- 75% Of Young Want To Escape South Korean "Hell"
75% Of Young Want To Escape South Korean “Hell”
Authored by Andrew Salmon via The Asia Times,
Does research reflect global middle class angst, a uniquely Korean malaise – or mere talk?
From afar, South Koreans might appear to be blessed among East Asians.
Citizens of a prosperous democracy that has birthed a hero-to-zero national success story, world-beating corporate brands, a futuristic infrastructure and the glitzy K-pop universe that is beloved across the region, they boast enviable looks, lifestyles and quality of life.
Up close, things look different. According to a recent survey of 5,000 persons, 75% of 19-34 year old natives of the world’s 11th richest nation want out.
The shock finding, reported in the popular Hankyoreh newspaper on December 29, was revealed at Korea Women’s Development Institute’s 119th Gender Equality Policy Forum, in a presentation titled “Diagnosis of Gender Conflicts from a Youth Standpoint and Suggested Policy Responses for an Inclusive State: A Gender Analysis of Fairness Perceptions.”
The survey found that 79.1% of young women and 72.1% of young men want to leave Korea, that 83.1% of young women and 78.4% of young men consider Korea “hell” and that 29.8% of young women and 34.1% of young men consider themselves “losers.”
Beyond gender differences, the survey suggests massive popular dissatisfaction with local life.
But does it demand that Seoul’s elite sit down and seriously ponder the Korean Dream? Or does it merely reflect superficial talk among youth who live decent lives and have no real intention of leaving?
‘Hell Joseon’
A catchphrase has become current among young Koreans in recent years to describe their country: “Hell Joseon” – “Joseon” being the name of a long-dead Korean kingdom. That phrase is being superseded by a new term, “Tal-Jo” – a pormanteau comprising “leave” and “Joseon,” which, vernacularly, might be best be translated as “Escape Hell.”
“As a joke, we call Korea ‘Hell Joseon,’ but there is another term called ‘Tal-Jo’ which we use a lot more than ‘Hell Joseon’ nowadays,” Park Ji-na, a 20-something Seoul undergraduate, told Asia Times. “Me and my friends just use this in conversation as joke, but if I had a good opportunity to go abroad and work, I would.”
Some say it is far from unique to Korea. “I think there is a middle class crisis in all wealthy countries,” Pae Hee-kyung, who runs an educational institute near Seoul, told Asia Times.
Across the developed, post-industrial world, middle classes are under perceived siege from falling living standards, evaporating opportunities and rising wealth inequality. These trends have arisen against the backdrop of a globalizing world that distributes capital and jobs away from customary centers of investment, manufacturing and related prosperities.
Some pundits posit that these issues explain Brexit in the UK, the election of Donald Trump in the US and the protests of young Hong Kongers.
Are South Koreans different?
For Korea, the transition from poverty to prosperity and the rise of the bourgeoisie has been shockingly fast: The country morphed from little-known agricultural backwater to global industrial powerhouse in just three decades. While Koreans from the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s could anticipate decent jobs and rising standards of living as growth rates surged, this is no longer the case.
“Here, if you look at your father’s generation, they had less in material terms but they had hopes that, every year, they would be paid more, that they could buy an apartment, and that the price would go up and they would feel a sense of achievement and wealth,” Daniel Tudor, author of Korea: The Impossible Country, told Asia Times.
That is no longer the case for two reasons.
Firstly, the South Korean economy has matured and growth has slowed from the high double digits to the low single digits. Secondly, the national growth locomotives – family-run conglomerates, such as Samsung, Hyundai and LG – have gone global and off-shored. With South Korea’s population now at a national high of 51 million persons, there are insufficient full-time, white-collar positions to absorb a highly educated populace.
Yet Korea’s unemployment statistics are hardly calamitous. According to World Bank data, between 1995 and 2017, unemployment only rose above 4% for three years – 1999, 2000 and 2001 ( in the wake of the Asia financial crisis). It stood at over 4% for the first eight months of 2019, but fell to 3.6% in November, according to data provider CEIC. The youth unemployment rate in South Korea averaged 7.19% from 1982 until 2019, according to Statistics Korea, but despite hitting a high of 11.7% in April this year, had dropped to 7.1% in October.
A related issue is property. Koreans have traditionally not invested in securities or financial products, preferring to sink their savings into homes – a trend exacerbated by the low-interest-rate era. The result: soaring house prices. Combine this with half the national population – some 24 million persons – living in and around the Seoul metropolitan area, and it is easy to understand why young Koreans think they will never be able to afford a home.
And there is one area where young Koreans sense a distinctly local injustice. In this neo-Confucian, fast-growth economy, education provides the key to success. The college entrance system, despite methodological criticisms, was widely assessed as being fair. Now, questions hang over that.
In recent years, the children of two prominent figures – Choi Soon-sil, the confidante of jailed ex-President Park Geun-hye, and Cho Kuk, a short-lived justice minister under the current Moon Jae-in administration – have been revealed to have enjoyed privileged access to top colleges. The cases have emerged from both sides of the political spectrum, suggesting a broad culture of elite entitlement.
Many feel a resultant bitterness.
Such privileged people “have a lot of money and are using that money to go to universities and their lives are very ensured,” said Park. “But however hard we work, we don’t even know if we will be able to buy a house – I don’t know how we can live in the future!”
Real concern or youth talk?
Clearly, the study’s findings reflect the talk of youth. How should they be analyzed?
According to the World Bank’s GINI co-efficient data, South Korea is a reasonable 31.6, compared with Japan at 32.1, the UK at 33.2 and the US at 41.5 – the higher the number, the graver the inequality – but author Tudor believes that Korea’s fast-track development trajectory has engendered acute sensitivities.
“I don’t think Korea is particularly unequal – it is quite middle class compared to other wealthy countries – but if you go back one or two generations, things were very equal: everyone had nothing.” he said. “When everyone has nothing you don’t feel poor, but now, even if you have quite a decent standard of living, you look at others around and you may feel, ‘Oh my god!’”
Pae, the educator, opines that the current young are not as badly served by their systems as they believe.
“In the Korean education system, there are lots of chances for scholarships; Korean higher education is a lot cheaper than abroad; and there are plenty of chances of working holidays – so there are lots of opportunities,” she said. “But millennials want to get out of this cycle.”
Another issue is a very notable national tendency to raise emotive voices.
“Since I have been living in Korea, people complain all the time,” said Tudor. “The president is terrible – whoever he or she is – and the economy is terrible or on the brink of a crisis – however good it may be.”
Even Park, the student, admits that she and her friends are not actually planning moves.
“I and my friends talk about leaving Korea, but in order for us to get jobs abroad we should at least have a doctor’s degree, or have certain qualifications like nurse or UX designer,” she said. “Me and my friends, who study liberal arts or business, though we say ‘Tal Jo’ – we can’t.”
Tyler Durden
Thu, 01/02/2020 – 00:00 - "I'm Not Recommending Anyone Use It": First 5G Rollout Fails To Live Up To The Hype
“I’m Not Recommending Anyone Use It”: First 5G Rollout Fails To Live Up To The Hype
When Apple stock closed last year at an all time high after doubling from its January 2019 lows, there were many confused looks among the trader community: after all any attempts to justify the move through the company’s future earnings – which haven’t budged in the past year – would only provoke laughter.
Instead, there were two other explanations being suggested: the company’s record stock buybacks, which helped to drastically expand AAPL’s PE multiple, and the looming “paradigm shift” that is 5G and Apple’s launch of 5G-compatible phones.
Well, for those who bet the farm on the latter, there may be a slight problem, because while 5G has yet to be made available in most countries, one nation has already had a 5G offering for 8 months: South Korea, and early adopters here have been anything but excited about the “5G revolution.”
when 5G services were launched there in April, Jang Dong-gil was among the first wave of South Koreans to sign up. Now eight months in, Jang, a 30-year-old tech company worker, has a chilling review for the next-generation technology: 5G hasn’t lived up to the hype.
“I don’t feel the difference,” Jang, who has been using a 5G-enabled Samsung handset, told the WSJ. In fact, on many days he switches off his 5G service altogether because his connection often drops as his phone pingpongs between 5G and the existing 4G LTE network.
With the rest of the world eagerly awaiting its own 5G rollout, all eyes were on South Korea, which for most of 2019 was home to the vast majority of the world’s 5G users, offering the broadest lessons in what the next-generation network has to offer. Yet where any hope that Apple’s will merely jump to a $2 billion (or higher) valuation could crash and burn is that although it is still early in the global rollout, 5G service in South Korea has proved more of a future promise than a technological breakthrough.
Of course, it’s not just phones: 5G launched during the past year promising to help power a future of autonomous “everything”: from cars, to virtual reality and telesurgery, thanks to its theoretical speeds of up to 100 times faster than today’s 4G networks. In fact, the next-generation network’s potential has been at the forefront of the technological war between the US and China, setting off a technological arms race – and associated trade war – between Beijing and Washington, which has pressured allies to avoid adopting equipment made by China’s Huawei over national-security and other concerns.
For better or worse, it is now seen – if only symbolically – that the company, and the nation, behind the infrastructure that allows global adoption of 5G will be the world’s next technological superpower. As such, many countries are scrambling to deploy the superfast network, hoping homegrown companies can enjoy an early advantage providing new, popular services like those from Uber, Instagram and Netflix that flourished during the 4G era. Currently, few, if any, 5G apps have emerged that would justify an upgrade by consumers.
And while 5G is now operational in Korea (we hope we don’t have to clarify that we are talking about the South version), larger countries are now also beginning the transition. In the U.S., 5G services have been rolled out in select cities—though adoption remains modest, requiring consumers to buy a new phone and, in some cases, subscribe to a top-tier, unlimited data plan.
In China, the rollout is far more aggressive: the government has prioritized expanding access to 5G since its launch in November, and by the end of 2020, China’s 5G subscribers are estimated to hit 120 million, said Chris Lane, an analyst at Bernstein Research. But initial 5G showcases have been limited to tests such as remote telesurgery procedures or streaming a dance performance in a remote village.
Predictably, South Korea is much further along and is expected to end 2019 with more than 4.5 million subscribers among its population of 51 million, according to telecom analysts polled by the WSJ.
In April, the country’s top three carriers – KT Corp, SK Telecom and LG Uplus – launched 5G service on the same day Verizon Communications debuted in two U.S. cities. From the very start, about half of South Korea’s population could have access to 5G service after buying a network-enabled device.
On their 5G phones, South Korean users – who have traditionally had access to all the latest and greatest cell phone technology first – can live-stream sports with a 360-degree view of the action, watching from any angle and in slow motion. Visitors to a Seoul park can summon a giant cat on their phone’s screen as they take in the scenery using augmented reality. Another app lets people gather in virtual-reality rooms to watch baseball games or concerts together.
However, such 5G “flourishes” are still merely attention-grabbing gimmicks which have yet to draw a large audience: “There’s no killer 5G app,” said Woody Oh, a Seoul-based analyst at Strategy Analytics.
“As far as adoption goes, we’re still at the very start,” said Julian Gorman, head of Asia-Pacific for GSMA, a trade association for mobile carriers. We’re eight months into a cycle that’s going to be many years in length,” he said.
Or perhaps 5G is merely an extremely conveient service in search of a spark, and only Apple can provide it. After all, 3G networks, which enabled data transfers among device users and launched in 2001, didn’t fully kick off until Apple’s first iPhone came out in 2007. It took years for its successor, 4G, to bring in ride-sharing platforms like Uber and Grab Holdings since it launched in 2011.
Where does 5G come in? For now, 5G’s main visible benefit lies in transferring large amounts of data extremely quickly, such as downloading movies faster and streaming high-resolution content seamlessly. That could be handy – after all, some 70% of data traffic carried from mobile devices to an operator comes from video content, compared with less than 25% five years ago. That figure is expected to rise further with 5G.
Yet is it truly revolutionary that one will be able to download a pirated version of the latest Star Wars movie on their cell phone in seconds instead of minutes? Indeed, telecom experts say 5G’s advantages are hard for consumers to experience with smartphones. Instead, the bigger leap will be felt with self-driving cars or smart cities, they say.
For current users, though, a key challenge is simply staying connected to 5G.
Take Yun Seung-yeol, a 27-year-old architectural designer in South Korea, who was given a big enticement to sign up for the new service: he got subsidies from his telecom provider to shave about two-thirds off the roughly $1,000 price tag for a 5G-enabled Galaxy Note 10 device.
He said he notices a difference on the superfast network only when downloading files or images on his phone. Besides that it’s a nuisance. Yun, who has an hour-long commute to his Seoul office, said he has turned off the 5G feature on his device for the past month because he kept losing connection when he left Seoul for his home in a neighboring city. He is considering switching back to a 4G data plan if the situation doesn’t improve.
“For now, I’m not recommending anyone to use 5G,” Yun said, uttering the scariest words for anyone who bought AAPL stock near its all time highs on expectations that the stock will continue to soar in 2020 just because of the relentless 5G hype…
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/01/2020 – 23:30 - American Collapse & The Great Impeachment Charade
American Collapse & The Great Impeachment Charade
Authored by Daniel Lazare via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
In order to understand the great impeachment charade, it’s important to keep three facts about the strange bird known as the United States uppermost in mind.
The first is that the US is the ultimate law-based society, one whose structure derives entirely from a single four-thousand-word document created in 1787.
The second is that while Americans think of the Constitution as the greatest plan of government known to man, it’s actually the opposite: a grotesque pre-modern relic that grows more unrepresentative and unresponsive with each passing year. A pro-rural Electoral College that has overridden the popular vote in two of the last five presidential elections; a lopsided Senate that allows the majority in ten urban states to be outvoted four-to-one by the minority in the other forty; lifetime Supreme Court justices who can veto any law at variance with an ancient constitution that only they understand – it’s a broken-down old rattletrap in need of a top-to-bottom overhaul. Yet it’s so thoroughly frozen that structural reform is all but unthinkable.
The third thing to keep in mind is that as the constitutional system grows more and more undemocratic, the two-party system that grew out of it in the nineteenth century grows more undemocratic as well. The result is a bipartisan race to the right. Sometimes, the Republicans seem to be in the lead as Trump imprisons thousands of immigrants fleeing murderous conditions in Central America that the US war on drugs helped create. Other times it’s the Democrats as they beat the drums for imperialist war against Russia.
Take all these factors – xenophobia, mindless obeisance to ancient law, a president imposed against the popular will, etc. – mix thoroughly, place in a super-hot oven due to a growing imperial crisis, and impeachment is what pops out. The process itself is very old, a by-product of fourteenth-century Anglo-Norman law. (Impeachment derives from the Old French empeechier, meaning to ensnare or entrap.) The British abandoned it in the late eighteenth century when Edmund Burke wasted seven years impeaching an Indian colonial governor named Warren Hastings on grounds of corruption. (The House of Lords finally acquitted him in 1795). But then the Americans took it up and now, two centuries later, are immersed in the same brainless exercise.
The results were all too evident in mid-December when one Democrat after another took to the House floor to denounced Donald Trump for violating the ancient constitution by withholding lethal military aid from the neo-Nazis of the Ukraine’s Azov Battalion.
“We used to stand up to Putin and Russia – I know the party of Ronald Reagan used to,” declared Adam Schiff, the Democratic point man on impeachment, his voice quivering with emotion. The fight to defend the Ukraine is “about more than Ukraine. It’s about us. It’s about our national security. Their fight is our fight. Their defense is our defense…. And when the President sacrifices our interests, our national security for his election, he is sacrificing our country for his personal gain.”
This was the Democratic line in a nutshell. In order to safeguard the ancient republic at home, the US must pay foreign satraps to defend its imperial interests abroad.
Since no patriotic American could possibly disagree, any and all problems must stem from meddling by the evil dictator Vladimir Putin and his traitorous puppet in the Oval Office. Americans must therefore fulfill the ancient law by impeaching him just as the “founding fathers” would have wanted. Only then will peace and freedom return to the land of the free and the home of the brave.
It’s all quite ridiculous, but what’s even more bonkers is that millions of Americans think it’s true. Trump is meanwhile in his element. Now that Democrats have voted to impeach him in the House, he’d like nothing more than a lengthy trial in the Senate because (a) acquittal in the upper house is a certainty and (b) it will allow the Republican majority to put the torturers to the rack by subpoenaing everyone from Joe and Hunter Biden to Adam Schiff himself and declaring them in contempt of Congress if they refuse to testify. Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has described an all-out Senate war as “mutual assured destruction,” and he’s right since, once unleashed, the ancient constitutional machinery will grind everything to dust in its path.
American politics will grow only more farcical. If Putin looms larger and larger on the world stage; if “the moment has come,” as the Times Literary Supplement recently announced, “for even the most hardened skeptics to admit that he is one of the most successful world leaders of our era”; if the US at the same time staggers from one imperial disaster to another even while descending into civil war – then it’s not because the Russian leader is particularly clever, but because the US is locked in an ancient mindset that is increasingly divorced from reality. It’s lost in a constitutional labyrinth of its own making, and impeachment is leading it deeper and deeper into the maze.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/01/2020 – 23:00 - Obama's NSC Holdovers Finally Booted After Three Years Of Non-Stop Leaks
Obama’s NSC Holdovers Finally Booted After Three Years Of Non-Stop Leaks
The White House National Security Council is sharply downsizing ‘in a bid to improve efficiency’ by consolidating positions and cutting staff, according to the Washington Times – which adds that a secondary, unspoken objective (i.e. the entire reason) for the cuts is to address nonstop leaks that have plagued the Trump administration for nearly three years.
President Trump and new National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien Leaks of President Trump’s conversations with foreign leaders and other damaging disclosures likely originated with anti-Trump officials in the White House who stayed over from the Obama administration, according to several current and former White House officials. –Washington Times
The reform is being led by National Security Adviser Robert C. O’Brien, who told the Times that 40-45 NSC staff officials had been sent back to their home-agencies, and more are likely to be moved out.
“We remain on track to meeting the right-sizing goal Ambassador O’Brien outlined in October, and in fact may exceed that target by drawing down even more positions,” said NSC spokesman John Ullyot.
Under Obama, the NSC ballooned to as many as 450 people – and officials wielded ‘enormous power’ according to the report, directly telephoning commanders in Afghanistan and other locations in the Middle East to give them direct orders in violation of the military’s strict chain of command.
Meanwhile, the so-called second-hand ‘whistleblower’ at the heart of President Trump’s impeachment was widely reported to be a NSC staffer on detail from the CIA, Eric Ciaramella, who took umbrage with Trump asking Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky to investigate former VP Joe Biden – who Ciaramella worked with.
After O’Brien is done, less than 120 policy officials will remain after the next several months.
The downsizing will be carried out by consolidating positions and returning officials to agencies and departments such as the CIA, the State and Defense departments and the military.
Mr. O’Brien noted that the NSC had a policymaking staff of 12 in 1962 when President Kennedy faced down the Soviet Union during the Cuban missile crisis. During the 2000s and the George W. Bush administration, the number of NSC staff members increased sharply to support the three-front conflict in Iraq, Afghanistan and the war on terrorism.
However, it was during the Obama administration that the NSC was transformed into a major policymaking agency seeking to duplicate the functions of the State and Defense departments within the White House. –Washington Times
“The NSC staff became bloated during the prior administration,” said O’Brien. “The NSC is a coordinating body. I am trying to get us back to a lean and efficient staff that can get the job done, can coordinate with our interagency partners, and make sure the president receives the best advice he needs to make the decisions necessary to keep the American people safe.”
“I just don’t think that we need the numbers of people that it expanded to under the last administration to do this job right,” he added.
Obama-era NSC officials are suspected of leaking classified details of President Trump’s phone conversations with foreign counterparts.
After Mr. Trump’s election in November 2016 and continuing through the spring of 2017, a series of unauthorized disclosures to news outlets appeared to come from within the White House. Several of the leaks involved publication of sensitive transcripts of the president’s conversations with foreign leaders.
Rep. Devin Nunes, California Republican and former chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said this year that he sent the Justice Department eight criminal referrals related to the leaks, including those related to Mr. Trump’s conversations with the leaders of Mexico and Australia.
Former White House strategist Steve Bannon said efforts to weed out the Obama holdovers was a priority early in the administration.
“The NSC had gotten so big there were over 450 billets,” said Mr. Bannon, adding that he and others tried to remove the Obama detailees from the White House.
“We wanted them out,” he said. “And I think we would have avoided a lot of the problems we got today if they had been sent back to their agencies.”-Washington Times
In addition to Ciaramella, Lt. Col. Alexander Vimdman (likely Ciaramella’s source) testified against President Trump during the House Impeachment investigations – telling the Democratic-led House Intelligence Committee that he was “concerned” by what he heard on Trump’s call with Zelensky.
NSC official Tim Morrison, meanwhile, testified that Vindman was suspected of leaking sensitive information to the press, a claim Vindman denied.
Read the rest of the report here.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/01/2020 – 22:30 - Why Is The UN Hiring English-Speaking Disarmament Officers In New York?
Why Is The UN Hiring English-Speaking Disarmament Officers In New York?
Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic prepper blog,
As the Second Amendment conflict heats up across the United States, here’s another “crazy conspiracy theory” that has turned out to be true.
The United Nations is hiring in New York. What positions are they trying to fill?
English-speaking DISARMAMENT, DEMOBILIZATION, AND REINTEGRATION OFFICERS.
This job was posted the day after Christmas. So for all the folks who have been saying “nobody is trying to take your guns” you might want to read this job listing and reconsider your opinion.
Is this in response to the Virginia crisis?
You may recall that citizens of Virginia have become outraged recently by new laws that are likely to pass this month, effectively banning all semi-automatic weapons. Sanctuary counties, cities, and municipalities now cover all but the most urban parts of the state. These sanctuaries have vowed to support the Second Amendment and are refusing to enforce unconstitutional gun laws.
In response, a member of the state congress suggested that Governor Northam could call up the National Guard to disarm residents of Virginia despite the wishes of local governments. In response to that, at least one county has formed a militia and others are expected to spring up. The state’s Attorney General says that these sanctuaries carry no legal weight.
Despite the AG’s opinion and threats from the state government, Virginians appear to have no plans to give up their guns or register them. Many members of law enforcement entities and the National Guard have said that they will not act on unconstitutional orders.
One has to wonder if this is why the UN is hiring “disarmament officers?”
What is the job description?
Here are the responsibilities for the new hires, as per the United Nations job listing.
Within delegated authority, the Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Officer will be responsible for the following duties:
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Acts as a Focal Point for Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) components for two to three missions, responsible for planning, support to implementation and evaluation;
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Participates in DPO and Integrated Task Force planning meetings for the establishment of a new peacekeeping mission with a potential DDR component;
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Provides technical assistance to peace negotiations;
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Participates in technical assessment missions;
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Advises, develops and reviews (as appropriate) initial DDR functional strategy and concept of operations for further development into a full programme by the DDR component and the National DDR Commission;
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Drafts and reviews DDR inputs to SG report, code cables, and talking points;
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Develops initial result-based framework and budget for new DDR components in new mission;
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Liaises with UNDP and donor community to raise voluntary contributions for DDR programmes;
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Presents and/or defends new and subsequent DDR budgetary requirements in the ACABQ and the 5th Committee of the General Assembly;
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Develops staffing structure and terms of reference for a DDR component, including terms of integration with other UN agencies, funds and programmes;
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Provides technical clearance for applicants to DDR units in new and ongoing missions;
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Provides Headquarters support in planning the civilian and military logistics support for DDR;
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Continually reviews DDR programme strategy and implementation through relevant documents, reports and code cables;
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Conducts field missions to assess implementation of established DDR programmes;
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Identifies potential problems and issues to be addressed and suggests remedies to DDR units in the field;
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Liaises with Member States, UN actors and other DDR interested partners to represent the mission’s DDR component at the Headquarters level;
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Establishes and maintains an outreach network with CSOs and IGOs active in the area of DDR.
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Supports the doctrine development work in the area of DDR in the department, with the Inter-Agency Working Group (IAWG) on DDR and other relevant national and international actors working on DDR issues;
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Contributes to Department-level or Policy Committee-level policy development work on DDR and related issues;
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Maintains and further develops the Integrated DDR Standards – a set of inter-agency policies, guidelines and procedures on DDR;
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On behalf of the Chief of the DDR Section, co-chairs the IAWG on DDR, contributes to bringing coherence to the interaction of the UN system and its partners on DDR;
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Supervises the Associate Expert (Junior Professional Officer) in the development and maintenance of the web-based United Nations DDR Resource Centre;
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Liaises with others (UN, regional organisations and Member States) providing DDR.
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Other duties as required. (source)
Also notable is the required language fluency – English – and the desired experience.
Seven years of relevant experience in disarmament affairs, political analysis or in national military or paramilitary service, preferably related to the design, implementation or review of DDR. (source)
Employees would answer to the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
As per the UN, here are some specifics about this job description. Of special note:
Disarmament is the collection, documentation, control and disposal of small arms, ammunition, explosives and light and heavy weapons of combatants and often also of the civilian population. Disarmament also includes the development of responsible arms management programmes. (source)
As well, the UN especially wants women to apply for this job, citing gender equality. But is it possible they think that a gun owner might have more ethical difficulty firing on a woman trying to take their weapons than a man?
The US is no longer part of the UN Arms Trade Treaty.
You may recall back in 2013, the United Nations convinced then-Secretary of State John Kerry to sign a treaty that “unequivocally bans arms transfers that are in violation of a U.N. arms embargo or that exporters have reason to know will be used to commit genocide and other grievous war crimes.”
In 2013, the US signed the UN Arms Trade Treaty but that signature was never ratified. Last April, President Trump officially withdrew from the international gun control treaty.
However noble that may sound, anti-gun control activists were concerned this would lead to the UN being able to disarm Americans on US soil.
So why is the UN looking for English-speaking disarmament experts?
Don’t be silly, “no one is coming to take your guns.”
How many times has someone told you not to worry – that nobody is coming to take your guns away? That all they want is “common-sense gun laws?”
In light of the current political climate and this job listing, I’d say that is an outright a lie.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/01/2020 – 22:00 -
- NHTSA's Special Crash Investigations Unit To Review Fatal Tesla Crash In Los Angeles
NHTSA’s Special Crash Investigations Unit To Review Fatal Tesla Crash In Los Angeles
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has opened an investigation into the Dec. 29 crash of a Tesla Model S in Southern California that killed two people, reported Bloomberg.
NHTSA’s Communications Director Sean Rushton wouldn’t comment on the specifics of the crash and didn’t say if the Model S was on Autopilot during the incident.
A speeding black Tesla ran a red light and plowed into a Honda Civic Sunday, instantly killing two occupants in that car.
The Los Angeles Police Department, at the time of the accident, said two occupants in the Tesla suffered non-life threatening injuries.
NHTSA’s inquiry into the crash will be headed by the agency’s Special Crash Investigations unit. It has already investigated 13 Tesla crashes where Autopilot was suspected of malfunctioning.
Earlier last month, NHTSA announced that it would open an investigation into a crash in Connecticut where a Tesla hit a parked police cruiser while on Autopilot.
NHTSA criticized Autopilot’s lack of safeguards after it probed a 2018 crash in Sept.
Tesla and NHTSA have advised drivers that their hands must be on the steering wheel at all times while engaging Autopilot. Still, some drivers disobey the rules and take their hands off the steering wheel as it’s their belief the vehicle is fully autonomous.
IRRELEVANT:
Tesla claims sleeping at the wheel Autopilot videos are faked
RELEVANT:
Reaction time in an accident encouraged by Elon Musk’s illegal off-label hands-free promotion on @60Minutes @NHTSAgov reported $TSLA to @FTC for ‘misleading’ statements.$TSLAQ
August 2019 pic.twitter.com/DaOSpq7eW3— KillingMyCareer (@MelaynaLokosky) September 13, 2019
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Only in China 🇨🇳, don’t try this at home guys. Tesla owner in China, Sleeping on the backseat while the passengers is filming.
This isn’t what Autopilot is for!#Tesla #TeslaChina #AP #China #特斯拉 #中国 pic.twitter.com/Gl560YTtBL
— Jason Man (@JayinShanghai) April 3, 2019
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#F1
This driver was caught sleeping with his Testa on AutopilotWhat will happen to F1 when autonomous car arrive? pic.twitter.com/4HOWcnQjS0
— ivanF1 (@ivanF1) May 25, 2016
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U.S. Senator Ed Markey recently said Tesla should suspend Autopilot to its customers until new safety mechanisms are put in place to avoid future crashes.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/01/2020 – 21:30 - "On the Edge Of A Precipice" – A Challenging Decade Is Upon Us
“On the Edge Of A Precipice” – A Challenging Decade Is Upon Us
Submitted by Erico Matias Tavares of Sinclair & Co.
While a decade is just an arbitrary measure of time, people often attribute certain emotional and cultural characteristics to it, such as the “roaring 20s” of the 20th century.
The 20s of the 21st century are promising to mark a defining period in world History, particularly for the West, as vital trends that have been developing for years are expected to accelerate and reach a tipping point. “Roaring” might not be the best description by the end of it.
Consider that at the very start of the decade the UK will no longer be part of the EU, itself a monumental change with deep social, economic and geopolitical consequences. The US and other major economies will face even more profound developments this decade.
The dominant context behind all this is what British historian C. Northcote Parkinson defined in the early 1960s as the great dynamo of History – the passing of the baton of global preeminence between East and West since historical records began.
Nobody knows what will happen 6 months from now, much less a decade, but recognizing the ascendancy of the East as a whole – and the evident decline of the West – can help pinpoint important trends and cycles that are likely to materialize in the near future. That ascendancy has started decades ago and will solidify in the short years ahead.
This is a humble “back of the envelope” attempt by the author to read some through important tea leaves, colored (as a disclaimer from the outset) by his rather pessimistic view of the prospects of his native West and by his admiration of the resilience of the East:
- The productivity of debt in most major economies is already below 1, meaning that it takes several dollars in new debt to create a dollar of GDP. This is particularly the case with government debt, and consequently in order to sustain even meager economic growth debt loads as percentage of GDP will continue to growing strongly, following Japan’s path;
- This in turn means that interest rates can never be normalized, otherwise such debt loads would become immediately unsustainable. Financial repression will thus continue, likely even be expanded. Central banks will continue to monetize debts at unprecedented levels and even take on the role of steering industrial policy, a good example being the “green economy”;
- These actions by central banks have enabled Eurozone banks over the last decade to become liquid but not necessarily solvent, a situation exacerbated by negative interest rates and the flaws of and structural imbalances generated by the Euro. A quick look at the share price of Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest bank, clearly shows this;
- Birth rates across the West will continue to fall further given a confluence of social and economic problems. Many Eastern countries are are wrestling with this problem, but the way Western elites are dealing with it are transforming its cyclical nature into a structural one, with deep generational consequences;
- Related to that, the pension crisis will come to the forefront, with more Baby Boomers retiring (where possible) into pension plans that for the most part are underfunded, in many cases severely, despite record high asset prices;
- Modern agriculture has been very successful in delivering calories, basically by converting copious amounts of fossil fuels into food, but rather less so in delivering nutrients. This is because it exhausts top soil and organic matter, critical to produce nutrient-dense foods. As such the health crisis will become worse as a depleted nutrition acts as a catalyst to major diseases;
- All these factors will add more pressure for governments to take action, meaning that all those contingent liabilities will finally start materializing in budgets over the course of the decade – with a vengeance;
- This situation is particularly serious in the US, where it is very possible that the government will lose control of its budget deficit at some point (if it hasn’t already), especially given zero political will and capability to address this. One look at the Congressional Budget Office decadal projections should raise alarm, especially as no recession is expected, but no party seems to care;
- Mass migration into the Western world will continue unabated driven by massive demographic imbalances between developed and developing countries, and Western elites seeking to maintain control by “dividing and conquering” their societies and absorbing the spoils into supranational compacts that they control;
- Another thing which is unlikely to change is the US’ foreign entanglements. Like with immigration and the budget deficit, no party has the will to do anything about it. Three dynamics make highly likely the emergence of a new, bigger conflict where the US will once again become involved this decade: (i) the military being spread all over the planet, raising the chances of some fire exchange with someone, even by accident, (ii) enormous military spending, already larger than several major countries combined, that keeps on growing, and (iii) America’s enemies becoming more entrenched and determined in their quest to develop capabilities to seriously challenge its dominance (like Iran developing medium-range nukes this decade, along with others);
- Automation, the replacement of humans with machines, will accelerate and start replacing enough jobs to generate even more income inequality between workers and capital owners, already a sensitive topic thanks to the monetary and fiscal policy imbalances of the last decade;
- It is therefore inevitable that populism will continue to increase, both on the right and the left of the political spectrum. The hollowing out of the moderate center, tied to a neo-liberal model that is seriously sputtering, will prompt a major political and social polarization in many Western societies not seen since the 1930s;
- The trend towards globalization will be impaired, despite the best efforts of supranational organizations like the UN to maintain the status quo. Major exporting economies like Germany will be disproportionately impacted, creating more tensions inside an already frail EU;
- The political landscape will massively change in the US. The fragmentation of political views and aspirations already means that a two party-system is incapable of dealing with differing objectives inside their respective electorates. However, the emergence of new parties is severely limited by lack of access to funding necessary to win at the federal level, which means that democracy will suffer;
- This loss of democracy is even more likely given the profound demographic change taking place in the US, where immigrants tend to vote overwhelmingly for the Democratic Party. As a result Texas and other states will likely swing Blue by the end of the decade, meaning that Republicans will be locked out of power for a generation+. Once again California led the way for the rest of the country, with an entrenched Democrat super-majority there. As democracy recedes, societal and ethnic conflict will gradually become mainstream;
- What this really means is the beginning of the end for the great American experiment this decade, as its traditional institutions – including its Constitution – can no longer properly function under such conditions. This is hugely consequential for the world in terms of prosperity and freedoms;
- One feature of diverse societies is that they are inherently unstable, meaning there’s a far greater need for a government to mediate the interests and conflicts between different groups. Politicians will increasingly tighten their grip on society, aided by technology that will become even more intrusive. Silicon Valley and Washington DC will thus become even more intertwined;
- Societal fragmentation will not be limited to the US, far from it. French President François Hollande warned in 2016 (after he left office, of course) that his country would eventually break apart. This may become a de facto reality in the 2020s as multiple societal, demographic and economic factors converge in French society. In fact the new decade was inaugurated with dozens of cars set on fire in Paris. These factors will also impact other European countries in similar ways, including Sweden, Belgium, even Germany;
- The EU will become increasingly authoritarian to prevent more BREXITs and keep that political project going. Any dissent of its main guiding policies, from the environment to immigration, is already being stamped out under the guise of “hate speech”. It will only get worse from here. A draconian social credit system similar to what China is developing might be in place by the end of the decade. It seems inevitable that the political make-up of the EU and several of its members will be radically different by the end of the decade compared to today;
- BREXIT might have been a fantastic idea given all that is happening in the EU, but the timing will prove to be off. First, we are close to a global recession, which absent very vigorous central bank action might become serious, thus curtailing any initial enthusiasm. Second, Boris Johnson will be pursuing free trade deals when the globalization tide is turning against him. Third, because in order to ensure the City of London’s preeminent access to global capital markets he will have to offer a bargaining chip, and that is what’s left of British industry – meaning the working class seats the Conservatives were able to impressively flip from Labour on the back of BREXIT. Perhaps the UK as well might not escape the coming fragmentation;
- Working and middle classes across the West, including the UK and especially the US (if one looks objectively at the results of three years of “America First” policies under Donald Trump), will finally realize that they have no real political representation. The real political fault line is not between right and left, rich and poor, liberal and conservative, but rather globalism versus nationalism. There is no money in the latter, beyond extracting taxes to pay for that burgeoning government (that will inevitably oppress them) and elite pet projects, like solving “climate change” and the “migrant crisis”;
- The West thrived when its working and middle classes thrived. These are the people who consume, who largely maintain the national traditions, who fight their wars. Financially and demographically they are in a very tough spot, with birth rates far below replacement levels and life expectancy plunging due to drugs and health problems. Half of Americans can’t cut a $400 check for an emergency. As things stand this rot will likely accelerate as the decade progresses;
- All this does not mean that it will be smooth sailing for the East, far from it, as those economies still depend a great deal on Western markets. Still, they have a highly motivated, educated and productive workforce, comparatively low debt levels (ex-Japan), high savings and very little contingent liabilities. They are also very safe to live in. Attracting top talent from the US and Europe, in addition to their own, should not be too difficult, further cementing their competitiveness. In a sense these economies are merely reverting to the global place they used to occupy before that baton swung to the West;
- Russia is an interesting case as it was always between East and West, given its vast cultural, ethnic and geographical components. Thanks to incredible short-sightedness and (frankly speaking) stupidity from the NeoCons in Washington DC it will now embrace its Eastern future. The 2020s will consolidate the emergence of Eurasia as a super economic block towards the end of the century, independent from any US interference;
- That sets up different scenarios for the coming fracturing of the EU by mid-century, if not sooner. Eastern European countries should gradually gravitate towards Eurasia, including Germany – the worst case scenario for US hegemony. The center West of Europe will become more culturally and demographically aligned with Africa, and so might pursue its future there. And Portugal and Spain, if they had any sense, should seek close ties with their cultural peers in Latin America and Africa;
- Africa could be the one bright spot in the middle of all the turmoil elsewhere, especially given that it has a lot of development potential and a vast supply of all sorts of natural resources. China (i.e. the East) is spending vast sums to unlock this potential and is now the continent’s largest trading partner. Unfortunately, the constraints holding Africa back are all too familiar: corruption, loss of their most enterprising people to mass migration, weak institutions incapable of addressing the aspirations of its very young populations and increasing social and ethnic conflicts, exacerbated by a resurgence of political Islam – another quintessential Eastern ideology that gains force whenever the West declines. This decade will indicate which way it will eventually go the rest of the century;
- Energy prices should remain very volatile, as demand is pressured by a weakening of the economic cycle and supply by a coming peak in US crude oil production this decade. The explosive situation across the Middle East, from Libya to Pakistan, will add much greater uncertainty as the decade unfolds. The West faced serious oil shocks in the 1970s as the US could no longer ramp up its production to counter supply embargoes from the Middle East; it is vulnerable to a repeat of that by the end of the decade. Sustained crude oil price rallies above $100/bbl would very likely put a nail in the coffin of the financial house of cards concocted by Western central banks;
- Commodities markets in general should perform better on a relative basis this decade, especially when compared to US stock markets, which have been on an absolute tear since the end of the financial crisis in 2009. The longest bull market in the context of the weakest capital expenditures cycle since WW2 suggests that significant productive capacity might be taken offline at some point this decade. Mean reversion is a real thing in capital markets;
- Aging farming populations worldwide, quite severe in some cases, will finally put significant pressure on food supplies by mid-decade, if not sooner. And the young, so far, are not replacing them. As a result, record food supplies globally at the start of the decade may turn into food deficits by the end, especially given strong population growth projections (including in the West via mass migration);
- And the US dollar? Its cycles typically last around a decade, and if that is the case we might be nearing the end of is bull run, certainly this decade. Adding to this cyclical outlook is the fundamental deterioration of the US fiscal position outlined above. That deficit will have to be financed somehow, and some pretty juicy yields might have to be offered especially if the dollar starts weakening. While it may still remain the world’s reserve currency given lack of competitors, cryptocurrencies might increasingly offer an alternative. StableCoins, a variant, in particular offer governments a monetary alternative to generate growth within the constraints of the Euro, for instance;
- Gold should remain part of any investor’s portfolio (in physical form), although nobody can say for sure whether prices will be higher in dollar terms by the end of the decade. Trillions of dollars in debt issued in the last decade will become due and together with weak economic growth the risk of a deflationary shock remains significant;
- The wildcard in predicting financial outcomes is as Western societies profoundly change so will the rules of the investment game. It’s not inconceivable that capital controls will be in place before the end of the decade. The more Europe and the US sink into deep fiscal and economic issues, the bigger that wildcard will be;
- Investors’ focus will gradually shift from speculation to wealth preservation, given the dearth of fairly valued opportunities at the start of the decade and a far more uncertain global environment.
Summing up, this decade will very likely be remembered for the end of the world order that had been in place since WW2.
Yes, there is a positive drift on societies across the world emanating from relentless technological progress, but it is highly unlikely that this will do anything to stop the profound demographic, financial and cultural changes that have accelerated this past decade.
Adam Smith noted that a nation can take a lot of ruin. For decades Westerners have been doing their best to figure out how much. Not only that, but a progressive cultural revolution starting in the 1960s has upended all Western traditional values and morals, and so the present generations are ill-prepared to cope with the massive challenges that lie ahead.
If there is a silver lining in all this is that young people are starting to acknowledge the failure and dead-end of the current economic, moral and governance models, and are gradually returning to tradition, family life and communities. Localism, as opposed to globalism, will gain traction.
Building resilience should be the motto of the coming decade.
And with that, wish you a very hopeful, positive and healthy 2020.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/01/2020 – 21:00 - So Many People Have Fled California The State May Lose Multiple Seats In Congress
So Many People Have Fled California The State May Lose Multiple Seats In Congress
California is poised to lose multiple congressional seats after the 2020 census for the first time in the state’s history, thanks to an exodus of more than 200,000 people between 2018 and 2019, according to the Los Angeles Times. Top destinations include Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and Colorado.
“It’s got a lot to do with dispersion from California to the rest of the west,” said senior Brookings fellow, William Frey. “Arizona, Texas and Colorado are all big destinations for California migrants, and they all are gaining seats.”
About 203,000 people left California in that period, a result of the state’s shifting migration patterns and economic strains that are making it harder to afford living here. New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Louisiana also saw large losses to other states.
California’s potential loss in reapportionment, which will be determined by next year’s census count, would drop the state’s number of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives from 53 to 52, said William Frey, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. –LA Times
According to a relocation survey by Texas Realtors, 63,175 Californians moved to Texas in 2017, while almost 41,000 Texans moved to the Golden State. And while California may lose a seat in the House, Texas is likely to gain three seats after the 2020 census. Arizona, Colorado and Oregon may gain one seat apiece.
A state’s population includes all residents – citizens and non-citizens, along with overseas federal employees and their dependents from whatever state they claim as home, according to the US Census Bureau.
That said, if illegal immigrants fail to participate or fail to give honest household figures, California could lose multiple seats according to state redistricting analyst Paul Mitchell,
“If, as many fear, non-citizen populations and the state’s heavily Latino population either fails to participate or participates without providing full household counts, then California could lose more than one seat,” said Mitchell.
The House of Representatives, meanwhile, is limited to 435 members thanks to a 1929 federal law which lawmakers and the president could change if they wanted to.
Exactly where California would lose a seat in the House depends on which communities are larger or smaller compared to census numbers from 2010. The state’s Citizens Redistricting Commission, whose members will be selected in coming months, will hold public hearings in 2021 to determine how to redraw congressional maps.
Paul Mitchell, one of the state’s leading analysts of the redistricting process, said that two places could dominate the discussion: the communities sitting at the intersection of Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties and the suburbs to the east of San Francisco. –LA Times
The most obvious political impact is that incumbent House members would need to run against each other or leave office. The Times notes that in 2012, “Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Northridge) defeated former Rep. Howard Berman in a bitter contest brought on by the new lines drawn in Los Angeles County.”
Losing a House seat would be a “massive rewrite of the Central Valley congressional districts,” said Mitchell.
California’s future numerical strength in Congress hinges in part on making sure that members of historically undercounted groups are included in the census count. In California, 72% of the population belongs to one of these groups, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
State census workers, community organizations and local politicians started outreach efforts as early as April to ensure an accurate tally in next year’s count. In addition to reapportionment, nearly $800 billion in federal tax dollars and political redistricting are at stake. –LA Times
Officials say Los Angeles county will be the hardest to accurately tally because of its high concentrations of renters, homeless people, and immigrants who may not participate due to language barriers or fear of being targeted by federal immigration authorities.
Meanwhile, the US growth rate has declined steadily over the past decade – with California leading the charge according to Frey, with about 400,000 people under the age of 18.
“This is a symptom of an aging population,” Frey said, adding “and in states like California, an out-migration of younger families with children.”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/01/2020 – 20:30 - "Revolutionary Changes In Public Opinion" – Gallup's Decade in Review: 2010-2019
“Revolutionary Changes In Public Opinion” – Gallup’s Decade in Review: 2010-2019
Authored by Justin McCarthy, a journalist and analyst at Gallup,
A review of Gallup analyses over the past decade reveals that the years from 2010 to 2019 bore witness to key revolutionary changes in public opinion, along with some persistent trends and concerns, as well as striking moments and lasting effects.
Here are the changes, issues and moments in public opinion that Gallup editors think will long be associated with the 2010s:
Revolutionary Changes
Same-Sex Marriage: When the decade began, only a handful of states had legalized gay marriage and most Americans opposed it. But in 2011, Gallup recorded majority support for same-sex marriage for the first time. Americans continued to warm to gay marriage as the decade progressed, with support reaching the 60% mark just before the Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision made gay marriage legal nationwide.
In the final years of the decade, support has ranged between 61% and 67%. The wholesale change in public attitudes about gay marriage over such a short time span represents one of Gallup’s most compelling public opinion trends.
Marijuana: Much like the issue of same-sex marriage, Americans’ views on legalizing marijuana have vastly changed, with the sharpest shift in support for legalization occurring in the past 10 years.
In 2010, when no states had yet legalized recreational marijuana, 46% of U.S. adults supported legalizing it, but that grew to about two-thirds in four consecutive readings by decade’s end. Today, 11 states and Washington, D.C., have legalized recreational use of marijuana, while many other states have decriminalized it or passed laws allowing for medical marijuana use.
The U.S. Economy: That two in three Americans say it is a good time to find a quality job in the U.S. at the conclusion of 2019 shows how far U.S. consumers have come from the economic despair Gallup found as the decade began.
In January 2010, just 9% of Americans said it was a good time to find a quality job. And for the better part of the decade, Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index was in negative territory as Americans continued to reel from the effects of the global economic crisis and the U.S. recession. President Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2017 marked an important turning point as Americans again became net-positive about the economy and jobs in particular. But Gallup has consistently found that most Americans view the country’s current and future economic health through a political lens.
Political Polarization: Republicans and Democrats have become more polarized in their views on issues and evaluations of politicians. This polarizing trend is not unique to the end of the decade, but it’s one that has accelerated over the past 10 years.
A 2017 Gallup analysis found that Barack Obama’s presidential approval ratings had been the most politically polarized ratings for any president in Gallup’s history — and President Donald Trump’s are on pace to be even more polarized. But Republicans and Democrats diverge even on questions that are seemingly apolitical, including how the U.S. economy is doing and how they rate their personal healthcare situation, for example. This will have enormous consequences not just for the coming presidential election, but for how U.S. politics navigate beyond it.
Religion: Religious faith is prominent in the U.S., but much less so than in previous decades. Church membership and attendance — as well as frequency of attendance — are all down to record lows. Americans have become less likely to believe in God. Meanwhile, more than one in five Americans (21%) now describe themselves as having no religion, a sizable jump from 14% in 2010 and 8% in 1999.
In addition to the decline in Americans identifying with any religion, some of the largest changes within religious groups have occurred among U.S. Catholics, of whom weekly church attendance has nearly halved since the beginning of the millennium, and whose confidence in organized religion and the clergy have fallen.
Persistent Issues and Concerns
Gun Violence: Many of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history have occurred during the past decade, and Americans have often reacted to these events with alarm. In 2012, U.S. parents worries’ about their children’s safety rose after the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, which marked one of the least happy days in 2012, according to Americans’ self-reports of their emotions. In March 2018, less than a month after the Parkland, Florida, school shooting, Americans’ mentions of guns as the nation’s top problem spiked to a record high. But much like the cyclical political conversations on gun control, these fears typically decline until the next event drives them back up again.
How Americans interpret deadly shootings is also divisive, as Republicans and Democrats attribute gun violence to different root problems. Majorities of Americans have generally reported wanting stricter gun control over time, and violent events have often pushed this desire to relative heights.
Terrorism: Americans’ worries about terrorism in the 2010s were somewhat of a holdover from the prior decade, which was largely defined and shaped by the attacks that took place on Sept. 11, 2001. Much like gun violence, Americans’ worries about terrorism ebb and flow in reaction to terrorism in the U.S. and abroad. The 2013 Boston Marathon bombings prompted a double-digit increase in the percentage of Americans who believed another terrorist attack was coming. After the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, Americans’ concerns about the possibility of future terrorist attacks rose the most among a list of 15 problems facing the U.S.
Fears about terrorism affect Americans’ behavior, as was evident in 2017, when a record-high percentage of U.S. adults reported they were less likely to attend large events because of terrorist attacks. As recently as October 2019, nearly half of Americans said they worried that they or a family member could be a victim of terrorism.
Race Relations: Whites and blacks alike are less positive in their assessments of race relations in the U.S. than they were in the previous decade. The final years of the 2010s revealed heightened worries about race relations compared with previous measures Gallup has taken since 2001. The election of Obama, the first black U.S. president, may have signaled a major achievement in race relations, but Americans’ views of race relations became less harmonious during Obama’s time in office — and have further soured during Trump’s presidency.
Striking Moments
The 2016 Election: In 2016, for only the fourth time in U.S. history, the president elected by the Electoral College did not win the popular vote. Still, the event was singular in that the two major-party candidates had the worst favorable ratings Gallup has ever recorded leading up to an election, and Americans rated the tone of the election more negatively than elections in the past.
Despite then-candidate Trump’s low ratings on personality and leadership qualities, the constant news about his opponent Hillary Clinton’s email server scandal hurt her. Trump’s attacks on the media came at a time when confidence in the media had dipped to new lows — especially among members of his own party.
Osama bin Laden: Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden had been “Public Enemy No. 1” even before the attacks on 9/11. His eluding capture had dogged then-President George W. Bush, who was in the first year of his presidency when the U.S. experienced the deadliest terrorist attack in its history.
Nearly a decade after 9/11, bin Laden was killed in Pakistan by a U.S. special operations team. The raid was well received in the U.S., with 93% approving of the military action and about eight in 10 saying it was extremely or very important to the U.S. that bin Laden was killed (though the operation was not well-received in Pakistan, where it occurred). Americans gave most credit to the U.S. military and the CIA. Obama received a six-percentage-point bump in his approval ratings — a rare “rally event” for him.
Government Shutdowns: The federal government shut down three times over the decade. While one was relatively brief (Jan. 20-22, 2018), the other two lasted weeks — with the most recent shutdown that ended in January 2019 being the longest in U.S. history. Gallup has found that these events affected Americans’ views of the country in various ways.
In 2013, Congress approval dropped to one of its lowest levels in history, while satisfaction with government reached a new low. Meanwhile, Americans’ confidence in the U.S. economy — which had been slowly rebuilding after the global economic crisis — plummeted as the shutdown wore on.
The Republican Party’s image took a hit as a result of GOP members of Congress’ role in the shutdown. Obama’s approval ratings mostly held steady during the shutdown of 2013, as did Trump’s ratings during the shutdown earlier this year. During the most recent shutdown, mentions of the government and poor leadership as the top U.S. problem spiked, while trust in the government to handle domestic and international issues each dropped to record lows.
The Tea Party: The seeds of the Tea Party movement took root in 2009 and early 2010 when fiscal conservatives opposed “excessive” federal spending and government bailouts — and later, when conservative Republicans were outraged over various proposals from the new Democratic-controlled Congress and White House, particularly the Affordable Care Act.
But the movement bore fruit in 2010, when 87 Republicans were newly elected to Congress, many under the umbrella of the Tea Party movement — representing one of the GOP’s greatest electoral victories in generations. In 2010, Gallup found that more than a quarter of Americans (28%) and about half of Republicans (49%) were supporters of the Tea Party movement, with strong support among whites and conservatives. Support for the movement waned after peaking at 32% following its successes in the 2010 elections. By 2015 — the last time Gallup posed the question — support was about half that level (17%).
Occupy Wall Street: Not long after the Tea Party movement’s successes in 2010, the Occupy Wall Street movement was born when protesters in New York City’s Zuccotti Park remained there for two months in the fall of 2011. This prompted national and international re-creations of the protest and ignited larger conversations about wealth inequality in the U.S., particularly the top 1% of income earners.
Americans were slightly more approving than disapproving of the movement’s goals and the way the protests were being conducted, but most were unfamiliar with the Occupy Wall Street movement. Occupy Wall Street likely tapped into frustrations that were present that year, as Americans’ satisfaction with opportunities for people to get ahead by working hard had dipped to a new low (55%) in 2011 and a record-low 44% said it was likely that U.S. youth would have better lives than their parents. Many of the movement’s messages have resonated with the current presidential campaigns of Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, whose platforms are largely centered on income inequality.
Lasting Effects
The Affordable Care Act (ACA): One of the decade’s most significant pieces of legislation was passed at its beginning. Signed by Obama in March 2010, the ACA successfully reduced the percentage of uninsured Americans. The bill, which became widely known as “Obamacare,” was controversial, with 45% of Americans supporting it and 48% opposing just weeks before its passage.
Since then, public opinion has continued to tilt against the law, averaging 46% approval and 49% disapproval since 2012, based on annual averages. Americans were most negative about the ACA as the ACA exchanges opened in late 2013 and the individual mandate took effect in early 2014. The ACA enjoyed majority approval in only two polls, both conducted in 2017, amid Republican attempts to repeal it. Twin polls in 2019 found the law just as divisive today as it was at the start, with 50% approving of the ACA and 48% disapproving.
Socialism: Nationally, socialism has not gained in popularity over the past decade — and less than half of Americans would vote for a socialist presidential candidate. But U.S. Democrats have warmed slightly to socialism, and they now view socialism more favorably than they do capitalism. About half of millennials view socialism positively.
Though Americans skew negative in their views of socialism, their views are more nuanced when asked about specific aspects of government responsibility. With more political leaders, namely Democrats, adopting socialist messages, the coming decade will tell whether Americans become more positive in their views of socialism or whether they will remain as negative about it as they were in the 2010s.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/01/2020 – 20:00 - DiGenova: Comey And Brennan Were 'Coup Leaders'
DiGenova: Comey And Brennan Were ‘Coup Leaders’
Former US Attorney Joe diGenova told OANN‘s John Hines that former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan were “coup leaders” in an attempt to reverse the outcome of the 2016 US election.
DiGenova says the Obama Justice Department was corrupted under Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, “with the authority and knowledge of then-president” Obama, and that a ‘stupid and arrogant’ Susan Rice was dumb enough to document his knowledge in a January 20th, 2017 email.
“And you’ll never forget, I’m sure, that famous Susan Rice email on inauguration day of Donald Trump, where she sends an email to the file memorializing that there had been a meeting on January 5th with the president of the United States, all senior law enforcement and intelligence officials, where they reviewed the status of Crossfire Hurricane and the president announced – President Obama – that he was sure that everything had been done by the book.
I want to thank Susan Rice for being so stupid and so arrogant to write that email on January 20th because that’s exhibit A for Barack Obama – who knew all about this from start to finish, and was more than happy to have the civil rights of a massive number of Americans violated so he could get Donald Trump.” -Joe diGenova
Moreover, diGenova says that after “all this stuff involving Trump and Page and Papadopoulos and Michael Flynn,” anyone who couldn’t see that the “corrupt investigative process of the FBI and DOJ was basically being used to conduct a coup d’état” is an idiot.
“This was not hard. If you’re a good prosecutor you look at the facts in the Trump case, and the Page case, the Flynn case. There’s only one conclusion you can come to; none of this makes any sense. None of these people were evil. None of them. They were framed, and the whole process was playing out, and you knew it on July 5th 2016, when James Comey announced – usurping the functions of the Attorney General, that no reasonable prosecutor would bring a case against Hillary Clinton. That was ludicrous! She destroyed 30,000 emails that were under subpoena. If you or I did that, we would be in prison today. She got a break because she was Hillary Clinton, and James Comey was trying to kiss her fanny because he wanted something from her when she became president of the United States.
All of these people who watched that news conference and didn’t think that it was a disgrace for the FBI. And then subsequently, watched all this stuff involving Trump and Page and Papadopoulos and Michael Flynn – and couldn’t see that the corrupt investigative process of the FBI and the DOJ was basically being used to conduct a coup d’état. I mean you have to be an idiot. Any first year assistant US attorney would look at all these facts and say ‘there’s a coup underway. There’s a conspiracy.’
But for those of us thought that, the Washington Post, the New York Times. We were ‘conspiracy theorists.’ You know what? Pretty damn good theory, it appears today.
“To what extent is the CIA involved in this?” asked Hines.
“Well there’s no doubt that John Brennan was the primogenitor of the entire counterintelligence investigation,” replied diGenova. “It was John Brennan who went to James Comey and basically pummeled him into starting a counterintelligence investigation against Trump. Brennan’s at the heart of this. He went around the world. He enlisted the help of foreign intelligence services. He’s responsible for Joseph Mifsud and other people.”
“People do not have even the beginning of an understanding of the role that John Brennan played in this. He is a monstrously important person, and I underscore monstrously important person. He has done more damage to the Central Intelligence Agency – it’s equal to what James Comey has done to the FBI. It’s pretty clear that James Comey will go down in history as the single worst FBI director in history, regardless of how Mr. Durham treats him.”
“He precipitated it. He caused it. He encouraged it, and he is responsible for it at a minimum. He and John Brennan are the coup leaders.”
Watch:
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/01/2020 – 19:30 - Gary Shilling: Why It's So Hard To Forecast The Economy
Gary Shilling: Why It’s So Hard To Forecast The Economy
Authored by A.Gary Shilling, op-ed via Bloomberg.com,
Normal cyclical patterns have gone missing, and may not be coming back anytime soon…
The U.S. economy has experienced its slowest recovery from a recession in the post-World War II era, and the longer it lasts the more evidence there is that normal cyclical patterns are missing. And their absence means market participants shouldn’t rely on them to divine the economy’s future.
Consider the myriad developments that are atypical, or even the reverse of normal economic and financial market behavior. The Federal Reserve shifted from easing credit to tightening following past downturns, with its target federal funds rate normally raised within a year or so of the recession’s trough, eventually precipitating the next economic contraction. This time, the central bank kept its policy rate at the recessionary low of essentially zero until Dec. 2015, 78 months into the recovery. And then, after nine quarter-percentage point increases, it reversed course early this year with three rate cuts.
Far from the Fed’s normal worries about an overheating economy and inflation, the central bank frets that low and even declining consumer prices will spawn deflationary expectations. Buyers will hold off in anticipation of lower prices. Inventories and excess capacity will mount, forcing prices down. The price cuts confirm suspicions and purchases are delayed even further, sparking a deflationary spiral. The glaring example is Japan, with deflation in most years in the past two decades and tiny real GDP annual growth of 1.1%.
Also, despite the plunge in 30-year fixed mortgage rates from 6.8% in July 2006 to the current 3.7%, rate-sensitive single-family housing starts have been muted. They fell from a 1.8 million annual rate in January 2006 to 350,000 in March 2009 as the subprime mortgage market collapsed, but have only recovered to 940,000.
Mortgage lending criteria have tightened and prime-age first-time homebuyers don’t have the necessary downpayments. The net worth of households headed by 18-to-34-year-olds dropped from $120,000 in 2001 to $90,000 in 2016, a 44% decline adjusted for inflation. Also, they learned from the last recession that for the first time since the 1930s, house prices nationwide can fall.
In past business recoveries, the U.S. household saving rate fell as consumer spending grew faster than incomes. In this expansion, it’s the reverse, leaping from 4.9% to 7.9% in November, retarding spending.
Past postwar recessions spawned financial problems, but nothing like the 2008 crisis. The government’s reaction was equally severe with the enactment of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act and other stringent regulations for financial institutions that are only now being slowly relaxed.
In earlier business upswings, a drop in the unemployment rate of anything like the plunge from 10% in October 2009 to the current 3.5% would have spawned massive wage inflation. This time, real wages are barely growing.
Globalization transported many high-paid manufacturing jobs to China. With the growing “on demand” economy—think Uber Technologies Inc. —many people trade flexibility in working hours for low pay. The payroll jobs that are being created are mostly in low-wage sectors such as retailing and leisure & hospitality.
For years, foreign policy was bipartisan and expanding trade was considered highly desirable. Now, globalists have been overcome by protectionists, spurred by voters upset over stagnant purchasing power and rising income and asset inequality in G-7 countries. Trump’s 2016 election along with the U.K.’s “Brexit” from the European Union are among the results. Then there’s also the demise of global trade deals, which are being replaced by bilateral agreements or no pacts at all.
The U.S.-China trade dispute will no doubt persist because China, with a declining labor force as a result of its earlier one child-per-couple policy, needs Western technologies to grow and achieve its worldwide leadership ambitions. But the U.S. is opposed to the technology transfers China wants.
The dollar’s slide from 1985 until 2007 encouraged U.S. exports, curbed imports and gave U.S. multinationals currency-related boosts to profits. Since then, the dollar index has rallied 33% amid a global demand for haven assets. And it should continue to, given the relatively faster growth of the U.S. economy, its huge, free and open financial markets and the lack of meaningful substitutes for the greenback.
Disinflation has reigned since 1980, but real interest rates were positive until the last decade. But for 10 years now, real 10-year Treasury note yields have been flat at zero (see my Nov. 19, 2018 column, “Zero Real Yields Are Tripping Up Investors”). This and the flat yield curve have pushed state pension funds and other investors far out on the risk curve in search of real returns, bidding up stocks to vulnerable levels.
Earlier, the Fed was run by Ph.D. economists who clung to widely-held theories even though they didn’t work. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell is proving to be much more practical, backing away from rigid Fed policies such as the 2% inflation target and a zero-bound policy rate as well as unsuccessful forward guidance.
In this different economic climate, it’s hard to time the end of the current recovery. Still, it will end, due either to Fed overtightening or a financial crisis, like the 2000 dot-com blow-off or the 2007-2009 subprime mortgage collapse. In the current excess supply-savings glut-deflationary world, it’s likely a recession will unfold due to a shock before the Fed overtightens.
No financial crises are in sight, but there are possibilities such as excess debt in China and among U.S. businesses, a trade war escalation, consumer retrenchment resulting in widespread deflation, and disappointing corporate profits measured against sky-high stock prices. Watch for specific imbalances, not typical past patterns.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/01/2020 – 19:00 - A Third Of 18-34 Year Olds Live With Their Parents And Other 2019 Housing Market Highlights, In Charts
A Third Of 18-34 Year Olds Live With Their Parents And Other 2019 Housing Market Highlights, In Charts
As Goldman housing strategist Marty Young writes in his “year in review” housing and mortgage market summary, 2019 was characterized by sharply falling mortgage rates and a strengthening housing market:
-
120bp: 30-year mortgage rates fell by 120bp between 2018Q4 and 2019Q4.
-
+17%: single family housing starts increased by 17% from November 2018 to November 2019.
-
+3.2%: the Case-Shiller US house price index has grown by 3.2% over the past 12 months.
-
50%: 50% of outstanding conventional 30-year mortgage borrowers have a 50bp or larger refinance incentive as of 2019Q4 (up from 6% as of 2018Q4).
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5bp: agency MBS spreads widened by 5bp in 2019 (vs. 60bp of tightening of IG corporate bond spreads).
-
$230bn: Federal Reserve agency MBS holdings declined by $230bn over the past year.
-
$25bn: non-QM RMBS issuance has reached $25bn in 2019 year-to-date (vs. $11bn in 2018
One remarkable observation: roughly a third of young Americans aged 18-34 now live with their parents: up from 27% before the crisis. Depending on how one looks at this data, it means that either household formation is about to soar, or an entire generation now has doubts it will ever be able to own its own house.
Looking ahead, the Goldman strategist expects slightly higher mortgage rates and a strong housing market for 2020:
-
Expect mortgage rates to increase by 25bp in 2020, ending the year at 4.0%.
-
Look for single family housing starts to increase by 5% in 2020 vs. 2019.
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Expect the Case-Shiller US house price index to grow by 3% in 2020.
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Expect 30% of outstanding conventional 30-year mortgage borrowers to still be in-the-money for refinancing in 2020Q4.
-
Look for mortgage spreads to move sideways and for IG spreads to widen by 20bp in 2020H1.
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Expect Federal Reserve MBS holdings to decline by an additional $220bn in 2020.
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Expect non-QM issuance to grow again to $30bn in 2020.
And here are some of the pivotal charts recapping the housing market from the perspective of Goldman Sachs:
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/01/2020 – 18:30 -
- I've Had Professors Who Educate, And Ones Who Indoctrinate. Here's What I Learned From Both…
I’ve Had Professors Who Educate, And Ones Who Indoctrinate. Here’s What I Learned From Both…
Authored by Emma Schambach via The College Fix,
I’m prepared for the real world…
Earlier this month I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
As I look back on my time on campus, I can honestly say I am thankful for both the professors who challenged me intellectually and were open to my conservative views — as well as the professors who tried to indoctrinate me, belittled my principles, or allowed me to be verbally bullied by classmates.
That’s because both types of experiences taught me how to better defend my beliefs as I enter the next stage in my life: real life.
As I consider law school, I know that my potential future career as an attorney would be built upon defending my stances with wisdom and logic. With that, I appreciate the tutelage the intellectual sparring on campus gave me. It toughened me up, taught me how to argue the facts.
That’s not to say that I support professors who shut down their students’ thoughts and opinions. Nor did I enjoy being condescended to as an undergrad.
But looking back, in hindsight, it did help me grow.
Prior to my university experience, I was home-schooled from first grade through twelfth grade. I felt this non-traditional start to my educational journey might put me at a disadvantage, or at least at a different starting point, than some of my classmates. What I came to discover after some time in the classroom was that I was well-prepared to defend my beliefs.
Often I was the only conservative student to speak up in class, and I did have my fair share of leftist professors who badgered me over my opinions on abortion, immigration and economics.
For example, one professor my sophomore year labeled me “anti-choice” in front of the class when I expressed that the government should have a Constitutional responsibility to protect pre-born children.
But there’s another side to this story, too. I also had some professors who heard me out when I questioned their political views.
I can still recall the time I challenged one of my professor’s anti-capitalism opinions during a lecture. After class he walked up to me, and my stomach was gripped with tension of the unknown. Yet to my pleasant surprise, he offered me an extra credit opportunity to write an essay on why I believe capitalism is the best economic system.
This teaching opportunity strengthened my ability to articulate my opinions and gave me a chance to practice my writing skills.
I am grateful to say I had other professors who, although they disagreed with me, did not shut me down or insult me because of it. These select few professors were the highlight of my college experience, educators who prioritized teaching over indoctrination. They are a powerful reminder that some scholars still allow the Socratic method in their classrooms. They offer a chance for their students — both conservative and liberal — to grow as individuals and intellectuals.
Let me speak for my peers when I say “thank you” to all those professors out there who honor their call to educate. You help make our experiences on campus not only tolerable, but enjoyable.
Students in the university system in America shouldn’t be afraid to express their different views. They should be encouraged to express dissent and be taught how to defend their ideas and build arguments using reason and logic.
Unfortunately, far too often, leftist indoctrination is the lesson of the day. And not all students take it well, namely conservative freshmen who were not taught by their parents or high school teachers counter-arguments to liberal tropes. I’ve seen it happen first hand. They know capitalism is the only system that has lifted the most out of poverty, but they stumble on citing specifics. All too often they get devoured by their left-leaning professors and peers, and end up feeling bullied and belittled. They then go silent, or even worse, buy into the progressive dogma that socialism is the solution to all of the world’s evils.
I’m glad that wasn’t me. As I look back on my experience at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, I recall professors who challenged my beliefs through bullying tactics and intimidation, as well as professors who challenged me in order to strengthen my arguments and promote my academic success. I grew from both learning experiences.
The professors who tried to silence me taught me the importance of standing up for myself and for those who are voiceless in the face of unreason and unkindness. The professors who challenged my beliefs and encouraged me to work on articulating them in order to build a stronger argument gave me the tools I need to succeed in the decades to come.
Like me, conservative students who have fought bias throughout their education can step into the real world having already faced adversity by surviving a campus where about 80 percent of your peers and nearly 100 percent of your professors disagree with your political views.
While it is disappointing and disheartening that the once-great university system in America is so blatantly biased, and discourages differing viewpoints of students, there is hope in the strong level-headed and determined conservative students who are being shaped by this academic hazing into the future conservative leaders of America.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/01/2020 – 18:00 - Baltimore City Breaks Murder Record Of The Century
Baltimore City Breaks Murder Record Of The Century
Baltimore City slid further into chaos and just broke its highest ever per-capita homicide rate after recording its 347th murder on Monday.
With about 602,000 residents, Baltimore City’s homicide rate breached 57 per 100,000 residents after 13 people have been murdered since Dec. 21.
The annual death toll has only hit 342 on two other occasions, onetime in 2017 and another in 2015. Breaching the 342 level to 347 is uncharted territory and suggests the situation will get worse in 2019.
This is the 5th year the city has recorded murders over 300, due mostly to the Ferguson effect post-2015 riots and socio-economic deterioration in the town.
The highest ever per-capita homicide rate and an out of control opioid epidemic comes as the total population in the city crashes to a 100-year low, many are fleeing the city for the suburbs as the local economy continues to dive deeper into a depression, never recovered since 2008.
Baltimore City Mayor Bernard “Jack” Young held an end-of-year news conference on public safety Monday. Young said, “Our residents deserve to live without the fear of violence and it is my obligation and duty to leverage every resource and tool available to stop the cycle of violence that is crippling our city.”
He added, “We cannot stop violent crime through policing alone. We must use both community-based interventions and an integrated crime-fighting strategy.”
Young also wrote an op-ed in The Baltimore Sun on Tuesday about his new strategy to turn Baltimore City around will focus on identifying and charging gun crimes and holding weekly case reviews with the police department and the State’s Attorney’s Office.
Baltimore City Police Commissioner Michael Harrison said the number of people killed in the city this year is “deeply disturbing.”
“That level of violence simply cannot be tolerated in a civil society, much less in a great city like Baltimore,” Harrison said.
He said the department would start treating the “actual disease” of violence, instead of what he characterized as the symptoms.
“[W]hen we only treat symptoms and never deal with root cause issues, violence, like a disease, builds resistance. It gets stronger and becomes more difficult to eradicate,” Harrison said.
Baltimore homicide numbers:
2014—211
2015—344
2016—318
2017—343
2018—309
2019—347@wjz pic.twitter.com/r0BTAii5cq— Mike Hellgren (@HellgrenWJZ) December 31, 2019
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
With no signs of abating, the murder crisis in Baltimore City will likely get worse.
Please do yourself a favor in 2020 and avoid traveling to the city considering its per capita homicide rate is one of the highest in the country.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/01/2020 – 17:30 - Bitcoin: 4 Big Competitive Advantages Over Altcoins In 2020
Bitcoin: 4 Big Competitive Advantages Over Altcoins In 2020
Authored by William Suberg via CoinTelegraph.com,
Bitcoin easily succeeds over other cryptocurrencies in multiple key areas, which all but guarantee its future as the standard, noted academic Konrad S. Graf has concluded.
image courtesy of CoinTelegraph
In the second installment of a two-part interview with Eurasia Review published Jan. 1, Graf highlighted a plethora of “competitive advantages” inherent to Bitcoin.
Graf has sought to gain exposure for Bitcoin through academic essays, which expand beyond its mechanism of action to situate it within the broader economic system.
Scarcity
Bitcoin wins out over other forms of money — including other cryptocurrencies — largely due to its fixed supply.
“Bitcoin’s top competitive advantage… is its ability (to) restrict new issuance, the relative reliability of its methods for controlling unit production,” Graf summarizes.
Specifically, Bitcoin’s supply cannot be manipulated, nor can its maximum issuance — 21 million units — ever change to dilute it.
No entity, no matter how powerful in terms of computing power active on the network, can diminish the value of the existing BTC held by savers by increasing the supply. This is in direct contrast to cryptocurrencies with a mutable supply, such as Ethereum (ETH) and XRP, as well as all fiat currencies.
Apolitical value transfer
The above characteristic thus makes Bitcoin particularly useful for settlements from anyone to anyone, as a financial protocol immune to the trappings of fiat.
Here, Graf touches on Saifedean Ammous’ popular book, “The Bitcoin Standard,” which extensively examines Bitcoin’s advantages over fiat. Ammous likewise devotes space to how Bitcoin could function as a settlement currency without the need for middlemen.
“Ammous argues that it is in the — for most people quite arcane — field of settlements that Bitcoin could find some of its most competitive applications. It could become not only an in-common non-political money unit, but also a direct competitor to the SWIFT system and any other existing or emerging rivals to it,” Graf explains.
He continues:
“In a world where conventional systems are also politicized, Bitcoin has an advantage of being “neutral” in the sense that it is controlled by none of the competing power blocks, which means that any and all could potentially participate.”
Technical prowess
Against major altcoins, Bitcoin’s technical prowess means its position as a market leader has been obvious for years, says Graf.
As Cointelegraph has also frequently reported, hash rate alone has achieved an order of magnitude better progress than Ethereum or similar market incumbents.
“BTC currently has 97 exahashes protecting its network to BCH’s 2.5 exahashes, giving BTC a hash rate 39 times higher than that of even its next closest digital-cash competitor,” he continues.
Bitcoin network hash rate vs. Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin SV. Source: Coin.dance
That attribute also differentiates Bitcoin from imitators with very similar characteristics — the principle may be the same, but hash rate distribution, or centralization, and activity on those other networks pale by comparison.
It’s not an entity
On the topic of centralization, a final advantage Bitcoin has over “corporate” blockchains is its lack of weak points political actors can target.
That benefit has become all the more apparent in 2019, the year in which Facebook unveiled and subsequently faced a global backlash over its digital currency protocol, Libra.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared before U.S. lawmakers alone several times, amid criticisms Facebook was attempting to remove government monopolies over the proposed stablecoin currency.
“There is no CEO to summon to Washington for interrogation,” Graf concludes about Bitcoin.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/01/2020 – 17:00 - Giuliani Says Ukraine Corruption Came From 'Highest Levels Of Obama Administration'; Wants To Testify, Try Case
Giuliani Says Ukraine Corruption Came From ‘Highest Levels Of Obama Administration’; Wants To Testify, Try Case
Rudy Giuliani is not only willing to testify in President Trump’s Senate impeachment trial, he wants to “do demonstrations” in order to outline what he described as a “series of criminal acts” involving “the highest levels of the Obama administration,“ adding that Democrats Adam Schiff and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will go down in history like Joe McCarthy when people “calm down and watch this carefully.”
“What I learned is the corruption in Ukraine is vast, it’s extensive, it highly involves the Democratic party – not just in 2016 but for many years,” the former New York City mayor said at Trump’s New Year’s Eve party at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
“When the full scope of what happens in Ukraine comes out, there are going to be a lot of Americans who participated in the corruption,” adding “The Bidens took millions of dollars laundered out of Ukraine, and the only reason they’re getting away with it is because you and the press protect them…”
When asked what he discovered, Rudy replied “I’m not going to tell you what I found out until I have a proper forum… but it’s devastating,” adding “We will figure out the right forum.”
“This is expanding, it will turn out to be a series of criminal acts. It will involve the highest levels of the Obama administration. It’s the reason the Democratic party is in panic.”
“I would testify, I would do demonstrations, I’d give lectures, I’d give summations. Or, I do what I do best, I try the case,” adding, with a smile, “I’d love to try the case.”
“If you give me the case, I will prosecute it as a racketeering case. Which I kind of invented anyway.”
(Relevant part begins at 3:15)
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/01/2020 – 16:33 - Netflix Is Coming For Its "Best Picture" Oscar In 2020
Netflix Is Coming For Its “Best Picture” Oscar In 2020
Netflix has been crushing the film industry, as we noted in our piece out just hours ago highlighting the demise of the movie theater industry.
Now, the company may finally start getting its due as an official film studio, too, thanks to its memorable 2019, according to Bloomberg. It started the year by joining the Motion Picture Association of America and then went on to release memorable film hits like “The Irishman” and “Marriage Story”.
The year also included Eddie Murphy’s “Dolemite Is My Name,” which helped lead to Netflix doubling or tripling the output of most conventional Hollywood studios. Netflix executives are also now saying that the company’s financial targets rely on how well its movies do.
Scott Stuber, Netflix’s film chief said: “This fall was a nice culmination. I’m very proud of this slate. I can look you in the eye and say we’ve made as good movies this fall as anybody.”
Stuber joined Netflix after working in film for more than 20 years. He was asked to “build a movie studio from scratch” by Netflix’s Chief Content Officer, and that’s exactly what he did.
Prior to 2019, the company’s slate of films, including names like “The Ridiculous 6”, was mostly forgettable.
Its one critically acclaimed movie, “Beasts of No Nation”, from 2016, earned no nominations at the Academy Awards. Stuber said: “It was a company built on television — that was first and foremost.”
Now his past collaborators, including Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and director Peter Berg are working with him at Netflix.
At his direction, Netflix has turned into the largest film studio in Hollywood – and it plans on continuing to release 50 to 60 films a year. “Bird Box” and “Murder Mystery” were two other hits, amassing more than 70 million views in their first month on the service. “Six of the 10 most-watched new titles on the service in the U.S. in 2019 were original films,” Bloomberg notes.
The studio has found a niche in films that Hollywood has abandoned, like adult dramas, romantic comedies and action movies without superheroes. And classic cinema buffs – like Martin Scorsese – have finally embraced Netflix.
The last piece of the puzzle for Netflix is the Oscars. Last year, Netflix saw 15 nominations, including for best picture, best director, best actress and best screenplay. The Best Picture Oscar eluded the studio.
But John Sloss, who produced “Green Book,” last year’s winner for best picture, admitted last year to Netflix’s Ted Sarandos that the hard part was over. This means in 2020, Netflix could be read for its first Best Picture Oscar.
“You did it. You got over the hump,” Sloss told Sarandos.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/01/2020 – 16:30 - After 20 Years Of Trading: You Learn You Know Nothing
After 20 Years Of Trading: You Learn You Know Nothing
Authored by Jared Dillian via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,
You ever notice…
That some memories tend to be stronger than others?
What sort of things do you remember?
You remember events in your life that had a lot of feelings associated with them.
You remember the death of your pet like it was yesterday. All the nights spent sitting on the couch watching Wheel Of Fortune—it’s just a blur.
Researchers have studied this in rats. They found that rats remembered things better if they experienced a rush of adrenaline.
In those moments with strong memories, it feels like time slows down. Time doesn’t actually slow down—time is linear. But human beings experience time as flexible. Time also speeds up when things are boring.
I’m fond of saying that all of finance, or at least the interesting part, is about human behavior. I find the daily fluctuations of stocks and credit spreads less interesting the older I get. And I think finance is more depraved the older I get. But the human behavior part fascinates me.
Miller’s Planet
The fact that time stretches and compresses isn’t news to anyone who’s traded options.
In the world of options, time and volatility work in opposite directions. As time passes, options decay. As volatility increases, options increase in value. All stuff you learned in class.
But if you think about it, volatility increasing is another way of saying that there’s a lot of s— going on. Things are crazy. Options increase in value—which is really like saying that time is slowing down.
Which is exactly how we experience it. Of all my days trading on Wall Street, what are the times that I remember most? The financial crisis, naturally. There was a lot of adrenaline associated with that.
We all have strong memories of it. And while we experienced it, it seemed like time was slowing down—which was reflected in options prices. They were the highest in recorded history.
Finance is simply human behavior.
If I think back over the last 10 years, what do I remember?
-
The European crisis
-
The US debt downgrade
-
The Ebola scare
-
The yuan devaluation
-
The vol-splosion
All the crazy times. Nobody remembers the stuff in between. Old-timers like me remember all the way back to 1997 and 1998, with the Asian Financial Crisis and LTCM and the Russian debt default. It’s the accidents that help us mark our time in the markets.
Perspective
We all perceive things differently. As I just demonstrated, we all perceive time differently.
We also might perceive color differently—we just don’t know. There is no way to know that the red I see is the red you see.
We all have different perspectives, especially when it comes to financial markets. I might find a stock attractive that you find unattractive. Happens all the time.
A lot of financial analysis is searching for some objective truth in the markets. This is what the value people try to do. They try to identify the correct value of a security and then buy it if it’s underpriced.
But there really is no objective truth in finance—just a set of ever-changing perspectives. Some examples:
Target is up over 90%, year to date:
Is Target’s business 90% better? Is it earning 90% more revenue? Of course not—more people find the stock attractive and fewer find it unattractive.
Pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers is up 48% in the last couple of months:
Again, is their business 50% better? No.
People have created several models to explain stock market behavior. Keynes’s beauty pageant is at the top of the list. I will always catch a beauty pageant if it’s on TV. The goal isn’t picking the most attractive contestant. It’s picking the contestant that the judges will find most attractive. It’s a great exercise.
But I don’t think that’s the right model.
I came up with my own model and gave it to the world on the Bloomberg Opinion page. You can read about it here. But I feel like it’s incomplete, too.
Sentiment also plays a role—big turning points are always at sentiment extremes.
I’m not sure what the answer is—or if there even is an answer. I think about it all the time. People smarter than me spend even more time thinking about it.
Maybe there is no Grand Unified Theory—maybe there are regimes in the financial markets, and sometimes some things work and sometimes other things work.
Maybe the rules change all the time and there is nothing we can do about it.
I am not even sure buy-and-hold and dollar-cost averaging will work going forward.
And that’s what you learn when you have 20 years of experience—that you actually know nothing.
That said, one thing I do know is that the adrenaline rush reckless traders get throwing money at “hot stocks” is not something to aspire to. It’s much better to even out your odds with a diversified, balanced portfolio and a long-term view.
* * *
Jared Dillian is an investment strategist at Mauldin Economics and the editor of The 10 th Man, a free contrarian investment newsletter. From 2001 to 2008, Jared worked at Lehman Brothers—first as an index arbitrage trader and then as head of the ETF trading desk. During this time, he routinely traded over $1 billion a day in volume.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/01/2020 – 16:00 -
- de Blasio's New York: Former Rikers Inmates Using Taxpayer-Funded Debit Cards To Buy Liquor, Tobacco
de Blasio’s New York: Former Rikers Inmates Using Taxpayer-Funded Debit Cards To Buy Liquor, Tobacco
Today in “why Democrats simply should never be allowed to allocate government capital” news, it it being reported that former inmates at Riker’s Island are now using their government-issued debit cards to buy booze and Juul pods.
The news comes just days after we reported that inmates were receiving training on how to become Starbucks baristas for “job security” purposes once they are released.
The debit cards were part of a “soft on crime city initiative” by
beta male bleeding heartMayor Bill de Blasio that provided ex-inmates with two $25 gift cards, according to the NY Post.JR, an employee at a liquor store near Riker’s Island, has said that her store was refusing to sell to the cardholders.
The liquor store employee said: “We’ve had more people coming in with the visa things. No, we don’t take that, no gift cards, none of that. People come in here always trying to find a way to pay without really paying.”
City Sliquors, another liquor store along the Riker’s Island bus route, said ex-inmates “didn’t seem to understand why their payment wasn’t accepted”.
The store’s owner commented: “Usually we don’t accept it because we don’t know where it came from with no chip, it may bounce.”
And even while booze has been difficult to get, tobacco and Juul pods have been easier for the ex-inmates to ascertain.
Ahmed, a worker at the Plaza Deli Grocery, said: “Yet to see one person use it to buy food.”
Seeing the rampant success of this program, the city is also planning on setting up ex-inmates with Metrocards and burner phones upon their release. The move comes as a result of de Blasio’s new bail reform law, which is supposed to incentivize inmates to show up for their court appearances. Other incentives being offered – we swear we are not making this up – are winter coats, Steve Madden shoes and Mets tickets.
The programs are being run by city-funded non-profits and will cost about $500,000.
One law enforcement source concluded: “It’s a sad state of affairs when the city bends over backward to reward criminals instead of protecting the victims of their crimes. What’s next? Free limo service back home?”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/01/2020 – 15:30
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