becomes little more than a thinly veiled attempt to keep SWAT teams employed and special interests appeased, it’s time to revisit our drug policies and laws.

    “You take the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, all the rights you expect to have—when they come in like that, the only right you have is not to get shot if you cooperate. They open that door, your life is on the line,” concluded Bob Harte, whose home was raided by a SWAT team simply because the family was seen shopping at a garden store, cops found loose tea in the family’s trash and mistook it for marijuana.

    “Our family will never be the same,” said Addie Harte, recalling the two-hour raid that had police invading their suburban home with a battering ram and AR-15 rifles. As The Washington Post reports:

    Bob found himself flat on floor, hands behind his head, his eyes locked on the boots of the officer standing over him with an AR-15 assault rifle. “Are there kids?” the officers were yelling. “Where are the kids?” “And I’m laying there staring at this guy’s boots fearing for my kids’ lives, trying to tell them where my children are,” Harte recalled later in a deposition on July 9, 2015. “They are sending these guys with their guns drawn running upstairs to bust into my children’s house, bedroom, wake them out of bed.”

    It didn’t matter that no drugs were found—nothing but a hydroponic tomato garden and loose tea leaves. The search and SWAT raid were reasonable, according to the courts.

    There’s a lesson here for the rest of us. As Bob Harte concluded: “If this can happen to us, everybody in the country needs to be afraid.”

  • Portland Businesses Leave Due To 'Lawlessness Endorsed By Mayor'
    Portland Businesses Leave Due To ‘Lawlessness Endorsed By Mayor’

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 08/25/2020 – 23:05

    All it took was nearly three months of often-riotous protests in Portland for business owners to pull out of the city or relocate outside its central district, according to local station KOIN (via Fox Business).

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    In a letter to Mayor Ted Wheeler and the Portland City Council, the Downtown Development Group said that the exodus of companies wasn’t related to the Black Lives Matter movement – “but does have most everything to do with the lawlessness you are endorsing downtown.”

    “The number is like nothing I have seen in 42 years of doing business in downtown,” wrote DDG co-founder Greg Goodman.

    Goodman said companies include Daimler Trucks North America, Airbnb, Banana Republic, Microsoft, Saucebox, and Google, which he claimed: “leased 90,000 square feet in the Macy’s building [and] has stopped construction of their improvements.”

    “The list goes on and on. If you know a retail or office broker, give them a call and ask them how many clients they have are trying to leave,” he continued.

    Goodman encouraged city leaders to “walk around downtown Portland in the morning,” adding that he would personally give them a tour. –Fox Business

    “You aren’t sweeping the streets, needles are all over the place, garbage cans are broken and left open, glass from car windows that have been broken out is all over the streets, parks are strewn with litter,” the letter continues. “You are willfully neglecting your duties as elected officials to keep our city safe and clean.”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    On Saturday, Portland PD said that just 30 officers were available to manage a crowd of several hundred people, while authorities say that the department “had to be judicious with our limited resources” due to many officers having already worked the previous night’s demonstrations, according to The Oregonian.

    Meanwhile, Mayor Wheeler issued a statement regarding a Saturday skirmish between right-wing Proud Boys activists and Black Lives Matter demonstrators – completely taking the side of BLM and calling the Proud Boys ‘White nationalists.’

    “I vehemently oppose what the Proud Boys and those associated with them stand for, and I will not tolerate hate speech and the damage it does in our city. White nationalists, particularly those coming to our city armed, threaten the safety of Portlanders, and are not welcome here,” said Wheeler. “We are at a critical place where police officers are needed to intervene in protests where police officers themselves are the flashpoint.”

  • GOP Senators Demand FDA Explain Hydroxychloroquine Stance Amid Positive Studies And Physician Advocates
    GOP Senators Demand FDA Explain Hydroxychloroquine Stance Amid Positive Studies And Physician Advocates

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 08/25/2020 – 22:45

    Authored by Stacey Lennox via PJMedia.com,

    The debate over hydroxychloroquine has faded from the forefront as big tech has worked to suppress information and silence the voices of doctors and researchers promoting it. However, it appears the controversy over the drug has encouraged some senators to take a closer look, and it seems they are asking the FDA the right questions.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Senators Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and Mike Lee (R-Utah) sent a letter to FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn explicitly asking about the agency’s handling of information regarding the drug and its use during the pandemic.

    Doctors and researchers advocating for hydroxychloroquine are recommending it be used in high-risk outpatients.

    Texas Congressman Louis Hohmert, who was recently diagnosed positive for COVID-19, tweeted just this morning about the benefits of hydroxychloroquine:

    Hydroxychloroquine protocols worked for me. Americans suffering from the Wuhan Virus deserve the right to consult with their doctors and try HCQ if deemed a safe and appropriate fit. Keep Big Govt out of this. Thank you Dr. Risch for your work and research on this.

    In the letter to Hahn, the senators are asking about specific actions the agency has taken regarding hydroxychloroquine. The current FDA guidance is that it should not be used outside the hospital setting for COVID-19, and the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) has been withdrawn. Given the safety profile of the medication and the fact it is used daily on an outpatient basis around the world for malaria prevention, malaria treatment, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus, this guidance is ridiculous on its face.

    The recommended duration of hydroxychloroquine treatment for COVID-19 is between five and seven days at FDA approved dosages. In a sane world, a doctor may prescribe drugs off-label at approved dosages if they think a medication may be useful for a patient’s symptoms. However, 2020 is not sane, and now the FDA interference has led to medical boards, hospital systems, and politicians banning the use of hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19. These actions are unprecedented in the doctor-patient relationship.

    Finally, these senators are standing up for that relationship and demanding clarity from the FDA. From the letter:

    However, we have heard from licensed physicians that have had a far different experience with the FDA’s approach. The physicians are concerned about the FDA’s decision to revoke the March 28th EUA for HCQ and CQ for treatment of COVID-19. They have described the clear differences between inpatient and outpatient treatments and how this decision has affected their ability to treat patients in different settings. The physicians have warned that the FDA’s EUA revocation of HCQ and CQ has led to misinformation and confusion across the country. Some states have restricted the ability of physicians to write and pharmacies to fill HCQ and CQ prescriptions under longstanding and well-established authority to prescribe FDA approved drugs off-label with a patient’s informed consent and according to their clinical judgement.

    To better understand the FDA’s actions, the letter requests four specific pieces of information:

    1. Studies or data that definitively shows prescribing hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine within seven days of COVID-19 symptoms is ineffective or harmful.

    2. Produce studies or data on the use of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine for COVID-19 in outpatient settings under a doctor’s care, including as a preventative. They specifically exclude late-stage studies involving hospitalized patients.

    3. Provide any public statements issued by the FDA to clarify the agency does not regulate the practice of medicine and explaining state governments may not regulate or prohibit the sale of the drugs.

    4. Information on potential treatments for COVID-19 that have been used internationally and whether the FDA has approved those for use in the United States. If not, the senators want to know what steps are being taken to ensure they are.

    These requests are a kick in the derriere to the bureaucracy. It is unconscionable for the FDA not to clarify their role in the practice of medicine and even worse for them to remain silent in the face of other entities trying to interfere with it. While it does not appear they have ever made a statement like the one the senators are requesting, hopefully, one will be forthcoming.

    It would be even more concerning if the agency withdrew the EUA based on the debunked Lancet study and has done nothing to correct their position. In an extensive search, I can find no studies indicating that short-term outpatient use of hydroxychloroquine at approved dosages is dangerous or deadly. It will be surprising if the FDA has one.

    Dr. Harvey Risch, an epidemiologist from Yale, has done a review of these studies and arrived at the conclusion that treatment with hydroxychloroquine is effective for high-risk outpatients. Dr. Risch told Mark Levin on “Life, Liberty, and Levin” Sunday that it was some of the most convincing data he has seen in his career:

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

    Clearly, President Trump has not given up on the potential this drug combination may hold. Dr. Risch’s assessment is clear. For high-risk patients over 65 or with pre-existing conditions, the outpatient use of the hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and azithromycin combination has shown a significant reduction in hospitalizations and death rates.

    He asserts that we have let politics overrule science, and it is costing thousands of lives. Hopefully, senators pressuring the FDA will cause significant movement and clarity. The FDA owes its response by the end of business tomorrow. If the misinformation can be effectively cleared up, it will be a game-changer. The senators must continue to press the FDA and restore the doctor-patient relationship.

  • Hamptons Concert Featuring 'DJ D-Sol', 'Chainsmokers' Raised Only $150,000 For Charity
    Hamptons Concert Featuring ‘DJ D-Sol’, ‘Chainsmokers’ Raised Only $150,000 For Charity

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 08/25/2020 – 22:25

    All that trouble for $125,000? That’s what a Goldman Sachs analyst might deem a “suboptimal” outcome, considering the public hiding GS CEO David Solomon endured a couple of months ago, when Gov Cuomo opened an investigation into a charity concert in the Hamptons that went viral over images of attendees violating social distancing norms.

    Despite the fact that the crowd was in the open air, voluntarily, and no different effectively from the ‘peaceful’ protests that have thronged the US since the death of George Floyd, Cuomo banked precious political capital by bashing Solomon and all the other bold-faced names associated with the event, which also had the misfortune of taking place in the Hamptons, where NYC’s elite fled to wait out COVID-19.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Now, it looks like Solomon & Co. are in for another round of outrage and scrutiny, as Bloomberg just reported that the concert only netted $152,000 for charity, a pittance considering the $25,000 donations made by some attendees, including Solomon himself. BBG put it best when it described the figure as “un-Hamptonesque”.

    Safe & Sound, as the July event was called, has gone down as the most tone-deaf musical moment of the Hamptons’ Summer of Covid.

    State health officials launched an investigation after Governor Andrew Cuomo excoriated the organizers and well-heeled revelers for “egregious social-distancing violations.”

    But the night’s real surprise turns out to be the sums that were raised for charity.

    To some, $152,000 is very un-Hamptons-esque. This, after all, is where a beachfront estate originally built for the Ford family was recently listed for $145 million.

    “I never would have gone if I knew how little it would be,” said Daniel Tannebaum, one of the Manhattan residents who’s been spending more time at the beach since lockdown, working remotely for a management-consulting firm.

    Others tried to spin it in a positive light.

    Others find $152,000 a fair amount considering the expenses of putting on such an event, and the scrutiny that has created legal and crisis-management issues as well as potential government fines.

    “I feel a little sense of relief,” said Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman, who was born in Montauk and has lived on the East End full-time for more than 30 years. “I had the fear it would be zero.

    But the fact remains: the physical event brought in less money than several virtual events that – as Bloomberg’s reporters dutifully pointed out – occurred the same night on social media.

    The same night as the concert, a fundraiser for All Star Code honoring Robert Smith — held virtually rather than at an oceanfront house in East Hampton — raised $700,000, while Stony Brook Southampton Hospital’s gala, with about 35 micro parties at people’s homes, brought in $750,000 the following week.

    One reason for the shortfall after ticket sales brought in nearly 3/4ths of $1 million is that the event wasn’t organized by a non-profit, though the organization behind it specified that “all profits” would go to charity.

    By now, we all know the story behind the event, but just in case you haven’t read it yet…

    Granted, the Safe & Sound “Drive-in Fundraiser Experience” was not a benefit organized by a non-profit. It was put on after months of lockdown by for-profit companies to present live music, modified for Covid, in the style of a music festival (complete with Red Bull, tequila and CBD oil). In a summer with few such happenings, it was an opportunity for people to have fun and raise some money for good causes.

    Attendees at the Water Mill event were supposed to stay near their cars in socially-distanced splendor while the EDM duo the Chainsmokers performed after warm-up acts by Solomon (the Goldman chief executive officer moonlights as a DJ) and Schneiderman and his band.

    Publicity materials specified that “all profits” would go to three charities: Southampton Fresh Air Home, which runs a camp on the East End for disabled New York City kids; Children’s Medical Fund of New York, which supports a Long Island hospital; and No Kid Hungry, a group that works nationally to get meals to low-income children.

    Here’s a breakdown of the money, according to Bloomberg.

    When Bloomberg requested the information afterward, a spokesman provided the $152,000 figure, adding that an additional $90,000 of personal protective equipment also was distributed and about $575,000 was spent locally to put on the event.

    “Our hope was to have a safe and enjoyable event during a difficult time and to raise some money for local charities, create jobs for the entertainment and events industries, and help local businesses,” said spokesman Joe DePlasco of Dan Klores Communications, who represents event producers In the Know Experiences and Invisible Noise. He added that neither took fees.

    Southampton Fresh Air Home got $20,000, according to Executive Director Thomas Naro, while representatives of No Kid Hungry and Children’s Medical Fund declined to disclose the amounts received. No Kid Hungry said its contribution included Solomon’s performance fee, and the Children’s Medical Fund said its amount included that of the Chainsmokers.

    At the end of the day, these details don’t really matter: at the end of the day, what’s the bigger transgression? Violating vague social distancing guidelines? Or rich people daring to flaunt the fact that they didn’t spend the whole summer cooped up in their closet-sized one-bedroom, angrily tweeting about every “New York is Dead” essay like a broke, irrelevant, wannabe Seinfeld.

  • Here's How A Cashless Society Would Affect Day-To-Day Life
    Here’s How A Cashless Society Would Affect Day-To-Day Life

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 08/25/2020 – 22:05

    Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

    Have you ever thought about the ramifications of a cashless society? I’m talking about the real, first-person effects, not some ephemeral conspiracy theory or possible biblical prophecy. This is bad news for a lot of reasons, not the least of which are the ways it would affect day-to-day life.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Here’s my definition of a cashless society, so we’re all singing from the same songbook:

    Cash would no longer be legal tender, therefore you could not make purchases with it, pay bills with it, or spend it in any way.  You would not be able to deposit cash into your bank account so you wouldn’t be able to accept cash for an exchange of goods or services.

    Therefore, cash would be nothing more than a worthless piece of paper. (I know, I know. Debt-based currency is a totally different article though.)

    We’re heading this way.

    Jose recently wrote that Venezuela is rapidly becoming cashless and here in the United States a concerning early sign is that there is a “change shortage” which is causing many stores to give you your change on a store loyalty card or invite you to donate that change to some cause.

    Gifts

    Think of all the times that cash is an appropriate gift. I’ve always given money, like stuffing a child’s birthday card with a $20 bill or giving a new graduate some cash to put toward college expenses.  When I got married, we received quite a bit of money from various loved ones. My dad always gave my daughters some spending money of their own each time we visited and they were surprised and delighted every single time.

    However, in a cashless society, there are two problems with this.

    First of all, the recipient would not be able to use the cash. He or she would not be able to spend or deposit it.

    Secondly, if a monetary gift is given, it would have to be done with a check or electronic transfer. This means that the government (and the Tax Man) would know precisely how much money any person is given. That might not be a big deal for the 7-year-old who got $20 from grandpa, but what about the graduate who raked in a couple thousand in gifts from family members to celebrate his or her accomplishments? At what point will the government have their hands out for “their fair share?”

    Side Gigs

    A lot of folks are really struggling right now with the COVID shutdowns. Jobs have been lost, hours have been cut, and financial problems abound. One of the ways that these people are making ends meet is with side gigs. Folks are cutting grass, cleaning houses, driving for Uber, delivering food, babysitting – they’re coming up with all sorts of ways to make some extra money. A huge percentage of these people are being paid in cash.

    But if suddenly you can no longer spend your cash, you’d need to be paid electronically. How many people who don’t already have a business have a merchant account for taking credit or debit cards? There are options like Paypal and Venmo, which take a percentage fee, but they’re going to have to figure out something.

    And then, as above, every single bit of this side gig money is traceable and trackable. This could quickly turn your 20 bucks from lawn mowing into $15 after taxes.

    Selling Secondhand Goods

    Raise your hand if you’ve ever sold something to pay a bill.  Me too! I’ve sold jewelry, furniture, exercise equipment – all sorts of stuff to meet an obligation when in a pinch.  Not only that, but I have a yard sale every single year to downsize the things that I found I don’t really use, which often brings in a few hundred dollars.

    How will this work in a cashless society? Well, if you are selling just one larger item, you’d probably end up using some kind of payment app like Venmo or Paypal. On the other hand, a yard sale would be nearly impossible to conduct electronically. Who is really going to be able to sit there and do Paypal transactions all day, especially when folks are buying things that cost 25 cents?

    And there we are, down another way of making some quick money.

    Tips

    Lots of folks who work in food service and the beauty industry, just to name two niches, depend on tips to make a living. Generally, tips are collected from tables or paid out at the end of the shift if they were put on a debit card. But…once there is no cash, these tips will have to end up going on a regular paycheck. One hundred percent of this money will be subject to payroll withholdings.

    This will mean that a lot of people see a sharp decrease in their earnings, plus they’ll have to wait for their checks to get the money. It puts a lot of power into the hands of the management and it would not be difficult at all for someone to manipulate the amounts the workers have earned.

    Children

    I’ve written many times about the importance of allowing children to handle their own money. It teaches them responsibility and life skills that will serve them well in the future. (Learn more about talking to your kids about money in this article.) My daughters have had access to money since they were in kindergarten, and possibly before.

    Now, how are you going to give a five-year-old access to money if it’s all electronic? Are they going to end up with their own bank accounts and debit cards? That hardly seems realistic. There is also the option of gift cards, but that means the money can only be spent at certain places, taking away the vital learning curve of saving your money to put it toward a Big Goal. Forget lemonade stands, gifts from Grandpa, or putting change in a piggy bank – these will all be things of the past.

    The unbanked or underbanked

    Eight million households in the United States are “underbanked” or “unbanked.” This means that they don’t have any kind of bank account due to fees, bad credit, or other obstacles. These people rely on check-cashing businesses that already take a hefty fee to give them the pay they’ve earned. What will they do when this is no longer an option?

    Most of the people who are unbanked or underbanked are living under the poverty line already. This would mean that they can no longer pick up side-gigs to make ends meet, they can’t do odd jobs, and getting them any kind of assistance will be more difficult.

    Slate reports how the coin shortage is affecting these Americans:

    To the average American, this shortage may only cause minor headaches—a harder time paying at a parking meter or exact change required at a coffee shop. But some 8 million American households, or 6 percent of Americans, are “unbanked,” meaning that because of fees and other financial hurdles, they have no checking, savings, or money market account. Many rely instead on services such as money orders, pawn shop loans, or payday loans. According to Venky Shankar, a marketing professor at the Center for Retailing Studies at Texas A&M University, Americans who make $25,000 a year or less use cash for around 45 percent of their purchases. So those Americans might struggle to pay for essential services without change on hand. They also might find it more stressful to round up or donate their change, should stores ask for it. “For an unbanked or underbanked person, it could leave them in a horrible situation if they don’t have access to the cards,” saidAngela Lyons, a professor of economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. (source)

    And this is just a coin shortage. Imagine how difficult it would be if our society became completely cashless.

    There is an alarming amount of power in access.

    So, we can see this isn’t an ideal situation for any of us.

    But even these things are relatively minor in comparison to the potential for abuse against citizens in a cashless society. If every single dime you bring in is tracked and recorded, you will have no financial privacy, and you’ll also be at far more risk. Many of us keep some cash savings around the house for emergencies. Even if there is a bank holiday, we’ll be okay because we have the money sitting around to take care of any incidentals while we are unable to access our banked money.

    But what happens when things are cashless? All that money we’ve stashed away over the years would have to go into the coffers and we’d lose a certain amount of control.

    It’s all well and good when times are okay, but what happens when there’s a Cyprus-style event and the government decides a bail-in is in order? If you don’t recall, back in 2013, billions of dollars were seized from depositors to protect the small country’s banking system. This was done to make good on an $11.6 billion dollar debt owed to creditors outside the country.

    If you think that sounds far-fetched – like something that could “never happen here,” it’s incredibly important to note that we already have language that allows for bail-ins here in the United States. After the bailouts for the economic crisis of 2008, Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Act of January 2010, which prohibits government bailouts but allows bail-ins. So, yes, the money in your account could indeed be used to save a floundering bank.

    Not only that, but think about the outrageous phenomenon of civil asset forfeiture. If you aren’t familiar with it, that means that an entity can seize your property or money even when you have not been convicted of a crime. Civil asset forfeiture provides billions of dollars to the US Government and local police departments every single year. Imagine how much easier that would be if your wealth was all in one place.

    And let me take it just one step further before I take off the tinfoil – think about how many websites, YouTube channels, and social media accounts have been purged and demonetized over the past few years. Is it that much of a stretch of the imagination that this could be taken a step further?

    That perhaps unpopular opinions could be fined and money immediately be withdrawn from the accounts of those who dissent with the status quo?

    Maybe I’m just another paranoid conspiracy theorist. But are you actually paranoid when “they” are really out to control you?

  • China Blasts US 'Naked Provocation' After U-2 Spy Plane "Entered No-Fly Zone" During PLA Drills
    China Blasts US ‘Naked Provocation’ After U-2 Spy Plane “Entered No-Fly Zone” During PLA Drills

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 08/25/2020 – 21:45

    In the latest tit-for-tat South China Sea saga, China has denounced the United States, lodging “stern representations” with the US embassy, over Pentagon attempts to spy on live-fire military drills over what Beijing claims is its sovereign airspace.

    Specifically, according to Reuters, the US is charged with “sending a U.S. U-2 reconnaissance plane into a no-fly zone over Chinese live-fire military drills on Tuesday, further ratcheting up tensions between Beijing and Washington.”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    US Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance plane, file image.

    China’s Defense Ministry called the unpermitted U-2 flight an unsafe threat which constitutes “seriously interfering in normal exercise activities”.

    The statement hinted at a threat as well, saying an “unexpected incident” could have easily resulted, which presumably means the spy plane may have been targeted as “drills” could have rapidly transitioned to becoming fully operational under a perceived US threat.

    “It was an act of naked provocation, and China is resolutely opposed to it, and have already lodged stern representations with the U.S. side,” the Defense Ministry added. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    AP file image of prior PLA Navy live-fire drills in East China Sea.

    “China demands the U.S. side immediately stop this kind of provocative behaviour and take actual steps to safeguard peace and stability in the region,” the statement said.

    It’s as yet unclear precisely where the incident happened, also given China’s PLA military is engaged in multiple small-scale drills, notably in the Bohai Sea and some in the Yellow and South China Seas.

  • Hillary Clinton Says Biden Should Not Accept Results Of The 2020 Election
    Hillary Clinton Says Biden Should Not Accept Results Of The 2020 Election

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 08/25/2020 – 21:25

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

    Former first lady and 2016 Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton said Joe Biden shouldn’t concede the election because the final results of the election will likely drag out due to mail-in ballots.

    “Joe Biden should not concede under any circumstances because I think this is going to drag out, and eventually, I do believe he will win if we don’t give an inch and if we are as focused and relentless as the other side is,” Clinton said in an interview on Tuesday.

    “I think that [Republicans] have a couple of scenarios that they are looking toward. One is messing up absentee balloting. They believe that helps them so that they then get maybe a narrow advantage in the Electoral College on Election Day,” she claimed.

    “So we’ve got to have a massive legal operation, and I know the Biden campaign is working on that.”

    She went on:

    “We have to have our own teams of people to counter the force of intimidation that the Republicans and Trump are going to put outside polling places,” Clinton said, urging people to become poll workers in November.

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

    And even if you do concede, always blame the Russians?

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    President Donald Trump said Monday that mail-in voting access is a politically motivated plan hatched by Democrats.

    “What they’re doing is using COVID to steal an election,” Trump said at the Republican National Convention. “They’re using COVID to defraud the American people, all of our people, of a fair and free election. We can’t do that.”

    “Eighty million mail-in ballots they’re working on, sending them out to people that didn’t ask for them,” Trump added. “And it’s not fair and it’s not right, and it’s not going to be possible to tabulate, in my opinion.”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Former Vice President Joe Biden accepts the Democratic presidential nomination during a speech delivered for the largely virtual 2020 Democratic National Convention from the Chase Center in Wilmington, Del., on Aug. 20, 2020. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

    Some political observers have said that a winner of the presidential contest might not be declared on Election Day due to mail-in voting delays. The mail-in voting push is designed to curb the spread of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

    Trump, in recent months, has criticized mail-in voting efforts, accusing Democrats of trying to steal the election.

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) earlier this week asserted in an interview that Trump is trying “to scare people from voting, to intimidate them by saying he’s going to have law enforcement people at the polls.”

    “But ignore him,” she said, “because his purpose is to diminish the vote, to suppress the vote.”

    Meanwhile, congressional lawmakers questioned Postmaster General Louis DeJoy about whether recent reforms at the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) were political in nature.

    “I am not engaged in sabotaging the election,” DeJoy told lawmakers. Last week, he announced that he would suspend some operational and organizational changes that he made, saying that he does not want to create the appearance of a conflict of interest.

  • Columbia Journalism Review Explains How The Gates Foundation Manipulates The Media Narrative
    Columbia Journalism Review Explains How The Gates Foundation Manipulates The Media Narrative

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 08/25/2020 – 21:05

    Most of the feature stories published by the Columbia Journalism Review, a mostly-digital biannual “magazine” published and edited by the Columbia School of Journalism and its staff, is sanctimonious media naval-gazing filtered through a lens of cryptomarxist propaganda, written by a seemingly endless procession of washed-up magazine writers.

    But every once in a while, just like the NYT, Washington Post and CNN, even CJR gets it (mostly) right. And fortunately for us, one of those days arrived earlier this month, when the website published this insightful piece outlining the influence of the Gates Foundation on the media that covers it.

    Most readers probably didn’t realize how much money the Gates Foundation spends backing even for-profit media companies like the New York Times and the Financial Times, some of the most financially successful legacy media products, thanks to their dedicated readerships. For most media companies, which don’t have the financial wherewithal of the two named above, the financial links go even deeper. Schwab opens with his strongest example: NPR.

    LAST AUGUST, NPR PROFILED A HARVARD-LED EXPERIMENT to help low-income families find housing in wealthier neighborhoods, giving their children access to better schools and an opportunity to “break the cycle of poverty.” According to researchers cited in the article, these children could see $183,000 greater earnings over their lifetimes—a striking forecast for a housing program still in its experimental stage.

    If you squint as you read the story, you’ll notice that every quoted expert is connected to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which helps fund the project. And if you’re really paying attention, you’ll also see the editor’s note at the end of the story, which reveals that NPR itself receives funding from Gates.

    NPR’s funding from Gates “was not a factor in why or how we did the story,” reporter Pam Fessler says, adding that her reporting went beyond the voices quoted in her article. The story, nevertheless, is one of hundreds NPR has reported about the Gates Foundation or the work it funds, including myriad favorable pieces written from the perspective of Gates or its grantees.

    And that speaks to a larger trend—and ethical issue—with billionaire philanthropists’ bankrolling the news. The Broad Foundation, whose philanthropic agenda includes promoting charter schools, at one point funded part of the LA Times’ reporting on education. Charles Koch has made charitable donations to journalistic institutions such as the Poynter Institute, as well as to news outlets such as the Daily Caller, that support his conservative politics. And the Rockefeller Foundation funds Vox’s Future Perfect, a reporting project that examines the world “through the lens of effective altruism”—often looking at philanthropy.

    As philanthropists increasingly fill in the funding gaps at news organizations—a role that is almost certain to expand in the media downturn following the coronavirus pandemic—an underexamined worry is how this will affect the ways newsrooms report on their benefactors. Nowhere does this concern loom larger than with the Gates Foundation, a leading donor to newsrooms and a frequent subject of favorable news coverage.

    It’s just the latest reminder that all of NPR’s reporting on the coronavirus and China is suspect due to its links to Gates and, by extension, the WHO. Back in April, we noted this piece for being an egregious example of a reporter failing to make all of the sources links to China explicitly clear. Though a few clues were included.

    Of course, even CJR left out certain salient examples of the media’s penchant for protecting Gates. He was reportedly a close friend of Jeffrey Epstein’s, even reportedly maintaining ties after the deceased pedophile’s first stint in prison.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    That photo never gets old.

    Of course, the Gates Foundation is unusual in the level of heft it exerts, but it’s not alone. The Clinton Foundation has benefited from equally light-touch treatment from the mainstream press, if not more so. Little unflattering reporting was done on the Clinton Foundation until Steve Bannon helped Peter Schweizer produce “Clinton Cash”.

    Read some more of the CJR piece below:

    I recently examined nearly twenty thousand charitable grants the Gates Foundation had made through the end of June and found more than $250 million going toward journalism. Recipients included news operations like the BBC, NBC, Al Jazeera, ProPublica, National Journal, The Guardian, Univision, Medium, the Financial Times, The Atlantic, the Texas Tribune, Gannett, Washington Monthly, Le Monde, and the Center for Investigative Reporting; charitable organizations affiliated with news outlets, like BBC Media Action and the New York Times’ Neediest Cases Fund; media companies such as Participant, whose documentary Waiting for “Superman” supports Gates’s agenda on charter schools; journalistic organizations such as the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, the National Press Foundation, and the International Center for Journalists; and a variety of other groups creating news content or working on journalism, such as the Leo Burnett Company, an ad agency that Gates commissioned to create a “news site” to promote the success of aid groups. In some cases, recipients say they distributed part of the funding as subgrants to other journalistic organizations—which makes it difficult to see the full picture of Gates’s funding into the fourth estate.

    The foundation even helped fund a 2016 report from the American Press Institute that was used to develop guidelines on how newsrooms can maintain editorial independence from philanthropic funders. A top-level finding: “There is little evidence that funders insist on or have any editorial review.” Notably, the study’s underlying survey data showed that nearly a third of funders reported having seen at least some content they funded before publication.

    Gates’s generosity appears to have helped foster an increasingly friendly media environment for the world’s most visible charity. Twenty years ago, journalists scrutinized Bill Gates’s initial foray into philanthropy as a vehicle to enrich his software company, or a PR exercise to salvage his battered reputation following Microsoft’s bruising antitrust battle with the Department of Justice. Today, the foundation is most often the subject of soft profiles and glowing editorials describing its good works.

    During the pandemic, news outlets have widely looked to Bill Gates as a public health expert on covid—even though Gates has no medical training and is not a public official. PolitiFact and USA Today (run by the Poynter Institute and Gannett, respectively—both of which have received funds from the Gates Foundation) have even used their fact-checking platforms to defend Gates from “false conspiracy theories” and “misinformation,” like the idea that the foundation has financial investments in companies developing covid vaccines and therapies. In fact, the foundation’s website and most recent tax forms clearly show investments in such companies, including Gilead and CureVac.

    In the same way that the news media has given Gates an outsize voice in the pandemic, the foundation has long used its charitable giving to shape the public discourse on everything from global health to education to agriculture—a level of influence that has landed Bill Gates on Forbes’s list of the most powerful people in the world. The Gates Foundation can point to important charitable accomplishments over the past two decades—like helping drive down polio and putting new funds into fighting malaria—but even these efforts have drawn expert detractors who say that Gates may actually be introducing harm, or distracting us from more important, lifesaving public health projects.

    From virtually any of Gates’s good deeds, reporters can also find problems with the foundation’s outsize power, if they choose to look. But readers don’t hear these critical voices in the news as often or as loudly as Bill and Melinda’s. News about Gates these days is often filtered through the perspectives of the many academics, nonprofits, and think tanks that Gates funds. Sometimes it is delivered to readers by newsrooms with financial ties to the foundation.

    The Gates Foundation declined multiple interview requests for this story and would not provide its own accounting of how much money it has put toward journalism.

    In response to questions sent via email, a spokesperson for the foundation said that a “guiding principle” of its journalism funding is “ensuring creative and editorial independence.” The spokesperson also noted that, because of financial pressures in journalism, many of the issues the foundation works on “do not get the in-depth, consistent media coverage they once did.… When well-respected media outlets have an opportunity to produce coverage of under-researched and under-reported issues, they have the power to educate the public and encourage the adoption and implementation of evidence-based policies in both the public and private sectors.”

    As CJR was finalizing its fact check of this article, the Gates Foundation offered a more pointed response: “Recipients of foundation journalism grants have been and continue to be some of the most respected journalism outlets in the world.… The line of questioning for this story implies that these organizations have compromised their integrity and independence by reporting on global health, development, and education with foundation funding. We strongly dispute this notion.”

    The foundation’s response also volunteered other ties it has to the news media, including “participating in dozens of conferences, such as the Perugia Journalism Festival, the Global Editors Network, or the World Conference of Science Journalism,” as well as “help[ing] build capacity through the likes of the Innovation in Development Reporting fund.”

    The full scope of Gates’s giving to the news media remains unknown because the foundation only publicly discloses money awarded through charitable grants, not through contracts. In response to questions, Gates only disclosed one contract—Vox’s—but did describe how some of this contract money is spent: producing sponsored content, and occasionally funding “non-media nonprofit entities to support efforts such as journalist trainings, media convenings, and attendance at events.”

    Over the years, reporters have investigated the apparent blind spots in how the news media covers the Gates Foundation, though such reflective reporting has waned in recent years. In 2015, Vox ran an article examining the widespread uncritical journalistic coverage surrounding the foundation—coverage that comes even as many experts and scholars raise red flags. Vox didn’t cite Gates’s charitable giving to newsrooms as a contributing factor, nor did it address Bill Gates’s month-long stint as guest editor for The Verge, a Vox subsidiary, earlier that year. Still, the news outlet did raise critical questions about journalists’ tendency to cover the Gates Foundation as a dispassionate charity instead of a structure of power.

    Five years earlier, in 2010, CJR published a two-part series that examined, in part, the millions of dollars going toward PBS NewsHour, which it found to reliably avoid critical reporting on Gates.

    In 2011, the Seattle Times detailed concerns over the ways in which Gates Foundation funding might hamper independent reporting…

    * * *

    Source: CJR

  • Literal 'Battle-Zones' Are Erupting All Over America
    Literal ‘Battle-Zones’ Are Erupting All Over America

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 08/25/2020 – 20:45

    Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

    Part of the “new normal” in America seems to be battle zones erupting across the nation. I’m not just talking about protests, but full-on sieges that may last for days, weeks, or even months. Some of these began due to acts of police brutality, while others have taken on lives of their own with wholesale looting and violence.

    The United States of America we see today is incredibly different from the one we saw at the beginning of the year. We’ve been wracked by a pandemic, a subsequent economic catastrophe, and massive, widespread civil unrest.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Let’s take a look at these pockets of violent behavior. (WARNING: This article contains videos with violent content.)

    Kenosha, Wisconsin

    Yesterday, police officers shot Jacob Blake, a Black man, in the back as he tried to enter the vehicle where his children were. Blake is in stable condition and expected to live, but the shocking video has spread virally across social media. You can see the cell phone footage below. (Violence Warning)

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

    Kenosha, a city in Wisconsin of about one hundred thousand people, quickly erupted in protest of the shooting. (Never think these things only happen in large cities – here is an inside look at the Ferguson riots of 2014.)

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

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

    Protests, riots, and looting are expected to continue in Kenosha.

    Denver, Colorado

    Not only is Colorado currently beset by wildfires, but it’s also plagued with violent civil unrest. Over the weekend, rioters set out to destroy property in downtown Denver.

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

    One Twitter user reported that a group of protesters had gathered in front of a police department in Denver, and that a van pulled up to hand out shields.

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

    The Denver “protesters” called for the abolition of police.

    A group of about 40 people protested outside the Denver Police Department headquarters Saturday night and marched through streets in the area, blocking traffic. Some clashed with officers, set fires and broke windows…

    …Chemical agents were deployed to control the crowd and eight people were taken into custody…

    …Copter4 was over 13th and Delaware when people in the group were breaking windows.

    People in the group set two small fires, which were quickly extinguished. (source)

    Portland, Oregon

    Riots have been ongoing in Portland for months, and this weekend, several notable events occurred.

    On Saturday, rioters fought one another in the streets.

    Protesters at Portland rallies to show support for police and President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign engaged in physical combat repeatedly with counterprotesters Saturday without police intervention. Members of the chaotic crowd used an array of weapons, including baseball bats and firearms to beat and threaten those they opposed…

    …Pro-Trump demonstrators, people carrying shields with references to the QAnon conspiracy theory and members of the Proud Boys — a self-described chauvinist group that regularly engages in violence — all gathered around noon, some carrying rifles…

    …Counterprotesters from anti-fascist groups like Popular Mobilization PDX also gathered Saturday, and the two groups quickly began shouting at each other and engaging in tense, face-to-face confrontations in front of the Multnomah County Justice Center.

    Within an hour of meeting, protesters began to push each other and throw objects. Some demonstrators on the pro-police side fired paintball guns and deployed pepper spray on counterdemonstrators. Other protesters used baseball bats. Many people wore helmets and body armor as they punched, kicked and tore at each other. (source)

    This isn’t just a few people yelling and chanting. This is outright fighting – physical violence.

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

    Conservative rioters left the area in the afternoon, but the remaining rioters continued to become increasingly violent into the night until teargas was released to disperse crowds.

    The police did not declare an event because they “didn’t have the resources to handle one.”

    In a press release distributed Saturday afternoon, Portland police said its officers did not intervene to stop the fighting because those involved “willingly” engaged, its forces were stretched too thin from policing 80+ nights of protests, and the bureau didn’t feel the clashes would last that long.

    “Each skirmish appeared to involve willing participants and the events were not enduring in time, so officers were not deployed to intervene,” the release states. (source)

    On Sunday night, the NY Post reported that rioters set fire to a police precinct.

    Black Lives Matter militants set fire to a police station in Portland Sunday night during yet another night of violence in the Oregon city.

    The march on the Portland Police Bureau’s north precinct had already been declared an unlawful assembly as police say they were pelted with “rocks and bottles” and had “powerful green lasers” pointed at them.

    But a mob of at least 300 continued to advance despite repeated warnings by police — and lit an awning on the precinct ablaze… (source)

    The fire was extinguished without injuries.

    A week ago, a man was seriously injured when  he was pulled from his vehicle and brutally attacked during an “otherwise peaceful demonstration.”

    A crowd gathered around him and repeatedly punched and kicked him in the head until he was bloody.

    Witnesses told police the man had been helping a transgender female who had an item of hers stolen, and he was dragged out of the car and beat by nine or 10 people. When police arrived the man was unconscious.

    Portland police said their response to the assault was “complicated by a hostile group.” (source)

    Shockingly, only one person has been charged in the attack, 25-year-old Marquise Love.

    It’s important to note that Portland’s new district attorney, Mike Schmidt, has refused to prosecute protesters that commit criminal acts. The New York Times reports that since he took office on August 1 of this year, he has dismissed charges against half of the more than 600 people who have been arrested for crimes like interfering with the police, disorderly conduct and trespassing. Charges that involve assaulting officers will “require closer scrutiny, with prosecutors taking into account in filing charges whether the police fired tear gas into crowds.”

    Unsurprisingly, local law enforcement believes that Schmidt’s policies are making matters worse.

    Mr. Schmidt said Portland police leaders told him that they were concerned the directive would lead to more police injuries, though he said nothing prevented officers from making lawful arrests they deemed necessary. (The Portland police chief, Chuck Lovell, said the force “will continue to do the job the community expects of us.”)

    The sheriff, Mike Reese, warned Mr. Schmidt in an email that some protesters were bent on “starting fires, damaging property and assaulting police, community members,” adding, “They may feel even more emboldened if there is a public statement that appears to minimize their activities.” In response to one of the sheriff’s concerns, Mr. Schmidt said he revised the policy to greenlight prosecutions for rioting in cases where a defendant was accused of serious offenses.

    The Oregon State Police also took a parting shot at Mr. Schmidt as troopers pulled back after a two-week deployment at the protests this month, saying they preferred to put resources in “counties where prosecution of criminal conduct is still a priority.” (source)

    The violence in Portland shows no sign of relenting.

    Seattle, Washington

    Seattle has been the site of some of the most destructive and violent riots in the country – and considering everything I’ve just written about – that’s saying a lot. Riots began back in

    A group of protestors took over a six-block area near the Capitol in Seattle, initially naming it the CHAZ (Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone) and then changing the name of the area to CHOP (Capitol Hill Occupy Protest) – a move that some have considered extremely meaningful. Riots have taken place on a regular basis and the hands of responders have been tied by the local government.

    Initially, the local government in Seattle agreed to slash the police budget by 50% in response to the riots protests, but interestingly, most of the politicians have walked back their initial statements.

    In the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May, and widespread police brutality and anti-racist protests, a veto-proof majority of council members voiced their support for defunding the police, slashing 50% of the department’s budget.

    But since then, they’ve faced a series of logistical roadblocks and clashed with other city leaders, and ultimately all but one of them have walked back their statements.

    The council instead voted for a much smaller round of cuts, including reducing the salaries of Carmen Best, who is Seattle’s chief of police, and members of her command staff as well as trimming about 100 of the department’s 1,400 police officers. (source)

    Two days ago, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan vetoed the cuts, but this didn’t stop Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best from announcing her immediate retirement. It’s possible that part of the reason Mayor Durkan changed her tune is, hypocritically, that hundreds of angry protesters arrived to protest in her own neighborhood.

    That march prompted the mayor to ask the City Council to investigate Councilmember Kshama Sawant, who took part in the June demonstration. Because Durkan’s address hasn’t been publicly disclosed due to her background as a former U.S. attorney, she said the march was organized with a “reckless disregard of the safety of (her) family and children.” (source)

    At the time of publication, protests and riots have been ongoing in Seattle for 87 days.

    Chicago, Illinois

    Chicago has long been the site of carnage and gang violence, but things have escalated to an entirely different level. On August 10th, an upscale shopping district was pillaged after this shooting occurred.

    Hundreds of people swept through the Magnificent Mile and other parts of downtown Chicago early Monday, smashing windows, looting stores and confronting police after officers shot a suspect in Englewood hours earlier.

    The mayhem marked the second time since late May that the city’s upscale shopping district has been targeted by looters amid unrest, reigniting the debate over policing as city leaders continued to point fingers and downtown again was shut down overnight heading to Tuesday. (source)

    The response sounds positively medieval – Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot locked down the city by raising drawbridges to prevent looters from accessing the area. The move has been deeply criticized.

    Over the last week, for the second time in three months, Mayor Lori Lightfoot ordered most of the bridges up at night to limit access to the Loop, Gold Coast and surrounding areas after an outbreak of property destruction and unrest.

    The move was among a number of measures the mayor announced to protect businesses and reassure residents. But it was the image of the bridges being raised that offered the clearest symbol of Chicago’s divisions.

    In a time of crisis, in one of the most racially and economically segregated places in the country, the bridges connecting north and south and linking east and west — sides of town that serve as proxies for wealth versus disinvestment — were made uncrossable, like drawbridges over a castle moat.

    Longtime Chicagoans say they can’t remember any other time the bridges were raised in the name of crime prevention or public safety. “You’re basically saying you’re protecting one part of the city from another part,” veteran political strategist Delmarie Cobb said. (source)

    The most enlightening thing about the loot-fest in Chicago, however, is the justification. According to a Black Lives Matter activist and organizer, Ariel Atkins, it was just “reparations.” Atkins believes that anything the looters wish to damage or steal is owed to them. She made the radical statement at a solidarity rally in front of a Chicago police station, where people were gathered to support those who had been arrested.

    “I don’t care if somebody decides to loot a Gucci’s or a Macy’s or a Nike because that makes sure that that person eats. That makes sure that that person has clothes,” Ariel Atkins said at a rally outside the South Loop police station Monday, local outlets reported.

    “That’s a reparation,” Atkins said. “Anything they want to take, take it because these businesses have insurance.” (source)

    At a time when more people than ever in the United States were willing to get on board and protest police brutality and racial violence, entitled statements like the one made by Atkins have served to return us to a place of absolute division.

    New York, New York

    New York City has been labeled a “warzone” as violence escalates rapidly. The violence in the Big Apple isn’t directly tied to protests or riots, but instead, appears to be a deadly new way of life.

    This brings NYC to more than 1,000 total shooting incidents across the city year to date, already double all of last year, and the summer is not even over — a summer which ironically has witnessed a supposed heightened consciousness and awareness of police shootings of black Americans given the ongoing George Floyd and Black Lives Matters protests.

    But in the case of New York City’s explosion of gun violence, people are being killed with the police far away from the scene, though in one instance over a week ago, it was a black police officer shot in Queens while looking for a parking spot merely a mile from his home.

    And this weekend, according to local PIX11 News:

    Citywide, there were at least 25 shootings that injured 31 people on Friday and Saturday, police said. Officers responded to 16 shootings on Saturday and nine on Sunday.

    At least three of those shootings happened within just blocks of each other in Coney Island, according to police.

    Among these, there were seven deaths between Friday and Sunday morning, according the NYPD, including a 25-year-old mother of three children.

    Priscilla Vasquez was described in local reports as shot in the back of the head by an unknown gunman in the early morning hours of Saturday while standing on a sidewalk in front of a public school, just around the corner from her Bronx home.

    Underscoring the senseless and often random nature of much of the violence, her friends and family don’t think she was the intended targeted, also given the gunman appeared to fire wildly and haphazardly. (source)

    Police released the following footage of a shooting in Brooklyn.

    And it isn’t just shootings and assaults. So many windows have been smashed on NYC subways that the MTA can’t keep up with replacing the glass.

    Things aren’t calming down.

    If you aren’t already prepared for civil unrest in your own backyard, it’s high time you began to do so. To learn more about surviving riots and civil unrest, check out Selco’s course.

    It is not an exaggeration to say that any act of violence by police officers, whether justified or not, is the potential spark for an explosion of unrest. While I certainly agree that the police should be held to very high standards of behavior, it’s unfortunate now that the first thought of most people isn’t, “Why did this shooting occur?”  It’s now, “Oh, crap, how close am I to this looming riot?”

    I don’t foresee this situation calming down any time soon. In fact, as we draw closer to the election, I expect we’re going to see this type of violence and wholesale destruction reaching smaller and smaller population zones. There have been many rumors about protesters being bussed to smaller towns. It begs the question, are they just testing the waters to see what kind of response will occur when they’re out of urban population centers?

  • Watch Live: RNC Day 2 "Land Of Opportunity" – Pompeo, Paul, Sandmann, & Melania
    Watch Live: RNC Day 2 “Land Of Opportunity” – Pompeo, Paul, Sandmann, & Melania

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 08/25/2020 – 20:25

    After last night was mass-media-reprted as having a “darker tone”, the RNC begins night 2 with the theme “Land of Opportunity.”

    Living the American Dream

    This week, the world witnesses President Trump’s historic pledge to continue putting America first for four more years as he accepts his re-nomination for President of the United States. Part of that pledge is his fight to keep the American Dream alive for future generations. And, I know the importance of the American Dream. I know because I have lived it. 

    As a first-generation Korean American, my life reflects that the American dream is built on opportunity. I grew up with strong conservative values and have lived them every day as I have worked for a life only the United States of America can offer. I have lived on both coasts, worked for the then-Mayor of New York City and the President of the United States and now have had the opportunity – as the first Asian American to serve as President and CEO of either the RNC or DNC convention – to lead this historic, and unconventional convention. I know the value of hard work, but I also know the worth of opportunity. We have President Trump to thank for championing opportunity and paving the way for the American Dream to continue.

    We remember life before this pandemic and the incredible, record-breaking jobs numbers, historic unemployment lows and our booming economy. It was President Trump who led us into that incredible era, and he is doing it again. As he works to revitalize our economy, fight for American businesses and usher in new opportunities for the American worker in these unparalleled times, we know the American Dream is alive and well. 

    Because of President Trump’s leadership, this country remains the land of opportunity. It’s the land of opportunity for the single mom working to provide for her family and for grandparents who are finally able to plan for their retirement. America is the land of opportunity for the veteran who is jumping back into the workforce and for every American working to build a better future for their children and grandchildren. This land of opportunity has welcomed countless immigrants, like my parents, who sought to follow the law and create a new life for themselves and their families here in the greatest nation in the world. In the United States of America, we know and have lived the American Dream because of the opportunity uniquely found in a nation of people that never stops dreaming.

    This land, our land, truly is the land of opportunity. During this historic week, we celebrate all that means for us and for every American still to come. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Tonight’s highlights include Rand Paul, Nick Sandmann, Eric Trump, Mike Pompeo, and Melania Trump:

    In order of appearance

    • Norma Urrabazo, pastor and executive at the National Latina/Latino Commission

    • Myron Lizer, Navajo Nation vice president

    • Richard Beasley, former FBI agent

    • Jon Ponder, founder and CEO of HOPE for Prisoners, Inc.

    • Senator Rand Paul

    • Jason Joyce, Maine lobsterman

    • Cris Peterson, Minnesota dairy farmer

    • Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council

    • John Peterson, CEO of Schuette Metals

    • Cissie Graham Lynch, granddaughter of Billy Graham

    • Robert Vlaisavljevich, mayor of Eveleth, Minnesota

    • Abby Johnson, anti-abortion rights activist

    • Mary Ann Mendoza, mother whose son was killed by an undocumented immigrant

    • Nicholas Sandmann, student who sued news outlets after confrontation with Native American activist

    • Pam Bondi, former Florida attorney general 

    • Tiffany Trump, daughter of Mr. Trump

    • Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds

    • Ryan Holets, police officer known for adopting opioid-addicted baby

    • Florida Lieutenant Governor Jeanette Nuñez

    • Eric Trump, son of Mr. Trump

    • Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron

    • Secretary of State Mike Pompeo

    • First lady Melania Trump

    Watch live here:

  • Russia Declassifies Footage Of Biggest Nuke Ever Tested: "Mushroom Cloud 7 Times Higher Than Everest"
    Russia Declassifies Footage Of Biggest Nuke Ever Tested: “Mushroom Cloud 7 Times Higher Than Everest”

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 08/25/2020 – 20:24

    Russia has for the first time released full declassified footage of the Soviet Union’s monster nuclear bomb known as the ‘Tsar Bomba’ hydrogen bomb (codenamed “Ivan”).

    Widely considered to be the most powerful nuclear weapon ever created and tested, it was detonated 4,000 meters above a sparsely populated archipelago in the Barents Sea on Oct. 30, 1961 as part of a secretive test nevertheless detected by US intelligence. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The bomb had a yield of an estimated 50 megatons, or the equivalent of 50 million tons of TNT, and though poor-quality images had already been released, just days ago the Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation published a 40-minute full documentary featuring the new declassified video of the bomb detonation after being dropped by a Tu-95 Bear bomber on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of Russia’s nuclear industry.

    As shown in the new footage, the physical dimensions of the Tsar Bomba was unprecedented at a length of 26 feet and height of 7 feet. 

    BBC had previously profiled it as “too big to use in war” given the thermonuclear bomb was so powerful it could potentially wipe out any nearby Soviet outpost along with the enemy (the Soviet long-range bomber that dropped it was said to have been impacted by the shock wave even though it was already at least a couple dozen miles away at the moment of detonation).

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

    Aspects of the Tu-95V Soviet bomber that dropped it over the Arctic test site had to be modified to accommodate it.

    The new footage features never before seen images of the massive bomb being carefully transported by train.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Screenshot via Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation newly released footage.

    As The Drive details, the footage reveals multiple never before seen angles to the blast which produced a shock wave felt at least 75 miles away and created a mushroom cloud that reached 42 miles into the air, or seven times taller than Mount Everest:

    The documentary shows us inside the cockpit of the Tu-95V, where aircrew don protective goggles before we see the 26.5-ton bomb falls away gently under a parachute towards its intended target — the Russian Defense Ministry’s State Testing Site No. 6 — close to Novaya Zemlya’s Matochkin Strait. The detonation itself is recorded from several different aspects, including from the air. 

    The ‘covert’ Soviet test ended up not being so secret after all, given reports say the blast and resulting mushroom cloud were visible up to 621 miles away, further shattering windows in nearby Finland.

    Below is the full declassified video published by Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation:

    It was considered the Soviet Union’s final great “doomsday weapon” and thankfully was never to be replicated, though Soviet leaders later boasted they could produce a blast twice as large in any final nuclear showdown with the United States.

    For years analysts have said the detonation was so large as to make the bombs dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki appear like mini-nukes in comparison.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    And The Drive describes further of the new footage:

    According to the video, the Tu-95V was 28 miles away from the release point, and the detonation produced a fireball visible 621 miles away, despite cloudy conditions. “The explosion was accompanied by a bright flash of unusual strength,” the narrator explains. Within seconds, a column of dust had risen to a height of around 6 miles. 

    “The footage then returns to the aircraft, at a distance of 155 miles from the detonation and we see the huge fireball, rising slowly and expanding to reach a maximum of 12 miles across,” the report adds. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    New footage shows the moment tha massive ‘Tsar Bomba’ was dropped over the Arctic Barents Sea region.

    And the cloud ends up reaching an unbelievable forty miles into the atmosphere: “Forty seconds after the detonation, the fireball has reached a height of approximately 19 miles, after which a mushroom cloud begins to form, reaching a maximum height of 37-40 miles and a diameter of 56 miles.”

    * * *

    Clip focusing on the new blast footage showing multiple angles and distances from detonation site, which makes up the final minutes of the full declassified documentary:

  • The Russiagate Hoax Is Dead… But The Fake News Media Can't Admit It
    The Russiagate Hoax Is Dead… But The Fake News Media Can’t Admit It

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 08/25/2020 – 20:05

    Authored by Brian Cates via The Epoch Times,

    It’s nothing short of amazing watching the usual “fake news media” suspects still flogging the long-dead Russiagate Hoax when U.S. Attorney John Durham has begun rolling out indictments from it.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Anybody who thinks this stops with the conviction of former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith hasn’t followed SpyGate at all for the past three years like I have.

    Think about what the Clinesmith indictment reveals: It reveals that Durham and his investigators are going right to the very heart of the fraud perpetrated on the FISA Court.

    This very first indictment shows the FBI Crossfire Hurricane team and the Mueller Special Counsel team were well aware by June 2017 of the compelling necessity of hiding from the FISA Court Carter Page’s longstanding relationship with the CIA.

    Why did they need to hide that relationship from the court?

    Because their “evidence” for the warrant alleging Page was a Russian agent came from a political propagandist named Christopher Steele who was

    1) being paid by the Clinton campaign, and

    2) misrepresenting the key source providing the Page allegations (who turned out to be a low-level research assistant at the Brookings Institute named Igor Danchenko).

    What if the FBI admits to the FISA Court all the relevant facts that

    1) Steele is a paid employee of the Clinton campaign,

    2) who is using a Brookings research assistant disguised as a top Russian intelligence official as his source,

    3) but that the CIA itself says Page is not a Russian agent but is instead a CIA intelligence asset reporting all his Russian contacts to their agency?

    FBI Knew Steele’s Fake Evidence Would Not Withstand Real Examination

    The moment the FISA Court was alerted to the fact the CIA claimed Page as one of their own, the judge would have had to take a closer look at the Steele information. If that happened, the entire carefully managed fraud would begin unraveling.

    How could Page be a Russian agent if he’s been keeping the CIA up to date about his contacts with top Russian officials, the very same contacts the FBI is attempting to use in this warrant in order to claim he is working for the Russians?

    If that happened, Steele’s hearsay allegations against Page would be exposed and the FBI was very likely not going to get the warrant approved.

    So not only did the FBI end up hiding at least three key relevant facts from the FISA Court to get the original warrant, they kept the fraud going all through the three subsequent renewals of the warrant.

    Durham Will Prove Most Involved in the Fraudulent Warrants Knew the Truth About Carter Page and the CIA

    Clinesmith altered the key email that stated Page was a CIA source so that it read he wasn’t a source. Clinesmith’s motivation for doing that is readily apparent: Admitting Page was a CIA good guy destroys the entire basis for the surveillance warrant.

    Clinesmith altered the one copy of the CIA email that was being sent up to the FISA Court for the fourth renewal in June 2017 while he was also sending other FBI/Mueller team members accurate copies of the same email.

    Guess what that’s going to allow Durham to prove?

    It’s going to allow Durham to prove with documentary evidence that, just like Clinesmith, other FBI/Mueller team members knew the truth about Carter Page, and yet they still hid this from the court as they continued to obtain warrants through what can only be described as acts of deliberate fraud.

    It’s right there in the Department of Justice IG Michael Horowitz’s FISA abuse report from last December that FBI Special Supervisory Agent (SSA) Stephen Somma deliberately hid several things from the FISA Court to get the Page warrant—including Page’s relationship with the CIA.

    According to the Daily Caller:

    “The report identifies six areas where the agent withheld information that contradicted the FBI’s working theory that Page was an agent of Russia. According to the report, Case Agent 1 withheld exculpatory statements that Page and another Trump campaign aide, George Papadopoulos, made to [Stefan] Halper. The agent also withheld information from Justice Department attorneys about Page’s longstanding relationship with the CIA.”

    There’s a section in that report that details six separate issues where Somma deliberately withheld evidence to ensure the original warrant and its three renewals were granted.

    It’s Not Possible to Limit the Russiagate Hoax to Only Clinesmith

    It simply isn’t possible to say that prosecutions for deliberately withholding evidence to fool the FISA Court into granting a warrant based on acts of deliberate fraud can be limited only to Clinesmith. There’s far too much evidence that’s already gone public that clearly shows this goes far beyond and above just him.

    Durham is starting his prosecutions by demonstrating that many of the officials involved in this Russiagate Hoax knew from the beginning the basis for claiming Page was a traitor to his country was based on fraud, and they knew they were deliberately framing a CIA source as a Russian agent.

    You’re about to see over the next several months the DNC Media propagandists disguised as journalists suffer from cognitive dissonance as they keep trying to claim the Russiagate Hoax is still alive and well even as U.S. Attorney Durham is rolling out indictments of the people that perpetrated it.

  • "Stand Down!" – How One Navy Seal Killed A Multi-Billion Hedge Fund
    “Stand Down!” – How One Navy Seal Killed A Multi-Billion Hedge Fund

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 08/25/2020 – 19:45

    It has now been revealed that the fall of Dan Kamensky’s Marble Ridge Capital was at the hands of a former Navy SEAL, turned trader.

    Joe Femenia, the head of distressed-debt trading at Jefferies Financial Group, is the man who was outlined in court filings as having taped conversations that brought the hedge fund down, according to Bloomberg. The fund fell after Kamensky urged Femenia to not submit a bid for part of bankrupt retailer Neiman Marcus.

    Jefferies and Marble Ridge had been involved in a standoff regarding Neiman Marcus, as they both sought to bid for a portion of the company’s online business, MyTheresa. 

    Femenia sounded the alarm on the dubious tactic and raised the issue with a U.S. trustee. Highlighting the issue forced Kamensky to acknowledge he had committed a “grave mistake” and forced him to ultimately shut down his fund. 

    Legal filings show Kamensky telling Femenia to “Stand DOWN”. Probably not a bright thing to say to a Navy SEAL…

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Photo: Bloomberg

    They continued with Kamensky telling Femenia: “DO NOT SEND IN A BID.” This was followed by a “confrontational” phone call between the two, according to court filings. 

    Femenia took the altercation to Jefferies’ general counsel, who then disclosed it to an official creditor committee that was supervising the sale. Kamensky then urged Femenia, on a second phone call, to “treat the conversation off the books”. He also urged Femenia to “change his recollection” of how their first call went but, by then, Femenia was recording the call. 

    Kamensky pleaded: “[I]f you’re going to continue to tell them what you just told me, I’m going to jail, OK? Because they’re going to say that I abused my position as a fiduciary, which I probably did, right? Maybe I should go to jail. But I’m asking you not to put me in jail.”

    Veteran trader Eric Rosen said: “I have known Joe and always found him to be an honest, upstanding guy and a straight shooter. He risked his life for our country and he seems to have done the honorable thing here.”

    Femenia’s track record includes graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy before being a SEAL and spending “much of his 20s” fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. He previously worked at the elite trading group at Goldman Sachs before moving to Jefferies in 2016, where he worked as the head of 

  • LBMA-COMEX Collusion Intensifies As CME Mass Approves 267 LBMA Gold And Silver Bar Brands
    LBMA-COMEX Collusion Intensifies As CME Mass Approves 267 LBMA Gold And Silver Bar Brands

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 08/25/2020 – 19:25

    Submitted by Ronan Manly of BullionStar.com

    In a move which has gone entirely unnoticed in the precious metals markets, but which signals gold and silver bar delivery constraints for the COMEX gold and silver futures contracts, Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group (CME), operator of the New York based COMEX, has quietly and under the radar, hugely expanded its lists of eligible refinery gold and silver bar brands that can be delivered against the massively traded flagship GC 100 (100 oz gold) and SI (5000 oz silver) contracts.

    These changes, which were implemented on 27 July and which are detailed below, also look to be serving an even bigger agenda of preparing for a radical change in the delivery procedures of these two famous contracts so as to facilitate gold and silver stored in London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) vaults in London, England, to be used in settlement against the GC 100 oz and the SI 5000 oz COMEX contracts. Note that the COMEX 100 oz gold futures contract is currently deliverable as either one 100 troy ounce gold bar, or three 1 kilo gold bars, while the COMEX 5000 oz silver futures contract is currently deliverable as five 1,000 troy ounce cast silver bars (with a weight tolerance of 10% either higher or lower).

    To reiterate, these changes are to the gold and silver refiner brand lists of the big boy contracts GC 100 and SI. You may recall something similar happening for a new 4GC contract when it was rushed out in late March, but that was just a trial run. This is the main event.

    From New York to London

    As a reminder and as some background, CME (COMEX) and the LBMA began explicitly colluding on 24 March this year in an attempt to try to reign in the global precious metals markets following an Exchange for Physical (EFP) gold delivery failure in London which caused both a blow out between gold futures and gold spot spreads, as well as a bid-ask spread blowout in London spot gold, and which prompted the LBMA in a public statement to say that it had:

    “offered its support to CME Group to facilitate physical delivery in New York”

    On the same day, 24 March, Reuters, the embedded LBMA mouthpiece, reported that:

    “The LBMA and executives at major gold-trading banks asked CME to allow 400-ounce bars to be used to settle Comex contracts, said the two sources, both of whom were involved in the discussions.”

    Again, on the same day, 24 March, the CME Group hurriedly launched a new gold futures contract called the “Gold (Enhanced Delivery) futures contract” (ticker 4GC), a contract which is structured to allow delivery via 100 oz gold bars, or kilo gold bars, or 400 oz gold bars.

    Notably, in the 4GC contract, a 400 oz gold bar can be delivered via “Accumulated Certificates of Exchange” (ACEs), a fractional paper construct created by the CME to, in its words, “facilitate the conversion of 400 oz bars in fractional units which can be used for delivery” where “the Clearing House will issue four ACEs. Each ACE will represent an equal share of ownership of the larger bar.”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Cutting the Desk with Sleight of Hand – COMEX ACEs. Source: CME website 

    Importantly, in late March, CME created an entirely new and huge list of eligible gold refiner brands whose bars would be acceptable for delivery against this new ‘Enhanced Delivery’ 4GC futures contract, a list which comprised every gold refiner brand on both the current and former LBMA Good Delivery lists of gold refiners, and every gold refiner brand already on the GC 100 contract eligible gold refiner list at that time.

    Whatever it Takes – Add the whole Goddam List

    As the CME said in its 24 March press release for the 4GC contract:

    “The approved brand list for this product will have complete convergence with the approved brand list for CME Group’s existing gold futures and the LBMA gold good delivery list.”

    While this 400 oz 4GC contract launched in late March has hardly traded since then, its primary purpose now looks to have been a trial run to test out linking COMEX precious metals contracts to the London vaults and to the LBMA Good Delivery refiners lists, and to test implement the construction technique for the expanded eligible gold and silver bar brand lists of the GC 100 gold and SI (5000) silver contracts.

    As the CME and the LBMA said in another joint statement on 1 April, they “will continue to coordinate efforts as market circumstances evolve”. And continue to coordinate they have.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    For those who might not be familiar, the COMEX approved brand list for gold and the LBMA Good Delivery lists for gold were (up until recently) two entirely unrelated lists and concepts. The same was true of the COMEX approved brand list for silver and the LBMA Good Delivery lists for silver – they were two entirely unrelated lists and concepts.

    The COMEX approved gold refiner brand list (up until 27 July) was a list of refiners which produced either 100 oz gold bars or 1 kilo gold bars which COMEX judged to be of a sufficient standard to be physically deliverable against the GC 100 gold contract. On the other hand, the LBMA Good Delivery List for gold lists those gold refineries around the world which produce the far larger 400 oz gold bars (central bank gold bars) and whose gold bars are deemed by the LBMA Good Delivery referees to be of a high enough quality for inclusion.

    Likewise, the COMEX approved silver refiner brand list (up until 27 July) was a list of silver refiners which produced 1000 oz silver bars, bars which COMEX deemed worthy to be deliverable against the SI silver contract. In contrast, the LBMA Good Delivery List for silver is a far larger list of silver refineries which produce 1000 oz silver bars, including many CHinese refineries, that have been accredited by the LBMA Good Delivery referees.  

    When at the end of March, CME rushed to create a new gold bar refiner list for the 4GC (400 oz) gold contract, there were 68 gold bar brands listed on the existing GC 100 approved gold bar brand, and this list had not changed in any material way for a long time save for a few additions and deletions of refineries along the way.

    In late March for the new 4GC contract, CME took this existing COMEX GC 100 refiner list and merged it with the LBMA Good Delivery List for gold, adding in all the gold refinery brands that were on the LBMA Good Delivery list that had not already been on the GC 100 list. This was a whopping 51 bar brands on the LBMA Good Delivery gold list that were not on the GC 100 refiner list. When these two lists were added together and merged, it resulted in a combined list of 119 approved bar brands, an exact 75% increase over the 68 refineries which were on the GC 100 COMEX gold bar brand list.

    4GC Test Run

    Next, and this too is very important, the CME also added to the 4GC list all of the gold refineries that are listed on the former LBMA Good Delivery List for gold. For those who don’t know, the LBMA maintains two refiner bar brand lists for gold as well as another two refiner bar brand lists for silver. The current LBMA Good Delivery List for gold lists gold refiners which currently produce 400 oz gold bars which have been accredited by the LBMA.

    The former LBMA Good Delivery List for gold lists gold refiners which at some point in the past produced 400 oz gold bars which had been accredited by the London Gold Market referees, such as the Royal Mint’s refinery and Johnson Matthey, which previously administered the London Good Delivery list. This former list is a list of refineries, including historic and long gone refiners, which don’t currently make Good Delivery gold bars (400 oz gold bars) but whose gold bars, before they stopped making them or were taken off the list, are still accepted as London Good Delivery. Note that the history of the Good Delivery list stretches back all the way to 1750. The LBMA has only been in existence since 1987.

    There are, wait for it, 111 additional refiners on the former LBMA Good Delivery List for gold that are not on the current LBMA Good Delivery list for gold. This means, in total, when the COMEX 4GC contract went live in early April this year, its approved refiner list of gold bar brands contained the names of a massive 230 refiner bar brands, 68 + 51 + 111 = 230. That’s a 238% increase in the number of refineries compared to the 68 refiners which were on the pre-April GC 100 approved refiner gold list. Ironically, the new 4GC contract has never traded, but was it ever meant to, or was it a red herring to set up the 400 oz London deliverable infrastructure for the GC 100 contract?

    GC 100 and SI 5000 – A Live Exercise, Conjob-27 

    Now fast forward to 27 July, and what do we find? Well on 27 July, the CME (COMEX) in a very low key way and without any media announcements or press releases, quietly slipped in a market regulation filing (MKR) on its website titled “Regularity Approvals for Gold and Silver Brands”, with a short statement as follows:

    “From Registrar’s Office

    # MKR07-27-20

    Notice Date 27 July 2020

    Effective Date 27 July 2020

    The Commodity Exchange, Inc. (“COMEX” or “Exchange”) has approved certain London Bullion Market Association (“LBMA”) good delivery brands for delivery against the Exchange’s Gold Futures (GC) and Silver Futures (SI) contracts. The list of brands are located in the “Gold (GC) Brands” and “Silver (SI) Brands” tabs in the service providers table at the end of Chapter 7 of the COMEX Rulebook.

    These approvals will increase the brands of available material that can be used to satisfy delivery requirements of the Gold Futures (GC) and Silver Futures (SI) contracts and will afford market participants expanded delivery options.

    These approvals are effective immediately.”         

    When one consults the said “Gold (GC) Brands” and “Silver (SI) Brands” tabs of the latest CME service providers table (which is published as a spreadsheet in XLS format here), one sees the following.

    On the Gold (GC) Brands worksheet for the flagship GC 100 oz contract, we now find that:

    • 51 LBMA approved gold refineries have been added to the eligible brand list for the COMEX 100 (GC 100) gold futures contract. These 51 additional refinery brands are listed directly under the existing refiner list with a subheading of “(Added as of 27 July, 2020)” There were 69 brands on this list prior to 27 July. There are now 120 current brands on the GC 100 gold list. 69 + 51 = 120
    • Of the 51 refiner brands, the top three countries represented are 12 refineries are from China, 10 from Japan, and 7 from Russia.
    • An additional 111 gold bars brands from the LBMA ‘former’ Good Delivery List for gold have been added to the Gold (GC) brands tab as a separate list beside and to the right of the first list. In total 162 LBMA approved gold bar brands have been added to the COMEX approved gold bar brand list.
    • Overall, there are now 231 brands on the COMEX approved gold bar brand list. That’s a 235% increase in the number of gold bar brands that are now on the GC 100 list compared to the 69 that were listed before the 27 July change.

    Note that the current LBMA Good Delivery List for gold lists 71 refiner gold bar brands. The former LBMA Good Delivery List lists 115 refiner bar brands.

    Silver Panic – Under the Radar

    An even bigger bombshell arguably is that the CME and LBMA’s actions are now signaling panic about future physical silver delivery. Turning to the Silver Futures (SI) Brands worksheet, we find that on 27 July, the COMEX SI eligible silver refiner brand list, which up until then had listed 75 silver bar refiner brands, has also been hugely expanded.

    On the Silver (SI) Brands worksheet tab of the same service providers XLS, we now find that:

    • 65 LBMA approved silver refineries have been added to the eligible brand list for the COMEX SI (5000 oz) silver futures contract. These 65 additional refinery brands are listed directly under the existing refiner list with a subheading of “(Added as of 27 July, 2020)”
    • There were 75 brands on this list prior to 27 July. There are now 140 current brands on the current SI silver refiner list. 75 + 65 = 140
    • Of the 65 silver refiner brands added, the top three countries represented are 26 silver refineries from China, 11 from Japan, and 5 from Russia.
    • An additional 40 silver bars brands from the LBMA ‘former’ Good Delivery List for silver have also been added to the Silver (SI) Brands tab as a separate list beside and to the right of the first list.

    In total, 105 LBMA silver bar brands were added by COMEX on 27 July, taking the COMEX SI silver list to a total of 180 eligible silver bar brands. That’s a 140% increase in the number of silver bar brands compared to prior to 27 July, or in other words, 2.4 times more brands on the SI silver brand list than there had been prior to 27 July.

    Note that the current LBMA Good Delivery List for Silver lists 84 refiner silver bar brands. The former LBMA Good Delivery List lists 82 refiner bar brands.

    In summary, on 27 July, across the GC 100 contract and SI contract refiner lists, COMEX stealthily added 267 LBMA gold and silver refiner brands to the COMEX approved refiner lists using one small paragraph in an obscure hidden filing on its website. Critically, these changes were approved and ‘effective immediately’ on 27 July, the same day that they were announced. How’s that for covert behind the scenes dealings? With COMEX and LBMA hoping no one would notice.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    267 gold and silver brands added to the COMEX GC and SI contracts – Nothing to See!

    The Old Normal

    Previously, CME always announced each addition or removal of an approved gold or silver refiner brand  separately in a distinct filing, for example, when the ABC Refinery (Australia) brand was added to the GC 100 gold approved refiner list on 5 June this year, or when, CME removed the approval of the gold bar brand of the North Korean central bank from the 4GC approved brand list on July 23 July (the Pyongyang  gold bar brand had slipped through the cracks in COMEX’s rush to blanket list all former LBMA brands, this obviously did not go down well in New York, or perhaps in Washington DC).

    Another example is the tragicomic addition and subsequent removal of Dubai DMCC’s Al Ethihad Refinery from the GC 100 gold brand list in July, approved and added by CME on 9 July, and then mysteriously removed by CME three weeks later on 31 July without explanation, but market rumor has it that Al Ethihad was kicked off the COMEX gold refiner list due to intervention by JP Morgan.

    In contrast to all of these individual additions and deletions, now COMEX has added 267 gold and silver bar brands to its approved in one fell swoop. Nothing like this has ever happened before. So why now?  

    New Normal – We’re Going to Need A Bigger List

    Traditionally, the COMEX futures markets in New York has been known around the world as a venue which trades gargantuan volumes of futures contracts (GC 100 oz gold and SI 5000 silver) that while deliverable, were rarely delivered. This therefore gave the COMEX the reputation of being a relative backwater for physical gold and silver activity. But with contract holders now demanding physical delivery of both gold and silver, that is increasingly less the case.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Huge increase in COMEX GC 100 gold contracts delivered in 2020. Source: www.GoldChartsRUs.com

    Since late March 2020, a net 879 tonnes of gold has arrived into COMEX approved New York vaults, with total gold stocks more than quadrupling from 271 tonnes to 1151 tonnes. Of these net additions, 461 tonnes have ended up as registered gold inventories, the eligible gold inventories have swelled by other 418 tonnes.

    Since April inclusive, a massive 155,430 GC 100 gold contracts have been delivered (warrants changing hands), predominantly across the April, June and August contracts, representing 483 tonnes of gold.  

    Silver net inflows into COMEX vaults since 23 March have been more subdued, both in terms of size and a percentage of existing stocks, with the net additions totaling about 16.8 million ozs of silver, which has raised total COMEX silver holdings from 323.4 million ozs to the current 340.3 million ozs. But within that, there has been a marked increase in registered silver stocks from less than 3000 tonnes to currently over 4000 tonnes.

    Silver SI 5000 oz contracts moving to delivery have also increased massively in the last few months, with vault warrants 9,044 contracts changing hands in May and 17,294 contracts in July. Between April and August to date, 28989 SI contracts, each for 5000 oz of silver have gone to warrant delivery, that’s 144.95 million ozs of silver, or 4500 tonnes. The next active delivery month in SI silver is September, followed by December. Both months currently have huge Open Interest, 59,000 contracts and 120,000 contracts respectively, far larger than available COMEX silver stocks.

    Kilo Bars Do Not Explain the Changes

    The billion dollar question now is why, on 27 July, did CME blanketly and surreptitiously add 162 LBMA gold bar brands to the COMEX GC 100 eligible gold refiner list and 105 LBMA silver bar brands to the COMEX SI 5000 eligible silver refiner list?

    For the GC 100 gold futures contract, the deliverable unit of the 100 oz gold bar is not only not common, it is not usually a gold bar size produced by gold refineries around the world. While the 1 kilobar unit is popular, many of the gold refinery brands added to the GC 100 approved list on 27 July, not to mention those on the former gold LBMA Good Delivery gold list, don’t and never did produce kilo gold bars, let alone 100 oz gold bars.

    For example, there is a gold kilobar Good Delivery List maintained by the Singapore Bullion Market Association (SBMA) which only lists 15 refinery brands of gold kilobar. The Dubai Good Delivery Standard (DGD), a 1 kilogram bar standard operated by Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC) in Dubai only lists 13 refiner gold brands on its active DGD list, and another 18 on a former list.

    So why were 162 LBMA Good Delivery refiner bar brands added to the COMEX list? The large Swiss gold refineries of PAMP, Valcambi, Metalor and Argor-Heraeus were already on the GC 100 gold brand refiner list. As were the Perth Mint, Royal Canadian Mint, Rand Refinery, and Johnson Matthey. Adding a large list of refiners could give a bit of juice in terms of extra kilobar gold brands that could be delivered against GC 100. But not hugely. Besides, looking at the daily COMEX gold inventory reports shows that no gold moved from the 4GC Enhanced Delivery category to the normal reporting category in any of the COMEX vaults after the mass approval of all the extra bar brands, which means there were no previously GC 100 contract ineligible bar brands of 1 kilo or 100 oz units sitting in the vaults waiting to be reclassified.    

    Plug in London

    The more likely and logical explanation is that the COMEX, in conjunction with the LBMA, is planning to change the GC 100 delivery procedure to allow delivery of 400 oz gold bars in London, and the associated paper fractional scheme of Accumulated Certificates of Exchange (ACEs). That’s what they originally wanted and that is the holy grail for the bullion banks.

    A telling sign it that CME specifically added 111 gold bar brands on the former LBMA Good Delivery List for gold when many of these refineries are no longer in existence and never ever produced 1 gold kilo bars or 100 oz gold bars. Are the COMEX and LBMA bullion banks that desperate that they are now scraping the proverbial bottom of the London gold vaults, planning to deliver the GC 100 contract into long forgotten 400 oz gold bars in deep storage under the Bank of England?

    As noted by Bloomberg in an article in early July:

    “CME, which owns Comex where the main gold futures contract is listed, said in March it would offer a new futures contract with expanded delivery options that included 400-ounce bars, which is the size that’s accepted in the larger spot market in London.

    On Tuesday [30 June], it announced that traders will also be able to deliver gold in London vaults against the new contract, saying the move would “provide market participants greater opportunity to make and take delivery.”

    However, the move falls short of what some market participants had been hoping. The main “GC” gold contract is still only deliverable in the US using 100-ounce bars or kilobars.”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Huge increase in COMEX SI 5000 silver contracts delivered in 2020. Source: www.GoldChartsRUs.com

    Why too has COMEX added 65 LBMA silver bar brands to the approved silver bar brand list for the SI contract? This entire change in the deliverable brand list for the SI silver contract has completely come in under the market’s radar. Does COMEX plan to push through silver delivery in the London vaults for its SI contract too? It would appear so.

    The same question can be asked about why CME (COMEX) has added 40 former silver refineries to its SI approved silver brand list. Is there such an upcoming shortage of physical silver that the COMEX needs to approve every silver refinery on the planet, both current and former, so as to have a large enough universe of silver bars to tap including long forgotten silver bar brands?

    The LBMA – CME spin from March to May was that coronavirus lockdowns caused gold delivery logistical delays which were responsible for the price spread blowout between COMEX gold futures and London spot gold. This was also, said the duo, the reason why they needed to launch the 4GC (400 oz) contract, to give market participants ‘enhanced’ delivery options in London from an extended refiner brand list.

    Then why has this 4GC contract never been used? And why has COMEX now railroaded through the exact same refiner list changes to the GC 100 contract, as were implemented for the 4GC contract. The only logical explanation is that as the GC 100 refiner list expansion has now occurred so too soon will the additional of London gold vaults as a GC 100 delivery option.

    If it wasn’t for those Pesky Rules

    As to why COMEX created the 4GC contract in March and didn’t change the GC 100 contract specs to allow 400 oz gold bar delivery, the official line from was that CME cannot change contract that have Open Interest. As CME said in its 4GC FAQ:

    “There are significant legal and regulatory concerns with making changes to any existing contract with significant open interest, and we always work to preserve the integrity of each contract for all open interest holders – short and long”

    According to the Stone X daily gold market commentary on 1 July, changes to permit gold bar delivery in London against the 4GC contract also require a contract that has no Open Interest:

    “The Chicago Mercantile Exchange has announced that it will permit delivery against its new 4GC contract into London vaults. This will be effective as of the September contract, which is the earliest contract in which there is no current open interest (or beyond). Contracts are not allowed to be modified where there is open interest.”

    COMEX has already added in the reference to London depositories (vaults) for the 4GC into chapter 7 of its “Delivery Facilities and Procedures”, where the relevant section now reads as follows, with the sentence in bold having been inserted: 

    “The depository for gold deliverable against the Gold futures (GC) contract must qualify and be designated a weighmaster and must be located within a 150-mile radius of the City of New York. The depository for gold deliverable against the Gold (Enhanced Delivery) futures (4GC) contract must qualify and be designated a weighmaster and must be located within a 150-mile radius of the City of New York or in London, UK.”

    A previous version of this Chapter 7 text, from 23 April, had no mention of London, nor of the Gold (Enhanced Delivery) 4GC contract.

    It will be interesting to see how COMEX, the LBMA and the bullion banks will get around the “significant legal and regulatory concerns with making changes” to GC and SI contracts that have significant open interest, but with the expanded approved refiner lists now done and dusted, the next step will be to get the CME lawyers, in league with an as always compliant CFTC, to change the GC and SI contract specs. As they used a stealthy and covert approach when implementing the refiner list changes, expect similar such attempts with the contract specs.

    This article was originally published on the BullionStar.com website

  • Elon Musk's Neuralink Plans To Unveil "Real Time Neuron Demonstration" This Week
    Elon Musk’s Neuralink Plans To Unveil “Real Time Neuron Demonstration” This Week

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 08/25/2020 – 19:05

    All we can say is if this Neuralink “reveal” is anywhere as realistic as Tesla’s solar roof tiles – or anywhere as disruptive as putting a Tesla on skates and pushing it through a tunnel under goofy neon lights – we’re glad we’re not signed up as test subjects. 

    But regardless, Neuralink presses on. The brain-machine interface company that Musk has claimed will be able to cure everything from Alzheimers to compulsive shopping has scheduled an event for later this week to “update the public on its progress” since last year’s presentation.

    “Will show neurons firing in real-time on August 28th. The matrix in the matrix,” Musk had tweeted at the end of July.

    “Wait until you see the next version vs what was presented last year. It’s *awesome*,” Musk wrote in February. “The profound impact of high bandwidth, high precision neural interfaces is underappreciated. Neuralink may have this in a human as soon as this year. Just needs to be unequivocally better than Utah Array, which is already in some humans & has severe drawbacks.”

    Uh, right. Smells like a capital raise could be close, if you ask us.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Neuralink plans on using its own surgical robot for inserting electrodes into the brain to make the leap. So far, the design has been tested on 19 different animals with “around an 87% success rate”. That doesn’t seem too promising, if you ask us – but we’re not brain surgeons.

    Come to think of it, neither is Musk. 

    Regardless, the company’s long term goal is “obtaining human symbiosis with artificial intelligence (AI)”, according to Teslarati. To do that, the company needs to connect electrodes throughout the brain. From there, data is collected from brain signals and analyzed by Neuralink’s software. 

    Musk has said in the past that installation of Neuralink chips could “restore limb function, improve human movement, resolve issues with eyesight and hearing, and help with diseases like Parkinson’s.”

    Human trials could be on the schedule for 2020, according to the company. And yet, we still don’t have full self driving. 

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Aug 25

Today’s News 25th August 2020

  • 1 In 3 Cars Worldwide Is Produced In China
    1 In 3 Cars Worldwide Is Produced In China

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 08/25/2020 – 02:45

    Almost one in three – or 32 percent – of all cars produced worldwide in 2019 came out of China.

    As shown in numbers by the automobile manufacturers’ association OICA, the world manufactures less cars than it did in 2014, but, as Statista’s Katharina Buchholz notes, several Asian markets actually were able to grow their production volumes.

    Infographic: One in Three Cars Worldwide Is Produced in China | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    India exhibited one of the biggest increases – almost 15 percent in five years to 3.6 million cars annually.

    The biggest decrease in production hit the ailing U.S. car industry, which lost 40 percent of its domestic production between 2014 and 2019.

    Germany also make less cars at home, but German manufacturers like Volkswagen are a part of the rising Chinese production. In 2019, the Chinese market accounted for around 39 percent of Volkswagen’s total sales. Shifting production sites are only one aspect of the internationalization of the car industry.

    Know-how also migrates with production, with established manufacturers entering into joint ventures with Chinese or other Asian companies, which usually include technology transfer.

  • "This Is Insane": Kenosha Melts Down As Cars Smashed, Buildings Torched And Looters Run Wild In Second Night Of Unrest
    “This Is Insane”: Kenosha Melts Down As Cars Smashed, Buildings Torched And Looters Run Wild In Second Night Of Unrest

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 08/25/2020 – 02:30

    Anarchy broke out on the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin Monday as protesters squared off with National Guardsman in the second night of unrest over the shooting of a reportedly unarmed black man by police on Sunday.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Two protesters stand with raised fists as a garbage truck burns behind them (via the Daily Mail)

    The night was documented by journalist Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) with photos via the Daily Mail (EPA).

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

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

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Tear gas was deployed in an attempt to clear protesters who had gathered in front of the Kenosha County courthouse, while Gov. Tony Evers deployed 125 members of the National Guard to assist local law enforcement.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    A woman taunts law enforcement in front of the Kenosha County courthouse (via the Daily Mail)

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Massive fires were set throughout the city, including car dealerships, a Department of Corrections administrative building, and an office furniture company.

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

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js<!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    A city garbage truck burns

    In a now-viral video, 29-year-old Jacob Blake was shot seven times in the back while attempting to enter his car during an altercation with police. He is currently in serious condition in a Milwaukee hospital, according to the Daily Mail – which notes that in Blake was charged with resisting arrest and carrying a concealed weapon in 2015 after he pulled a gun at a local bar in Racine.

    Meanwhile, details have emerged about Blake’s criminal past, including a recent arrest for sexual assault.

    According to online records, Kenosha County prosecutors charged Blake with third-degree sexual assault, trespassing, and disorderly conduct in connection with domestic abuse. –Daily Mail

    In addition to the fire and destruction, mass looting ensued – including a Mattress store which was then burned to the ground.

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

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsMeanwhile, armed private citizens stood guard outside a local gas station to protect it from looters.

    On Monday, tensions flared after a Monday press conference with Mayor John Antarmian was moved from a park to inside the city’s public safety building, according to Fox News, which notes that “Hundreds of protesters rushed to the building and a door was snapped off its hinges before police in riot gear pepper-sprayed the crowd, which included a photographer from The Associated Press.”

    Evers and a number of other Democrats condemned the shooting. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden called for “an immediate, full and transparent investigation” and said the officers “must be held accountable.”

    “This morning, the nation wakes up yet again with grief and outrage that yet another Black American is a victim of excessive force,” he said, just over two months before Election Day in a country already roiled by the recent deaths of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky. “Those shots pierce the soul of our nation.”

    Republicans and the police union accused the politicians of rushing to judgment, reflecting the deep partisan divide in Wisconsin, a key presidential battleground state. Wisconsin GOP members also decried the violent protests, echoing the law-and-order theme that President Trump has projected during his campaign. –Fox News

    For more on-scene coverage, we highly recommend giving Gutenschwager a follow.

  • Belarus 'Apocalypse Now': Gun-Toting Lukashenko Goes Full Colonel Kurtz As Protests Grow
    Belarus ‘Apocalypse Now’: Gun-Toting Lukashenko Goes Full Colonel Kurtz As Protests Grow

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 08/25/2020 – 02:00

    Via Southfront.org,

    On August 23rd, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko began presumably cosplaying Colonel Walter E. Kurtz from Apocalypse Now (or presumably Kurtz from the novel Heart of Darkness, depending on preference). With protesters in front of the presidential palace and calling for him to give up power and organize new elections, he arrived with the presidential helicopter.

    Notably, the embattled president was wearing a bulletproof vest and had an automatic rifle in his arms. This can be seen on the footage below:

    He could have also had no shirt on and only worn a bulletproof vest, but it appears that he has overlooked that detail.

    There are several other videos of Lukashenko in the airplane, getting off it. Also of Lukashenko’s son – Nikolai, who is 15 years old.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    He was also given an assault rifle by his father and was wearing a bulletproof vest. There are also security guards and soldiers protecting him.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    “Col. Kurtz” from Apocalypse Now

    Later on, a photograph was released of the crisis center showing Lukashenko, his son, and presumably a presidential press secretary. Those are all of the members in the crisis center present at the event, as can be seen on the photograph below.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The Independence Palace in Minsk was closed off with a cordon of security personnel. Lukashenko went to the barricades to thank the troops for protecting him.

    He thanked the security officials:

    “Thank you, you are handsome!,” he said

    “We are with you until the end!,” they replied, in a ridiculous exchange.

    And it would appear that not all of this is without reason. Reportedly, the Ministry of Defense of Belarus recorded an attempt to violate Belarusian airspace from Lithuania. This was reported in the department’s Telegram channel.

    According to the ministry, the “provocation” took place on 23rd August at 19:30 in the village of Volkovschina, Oshmyany region, which borders Lithuania.

    “A probe of eight balloons with anti-state symbols was launched from the adjacent territory,” the message said.

    As such, it appears that the Baltic states believe that Belarus under Lukashenko is so far ‘lost’ that it is like North Korea and needs opposition leaflets dropped from across the border.

    The flight of balloons was suppressed without the use of weapons thanks to the crews of MI-24 helicopters from the air defense forces on duty, the Defense Ministry said.

    And to reinforce the notion that no external pressure is being exerted on Lukashenko and his aides, approximately 50,000 people formed a human chain from Vilnius to the Belarusian border to express solidarity with protests in the neighboring country.

    The president of the “Baltic superpower” was present to support the expression of solidarity to the Belarusian opposition.

    This also took place on August 23rd, which is the anniversary of when in 1989 over a million people formed a human chain spanning Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to demand an end to the Soviet occupation.

    An air balloon took off from Cathedral Square and take a 15-metre long Belarusian flag into the sky. It is also not the actual Belarusian flag, but the white-red-white flag used by opposition.

    The Freedom Way was followed by a concert and TV marathon in the courtyard of Medininkai Castle. A fundraiser collected money for the BY Help organisation that “has been helping injured, detained and persecuted Belarusians and their families since 2017.”

    “Freedom is not only a fundamental human right but also a nation’s fundamental right. It’s also a daily commitment to defend it from any attempt on it by those who would replace freedom with darkness, oppression ands fear,” said Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda.

    “Thirty years ago Lithuania broke its shackles of oppression by forming the Baltic Way with its Latvian and Estonian brothers and showing the world that we are free and, first of all, free in our spirit,” he said.

    “Today, time has come for our Belarusian brothers to say the dear word ‘Freedom’.”

    No foreign meddling at all…

    Lukashenko and his government clearly demonstrate that they are not going to submit to the foreign pressure and surrender the power to the pro-Western opposition. Meanwhile, the political and security situation in the country has been deteriorating.

  • Women Beaten By Spanish Cops For Not Properly Wearing Face Masks
    Women Beaten By Spanish Cops For Not Properly Wearing Face Masks

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 08/25/2020 – 01:00

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

    A video clip out of Spain shows a police officer beating two woman with a truncheon because they are not properly wearing their face masks.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The footage shows two women involved in a confrontation with the female officer, who beats them across the arms and upper body.

    One of the women appears to have suffered a serious injury to her arm as a result of the blows.

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

    Although the women are wearing face masks, they appears to have committed the sin of letting them slip from fully covering their faces.

    The police officer does not appear to be wearing a mask at all.

    Spain has been one of the most draconian countries in Europe when it comes to the enforcement of coronavirus rules.

    Numerous beaches across the country are being patrolled by police surveillance drones to enforce mask wearing and social distancing

    During the actual lockdown, Spanish police were handing out €2,000 euro fines for “disrespecting a police officer” and people were also arrested for going “too frequently” to the grocery shop.

    However, there still appears to be more resistance to a second lockdown in Spain compared to other European countries, largely because the country’s economy is extremely dependent on tourism.

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

    * * *

    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.

  • The Quiet American Reset
    The Quiet American Reset

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 08/25/2020 – 00:05

    Authored by Alastair Crooke via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    The great de-coupling is here. The U.S. now has plan a to purge Chinese tech companies fully from America’s internet, creating what the Trump administration has dubbed the Clean Network. It mirrors the White House’s existing 5G Clean Path initiative to remove all Chinese components from systems ‘everywhere’, and which now extends it to everything tech on the ‘net.

    China fears a financial ‘Iron Curtain’ is about to fall – a complete expulsion from the dollar sphere. In fact, soft capital control is already birthing, with Bloomberg reporting that the U.S. is now asking colleges and universities to divest from Chinese holdings in their endowments, “warning schools in a letter this last week, to get ahead of potentially more onerous measures [coming] on those holding the shares”.

    Reportedly, the Chinese leadership annual August Beidaihe retreat, agreed (should the recommendations be subsequently endorsed at the Central Committee plenum in October) that China should prepare for war; build food and energy reserves; establish the Eurasian continental economic system, recover its overseas gold and broaden the global RMB settlement system (including its digital Yuan) – and prepare for the complete interruption of relations with the U.S.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Yet, whilst the media focus is all on this ‘tech’ and ‘sphere’ de-coupling, something profound – and quite separate – is already shaping the global monetary order (quite apart from likely Chinese exclusion).

    It is set, in the longer term, to be more revolutionary – and contentious – than even ‘de-coupling’. It is getting sparse attention.

    However, as it becomes ever more evident that no ‘V’ shaped economic rebound will be arriving soon – as the U.S. ‘house’ catches fire again with Coronavirus over the autumn and winter, presaging a further economic closedown – the chances are that this bombshell will indeed ignite.

    First, a little background:

    Earlier this month, Zero Hedge published a remarkable interview with two former Fed economists – Simon Potter (who was also the former head of the Fed’s Plunge Protection Team for many years) and Julia Coronado – both of whom have tremendous impact on thinking at the Fed.

    They hinted at the Fed’s ‘last ditch’ stimulus and bailout strategy (i.e. should the U.S. economy be further stalled by Coronavirus): It is ‘to wire’ digital money directly into Americans’ smartphone financial apps, bypassing the banking system entirely.

    “The two propose creating a monetary tool that they call ‘recession insurance bonds’, which draw on some of the advances in digital payments and ‘wired’ instantly to Americans”:

    “As Coronado explains the details, Congress would grant the Federal Reserve an additional tool for providing support — say, a percent of GDP [in a lump sum that would be divided equally and distributed] to households in a recession. Recession insurance bonds would be zero-coupon securities, a contingent asset of households that would basically lie in wait. The trigger could be reaching the zero lower bound on interest rates or, as economist Claudia Sahm has proposed, a 0.5 percentage point increase in the unemployment rate. The Fed would then activate the securities and deposit the funds digitally in households’ apps.

    “As Potter then elucidates: “it took Congress too long to get money to people, and it’s too clunky. We need a separate infrastructure. The Fed could buy the bonds quickly without going to the private market. On March 15 they could have said interest rates are now at zero, we’re activating X amount of the bonds, and we’ll be tracking the unemployment rate—if it increases above this level, we’ll buy more. The bonds will be on the asset side of the Fed’s balance sheet; the digital dollars in people’s accounts will be on the liability side.””

    Then, just days later, Federal Reserve Governor, Lael Brainard, hinted once again at the coming monetary revolution:

    “To enhance understanding of digital currencies, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston is collaborating with researchers at MIT, in a multi-year effort to build and test a hypothetical digital currency oriented to central bank uses … It is important to understand how the existing provisions of the Federal Reserve Act with regard to currency issuance apply to a CBDC and whether a CBDC would have legal tender status, depending on the design”.

    So what would prompt the Fed to pursue “this significant policy process”? Why – another leg down, resulting from an upsurge in Covid-19, of course. The last bailout was not just “clunky”, it sent stocks and bonds soaring skyward. And has severed asset prices from any connection to metrics of value, from fundamentals, and from analysis (and did do not much either for ordinary Americans). What we now have, therefore, is a market focussed only on narratives, and not on reality. This has implications, too.

    The prospect of the Fed ‘printing’ digital dollars, wired to peoples’ cash-pay apps, as a new stimulus mechanism – replete with the overtones of a ‘Davos Reset’ formula for moving toward a digital, global Universal Basic Income model is obvious – as is the political temptation for politicos to pay for all sorts of political ‘projects’ in this way.

    Yet this is only a half of the ‘Revolution’ – two other components are already ‘done’.

    Two tipping-points have been passed.

    • Firstly, people can see (with Boomer entitlement spending about to soar into the Trillions), that the U.S. government cannot support the debt burden without having the central bank simply ‘print’ more money. Many on Wall Street will see this as the solution: Putting digital money directly onto apps must be inflationary, they believe. And inflation can melt away America’s debt-load through de-basing the currency.

    • Secondly, in April, the Fed already changed the Supplementary Leverage Ratios (SLR) to exempt U.S. Treasuries from capital-ratio requirements. In simple English, this means that commercial banks can buy any amount of U.S. government debt instruments, without putting aside capital on their balance sheet, to support such purchases. So that (as long as rates are even marginally positive) they can buy and enjoy a nominal income. In June, U.S. banks increased their U.S. Treasuries by 48%. Effectively, the Fed facilitates the credit creation; the banks use it to buy Treasuries; and the government then spends the money.

    Magic. Like the Mad Hatter’s tea-party – out of thin air, things appear. Not once, but twice: as a similar trick was done by the Fed via multiplying the value of Treasury bails out – by providing credit on a 10:1 basis to the Treasury’s special purpose vehicle. (The Fed says this is not direct spending, which would be illegal).

    So, let’s try putting all this into some sort of order:

    Firstly, America has already started down the path towards a nationalised (centrally-managed) economy – rather like China’s. The Treasury and Blackrock Hedge Fund, (who manage the Congressional bails out distribution on behalf of the Treasury), now make the (economic) life-or-death decisions for U.S. businesses – from the very big, down to the very small.

    This is a ‘great reset’. And like most temporary measures, it is likely here to stay. What’s not to like from the U.S. President’s point of view? He controls ‘money’ issuance now that the Treasury and Fed effectively are fused together, and can ‘steer’ the U.S. economy in a ‘national-interest’ direction during its tech war with China (and Europe). Free markets? They do not exist in America at this point.

    Secondly, this financial war is already underway, and China will likely use its CIPS (financial clearing system) and its Central Bank initiated digital yuan (already in use) to circumvent SWIFT and the USD. Except this will mean others being paid in a non-fungible digital currency that can only be recirculated back to China for its goods. Or, maybe not? Like China’s Shanghai oil futures market, foreign sellers may be given the option to hold their sale proceeds either in Chinese debt instruments, or, to exit their Yuan via the physical gold market.

    But, apart from U.S. and China, Russia, Italy, Iran and UK are, amongst others, planning their own CBDCs. Are we moving then – in an era of enhanced financial war – towards multiple, non or quasi, fungible digitalised of means of payment, as the new normal?

    Third, the world again is demanding gold in exchange for U.S. dollars. And the Fed’s primary dealers – some of which operate as bullion banks — seem unable to comply. But with the advent of the Coronavirus, the U.S. financial system has been forced to lower real interest rates down into negative territory, causing gold to look more attractive than holding devaluing U.S. Treasuries.

    Traditionally, the Fed controls the gold market to prevent gold from effectively competing with, or displacing, the U.S. dollar as the primordial monetary instrument. But someone, or some entity somewhere, is now battling the U.S. central bank for that control. In short, the Fed’s manipulation process presently is failing. And unless the Fed can suppress the price of gold, and regain control, we may see an escalating, downward spiral in the value of the dollar vis à vis gold.

    Here – finally – we come to the crux. In outlining the monetary ‘revolution’ taking place in the U.S., there is much in it for the Wall Street ‘Davos’ contingent to like: the move from traditional money into digital; Central Banks issuing digital money (though the ‘Davos’ crowd would prefer that to be done by a global authority); the end of cash; and the system-control and transparency that digitisation would allow. Some of this – such as the political instrumentalisation of smartphone apps – have been given a push by the Coronavirus.

    But the U.S. Establishment is deeply split: Yes, there is a powerful, Wall Street, globalist component who support Davos, but others in the Deep State, including some amongst the neo-cons, would rather die-in-a-ditch than see U.S. dollar hegemony lost – amidst the undoubted exigencies of the present economic recession. These tend to be Trump supporters.

    So let us put the final pieces into place: U.S. asset markets are presently unhinged from all fundamentals, and ruled by a ‘don’t fight the narrative’, and existential fear of potentially ‘missing out’. In other words, the un-anchored stock market highs – on which Trump’s re-election hopes are pinned – are highly vulnerable. Sentiment can shift in the flash of an eyelid from an adrenalin-fuelled ‘fight’ mode, to ‘flight’. All that is needed is a changed narrative.

    And what narrative might that be? Well, the ‘Sage’ of Omaha, Warren Buffet, this week dropped a very unexpected narrative: Not known as a ‘gold bug’, he was shown to have dumped stocks and bought gold, and gold-miners.

    So, who next for sparking the October market sell off, as the dollar continues to spiral downwards, and interest rates edge upwards?

    Mr Soros may be smiling?

  • "Capable Of Hitting Targets In Space": Russia Kicks Off Final Testing Of S-500 'Prometheus' System
    “Capable Of Hitting Targets In Space”: Russia Kicks Off Final Testing Of S-500 ‘Prometheus’ System

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/24/2020 – 23:45

    The Pentagon and US intelligence community will be closely observing Russia’s most advanced anti-air missile system as it enters state trials before eventually being delivered to Russia’s military.

    The cutting edge system, nicknamed Prometheus (and formally known as 55R6M “Triumfator-M”), is a mobile, surface-to-air missile system (SAM) and will undergo the final stages of field testing. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov announced the commencement of the state trials at the Army-2020 forum at Patriot Park near Moscow on Monday.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Image source: Sputnik 

    “Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu earlier said that the deliveries of the latest S-500 surface-to-air missile systems to the troops would begin in 2020,” according to TASS. “Russia has been training specialists to learn to operate the new system at the Military Academy of the Aerospace Force in Tver since 2017.”

    It is designed to supplement the current S-400 system, intercepting medium-range ballistic missiles as well as intercontinental ballistic missiles that enter close proximity to Russian airspace.

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

    The deputy prime minister indicated in his latest remarks to the major multi-day defense technology forum outside Moscow: “The fact is that state trials have begun and today the S-500 configuration, its simplified configuration is already available and work is underway to purchase parts for its serial production.”

    Last year when news of the S-500 was picked up more and more in international press, Russian defense officials made the claim that ‘Prometheus’ is capable of reaching targets in space.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Image source: TASS

    It’s developer, the VKO Almaz-Antey, or “Air and Space Defense Corporation” – which is a Russian state-owned company and the country’s largest defense tech contractor – had touted that the S-500 can successfully take out “ballistic missiles of all types” and crucially that it’s missiles are capable of “working outside the atmosphere where aerodynamic control is impossible.”

  • Send In The Clowns For The Circus Is In Town
    Send In The Clowns For The Circus Is In Town

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/24/2020 – 23:25

    Authored by Edward Curtin via Off-Guardian.org,

    Don’t bother, they’re here, already performing in the center ring under the big top owned and operated by The Umbrella People…

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Trump, Biden, Pence, Harris, and their clownish sidekicks, Pompeo, Michelle Obama, et al., are performing daily under the umbrella’s shadowy protection. For The Umbrella People run a three-ring circus, and although their clowns pop out of separate tiny cars and, acting like enemies, squirt each other with water hoses to the audience’s delight, raucous laughter, and serious attentiveness, they are all part of the same show, working for the same bosses.

    Sadly, many people think this circus is the real world and that the clowns are not allied pimps serving the interests of their masters, but are real enemies.

    The Umbrella People are the moguls who own the showtime studios – some call them the secret government, the deep-state, or the power elite. They run a protection racket, so I like to use a term that emphasizes their method of making sure the sunlight of truth never gets to those huddled under their umbrella.

    They produce and direct the daily circus that is the American Spectacle, the movie that is meant to entertain and distract the audience from the side show that continues outside the big top, the place where millions of vulnerable people are abused and killed. And although the sideshow is the real main event, few pay attention since their eyes are fixed on the center ring were the spotlight directs their focus.

    The French writer Guy Debord called this The Society of the Spectacle.

    For many months now, all eyes have been directed to the Covid-19 propaganda show with Fauci and Gates, and their mainstream corporate media mouthpieces, striking thunderbolts in the storm to scare the unknowing audience into submission so the transformation of the Great Global Reset, led by the World Economic Forum and the International Monetary Fund, can proceed smoothly.

    Now hearts are aflutter with excitement to see the war-loving Joe Biden boldly coming forth like Lazarus from the grave to announce his choice of a masked vice-presidential running mate who will echo his pronouncements.

    And the star of the big top, the softly coiffured reality television emcee Trump, around whom the spectacle swirls, elicits outraged responses as he plays the part of the comical bad guy.

    Punch and Judy indeed.

    All the while the corporate mainstream media warn of grim viral milestones, election warnings, storms ahead! The world as you know it is coming to an end, they remind us daily.

    The latter meme contains a hint of truth since not just the world as we know it may be coming to an end, but the world itself, including human life, as the clowns initiate a nuclear holocaust while everyone is being entertained.

    Meanwhile, as the circus rolls along, far away and out of mind, shit happens:

    With more than 400 military bases equipped with nuclear weapons surrounding China, the United States military continues its encirclement of China and China enters a “state of siege.”

    The US conducts military exercises with the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group in the contested South China Sea. These US “maritime Air defense operation[s]” close to the Chinese mainland are a part of significantly increased US military exercises in the area.

    The US Defense Secretary Esper announces that the US is withdrawing troops from Germany but moving them closer to the Russian border to serve as a more effective deterrent against Russia.

    Russia says it will regard any ballistic missile aimed at its territory as a nuclear attack and will respond in kind with nuclear weapons.

    Although the US is formally not at war with any African country, a new report reveals that the United States has special forces operating in 22 African countries with 29 bases and 6,000 troops, with a huge drone hub in Niger that cost 100 + million to build and is expected to have operating costs of more than $280 billion by 2024.

    The US continues its assault on Syria, aside from direct military operations, by building up Kurdish proxies in northeastern Syria to protect the oil fields that they are stealing from the Syrian government, a plan hatched long ago. The US says their strategy is to deny ISIS a valuable revenue stream. The same ISIS they used to attack the Syrian government in a war of aggression.

    A new document exposes the US plan to overthrow the socialist government of Nicaragua through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), a traditional US regime change and CIA front organization.

    Meanwhile, in Belarus, a place most Americans can’t find on a map, there is another color “revolution” underway.

    Continuing its war against Iran and Venezuela by other means, the Trump administration seizes Iranian tankers carrying fuel to Venezuela. “Something will happen with Venezuela. That’s all I can tell you. Something will be happening with Venezuela,” said Trump in a July interview with Noticias Telemundo.

    And of course the Palestinians are left to suffer and die as Israel is supported in its despotic policies in the Middle East.

    The list goes on and on as the US under Trump continues to wage war by multiple means around the world. But his followers see him as peaceful president because these wars are waged through sanctions, special operations, drones, third parties, etc.

    But back in the center ring, the two presidential clown candidates keep the audience entertained, as they shoot water at each other. Trump, who now presides over all the events just listed, and Biden, who enthusiastically supported the American wars against Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, etc.

    But then the followers of Obama/Biden also see their champions as peaceful leaders. This is even more absurd.

    Don’t you like farce?

    Besides being a rabid advocate for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 as a senator, Biden, as Vice-President under Obama for eight years, seconded and promoted all of Obama’s wars that were wrapped in “humanitarian” propaganda to evade international law and keep his liberal supporters quiet.

    From Bush II, an outright cowboy war-wager who used America’s large military forces to invade Afghanistan and Iraq under false pretensions – i.e. lies, Obama and his sidekick Biden learned to arm and finance thousands of Islamic jihadists, run by the CIA and US special forces, to do the job in more circumspect ways.

    They expanded and grew The United States Africa Command (US AFRICOM) throughout Africa. They agreed to a $1 trillion upgrade of US nuclear weapons (that continues under Trump). They disarmed their followers, who, in any case, wished to look the other way.

    Out of sight and out of mind, Obama/Biden continued the “war on terror” with drones, private militias, color revolutions, etc. They waged war on six-seven – who knows how many – countries.

    An exception to the more secretive wars was the Obama administration’s openly savage assault on Libya in 2011 under the lies of an imperial moral legitimacy. In order to save you, we will destroy you, which is what they did to Libya, a country still in ruins and chaos.

    Their equally blood-thirsty Secretary of State Hillary Clinton let the cat out of the bag when she laughed and gleefully applauded the brutal murder of Libya’s leader Moammar Gaddafi with the words: “We came, we saw, he died.” Yippee!

    After Libya was destroyed and so many killed in an illegal and immoral war financed with $2 billion dollars from the America treasury, Joseph Biden bragged that the US didn’t lose a single life and such a war was a “prescription for how to deal with the world as we go forward.”

    Biden was Obama’s front man on Iraq, the war he voted for in 2003, and wrote an op ed article in 2006 calling for the breakup of the country into three parts, Shia, Sunni, and Kurdish.

    When Obama launched 48 cruise missiles and more than ten thousand tons of bombs on Syria in 2016, killing over a hundred civilians, a third of them children, V.P. Biden stood proud and strong in support of the action.

    When the US launched the bloody coup in Ukraine in 2014, Biden was of course in agreement.

    But we are told that Trump and Biden are arch-enemies. One of them wants war and the other wants peace.

    How many Americans will vote for these clowns this year? They are really front men for The Umbrella People, the money people who use the CIA and other undercover forces to carry out their organized crime activities.

    As CS Lewis said in his preface to The Screwtape Letters:

    The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid ‘dens of crime’ that Dickens loved to paint […] But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice.

    In the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump received 129 million votes out of 157 million registered American voters eager to believe that this system is not built on imperial war-making by both parties.

    Perhaps that’s a generous assessment. Maybe many of those voters believe in the USA’s “manifest destiny” to rule the world and wage war in God’s name. I hope not. But if so, you can expect a big turnout on November 3, 2020.

    In any case, it’s quite a circus, but these clowns aren’t funny. They are dangerous.

    “But where are the clowns?
    Quick, send in the clowns
    Don’t bother they’re here”

    Don’t you like farce?

  • Taiwan's "Bandit Phone King" Becomes An Unintended Casualty Of Trump's War On Huawei
    Taiwan’s “Bandit Phone King” Becomes An Unintended Casualty Of Trump’s War On Huawei

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/24/2020 – 23:05

    Lofty expectations for 5G-driven sales have finally started to offer the shares of global chipmkers some respite from the doldrums, as their shares have lagged the Nasdaq’s ‘Big Tech’-driven rally, with companies based in Taiwan and mainland China particularly hurt by President Trump’s crackdown on Huawei, as well s the simmering trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies.

    Recently, the US has moved to close loopholes allowing Huawei to use chips made with American technology, even if they are produced abroad, by foreign companies. The latest step in Washington’s crackdown is creating serious logistical pressures for Huawei at a critical time: around the world, the rollout of 5G technology is nigh, with the upcoming generation of smartphones all expected to be 5G enabled.

    While Huawei has been smart at adapting to each new round of Trump Administration sanctions, the latest round of sanctions are leaving it with fewer and fewer options. A few weeks ago, we reported how Taiwan’s largest contract chipmaker has had to terminate Huawei’s business because of the US sanctions, a major blow to both companies.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Now it appears even more rival chipmakers that were supposed to benefit from Huawei’s misfortune will instead find themselves unable to continue doing business with Huawei, cutting them off from a critical and extremely lucrative customer for a new set of 5G enabled chips that the company had just released. 

    MediaTek is one of Taiwan’s most successful companies, and its founder, Tsai Ming-kai, the Taiwanese billionaire once known as China’s “bandit phone king”, has been on a roll as of late. But unfortunately, what looked like impeccable timing for the rollout of its new “Dimensity” chipset has been rendered moot, since – in addition to being unable to produce its own chips – MediaTek could face Treasury Department sanctions that would cripple its business if it sells any of these chips to Huawei, according to Trump Administration sanctions rolled out last Monday.

    Here’s more from the FT:

    The founder and chairman of chip design house MediaTek had already seen his personal wealth jump by 80 per cent last year. The launch of the company’s “Dimensity” chipset for 5G smartphones and Washington’s blacklisting of Chinese technology group Huawei from buying from US chipmakers had sent MediaTek’s shares soaring. This year, things looked even brighter.

    The US in May barred chip manufacturers from selling to Huawei any custom-made semiconductors produced with US equipment. For Huawei, the most obvious solution was MediaTek’s off-the-shelf smartphone chipsets, a development that would have boosted the Taiwanese company’s fortunes immensely.

    But that dream was shattered last week when the US Department of Commerce closed the loopholes in its May sanctions against Huawei by prohibiting the sale without a licence of chips made using US software or equipment to the Chinese company. Given the prevalence of US technology in the semiconductor industry, this would include chipsets sold by MediaTek. “If the May rules had played out, MediaTek would have been the beneficiary, at least in the short run,” said Phelix Lee, an analyst at Morningstar in Hong Kong.

    Analysts quoted in the FT report explained that, if Huawei is unable to secure new supplies of microchips for its phones and 5G networking equipment, it could delay the rollout of 5G worldwide, destroying what is perhaps the only conceivable tailwind for MediaTek’s business.

    Spun off from Taiwanese chipmaker United Microelectronics Corporation in 1997, MediaTek has climbed the supply chain ladder, moving from CD drives and DVD drives to TV sets and finally smartphones. Now, it’s Taiwan’s largest, and the world’s fourth-largest, chip design company.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    MediaTek has more at stake than many other Huawei suppliers, mostly due to its heavy reliance on mainland China. The company broke into handset chip design when it designed chips allowing producers of “knock-off” smartphones in Shenzen to create more sophisticated products. These “bandit” phones are how MediaTek’s founder got his nickname, the “Bandit Phone King”.

    Its biggest break came after it started offering a turnkey solution for mobile phones in 2004 that enabled scores of no-name workshops manufacturing knock-off handsets — “bandit phones” — in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen to produce more sophisticated products. The platform, which included a chipset and reference designs for phone features that the small factories would not have been able to develop themselves, earned Mr Tsai the nickname of the “bandit phone king”.

    It also helped create a breed of Chinese companies that would later morph into formidable rivals for multinational brands such as Apple and Samsung in China and other emerging markets. Adapting its turnkey chipset business model to the smartphone era was difficult but MediaTek again managed to build a strong emerging-markets position on the back of China’s rising handset brands.

    In 4G, MediaTek was weaker than it had been in the previous generation of mobile services technology. But it promised a comeback in 5G. The Dimensity’s price tag is expected to be significantly lower than that of Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon chip, with long battery power and high energy efficiency.

    It’s just the latest reminder of how the Trump Administration’s crackdown on Huawei will impact more than just Huawei. And for investors in American chip companies, that’s definitely not a bad thing.

  • Meet "Prosthesis" – The 9,000-lb All-Terrain, Exo-Bionic Mech-Suit You Can Pilot
    Meet “Prosthesis” – The 9,000-lb All-Terrain, Exo-Bionic Mech-Suit You Can Pilot

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/24/2020 – 22:45

    Authored by Elias Marat via TheMindUnleashed.com,

    Massive, hulking exoskeleton or mech suits are usually the type of thing one would encounter in a science fiction movie, whether it’s the low-budget classic Robot Jox or the American kaiju blockbuster Pacific Rim.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    However, engineering firm Furrion Exo-Bionics has unleashed a colossal, four-legged, 9,000-pound powered exoskeleton dubbed Prosthesis – and anyone interested will be able to take up the controls and pilot the beast.

    The company recently launched a wildly popular Kickstarter campaign laying out its mission, which is to start a “global racing league that would pit multiple world-class athletes in head-to-head competitions, through complex technical obstacle courses, wearing giant powered mech suits.”

    And while the vision may seem larger-than-life, Furrion and its Prosthesis: Mech Racing research and development team are confident that they can unleash this new class of “large scale exo-bionic technology” and use it to power its global mech racing league.

    Backers of the Kickstarter campaign will be eligible to receive “one-on-one mech pilot training” or kick back and watch the mechs kick each other’s butts at live events.

    The company’s flagship mech, dubbed Prosthesis: the Anti-Robot, took over three years of field trials – including engineering and pilot training – to create this all-terrain mech suit that has four massive legs and the power to lift cars, run through the snow, and climb boulders.

    “We ended up with four legs because the pilot has four limbs, and the machine has the wide stable form factor that it has so that it’s easy to balance,” chief test pilot and project co-founder Jonathan Tippett told CNET.

    In a video kicking off the successful crowdfunding campaign, Tippett notes that the mech is “basically a cross between a trophy truck, an excavator, and a dinosaur.”

    However, the idea behind Prosthesis isn’t simply passive entertainment – instead, this will require athleticism on the part of mech pilots who will be moving their arms and legs to get these massive machines going, making this a true sport rather than a simple robot exhibition.

    “Prosthesis has no joysticks, no steering wheel, no foot pedals – just 100 percent limb-for-limb pilot control,” Furrion explained. “Prosthesis has no automation, no giros, no ability to walk or balance by itself, it relies entirely on the pilot inside for all its movement. Your arm and leg movements are amplified to control its four, giant steel legs, move for move. That’s what makes it a sport.”

    Cassie Hawrysh, an accomplished headfirst ice sledding champion from Canada, is the first professional “mech sports” athlete to control the hulking quadrupedal beast. According to Furrion, she was just as surprised as the engineers when she felt a sense of familiarity between her 60-pound skeleton sled and the interface of this 9,000-pound mech suit.

    “With the relentless and unchecked automation of everything we do, Prosthesis reminds us that some of the most rewarding things in life are those that require effort, focus and training,” the Kickstarter page said.

     “This is the very essence of sport. Prosthesis, and mech sports, are a celebration of the age old pursuit of physical mastery and human skill, now brought to a new level through advanced technology.”

  • China Arms Pakistan With 'Advanced Warships' As Threats Of Nuclear War With India Escalate
    China Arms Pakistan With ‘Advanced Warships’ As Threats Of Nuclear War With India Escalate

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/24/2020 – 22:25

    When the Trump administration withheld billions of dollars in security aid to Pakistan in 2018, the logic then was that the Pakistani military would be forced to form greater ties with the US and surrounding allies to reclaim lost aid. 

    Fast forward today, the new reality, Pakistan abandoned the West and its allies for China. 

    Pakistan quickly bolstered ties with China via billions of dollars in Belt and Road projects over the last two years. China has also provided the Pakistani military with aircraft, weaponry, and other advanced hardware. The cooperation between both countries has taken another giant leap as China just delivered the first of four “most advanced” warships to the Pakistani Navy, a move that will clearly upset India and the US. 

    VOA News reports the first advanced warship was officially launched on Sunday as border tensions with India continue to remain elevated (see: Pakistani Minister Threatens India With Nuclear Attack “To Save Muslim Lives” On National TV). 

    The Pakistani Navy released a statement Sunday confirming Chinese state-owned Hudong Zhonghua Shipyard in Shanghai officially launched the Type-054A/P frigate. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Type-054 frigate built for Pakistan Navy is seen at Hudong Zhonghua Shipyard, Shanghai, China. h/t VOA News, Pakistan Navy

    Top Pakistani officials were in attendance at the ship launch.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The launching ceremony of Type-054 frigate built for Pakistan Navy was held at Hudong Zhonghua Shipyard, Shanghai, China. h/t VOA News, Pakistan Navy

    The statement said the vessel (first of four) has advanced electronics, including surface and subsurface weaponry, anti-air weapons, and high-tech sensors.

    “These ships will significantly contribute in maintaining peace and security in our area of responsibility,” it added.

    VOA estimates each of the vessels come at the cost of around $350 million. The other three vessels are expected to be delivered to the Pakistani Navy sometime in 2021. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    h/t Insider Paper 

    Quoting Chinese state media, VOA said the four military vessels could “double the combat power” of the country’s naval fleet.

    China has also delivered CAC/PAC JF-17 Thunder multi-role combat aircraft and other state-of-the-art defense items such as medium-altitude long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle combat drones. 

    Much of the new firepower has been a modernization effort by Pakistan to overhaul its armed forces as tensions with India over the last couple of years have increased along the Line of Control in Jammu & Kashmir.

    So while China arms Pakistan, the same is happening with the US arming India. What could possibly go wrong? 

  • Let's Follow The History Of Science Instead
    Let’s Follow The History Of Science Instead

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/24/2020 – 22:05

    Authored by Robert Wright via The American Institute for Economic Research,

    Democratic Presidential hopeful Joe Biden is only the most high-profile politician to promise voters that he will “listen to the scientists,” mandate masks, and shut down the economy again if they so advise.

    Even the humble members of the city council of Milledgeville, Georgia invoke “science” in four pages of “whereas-es” designed to justify a largely toothless mask mandate that directly contradicts a Georgia law against wearing masks in public (except for certain holidays, presumably to deter real crime) and the enforcement of which in some places in the city of 50,000 apparently hinges on the font size of a door notice.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Strange times indeed, these. One wonders why we need to elect politicians at all if they will simply defer to “the” scientists. Ah, but there be the rub. Which scientists? They don’t agree on much, especially when it comes to the novel coronavirus and masks and such. (Just look at the litany of articles on the AIER website chronicling the dissents!) 

    Should we listen only to “the” scientists on the government payroll? But then wouldn’t they essentially be unelected, unaccountable dictators? That sounds vaguely undemocratic.

    Sticky, this wicket!

    Plus, last time I checked, “the” scientists have no policy expertise in economics. Perhaps that does not matter as many economists also have no policy expertise in economics. Is that the role of politicians, then? To decide which type of scientists get to dictate in different policy areas? Perhaps Biden will listen to “the” economists on spaceship design or military tactics? I would pay good money to see that! (Seriously, it would be a horribly expensive boondoggle certain to raise my taxes.)

    Why is it so important to “listen to the scientists” anyway? Are they suddenly less fallible than previously? Is there any science to support that belief? Because let’s face it, “the” scientists have a pretty poor track record overall.

    Did you know that “the” scientists once believed:

    1. That the earth is a flat disk, not a sphere, and that it resides at the center of the solar system and even the entire universe.

    2. Said earth was created like 6,000 years ago.

    3. Complex life forms spontaneously arise from inanimate matter.

    4. Species evolve by inheriting acquired characteristics.

    5. That sickness arises from an imbalance of the bodily humors or bad air (miasma!) and in either case is best restored by draining the afflicted person of blood and/or applying massive doses of mercury.

    6. Maternal thoughts cause birth defects.

    7. Human beings are not all equal but rather composed of races, some of which are superior to others. Just measure their skulls for proof!

    8. Phlogiston and caloric exist and explain combustion.

    9. If you cultivate an area, rainfall in that area will increase. “Rain follows the plow.”

    10. Another ice age was upon us in the 1970s.

    And that is just a small sample of the silly and outrageous ideas once held by “the” scientists. (For some more recent whoppers, read this.) All those ideas have been dispelled by the functioning of science itself, so please do not mistake my point. The scientific method is one of the few rational methods of thought (some) humans employ and it does help to refine our understanding of important phenomena over time. 

    The point is that “the” scientists are often wrong, very wrong, especially early on in the study of some aspect of the real world. But the realization that “the” scientists’ understanding improves over time rather than springing from their heads fully formed like Jove gives birth to a paradox: 

    The more “novel” the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, the less accurate “the” scientists can be about it, and hence the less reliable their policy prescriptions.

    (Think how our descendants will mock us for believing masks slowed viral transmission.) 

    Conversely, the less novel the virus is, the weightier “the” scientific evidence is against lockdowns, mask mandates, and other novel policy prescriptions.

    Remember, widespread lockdowns/shelter-in-place orders are entirely new policies thought impolitic, impractical, and mercury purge-like until the current crisis. They are nothing like the quarantines of old, which cloistered away only the sick, or cordons, which were of limited geographical and temporal extent and constitutionality. And outside of clinical settings the efficacy of masks depends on the type of mask, how it is worn, and what the wearer is, or isn’t, doing at the time.

    So what Joe Biden and other politicians invoking “the” scientists may really mean is “I don’t care enough about you to make difficult decisions so I am going to delegate to a group that I think you are dumb enough to defer to without question.”

    They would never admit that, of course, so it must remain speculative, but it fully accords with Public Choice Theory. 

    A politician who really had the public’s interest at heart would, instead, say:

    “Times are tough. Some Americans have died from a natural cause and more are likely to. Unfortunately, there is not much we can do because viruses live by their own rules, not ours.” Executive orders and metaphorical wars can’t stop them. Obviously, it is unconstitutional, and deeply immoral, to order the death of some people (via suicide, murder, deferred healthcare, reduced income, and the myriad other costs of lockdown) in order to save others. And we can’t do the obvious and offer a live vaccine to volunteers to quickly and constitutionally build community immunity because there isn’t sufficient profit in that. So we have to wait until an expensive, modern vaccine becomes available in the next X months to Y decades. Until then, try to protect the most vulnerable people in your lives and remember, masks and social distancing are not panaceas.”

    Of course those would not be the words of a mere politician, they would be the words of a true statesman.

  • Visualizing How Much Revenue Automakers Generate Every Second (Don't Show TSLA Bulls)
    Visualizing How Much Revenue Automakers Generate Every Second (Don’t Show TSLA Bulls)

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/24/2020 – 21:45

    Since their invention, automobiles have been a driving force of the global economy.

    Used by millions of people to get to work, transport goods, and travel, the modern automobile has become ubiquitous in our daily lives. So much so, that, as Visual Capitalist’s Marcu Lu details below, a whopping 92 million cars were produced in just 2019.

    To help us understand the might of the auto industry, this infographic from Parts Geek breaks down the earnings of 19 major car companies by an interesting metric—revenue per second.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The Full List of Automakers

    Below are the earnings of the 19 automakers featured in the infographic.

    The Volkswagen Group claims the top spot with $290.2B in gross revenue, translating to $9,202.88 per second. Capping off the list is the world’s most valuable automaker, Tesla, which generated a relatively smaller $24.6B in gross revenue, or $780.06 per second.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    A clear takeaway from this data is that Volkswagen and Toyota have a sizable lead over the rest of their peers. Let’s take a closer look at how these two companies operate.

    The Volkswagen Group

    The Volkswagen Group holds a comprehensive portfolio of brands and services, and has been the world’s largest automaker, by sales, for the past three years.

    Beginning with passenger cars and motorcycles, its numerous brands reported the following results for 2019.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Other sources of revenue were Volkswagen’s $44.5B commercial vehicle business, its $4.7B power engineering business, and lastly its $44.4B financial services division.

    In total, the Volkswagen Group delivered just short of 11 million vehicles in 2019, besting its 2018 deliveries by 1.3% and setting a new record for the group. While a majority of these vehicles were produced in Europe, the group operates a global production network with a significant presence in Asia.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The German automaker has invested billions in China, the world’s largest car market, to scale its electric vehicle (EV) production capabilities.

    Toyota Motor Corporation

    Toyota Motor Corporation operates a much more concentrated brand portfolio, with Toyota and Lexus being its two most prominent names. This strategy seems to be working well, as Toyota was ranked the ninth most valuable brand in 2019, and was the only automaker to crack the top ten.

    A testament to Toyota’s global influence is its relatively balanced breakdown of 2019 revenues by regional market:

    • North America: 30%

    • Japan: 25%

    • Asia: 18%

    • Europe: 11.5%

    • Other: 15.3%

    For comparison, here is Volkswagen’s 2019 revenues by region, which leans heavily towards Europe:

    • Europe (excl. Germany): 42%

    • Germany: 19%

    • North America: 17%

    • South America: 4%

    • Asia-Pacific: 17%

    The Japanese automaker’s popularity in foreign regions is likely the result of its reputation for reliability and affordability. It may also explain why Toyota’s trucks are a common sight in tough environments such as conflict zones of the developing world.

    Altogether, Toyota and its subsidiaries sold nearly 9 million vehicles in 2019, setting a new record for the company but just 0.1% higher than its 2018 figure. Similar to Volkswagen, a majority of Toyota’s vehicles are produced in its home region, with the remainder being built around the world.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Outside of Japan, Toyota has significant production capabilities in the U.S., where it makes everything from pickup trucks to sedans. In 2016, the Toyota Camry made headlines after being ranked the most American-made car—over 75% of its parts were sourced domestically.

    Alternative Revenue Sources

    While automobiles represent the core business for these companies, many of them have alternative revenue sources. Honda, for example, produces motorcycles, boat engines, lawn mowers, and even personal jets.

    Porsche takes a slightly different approach with its accessories and licensing subsidiary, Porsche Design. Since 2003, a variety of lifestyle goods including eyewear, smartphones, and watches have been sold under the Porsche name. Its most noteworthy project is the Porsche Design Tower Miami, a residential skyscraper which features a robotic car elevator.

    Finally, electric vehicle (EV) maker Tesla earns additional revenues by selling carbon credits to other automakers that fail to meet government-imposed quotas on EV sales. Since Tesla only produces EVs, it has no need for its credits and is free to sell them. In the second quarter of 2020, Tesla earned $428 million from selling carbon credits, representing 7% of its total revenues for the period.

    The Road Ahead

    Additional revenue streams are continuing to open up as automakers integrate new technologies into their cars.

    Cadillac and Tesla, two American brands, have both announced that their self-driving capabilities will eventually become a paid subscription service. Meanwhile, Germany’s premium automakers are expanding into wireless services. BMW claims it will become the first automaker to offer 5G connectivity in its cars, while Mercedes now sells downloadable software packages to enhance a driver’s experience.

    While it’s too early to say whether or not these services will have a significant impact on an automaker’s bottom line, forecasts claim this so-called “connected car market” will be worth $166 billion by 2025. To put that into perspective, that’s more than half of Volkswagen’s gross revenue in 2019, or $5,264 per second.

  • Ferguson: Joe Biden Could End Up Being A Wartime President
    Ferguson: Joe Biden Could End Up Being A Wartime President

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/24/2020 – 21:25

    Authored by Niall Ferguson, op-ed via Bloomberg.com,

    Successful Democratic candidates for the presidency of the United States invariably campaign with promises of domestic largesse and moral uplift. They nearly always end up taking their country to war.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Can Joe Biden be a rare exception to that rule, if he succeeds in defeating Donald Trump on November 3? That will depend not just on how well he and his national security team conduct U.S. foreign policy. It will also depend on how stable the world around them is.

    The bad news is that post-pandemic peace is another historical rarity.

    First, the Democratic Party’s amazing century-plus track record of running on progressive policies and then going to war. Consider Woodrow Wilson, reviled by today’s progressives for his racist views, but nominated and elected in 1912 as a progressive.

    Wilson’s acceptance speech at the Democratic convention in Baltimore was a classic in the genre of American uplift. “We must speak,” he told the delegates, “not to catch votes, but to satisfy the thought and conscience of a people deeply stirred by the conviction that they have come to a critical turning point in their moral and political development. We stand in the presence of an awakening Nation, impatient of partisan make-believe. … Nor was the country ever more susceptible to unselfish appeals to the high arguments of sincere justice.”

    “The Nation has been unnecessarily, unreasonably, at war within itself,” declared Wilson. But now “the forces of the Nation are asserting themselves against every form of special privilege and private control, and are seeking bigger things than they have ever heretofore achieved. They are sweeping away what is unrighteous in order to vindicate once more the essential rights of human life.”

    In office, Wilson offered progressive policy as well. His “New Freedom” agenda cut protectionist tariffs, introduced the first federal income tax, passed the Clayton Antitrust Act and created the Federal Trade Commission, not to mention the Federal Reserve. Reelected partly on a pledge to keep the United States out of World War I, however, he did just the opposite in April 1917.

    The pattern repeated itself for the next hundred years. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was swept to power amid the Great Depression with the promise of a New Deal.

    “Let us now and here highly resolve,” FDR told his fellow Democrats at their 1932 convention in Chicago, “to resume the country’s interrupted march along the path of real progress and of real justice and of real equality for all our citizens, great or small.”

    Uplift was duly followed by a raft of legislation designed to reduce poverty and inequality by increasing the power of the federal government. Despite even stronger anti-war sentiment than Wilson had faced, Roosevelt led the United States into World War II in 1941.

    Harry Truman’s acceptance speech at Philadelphia in July 1948 continued the tradition:

    “The Democratic Party is the people’s party, and the Republican party is the party of special interest, and it always has been and always will be. … In 1932 we were attacking the citadel of special privilege and greed. We were fighting to drive the money changers from the temple. Today, in 1948, we are now the defenders of the stronghold of democracy and of equal opportunity, the haven of the ordinary people of this land and not of the favored classes or the powerful few.” 

    Having won a famous surprise victory over Thomas E. Dewey, Truman unveiled his domestic “Fair Deal” early in 1949. Less than 18 months later, North Korea invaded South Korea and America was back at war.

    John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson between them set new standards for both rhetorical uplift (Kennedy) and progressive legislation (Johnson). Yet by 1968 neither his civil rights legislation nor the Great Society could salvage Johnson’s presidency from the wreckage of the war in Vietnam.

    Subsequent Democratic presidents strove mightily to avoid LBJ’s fate. Yet the world would not leave Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama in peace to pursue their domestic agendas. Carter’s presidency was dealt fatal blows by the hostage crisis after the Iran Revolution of February 1979 and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan ten months later. Clinton spent years trying to avoid foreign entanglements, in Somalia, in Rwanda and in Bosnia, until the last of these forced him into military intervention. Obama may still believe his decision not to intervene in the Syrian Civil War was one of his best, but the red line on the use of chemical weapons — which turned out to be a pink dotted line — was in truth the most ignominious chapter of his presidency.

    Joe Biden’s speech on Thursday night was the continuation of a very long tradition in lofty Democratic rhetoric, traceable all the way back to Thomas Jefferson.

    “If you entrust me with the presidency,” declared Biden, “I will draw on the best of us not the worst. I will be an ally of the light not of the darkness. It’s time for us, for We the People, to come together. For make no mistake. United we can, and will, overcome this season of darkness in America. We will choose hope over fear, facts over fiction, fairness over privilege.”

    Whoever wrote that speech had done their homework.  At times I wondered if an algorithm had mashed it up on the basis of all previous Democratic acceptance speeches.

    The common feature of all but one Democratic acceptance speeches since 1912 is the tiny proportion devoted to foreign policy. The exception is John F. Kennedy’s “New Frontier” speech in Los Angeles in 1960, which was roughly half Cold War rhetoric designed to outflank Richard Nixon on national security. Biden didn’t go there. Less than 3% of his acceptance speech was on foreign policy, and it was bromidic as well as brief.

    Biden pledged to “stand with our allies and friends,” to desist from “cozying up to dictators” (mentioning no names), and not to “turn a blind eye to Russian bounties on the heads of American soldiers” or “foreign interference” in U.S. elections.

    That was it. The only mention of China was apropos of the need to make America less dependent on Chinese-made medical supplies and protective equipment. To listen to Biden’s speech, you would not know that the United States is already up to its neck in Cold War II, as I’ve repeatedly pointed out here and elsewhere.

    No doubt a majority of people who tuned in to Biden’s speech share his unspoken wish that this Second Cold War will simply go away the moment he is sworn in.

    Biden it was who launched his bid for the Democratic nomination with the observation that the Chinese were “not bad folks, folks” and were “not competition for us” — and who earlier this month seemed ready to promise an end to U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports.

    I have bad news. It wasn’t Donald Trump who started Cold War II; it was Xi Jinping. And, as I pointed out two weeks ago, his vision of a resurgent China challenging the United States not merely economically but ideologically and geopolitically is widely shared by Chinese intellectuals and (though it is hard to be sure) many ordinary Chinese people. Notice, too, that anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States has increased almost as much among Democrats as among Republicans in the past few years.

    How likely is the world to be a peaceful place between 2021 and 2024, the putative first and likely only term of a Biden presidency? Not unreasonably, Biden’s speech last Thursday focused on the adverse impact the Covid-19 pandemic has had on the United States. Yet the key question for an incoming Biden administration will not be what to do about the pandemic, as I suspect — one cannot be certain — it will largely be over by January next year. The key question will not be — as many Democrats think — how best to spend all the money the United States can possibly borrow, now that all fiscal and monetary restraint has been cast aside. The key questions will be how generally unstable the post-pandemic world will be and how specifically toxic the Sino-American relationship will get.

    History does not give much ground for optimism on these scores. More often than not, as in 1918–19, times of war have been followed by times of plague, but the direction of causation has also run the other way. The great plagues of the ancient world — smallpox in the Athens of Pericles (429–426 BC) or the Antonine and Justinianic plagues that struck the Roman Empire —did not usher in periods of peace. To give just one example, not long after bubonic plague swept through his empire, beginning in 541 AD, the Emperor Justinian waged a successful campaign to reclaim Italy from the Ostrogoths, as well as resuming his war with the Sassanid (Persian) Empire.

    The Black Death of the 1340s was among the most disastrous pandemics in history, killing between one-third and three-fifths of the population of Europe. Yet it did not prevent one of history’s most protracted conflicts from getting underway. The Hundred Years’ War between England and France began on June 24, 1340, with the destruction of the French fleet at the Battle of Sluys by Edward III’s naval expedition. Six years later, despite the ravages of the plague, Edward launched a cross-Channel invasion, capturing Caen and marching to Flanders, inflicting a heavy defeat on Philip VI’s army at Crécy, and proceeding to conquer Calais. The French king’s ally, David II of Scotland, then invaded England, only to be defeated. In 1355, Edward III’s son, the “Black Prince,” led another force into France, winning a major victory at Poitiers. A third English invasion went less well, leading to a temporary peace in 1360, but the war resumed in 1369 and continued intermittently until 1453.

    At the time, nobody knew that the two countries were embarking on a “Hundred Years War.” That phrase was not coined by historians until 1823. But such is history. Most people still do not grasp that Cold War II has begun. Cold War I was a forty-year affair. But who is to say that the U.S.-China conflict will not be another hundred years’ war?

    One disaster begets another. A pandemic creates a cascade of economic, social and political problems, which in turn can often precipitate cross-border conflicts. Watch, for instance, as COVID-19’s disruption of food production all over the developing world, but especially in Africa, leads not just to hunger but to population displacements and political frictions.

    For that matter, look around at what’s already happening. Since the outbreak of Covid-19, Russia and Turkey have effectively partitioned Libya, Chinese and Indian soldiers have skirmished hand-to-hand on their border, the port of Beirut has blown up, toppling the Lebanese government, revolution has broken out in Belarus and there has been a military coup in Mali. Is peace at hand? Well, there has been an unexpected breakthrough in the Middle East, with the normalizing of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (a deal for which Jared Kushner deserves more credit than he is receiving). But anyone who thinks Iran is going to suspend its nefarious activities in the region just because Joe Biden is in the White House doesn’t understand the regime in Tehran.

    The central issue at stake between the United States and China is not Trumps’ tariffs, nor his attempt to have a U.S. tech company take over TikTok, nor Xi’s suppression of pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, nor his genocidal policies against the Uighurs in Xinjiang — nor even the extent of China’s culpability for the Covid-19 pandemic. The central issue is Taiwan and it is due to blow up in a few weeks’ time, when new U.S. regulations come into force that will cut off Huawei from all imported semiconductors made with either American technology or software.

    As my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Tim Culpan argued last week, this really is the “nuclear option,” because it “threatens to kill the company, which invites retaliation from Beijing.”

    Ever wondered why it was that Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941?

    As Harvard’s Graham Allison recently reminded us, it was because of intolerable economic sanctions imposed by the United States. Yes, that’s right: under the Democratic President Joe Biden most wants to be associated with.

    Last week’s virtual convention was a great opportunity to hate on Republicans, and especially on Donald Trump. But for all his many flaws, Trump has upheld a great GOP tradition — of not starting foreign wars. The exception to the rule of Republican dovishness over the past century was of course George W. Bush, who got America into two wars, in Afghanistan and Iraq. (George H. W. Bush’s war to liberate Kuwait was Bismarckian in its short duration and low cost in life.) The rest — Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Eisenhower, Nixon and Reagan — were notable for the small number of young Americans they sent into battle: vastly fewer than their Democratic counterparts.

    “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes” is a line from Virgil, usually translated as “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.”

    I feel the same way about Democrats when they make uplifting speeches full of promises about billions (sorry, make that trillions) of dollars to be spent on public health, education, health care and infrastructure.

    If there is one man I can readily imagine – inadvertently, of course, and with the best of intentions and the most uplifting of rhetoric – turning Cold War II into World War III, it is the self-anointed heir of FDR, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.

  • Beijing Slams 'Evidence-Free' Charge Of Using Vaccine To Pressure Neighbors Over South China Sea Claims
    Beijing Slams ‘Evidence-Free’ Charge Of Using Vaccine To Pressure Neighbors Over South China Sea Claims

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/24/2020 – 21:05

    China has rejected last week’s accusations that’s it’s pursuing an aggressive “vaccine nationalism” campaign wherein it hopes to use its COVID-19 vaccine as a tool of influence and diplomacy.

    Russia was also named in an explosive Wall Street Journal piece last week as among countries on the cusp of rolling out with an early, effective vaccine, but who will use it as leverage against both Washington interests and that of US allies. Currently no less than three of six global vaccine candidates which are in final clinical trials are being developed in China. 

    Days following the WSJ report, which alleged that state and private drug makers “have begun promising early access to countries of strategic interest as it seeks to shore up its global standing after a pandemic that has strained geopolitical ties,” China’s CGTN slammed the charges as baseless and without evidence.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Vietnam post overlooking South China Sea, image via Asia Times

    “Well, we’ve seen this before, like when China was accused of using face mask diplomacy when it supplied countries with personal protective equipment (PPE),” CGTN wrote, dismissing the accusations. “So it should come as no surprise that China will be accused of using the vaccine to seek geopolitical leverage too.”

    Amid agreements with some east Asian regional powers like the Philippines and Malaysia for priority access to a Chinese vaccine, the WSJ included perhaps the most specific and explosive charge against Beijing as follows:

    Still, official Chinese statements suggest a willingness by China to blur humanitarian and foreign-policy objectives that include garnering support from countries on Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea.

    In some countries, accepting a vaccine from a Chinese drugmaker could help deepen diplomatic ties with Beijing at Washington’s expense.

    State-run mouthpiece CGTN admitted that “a lot of things are possible” but ripped the speculative nature of the charges. Indeed the South China Sea reference constituted a huge claim but was mentioned in WSJ in passing, without further details or exploration offered, but just merely hinting at the possibility.

    CGTN quipped: “if you’re going to make a speculative statement, please back it up with something more concrete.”

    More broadly when it comes to the ongoing global race to produce an effective coronavirus vaccine, it’s perhaps only inevitable that there will be geopolitical consequences and some backdoor leveraging happening among the multiple developed nations on the brink of a breakthrough.

  • 2 Men Charged With Attempted Murder In "Ambush-Style Assault" On Group Of Officers
    2 Men Charged With Attempted Murder In “Ambush-Style Assault” On Group Of Officers

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/24/2020 – 20:45

    In the latest example of domestic terrorism targeting police officers that was simply brushed aside by the national press, ABC 2, the station covering Baltimore, reports that two men have been charged with attempted murder for their role in an “ambush-style” attack on a group of Prince George’s County Police Officers.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The two men abruptly opened fire on the group of officers, hitting and wounding three of them. Video from an officer’s dash cam showed that it was an unprovoked attack.

    Here’s more from ABC 2:

    The patrol officers were attacked while responding to a call for a residential robbery in progress at a home in the 1300 block of Capital View Terrace in Landover on Sunday.

    Police say the suspects are 45-year-old Andre Larnell Smith and 27-year-old Steven Maurice Warren.

    Both Smith and Warren face multiple charges to include first and second degree attempted murder, assault and gun charges.

    Police say the first arriving officer’s dashcam recorded the start of the unprovoked attack.

    Then the suspects hopped in a car and sped off, before crashing into a tree. They were apprehended without being shot.

    The suspects opened fire as soon as that first officer stopped his cruiser. The officer was shot multiple times but was still able to return fire and make an emergency radio dispatch for help.

    The suspects got into their car and sped down the street before making a U-turn and headed back toward the officers.

    According to police, the suspects continued to fire on the officers while trying to flee the area but crashed into a tree on Capital View Terrace. Both suspects suffered injuries related to the crash, but neither suspect was shot.

    Making the situation even more Kafka-esque, even though two of the officers are still hospitalized, all four officers who discharged their weapons are the scene are now facing a “routine” investigation, and are on administrative leave pending the outcome – something that is protocol in pretty much every police department in America.

     

     

  • US Sees "Progress" After Call With China Discussing Phase 1 Deal; Yuan Jumps
    US Sees “Progress” After Call With China Discussing Phase 1 Deal; Yuan Jumps

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/24/2020 – 20:44

    Well, that on again, off again between the US and China to discuss the “progress” on the Phase 1 of the trade deal finally took place tonight, with the US Trade Representative office announcing tonight that Ambassador Lighthizer and Secretary Mnuchin participated in “a regularly scheduled call this evening” with China’s Vice Premier Liu Hu to discuss implementation of the historic Phase One Agreement between the United States and China.

    According to the USTR, the parties addressed steps that China has taken to effectuate structural changes called for by the Agreement that will ensure greater protection for intellectual property rights, remove impediments to American companies in the areas of financial services and agriculture, and eliminate forced technology transfer.

    Considering that China has done virtually nothing so far, we can only imagine that this was the shortly US-China call in history.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Yet none of that matters, with algos only focusing on the last sentence of the statement according to which “the parties also discussed the significant increases in purchases of U.S. products by China as well as future actions needed to implement the agreement. Both sides see progress and are committed to taking the steps necessary to ensure the success of the agreement.“

    And while equity futures remain relatively muted, the yuan rose on the news of “progress” even as US and China sink ever deeper into Cold War 2.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

  • Watch Live: RNC Day 1 "Land Of Promise" – Trump Jr., Tim Scott, & The McCloskeys
    Watch Live: RNC Day 1 “Land Of Promise” – Trump Jr., Tim Scott, & The McCloskeys

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/24/2020 – 20:25

    The 2020 Republican National convention kicked off earlier today with President Trump and Vice President Pence officially securing their re-nomination earlier in the day

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The GOP says the convention will contrast with the Democrats’ largely taped gathering last week by featuring more live events with audiences from Washington and around the country. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said it would feature “people whose lives have been impacted and measurably and consequently changed due to the efforts and policies of President Trump.”

    The theme of tonight is “Land of Promise”:

    Today our delegates have gathered in Charlotte, North Carolina for the 2020 Republican National Convention to formally re-nominate President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Michael R. Pence. This convention amplifies President Trump’s promises and the unbreakable hope of the American people. Together, we are upholding the longstanding American tradition of a party convention with the promise of making history.

    As Americans have for every challenge in our 244-year history, when struck by the heartbreak of this pandemic, countless patriots answered the call and promised to protect and serve their fellowman.

    Our health care professionals and first responders have been miracle workers through their unyielding resolve and selfless compassion. Our essential workers — grocers, farmers, teachers, transportation workers and countless others — are courageously keeping this country running. Our American business owners have innovatively made PPE, taken drastic steps to stay or re-open and have taken care of their employees in unprecedented ways. Our families have navigated unchartered territory as working parents have sought creative solutions for childcare and alternative schedules that prioritize the safety of their loved ones. Our local law enforcement and American soldiers have continued putting their lives on the line to protect us.

    The men and women of our nation are standing in the gap for their brothers and sisters as they lift up the hurting and care for their neighbors, and they deserve a leader who will promise to stand in the gap with them over the next four years.

    President Trump has never wavered in his promise to stand with the American people. He has championed the American worker through the Paycheck Protection Program and continues to fulfill his promise to keep America First. He acted early and decisively to mitigate potential harm and has continued proactive steps to protect and equip the American people during this pandemic.

    Today, we celebrate the re-nomination of an American President who will be remembered in history as the one who kept his promises and paved a way forward even in the most challenging of times. The land of promise remains the United States of America, and with President Trump leading her people, we always will be.

    Donald Trump Jr. and Sen. Tim Scott headline the first night of the Republican National Convention, which kicks off at 8:30 ET p.m. tonight.

    Also slated to speak Monday are House Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana, Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, RNC Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel, , Kimberly Guilfoyle, national chairwoman for the Trump Victory Finance Committee; Georgia State Representative Vernon Jones, a Democrat, and Natalie Harp, an advisory board member for Trump’s re-election campaign.

    Additional speakers include:

    • Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the Missouri couple who brandished guns at Black Lives Matter protesters in their neighborhood last month;

    • Maryland congressional candidate Kim Klacik;

    • Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA;

    • Sean Parnell, a Pennsylvania congressional candidate;

    • Andrew Pollack, the father of a victim of the Parkland shooting, and

    • Tanya Weinreis, whose coffee shop was the first small business in Montana to qualify for a PPP loan.

    And President Trump reportedly plans to speak every night.

    Watch Live:

    *  *  *

    The Trump Campaign released its 49-point wishlist for the president’s second term late last night:

    Building on the incredible achievements of President Donald J. Trump’s first term in office, the President’s re-election campaign today released a set of core priorities for a second term under the banner of “Fighting for You!” President Trump’s boundless optimism and certainty in America’s greatness is reflected in his second-term goals and stands in stark contrast to the gloomy vision of America projected by Joe Biden and Democrats.  

    President Trump will further illuminate these plans during his acceptance speech Thursday at the Republican National Convention. Over the coming weeks, the President will be sharing additional details about his plans through policy-focused speeches on the campaign trail.

    President Trump: Fighting for You!

    JOBS

    • Create 10 Million New Jobs in 10 Months
    • Create 1 Million New Small Businesses
    • Cut Taxes to Boost Take-Home Pay and Keep Jobs in America
    • Enact Fair Trade Deals that Protect American Jobs
    • “Made in America” Tax Credits
    • Expand Opportunity Zones
    • Continue Deregulatory Agenda for Energy Independence

    ERADICATE COVID-19

    • Develop a Vaccine by The End Of 2020
    • Return to Normal in 2021
    • Make All Critical Medicines and Supplies for Healthcare Workers in The United States
    • Refill Stockpiles and Prepare for Future Pandemics

    END OUR RELIANCE ON CHINA

    • Bring Back 1 Million Manufacturing Jobs from China
    • Tax Credits for Companies that Bring Back Jobs from China
    • Allow 100% Expensing Deductions for Essential Industries like Pharmaceuticals and Robotics who Bring Back their Manufacturing to the United States
    • No Federal Contracts for Companies who Outsource to China
    • Hold China Fully Accountable for Allowing the Virus to Spread around the World

    HEALTHCARE

    • Cut Prescription Drug Prices
    • Put Patients and Doctors Back in Charge of our Healthcare System
    • Lower Healthcare Insurance Premiums
    • End Surprise Billing
    • Cover All Pre-Existing Conditions
    • Protect Social Security and Medicare
    • Protect Our Veterans and Provide World-Class Healthcare and Services

    EDUCATION

    • Provide School Choice to Every Child in America
    • Teach American Exceptionalism

    DRAIN THE SWAMP

    • Pass Congressional Term Limits
    • End Bureaucratic Government Bullying of U.S. Citizens and Small Businesses
    • Expose Washington’s Money Trail and Delegate Powers Back to People and States
    • Drain the Globalist Swamp by Taking on International Organizations That Hurt American Citizens

    DEFEND OUR POLICE

    • Fully Fund and Hire More Police and Law Enforcement Officers
    • Increase Criminal Penalties for Assaults on Law Enforcement Officers
    • Prosecute Drive-By Shootings as Acts of Domestic Terrorism
    • Bring Violent Extremist Groups Like ANTIFA to Justice
    • End Cashless Bail and Keep Dangerous Criminals Locked Up until Trial

    END ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION AND PROTECT AMERICAN WORKERS

    • Block Illegal Immigrants from Becoming Eligible for Taxpayer-Funded Welfare, Healthcare, and Free College Tuition
    • Mandatory Deportation for Non-Citizen Gang Members
    • Dismantle Human Trafficking Networks
    • End Sanctuary Cities to Restore our Neighborhoods and Protect our Families
    • Prohibit American Companies from Replacing United States Citizens with Lower-Cost Foreign Workers
    • Require New Immigrants to Be Able to Support Themselves Financially

    INNOVATE FOR THE FUTURE

    • Launch Space Force, Establish Permanent Manned Presence on The Moon and Send the First Manned Mission to Mars
    • Build the World’s Greatest Infrastructure SystemWin the Race to 5G and Establish a National High-Speed Wireless Internet Network
    • Continue to Lead the World in Access to the Cleanest Drinking Water and Cleanest Air
    • Partner with Other Nations to Clean Up our Planet’s Oceans

    AMERICA FIRST FOREIGN POLICY

    • Stop Endless Wars and Bring Our Troops Home
    • Get Allies to Pay their Fair Share
    • Maintain and Expand America’s Unrivaled Military Strength
    • Wipe Out Global Terrorists Who Threaten to Harm Americans
    • Build a Great Cybersecurity Defense System and Missile Defense System

  • NY Subway Windows Being Smashed At Such Rate The MTA Can't Get Glass Fast Enough To Replace Them
    NY Subway Windows Being Smashed At Such Rate The MTA Can’t Get Glass Fast Enough To Replace Them

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/24/2020 – 20:05

    In more signs of the times, and perhaps further evidence the city has reached its “expiration date” amid both the Covid-induced economic slowdown and exploding crime, the New York City subway has seen windows smashed by the hundreds in recent weeks and months.

    The MTA has counted more than 400 smashed and destroyed windows over the course of the summer and has documented at least 63 train cars which were attacked with a bat, hammer, pole, or pipe by one or more serial vandals. It’s to the point that service itself on some lines are now under threat.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    MTA photo of smashed windows on 7 train.

    The financially strapped MTA doesn’t appear to have an answer either, other than to observe the past trend that suggests economic decay above often results in an uptick in both vandalism and graffiti on the trains below.

    “Vandalized subway trains have in the past been associated with a period of financial hardship in New York City that was marked by increased violence and crime,” The New York Times notes, as the MTA now has to deal with $300,000 in repairs at a moment it’s facing a $16 billion deficit, partly brought on by the pandemic crisis.

    “We’re not exactly flush with cash right now,” Metropolitan Transportation Authority official Patrick Warren said. “Every dollar matters.”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    MTA photo via NYT: About 60 subway car windows on 7 trains were found damaged this week.

    The trend of smashed windows appeared to rise alongside the tidal wave of unemployment during the pandemic shutdowns.

    The NYT details:

    Transportation officials in New York City first began seeing broken windows on subway cars, mostly on the 2, 3 and 7 lines, in April. On one day in mid-July, nearly 50 windows across three 7 trains were smashed. Then this week, the problem seemed to have intensified again: about 60 windows on several 7 trains were found shattered with what officials said was a “blunt instrument.”

    And authorities are still unclear on if it’s one vandal, a group of people, or various random incidents; however, there’s video footage of at least one prime suspect.

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

    The MTA says it’s literally running out of window replacements, and has had to temporarily decommission dozens of subway cars, while police are searching for a man considered mainly responsible for the 3-month long spree, given he’s been witnessed carrying a hammer.

  • Save Yourself: Stop Believing In Lockdown
    Save Yourself: Stop Believing In Lockdown

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/24/2020 – 19:45

    Authored by Stacey Rudin via The American Institute for Economic Research,

    Storied minds have argued that a failure to critically examine our beliefs makes us culpable for adverse outcomes. Beliefs lead to actions, which impact other people. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    As Voltaire wrote during the Enlightenment – when society still had time away from the screen to reflect on philosophy, morality, and fundamental truth – “those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”

    This has never been more true than in the age of social media, when information and opinions constantly bombard us from all sides, isolating us from our own thoughts and values. We have a moral duty to critically examine our beliefs — especially our belief in “lockdown,” the most oppressive and universally destructive public policy implemented in our lifetimes. 

    Is it the least-restrictive means available to minimize casualties in this pandemic? 

    Our belief in it was formed when we felt legitimate fear — this can lead to irrationality — so we really cannot answer this question in good conscience unless and until we take the time to conduct a proper, honest examination with the benefit of hindsight.

    Any number of atrocities can occur when human beings act on unfounded, unexamined beliefs. 

    Consider the example of the shipowner in William Kingdon Clifford’s 1876 essay, “The Ethics of Belief.” Troubled by the condition of his aging ship, which others have suggested is not well-built and is in need of repairs, he eventually pacifies himself with these comforting thoughts:

    “She had gone safely through so many voyages and weathered so many storms that it was idle to suppose she would not come home from this trip also.

    The shipowner develops a sincere conviction that she will not sink, and acts on his belief.

    “He watched [the ship’s] departure with a light heart, and benevolent wishes for the success of the exiles in their strange new home that was to be; and he got his insurance-money when she went down in mid-ocean and told no tales.

    What shall we say of him? Surely this, that he was verily guilty of the death of those men. It is admitted that he did sincerely believe in the soundness of his ship; but the sincerity of his conviction can in nowise help him, because he had no right to believe on such evidence as was before him. He had acquired his belief not by honestly earning it in patient investigation, but by stifling his doubts.”

    The shipowner’s belief was built on sand — he knew he had questions to answer, but instead he took the comfortable path, and other people had to pay with their lives for it.

    While it may appear that he personally got off easy, his reputation, confidence and conscience surely suffered. 

    People who harbor false beliefs and ignore warning signs routinely end up grievously harmed: consider the investors in Elizabeth Holmes’ Theranos scam, or Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, or the parents of Larry Nassar’s little-girl gymnasts. These examples prove just how easily the trust and credulity of very intelligent people is easily exploited. It happens like magic, in broad daylight — millions are lost or gained, irreparable actions are taken — with the victim all the while believing he or she is choosing to participate in a beneficial relationship or situation.

    The passengers trusted the shipowner. The investors trusted the entrepreneurs. The parents trusted the doctor. Should WE be trusting the government?

    Perhaps, instead of taking the easy path of blind faith, we should challenge our government’s assertions about COVID-19 and how to deal with it. After all, governments have already admitted to manipulating us in writing:

    Perceived threat: A substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened; it could be that they are reassured by the low death rate in their demographic group . . . The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard-hitting emotional messaging.

    I respectfully submit to you: anyone willing to adopt this shady tactic is not worthy of your blind trust. Governments know that emotional people are easy to manipulate. As Robert Greene wrote in the authoritative tome on human nature, “You like to imagine yourself in control of your fate, consciously planning the course of your life…[b]ut you are largely unaware of how deeply your emotions dominate you. They make you veer toward ideas that soothe your ego. They make you look for evidence that confirms what you already want to believe…” 

    Logically, terrified people want to believe in the existence of a sturdy lifeline. They like that lifeline even more if grasping onto it makes them “good people,” and turns those who prefer to swim with the tide into “killers.” Knowing what it knows about human nature, we can be certain our government knew that proposing lockdown to us at this particular moment was pretty much guaranteed to succeed. 

    It would be wise to take the government to task now that we’ve calmed down.

    What have they asked us to believe, why have they asked us to believe it, and what are the grounds for doubt?

    Belief #1: “Lockdown saves lives.”

    Blind faith in lockdown rapidly took hold in March 2020 like a fire in a haystack. The spark that ignited it was terror, lit by the media’s sensationalist reporting of the “disaster” in Northern Italy, shortly followed by the doomsday predictions from fancy-sounding (“Imperial College! London!”) modelers. Those same modelers offered a lifeline: — lockdown, the long awaited real-life opportunity to test a pet theory. Too bad we never stopped to question their credibility (“they sound so fancy!”) and motives (“we’ve been waiting for this moment!”) before taking any action — particularly drastic, life-altering action.

    “Every man who has accepted the statement from somebody else, without himself testing and verifying it, is out of court; his word is worth nothing at all. Two serious questions must be asked in regard to him who first made it: was he mistaken in thinking that he knew about this matter, or was he lying?”

    ~ William Kingdon Clifford

    A second, even bigger credibility issue is found when we consider the first lesson we ever learned about “lockdown.” That lesson came from China. None of us — or even our parents — had ever heard of a population-wide quarantine until the Chinese government planted the idea with a highly-publicized “lockdown” of its own. 

    This normalized the concept, preparing our minds to accept it as a scientifically-supported measure to manage infectious diseases. Then, after bombarding us with images of its citizens’ sacrifices, China predictably declared, “It worked! We defeated the virus! Disease is gone!”

    The lifeline. The island of escape. Thank you, China — because of you, we will not die.

    Little did we know that decades of public health work unequivocally established the opposite: “There is no basis [in science] for recommending quarantine either of groups or individuals.” 

    From the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention:

    “It is hard to imagine that measures like those within the category of social distancing would not have some positive impact by reducing transmission of a human respiratory infection spreading from human to human via droplets and indirect contact. However, the evidence base supporting each individual measure is often weak.”

    From the United States Center for Disease Control’s 2007 Interim Pandemic Planning Guidelines (p.25):

    “[M]athematical models that explored potential source mitigation strategies that make use of . . . infection control and social distancing measures for use in an influenza outbreak identified critical time thresholds for success. . . the effectiveness of pandemic mitigation strategies will erode rapidly as the cumulative illness rate prior to implementation climbs above 1 percent of the population in an affected area.”

    Even the Washington Post, in late January 2020, published an article soundly condemning the Chinese lockdown:

    “This is just mind-boggling: This is the mother of all quarantines. I could never have imagined it.”

    ~ Howard Markel, University of Michigan medical historian

    “The truth is those kinds of lockdowns are very rare and never effective . . . They’re doing it because people who are in political leadership always think that if you do something dramatic and visible that you’ll gain popular support. They couldn’t have any sound public health advice.”

    ~ Lawrence O. Gostin, professor of global health law at Georgetown University

    We can now confirm the accuracy of these statements with live data from our lockdown experiment. We even have the scientific gold standard — a control group — Sweden. Swedish mortality data proves that not only does lockdown not “save lives,” it leads to increased mortality. Sweden has far less “excess” (above-average) all-cause mortality in 2020 than heavily locked-down areas such as New Jersey, Michigan, Spain, Italy, Belgium, and the U.K. Sweden’s all-cause mortality this year is similar to that of its Scandinavian neighbors: they each have moderate excess mortality, in line with historical averages.

    Sweden also proves that COVID’s true mortality impact — when additional lives are not lost due to terrifying propaganda and draconian government actions leading to fear, despair, and the destruction of medical and social systems — is that of a severe flu. For weeks 1–32 of 2018, Sweden had 56,770 deaths. For the same weeks of 2020, it has 59,346 deaths — a difference of 2,576 or ~4%, and going down from there since mortality is now running below average. 

    In short, many of the weakest citizens in Sweden sadly died a few months early. While all lost time is regrettable, it is unlikely that any dying 86-year-old, in order to extend his own life by 5–9 months (the average remaining life expectancy of 70% of Swedish COVID deaths), would propose that a 30-year-old father be sentenced to lose his business and hang himself.

    Yet that’s exactly what happened in countries that did lock down. The elderly we were supposed to be “saving” didn’t get to speak on the matter— instead, they got COVID secretly sent straight into their places of residence, like a fox to the henhouse. According to the government officials who issued these orders and their ideologically-aligned media, Sweden is the bad guy. We accept this perverse, overtly-biased claim and resulting atrocity only because we firmly believe in the effectiveness of lockdowns. Otherwise, we would be rioting in the streets, recognizing that the same people who created the problem sold us the remedy. Their remedy.

    “We all suffer severely from the maintenance and support of false beliefs and the fatally wrong actions which they lead to, and the evil born when one such belief is entertained is great and wide.”

    ~ William Kingdon Clifford

    Belief #2: It is imperative FOR EVERYONE to avoid COVID-19 infection.

    Some people, particularly the very elderly with serious comorbidities, should indeed try to avoid infection. But for the millions of people at low risk, COVID should be treated the same as the flu. They should circulate normally, serving humanity by exposing themselves to the virus without hysteria, as the Swedes did. This will minimize overall mortality by reducing the duration of the epidemic, freeing the high-risk elderly from confinement earlier, and avoiding all of the lockdown deaths and other traumas. It is a scientific fact that every epidemic ends at the threshold of “herd immunity” — not before.

    The alternative we have chosen — an epidemic identical in size, but longer in duration, with people at statistically zero risk hiding inside their homes getting more stressed, fatter, and sicker — is utter madness. The most tragic part is Imperial explained this to us on March 16, and posted it online for everyone to see:

    “Once interventions are relaxed . . . infections begin to rise, resulting in a predicted peak epidemic later in the year. The more successful a strategy is at temporary suppression, the larger the later epidemic is predicted to be in the absence of vaccination, due to lesser build-up of herd immunity.”

    While Imperial designed lockdown as an ICU-capacity management strategy, it apparently did not foresee the difficulty in persuading people terrified by lockdown to go right back out and live two weeks later. “All clear! We have thousands of ICU beds staffed and ready for you! Good luck!”

    Good luck indeed.

    Thankfully, now we know that COVID is much less deadly than Imperial, WHO, and mainstream media led us to believe. Most of us know no one who has died — only .05% of the population has, after all. We do indeed have the all-clear, and we should feel perfectly fine conducting ourselves exactly like a Swede — and thanking others for doing just that, instead of bullying them with life-defeating, authoritarian mandates.

    Belief #3: If she doesn’t wear a mask, I won’t be safe.

    See above. If she acquires the infection and recovers, you will be safer than you were before. Unless you are routinely pounced on by sneezing strangers, you can wear your own mask and maintain your distance. You don’t need any help from anyone else. Established science says that masks and distancing don’t work, anyway — COVID-19 spontaneously shows up on naval ships 49 days into isolation, and similar viruses have appeared during the 17th week of perfect Antarctic quarantines. But at least you will feel like you’re doing something.

    Belief #4: If I was wrong about lockdown, that makes me gullible and unintelligent.

    No, it makes you human. To err is human. Admitting this is noble and altruistic, while persisting on course despite red flags is pathological and damaging. We should all aspire to be like Socrates, who understood his human fallibilities:

    “I know that I am intelligent because I know that I know nothing.” 

    There is no shame in falling for such a sophisticated propaganda scheme. Most people did. A few shining stars have since emerged to admit their mistake, quietly adopting the Swedish approach. You would be wise to join them, avoiding the fate of Don Quixote: 

    “As long as he fought imaginary giants, Don Quixote was just play-acting. However once he actually kills someone, he will cling to his fantasies for all he is worth, because only they give meaning to his tragic misdeed. Paradoxically, the more sacrifices we make for an imaginary story, the more tenaciously we hold on to it, because we desperately want to give meaning to those sacrifices and to the suffering we have caused.”

    ~ Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow

    Belief #5: COVID-19 is much more dangerous than the flu.

    Nope. As stated above, in terms of mortality impact, Sweden already proved that COVID-19 is indeed similar to the flu. The diseases are similar in other respects — both can have long-term health effects, both kill random outliers (the flu even kills young teachers), and both can cause hospitals to overflow, as influenza did as recently as two years ago. They have similar survival rates: ~997 out of 1,000 for COVID, ~999 out of 1,000 for flu. Over fifty percent of Americans don’t even get the flu shot, yet we have destroyed the planet to “stop” COVID-19.

    Why did it happen? Because the media chose to depict this virus as Black Plague — and we believed it. Now that we know that the media can do this, we can understand why the U.K. Prime Minister — and others in his position — was afraid of its powers. He reportedly imposed lockdown because he was threatened as follows:

    “If he didn’t lock down, journalists will ask him on national television to accept responsibility and apologise to the families of those who have died as a result of Covid-19, because the rhetoric would have been that it was his fault for not locking down.”

    In other words, the media had a three-step plan:

    (1) convince us that politicians have the power to stop death,

    (2) put the politicians in the position of needing to do what the media suggests will “save our lives,”

    (3) watch as we drive ourselves over a cliff.

    The media cannot do this without our participation. We can stop them immediately by refusing to believe their superstitious, pseudo-scientific proposition that this is the only disease in history that needed a politician-imposed lockdown to abate. They cannot trick us into burning down our own houses once we simply stop believing that politicians have the power to stop death. Standing firmly on this foundation of scientific truth, we will finally be at peace, realizing that COVID-19, like every disease in history, will infect a certain number of people, kill a minute percentage of them, and then move along, lockdown or no lockdown. 

    We really must stop believing otherwise. Our credulity is destroying us. So long as we do believe the myth, we are avoiding the responsibility to manage this virus the way intelligent societies always have, by permitting medical professionals to treat sick people as individuals, one ailment at a time. One cannot merely unleash a total state on the whole of society–even on nearly the entire planet–in a futile effort to scare the virus into going away. 

    That’s completely mystical thinking that unleashes the very catastrophe that smallpox eradicator Donald A. Henderson predicted in his 2006 plea never to lock down. 

    “The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them; for then it must sink back into savagery.”

    ~ William Kingdon Clifford

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Aug 24

Today’s News 24th August 2020

  • "Get On With Your Lives!" – Oxford Professor Says "People Have Become Overly Frightened" Of COVID-19
    “Get On With Your Lives!” – Oxford Professor Says “People Have Become Overly Frightened” Of COVID-19

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/24/2020 – 02:45

    Even though BoJo’s system of localized COVID-19 measures seems to be working, the unrelenting hysteria peddled by the British press has left millions of Britons traumatized.

    Now, Carl Heneghan, a professor of Evidence-based medicine at Oxford University, is calling for the government to intervene and “proactively reassure” his young students that the coronavirus won’t kill them if they contract it.

    He said exaggerated fears of the virus have led to “people going about their daily lives misunderstanding and overestimating their risk,” something with which many Americans can probably empathize.

    And as parts of north Manchester remain on ‘partial lockdown’, the professor said introducing local lockdowns could do more harm than good by forcing people into their homes, potentially infecting other vulnerable people who live with them, especially as the temperature drops.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Professor Heneghan’s work has led to a lowering of the official death toll after he revealed COVID-19 deaths were being counted even if someone had subsequently died of other causes.

    As we learn more about the virus, the pandemic could end up no worse than a bad flu season, the professor said, with a touch of hyperbole.

    The UK’s large death toll may hint at a larger number of cases left undiscovered, some have argued. Others have blamed failures in protecting the vulnerable populations living in care homes.

    Heneghan’s work ‘reframing’ how COVID-19 deaths are counted could eventually lead to the world seeing far fewer deaths than were actually reported (while many still went uncounted). But as we’ve come to understand how to treat COVID-19 more effectively, society hasn’t recalibrated its fear of the virus.

    “We reset how we calculate the death rates. We now need to reset how we communicate the risks of the virus.”

    “I am concerned people have become overly frightened and throughout this pandemic, the fear instilled in people has been a real problem.”

    “Many people misunderstand and overestimate their risk of Covid. This uncertainty is leaving them highly anxious and affecting schools, offices and how we go about our daily lives. The government needs to intervene to explain to people their true risks.”

    But as the death rate has declined, it’s notable that cases and deaths have continued to decline even as society has opened up.

    It’s all just one more reason to support the Swedish approach.

  • New Ebola Outbreak Reported In Congo, WHO Alarmed
    New Ebola Outbreak Reported In Congo, WHO Alarmed

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/24/2020 – 02:00

    Authored by Jack Philips via The Epoch Times,

    A new outbreak of the Ebola virus has infected 100 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Equateur Province, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which said several dozen people have died.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The outbreak was first declared on June 1 in the province, and a cluster was first found in Mbandaka, the capital.

    “The outbreak has since spread to 11 of the province’s 17 health zones. Of the 100 cases reported so far, 96 are confirmed and four are probable,” the agency said.

    Some 43 people have died from the deadly virus, which causes hemorrhagic fever.

    “The outbreak presents significant logistical challenges, with affected communities spanning large distances in remote and densely-forested areas of the province, which straddles the Equator,” said WHO.

    “At its widest points, the outbreak is spread across approximately 200 miles both from east to west and from north to south.”

    The agency said that providing relief to affected populations can take days. Supplies and first responders have to travel areas that don’t have roads and may have to rely on river boat travel, according to WHO.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Burial workers put on their protective gear before carrying the remains of Mussa Kathembo, an Islamic scholar who had prayed over those who were sick, and his wife Asiya to their final resting place in Beni, Congo DRC, on July 14, 2019.  (Jerome Delay/AP Photo)

    In the same province, an outbreak of Ebola occurred in May 2018, killing at least 33 people.

    “With 100 Ebola cases in less than 100 days, the outbreak in Equateur Province is evolving in a concerning way,” said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti with WHO.

    “The virus is spreading across a wide and rugged terrain which requires costly interventions and with COVID-19 draining resources and attention, it is hard to scale-up operations.”

    Earlier in August, Congolese Ebola health workers protested over unpaid wages.

    The provincial health minister, Bruno Efoloko, said the governor had concluded negotiations with the striking workers late on Monday afternoon. They were protesting against the health ministry’s recent publication of their pay scales, which they thought were too low, and the government’s failure to pay them since the start of the new epidemic, Keita said.

    “The negotiations were successful. The laboratory is now operational,” Efoloko told Reuters, adding that some lab technicians had returned to work after the talks. 

    “The national ministry of health promises to examine their claims,” Efoloko said. “We will continue to educate others for an effective resumption of activities.”

    In June, Congo celebrated the end of a separate Ebola outbreak in the east of the country, the second-worst on record, which killed more than 2,200 people over two years.

    WHO said over the weekend that the current response is indeed in need of funding.

    “Without extra support the teams on the ground will find it harder to get ahead of the virus,” said Dr. Moeti.

    “COVID-19 is not the only emergency needing robust support. As we know from our recent history we ignore Ebola at our peril.”

    He was referring to the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

  • The Thin Veneer Of American Civilization… Has Been Blown Away
    The Thin Veneer Of American Civilization… Has Been Blown Away

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/24/2020 – 00:00

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via NationalReview.com,

    In a flash, it’s been blown away, revealing the barbarism beneath. The seeds of destruction were planted long ago…

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Nine months ago, New York was a thriving, though poorly governed, metropolis. It was coasting on the more or less good governance of its prior two mayors and on its ancestral role as the global nexus of finance and capital.

    The city is now something out of a postmodern apocalyptic movie, reeling from the effects of a neutron bomb. Ditto in varying degrees Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco — the anti-broken-windows metropolises of America. Walking in San Francisco today reminds me of visiting Old Cairo in 1973, although the latter lacked the needles and feces of the former.

    At the present increasing rate of police defunding, homeless encampments, the emptying of jails and prisons, the green-lighting of rioting and vandalism, the flight of the wealthy, the revolutionary change to Skype/Zoom tele-working, and the exodus of upper-middle-class liberal families to safe houses in the New York and New England countryside, once beautiful New York City is in danger of becoming the nation’s aneurysm. That is, after the “recovery,” it and other blue cities may be seen as permanent weak veins and arteries prone to sudden fatal hemorrhaging that could implode at any moment, and thus may become metaphorically tied off, as the country reroutes around them.

    In the old days of 2019, tolerant Americans more or less accepted that finely crafted statues of sometimes less than inspiring and formerly illustrious (to some) heroes were part of our history. For example, integral to California’s rich historical culture were its missions, acknowledged by Father Serra’s numerous eponymous streets and statues. No one in his right mind believed that renaming a mall named Serra at Stanford University would help mitigate the weekend murder rate in Chicago or the endemic poverty of illegal aliens in my own neighborhood.

    The same allowance for imperfection by present standards was made for Robert E. Lee, a capable though not brilliant strategist, and by the standards of his time and space considered a good man who fought for a terrible cause. His name and likeliness were reminders to Americans of the tragedy of the Civil War that saw 700,000 Americans die in the struggle to end slavery. Focusing on inner-city gun violence or abortion or integrating the public schools with the scions of the white upper class might do far more for racial relations than toppling more bronze horses and riders. But that is the point: Focus on the irrelevant misdemeanor as therapy for ignoring the existential felony.

    But that idea of live and let live with the past is ancient history now — and hundreds of decapitated and defaced statues ago. A mindless mob, appeased and enabled by a terrified establishment, has systematically and with impunity been destroying as many of the referents of American history as it can.

    The fools of the bipartisan elite at first believed the iconoclasm was selective, rational, and measured. It was not. The point was never to fixate on the sins of the ancient slaveholder, or the European discoverer of America, or the author of Don Quixote.

    Nor was the point to topple the bad in order to commission the better to take its place. (After all, for these statue-topplers, what icon might be substituted, given the array of their progressive heroes such as Wilsonian racists, mass-murdering Maoists, thugs masquerading as revolutionaries such as Che, or liberal icons like the eugenicist Margaret Sanger, or even the interment-signer FDR?)

    The point instead was to destroy and deface most all images of America, from Frederick Douglass and Ulysses S. Grant to Lincoln and World War II heroes such as Churchill. The strategy of the Left was that if they could easily wage war on the bronze and stone of the past without repercussions, then as fear and terror mounted, they could turn to the flesh-and-blood enemies of the people in the present. Anyone who with impunity burns books — including the Bible — vandalizes memorials, defaces public buildings, or topples statues at night eventually gets around to trying out such violence on real people of the present. Portland is a good example, as the spoiled of the middle class seek each night to ignite a police station to roast the officers barricaded inside. Another is Chicago, where looters target high-end boutiques mouthing slogans of social justice.

    Once upon a time, trying to torch a federal courthouse would earn years in prison. And simply taking over a large chunk of a downtown to re-create Lord of the Flies was unthinkable. Not now…

    Today you can go to jail for reopening a gym that requires masks, social distancing, and constant cleansing with antiseptics.

    But you will not go to jail if you assemble en masse to riot, unmasked, armored with makeshift padding, umbrellas, and helmets, and you’re free to shout and spray in the faces of officers and fellow looters and rioters alike.

    Yet this is the hard phase, the Jacobin moment of the Revolution.

    And we have not seen the full extent of the ongoing counterrevolution that will thin out the violent in the streets and in some ways fall more heavily on those who have empowered it. There will be a counterrevolution because without one there is not much of America left. And about 250 million people liked the America prior to March 1 and finally, in extremis, won’t so easily give it up. Washington and Lincoln, after all, do not just belong to some unhinged Antifa thug mad at America because he is mostly mad at himself. To almost every Jacobin tactic, from defunding the police to violent attacks on federal property, the people are opposed. And they make no apologies for their past or present.

    What will the counterrevolutionary entail in areas beyond politics?

    I wager that the NBA, the NFL, and perhaps even major-league baseball will soon have a come-to-Jesus moment. Either they will continue with the kneeling, the left-wing sloganeering, the mock-heroic logos, and the finger-pointing at their audiences, and thus slowly grow shriller and more irrelevant as Americans refuse to subsidize insults to their persons and country — or they will quietly return to the pre-Kaepernick world (as the NFL, for example, had in 2019) when politics was seen as bad business in a business, for-profit sport.

    If the virus, lockdown, recession, and street violence have taught us anything, it’s that Americans don’t need LeBron James offering another pro-Chinese banality, another Kaepernick ad that hails his “courage,” or another appeasing quarterback fresh out of a North-Korean-like reeducation camp, apologizing for his now incorrect honoring of the flag.

    The universities told us that they could charge $80,000 a year for the “campus experience,” that piling up $200,000 in debt for a B.A. degree was a wise investment, and that such campus intellectuals and progressives needed to pay no attention to the Bill of Rights. Fine. But all such nonsense was predicated on the belief that their brands were worth the cost, and the experience on campus was both unique and precious.

    In the past year, the curtain pulled away and the con was exposed. You can stay home and tele-learn without stepping foot on a campus — a poor substitute for live teaching, but not so poor a substitute given the cost, the debt, and the indoctrination.  The advantage of a Princeton or Stanford degree is now exposed not as proof of a superior education, but simply the purchase of a cattle brand to separate one’s future career from the herd — not much different from having Michael Jordan’s name on an otherwise pedestrian pair of tennis shoes.

    At some point the public will want the federal government to turn over the student-loan-guaranteeing business to the universities, which will then cut costs. Endowments of such politicized and warped institutions will soon be taxed. And America will let go of the idea that a 21st-century B.A. degree has anything to do with knowledge, inductive thinking, and learning. After all, somebody “educated” those privileged, prolonged adolescents whom we see nightly in the streets, the environmentalists who leave trash and flotsam and jetsam as their trail, the woke who shout in the face of black police and arrogantly appoint themselves the anarchist brains of BLM, the compassionate who try to burn down, blind, attack the elderly, and destroy anything they cannot themselves create.

    Polls show that Americans by overwhelming numbers now believe that the media are hopelessly biased. NBC and other networks and cable outlets are laying off employees. The no-holds-barred arenas of the Internet and social media are replacing newspapers and televised news as sources of public information — not because they are more accurate or less biased, but because consumers can access their bias and inaccuracy at far cheaper prices. Woke journalists have bragged that they no longer need to be anachronistically disinterested in the age of Trump. So why pay a marquee reporter $200,000 when you can get a comparable flack to write the same stuff online for a tenth of the price?

    The Sixties generation is going out as it came in: gross, loud, and cowardly, destroying the very institutions for others that it so selfishly consumed for its own benefit.

    If we wish to know why America’s veneer of civilization was so thin, and this year so easily scraped away, revealing barbarism beneath, look to a generation’s architects in the university, the media, sports, corporations, and politics who long ago seeded their cultural IEDs and are now giddy they are at last going off, though terrified that the ensuing blasts are reverberating ever closer to home.

  • Gun And Ammo Sales Surge As America Transforms Into Violent Mess
    Gun And Ammo Sales Surge As America Transforms Into Violent Mess

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/23/2020 – 23:30

    Purchasing a gun is difficult these days, especially since demand is soaring as concerned Americans are arming up as the country transforms into a violent mess.

    Readers have already been briefed, on multiple occasions, of the developing ammo shortage this year. 

    We first shined the spotlight on surging gun and ammo demand at the start of the virus pandemic. Then found demand for weapons and bullets rose in early summer as social unrest unfolded.

    Now the Financial Times sheds more color from within gun and ammo manufacturers and distributors of the unprecedented demand in the last six months. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Arizona-based Ammo Inc, an ammunition manufacturer, reported 2Q20 revenues jumped 125% to $9.7 million. Fred Wagenhals, chief executive of Ammo, said there had been an “extraordinary” demand for its retail hunting, sports shooting, and self-defense products. He said the company is working through a record $45 million backlogs in orders.

    Mark Hanish, Ammo’s president of global sales and marketing, described ammo demand for semi-automatic handguns and the AR-15 as “intense.” 

    “In past [election] run-ups, your traditional folks who were already gun owners would purchase more. This is brand new people,” Hanish said, attributing the influx of new buyers to the confluence of the pandemic, the election and concern about “civil unrest and uncertainty.”

    Hanish said the spike in gun and ammo demand is more for self-protection rather than the fear of losing gun rights. As a result, he said, “I don’t expect people to go back to being complacent” should President Trump win in November. 

    Gun stocks soared this summer as Americans panic hoarded guns and ammo. Weapon background checks surged to record highs, rose 79% in July year-over-year amid pandemic fears and violent social unrest gripping major metros.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Another company, Clarus Corporation’s Sierra ammunition brand, reported a 36% increase in sales in 2Q20. The company explained the rise in ammo demand is due to “social and civil uncertainties and the upcoming US elections.” 

    In July, Sturm, Ruger & Co. told investors gun sales were up as personal protection became popular with Americans following social unrest. The company reported a 47% increase in gun and ammo sales in 1H20.

    Olin Corp, the owner of the Winchester brand, said 2Q20 ammo sales were the strongest since 2016. 

    Vista Outdoor, the owner of brands including Bushnell rifle scopes and Federal ammunition, said: 

    “We’re seeing stockpiling happening to a certain degree, but the free time has given people more opportunities to recreate in real-time,” Vista Outdoor CEO Christopher Metz told investors. 

    If you haven’t figured out by now, America is getting more dangerous, society is imploding under the weight of depressionary unemployment – before you know it, there’s going to be a run on a bulletproof vest.  

  • Conways Announcement: KellyAnne Leaving White House And George Withdrawing From The Lincoln Project
    Conways Announcement: KellyAnne Leaving White House And George Withdrawing From The Lincoln Project

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/23/2020 – 23:16

    Authored by Sara Carter via saraacarter.com

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    White House Senior Advisor KellyAnne Conway and her husband anti-Trump Lincoln Project founder and lawyer George Conway made a stunning announcement Sunday night that both were leaving their very public and divided political positions to spend more time with their children.

    KellyAnne posted her announcement on Twitter in a dropbox PDF belonging to her husbands account. In her announcement, which was not written on formal White House stationary she stated that her children must come first.

    “I’m leaving the White House,” KellyAnne Conway said. “Gratefully & Humbly.”

    The past four years have allowed me blessings beyond compare as a part of history on Election Night 2016 and as Senior Counselor to the President. It’s been heady. It’s been humbling. I am deeply grateful to the President for this honor, and tothe First Lady, the Vice President and Mrs. Pence, my colleagues in the White House and the Administration, and the countless people who supported me and my work. As many convention speakers will demonstrate this week, President Trump’s leadership has hada measurable, positive impact on the peace and prosperity of the nation, and on millions of Americans who feel forgotten no more.The incredible men, women and children we’ve met along the way have reaffirmed my later-in-life experience that public service can be meaningful and consequential. For all of its political differences and cultural cleavages, this is a beautiful country filled with amazing people. The promise of America belongs to us all. I will be transitioning from the White House at the end of this month. George is also making changes. We disagree about plenty but we are united on what matters most: the kids. Our four children are teens and ‘tweens starting a new academic year, in middle school and high school, remotely from home for at least a few months. As millions of parents nationwide know, kids “doing school from home” requires a level of attention and vigilance that is as unusual as these times. This is completely my choice and my voice. In time, I will announce future plans. For now, and for my beloved children, it will be less drama, more mama.

    KellyAnne’s resignation letter contained a link to her husband’s Tweet, in which George Conway announced that he would be leaving the never Trump Lincoln Project to also be with his children and family.

    “So I’m withdrawing from @ProjectLincoln to devote more time to family matters,” said George Conway. “And I’ll be taking a Twitter hiatus. Needless to say, I continue to support the Lincoln Project and its mission.Passionately.”

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

    Listen to The Sara Carter Show here.

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

  • Managing The Narrative
    Managing The Narrative

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/23/2020 – 23:00

    Authored by Philip Giraldi,

    Some Americans continue to believe that when they go to the internet they will get a free flow of useful information that will guide them in making decisions or coming to conclusions about the state of the world.

    That conceit might have been true to an extent twenty years ago, but the growth and consolidation of corporate information management firms has instead limited access to material that it does not approve of, thereby successfully shaping the political and economic environment to conform with their own interests.

    Facebook, Google and other news and social networking sites now all have advisory panels that are authorized to ban content and limit access by members.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    This de facto censorship is particularly evident when using the internet information “search” sites themselves, a “service” that is dominated by Google. Ron Unz has observed how when the CEO of Google Sundar Pichai faced congressional scrutiny on July 29th together with other high-tech executives, the questioning was hardly rigorous and no one even asked how the sites are regulated to promote certain information that is approved of while suppressing views or sources that are considered to be undesirable.

    The “information” sites generally get a free pass from government scrutiny because they are useful to those who run the country from Washington and Wall Street.

    That the internet is a national security issue was clearly demonstrated when the Barack Obama Administration sought to develop a switch that could be used to “kill it” in the event of a national crisis. No politician or corporate chief executive wants to get on the bad side of Big Tech and find his or her name largely eliminated from online searches, or, alternatively, coming up all too frequently with negative connotations.

    Google, for example, ranks the information that it displays so it can favor certain points of view and dismiss others. Generally speaking, progressive sites are favored and conservative sites are relegated to the bottom of the search with the expectation that they will not be visited. In late July, investigative journalists noted that  Google was apparently testing its technical ability to blacklist conservative media on its search engine which processes more than 3.5 billion online searches every day, comprising 94 percent of internet searching. Sites targeted and made to effectively disappear from results included NewsBusters, the Washington Free Beacon, The Blaze, Townhall, The Daily Wire, PragerU, LifeNews, Project Veritas, Judicial Watch, The Resurgent, Breitbart, Drudge, Unz, the Media Research Center and CNSNews. All the sites affected are considered to be politically conservative and no progressive or liberal sites were included.

    One has to suspect that the tech companies like Google are working hand-in-hand with some regulators within the Trump administration to “purge” the internet, primarily by removing foreign competition both in hardware and software from countries like China. This will give the ostensibly U.S. companies monopoly status and will also allow the government to have sufficient leverage to control the message. If this process continues, the internet itself will become nationally or regionally controlled and will inevitably cease to be a vehicle for free exchange of views. Recent steps taken by the U.S. to block Huawei 5G technology and also force the sale of sites like TikTok have been explained as “national security” issues, but they are more likely designed to control aspects of the internet.

    Washington is also again beating the familiar drum that Russia is interfering in American politics, with an eye on the upcoming election. Last week saw the released of a 77 page report produced by the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) on Russian internet based news and opinion sources that allegedly are guilty of spreading disinformation and propaganda on behalf of the Kremlin. It is entitled “Understanding Russia’s Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem” and has a lead paragraph asserting that “Russia’s disinformation and propaganda ecosystem is the collection of official, proxy, and unattributed communication channels and platforms that Russia uses to create and amplify false narratives.”

    Perhaps not surprisingly, The New York Times is hot on the trail of Russian malfeasance, describing the report and its conclusions in a lengthy article “State Dept. Traces Russian Disinformation Links” that appeared on August 5th.

    The government report identifies a number of online sites that it claims are actively involved in the “disinformation” effort. The Times article focuses on one site in particular, describing how “The report states that the Strategic Culture Foundation [website] is directed by Russia’s foreign intelligence service, the S.V.R., and stands as ‘a prime example of longstanding Russian tactics to conceal direct state involvement in disinformation and propaganda outlets.’ The organization publishes a wide variety of fringe voices and conspiracy theories in English, while trying to obscure its Russian government sponsorship.” It also quotes Lea Gabrielle, the GEC Director, who explained that “The Kremlin bears direct responsibility for cultivating these tactics and platforms as part of its approach of using information and disinformation as a weapon.”

    As Russia has been falsely accused of supporting the election of Donald Trump in 2016 and the existence of alternative news sites funded wholly or in part by a foreign government is not ipso facto an act of war, it is interesting to note the “evidence” that The Times provides based on its own investigation to suggest that Moscow is about to disrupt the upcoming election. It is:

    “Absent from the report is any mention of how one of the writers for the Strategic Culture Foundation weighed in this spring on a Democratic primary race in New York. The writer, Michael Averko, published articles on the foundation’s website and in a local publication in Westchester County, N.Y., attacking Evelyn N. Farkas, a former Obama administration official who was running for Congress. In recent weeks, the F.B.I. questioned Mr. Averko about the Strategic Culture Foundation and its ties to Russia. While those attacks did not have a decisive effect on the election, they showed Moscow’s continuing efforts to influence votes in the United States…”

    Excuse me, but someone writing for an alternative website with relatively low readership criticizing a candidate for congress does not equate to the Kremlin’s interfering in an American election. Also, the claim that the Strategic Culture Foundation is a disinformation mechanism is overwrought. Yes, the site is located in Moscow and it may have some government support but it features numerous American and European contributors in addition to Russians. I have been writing for the site for nearly three years and I know many of the other Americans who also do so. We are generally speaking antiwar and often critical of U.S. foreign policy but the contributors include conservatives like myself, libertarians and progressives and we write on all kinds of subjects.

    And here is the interesting part: not one of us has ever been told what to write. Not one of us has ever even had a suggestion coming from Moscow on a good topic for an article. Not one of us has ever had an article or headline changed or altered by an editor. Putting on my ex-intelligence officer hat for a moment, that is no way to run an influencing or disinformation operation intended to subvert an election. Sure, Russia has a point of view on the upcoming election and its managed media outlets will reflect that bias but the sweeping allegations are nonsense, particularly in an election that will include billions of dollars in real disinformation coming from the Democratic and Republican parties.

    Putting together what you no longer can find when you search the internet with government attempts to suppress alternative news sites one has to conclude that we Americans are in the middle of an information war.

    Who controls the narrative controls the people, or so it seems. It is a dangerous development, particularly at a time when no one knows whom to trust and what to believe. How it will play out between now and the November election is anyone’s guess.

  • Colorado Debuts Weed-Vending Machines
    Colorado Debuts Weed-Vending Machines

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/23/2020 – 22:30

    A weed vending machine, the first of its kind, recently debuted at Strawberry Fields dispensary in Pueblo, Colorado, allows Coloradans to purchase cannabis in a contactless environment, reported The Know. 

    Matt Frost, the founder and CEO of Anna, the company behind the vending machines, said these “tricked out vending machines” are designed for customers to purchase flower, edibles, and vape oils without interacting with humans.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Frost said Starbuds in Aurora could soon be the second site for the machines. He explains the benefits: 

    “There are experienced cannabis customers who don’t necessarily need that one-on-one interaction with a budtender. They know what they want before they walk in, they’re ready to go in and out. By doing this we’re giving more time back to the people who do need hand-holding and want that education from a live person,” Frost said.

    He added, “with COVID and social distancing and contactless, definitely, we have an appeal there, as well.”

    Anna has four vending machines operating at Strawberry Fields. Customers can quickly check in to the machine via a digital display by entering their identification information. Once the product is selected, customers pay by cash or card. The machine will then dispense the weed as a standard vending machine does; the entire transaction takes a couple of minutes. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    In addition to Colorado, Frost said his vending machines could soon debut in Massachusetts. He noted his machines could end up in gas stations and retail stores selling non-psychoactive cannabis products. 

    “The partnership that we’re about to strike I have to keep under wraps for now, but [it’s] a very significant CBD distribution opportunity that we’re excited about,” Frost said. “I think you”ll be seeing this rollout absolutely in the fall.”

    With marijuana sales surging this year, and contactless transactions are all the rage today, it wouldn’t be shocking if weed vending machines are unveiled in other states. 

  • Trump Announces Emergency Authorization For Blood Plasma As Treatment For COVID
    Trump Announces Emergency Authorization For Blood Plasma As Treatment For COVID

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/23/2020 – 22:23

    Summary: President Trump announced that a coronavirus treatment that involves blood plasma from people who’ve recovered from the disease will be expanded to many more sick Americans after the FDA approved use of the therapy. “This is a powerful therapy,” Trump said during a White House press conference moments before futures opened. “Today’s action will dramatically expand access to this treatment.”

    Trump said the FDA had concluded the treatment is “safe” and “very effective” although the therapy has yet to undergo the full set of clinical trials usually required of drugs seeking FDA approval.

    As Bloomberg notes, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration confirmed Sunday, just ahead of Trump’s news conference, that it had cleared what’s known as convalescent plasma for use with certain patients. The move would make it easier for patients to get the product, which Trump has promoted even though its effectiveness remains unproven.

    “Convalescent plasma has been a tried-and-true therapeutic treatment in prior outbreaks,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said at the news conference, while FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said researchers had seen a 35% improvement in patients treated with the convalescent plasma.

    “We dream in drug devlopment of something with a 35% mortality reduction,” Azar said. “This is a major advance in the treatment of patients.”

    Cynics have said that with the election

    And here is the official statement from the FDA authorizing convalescent plasma as “Potential Promising COVID–19 Treatment “

    FDA Issues Emergency Use Authorization for Convalescent Plasma as Potential Promising COVID–19 Treatment, Another Achievement in Administration’s Fight Against Pandemic

    Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for investigational convalescent plasma for the treatment of COVID-19 in hospitalized patients as part of the agency’s ongoing efforts to fight COVID-19. Based on scientific evidence available, the FDA concluded, as outlined in its decision memorandum, this product may be effective in treating COVID-19 and that the known and potential benefits of the product outweigh the known and potential risks of the product.

    Today’s action follows the FDA’s extensive review of the science and data generated over the past several months stemming from efforts to facilitate emergency access to convalescent plasma for patients as clinical trials to definitively demonstrate safety and efficacy remain ongoing.

    The EUA authorizes the distribution of COVID-19 convalescent plasma in the U.S. and its administration by health care providers, as appropriate, to treat suspected or laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 in hospitalized patients with COVID-19.

    Alex Azar, Health and Human Services Secretary:
    “The FDA’s emergency authorization for convalescent plasma is a milestone achievement in President Trump’s efforts to save lives from COVID-19,” said Secretary Azar. “The Trump Administration recognized the potential of convalescent plasma early on. Months ago, the FDA, BARDA, and private partners began work on making this product available across the country while continuing to evaluate data through clinical trials. Our work on convalescent plasma has delivered broader access to the product than is available in any other country and reached more than 70,000 American patients so far. We are deeply grateful to Americans who have already donated and encourage individuals who have recovered from COVID-19 to consider donating convalescent plasma.”

    Stephen M. Hahn, M.D., FDA Commissioner:
    “I am committed to releasing safe and potentially helpful treatments for COVID-19 as quickly as possible in order to save lives. We’re encouraged by the early promising data that we’ve seen about convalescent plasma. The data from studies conducted this year shows that plasma from patients who’ve recovered from COVID-19 has the potential to help treat those who are suffering from the effects of getting this terrible virus,” said Dr. Hahn. “At the same time, we will continue to work with researchers to continue randomized clinical trials to study the safety and effectiveness of convalescent plasma in treating patients infected with the novel coronavirus.”

    Scientific Evidence on Convalescent Plasma

    Based on an evaluation of the EUA criteria and the totality of the available scientific evidence, the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research determined that the statutory criteria for issuing an EUA criteria were met.

    The FDA determined that it is reasonable to believe that COVID-19 convalescent plasma may be effective in lessening the severity or shortening the length of COVID-19 illness in some hospitalized patients. The agency also determined that the known and potential benefits of the product, when used to treat COVID-19, outweigh the known and potential risks of the product and that that there are no adequate, approved, and available alternative treatments.

    The EUA is not intended to replace randomized clinical trials and facilitating the enrollment of patients into any of the ongoing randomized clinical trials is critically important for the definitive demonstration of safety and efficacy of COVID-19 convalescent plasma. The FDA continues to recommend that the designs of ongoing randomized clinical trials of COVID-19 convalescent plasma and other therapeutic agents remain unaltered, as COVID-19 convalescent plasma does not yet represent a new standard of care based on the current available evidence.

    Terms of EUA

    The EUA requires that fact sheets providing important information about using COVID-19 convalescent plasma in treating COVID-19 be made available to health care providers and patients, including dosing instructions and potential side effects. Possible side effects of COVID-19 convalescent plasma include allergic reactions, transfusion-associated circulatory overload, and transfusion associated lung injury, as well as the potential for transfusion-transmitted infections.

    Mayo Clinic Expanded Access Program

    The FDA initially facilitated access to convalescent plasma for treating COVID-19 by using pathways that included traditional clinical trials and emergency single-patient investigational new drug (IND) applications. 

    An Expanded Access ProgramExternal Link Disclaimer for convalescent plasma was initiated in early April to fill an urgent need to provide patient access to a medical product of possible benefit during a time that the FDA was working with researchers to facilitate the initiation of randomized clinical trials to study convalescent plasma. As the number of single patient IND requests started to number in the hundreds on a daily basis, the FDA worked collaboratively with industry, academic, and government partners to implement an expanded access protocol to provide convalescent plasma to patients in need across the country via the national expanded access treatment protocol. The program was developed with funding from the HHS’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), with the Mayo Clinic serving as the lead institution. To date, the program has facilitated the infusion of over 70,000 patients with convalescent plasma.

    The EUA was issued to the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response.

    The EUA remains in effect until the termination of the declaration that circumstances exist justifying the authorization of the emergency use of drugs and biologics for prevention and treatment of COVID-19. The EUA may be revised or revoked if it is determined the EUA no longer meets the statutory criteria for issuance.

    * * *

    Watch Live: President Trump’s announcement is due to start at 1730ET:

    “The FDA has issued an emergency use authorization … for a treatment known as convalescent plasma. This is a powerful therapy that transfuses very, very strong antibodies from the blood of recovered patients to help treat patients battling a current infection,” Trump said.

    “It’s had an incredible rate of success. Today’s action will dramatically expand access to this treatment,” the president said.

    Meanwhile, Axios reports citing two sources, that Peter Navarro had aggressively confronted FDA officials, saying, “You are all Deep State and you need to get on Trump Time.”

    *  *  *

    Update (2:30pm): Well, we can forget the speculation, discussed just moments ago,  that Trump’s 5:30pm news conference – conveniently 30 minutes before S&P futures open for trading – in which he will deliver “very good news” involves the fast-tracking of an AstraZeneca covid vaccine as an FT article hinted earlier…

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

    … and instead both Bloomberg and StatNews report that Trump will announce that a new coronavirus treatment involving blood plasma from patients who have recovered from the disease, has received an emergency use authorization from the FDA, which is expected to clear for use with certain patients what’s known as convalescent plasma. The move, Bloomberg notes,  would make it easier for patients to get the product, which Trump has touted even though its effectiveness hasn’t been proved.

    Blood plasma is among a host of potential therapeutics that have been undergoing testing in clinical trials, StatNews notes adding that the hope is that infusions of antibody-rich plasma from those who have recovered from Covid-19 can be injected into ill patients, kickstarting their immune system and allowing them to fight off the virus until they can generate their own antibodies.

    Trump’s decision to forge ahead is predicated by a study conducted by the Mayo Clinic and the National Institutes of Health which found that plasma treatments appeared to have a small but statistically significant impact on reducing mortality in hospitalized Covid-19 patients who received the infusions within three days of the onset of symptoms, compared with those who got plasma later.

    Pouring cold water on Trump’s major announcement, however, Statnews notes that the decision, which Trump’s press secretary heralded ahead of time as a “major therapeutic breakthrough,” likely falls far short of that description, “and could generate intense controversy inside the administration and the broader scientific community.”

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

    Further indicating that the Trump announcement will lead to a firestorm of criticism among the scientific community, StatNews also adds that the move comes less than a week after officials at the National Institutes of Health staged a rare intervention to stop the FDA from issuing what is known as an “emergency use authorization” for blood plasma to treat Covid-19. NIH officials involved in the decision told the New York Times that more data, derived from randomized controlled trials, were needed.  

    The announcement also follows sustained pressure from the president on his own administration. Trump told reporters last week that U.S. officials were slow-walking clearance of blood plasma until after the November election. He also took to Twitter on Saturday to criticize the FDA for making it difficult to test vaccines and therapeutics, though he didn’t specifically mention plasma.

    As Bloomberg further notes, Mark Meadows suggested part of the reason Trump tweeted about the FDA on Saturday is that he wants to make federal health agencies “feel the heat” to deliver results.

    On “Fox News Sunday,” Meadows said “the announcement that’s coming today should have been made several weeks ago.”

    “It was a fumble by a number of people in the federal government that should have done it differently, and having been personally involved with it, sometimes you have to make them feel the heat if they don’t see the light,” he said.

    As an aside, the FDA has previously issued dozens of EUAs during the course of the coronavirus pandemic, for both diagnostic tests and some drugs, but at times has been forced to reverse course. Most notably, the FDA revoked an EUA for the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, which was personally touted by Trump as a treatment for Covid-19.

    In any case, the fact that Trump’s announcement is the fast-tracking of a treatment – and not a vaccine – will not lead to a Trump popularity hit within his core base, because as we discussed earlier there is a sizable contingent within the US population – at least 36% according to a recent Gallup, most of whom Republicans – who have said they would not take a covid vaccine even if it was mandatory by law.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    * *  *

    Update (9:05ET): President Trump is expected to hold a press conference Sunday evening regarding a major therapeutic “breakthrough” for treating COVID-19, the White House said late Saturday night. 

    White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany tweeted:

    “News conference with President @realDonaldTrump at 6 pm tomorrow concerning a major therapeutic breakthrough on the China Virus. Secretary Azar and Dr. Hahn will be in attendance,” McEnany tweeted. 

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

    The press conference comes as the president on Saturday morning suggested the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was ‘deliberately’ slowing down clinical trials for therapeutics and vaccines for coronavirus. 

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi responded to the president’s comments, calling them “dangerous:” 

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

    “This was a very dangerous statement on the part of the president,” Pelosi said.

    “Even for him, it went beyond the pale in terms of how he would jeopardize the health and well-being of the American people.”

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

    President Trump’s planned press conference this evening begins as US equity futures open for trading. Is Trump trying to jawbone markets higher? Or is this another push for HCQ?

    *  *  *

    President Trump took a swipe at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in a pair of Saturday tweets, accusing the “deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA” of delaying human vaccine trials by “making it very difficult for drug companies to get people” (test subjects) so that trial results aren’t known until after the 2020 election.

    “Must focus on speed, and saving lives!” Trump concluded, tagging FDA Commissioner Stephen Hawn, who he appointed to the role.

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

    Trump also slammed the FDA, rubbing the agency’s nose in their June decision to revoke its emergency authorization of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) for the treatment of COVID-19. 

    “Many doctors and studies disagree with this!” tweeted Trump – resurrecting a June 15th ‘Twitter moment’ noting the revocation.

    Hydroxychloroquine – used by many countries as both a front-line early treatment and a prophylactic against COVID-19 – saw sharp pushback from public health officials and Democrats after President Trump recommended it, almost as if the need to prove him wrong and push new treatments was more important than exploring whether HCQ was indeed effective if used early, particularly in conjunction with zinc and the antibiotic azithromycin.

    Indeed, the first wave of studies on HCQ focused on mid-to-late stage COVID-19 infections, and found marginal improvement – or in one study, harm, from the use of the popular antimalarial drug. Since then, studies have emerged that HCQ is extremely effective when used early –

    In July, the state of Ohio withdrew their ban on the use of HCQ to treat COVID-19.

    he anti-HCQ push has infected Silicon Valley as well – as tech giants have been labeling pro-hydroxychloroquine content as ‘misinformation’ – most recently banishing a press conference by a group of doctors touting the drug from just about every platform.

    To that end, Yale epidemiologist Dr. Harvey Risch has accused Dr. Anthony Fouci of waging a “misinformation campaign” against the drug – appearing on “Good Morning America” in late July where he further downplayed the drug – claiming that “the overwhelming prevailing clinical trials that have looked at the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine have indicated that it is not effective in [treating] coronavirus disease.”

    Wrong.

    Several new studies have shown efficacy if used early, while countries that have deployed HCQ in just that manner have significantly fewer deaths per million residents (via c19study.com, which tracks HCQ studies).

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    HCQ’s efficacy was known by mid-July, when the FDA removed its authorization:

    Meanwhile, over 700 physicians from all 50 states have called on President Trump to issue another Emergency Use Authorization on HCQ. 

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

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

     

  • Media Deems Cashless Society A "Conspiracy Theory" (After Admonishing Cash Use)
    Media Deems Cashless Society A “Conspiracy Theory” (After Admonishing Cash Use)

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/23/2020 – 22:00

    Authored by Gavin Wax via HumanEvents.com,

    Before there was a coin shortage, cash was under attack in the media, and ridiculously hailed as a COVID-19 hazard.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Now, it seems that news outlets have pivoted to making sure the public thinks of a looming cashless society as a “conspiracy theory.”

    At the height of anxiety over the coronavirus, CNN berated the American people for using cash. “Do NOT take a bunch of cash out of the bank,” rang one headline; “Dirty money: The case against using cash during the coronavirus outbreak,” read another. CBS News similarly ran an anti-cash story at the time, as did other mainstream networks.

    More recent stories, however, have pivoted to feign concern about the growing suspicion of an impending digital coup against paper and coined money. (It’s always fascinating to see how the media manipulates emotions, giving us something to be outraged about one day, and trying to calm us down the next day by trying to convince us we’re outraged about the wrong thing.)

    “It’s a concern of some that all money would become traceable, which could be the case, but also could be avoided if systems were designed to provide privacy,” USA Today reported. That’s a big if. In fact, that’s the entire issue at stake, because, as I’ll explain, high profile promoters of cashlessness have an interest in gathering private information en masse.

    The Associated Press similarly pounced on Facebook posts that reportedly suggested a “conspiracy” was afoot. “Posts circulating widely on Facebook are suggesting that the shortage of coins in the U.S. is a hoax because it doesn’t make sense for the currency to have ‘disappeared,’” the AP reported. (The literal interpretation of the word “disappeared” was the crux of this supposed fact check. It’s possible the journalists writing articles like those are genuinely concerned about the spread of misinformation, but the condescension is palpable and just feels paternalistic.)

    Of course, Americans should be concerned about moves away from cash, and there is nothing wrong about questioning who would benefit and who would lose in a cashless society. If that makes you a conspiracy theorist in the eyes of the average journalist, so be it.

    For one thing, big banks and financial institutions would reap obvious benefits, beyond saving on the costs of transacting in coins and paper as well as transporting them. A cashless world would also give these institutions a new resource to exploit: they would have that much more data to collect in bulk on their customers. It was just last year that Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said, “We want a cashless society.”

    For another, there’s the intensity through which cashlessness is being defended. There is no downside to a cashless society for its fiercest proponents. They aren’t worried about finding a side hustle or working for tips. They aren’t kids trying to mow a lawn or who are otherwise priced out or regulated out of the market by minimum wage and child labor laws. The big players thrive in heavily top-down regulatory regimes. The smaller ones, who might moderately improve their standing (like freelancers or startup entrepreneurs), are often reliant on the freedom that cash provides.

    Unfortunately, some leftist progressives are enthusiastically spearheading efforts to “help” people in lower economic strata enroll in the post-cash digital system. These initiatives entail subsidizing free checking accounts or other special access to the financial system. (At last, inclusiveness and equality will be guaranteed once that fascist cash is out of the way. The campaign slogan will go something like that).

    Instead of policing social media posts for falsehoods (or, more accurately, words that imply falsehoods), journalists could provide more value for their readers by showing what’s valid about their reader’s concerns. There’s a cultural context, an economic context, and a political one too, that inform how a person may or may not feel about the coming cashless society. Each of these narratives, in fact, is more interesting than a “gotcha” fact-check—but they may not come with the sense of relief (or clout) one feels at discrediting a challenge to the prevailing narrative.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    TO ELITES, IT’S CONSPIRATORIAL IF ANYONE BUT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT IT

    There are more downsides to a cashless society.

    In the era of Cancel Culture, other more nightmarish consequences are all too easy to fathom. The difference between being banned from social platforms and financial platforms is a matter of degree, and the latter is already happening.

    Nevertheless, the advocates continue to drum up support for fintech adoption. For instance, many anti-cash advocates also tend to favor negative interest rates and much freer reign for central banks. Such policies are easier to enact without physical forms of legal tender. 

    Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has expressed his aversion to negative interest rates “for now” back in May, but President Donald Trump and other monetary theorists support the idea. Negative interest rates mean an end to traditional savings because, what’s not spent from your bank account, will decrease in value according to the newest negative rate. Thus, consumerism becomes all-encompassing and of far greater importance for economic activity. The permanent stimulus of an always-consuming market would become a compulsory force, rather than a relief amid a downturn.

    So, the threat of a cashless society is real. It’s not just concocted out of fringe viral Facebook posts, but actually, a topic of ongoing and current discussion among the financial elite. Of course, how urgent the threat is in today’s fast-paced and unpredictable environment, people will have to decide for themselves. But just because people grew concerned about something that wasn’t media-generated doesn’t make it a conspiracy theory.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    FROM COMMON USE TO MUSEUM ARTIFACTS—UNLESS WE DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT

    The coin shortage, which is very real, does have a reasonable explanation though, given the lockdown and social distancing orders over the past six months. Smaller businesses are losing out to the likes of Amazon and other online retailers, so coins are being used much less. E-commerce is thriving under COVID-19.

    “I think most merchants, especially small merchants and small-transaction merchants, would still prefer to take cash,” said K. Craig Wildfang in an interview with Axios. He is with the law firm Robins Kaplan, which is suing on behalf of retailers against card swipe fees. 

    Considering that over 90% of companies fail within two years of a disaster according to the US Small Business Administration (anything from political coups to hurricanes and, of course, pandemics), it is all but guaranteed that there will be fewer businesses around to fight for cash as an option, as long as COVID-19 lockdowns and related emergency orders carry on. Even larger chains, like CVS, Kroger, Walmart, are refusing to give physical change, instead choosing to donate the extra cents to charity or otherwise digitize the value for the customer for their next shopping trip. 

    More and more, physical coins are becoming legacy artifacts. As Clifford Thies at the American Institute for Economic Research explains, pennies cost more than their worth to produce. The time lost in counting them in transactions and transporting them also add to the total cost of using pennies. Thies estimates the use of pennies to cost up to $500 million per year, which may be more costly than simply rounding off prices to the nearest nickel, or dollar. 

    Thanks to monetary inflation, those same dynamics have an effect on nickels, dimes, and quarters, which are all produced with much cheaper metals than their original form required.

    Meanwhile, note the record high prices of gold and silver. The US dollar is being (digitally) printed into oblivion, along with trillions upon trillions of dollars being summoned by the Congress to fund multiple COVID-19 relief bills. Cash may be the last bastion of value, as it retains some scarcity in relation to digitized dollars. And it’s important for people’s livelihood and freedom that it be defended vigilantly.

    Don’t let the media shame you into complacence regarding a cashless society. It’s only crazy not to question such a system that clearly some have no qualms about forcing on us all.

  • US Default Bomb Goes Off: 2020 Will Have A Record Number Of Large Corporate Bankruptcies
    US Default Bomb Goes Off: 2020 Will Have A Record Number Of Large Corporate Bankruptcies

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/23/2020 – 21:30

    The disconnect between the all time highs in the stock market and the broader economy has never been greater (with even Janet Yellen, one of the main architects of this disconnect, agreeing), and one of the places where this chasm is most glaring, is in the staggering number of major corporations filing for bankruptcy in 2020. Indeed, this year large US corporate bankruptcy filings are running at a record pace and are set to surpass levels reached during the financial crisis in 2009 (when the S&P was far from an all time high).

    According to FT calculations, as of August 17, a record 45 companies each with more than $1 billion in assets has filed for Chapter 11 this year; this compares with 38 for the same period of 2009 during the depths of the financial crisis and is more than double last year’s figure of 18 over the comparable period.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    In total, 157 companies with liabilities over $50 million have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this year and as we warned several months ago, many more are coming.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    “We are in the first innings of this bankruptcy cycle. It will spread far across industries as we get deeper into the crisis. It’s going to be a bumpy ride,” said Ben Schlafman, chief operating officer at New Generation Research.

    The spike in bankruptcies comes despite trillions of dollars in government aid to mitigate the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic on businesses, highlighting the catastrophic and lasting impact Covid-19 is having on the US economy. Or perhaps those trillions in government aid are going to the wrong recipients, and as a result companies that stand to benefit from mass defaults are now sporting record market caps. In fact, the irony is that in its pursuit to crush monopolies such as Amazon and Google, the government has made them bigger and stronger than they have ever been.

    Meanwhile, with the US economy driving right over the fiscal cliff as Congress failed to extend emergency covid benefits, sending spending by those receiving Unemployment Insurance sharply lower…

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    … and millions of Americans about to lose their job (again), a new default wave is just waiting to be unleashed.

    “Ending the $600 per week federal unemployment benefits will push tens of millions of Americans into, or uncomfortably close to, poverty. They won’t have the money to buy billions of dollars worth of goods and services. As a result, the entire economy will suffer. Small businesses will continue to suffer the most because they’re already precarious,” said Robert Reich, Bill Clinton’s labor secretary.

    For now, the brunt of the default wave has been felt by oil and gas companies as low (and on one historic occasion, negative) crude prices crippled dozens of businesses. There have been 33 filings to date according to the Oil Patch Bankruptcy Monitor from Haynes and Boone, including Chesapeake, Whiting Petroleum and Diamond Offshore Drilling. There were only 14 last year.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    While not quite as bad as the E&P sector, retail businesses with assets of more than $50MM have also been severely affected with 24 filing for bankruptcy, a three-fold jump from last year. They have been among the hardest hit by the government-mandated lockdowns, which prevented stores from opening and drove consumers to online retailers such as Amazon. Burdened by debts, some of which were built up under private equity ownership, several prominent retailers have been forced to file for Chapter 11.

    Some of the most iconic names that have filed this year include Neiman Marcus, which struggled for years with a heavy debt burden from its 2005 leveraged buyout by TPG and Warburg Pincus, and which finally filed for bankruptcy in May with liabilities of $6.7bn. JCPenney, also saddled with billions in debt, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May. Brooks Brothers, the venerable suit retailer that once counted Abraham Lincoln and John F Kennedy among its clients, did the same in July.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    “The Covid-19 pandemic is reshaping consumer buying habits. Therefore, we will continue to see large retail, energy, and transportation businesses taking advantage of the tools provided by a formal bankruptcy to restructure to be more profitable and competitive in the long term,” said Deirdre O’Connor, managing director of corporate restructuring at legal services group Epiq.

    And while several businesses tried to reopen in late May and June (and some amusingly tried to unfile for bankruptcy just so they were eligible for bailout loans), a recent flare-up in coronavirus cases and deaths in several US states choked the recovery, forcing many business owners to close again.

    “It pains me to say this, but bankruptcy is a growth industry in America,” New Generation’s Schlafman dismally concluded.

  • New York City Is Dead And It's "Only Going To Get Worse"
    New York City Is Dead And It’s “Only Going To Get Worse”

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/23/2020 – 21:00

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

    Former hedge fund manager and entrepreneur James Altucher says New York City is dead and it’s not coming back.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Born and bred in New York, Altucher took his family and fled to Florida after the Black Lives Matter riots in June when someone tried to break into his apartment.

    Since then, the city has continued to suffer a huge surge in shootings and violent crime as well as an anemic financial recovery from the coronavirus lockdown.

    Appearing on Fox News Business, Altucher referred to images that were broadcast during the interview showing 6th avenue to be virtually empty.

    “We have something like 30 to 50 per cent of the restaurants in New York City are probably already out of business and they’re not coming back,” he pointed out.

    Altucher said that despite offices in midtown being allowed to be open, they’re still largely empty because companies like Citigroup, JP Morgan, Google, Twitter and Facebook are encouraging their employees to work remotely from home “for years or maybe permanently.”

    “This completely damages not only the economic eco-system of New York City…but what happens to your tax base when all of your workers can now live anywhere they want to in the country?” asked the entrepreneur, noting that many were fleeing to places that are cheaper to live like Nashville, Austin, Miami and Denver.

    Warning that the situation was “only going to get worse,” Altucher said that the old New York was not coming back and that creative and business opportunities would now be dispersed throughout the entire country.

    “What makes this different now is bandwidth is ten times faster than it was in 2008 so people can work remotely now and have an increase in productivity,” he added.

    As we document in the video below, the blame for all this lies firmly at the feet of two people, Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio.

    *  *  *

    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.

  • Four Reasons Why Morgan Stanley Believes The Covid Recession Triggered A Structural Shift Toward Higher Inflation
    Four Reasons Why Morgan Stanley Believes The Covid Recession Triggered A Structural Shift Toward Higher Inflation

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/23/2020 – 20:35

    In a time when the most important question in all of finance is whether “what comes next” is inflationary or deflationary, earlier today we posted an eloquent twitter thread in which the author presented a case why despite the Fed’s printers working overtime, the conditions for a sustained inflationary impulse are simply not there (read the full thing here).

    That said, Morgan Stanley – whose bullish stock market outlook has been anchored on a reflationary view – vehemently disagrees.

    As the bank’s chief economist Chetan Ahya writes, explaining why the Great Covid-19 Recession (GCR) left an “indelible mark” on the global economy which has resulted in a structural shift in inflation dynamics, “in the case of the GCR, the consensus is of the view that it will be an amplified version of 2008, where deleveraging dynamics took hold and the rebuilding of saving across balance sheets meant that it resulted in weak aggregate demand and persistent disinflationary pressures. Moreover, considering the magnitude of the shock, they also perceive that it will be a long time before we get back to the pre-crisis levels of output.” In contrast, Ahya – and Morgan Stanley in general, including Michael Wilson – has been arguing since early on as this crisis unfolded, that “the most important structural change is the return of inflation – specifically that inflation could rise above DM central banks’ targets, especially in the US.”

    There are “four pillars” to the bank’s inflation thesis:

    #1 – The V-shaped recovery: A key part of why MS expects inflation to emerge is because it anticipates a sharper but shorter recession. At its core, this recession was triggered by an exogenous shock in the form of a public health crisis. Coming into 2020, there wasn’t an excessive leverage build-up in the private sector and the banking system was in better shape than it was in 2007. This means that deleveraging pressures are more moderate and the financial system can still play its role as a key intermediary, unlike post-2008. Morgan Stanley therefore expects global and DM output levels to reach pre-COVID-19 levels by 4Q20 and 4Q21, respectively.

    #2 – The policy response is very different… According to Morgan Stanley, “the policy response also matters in shaping the growth and inflation outlook and it has been timely, sizeable and coordinated (both monetary and fiscal easing).” The fiscal response in particular has been far more aggressive and quicker because, as the chief economist amusingly puts it “the recession is nobody’s fault” (and what if it had been, would the response be any different). A large fiscal response is important because monetary stimulus, expansionary as it is, would not be adequate to lift aggregate demand on its own. Interestingly, the recognition of this issue was growing before 2020. Hence, policy-makers knew that they had to act quickly on fiscal policy (almost as if they welcomed the covid shock). Moreover – and just to repeat the most amusing aspect of this entire argument – Ahya once again notes that “this time around, there were also lesser moral hazard concerns simply because the shock was exogenous.”

    …and the use of active fiscal policy is here to stay: Next, the MS economist writes that “policy-makers were increasingly concerned about rising inequality and they recognised that monetary policy was a blunt tool which is not able to address the distributional effects”, if only they could recognize that their policies actually accelerated this rising inequality. The GCR exacerbated these concerns and left a deep scar on lower-income households. At the peak of the COVID-19 shock, 70% of the job losses in the US were in the low-income segments. Hence, the focus on unemployment and impact on lower-income households will mean that expansionary policies will remain in place for longer. Policy efforts to address inequality, and this we do not disagree with “will impart an inflationary impulse, particularly if the mix is skewed towards transfers to households.”

    #3 – Risk of scrutiny of the interplay between tech, trade and titans will persist: Policy-makers’ “focus on inequality” will also mean that efforts to restrain trade could continue while there are risks of increased scrutiny of tech and titans. Trade tension is one such example, in which policy-makers had already begun to check the impact of globalization on inequality. However, as the interplay between this trio of tech, trade and titans has been a key driving force of disinflation in the past 30 years, disentangling them will also lead to a shift in the inflation dynamics.

    #4 – Central banks are doubling down: At the same time, central banks – which supposedly are so very concerned about rising inequality (which their actions have caused) “have doubled down on their commitment to achieving their inflation goals.” The Fed is already emphasizing the symmetry of its 2%Y inflation goal (meaning after its September review, the Fed will go all-in on further debasing the dollar). Market-based real rates have already declined significantly, and a shift in strategy will allow the Fed to provide more accommodation.

    As Ahya summarizes, “this confluence of factors has already led to a very different outcome for US inflation breakevens. They did not decline to the levels seen post the GFC and have also rebounded in a quicker manner to pre-COVID-19 levels.” Of course, one can argue – as we did – that as a placeholder between nominal and real rates, they are merely reflecting the record chasm that has emerged as traders fear to push nominal yields below zero in a time of YCC, but face no such constraints when it comes to real rates, but we’ll leave this argument for another day.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    In any event, Morgan Stanley still – correctly – expects additional fiscal accommodation in the form of another fiscal package (especially since the current one has already ended and the result is a sharp drop in spending by those on UI). On monetary policy, the bank’s chief US economist Ellen Zentner expects the FOMC to codify this and update its framework at the September FOMC meeting, which then lays the groundwork for the FOMC to adopt forward guidance in the FOMC statement at the December meeting. “Both these factors should further bolster the case for inflation” according to Ahya.

    And here is Morgan Stanley’s conclusion:

    Just as the effects of deleveraging were underappreciated post-2008, we think that the effects that this Great COVID-19 recession will have on inflation dynamics are also not as well understood, with most investors still very much in the disinflation camp. But when we look back at 2020, it may well be that the most important structural change that COVID-19 gave rise to from a macro perspective will be this structural shift towards higher inflation.

    To be sure, none of that should come as a surprise: after all the Fed has made it abundantly clear that its endgame goal is (asymmetric) inflation, and one way or another – with trillions more in QE or with direct payments to US households – it will achieve it. Now, whether readers agree with this is unclear, and with adherents of both the reflation and deflation thesis battling it out in the market every day, is why back in June we said that whether what comes next is inflation or deflation was, and remains, the most important question in all of finance.

  • The Big Lie & The Robinhood Rally
    The Big Lie & The Robinhood Rally

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/23/2020 – 20:10

    Authored by Kevin Duffy via LewRockwell.com,

    As cities burn and statues topple, the Nasdaq races to all-time highs.  As unemployment explodes to levels not seen since the 1930s, gambling on dicey stocks soars.  As private property becomes less secure, titles to property are bid higher.  As businesses struggle to reopen, it’s business as usual for the great bull market in financial assets.

    If the statisticians at the CDC are to be believed, 0.01% of the U.S. civilian labor force has died of the coronavirus in 2020.  For a risk that compares to driving an automobile, much of the population was scared out of their wits and a third of the economy put on life support.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The Big Lie

    Official narratives have proven far more contagious (and lethal) this year than any virus, and the supporting lies keep getting bigger. 

    Upon arrival of an unknown health risk in late February, the authorities promoted a top-down one-size-fits-all solution of universal isolation.  The centralization of knowledge was assumed and market solutions not even considered.  As “non-essential” businesses were shut down, corporate debt markets locked up and stocks lost one-third of their value. 

    To deal with the economic mess, only top-down government solutions saw the light of day, this time at a price tag of over $5 trillion in borrowed and printed money (with plenty more on the way).

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    With the death of George Floyd on May 25, caught on video for the world to see, the narrative shifted overnight from gray lives matter and “shelter in place” to “black lives matter” and protest in public.  Never mind that Floyd had enough fentanyl in his body to kill him and that the officers on the scene may have acted to save him. 

    The mainstream media went into overdrive, promoting the well-rehearsed narrative of systemic racism.  Keep in mind, 30% of the top 30 highest-paying celebrity endorsements last year went to blacks (even though they account for 13% of the population).  Consumers generally don’t buy products endorsed by people they hate.

    The third act in this play, reopening the economy, was met with fearmongering over spiking cases, despite evidence that this was due largely to increased testing and inflated by false positives. 

    (Apparently crowds looting and setting cars on fire were not a factor.) 

    Meanwhile, the weekly death rate has dropped 60% from its peak in April. 

    (Over the past week, there were 7,200 official deaths vs. 250,000 recoveries.)

    All three deceptions are wrapped in the biggest of lies, that government has a magic printing press that will suspend the laws of economics and make it all go away.

    Day trading madness

    As it turns out, a fair amount of the stimulus money found its way into the financial markets.  Evidently, the government’s economic advisors failed to consider the possibility that shutting down casinos while ordering people to remain home and mailing them $1,200 checks might give the green light to pile into the only casino still open: the stock market.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    August 15, 2020

    Speculation took off, especially among younger investors.  Robinhood, favored by millennials, added 3 million accounts in the first quarter alone.  (Charles Schwab has 14 million accounts in total.)  According to CNBC,

    Robinhood traders lived up to their outlaw name during the coronavirus market downturn. The young investors booked profits – trading stocks with some of the best returns in the past two months – while other Wall Street veterans were left scratching their heads.

    Tempting the investment gods, CNBC flattered youth and mocked experience:

    Young investors… appeared to have a prescient understanding of the market, unlike the billionaire hedge fund managers who said stocks would retest their lows.  Longtime investor Stanley Druckenmiller – who misjudged equities’ comeback – said Monday that the market’s strong performance over the last three weeks has “humbled” him and that he underestimated the power of the Federal Reserve.  Even legendary investor Warren Buffett sold his stake in airlines during the pandemic.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    In the Twittersphere, the day trading parade is led by Dave Portnoy with 1.6 million followers:

    I play the stock market like I play Monopoly.  If I land on it, I’m buying it.  I don’t care if it’s Baltic, I don’t care if it’s Park Ave…  When I land on “Pass Go,” I try to buy Go.  When I land in jail, I’m like, can I buy jail?… I just buy, buy, buy.  That’s how I do stock market, that’s how I play Monopoly.

    It’s hard not to laugh, but also to know what passes for parody and actual investment advice these days.  Davey Day Trader, #DDTG, was recently invited to spend 20 minutes interviewing President Trump at the White House as both celebrated buying the dip in March.  You can’t make this up.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    How to wreck an economy

    2020 has been a textbook example of how to inflict maximum economic damage. 

    Let’s review:

    1) The media incites a panic over a severe novel case of the flu.  Have state governors use this as a pretext to shut down a third of the economy.

    2) With the social fabric frayed, the media segues to racial protests.  Allow bad apples to destroy property and have the police stand down while the mob takes over.

    3) Pass trillions in money printing and stimulus, preventing the market from adjusting to rapidly changing events.  Incentivize unemployment by paying people an extra $600 a week to sit at home and day trade.

    4) Unwittingly turn speculators loose, sending false signals to economic actors.

    5) After you’ve crippled many small businesses with #1-4, regulate them to death, adding costs they can’t afford and inconveniences their customers don’t want.

    Déjà vu all over again

    Anyone who experienced the tech bubble of the late 1990s must be feeling a profound sense of déjà vu.  The internet was a paradigm shift creating a New Economy in which enlightened central bankers would prevent any serious downturn.  Silicon Valley was booming.  Wall Street was cranking out hot IPOs (initial public offerings) and repackaging companies by adding “.com” to the name in order to keep up with seemingly insatiable demand from the public.

    The prevailing mood among investors was that making money was easy.  Youth was elevated and wisdom discarded.  Profits didn’t matter.  What mattered was “first mover advantage” and “eyeballs.”  Those who were too old to grasp the new rules just didn’t “get it.”  They were stuck in the Old Economy.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    February 22, 1999

    I remember when the late Ed Bradley of 60 Minutes did a story about the dot-com mania.  The young entrepreneurs he interviewed had a religious zeal, like they had been chosen for a higher calling.  One even had the audacity to tell Bradley he was a dinosaur and that his job was targeted for extinction.

    It is hard to escape the parallels with today’s mania for technology stocks, venture capital, day trading, hot IPOs and youthful exuberance.  There are two critical differences: the backdrop for the 2000 vintage was a booming economy and the dollar amounts were much lower.  In 2000, Microsoft, GE and Cisco Systems broke the $500 billion barrier for market capitalization.  On August 13, Apple hit $2 trillion.

    Perhaps it is a rite of passage that every generation must take part in some sort of speculative madness.  Today’s millennials seem ideologically wired to believe in the upward slope of technological progress, conflate virtue signaling with investing, underestimate the economic damage from trillions of dollars of stimulus, and place their unswerving faith in the Fed.

    Tesla has become the poster child of the millennial bubble, p.c. bubble, EV bubble and VC bubble.  Its stock commands a market value of $412 billion, more than BMW, Daimler, Volkswagen, Toyota and General Motors combined.  Believe it or not, some traders are actually confusing Tesla (symbol “TSLA”) with micro-cap Tiziana Life Sciences (symbol “TLSA”).

    Of course, amateur hour at the casino has a silver lining.  Experienced poker players salivate when the patsies show up.

    (This article was excerpted from the latest issue of The Coffee Can Portfolio.)

  • US Bill Seeks To Ban Title "President" For China's Xi Jinping
    US Bill Seeks To Ban Title “President” For China’s Xi Jinping

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/23/2020 – 19:45

    A new bill introduced in Washington seeks to change the way the federal government refers to the leader of China, prohibiting the use of the term “president”, and will – if passed – lead to a dramatic escalation in already tense relations between the two superpowers. According to the SCMP, the “Name the Enemy Act” would require that official US government documents instead refer to the head of state according to his or her role as head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

    The Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, holds three official titles, none of which is “president”: head of state (guojia zhuxi, literally “state chairman”); chairman of the central military commission; and general secretary of the CCP. However, in the English-speaking world, Xi has generally opted for “president”, which critics say “offers unwarranted legitimacy” to an unelected leader.

    Introduced by Representative Scott Perry, Republican of Pennsylvania, the House bill would prohibit the use of federal funds for the “creation or dissemination” of official documents and communications that refer to the China’s leader as “president”. A spokesperson for Perry, who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, did not respond to a SCMP request for comment on the extent to which “communications” would include public statements and remarks by US officials.

    “Addressing the head of state of the People’s Republic of China as a “president” grants the incorrect assumption that the people of the state, via democratic means, have readily legitimised the leader who rules them,” the legislation states.

    The bill singles out China, despite the fact that presidents in numerous countries are either unelected or in power resulting from elections that are not considered free and fair.

    The legislation comes as top cabinet officials, led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have begun abandoning the term “president” in favor of “general secretary.” A White House report in May outlining Washington’s strategic approach to China used Xi’s party title exclusively.

    The bill “formalises something that we’ve been taking note of in administration statements,” said Anna Ashton, head of government affairs at the US-China Business Council.

    While Trump has not followed suit, he has stopped referring to Xi as a “friend” as relations between the two countries continue to sour. “I don’t want to talk to China right now,” he said last Tuesday.

    Perry’s bill comes amid strategic efforts by the Republican Party to increase criticism of the Chinese government. In recent months, Perry has introduced a flurry of aggressive and somewhat unlikely bills related to China, including legislation that would cut US funding to the United Nations until the body expels China and recognizes Taiwan, and bills that would authorize the US president to recognize Hong Kong and Tibet as countries independent from China. Those bills have languished upon introduction, failing to gain support from any of Perry’s colleagues.

    To be sure, the bill faces an uphill battle in the few months left to this congressional session, with legislative efforts related to the coronavirus pandemic and the November elections looming large on lawmakers’ agendas.

    “I can’t imagine it will move this session,” one Democratic House aide, not authorized to speak publicly, said of the Name the Enemy Act. Any bill that has not reached the president’s desk by the session’s close in early January is wiped off the docket, and must be reintroduced the following session.

    Ashton said that Perry’s bill was less likely to “gain steam” than China-related bills tackling other, more weighty subjects, such as forced labour, supply chains, and regulation of Chinese companies listed on US exchanges.

  • Oregon May Soon Decriminalize Low-Level Possession Of All Drugs, Massively Reducing Arrests
    Oregon May Soon Decriminalize Low-Level Possession Of All Drugs, Massively Reducing Arrests

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/23/2020 – 19:20

    Authored by Elias Marat via TheMindUnleashed.com,

    With opinions changing across the country over the need for urgent criminal justice reform, there’s no time like the present to enact a much-needed overhaul of laws that criminalize poverty and social ills such as drug use. And this November, voters in Oregon will have an opportunity to decriminalize the low-level possession of all drugs.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Under the proposed Measure 110, or the Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act, the low-level possession of illegal substances would be reclassified from a misdemeanor to a violation, punishable by either a $100 fine or a health assessment.

    Drug trafficking would remain a felony offense, while substantial possession of drugs would be reduced to a felony. Rehabilitation services would be expanded under the measure, and 24-hour Addiction Recovery Centers would also be opened.

    By effectively decriminalizing the small-scale possession of drugs, the proposed measure would effectively halt one of the most pernicious means by which the “War on Drugs” has adversely impacted communities of color and poor communities that have suffered disproportionate over-policing and mass incarceration.

    According to the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission, the reclassifications proposed by the measure would see roughly 1,800 fewer Oregon residents facing conviction for felony possession of a controlled substance annually – leading to a mammoth 95-percent drop from current conviction rates.

    The report from the commission also found that Measure 110 would be of particular benefit for communities of color, with racial disparities in arrests and convictions falling “substantially.” However, the benefits would also cut across the board – with Black people seeing a fall in arrests by 93.7 percent and an 82.9-percent fall for Asians, 86.5 for Hispanics, 94.2 for Native Americans, and 91.1 for whites.

    The report also notes that “inequities [may] exist in police stops, jail bookings, bail, pretrial detention, or other areas” but there is not “sufficient or appropriate data to examine those stages.”

    The state would fund Measure 110’s addiction programs, which are expected to cost $57 million yearly, entirely through excess taxes collected on cannabis sales. Current tax revenue from cannabis sales are expected to yield $182.4 million from 2021 to 2023. And as tax revenues increase and decriminalization incurs further savings for the state, petitioners for the Yes for 110 Campaign predict that even more funds can be reallocated to help treat and rehabilitate drug addicts.

    Supporters of the measure have been enthusiastically organizing online, and have found that many Oregonians are on the same page with them over the need to end the failed “War on Drugs” and pursue an alternative course to tackle widespread drug addiction.

    “There’s no playbook for how to campaign in a pandemic,” said Anthony Johnson, one of the chief petitioners for the campaign. However, he’s confident that the measure has “a really good chance of winning” come November.

    “Our communications with voters all across the state shows that voters understand that the status quo is not working,” Johnson added. “We’re clearly not going to arrest our way out of addiction.”

    A large number of prominent groups and individuals have backed the measure. This includes trade unions, faith groups and churches, groups representing Asian, Black, Indigenous and Latino communities, human rights organizations, several county district attorneys, and even drug policy reform advocates from the ranks of police.

    Oregon is no stranger to blazing new trails in drug policy and criminal justice reforms. In 2014, the state legalized cannabis through a 2014 ballot measure, while a 2017 law drastically reduced the penalty for possessing small quantities of cocaine, LSD, and other substances. This November, Oregonians will also have the opportunity to end the prohibition of psilocybin or “magic” mushrooms and establish a new statewide framework for licensed psilocybin therapy treatment centers.

  • Another NYC 'War Zone' Weekend: Over 30 Shot, Many Of Them Bystanders, In Violence Reminiscent Of 1980s
    Another NYC ‘War Zone’ Weekend: Over 30 Shot, Many Of Them Bystanders, In Violence Reminiscent Of 1980s

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/23/2020 – 18:55

    Last weekend we detailed how over a mere three day period from Aug.13 through Aug.15, a whopping 49 people were shot, which was five times more than the eight who were shot during the same 72 hours last year, according to data in the Washington Examiner.

    And tragically the trend appears not some aberration but signals the city is fast becoming a war zone now with another deadly subsequent weekend. NYPD sources and local media already count more than 30 people shot so far this weekend.

    This brings NYC to more than 1,000 total shooting incidents across the city year to date, already double all of last year, and the summer is not even over — a summer which ironically has witnessed a supposed heightened consciousness and awareness of police shootings of black Americans given the ongoing George Floyd and Black Lives Matters protests.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Image source: NY Daily News

    But in the case of New York City’s explosion of gun violence, people are being killed with the police far away from the scene, though in one instance over a week ago, it was a black police officer shot in Queens while looking for a parking spot merely a mile from his home.

    And this weekend, according to local PIX11 News:

    Citywide, there were at least 25 shootings that injured 31 people on Friday and Saturday, police said. Officers responded to 16 shootings on Saturday and nine on Sunday.

    At least three of those shootings happened within just blocks of each other in Coney Island, according to police.

    Among these, there were seven deaths between Friday and Sunday morning, according the NYPD, including a 25-year-old mother of three children.

    Priscilla Vasquez was described in local reports as shot in the back of the head by an unknown gunman in the early morning hours of Saturday while standing on a sidewalk in front of a public school, just around the corner from her Bronx home.

    Underscoring the senseless and often random nature of much of the violence, her friends and family don’t think she was the intended targeted, also given the gunman appeared to fire wildly and haphazardly.

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

    In another incident, a man in Queens was shot and killed while simply playing in a basketball tournament that was also part of a barbecue at a local park. Interestingly, news reports accompanying the tragic death actually blame lack of police presence for the violence there. Local residents are reportedly angry that police routinely “stay away” — something, it should be noted, that national BLM protests have demanded all along.

    “We’ve been complaining about that park forever. It’s always dark,” said nearby resident Elaine Bailey. “That park is notorious. It’s been like that for years. It’s a known drug location,” she said of the site near 207 St. and Hillside Ave. in Hollis. “We complain about the drug dealing. Nobody does anything. This was bound to happen. If you’re going to commit a crime, it’s the best place to commit a crime.”

    And one of the largest single shootings involved four victims shot in Coney Island Sunday morning, with the youngest victim, a 27-year old man, dying of his injuries. 

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

    Meanwhile, as even The Washington Post has observed, the latest nixing of frontline crime fighting units doesn’t seem to be going so well:

    “In June, the New York Police Department disbanded its controversial anti-crime unit — the plainclothes officers whose mission, to rid the streets of guns, once relied on a practice known as ‘stop and frisk’ later exposed to have disproportionately targeted innocent Blacks and Latinos.”

    Instead this was substituted with more “community engagement” initiatives, though the criminals with guns don’t appear to have gotten the memo — or more cynically perhaps they’ve simply interpreted the lessened law enforcement presence as a license to kill.

    On that note, FT published the below chart in mid-July, which covers the period which saw the fiercest protests in major American cities against the police killing of George Floyd.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Pressure has remained on city councils across the country to either shut down whole police departments or at least specific anti-crime units.

    The result is that (at minimum it shouldn’t be hard to see correlation if not causation), as WaPo wrote, “The gun violence plaguing New York is reminiscent of the 1980s and ’90s. Authorities have recorded about 900 shootings so far this year, up from around 500 through the beginning of August 2019.”

  • A Love Letter To The Fed From The Adoring Stock Market
    A Love Letter To The Fed From The Adoring Stock Market

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/23/2020 – 18:30

    Authored by Michael Regan via Bloomberg (emphasis ours),

    Dear Fed,

    Hey there! It’s me, the stock market. I know it’s weird to write you like this, but I felt like I needed to drop a quick thank-you note for everything you’ve done for me this year. I mean, your big ol’ balance sheet is almost $3 trillion larger since early March! You’re backing up the truck and loading it with Treasuries and corporate bonds and bond ETFs, all to keep the competition to stocks from fixed-income yields as limited as Jim Cramer’s understanding of me. It’s been a dream come true, honestly. I mean, fess up: Have you been reading my diary?!

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Maybe you’ve noticed, but everything else is a royal mess. Covid-19 is still killing people. Parents are dreading the beginning of “school.” U.S. unemployment is still above 10%, higher than it’s been since the 1980s. The country is facing the biggest economic contraction in its history. Corporate profits are plunging. The recession is forecast to continue at least through the first quarter of next year. And me? I’m soaring! Have you seen these record highs I’ve been setting?

    To be honest with you, it’s getting kind of wild – and I’ve seen plenty of weirdness before. I’m more popular with sports fans than March Madness! Of course, there was no March Madness this year, so that’s not really a fair comparison – kind of like comparing my dividend payouts to yields in the bond market. Amirite, or amirite? LOL!

    But I’m not kidding when I say things are getting REALLY weird. Have you heard of Dave Portnoy, aka Davey Day Trader, yet? He was just some middling internet celebrity until suddenly he’s going viral for using Scrabble tiles to pick stock ticker symbols. The Robinhood set thinks he’s smarter than Warren Buffett! This probably isn’t going to end well, I’ll tell you that much.

    Speaking of Robinhood, that whole Hertz saga was about as weird as it gets. A rental car company was trying to sell new shares while in bankruptcy court, because its stock price was on a tear? Let me repeat that: Hertz. Sold. Shares. While. In. Bankruptcy. I can’t even! You’re sure keeping your pals over at the SEC busy! I mean, it’s so weird out there, Bloomberg Businessweek is resorting to cringeworthy satire to make sense of it all.

    Speaking of cringey, what was up with the minutes from your last meeting? Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t actually read them. If I had the attention span for that type of stuff, you’d call me the bond market. Of course, the bond market did read the minutes, and it thinks you’re being a little rude for not wanting to keep the party going. Look, I learned this lesson the hard way—and I sort of thought you did, too—so it bears repeating: Just do whatever the bond market says, OK? It’s bigger, better educated, and a sharper dresser than the both of us.

    So please do me a solid and keep this thank-you note in mind when you host your virtual Jackson Hole summit. No cowboy stuff, OK? If I hear anybody mutter something about “irrational exuberance,” I swear I’m gonna blow my top and hurt a few of these Robinhood types, you got that? The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. It’s what I do—and I’m good at it! But right now, this is still a lot of fun for me…

    … and when I do end up burning folks, do you really want to be the one who gets thrown under the bus?

    I mean, you know you’re going to catch all the blame, right?

    C’mon, Fed. We both know you’re smarter than that. What’s another few trillion?

    With sincere and deepest gratitude,

    The Stock Market

  • "Where's Our Fu*kin' Bailout?": Ice Cube Slams Democrats For Abandoning Blacks
    “Where’s Our Fu*kin’ Bailout?”: Ice Cube Slams Democrats For Abandoning Blacks

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/23/2020 – 18:25

    Rapper Ice Cube has cooled on the Democratic party, complaining in a Saturday rant that the DNC has financially abandoned the black community, and that even if Trump is voted out of office – “then what?”

    Translation: where’s our money Nancy?

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The 50-year-old entertainer, whose real name is O’Shea Jackson, added that Black small business owners were shut out of the trillions allocated by Congress into the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

    According to the New York Times, businesses owned by blacks had a harder time receiving federal aid, for which they can thank the banks which issued the loans.

    “Where’s our fucking bailout?” asked the rapper, who’s launched a COVID-19 fundraiser and a charity clothing line to support Autism, but not blacks.

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

    “A lot of people getting up [at the DNC] talking and everybody really eating it up, throwing their hands in the air like they just don’t care — but what I didn’t hear was: what’s in it for us?” he said, adding “What’s in it for the Black community? Besides the same old thing we’ve been getting from these parties. What’s in it for us, for real?“

    “I didn’t hear anybody mention a contract with Black America — and I don’t know why because it’s one of the most comprehensive reform documents that’s come about in a long time that could really address the problem. But the way it looks, they don’t have a plan,” he continued.

    “They just pulled three trillion dollars out they ass and gave it to they friends.”

    It’s almost as if Democrats went from slave ownership and segregation to promising blacks handouts for six decades in order to maintain power. 

  • Uber Eats Found To Be Underpaying Drivers On 30% Of Trips, Programming Sleuth Finds
    Uber Eats Found To Be Underpaying Drivers On 30% Of Trips, Programming Sleuth Finds

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/23/2020 – 18:05

    As the controversy of how Uber classifies its employees in California drags on, Uber Eats could find itself dealing with another set of very real legal problems – very soon. That’s because a programmer and Uber Eats driver says he has built a tool that provides evidence that the service has been “consistently underpaying employees”, according to Business Insider. 

    And based on the company’s reaction to his findings, it appears his evidence is spot on.

    Computer scientist Armin Samii, who also has worked part time as an Uber Eats driver, built a Chrome browser extension called “UberCheats” that helps drivers track their trips and pay. The extension seems to show Uber shorting drivers on between 25% to 30% of trips. 

    Drivers are paid per-mile and Samii says that, on average, Uber was not paying drivers for 2.5 miles per delivery. For example, it would pay drivers for 1 mile on a 3.5 mile trip.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Samii said he had multiple “back and forths” with Uber customer service who admitted it was a bug and paid him the money he was owned based on his own data. 

    Samii said:

     “This is pretty widespread and pretty egregious. And I don’t think Uber has any plans to fix it.”

    Uber had also been accused in the past of making changes to its Uber Eats pay structure and software that resulted in pay reductions for drivers by luring them into taking less profitable trips. 

    The allegations couldn’t come at a worse time for Uber – or its drivers. The company has been dealing with anti-freelancing laws in California that have all but threatened to shut down their business in the state. Meanwhile, drivers like Samii are turning to Uber after losing their full time jobs as a result of the pandemic, and existing drivers arguably need the pay now more than ever. 

    Meanwhile, drivers continue to take significant healthcare risks by driving in the midst of the pandemic without access to healthcare, sick pay or paid time off. Perhaps a karmic rebalancing for Uber is in order after all…

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Aug 23

Today’s News 23rd August 2020

  • Catapulting Russian-Meddling Propaganda
    Catapulting Russian-Meddling Propaganda

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/22/2020 – 23:20

    Authored by Ray McGovern via ConsortiumNews.com,

    The New York Times is leading the full-court press to improve on what it regards as Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s weak-kneed effort to blame the Russians for giving us Donald Trump…

    The fresh orgy of anti-Russian invective in the lickspittle media (LSM) has the feel of fin de siècle. The last four reality-impaired years do seem as though they add up to a century. And no definitive fin is in sight, as long as most people don’t know what’s going on.

    The LSM should be confronted: “At long last have you left no sense of decency?” But who would hear the question — much less any answer? The corporate media have a lock on what Americans are permitted or not permitted to hear. Checking the truth, once routine in journalism, is a thing of the past.

    Thus the reckless abandon with which The New York Times is leading the current full-court press to improve on what it regards as Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s weak-kneed effort to blame the Russians for giving us Donald Trump. The press is on, and there are no referees to call the fouls.

    The recent release of a 1,000-page, sans bombshells and already out-of-date report by the Senate Intelligence Committee has provided the occasion to “catapult the propaganda,” as President George W. Bush once put it.

    As the the Times‘s Mark Mazzetti put it in his article Wednesday:

    “Releasing the report less than 100 days before Election Day, Republican-majority senators hoped it would refocus attention on the interference by Russia and other hostile foreign powers in the American political process, which has continued unabated.”

    Mazzetti is telling his readers, soto voce: regarding that interference four years ago, and the “continued-unabated” part, you just have to trust us and our intelligence community sources who would never lie to you. And if, nevertheless, you persist in asking for actual evidence, you are clearly in Putin’s pocket.

    Incidentally, Mueller’s report apparently was insufficient, only two years in the making, and just 448 pages. The Senate committee’s magnum opus took three years, is almost 1,000 pages — and fortified. So there.

    Iron Pills

    Recall how disappointed the LSM and the rest of the Establishment were with Mueller’s anemic findings in spring 2019. His report claimed that the Russian government “interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion” via a social media campaign run by the Internet Research Agency (IRA) and by “hacking” Democratic emails. But the evidence behind those charges could not bear close scrutiny.

    You would hardly know it from the LSM, but the accusation against the IRA was thrown out of court when the U.S. government admitted it could not prove that the IRA was working for the Russian government. Mueller’s ipse dixit did not suffice, as we explained a year ago in “Sic Transit Gloria Mueller.”

    The Best Defense …

    … is a good offense, and the Senate Intelligence Committee’s release of its study — call it “Mueller (Enhanced)” — and the propaganda fanfare — come at a key point in the Russiagate/Spygate imbroglio. It also came, curiously, as the Democratic Convention was beginning, as if the Republican-controlled Senate was sending Trump a message.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Durham

    One chief worry, of course, derives from the uncertainty as to whether John Durham, the US Attorney investigating those FBI and other officials who launched the Trump-Russia investigation will let some heavy shoes drop before the election. Barr has said he expects “developments in Durham’s investigation hopefully before the end of the summer.”

    FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith already has decided to plead guilty to the felony of falsifying evidence used to support a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to surveillance to spy on Trump associate Carter Page. It is abundantly clear that Clinesmith was just a small cog in the deep-state machine in action against candidate and then President Trump. And those running the machine are well known. The president has named names, and Barr has made no bones about his disdain for what he calls spying on the president.

    The cognoscenti and the big fish themselves may be guessing that Trump/Barr/Durham will not throw out heavier lines for former FBI Director James Comey, his deputy Andrew McCabe, CIA Director John Brennan, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, for example. But how can they be sure? What has become clear is that the certainty they all shared that Hillary Clinton would be the next president prompted them not only to take serious liberties with the Constitution and the law, but also to do so without taking rudimentary steps to hide their tracks.

    The incriminating evidence is there. And as Trump becomes more and more vulnerable and defensive about his ineptness — particularly with regard to Covid-19 — he may summon the courage to order Barr and Durham to hook the big fish, not just minnows like Clinesmith. The neuralgic reality is that no one knows at this point how far Trump will go. To say that this kind of uncertainty is unsettling to all concerned is to say the obvious.

    So, the stakes are high — for the Democrats, as well — and, not least, the LSM. In these circumstances it would seem imperative not just to circle the wagons but to mount the best offense/defense possible, despite the fact that virtually all the ammunition (as in the Senate report) is familiar and stale (“enhanced” or not).

    Black eyes might well be in store for the very top former law enforcement and intelligence officials, the Democrats, and the LSM — and in the key pre-election period. So, the calculation: launch “Mueller Report (Enhanced)” and catapult the truth now with propaganda, before it is too late.

    No Evidence of Hacking

    The “hacking of the DNC” charge suffered a fatal blow three months ago when it became known that Shawn Henry, president of the DNC-hired cyber-security firm CrowdStrike, admitted under oath that his firm had no evidence that the DNC emails were hacked — by Russia or anyone else.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    (YouTube)

    Henry gave his testimony on Dec. 5, 2017, but House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff was able to keep it hidden until May 7, 2020.

    Here’s a brief taste of how Henry’s testimony went: Asked by Schiff for “the date on which the Russians exfiltrated the data”, Henry replied, “We just don’t have the evidence that says it actually left.”

    You did not know that? You may be forgiven — up until now — if your information diet is limited to the LSM and you believe The New York Times still publishes “all the news that’s fit to print.”  I am taking bets on how much longer the NYT will be able to keep Henry’s testimony hidden; Schiff’s record of 29 months will be hard to beat.

    Putting Lipstick on the Pig of Russian ‘Tampering’

    Worse still for the LSM and other Russiagate diehards, Mueller’s findings last year enabled Trump to shout “No Collusion” with Russia. What seems clear at this point is that a key objective of the current catapulting of the truth is to apply lipstick to Mueller’s findings.

    After all, he was supposed to find treacherous plotting between the Trump campaign and the Russians and failed miserably. Most LSM-suffused Americans remain blissfully unaware of this, and the likes of Pulitzer Prize winner Mazzetti have been commissioned to keep it that way.

    In Wednesday’s article, for example, Mazzetti puts it somewhat plaintively:

    “Like the special counsel … the Senate report did not conclude that the Trump campaign engaged in a coordinated conspiracy with the Russian government — a fact that the Republicans seized on to argue that there was ‘no collusion’.”

    How could they!

    Mazzetti is playing with words. “Collusion,” however one defines it, is not a crime; conspiracy is.

    ‘Breathtaking’ Contacts: Mueller (Enhanced)

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Mark Mazzetti (YouTube)

    Mazzetti emphasizes that the Senate report “showed extensive evidence of contacts between Trump campaign advisers and people tied to the Kremlin,” and Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), the intelligence committee’s vice chairman, said the committee report details “a breathtaking level of contacts between Trump officials and Russian government operatives that is a very real counterintelligence threat to our elections.”

    None of that takes us much beyond the Mueller report and other things generally well known — even in the LSM. Nor does the drivel about people like Paul Manafort “sharing polling data with Russians” who might be intelligence officers. That data was “mostly public” the Times itself reported, and the paper had to correct a story that the data was intended for Russian oligarchs, when it was meant for Ukrainian oligarchs instead. That Manafort was working to turn Ukraine towards the West and not Russia is rarely mentioned.

    Recent revelations regarding the false data given the FISA court by an FBI lawyer to “justify” eavesdropping on Trump associate Carter Page show the Senate report to be not up to date and misguided in endorsing the FBI’s decision to investigate Page. The committee may wish to revisit that endorsement — at least.

    On the Steele Dossier, the committee also missed a ruling by a British judge against Christopher Steele, labeling his dossier an attempt to help Hillary Clinton get elected. Consortium News explained back in October 2017 that both CrowdStrike and Steele were paid for by the Democratic Party and Clinton campaign to push Russiagate.

    Also missed by the intelligence committee was a document released by the Senate Judiciary Committee last month that revealed that Steele’s “Primary Subsource and his friends peddled warmed-over rumors and laughable gossip that Steele dressed up as formal intelligence memos.”

    Smearing WikiLeaks

    The Intelligence Committee report also repeats thoroughly debunked myths about WikiLeaks and, like Mueller, the committee made no effort to interview Julian Assange before launching its smears. Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi, who partnered with WikiLeaks in the publication of the Podesta emails, described the report’s treatment of WikiLeaks in this Twitter thread:

    2. the description of #WikiLeaks‘ publishing activities by this #SenateIntelligenceCommittee‘s Report appears a true #EdgarHoover‘s disinformation campaign to make a legitimate media org completely radioactive

    3. Clearly, to describe #WikiLeaks and its publishing activities the #SenateIntelligenceCommittee’s Report completely rely on #US intelligence community+ #MikePompeo’s characterisation of #WikiLeaks. There is not even any pretense of an independent approach

    4. there are also unsubstantiated claims like:
    – “[WikiLeaks’] disclosures have jeopardized the safety of individual Americans and foreign allies” (p.200)
    – “WikiLeaks has passed information to U.S. adversaries” (p.201)

    5. it’s completely false that “#WikiLeaks does not seem to weigh whether its disclosures add any public interest value” (p.200) and any longtime media partner like me could provide you dozens of examples on how wrong this characterisation [is].

    Titillating

    Mazzetti did add some spice to the version of his article that dominated the two top right columns of Wednesday’s Times with the blaring headline: “Senate Panel Ties Russian Officials to Trump’s Aides: G.O.P.-Led Committee Echoes Mueller’s Findings on Election Tampering.”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Those who make it to the end of Mazzetti’s piece will learn that the Senate committee report “did not establish” that the Russian government obtained any compromising material on Mr. Trump or that they tried to use such materials [that they didn’t have] as leverage against him.” However, Mazzetti adds,

    “According to the report, Mr. Trump met a former Miss Moscow at a party during one trip in 1996. After the party, a Trump associate told others he had seen Mr. Trump with the woman on multiple occasions and that they ‘might have had a brief romantic relationship.’

    “The report also raised the possibility that, during that trip, Mr. Trump spent the night with two young women who joined him the next morning at a business meeting with the mayor of Moscow.”

    This is journalism?

    Another Pulitzer in Store?

    The Times appends a note reminding us that Mazzetti was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for reporting on Donald Trump’s advisers and their connections to Russia.

    And that’s not the half of it. In September 2018, Mazzetti and his NYT colleague Scott Shane wrote a 10,000-word feature, “The Plot to Subvert an Election,” trying to convince readers that the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) had successfully swayed U.S. opinion during the 2016 election with 80,000 Facebook posts that they said had reached 126 million Americans.

    That turned out to be a grotesquely deceptive claim. Mazzetti and Shane failed to mention the fact that those 80,000 IRA posts (from early 2015 through 2017, meaning about half came after the election), had been engulfed in a vast ocean of more than 33 trillion Facebook posts in people’s news feeds – 413 million times more than the IRA posts. Not to mention the lack of evidence that the IRA was the Russian government, as Mueller claimed.

    In exposing that chicanery, prize-winning investigative reporter Gareth Porter commented:

    “The descent of The New York Times into this unprecedented level of propagandizing for the narrative of Russia’s threat to U.S. democracy is dramatic evidence of a broader problem of abuses by corporate media … Greater awareness of the dishonesty at the heart of the Times’ coverage of that issue is a key to leveraging media reform and political change.”

    Nothingburgers With Russian Dressing: the Backstory

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The late Robert Parry.

    “It’s too much; it’s just too much, too much”, a sedated, semi-conscious Robert Parry kept telling me from his hospital bed in late January 2018 a couple of days before he died. Bob was founder of Consortium News.

    It was already clear what Bob meant; he had taken care to see to that. On Dec. 31, 2017 the reason for saying that came in what he titled “An Apology & Explanation” for “spotty production in recent days.” A stroke on Christmas Eve had left Bob with impaired vision, but he was able to summon enough strength to write an Apologia — his vision for honest journalism and his dismay at what had happened to his profession before he died on Jan. 27, 2018. The dichotomy was “just too much”.

    Parry rued the role that journalism was playing in the “unrelenting ugliness that has become Official Washington. … Facts and logic no longer mattered. It was a case of using whatever you had to diminish and destroy your opponent … this loss of objective standards reached deeply into the most prestigious halls of American media.”

    What bothered Bob most was the needless, dishonest tweaking of the Russian bear. “The U.S. media’s approach to Russia,” he wrote, “is now virtually 100 percent propaganda. Does any sentient human being read The New York Times’ or The Washington Post’s coverage of Russia and think that he or she is getting a neutral or unbiased treatment of the facts? … Western journalists now apparently see it as their patriotic duty to hide facts that otherwise would undermine the demonizing of Putin and Russia.”

    Parry, who was no conservative, continued:

    “Liberals are embracing every negative claim about Russia just because elements of the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency produced a report last Jan. 6 that blamed Russia for ‘hacking’ Democratic emails and releasing them to WikiLeaks.”

    Bob noted that the ‘hand-picked’ authors “evinced no evidence and even admitted that they weren’t asserting any of this as fact.”

    It was just too much.

    Robert Parry’s Last Article

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Peter Strzok during congressional hearing in July 2018. (Wikimedia Commons)

    Bob posted his last substantive article on Dec. 13, 2017, the day after text exchanges between senior FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were made public. (Typically, readers of The New York Times the following day would altogether miss the importance of the text-exchanges.)

    Bob Parry rarely felt any need for a “sanity check.” Dec. 12, 2017 was an exception. He called me about the Strzok-Page texts; we agreed they were explosive. FBI Agent Peter Strzok was on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s staff investigating alleged Russian interference, until Mueller removed him.

    Strzok reportedly was a “hand-picked” FBI agent taking part in the Jan 2017 evidence-impoverished, rump, misnomered “intelligence community” assessment that blamed Russia for hacking and other election meddling. And he had helped lead the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s misuse of her computer servers. Page was Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s right-hand lawyer.

    His Dec. 13, 2017 piece would be his fourth related article in less than two weeks; it turned out to be his last substantive article.  All three of the earlier ones are worth a re-read as examples of fearless, unbiased, perceptive journalism. Here are the links.

    Bob began his article on the Strzok-Page bombshell:

    “The disclosure of fiercely anti-Trump text messages between two romantically involved senior FBI officials who played key roles in the early Russia-gate inquiry has turned the supposed Russian-election-meddling “scandal” into its own scandal, by providing evidence that some government investigators saw it as their duty to block or destroy Donald Trump’s presidency.?

    “As much as the U.S. mainstream media has mocked the idea that an American ‘deep state’ exists and that it has maneuvered to remove Trump from office, the text messages between senior FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok and senior FBI lawyer Lisa Page reveal how two high-ranking members of the government’s intelligence/legal bureaucracy saw their role as protecting the United States from an election that might elevate to the presidency someone as unfit as Trump.”

    Not a fragment of Bob’s or other Consortium News analysis made any impact on what Bob used to call the Establishment media. As a matter of fact, eight months later during a talk in Seattle that I titled “Russia-gate: Can You Handle the Truth?”, only three out of a very progressive audience of some 150 had ever heard of Strzok and Page.

    And so it goes.

    Lest I am accused of being “in Putin’s pocket,” let me add the explanatory note that we Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity included in our most explosive Memorandum for President Trump, on “Russian hacking.”

    Full Disclosure: Over recent decades the ethos of our intelligence profession has eroded in the public mind to the point that agenda-free analysis is deemed well nigh impossible. Thus, we add this disclaimer, which applies to everything we in VIPS say and do: We have no political agenda; our sole purpose is to spread truth around and, when necessary, hold to account our former intelligence colleagues.

    We speak and write without fear or favor. Consequently, any resemblance between what we say and what presidents, politicians and pundits say is purely coincidental. The fact we find it is necessary to include that reminder speaks volumes about these highly politicized times.

  • China Warns 'Necessary Countermeasures' Coming For Any Asian Country Willing To Host US Missiles
    China Warns 'Necessary Countermeasures' Coming For Any Asian Country Willing To Host US Missiles

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/22/2020 – 22:55

    It was a year ago that the Pentagon first announced it would move forward with plans to deploy intermediate range ballistic missiles to Asia “within months” — an ambitious timeline which of course never materialized, nevertheless a prospect that’s remained on the table ever since, driving tensions higher as part of what Beijing has slammed repeatedly as Washington’s “Cold War mentality”.

    In a new statement China’s Foreign Ministry has vowed it will take “countermeasures” should any US ally in the region agree to host American missiles.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Via Reuters

    “The US attempt to deploy land-based, medium-range missiles is consistent with its increasing military presence in the Asia Pacific and so-called ‘Indo-Pacific strategy’ over the past years, is a typical demonstration of its Cold War mentality,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Friday.

    “If the US side goes ahead with its plans (for deploying intermediate range missiles in the Asia-Pacific Region – TASS), China will take the necessary countermeasures to protect its interests in the field of security,” the statement continued.

    “China is calling upon the Asia-Pacific countries to realize the real purpose of US actions and their grave effects and to avoid pulling chestnuts out of the fire for others,” Zhao added.

    Further calling it a “blatant provocation” the statement underscored that it’s part of a broader pattern of Washington’s erosion of global and regional stability through its “words and deeds”.

    Beijing slammed any potential future missile host nation in Asia as revealing some countries act as mere pawns of the US. “We also call on countries in the Asia Pacific region to be soberly aware of the true intention behind and severe consequences of the US move, and refrain from acting as a pawn for the US,” Zhao said.

    At least initially, it would likely only be Guam that would see any early missile deployment.

    The lengthy and fierce comments came in response US Special Presidential Envoy for Arms Control Marshall Billingslea indicating in a recent interview with Japanese media that the US will discuss the prospect of hosting missiles with some countries in the region.

  • Ron Paul: The Untold Story Of The Man Who Inspired A New Generation Of Liberty Lovers
    Ron Paul: The Untold Story Of The Man Who Inspired A New Generation Of Liberty Lovers

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/22/2020 – 22:30

    Authored by Sam Jacobs via Ammo.com,

    If you’re under the age of 40 and you’re reading this, chances are very good that your interest in the liberty movement was sparked by three-time presidential candidate and veteran Texas Congressman Ron Paul. Paul inspired an entire generation of Libertarians, Constitutionalists and limited-government Conservatives with his 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    It might surprise you to learn that Paul is not originally from Texas, but Pittsburgh, where he was born to a dairy farmer and his wife. He graduated from Gettysburg State College in 1957, with a degree in biology. He earned his medical degree from Duke’s School of Medicine in 1961. From 1963 to 1965, he was a flight surgeon in the United States Air Force, before moving over to the Air National Guard from 1965 to 1968. Upon discharge, he relocated to Texas to start a private practice in obstetrics and gynecology.

    While he had been reading Austrian economics and Libertarian political philosophy for years beforehand, he finally decided to run for Congress when President Richard Nixon took the nation off of the gold standard in 1971. He lost his first attempt at public office in 1974, but won a special election in 1976, losing the regular election later that year by a mere 300 votes. He defeated his opponent in 1978, serving until 1985, then again from 1997 to 2013.

    The Beginning of Ron Paul’s Political Career

    While in Congress, Paul spoke in favor of a return to the gold standard with Senator Jesse Helms, as well as against a reinstatement of the draft favored by President Jimmy Carter and the majority of Republicans in Congress.

    He retired from Congress in 1984 to run for Senate, losing the Republican primary to Phil Gramm.

    After his time in Congress, he focused on the private promotion of liberty, publishing the Ron Paul Survival Newsletter and the Ron Paul Freedom Report with Lew Rockwell, who had previously been his congressional chief of staff. He also sold precious metals under the auspices of Ron Paul Coins.

    In 1988, he made his first run for the presidency as a Libertarian, defeating Native American activist Russell Means (who had previously seconded Larry Flynt in his bid for the Libertarian Party line) and coming in third nationwide. He considered running again in 1992, but instead decided to back Pat Buchanan’s campaign against President George H.W. Bush.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Coming Back to Congress

    Paul returned to Congress after a 1996 election with a huge assist from friends Nolan Ryan, Steve Forbes, and Pat Buchanan.

    However, it was his 2008 presidential campaign that began to change the world of liberty. There is arguably no one more responsible for the spread of the liberty movement than Ron Paul, whose 2008 campaign electrified young people who would likely have largely been Democrats previously. The average Ron Paul supporter in 2008 was not the country club Republican or movement Libertarian one might have pegged, but more likely to be a tech-savvy college kid than anything else.

    Thus, throughout the 2008 primary season, the acolytes of Ron Paul dominated political debate on the Internet and social media, the latter of which was still in its infancy at this point. Ron Paul’s campaign was the most searched for and his YouTube channel had even more followers than Barack Obama’s.

    None of this translated into a terribly successful campaign. His highwater mark was a 25 percent second-place showing in Montana. He chose not to enter the general election as a third-party candidate, but did not endorse the eventual nominee, John McCain. Paul often claimed that he did not run as a third-party candidate because he had signed a binding agreement preventing him from doing so. He chose instead to endorse the four major third-party candidates: Green Party nominee Cynthia McKinney, Libertarian Bob Barr (this despite his previous role in Ruby Ridge), the Constitution Party’s Chuck Baldwin, and independent Ralph Nader.

    In 2012, Ron Paul was still considered an outsider, but had considerably raised his national profile since 2008. He remained hot on the heels of front-runner Mitt Romney throughout the entire Republican primary, but once again came up short of the nomination. Much like in 2008, he refused to endorse Mitt Romney and even refused to give a speech at the convention because it would have to be vetted by Romney’s team.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Ron Paul’s Criticisms of the Republican Party

    While Paul was a life-long Republican, he was often highly critical of the party and its leadership. Indeed, he was one of the only Republicans to vote against Ronald Reagan’s 1981 spending bill, despite being one of the first elected officials to endorse Reagan in both 1976 and 1980. He even had some extremely harsh words to say about Reagan while running for president in 1988. He called the Reagan administration “a dramatic failure,” continuing by saying that “Reagan’s record is disgraceful. He starts wars, breaks the law, supplies terrorists with guns made at taxpayers’ expense and lies about it to the American people.”

    Since retiring from elected office and the presidential race, Ron Paul has become a fierce critic of the NSA and surveillance, as well as a supporter of Edward Snowden, whom he considers to be a great hero and champion of freedoms for Americans. He also founded the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity underneath the broader umbrella of his Foundation for Rational Economics and Education. He offers the Ron Paul Curriculum (developed by Gary North) free for homeschooled children from K-5 and paid for 6-12.

    The Ron Paul Liberty Report has received more than 17 million views as of April 2019.

    In 2016, Ron Paul became the oldest person to ever receive an electoral vote when a faithless elector in Texas voted for him.

    Veterans of the Ron Paul rEVOLution are active in the liberty movement today. And how great is it that a man who has never smoked a cigarette in his life inspired a generation of pot-smoking techies to join the fight for liberty?

    You can bet your last Ron Paul Dollar (remember those?) that Dr. Paul will be speaking hard truths, bucking the system and standing his ground until the day he dies. Libertarians will likely never find a champion quite like him.

  • Trump Jabs FDA For Rejecting HCQ, Claims 'Deep State, Or Whoever' Delaying Vaccine Trials
    Trump Jabs FDA For Rejecting HCQ, Claims 'Deep State, Or Whoever' Delaying Vaccine Trials

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/22/2020 – 22:05

    President Trump took a swipe at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in a pair of Saturday tweets, accusing the “deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA” of delaying human vaccine trials by “making it very difficult for drug companies to get people” (test subjects) so that trial results aren’t known until after the 2020 election.

    “Must focus on speed, and saving lives!” Trump concluded, tagging FDA Commissioner Stephen Hawn, who he appointed to the role.

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

    Trump also slammed the FDA, rubbing the agency’s nose in their June decision to revoke its emergency authorization of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) for the treatment of COVID-19. 

    “Many doctors and studies disagree with this!” tweeted Trump – resurrecting a June 15th ‘Twitter moment’ noting the revocation.

    Hydroxychloroquine – used by many countries as both a front-line early treatment and a prophylactic against COVID-19 – saw sharp pushback from public health officials and Democrats after President Trump recommended it, almost as if the need to prove him wrong and push new treatments was more important than exploring whether HCQ was indeed effective if used early, particularly in conjunction with zinc and the antibiotic azithromycin.

    Indeed, the first wave of studies on HCQ focused on mid-to-late stage COVID-19 infections, and found marginal improvement – or in one study, harm, from the use of the popular antimalarial drug. Since then, studies have emerged that HCQ is extremely effective when used early –

    In July, the state of Ohio withdrew their ban on the use of HCQ to treat COVID-19.

    he anti-HCQ push has infected Silicon Valley as well – as tech giants have been labeling pro-hydroxychloroquine content as ‘misinformation’ – most recently banishing a press conference by a group of doctors touting the drug from just about every platform.

    To that end, Yale epidemiologist Dr. Harvey Risch has accused Dr. Anthony Fouci of waging a “misinformation campaign” against the drug – appearing on “Good Morning America” in late July where he further downplayed the drug – claiming that “the overwhelming prevailing clinical trials that have looked at the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine have indicated that it is not effective in [treating] coronavirus disease.”

    Wrong.

    Several new studies have shown efficacy if used early, while countries that have deployed HCQ in just that manner have significantly fewer deaths per million residents (via c19study.com, which tracks HCQ studies).

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    HCQ’s efficacy was known by mid-July, when the FDA removed its authorization:

    Meanwhile, over 700 physicians from all 50 states have called on President Trump to issue another Emergency Use Authorization on HCQ. 

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

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

     

  • America's Most And Least Affordable Places To Buy A Home
    America's Most And Least Affordable Places To Buy A Home

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/22/2020 – 21:40

    Via Priceonomics.com,

    The Coronavirus pandemic has upended the real estate market so far in unexpected and varied ways. Record low mortgage interest rates combined with people spending most of their time at home has caused a boom in home buying many housing markets despite widespread unemployment.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Not only that, but people are moving and considering new locations. Office closures mean that many people are working from home and some employers have suggested this may be a permanent trend. All these trends are conspiring together to cause people to consider moving to new places across America.

    Along with Priceonomics customer RefiGuide.org, we decided to perform an analysis for people looking to buy a home based on affordability. If you are tired of living in a place where homeownership is out of reach because of high prices compared to incomes, where else should you consider living?

    We found that the most affordable housing markets in America were uniformly located in the South and Midwest. The most affordable place we looked at in America was Youngstown, Ohio where the median household income in one year is more than the typical purchase price of a home. On the other hand, almost all the least affordable places to buy a home were in California. Of all the markets we examined, Newport Beach was the least affordable market in the country.

    ***

    Before diving into the results, it’s worth spending a moment on the methodology and data. In this analysis, we are primarily interested in affordability of housing in an area.  To do so, we compared two metrics – income and the cost of a house. How far will the prevailing median household income go toward the purchase price of a home in the city. All income data is derived from the US Census 2018 data and housing data from Zillow’s June 30, 2020 market estimates. We looked at the 609 largest “places” (a designation in the US Census for cities and towns) in America.

    Below are the top 50 most affordable places in America. To calculate the affordability we took median annual income as percentage of home prices in the area.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Chart via RefiGuide.org

    The most affordable place in America is Youngstown, Ohio, followed by Jackson, Mississippi. In both places, the median household income is higher than the purchase price of a house! Every single city on the most affordable list is located in the South or Midwest. Of the 609 places in America, only 50 places have an affordability score over 36%. The vast majority of places in America are much less affordable.

    Next, let’s look at the least affordable housing markets in America. The following chart shows the places where the local income does not go particularly far toward a home purchase:

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Chart via RefiGuide.org

    The least affordable place in America is Newport Beach, California, followed by Santa Monica, California. In these places, the typical annual income covers just 5.3% of a home’s purchase price. In fact 24 out of the top 25 places on the least affordability list are located in California. A few cities in New York, Colorado, Hawaii and Florida also make the list that’s generally dominated by California.

    From the two above charts, it seems clear that there is a geographic pattern in affordability. Next, let’s look at the average affordability of all the places in a given state taken together.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Chart via RefiGuide.org

    The most affordable state in America for homebuyers is Mississippi, followed by Ohio and Oklahoma. Each of the top 12 most affordable states are in the South and Midwest. The least affordable states are Hawaii, Washington DC, and California. The least affordable places are all in the West and East of the country.

    Lastly, let’s look at the 50 largest housing markets according to Zillow. These places tend to have the most job opportunities and largest economies, which can be a major factor in the long term affordability of a city, even in the area of remote work.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Chart via RefiGuide.org

    Of the largest 50 housing markets in America, Detroit, Michigan is the most affordable where a household’s salary covers 83.4% of the home’s purchase price. Each of the top 5 cities are in the South or Midwest. San Francisco is the least affordable major city in the country, followed by Los Angeles and Oakland. The top 6 of the top 10 cities are in California with New York, Honolulu, Boston and Miami also making the least affordable major cities list.

    ***

    Housing affordability has long been a hot button issue in America. Over the last decade housing prices have increased at a tremendous rate and made homeownership beyond the reach of many Americans.

    A couple of different forces are affecting the housing market as a result of the pandemic. On one hand many people are laid off, meaning many people in the economy are housing insecure. On the other hand, many Americans are using the pandemic to reassess where they want to live. To assist those that are considering a move, below is a data sheet for the housing prices, median income, and affordability rate of over 600 places in America.

    ***

    Note: If you’re a company that wants to work with Priceonomics to turn your data into great stories, learn more about the Priceonomics Data Studio. 

  • A.I. Fighter Jet Destroys Top Air Force Pilot In Simulated Dogfight  
    A.I. Fighter Jet Destroys Top Air Force Pilot In Simulated Dogfight  

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/22/2020 – 21:15

    DARPAtv live-streamed AlphaDogfight Trials Competition on Thursday (Aug. 20), which featured an AI-controlled virtual fighter jet beating a human pilot in a series of simulated dogfights.

    The AI-system, developed by Heron Systems, a Maryland-based defense contractor, beat one of the Air Force’s top General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon pilots, reported Breaking Defense. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Fully-autonomous fighter jets are years away, but the Air Force and DARPA appear to be honing in on the possibilities of integrating artificial intelligence systems into combat flying machines. The live event was streamed on several platforms, including YouTube and Zoom, which shows AI systems have the ability in 2020 to operate an aircraft with skill and in a one-on-one combat scenario, out-gunning a human pilot, even though it was in a simulation. 

    One of the hosts during the simulated dogfight noted the AI system has “superhuman” shooting capabilities that produced an edge over the human pilot. 

    Video: AlphaDogfight Trials Final Event

    Timothy Grayson, director of the Strategic Technology Office at DARPA, described the simulation as successful and said it’s a victory for humans and machines to team up for combat:

     “I think what we’re seeing today is the beginning of something I’m going to call human-machine symbiosis… Let’s think about the human sitting in the cockpit, being flown by one of these AI algorithms as truly being one weapon system, where the human is focusing on what the human does best [like higher order strategic thinking] and the AI is doing what the AI does best,” Grayson said. 

    While fully autonomous fighter jets conducting dogfights are years outs, if not at the end of the decade, what’s more, plausible, in the next five years, is AI integrating into the flight systems of fighter jets, especially stealth ones, to assist pilots during complex combat situations. 

  • 'Footloose' Comes To Life In New York: Governor Cuomo Bans Dancing
    'Footloose' Comes To Life In New York: Governor Cuomo Bans Dancing

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/22/2020 – 20:50

    Authored by Megan Fox via PJMedia.com,

    Governor Cuomo has become Reverend Shaw Moore from the movie Footloose after issuing a new set of commands for New Yorkers that includes a ban on dancing.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    This is not a joke. Syracuse.com reported the story.

    There is no dancing allowed in New York’s bars and restaurants, even at a wedding reception, according to the New York State Liquor Authority.

    To control the spread of the coronavirus, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s liquor authority has also specifically banned darts, pool, cornhole, karaoke and exotic dancing.

    Bar owners are already struggling to stay open after being shut down for months. The new rules are causing a lot of anxiety as business owners are being threatened with their licensing if they don’t comply.

    The intent is to reduce the number of people congregating in bars. If you go to a bar, you must sit at a table or move along, according to the liquor authority’s guidelines.

    “I don’t let people dance,” said Dan Palladino, who owns Heritage Hill Brewhouse in Pompey. “I think it’s kind of sad, but I don’t want to risk my license.”

    I’ve already been to an illegal wedding where there was a lot of dancing— and they’re becoming more popular. People having weddings in New York have to hide the location until the last minute and keep all signs of partying out of sight. It’s kind of exciting in a speakeasy sort of way but also extremely stupid. You cannot keep people from living their lives. And if you try to outlaw fun, they’re just going to break those laws and do it anyway.

    Not only has dancing been outlawed, but pool, darts, cornhole, and karaoke are also off-limits. How much longer do the dictators in charge really think they can keep this up? I never thought I’d see the day when Democrats became pulpit-pounding puritans keeping the kids from dancing, but here we are.

    And is it necessary? It sure doesn’t seem so with coronavirus deaths plummeting all over the country. But what do we know? We just pay the bills here. Let’s all leave the hard stuff to the crooked politicians, who have been wrong about everything, to figure out. I heard someone on the radio today ask, “how much more will we take?” and the answer is “a whole lot more.” New Yorkers may be rebelling privately, but publicly they’re all on board 100% — “for our safety” — and making sure everyone knows it.

    I went to Mass for the first time and people really didn’t sing! I couldn’t believe it. There is nothing that New Yorkers won’t do when told to do it. If we were told that crawling on the sidewalk would protect us from coronavirus I would expect to see a majority of people around here wearing kneepads and inching along to the grocery store.

    I don’t expect that this new string of asinine directives will motivate anyone to vote against Governor Cuomo. Democrats in New York seem to hate Democrat policies yet continue to vote them into office, no matter what they do.

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

    What we need here in New York is the spirit of Ren McCormack to take the mic.

  • Michigan College Unleashes "Mandatory" App To Track Students At All Times
    Michigan College Unleashes "Mandatory" App To Track Students At All Times

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/22/2020 – 20:25

    Colleges that are reopening campuses this fall understand outbreaks of COVID-19 are certainly possible on school grounds and in the surrounding communities. To safeguard students against the virus, Albion College, located in Albion, Michigan, is requesting all students to download a smartphone app that tracks their location to create a “COVID-bubble.” 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    According to The Washington Free Beacon, Albion College’s COVID-bubble will require students to stay within a 4.5-mile perimeter of the school. If students violate bubble rules, such as stepping outside the bubble, the app will automatically notify school officials who could slap the violater with a “temporary suspension.”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The move to track students comes as college, health experts, and government officials have been in several months of disputes about reopening for the fall semester. Many schools are opting for remote courses to mitigate the spread of the virus, though such actions will be disastrous on enrollment and school budgets. 

    Readers may recall a higher education bust is underway, one where the virus pandemic accelerated the trend (see: Higher Education Bust – Vermont College Goes On Auction Block With $3 Million Bid). 

    So far, not everyone is thrilled about Albion’s reopening plan to maximize a contact tracing app. Students and parents had this to say: 

    A father of an Albion student said that he is upset that he must choose between keeping his daughter home from school or signing off on a university-sanctioned “invasion of privacy.”

    “The school wants my daughter to sign a form consenting to specimen collection and lab testing,” he told the Washington Free Beacon on condition of anonymity. “I have a ton of concern with that…. Why is the state of Michigan’s contact tracing not enough?”

    Though students are required to remain on campus, professors and administrators are not. When asked about this potential loophole in its “COVID-bubble,” the school declined to comment.

    Rising senior Andrew Arszulowicz said that he is upset with both the mandatory use of the app and the manner in which students are being treated. “I feel like I am being treated like a five-year-old that cannot be trusted to follow rules,” Arszulowicz told the Free Beacon. “If the school believes masks work … why are we not allowed to leave if they work? It does not make sense to me.” -The Washington Free Beacon

    Albion’s courses will only be offered in-person, and students who reject downloading the tracing app will be deferred to the spring semester. 

    Does this sound Orwellian to you?

  • Was John Brennan Just Put In A Completely Legitimate Perjury Trap?
    Was John Brennan Just Put In A Completely Legitimate Perjury Trap?

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/22/2020 – 20:00

    Authored by attorney Shipwreckedcrew via RedState (emphasis ours),

    John Brennan’s long-time advisor Nick Shapiro put out a statement yesterday at the conclusion of Brennan’s eight-hour interview with John Durham and his investigators.

    It might all be true.  All I have are opinions on the text and circumstances.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Former CIA Director John Brennan is sworn-in on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, prior to testifying before the House Intelligence Committee Russia Investigation Task Force. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

    But I also know that the CIA is an institution designed to engage in manipulation using lies and deception — in a good way.  It’s how they accomplish their mission in defense of the country.

    John Brennan is an embodiment of the CIA — it’s all he’s ever known.  Its ethos oozes from his pores.

    John Brennan wanted to send a message to the world yesterday after he finished his interview with John Durham. Oddly, he chose to do it through Nick Shapiro, and not himself. Nothing about Brennan or his history suggests Shapiro’s message needs be credited with being truthful.

    There are several reasons to read this message with a “jaundiced eye” and to recognize the ulterior motives for it.

    First, it’s not Brennan’s statement. Shapiro issued the statement to Obama Administration scribe Natasha Bertrand at Politico — guaranteed to dutifully publish anything requested of her by a former Obama era intelligence official now living in fear. Shapiro then posted a string of eight Tweets on Twitter with the same text.

    Both are devoid of any words actually spoken by Brennan — there are no quotations — nor is there any support offered for Shapiro’s claims by anyone actually in the room, such as Brennan’s attorneys.

    Since when has Brennan been shy about saying anything on Twitter?  Why would Brennan go “third person” and have his thoughts about the interview expressed only in the words of someone else? The most obvious reason is the statements are not going to be exactly accurate. Running them through a third person builds in a level of “deniability” on Brennan’s part. Shapiro wasn’t in the room for the interview. Shapiro is only putting out for public consumption what was told to him, and by phrasing it in the “third person” the way he has, it’s not a statement “by John Brennan” nor is it endorsed by Brennan’s counsel in the room. It is put out by a guy who has historically been in the role of misleading and misdirecting the press and the public on John Brennan’s behalf. Yesterday’s mission was no different.

    Second, conducting the interview at the CIA facility is an interesting decision. Why not question him at DOJ or FBI HQ? The CIA is not a law enforcement agency. John Brennan no longer works for the CIA. Any CIA records that may have been needed over the course of the interview could have been made available in a secured facility at both those locations.

    But that “records” excuse may have been the very justification given for the selection of the CIA HQ as the location for the interview.

    DOJ and the FBI HQ are in Washington DC. CIA Headquarters is in Langley, Virginia.

    If you are geographically challenged, you can read the distinction as “United States District Court for the District of Columbia” v. “United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.” If John Brennan offered any false answers to the investigators during the interview, the venue for that “false statement” crime is in the EDVA, not in DC federal court.

    Third, Shapiro’s statement claims that Brennan was told by Durham that he is neither a “target” nor “subject,” and that he is only a witness to events under review. Maybe that’s true, but it does not sound true to me. And the statement does not say that comment was made to Brennan yesterday before the interview took place.

    I can say that I had several occasions during my career as a prosecutor where criminal defense lawyers asked me similar questions about their client in response to an interview request. I can’t say that I always refused to answer, but as a general matter my response was something that I learned when I was starting out from more experienced federal prosecutors —

    “Counsel, this interview today is voluntary. Your client is free to leave right now, and answer none of the questions we have. He’s free to stop answering questions at any time while the interview is underway. He’s free to ask to take a break, step outside the room with you, and then return to answer the question or not answer the question.  What does he want to do?”

    John Brennan could have been questioned before a grand jury, without the presence of his attorney in the room. That would be true IF, as suggested by Shapiro’s statement, Brennan was only a “witness”.

    To explain that, let’s take a moment to address the whole “Target” v. “Subject” v. “Witness” construct the press is so happy to report about.

    Labeling an individual a “target” has a clear meaning in federal criminal prosecutions.  It refers to someone about whom the prosecutor believes there is already sufficient admissible evidence to seek an indictment from a grand jury, and obtain a conviction at trial.  The investigation is ongoing, but the grand jury already has identified a “target” for eventual prosecution.

    Anyone who is “not a target” is — “not a target”.  There is no other “classification” of individuals with meaning.  Many people in the business toss around the term “subject”, but that is a “made-up” classification that does not exist.  I have received “Subject” letters from prosecutors on behalf of clients, but those all involve a request to interview my client.

    A “Target” letter is different.  When you receive a “Target” letter it advises you that a federal grand jury has already received evidence upon which criminal charges may be issued in the future.  It advises the “Target” that they should seek counsel, and if they cannot afford counsel they should contact the Federal Defender’s Office in their district for legal representation.  Once they have secured counsel, their lawyer should contact the prosecutor to discuss the matter.

    The purpose behind a “subject” letter is merely to instill fear in the recipient and to “encourage” them to talk about others before others talk about them — as information from others might push them closer to the “target” category. Unwitting lawyers think there is meaning behind the “subject” designation but there is not.  Fear is a great motivator. “Doing unto others before they do unto you” is sort of a universal maxim among the idiot criminal class.

    So if you are not a “target” — meaning there isn’t sufficient evidence at this time to charge you with a crime — then by default you are a “witness.”

    But “witnesses” can, and often do talk themselves into being “targets” during such interviews. That was the purpose of the interview, Mr. Brennan, not because you have some wonderful insights to provide Mr. Durham and his investigators to make their job easier.

    One important distinction between “target” and “witness” that is not well understood, but might be in play here, is that it is against DOJ policy to issue a grand jury subpoena to someone who is already a “target”.

    A grand jury subpoena is a court order, under threat of contempt, to appear and answer questions under oath without the presence of counsel. If a person is already a “Target”, the subpoena intrudes upon their Fifth Amendment right to remain silent and to be represented by counsel while undergoing “custodial” interrogation — they are under subpoena after all. Witnesses before the grand jury are allowed to assert their Fifth Amendment right, but it forces them to assert that right before the grand jurors considering charges against them. The government is not allowed to call a criminal defendant to take the stand in his trial and force him to assert his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent in front of the jury. It is deemed prejudicial, and suggest to the jury that the defendant has something to hide. The same principle applies to calling a “Target” in front of a grand jury and forcing them to assert their right to remain silent in front of the grand jurors without counsel present.

    So, if John Brennan isn’t at least a potential “target,” why was he not called to explain historical events to the grand jury?

    Finally, John Brennan has many times expressed the belief that any investigation initiated by the Trump Administration into the actions of Obama Administration officials to examine their conduct as it pertains to the investigation of the 2016 campaign, and the aftermath of Trump’s election victory, is illegitimate.  John Brennan has all but declared Trump’s election to be illegitimate — heck, he might have said so outright.

    So, it is not surprising at all that Shapiro — not Brennan — would claim:

    Brennan questioned why the analytical tradecraft and findings of the ICA are being scrutinized by the Department of Justice, especially since they have been validated by the Mueller Report as well as the bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence review.

    The idea that Brennan “questioned” Durham on this topic does not confirm that Durham had any response to offer to Brennan’s question. I suspect Durham did not react favorably — if it happened at all — to Brennan’s suggestion that Durham’s work was illegitimate or superfluous because of what others might have done, or not done as the case may be.

    But John Brennan cannot help himself in this regard. The CIA is rarely put in a position of having to explain or defend its conduct — purposely and by design. But when John Brennan has been in that position in the past, he’s been quite comfortable with lying in his responses. More of the same here.

    John Durham and his team did not come to the decision to interview Brennan over the course of eight hours for the purpose of “filling in the blanks” on “events that are under review.”

    The purpose of the interview was to get Brennan to confirm or deny information that others have provided up to this point about Brennan, and what he instructed others to do.

    John Brennan was placed into a perjury trap yesterday because he’s shown himself willing to perjure himself in the past in order to evade scrutiny.

    Yesterday, the ability to avoid the trap was completely within his control — all he had to do was tell the truth.  For the most part, Durham’s investigators knew the truth.

    John Brennan doesn’t come from a world of objective “truths” and “lies”. For Brennan, the “truth” is always malleable to fit his needs at any given moment.

    That’s CIA tradecraft.  He sees himself as a master of such “dark arts” based on his decades in DC.  Others have long viewed him as a clown.

    That’s why, as a prosecutor, you save a liar like John Brennan for last.  He can’t help you because you can’t rely on what he tells you.

    So your interview is not done for the purpose of helping your case.

    And you do it in Virginia and not DC because of what you plan to do next.

  • Tesla Shorts Have Lost More Than $25 Billion This Year Alone
    Tesla Shorts Have Lost More Than $25 Billion This Year Alone

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/22/2020 – 19:35

    Short sellers betting against Tesla have lost a collective $25 billion so far this year, according to data from S3 partners and Business Insider. 

    Those short Tesla are down $25.4 billion mark to market on Tesla in 2020 so far as Tesla stock has rallied nearly 400% on the year. The company now has a fully diluted market cap approaching $400 billion. 

    Short sellers are down about $7 billion in August alone and added over $1 billion to their loss tally last Thursday as the stock eclipsed the $2,000 mark for the first time. On Friday, they lost another $619 million as mindless retail buyers drove the stock higher ahead of its upcoming 5 for 1 split. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of predictive analytics at S3, said: “Tesla continued steady short covering for over a year as shorts continue to get squeezed.”

    But Tesla remains the biggest short in the U.S. market, with $21.31 billion in short interest and 10.65 million shares still shorted. This is about 7.18% of the company’s float, according to S3 data. In July, it became the first company to have $20 billion in short interest bet against it. 

    So are short sellers just gluttons for pain at this point? Or are they simply convinced they are riding out what could be the largest stock bubble in the history of human kind?

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Even acknowledging the castrated response that regulators have taken toward Tesla thus far, the overwhelming amount of evidence stacked against the company – from faking an $80 billion buyout, to pumping non-existent solar roof tiles, to the Solar City bailout, to lax warranty accounting, to retaliating against whistleblowers, to claiming millions of Robotaxis are coming, to the lack of a General Counsel, to the CEO indemnifying his own board, to charging thousands for a full self driving product that doesn’t exist, to beta testing autonomous driving on unaware participants and to selling ZEV credits to turn a profit – still has us wondering if shorts will eventually have their day.

    Or, is Elon truly bulletproof?

  • House Passes $25 Billion Post Office Bailout As Trump Rages On Twitter
    House Passes $25 Billion Post Office Bailout As Trump Rages On Twitter

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/22/2020 – 19:31

    Despite the fact that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has delayed his most controversial cost-saving measures until after the November vote, and endured a shellacking at the hands of Senate Democrats on the Homeland Security Committee, House Speaker and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi forged ahead with the help of 26 defecting Republicans to pass a bill calling for $25 billion in financial assistance for the Post Office.

    As more states announced plans to hold their elections largely by mail in November (a system that some used for the primaries) the Postal Service announced earlier this month that too much voting by mail could delay the arrival of some votes. Pelosi called a special session of the House during recess and on a Saturday to lend this piece of political theater even more impact.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The vote is the culmination of a Democratic crusade about late mail – literally, a few people complained about their mail being late, a few others posted some context-free photos of mail sorting machines being destroyed, and – boom – Democrats suddenly had an army of twitter trolls shrieking about veterans dying because their medication came a day late. One Connecticut family even complained that USPS had lost the cremated remains of a loved one and veteran (they were found 12 days later thanks to one dedicated worker who supposedly delivered the remains personally). They blamed DeJoy personally for the mistake, and ever since, the state’s AG William Tong has seized every opportunity to draw attention to “out of service” mail sorting machines.

    DeJoy is due for round two before the House Oversight Committee on Monday, which should be even more brutal than Friday’s pile-on (at least, for DeJoy’s sake, the Senate is controlled by Republicans).

    But in the latest transparent bit of political theater organized by “political mastermind” Nancy Pelosi – and surely this is right up there with her wardrobe choices during the unveiling of the Dems’ police reform bill  – is the victorious vote on Saturday, which has almost no chance of passing the Republican-controlled Senate.

    As we mentioned above, 26 Republicans defected to help Democrats pass the bill 257 votes to 150. In addition to the money, the bill called for reversing certain operational changes imposed under DeJoy. Six states are also suing USPS and DeJoy personally (along with the chairman of the USPS board) claiming these changes infringe on states ability to hold free and fair elections.

    House Oversight Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, who introduced the bill, has said the postal service should not “become an instrument of partisan politics.”

    On Twitter, Trump raged about the vote.

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

    Now, get ready for some strongly worded statements from Pelosi when Mitch McConnell inevitably refuses to call it for a vote. The Senate has introduced its own, scaled down, plan to help USPS as part of a proposed COVID relief bill that thanks to Democrats, likely will never become a reality.

  • Virginia Plans Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccinations For All Residents
    Virginia Plans Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccinations For All Residents

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/22/2020 – 19:13

    As Friday’s hospitalization numbers across the Sun Belt appear to confirm CDC head Dr. Robert Redfield’s assertion that the American COVID-19 outbreak has peaked and is starting to fade, the State of Virginia is setting a new precedent by seriously discussing forcing Virginians to be vaccinated with whatever rushed-to-marked candidate the FDA approves first.

    During an interview that aired on Friday, the state’s health commissioner said he planned to invoke state law to make vaccinations mandatory – once a western product is available, presumably.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Norman Oliver

    Here’s more from ABC News 8:

    State Health Commissioner Dr. Norman Oliver told 8News on Friday that he plans to mandate coronavirus vaccinations for Virginians once one is made available to the public.

    Virginia state law gives the Commissioner of Health the authority to mandate immediate immunizations during a public health crisis if a vaccine is available. Health officials say an immunization could be released as early as 2021.

    Dr. Oliver says that, as long as he is still the Health Commissioner, he intends to mandate the coronavirus vaccine.

    “It is killing people now, we don’t have a treatment for it and if we develop a vaccine that can prevent it from spreading in the community we will save hundreds and hundreds of lives,” Oliver said.

    Pro-medical-choice activists in the state argue that the issue is a matter of medical choice, and that the hasty “expedited” approval process being implemented by the FDA is grounds for concern. State health authorities insist, meanwhile, that they would never mandate a vaccine that hadn’t already proven to be safe.

    Virginia Freedom Keepers Director of Communications Kathleen Medaries, a mother of three from Chesterfield, says this is a matter of medical choice.This is not a Republican or Democrat issue. It’s not a pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine issue,” Medaries said. “For me, it’s an issue of being able to assess each vaccine for myself and my family one at a time.”

    […]

    “He shouldn’t be the one person to make a decision for all of Virginians,””Medaries responded.

    The state’s top medical official is opposed to a bill that has been put forth in the state assembly that would create more exemptions to the mandatory vaccination power, allowing exemptions on religious and other grounds.

    Oliver believes that COVID-19 is a public health emergency that should take precedent over everything else, and that vaccine-assisted herd immunity is the state’s best and only real defense.

    The decision comes after Massachusetts said it would make the flu vaccine mandatory this year as part of a campaign to protect the state’s medical system. We suspect Virginia and Massachusetts won’t be the only states to discuss mandatory COVID and/or flu vaccination in the coming weeks, as the school year begins.

  • Is The Stock Market Now Too Big To Fail?
    Is The Stock Market Now Too Big To Fail?

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/22/2020 – 19:10

    Authored by Sven Henrich via NorthmanTrader.com,

    Reality Check

    This week the headlines declared the bear market over as the S&P 500 joined the Nasdaq to make new all time highs. A new bull market has begun so the celebratory narratives. It is true these indices have made new all time highs, but the actual market hasn’t. Not even close. These indices have made new all time highs as 6-7 stocks are experiencing the largest and most aggressive market cap expansion in human history distorting everything.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Yet perception is reality and the bullish narratives keep mounting as key tech stocks and their oversized weight are contributing to the main indices relentlessly drifting higher so let me at least provide some perspective as to what’s going on with the larger market.

    Firstly note we continue to be in uncharted waters here in terms of the concentration of individual stocks vs GDP as well as the Fed’s balance sheet:

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

    The first top 5 stocks now represent 25% of the S&P 500, a concentration in weighting we’ve not seen since 2000. The market cap expansions we see on a daily basis in some of these stocks, such as $AAPL and $TSLA for example, put even the year 2000 bubble to shame.
    Just on Friday $AAPL added over $100B in market cap out of thin air on no fundamentally driven news. The stock now having added over $1.1 trillion in market cap since the March lows.

    None of this has even a historic approximate reference point and so one must recognize that this market phase is a unique one on its own.

    And of course $TSLA is the other popular post child of this era:

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

    None of these companies have produced results that justify these historic market cap expansions in such a short period of time, but they provide cover for the illusion that the bear market is over and that a new bull market has begun. There is little doubt these stocks are in a bull market. I call it a historic bubble, but don’t let anyone tell you the “market” is in a bull market.

    It’s not and the value line geometric index shows you this clearly:

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    While the index made new highs the $XVG produced lower highs versus June and remains far below the 2020 highs or the 2018 highs for that matter.

    Even in the almighty Nasdaq the internal picture is atrociously crumbling before our very eyes, be it on new high/vs new lows:

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Or be it on the cumulative advance/decline:

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Indeed we can observe that the relentless crawl to new highs on the index shows a correction underneath with $NYMO hitting below -50 while $SPX closed the week on a new high with equal weight deteriorating and volume entirely collapsing:

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Banks dropped over 10% from the August peak and remain below the December 2018 lows and far below the June highs:

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    No, it’s all tech, and select tech at that as investors are relentlessly piling into $QQQ, an ETF that has a 56% market cap weighting exposed to just 10 stocks:

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    No, the “market” is weak underneath and is more reflective of the reality that 7 stocks and relentless artificial liquidity are masking:

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    This economy is far from recovered, yet markets are now trading at an all-time high of 179% market cap to GDP and the potential fuel of shorts has all but disappeared:

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

    Next week Jay Powell, who is personally killing it in this market, will speak at Jackson Hole. If there is any conscious recognition on his part as to the historic distortions created by his unprecedented liquidity injections shall remain unknown to all of us. If he has any sense of the enormity of the distortions created he’ll aim to softly try to ease participants off of the dangerous chase into tech stocks for fear that a bursting bubble will cause more damage down the road. But that would require him to not only have cognition of the distortions created, but also take some pain in his personal ETF portfolio. The obvious conflict of interest appears to be a taboo in the financial media for some reason.

    Why not ask him: “Mr Powell, how much money have you personally made this year as a result of the liquidity injections you have implemented? In light of these amounts, while over 28M Americans are still claiming unemployment benefits, how can you claim the Fed does not contribute to wealth inequality?” Let him go on record:

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

    I’m sure these 28M Americans would love to know how the Fed is helping them by buying bonds in a $2.1 trillion market cap company.

    Bottomline: The larger market is struggling, correcting even as the rotation trade once again was left in the dust of another vertical chase into key tech stocks which are now historically overvalued, technically extremely stretched and at ever higher risk of a violent technical reversion. Month end is again approaching and perhaps the rotation trade may once again be a vehicle of choice as these February gaps remain (see also $DJIA and $VIX).

    I’ll leave you with a replay of an 30 min interview I recorded this Thursday evening with the folks over at PeakProsperity with my latest views on the current situation:

    * * *

    For the latest public analysis please visit NorthmanTrader. To subscribe to our market products please visit Services.

  • New York Landlords Beg Businesses: "Return To Work And Save The City's Economy!"
    New York Landlords Beg Businesses: "Return To Work And Save The City's Economy!"

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/22/2020 – 18:45

    New York property owners are begging the city’s largest businesses to return to work. 

    Names like Goldman Sachs and BlackRock have been on the speed dials of New York landlords, who are reportedly reaching out to the businesses begging them to get back to work and, in turn, save the city’s economy. The landlords have formed a “loose coalition” according to a new report by Bloomberg. 

    The group includes RXR Realty’s Scott Rechler, Rudin Management’s William Rudin and Marc Holliday of SL Green Realty. These landlords, facing a catastrophic collapse in the price of commercial real estate, argue that it’s safe to return to work and that most NYC businesses simply can’t survive a shutdown much longer. Some are even calling it the “patriotic” thing to do. 

    So far, the reception hasn’t been overwhelming. And with every day that passes, it becomes a tougher sell. As businesses close up, there becomes less reason to return to work. As a result, landlords could see a major demand drought and prices could crater. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Jeff Blau, the head of Related Cos., said: “I’ve been really pushing the CEOs to bring people back into the office. I’ve been using a little bit of guilt trip and a little bit of coaxing.”

    He continued: “I am watching the city decay as nobody is here. Now is not the time to abandon the city and expect it to be in the same way you wanted it when you get back in a year from now.”

    The landlords are also reaching out to corporations like law firms and tech companies to assure them that their buildings are safe. They are promising to make whatever concessions renters want in terms of safety and are also petitioning the governor’s office to start a “Get Back To Business” campaign. 

    But employers have to weigh the risks of sending employees back to work – at the same time that they just figured out the advantages of having their employees work from home. Many businesses have considered keeping the “work from home” model regardless of how the virus pans out. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Landlords argue that every commercial real estate spot also supports adjacent small businesses. Real estate companies are leading by example, recalling half of their workers and expecting the rest to return to work by next July. 

    “The CEOs of several companies I’ve talked to have mentioned that it’s a patriotic duty to have their people come back to the office,” Rudin commented.

    Blau continued: “This place is a pain in the ass. It’s crowded and it’s not the easiest place to live. But you make that trade because it’s got so many great things. We want to make sure that it stays that way and people continue to make that trade and have those things to come back to.”

    Rechler concluded: “We’re creating our own fate by not bringing people back and restarting the largest economic engine in the country. It’s as much of a civic obligation as anything else.”

  • South Korea Indefinitely Closes All Nightlife As Global COVID-19 Cases Top 23 Million: Live Updates
    South Korea Indefinitely Closes All Nightlife As Global COVID-19 Cases Top 23 Million: Live Updates

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/22/2020 – 18:31

    Summary:

    • China approves vaccine for emergency use
    • South Korea closes all bars, nightclubs, entertainment venues countrywide
    • JHU Global case total tops 23 million
    • Trump accuses FDA director of being part of ‘deep state’
    • Infections in UK, Rome climb
    • Johns Hopkins reports more than 800k deaths
    • Argentina joins growing list of countries testing one of China’s vaccines
    • Philippines sees 4k+ new cases for 5th day
    • India, Russia see outbreaks move closer to milestones

    * * *

    Update (1830ET): While rolling out trials in the UAE, Argentina, Morocco and elsewhere, China regulators announced Saturday that one of the vaccines currently undergoing testing has been approved for emergency use.

    The vaccine candidate by Sinopharm has been used on more than 20,000 people in the UAE who have taken it as part of Phase 3 clinical trials, which have proven it to be safe. Efficacy is currently under observation, according to Sinopharm’s chairman on Saturday.

    As the resurgence of new cases bedevils Western Europe, here’s the breakdown of outbreaks by region.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    * * *

    Update (1330ET): South Korea said Saturday it would close all entertainment venues such as nightclubs, karaoke bars and internet cafes, and ban spectators from sporting events once again as COVID-19 cases across the country continue to climb.

    Beaches across the country will also be closed, and indoor gatherings will be limited to 50 people or under (and outdoor gatherings to 100 or under).

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Public health officials detected 332 new cases Friday, Park said Saturday. Imported cases counted for 17 of the total infections. More than 75% of new local cases were found in the Seoul metropolitan area. No deaths were recorded on Friday, Park said Saturday. Seoul has been struggling under these restrictions since Aug. 16, and the new measures simply broaden them to the rest of South Korea.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    However, provinces with lower case counts will be allowed to treat these new rules as simply recommendations rather than a mandate. SK has for months been credited with one of the world’s best systems for suppressing the virus.

    * * *

    Update (1215ET): New cases reported in Europe and the US Saturday morning have helped push the global count north of 23 million, according to numbers from JHU.

    The UK reported 1,288 new cases of COVID-19 on Saturday up from 1,033 a day earlier, along with 18 deaths, up from two a day earlier.

    The new cases were recorded as the UK scrambles to ramp up testing amid hysteria about a possible resurgence as the UK’s cripple economy and traumatized masses are just finally starting to heal.

    As travelers continue to create problems across Europe, leading to dozens of new restrictions and bans as European states seek to stop outbreaks from spreading between countries, officials in the Rome region recorded 215 new cases in 24 hours, mainly because of people returning from vacation. It was the largest jump in the Italian capital since the depths of the lockdown in March.

    For the capital area, the figure is a record number and is more than the 208 people infected in a one-day period on March 28, when Rome had come to a virtual standstill to stop the coronavirus spreading.

    “Sixty-one percent [of the cases] are linked to people returning from vacation,” said Roman health official Alessio D’Amato, with almost half the new cases returning from Sardinia.     

    On the political front, President Trump took aim Saturday at FDA commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn, whom he nominated to replace Dr. Scott Gottlieb when Gottlieb decided to spend more time with his family in CT. Trump accused Dr. Hahn of being part of the “deep state” and demanded that he speed up testing for the virus.

    The swipe was enough to get “deep state” trending on Twitter Saturday morning.

    * * *

    The global coronavirus outbreak reached another grim milestone on Saturday morning: The Johns Hopkins tally of COVID-19 related deaths (which excludes “probable” or “suspected” deaths) has surpassed 800,000.

    While the US outbreak is showing more signs of slowing following what appears to have been a ‘peak’ last month, the US still has the most deaths of any country with more than 175,000.

    It has counted more than 32,000 of those in New York, nearly 16,000 in New Jersey and almost 12,000 in California.

    Globally, Brazil is No. 2 behind the US with more than 113,000 deaths tied to COVID-19 as of Saturday, though Brazil’s outbreak has lately burned more brightly than the outbreak in the US.

    Mexico (with 60,000), India (55,000) and the UK (41,500) have also reported a lot of deaths.

    Moving on, most of the big news early Saturday is coming out of the emerging world.

    Despite its record-setting lockdown, Argentina’s outbreak has continued to worsen and over the last couple of weeks has gotten to the point where hospitals are being overrun as Argentines rally in the streets to demand the end of the Peronista government’s lockdown. Argentina, like the Philippines, Brazil, India and dozens of other desperate nations anxious to bring about an end to the crisis, has turned to China, which has promises to share hundreds of millions of courses with the developing world as it works to cement its status as a super power that feels “responsible” for the virus it “unwittingly” unleashed.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Argentina has joined Peru, Morocco and the UAE in approving a ‘Phase 3’ clinical trial for the China National Biotec Group’s vaccine candidate. More nations are signing on to host trials as the race to produce a vaccine enters its later stages, and the dwindling outbreak in China has created a shortage of potential test subjects.

    Meanwhile, the Philippines, still the biggest outbreak in Southeast Asia, reported 4,933 new cases, the fifth straight day reporting a number north of 4,000. It also reported 26 COVID-19 deaths. In a bulletin, the health ministry said total confirmed cases have increased to 187,249, while deaths reached 2,966.

    Just as its outbreak was appearing to quiet down, India on Saturday reported a record daily jump of coronavirus infections, bringing the total near 3 million and piling pressure on authorities to curb huge gatherings as a major religious festival began. The 69,878 new infections, the fourth straight day above 60,000, take India’s total number of cases to 2.98 million, on the edge of 3 million and behind only the US and Brazil. India reported another 945 COVID-19 deaths bringing the total to 55,794.

    Russia reported 4,921 new cases on Saturday, pushing its confirmed national tally up to 951,897 as it edges inexorably closer to becoming the fourth country to pass 1 million confirmed cases. Officials reported another 121 deaths, bringing the total to 16,310 (though many critics believe this figure is well below the accurate tally).

    Finally, Joe Biden on Friday declared that he would “shut down the united states” if a set of doctors told him it would be a good idea.

  • 'These' Are The Real Huge Jobs Numbers, And They Will Make Your Blood Run Cold
    'These' Are The Real Huge Jobs Numbers, And They Will Make Your Blood Run Cold

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/22/2020 – 18:20

    Authored by Jeffrey Snider via Alhambra Investments,

    There is simply no way to spin these figures as anything good. Not just the usual ones were talk about here, but more so some new data that you probably haven’t seen before.

    Beginning with the regular, it doesn’t matter that the level of initial jobless claims has declined substantially over the past few weeks. The fact of the matter is after 22 weeks of dislocation, at least eleven of them under reopening, these continue to rip along at around 1 million per week.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    One million.

    We’d never seen so much as 700k before (though the labor market is getting into the top range of 1981-82 adjusting for population, as if that’s some good thing). Forget about the first half of the contraction (which the shutdown caused) and just focus on this second set of weeks since early May. There’s no way to describe them, more than double anything we’ve ever seen before.

    Not shutdown but the visible display of economic damage.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The rebound isn’t being very bouncy, for one thing, no matter how many gigantic gobs of purported “stimulus” has been thrown at the economy. It ain’t stimulating. The number of jobs still being lost this late into it is unthinkable; historic.

    I wrote a couple days ago about another key factor which appears to be what the productivity estimates have revealed; the terrifying possibility that though there’s been more job losses than at any time in history there may not yet have been enough of the longer-run variety to balance business perceptions of far lower post-GFC potential.

    Before even getting to July, this divergence between hours and headline payrolls had already suggested that companies may have been holding on to more workers than the decline in output would’ve demanded. In other words, the level of output and actual work performed had declined more than the reduction in headcounts, by a lot more, leaving us to suspect businesses were holding back a sort of reserve of their own workers (who were still on the books but idle nonetheless) having them at-the-ready for when reopening got started.

    Those are both (unemployment and productivity) relatively familiar numbers. Now along comes the IRS, of all places, to put even more disturbing emphasis on this idea. The government’s tax collector is preparing itself for severe, and permanent, shrinking in the labor market.

    Yesterday, the agency released its estimates for Publication 6961 (h/t Bloomberg). And the update to that release will make your blood run cold (while oddly explaining the NASDAQ).

    Before getting to the latest publication, let’s start by going back to happier days or what had seemed like reasonably less awful days during 2017. Globally synchronized growth was the mandate as well as widely accepted as some meaningful acceleration in US and global growth.

    Recovery at last.

    Under 6961, the IRS estimates how many pieces of tax filings it will have to collect, sort, and manage. Perhaps the most important of all of them are the nation’s W-2’s, the way in which all workers report their incomes to verify withholding and calculate tax liabilities before the federal Leviathan.

    A job means a W-2, but many workers hold more than one job at a time or during the year they may change jobs. So, it’s not an exact one-for-one, but when we’re dealing with big things it needn’t be perfectly precise. Even when we look at how 2017’s globally synchronized growth actually turned out in terms of managing all those paper and e-filed submissions:

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The first year listed in each update series is the actual number of W-2’s (not including W-2 G’s) that were collected. As you can see already, the labor market disappointed right from the start; the IRS had expected to process closer to 275mm W-2s during 2017 but ended up with less than 260mm. Reflation #3, as it turned out, as bonds had warned the whole time, not Recovery #1.

    Following that less robust labor market than expected, the IRS in 2018 and 2019 adjusted itself to lower levels – particularly after the big slowdown in employment that happened in 2018 when Euro$ #4 converted globally synchronized growth into the pre-COVID globally synchronized downturn.

    Which brings us to the 2020 update to Publication 6961 released yesterday…and holy sh$%. Sorry, but an expletive is demanded in this situation:

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The taxman thinks there may have been an uptick in W-2’s earlier this year associated with last year’s filing (I think they’ll found out that didn’t happen). But then, for next year, in 2021 as 2020’s W-2’s come rolling in, the agency anticipates receiving 37 million fewer of them than what it had been thinking this time last year.

    Thirty-seven million.

    Even more frightening, the IRS doesn’t believe the labor market is going to recover before 2028. And that is the biggest downside of all. Time is the greatest enemy.

    That doesn’t mean 37 million jobs have been eliminated. Some of the gap is gig workers (a very small part) while much of it is probably going to be a whole lot less turnover; workers changing jobs and getting a W-2 for each during a year. If workers change fewer jobs because they’re uncertain or scared, as so often happens during the worst economic circumstances, then that would account for fewer total W-2’s being issued and turned in.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    But at the baseline of these estimates, it has to be this or worse:

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The “V” is not a V; the rebound is not a recovery. The IRS could be wrong, of course, but when it has been, like so many other official predictions, in which direction is it typically wrong? Using mainstream models, as they’ve done here, when are the models ever overly pessimistic about longer run situations?

    More importantly, these numbers are all consistent with each other; horrible. Combined with real unemployment filings and productivity estimates, each coming at the same piece, the labor market, of what looks to be the stark reality of our economic situation.

    These right here are the huge jobs numbers, not what got posted by the BLS several Fridays ago. How can the most gigantic of payroll positives in history possibly be disappointing to the point of being irrelevant? Quite easily, it may turn out.

  • For $655,000, You Can Now Buy An 'Electrolls-Royce' Phantom
    For $655,000, You Can Now Buy An 'Electrolls-Royce' Phantom

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/22/2020 – 17:55

    An emerging trend in the classic car space is electric vehicle conversion, otherwise known as EV conversions, which is swapping out a car’s combustion engine and connected components with an electric motor and batteries to create an all-electric vehicle. 

    In the last five years or so, EV conversion kits have allowed folks to transform the 1980s Porsche 911s to 1970s Volkswagen Super Beetles to many other vehicles into all-electric cars.

    However, wealthy folks don’t have the time to purchase EV conversion kits and tinker with motors and wires – they rather buy a complete package, and that’s where Lunaz Design comes in. 

    Lunaz, based in Silverstone, England, is the world’s leading restoration and electrification company, focusing on EV conversions of some of the most iconic post-World World II automobiles from Western nations. 

    Lunaz has re-engineered, or let’s say electrified the Rolls-Royce Phantom V, Jaguar XK120, Royce-Royce Cloud, and Bentley S2 Flying Spur.

    “Lunaz is basing their re-engineered Rollers on the 1961 Phantom V, which is certainly an iconic-looking Rolls design. Lunaz is only planning on building 30, and says the conversions will utilize its proprietary powertrain,” said Jalopnik. 

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The electric Phantom will use a 120 kWh battery, larger than the Tesla Model S’ 100 kWh battery option, allowing the range of the vehicle to reach around 300 miles. 

    Jalopnik said ‘Electrolls-Royce’ Phantoms have a list price of about $655,000, but EV conversions for a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud are much cheaper, around $458,000. 

  • Not Again!? Joe Biden Accused Of Plagiarizing Canadian Politician In DNC Speech
    Not Again!? Joe Biden Accused Of Plagiarizing Canadian Politician In DNC Speech

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/22/2020 – 17:30

    Authored by Matt Margolis via PJMedia.com,

    They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, and when it comes to Joe Biden, it appears that really is true.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Joe Biden has been dogged by plagiarism accusations for years, and his Thursday night speech formally accepting the Democratic nomination for president will not go down in history as a speech he wasn’t accused of plagiarizing.

    According to Alexander Panetta, the Washington correspondent for CBC News, “a number of Canadians” found part of Biden’s speech to be very “similar” to Canadian politician Jack Layton’s farewell letter before his death.

    Here is what Jack Layton wrote:

    My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.

    Here are the similar parting words from Joe Biden’s speech:

    Let us begin, you and I together, one nation under god, united in our love for America, united in our love for each other, for love is more powerful than hate. Hope is more powerful than fear, and light is more powerful than dark. This is our moment. This is our mission.

    There are undeniable similarities here, though nothing that can be said to be lifted verbatim. I’d actually be inclined to dismiss Panetta’s accusation, if not for one detail. Joe Biden delivered his speech on August 20, 2020. Layton’s letter was written exactly nine years earlier, on August 20, 2011.

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

    Joe Biden was accused of plagiarizing a law review article in a paper he wrote during his first year at law school, and his 1988 presidential campaign was thwarted after being accused of plagiarizing a speech by British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock.

    While addressing the Welsh Assembly, Kinnock asked,

    “Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Why is Glenys the first woman in her family in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Was it because all our predecessors were thick?”

    A few months after Kinnock’s speech, Biden gave a speech with nearly identical phrasing.

    “Why is it that Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go to a university? Why is it that my wife who is sitting out there in the audience is the first in her family to ever go to college? Is it because our fathers and mothers were not bright? Is it because I’m the first Biden in a thousand generations to get a college and a graduate degree that I was smarter than the rest?”

    During the 1987 California Democratic Convention, Biden also lifted a phrase verbatim from John F. Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural address.

    Earlier this year, Joe Biden’s campaign also copied Bernie Sanders’ platform last month.

    On multiple occasions, Joe Biden plagiarized Trump’s coronavirus response plan by pitching ideas on what to do about the pandemic as his own, even though they’d already been done.

    In March, Joe Biden said “no efforts should be spared” to get private labs and universities working to rapidly expand testing for coronavirus. Trump had already done this weeks earlier when he ordered the FDA to allow hundreds of private labs and academic hospitals to rapidly begin testing for coronavirus.

    Joe Biden also called for relief for small businesses suffering from the economic impact of the coronavirus a day after Trump literally called for $50 billion in liquidity to small business owners. The former vice president also said insurance companies should waive copays for coronavirus testing, which is a good idea. And guess what? Trump had already done that, too, as well as getting commitments from providers to expand their coverage include treatment for the coronavirus in their plans. Biden also called for the acceleration of the development of a coronavirus vaccine. The Trump administration had already fast-tracked the development of a vaccine back in January… you know, when Democrats were distracted by their bogus impeachment of Trump.

    Biden also called for Trump to invoke the Defense Production Act (DPA) to increase the production of medical equipment and other necessities after Trump had already done so.

    It might be a stretch to say Biden is guilty of plagiarizing here. There’s nothing particularly shocking about two separate lists of cliché platitudes being similar. If anyone other than Biden had delivered those lines they’d likely be dismissed as just coincidental similarity. But with Biden, and his record of plagiarism, one can’t help but wonder.

    *  *  *

    Matt Margolis is the author of the new book Airborne: How The Liberal Media Weaponized The Coronavirus Against Donald Trump, and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter @MattMargolis

  • Slammed NYC Movers Turning Away Business As Residents Flee City
    Slammed NYC Movers Turning Away Business As Residents Flee City

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 08/22/2020 – 17:05

    Between an economy-wrecking pandemic and a blistering crime wave driven by race riots and a disbanded anti-crime unit, New York City residents are switching to Pace Picante and fleeing the metropolis in droves.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    That, of course, is nothing new if you’re been following along. But if you need yet another data point, NYC moving companies are so busy they’re having to turn down business, according to DNYUZ.

    While the moving industry is fractured among numerous small business owners, and official statistics are tough to come by, one thing is clear: From professionals who are downsizing following a job loss, to students moving back in with their parents, to families fleeing the city for the suburbs, New Yorkers are changing their addresses in droves.

    According to FlatRate Moving, the number of moves it has done has increased more than 46 percent between March 15 and August 15, compared with the same period last year. The number of those moving outside of New York City is up 50 percent — including a nearly 232 percent increase to Dutchess County and 116 percent increase to Ulster County in the Hudson Valley. –DNYUZ

    “It felt like move-out day on a college campus,” said former NYC resident, Bobby DelGreco, who moved out of his apartment of nine years in Stuyvesant Town, located in East Manhattan. DelGreco is now living in a long-term Airbnb in Los Angeles, so we assume he’ll be moving again shortly.

    “All the doors were propped open, and there were moving trucks and furniture everywhere,” he added.

    Matt Jahn, owner of Brooklyn-based Metropolis Moving, told DNYUZ that he’s been flooded with so many customers that he’s had to reject new business. “We are turning people away because we just don’t have the capacity,” he said, adding “Normally, in a given summer, we spend a bunch on advertising. But we cut it this year because we couldn’t afford it. And we have still had amazing demand.”

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

    That said, things were looking dicey in March, as the COVID-19 lockdown meant a sharp dropoff in business for moving companies. “Right in the beginning, we weren’t sure if we were allowed to work, and a lot of businesses were in limbo,” according to Daniel Norber, owner of West Village-based Imperial Movers. “Everyone was wondering if they should close shop.”

    Then, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that moving companies were considered an essential service, and the phones began to blow up.

    “Within 30 minutes of the announcement I got a flood of calls,” said Jahn of Metropolis Moving, who added that things haven’t slowed down since.

    “The first day we could move, we left,” said Jaime Welsh-Rajchel. In mid-March, Dr. Welsh-Rajchel, a dentist, and her young son, Henry, took refuge from the city with family in Pennsylvania, while her husband, Todd Rajchel, a dental anesthesiologist at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Bushwick, stayed behind to spend the height of the pandemic intubating Covid patients.

    Dr. Rajchel has since accepted a position at the School of Dentistry at Creighton University in Omaha, and his wife, Dr. Welsh-Rajchel, returned to Brooklyn just long enough to help move their items. “Todd was saying we need a five-year period to decompress from this experience before we can come back to New York for a visit,” she said. –DNYUZ

    Compounding issues for moving companies is a industrywide labor shortage while movers get sick.

    “Everyone wanted to flee New York because it was the epicenter, but at the same time, our movers started getting sick,” said Norber of Imperial Movers, who added that the company lost a dozen workers who were either too ill or too afraid to show up. He has been using company vans to pick up movers instead of letting them take public transportation. Norber says he’s operating at around 40% capacity.

    “We didn’t know what the summer would bring, so we didn’t ramp up hiring as quickly,” said FlatRate Moving CEO David L. Giampietro, who added that after it became obvious demnad was spiking, “all the moving companies were competing for workers.”

    Read the rest of the report here.

Digest powered by RSS Digest