Aug 24

Today’s News 24th August 2019

  • 'This Is An Appalling Kowtow To Beijing' – Hong Kong Workers Fired For Supporting Protests

    They’re calling it the “white terror”.

    Employees at Hong Kong-based companies, most notably the airline Cathay Pacific, are being fired or otherwise dismissed for supporting the anti-extradition bill (now pro-democracy) protests. On Friday the head of Cathay’s Flight Attendants’ Association said she was fired, without explanation, after managers saw what was apparently a pro-democracy Facebook post (the company later clarified that her firing had nothing to do with her role as a union leader).

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    According to Reuters, workers in other sectors, particularly in the financial industry, have said they are afraid to even talk about the protests among colleagues or in group chats for fear that they might be snitched out to management.

    “Now the best way is to keep silent, because people could back-stab you for no obvious benefits,” said one individual who said he was reported to management. Reuters found one case where an individual received a call from Chinese authorities after posting pro-protest comments on Facebook.

    One Hong Kong-based executive compared the current atmosphere to “the Cultural Revolution.”

    “It feels like we’re back to the era of Cultural Revolution,” said the executive of a large corporate, referring to the decade-long campaign unleashed by Mao Zedong on China in 1966, which encouraged people to inform on friends, colleagues and family members who did not follow the Communist Party line.

    One pro-Beijing lawmaker in HK said in Hong Kong, politics and business are inseparable.

    “The Cathay incident shows that when doing business in Hong Kong, politics and business are inseparable…it’s quite an alarming message,” said a senior pro-Beijing politician.

    Speaking about the resignation of former Cathay Pacific CEO Rupert Hogg, one activist investor questioned whether every CEO of every HK-traded company should resign, according to Bloomberg.

    “This is the most appalling kowtow to Peking,” David Webb, a Hong Kong activist investor, wrote on his blog just hours after Chinese state broadcaster, CCTV, broke the news of Hogg’s departure on Aug. 16. “Every substantial employer in Hong Kong, in both the public and private sectors, has employees who have participated in marches that have frequently gone beyond their approved spatial or time limits. Should all the CEOs resign?”

    By kowtowing to the CPC, some worry the airline risks becoming a symbol of subservience to Beijing.

    Chinese officials called for some Cathay workers who had publicly supported pro-democracy protesters to be banned from flying into and over China and asked for the names of all Cathay workers whose jobs take them through Chinese airspace. China also demanded that Cathay draw up a new plan to improve flight safety and security measures. And, in case that pressure wasn’t intense enough, some big state-owned businesses including China Citic Bank International Ltd. and China Huarong International Holdings Ltd. advised employees not to book Cathay flights.

    Ironically, unions in the semi-autonomous city are pleading with the Communist Party to stop pressuring management to employees who support, or have even dared to discuss, the protests. Hong Kong’s Confederation of Trade Unions held a press conference on Friday.

    The confederation said 14 people have been fired so far over the protests, something it called a “blatant act of suppression.” Meanwhile, Cathay said the firing of Rebecca Sy, the union leader who was fired earlier this week allegedly for posting pro-democracy messages, had nothing to do with her role in the union.

  • Red Flag Gun Laws: Connecticut Man's Firearms Seized Because His Son Shared A Meme On Facebook

    Authored by Cat Ellis via The Organic Prepper blog,

    Due to the recent mass shootings, there is a major push for so-called “red flag” gun laws at both the state and federal levels. These laws are the latest tool for gun control advocates to confiscate guns from people based upon only tips and suspicion. No crime has to be committed to trigger an investigation or confiscation.

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    Red flag laws violate multiple rights protected by our constitution. The Hill has an excellent article on how red flag laws violate more than the 2nd Amendment, including:

    Hopefully you’ll never commit a mass shooting, murder, or violent assault. But while you might not have a criminal connection to such individuals, you do share at least one thing in common: you both have unalienable rights. The right to face your accuser. The right to due process. The right to protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. Every one of these rights are explicitly violated under red flag laws. (source)

    What could possibly go wrong?

    Just ask Brandon Wagshol and his dad, from the anti-gunner haven state, Connecticut.

    Brandon’s No Innocent Angel

    Before I write anything else, let me be clear. Wagshol is not some squeaky-clean, innocent angel. He wrote some vile racist and transphobic tweets. He also seemed to taunt the FBI in his tweets, which certainly isn’t the smartest thing in the world to do. That being said, holding bigoted views is not the same things as acting on those views. Voicing his bigoted opinions, while disgusting, is not a criminal act. The First Amendment protects his right to voice his hate in the same way that it protects flag burning. No one has to like it, but it’s not a criminal act.

    Wagshol may also have been caught in a few lies made on Facebook. According to Norwalk police Lt. Terry Blake:

    A Facebook page for the younger Wagshol said he was a former U.S. Marine and worked at the Department of Homeland Security as a janitor. Blake said both of these statements on Facebook are untrue. (source)

    Wagshol also admitted to purchasing four 30-round magazines at a Bass Pro Shop in New Hampshire to circumvent Connecticut law limiting magazines to ten rounds. Wagshol is now facing four felony counts for possessing those magazines. Whether or not you support Connecticut’s ban on 30-round magazines, he will be found guilty under current CT law for possessing them.

    Finally, Wagshol did admit to ordering a kit to build an AR.  A lot of preppers and gun enthusiasts have done the exact same thing. That’s more than understandable with the government chomping at the bit to enact more gun control.  Wagshol will likely be in legal trouble in CT for that too.

    Be Careful What You Post on Social Media

    This is where a “concerned citizen” stepped in. Wagshol shared a meme on Facebook that someone found scary.

    According to News12 Connecticut:

    FBI investigators say the Norwalk Police Department received a tip about Wagshol’s activity from a concerned citizen. The joint investigation began after the FBI received a tip that Wagshol was trying to buy high capacity magazines from out of state.

    Police say all the weapons recovered from the home are legally owned and registered to Wagshol’s father, but that the 22-year-old had access to them. Investigators also recovered body armor with a titanium plate, camouflage shirt, pant and belt, ballistic helmet, tactical gloves, camouflage bag and computers. (source)

    That’s right. The confiscated guns belong to his father. The son “had access” to them by living in the same house, but they are his father’s property. His father didn’t do anything wrong, but his property has been seized nonetheless.

    This might be a good time to remind your own kids, both young and adult, to watch what they say on social media because it has real-world implications.

    Let’s take a look at those other confiscated items, shall we? Camouflage clothing, body armor, gloves, bags, and computers are all legal to own. Listing it all, however, sure makes it sound super-scary. But, seriously, how much danger were people facing from that camouflage bag?

    What kind of firearms were confiscated?

    I bet you’re expecting to read a long list of firearms. The media spin has been predictable. CNN said “numerous” firearms were confiscated. The Washington Post described the weapons confiscated as a “cache” However, according to the Hartford Courrant:

    Inside the condominium, authorities reported seizing a .40-caliber handgun, a .22-caliber rifle, a rifle scope with laser, firearm optics and flashlights, along with hundreds of rounds of ammunition. They also found body armor with a titanium plate, and tactical attire, police said.

    So, two firearms. That’s what we’re talking about. And, the rifle takes the smallest rounds possible. It’s the kind of round you use plinking or to shoot squirrels or small pests. Who doesn’t have this stuff kicking around?

    What Kind of Post Gets Your Guns Seized?

    Even though Wagshol has denied having any intent to commit a mass shooting, several news outlets have reported that Wagshol made a Facebook post about wanting to commit a mass shooting, including CNNand The Washington Post.

    So, what was this scary Facebook post that led to Wagshol’s arrest?

    Good question. There doesn’t seem to be one.

    The “concerned citizen” reported a Facebook post regarding buying 30-round magazines. However, no post has surfaced stating Wagshol wanted them for a mass shooting.

    The police claim, however, that Wagshol was indeed planning a mass murder. From the Hartford Courrant:

    Norwalk police Lt. Terry Blake said Wagshol had posted on Facebook that he “was into planning a mass murder.” (source)

    From the CTPost

    Police claimed Wagshol made social media posts showing an interest in mass shootings, but did not specify any particular posts. (source)

    According to Wagshol’s lawyer, Stamford attorney Darnell Crosland, the police failed to cite any actual Facebook posts in the official report.

    Crosland also said the report did not include any of Wagshol’s Facebook posts in question.

    “What I understand is that he didn’t make any comments on Facebook, but there might have been other memes, as they call it, that he might have re-posted, but he didn’t make a statement on Facebook as related to any mass shooting.” (source)

    Some readers here may also be familiar with the Facebook page, Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children. Their page posted an article from their website with the potential offending meme.

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    The article goes on to clarify what those terms mean.

    “Boogaloo” – a slang term for shit-hits-the-fan, or government gone bad and they’re coming for you, time to fight back. Boogaloo toys refers to guns. The opposite of “bugging out.”

    “Alphabet bois” – ATF, FBI, DEA, etc.

    “Coat hanger sears” – hand-crafted drop-in auto sears for an AR.

    Could this be the offending post? Maybe, maybe not. The article from Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children also says Instagram has blacklisted the term, “boogaloo”. However, I was able to search Instagram and find both the hashtag and multiple users with “boogaloo” as part of their name. So, that doesn’t seem to be entirely accurate.

    The CTPost stated the “concerned citizen” reported Wagshol’s posts after talking about getting the 30-round magazines from out of state that are illegal in Connecticut.

    Regardless if it was the above-mentioned meme, or a post about magazines which were banned in CT, neither mention mass shootings.

    If it is, how many times have we seen similar memes shared by prepper friends or by fellow members in prepper groups on social media or prepper forums?

    Rights for Some, Or Rights for All?

    Red flag laws are unconstitutional on multiple levels. I know lots of people believe they are necessary. But, we make better decisions when we keep things logical and constitutional, not emotional and reaching.

    Here’s what we know:

    • Wagshol is a 22-year old man, attending college, living with his 2A-supporting dad.
    • This 22-year old holds some hostile and bigoted views.
    • He also holds some anti-government views.
    • He has lied about prior military status and employment history.
    • He decided that his state of residence has imposed unconstitutional laws that violate his second amendment rights and chose to ignore them buy buying 30-round magazines from a Bass Pro shop in NH and ordering an AR kit from CA.
    • Someone reported a meme he shared to police under Connecticut’s “red flag law”.
    • An investigation took place without his knowledge, and his father’s firearms have been confiscated along with some clothing and gear.
    • The official report does not include any specific Facebook posts, never mind Facebook posts discussing mass shootings.
    • He has been banned from the college campus he attends until after the investigation.

    I know I’m going to catch some flak for this assessment, and that’s ok. I’m fine with holding unpopular opinions. I try to remain consistent in my libertarian views, regardless of what’s popular or not.

    But, constitutionally-protected rights apply to everyone, even jerks with bigoted views.

    We’ve got an angry, young man who has run his mouth on social media combined with a general atmosphere of fear over mass shootings and firearms in general. Someone got freaked out and reported him under CT’s “red flag” law. Rather than moving to a state where the laws reflect his values, he chose to violate the law and obtain banned magazines and a kit for a banned gun. These were only found during the confiscation, which was the result of a ruling that denied him and his father (who legally owned the guns) due process. The confiscation violated multiple constitutionally-protected rights. Regardless of what is or isn’t constitutional, he’s still in jail. While Wagshol doesn’t sound like someone I would want to spend much time with, he still has civil rights which appear to have been violated.

    Many would say that because of his views toward other races or towards transsexuals, that alone is enough to constitute a credible threat of violence. Except, that it isn’t. There is a difference between saying, “I don’t like you” and “I am personally going to harm you.” Red flag laws are pure “Thought Police” and “Pre-Crime Division” stuff. 1984 and The Minority Report were supposed to be warnings, not blueprints.

    We either have rights for all, or we have rights for none. If we can overlook someone’s rights because we dislike their beliefs or views, then we should have every expectation that our own rights can and will be overlooked as well. groups we dislike, or we will be torn apart from within by our differences.

    I’m hoping it will be the first but preparing for the second.

  • Hong Kong Chaos Crashes Earnings, Worst Since 2008

    Hong Kong stocks remain in a bear market (-20% from 1Q18 peak). They’re poised to record the worst corporate earnings since at least 2008 as the local political situation and trade war continue to deepen in 2H19.

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    Data compiled by Bloomberg show a 19% slump in operating income for Hong Kong stocks, would be the most significant contraction for Hang Seng Index companies since the financial meltdown in 2008.

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    Citywide protests, US-China trade war, and a weak yuan are mostly to blame for earnings losses.

    Hong Kong’s political turmoil has rattled economic growth citywide, demand for bank loans to real estate loans to automobile loans to even utility gas usage has declined.

    “The third quarter could be even worse given the local political situation and the trade war escalation,” said Jackson Wong, asset management director at Amber Hill Capital Ltd. “Potential downside surprises have not been fully reflected in share prices.”
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    Shangri-La Asia Ltd. fell 7.4% on Thursday and 2.7% on Friday after telling investors “political events” in Hong Kong depressed business at its hotels in the city, while a weaker yuan hurt revenues in mainland China.

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    Cathay Pacific, the leading airliner in Hong Kong, said political and social turmoil would have a “significant impact” on revenue for August.

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    The Hong Kong and China Gas Company has seen its shares dive nearly 10% since Tuesday after it said the local business environment is “full of challenges.”

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    Last week we reported on a hotel crisis that was developing. Here’s what we said:

    “Hong Kong might not be able to avoid a financial crisis this year or next despite possible stimulus packages to shore up its faltering economy amid violent protests across the city. This has led to a rapid decline in tourism, forcing major hotel chains in the city to substantially slash room prices.”

    The escalation of the trade war and at least 11 weeks of protest are also damaging the property market and retail sales.

    HSBC Holdings Plc and BOC Hong Kong Holdings Ltd have seen their shares down significantly this month with the risk of capital flight building as there is no end in sight to the turmoil in Hong Kong.

    And perhaps the global economy has opened up a cycle of vulnerability where a shock could trigger a worldwide recession. That shock could be the events playing out in Hong Kong at the moment. Investors should be on high alert for possible spillover effects into international markets in the coming quarters.

  • Animation: The 20 Largest State Economies By GDP Over The Last 50 Years

    Submitted by Visual Capitalist

    When it comes to understanding the size and scope of the $18 trillion U.S. economy, it’s sometimes easier to consider that it’s the sum of many parts.

    Many states already have economies that are comparable to some of the world’s largest countries, giving you a sense of what they might be combined.

    And while every state plays a role in the bigger picture, some states such as New York and California have an outsized impact on fueling the country’s overall economic engine.

    The State of State Economies

    Today’s animation comes to us from SavingSpot, and it covers the size of state economies by GDP going back all the way to 1963.

    The video uses inflation-adjusted data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, showing how the ranking of top state economies has changed over time as different states have taken advantage of economic booms.

    Let’s dive into the data to see how things have changed.

    Going Back in Time

    The earliest data in the animation comes from 1963, when New York led the pack with a $70.6 billion economy in inflation-adjusted terms.

    State Economies by GDP, Inflation-Adjusted Chained $USD (1963)

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    California ($67.8 billion), Illinois ($39.5 billion), Pennsylvania ($34.5 billion) and Ohio ($33.3 billion) round out the top five, and together they added up to 40.5% of the national GDP.

    The Largest State Economies by GDP Today

    Looking at the most recent data from 2017, you can see the ranking changes significantly:

    State Economies by GDP, Inflation-Adjusted Chained $USD (2017)

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    California is the largest economy today – it has a state GDP of $2.6 trillion, which is comparable to the United Kingdom.

    Meanwhile, Florida and Georgia are two states that did not crack the top 10 back in the 1960s, while Texas jumped up to become the second largest state economy. It’s actually not a coincidence that all of these states are in the southern half of the country, as air conditioning has played a surprisingly pivotal role in shaping modern America.

    In fact, the share of the nation’s population living in the Sunbelt rose from 28% in 1950 to 40% in 2000, and this increase in population has coincided with economic growth in many of the states that used to be a sweaty mess.

    A Final Look

    Here is a final animated version of the top 10 largest states by GDP, also provided by SavingSpot:

    Animation: The 20 Largest State Economies by GDP in the Last 50 Years

  • More Wildfires Are Burning In Angola & Congo Than Brazil

    Thanks to a concerted effort by American social media ‘influencers’, everybody and their grandmother is now aware of the fact that wildfires – many of which were allegedly started illegally by farmers seeking to clear out more land for farming or pasture – are tearing through the Amazon.

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    What many don’t realize is that the wildfires in the ‘lungs of the Earth’ – as French President Emmanuel Macron described the Amazon – actually aren’t that uncommon. In fact, they’re a natural part of the rainforest’s process of self-restoration. In total, this year, fires are up by 83% compared with last year.

    And while the rest of the world uses the fires as an excuse to slam Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his environmental policies (some have accused him of tacitly condoning the farmers who set the fires), Bloomberg reports that Brazil is actually third in the world in wildfires over the last 48 hours, citing data from the MODIS satellite analyzed by Weather Source.

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    Weather Source recorded 6,902 fires in Angola over the past 48 hours, 3,395 in the Democratic Republic of Congo and 2,127 in Brazil.

    Like in the Amazon and in California, wildfires aren’t all that uncommon in Central Africa.

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    As for the total number of active wildfires, they’re also nowhere near some of the highs recorded in recent years. According to NASA, more than 67,000 fires were reported in a one-week period in June last year, most of which were started by farmers.

    Over the past two days, roughly 16,500 wildfires were recorded in the top 10 countries.

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    Actually, as far as wildfires go, 2019 isn’t out of the ordinary in any meaningful sense.

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    But we’re sure the Instagram influencer set will soon clarify all of this in a series of sponsored posts putting the Amazon wildfires in context…right?

  • "It's Gone, The Market Has Evaporated:" Maine's Blueberry Industry In Crisis After Trade War Escalation

    If you thought corn and soybean farmers in the Central and Midwest US had it rough, Maine’s blueberry industry just witnessed the largest ever collapse in sales to China, because that country imposed a 70% tariff on berries in retaliation to President Trump’s tariffs targeting Chinese goods.

    Maine’s blueberry industry could be on the verge of a crisis, a 70% tariff rate has generated so much confusion and uncertainties that berry farmers are asking for a government bailout to prevent a tidal wave of farm bankruptcies in the state.

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    However, what’s surprising, is that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) denied berry farmers government bailouts this summer, which were mostly reserved for corn and soybean farmers in the Midwest.

    “I thought we had a pretty good case,” says Nancy McBrady, director of the Department’s Bureau of Agriculture, Food and Rural Resources. “There’s a demonstrated challenge relative to loss of access to China because of the trade dispute. Its gone, the market has evaporated.”

    McBrady told WCSH Maine that exports account for 20 to 25% of sales of Maine blueberries, and China was a massive part of that.

    The Wild Blueberry Commission said Maine sells blueberries to several major international markets, including Japan and Korea, the global trade war has not yet harmed those sales.

    The Commission warned that when President Trump slapped China with tariffs, and China retaliated against US berry producers, it enabled Canadian berry producers to take away Maine’s market share into China completely.

    “If Canada is selling berries in China, they are not sending them to the USA, which have a good impact on us,” Paul Sweetland, owner of Coastal Blueberry Services, said.

    McBrady said the Commission needs to rework supply chains and increase domestic sales of the berries. But she said President Trump needs to settle trade disputes before more damage tips Maine’s berry industry into further crisis.

    “We just hope the trade situation can be stabilized. Ultimately that’s where everybody wants to end up, so we don’t have to rely on government programs to provide this type of assistance.”

    And there’s more terrible news for berry farmers, the entire agriculture complex, and quite frankly multinationals in the US on Friday morning.

    China announced it would levy retaliatory tariffs on another $75BN in US goods with rates anywhere between 5 and 10%, with the tariffs set to be implemented in two batches, one at midnight on Sept 1 and another at midnight on Dec 15.

    Additionally, China said it would resume 25% tariffs on US autos, stating that “China’s adoption of tariff-adding measures is a forced move to deal with US unilateralism and trade protectionism.”

    There was even a headline that stated China would impose an extra 5% tariff on soybeans on Sept.1.

    With that being said, everyone is focused on farmers imploding in the Midwest. Now there’s more evidence the farm crisis is spreading.

  • First Post-Soviet Luxury Bulletproof Limousine Hits Floor Rooms

    Want to roll like Putin? After a $190 million investment in R&D via a public-private partnership project called “Kortezh,” Russia unveiled its first post-Soviet presidential limousine, the Aurus Senat, in a Moscow showroom on Friday, according to Reuters.

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    The new presidential limousine was initially designed for Russian President Vladimir Putin, reportedly entered mass production at a factory just a few hours outside of Moscow – with plans to sell the new bulletproof design throughout Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and potentially European markets.

    Priced at $274,000, the Aurus offers a lower cost option for heads of states, presidents, dictators, and budget-conscious evil geniuses of the world. 

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    The first publicly available Aurus will roll off the production line in 2020 – built in a factory owned by Russian carmaker Sollers in the economic zone of Alabuga, Tatarstan Republic, according to the Trade Minister Denis Manturov.

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    “We expect a similar showroom will appear in China in 2020-2021,” Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov said during the opening ceremony in Moscow.

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    The factory should initially be able to produce around 5,000 of vehicles per year, in both a limo and a sedan model, with an off-road vehicle set to enter production sometime in 2021-2022.

    “The minivan and the SUV Komendant are at the testing stage. I hope to see the latter at the (Moscow International) Automobile Salon in 2020,” Manturov said.

    A hybrid or fully electric version of the Aurus could arrive by the mid-2020s.

    “We believe the audience will be quite wide,” noted Aurus CEO Adil Shirinov, who added that there’s been strong interest from governments and corporations. 

    While introduced at the Manilla International Auto Show several years, the Aurus made its public debut last year when Putin cruised to the Helsinki summit in it last year to meet with President Trump. 


  • Stocks, Dollar, Yields Crash; Gold Explodes As Stunned Traders React To Series Of Surreal Events

    Jerome Powell’s Jackson Hole speech was supposed to be the most important even of an otherwise sleepy, August day day, after which traders could quietly exit for the rest of the day and commence drinking. It did not quite work out that way.

    Not only did Powell’s speech barely make the top 3 most important events, but Friday ended up being an exercise in surreal market newsflow, and one of the biggest drops of 2019 to boot.

    With a few hours left before Jackson Hole, as traders were getting ready to trade Powell’s Jackson Hole speech which was a big dud, and did not reveal anything new (as even Trump figured out when he blasted the Fed chief slamming “As usual, the Fed did NOTHING!” and asking “who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powell or Chairman Xi?”), China shocked the market by unveiling that it would retaliate by slapping 10% tariffs on another $75BN in US imports, which sent stocks sharply lower at first. Then, Powell’s remarks managed to somewhat stabilize sentiment, and the S&P almost regained all losses… before all hell broke loose and in a vicious tirade, Trump first slammed Powell, effectively calling him an enemy of the state”, and then warned he would retaliate to China soon, while ordering US companies (can a US president dictate to companies what they can and can not do?) to find an “alternative” to China.

    The result was a violent slam lower in risk assets, with the S&P tumbling over 70 points, the Dow plunging over 500 point, its 3rd such drop in the month of August, which has emerged as the worst month for stocks since December 2018…

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    … and the VIX soaring, just as dealers had exited their “negative gamma” hedges, forcing them all to load up on VIX futures all over again.

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    Every sector was lower on massive volume and wide breadth.

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    That said, not all hope was lost because a margin-call induced puke in the last 30 minutes of trading found support at the critical level of 2,834 below which the market simply will not allowed to pass… for now.

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    Not surprisingly, as risk tumbled, safe havens, soared, and as the 10Y yield tumbled…

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    … so did 2Y, which meant that the 2s10s yield was once again dipping in and out of negative territory all day, closing just below 0%.

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    Amid this wholesale panic out of safe havens, there were two surprises. Not the surge in gold, which exploded higher hitting a six and a half year high of $1,530…

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    … what was surprising was the plunge in the dollar – as traders feared that Trump would announce an outright currency market intervention to devalue the greenback – however as the yuan plunged even more…

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    … and even without an official statement from Trump – we are still waiting for the mystery afternoon announcement – the dollar index suffered its biggest one day drop in over a month.

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    There was not respite in commodities either, with oil tumbling after China announced it would apply tariffs on US oil imports, prompting traders to fear a drop in imminent collapse in global oil demand by the world’s largest oil importer.

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    What is most scary is that the day is not yet over, and we are now waiting with bated breath for the president to deliver on his promise of unveiling some other mystery response to China which he had not shared even with the Fed. As such, we expect that the reason for the violent flush in the last 30 minutes of trading had to do with traders wishing to be flat over a weekend, where any surreal development is now clearly possible.

    Stay tuned.

  • Japan Requests US Marines Deploy F-35s On Its Largest Warships Over China Incursion Fears

    With the trade war with China turning hotter by the minute, any US troop deployment will be closely scrutinized. And when said deployment takes place close to China, alarm bells are bound to go off. Which is why a Friday report by USNI News that Tokyo officials have requested US Marines deploy F-35B fighters aboard Japan’s largest warships, is especially concerning as it puts in “kinetic” proximity Chinese, Japanese and now US troops.

    According to the report, the Marines are now studying the feasibility of deploying short take-off vertical landing (STOVL) fighters from JS Izumo (DDH-183) and JS Kaga (DDH-184), Japan’s 24,000-ton big deck amphibious.

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    Helicopter carrier Kaga (DDH-184) on Aug. 27, 2015. Japan Marine United Photo

    The warships were originally designed to field a fleet of anti-submarine warfare helicopters and respond to humanitarian aid and disaster relief. However, in December Prime Minister Shinzo Abe approved a move to convert the two ships to field the STOVL F-35s in parallel with Japan’s purchase of 42 F-35Bs, reported The Diplomat.

    In March, the Abe government asked then-Marine commandant Gen. Robert Neller if the U.S. would consider deploying Marine F-35Bs from Izumo and Kaga, The Asahi Shimbun reported this week. Prompted by the request, the Marines are now standing up groups to determine the technical feasibility of deploying U.S. F-35s from the two ships ahead of the Japanese Self-Defense Force F-35Bs being fielded.

    While the two ships were built with an eye toward STOVL fighter operations, the U.S. has to make an independent determination if their F-35s can operate on Izumo and Kaga.

    For example, U.S. Wasp-class big deck amphibious ships have to undergo deck strengthening and have new heat resistant flight deck treatments as the Marines replace their AV-8B Harriers with F-35Bs. It’s unclear what additional work would be needed to make the two ships ready for F-35s. The Marines currently have an F-35B squadron forward-deployed to Japan — the “Green Knights” of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 121 that operate with the Wasp Amphibious Ready Group as part of the 31st Marine Expediniaory Unit.

    The Marines have charted out a similar relationship with the U.K. Royal Navy to deploy a squadron of F-35Bs from the new HMS Queen Elizabeth (R08) carrier for its first deployment.

    What is behind the odd Japanese request? In a word: China.

    As USNI points out, for Japan, the move comes as the Chinese expand their regional naval ambitions.

    “Chinese naval capabilities are growing rapidly in the region and I think this is an important step in strengthening the US-Japanese alliance. The Japanese acquisition of F-35Bs will enhance their maritime and aviation capabilities in the region and will further bolster interoperability between Japanese and U.S. military forces,” Eric Wertheim, author of U.S. Naval Institute’s Combat Fleets, told USNI News, Friday. “It will also help ease the burden on U.S. assets that are stretched thin responding to a long list of global crises.”

    Understandably, Beijing has been extremely critical of Japan’s move to put fighters on the two warships saying that they could be considered an attack platform and a violation of Japan’s pacifist constitution (which PM Abe has been fighting tooth and nail to change).

    The “carefully crafted” semantic answer was simple: the advanced stealth fighters will not be used for offensive purposes. In March, former director of national intelligence and former commander-in-chief of the United States Pacific Command Adm. Dennis Blair wrote that fielding F-35s on Izumo and Kaga could be considered a defensive move.

    “The challenges to defending the Self-Defense fleet against aircraft armed with cruise missiles (or hypersonic glide weapons) underscore the need to upgrade the Izumo-class to operate the F-35B STOVL aircraft, as the average range of ship-killing missiles is in the hundreds of miles while the average range of defensive ship-launched antiaircraft and antimissile missiles is only about 100 miles,” wrote Blair and retired Capt. Christopher Rodeman in Proceedings.

    “Armed with short-range anti-ship missiles, the F-35B would be very effective against ‘swarm tactics’ by patrol craft or maritime militia vessels. In an “island grab” scenario, the F-35B would be invaluable in establishing the local air control required for Japan’s new amphibious regiment to retake remote islands.”

    We doubt that China will be dumb enough to fall for that particular explanation.

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Aug 23

Today’s News 23rd August 2019

  • "I Feel So Scared": Why Crewmembers Of Hong Kong's Biggest Airline Are Terrified Of China

    Roughly a week to the day that pressure from Beijing forced out the CEO Of Cathay Pacific airlines and one of his deputies (both “quit” under pressure from Beijing’s airline regulator and mainland companies aligned with the CPC), the Washington Post published a long-winded story based off of interviews with more than a dozen employees of the iconic airline, which has for so long been closely associated with Hong Kong and its culture.

    In its report, WaPo confirms that employees of the airline feel trapped in a “climate of fear and mistrust” as Communist functionaries increasingly subject flight crews to searches and seizure to root out anybody who has openly, or privately, expressed support for the #antiELAB protests that began nearly three months ago.

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    Crews have resorted to stashing their smartphones in service carts and other ploys to avoid being searched and having the contents of their phones downloaded.

    Already, several employees and at least three pilots have left the airline over their purported support for the protests (a sign that Beijing isn’t only interested in purging upper management).

    Indeed, Cathay employees suspect they are being ‘singled out’ because of their company’s status.

    As the Chinese state zeroes in on individuals suspected of supporting ongoing protests against Beijing’s influence in Hong Kong, it has singled out Cathay Pacific, the flagship Hong Kong airline that is among the city’s biggest employers and most globally recognized brands, subjecting its staff to unprecedented scrutiny.

    “We are panicked,” said one flight attendant who has worked for the airline for seven years.

    […]

    “I feel so scared, like we have lost our ability to voice our opinions, our concerns and our hopes without feeling the authority of China,” said another flight attendant, age 26.

    The impact that the protests have had on Cathay, ostensibly a developed, multinational corporation, has raised questions about whether HK can maintain any sort of autonomy long-term under the “one country, two systems” doctrine that had allowed it a fair amount of autonomy until not that long ago. The first inklings came during the umbrella movement in 2014. Now, the extradition bill protests – which have morphed into a broader pro-democracy movement – have become the system’s first major test.

    If it fails, HK’s economy could be in serious jeopardy, as Kyle Bass explained might happen in a research report from earlier this year.

    In a series of tweets sent Thursday morning, Bass warned that pro-Beijing lawmakers had been subtly hinting that a massive crackdown would result if the protests lasted another week and a half.

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    And he’s probably got a point: Under no circumstances will Beijing allow this movement to endure through the 70th anniversary of Communist Party rule on Oct. 1.

  • Pakistani Actress Visits UK Town, Says "It's Like Being At Home"

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

    A Pakistani actress who visited the UK town of Bradford said it was “like being at home.”

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    Commenting on her first trip to Bradford, Mehwish Hayat said the town was “like a mini Pakistan for me.”

    “I feel like I am actually in my own country,” she added.

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    Bradford has one of the highest Muslim populations out of any town in the UK.

    According to the 2011 census, over 20% of the population is Pakistani, although that figure is now likely to be significantly higher.

    The town suffered race riots in 2001 when its white majority population faced off with the Pakistani community, leading to 297 arrests.

    Bradford’s white population shrunk from 76% in 2001 to 63% in 2011.

    *  *  *

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  • CJ Hopkins: Manufacturing Mass Fascism Hysteria

    Authored (satirically) by C.J.Hopkins via The Unz Review,

    If the neoliberal ruling classes expect to keep the American masses worked up into a white-eyed hysteria over “fascism” until November 2020, they’re going to need to get some better Nazis. The current Nazis are just not going to cut it. They are neither scary nor Nazi enough. OK, the militia ones look kind of scary, and that “Based Spartan” guy looks kind of … uh, weird, but most of them just look like regular old rednecks. How hard would it be to get them some brown shirts, or those khaki pants like they wore in Charlottesville, or some other type of Nazi-like uniform?

    And some jackboots. People love those jackboots.

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    Seriously, the Resistance need to get their official narrative optics in order, and they need to do it without delay. Millions of liberals are standing by to be brainwashed into a year-long frenzy of manufactured mass “fascism” hysteria, but they are going to need some halfway convincing Nazis to spastically freak out over. A few hundred bozos in MAGA hats parading around with American flags does not exactly a Sturmabteilung make.

    I’m referring, of course, to the latest “fascist invasion” of Portland that took place last Saturday, which, according to the corporate media, and Antifa, and local fascism experts, was supposed to be a veritable bloodbath. Heavily-armed white supremacist terrorists were flying in from around the country to indiscriminately murder as many “Black, Asian, Latino, indigenous, immigrant, Pacific islander, disabled, houseless, and LGBTQ persons” as possible. This white supremacist terrorist kill-fest was going to be revenge for the preventively self-defensive beating of Andy Ngo, “the most dangerous fascist grifter in America,” by Antifa militants earlier this month.

    Ngo (who most people had never heard of until Antifa militants beat him senseless), although he poses as a legitimate journalist by writing for outlets like The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, Quillette, and so on, is allegedly a fascist intelligence asset in charge of compiling fascist “kill lists” consisting of the names of assorted well-known Portland anti-fascist figures (who most people had also never heard of until they claimed that Ngo had put them on his “kill list”).

    Alexander Reid Ross, for example, an extremely influential “fascism expert,” outreach specialist, and geography teacher, who is hot on the trail of the Putin-Nazi plot to form a syncretic alliance of Assad-loving, Duginist, LaRouchian Nazis led by Max Blumenthal and Vanessa Beeley, or possibly Glenn Greenwald and Tucker Carlson … or something more or less along those lines (see Ross’ seminal paranoid ravings, which the SPLC was forced to retract by Blumenthal’s fascist legal counsel.) Ross reportedly remains in hiding in a safehouse in an undisclosed location somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, presumably protected by the FBI, while he continues his important work.

    And then there are the notorious Proud Boys, a gang of self-described “Western chauvinists” who apparently haven’t been laid in years. According to the SPLC (which has designated them an official “hate group”):

    There are three degrees of membership within the Proud Boys, and

    to become a first degree in the “pro-West fraternal organization” a prospective member simply has to declare “I am a western chauvinist, and I refuse to apologize for creating the modern world.”

    To enter the second degree, a Proud Boy has to endure a beating until they can yell out the names of five breakfast cereals (in order to demonstrate “adrenaline control”) and give up masturbation because, in theory, it will leave them more inclined to go out and meet women.

    Those who enter the third degree have demonstrated their commitment by getting a Proud Boys tattoo. Any man — no matter his race or sexual-orientation — can join the fraternal organization as long as they “recognize that white men are not the problem.”

    Such is the caliber of the cast the Resistance are featuring in their “fascism” fantasy. As you can see, it’s not exactly the A-list. If they’re going to stick with the “fascism” hysteria from now until November 2020 (which is really the only option they have left, what with “Russiagate” having blown up in their faces), the least they can do is get some real Nazis, and some semi-respectable Nazi hunters, and cut out this pathetic Portlandia nonsense.

    The Resistance owes liberals at least that much, especially after making them look like fools by leading them on for three years with their ridiculous “Russiagate” hysteria. Sure, the “fascism” hysteria is an easier sell, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have to sell it. It’s not like they can just abruptly switch from the “Russiagate” narrative to the “fascism” narrative (as if their Russiagate hoax had not just been exposed) and expect liberals to go along with it like the members of some enormous cult.

    Or, I don’t know … maybe they can. The New York Times certainly appears to think so. Check out this exchange between executive editor Dean Baquet and an anonymous staffer at an emergency in-house “town hall” meeting convened after The Times changed a page one headline because it didn’t paint Trump as racist enough. (The transcript is Slate’s; emphasis is mine.)

    Staffer: I’m wondering what is the overall strategy here for getting us through this administration and the way we cover it … people don’t understand. I think they get confused as to what we’re trying to do.

    Baquet: OK. I mean, let me go back a little bit for one second to just repeat what I said in my in my short preamble about coverage. Chapter 1 of the story of Donald Trump, not only for our newsroom but, frankly, for our readers, was: Did Donald Trump have untoward relationships with the Russians, and was there obstruction of justice?That was a really hard story, by the way, let’s not forget that. We set ourselves up to cover that story. I’m going to say it. We won two Pulitzer Prizes covering that story. And I think we covered that story better than anybody else.

    The day Bob Mueller walked off that witness stand, two things happened. Our readers who want Donald Trump to go away suddenly thought, “Holy shit, Bob Mueller is not going to do it.” And Donald Trump got a little emboldened politically, I think. Because, you know, for obvious reasons. And I think that the story changed. A lot of the stuff we’re talking about started to emerge like six or seven weeks ago. We’re a little tiny bit flat-footed. I mean, that’s what happens when a story looks a certain way for two years. Right?

    I think that we’ve got to change. I mean, the vision for coverage for the next two years is what I talked about earlier: How do we cover a guy who makes these kinds of [racist] remarks? How do we cover the world’s reaction to him? How do we do that while continuing to cover his policies? How do we cover America, that’s become so divided by Donald Trump? How do we grapple with all the stuff you all are talking about? How do we write about race in a thoughtful way, something we haven’t done in a large way in a long time? That, to me, is the vision for coverage. You all are going to have to help us shape that vision. But I think that’s what we’re going to have to do for the rest of the next two years.

    For anyone not entirely fluent in Pulitzer-winning Professional Journalism Speak, that translates roughly as “OK, no more Russia stuff. We’re switching to the fascism and racism stuff, and we’ll be hammering on it until Trump is history.”

    Which is fine with me. I don’t like Donald Trump. And Americans are certainly racists … uh, working class Americans, that is. Sorry, white working class Americans, not Black people, or the staff of The New York Times, or the neoliberal ruling classes. Unless they’re disabled, or houseless, or Latino, or indigenous, or LGBTQ (i.e., the white working class Americans, not the ruling classes). In which case, they get a pass on the racism. But the rest of us are all white supremacists, and homophobic anti-Semites, and xenophobic racist transphobes, and … well, basically, a bunch of Nazis.

    What? You don’t believe that most white Americans are Hitler-loving, Sieg-heiling Nazis who want to mass murder all the Jews and the Mexicans and re-enslave all the African Americans? How do you think Donald Trump got elected? Somebody stole the presidency from Clinton. If it wasn’t the Russians, it had to be the fascists! I mean, after all, who else is there?

  • Beijing Says Missing Hong Kong Consulate Employee Arrested For Visiting Prostitute

    The Hong Kong consulate employee who vanished two weeks ago after attending a conference across the border in Shenzen was reportedly detained after visiting a prostitute, according to a report in a Chinese newspaper that was cited by Bloomberg.

    Simon Cheng, the 28-year-old employee at the UK consulate in Hong Kong, mysteriously vanished after alerting his girlfriend via text that he was having issues re-entering Hong Kong following the conference. “Pray for me,” was purportedly the last thing he sent her before going silent.

    Cheng has already been in custody for two weeks. Amusingly, the consulate said nothing about Cheng’s disappearance and detention until it was seemingly forced to issue a statement after Cheng’s girlfriend went to the press. Beijing initially denied that Cheng was in custody, but on Wednesday, the foreign ministry admitted that Cheng was being held under a 15-day administrative detention over what it described as a “domestic issue.”

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    Simon Cheng

    Now, those 15 days are nearly up (Friday marks day 15), and police in Shenzen, who apprehended Cheng are offering more details about his detention.

    Cheng “violated the 66 article of China’s law on administrative penalties for public security, which states that people who engage in prostitution or visit prostitutes shall be detained for no less than 10 days but no more than 15 days,” the Global Times newspaper said. The paper also insisted that Cheng asked police not to notify his family about his detention. It’s still not clear whether Cheng is a native of Hong Kong or if he was born and raised elsewhere.

    Unsurprisingly, BBG reported that the CPC has often used charges of visiting prostitutes as a catch-all to detain Hong Kongers traveling in mainland China.

    Allegations of visiting prostitutes have later proved false in other instances where Hong Kong residents have been detained in China. A Hong Kong lawmaker apologized after accusing bookseller and Communist Party critic Lee Bo of visiting prostitutes, the South China Morning Post reported in 2016.

    Separately, allegations of sexual impropriety have appeared alongside political corruption charges in the trials of senior Chinese politicians Bo Xilai, Zhou Yongkang and Sun Zhengcai.

    Meanwhile, GT editor-in-chief Hu Xijin accused the western media of politicizing Cheng’s case, claiming that the media have now “ruined” him, and that the understanding local party functionaries had been willing to try and limit damage to his reputation…

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    …But this account, which makes little sense, was widely mocked in the replies to Hu’s tweet.

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    Cheng’s girlfriend and his family reportedly filed a missing persons report with the Hong Kong police after Cheng disappeared on his way back from a trade fair in Shenzen.

    Looks like he’s going to have some explaining to do when he finally gets back to Hong Kong (assuming he isn’t held indefinitely on espionage charges like a former Canadian diplomat and a China-based Canadian businessman).

  • San Francisco Board Rebrands 'Convicted Felons' As 'Justice-Involved Persons' Or 'Formerly Incarcerated'

    Convicted felons in San Francisco may have broken the law, but they’ll get to keep their dignity after the city’s Board of Supervisors adopted new, sanitized language describing them as ‘justice-involved persons’ or ‘formerly incarcerated.’ 

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    Under the city’s new “person first” language guidelines, the words “felon,” “convict,” “addict,” “offender,” and “juvenile delinquent” are no-no’s. Instead, those who have paid their debt to society will be referred to as a “returning resident.” Those on parole will be known as ‘persons under supervision.’

    And a juvenile “delinquent” will now be known as a “young person with justice system involvement,” or a “young person impacted by the juvenile justice system,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Drug addicts are now “a person with a history of substance abuse.” 

    “We don’t want people to be forever labeled for the worst things that they have done,” according to Supervisor Matt Haney. 

    Haney was one of 10 supervisors (Gordon Mar was absent) who voted for the new guidelines, which Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer proposed.

    According to the resolution, 1 of 5 California residents has a criminal record, and words like “prisoner,” “convict,” “inmate” or “felon” “only serve to obstruct and separate people from society and make the institutionalization of racism and supremacy appear normal,” the resolution states.

    “Inaccurate information, unfounded assumptions, generalizations and other negative predispositions associated with justice-involved individuals create societal stigmas, attitudinal barriers and continued negative stereotypes,” it continues.

    “We want them ultimately to become contributing citizens, and referring to them as felons is like a scarlet letter that they can never get away from,” Haney said. –San Francisco Chronicle

    Police spokesman David Stevenson says the department has “made our members aware of the resolution and are researching possible impacts on operations and communications,” while the DA’s office is on board with the plan. 

    The language resolution makes no mention of terms for victims of crime, but using the new terminology someone whose car has been broken into could well be: “A person who has come in contact with a returning resident who was involved with the justice system and who is currently under supervision with a history of substance use.”

    In other words, someone whose car was broken into by a recently released offender, on parole with a drug problem. –San Francisco Chronicle

    SF Mayor London Breed hasn’t signed off on the new language proposal, as she “doesn’t implement policies based on nonbinding resolutions, but she is always happy to work with the board on issues around equity and criminal justice reform,” according to her spokesman. 

  • Cryptocurrencies Are Used To Buy Illicit Drugs, Warns White House

    Cryptos, bad; crypto-users, “drug-using terrorists”; USDollar, good; USDollar-users, patriots.

    That appears to be the message in a new statement from The White House on the links between America’s opioid epidemic and cryptocurrencies.

    As CoinTelegraph’s Liam Frost reports, on Aug. 21, the White House issued two advisories regarding illicit drug purchases in the United States that contain references to the specific cryptocurrencies allegedly used as a part of this process.

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    image courtesy of CoinTelegraph

    The advisories were addressed to various financial institutions as well as digital payments platforms. The documents state:

    “An analysis of sensitive financial data indicates that domestic illicit drug manufacturers, dealers, and consumers use online payment platforms or CVC to purchase precursor chemicals or completely synthesized narcotics primarily sourced from China.”

    White House: crypto used to pay for foreign drugs

    In the context of the documents CVC refers to “convertible virtual currencies,” particularly Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum (ETH) and Monero (XMR). The drug fentanyl is also noted specifically in the advisories:

    “Similar to purchases from a foreign source of supply using MSBs or online payment processors, individuals located in the United States search for fentanyl and identify potential websites that may provide the opportunity to purchase illicit drugs online. Foreign representatives will instruct the U.S.-based individual to send payments through CVC, such as bitcoin, bitcoin cash, ethereum, or monero.”

    Financial institutions are advised to collect crypto data

    The advisories also note that “CVC transactions generate a significant variety of information elements that may be extremely useful to law enforcement.” 

    Therefore, financial institutions are recommended to collect these details in case of any suspicion, including “virtual currency wallet addresses, account information, transaction details (including […] hash), relevant transaction history, available login information (including IP addresses), information obtained from analysis of the customer’s public online profile and communications, mobile device information,” etc.

    As Cointelegraph reported last month, U.S. Department of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin said that the authority will be preventing Bitcoin from becoming an “equivalent of Swiss-numbered bank accounts.”

    Previously, Mnuchin also stated that he shares President Donald Trump’s concerns on the use of cryptocurrency to finance illicit activity.

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    While the clear angle of The White House fearmongering, scapegoating, finger-pointing statement is to ensure cryptos are de-anonymized and painted as traitorous, one wonders what all those drug-hungry ‘terrorists’ did before cryptos? We ask because we know – since TreasurySec Mnuchin told us – that the US Dollar is NOT used ever for nefarious transactions…!

    Everything that Mnuchin attributed to Bitcoin – for one thing, that it has been used in concert with such “illicit activity [as] cyber crime, tax evasion, extortion… illicit drugs, and human trafficking” – can be said, and to degrees an order of magnitude or more larger, about the U.S. dollar. It’s an argument suitable for children.

    Mnuchin would be well advised to leave market forces to work in their inexorable march toward increasingly sound, more functional iterations of cryptocurrencies and other decentralized digital assets, and to shift his attention toward the countless political factors that are eradicating the last vestiges of faith and credit in the dollar. If the current path is maintained (and quite possibly even if it isn’t), the future belongs to truly “dependable and reliable” monetary media: cryptocurrencies and precious metals. 

    The sudden panic, following Libra’s white paper release, among establishment types is interesting. Amid clear dollar liquidity shortages and cornered central banks around the world, is this starting to set the stage for the next mega-crisis and the end of the dollar?

  • "They Let The Criminals Go": China Furious At Chaotic Scenes From HK Metro Station Unrest

    Another Hong Kong protest ‘sit-in’ turned into a violent scrap with police as on Wednesday night thousands of black-clad youth and others set up barriers and occupied the Yuen Long station of the city’s MTR metro. 

    The protest was to mark the one-month anniversary of what anti-Beijing demonstrators are calling the the ‘Yuen Long attack,’ which involved a gang of white-shirted, baton wielding men charging the busy station and brutally beat random HK demonstrators and passers-by who were on their way back from a mass rally against the extradition bill.

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    Wednesday’s protest marked a July 21st incident at the same location involving white-shirted thugs attacking anti-Beijing protesters with batons. Image source: Reuters

    That prior July 21 incident had left at least 45 injured and ratcheted up anger and tensions between HK police and protesters, given the police were accused of standing by while the unknown thugs attacked the station, and the lack of charges or a transparent investigation into the mass attack (merely two have been charged thus far). It was widely interpreted as a sanctioned violent counter-attack against the anti-Beijing demonstrators designed to send a message. 

    Wednesday night’s commemoration protest turned into hours of chaos after the demonstrators barricaded themselves in the metro station, with police concentrated outside the station, reluctant to charge in.

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    Trash cans and metal benches were piled together into barricades to block police from entering, as security forces fired tear gas into the station. Liquid was also sprayed on the floor and many demonstrators were armed with fire extinguishers. 

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    Below: Footage from the violent July 21st incident at Yuen Long station, when a group of men believed in cahoots with police charged the station as HK protesters were returning from a rally, resulting in at least 45 injured amid blood-spotted floors:

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    On July 21st the MTR station came under attack by a gang targeting participants in an extradition bill march, via SCMP.

    Crucially, with the exterior of the station completely blocked off by police, Hong Kong’s MTR Corp. actually appeared to facilitate the safe exit of protesters at the Yuen Long station. Instead of leaving through the barricades and thus face arrest, the anti-Beijing protesters were simply able to board a waiting train and exit the largely destroyed premises. 

    This was enough for state-run China Central Television (CCTV) to level charges of “indulging violence” and “challenging rule of law”. Images and video of HK protesters taking over the station and fighting off police but getting off unscathed went viral, angering mainland commentators. 

    Chinese state media HK civic authorities of turning a blind eye to law-breaking anti-Beijing protesters:

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    Communist Party-owned China Daily, for example, condemned what it described as follows: 

    Ironically, the MTR chose to let the criminals go by opening train doors to aid their escape from the scene. This utter disrespect of public order is irresponsible for public safety.

    Indeed, video captured the moments the bulk of the protesters effortlessly stepped aboard the train and called it a night after clashing with police, concealing their exit with fire extinguishers amid the chaotic scene. 

    The HK protesters are increasingly attempting to occupy public infrastructure vital to the functioning of the city as an economic powerhouse, which would give greater leverage in seeing their anti-Beijing demands met. 

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    Images of metro station takeovers and similar acts, however, will be used as justification for if and/or when a mainland security forces crackdown comes inside the semi-autonomous city. 

  • Investors Dilemma: Pavlov's Dogs & The Ringing Of The Bell

    Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

    Classical conditioning (also known as Pavlovian or respondent conditioning) refers to a learning procedure in which a potent stimulus (e.g. food) is paired with a previously neutral stimulus (e.g. a bell). What Pavlov discovered is that when the neutral stimulus was introduced, the dogs would begin to salivate in anticipation of the potent stimulus, even though it was not currently present. This learning process results from the psychological “pairing” of the stimuli.

    What does this have to do with investing. Let’s start with a tweet I got recently in response to the article “Fed Trapped In A Rate Cutting Box.”

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    This is a great example of “classical conditioning” with respect to investing.

    In 2010, then Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke introduced the “neutral stimulus” to the financial markets by adding a “third mandate” to the Fed’s responsibilities – the creation of the “wealth effect.”

    “This approach eased financial conditions in the past and, so far, looks to be effective again. Stock prices rose, and long-term interest rates fell when investors began to anticipate this additional action. Easier financial conditions will promote economic growth. For example, lower mortgage rates will make housing more affordable and allow more homeowners to refinance. Lower corporate bond rates will encourage investment. And higher stock prices will boost consumer wealth and help increase confidence, which can also spur spending. Increased spending will lead to higher incomes and profits that, in a virtuous circle, will further support economic expansion.”

    – Ben Bernanke, Washington Post Op-Ed, November, 2010.

    Importantly, for conditioning to work, the “neutral stimulus,” when introduced, must be followed by the “potent stimulus,” for the “pairing” to be completed. For investors, as each round of “Quantitative Easing”was introduced, the “neutral stimulus,” the stock market rose, the “potent stimulus.” 

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    More than 10-years, and 300% gains later, the “pairing” has been completed.

    The brutal lessons taught to investors in 2008, the last time the Fed cut rates, has been replaced by the “salivary response” to the “Fed ringing the bell.”  

    “Markets, as would be expected, tend to rally after rate cuts, because those policy actions translate into lower borrowing costs for individuals and corporations and tend to support higher moves for stocks.” – MarketWatch

    Not surprisingly, the markets jumped on Monday and Wednesday as Trump, and the Fed, once again rang “Pavlov’s bell.”

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    Ring the bell. Investors salivate with anticipation.

    However, let’s review why the Fed is implementing “emergency measures.”

    In 2010, when Bernanke made his now famous statement, the economy was on the brink of potentially slipping back into recession. The Fed’s goal was simple, ignite investors “animal spirits.”

    “Animal spirits” came from the Latin term “spiritus animalis” which means the breath that awakens the human mind. Its use can be traced back as far as 300BC where the term was used in human anatomy and physiology in medicine. It referred to the fluid, or spirit, that was responsible for sensory activities and nerves in the brain. Besides the technical meaning in medicine, animal spirits were also used in literary culture and referred to states of physical courage, gaiety, and exuberance.

    It’s modern usage came about in John Maynard Keynes’ 1936 publication, “The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money,” wherein he used the term to describe the human emotions driving consumer confidence. Ultimately, the “breath that awakens the human mind,” was adopted by the financial markets to describe the psychological factors which drive investors to take action in the financial markets.

    The 2008 financial crisis revived the interest in the role that “animal spirits” could play in both the economy, and the financial markets. The Federal Reserve, then under the direction of Ben Bernanke, believed it to be necessary to inject liquidity into the financial system to lift asset prices to “revive” the confidence of consumers. The result of which would evolve into a self-sustaining environment of economic growth.

    “Bernanke & Co.” were indeed successful in fostering a massive lift to equity prices which, in turn, did correspond to a lift in the confidence of consumers. (The chart below shows the composite index of both the University of Michigan and Conference Board surveys. Shaded areas are when the index is above 100)

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    Unfortunately, despite the massive expansion of the Fed’s balance sheet and the surge in asset prices, there was relatively little translation into wages, full-time employment, or corporate profits after tax, which ultimately triggered very little economic growth.

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    The problem is the “transmission system” of monetary policy collapsed following the financial crisis.

    Instead of the liquidity flowing through the system, it remained bottled up within institutions, and the ultra-wealthy, who had “investible wealth.” However, those programs failed to deliver a boost to the bottom 90% of American’s who continue to live paycheck-to-paycheck.

    The failure of the flush of liquidity to translate into economic growth can be seen in the chart below. While the stock market returned in excess of 100% since the 2007 peak, that increase in asset prices was nearly 5x the growth in real GDP, and roughly 3x the growth in corporate revenue. (I have used SALES growth in the chart below as it is what happens at the top line of income statements and is not as subject to manipulation.) 

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    Given that asset prices should be a reflection of economic and revenue growth, the deviation is evidence of a more systemic problem.

    The Ringing Of The Bell

    In reality, “Animal Spirits” is simply another name for “Irrational Exuberance.” The chart below shows the stages of the previous bull markets and the inflection points of the appearance of “Animal Spirits.” 

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    Not surprisingly, the appearance of “animal spirits” has always coincided with the latter stages of a bull market advance and is always coupled with overvaluation, high levels of complacency, and high levels of equity ownership.

    There is a difference this time.

    There is an old Wall Street adage:

    “No one rings the bell at the top.” 

    Consider this. What if the “bell” that is ringing isn’t the Fed’s “Q.E. bell?”

    As I noted last week, the Fed is cutting interest rates as concerns over economic growth are rising. The push to cut rates is also occurring at a time when the yield curve is “inverted.” Historically speaking, this is the “bell ringing at the top.”

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    Interestingly, instead of investors being concerned about the level of “equity risk” they are currently exposed to, they are instead “salivating” at the possibility of more “neutral stimulus” (QE and lower rates.) 

    This is an interesting conundrum for investors.

    The “ringing of the bell” over the last decade has trained investors to rush into equity-related risk. However, as I noted previously, the economic and fundamental backdrop is vastly different today than what it was then.

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    Again, what if the “the bell” investors are hearing isn’t the one they think it is?

    As David Einhorn once stated:

    “There was no catalyst that we knew of that burst the dot-com bubble in March 2000, and we don’t have a particular catalyst in mind here. That said, the top will be the top, and it’s hard to predict when it will happen.”

    This is a crucially important point.

    Currently, investors are as hopeful about the future of the equity market as they have ever been.

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    Why shouldn’t they be with the S&P 500 within a few percentage points of all-time highs?

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    However, once you start looking beyond the “mega-cap driven” S&P 500 index, a more worrisome picture emerges. Small and Mid-Capitalization stocks are significantly off their peak. Since small and mid-cap companies are more affected by changes in the domestic economy (and aren’t big stock repurchasers)such suggests there is cause for concern.

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    The same holds for rest of world as well.

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    Besides the stock market, economically sensitive commodities also have a tendency to signal changes to the overall trend of the economy given their direct input into both the production and demand sides of the economic equation.

    Oil is a highly sensitive indicator relative to the expansion or contraction of the economy. Given that oil is consumed in virtually every aspect of our lives, from the food we eat to the products and services we buy, the demand side of the equation is a tell-tale sign of economic strength or weakness. The chart below shows oil prices relative to economic growth, inflation, and interest rates (combined into a composite index.)

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    One important note is that oil tends to trade along a well defined trend, until it doesn’t. Given that the oil industry is very manufacturing and production intensive, breaks of price trends tend to be liquidation events which have a negative impact on the manufacturing and CapEx spending inputs into the GDP calculation.

    As such, it is not surprising that sharp declines in oil prices have been coincident with downturns in economic activity, a drop in inflation, and a subsequent decline in interest rates. The drop in oil prices is also confirming the message being sent by the broader market as well.

    The rise in the dollar over the last several weeks already suggests that foreign capital is flowing into the U.S. dollar for safety as the rest of the globe slows. This will accelerate as global markets decline, and foreign capital seeks “safety” in U.S. Treasuries (the global storehouse for reserve currencies). 

    The surge in “negative rates” globally is another warning sign that something has broken economically. As the economy slips into the next recession, domestic interest rates will continue to fall as “safety” becomes the priority over returns.

    From the equity perspective, this is a time to consider reducing risk.

    The evidence continues to mount the “bell has been rung.”

    It just isn’t the “bell” that most investors are salivating for.

  • China Threatens US Currency Intervention Would Lead To "Market Turmoil" And "Unprecedented Political Fallout"

    When, for the first time in 11 years, Jerome Powell cut the Fed Funds rate by 25bps on July 31, something unexpected happened: the dollar spiked (in fact, the trade weighted dollar soared to a record high). And not only did the dollar spike as a result of a market that screamed to Powell “long overdue policy error”, coupled with a growing dollar liquidity shortage which according to BofA and JPM will force the Fed to launch QE before long, but it was hit by a double whammy when it fell even further against the yuan just a few days later after Trump launched trade war. In fact, the yuan is now the lowest it has been against the dollar in 11 years. Worse, while the yuan dropped against its basket of reference currencies, the decline was far steeper against the greenback, suggesting that this was a premeditated, political move. That rapid devaluation prompted many banks (such as Bank of America, Standard Chartered and others) to speculate that it is only a matter of time before the US directly intervenes in the market to devalue the dollar against specific pairs (selling dollars, buying the reference currency), and especially against the Yuan.

    That threat has not been lost on Beijing, and as the FT reports today, top Chinese bankers in London have warned of the “drama” that would follow any US attempt to weaken the dollar by intervening in renminbi markets — a move that would be seen by Beijing as a “political act.” A hostile “political act.”

    Yet such an act looks increasingly likely after Trump has repeatedly taken aim at China (and Europe) both on Twitter and elsewhere for “playing currency games” as the trade war has morphed into a currency war, if not a full-blown one yet.

    The first shot in that particular currency war took place earlier this month when the US Treasury officially branded China a currency manipulator after the Chinese central bank allowed the renminbi to fall below Rmb7 to the dollar, a key threshold last breached in 2008, leading to further escalation in trade tensions. On Thursday the renminbi was trading at a fresh low of 7.09, with the both the offshore and onshore versions having once again converged.

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    And so, with the yuan drifting lower day after day, one senior staffer at a London-based Chinese bank told the FT that the US could intervene in the offshore renminbi market, where the currency is traded more freely than on the mainland. But, he warned, “the consequences could be serious.”

    “If you take on China on the currency . . . it would be interpreted as a political act and it would throw markets into turmoil,” said the senior staffer, speaking on condition of anonymity. The political fallout would be “unprecedented”, he added.

    The US, predictably, has far less qualms about intervening: “We are getting closer to terms where intervention is possible,” said Eaton Vanceco-director of global income and portfolio manager, Eric Stein. The only thing missing is a trigger, which likely will come in the form of a tweet from the president.

    But what will the US target? the list of possible targets for US intervention is broad, said Bank of America Merrill Lynch strategist Ben Randol, and includes the euro, Japan’s yen, the Mexican peso and, most likely, the Chinese yuan.

    “If an intervention does go ahead, I think the US would probably target specific currencies such as the renminbi, rather than attempt to achieve broad-based dollar weakness,” said Stephen Oh, global head of credit and fixed income at PineBridge Capital, which manages $97bn of assets.

    The next question is how big would the US salvo be? Well, as we explained recently, the US could deploy up to $146 billion if intervention was launched, the combination of the Treasury’s Exchange Stabilization Fund and the central bank’s firepower.

    “The Fed could just buy up all the offshore renminbi. It’s so illiquid that [they] could drive prices [higher] easily,” said Jon Vollemaere, chief executive of R5FX, a trading platform focused on emerging markets. Such a move could have an immediate impact on prices; it would also ensure a violent response from Beijing.

    To be sure, the political fallout would be unprecedented. A unilateral move by the US – highlighted in the middle column in the Morgan Stanley table below – would inflame not just policymakers in Beijing but in Europe too, as Washington could be deemed to be in breach of the commitment among G20 nations to avoid competitive devaluations.

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    And speaking of Morgan Stanley, the bank’s analysts said in a report this week that the market may be “underestimating the ease with which the US can intervene unilaterally, and we estimate the administration has US$67.8 billion at its disposal to do so. Resources beyond that would require the Fed, Congress or foreign partners to participate.”

    The final question is what would China do in response? While the PBOC would likely move swiftly to counter any US-led buying of the renminbi, implementing restrictions on the offshore currency would be very costly for Beijing, which unlike the US, can not simply print dollars and would have to raid its currency reserves to offset any direct US currency intervention “It would be a massive . . . loss of face for China if they were forced to impose capital controls,” Vollemaere said.

    So how likely is that the US and China would launch all out currency war at each other in the FX market?

    Last month US Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin said there was no change “as of now” to America’s currency policy but added that a different stance could be considered in the future. To be sure, investors are growing more cautious and are increasingly unwilling to short the yuan over fears of a surprise intervention by the US. One head of a currency trading platform that serves US hedge funds told the FT that his clients have begun to stay away. “They don’t want to be on the wrong side of the Fed.” Something tells us that neither does China.

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Aug 22

Today’s News 22nd August 2019

  • Germany Threatens Refugee Status Of Migrants Who Take Syria Vacations

    Migrants in Germany who return to Syria for holidays may lose their refugee status, according to German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer. 

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    “If somebody, a Syrian refugee, regularly takes holidays in Syria, he cannot honestly claim to be persecuted in Syria,” Seehofer told Bild am Sonntag weekly, adding “We would strip him of his refugee status.” 

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    If German officials learn that a migrant is on holiday in the nation they claim to have fled, a probe will be launched into their refugee status, Seehofer added. 

    German officials are currently unable to deport people to Syria as the Middle Eastern country is considered unsafe. The ban is set to expire at the end of 2019, although there is an option to prolong it.

    Talking to the Sunday edition of the mass-circulation Bild newspaper, Seehofer said German authorities were closely monitoring the situation in Syria.

    “When the conditions allow, we will conduct deportations,” he said. –DW

    Seehofer has repeatedly clashed with German Chancellor Angela Merkel over her far more liberal refugee policy. Some 780,000 Syrians have migrated to Germany in recent years amid the fallout from the Syrian civil war which began in 2011. Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their lives in the conflict which is still active in the northwest Syrian region of Idlib province. 

     

  • Forget Gun Control: Knife Crime Is Plaguing U.K. (But You Can't Notice Who's Responsible!)

    Authored by John Derbyshire via VDare.com,

    Race-denialism is all over the Western world – the notion that race itself is a sort of optical illusion; that different races can, after a bit of social engineering, be brought to present the same statistical profiles on all traits; that when they present different profiles the only possible explanation is malice on the part of white people; these are the great dogmas of our age [Antiracism, Our Flawed New Religion, by John McWhorter, Daily Beast, March 14,2017 ] carved on stone slabs and worshipfully preserved in the temples of our culture. Here’s a cute example: the epidemic of knife crime that has been plaguing Britain for several years past.

    Guns are hard to get in Britain (although not that hard). So the more commonplace types of lethal interpersonal violence – notably underclass gang warfare – are stabbings with knives.

    Where the soundtrack to a warm night in Chicago, Baltimore, or Detroitfeatures gunshots, the corresponding audio for London, Birmingham, or Manchester is of metal blades penetrating human flesh.

    This is quite a new thing. Yes, yes, I know about Jack the Ripper. Statistically, though – culturally – knife crime has not been a British thing.

    Growing up working-class British in the years before mass immigration, I absorbed the idea that fighting with knives was sneaky and unmanly.

    Knife crime was practised only by lurking weaselly types from the outer fringes of the civilized world. Englishmen fought with their fists, Irishmenwith the stout blackthorn, the Welsh and Scottish … I forget, but it wasn’t knives.

    In the mid-1960s, when I lived in London and got my first real encounterswith multiculturalism, knife crime was associated with Cypriots.

    I don’t know why this was so and have never tried to check the historical statistics. But it was an article of faith with Londoners back then that it was wise not to tick off a Cypriot (which mainly, in this context at that time, meant a Greek Cypriot) unless you wanted to feel a blade sliding between your ribs.

    The native British seem to have maintained their prejudice against knife fighting down to the present day. But black and Muslim immigrants have taken up knives with enthusiasm. A high proportion of the names of knife-crime perps are Muslim; and on the rare occasions the media offer a picture of a perp, it is much more often than not a black guy.

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    Man found guilty of murdering passenger on Surrey train

    Darren Pencille killed Lee Pomeroy in front of his son during row about aisle blocking

    by  Aamna Mohdin, Guardian, July 12, 2019

    So Britain’s knife-crime epidemic is mainly a black and Muslim thing, one of the consequences of unrestrained mass Third World immigration.

    To notice this is of course very strictly taboo. That’s the background to this latest story from the Sceptered Isle: Chicken Takeaway Boxes Warn Young People Of Knife Crime Danger, BBC, August 15, 2019.

    What’s happened is this: the British government has a campaign going on to discourage young people from carrying knives. They’re promoting this campaign via public-service announcements on Twitter with #KnifeFree.

    Well, a company that provides packaging for fast-food outlets has signed up to help with this campaign. The nature of their help: they have distributed boxes to fried chicken outlets—the boxes your take-out food comes packed in—carrying messages from the government campaign against knives.

    Did you get that? To fried chicken outlets! Is that racist, or what?

    It’s racist! Don’t take my word for it: here is an accredited authority, black Member of Parliament David Lammy, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the late Idi Amin of Uganda [Clip: the Idi Amin song]

    Sorry, sorry, that just lurched into my mind there. Where was I? Oh yes, David Lammy. Tweet from him, tweet:

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

    Since this news story comes from the sober, professional, magisterial BBC, you might think they’d offer some balancing numbers to prove that blacks are not especially prominent in the knife-crime statistics.

    I mean, you might think that… if you’ve been in a deep coma for the past thirty years.

    To be perfectly fair, the BBC story is not totally numbers-free. Four hundred words into the story we do get this, quote:

    Recent figures showed most perpetrators of knife crime were over the age of 18.

    That little nugget of irrelevant information came with a link to a BBC story from last month, headline: “Ten Charts On The Rise Of Knife Crime In England And Wales.”

    None of the ten charts deals with race or ethnicity. But the accompanying text between Chart Four and Chart Five does let slip the following factlet:

    The figures also show 25% of victims were black – the highest proportion since data was first collected in 1997.

    Since only three percent of Britain’s population is black, that’s a massive over-representation – a multiple of more than eight.

    Ah, but those are victims, you see – probably innocent black bodies, very likely carrying bags of Skittles, stabbed by hate-filled white supremacists filled with hateful hate.

    That must be it.

    Conclusion: In the 2005 movie Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, Rob Schneider, who is, duh, white plays the title character; Eddie Griffin, who is black, plays his buddy T.J. Hicks. T.J.is on the run in Amsterdam. Deuce finds him in a chicken-and-waffles joint.

    Clip:

    Deuce: T.J., Thank God you’re here.

    T.J.: How d’you find me?

    Deuce: It’s the only chicken and waffles place in all of Holland.

    T.J.: So a black man’s gotta be at a chicken and waffles place. That’s racist!

    Deuce: But you are here.

    T.J.: Yeah, but figuring it out is racist.

    *  *  *

    John Derbyshire writes an incredible amount on all sorts of subjects for all kinds of outlets. (This no longer includes National Review, whose editors had some kind of tantrum and fired him.) He is the author of We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism and several other books. He has had two books published by VDARE.com com: FROM THE DISSIDENT RIGHT(also available in Kindle) and FROM THE DISSIDENT RIGHT II: ESSAYS 2013.

  • American Apocalypse: The Government's Plot To Destabilize The Nation Is Working

    Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

    “The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out … without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.” – H. L. Mencken

    The U.S. government is working hard to destabilize the nation.

    No, this is not another conspiracy theory.

    Although it is certainly not far-fetched to suggest that the government might be engaged in nefarious activities that run counter to the best interests of the American people, doing so will likely brand me a domestic terrorist under the FBI’s new classification system.

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    Observe for yourself what is happening right before our eyes.

    Domestic terrorism fueled by government entrapment schemes. Civil unrest stoked to dangerous levels by polarizing political rhetoric. A growing intolerance for dissent that challenges the government’s power grabs. Police brutality tacitly encouraged by the executive branch, conveniently overlooked by the legislatures, and granted qualified immunity by the courts. A weakening economy exacerbated by government schemes that favor none but a select few. An overt embrace of domestic surveillance tactics if Congress goes along with the Trump Administration’s request to permanently re-authorize the NSA’s de-activated call records program. Heightened foreign tensions and blowback due to the military industrial complex’s profit-driven quest to police and occupy the globe.

    The seeds of chaos are being sown, and it’s the U.S. government that will reap the harvest.

    Mark my words, there’s trouble brewing.

    Better yet, take a look at “Megacities: Urban Future, the Emerging Complexity,” a Pentagon training video created by the Army for U.S. Special Operations Command.

    The training video is only five minutes long, but it says a lot about the government’s mindset, the way its views the citizenry, and the so-called “problems” that the government must be prepared to address in the near future through the use of martial law.

    Even more troubling, however, is what this military video doesn’t say about the Constitution, about the rights of the citizenry, and about the dangers of locking down the nation and using the military to address political and social problems.

    The training video anticipates that all hell will break loose by 2030—that’s barely ten short years away—but the future is here ahead of schedule.

    We’re already witnessing a breakdown of society on virtually every front.

    By waging endless wars abroad, by bringing the instruments of war home, by transforming police into extensions of the military, by turning a free society into a suspect society, by treating American citizens like enemy combatants, by discouraging and criminalizing a free exchange of ideas, by making violence its calling card through SWAT team raids and militarized police, by fomenting division and strife among the citizenry, by acclimating the citizenry to the sights and sounds of war, and by generally making peaceful revolution all but impossible, the government has engineered an environment in which domestic violence is becoming almost inevitable.

    The danger signs are screaming out a message:

    The government is anticipating trouble (read: civil unrest), which is code for anything that challenges the government’s authority, wealth and power.

    According to the Pentagon training video created by the Army for U.S. Special Operations Command, the U.S. government is grooming its armed forces to solve future domestic political and social problems.

    What they’re really talking about is martial law, packaged as a well-meaning and overriding concern for the nation’s security.

    The chilling five-minute training video, obtained by The Intercept through a FOIA request and made available online, paints an ominous picture of the future—a future the military is preparing for—bedeviled by “criminal networks,” “substandard infrastructure,” “religious and ethnic tensions,” “impoverishment, slums,” “open landfills, over-burdened sewers,” a “growing mass of unemployed,” and an urban landscape in which the prosperous economic elite must be protected from the impoverishment of the have nots.

    And then comes the kicker.

    Three-and-a-half minutes into the Pentagon’s dystopian vision of “a world of Robert Kaplan-esque urban hellscapes — brutal and anarchic supercities filled with gangs of youth-gone-wild, a restive underclass, criminal syndicates, and bands of malicious hackers,” the ominous voice of the narrator speaks of a need to “drain the swamps.”

    Drain the swamps.

    Surely, we’ve heard that phrase before?

    Ah yes.

    Emblazoned on t-shirts and signs, shouted at rallies, and used as a rallying cry among Trump supporters, “drain the swamp” became one of Donald Trump’s most-used campaign slogans.

    Far from draining the politically corrupt swamps of Washington DC of lobbyists and special interest groups, however, the Trump Administration has further mired us in a sweltering bog of corruption and self-serving tactics.

    Funny how the more things change, the more they stay the same.

    Now the government has adopted its own plans for swamp-draining, only it wants to use the military to drain the swamps of futuristic urban American cities of “noncombatants and engage the remaining adversaries in high intensity conflict within.”

    And who are these noncombatants, a military term that refers to civilians who are not engaged in fighting?

    They are, according to the Pentagon, “adversaries.”

    They are “threats.”

    They are the “enemy.”

    They are people who don’t support the government, people who live in fast-growing urban communities, people who may be less well-off economically than the government and corporate elite, people who engage in protests, people who are unemployed, people who engage in crime (in keeping with the government’s fast-growing, overly broad definition of what constitutes a crime).

    In other words, in the eyes of the U.S. military, noncombatants are American citizens a.k.a. domestic extremists a.k.a. enemy combatants who must be identified, targeted, detained, contained and, if necessary, eliminated.

    In the future imagined by the Pentagon, any walls and prisons that are built will be used to protect the societal elite—the haves—from the have-nots.

    If you haven’t figured it out already, we the people are the have-nots.

    Suddenly it all begins to make sense.

    The events of recent years: the invasive surveillance, the extremism reports, the civil unrest, the protests, the shootings, the bombings, the military exercises and active shooter drills, the color-coded alerts and threat assessments, the fusion centers, the transformation of local police into extensions of the military, the distribution of military equipment and weapons to local police forces, the government databases containing the names of dissidents and potential troublemakers.

    The government is systematically locking down the nation and shifting us into martial law.

    This is how you prepare a populace to accept a police state willingly, even gratefully.

    You don’t scare them by making dramatic changes. Rather, you acclimate them slowly to their prison walls.

    Persuade the citizenry that their prison walls are merely intended to keep them safe and danger out. Desensitize them to violence, acclimate them to a military presence in their communities, and persuade them that there is nothing they can do to alter the seemingly hopeless trajectory of the nation.

    Before long, no one will even notice the floundering economy, the blowback arising from military occupations abroad, the police shootings, the nation’s deteriorating infrastructure and all of the other mounting concerns.

    It’s happening already.

    The sight of police clad in body armor and gas masks, wielding semiautomatic rifles and escorting an armored vehicle through a crowded street, a scene likened to “a military patrol through a hostile city,” no longer causes alarm among the general populace.

    Few seem to care about the government’s endless wars abroad that leave communities shattered, families devastated and our national security at greater risk of blowback.

    The Deep State’s tactics are working.

    We’ve allowed ourselves to be acclimated to the occasional lockdown of government buildings, Jade Helmmilitary drills in small towns so that special operations forces can get “realistic military training” in “hostile” territory, and  Live Active Shooter Drill training exercises, carried out at schools, in shopping malls, and on public transit, which can and do fool law enforcement officials, students, teachers and bystanders into thinking it’s a real crisis.

    Still, you can’t say we weren’t warned about the government’s nefarious schemes to lock down the nation.

    Back in 2008, an Army War College report revealed that “widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security.” The 44-page report went on to warn that potential causes for such civil unrest could include another terrorist attack, “unforeseen economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order, purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters.”

    In 2009, reports by the Department of Homeland Security surfaced that labelled right-wing and left-wing activists and military veterans as extremists (a.k.a. terrorists) and called on the government to subject such targeted individuals to full-fledged pre-crime surveillance. Almost a decade later, after spending billions to fight terrorism, the DHS concluded that the greater threat is not ISIS but domestic right-wing extremism.

    Meanwhile, the government has been amassing an arsenal of military weapons for use domestically and equipping and training their “troops” for war. Even government agencies with largely administrative functions such as the Food and Drug Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Smithsonian have been acquiring body armor, riot helmets and shields, cannon launchers and police firearms and ammunition. In fact, there are now at least 120,000 armed federal agents carrying such weapons who possess the power to arrest.

    Rounding out this profit-driven campaign to turn American citizens into enemy combatants (and America into a battlefield) is a technology sector that has been colluding with the government to create a Big Brother that is all-knowing, all-seeing and inescapable. It’s not just the drones, fusion centers, license plate readers, stingray devices and the NSA that you have to worry about. You’re also being tracked by the black boxes in your cars, your cell phone, smart devices in your home, grocery loyalty cards, social media accounts, credit cards, streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon, and e-book reader accounts.

    All of this has taken place right under our noses, funded with our taxpayer dollars and carried out in broad daylight without so much as a general outcry from the citizenry.

    And then you have the government’s Machiavellian schemes for unleashing all manner of dangers on an unsuspecting populace, then demanding additional powers in order to protect “we the people” from the threats.

    Seriously, think about it.

    The government claims to be protecting us from cyberterrorism, but who is the biggest black market buyer and stockpiler of cyberweapons (weaponized malware that can be used to hack into computer systems, spy on citizens, and destabilize vast computer networks)? The U.S. government.

    The government claims to be protecting us from weapons of mass destruction, but what country has one the deadliest arsenals of weapons of mass destruction and has a history of using them on the rest of the world? The U.S. government. Indeed, which country has a history of secretly testing out dangerous weapons and technologies on its own citizens? The U.S. government.

    The government claims to be protecting us from foreign armed threats, but who is the largest weapons manufacturer and exporter in the world, such that they are literally arming the world? The U.S. government. For that matter, where did ISIS get many of their deadliest weapons, including assault rifles and tanks to anti-missile defenses? From the U.S. government.

    The government claims to be protecting the world from the menace of foreign strongmen, but how did Saddam Hussein build Iraq’s massive arsenal of tanks, planes, missiles, and chemical weapons during the 1980s? With help from the U.S. government. And who gave Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida “access to a fortune in covert funding and top-level combat weaponry”? The U.S. government.

    The government claims to be protecting us from terrorist plots, but what country has a pattern and practice of entrapment that involves targeting vulnerable individuals, feeding them with the propaganda, know-how and weapons intended to turn them into terrorists, and then arresting them as part of an elaborately orchestrated counterterrorism sting? The U.S. government.

    For that matter, the government claims to be protecting us from nuclear threats, but which is the only country to ever use a nuclear weapon in wartime? The United States.

    Are you getting the picture yet?

    The U.S. government isn’t protecting us from terrorism.

    The U.S. government is creating the terror. It is, in fact, the source of the terror.

    Just think about it for a minute: Cyberwarfare. Terrorism. Bio-chemical attacks. The nuclear arms race. Surveillance. The drug wars.

    Almost every national security threat that the government has claimed greater powers in order to fight—all the while undermining the liberties of the American citizenry—has been manufactured in one way or another by the government.

    Did I say Machiavellian? This is downright evil.

    We’re not dealing with a government that exists to serve its people, protect their liberties and ensure their happiness. Rather, these are the diabolical machinations of a make-works program carried out on an epic scale whose only purpose is to keep the powers-that-be permanently (and profitably) employed.

    It’s time to wake up and stop being deceived by government propaganda.

    Mind you, by “government,” I’m not referring to the highly partisan, two-party bureaucracy of the Republicans and Democrats.

    I’m referring to “government” with a capital “G,” the entrenched Deep State that is unaffected by elections, unaltered by populist movements, and has set itself beyond the reach of the law.

    I’m referring to the corporatized, militarized, entrenched bureaucracy that is fully operational and staffed by unelected officials who are, in essence, running the country and calling the shots in Washington DC, no matter who sits in the White House.

    Be warned: in the future envisioned by the government, we will not be viewed as Republicans or Democrats. Rather, “we the people” will be enemies of the state.

    For years, the government has been warning against the dangers of domestic terrorism, erecting surveillance systems to monitor its own citizens, creating classification systems to label any viewpoints that challenge the status quo as extremist, and training law enforcement agencies to equate anyone possessing anti-government views as a domestic terrorist.

    What the government failed to explain was that the domestic terrorists would be of the government’s own making, and that “we the people” would become enemy #1.

    As I make clear in my book, Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we’re already enemies of the state.

    You want to change things? Start by rejecting the political labels and the polarizing rhetoric and the “us vs. them” tactics that reduce the mass power of the populace to puny, powerless factions.

    Find common ground with your fellow citizens and push back against the government’s brutality, inhumanity, greed, corruption and power grabs.

    Be dangerous in the best way possible: by thinking for yourself, by refusing to be silenced, by choosing sensible solutions over political expediency and bureaucracy.

    When all is said and done, the solution to what ails this country is really not that complicated: decency, compassion, common sense, generosity balanced by fiscal responsibility, fairness, a commitment to freedom principles, and a firm rejection of the craven, partisan politics of the Beltway elites who have laid the groundwork for the government’s authoritarian coup d’etat.

    Let the revolution begin.

  • Delivery Robots Set To Invade College Campuses This Fall

    Starship Technologies, an autonomous delivery company, focused on last-mile delivery services, announced Tuesday via a company press release, that it will launch delivery robots on 100 university campuses across the US in the next 24 months.

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    The announcement said the delivery robots have already arrived at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, in preparation for the fall semester. Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, will receive robots on Sept. 9 and an additional 98 university campuses by late 2H21.

    “An entire generation of university students are growing up in a world where they expect to receive a delivery from a robot after a few taps on their smartphone. The reception to our service both on campuses and in neighborhoods has been phenomenal. Our customers appreciate how we make their lives easier and give them back the gift of time,” said Lex Bayer, CEO of Starship.

    In the coming weeks, students at the University of Pittsburgh will be able to order their favorite food and drinks from Einstein Bros. Bagels and Common Grounds via delivery robots to any set location they want, in the proximity of the campus. Students, according to the release, can use their meal plan points to pay for food and delivery charges.

    Not too long ago, Starship started a pilot delivery program at George Mason University (Fairfax, VA) and Northern Arizona University (Flagstaff, AZ). Since the tests, students at both campuses have fallen in love with the robots. The company said they had to increase robots in both schools to stay with demand.

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    When the expansion to all 100 campuses by 2H21 is completed, the company expects to have the delivery service readily available to more than one million students.

    The Starship app is a revolutionary way of last-mile delivery; students must first download the app on iOS and Android before they can place an order.

    Once their meal plan, credit card, or their parents’ credit card is connected to the account, students can select their favorite food or drink items, then drop a pin on a map of where they want the robot to drop off the goods. As per the release, delivery charges could cost around $1.99, depends on several factors, including distance and how busy the service is at the time.

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    Starship robots use sensors, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to navigate sidewalks and avoid obstacles. These last-mile robots can cross streets, climb curbs, avoid potholes, travel in most weather conditions, and even at night.

    The company claims since the robots are battery-powered, it can reduce pollution. As we’ve pointed out in the past, numerous studies have concluded that electric cars and or e-scooters are dirtier for the environment than most think.

    Nevertheless, the automation of last-mile deliveries is another warning that robots will displace millions of jobs by 2030.

  • "American Gulag" Death Of Jeffrey Epstein: Will Julian Assange Be Next?

    Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

    The death of millionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein behind bars should trigger “system-wide self-reflection” on how prisoners are treated. The Metropolitan Correctional Center “is sort of like an American gulag for people who have not been convicted of anything,” Epstein lawyer Marc Fernich said.

    Epstein had at least some dirt on some high-powered people like Bill Clinton and he could very well be dead because he was going to talk.

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    And another person currently jailed for giving the American public information the United States government desperately wanted to keep secret, is Julian Assange.  His health is failing and the highly dubious death of Jeffrey Epstein in a U.S. maximum-security prison is another strong reason not to extradite Assange into one.

    Epstein’s death has gotten his lawyer to speak out about the conditions in American prisons, likening them to the gulags of the Soviet Union. MCC is “institutionally ill-equipped” to deal with someone like Epstein who wouldn’t last long in general population but who isn’t a hardened criminal, Fernich explained to RT. 

    “This is one of the toughest pre-trial detention facilities in the country. And the conditions are inhumane.”

     Epstein, he insists, was “presumed innocent,” despite his 2008 conviction for soliciting underage prostitutes – part of a slap-on-the-wrist plea deal the fallout from which culminated in this year’s sex trafficking charges – and should not have been confined in such “barbaric” conditions.

    But there is every reason to fear Assange is already in danger, in Belmarsh maximum-security prison, where he is currently incarcerated. Assange did the unthinkable. He exposed the government for what it really is: a corrupt authoritarian entity that firmly believes it has the right to enslave everyone else.  Pressenza wrote: “The Establishment has conspired to reduce his ability to defend himself in court.  I am not convinced it is not conspiring to destroy him.”

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    John Pilger has been attempting to alert the public to what several governments are attempting to do to Assange for the crime of publishing the truth.

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    Why EVERYONE Should Be Outraged At Assange’s Arrest

    Truth is treason in the empire of lies.  Deaths like Epstein’s had the benefit of at least waking up some of the public to the lies and deception by the propaganda outlets also known as the mainstream media.  They are desperately trying to silence anyone who questions the establishment’s official narrative.  But even Fernich himself is “skeptical”about the medical examiner’s conclusion that Epstein committed suicide. “It would not surprise me… to learn of anything that might have happened to Jeffrey Epstein,” he says, adding that Epstein’s mysterious death will be the subject of discussion for decades. Similarly, the mainstream media has blood on their hands when it comes to Assange, according to another tweet by Pilger.

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    “People in the United States are skeptical of anything that the government puts out because the intelligence-gathering process in our country has been weaponized for political ends,” said Fernich.

  • Endgame Near: Syrian Army Liberates Khan Sheikhoun, Site Of Claimed 'Sarin Attack'

    “It’s looking like the end game for the revolution in Syria as rebels lose another town,” reports the LA Times. Yet the Syrian Army has now gained control of not just any town — but Khan Sheikhoun — site of the April 2017 claimed “Assad chemical attack” which Trump used as a pretext to bomb Syria for the first time. 

    Starting Tuesday the AP reported that insurgents began abandoning the town in southern Idlib en masse amid a heavy pro-Assad forces onslaught. The city had first been wrested from government control by Jabhat al-Nusra (Syrian al-Qaeda) and FSA forces starting in 2014. 

    It’s been held since by current Nusra manifestation Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which in April 2017 claimed to have been victim of a sarin gas attack by Syrian jet airstrikes. In response to claims which until this day have never been investigated by an official international team on the ground, the White House unleashed its first, limited bombing campaign of Syria.

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    In April 2017 international media was flooded with images and YouTube videos of a claimed “Sarin attack”. Al-Qaeda linked HTS then sent its own team to examine the impact site and gather evidence. 

    This would lead to larger tomahawk strikes on Damascus the next year in 2018 after a Saudi-backed insurgent group claimed an Assad forces chlorine gas attack in Douma, outside the capital. 

    This week even the Associated Press seemed to finally acknowledge what the mainstream media has for years refused to admit — that the Syrian Army is advancing in Idlib on none other than al-Qaeda:

    Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Syria’s main al-Qaida-linked faction, said in a statement that its fighters carried out “a re-deployment,” withdrawing to areas south of the town of Khan Sheikhoun. From there, they would continue to defend the territory, it said.

    Pro-government areas are celebrating the liberation of the key city, with President Bashar al-Assad releasing a statement saying, “The victories that were achieved show the determination of the people and the army to strike terrorists, until all parts of Syria are liberated,” according to comments released by his office.

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    The Syrian Army celebrating entrance into the newly liberated area, via Al-Masdar News.

    Concerning the broader campaign to take back Idlib province, it must be remembered that in 2015 US intelligence directly assisted the al-Qaeda coalition Army of Islam (now morphed into Hayat Tahrir al-Sham) from an “operations room” in Turkey in capturing the provincial capital Idlib City. Since then Washington has threatened to intervene at prior moments whenever it looked like the Syrian Army was ready to advance in the province.

    There’s also a huge likelihood that as anti-Assad fighters get ever closer to their final defeat in Idlib, some kind of mass casualty “chemical event” perpetrated by Assad will be claimed by al-Qaeda linked forces as a provocation to again draw in Western military intervention. 

  • The Green New Deal: Less About Climate, More About Control

    Authored by Nicolas Loris and Kevin Dayaratna via DailySignal.com,

    If someone asked you to describe the Green New Deal, what would you say?

    According to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., it’s a “bold idea” that would “create millions of good-paying jobs” and help “rebuild communities in rural America that have been devastated.”

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    Oh, you thought the Green New Deal was all about fighting climate change? Well, think again.

    Turns out it’s a green-glossed Trojan horse designed to increase government control over the economy.

    Just ask Saikat Chakrabarti, chief of staff to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., the author of the deal. “The interesting thing about the Green New Deal is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all,” Chakrabarti said. “We really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.”

    Just how much change would the Green New Deal bring to the economy? Put simply, it would bring it to its knees.

    We know, because when we tried to use the Energy Information Administration’s National Energy Model to assess how the plan would affect the economy, the model crashed.

    The Green New Deal is big on vision, but sparse on details. For example, it calls for reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 60% below 2010 levels by 2030, with the ultimate goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. But it doesn’t say how to get there.

    One thing is clear: to meet these goals, Washington would have to force all Americans to reduce their energy consumption and/or switch to “green” energy sources—and fast. And the only way to do that is to impose coercive taxes and regulations.

    To assess the economic effects of such a scheme, we started by looking at a carbon tax—the most popular recommendation of those asking government to “nudge” us off of fossil fuels.

    Using the Energy Information Administration’s model, we tested to see how high a carbon tax would have to go to meet the Green New Deal’s emission targets. We ratcheted the tax up to $300 per ton, which dropped emissions 58% below 2010 levels—but not until 2050.

    That left us far short of reaching the deal’s targets, but when we tried to push the tax higher, the model crashed. Clearly, the Green New Deal’s emission targets are unrealistic. Yet the danger they pose to the economy are far too real.

    Before the model’s lights went out, we found that a $300 per ton carbon tax and associated regulations would cost a family of four nearly $8,000 per year in income lost to higher energy costs, consumer prices, and foregone wages. The 20-year cost totals $165,000.

    During that same 20-year period, the tax would siphon off an average of 1.1 million jobs per year and diminish gross domestic product by a total of more than $15 trillion.

    That’s a hefty price to pay for getting barely halfway to the net-zero emissions goal. Is it worth it? After all, proponents of eliminating conventional fuels argue that the cost of climate change dwarfs the cost of climate policy.

    However, in terms of “climate insurance,” eliminating greenhouse gas emissions doesn’t get you very far.

    To see if this is true, we turned to another tool: the Model for the Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Induced Climate Change. Developed at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, this model assesses how much increases and decreases in greenhouse gas trajectories will affect global temperatures and sea levels.

    Running this model, we found that overhauling America’s economy – as envisioned in the Green New Deal – would abate global warming by approximately 0.2 degree Celsius by the year 2100. The reduction in sea-level rise would be less than 2 centimeters.

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    In other words, the Green New Deal offers minimal climate improvement at impossibly high prices.

    Chakrabarti is spot on. The Green New Deal isn’t a “climate thing” at all. And it would certainly change the economy—for the worse.

  • Wall Street-Area Apartments Plagued With Tidal Wave Of Supply

    Apartments in the Wall Street area languished into late summer as a glut plagues the Manhattan real estate market, reported Bloomberg.

    “There was so much new development in that neighborhood, and I think that many of the people who wanted to buy there did,” said Steven Gottlieb, a broker at Warburg Realty. “I don’t know that there is such a huge a demand for that neighborhood anymore.”

    Lower Manhattan apartment inventory spiked 24% in 2Q19 YoY, led by a tidal wave of new supply, according to a report by Corcoran Group.

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    The supply has caused panic in the area, average resale prices have fallen 11%, and average new development prices plunged 46%.

    The days of $1,600 per square foot are over. This was the first time that has happened since 2013, signaling the slowdown in the overall Manhattan real estate market is gaining momentum in 2H19.

    “Buyers are keenly aware of the amount of inventory available, and want to negotiate at all price points,” said Garrett Derderian at the brokerage Core.

    StreetEasy says data from May and June shows the median time that Lower Manhattan apartments had been on the market was longer than Brooklyn and Long Island City.

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    Four new luxury residential towers are expected to open in Lower Manhattan in 2020, including residential towers at 130 William St., 77 Greenwich St., 25 Park Row, and 1 Wall St. The new supply won’t just make it harder for existing listings to sell, but could lead to further price declines for the next several years.

    The Real Deal reported that developer Metro Loft is in contract to purchase AIG’s headquarters at 175 Water St in 2021. As soon as that happens, the developer will transform the top half of the building into residential units, could add to supply in 2022 to 2024.

    Martin Eiden, a broker at Compass Real Estate, said it’d been at least a decade since conversions of office-to-residence projects were done, and it now seems like that trend is reemerging into 2020.

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    Bloomberg notes one of the first office-to-residence conversions in the area was at 15 Broad St., the former headquarters of JPMorgan Chase & Co., was completed in 2006. A 28th-floor studio with two bathrooms currently lists for about $1.5 million.

    Down the street, 25 Broad St., a condo conversion completed in April, has two-bedroom, two-bath unit listed for about $1.6 million.

    With the migration of some of the largest financial institutions from Lower Manhattan to Midtown in recent years, the highest paid jobs have also gravitated north, forcing developers to build smaller apartments for entry-level analysts in the financial district.

    “The majority of housing stock available for purchase consists of one-bedroom or studio floorplans,” said broker Gill Chowdhury at Warburg Realty.

    Scott Avram, senior vice president of development at Lightstone Group, a developer in the area, said singles or young families could find Lower Manhattan appealing because of the housing glut, has transformed it into a buyers market.

    “If you want to live in Manhattan, you can often get the best product and the best value, whereas people were previously priced out of Manhattan and had to move to Brooklyn and Long Island City,” Avram said.

    However, the housing decline isn’t just limited to Lower Manhattan, mega-mansions in the Hamptons, Wall Street’s favorite party spot, are also languishing, indicating the high-end market has peaked. And it makes sense why President Trump is demanding 100bps cuts and QE-4, it’s because his economic advisors have told him the real estate market, and the overall economy, are quickly slowing ahead of an election year.

  • China's Ultimate Play For Global Oil Market Control

    Authored by Yossef Bodansky via GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs,

    All attention is focused on the twists-and-turns of the very noisy US-Iran dispute in the Persian Gulf, but all the while the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is rapidly and quietly consolidating a dominant presence in the area with the active support of Russia.

    Beijing, as a result, is fast acquiring immense influence over related key dynamics such as the price of oil in the world market and the relevance of the petrodollar. The PRC and the Russians are capitalizing on both the growing fears of Iran and the growing mistrust of the US. Hence, the US is already the main loser of the PRC’s gambit.

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    The dramatic PRC success can be attributed to the confluence of two major trends:

    (1) The quality and relevance of what Beijing can offer to both Iran and the Saudi-Gulf States camp; and

    (2) The decision of key Arab leaders — most notably Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin ‘Abd al-’Aziz al Sa’ud (aka MBS) and his close ally, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (aka MBZ) — to downgrade their traditional close ties with the US, and reach out to Beijing to provide a substitute strategic umbrella.

    Hence, the PRC offer to oversee and guarantee the establishment of a regional collective security regime — itself based on the Russian proposals and ideas first raised in late July 2019 — is now getting considerable positive attention from both shores of the Persian Gulf. Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, and Oman appear to be becoming convinced that the PRC could be the key to the long-term stability and prosperity in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula.

    Iran is also considering the expansion of security cooperation with Russia as an added umbrella against potential US retaliation.

    Overall, according to sources in these areas, the US was increasingly perceived as an unpredictable, disruptive element.

    The profound change in the attitude of the Saudi and Emirati ruling families, who for decades have considered themselves pliant protégés of the US, took long to evolve. However, once formulated and adopted, the new policies have been implemented swiftly.

    The main driving issue is the realization by both MBS and MBZ that, irrespective of the reassuring rhetoric of US Pres. Donald Trump and Jared Kushner, their bitter nemesis — Qatar — is far more important to the US than the rest of the conservative Arab monarchies and sheikhdoms of the GCC. The last straw came in early July 2019 in the aftermath of the visit of the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, to Washington, DC. Sheikh Tamim received an extravagant reception from both Pres. Trump in person and official Washington. Trump lavished praises on Qatar and the Emir, and emphasized the US renewed commitment “to further advancing the high-level strategic cooperation between our two countries”.

    There are good reasons for the US preference of Qatar.

    The Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar is by far the most important US base in the entire greater Middle East. Qatar is mediating between the US and several nemeses, including Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey. Qatar is providing “humanitarian cash” to HAMAS in the Gaza Strip, thus buying quiet time for Israel. Qatar has given generous “political shelter” to numerous leaders, seniors, and commanders of questionable entities the US would like to protect but would never acknowledge this (including anti-Russia Chechens and other Caucasians, and anti-China Uighurs).

    Qatari Intelligence is funding and otherwise supporting the various jihadist entities which serve as proxies of the CIA and M?T (Milli ?stihbarat Te?kilat?: the Turkish National Intelligence Organization) in the greater Middle East (mainly Syria, Iraq, Libya, Jordan, Yemen) and Central Asia (mainly Afghanistan-Pakistan, China’s Xinjiang and Russia’s Caucasus and the Turkic peoples of eastern Siberia).

    On top of this, Qatar is purchasing billions of dollars’ worth of US-made weapons; and paying cash on-time (unlike the habitually late Saudis who now cannot afford to pay what they’ve already promised).

    Moreover, the Middle East is awash with rumors that Qatari businessmen saved the financial empire of the Kushner family by investing at least half-a-billion dollars in the 666 5th Avenue project in New York. The rumors are very specific in that the investment was made for political reasons on instruction of the Emir. In the conspiracies-driven Arab Middle East, such rumors are believed and serve as a viable motive for the policies of the Trump White House: an ulterior motive the Saudis and Gulfies cannot challenge. 

    The handling by the Trump White House of the Iranian shootdown of the US RQ-4A/BAMS-D Global Hawk drone on June 20, 2019, only exacerbated further the anguish of both MBS and MBZ. Both of them, along with other Arab leaders, urged the Trump White House to strike hard at Iran in retaliation. Both MBS and MBZ communicated in person with the most senior individuals at the White House. They were stunned to learn that Trump communicated directly with Tehran on the possibility of a largely symbolic retaliatory strike, and the prospects of bilateral negotiations.

    Both MBS and MBZ consider the last-minute cancellation of the US retaliatory strike a personal affront and humiliation because Trump did not accept and follow their positions and demands for action. Both MBS and MBZ are now convinced that not only the US demonstrated weakness and lack of resolve, but that Pres. Trump was personally not committed to fighting Iran on behalf of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf sheikhdoms.

    Furthermore, there is growing trepidation in Saudi Arabia about the viability of the Pakistani guarantees to the Kingdom, particularly concerning nuclear deterrence.

    In the past, Islamabad mediated the Saudi purchase of ballistic missiles from the PRC (procurements which are supported by Pakistani military technicians and security personnel) and had allocated two nuclear warheads for launch from Saudi Arabia in case of an Iranian attack, all in return for lavish Saudi funding of Pakistan’s nuclear and strategic weapons programs.

    However, there has been a profound turnaround in Pakistani policies starting in the Summer of 2019.

    First, Pakistan reached a comprehensive military agreement with Turkey with the latter providing weapons and other military systems, as well as training, in order to replace US and Western systems which were no longer available. In the first area of active cooperation, Turkey mediated modalities for trilateral cooperation (Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan) in fighting Baluchi jihadists and insurgents. Second, Pakistan is expediting the shipping of huge quantities of Iranian gas to western China by mainly using existing pipelines, from the Fars fields to Chabahar, then via the Iran-Pakistan pipeline to Gwadar, and then via the CPEC (the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor) pipeline to Xinjiang. As well, Iran and Pakistan cooperate closely in negotiations with various Afghan factions to ameliorate any US achievements in the Doha negotiations with the Taliban.

    Hence, both MBS and MBZ wonder, can Saudi Arabia trust Pakistan to deter and confront Iran and its allies on behalf of Saudi Arabia?

    Concurrently, with the face-off with the US not going away, Iranian Supreme Leader AyatollahSayyed Ali Khamene‘i convened anew the key Iranian leaders in order to reiterate the tenets of Tehran’s strategy and to reinforce their resolve. Khamene‘i stressed his and Iran’s commitment to becoming the leading regional power, and repeated that there was no possibility for a negotiated compromise with the US. In the meeting, Khamene‘i stated “three directives for Iran” which were to be followed and realized under any condition. As reported by authoritative commentator Elijah Magnier, Khamene‘i’s directives are:

    “1. Adherence to Iran’s right to nuclear enrichment and everything related to this science at all costs. Nuclear enrichment is a sword Iran can hold in the face of the West, which wants to take it from Tehran. It is Iran’s card to obstruct any US intention of ‘obliterating’ Iran.

    “2. Continue to develop Iran’s missile capability and ballistic programs. This is Iran’s deterrent weapon that prevents its enemies from waging war against it. Sayyed Ali Khamene‘i considers the missile program a balancing power to prevent harm against Iran.

    “3. Support Iran’s allies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen, and never abandon them, because they are essential to Iran’s national security.”

    Elijah Magnier further explained that “Sayyed Khamene‘i recommended these commandments to preserve the Islamic Republic of Iran, and that each of these three items is equally important for the safety of Iran, its existence and continuity, and national and strategic security.”

    The aggregate objective of these three directives, Khamene‘i elaborated, was to enable and expedite the ascent of Iran as a regional power. The Iranian strategic ascent would manifest itself by tight control over both the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al Mandab, as well as the entire Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea; that is, controlling the region’s oil and gas exports. Emboldened, the Iranians would intensify their demands for the return of “traditional Iranian territory”, starting with Bahrain [even though the Iranian Government of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi had formally relinquished its claim on Bahrain in 1970 — Ed.].

    There can be expected to be growing demands from Tehran to empower the Shi’ite population of the eastern Arabian Peninsula — where all the oil and gas reserves are located — in accordance with Iran’s long-term commitment to the establishing of an Islamic Republic of Eastern Arabia. These are all traditional long-term demands of Iran. The novelty in Khamene‘i’s most recent address is the assertiveness and immediacy of the Iranian quest to meet these demands.

    The importance and essence of Khamene‘i’s message spread across the Persian Gulf quickly. Consequently, both MBS and MBZ are cognizant that Khamene‘i’s Tehran was unlikely to compromise or go back on these commitments and objectives. There was no similar indication of resolve coming from Trump’s Washington. Thus, MBS, MBZ and most other Arab leaders had become increasingly convinced that the US would sooner or later withdraw from the Persian Gulf and the greater Middle East. The current bluster and assertiveness of the Trump Administration could not negate the overall trend: that of the US disengagement and withdrawal.

    The Arab leaders believe that the US would empower Israel as a subcontractor, but Israel has its own priorities and vital interests. Michael Young articulated the perception of the region’s leaders in the August 7, 2019, issue of The National of the UAE. “A new regional security order is emerging, with Israel taking a much more interventionist approach and playing a military rôle partly replacing that previously fulfilled by Washington, particularly with regard to Iran. Israel’s efforts to counter Iran have paralleled those of a number of Arab states, with all sides adapting to a new situation in which the US has decided to militarily disengage from the Middle East.”

    Both MBS and MBZ concluded that they need a far stronger strategic umbrella than the US and Israel could offer in order to survive in the era of Iran’s ascent.

    As a result, MBZ reached out to Beijing in early July 2019. After comprehensive preparatory negotiations, MBZ arrived in Beijing on July 20, 2019, for a milestone visit in which he met PRC Pres. Xi Jinping for lengthy discussions. According to PRC senior officials, Mohammed bin Zayed and Xi Jinping “elevated the two countries’ relationship to that of a strategic partnership”. The key outcome was the UAE’s acceptance of the dominance of the PRC and Russia in the Persian Gulf.

    “The UAE and China are moving towards a promising future,” MBZ said in his concluding meeting with Xi Jinping. His visit aimed at “developing co-operation and a comprehensive strategic partnership, as well as opening new horizons for joint action in various sectors,” MBZ explained. Xi Jinping responded by stressing “the profound significance of China-Arab relations”. The PRC and the UAE would now work closely together to transform the Persian Gulf into “a security oasis” rather than a new “source of turmoil”.

    Significantly, Xi Jinping referred to “a hundred years of grand plan” when describing the PRC’s relations with the UAE. MBZ also signed a large number of bilateral agreements, both economic and strategic.

    While in Beijing, Mohammed bin Zayed asked Xi Jinping to mediate a deal with Tehran in order to negate the US-driven escalation and possible war. The PRC moved very fast, and within a few days dispatched to Tehran a high-ranking delegation led by the head of the International Liaison Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Song Tao. His mandate was to discuss the new security regime for the Persian Gulf, as well as the conditions for increasing PRC purchase of Iranian oil in disregard of the US sanctions. On the Iranian side, Song Tao’s official host was the highly influential Secretary of the Expediency Council, Mohsen Rezaei. This meant that Khamene‘i was directly involved. Song Tao stayed in Tehran for three days and met with a large number of senior officials, mostly members of Khamene‘i’s innermost circle of confidants and advisors.

    All the Iranian officials were very assertive regarding Iran’s resolve to withstand US pressure at all cost, and eager for PRC cooperation in stabilizing the region and preventing war.

    Rezaei articulated Iran’s strategy. “Any kind of insecurity and conflict in this region would carry harm to global peace and security,” he stated. “Americans and Britain have been fanning the flames of war in the Persian Gulf region and they want to pretend they have control over the Strait of Hormuz and the movement of vessels. Of course, we do not allow this to happen. In the meantime, we expect cooperation from our friends in China.”

    He hoped for Chinese cooperation in preventing escalation. Should such cooperation fail to materialize, Iran would have to act boldly. “Persian Gulf security is our security and we have to respond to their attacks and destabilizing actions in order to maintain security,” Rezaei stated. Tehran’s preference is for the PRC to help in securing “free shipping and security in the Persian Gulf”.

    The Head of Iran’s Foreign Policy Strategic Council, Kamal Kharrazi, reminded Song Tao that “both Iran and China are opposed to US’s unilateralism and hegemony”.

    Hence, both countries should work closely together in confronting the US. The Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Ali Larijani, also stressed that close cooperation “can help counter the US animosity and neutralize its consequences”. He suggested that Russia should be brought into the new security regime in the Persian Gulf. Larijani urged the PRC to expedite its anti-US intervention in the Persian Gulf because “success of this plan is contingent upon practical steps”. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif noted “the two countries’ common strategic outlook toward international developments”, and urged close cooperation in order to reverse “Washington’s attempts to impose its own hegemony on the world”.

    All the Iranian officials had no problem with some form of rapprochement with the UAE and Saudi Arabia provided they did neither participate in a war against Iran, nor permit the US to use their territory and bases for strikes against Iran and Iranian proxies.

    The PRC delegation was impressed by the Iranian eagerness to cooperate and to accept a PRC umbrella.

    Song Tao told his interlocutors that “the mission of the delegation is to strengthen the strategic coordination and dialogue between the two countries and we are willing to confront challenges and problems together”. He agreed with the imperative to jointly confront the US, and accepted the need to move fast jointly. Song Tao concurred that “there are complicated and rapid developments happening on the international stage that have created challenges for the countries of China and Iran, but our resolve and determination is to support Iran’s legal and legitimate rights to development and progress”. Song Tao promised to discuss in Beijing concrete ideas how to improve and expand the PRC’s policy of “long-term strategic” ties with Iran in view of the current situation in the Persian Gulf.

    By now, the PRC Government had already organized the first meeting between Emirati and Iranian senior officials. First, on July 26, 2019, an Emirati “peace delegation” arrived in Tehran for secret discussions on the new modalities of bilateral relations, new security regimes in the Persian Gulf and Yemen (from where the UAE is withdrawing to the chagrin of Saudi Arabia), and overall GCC-Iran relations. The emphasis was on crisis management and the prevention of accidental escalation in the Persian Gulf. On July 30, 2019, the UAE dispatched a high-level Coast Guard delegation to Tehran.

    Officially, the two sides discussed maritime border control and patrolling in order to avoid misunderstandings and clashes. The delegation included an undeclared senior emissary of MBZ. He assured his Iranian interlocutors that the UAE was ready for a fundamental change of relationship with Iran including a “rapprochement” and expansion of trade. The UAE also committed to distancing from the US, accepting PRC influence in the entire region, and working with Iran for a regional security regime.

    One of the key issues raised with the Emirati delegation in Tehran was the Saudi position. The UAE emissary asserted that all of the recent activities, including the request for PRC mediation, were the outcome of close coordination between MBZ and MBS. However, he explained, given the close relations between MBS and the Trump White House, MBS felt more constrained in making a dramatic shift the way MBZ did.

    Therefore, on July 31, 2019, Zarif offered an olive branch.

    He declared that “Iran is prepared for dialogue if Saudi Arabia is also ready”. He repeated the message in an interview with the official IRNA. “If Saudi Arabia is ready for talks, Iran is always ready for negotiation with neighbors,” Zarif stated. Tehran “is interested in cooperation with [her] neighbors.” Just to be on the safe side, the next day — August 1, 2019 — Iran sent a reminder of the alternative. The Houthis launched a ballistic missile attack on Saudi military positions near Dammam city.

    Located in the Shi’ite area on the shores of the Persian Gulf, Dammam is a critical center of the Saudi oil infrastructure, including a major oil port. Riyadh got the message. Hence, on August 3, 2019, the UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash stated that “the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia prefer a political approach to their problems with Iran”.

    Iran acted on the message. High-level emissaries traveled secretly to Mecca in early August 2019 as part of the Iranian delegation to prepare for the Hajj (August 9-14, 2019). They held secret talks about the future of the Persian Gulf with Saudi senior officials. These talks were personally supervised and micromanaged by MBS, who made all the decisions and determined the Saudi positions. Although the Saudis were forthcoming, and repeatedly expressed their desire to avoid escalation and fighting, they were also reticent to break with the US.

    Simply put, the Saudis — reflecting the persona of MBS — were risk-averse and incapable of making concrete decisions. They neither said “no” to anything, nor did they commit to anything concrete.

    The Iranian negotiators were encouraged by the overall spirit of the negotiations, but frustrated with the slow progress of the discussions. Therefore, on August 7, 2019, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif taunted Riyadh. He urged Saudi Arabia to make its own decision rather than be subservient to the US.

    “Some countries see their future and security hinged upon dependence and regard security as something purchasable, and think that they can maintain their security by paying money and buying weapons and learn nothing from history,” Zarif said. “How come [Saudi Arabia] did not realize that money does not bring security?” The Saudi posture is in stark contrast to the posture of the Islamic Republic of Iran. “We never buy security, nor do we sell security because we derive our security, development, and legitimacy from [our] people,” Zarif concluded. 

    One of the reasons Tehran felt confident to prod both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi was that both were by now engulfed in a major crisis concerning the US. For a long time, MBS, MBZ and their close aides suspected that the US was hiding major matters from them. While the Trump White House kept demanding uncompromising confrontation with Tehran and warning against any and all contacts, MBS and MBZ suspected that Washington was not itself following these principles. Both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have long known about active channels and mediation efforts by Doha, but whenever the subject came up, Trump’s Washington would assure them that the Qatar channel was only procedural and not much different from the US interests office in the Swiss Embassy in Tehran.

    Then, on August 5, 2019, the US Ambassador to Iraq, Matthew Tueller, dropped the bomb.

    “We have direct communication channels with Tehran,” he acknowledged. And these are not simple channels. While diplomatic discussions and de facto negotiations are taking place via the good services of Doha, the back-channel in Baghdad was specifically with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC: Pasdaran) Qods Force. These contacts were aimed to minimize the likelihood of clashes and misunderstandings in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and the Persian Gulf. This venue was most logical because the local Iranian Ambassador is Brig. Gen. Iraj Masjedi who is the right-hand man and deputy of Qods Force Commander Maj.-Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

    According to Iraqi senior officials, some of the US-Iranian communications regarding the aftermath of the shoot-down of the US drone were held via this venue. The US also used this channel to try and convince Tehran not to attack the US forces in al-Tanf (southern Syria) and in the Ein al-Assad Air Base and adjacent bases (western Iraq).

    Both Riyadh and Doha were stunned and humiliated because the Trump White House did not bother to inform them of the Baghdad back-channel, while pressuring them to avoid all contacts and negotiations with Iran.

    Another reason for the growing self-confidence and assertiveness of Iran was the most recent evolution of its strategic relations with Russia. On July 28, 2019, the Commander of the Iranian Navy, Rear Adm. Hossein Khanzadi, was in Russia, ostensibly for the Navy Day celebrations. He conducted major discussions about a new level of military cooperation specifically in order to counter the US Navy threats.

    At the end of the visit, Khanzadi reported in Tehran: “Iranian and Russian armed forces have signed a ‘classified’ deal to expand cooperation through a series of projects, one of which will be joint military drills in the Persian Gulf before the end of the year.” “Some articles of this agreement are classified, but overall, it is aimed at expanding military cooperation between the two countries.”

    Khanzadi termed the new agreements a “turning point” in the “military-to-military ties between Iran and Russia”. The agreement includes Russian-Iranian joint naval maneuvers to be held in the northern part of the Indian Ocean and in the Strait of Hormuz before the end of 2019. A major part of the classified agreement concerned giving the Russian Navy base-level installations in the Iranian Navy facilities in Chabahar, Bandar-e-Bushehr, and in the Strait of Hormuz (Bandar-e-Jask and/or Bandar Abbas).

    The Russian Navy would also be able to use a Naval Aviation airbase near Bandar-e-Bushehr. In addition to technical, logistics and communications personnel, Russia would keep in these bases SPETSNAZ detachments for both local security and the ability to help Russian and allied ships in distress in the Persian Gulf.

    On August 3, 2019, Khamene‘i’s closest aides conducted sensitive talks with a secret delegation of Russian officials. Tehran wanted to ascertain the Russian reaction to a US attack on Iran in case of a major escalation. “[An] attack on Iran would be an attack on Russia,” the Russians stated without equivocation. Hence, Khamene‘i formally approved and ratified the new agreements with Russia on August 4, 2019. Khamene‘i also authorized follow-up high-level discussions in Moscow about jointly implementing the Russian “proposed security plan for the Persian Gulf”, while adapting it to the new agreement with the PRC. The first rounds of discussions took place on August 6-7, 2019.

    Russia, it was clear, had no problem with the new PRC rôle and stature in the Persian Gulf. 

    Meanwhile, the continued contacts with Washington reinforced Tehran’s conviction that a major confrontation in the greater Middle East remained possible despite the day-to-day cooling down of the situation in the Persian Gulf. Khamene‘i instructed better coordination of the diplomatic and military preparations for the next phase.

    The new challenge for the IRGC was to up-date the contingency plans for the confrontation and war with the US and Israel under the new conditions where the US could no longer use bases in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain (on top of Qatar and Iraq which had long ago announced they would not permit the US to use their territories and installations for strikes against Iran). It was imperative for the Qods Force to ascertain firsthand how confident Tehran was about the new position of the Arab royals from across the Gulf. 

    As a result, on August 6, 2019, Qassem Soleimani met Mohammed Javad Zarif at the Foreign Ministry in downtown Tehran.

    They discussed coordination of forthcoming regional crises and diplomatic initiatives. They agreed that the current dynamic vis-à-vis the US could lead to either a US capitulation and withdrawal, or to a major escalation all over the greater Middle East. Soleimani believed the latter option was more likely. Therefore, Soleimani and Zarif discussed how to better utilize the Russian and PRC umbrella to not only shield Iran against US onslaught, but to also convince the Arab states to stay out of the fighting.

    Soleimani assured Zarif that “the IRGC’s Qods Force is fully supportive of the diplomatic apparatus of the country in all encounters against the US harsh policies”. In a brief photo-op, Soleimani addressed the newly-imposed US sanctions on Zarif, and “congratulated the Foreign Minister on becoming a target of the US anger and animosity because of [his] affiliation with [the] Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamene‘i”.

    In early August 2019, the Gulf sheikhdoms and Saudi Arabia agreed to seek and accept the PRC umbrella as proposed to them, and so notified Beijing. According to the plan, the PRC would provide an overall umbrella capable of containing and restraining the US, while Russia would join China in calming down Iran and ameliorating threats to the Arabs.

    Among the Arab leaders involved, Mohammed bin Zayed was the most enthusiastic and active in embracing the new regional order which was effectively anti-US. Mohammad bin Salman followed, but somewhat hesitantly. MBS was afraid to acknowledge the collapse of what he had perceived to be his close personal relations with the upper-most echelons of the Trump White House: that is, Trump and Kushner.

    On August 6, 2019, the PRC Ambassador to Tehran, Chang Hua, delivered the decision of the Forbidden City to play the active and leading rôle in the establishment of a new regime of collective security in the Persian Gulf.

    Beijing was convinced, he stated, that “any projects and initiatives that aim to strengthen security in the Persian Gulf must be proposed and carried out by the regional countries themselves”. Chang Hua explained that “the Chinese side, as President Xi Jinping has said, is hopeful that the Persian Gulf will remain a region of peace and security”. The PRC was ready to actively contribute to the sustenance of peace and security in this crucial area. “The Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz are the most critical channel and gateway in the world for transferring energy; therefore, they are significant for the world’s policy-making, security and economy,” Chang Hua concluded.

    The PRC also started to implement specific undertakings.

    First came the decision to increase the importation of Iranian oil, not only to help an ally in distress, but also as an affront to the United States. According to PRC senior officials in Beijing: “China continues oil imports from Iran to show independence from US sanctions.” The PRC also agreed to purchase oil with yuans, euros, and other currencies in order to reduce their vulnerability to US financial sanctions. The PRC would continue to import its Iranian crude via at least a dozen Iranian tankers also in order to demonstrate to all that “China [is] a country powerful enough to bust US sanctions”.

    Moreover, the anticipated large-scale PRC imports of Iranian crude would have a major impact on the price of oil. Experts in the US and Europe concluded that under such circumstances, the oil price could sink by as much as $30 a barrel. The experts worried that the PRC might decide to purchase large quantities of Iranian oil as a retaliation for the trade/tariff war with the US.

    “This decision would both undermine US foreign policy and cushion the negative terms-of-trade effects on the Chinese economy of rising US tariffs,” concluded a Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Research report. Significantly, the original price estimate discussed between the US and Saudi Arabia was $60 a barrel. That estimate was based on the idea that increased Saudi and US oil production would fill the gap created by the imposition of the US sanctions on Iranian oil. But the PRC commitment to buying more Iranian oil invalidated this plan. Thus, while the UAE was willing to accept such a price drop as a necessary evil needed to prevent a calamitous regional war, Saudi Arabia was furious, given its financial woes which the oil price hike could have eased.

    Meanwhile, also on August 6, 2019, the PRC Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, Ni Jian, formally informed Abu Dhabi that, should there be a deterioration in the security situation, the PRC’s PLA Navy would start escorting tankers and other commercial vessels in the Persian Gulf. “If there happens to be a very unsafe situation, we will consider having our navy escort our commercial vessels,” Ni Jian stated.

    Officially, Beijing did not rule out coordination with the US-led initiative to escort tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. However, given the PRC commitment to buying and shipping Iranian oil that the US initiative was intended to prevent, the prospects for PRC cooperation would probably be nil. Ni Jian emphasized the PRC support for regional security arrangements and regional negotiations of the type the UAE has with Iran. “We have the position that all disputes should be sorted by peaceful means and by political discussions, not … military actions,” Ni Jian concluded.

    Beijing’s agreeing to assume a major, and, for the PRC, unprecedented, rôle in the Persian Gulf comes at a crucial time for the PLA.

    On July 28, 2019, the PRC issued a major White Paper titled China’s National Defense in the New Era. The document constituted an authoritative statement regarding the PRC’s military reforms and strategic aspirations under the leadership of Xi Jinping.

    For the first time, an official PRC defense document acknowledged the rivalry with the US military and clearly articulated China’s long-term goal to confront and challenge “US dominance”. These goals would be attained through, among other things, the expansion of the PRC “power projection capabilities”, particularly the Navy’s. The White Paper heralded a significant shift in maritime strategy from “near seas defense” to “the combination of near seas defense and far seas protection”. Adopting the “far seas” strategy, the White Paper stated, would enable the PRC to “build itself into a maritime power”.

    Xi Jinping’s longer-term objective was for the PLA to become a global force. With the new rôle in the Persian Gulf, Xi Jinping’s PRC was taking a major step toward attaining this goal.

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Aug 21

Today’s News 21st August 2019

  • Mercedes Caught Spying On Drivers With Tracking Devices, Sending Info To Bailiffs 

    Mercedes has admitted to spying on drivers with covert tracking devices. 

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    The company says are only activated in “extreme circumstances,” such as when finance customers have defaulted on payments – however the car company has also admitted to sharing data with third-party bailiffs and recovery firms for the purposes of repossession, according to The Sun. It is unclear whether Mercedes only drops the dime on their European customers or if it’s a worldwide phenomenon. 

    Former UK Cabinet minister David Davis has called for an investigation, saying “This is not the first time big business has behaved like Big Brother — but it’s rare to be quite as deceitful as this.” 

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    Ex-Cabinet minister David Davis called out Mercedes for ‘behaving like Big Brother’Credit: Reuters

    “I have to question whether it is even legal to pass on information to other people such as bailiffs,” he said, adding “I would think the relevant minister ought to look very closely at the legality of this procedure.”

    The revelation has caught the attention of human rights organization Liberty, which says Mercedes’ actions were a disturping part of the “creeping growth of surveillance.” 

    Legal experts also raised concerns. Stefano Ruis, civil law partner at Hickman & Rose solicitors, said: “This appears to be another worrying development in the way companies handle what should be private, personal data.

    “Modern technology means our ability to keep personal information private is under threat like never before.

    “Organisations that handle personal data need to be completely upfront about what they are doing. That Mercedes appear not to have been so in this case is concerning. Its customers may start to worry about what other personal information the company may be gathering, then passing on.” –The Sun

    BMW, Jaguar and Land Rover have all stated that they do not similarly track their customers’ vehicles. 

    Mercedes, which dominates the UK car leasing market (80% are on finance plans), have buried concent to the secret trackers in their lengthy terms and conditions, avoiding tracking drivers illegally under EU data protection laws. According to the report, the secret sensor technology is not related to their anti-theft Tracker devices or the online Mercedes Me service sold as an add-on by dealers. 

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    “If Mercedes wishes to install this privacy-surrendering tech in their cars, that’s fine. But surely they have a duty to explicitly tell their customers beforehand — and not hide it away in their terms and conditions,” said MP Andrew Bridgen. 

    “It’s a shocking revelation and definitely gives a creepy uneasy feeling knowing somebody, somewhere can track me down at the touch of a button,” adds Karl Edwards, 30, from Portsmouth – who was shocked after learning about a tracking device on his C200 AMG. 

    Mercedes has responded, saying “When a customer chooses to finance the purchase of their car this way they sign a contract and agree to the location sensors in the car being activated in the event that they default or breach their agreement. This clause in the finance contract is in bold print, just above the customer’s signature.”

    “Locating the car is part of the repossession process and is not permanently tracking customers,” the company added. “It is only activated in exceptional circumstances where the customer has breached their finance agreement and repeatedly failed to reply to requests to contact us.”

    No word on whether they can be remotely hacked and driven into palm trees. 

  • The Extinction Of Christians In The Middle East

    Authored by Giulio Meotti via The Gatestone Institute,

    • “I don’t believe in these two words [human rights], there are no human rights. But in Western countries, there are animal rights. In Australia they take care of frogs…. Look upon us as frogs, we’ll accept that — just protect us so we can stay in our land.” — Metropolitan Nicodemus, the Syriac Orthodox archbishop of Mosul, National Catholic Register.

    • “Those people are the same ones who came here many years ago. And we accepted them. We are the original people in this land. We accepted them, we opened the doors for them, and they push us to be minorities in our land, then refugees in our land. And this will be with you if you don’t wake up.” — Metropolitan Nicodemus.

    • “Threats to pandas cause more emotion” than threats to the extinction of the Christians in the Middle East. — Amin Maalouf, French-Lebanese author, Le Temps.

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    Most Christian churches in and around Mosul, Iraq were desecrated or destroyed by ISIS. Pictured: The heavily damaged bell tower of Saint John’s Church (Mar Yohanna) in the town of Qaraqosh, near Mosul, on April 16, 2017. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)

    Convert, pay or die. Five years ago, that was the “choice” the Islamic State (ISIS) gave to Christians in Mosul, then Iraq’s third-largest city: either embrace Islam, submit to a religious tax or face the sword. ISIS then marked Christian houses with the Arabic letter ن (N), the first letter of the Arabic word “Nasrani” (“Nazarene,” or “Christian”) . Christians could often take no more than the clothes on their back and flee a city that had been home to Christians for 1,700 years.

    Two years ago, ISIS was defeated in Mosul and its Caliphate crushed. The extremists, however, had succeeded in “cleansing” the Christians. Before the rise of ISIS, there were more than 15,000 Christians there. In July 2019, the Catholic charity, Aid to the Church in Need, disclosed that only about 40 Christians have come back. Not long ago, Mosul had “Christmas celebrations without Christians“.

    This cultural genocide, thanks to the indifference of Europeans and many Western Christians more worried about not appearing “Islamophobic” than defending their own brothers, sadly worked. Father Ragheed Ganni, for instance, a Catholic priest from Mosul, had just finished celebrating mass in his church when Islamists killed him. In one of his last letters, Ganni wrote: “We are on the verge of collapse”. That was in 2007 — almost ten years before ISIS eradicated the Christians of Mosul. “Has the world ‘looked the other way’ while Christians are killed?” the Washington Post asked. Definitely.

    Traces of a lost Jewish past have also resurfaced in Mosul, where a Jewish community had also lived for thousands of years. Now, 2,000 years later, both Judaism and Christianity have effectively been annihilated there. That life is over. The newspaper La Vie collected the testimony of a Christian, Yousef (the name has been changed), who fled in the night of August 6, 2014, just before ISIS arrived. “It was a real exodus”, Yousef said.

    “The road was black with people, I did not see either the beginning or the end of this procession. There were children were crying, families dragging small suitcases. Old men were on the shoulders of their sons. People were thirsty, it was very hot. We have lost all that we have built for life and nobody fought for us”.

    Some communities, such as the tiny Christian pockets in Mosul, are almost certainly lost forever”, wrote two American scholars in Foreign Policy.

    “We are on the precipice of catastrophe, and unless we act soon, within weeks, the tiny remnants of Christian communities in Iraq may be mostly eradicated by the genocide being committed against Christians in Iraq and Syria”.

    In Mosul alone, 45 churches were vandalized or destroyed. Not a single one was spared. Today there is only one church open in the city. ISIS apparently also wanted to destroy Christian history there. They targeted the monastery of Saints Behnam and Sarah, founded in the fourth century. The monastery had survived the seventh century Islamic conquest and subsequent invasions, but in 2017, crosses were destroyed, cells were looted, and statues of the Virgin Mary were beheaded. The Iraqi priest, Najeeb Michaeel, who saved 850 manuscripts from the Islamic State, was ordained last January as the new Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Mosul.

    ISIS, together with Al Nusra, an offshoot of al-Qaeda in Syria, followed the same pattern, when its militants attacked the Christian town of Maaloula. “They scarred the faces of the saints, of the Christ, they shattered the statues”, Father Toufic Eid recently told the Vatican agency, Sir.

    “The altars, the iconostases and the baptismal font were torn to pieces. But the thing that struck me most was the burning of baptism registers. It is as if they wanted to erase our faith”.

    In the cemetery of the church of St. George in Karamlesh, a village east of Mosul, Isis dug up a body and beheaded it, apparently only because it was a Christian.

    The fate of Mosul’s Christians is the similar to those elsewhere in Iraq. “The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has several categories to define the danger of extinction that various species face today”, writes Benedict Kiely, the founder of Nasarean.org, which helps the persecuted Christians of the Middle East.

    “Using a percentage of population decline, the categories range from ‘vulnerable species’ (a 30-50 per cent decline), to ‘critically endangered’ (80-90 per cent) and finally to extinction. The Christian population of Iraq has shrunk by 83 per cent, putting it in the category of ‘critically endangered'”.

    Shamefully, the West has been and still seems to be completely indifferent to the fate of Middle Eastern Christians. As the Syriac Orthodox archbishop of Mosul, Metropolitan Nicodemus, put it:

    “I don’t believe in these two words [human rights], there are no human rights. But in Western countries, there are animal rights. In Australia they take care of frogs…. Look upon us as frogs, we’ll accept that — just protect us so we can stay in our land.

    “Those people are the same ones who came here many years ago. And we accepted them. We are the original people in this land. We accepted them, we opened the doors for them, and they push us to be minorities in our land, then refugees in our land. And this will be with you if you don’t wake up.”

    “Christianity in Iraq, one of the oldest Churches, if not the oldest Church in the world, is perilously close to extinction”, Bashar Warda, Archbishop of Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, remarked in London in May.

    “Those of us who remain must be ready to face martyrdom”.

    Warda went on to accuse Britain’s leaders of “political correctness” over the issue for fear of being accused of “Islamophobia.” “Will you continue to condone this never-ending, organised persecution against us?” Warda asked. “When the next wave of violence begins to hit us, will anyone on your campuses hold demonstrations and carry signs that say ‘We are all Christians?'”

    These Christians seem to have gained space on our television screens and newspapers only at the cost of their blood, their disappearance, their suffering. Their tragedy illuminates our moral suicide. As the French-Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf noted: “That is the great paradox: one accuses the Occident of wanting to impose its values, but the real tragedy is its inability to transmit them…. Sometimes we get the impression that Westerners have once and for all appropriated Christianity… and that they say to themselves: We are the Christians, and the rest is only an archaeological remainder destined to disappear. Threats to pandas cause more emotion” than threats to the extinction of the Christians in the Middle East.

  • Hong Kong In Crosshairs Of Global Power Struggle

    Authored by By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers via ConsortiumNews.com,

    Hong Kong is one of the most extreme examples of big finance, neoliberal capitalism in the world. As a result, many people in Hong Kong are suffering from great economic insecurity in a city with 93 billionaires, second-most of any city.

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    Hong Kong protesters waving U.S. flags last week. (YouTube)

    Hong Kong is suffering the effects of being colonized by Britain for more than 150 years following the Opium Wars. The British put in place a capitalist economic system and Hong Kong has had no history of self-rule. When Britain left, it negotiated an agreement that prevents China from changing Hong Kong’s political and economic systems for 50 years by making Hong Kong a Special Administrative Region (SAR).

    China cannot solve the suffering of the people of Hong Kong. This “One Country, Two Systems” approach means the extreme capitalism of Hong Kong exists alongside, but separate from, China’s socialized system. Hong Kong has an unusual political system. For example, half the seats in the legislature are required to represent business interests meaning corporate interests vote on legislation.

    Hong Kong is a center for big finance and also a center of financial crimes. Between 2013 and 2017, the number of suspicious transactions reported to law enforcement agencies rocketed from 32,907 to 92,115. There has been a small number of prosecutions, which dropped from a high of 167 in 2014 to 103 in 2017. Convictions dropped to only one person sentenced to more than six years behind bars in 2017.

    The problem is neither the extradition bill that was used to ignite protests nor China, the problems are Hong Kong’s economy and governance.

    The Extradition Bill

    The stated cause of the recent protests is an extradition bill proposed because there is no legal way to prevent criminals from escaping charges when they flee to Hong Kong. The bill was proposed by the Hong Kong government in February 2019 to establish a mechanism to transfer fugitives in Hong Kong to Taiwan, Macau or Mainland China. 

    Extradition laws are a legal norm between countries and within countries (e.g. between states), and since Hong Kong is part of China, it is pretty basic. In fact, in 1998, a pro-democracy legislator, Martin Lee, proposed a law similar to the one he now opposes to ensure a person is prosecuted and tried at the place of the offense.

    The push for the bill came in 2018 when a Hong Kong resident Chan Tong-kai allegedly killed his pregnant girlfriend, Poon Hiu-wing, in Taiwan, then returned to Hong Kong. Chan admitted he killed Poon to Hong Kong police, but the police were unable to charge him for murder or extradite him to Taiwan because no agreement was in place.

    The proposed law covered  46 types of crimes that are recognized as serious offenses across the globe. These include murder, rape, and sexual offenses, assaults, kidnapping, immigration violations, and drug offenses as well as property offenses like robbery, burglary and arson and other traditional criminal offenses. It also included business and financial crimes.

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    U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross addressing AmCham event in Hong Kong, 2017. (Twitter)

    Months before the street protests, the business community expressed opposition to the law. Hong Kong’s two pro-business parties urged the government to exempt white-collar crimes from the list of offenses covered by any future extradition agreement. There was escalating pressure from the city’s business heavyweights.  The American Chamber of Commerce, AmCham, a 50-year-old organization that represents over 1,200 U.S. companies doing business in Hong Kong, opposed the proposal.

    AmCham said it would damage the city’s reputation: “Any change in extradition arrangements that substantially expands the possibility of arrest and rendition … of international business executives residing in or transiting through Hong Kong as a result of allegations of economic crime made by the mainland government … would undermine perceptions of Hong Kong as a safe and secure haven for international business operations.”

    Kurt Tong, the top U.S. diplomat in Hong Kong, said in March that the proposal could complicate relations between Washington and Hong Kong. Indeed, the Center for International Private Enterprise, an arm of the National Endowment for Democracy, said the proposed law would undermine economic freedom, cause capital flight and threaten Hong Kong’s status as a hub for global commerce. They pointed to a bipartisan letter signed by eight members of Congress, including Senators Marco Rubio, Tom Cotton, and Steve Daines and Members of the House of Representatives, Jim McGovern, Ben McAdams, Chris Smith, Tom Suozzi, and Brian Mast opposing the bill.

    Proponents of the bill responded by exempting nine of the economic crimes and made extradition only for crimes punishable by at least seven years in prison. These changes did not satisfy big business advocates.

    The Mass Protests and U.S. Role 

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    Hong Kong World Financial Centre Tower, 2008. (Ray Devlin/Flickr)

    From this attention to the law, opposition grew with the formation of a coalition to organize protests. As Alexander Rubinstein reports, “the coalition cited by Hong Kong media, including the South China Morning Post and the Hong Kong Free Press, as organizers of the anti-extradition law demonstrations is called the Civil Human Rights Front. That organization’s website lists the NED-funded HKHRM [Human Rights Monitor], Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, the Hong Kong Journalists Association, the Civic Party, the Labour Party, and the Democratic Party as members of the coalition.” HKHRM alone received more than $1.9 million in funds from the NED between 1995 and 2013. Major protests began in June.

    Building the anti-China movement in Hong Kong has been a long-term, NED project since 1996. In 2012, NED invested $460,000 through its National Democratic Institute, to build the anti-China movement (aka pro-democracy movement), particularly among university students. Two years later, the mass protests of Occupy Central occurred. In a 2016 Open Letter to Kurt Tong, these NED grants and others were pointed out and Tong was asked if the U.S. was funding a Hong Kong independence movement.

    During the current protests, organizers were photographed meeting with Julie Eadeh, the political unit chief of U.S. Consulate General, in a Hong Kong hotel. They also met with China Hawks in Washington, D.C., including Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton, Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Eliot Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Larry Diamond, a co-editor of the NED’s publication and a co-chair of research, has been openly encouraging the protesters. He delivered a video message of support during their rally this weekend.

    Protests have included many elements of U.S. color revolutions with tactics such as violence — attacks on bystanders, media, police and emergency personnel. Similar tactics were used in Ukraine, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, e.g. violent street barricades. U.S.  officials and media criticized the government’s response to the violent protests, even though they have been silent on the extreme police violence against the Yellow Vests in France. Demonstrators also use swarming techniques and sophisticated social media messaging targeting people in the U.S..

    Mass protests have continued. On July 9, Chief Executive Carrie Lam pronounced the bill dead and suspended it. Protesters are now calling for the bill to be withdrawn, Lam to resign and police to be investigated. For more on the protests and U.S. involvement, listen to our interview with K. J. Noh on Clearing the FOG.

    What Is Driving Discontent in Hong Kong?

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    Makeshift shelters at Tung Chau Street Temporary Market in Sham Shui Po. (Nora Tam)

    The source of unrest in Hong Kong is the economic insecurity stemming from capitalism. In 1997, Britain and China agreed to leave “the previous capitalist system” in place for 50 years.

    Hong Kong has been ranked as the world’s freest economy in the Heritage’s Index of Economic Freedom since 1995 when the index began. In 1990, Milton Friedman described Hong Kong as the best example of a free-market economy. Its ranking is based on low taxes, light regulations, strong property rights, business freedom, and openness to global commerce.

    Graeme Maxton writes in the South China Morning Post:

    “The only way to restore order is through a radical change in Hong Kong’s economic policies. After decades of doing almost nothing, and letting the free market rule, it is time for the Hong Kong government to do what it is there for; to govern in the interests of the majority.”

    The issue is not the extradition proposal, Carrie Lam or China. What we are witnessing is an unrestricted neo-liberal economy, described as a free market on steroids. Hong Kong’s economy relative to China’s gross domestic product (GDP) has fallen from a peak of 27 percent in 1993 to less than 3 percent in 2017. During this time, China has had tremendous growth, including in nearby market-friendly Shenzen, while Hong Kong has not.

    As Sara Flounders writes, “For the last 10 years wages have been stagnant in Hong Kong while rents have increased 300 percent; it is the most expensive city in the world. In Shenzhen, wages have increased 8 percent every year, and more than 1 million new, public, green housing units at low rates are nearing completion.”

    Hong Kong has the world’s highest rents, a widening wealth gap and a poverty rate of 20 percent. In China, the poverty rate fell from 88 percent in 1981 to 0.7 percent in 2015, according to the World Bank.

    Hong Kong in Chinese Context

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    Skyline of Beijing, China’s capital city, at dusk, 2017. (Picrazy2, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons)

    Ellen Brown writes in “Neoliberalism Has Met Its Match in China,” that the Chinese government owns 80 percent of banks, which make favorable loans to businesses, and subsidizes worker costs. The U.S.  views China subsidizing its economy as an unfair trade advantage, while China sees long-term, planned growth as smarter than short-term profits for shareholders.

    The Chinese model of state-controlled capitalism (some call it a form of socialism) has lifted 800 million people out of poverty and built a middle class of over 420 million people, growing from four percent in 2002, to 31 percent. The top 12 Chinese companies on the Fortune 500 are all state-owned and state-subsidized including oil, solar energy, telecommunications, engineering, construction companies, banks, and the auto industry. China has the second-largest GDP, and the largest economy based on Purchasing Power Parity GDP, according to the CIA, IMF and World Bank.

    China does have significant problems. There are thousands of documented demonstrations, strikes and labor actions in China annually, serious environmental challenges, inequality and social control through the use of surveillance technology. How China responds to these challenges is a test for their governance.

    China describes itself as having an intraparty democracy. The eight other legal “democratic parties” that are allowed to participate in the political system cooperate with but do not compete with the Communist Party. There are also local elections for candidates focused on grassroots issues. China views Western democracy and economics as flawed and does not try to emulate them but is creating its own system.

    China is led by engineers and scientists, not by lawyers and business people. It approaches policy decisions through research and experimentation. Every city and every district is involved in some sort of experimentation including free trade zones, poverty reduction and education reform. “There are pilot schools, pilot cities, pilot hospitals, pilot markets, pilot everything under the sun, the whole China is basically a giant portfolio of experiments, with mayors and provincial governors as Primary Investigators.” In this system, Hong Kong could be viewed as an experiment in neoliberal capitalism.

    The Communist Party knows that to keep its hold on power, it must combat inequalities and shift the economy towards a more efficient and more ecological model. Beijing has set a date of 2050 to become a “socialist society” and to achieve that, it seeks improvements in social, labor and environmental fields.

    Where does Hong Kong fit into these long-term plans? With 2047 as the year for the end of the agreement with the U.K., U.S. and Western powers are working toward preserving their capitalist dystopia of Hong Kong and manufacturing consensus for long-term conflict with China.

    How this conflict of economic and political systems turns out depends on whether China can confront its contradictions, whether Hong Kongers can address the source of their problems and whether US empire can continue its dollar, political and military dominance. Today’s conflicts in Hong Kong are rooted in all of these realities.

    *  *  *

    Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers co-direct Popular Resistance. A version of this article first appeared in PopularResistance.org.

  • China Wants To Build A Grains "Superhighway" In Argentina 

    China has stepped away from US agriculture imports and said it would bid on a project that could create a grains superhighway in Argentina, reported Reuters.

    Chinese state-owned construction company (CCCC) is readying a bid that would allow it to dredge Argentina’s Parana River, the country’s only river that acts as a waterway for bulk vessels that transport soybean and corn from the Pampas farm belt to the South Atlantic.

    China has increased agriculture purchases from Argentina since trade tensions between Washington and Beijing erupted last year.

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    Representatives of CCCC and its Shanghai Dredging unit have already held meetings with Argentine government and local port officials to design a plan that would allow larger bulk carriers to navigate the Parana River to and from the Argentine farm belt, to the South Atlantic, then to China, according to Reuters’ sources.

    CCCC is the top Chinese firm to lead international efforts in modernizing global transport hubs and shipping lanes to secure sustainable food supplies for China.

    Margaret Myers, head of the Asia-Latin America program at the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think tank, told Reuters that Shanghai Dredging’s interest in Parana is part of a much larger effort by Beijing to “invest across international agricultural supply chains to better control supply and pricing.”

    Argentina’s Port and Maritime Activities Chamber held numerous meetings with other dredging firms and port operators who will also submit bids next year.

    Reuters notes that Parana carries 80% of Argentine farm exports.

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    Marcos De Vincenzi, dredging manager for Servimagnus, CCCC’s local partner, confirmed the Chinese firm’s interest in the project, stating, “We think that the dredging of the waterway must be upgraded to meet its new traffic and trade needs.”

    Argentina will likely expand Parana’s navigable waterway to accommodate large bulk carriers. This could allow the South American country to become a top player in the global grains market in the next 4 to 8 years.

    Dredging Parna will give Argentina a significant advantage over its competitors. This means farmers in Argentina’s farm belt can directly load their products onto bulk carriers. This is much different from Brazil and the US, who have to first transport products via truck or rail, over an extended distance, to the nearest port.

    The Parna dredging permit is set to renewal in April 2021, involves keeping the shipping channel at adequate depths to allow bulk carriers to transit upriver to the farm belt. Large vessels traveling to and from the grains port of Rosario will continue to pay $80,000 in tolls after 2021.

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    Luxembourg-based dredger Jan De Nul currently holds the dredging permit for the river. It will be bidding with CCCC and other dredgers for the 2021 permit, industry sources told Reuters.

    Servimagnus has offered to dredge Parana deeper than its current 34 feet, without raising tolls, said a port source who attended a meeting between the dredger and government officials.

    “China is already our principal buyer of soybeans. For them to also have control over navigation would give them a very strong stance in negotiating prices,” said the source.

    China’s move to establish a grains superhighway in Argentina shows how President Trump’s trade war could leave American farmers with long-lasting, damaging effects that will never restore their pre-trade war market share in China.

    If CCCC and Servimagnus win the bid next year, China could turn Argentina into an agriculture superpower by the mid/late 2020s. 

  • The Way 'Not' To Fix Education, Housing, & Health Care

    Authored by Donald Boudreaux via The American Institute for Economic Research,

    As long as the reality of human existence remains on the imperfect side of paradise – mired in scarcity, often unpredictable, and always carrying at least a small risk of calamity for each individual as well as for groups – some people will complain about the state of reality. Indeed, as human welfare improves, such complaints grow more frequent and fervent. If nearly everyone’s life is miserable, and if such misery is all that we know and remember, we accept misery as an unalterable condition of existence, much as we accept as unalterable our inability to fly by flapping our arms.

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    But as the masses have become materially more prosperous, the possibility of even greater prosperity has become more evident. And so any shortfall of the masses’ current prosperity from what can be imagined or plausibly foreseen strikes many as an intolerable condition that should be remedied forthwith.

    The proposed remedy, of course, is always government intervention — a remedy, alas, that is destined to fail.

    This essay isn’t the place to summarize the many reasons why such intervention is destined to fail. To review such reasons consult any number of good economics books — for example, Don Lavoie’s 1985 What Is Left? or Deirdre McCloskey’s 1990 If You’re So Rich.

    Instead, after explaining in previous columns — here and here — that Americans’ work-time costs for most goods and services has fallen and continues to fall, in this column I look at three major classes of products in modern America whose costs — in terms of the amount of time ordinary Americans must work to acquire them — likely have risen. These three classes of products are education (especially postsecondary), health care, and housing.

    Education

    University of Chicago economist Kevin Murphy has conclusively documented that the returns — in the form of additions to lifetime real income — to college education increased impressively during the last quarter of the 20th century. While this growth in returns to higher education has slowed, or perhaps even stopped, since around 2000, high school graduates who today attend college can still expect, as a result, much larger additions to their lifetime incomes than could such high school graduates of the mid-1970s.

    And so insofar as a college education is valued because of its contribution to one’s ability to earn income, a college degree today is an asset with a much higher expected return than was a college degree earned 40 years ago. As with all assets whose returns increase, the price of this asset rises to reflect those higher returns.

    In short, while the cost of a college education is indeed higher today than was the cost of a college education during the disco decade, what the typical college student today gets for that education — at least in the form of lifetime earnings — is also higher.

    Furthermore, while I’ve no hard data to support what I’m about to say, my having been on college campuses on an almost daily basis for the past 43 years gives me confidence that the following is true: campus life for the typical American college student is today much better than it was in the 1970s. The size of dorm rooms likely has increased, as has the percentage of such rooms with air conditioning. Similarly, the number of campus amenities is greater: there are more and better fitness facilities, as well as more campus theaters and other entertainment venues. Significantly, the quality of food offered on college campuses is today incomparably higher than in the past, and its variety remarkably expanded.

    While postsecondary education today might well cost more than it did decades ago, it is, overall, a much improved product.

    Housing

    New homes today are significantly larger — by about 1,000 square feet — than were new homes in the mid-1970s. Also, the typical home today, compared to its counterpart from the mid-1970s, is more likely to be equipped with amenities such as central air conditioning, an automatic dishwasher, an automatic garage-door opener, termite-resistant framing, granite countertops, and much better insulation.

    So even though the typical house today costs more than in the past, it’s more house.

    Health Care

    Ask yourself, given your 2019 income, would you rather have (say) 1979 health care at 1979 prices, or 2019 health care at 2019 prices? If health care truly is unambiguously more costly today than it was 40 years ago, the answer should be easy: 1979 health care at 1979 prices. Yet, at least for me, I’d prefer to have 2019 health care at 2019 prices.

    I did a Google search to find which medicines and medical procedures are widely available today that were either not available at all, or available only on a very limited basis, as recently as 1979 (the year when I began my senior year of college). My search was quick — a qualification that means that, should someone spend more time researching this matter, he or she will be able to expand the following list.

    The list below is in no particular order. (I leave out any mention of HIV medications and treatments because HIV was undiagnosed as such in 1979. But, of course and happily, since HIV/AIDS was first diagnosed convincingly in the early 1980s, there have been major medical advances in treating this dreadful disease.)

    – statins (for controlling cholesterol)

    – Prozac, Lexapro, Paxil, and other effective antidepressant medications

    – cyclosporin (an immunosuppressant)

    – disposable contact lenses

    – LASIK vision-correction surgery

    – artificial hearts (the first successfully transplanted one being the Jarvik-7, in 1982)

    – magnetic resonance imaging (MRIs)

    – Viagra, Cialis, and Levitra (for erectile dysfunction)

    – automated external defibrillators (AEDs)

    – Gardasil (a vaccine for preventing certain kinds of cervical cancers)

    – laparoscopic surgery (Although sometimes used prior to the 1980s, its use since then has skyrocketed.)

    – the morning-after pill

    – greatly improved prosthetics

    Have improvements in pharmaceuticals and other health care products offset health care’s higher costs? I cannot say. But I can say that Americans today get more and better health care than did Americans of 40 years ago.

    Still More Costly

    Nevertheless, in spite of improvements in education, housing, and health care, the work-time costs of these goods and services — unlike the costs of food, furniture, and most other products — have indeed risen. And it’s possible — although I think highly unlikely — that this rise in the costs of these three categories of products has resulted in overall economic stagnation for ordinary Americans.

    If so — if the rising costs of education, housing, and health care are causing ordinary Americans to tread water economically despite the falling work-time costs of most other goods and services — why would anyone suppose that the “solution” to this problem is more government intervention? No three sectors of the American economy are as heavily and as consistently distorted by taxes, subsidies, and regulations as are these three sectors.

    The conclusion that I draw is that reducing the role of the state — rather than increasing it — is a necessary step to take to ensure that the prosperity of ordinary Americans continues to grow.

  • Beijing Slams West For "Interfering" In Moscow's Affairs

    Russian President Vladimir Putin has seen his popularity decline abruptly over the past year – something  the New York Times won’t let its subscribers forget. And Russia’s handling of mass unsanctioned protests related to United Russia’s flagrant prohibition of opposition parties from participating in next month’s Moscow City Council elections has drawn more scrutiny from the West.

    But once again, Beijing is siding with Moscow over in its handling of the protests, and – as it did recently when it blamed the US for inciting Hong Kong protests – has accused the West of “interfering” in Russia’s affairs:

    China supports Russia’s rebuke of some foreign nations that have used the protests in Moscow to meddle in the country’s domestic affairs, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

    “We have concerns over certain Western nations, which jump out of nowhere and conduct untoward actions” in relation to the protests, Geng Shuang said at a media briefing. He said Beijing supports the efforts of the Russian government to keep the situation within the rule of law.

    Around the same time that the White House hinted that a military conflict may be imminent in Hong Kong after it said it was monitoring what a senior administration official called a “congregation of Chinese forces” on Hong Kong’s border, China’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday claimed the recent protests in Hong Kong are “the work of the US,” adding that the United States owes the world an explanation.

    US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “thinks that the recent violence in Hong Kong is reasonable because everyone knows that this is the work of the US,” spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular press briefing, referring to when Pompeo said China should “do the right thing” in dealing with protests in Hong Kong, in an interview with Bloomberg Television last week.

    This, as one reader summarized today, can not be amended as follows:

    Trump aborted China trade talks as soon as they begin…
    … and stoked unrest in HK to piss Chinese off…
    … in order to force the Fed to cut rates…
    … and then get a trade deal with China this fall or winter to send stocks soaring into the 2020 elections …
    Profit get re-elected.

    Meanwhile, as the trade war between Washington and Beijing rages, US consumers are spending tons of cash as personal consumption soars.

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    The Russian capital has seen a series of unsanctioned protests take place in recent weeks over what participants call the unfair treatment of opposition candidates, like Alexei Navalny…

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    …who were excluded from the September election to the city legislature. Some of the protesters violated Russian laws on mass gatherings, and were met with a police response.

  • 'Celebriphilia' Epidemic Sweeps Across America: Forget Knowledge & Wisdom, Listen To The Stars

    Authored by Michael McCaffrey,

    Americans are blessed to have a plethora of benevolent celebrities who are willing to share their infinite knowledge and wisdom with them…

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    After a thorough examination by a team of top-notch doctors, I was recently given some very disturbing news… I was diagnosed with an acute case of stage 4 platonic celebriphilia. In case you don’t know, celebriphilia is a disease where the afflicted have an abnormal and overwhelming adoration of celebrity.

    My medical team, which includes Dr Phil, Dr Drew and Dr Oz, tells me that the symptoms of celebriphilia include feeling a false sense of familiarity and intimacy with celebrities which leads to the afflicted projecting an inordinate amount of inappropriate intelligence, wisdom and expertise upon celebrities.

    My celebriphilia first manifested itself a few years ago when Academy Award-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow created her “lifestyle brand” Goop. Through Goop, Gwyneth sold new-age, alternative therapies and devices at exorbitant prices, including “vaginal eggs” that were meant to be inserted into the vagina in order to aid “hormonal balance, and feminine energy.”

    After re-mortgaging my home in order to finance the purchase, I bought a dozen vaginal eggs from Gwyneth. Now if you are wondering why I would buy vaginal eggs whose miracle powers were debunked in a lawsuit, especially since I don’t have a vagina, then you obviously do not have celebriphilia.

    The way I see it is this: if I had a vagina, I would trust my friend Gwyneth to tell me (and sell me) the right wonder egg to stick into it in order to cure whatever ails me. If I’m going to trust anyone regarding my non-existent vagina, you can bet your bottom dollar it would be the woman who played Pepper Potts in the ‘Iron Man’ movies… that alone makes her an authority in vaginacology.

    The same is true of anti-vaccination proponent Jenny McCarthy. Jenny is a TV host and former Playboy model, which is the celebrity equivalent of being a PhD in immunology, which is why I faithfully obey her when she orders me not tovaccinate my kids because they could get autism.

    Suzanne Somers starred on ‘Three’s Company’ 40 years ago, which is equal to getting a master’s degree in bio-genetic engineering, and so when, contrary to mainstream medical opinion, she claims that “bio-identical hormone therapy” is the fountain of youth… I trust in Suzanne’s knowledge and wisdom.

    You may think my celebriphilia is so severe I need to take some medication to temper it… well… you’d be wrong.

    Kirstie Alley and her Scientology lord and savior, Tom Cruise, have informed me that psychiatry is a “quack” science and psychiatric drugs are dangerous. Kirstie was on ‘Cheers,’ where everybody knows your name… and Tom Cruise is… well… TOM CRUISE! So they definitely know what they’re talking about and I trust their expertise implicitly and will remain untreated, thank you very much.

    My celebriphilia isn’t limited to just medical questions. The infection has spread to my thoughts on foreign policy and politics too. Thanks to celebriphilia, I now blindly trust in Hollywood to tell me what to think. When Hollywood churns out star-studded, pro-war, pro-empire propaganda films and TV shows that have their scripts controlled by the Pentagon in exchange for military equipment, personnel, access and budgetary relief, I absorb the indoctrination unquestioningly.

    We celebriphiliacs only get our news from rebellious comedians like John Oliver, Bill Maher and Stephen Colbert, and believe in every establishment talking point they sell us. I wholeheartedly put my faith in these second-rate hack comedians desperate to stay in the good graces of their corporate overlords to tell me the unvarnished truth.

    As a celebriphiliac, I get all my insights regarding Russia from Rob Reiner, who is an expert because he played Meathead on the 1970’s sitcom ‘All in the Family.’ When Meathead tells me that we are at war with Russia because they stole our election in 2016, I treat his anti-Russian proclamations with all the respect it deserves.

    To get my political opinions, I go to all the top experts… Robert DeNiro, Matt Damon, Bruce Willis, Brie Larson, Alec Baldwin, Tim Allen, Angelina Jolie, James Woods, Chris Evans and George Clooney. Sometimes these experts have conflicting opinions on political matters, like maybe Bruce Willis and Alec Baldwin disagree on tax policy, or Tim Allen and Chris Evans have opposing thoughts on immigration. In order to resolve these deeply troubling quagmires, I do the logical thing and choose what I believe by siding with the celebrity who has the most Twitter followers.

    Luckily for me, I am not alone in being afflicted with celebriphilia, as it is a raging epidemic in America. Here in the US we adore our celebrities so much we actually vote them into high office. In the last 40 years alone, we have elected a senile, bad B-movie actor, Ronald Reagan, and a silver-spooned, D-list reality TV con-man, Donald Trump, to the presidency.

    In my state of California, the epicenter of the celebriphilia epidemic, we have elected a sex-abusing, steroid-injecting, movie star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to two terms in the governor’s mansion; and the city of Carmel-by-the-Sea elected Dirty Harry himself, Clint Eastwood, to be mayor 25 years before he berated an empty chair at the RNC convention in 2012.

    We American celebriphiliacs not only forgave these men for their shortcomings, we also imbued them with a wisdom, competency and expertise they did not possess, all because of their status as celebrities.

    You may think that because I suffer from celebriphilia and treat celebrities like experts on things well outside their skillset, that I am insane. If the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results,” then considering the level of corruption, incompetence and malevolence on display by “real” establishment experts in government, Wall Street, Big Pharma and the media over the years, be it in regards to 9-11, WMDs and the Iraq war, the housing bubble and ensuing 2008 economic collapse, the 2016 election, Russiagate and the opioid epidemic, then listening to, believing in, or trusting in these “official” experts is equally as insane as buying vaginal wonder eggs from Iron Man’s wife, Pepper Potts.

    The bottom line is this: I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, but I have seen other people play them on TV, and I am a certified celebriphiliac, which I think qualifies me to make a formal diagnosis of what ails celebrity-obsessed, and expert-addled America. After careful study and deep thought, I have come to this conclusion: contrary to popular opinion, America is not losing its mind… just like me, it has already lost it.

  • Germany Is About To Sells Its First Ever Zero-Coupon Ultra-Long Bond

    It’s not quite a zero coupon perpetual sovereign bond just yet, but it will have to do for now.

    Having already sold debt which pays zero interest (i.e., 0% coupon), in just a few hours, Germany will sell an ultra-long bond with a 0% coupon for the first time on Wednesday amid a spasm of debt sales over the next two weeks offering negative rates.

    As Bloomberg points out, this week’s 30-year auction will test the continued demand for haven assets now that the whole of Germany’s yield curve is in negative territory.

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    Meanwhile, as Bank of America said in a Monday report, the search for returns has driven 30-year yields to negative levels that cannot satisfy the return requirements of insurance companies and pension funds. This scramble for yield risks a repeat of the bund “tantrum” seen in April 2015 when 10-year yields were approaching 0% for the first time and a Bill Gross warning coupled with a sudden lack of appetite for a debt sale triggered a violent sell-off.

    “There are some concerning parallels to today’s market environment,” said Ralf Preusser, global head of rates strategy at Bank of America, in a note. The risk is that at these yield levels, the German Treasury will eventually encounter a “buyers’ strike,” he said.

    But not yet.

    Germany will sell two billion euros of new 30-year debt at 10:30 a.m. London time on Wednesday, and since the yield on Germany’s 30-year bonds fell four basis points Tuesday to minus 0.18%, much lower than the 0.29% level on July 17, when the nation last sold similar-maturity debt, not only will the bond come with a zero coupon but it will be the first negative yielding ultra-long bond ever sold by Germany.

    That said, traders will be closely following the oversubscription rate on the sale, which neared a record low in the July after falling for the last three auctions.

    After the 30Y auction, Germany will next sell five billion euros of a new two-year bond on Aug. 27, followed by three billion euros of 10-year notes on Aug. 28 and four billion euros of five-year securities on Sept. 4.

    But what if the warnings of a buyer’s strike are wrong and investors scramble to buy up even more duration ahead of a barrage of global QE, sending ultra long rates even lower? Well, as Deutsche Bank’s Michal Jezek wrote back on July 8, “the German government seems to be getting closer to having the power to issue a zero-coupon perpetuity in this market.”

    As Jezek further writes, “Last week, the 100y bond of the Austrian government traded with the ask yield of 1.05%. Given the Austria-Germany yield differential at the 30y point is about 35bp, Germany would likely be able to issue a 100y bond with the nominal yield around 0.7%… if one believes that inflation over the next 100 years is going to average close to the ECB target of 2%, Germany could in real terms be paid some 1.3% p.a. for borrowing hundred-year money.”

    Ok but, a 100 year bond still has some value, even if that value will go to one’s grandchildren. What about a zero coupon perpetuity? Isn’t that, by definition, worthless as one is just handing over money to a sovereign without ever being owed a maturity? Here are some parting, and quite interesting thoughts, from the Deutsche Banker:

    if we were to analyse the valuation of zero-coupon perpetuities, we would find that such securities are generally not  worthless. Why would a zero-coupon perpetuity not be worth exactly zero? Because its nominal value adds to the stock of debt of the issuer and so it is an option on recovery value (all pari passu claims get accelerated in default). Paradoxically, the value would rise with default risk, all else equal. So within the Eurozone, an Italian or Greek government zero-coupon perp would be worth more than a German one! On the other hand, Japan’s might be less valuable than Germany’s despite the mountain of their debt. Japan fully controls the printing press and is thus much more likely to resort to the “soft default” option of inflating debt away rather than ever incur the disruption costs of a “hard” restructuring. Of course, this is an exploration of an abstract concept, we are unlikely to see anyone issuing such structures. Just imagine what the roadshow brochure would have to say!

    One thing that was not clear, is in the case of a default, does the perp get converted into equity of the sovereign, and if so, does that make bondholders the new “equityholders” of a European nation? In light of the ongoing diplomatic fiasco between Trump and Greenland, maybe this could be a “clever” way for some aggressive emperor types to moonlight as distressed sovereign investors and eventually equities the entire world, which has so much debt the either hyperinflation or debt default are the only options.

  • Mr. President, This Is How To Get The Fed To Launch Quantitative Easing

    Yesterday, after countless demands that the Fed cut interest rates, Trump finally made his first, long anticipated formal demand that the Fed should pursue “some quantitative easing“:

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    The good news for Trump is that he has now fully figured out that he has the Fed in the palm of his hand, as he demonstrated just hours after Powell’s July 31 rate cut when Trump broke the US-China trade ceasefire and re-escalated trade war, in the process sending rate cut odds soaring. The flowchart logic, as shown below, is quite simple: all Trump has to do is engage in action that threatens to destabilize the global economy and Powell – as he certified during the last FOMC meeting – has to respond by cutting further, until he eventually reaches a point where QE may be the only possible outcome (as we explained previously in “How The Fed Is Now Underwriting Trump’s Trade War, In One Chart“).

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    Obviously extending the logic of the above diagram to its logical conclusion also lays out the path that Trump must follow if he wishes to force the Fed to launch QE. And just in case it is unclear, it involves a “gray rhino”, an economic war, and negative rates.

    As BMO’s fixed income team writes today, while economic tensions between the US and China have eased somewhat in recent days after China chose not to respond to being designated a currency manipulator by the Trump Administration, which in turn scaled back tariffs it had threatened to implement on September 1, this de-escalation is in-line with broad expectations of how the conflict between the US and China escalates, with BMO cautioning against losing focus on the ‘gray rhino’ that remains the biggest threat to the global economy.

    For those who have not heard the term before, a gray rhino – unlike a black swan – is defined as a high-impact and obvious threat that is ambling toward the economy but is nevertheless underpriced by financial markets. Not surprisingly, a broad and severe global economic war remains the gray rhino that investors must continue to monitor and position against. Meanwhile, BMO defines an ‘economic war’ as a situation in which countries (and their various agents, including central banks, SOEs) engage in acts that are designed to harm a competitor more than to help one’s self. An obvious example of an act of economic war would be a country having its military cyber unit hack another country’s power grid. By contrast, cutting interest rates in order to push inflation upward toward target (even if that act weakens one’s currency and thereby incentivizes the shifting of production away from other countries) does not fit our definition of an act of ‘economic war’.

    So almost by definition, sanctions regimes are acts of economic war. So through its sanctions programs, the US is actively engaged in economic wars against prevailing regimes in Iran, Syria and Venezuela. Similarly, the EU committed acts of economic warfare against Russia by imposing sanctions in retaliation for the invasion Crimea, although that war has been allowed to cool to the point of a de-facto truce.

    Which brings us to…

    The ultimate gray rhino, which is a multi-polar economic war that includes multiple major countries or economic regions actively engaged in economic warfare against each other. Much like shooting wars, economic wars have the potential of drawing in new waves of participants until they globalize and spiral completely out of control. So although the latest US-China developments are encouraging (for now), the latest developments in lesser hot spots like UK-EU and Korea-Japan are not all that encouraging. Based on the movement of asset prices over the past year, we question whether some markets (particularly FX) have adequately factored in the risks.

    Here BMO is quick to note that an “ultimate black rhino” scenario is not its base case… however, the odds of one are rapidly rising.

    And here is the punchline: if a worst-case scenario unfolds, BMO believes the Fed and other central banks will ease more aggressively, given the escalating risks of recession. And, should a recession scenario become the modal view, the Fed would not hesitate to quickly lower policy rates to the zero lower bound again, partly in the hope that rapid rate reductions  could minimize the chance of having to ramp-up QE again or venture into negative rates. Other central banks would follow suit in this “race to the bottom”, that many would be hoping is accompanied with local currency depreciation (even perhaps with a bit of official encouragement).

    What does that mean for the US?

    An outright economic war would be extremely consequential for the US economy and thus monetary policy and the Treasury market. At a first pass, the Fed would react in terms of the impact on growth, inflation, and financial conditions. Economic war would lead to slower growth causing less inflationary pressure (despite any import tax expansion) and tighter financial conditions. All of this would correspond to the Fed responding in force by cutting aggressively – likely back to the effective lower bound – and – Trump, are you listening – restarting quantitative easing.

    In other words, if Trump really wants to pressure the Fed into QE, what he needs to do is simple: unleash global trade war that mutates into global economic warfare, which in turn leaves the Fed with no choice but to launch QE.

    Of course, merely launching QE doesn’t assure a happy ending, and indeed BMO warns that since an “economic war” world would be on the verge of a recession, it would have momentous consequences for asset prices, to wit:

    Initially, a dramatic flight-to-quality and liquidity into Treasuries would increase downward pressure on US rates across tenors. Eventually, yields would breach the lows of the last cycle when 2s bottomed out at 0.14% 5s reached 0.53%, or said otherwise, both 2s and 5s would go negative.. In addition, 10-year yields would fall substantially further from here, passing the record low of 1.32% in short order before quickly approaching 1.00%.

    Said otherwise, if Trump really chooses to pursue this option, he could kill two gray rhinos with one shot: first getting the Fed to launch QE and second he would push (at least) the short-end of the curve below zero, which would mean that the Fed has finally caught up with other central banks, giving Trump no further reason to complain about the Fed. The only downside: the US and the world would be in a historic recession, and unless central banks can stabilize the global economy, a depression would be assured.

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Aug 20

Today’s News 20th August 2019

  • Why A Typical Keynesian Stimulus Package Won't Help Germany

    Today, we show you another ugly chart about the German economy. Last week, Destatis confirmed that the economy shrank by 0.1% QoQ in the second quarter and, as Saxobank’s Christopher Cembik points out, based on the very weak start to Q3, especially the latest ZEW, the risk of falling into recession is quite elevated this year.

    On the export front, since Q3 2018, Germany has faced the combination of three negative waves:

    1. credit crunch in Turkey,

    2. risks related to Brexit and,

    3. more importantly, slowdown in China that affects directly the key local car market.

    After a short-lived rebound in June, China’s imports from Germany has again entered in negative territory in July.

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    Source: Saxobank

    We use the 3-month moving average to track imports in order to avoid too much short-term volatility. China’s imports from Germany are down 0.4% YoY last month.

    Given the most up-to-date data about the car sector, China’s economy and global trade, there is no reason at that point to expect a rebound that could help the German economy. What is even more worrying is that Germany’s domestic demand, which has been quite resilient over the past quarters, starts to be negatively impacted by the industrial slump.

    We expect in coming weeks a very heated debate over fiscal stimulus in Germany.

    Financial conditions are very accommodative – Germany’s yield curve is at the flattest level since the financial crisis – but solutions to restart growth engine will be trickier to find than in 2008 as the country’s slowdown is also deeply linked to structural challenges.

    Thus, a typical Keynesian stimulus package, based on temporary VAT reduction along with other tax exemptions, will only be able to bring short-term relief. It won’t be enough to tackle lack of digitization, infrastructure and increase in the long-run growth potential. A long-term strategy that may include green investments is needed for the German economic model to revive.

  • Eric Margolis Warns Hong Kong: Don't Provoke The Dragon

    Authored by Eric Margolis,

    Time was when flying to Hong Kong was a really big thrill – or maybe scare would be a better term. Its old airport, Kai Tak, was right in the middle of bustling downtown Hong Kong. Flying into Kai Tak used up 11 of one’s 12 lives.

    The wide-bodied jumbo aircraft would drop down into a long fjord that was usually shrouded in fog or mist. The nervous passenger would see nothing but cloud. Suddenly, the aircraft would break out of the thick cloud cover right over the airport.

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    To the left and right were apartment buildings festooned with drying laundry at the same height as one’s plane. The big 747 airliner landed with a huge thud and screaming tires right in front of another bunch of apartment buildings.

    Even for veteran air travelers like myself, this was a heart-stopping experience. Amazingly, I recall only one crash at Kai Tak, which we used to call ‘Suicide Airport.’ Still, it was like landing a jumbo-jet on New York’s Park Avenue. Not for the faint of heart.

    In 1998, Kai Tak was closed and replaced by the modern, spacious Chek Lap Kok, better known as Hong Kong International. It quickly became one of Asia’s principal aviation hubs.

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    This week, Hong Kong airport was besieged and shut down by thousands of young local demonstrators protesting China’s attempt to impose a new extradition law on Hong Kong that would allow Beijing to arrest Hong Kong residents for ‘anti-state’ activities. The deal that Hong Kong’s former colonial Britain signed with China calls for ‘two-states, one nation,’ with considerable independence for the former island colony.

    But anyone who thinks China’s iron-fisted rulers will allow a scrap of paper to limit their influence over Hong Kong is dead wrong. For them, Hong Kong is as much a part of China as Shanghai. So, too, is Taiwan.

    The massive rioting in Hong Kong earlier this week set off alarm bells in Beijing, which runs an Orwellian police state on the mainland. China’s hardline leaders rightly fear that the fracas in Hong Kong could incite other uprisings across China. Everyone remembers the long, bloody Cultural Revolution of the 1970’s with its rampaging Red Guards.

    Perhaps more important, Chinese leaders study their nation’s history and draw lessons from it, unlike America’s history-free politicians. For the Americans, history is what was on Fox TV the week before.

    What Beijing really fears is another Taiping Rebellion. A nobody named Hong Xiuqan proclaimed himself the brother of Jesus and raised a vast peasant army to overthrow the ruling Manchu dynasty in Beijing. Brutal civil war raged from 1850-1864 in which up to 100 million are believed to have been killed or died of famine.

    If this sounds completely crazy, think of all the Republican sycophants that call President Trump the reincarnation of the ancient Hebrew Queen Esther or a ‘Christian warrior.’ Bizarre behavior and beliefs are universal.

    China has warned the rioting Hong Kong students to cease their protests or face intervention by Beijing’s tough paramilitary police, which backs up the regular People’s Army. Chinese armed police and soldiers are massing just across the border in Shenzhen, a mere taxi ride from downtown Hong Kong.

    If the Hong Kong students are not wise, they risk winding up in China’s penal camps, the ‘laogai.’ Large numbers of Muslim Uighurs from Xinjiang have been locked away in China’s western laogai.

    The airport riots now appear over but continue in Hong Kong’s streets. If the People’s Police or Liberation Army do intervene in Hong Kong to impose China’s iron hand, they could spark another Tiananmen Square bloodbath. But once Beijing’s forces impose martial law on Hong Kong its days of autonomy will be over.

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    The type of repression China imposed on Tibet and Muslim regions could be repeated in Hong Kong. There is absolutely nothing any of the world’s powers can do about it. China will then turn its attention to ‘renegade province’ Taiwan. Western politicians can huff and puff all they like but they are powerless to change the tide of events in Hong Kong.

  • How Many Websites Are There?

    On 6 August 1991, British physicist Tim Berners-Lee at CERN in Switzerland published the first ever website, the WorldWideWeb (W3).

    By the end of 1992 there were ten websites online and, after CERN made the W3 technology publicly available on a royalty-free basis in 1993, the internet gradually started to grow into the all-encompassing giant that it is today.

    By 1994, there were close to 3 thousand sites, one of which was a fledgling Yahoo! which, originally called ‘Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web’, started its online life as a web directory.

    By the time Google came onto the scene there were over two million websites.

    Infographic: How Many Websites Are There? | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    As Statista’s infographic shows, today there are 1.71 billion, and looking at Internet Live Stats’ counter, despite being lower than 2017’s 1.76 billion, this figure is currently increasing at a fast rate.

  • America Can Stop China From Dominating Artificial Intelligence… And Should

    Authored by Gordon Chang via The Gatestone Institute,

    • The People’s Republic of China, nonetheless, is already an AI powerhouse, and for America to maintain its edge – and to prevent U.S. tech from being used for exceedingly disturbing purposes – Washington should force U.S. companies to end cooperative AI projects in China.

    • The West should be seriously concerned: whoever wins at AI will both dominate the global economy and field the most destructive conventional military force.

    • Unfortunately, American companies are helping China’s leaders in what many call – correctly – crimes against humanity. For instance, AI researchers from Microsoft, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Michigan State University gave keynote speeches at the Chinese Conference on Biometric Recognition in Xinjiang in August of last year on facial recognition, a social-control technology.

    • Some of Google’s research is in China. The company has three AI operations there: the Google AI China Center in Beijing, established in 2017, and partnerships with China’s two premier educational institutions, Peking University and Tsinghua University… If the labs remain open, the net flow of AI learning will be out of the U.S. into China.

    • Moreover, Chinese researchers, if they could not work for American companies in China, would not, as Vox suggests, necessarily find employment in their homeland. Some of those seeking research slots would follow other Chinese to the United States, and that would exacerbate one of Beijing’s big AI vulnerabilities. “China’s Path to AI Domination Has a Problem: Brain Drain,” is the title of an August 7 article posted by the MIT Technology Review. The U.S. can make that crucial problem even more severe.

    China, writes Amy Webb in Inc., has been “building a global artificial intelligence empire, and seeding the tech ecosystem of the future.” It has been particularly successful, Webb, the founder of the Future Today Institute, believes. “China is poised to become its undisputed global leader, and that will affect every business,” she notes.

    Not everyone shares Webb’s assessment that Chinese researchers are in the lead. America, after all, is home to most leading AI tech. The People’s Republic of China, nonetheless, is already an AI powerhouse, and for America to maintain its edge—and to prevent U.S. tech from being used for exceedingly disturbing purposes, Washington should force U.S. companies to end cooperative AI projects in China.

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    Chinese artificial intelligence. We need to ask what would happen if the world’s most dangerous regime were to dominate the world’s most powerful technology. Photo: Getty Images.

    Artificial intelligence permits machines to mimic human functions such as driving vehicles, recognizing spoken words, and playing games of skill like chess and Go.

    Especially Go, the Chinese game of strategy. If China had an “AI Sputnik moment,” it occurred in March 2016 when AlphaGo, developed by Alphabet Inc.’s DeepMind, took four out of five games from an 18-time champion in a challenge match in Seoul.

    By the following year, Beijing was pouring even more money into AI research. Beijing in 2017 supplemented the AI component of its Made in China 2025 initiative with its “Next Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan, a three-part effort to lead global AI by 2030. Furthermore, Beijing made sure its determination to dominate the field was shared across society. Business chieftains and policy analysts in China are much more focused on AI than those in the West, surveys show.

    The nationwide effort, Webb tells us, paid off. China, for instance, now publishes more AI machine learning papers than the United States.

    The West should be seriously concerned: whoever wins at AI will both dominate the global economy and field the most destructive conventional military force. To borrow a phrase, we are witnessing the “Rise of the Machines.”

    What if those “machines” are Chinese? We need to ask what would happen if the world’s most dangerous regime were to dominate the world’s most powerful technology.

    We are getting a hint what will occur in what Beijing calls the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. There, facial recognition systems, powered by AI, are helping China’s leaders to continually track inhabitants.

    In Xinjiang, Beijing is relentlessly eliminating cultural and religious identity and implementing race-based policies reminiscent of those of the Third Reich. For example, more than a million inhabitants are being held in concentration-camp-like facilities for no reason other than their Uighur or Kazak ethnicity or their adherence to Islam.

    Unfortunately, American companies are helping China’s leaders in what many call—correctly—crimes against humanity. For instance, AI researchers from Microsoft, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Michigan State University gave keynote speeches at the Chinese Conference on Biometric Recognition in Xinjiang in August of last year on facial recognition, a social-control technology.

    China is on the AI map in part because Beijing has been given a boost by U.S. companies sharing technology. Leaders in the field are both Alphabet and its Google unit. Alphabet is a major player in part due to its acquisition of DeepMind. Google also conducts extensive AI research.

    Some of Google’s research is in China. The company has three AI operations there: the Google AI China Center in Beijing, established in 2017, and partnerships with China’s two premier educational institutions, Peking University and Tsinghua University.

    Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley investor, has in recent weeks severely criticized the search giant. “I think it is unprecedented in the last 100 years, or ever, that a major U.S. company refused to work with the U.S. military and has worked with our geopolitical rival,” he said on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” on August 11th.

    Google has in various statements denied charges like the ones Thiel has been making, but its contentions, although technically true, appear disingenuous.

    First, the company has said it works with the Pentagon, but it is nonetheless not renewing its Project Maven contract, an AI project analyzing drone footage.

    Second, Google denies working with the Chinese military, but as Thiel, a PayPal cofounder, points out, its “civilian” projects are actually military in disguise. “It’s not like the U.S., where you have different companies and different people and you have a government sector and a private sector and these things don’t always coordinate or work together,” Thiel said on Fox. “In China, these things are still tightly coordinated across the board.”

    In the China of Xi Jinping, the aggressive ruler, “civil-military fusion” means nominally civilian research is pipelined into the Chinese military.

    Thiel is right about the essential nature of China’s one-party state. The Communist Party, to which the People’s Liberation Army reports, has, in reality, near-absolute power over society, especially over something as important as scientific and technical research. Companies such as Google have to know about the military’s access to its AI research in China.

    Not everyone is concerned about China’s militarization of research. “You’re not going to be able to stop or slow down Chinese AI progress by stopping these labs,” Jeffrey Ding of Oxford’s Center for the Governance of AI, told Vox, the popular American-based news site, while referring to foreign AI research facilities. “Either we try to get the best and brightest, or they have other options,” he said.

    “If we rather someone work for Microsoft than the Chinese military,” Vox, asked, “why take away the option of working for Microsoft?”

    Ding and Vox highlight an important aspect of the AI race. The competition, as a practical matter, is one for brainpower: people. As futurist George Gilder has noted, “The most precious resource in the world economy is human genius.” Axios reports that most of America’s best AI researchers have come from other countries.

    “What has given the US its AI advantage has been, in significant part, the fact that the US attracts AI talent from all over the world,” Vox writes.

    “While America is a much smaller country than China, it’s drawing on what is effectively a much larger talent pool, including attracting many top Chinese researchers.”

    Chinese researchers, if they could not work for American companies in China, would not, as Vox suggests, necessarily find employment in their homeland. Some of those seeking research slots would follow other Chinese to the United States, and that would exacerbate one of Beijing’s big AI vulnerabilities. “China’s Path to AI Domination Has a Problem: Brain Drain,” is the title of an August 7 article posted by the MIT Technology Review. The U.S. can make that crucial problem even more severe.

    Despite benefits of conducting AI research in China, the weight of evidence argues for closing American AI operations in that country. These labs leak out U.S. learning, and despite what Webb writes, it appears the United States is still ahead in cutting-edge AI. If the labs remain open, the net flow of AI learning will be out of the U.S. into China.

    Although much AI research today is open-source—meaning it does not matter where researchers are based—it is becoming clear that in coming years AI work will not be published in open forums. That should put a premium on attracting the best talent to one’s own country.

    Of course, there is no question that closing American facilities in China will inhibit, in some fashion, American AI work, but that loss is not nearly as great as the benefits of walling off China. Moreover, we cannot ignore the moral considerations of helping a militant, racist state.

    It is the race of the century, and the U.S. urgently needs to improve the odds. It is time, therefore, for President Trump, by emergency order, to close the AI projects of American companies in the People’s Republic of China.

  • It Begins: Pentagon Tests First Land-Based Cruise Missile Post-INF Treaty

    Here we go with the unleashing of the new Cold War arms race 2.0: the United States has just tested a ground-launched cruise missile with a range of over 500km — previously banned under the now defunct Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty — just after Putin recently said Russia will be forced to deploy banned missiles if the US does. 

    The Pentagon on Monday confirmed a flight test of a “conventionally configured ground-launched cruise missile” which happened on Sunday, and released video of the launch. 

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    “Data collected and lessons learned from this test will inform the Department of Defense’s development of future intermediate-range capabilities,” the DoD press release said. 

    The test occurred at a range on San Nicolas Island, California, the Pentagon said Monday. The missile was reported as successfully hitting a target of more 500km (310 miles) away.

    Crucially this comes on the heels of both the United States and Russia formally withdrawing from the landmark 1987 treaty which banned missiles  with a range of between 500km and 5,000km.

    At the start of August US Defense Secretary Mark Esper had indicated plans to deploy previously banned missiles in Asia or the Pacific region:, “It’s fair to say, though, that we would like to deploy a capability sooner rather than later,” Esper said during a prior trip to Australia. “I would prefer months. I just don’t have the latest state of play on timelines.”

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    Putin had told a gathering of his defense chiefs days following news of the US deployment plans for Asia: “In our opinion, the United States’ actions, which have led to the termination of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, will inevitably entail devaluation, undermine the entire global security architecture, including the strategic offensive arms treaty and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,” he told the council, according to a Kremlin press service statement. 

    “This scenario means the resumption of an unrestrained arms race,” Putin emphasized.

    Russia’s defense ministry recently reiterated that it would refrain from deploying mid- and long-range missiles unless Washington did first. 

    The Pentagon’s new missile test could mark the beginning of precisely such an “unrestrained arms race” which characterized the worst fears of the Cold War era. 

  • Krieger: Believing Jeffrey Epstein Committed Suicide Is The Real Conspiracy Theory

    Authored by Michael Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

    Is a murder committed more heinous than a suicide allowed? In its act, sure. In this context? NO.

    An “unlucky accident” like this is the ONE THING that a non-corrupt State must prevent. It’s the non-corrupt State’s ONE JOB to keep Epstein alive for trial, and everyone knows that everyone knows this is their ONE JOB.

    It is impossible to violate this common knowledge without premeditation and malice, without conspiracy and criminality aforethought. It is impossible to have an “unlucky accident” like this in a non-corrupt State.

    – Ben Hunt, I’m a Superstitious Man

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    It’s entirely fitting that the death of Jeffrey Epstein is as disturbing, shady, bizarre and seemingly inexplicable as the rest of his life. It seems as if one could research this wretched man’s time on earth for years and still come up with more questions than answers. An unfortunate reality complicated by the fact we don’t have a mass media particularly interested in asking any of the big questions, such as:

    • Where is Ghislaine Maxwell? Why isn’t she in custody and was she a Mossad spy like her late father Robert Maxwell?

    • Explain the details of the relationship between Leslie Wexner and Jeffrey Epstein? Why does it seem as if Wexner helped set Epstein up with the appearance of extraordinary wealth, yet no one seems to know how Epstein actually came into all his money?

    It appears sexually abusing children and accumulating associated blackmail on the rich and powerful was a full-time job for Epstein, so who was actually bankrolling/overseeing this operation? Was it Wexner, somebody else, or was it an intelligence agency as Alex Acosta claims he was told? Seems kind of important to get to the bottom of this.

    I could go on and on, but then this would become a book. Rather, the purpose of this post is to highlight the outlandishness surrounding many of the details (or lack thereof) surrounding Epstein’s death a week ago in a Department of Justice operated New York City prison.

    Indeed, what you’d have to believe in order to think this was a simple suicide is the actual conspiracy theory. 

    Let’s begin with the initial attack, which happened three weeks before his death.

    The Initial Attack

    As everybody knows, on July 23, Jeffrey Epstein was found in a fetal position, semi-conscious, on the floor of his cell with neck injuries. His cellmate at the time was Nicholas Tartaglione, a former New York police officer who was arrested in December 2016 on charges of killing four men in a drug distribution conspiracy.

    There was a giant haze surrounding this incident up until the moment of Epstein’s death, with everyone unsure whether he was attacked or if it was a suicide attempt. According to a report by NBC News, Tartaglione was subsequently cleared the day before Epstein was found dead. I suppose that means the initial attack was belatedly ruled a suicide attempt, but why did it take so long to figure that out? It took far less time to rule Epstein’s suspicious death a suicide.

    Circumstances at the Prison Surrounding the Death

    Either the stars all aligned perfectly for the most important prisoner in America to kill himself on that day, or he was somehow murdered to shield an extensive list of some of the most wealthy and powerful people on earth. Decide for yourself.

    – One of Epstein’s Guards Was Not a Corrections Officer

    The AP reported:

    A person familiar with operations at the federal jail where Jeffrey Epstein killed himself says one of the two people guarding him the night he died wasn’t a correctional officer.

    The person wasn’t authorized to disclose information about the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.

    The person said Epstein hanged himself with a bedsheet, days after being taken off a suicide watch.

    Federal prisons facing shortages of fully trained guards have resorted to having other types of support staff fill in for correctional officers, including clerical workers and teachers.

    – Both of the Guards Fell Asleep at the Exact Same Time Giving Epstein a Chance to Die

    Guards were supposed to have checked on Epstein every 30 minutes, but rather both of them fell asleep for 3 hours during the window of Epstein’s death.

    Via Business Insider:

    The two prison guards assigned to monitor Jeffrey Epstein in a high-security jail fell asleep for three hours, the night he died of an apparent suicide, The New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed officials…

    According to reports, there were multiple breaches in protocol regarding the supervision of Epstein: prison guards were required to check on Epstein every 30 minutes, which they failed to do, officials told The Times, and Epstein was being housed alone after his cellmate was transferred and was not replaced.

    – Epstein Guards Suspected of Falsifying Logs

    AP reports:

    A person familiar with the probe of Jeffrey Epstein’s death at a federal jail says guards are suspected of falsifying log entries to show they were checking on inmates in his unit every half hour, when they actually weren’t.

    – Key People at the Prison Are Not Cooperating with the FBI

    CNN reports

    Even top officials in the department have been frustrated by their inability to get some answers from the prison, in part because initial answers turned out to be inaccurate in some cases…

    The FBI probe is complicated by the fact that key people involved aren’t cooperating, people briefed on the matter say.

    – Epstein Was Taken off Suicide Watch Less Than a Week After His Initial Suicide Attempt

    New York Magazine reports:

    Epstein was taken off of suicide watch on July 29 and returned to the MCC’s special housing unit after a psychiatric evaluation determined he was no longer at risk of harming himself. The Wall Street Journal reported that Epstein’s lawyers had requested he be removed from suicide watch.

    – Epstein’s Cellmate Was Removed the Day Before Epstein Died

    This makes no sense, unless you’re trying to create the perfect conditions for Epstein to die.

    Via CNN:

    In one instance over the weekend, officials believed the former Epstein cellmate had been released on bail. But it turns out he had been moved to another facility, one person briefed on the matter said. One of the first tasks for FBI agents this week was interviewing that former cellmate, who could provide information on Epstein’s behavior in the days before his suicide.

    Who was Epstein’s cellmate before he died? After the first incident, it was revealed almost immediately who his cellmate was, but there’s been little to no details about the second cellmate. Who was he and what does he have to say?

    Details Surrounding the Death Itself

    – Epstein Hung Himself from a Bunkbed 

    Via The Washington Post:

    Epstein, 66, was found in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan on Saturday morning, and an official said he hanged himself with a bedsheet attached to the top of a bunk bed. Epstein was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

    The bunkbed was conveniently available due to the fact his cellmate was inexplicably moved a day before.

    – Epstein Suffered Multiple Breaks in His Neck Bones, Which Is More Common in Homicides

    Also via The Washington Post:

    An autopsy found that financier Jeffrey Epstein suffered multiple breaks in his neck bones, according to two people familiar with the findings, deepening the mystery about the circumstances around his death.

    Among the bones broken in Epstein’s neck was the hyoid bone, which in men is near the Adam’s apple. Such breaks can occur in those who hang themselves, particularly if they are older, according to forensics experts and studies on the subject. But they are more common in victims of homicide by strangulation, the experts said.

    – Little to No Details About Prison Camera Footage 

    I assume some narrative will emerge here, but it’s already been too long for my comfort. We had all sorts of details emerge in the days following Epstein’s death, but almost nothing regarding the crucial hallway camera footage in the prison. This is something investigators would likely check immediately so why didn’t they, or if they did, why is it taking so long to inform the public?

    Even Epstein’s lawyers seem confused as to whether the video footage exists.

    Here is part of a statement from Epstein’s attorneys via NBC News:

    “It is indisputable that the authorities violated their own protocols. The defense team fully intends to conduct its own independent and complete investigation into the circumstances and cause of Mr. Epstein’s death including if necessary legal action to view the pivotal videos — if they exist as they should — of the area proximate to Mr. Epstein’s cell during the time period leading to his death.”

    Finally, it’s worth pointing out that the NYC Medical Examiners Office, which ruled Epstein’s death a suicide, has a pretty sordid history.

    Check out the following from a 2014 New York Post article, Lost Bodies, Wasted Money: Inside NYC’s Medical Examiner’s Office

    The city Medical Examiner’s Office is a mess — plagued with errors, including bodies being lost, mistakenly cremated or wrongly donated to science — while millions of taxpayer dollars have been spent on plans and equipment useful only in a mass disaster…

    Meanwhile, insiders say ME chiefs, caught up in the glamor of disaster, neglect the agency’s primary mission.

    “They can’t take care of day-to-day business. They play war games,” one said.

    The ME’s Office, with 625 employees and a $63.6 million budget, has a history of criminality, waste and incompetence.

    The ME’s former chief of management information systems, Natarajan “Raju” Venkataram, and his co-worker girlfriend, Rosa Abreu, were busted in 2005 for embezzling more than $9 million from a $11.4 million FEMA grant meant to track and identify remains of 9/11 victims.

    And bosses take lavish taxpayer-funded trips to conferences and symposiums.

    Frank DePaolo, assistant commissioner for emergency management, has traveled to Las Vegas, the Hague, Hong Kong and Israel. Chief of Staff Barbara Butcher has gone to Croatia and Thailand…

    The number of investigators, who examine bodies at death scenes, was slashed from about 40 to 20, among other cuts, they said.

    “We’re told to do more with less, but the work is suffering,” one said.

    Here’s some more while we’re at it:

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    If after everything I’ve highlighted, you still believe this was a simple suicide that’s fine. Anything is possible, but it really doesn’t matter. Even if it was mere incompetence that allowed a suicide to occur, this still demonstrates without a shadow of a doubt that the federal government is incapable or unwilling to protect the public.

    The Epstein case was and remains a matter of extreme public interest since this was a man who systematically sexually abused and trafficked children while closely associating with, and collecting blackmail on, a large slew of the most wealthy and powerful people on the planet. If the government can’t protect you from that, and it most certainly went out of its way to deny justice for this criminal over decades including within prison itself, then you can’t trust the government for anything. As such, whenever the feds claim they’re doing something extreme to protect you, whether it’s mass surveillance or encryption backdoors, you can be 100% sure it is a giant heap of stinking bullshit.

    The narrative now being formed is that it was all just a lot of incompetence. That the guards were tired and overworked. We’re also being told that it’s normal for an inmate on suicide watch to come off after a few days, but Jeffrey Epstein was not a normal inmate. Epstein and the people around him belong to a class I refer to as super predators, which are the most dangerous predators in society because their elite connections allow them to get away with anything and everything.

    It’s become completely clear that rather than stopping such people and their criminal rings, the U.S. government protects them and ensures no justice is ever served upon them, even up to their last breath.

    Our government isn’t there to protect us, save us or dispense any justice. Instead, it seemingly exists to protect, serve and encourage the elite criminal rings operating around us in plain sight, whether it’s bank CEOs or pedophile sex traffickers with apparent intelligence links.

    We are truly ruled by gangsters.

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  • Militarization Of North Australia Is A Must To Win A War Against China, Report

    Expanding on our June report, that outlined Australia is constructing a new naval port on its northern coast to counter a rising China in the Indo-Pacific­ region, Australian Defence Minister Linda Reynolds said the government recognized the “vital importance” of militarizing northern Australia for national security purposes.

    Senator Reynolds said, “over $8 billion will be invested in defense infrastructure in the Northern Territory alone. Northern Australia is key to Australian international engagement in support of our strategic partnerships.”

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    This comes at a time when Washington and its strategic allies are falling into Thucydides Trap, referring to China, the rising power, challenging the US, the status quo, could one day lead to a shooting war somewhere in the heavily contested South China Sea and western Pacific waters.

    Senator Reynolds said Australia had been warned it must militarize its northern borders amid threats of Chinese expansion in the Indo-Pacific­ region and prepare for the US losing its “milit­ary primacy” in the area.

    The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) and United States Studies Centre are expected to sound the alarm Monday on the lack of troops and military hardware in northern Australia and the need to increase weapon stockpiles and fuel reserves.

    ASPI’s report requests the government to stress test defense, intelligence, and border security agencies in the North against sudden threats.

    ASPI suggests troop deployment in the North is at decade lows calls for a “single scalable defense ­and national security ­ecosystem.”

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    Senator Reynolds said about 13,000 Australian Defence Force (ADF) troops are stationed in the North, and “thousands more participate in operations or training scenarios across the North annually.”

    “We host over 2,500 US Marines and Air Force members in Darwin yearly, providing security benefits for Australia and the United States by deepening our interoperability and enhancing capabilities through increased combined training and exercises, stepping up our engagement with regional countries, and better position both nations to respond to crises in the region,” she said.

    The US Studies Centre is also expected to release its report on Monday, stating that Washington no longer “enjoys military primacy in the Indo-Pacific­” and that its ability to “uphold a favorable balance of power is increasingly uncertain.”

    The reshifting of focus on northern Australia and the Indo-Pacific region comes as China is attempting to become a dominating power in the area.

    Both reports stress: Australia needs to fund military infrastructure projects across the North to combat a rising China.

    The ADF operates army bases in Darwin and Townsville; the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) operates stations in Darwin, Katherine and Townsville; and the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) operates naval ports at Trinity Bay and Darwin.

    John Coyne, author of ASPI’s report, Strong and Free?, indicates northern Australia is becoming the ADF’s forward operating base or its “lily pad to another forward ­position within the Pacific or the first or second island chain. There’s a need to reconceptualize northern Australia, defined as those areas north of the 26-degree south parallel, as a single scalable defense and ­national security ecosystem.”

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    Coyne said the forward ­operating base would allow the ADF to be in a “state of readiness to support a range of ­defence contingencies with little advance warning.”

    The US Studies Centre report offers nine suggestions to ­respond to a rising China that is threatening the US’s supremacy in the Indo-Pacific­ region. It states that the readiness of US forces has been “eroded” after two decades of “near-continuous combat and budget instability.”

    “Given the stresses of preparing for a possible conflict with China … the joint force will have to scale back other responsib­ilities, particular­ly in secondary regions like the Middle East,” ­report authors­ Ashley Towns­hend, Brendan Thomas-Noone and Matilda Steward said.

    Writing in The Australian today, Alan Dupont, chief executive of geopolitical risk consultancy the Cognoscenti Group and member of the Northern Territory’s ­Strategic Defence Advisory Board, says “serious threats are emerging with disconcerting rapidity.”

    “The problem is that we are underdone on defence infrastructure and manufacturing in the north and haven’t done nearly enough to think through, and ­invest in, the sustainment of forces deployed from the north,” ­Dupont writes.

    “At a national level our fuel reserves­ and refining capacity are too thin. In a crisis, we can’t rely on others to provide the fuel we need for ADF operations and nationa­l emergencies. But a land-based, or offshore floating ­refinery in the North could help solve this problem.”

    The US and its allies are preparing for war with China. Northern Australia could become a “lily pad” for coalition forces, used to attack Chinese militarized islands in the South China Sea.

  • Chinese Social Credit Score Prevents 2.5 Million "Discredited Entities" From Buying Plane Tickets

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

    The Communist Chinese government is bragging about its social credit system has prevented 2.5 million “discredited entities” from purchasing plane tickets and 90,000 people from buying high speed train tickets in the month of July alone.

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    “China restricted 2.56 million discredited entities from purchasing plane tickets, and 90,000 entities from buying high-speed rail tickets in July,” tweeted the Global Times, a Chinese government mouthpiece.

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    As I document in the video below, Chinese citizens are punished by having their social credit score lowered for engaging in a number of different behaviors, including;

    – Bad driving.

    – Smoking on trains.

    – Buying too many video games.

    – Buying too much junk food.

    – Buying too much alcohol.

    – Calling a friend who has a low credit score .

    – Having a friend online who has a low credit score.

    – Posting “fake news” online.

    – Criticizing the government.

    – Visiting unauthorized websites.

    – Walking your dog without a leash.

    – Letting your dog bark too much.

    As of November 2018, 6.7 million Chinese people had already been banned from buying air and train tickets. That number now appears to be surging.

    While many on the left and in the media decry China’s Orwellian social credit score system, they simultaneously advocate for a similar thing in the west, where people are deplatformed and have their right to engage in commerce revoked because of their political views.

    “Big Tech has already implemented their own “social credit score” system where they punish people for their political views by deplatforming them, censoring their websites and closing their PayPal/bank accounts,” writes Chris Menahan.

    “On the other hand, media outlets which push propaganda in accordance with the desires of our ruling oligarchs are rewarded by having their content algorithmically artificially boosted and handed millions of dollars.”

    Imagine going to buy groceries with your credit card, but then having your payment declined because someone in an office in San Francisco thinks you posted something “hateful” on the Internet.

    That’s our collective future.

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  • "It's $8 Billion, That's A Lot Of Jobs": Trump OKs F16 Taiwan Deal; Beijing Says "Consequences" Coming

    Beijing will take “countermeasures” and impose serious “consequences” on Washington for its fast-moving deal to sell 66 F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan after President Trump approved the $8 billion deal this weekend. 

    “The US has to bear all the consequences triggered by the sale,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said on Monday. “China will take necessary measures to defend its self-interest based on the development of the situation.”

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    Image source: Lockheed Martin

    Geng indicated further Chinese officials have lodged multiple formal protests with the US over its weapons sales to Taiwan, which Beijing asserts historic claims over. 

    While the statement didn’t give details as to what those “consequences” would be, Chinese rhetoric has in the recent past gone so far as to threaten war, and Beijing has backed this threat with frequent war games in the waters around Taiwan. 

    On Sunday Trump told reporters that he approved the sale, set to be ratified by a supportive Senate. 

    “It’s US$8 billion. It’s a lot of money. That’s a lot of jobs. And we know they’re going to use these F-16s responsibly,” he said.

    The last US transfer of F-16s to Taiwan was based on a deal all the way back in 1992. The Obama administration had since rejected repeat requests by Taipei for more, only offering to upgrade the ageing fleet. 

    The new variant of the F-16, the Viper, is expected to hold up better in the event of a mainland China attack, with a statement from the Taiwan presidential office saying the new jets would ensure “safeguarding peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and in the region.”

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Aug 19

Today’s News 19th August 2019

  • Russia To US: No Plans To Install New Missiles Unless You Deploy First

    Following the final collapse and formal pull out by both sides of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty earlier this month, which was preceded by months of threats and counter-threats between the US and Russia, Moscow says it will refrain from deploying new missiles previously banned under the treaty so long as Washington shows similar restraint.

    Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu made the pledge during statements Sunday. “We still stick to that. Unless there are such systems in Europe (deployed by Washington), we won’t do anything there,” he told the Rossiya-24 TV channel, as cited by Reuters. 

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    Image source: Sputnik

    Though both sides accused the other of violating the landmark treaty signed in 1987 between Reagan and Gorbachev, Shoigu said Russia had repeatedly urged to keep the door of dialogue open. “Between February and August 2, we kept on opening doors,” he noted.

    “We are keeping the door open. As long as the US doesn’t deploy such systems to Europe, we won’t do the same, and as long as there are no US missiles in Asia, there won’t be our missiles in the region,” the defense minister said.

    He also claimed that Russia’s Defense Ministry had issued a formal invitation for US representatives to attend a briefing on the 9M729 missile in Moscow, but that American officials refused to attend.

    The Novator 9M729 is precisely the missile that Washington officials have focused their charge that Moscow violated the INF on, given the land-based cruise missile is believed to have a range that falls between 500km and 5,500km – making it illegal under the terms of the treaty.

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    Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu with Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

    Meanwhile, the Pentagon has recently signaled it’s looking to deploy new mid-range missiles somewhere in Asia or the Pacific. In early August, just a day after the formal end of the INF, US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the Pentagon is looking to deploy intermediate range conventional missiles in the Pacific region “within months”.

    This is perhaps why Shoigu specifically mentioned Asia in addition to Europe in his remarks: “…and as long as there are no US missiles in Asia, there won’t be our missiles in the region,” he said.

  • The Saudis Learn The Term "Asymmetric Response"

    Authored by Tom Luongo,

    The Saudis just learned that some moments in history show their significance as they unfold. Iran shooting down a U.S. Global Hawk stealth drone and President Trump refusing his war-hawk cabinet in retaliating militarily is one of them.

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    I said then and still maintain that this was a turning point in the history of the world.

    Any retaliation by the U.S. would be catastrophic for the world economy. It would unleash a regional conflict on multiple fronts which would not be any kind of controlled theater…

    … That for all the might of the U.S. military and financial empire, its weaknesses are deep enough that even a relatively weak military and economy like Iran’s can stop it all dead cold because of basic things like geography, logistics and simple human resolve.

    Many people misinterpreted these statements, and, indeed the entire article, to mean that Iran could stand up to the U.S. in a direct military conflict and prevail. Nonsense.

    War today isn’t just fought with soldiers, bombs, guns and drones. It’s fought in all theatres including the commodities futures and forex markets.

    And Trump backing down had everything to do with the fragility of the world economy and his own worries over getting re-elected if his military invasion of Iran sent oil to $250 per barrel.

    As we move farther downstream from that event things become clearer just how important it was. Sure, Trump et. al. will fulminate and commit provocations, like impounding the Grace 1 oil tanker, but as far as anything substantive it’s all rearguard actions as the U.S.’s opposition in the Middle East counter-attack.

    And the Saudis are the natural weak link in the U.S./Saudi/Israeli alliance pushing for the balkanization of Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran; the ultimate goal of all U.S. foreign policy objectives in the region.

    Since then Iran has been busy, taking diplomatic meetings with the UAE, who were the Saudis’ main ally on the Arabian peninsula in its war on Yemen. And then, last week taking one with the Houthis in which Ayatollah Khamenei recognized them and officially outed Iran as supporting their resistance to Saudi rule.

    And with the Gibraltar court demanding the release of the Grace 1 oil tanker, the next step had to be from the U.S. whose frankly pathetic response was to issue an arrest warrant for the crew of the Grace 1 oil tanker.

    Was that the moment Iran and the Houthis decided to launch a drone attack on a major Saudi oilfield far north of where the Houthis had struck previously that changed the game in Yemen?

    At some point escalation can only go so far. The U.S. tries to intimidate anyone from ghosting their ships to ship Iranian oil and Iran says, “Look, we’re serious. If we can’t ship oil, no one can.”

    This is the official policy of Iran at this point.

    Bernard at Moon of Alabama does a great job of breaking down events in Saudi Arabia. He is convinced the was is effectively over. That the Houthis gaining official Iranian support as well as showing off capabilities far in excess of what anyone thought they had signals that there is no rational defense of its infrastructure in a wider conflict.

    The attack conclusively demonstrates that the most important assets of the Saudis are now under threat. This economic threat comes on top of a seven percent budget deficit the IMF predicts for Saudi Arabia. Further Saudi bombing against the Houthi will now have very significant additional cost that might even endanger the viability of the Saudi state. The Houthi have clown prince Mohammad bin Salman by the balls and can squeeze those at will.

    The drones and missiles the Houthi use are copies of Iranian designs assembled in Yemen with the help of Hizbullah experts from Lebanon.

    The Houthis attacked the Shaybah oilfield and refinery complex which produces more than 1 million barrels of oil per day. This is a direct attack on the Saudis’ ability to function as a somewhat sustainable economic and political power.

    Bernard may be overstating the significance of this attack in the short-run as it is very possible that there will not be any suing for peace next week or anything. But the threat is real and if it is as indefensible as he suggests then it will be only a matter of time before the operation in Yemen comes to a close.

    More importantly this incident plays back into what myself and others have said since the June 20th incident with the U.S. drone. If President Trump is going to pursue war with Iran and continue to pressure their exports to zero then Iran will have no choice but to asymmetrically attack assets across the region and destabilize not only the oil markets but the political futures of major allies of the U.S. in the region.

    Think about this for one second (I know this is hard for the impulsive Trump) using the U.S. Navy to impound oil tankers in International waters will only ensure chaos on the Arabian peninsula. It will result in a conflict that will engulf the entire region and destroy what’s left of Trump’s image as the guy who will stop us being the policeman of the world.

    It’s all an elaborate bluff.

    The Saudis have already lost so much in their botched attempt to overthrow Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the blockade of Qatar and to force a political realignment in Lebanon. None of Mohammed bin Salman’s strong arm tactics have succeeded in doing anything other than alienate more members of the Gulf Cooperation Council and put his benefactors in Washington in very hot water, politically.

    Remember, the war in Yemen is deeply unpopular here in the U.S. And our continued support of it is now wholly owned by President Trump who vetoed a bill to withdraw U.S. support of the Saudis’ efforts there. He did this to support Israel and the Jared Kushner/Bibi Netanyahu plan to coerce a surrender of the Palestinians.

    So, make no mistake, Iran knows where the fulcrums are. They know which of Trump’s buttons to push. And the Houthis just pushed a big one.

    The Saudis have money and the ear of the U.S. political elite and not much else. They are living on borrowed time as they still run big budget deficits thanks to low oil prices, which will continue to go lower, because of this attack.

    Why? Because, the markets will again trade on the lack of response from the U.S. not the incident itself. It will further hasten the collapse in the global oil price as the end of the Yemeni war will take that threat of war with Iran further off the table in the long run.

    This is especially true as we approach the end of the grace period Iran gave the European Union to get back into compliance with the JCPOA. Because once they are done legally withdrawing from the agreement per its terms, then Iran will be free to pursue Russia’s offer to buy and resell up to 1 million barrels of Iranian oil per day, stabilizing exports.

    Trump has already proven he’s unwilling to blow up the oil markets, and, by extension, the larger financial markets to bring Iran to heel. Everyone has their price. And the price of these low-tech drones from from Iran create the ultimate in asymmetric warfare. A few thousand bucks to paralyze trillions in capital.

    Now that’s the Art of the Deal.

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  • La Danse Mossad: Robert Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein

    Authored by Jennifer Matsui via Counterpunch,org,

    Media tycoon and former Labour MP Robert Maxwell (father of Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s partner in crime) was given a state funeral in Jerusalem after *accidentally* falling off his yacht – the unluckily named “Lady Ghislaine”.

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    Later it was revealed Maxwell Sr was a Mossad asset who used his vast network of connections and publishing platforms to run editorial interference over his purchased assets to influence enemies and friends alike, ensuring their fealty to the foreign government that had enlisted him for its espionage work.

    His tabloid empire was the piss-colored propaganda organ of the interests he served, overseeing its rapid growth and tentacled reach across the globe. More ominously, he was behind the spy agency’s successful attempt to install a trapdoor in software intended for government use, allowing the Israelis a direct pipeline into a vast network of computers installed with undectable malware.

    At the time of his death, the disgraced magnate was under investigation for raiding his companies’ pension funds to cover the losses incurred from his multiple and reckless takeovers, and finance a luxury lifestyle he enjoyed sharing with high profile pals like Henry Kissinger and Barbara Walters. Curiously, many of these fossilized specimens from Robert Maxwell’s roster of friends from the Reagan era would circle around Epstein, most notably Donald Trump whose Mar-a-Lago resort would later become a recruiting center for employer Epstein’s underage “massage therapists”.

    Fast forward a couple of decades since the days a casino mogul was gobbling down canapés with the old guard denizens of the ‘swamp’. Notice a similar, if not identical MO in both Maxwell and Epstein’s role in procuring technology for the Israelis, who in turn sold it with undisclosed add-ons, providing an open window into its users’ databases.

    Like his predecessor, Epstein had a financial stake in a startup (headed by former Israeli Defense Minister and later Prime Minister Ehud Barak) connected to Israel’s defense industry that provides infrastructure for emergency services as a call handling platform. Considering the company’s connection to military intelligence, it wouldn’t be a stretch to speculate on some of this software’s other ‘special’ features. A variation of the early technology that Maxwell was able to procure for his Israeli bosses was later sold to the Saudis, who leveraged its sophisticated tracking features to assassinate Jamal Khashoggi.

    Epstein, like Maxwell, was laying the groundwork for Israeli espionage activities through his interests in companies with a political agenda concealed in products intended for international export. If true, the playboy philanthropist feted and flattered his high profile friends to ensnare them as complicit partners in what amounts to the legal definition of treason. Epstein’s covert activities have undiminished real world consequences for anyone on Israel’s international radar, especially those challenging the status quo policies in place that prioritize “The Jewish State’s” political and financial objectives over actual justice and global stability.

    If you have ever asked yourself why Israel’s war crimes and settlement expansion go unchallenged by US lawmakers, consider the career-destroying consequences contained within those dossiers compiled by the braintrust behind Epstein’s ’suicide’.

    “We’ll trade you one US Embassy in Jerusalem for 10 minutes of hidden camera footage of you . . . let’s say ‘enjoying’ a rolled up Forbes magazine”.

    Were the surveillance apparatuses installed throughout Epstein’s properties merely a voyeur’s tools, or did he use them to leverage the moral failings of his former friends for purposes that might have risked exposure of more than the nether regions of wealthy pedo-punters? Considering his connections to Israeli defense industries and his own Achilles penis that required, by his own admission, “three orgasms a day”, the answer points to an unslakable addiction that dovetailed conveniently with his state-sponsored sex crimes.

    Did Epstein make the same mistake of Maxwell (who had asked for nearly half a billion dollar in “loans” from his Israeli backers to relieve him of his mounting debts) believing the dirt he had in his possession would prove radioactive if released? By this time, the corpulent tycoon was nicknamed the ‘Bouncing Czech’ a reference in most part to his worsening money woes. The implication of this request, if turned down, was the exposure of Israel’s state secrets. Epstein could have also attempted to collateralize the cache of damning evidence still in his possession to secure his his freedom with the same fatal consequences.

    Both Maxwell and Epstein somehow evaded the electronics that linked them to the outside world at the time of their deaths, even though the latter had reportedly made an attempt on his own life while in custody. Both men, facing ruination and serious prison time gave their executioners an alibi: They had nothing to left to live for. The establishment media is already trotting out ancient, ding-a-ling conspiracy theories from obscure right wing sources (attributed to Russia, of course) to highlight the absurdity and futility of questioning the official story of Epstein’s death. Verdict: Nothing to see here.

    By now, it’s a given that the parasitic and preferred daughter of the deceased tycoon, made the fateful introduction between her new boyfriend and the Israeli operatives seeking an entry level plutocrat to carry out their blackmail operations after the untimely death of his predecessor. An impoverished socialite has to survive in pricey Manhattan somehow, and that somehow was re-establishing the shady connections to the espionage underworld that had recruited Maxwell Sr.

    Ghislaine’s later role as Epstein’s Chief Procurement Officer (or pimp for short) gives more credence to the rumors that she is more than just a debased, barnacle-like appendage to a billionaire, desperate to please her platonic partner by “organizing his social life”, but a fully cognizant co-conspirator in an operation aimed at strengthening Israel’s hand in all matters pertaining to its national security interests, or more accurately, its overseas criminal enterprises.

    The recent raid on Epstein’s Manhattan apartment was not the result of a so-called Justice Department righting the egregious wrong it committed by letting Epstein off with a slap on the wrist after his initial conviction that allowed him to serve his sentence largely outside the minimum-security facility with an open door policy for its billionaire guest. More likely, the reversal of Epstein’s “sweetheart” deal was a joint operation between the oligarch cabal informally known as the Mega-Group, and the state security apparatuses that do their bidding.

    It’s seems likely that this sudden pivot towards justice from a Justice Department initially spooked into inaction by the spook in his custody, was motivated by the need to remove the most damning bits among Epstein’s vast trove of physical evidence against the pervy punters who visited his island getaway for unintended photo ops with underage girls.

    Perhaps his own abuse of these minors was a perk he felt entitled to, and one that would be overlooked in the service of “national security”. It’s hard for most people to differentiate between the government he actually worked for and the ruling establishment on his home turf.

    It’s possible that Epstein felt his serial transgressions were merely par for the plutocracy and justified in the service of a higher calling.

    The ‘Israel First’ philanthropist shared an unyielding ideological justification for his own criminality as Robert Maxwell, whom the British Home Office had considered recruiting for its own intelligence gathering in the mid 1960’s. Having determined that the well-connected, multilingual, rising star politician was strictly “Zionist”, the spy agency withdrew his candidacy.

    Epstein’s real crimes had little to do with raping children, despite the overturned plea deal that came about when a federal judge ruled that prosecutors had violated the victims rights by by concealing the agreement from them. The one time teflon-coated “member of intelligence” who was “above the pay grade” of a powerful District Attorney (now a now scandal-tainted former Labor Secretary) was ultimately (and lethally) penalized for not destroying the contents of his secret-laden safes, leaving his handlers still vulnerable to their explosive contents.

    Had the doomed financier divested himself of the toxic assets still in his possession, he might still be roaming the earth today, scouring it for new specimens to populate his underage petting zoo. As a result of the Justice Department’s decision to reverse the non-prosecution deal meant to bury the most incendiary facts of the case, lower-rung punters like former governor Bill Richardson and Senator George Mitchell are being publicly named for their part in the sordid scandal. Someone has to take the fall. (Rule number one of PR crisis management: Crucify the insignificant and let them hang out to dry until the public tires of watching the slow motion spectacle of their undoing.) Meanwhile, documented and/or photographic evidence against more powerful players like Bill Clinton and Donald Trump will have already been destroyed in the pursuit of selective justice.

    The fallout of Epstein’s spectacular downfall predictably miss the mark as scandals involving the rich and powerful tend to do. Much of the controversy will dissolve into a Cheetoh dust maelstrom of disinformation, disseminated on Reddit and 4Chan by incel info-warriors before shooting up a shopping mall or playground.

    Subsequent reporting of the case will overlook decades of the elite-driven state craft that elevated corrupt and ruthless entities like Epstein and Trump, both ring-kissing acolytes in their youth of influential mob fixer/politcal power broker Roy Cohn – himself a serial sexual predator who similarly caught the fancy of fellow deviants Joe McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover. Follow the money trail from Tel Aviv and you’ll discover an ancestral link between the corpse of Epstein and his ghostly godfathers waiting with his rewards in hell.

    Along with the other disgraced and expendable patsies left in the wake of this ongoing scandal is Alan Dershowitz, Epstein’s octogenarian chief legal counsel and ‘wing man’ aboard the Lolita Express. The now unemployable cable news pundit will live out the remainder of his pointless life under a cloud of suspicion. Despite all the damning testimony against him, the statutory rape allegations never quite stick, but follow him around like a sneaky fart, forcing a distance between himself and the rest of humanity that will last until he is engulfed by the sulfurous fumes of his own making.

    The former Harvard law professor’s lifelong service to Israel will go unrewarded – not as a result of victim testimony placing him at multiple crime scenes, but in consideration of his own inept self-defense strategy: ”I’m a scurvy rat aboard a sinking ship eating its own tail to stay alive. Pity me”! Dershowitz at this point will be lucky if he can achieve the same pay grade and social status of Lindsay Lohan. Ditto for Prince Andrew who can at least be relied on to expire slowly of gout in his time-out corner at Windsor Castle.

    The moral of this story could be “Lie down with dogs and never wake up again with a prison-issued sheet around your neck”. A variation of the old “Lie down with dogs and and wake up as fish food”.

  • It Took PG&E 8 Months To Prune A Tree Where Leaves Had Already Been Burnt By Power Lines "Inches Away"

    We reported  back in July that PG&E had known for years that hundreds of miles of high-voltage lines running in high-risk fire areas were at risk of failing and sparking a fire. And instead of acting swiftly to make the necessary upgrades, it appears the company routinely failed to identify the infrastructure most in need of maintenance.

    As we plumb these depths of incompetence at PG&E, another example has emerged that truly shows off the company’s apathy as it related to potential fire hazards: it took PG&E eight months to prune one tree that was at risk of causing a fire, Bloomberg reports.

    The tree, located in a “fire prone” area in Northern California, already had leaves singed off of it as wind gusts had blown it into a power line that was “inches away”. The tree was first flagged for maintenance back in November of 2018. Several months went by and one of the company’s tree-trimming contractors certified in February that the work had been completed. It hadn’t been.

    In April, a “pre-inspector” again prescribed the tree for work, without noting that it was urgent. The tree was finally pruned – on June 12, about 8 months from it originally being flagged. 

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    The details of this circus were detailed in a report issued this past week about the progress PG&E was making in Northern California. The company’s court appointed outside compliance monitor found that PG&E is overlooking high risk trees and isn’t training its contractors properly. It also found that the company is failing to keep up adequate records. 

    This may not help the company with the federal judge that is overseeing its probation for “multiple felony convictions in 2016 over shoddy record keeping for its natural-gas operations.”

    The report could anger U.S. District Judge William Alsup, who has constantly reminded the company of its recklessness and is currently “straining” to punish the company for its poor fire prevention efforts. PG&E, as well as its CEO, are due back in front of the judge September 17. 

    A judge is expected to rule over the next few days on whether a group of bondholders can compete with the company in proposing  a plan to restructure the company. 

    PG&E said in a statement: “PG&E’s service area includes more than 120 million trees with the potential to grow or fall into our overhead power lines. While we have made progress in many areas to further enhance wildfire safety including vegetation-management work, we acknowledge that we have more work to do.”

    The company says that it has a plan to step up its tree trimming in high fire risk areas that span 25,000 miles of power lines as part of a new multi-billion-dollar wildfire safety plan. The court monitor is reviewing those efforts and is tasked with making sure PG&E doesn’t violate the terms of its probation. 

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    The monitor’s role has expanded as PG&E’s equipment has been found to be at fault for wildfires that have torched Northern California and killed residents over the last few years. The company is under criminal investigation in Butte County, where the Camp Fire started, before killing 86 people.

    The court monitor has said in his report to the court that he has found “significant, actionable findings.”

    The monitor continued: “Inspections are not only revealing individual trees that are missed, including three active wildfire threats in high-risk areas, but they also reflect gaps in processes, for example, contractor training.”

    The now-bankrupt PG&E has put together a contingency plan that would plunge millions of unsuspecting Californians into rolling blackouts reminiscent of the early 2000s (when the utility was last pushed into bankruptcy protection thanks to the market-manipulation hijinx of Enron and other electricity brokers), but as WSJ revealed in an explosive report published in July – a report that was probably the result of months of battles between the paper’s lawyers and California’s Freedom of Information Commission – PG&E has a long history of deterring maintenance on its lines and towers, a practice that directly contributed to causing the deadliest forest fire in California history.

  • McMaken: Why Joe Biden Is Winning The Gun-Control Debate

    Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

    There are two fundamental arguments most commonly made against gun control.

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    1. The Anti-Crime Argument

    The first one is based on the idea that persons have a fundamental right to self-defense against ordinary criminals. That is, in a world where criminals have access to either legal or illegal weapons, ordinary people ought to be able to arm themselves for purposes of self defense.

    The benefits of private gun ownership in this regard can be illustrated in a variety of ways. Mexico’s strict gun-control regime, for instance, ensures ordinary Mexicans are at the mercy of the cartels and ordinary street criminals. Mexico’s astoundingly high homicide rates illustrate the unfortunate reality.

    Moreover, within the United States, some of the worst regions for homicides are areas with some of the most strict gun control laws. Baltimore, for example, has a homicide rate ten times that of the United States overall, while the state of Maryland heavily restricts gun ownership.

    Studies that assert “more guns means more crime,” meanwhile, have never been able to demonstrate a causal relationship here. Not only is there no reliable data on where exactly all the guns are, but the direction of causality can go either way. We would expect people living in a high crime area to be more likely to purchase a gun for protection. In other words, the proper conclusion may just as likely be “more crime means more guns.”

    The gun-for-self-defense argument is the easier one to make. For the most part, one need only argue that people need to be at least as well armed as ordinary criminals. Shotguns and rifles for home defense, or conceal-carry of handguns, for instance, would arguably be sufficient.

    2. The Defense-Against-Tyranny Argument

    The other argument for private gun ownership is the argument that weapons ought to be owned by a sizable portion of the population as a defense against an abusive government.

    In the current ideological environment, this is the harder argument to make. And, as we shall see, this argument depends heavily on making the case that a standing army controlled by the federal government is a threat to freedom. As it now stands, this argument isn’t exactly popular.

    The Origins of the Second Amendment

    In the late eighteenth century, however, the idea that a standing army was a grave danger to any society was far more common. The eighteenth-century arguments behind the Second Amendment, of course, were always centered around providing a check on the power of the central government’s military power. Those argumentsgo far back beyond the Declaration of Independence at least to the days of the English Civil war. In the 1660s it was agreed that troops were necessary to maintain order, but few trusted the central government with the task. Thus, “a nationwide militia, composed of civilians who would — as in earlier days — be summoned in time of need.”

    In practice, this meant the militia members would have access to their own arms, and be skilled in their use. Much was made of the idea that a national standing army, under the command of the central government was a significant danger to the liberties of the resident population. This idea persisted in Britain even into the nineteenth century.

    These ideas eventually made their way to the United States where state and local militias were commonly used during the Revolutionary War, and afterward, such as when the Massachusetts Militia was successfully used to put down Shays’ Rebellion. Formal and independent militias — some controlled by cities and states, and some semi-private — continued to exist throughout the nineteenth century. But there was also the “unorganized” militia, which in many state constitutions were defined as “all able-bodied male residents of the State, between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years.” As noted by Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, some militias were successfully employed in defense against Indian raids, and as part of the invasion force of the Mexican War.

    Under-girding the idea of the militia was always the belief that a sizable federal standing army was a threat to American freedoms, and that outside the Navy, military force ought to be decentralized and subject to state and local control.

    These militias — once called into service — were usually subject to control by government officials, whether local or at the state level. But it was often assumed that the ranks of the militia would be filled by residents skilled in the use of their own private arms. This also assumed private gun ownership. Moreover, it assumed ownership of arms — and proficiency with them — at the level of a military unit.

    So What does This Have to do with the Gun Control Argument Today?

    The idea of the militias as a check on standing armies remains important because gun-control advocates are now specifically targeting the defense-against-tyranny argument in their drive to further criminalize gun ownership.

    For example, last week, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden was asked about his position on gun control:

    COOPER: So, to gun owners out there who say, well, a Biden administration means they’re going to come for my guns?

    BIDEN: Bingo. You’re right if you have an assault weapon. The fact of the matter is, they should be illegal, period. Look, the Second Amendment doesn’t say you can’t restrict the kinds of weapons people can own. You can’t buy a bazooka. You can’t have a flame thrower.

         The guys who make these arguments are the people who say the tree of liberty is watered with the blood of patriots, we need the protection against the government. We need an F-15 for that. We need something well beyond whether or not you’re going to have an assault weapon.

    Biden is not claiming no gun ownership is to be allowed. Instead, he’s just saying people don’t need guns beyond what’s necessary for personal defense. In his mind, that means it’s practical to eliminate private ownership of so-called “assault weapons.”

    The tactic here is clear: Biden is attacking the guns-against-tyranny argument because he knows if he can win on that, he can make a case for abolishing legal ownership of semi-automatic rifles like AR-15s. For now, he won’t bother arguing against the guns-for-self-defense argument. That’s too much trouble.

    But when he says guns can’t really fight abusive government, his argument will strike many listeners as quite sensible. Here are the key components:

    • It is silly to assert an AR-15 will defend against tyranny.

    • Why is it silly? Because a tyrannical US government would be armed with F-15 fighter jets and flame throwers and bazookas. Thus, the idea that people could defend against this with some AR-15s is absurd.

    • Should people be allowed to own military hardware then? Of course not!  Everyone knows we can’t just let anybody own a bazooka or a machine gun.

    The conclusion is this: let’s move on form this fantasy about how your AR-15 fights tyranny, and let’s get down to making people safe by getting these “weapons of war” out of the hands of people who will use them to slaughter children.

    Meanwhile, very few people are willing to go on CNN and say “yes, I think military grade rifles and armored vehicles with belt-fed machine guns should be perfectly legal to everyone at any time.” Few are willing to say this for good reason. They’d be mocked and dismissed as utterly irrelevant.

    The pro-gun-control side also benefits from the fact the US military is incredibly popular, and we are regularly told that all Americans only have any freedom at all because the US military makes it possible. Why would anyone need a gun to shoot at those American heroes?

    Rebuilding the Dike: Yes, Standing Armies Are a Problem, and Yes, We Must Decentralize Military Power

    Unfortunately, anyone who wants to really defend the guns-against-tyranny argument has his work cut out for him.

    For more than a century now, Americans have been told there is no longer any role for any sort of military force that is beyond the direct control of the federal government. In other words, a huge standing federal army is perfectly fine, and we don’t need military hardware — privately owned or otherwise — to defend against them. 

    This idea was made a legal reality with the Militia Act of 1903. With the new legislation, the federal government created the so-called National Guard which would spell the doom of the unorganized militia in the US, and serve to completely undermine the Second Amendment and its defense of decentralized military power in the US.

    After 1903, the federalization of the state militias only accelerated until, as historian David Yassky concludes, “Today’s National Guard is thus a far cry from what the Founders’ understood a militia to be” and the result of these changes has brought about “the disappearance of anything the Founders would have recognized as a militia.” Far from acting as a bulwark against abuse of federal power, today’s National Guard is something the authors of the Second Amendment “would have seen as little better than a standing army.”

    This change has essentially removed the idea of the unorganized militia from public debate, and has also solidified the notion that all military power in the United States ought to be controlled by generals in Washington, DC. Thus, the idea that anyone outside federally-controlled military units ought to have military-level weapons strikes most as bizarre.

    Yes, some vestiges of the old system did persist later than 1903. As late as 1990, it was still possible — at least in theory — for state governors to legally veto deployment of National Guard units ordered by US presidents. But even that independence is gone now.

    Historically, however, state governments could — and did — refuse to deploy troops when US presidents demanded it. But today, the idea that standing armies are a danger — or that local and state militias have a role in defending against them — is profoundly unpopular among policymakers and average voters alike.

    So now, if one is going to assert that guns (and other weapons) are needed to protect against tyranny, one has to rebuild the entire Second Amendment edifice: an edifice which is fundamentally opposed to standing armies and which imagines both an organized and unorganized militia outside the control of the central government.

    After all, even many people who fancy themselves big defenders of the Second Amendment certainly don’t act like it. Often, the same people who clamor to thank soldiers “for their service” then say with the next breath that guns are necessary to fight against the military’s soldiers. Moreover, the destruction of the militia’s independence was historically cheered by conservatives. It was gun-owning social conservatives who supported legislation like the Montgomery Amendment which put the final nail in the coffin of state-control of National Guard units. The bill’s sponsor, conservative Congressman Sonny Montgomery of Mississippi, was never punished by his voters for his assault on the Second Amendment.

  • Pakistan's PM Khan: World Must "Seriously Consider" Safety Of India's Nuclear Arsenal

    Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has gone on a blistering attack, in a series of Twitter statements arguing that the world must “seriously consider” the safety of India’s nuclear arsenal under control the “fascist” Modi government.

    “The world must also seriously consider the safety and security of India’s nuclear arsenal in the control of the fascist, racist Hindu supremacist Modi government. This is an issue that impacts not just the region but the world,” Khan tweeted early Sunday.

    Khan’s words came just as the AFP is reporting some 4,000 Kashmiris thrown into detention amid an unprecedented crackdown by tens of thousands of Indian troops enforcing a legal revocation of Jammu and Kashmir’s (J&k) autonomous status. 

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    It also comes two days after Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh detailed India’s “no first use” nuclear policy, hinting that it could become permanent. Pakistani officials have said this is a distraction from India’s “genocidal” policies against Muslim Kashmirs.

    “India has been captured, as Germany had been captured by Nazis, by a fascist, racist Hindu supremacist ideology and leadership. This threatens nine million Kashmiris under siege for over two weeks which should have sent alarm bells ringing across the world with UN observers being sent there,” Khan tweeted.

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    And speaking of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata leadership in New Delhi led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which on August 5th J&K’s status quo ability and rights to maintain their own local governance, Khan described further, “One can simply Google to understand the link between the Nazi ideology and ethnic cleansing and genocide ideology of the RSS-BJP founding fathers.”

    “Already four million Indian Muslims face detention camps and cancellation of citizenship. The world must take note as this genie is out of the bottle and the doctrine of hate and genocide, with RSS goons on the rampage, will spread unless the international community acts now to stop it,” he said.

    Since the crisis began two weeks ago through New Delhi’s voiding Article 370 of the constitution, there’s been a reported build-up of Pakistani forces along its side of the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir, meaning at any moment the heated rhetoric could spark a major war between the nuclear armed neighbors and rivals. 

  • "The Southern Poverty Law Center Is A Hate-Based Scam That Nearly Caused Me To Be Murdered"

    Authored by Jessica Prol Smith, op-ed via USAToday.com,

    After internal challenges with discrimination, the Southern Poverty Law Center can’t call itself an arbiter of justice.

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    I’ll never forget the moment I learned we were on lockdown. It was Aug.15, 2012. My frustration mingled with fear. Trapped on the sixth floor, we knew someone had been shot. We knew we couldn’t leave yet. We knew little else.

    While I was missing lunch, a crime scene played out in the office lobby below me. My coworker and friend Leo wasn’t armed, but he’d played the quick-thinking and inadvertent hero, disarming a young man on a mission to kill me and as many of my colleagues as possible. The gunman had packed his backpack with ammo and 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches — later admitting that he’d planned to smear them on our lifeless faces as a political statement. Leo took a bullet in the arm but managed to disarm and hold the attacker until law enforcement arrived.

    I wrote and edited for the Family Research Council, a public advocacy organization that promoted the principles I’d cared about since childhood: protecting the family, promoting the dignity of every human life and advocating for religious liberty. It reads like a tagline, but it’s also just what I believed and the way I chose to match my career with my convictions.

    I never expected that everyone would celebrate or share my beliefs. But I did expect to be able to discuss and debate these differences without becoming a political target in an act of terrorism, the first conviction under Washington, D.C.’s 2002 Anti-Terrorism Act.

    It was the type of violent incident that one could expect a group that purportedly monitors “hate,” like the Southern Poverty Law Center, to notice, research, and decry. In fact, we were on the center’s radar but for all the wrong reasons. The assailant acknowledged later in FBI testimony that he had selected our office precisely because the SPLC had labeled my employer a “hate group.”

    It’s always been easier to smear people rather than wrestle with their ideas. It’s a bully who calls names and spreads lies rather than thoroughly reading a brief’s legal arguments or challenging the rationale underlying a policy proposal. The SPLC has chosen to take the easy path — to intimidate and mislead for raw political power and financial benefit.

    For years, former employees revealed, local journalists reported and commentatorshave lamented: the Southern Poverty Law Center is not what it claims to be. Not a pure-hearted, clear-headed legal advocate for the vulnerable, but rather an obscenely wealthy marketing scheme. For years, the left-wing interest group has used its “hate group” list to promote the fiction that violent Neo-Nazis and Christian nonprofits peacefully promoting orthodox beliefs about marriage and sex are indistinguishable. Sometimes, it’s apologized to public figures; it’s smeared and recently paid out millions to settle a threatened defamation lawsuit.

    The SPLC has its own troubles

    These shameful secrets are no longer hidden in shadows. The New York Times, Politico, NPR and a host of other mainstream publications are reporting on the corruption and widening credibility gap. The SPLC dismissed its co-founder, and its president resigned amidst numerous claims of sexual harassment, gender discrimination and racism within the organization — a parade of disgraces that vividly force the conclusion: The SPLC is hollow, rotten and failing at the very virtues it pretends to celebrate.

    The criticism comes from many corners. There’s theCurrent Affairs editor who seems sympathetic to the center’s progressive mission but decries its “hate group” list as an “outright fraud” and a “willful deception designed to scare older liberals into writing checks to the SPLC.” 

    There’s the retired investigative journalist who helped research and write an eight-part series on the center’s “litany of problems and questionable practices” in the mid-1990s. His Washington Post opinion piece reads with a thinly-veiled message: We nearly got a Pulitzer Prize for TELLING YOU SO. 

    But perhaps most damning of all are the indictments leveled by former employee Bob Moser in The New Yorker. He remembers being welcomed to the “Poverty Palace” and recounts the heart-sinking reality of it all — being “pawns” in a “highly profitable scam.”

    Jobs and years have passed, and I work now for Alliance Defending Freedom. ADF ranks among “the top performing firm(s]” litigating First Amendment cases, the “Christian legal powerhouse that keeps winning at the Supreme Court.” And yes, my new employer has also attracted one of the SPLC’s spurious hate labels. The label easily peels and fades away when one actually does the research and listens to truth before deciding to troll.

    I won’t be intimidated by the SPLC 

    If the SPLC thought that their hate would intimidate or silence me and my colleagues, they’re sadly mistaken. I’m lucky — blessed, really — that I didn’t take a bullet for my beliefs back in 2012. But the center’s ugly slander and the gunman’s misguided attack have sharpened my resolve and deepened my faith in my Savior, who commands my destiny and shields me from the schemes of man. The same is true for my colleagues.

    Fifty-one years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., fell to an assassin’s bullet. The SPLC pretends to carry his legacy but weaponizes hate labels instead. Unlike SPLC’s name-calling, Dr. King’s words and vision stand the test of time. “Injustice anywhere,” he warned, “is a threat to justice everywhere.”

    The SPLC, as an institution, has thoroughly disqualified itself as an arbiter of justice. But this country would be a better place if the center’s donors, lawyers and friends would truly believe and apply Dr. King’s legacy — his peaceful pursuit of justice and his love of neighbor.

  • US Air Force Can Now Turn Small Planes Into Robots

    The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Center for Rapid Innovation (CRI) and DZYNE Technologies completed a two-hour test flight of a new robot plane Aug. 9 at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah.

    “This flight test is a testament to AFRL’s ability to rapidly innovate technology from concept to application in a safe build up approach while still maintaining low cost and short timelines,” said Maj. Gen. William Cooley, AFRL commander.

    The new revolutionary Robotic Pilot Unmanned Conversion Program, called ROBOpilot, interacts with flight controls just like a human pilot.

    “Imagine being able to rapidly and affordably convert a general aviation aircraft, like a Cessna or Piper, into an unmanned aerial vehicle, having it fly a mission autonomously, and then returning it back to its original manned configuration,” said Dr. Alok Das, CRI’s Senior Scientist. “All of this is achieved without making permanent modifications to the aircraft.”

    The robot manipulates the yoke, pushes on the rudders and brakes, regulates the throttle, observes the instrument panel the same way a pilot does. “At the same time, the system uses sensors, like GPS and an Inertial Measurement Unit [essentially a way for a machine to locate itself in space without GPS] for situational awareness and information gathering. A computer analyzes these details to make decisions on how to best control the flight,” AFRL said.

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    Once the flight is completed, ROBOpilot can be quickly uninstalled from a plane. The system is the size of a pilot’s seat, which includes all the equipment needed to control the aircraft including actuators, electronics, cameras, power systems, and a robotic arm.

    Das said ROBOpilot is a non-invasive way towards robotically piloted aircraft leverages existing commercial technology and components. It’s a low-cost alternative compared to military drones that cost $15 to $200 million.

    “ROBOpilot offers the benefits of unmanned operations without the complexity and upfront cost associated with the development of new unmanned vehicles,” Das said.

    AFRL uploaded a short video of the test flight onto YouTube last week. 

  • Former CIA Spook: "Russian Hoax Coup & Epstein Are Interlocked"

    Via Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com,

    Former CIA Officer and whistleblower Kevin Shipp says the Russian hoax and attempted coup of President Trump and the sex trafficking case against Jeffery Epstein are linked together by the same Deep State players.

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    Shipp explains, “The FBI has completely raided his vault, and they have some pretty damning material…”

    “I don’t know why it took so long, but they have raided Epstein’s island… So, there is a lot of damning information the FBI has now on certain people. At the top of the list, and the one who flew the most, was Bill Clinton. Then he lied about it. They are intertwined in that regard and with the Clinton Foundation that we know is a fraud. It is known around the world, and you’ve got these two intersections with Bill and Hillary Clinton.

    Of course, Hillary Clinton is tied to the dossier in an attempt to get rid of Donald Trump. So, these webs interlocked with each other, and these people interlock with each other. Welcome to the global elite. Welcome to human trafficking. These things are connected, and with Epstein dead, there are a lot of prominent people breathing a sigh of relief—for now. Is Barr aggressive enough? He says he is going to pursue this case anyway. Is he going to call in the people seen on the CD’s, videos and photographs? That remains to be seen.”

    On Epstein’s officially ruled suicide while in prison, Shipp says, “Epstein tries to commit ‘suicide,’ and his cellmate, a four-time convicted murderer, said he didn’t see (or hear) it because he had his headphones on. Attorney General William Barr was in charge of the safety of Jeffery Epstein. There should have been an entire contingent of U.S. Marshals to protect this huge witness, but there were none... Why is that? …”

    “It is just unbelievable how they left this huge witness to die in prison. The prison guards were off, as we know. The cameras were not functioning. He was taken off of suicide watch and on and on we go. There are so many things that add up to this not being a suicide that it is remarkable. . . …

    We are all still hoping that Attorney General Barr will do his job and people are charged, but this is starting to bother me a little bit. A major witness that was connected to high level people in government and finance was left alone to die in prison, and I think he was murdered. This was all left to happen by William Barr. The pieces to this just don’t add up…

    We’ve got so many strange things going on here that do not add up, and Attorney General Barr is ultimately responsible for this happening.”

    Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with former CIA Officer and author of the top selling book about the Deep State called “From the Company of Shadows.”

    *  *  *

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Aug 18

Today’s News 18th August 2019

  • US Joins Secret Talks Between Israel & UAE Targeting Iran

    Authored by Jason Ditz via AntiWar.com,

    Secret talks have been ongoing between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, focused on sharing intelligence against Iran and possibly military cooperation. The talks have progressed to the point that the US is now joining the talks too.

    Israel and the UAE have some security ties, but don’t have public relations. That they’re discussing Iran reflects Israel’s long-standing hostility toward Iran, and the UAE’s close proximity to Iran.

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    Iranian Revolutionary Guards drive speedboats at the port of Bandar Abbas. Image source: AFP

    While some are presenting the US joining of the talks as proof they are making progress, a lot isn’t understood about what’s going on, and particularly unclear is what the UAE is trying to work out. 

    The UAE seems to be trying to balance multiple interests, as they’ve tried to talk to Iran about maritime security in recent days, and seem not to be looking to pick fights with them. That’s in stark contrast to Israel, for whom picking fights with Iran is the centerpiece of decades of foreign policy. 

    It’s clear that the UAE has an interest in keeping the US happy, and that probably requires keeping Israel at lease sort of placated in this regard. So while they aren’t trying to start anything against Iran they’re trying to walk the tightrope of balancing both sides to keep everyone satisfied. 

  • "The Impact On Tourism Is Huge:" Hong Kong Hotel Crisis Erupts Amid Escalating Protests ​​​​​​​

    Hong Kong might not be able to avoid a financial crisis this year or next despite possible stimulus packages to shore up its faltering economy amid violent protests across the city. This has led to a rapid decline in tourism, forcing major hotel chains in the city to substantially slash room prices.

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    Yiu Si-wing, a Hong Kong lawmaker representing the tourism industry, told Bloomberg that hotel revenue is expected to crash 50% this month thanks to escalating protests. She said visits from mainland China account for 80% of arrivals are significantly lower due to social unrest.

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    Yiu said hotel occupancy rates averaged 90% in 1H19, could drop by as much as 33% or more in 2H19. Arrivals from the mainland to Hong Kong, a significant source of consumption for the city, could grind to a halt.

    “The impact on tourism is huge,” Yiu told Bloomberg. She said at least half of the mainland visitors due in August had canceled their plans. Yiu said top-trending topics on Chinese social media platform Weibo this week included several incidents of where violent protestors attacked government forces.

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    Some mainland Chinese are shunning Hong Kong because of the risks associated with its airport being closed down for an extended period of time.

    Grace Huang, a 20-year-old Wuhan University student, told Bloomberg her layover at Hong Kong International Airport was horrifying earlier this week. “I fear I’m going to be beaten,” she told Bloomberg, as thousands of protestors successfully locked down the airport for several days.

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    Beijing resident Jasmine Ji, 23, delayed her trip to Hong Kong because she feels protestors would target her for being a Chinese citizen.

    “I feel like my personal safety could be severely threatened if they find out I speak Mandarin or am a Chinese citizen,” she said. “I won’t fly to Hong Kong airport until the situation and protests are settled there.”

    Chinese officials and state-run media outlets launched an information war against the protestors, describing them as violent extremists.

    Hong Kong officials have suggested a recession could be imminent due to social unrest.

    Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po on Thursday announced a $2.43 billion stimulus package to shore up the economy during the social and economic turmoil.

    Paul warned that a possible recession could be imminent: “The situation we are in now is like the typhoon No 3 signal has been hoisted and the typhoon is heading towards us,” he said. “We need to get prepared before it gets worse.”

    Paul downgraded Hong Kong’s GDP growth forecast for the year to 0 to 1%, from 2 to 3% previously.

    He said the city could slide into a technical recession in the current quarter.

    InterContinental Hotels Group Plc, a British multinational hospitality company that owns Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn chains, said the protests in the last several months have contributed to a slowdown in business travel in the region.

    Other hospitality companies with exposure to Hong Kong are also feeling the pinch: Sun Hung Kai Properties, owner of Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong, and New World Development Co., which operates the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong, have seen their stocks enter bear markets in the last month.

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    Yiu said the downturn in Hong Kong hospitality industry had forced many hotels to slash their room rates by substantial amounts.

    A typical room at Conrad Hotel, owned by Hilton Worldwide, is $159 per night this weekend, that’s a 40% discount versus two months ago.

    Marriott International Inc. and Shangri-La Asia Ltd. have also cut room rates for their Hong Kong hotels.

    Hong Kong could be the first domino to fall that kicks off the next global recession.

  • The Anglo-American Origins Of Color Revolutions

    Authored by Matthew Ehret via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    A few years ago, very few people understood the concept behind color revolutions.

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    Had Russia and China’s leadership not decided to unite in solidarity in 2012 when they began vetoing the overthrow of Bashar al Assad in Syria- followed by their alliance around the Belt and Road Initiative, then it is doubtful that the color revolution concept would be as well-known as it has become today.

    At that time, Russia and China realized that they had no choice but to go on the counter offensive, since the regime change operations and colour revolutions orchestrated by such organizations as the CIA-affiliated National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and Soros Open Society Foundations were ultimately designed to target them as those rose, orange, green or yellow revolution efforts in Georgia, Ukraine, Iran or Hong Kong were always recognized as weak points on the periphery of the threatened formation of a great power alliance of sovereign Eurasian nations that would have the collective power to challenge the power of the Anglo-American elite based in London and Wall Street.

    Russia’s 2015 expulsion of 12 major conduits of color revolution included Soros’ Open Society Foundation as well as the NED was a powerful calling out of the enemy with the Foreign Ministry calling them “a threat to the foundations of Russia’s Constitutional order and national security”. This resulted in such fanatical calls by George Soros for a $50 billion fund to counteract Russia’s interference in defense of Ukraine’s democracy. Apparently the $5 billion spent by the NED in Ukraine was not nearly enough.

    In spite of the light falling upon these cockroaches, NED and Open Society operations continued in full force focusing on the weakest links the Grand Chessboard unleashing what has become known as a “strategy of tension”. Venezuela, Kashmir, Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjian (dubbed East Turkistan by NED) have all been targeted in recent years with millions of NED dollars pouring into separatist groups, labour unions, student movements and fake news “opinion shapers” under the guise of “democracy building”. $1.7 million in grants was spent by NED in Hong Kong since 2017 which was a significant increase from their $400 000 spent to coordinate the failed “Occupy HK” protest in 2014.

    The Case of China

    In response to over two months of controlled chaos, the Chinese government has kept a remarkably restrained posture, allowing the Hong Kong authorities to manage the situation with their police deprived of use of lethal weapons and even giving into the protestors’ demand that the changes to the extradition treaty that nominally sparked this mess be annulled. In spite of this patient tone, the rioters who have run havoc on airports and public buildings have created lists of demands that are all but impossible for mainland China to meet including 1) an “independent committee to investigate the abuses of Chinese authorities”, 2) for china to stop referring to rioters as “rioters”, 3) for all charges against rioters to be dropped, and 4) universal suffrage- including candidates promoting independence or rejoining the British Empire.

    As violence continues to grow, and as it has become an increasing reality that some form of intervention from the mainland may occur to restore order, the British Foreign Office has taken an aggressive tone threatening China with “severe consequences” unless “a fully independent investigation” into police Brutality were permitted. The former Colonial Governor of China Christopher Patten attacked China by saying “Since president Xi has been in office, there’s been a crackdown on dissent and dissidents everywhere, the party has been in control of everything”.

    The Chinese Foreign Ministry responded saying “the UK has no sovereign jurisdiction or right of supervision over Hong Kong… it is simply wrong for the British Government to exert pressure. The Chinese side seriously urges the UK to stop its interference in China’s internal affairs and stop making random and inflammatory accusations on Hong Kong.”

    The British have not been able to conduct their manipulation of Hong Kong without the vital role of America’s NGO dirty ops, and in true imperial fashion, the political class from both sides of the aisle have attacked China with Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi making the loudest noise driving the American House Foreign Affairs Committee to threaten “universal condemnation and swift consequences” if Beijing intervenes. This has only made the photographs of Julie Eadeh, the head of Political Office at the American Consulate in Hong Kong meeting with leaders of the Hong Kong demonstrations that much more disgusting to any onlooker.

    While both Britain and America have been caught red handed organizing this colour revolution, it is important to keep in mind who is controlling who.

    The Foreign Origins of the NED

    Contrary to popular opinion, the British Empire did not go away after WWII, nor did it hand over the “keys to the kingdom” to America. It didn’t even become America’s Junior Partner in a new Anglo-American special relationship. Contrary to popular belief, it stayed in the drivers’ seat.

    The post WWII order was largely shaped by a British coup which didn’t take over America without a fight. Nests of Oxford-trained Rhodes Scholars, Fabians and other ideologues embedded within the American establishment had a lot of work ahead of them as they struggled to purge all nationalist impulses from the American intelligence community. While the most aggressive purging of patriotic Americans from the intelligence community occurred during the dissolution of the OSS and creation of MI6 in 1947 and the Communist witch hunt that followed, there were other purges that were less well known.

    As an organization which was beginning to take form which was to become known as the Trilateral Commissionorganized by Britain’s “hand in America” called the Council on Foreign Relations and international Bilderberg Group, another purge occurred in 1970 under the direction of James Schlesinger during his six month stint as CIA director. At that time 1000 top CIA officials deemed “unfit” were fired. This was followed nine years later as another 800 were fired under a list drafted by CIA “spymaster” Ted Shackley. Both Schlesinger and Shackley were high level Trilateral Commission members who took part in the group’s 1973 formation and fully took power of America during Jimmy Carter’s 1977-1981 presidency which unleashed a dystopian reorganization of American foreign and internal policy outlined in my previous report.

    Project Democracy Takes Over

    By the 1970s, the CIA’s dirty hand funding anarchist operations both within America and abroad had become too well known as media coverage of their dirty operations at home and abroad spoiled the patriotic image which the intelligence community then desired. While the internal resistance to fascist behaviour from within the intelligence Community itself was dealt with through purges, the reality was that a new agency had to be created to take over those functions of covert destabilization of foreign governments.

    What became Project Democracy herein originated with a Trilateral Commission meeting in May 31, 1975 in Kyoto Japan as a protégé of Trilateral Commission director Zbigniew Brzezinski named Samuel (Clash of Civilizations) Huntington delivered the results of his Task Force on the Governability of Democracies. This project was supervised by Schlesinger and Brzezinski and presented the notion that democracies could not function adequately in the crisis conditions which the Trilateral Commission was preparing to impose onto America and the world through a process dubbed “the Controlled Disintegration of Society”.

    The Huntington report featured at the Trilateral meeting stated: “One might consider… means of securing support and resources from foundations, business corporations, labor unions, political parties, civic associations, and, where possible and appropriate, governmental agencies for the creation of an institute for the strengthening of democratic institutions.”

    It took 4 years for this blueprint to become reality. In 1979 three Trilateral Commission members named William Brock (RNC Chairman), Charles Manatt (DNC Chairman) and George Agree (head of Freedom House) established an organization called the American Political Foundation (APF) which attempted to fulfil the objective laid out by Huntington in 1975.

    The APF was used to set up a program using federal funds called the Democracy Program which issued an interim report “The Commitment to Democracy” which said: “No theme requires more sustained attention in our time than the necessity for strengthening the future chances of democratic societies in a world that remains predominantly unfree or partially fettered by repressive governments. … There has never been a comprehensive structure for a non-governmental effort through which the resources of America’s pluralistic constituencies . .. could be mobilized effectively.”

    In May 1981, Henry Kissinger who had replaced Brzezinski as head of the Trilateral Commission and had many operatives planted around President Reagan, gave a speech at Britain’s Chatham House (the controlling handbehind the Council on Foreign Relations) where he described his work as Secretary of State saying that the British “became a participant in internal American deliberations, to a degree probably never practiced between sovereign nations… In my White House incarnation then, I kept the British Foreign Office better informed and more closely engaged than I did the American State Department… It was symptomatic”. In his speech, Kissinger outlined the battle between Churchill vs FDR during WWII and made the point that he favored the Churchill worldview for the post war world (And ironically also that of Prince Metternich who ran the Congress of Vienna that snuffed out democratic movements across Europe in 1815).

    In June 1982, Reagan’s Westminster Palace speech officially inaugurated the NED and by November 1983, the National Endowment for Democracy Act was passed bringing this new covert organization into reality with $31 million of funding under four subsidiary organizations (AFL-CIO Free Trade Union Institute, The US Chamber of Commerce’s Center for International Private Enterprise, the International Republican Institute and the International Democratic Institute) (2).

    Throughout the 1980s, this organization went to work managing Iran-Contra, destabilizing Soviet states and unleashing the first “official” modern color revolution in the form of the Yellow revolution that ousted Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos. Speaking more candidly than usual, NED President David Ignatius said in 1991 “a lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA”.

    With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the NED was instrumental in bringing former Warsaw Pact nations into NATO/WTO system and the New World Order was announced by Bush Sr. and Kissinger- both of whom were rewarded with knighthoods for their service to the Crown in 1992 and 1995 respectively.

    Of course, the vast web of NGOs permeating the geopolitical terrain can only be effective as long as no one says the truth and “names the game”. The very act of calling out their nefarious motives renders them impotent and this simple fact has made the recently announced China-Russia arrangement to formulate a proper strategic response to color revolutions so important in the current fight.

  • Trump Reviews Controversial US-Taliban Peace Deal Which Critics Call A "Betrayal"

    Critics are calling a Trump administration plan for a rapid US force draw down in Afghanistan which involves striking a peace deal with the Taliban a “betrayal”.

    But administration officials have countered that this is the cost of bringing the some 14,000 US troops in Afghanistan home. Trump “has been pretty clear that he wants to bring the troops home” according to senior officials privy to ongoing negotiations. 

    The chief controversy behind the US-Taliban peace talks is that any deal will likely rely on the Taliban holding to counterterrorism guarantees, or that it won’t attack US coalition forces; however, there’s reportedly little in the impending deal which holds the Taliban to guarantees it won’t attack Afghan civilians or the national army. 

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    Via Reuters

    According to CNN:

    One source explained that the agreement is seen as paving the way for the US to leave the country without a high number of US casualties in the coming months. 

    President Trump said he had a “very good meeting in Afghanistan” in a tweet Friday, just after meeting with top national security advisers over the impending peace plan which seeks to end America’s longest running war, now approaching two decades. 

    “Discussions centered around our ongoing negotiations and eventual peace and reconciliation agreement with the Taliban and the government of Afghanistan,” a White House press spokesman said of the meeting. “The meeting went very well, and negotiations are proceeding.”

    “In continued close cooperation with the government of Afghanistan, we remain committed to achieving a comprehensive peace agreement, including a reduction in violence and a cease-fire, ensuring that Afghan soil is never again used to threaten the United States or her allies, and bringing Afghans together to work towards peace,” the statement said.

    CNN summarizes of the deal that it’s “expected to formalize a significant withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan — from about 15,000 troops to 8,000 or 9,000 troops — and enshrine official commitments by the Taliban to counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan, according to the multiple sources familiar with the plan.”

    But there’s fear that the Taliban is simply looking to remove the US military from the equation, and that once the US departs, the Taliban will have free reign to attack a greatly weakened Afghan national army. 

    Spearheading the dialogue has been White House special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who has been meeting with Taliban negotiators in Qatar for months, with a desire to strike a final deal by September 1. 

  • Lost Within The Rate Cut: The Fed's Drive To Establish A New Payment System

    Authored by Steven Guinness,

    Part way through delivering a press conference following the Federal Reserve’s first rate cut since December 2008, chairman Jerome Powell let it be known that the central bank was ‘looking carefully‘ at developing a new faster payments system. Unsurprisingly, his words on the subject proved the equivalent of screaming into the face of a force ten gale. Besides a handful of financial outlets, nobody heard him. All that analysts and observers were really interested in was the Fed’s stance on interest rates.

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    This was unfortunate because whilst they may appear banal and complex on the surface, payments systems are of far greater significance than whether a central bank opts to cut or raise interest rates. Anyone keeping pace with the myriad of speeches and publications emanating from central banks will know that globalists are working incrementally to introduce a cashless monetary system under their control. The Federal Reserve are one strand of this strategy as we will discover.

    Less than a week after the rate cut, the Fed announced that they were planning to devise a new ‘round-the-clock real-time payment and settlement service.’ Called ‘FedNow‘, the system would be an RTGS run service designed to initiate faster payments.

    RTGS stands for ‘Real Time Gross Settlement‘, and is the same model through which the Bank of England and the European Central Bank operate their payment systems. The BOE announced back in May 2017 a blueprint for the introduction of a ‘renewed‘ RTGS service, whilst the ECB in late 2018 launched a new system dubbed TIPS (TARGET Instant Payment Settlement). It was around the time that TIPS launched that the Fed issued a ‘request for comment‘ on reforming their own system. Taken as a whole, this is a further example of central banks working in coordination.

    In a press release announcing ‘FedNow‘, the Fed justified the venture on the premise that the ‘rapid evolution of technology‘ had presented them with a ‘pivotal opportunity‘ to modernise the U.S. payment system. Exactly how long the Fed have been looking into adopting a new payment system is unclear. But if the Wall Street Journal is to be believed, they have been exploring a faster system since at least 2013.

    The press release also pointed out that over 10,000 financial institutions are incorporated into the current Fed payment system known as ‘Fedwire‘, and argued that new real time infrastructure developed through the central bank would be best placed to offer full nationwide coverage.

    The next stage of ‘FedNow‘ sees the Fed ‘requesting comment on how the new service might be designed‘. As for when it becomes available, the expectation is either 2023 or 2024. The Bank of England’s renewed RTGS system is due to be operational by 2025.

    On the day ‘FedNow‘ was announced, Lael Brainard, a member of the Fed’s board of governors, offered up more information on the system in a speech at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. As you might expect, Brainard was there to extol the benefits. The big selling point was 365 days a year access, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Funds would be available immediately after payment is sent. It would be a system built on convenience and one that was fit for the speed of the 21st century.

    Of greater interest than these superficial benefits, however, is the motivation behind what the Fed are seeking to achieve with ‘FedNow‘. Brainard was equally as explanatory in this regard.

    We learned from her speech four key bits of information.

    Firstly, fintech companies are openly supportive of the Fed’s new system. These are companies that are part of an industry that has pioneered the creation of distributed ledger technology.

    Secondly, the planned implementation for either 2023 or 2024 is not a fixed objective. More important to the Fed is the goal of achieving ‘nationwide access for all‘, meaning that their overarching aim is for ‘FedNow‘ and private sector payment services to work in conjunction (or, as Brainard put it, to ‘interoperate by exchanging payments among services directly).

    Thirdly, Brainard told us that no one private sector provider of a U.S. payment system has ever been able to establish nationwide reach by itself. Nationwide coverage would have to encompass the many thousands of small and medium sized banks. Hence why the Fed are now making a determined move to utilise private sector technology and incorporate it into their own system. I would contend that the Fed’s goal is to achieve full spectrum control of America’s payment infrastructure, with all digital transactions falling under their jurisdiction. ‘FedNow‘ would be the mechanism in making this happen.

    Fourthly, as Brainard laid out, the path that the Fed are embracing is not one of ‘incremental‘ change. Rather, it is of ‘transformative‘ change. I would take this to mean that the infrastructure underpinning current payment systems must be overhauled to allow for the implementation of fintech devised technology.

    An accompanying list of FAQ’s lent credence to the understanding that fintech is central to the construction of ‘FedNow‘. Here, the Fed expounded that the market for faster payments in the U.S. remains in the ‘early stages‘. Banks and fintech firms can provide a range of services, but the functionality of them is limited which restricts their level of coverage and reliability. They lamented the ‘lack of a universal infrastructure to conduct faster payments‘, which means that at present users who are signed up to one service such as Paypal invariably cannot send or receive payment from a user signed up to another service. As a result, the market remains ‘fragmented‘.

    With the Federal Reserve system encompassing twelve regional banks, and the relationships the Fed has with 10,000 plus banking institutions, their belief is that they are ‘well positioned to overcome the challenge of extending nationwide access.’

    Throughout their communications there is a preoccupation with the objective of achieving nationwide access. So much so that the Fed board are apparently intending to ‘explore interoperability and other paths to achieving the ultimate goal of nationwide reach.’

    ‘FedNow’ would provide the necessary universal infrastructure that the Fed are seeking, and allow banks of all description to offer real-time payments.

    Undoubtedly this presents an opportunity for the Fed, and indeed central banks throughout the world, to move in and claim hegemony over the next generation of global digital payment systems. But they, along with the Bank for International Settlements and the International Monetary Fund that preside over them, cannot do this by themselves. This is where the private sector comes in, for it is here where the expertise and technological innovation is found.

    Within the FAQ’s it is also stated that the ‘FedNow‘ service would ‘operate alongside private sector RTGS services for faster payments‘. Prior to the announcement of the new system, the Federal Reserve board had come to the conclusion that private sector RTGS services ‘cannot be expected to provide an infrastructure with reasonable effectiveness, scope and equity alone.’ A roundabout way of saying that whilst the Fed do not possess the technology, they do have the reach in order to disseminate private sector innovation to every corner of the U.S. The beauty for the Fed is that they would have full regulatory authority over ‘FedNow‘. In conjunction with fintech, their level of control over the payments infrastructure would be unassailable.

    If central banks manage to utilise fintech successfully, it will give them a clear path to begin the gradual implementation of central bank issued digital currencies. Back in April I published an article (BIS General Manager Outlines Vision for Central Bank Digital Currencies) that looked into the subject of CBDC’s more deeply.

    In regards to ‘FedNow‘, equally as interesting as what was discussed by the Fed is what was left unsaid. There was no mention throughout any of the supporting documentation of plans to incorporate distributed ledger technology. Instead, there will be ‘engagement between the Fed and the industry to inform the final service design.’ This is a process that is now getting underway.

    I would expect that once the final design of ‘FedNow‘ is confirmed, it will have the capability of interacting with systems that use distributed ledgers. This would follow on from the Bank of England who in 2018 announced that their new RTGS service would enable such systems to achieve settlement in central bank money.

    Once this has been achieved, the next logical step for central banks is to complete the process of digitising all financial assets through the issuance of central bank digital currency. And as BIS general manager Agustin Carstens warned back in March 2019, this would mean that people would no longer have the option of paying with cash. ‘All purchases would be electronic‘.

    In a follow up article I will be exploring the process underway at the Bank of England and the European Central Bank to reform their payment systems, and how China is proving to be the test bed for fintech innovation.

  • Trump's Farm Bailout Flows To "City Slickers," a D.C. Lobbyist and ‘Farms’ on Golf Courses

    About 9,000 “city slickers” living in luxurious neighborhoods of the nation’s largest cities received a farm bailout from the Trump administration to minimize the impact of the trade war with China, an updated Environmental Working Group (EWG) analysis of Department of Agriculture data shows.

    The EWG analysis of USDA data revealed that “many recipients live not in farm country but in the nation’s 50 largest cities or in other decidedly nonrural locations.”

    Urban recipients of the bailout include members of farm families, landowners, and investors. These people provide land, capital, or equipment for farms and make high-level decessions for operations.

    EWG said bailout recipients include 70 people in San Francisco, 65 residents in New York City, 63 residents in Los Angeles, 61 residents in Washington, D.C., and 19 Miami.

    In Washington D.C., lobbyist Van R. Boyette for the sugar company Florida Crystals, and its owners, the Fanjul brothers of West Palm Beach, Fla. all collected bailouts this year. Here’s a photo of the lobbyist’s USDA address:

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    Another non-farm address of a bailout recipient is at a Minneapolis skyscraper, is the location of R.D. Brummond and Sons LLC., which the Trump administration handled over nearly $100,000 this spring. The second is a mansion in a wealthy lakeside community in Blaine, Minn., a Minneapolis suburb, the address of Karnik Leifker LLC., which received about $100,000.

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    EWG has previously reported that nearly 20,000 city slickers in the nation’s 50 largest cities received farm subsidies in 2017, including hundreds who have received payments for three decades.

    One farm bailout went to the address of a mansion located on a golf course of Craig Athen, of Omaha, Neb., who received $115,000 in government money this year.

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    Richard M. Morgan, of Columbus, Ohio, another bailout recipient this year, had $50,000 in farm bailout money go to an address of a mansion located on a golf course.

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    The environmental advocacy group said 3,500 bailout recipients had collected more than $125,000 in farm bailouts through April.

    In a previous report, EWG found that farm bailouts are flowing the wealthiest farmers.

    They suggested that the next bailout rounds would only increase the problem of how bailouts are not protecting mom-and-pop farmers, but rather showering wealthy farmers with money.

    Deline Farms Partnership, a soybean farm in Charleston, Mo., was the largest bailout recipient this year receiving nearly $1,000,000.

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    EWG said the report is based on $8.4 billion of farm bailouts through April. The USDA data was obtained via the Freedom of Information Act.

    And earlier this month, President Trump hinted at a third farm bailout.

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    EWG said farm bailouts were intended to provide a level of assistance proportionate to a farm’s size and success, which have effectively crippled mom-and-pop to medium-sized farmers, by allowing more significant operations to receive the most bailout money.

    This is more evidence that government interventionism in markets and socialist bailouts via the Trump administration aren’t working as farm incomes collapse, could trigger a farm bust in 2020.

  • Zombie Deer Disease Rears Its Ugly Head: Canada Issues Stark Warning About "Always Fatal" Infection

    Authored by Dagny Taggart via The Organic Prepper blog,

    Earlier this year, an infectious disease expert warned that a deadly disease found in deer could infect humans in the near future.

    Often referred to as “zombie deer” disease because of the symptoms, Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) has been reported in at least 26 states in the continental United States and in four provinces in Canada. In addition, CWD has been reported in reindeer and/or moose in Norway, Finland, and Sweden, and a small number of imported cases have been reported in South Korea. The disease has also been found in farmed deer and elk.

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    To view a map that shows the distribution of CWD in North America, click here: Expanding Distribution of Chronic Wasting Disease

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    CWD was recently detected in a herd of deer in Canada.

    On July 26, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) confirmed a case of CWD in a herd of white-tailed deer, reports Global News:

    An Alberta deer farm recorded Canada’s third case of a so-called “zombie deer disease” last month.

    While the chronic wasting disease (CWD) outbreak was contained — and no infected meat entered the Canadian food supply — experts say more needs to be done to stop the infectious disease from spreading.

    The herd was “humanely destroyed on site and did not enter the food chain,” the agency told Global News in a statement. “[The farm] remains under quarantine and disease response activities have been initiated.”

    This is the third case of CWD in Canada for 2019. The two other infections were also identified in Alberta — on Feb. 28 in elk and on June 21 in white-tailed deer. (source)

    Before we discuss why this news is important, let’s back up a bit and talk about what CWD is and how it may eventually impact the food supply.

    What is CWD?

    CWD is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy disease found in deer, elk, moose, reindeer, and caribou. It is a progressive disease that is always fatal.

    The disease is believed to be caused by abnormal proteins called prions, which are thought to cause damage to other normal prion proteins that can be found in tissues throughout the body. They are most often found in the brain and spinal cord, leading to brain damage and development of prion diseases. Infected brain cells eventually burst, leaving behind microscopic empty spaces in the brain matter that give it a “spongy” look.

    Prions are misfolded proteins that are somehow infectious (we’re still not really sure how or why) and for which we have no treatments or cures. If you were to catch one, you’d basically deteriorate over the course of several months, possibly losing the ability to speak or move, and eventually you would die. Doctors wouldn’t be able to do anything to save you. (source)

    The disease is believed to spread through saliva, urine, or feces from live deer or through contact with high-risk parts such as the backbone, eyes, or spleen of harvested deer. The disease can spread through the natural movement of deer but it spreads farther and quicker when humans move the deer.

    Symptoms develop slowly – sometimes taking years to appear – and include stumbling, lack of coordination, drooling, lack of fear of people, and aggression.

    Can CWD be transmitted to humans?

    While there is no direct scientific evidence to suggest that CWD can be transmitted to humans, the CFIA says the consumption of meat from contaminated animals should be avoided.

    However, some experts say CWD is a concern because the disease is adapting and may become a serious threat:

    Darrel Rowledge, the director of Alliance for Public Wildlife, said CWD shouldn’t be discounted as an animal-only problem.

    Rowledge said that while it’s difficult for a disease to jump from one species to another, signs the disease is evolving are alarming.

    “Just because it hasn’t happened yet, doesn’t mean that it hasn’t happened,” he said. “A majority of our diseases have evolved to a place where they can infect people.

    “We think about 70 percent of our diseases have come to us from other animals.” (source)

    Rowledge’s warning echoes that of another expert. Earlier this year, Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told lawmakers that CWD should be treated as a public health issue. Osterholm (who sat on a panel of experts tracking the emergence of mad cow disease, or BSE, decades ago) issued this warning during a hearing:

    “It is my best professional judgment based on my public health experience and the risk of BSE transmission to humans in the 1980s and 1990s and my extensive review and evaluation of laboratory research studies … that it is probable that human cases of CWD associated with the consumption of contaminated meat will be documented in the years ahead. It is possible that number of human cases will be substantial and will not be isolated events.” (source)

    While he is aware that skeptics will accuse him of fear-mongering, Osterholm said, “If Stephen King could write an infectious disease novel, he would write about prions like this.”

    There is a very similar disease that has already killed people.

    As we reported earlier this year, Osterholm noted that for years, many public health and beef industry experts did not believe a similar disease – bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, also known as “mad cow disease” – could infect people:

    In 1996, researchers found strong evidence that BSE can infect humans as a variant known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD).

    Since 1996, more than 230 vCJD cases have been identified in 12 countries, 178 of them in the United Kingdom, 27 in France, and four in the United States. Just last fall, a case of mad cow disease was confirmed in Scotland, reports Food Safety News.

    Also important to note: Hunters in Kentucky contracted a version of spongiform encephalopathy from squirrels in the 1990s. (source)

    CJD has killed several people. Some of the victims consumed venison – and their cases progressed rapidly. To read about those cases, please see Can “Zombie Deer” Disease Kill Humans? Research Suggests It ALREADY HAS.

    Rowledge is one of 30 experts from across North America who sent a letter to the Canadian federal government in June, urging the prime minister to “mandate, fund and undertake” a number of “emergency directives” to contain the disease, prevent human exposure and expand its surveillance program of prion diseases, Global News reports:

    The letter — signed by scientists, hunting groups and Indigenous advocates — labeled the spread of CWD an epidemic.

    “While no human cases of CWD have been confirmed, scientists note that while low, the risk is not zero — and it is evolving,” the letter reads.

    “Thousands of CWD-infected animals are being consumed by hunters and their families across North America every year. Even a single transfer to a person — proving that humans are susceptible — would bring catastrophic consequences with limited options.”

    Rowledge and the other experts used mad cow as an example of what can happen when diseases evolve.

    “The notion that there is insufficient proof that CWD will transfer to humans is deceptive and irresponsible, just like BSE… With the BSE inquiry, one of its key lessons was that they said that they should not have been waiting for a person to die.” (source)

    There haven’t been any documented cases of CWD in Manitoba, but the government there is planning to build a health lab in Dauphin to detect the disease because experts believe it will eventually arrive in the province, CBC News reports:

    Manitoba Sustainable Development posted a request for proposals online late last month to build the Dauphin Big Game Health Laboratory.

    The province already has a lab in Dauphin as part of its disease surveillance programs, and chronic wasting disease is the main concern, a Sustainable Development spokesperson said.

    Chronic wasting disease is a fatal neurological disease related to mad cow disease and there’s no known cure.

    The province has extended the surveillance zone for the disease, in which hunters are required to submit heads of their kills for analysis. The province anticipates a rise in samples, the provincial spokesperson said. (source)

    Brian Kotak, managing director of the Manitoba Wildlife Federation, told CBC News that a growing body of research suggests the diseased proteins found in deer infected with chronic wasting disease may impact human health when consumed. That’s one reason he’s pleased the province is working to build a lab. “That’s fantastic news and really proactive on their part,” he said.

    There are a few things you need to know about CWD.

    A 2017 study titled Chronic wasting disease: Emerging prions and their potential risk states that “CWD is one of the most contagious prion diseases”.

    Plants can act as a carrier of CWD because they can uptake prions from contaminated soil and transport them to different parts of the plant.

    An infected animal can shed the disease a lot over a year (via urine and feces), and its decomposing body can further infect the soil and therefore the plants.

    Killing CWD is impossible. Antibiotics do not kill CWD. Neither does cooking.

    To give you an idea of just how persistent prions are: In 1985, the Colorado Division of Wildlife tried to eliminate CWD from a research facility by treating the soil with chlorine, removing the treated soil, and applying an additional chlorine treatment before letting the facility remain vacant for more than a year. Those efforts failed – they were unsuccessful in eliminating CWD from the facility.

    CWD prions are accumulating, and prions have a long incubation period — sometimes as long as 30 to 40 years in humans. A person can be infected and not know it for decades.

    Here’s how you can avoid infection with CWD.

    While CWD is scary and is spreading through cervids in North America, this doesn’t mean that you must completely avoid game. However, you have to be careful.

    The CDC offers some guidelines for hunters:

    Hunters harvesting wild deer and elk from areas with reported CWD should check state wildlife and public health guidance to see whether testing of animals is recommended or required in a given state or region. In areas where CWD is known to be present, CDC recommends that hunters strongly consider having those animals tested before eating the meat. (source)

    In addition, the agency advises hunters to avoid eating meat from deer and elk that look sick or test positive for CWD. They should wear gloves when field-dressing carcasses and minimize the handling of brain and spinal cord tissues. As a precaution, they should avoid eating deer and elk tissues known to harbor the CWD agent (e.g., brain, spinal cord, eyes, spleen, tonsils, lymph nodes) from areas where CWD has been identified.

    In addition, hunters should wash their hands and instruments thoroughly after field dressing is completed. When taking the game to be processed, they should request that their animal is processed individually, without meat from other animals being added to the meat from their animal.

    If hunters notice animals that are unusually thin and exhibit behavior such as having trouble walking, as well as those acting tame around humans and allowing someone to approach them, they should notify their state wildlife agency.

    The CDC also states that “a negative test result does not guarantee that an individual animal is not infected with CWD, but it does make it considerably less likely and may reduce your risk of exposure to CWD.”

    Is this how the real zombie apocalypse starts?

  • 12 Reasons Why Negative Rates Will Devastate The World

    It has been a thesis over 20 years in the making, but with every passing day, SocGen’s Albert Edwards – who first coined the term “Ice Age” to describe the state of the world in which every debt issue ends up with a negative yield as capital markets and economies collapse into a deflationary singularity – is that much closer to having the victory lap of a lifetime. Although, we doubt he is happy about it.

    Commenting on the interest rate collapse he has been (correctly) predicting ever since he first observed Japan’s great bubble bust of the 1980s and which resulted in both NIRP and QE, and which he (correctly) expected would spread across the rest of the world, leading to a “Japanification” of every major bond market…

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    … Edwards said that what bond markets are telling us is “that the cycle is ending with the central banks having failed to drive core CPI inflation higher. So Japanese-style outright deflation lies ahead at a time when western economies have piled debt sky high.”

    Needless to say that’s not good, not least of all because we now live in a world in which the bond universe with negative yields continued to grow at an exponential pace, rising rapidly over the past two weeks and reaching a record $16.4 trillion…

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    … rising  significantly above the previous mid-2016 record high of around $12.2tr. The expansion of the universe of negatively yielding bonds as a percentage of total is shown below: as of the last week, this proportion increased further to around 30.0%, above the mid-2016 record high of 25.8%.

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    Meanwhile, as the world is blanketed by Edwards’ Ice Age, one can see the spread of negative rates both in space and in time. As JPMorgan shows, the spectrum of negative yielding universe expanded this year not only from shorter   duration to longer duration government bonds but also down the risk spectrum from core Euro area government bonds to bonds issued by Peripheral countries as shown below.

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    The next chart shows the proportion of bonds in negative territory as a % of total bonds in each maturity bucket across various countries within the JPM GBI Broad index. In Europe, we now have four counties, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands and Finland with their full maturity spectrum trading with negative yields. Most periphery countries have at least a portion of their maturity spectrum trading with negative yields.

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    Here, a perverse “negative gamma” type of feedback loop emerges, as this growing universe of negatively yielding bonds becomes self-reinforcing as certain investors such as insurance companies and pension funds rush to avoid locking in negative yields to maturity. This has been a contributing factor to the significant flattening of the Euro area and Japanese curves, with most curves now firmly in negative territory, and leaves USTs as the last high yielder left among core bond markets. Indeed, as BofA shockingly found yesterday, the US share of global investment grade yields has climbed to 94% in the entire world, and is set to become 100% in the coming days..

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    Making matters worse, when factoring in currency hedging costs, only the very long-end of the UST curve still offers a positive yield for European and Japanese investors, meaning they may be forced to consider spread product such as MBS or HG corporate bonds instead. Indeed, the latest TIC data showed that while USTs have seen cumulative outflows of nearly $30bn YTD, Agency and corporate bonds have seen inflows of $160bn.

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    And looking at the flows from Japanese and European investors into foreign bonds, both have seen an acceleration in outflows since the turn of the year as the bond market rally has intensified, with the cumulative outflows from Japanese investors YTD in particular running at their fastest pace since January 2016 when the BoJ cut deposit rates into negative territory.

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    So what are the global, economic and financial implications of this gradual Japanification and relentless decline into ever more negative interest rates?

    As JPMorgan Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou writes in this week’s Flows and Liquidity, a broader issue concerns the impact of negative rates on asset allocation, noting that “there is little doubt that negative yields are causing a distortion in the pricing of duration and credit risk as pension funds and insurance companies are forced to move further up the maturity and credit curve  to avoid negative yields.” In other words, both duration, ie term premia and credit risk premia, are likely distorted and are likely to be distorted further if the universe of negatively yielding bonds expands further. The immediate implication is that, according to the JPM analyst, “government yield curves and credit spread curves are losing their information content.” Indeed, as Panigirtzoglou adds, “the fact that the 3m10y or 2y10y UST spreads have inverted is less of a reflection of US  recession risks and more of a reflection of the desperation for yield by foreign investors flocking into USD denominated bonds as bond yields turned more negative in Europe and Japan.”

    Meanwhile, US recession risks are elevated by the inversion at the front end of US money market curves which are less distorted by foreign flows, rather than the inversion of 3m10y or 2y10y UST spreads. Similarly, the fact that credit spreads have tightened, especially in Europe, is less of a reflection of an improving economy and more a reflection of European pension funds and insurance companies being forced to shift into corporate bonds to avoid very negative yields in the government space. In addition, it is likely exacerbated by expectations of the ECB restarting QE, including corporate bond purchases.

    What about the impact of negative bond yields on equities?

    Specifically, will negative rates force pension funds and insurance companies or other investors that dislike negative rates to move to equities? Or will pension funds and insurance companies hoover everything with positive yields in the fixed income space, including alternatives such as private debt, and avoid equity asset classes?

    If the latter is the case and pension funds and insurance companies, a $53 trillion AUM universe in the G4 economies, avoid equities either because of regulatory constraints or demographics or simply because negative bond yields create a sense of an abnormal and uncertain environment, then the yield compression in the fixed income space could fail to spill over to equity asset classes, according to JPM. This means that the mirror image of lower bond yields would be higher rather than lower Equity Risk Premia. Indeed, the bank’s Equity Risk Premium proxy for the S&P500 index shows that since negative yields started emerging in core bond markets post the first ECB move to negative policy rate territory in June 2014, Equity Risk Premia have risen rather than fallen. This, for central banks hoping that negative rates will force stock prices to record highs, is a truly stunning development.

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    There is a similar picture with real estate. By JPMorgan estimates, property yields for the most liquid real estate markets in the world, i.e. US commercial real estate, show that yields have declined only modestly over the past year despite a compression in government bond yields. The compression in government bond yields has failed to spill over in any strong way into real estate implying that real estate risk premia vs government bonds have risen rather than fallen over the past year

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    In other words, as the JPMorgan strategist warns, “the hope that central banks experimenting with negative rates have that negative rates will cause a compression in risk premia in riskier asset classes beyond fixed income markets, such as equities and real estate, might not materialize.“

    Needless to say this would be a historic catastrophe for capital markets, where central banks – in control over interest rates for the past century – will have officially lost control as lower rates no longer lead to easier financial conditions and higher asset prices.

    A second and perhaps more important issue is about the unintended consequences of negative rates.

    As readers will recall, it was back in February 2016 that we presented a JPMorgan analysis from Panigirtzoglou, in which he argued that there are several unintended consequences from very negative policy rates, with little evidence of a positive impact in Switzerland and Denmark, two of the earliest countries experimenting with very negative policy rates.

    So now that there is a new record amount of negative-yielding debt, it is time revisit these unintended consequences below:

    1. Lower bank profitability

    It is true that a tiered deposit rate scheme, pioneered by Danish and Swiss central banks, introduced later by the BoJ and now considered by the ECB, reduces the burden on banks from taxing reserves. This is because only a portion of bank reserves are subjected to very negative interest rates. Indeed, the experience from Switzerland, Denmark and Japan is that subjecting even a small portion of reserves to the lower deposit rate could be enough to generate the marginal flow needed to push interbank rates or bond yields lower. In other words, a tiered deposit scheme can result in lower interest rates without penalizing banks too much.

    However, even if the portion of reserves subjected to deeply negative rates is limited, banks are not immune to a reduction in net interest income, especially if interest rates move deeper into negative territory. This is because banks seem unable or unwilling to pass negative deposit rates to their retail customers, leaving them with few options to offset costs. These costs not only include the negative interest on their reserves with the central bank (which can be limited by a tiered scheme) but also include reduced income from security holdings as government bond yields turn negative and a potential loss in income from reduced credit creation and money market activity.

    Indeed deeply negative policy rates have taken their toll on Danish, Swiss and Japanese banks’ net interest income

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    As JPM points out (and as it will find out soon enough personally), net interest income as % of assets has been on a declining trend since early 2015 for both Danish and Swiss banks following the introduction of very negative policy rates in these countries. In Japan, net interest margins had already deteriorated markedly by early 2016 when the BoJ adopted negative rates, but a shallower decline has continued. By contrast, net interest margins for Euro area banks appear to have held up somewhat better at least at the regional level. That said, there has been little decline in new lending rates after the ECB pushed lending rates into more negative territory in end-2015 and early 2016 even as the ECB’s second TLTRO program has helped reduce funding costs by providing funding at -40bp for banks that met relatively generous lending targets, likely supporting net interest margins.

    And the contrast between banks in countries where central banks have experimented with negative deposit rates, where net interest margins have at best remained stable as in the case of the Euro area, and the US, is striking. In the latter, banks saw an improvement in net interest margins from a trough in 2016 against a background of rising central bank policy rates and despite credit creation if anything slowing modestly since early 2016, as well as a flattening  in the US yield curve.

    2. Reduced rather than increased credit creation to the real economy

    First the good news: according to Panigirtzoglou, the introduction of modestly negative policy rates appears to have had a positive impact on credit creation. Overall credit creation improved in Denmark during 2013 and 2014 following the introduction of modestly negative policy rates in the summer of 2012. The ECB introduced negative rates in the middle of 2014 and credit creation saw a marked improvement in the Euro area with a shift from contraction to modest expansion. Sweden introduced modestly negative policy rates in 2015 and during last year credit creation to the real economy including households and non-financial corporates improved (to SEK52bn in the first three quarters of last year vs. SEK46bn for the whole of 2014).

    Now the bad: there was little evidence that very negative policy rates helped credit creation further. Denmark and Switzerland introduced very negative policy rates in 2015. Credit creation to the real economy deteriorated in Denmark during 2015 vs the previous year. Indeed, it deteriorated from around DKK80bn in 2014 to DKK74bn in 2015, before subsequently increasing above DKK80bn from 2016 onward. In Switzerland the total stock of loans rose by just CHF11bn in 2015 compared to CHF31bn in 2014. Subsequently, growth in the stock of loans has risen to CHF25-40bn per year in 2016-2018, but has not surpassed the CHF46bn seen in 2013. So the evidence from Denmark and Switzerland is that the introduction of deeply negative interest rates was initially accompanied by a deterioration rather than improvement in credit creation. The subsequent recovery in lending is likely at least in part tied to an improving global growth backdrop after 2015, though at least it suggests that credit growth was not permanently weakened.

    The initial evidence on credit creation from the Euro area was mixed at best: net credit creation in the Euro area declined sharply during the Euro area crisis and remained weak even as the ECB pushed deposit rates to -20bp in 2014. It subsequently recovered, though to fairly muted growth rates by historical standards. And pushing deposit rates further into negative territory at the Dec15 and Mar16 meetings did not appear to boost lending growth rates further.

    So the initial experience of policy rates being pushed into very negative territory was that it was associated at best with little clear impact on credit creation and in some cases in outright contraction in loan creation, and the subsequent recovery seems subdued by historical standards.

    3. Higher rather than lower bank lending rates

    The message is similar to that from credit creation: the introduction of modestly negative policy rates appears to have resulted in a decline in bank lending rates to the real economy, i.e. to households and non-financial corporations. Overall bank lending rates for new loans improved in Denmark during 2013 and 2104 following the introduction of modestly negative rates in the summer of 2012. The ECB introduced negative rates around the middle of 2014, pushing the deposit rate to – 20bp, and bank lending rates also declined since then. Sweden introduced modestly negative policy rates in 2015 and bank lending rates to the real economy, including households and non-financial corporates declined during 2015.

    But there was less support for the idea that deeper negative policy rates helped to further reduce bank lending rates. Denmark and Switzerland introduced very negative policy rates in 2015. In Denmark bank lending rates for new loans to non-financial corporations declined by around 40bp during 2014, but rose from late 2014 to mid-2015 by around 20bp. Bank lending rates for new loans to households declined by around 100bp during 2014 but were essentially flat during  2015 after initially rising by 60bp in 1H15. In Switzerland, bank lending rates for new investment loans to non-financial corporations went marginally higher by around 5bp during both 2015 and 2014. Bank lending rates for 10y fixed-rate mortgage loans declined until January 2015, and increased until mid-2015 before drifting towards Jan-2015 levels over the following year. Bank lending rates for variable-rate mortgage loans linked to a base rate fell until Jan15, before rising modestly by mid-2015. In the Euro area, where lending rates on new business for both households and non-financial companies declined by around 50bp during 2014, declines from late 2015 to mid-2016 when deposit rates were pushed deeper into negative territory, were more modest at around 20bp for NFCs. And while households saw larger declines in mortgage rates, rates for new loans for consumption were essentially flat.

    Subsequently, the experience with deeply negative policy rates has been mixed. In Denmark, new loan rates to both NFCs and households declined by around 60bp from late 2016 to mid-2019. In Switzerland, bank lending rates for new investment loans to NFCs stabilized and were little changed in 2016-17, and declined by 5bp during 1H18 before stabilizing again. Lending rates for new 10y fixed-rate mortgages drifted 20bp higher from late 2016 to October 2018, before the bond market rally since then have seen fixed rate mortgages decline. And, despite a 50bp cut in the policy rate to -75bp in early 2015, rates on new variable interest rate mortgages linked to the policy rate declined around 10bp in total from early 2015 to late 2016 before stabilizing. In the Euro area, by contrast, loan rates on new business to NFCs and households have been relatively little changed since mid-2016. And in Sweden, new loan rates to households and NFCs have been largely stable since mid-2015.

    So the evidence from Switzerland, the Euro area and Sweden appears to be that deeply negative policy rates have overall seen little further decline of lending rates as banks, whose deposit rates are largely floored at zero, struggle to avoid depressing their net interest margins further. Only in Denmark have lending rates continued to decline in subsequent years

    4. Higher rather  than lower savings rates by households and non-financial corporates.

    This was a big shock when we first pointed it out back in 2015, and quickly became one of Jeff Gundlach’s favorite talking points. For example when we look at household sector savings rates in the US, Euro area and Japan there is little evidence of lower savings rates in the Euro area and Japan, which had introduced negative policy rates in recent years, relative to the US.

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    Similarly there is little evidence that the non-financial corporate sectors of Euro area and Japan have reduced their financial surplus by more than the US since the introduction of negative policy rates in 2014. Higher uncertainty and the pressure to save more for retirement are likely behind persistently high savings rates by both households and companies.

    5. Impaired functioning of money markets

    As previously discussed, negative rates coupled with QE had caused significant slowdown in money market activity: they quite literally are an ice age . Indeed, daily data show that both unsecured (EONIA volume) and secured (GC Pooling EUR overnight index volume) money market volumes have downshifted significantly since the ECB introduced negative rates in mid-2014 and accelerated once the ECB started its bond purchase program in early 2015, and pushed  rates into more negative territory in late 2015/early 2016.

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    And there has been at best modest signs of improvement after the ECB ended its QE program more recently. Indeed, unsecured volumes have declined further from a daily average of €4bn in 2018 to €2.4bn in 2019 to-date, though secured volumes have firmed modestly from a daily average of around €3.2bn in 2018 to €3.8bn in 2019 to-date. The collapse in money market volumes over the past years is concerning and shows that negative depo rates can make the functioning of money markets problematic even after QE is halted. Moving deeper into negative territory could exacerbate this problem.

    6. Reduced liquidity in bond markets

    There is also a risk that, not only the functioning of money markets that becomes impaired, but that according to JPM, liquidity in bond markets could also be affected by negative bond yields as real money investors are in principle less
    willing to trade bonds with negative yields. The next chart shows that the market depth of 10-year German government bond futures declined sharply this year as yields turned negative, reversing much of the improvement that occurred since mid-2016, when 10y Bund yields also turned negative. Previous sharp declines in market depth have also been associated with sharp sell-offs such as the 2015 VaR shock and in the aftermath of the US presidential election in 4Q16, but the magnitude of decline in market depth since the start of 2019 stands out  nonetheless.

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    7. Increased rather than reduced fragmentation

    According to JPM’s Panigirtzoglou, there has been no improvement in the “fragmentation” of interbank markets since the first ECB depo rate cut in June 2014. ECB data show that the share of cross-border unsecured overnight interbank activity stopped improving in 2014 after rapid improvement during the second half of 2012 and during 2013. Moreover, the Euro Money Market Survey for September 2015 showed that a greater portion of the unsecured market was with national counterparties at 46% in 2015 relative to 41% in 2014. The equivalent shares for the secured market were 27% for 2015 vs. 24% in 2014; i.e. there was also deterioration in cross peripheral government paper in Euro repo markets has in fact declined between mid-2014 and mid 2015 according to the semiannual ICMA repo market survey.

    Since then, the latest ECB annual financial integration indicators, from July 2019, suggest the proportion of secured and unsecured money market transactions completed with domestic counterparties has increased from 25% in 2015 to 40% in 2019. The use of cross-border collateral in ECB monetary policy operations, which had recovered from a low of around 20% in late 2013 to close to 30% by early 2015 even as policy rates moved into modestly negative territory before stabilizing, has been declining steadily since mid-2016. And the interquartile range of euro area countries’ average unsecured interbank lending rates drifted higher from mid-2014 to mid-2016 as policy rates were pushed into steadily more negative territory. From mid-2016, when the ECB’s TLTRO 2 operations were conducted, the interquartile range narrowed until early 2018, after which it has widened again sharply.

    In addition, there has been deterioration in Target 2 balances since mid-2014, the broadest among quantitative measures of fragmentation. The sum of Spanish and Italian Target 2 balances has deteriorated by moving deeply into negative territory since the ECB first cut its depo rate to negative. After hitting a high of -€347bn in July 2014, the sum of Spanish and Italian Target 2 balances have been steadily declining and reached a low of €893bn in November 2018 before increasing slightly.

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    The reasons for the Target 2 widening have been somewhat different after the ECB started QE compared to the Euro area sovereign crisis. As we have argued previously, the more recent decline has likely been exacerbated by investors from outside the Euro area, who often hold cash accounts in core countries, selling e.g. Italian bonds to the Bank of Italy, this registers as an increase in the Target 2 liability. Nonetheless, this decline in the Target 2 balances still represents a measure of fragmentation.

    In all, the evidence from money markets and Target 2 balances is at best mixed in terms of fragmentation, with some deterioration in some metrics, since the ECB introduced negative depo rates in June 2014. This is not to say that negative depo rates didn’t bolster the search for yield in the government space and the velocity of reserves, i.e. passing on the “hot potato” within the Euro area banking system. It did, as evidenced by the collapse in interest rates, the rapid expansion of the universe of negatively-yielding government bonds in the euro area core, and the concentration of reserves in core banks’ balance sheets. But while there have been capital inflows into some periphery countries, notably Spain, Italy has seen outflows particularly from bonds.

    What is the channel via which negative policy rates could increase fragmentation? One potential channel is the risk appetite of banks. To the extent that negative policy rates hurt bank profitability, banks might become less willing to take risk and thus less willing to lend in interbank markets or to take credit risk in their bond portfolios. On the latter, there appears to be support from much of the academic literature that negative rates have depressed lending volumes for banks with high deposit shares. At the same time, work by the ECB (by Demiralp et al, May 2019) using Euro area bank level lending data suggests when controlled for both high retail deposit ratios and high negatively yielding excess liquidity ratios, as banks particularly exposed to negative rates, there has been a positive relationship with lending. As the ECB contemplates pushing deposit rates into even more negative territory, this is clearly a key issue – could more negative rates backfire by putting more pressure on bank profitability and curb risk-taking?

    8. Lower bond yields increase pension fund and insurance company deficits putting pressure on pension funds to match assets and liabilities.

    This pressure to move further away from equities and other high risk assets into fixed income is even stronger in countries like Japan where demographic pressures are more intense. For example, old age dependency ratios, i.e. the proportion of the population aged 65 years and over as a percentage of the population aged 15-64 years, have been rising steadily, with Japan aging more rapidly than the US or Europe.

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    Generally, an aging population means that allocations are likely to shift towards relatively safer instruments as the ability  to withstand larger drawdowns on capital diminishes as individuals age. And the effect of these  demographic rends is likely a factor in the high share of total assets held in bonds by Japanese pension funds, especially relative to their US counterparts.

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    What is striking in Japan is that, in contrast to GPIF, which shifted towards equities post Abenomics most likely under political pressure, private Japanese pension funds have if anything reduced their equity allocations modestly

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    In general pension funds and insurance companies including those outside Japan are facing an increase in their liabilities and as a result a deterioration in their funded status. And the options pension funds and insurance companies are limited. On the asset side they can increase duration risk by shifting into even longer maturity bonds, increase credit risk by shifting into even riskier spread products, and increase fx risk by shifting into higher yielding foreign bonds. On the liability side they reduce benefits to new and sometimes existing plan beneficiaries, or they ask plan sponsors to increase their contributions.

    Pension funds and insurance companies which are facing a big increase in their liabilities have limited options such as taking a lot more fx and credit risk by shifting to foreign government or corporate bond markets, reducing benefits to new and sometimes to existing plan beneficiaries, or ask plan sponsors to increase their contributions. The overall impact is that lower yields can induce households, or companies that act as plan sponsors, to save even more for the future, an argument we have made since 2014, and one which not a single economist appears able to grasp.

    9. More income and wealth inequality as households and small businesses fail to benefit or are even hurt from negative rates.

    The main beneficiaries of negative rates have been large corporates which have seen a collapse to their interest expense as well as private equity companies that are able to lever by even more than in previous cycles to amplify their profits. Indeed, the median debt to EBITDA ratio for both HG and HY companies has risen in recent years to well above the peaks seen in previous cycles.

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    10. Central banks are trapped.

    Negative rates coupled with QE raise questions about central banks’ exit potentially becoming more difficult in the future and raise the risk of a policy error as well as perceptions about debt monetization. It potentially creates bond bubbles by lowering bond yields below their equilibrium or fair value, creating fears that an eventual return to normality could be accompanied by sharp price declines. Perceptions about bond bubbles can increase long term uncertainty. In turn, higher uncertainty might prevent economic agents such as businesses from spending.

    11. The death of creative destruction and the zombification of corporations

    Low credit spreads and corporate bond yields are an intended consequence of negative rates as pension funds
    and insurance companies are forced to shift up both the maturity and credit curve, but not without distortions. By
    potentially allowing unproductive and inefficient companies to survive, helped by low debt servicing costs, negative rates could potentially hinder the creative destruction taking place during a normal economic cycle. In principle, similar to QE, negative rates could thus make economies less efficient or productive over time. The debate about so called “zombie” companies has been particularly intense in Japan given the low business turnover rate. According to OECD, Japan’s business startup and closure rate is about 5%, roughly a third of that in other advanced economies with several commentators blaming the BoJ’s ultra-accommodative policies for this problem.

    12. QE could exacerbate so called “currency wars”.

    The value of the Japanese yen collapsed after Abenomics started in November 2012 and has stayed at historical lows since then helped by BoJ’s ultra-accommodative monetary policy. This is shown in the next chart by the real trade weighted index of the Japanese yen.

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    Japan’s main competitors across EM and DM have been feeling the pressure from this depreciation, though it is not clear that the depreciation necessarily means the yen is undervalued. Similarly, more recently, the ECB’s prospective shift towards more negative rates is currently putting downward pressure on the euro vs the dollar risking a response by the US administration

    * * *

    Putting all of the above together, JPMorgan warns that moving to very negative policy rates – as the world is clearly doing now – by central banks is not without risks or side effects. Modestly negative policy rates had perhaps an overall positive impact initially, but keeping rates in very negative territory for prolonged periods or navigating to even deeper negative territory could unleash more unintended consequences than benefits. Just like QE, which from an emergency medicine to prevent the world from dying became a laxative to be used daily to prop up stock markets for the better part of the past decade. 

    Still, in JPM’s opinion, this does not mean that central banks are without ammunition. Shifting to purchases of assets  other than government bonds such as corporate bonds or bank loans has been used only sparingly so far. Even modest amounts of bank loan purchases could be more powerful than large purchases of government bonds, even if this implies central banks assuming more risk. This is especially true in the euro area where several countries face a persistent drag from non-performing loans, and where the ECB is very likely to get actively involved in reducing NPLs further by outright buying the loans.

    Ironically, even the JPMorgan strategist warns that he is “rather reluctant to advocate purchases of equities given the lack of a positive impact from BoJ’s equity ETF purchases so far, either in terms of the relative performance or the liquidity of the Japanese equity market.”

    Finally, in a claim that may spark a vendetta between Panigirtzoglou and Albert Edwards, the JPM strategist concludes that “negative rates are neither unavoidable nor necessary.” As he explains, “Japanization didn’t imply negative yields before the BoJ experimented with negative policy rates, following the experiment of the ECB. And negative rates do not appear to have delivered more effective stimulus and helped Japan to exit its longstanding economic malaise.”

    Panigirtzoglou goes one further, and in debunking a rather vocal financial troll who somehow has a prime time presence on financial TV and media, says that according to conversations with clients “the experiments of central banks with negative rates are viewed more as a policy mistake rather than stimulus and create a sense of an abnormal and uncertain environment that damages not only banks but also consumer and business confidence.“

    It is this sense of abnormality and uncertainty that makes businesses and consumers less rather than more keen to spend and banks more rather than less averse to taking risk and extending credit to the real economy.

    Which is also why if and when negative rates are adopted by every central bank in the world, the consequences for society, for the economy, and for capital markets will be nothing short of catastrophic.

  • Austin Slammed By Crippling Ransomware Attack

    A coordinated ransomware attack has affected at least 20 local government entities in Texas, the Texas Department of Information Resources said. It would not release information about which local governments have been affected.

    The Texas Division of Emergency Management is coordinating support from other state agencies through the Texas State Operations Center at DPS headquarters in Austin, according to KUT News.

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    City employees scrambling in the aftermath of the attack.

    Press secretary for the department, Elliot Sprehe, said DIR was working to confirm which government entities are affected and which ones are still standing.

    “It looks like we found out earlier today, but we’re not currently releasing who’s impacted due to security concerns,” he said.

    KUT tried to contact the city of Austin for more details about the attack but the city refused to release any more information.

    The Department of Information Resources advises jurisdictions that have been impacted to contact their local Texas Department of Emergency Management Disaster District Coordinator. DIR says it’s committed to providing the resources necessary to bring affected entities “back online.”

    Of course, this isn’t the only major ransomware attack to inflict a major southern city in recent months:The City of Atlanta was hit with a crippling ransomware attack last spring, and Baltimore got hit with an attack that will cost the city nearly $20 million when it’s all said and done.

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Aug 17

Today’s News 17th August 2019

  • Russia's Proposal For Persian Gulf Peace

    Via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    There is an eminently reasonable and feasible way to avoid conflict in the Persian Gulf, and to secure peace. The principles of multilateralism and international law must be adhered to. It seems almost astounding that one has to appeal for such obvious basic norms.

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    Fortunately, Russia has presented a roadmap for implementing a security concept in the vital waterway based on the above principles.

    Russia’s deputy envoy to the United Nations, Dmitry Polyansky, outlined a possible international coalition to provide security for commercial shipping through the strategically important Persian Gulf. The narrow outlet accounts for up to 30 per cent of all globally shipped oil on a daily basis. Virtually every nation has a stake in the safe passage of tankers. Any disruption would have huge negative consequences for the world economy, impacting all nations.

    The Russian proposal, which has been submitted to the UN Security Council, is currently being considered by various parties. Crucially, the security concept put forward by Moscow relies on the participation of the Gulf nations, including Iran. Rather than being led by an outside power, the Russian proposal envisages a region-led effort.

    This multilateral arrangement for cooperation between nations is solidly within the principles of the UN Charter and international law. Potentially, it can build trust and positive relations, and thereby reduce the climate of tensions and uncertainty which have intensified over recent months, primarily between the United States and Iran.

    Washington has blamed Iran for several sabotage incidents on commercial shipping since June. The Americans have not provided any proof for their claims. Iran, for its part, denies any malfeasance and instead has pointed to “malign conspiracy”aimed at stoking tensions, or worse, precipitate an all-out military confrontation between the US and Iran. Significantly, too, the problem of alleged sabotage and danger to shipping followed the increased deployment of US forces in the region during May, ostensibly to counter anticipated “Iranian aggression”.

    One thing for sure is that the US proposal for a naval coalition led by Washington, purportedly to “protect shipping” in the Gulf, is a non-starter. Most nations have rebuffed the American plan. Germany, France and other European Union states have given it a resounding pass. Even Arab nations allied with the US, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have demurred on the idea. Significantly, too, the Gulf states have refrained from following Washington’s line of fingering Iran for the unknown sabotage incidents.

    After weeks of lobbying for its US-led “navy coalition”, Washington appears to have recruited just two other partners: Britain and Israel.

    The term “coalition” is therefore a misnomer in this context. It also has no credibility as a force serving to uphold international law and security. The position of the US-led axis is one of outright hostility towards Iran. It is premised on the flawed assumption that Iran is the “problem”.

    Any such extra-regional military force is by definition a source of further insecurity and tensions in the Persian Gulf, as Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has noted. Arguably, any such US-led deployment is illegal because it is not mandated by the UN Security Council. The US plan relies on a unilateral imposition of American force along with a coterie of allies who have a long history of facilitating Washington’s militaristic adventures.

    Indeed, moreover, one can easily perceive that the US claims about maritime security and safe passage are dubious. What Washington appears to be doing is cynically using “security concerns” as a cover for forming an aggressive front against Iran. The real purpose is to augment the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” policy towards Tehran in order to coerce that nation into ceding to American strategic demands. This US policy is, of course, illegitimate, arguably criminal. But it is being concealed, as the Americans usually do, with the pseudo-image of acting as the world’s “policeman”.

    By contrast, it may be hoped that the UN and the nations of the Gulf region move forward to embrace Russia’s proposal for a genuinely cooperative, mutual effort to maintain peace. The only way forward is through multilateralism, mutual respect, dialogue and adherence to international law. Conflict is a lose-lose scenario. Peace is win-win.

    Surely, if any party cannot support such a reasonable proposition, then the telling question is: why not? A negative response strongly suggests there is a disingenuousness about putative “security concerns”, and that an ulterior, sinister agenda is actually at play.

    It should also be borne in mind that the present mounting tensions in the Persian Gulf have come about because the Trump administration took the reprehensible step of repudiating the international nuclear accord with Iran. That accord was signed by Iran, the US, Russia, China, Britain, France, Germany and the European Union back in July 2015. The international treaty was endorsed by the UN Security Council. When Trump walked away from the US legal obligation last year, all the tensions that we now see with Iran have transpired.

    As Russian envoy Dmitry Polyanksy told the press conference at the UN recently it is incumbent on Washington to return to the nuclear accord. Until then, for Washington to pose as some kind of security arbiter in the Middle East is too ludicrous for words.

  • What Would It Take To Build A World Without Globalists?

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

    You can bet that whenever you find people analyzing the root of a problem you will also find other people trying to derail those efforts with dishonest arguments. For reasons that we can guess at but are rarely able to confirm, there are some folks out there that get rather agitated at constructive discussion among their fellow humans. One of the most common tactics for hijacking the discussion of a problem is to suggest that it is “all pointless” unless those same people can offer a grand solution to the problem. This is Alinsky-style disruption 101.

    The reality is that most problems can only be solved once at least a portion of the public is made aware of them. Action can only take place AFTER understanding is achieved, otherwise we find ourselves swinging wildly at shadows.

    With that said, many in the liberty movement have offered numerous solutions to the threat of the globalists. The trouble is that the most practical solutions are the hardest ones. This is why so many activists get caught up in non-solutions and frauds; they desperately want to hear that there is a shortcut to victory. They desperately want to hear that there is a way to get rid of the globalists without sacrifice, or without them having to fight back directly. They want to hear that someone is going to fight this war for them, or that the globalist vampires can simply be de-fanged by an intangible technological marvel. They are looking for a genie in a bottle; a magical cure. It’s not going to be that easy.

    And so, the real solutions get buried by the hype trains:

    We’re supposed to put all our hopes in a president that had his fortune and his image saved by the very banking elites he claims to stand against. 

    We’re supposed to believe he is supposedly going to round them up and arrest them (any day now) in a fantastical Game of Thrones maneuver? Despite the fact that this would be rather difficult when half his cabinet is loaded with the same banking ghouls.

    Or, we’re supposed to bet our future on the virtual world with cryptocurrency systems; some of which are built upon an NSA created hash and perfectly match an NSA white paper written in 1996 on digital currencies.

    We’re supposed to believe that the banking cabal is actually threatened by these blockchain based products despite the fact that their value is derived only from branding and not from any qualities that make them especially unique from each other, as well as how much capital the same banking cabal is willing to invest in them and the infrastructure that perpetuates them?

    We’re supposed to believe that these currencies are anonymous even thought they are consistently proven not to be.

    We are supposed to believe they are a decentralizing force even though they are completely reliant on a centrally dominated internet. 

    We are supposed to believe that central banking system will be made obsolete by them even though the globalists are avidly promoting cryptocurrency and blockchain tech as the next step in globalization.

    It’s interesting that the solutions to globalism most widely promoted end up being highly beneficial to the globalist agenda.

    No, these are not solutions. These are distractions designed to keep people busy feeling like they are accomplishing something when they are accomplishing nothing. The people spreading concrete information on the dangers of globalism are accomplishing far more than those sitting around buying bitcoin or passing around Q-cult nonsense.

    So what are the real solutions? Realize first that there is no solution that is going to satisfy everyone. For every solution offered here, there will be a hundred excuses given by people who claim it won’t work, or is not worth trying. But at least each idea expressed here is one that the globalists are not avidly backing financially from behind the curtain, unlike the “solutions” mentioned above. So, to answer the people that claim the liberty movement has no fix for the threat of globalism, let’s examine a few, shall we…

    True Decentralization

    I’ve been talking about this since I began writing for the movement in 2006 in my Neithercorp days, and it’s probably the most valid (and uncomfortable) answer to the globalist problem. Decentralization requires a shift towards less reliance on the existing system and more reliance on one’s self and one’s local community. This means people have to become producers of their own necessities, and they have to construct new economies out of LOCAL producers and buyers. This could even extend to decentralizing monetarily to commodity backed community currencies or barter.

    People would have to start growing food for themselves, and providing a useful service which would allow them to trade for the things they need. Beyond this, a commodity backed currency on a state or national level could provide the “universal exchange” mechanism needed to allow for wider trade of goods.

    Is this a step backwards into tribal times? Yes, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I’m not talking about abandoning technology and advancement, I’m talking about abandoning the systems of centralization that are clearly destructive and are enslaving us. Look at it this way – If each individual is a producer then it’s harder to take away their livelihood. If each community has its own trade networks outside of corporate chains, then they will be unaffected when those corporate chains go bust or disappear. If each community has trade mechanisms beyond the dollar that they can hold IN THEIR HANDS, then they will be unaffected if the dollar collapses. By building local economies with redundancies in place, they become immune to national or global economic calamity.

    This kind of strategy takes time and struggle, and frankly I’ve learned that very few people are going to attempt it until they are facing disaster anyway. However, it is the first and most important step to defeating the globalists.

    Randomization Of Government

    While I am a proponent of decentralization, I recognize that human beings are social creatures and that community as well as law will probably always be a part of our existence. The best and most meaningful laws are those that are universal and inherently understood. Meaning, they are archetypal and inborn. The majority of people understand that stealing, cheating, killing, etc. are wrong and given the chance to commit such crimes they will refuse. If this were not true, humanity would have annihilated itself centuries ago. We only endure because we have a moral compass, perhaps gifted to us by some greater natural force.

    The problem is, not all people have this moral compass. Around 1% to 5% of human beings are born with either latent or full blown narcissistic sociopathy, also known as narcopathy. They lack the vital psychological components of empathy needed to prevent the extreme abuse of their fellow man. They are a different species; a predatory subset, a hidden parasitic element that feeds off of and destroys normal humans. The globalists are a perfect example of the reality of this threat.

    They are a group that has been shown to artificially and deliberately generate economic crisis, geopolitical strife, war, poverty, and genocide.  They have used these horrors to enrich themselves by siphoning tangible wealth and property from the populace during times of fear and panic.  They have also been exposed on occasion as sexual deviants and pedophiles with an occult secrecy surrounding these activities.  They have revealed a complete lack of concern for the damage they do, and even revel in it as if they are playing a game.  They are psychopathic children that see the world as their toy.  Not only this, but they are highly organized.

    Laws and the governance of those laws are necessary in order to deal with the people that cannot abide by the non-aggression principle and seek to exploit and destroy others. Of course, as soon as we put systems of governance in place to manage the law, the predatory class invades them in order to more effectively exploit and destroy. Career fields that guarantee authority and protection from scrutiny are going to automatically attract the worst elements of humanity.

    The concept of elections and government by the people is not entirely inadequate, but it is obviously not enough to prevent evil people from gaining power and influence. Beyond this, government tends to seek infinite growth, and the pursuit of such power opens the door to the corruption of otherwise well meaning souls.

    The only solution I can come up with is a simple one – A lottery. Government should function as a randomly generated structure in which the people involved are not celebrities but servants to the law, and the law must exist only to protect the rights and freedoms of the inhabitants of that society. This is basically how jury selection works, so why shouldn’t government work the same way?

    What if we had a two year term limit for every government position? What if these people were chosen every two years at random through an open source lottery? No more career politicians, no more lobbyists, no more elitist cabal controlling policy decisions because buying people ahead of time would be impossible. The chances of one person being picked for the same job over and over again would be slim. The chances of them abusing their power would be reduced because they wouldn’t have the time.

    Also, consider the implications for society as a whole; wouldn’t this lottery encourage people to become MORE aware and more educated on political conditions, economics, the law, etc? Who would want to be picked for a position in governance and find themselves uneducated and bumbling?

    That said, there are two criticisms for this type of system – One, it is not voluntary. And two, what if we fill government randomly with incompetent people and the cause a disaster?

    To answer, one, jury duty is not necessarily voluntary either, but there are extenuating circumstances for not participating. Should people be able to opt-out of the lottery? Yes, but they should all be given the opportunity.  Also, incentives (such as a fair salary) could be offered that would encourage people to participate.

    Two, honestly, I would take a constantly rotating government of people, some of whom might be incompetent, over a longstanding oligarchy of entrenched psychopaths any day.

    Remove Evil Influences By Force

    The great weakness of the modern world is that people today have been conditioned to believe that good and evil are relative concepts. They think evil is all a matter of “perception” and that the things one person sees as wrong could be seen as positive by someone else, therefore moral judgments become pointless. This culture of moral relativism is no accident. It has been encouraged in popular media and in new age philosophy for the past several decades in order to separate people from the idea of inherent conscience.

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    If you want to understand what evil is, you have to first have an awareness of natural law and the voice of conscience. Religions have their own guidelines for what constitutes evil, and some of these are valuable, but as religions become centralized and bureaucratic they can be twisted to serve evil purposes. Ultimately, wise people know evil when they see it because they listen to their inner warnings.

    Evil seeks to violate every tenet of natural law. It seeks to turn every function of human stability on its head in mockery. It seeks to undermine love, hope, family, safety, and especially freedom. Evil seeks to corrupt or destroy everything in its path. It seeks to gain not through industry and invention but through theft. It seeks to take what it should not have; not only this, but it takes a certain detestable joy in subjugating or torturing the innocent.

    To explain evil, and more specifically the evil of globalists and elitism, in the most simple but meaningful terms possible, here is my favorite clip from the movie The Adventures Of Mark Twain, called “The Mysterious Stranger”:

    In terms of a scientific method for rooting out evil, the character traits of narcopaths can be identified through testing and observation, but there is no tried and true standard for finding a narcopath in early life. Those in the psychiatric community that claim they can be identified through brain activity scans are mostly charlatans with their own agendas. Some governments would also like you to believe that through neuroimaging they will one day be able to identify future criminals and “dangerous people”. This is pre-crime science fiction fantasy, and it’s dangerous.

    The fact of the matter is, psychopathy and narcopathy are difficult to discover in a person without extensive questioning, background checking or until they have actually committed terrible acts. It should be a core standard of any society to ensure that these people never enter into positions of power and influence. And, if they do, they must be removed, by force if necessary.

    A common argument made by people trying to debunk the fight against globalists is that we can remove those in power today, but tomorrow they will just be replaced with another group of evil people. This is a rather nihilistic viewpoint, but it has some merit. It is true that if steps are not taken by humanity to identify the sources of evil, and to decentralize the systems that evil people hide in, then yes, they would come right back stronger than ever no matter what we do. But, if we accept that evil is a reality, that it is psychologically quantifiable and can be recognized through observation of certain character traits, and if we remove the centralization that evil enjoys, then no one can argue that the world will not be better off.

    First, though, the current organized evil must be dealt with. The globalists must be removed. And beyond all the more passive tactics for dealing with the catastrophes that they create, this will likely require conflict. It will require war, and make no mistake, a war is being waged right now whether we want it or not. We have two choices – fight back, or become slaves. All other “solutions” are a stop gap, or worse, a placebo.

    *  *  *

    If you would like to support the work that Alt-Market does while also receiving content on advanced tactics for defeating the globalist agenda, subscribe to our exclusive newsletter The Wild Bunch Dispatch.  Learn more about it HERE.

  • Plastic Apocalypse: Dangerous Microplastics Invade Alps To Artic, Found In Fresh Snow

    A new study has revealed that high levels of microplastics have been detected in some of the most remote regions of the world.

    The discovery, published in the journal Science Advances, is the first international study on microplastics in snow, conducted by the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany.

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    Melanie Bergmann, the lead scientist, and her team of researchers found microplastics from the Alps to the Arctic contained high levels of the plastic fragment, raises questions about the environmental and health implications of potential exposure to airborne plastics.

    “I was really astonished concerning the high concentrations,” said co-author Gunnar Gerdts, a marine microbiologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute.

    Bergmann explains that microplastics come from industrial economies where rubber and paints are used. The tiny fragments end up in the sea, where they’re broken down by waves and ultraviolet radiation, before absorbing into the atmosphere. From there, the plastic particles are captured from the air during cloud development, can drift across the Earth via jet streams. At some point, the particles act as a nucleus around supercooled droplets can condense, and travel to Earth as snow.

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    “Although there is a huge surge of research into the environmental impact of plastics, there is still so much that we do not know,” said Bergmann.

    Bergmann noted how the scientific community was only in its infancy of examining the process of how microplastics get sucked up into the atmosphere then scattered around the world in some form of precipitation. She said, there’s an “urgent need for research on human and animal health effects focusing on airborne microplastics.”

    “Once we have determined that large quantities of microplastic can also be transported by the air, it naturally raises the question as to whether and how much plastic we are inhaling,” she said, “raising the question of whether breathing in these particles might increase the risk of suffering respiratory and lung diseases.”

    The study’s sampling sites were on icebergs in the Arctic between Greenland and Svalbard averaged 1,760 particles per liter of melted snow, with one approaching 14,600 particles per liter. The highest concentration of all, 154,000 particles per liter found in new snow from the Bavarian Alps.

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    Bergmann identified a wide range of different plastics in the samples, from varnishes and paints used to coat structures, ships, automobiles, and oil rigs; rubber particles from car tires; fibers from synthetic clothing; and mass-produced synthetics, such as polyethylene, PVC, polystyrene, and polycarbonate.

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    More research on the full environmental and health impacts of airborne microplastics still need to be done, but preliminary results suggest a silent plastic apocalypse has infected Earth.

  • It's Not A Gun Problem, It's A Culture Problem

    Via AmmoLand.com,

    Dear President Trump/Senators,

    The latest mass shootings have brought several things to the fore. America doesn’t have a gun problem we have a people problem…a culture problem.

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    I’m going to put this discussion into two categories – demonizing by name-calling and gun control.

    The core element of political correctness is killing free speech. The political correctness police view any speech they don’t agree with as hate speech and by the political correctness rules, such speech must be condemned first and then eliminated, even if by force. The college campuses of America have been the laboratory for this anti-American lunacy. Political correctness is censorship and a direct violation of the First Amendment. These censorship threats and name-calling are designed to compel the opposition to shut up.

    The charge of “racist” has been the hammer used by the Left to shut off discussion of any issue that makes the Left uncomfortable. The President has been called racist by every liberal pundit on TV and in print and every Democrat leader and candidate for president. The President is not a racist. There is NO evidence that he is a racist. Additionally, the term racist has been applied to every supporter of the President.

    The term racist has now lost its true edge because of its indiscriminate and wide-spread use.

    The new cudgel to hammer the President and all of his supporters is as white supremacist or white nationalist. I’m very active in a lot of activities here in East Tennessee ranging from a 3000 member gun club, to a huge charity that raises money for veterans causes, to a 7000 member church, to a 300+ member car club. I’m 70 years old and I’ve never met a white supremacist or white nationalist. Whoever these people are, they are in the underbelly of America and are nothing more than gnats in the atmosphere. Calling the president these names is a despicable act and beyond reprehensible. Now we have the Speaker of the House and Democrat presidential candidates saying the white nationalists are an existential threat to the U.S. This is sheer lunacy. This is the type of mental illness that should exclude these people from having guns.

    Sadly, few Republicans have stood up for our president. Republicans have no spine but what about human decency?

    As a loyal and patriotic American how can you stand mute when our president is attacked in such a vile manner? How about debunking whole white nationalists as existential threat to the U.S.? But sadly, Republicans are mute.

    Now to the issue of the siren call of gun control. The cause of these, and other mass shootings was NOT guns; it is our sick society. Most of the perpetrators legally obtained their guns. Laws against murder, illegal use of firearms, illegal discharge of firearms, assault with deadly weapons and in California transporting a firearm across state lines that is illegal in the Golden State; all of these laws, and no doubt many others, were violated. None of those statutes prevented these crimes, something nobody seems willing to discuss.

    We have a society where violence is glorified. Go to a movie or even watch television and the violence is appalling. I refuse to believe that video games don’t contribute to the violence in our culture. There are many games where killing is the score by which you win. Denying this is putting your head in the sand. The same Hollywood that advocates for gun confiscation are the same Hollywood that glorifies guns and killing in their products.

    The laws we currently have has not stopped the mass killings. The laws we have has not stopped the killings in Chicago, Baltimore, or Los Angeles. So, more laws are not the answer. We need a gut check on our culture.

    Let’s address so-called “assault rifles.” What is an “assault rifle?” When anti-gun rights Sen. Diane Feinstein was writing the weapons ban bill, they needed to call this class of weapons something scary, so they called them “assault weapons.” This is a made-up term conjured solely for the purpose of scaring people. I spent 30 years in the Army as an infantryman. We didn’t have assault weapons. So the very term “assault weapons” is a product of the gun control crowd. As Feinstein and her staff were writing the “Assault Weapons Ban,” they had a gun catalog and went through the pages picking out pictures of scary-looking guns. Their ignorance of guns is just astounding.

    Now we have gun banners talking about “weapons of war” and “killing machines” to add to the fear and apprehension created by “assault weapons” naming convention. The AR-15 is used by millions and millions of Americans for sport, hunting, and home defense.

    It is NOT a weapon of war or a killing machine. As a professional soldier, I would never go to war with any gun I could buy commercially.

    The Left has been able to define the language and then police violators of the language via political correctness. The gun control crowd has defined “assault weapons” as scary weapons, and scary weapons are weapons of war and killing machines and thus should not be in the hands of the citizenry. And Republicans are mute.

    If Republicans want to lose the presidency and the Senate and the House, then pass universal background checks and “Red Flag” laws. If you want to cave, to surrender, to the insane mania of the media and the Left and pass these laws, then you will lose millions like me, law-abiding, freedom-loving, gun owners.

    Let’s talk about “universal background checks” as the left dictates. They want the government to control all gun transactions. This is naked government control of the right to keep and bear arms. We have background checks!! The process works when it is applied correctly. There is nothing that can be done if some government agency doesn’t due their due diligence and put the required data into the system. This applies with the current background check system and any new system that the Left would dictate. By the way, there is NO gun show loophole. If someone at a gun show wants to sell a gun to a customer, they are required, by law, to run a background check. There is nothing that can be done to prevent someone from selling a gun illegally, now or with some “enhanced background check.” Additionally, the lie that is frequently told that “90% of Americans, even NRA members, support enhanced background checks” is a true fabrication. Let’s enforce the current laws, including the background check system.

    It is worth time mentioning that the Constitution is a document written to preserve individual rights and liberty and to LIMIT the government oversight of those individual rights and liberty. The Founding Fathers felt so strongly about the God-given rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights that they listed them. These rights are a sign post that says, “government hands off.” The government is forbidden to get between these rights and the American citizens.

    The government has already gotten between the citizen and the Second Amendment. It started with the National Firearms Act of 1934. These laws were serious infringements of the Second Amendment. Remember the words of the Constitution in the Second Amendment, “…shall not be infringed.” How many Republican presidents and Republican majorities in Congress have turned a blind eye to these egregious infringements on our right to keep and bear arms? If you don’t know about the histories of impacts of these laws, then you are derelict in your duties.

    When “universal background checks” was explored by the Obama Administration it was defeated by the outcry of the citizenry. As envisioned by the Obama Administration, their “universal background checks” would control every transaction by a gun owner. If I wanted to sell a gun to a friend, I would have had to go to a licensed gun dealer, pay a fee, and then the buyer would have to undergo a background check. Obama’s own Justice Department produced a document that said the only way for “universal background checks” to work was to have a gun registry. My gun is my property, and as such, I have a right to sell it without asking permission from the government. A logical extension is a government requiring books to have serial numbers and controlling their distribution and sale.

    So stay away from some form of “universal background checks.”

    Now to “Red Flag laws.” Seventeen states have some form of these laws, but only a couple of them even mention mental health. None of us wants mentally imbalanced people or terrorists to have guns. But these laws are a slippery slope to another way for the government to get between a citizen and their right to keep and bear arms. The gun grabbers are salivating about this. They want the government determining who is eligible to exercise their Second Amendment rights. The Left wants some type of process like was in the movie Minority Report, where the government reads the minds of citizens and takes actions to arrest the citizen before they committed some crime. Of course, reading the minds is a bit of hyperbole, but these laws would have government people across the country determining that someone who tweeted, made a Facebook post, wrote an email is a danger to society and they raid that person’s home and take their weapons. This then becomes a Fourth Amendment violation. So we start with a government deciding that something said by a citizen is unacceptable, violating the First Amendment, the government then violates the Fourth Amendment and deprives a citizen of their Second Amendment right.

    Another part of this slippery slope is who reports the “unstable” citizen and then who decides whether the accusation is valid? Maybe a neighbor doesn’t like my MAGA hat and believes the crazy rhetoric of the media, and thus, I’m a white nationalist and therefore a threat and call the Sheriff. The Sheriff then conducts a “no-knock” warrant and breaks in my door in the middle of the night. I think this is a real break-in and defend myself, and I am, or an officer is shot. Imaginary? Not so, this happened recently to some unlucky homeowner. Who’s to blame? Who will be held accountable? If you pass these types of laws, these scenarios will play out over the nation.

    “Red Flag laws” are another intrusion/infringement of citizens’ rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.

    In summary:

    American citizens, simply because of their American citizenship, hold God-given rights to defend self and family – and that includes the right to own and use firearms. That God-given right is enshrined in the Constitution, as the Second Amendment.

    The Second Amendment doesn’t allow for the government to determine whether some have rights to own firearms, versus others who don’t. Seriously: Do we really want government holding this power?

    What about the path these “red flag” laws would take under a leftist administration, under Democratic control?

    “Red flag” laws bring too many unknowns.

    Millions of honest gun owners who didn’t use their firearms for mayhem have good reason to feel they are being penalized for crimes they did not commit. This is not an issue about guns; it’s about rights. These laws are repealing the Bill of Rights one chunk at a time.

    When are Republicans going to stand up and defend the Bill of Rights? The President campaigned on and has emphasized his promise to defend the Second Amendment.

  • "The Impact On Tourism Is Huge:" Hong Kong Hotel Crisis Erupts Amid Escalating Protests

    Hong Kong might not be able to avoid a financial crisis this year or next despite possible stimulus packages to shore up its faltering economy amid violent protests across the city. This has led to a rapid decline in tourism, forcing major hotel chains in the city to substantially slash room prices.

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    Yiu Si-wing, a Hong Kong lawmaker representing the tourism industry, told Bloomberg that hotel revenue is expected to crash 50% this month thanks to escalating protests. She said visits from mainland China account for 80% of arrivals are significantly lower due to social unrest.

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    Yiu said hotel occupancy rates averaged 90% in 1H19, could drop by as much as 33% or more in 2H19. Arrivals from the mainland to Hong Kong, a significant source of consumption for the city, could grind to a halt.

    “The impact on tourism is huge,” Yiu told Bloomberg. She said at least half of the mainland visitors due in August had canceled their plans. Yiu said top-trending topics on Chinese social media platform Weibo this week included several incidents of where violent protestors attacked government forces.

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    Some mainland Chinese are shunning Hong Kong because of the risks associated with its airport being closed down for an extended period of time.

    Grace Huang, a 20-year-old Wuhan University student, told Bloomberg her layover at Hong Kong International Airport was horrifying earlier this week. “I fear I’m going to be beaten,” she told Bloomberg, as thousands of protestors successfully locked down the airport for several days.

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    Beijing resident Jasmine Ji, 23, delayed her trip to Hong Kong because she feels protestors would target her for being a Chinese citizen.

    “I feel like my personal safety could be severely threatened if they find out I speak Mandarin or am a Chinese citizen,” she said. “I won’t fly to Hong Kong airport until the situation and protests are settled there.”

    Chinese officials and state-run media outlets launched an information war against the protestors, describing them as violent extremists.

    Hong Kong officials have suggested a recession could be imminent due to social unrest.

    Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po on Thursday announced a $2.43 billion stimulus package to shore up the economy during the social and economic turmoil.

    Paul warned that a possible recession could be imminent:

    “The situation we are in now is like the typhoon No 3 signal has been hoisted and the typhoon is heading towards us,” he said. “We need to get prepared before it gets worse.”

    Paul downgraded Hong Kong’s GDP growth forecast for the year to 0 to 1%, from 2 to 3% previously.

    He said the city could slide into a technical recession in the current quarter.

    InterContinental Hotels Group Plc, a British multinational hospitality company that owns Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn chains, said the protests in the last several months have contributed to a slowdown in business travel in the region.

    Other hospitality companies with exposure to Hong Kong are also feeling the pinch: Sun Hung Kai Properties, owner of Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong, and New World Development Co., which operates the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong, have seen their stocks enter bear markets in the last month.

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    Yiu said the downturn in Hong Kong hospitality industry had forced many hotels to slash their room rates by substantial amounts.

    A typical room at Conrad Hotel, owned by Hilton Worldwide, is $159 per night this weekend, that’s a 40% discount versus two months ago.

    Marriott International Inc. and Shangri-La Asia Ltd. have also cut room rates for their Hong Kong hotels.

    Hong Kong could be the first domino to fall that kicks off the next global recession.

  • US Axis Of Aggression In The Gulf

    Authored by Finian Cunningham via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    When Washington announced a few weeks ago the formation of a maritime “international coalition” to “protect shipping” in the Persian Gulf, many observers were skeptical. Now skepticism has rightly turned to alarm, as the proposed US-led “coalition” transpires to comprise a grand total of just three nations: the US, Britain and Israel.

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    The term “coalition” has always been a weasel word used by Washington to give its military operations around the world a veneer of international consensus and moral authority. If the US goes ahead with deploying forces in the Persian Gulf the guise of “coalition” is threadbare. It will be seen for what it is: naked aggression.

    Iran promptly warned that if the US, Britain and Israel move on their intention to deploy in the Persian Gulf, it will not hesitate to defend itself from a “clear threat”.

    Britain has ordered this week another warship, HMS Kent, to the Gulf. The move, significantly, occurred as Trump’s hawkish national security advisor John Bolton was in London for two-day official meetings with PM Boris Johnson and other senior ministers. Bolton praised Britain’s decision to join the US-led Operation Sentinel mission, rather than an alternative proposed European naval mission. It’s not clear if HMS Kent is simply replacing another British warship in the Gulf, HMS Duncan, or if this is a further buildup in force. Either way, the line up of US, Britain and reportedly Israel is a foreboding potential offensive.

    Israeli leaders have in the recent past repeatedly called for military attacks on Iran, claiming without evidence that the Islamic Republic is secretly building nuclear weapons, thus allegedly posing an existential threat to the Jewish state, despite the latter possessing an estimated 200-300 nuclear warheads.

    Given the Trump administration’s manic hostility towards Tehran, which it labels a “terrorist regime”, and given the long history of US-British treachery against Iran, it is understandable the alarm being aroused if Washington, London and Tel Aviv proceed with their flotilla in the Gulf.

    Major General Hossein Salami, commander-in-chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, slammed the proposed US-led trio of forces as a “coalition of demons”.

    Iranian defense minister Brigadier General Amir Hatami warned that any such US deployment involving Israel in a waterway contiguous with Iran’s southern coast would have “disastrous consequences for the region”. Tehran would view it as an act of war.

    Will Washington light the fuse? President Donald Trump and his psychotic war advisor John Bolton have certainly talked tough on several occasions over recent weeks about attacking Iran and “destroying” the Persian nation with overwhelming force. Combined with the depraved Israeli prime minster Benjamin Netanyahu and the lackey British premier Boris Johnson, the “axis of insanity” is perplexing.

    However, Trump’s threats have often turned out to be empty. Washington has said before it would “defend” its interests when cargo ships were sabotaged in recent weeks. Iran was blamed by the US without evidence for the sabotage incidents, but Washington’s bellicose rhetoric didn’t materialize in military action. Even when Iran shot down a US $220-million spy drone over its territory on June 20, Trump balked at ordering “retaliatory” air strikes.

    Another deterring factor is Iran’s formidable anti-ship missiles and air defenses which are augmented by the latest Russian technology, as documented by John Helmer.

    There is thus a fair chance that the Trump administration will back off from its plans for a maritime incursion in the Persian Gulf. Even the intellectually challenged White House must know that any such move – especially involving a blatant axis of aggression of the US, Britain and Israel – will be tantamount to declaring war. The consequences for the war-torn region, the global economy and world peace would indeed be potentially calamitous. Surely, the unhinged American, British and Israeli leaders know this?

    International consensus and world opinion may also be a vital check on the US-led folly of antagonizing Iran. The refusal by Germany, France and other European nations to participate in the US maritime force dealt a significant blow to Washington’s subterfuge of forming a coalition camouflage for its aggression against Iran.

    The Americans were infuriated. US officials have reportedly lobbied the Berlin government to change its mind, to no avail. One American official was reported to have complained: “German officials keep telling us that they’re on our side, but they have to side with Iran on nuclear related issues because of the nuclear deal. Iran is attacking tankers which has nothing to do with the deal. So what’s Germany’s excuse for not siding with us this time?”

    Richard Grenell, the pesky US ambassador in Berlin, displayed exasperation over Germany’s rebuff to the naval coalition plan, dubbed Operation Sentinel. Employing his best double-think, Grenell said: “German participation would help deescalate the situation. The Iranians would see a united West.”

    This comes against a background of various rows between the Trump administration and Berlin, including on NATO spending, trade tariffs and the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project with Russia.

    Washington is peeved by the Europeans and Germany in particular for not giving its purported naval coalition in the Gulf the desired appearance of international mandate.

    As Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif remarked, the US is “isolated”, apart from having the British and Israelis riding shotgun on its now-evident adventure of aggression. From political, legal and moral viewpoints, it will be difficult for the Trump administration to proceed with its plan to “protect shipping” in the Persian Gulf because it is abundantly clear that the plan is a flagrant war footing.

    If the US and its allies were genuine about forming a protection arrangement for commercial shipping routes through the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf – where 20-30 per cent of globally shipped oil passes each day – then they would do well to take on board the Russian proposal presented at the UN on August 8.

    Dmitry Polyansky, Russia’s acting envoy to the UN, set forth a multilateral security concept. He emphasized that the partnership would be a genuine international coalition acting within the framework of the UN Security Council. The proposal, which China has backed, would include all stakeholders for the safety of shipping through the vital Persian Gulf, including Iran. This is surely the way to go towards de-escalating the dangerous tensions in the region. The key is that any such initiative must be formulated in keeping with UN principles and international law. It is not for one, two or three nations to assume the role of naval “policemen” in an area of international waterways. Even if we take Washington’s rhetoric about “protecting shipping” at face value, its deployment of force in the Gulf is an illegitimate assumption of power. It is outside UN principles and without Security Council mandate. In a word, illegal.

    European and Asian nations would be advised to back the Russian initiative in order to maintain peace in the Gulf. By contrast, Washington’s plans are a reckless and reprehensible provocation for war.

  • Trump Approves $8BN Sale Of F-16 Jets To Taiwan; Congress Urged To "Move Quickly"

    Last month China’s military predictably slammed Washington’s recent approval to send $2.2 billion in arms to Taiwan, and now there’s an administration push supported by Republicans in the Senate to “move quickly” on a proposed $8 billion sale of F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan at a moment when the next round of US-China trade negotiations hangs in the balance, as The Washington Post reports:

    The Trump administration is moving ahead with for an $8 billion sale of F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan despite strong objections from China, a U.S. official and others familiar with the deal said Thursday.

    Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz on Friday urged Congress to move quickly with the sale given China “seeks to extend its authoritarian reach” over the region.

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    Image source: Stars and Stripes

    This despite Beijing condemning any and all further weapons sales to Taiwan, which it maintains historic claims over, and taking the further significant step of threatening sanction on any US companies involved in such weapons deals. 

    The New York Times on Friday also confirmed the proposed F-16 plan, based on State Department statements:

    The State Department told Congress Thursday night, right after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had signed a memo approving the sale, officials said. Congress is not expected to object to the move. For weeks, lawmakers from both parties had accused the administration of delaying the sale to avoid jeopardizing trade negotiations or to use it as a bargaining chip.

    Texas senator Cruz said it is critical “now more than ever” for Taiwan’s defense capabilities to be significantly increased amid threats from China. 

    China this summer indicated it stands “ready to go to war” if people “try to split Taiwan from the country” — this after the US approved sales of tanks and Stinger missiles to Taiwan in July. Beijing authorities also said the US and breakaway Taiwan were “playing with fire” due to their growing military ties, which the US by treaty is obligated to honor. 

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    The proposed major addition to Taiwan’s current ageing fleet of F-16s comes after prior Chinese media reports last March said Taipei requested from the US a fleet of 66 Lockheed Martin F-16V fighter jets.

    This also corresponds to Taiwan on Thursday unveiling its largest defense spending increase in over a decade, to T$411.3 billion ($13.11 billion.), according to Reuters.

  • "Big Lies" & Why Liberal Internationalism Has Already Lost The Global Struggle For The Future

    Authored by Martin Sieff via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    Russian President Vladimir Putin’s June 27 interview with the Financial Times newspaper in London stating that liberal internationalism is now toxic and dying unleashed a totally predictable wave of outrage across the West. But Putin knew what he was doing and saying and of course he was absolutely right.

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    The Russian president has been unique among 21st global leaders not just for taking a long view of events – most politicians in power for more than a few months imagine they are doing that. But Putin has always known very clearly where he is in the great continuum of Russian history.

    Putin has continually sought peaceful cooperation, partnership and good relations with the West – and almost always been rebuffed except when the West desperately needed Russia’s help. But above all, he has sought to preserve and revive traditional Russian values and create a stable, prosperous and growing society.

    After 20 years in power, Putin along with his deputy and longtime right hand man Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has made an astonishing amount of progress to roll back the horrific moral, demographic, environmental and psychological damage inflicted by three quarters of a century of communism. Yet the task remains monumental.

    Above all, Putin, like so many other Russia’s remembers and embraces Dostoyevsky’s insight that the communist nightmare grew out of Western liberalism, unleashed and unrestrained. And he sees clearly that since the collapse of communism and the end of the Cold War in 1989-91, international liberalism with its unyielding demands of total free trade and total, open borders, pop and population movements has unleashed a new dark age of chaos on suffering humanity.

    The pathologies of international human trafficking, trading of millions of young children in sex rings around the world and the chaos caused by currency manipulations and crashing economies have ne ow reached levels unimagined even at the end of the 20th century.

    The “future,” Putin realizes, lies with strong, coherent nation states like Russia, China and others reclaiming power and control into their own hands and seeking to cooperate constructively with each other.

    The Western delusions of unlimited Free Trade and Open Borders have come to only unleash chaos, poverty, needless wars and the destruction of advanced societies ‘ safety and stability by unlimited and unregulated migration flows. Only drug traffickers, human slavers and terrorists can truly flourish in such a world – and indeed they have.

    There was a profound deep irony, Putin, with his deep sense of humor clearly relished, in saying such things to the Financial Times. Along with the Wall Street Journal in New York City, it is one of the two great media pillars of the liberal big business unregulated creed – embodied throughout the 19th century by the arch-hypocrite William Ewart Gladstone.

    Gladstone, founder and leader of the famous British Liberal Party and revered as “the People’s William” was the heir to an enormous fortune [worth billions in 21st century terms] made by his father John Gladstone, one of the biggest slave traders in the Port city of Liverpool. And Gladstone himself in the 1860s sought to encourage the victory and survival of the slave holding Confederacy in the US Civil War.

    Also, the United Kingdom, the home of modern secular enlightenment liberalism from whence it spread across the United States is now quite literally disintegrating in its conflict with the also deeply-troubled European Union. Putin therefore could not have chosen a more fitting and ironic media platform on which to pronounce secular liberalism’s doom: And he knew it.

    Putiun also clearly sees that Dostoyevsky was right in his deepest, darkest reach of prophetic vision. For liberalism prospered and spread for hundreds opf years claiming to spread tolerence, respect diversity and cherish truth. Yet today across the West its adherents reign supreme over colossal media conglomerates and Deep State enormous bureaucracies that routinely bury and squash all truths, skepticism, alternate views and arguments inconvenient and threatening to them.

    The historical evidence, overwhelming in reality that nations flourish and grow rapidly in prosperity when their industries and agriculture are preserved from unfair and manipulated foreign competition is simply not taught across the West: It has been smothered into extinction.

    The history of President Bill Clinton’s fateful 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is evident to all: Far from bringing prosperity to the United States and Mexico, it has unleashed a new dark age of crime, drugs, criminal exploitation, teen gang terrors and civil war on both those suffering nations.

    Yet when rare individuals rise up like Putin or US President Donald Trump and state these obvious realities, they are immediately subjected to waves of hysterical hatred.

    The Big Lie nightmares predicted so clearly by Yevgeny Zamyatin and George Orwell flourish more boldly than ever – but in London, Washington and New York, not in Moscow or Beijing.

    Yet the Big Lie is dying on its feet: It has delivered suffering, misery, uncertainty and even terror to the subject populations on whom its devotees have imposed their creeds, regardless of the clearly expressed democratic will. Throughout the Western world and, for that matter in Japan and India, populist, national leaders have emerged who are seeking to defy the suicidal principles of open borders, unlimited trade and immigration flows that the supra-national institutions of the past 75 years are trying to impose upon them.

    These leaders are not trying to through the world into some new dark age of chaos and war: They are on the contrary doing their utmost to prevent it.

    Putin is not alone in the world: He speaks for this great and emerging new constructive consensus. But the forces of darkness and chaos, posing, as the New Testament warned us, as messengers of light remain determined to re-impose their lies.

  • China-Owned Tanker Carrying 2M Barrels Of Iranian Oil Caught 'Ghosting'

    China continues to play a large part in preventing Trump’s desire to take Iran’s crude exports down to zero, despite a noticeable drop on its Iran oil imports over the summer after the end of the US waiver program; however, more evidence has emerged that the sanctions evasion continues. A Chinese owned tanker believed carrying about 2 million barrels of oil has been caught ‘ghosting’ according to ship tracking data:

    While in the Indian Ocean heading toward the Strait of Malacca, the very large crude carrier (VLCC) Pacific Bravo went dark on June 5, shutting off the transponder that signals its position and direction to other ships, ship-tracking data showed.

    Reuters says an American official has put ports in Asia on notice, warning them not to allow the Pacific Bravo to dock in violation of US sanctions. 

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    Illustrative image via Economic Times

    Besides ‘ghosting’ — a common tactic used in Iran sanctions busting — the tanker also appears to have tried concealing its identity with a name change, on July 18 suddenly presenting on global trackers as the VLCC Latin Ventura and appearing off Port Dickson, Malaysia.

    Tracking data shows this was nearly 1000 miles from where the Pacific Bravo had last been signalling. Reuters describes the gambit was easily uncovered, with US authorities accusing the ship of evading sanctions:

    But both the Latin Venture and the Pacific Bravo transmitted the same unique identification number, IMO9206035, issued by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), according to data from information provider Refinitiv and VesselsValue, a company that tracks ships and vessel transactions…

    Since IMO numbers remain with a ship for life, this indicated the Latin Venture and the Pacific Bravo were the same vessel and suggested the owner was trying to evade Iranian oil sanctions.

    The investigation found the super tanker is owned by Kunlun Holdings, a company based in Shanghai, also with offices in Singapore, which didn’t comment for the report. 

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    Source: VesselsValue via Reuters

    However, the valuable Iranian crude cargo, with an estimated worth of about $120 million at current prices, does appear to have been offloaded at an unknown location in Asia.

    When under the name Pacific Bravo, the ship’s transmission data showed it’s tanks were full, but as Reuters reports, the moment it “reappeared 42 days later as the Latin Venture, it was empty, according to Refinitiv and VesselsValue data.”

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Aug 16

Today’s News 16th August 2019

  • Norway Detects Radiation Near Russian Border Days After Nuclear-Powered Missile Explodes

    Days after the Kremlin’s nuclear-powered missile exploded, killing seven and leading to evacuations, Norway detected tiny amounts of radioactive iodine in the air near the northern part of the country bordering Russia. 

    According to Norway’s nuclear safety authority (DSA), the radioactive iodine was detected between Aug. 9-12 at its air filter station in the border town of Svanhovd, just under 450 miles from the Arkhangelesk region of northern Russia where the deadly blast occurred on August 8. 

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    “At present it is not possible to determine if the last iodine detection is linked to the accident in Arkhangelsk last week. DSA continues more frequent sampling and analysis,” said DSA. 

    Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear agency, said on Saturday that the deadly blast involved “isotope power sources,” with no further details given. 

    According to Reuters, detecting radiation is not unusual in Norway, as it’s monitoring stations routinely pick up radioactive iodine around half-a-dozen times per year from unknown sources. 

    On Tuesday, however, Russia’s state weather service reported a 16x spike in radiation levels in the city of Severodvinsk. Meanwhile, first responders who treated victims of the accident were rushed to Moscow for medical examination according to Russian state-owned news outlet TASS.

  • The Shifting Threat Matrix In West Africa

    Authored by Adam Valavanis via GlobalRiskInsights.com,

    In recent years, West Africa has been considered a relative oasis of stability in sub-Saharan Africa. However, the region faces a multitude of threats that could spell a new era of insecurity. A spike in Islamist terrorism and intercommunal violence has strained governments in the area, pushing them to the brink of collapse. Ongoing issues with drug trafficking and corrupt security forces also threaten to upend the semblance of political stability.

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    West Africa has seen a spike in security threats in recent years. The security of West Africa has been challenged in past months, as the nations of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Nigeria have faced a surge in Islamist and intercommunal violence. The violence is spreading into coastal West Africa, a region that had for years largely been spared from the complex security threats that have characterised dominating the Sahel this decade.

    In addition to Islamist terrorism and intercommunal violence, the region has long struggled with drug trafficking and abusive security forces. These issues are increasingly intertwined, resulting in a complex threat matrix that has pushed governments in the region to the brink. The solutions will need to be similarly holistic in scope. Incumbent on the leaders in the area, as well as their international partners, to take a comprehensive view of the region’s security threats. Only then will they be able to develop effective solutions and establish a durable atmosphere of peace.

    Islamist terrorism

    Mali has been a haven for terrorist cells in West Africa for years. Groups such as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) rose to prominence following the Tuareg rebellion in 2012. While the rebellion was ultimately defeated with the help of French forces, the government has been unable to exert control beyond the capital and its surrounding regions. Since the rebellion and resulting insecurity, several groups, including an Islamic State affiliate, have used Mali as a launching ground for attacks in neighbouring states.

    Burkina Faso has become a favoured target of such groups. Lethal attacks have become a regular feature in the country since 2015, following the deposition of longtime ruler Blaise Compaoré. Islamist groups such as Ansural Islam have expanded their operations in the country, effectively controlling its northern and eastern regions. The government based in Ouagadougou has long neglected these regions. Attacks frequently target Christian communities, who have for years lived in peaceful harmony with their Muslim neighbours. The mounting successes of Islamist groups forced the prime minister and his cabinet government from power earlier this year. The situation in Burkina Faso has become so grim that neighbours Togo, Ghana, Benin, and Côte d’Ivoire are on high alertand may have already been infiltrated by terrorists.

    Intercommunal violence

    Continued attacks by Islamist groups have inflamed intercommunal tensions in both Mali and Burkina Faso. Escalating retaliatory attacks between the Dogon and Fulani communities in central Mali have left hundreds dead since the start of this year. Violence between the two communities reached such a fever pitch in Mali that the Prime Minister and his government resigned, citing their failure to disarm the communities.

    Islamist groups have helped inflame long-simmering tensions over land disputes between the sedentary Dogon and nomadic Fulani. Members of the Dogon group have accused the Fulani, a predominately Muslim group, of harbouring Islamists. Such violence and insecurity have served to increase the Islamists’ leverage by sowing distrust between communities. The Islamists hope to paint themselves as the right defenders of the Fulani. Similar dynamics are unfolding in central Burkina Faso, with clashes between the Fulani and other ethnic groups, such as the Mossi.

    Narcotrafficking

    While Islamist terrorism and intercommunal violence have dominated headlines in recent months, West Africa continues to struggle with the illegal drug trade. The region has long been the premier hub for drug smuggling from South America and Asia to Europe. Guinea-Bissau deemed a “narco-state” by the United Nations, has acutely been affected by the drug trade. More cocaine has been seized in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde this year alone than the total amount taken on the continent between 2013 and 2016. Ghana, one of the most stable democracies on the continent, is a favoured destination for South American producers.

    In addition to its innate destabilising influence, the drug trade in West Africa has helped empower and become so profitable that regional terrorist groups are getting in on the action. Though they are not producers, groups such as Boko Haram and AQIM are hired out by drug syndicates to assist in various stages of the trafficking process. Their compensation comes either in the form of cash or weapons.

    Abusive security forces

    While much of the insecurity in the region is caused by non-state actors such as terrorist cells, ethnic militias, and criminal syndicates, governments in the area have undermined their legitimacy and regional security thanks to abusive security forces. In Burkina Faso, counter-terrorism forces, in their campaign to reestablish control over the country’s northern regions, have committed human rights violations. The same can be said in Nigeria, where the military has allegedly committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in its campaign against Boko Haram.

    There have been well-documented abuses committed by the police in Benin and Togoduring clashes with pro-democracy protestors. In response to a flawed election held in April, several demonstrators were killed by the police in Benin. These fatalities followed a wave of arbitrary arrests that targeted opposition officials and their supporters.

    Earlier this month, the Guinean National Assembly passed a law that effectively allows security forces to shoot anyone deemed an imminent threat with impunity. Human rights advocates worry that the new law will be used to brutally crackdown on future protests against the president’s bid to amend the constitution and stand for a third term.

    Outlook

    Islamist terrorists, intercommunal violence, narcotrafficking, and abusive security forces are just some of the problems faced by West African governments. Human trafficking and slavery, especially in Mauritania, as well as endemic corruption, electoral violence, and kidnapping, also present severe threats to stability in the region. Many of these threats pale in comparison to the ever-present danger posed by the ongoing climate crisis, which has contributed to food insecurity in the area. In many states, corruption is lucrative for politicians and other officials, hindering efforts at reform. The same can be said of the drug trade, where the profits from the illegal market far exceed legal business.

    So far, the most ambitious attempt at restoring security to the region has been the G5 Sahel Joint Force. The G5 is a military alliance between Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger. It is tasked with tackling terrorist and criminal networks that criss-cross the region. Recently, it has taken up the cause of clamping down on intercommunal violence. Unfortunately, the G5 has faced chronic funding shortages and other delays, hampering efforts at rooting out these dangerous threats. Without political will and properly functioning democratic institutions, the security situation in West Africa will likely continue to deteriorate for the foreseeable future.

  • Is The Geopolitical Chessboard Now Digital?

    Authored by Tim Kirby via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    Geopolitics is based on the nature of politics and relations defined by the real spaces in which we live. Over time thanks to technology these spaces have changed and have become much closer. The seas that used to make a ground invasion impossible have become much smaller on a planet where a nuclear strike could hit any location in the world in a matter of hours or some would speculate minutes. Technology has also opened up new spaces onto which a geopolitical logic can be applied. In fact there is a surprising correlation between the layout of the world’s current military landscape and its digital geopolitical landscape and this is not by some bit of random chance.

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    If we take a look at a “Hard Power” map of the world, showing the rough locations of foreign military bases, especially those of NATO then we can see a very clear picture of the geopolitical landscape of our planet.

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    Source: Telegraph.co.uk (via Pinterest)

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    Source: Foreign Policy

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    Source: Swiss Institute for Peace and Energy Research (via Big Think)

    We shouldn’t be so naive as to think that NATO and Russia just give out the addresses to all their bases to the press so they can compile nice infographics for Google to show in search results. Furthermore, change happens quickly and the US base in Kyrgyzstan often shown on such maps has already been closed, but in general, we are able to see a Hard Power picture of the world with the following characteristics.

    1. NATO: Dominates the majority of the surface of the globe surrounding Russia and China.

    2. China: Is the second most powerful economic nation on the planet yet it does not project much power outside of its borders, however within itself it has very solid control.

    3. Russia: Does try to project power outside of its borders but mostly in terms of the territories it lost as a punishment for losing the Cold War. Russia has a spread but it is very limited.

    Now let’s compare this Hard Power layout and compare it to maps of the digital world (an aspect of Soft Power) to see if the picture looks any different starting with the most popular search engine/most visited site.

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    Source: Internet Geographies at the Oxford Internet Institute (via Cogney Digital Marketing)

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    Source: indy100 (The Independent)

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    Source: The Atlantic

    Although there should in theory be no correlation between military power and search engines/top sites we can see that the same tendencies of the Hard Power map ring true in the digital world. It is hard not to notice immediately that on all the maps almost all the globe is covered by “NATO” digital presence (Google, Facebook, Youtube) with Russia and China as two glaring massive blips on the radar that use their own homegrown services far more.

    Let’s take a look at social network usage over the last two years to see if the correlation holds true as well.

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    Source: Vincos

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    Source: ECSM Digital Marketing

    Although the infographics are a bit conflicting we yet again see an overall tendency of the world being swallowed up by NATO with China hiding behind its Great Firewall and Russia trying to project itself at least over lost territory. It should also be noted that Iran and North Korea also seem very defiant when it comes to social networks. Again these maps seem to line up with our Hard Power world layout.

    If we take a look at global online content then we see another correlation, that Russians are very proud of.

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    Despite being small population wise Russians generate the 2nd largest linguistic chunk of content over the whole world. This is a vastly distant second behind NATO tongue but it still shows a trend that geopolitical power may well transfer over to the digital space. Spanish and Arabic are absolutely massive language groups, that have nearly zero (hard) power geopolitically speaking and so they are behind Russian with Arabic distantly far. China makes its own content for itself so its isolation may skew these numbers. If we were to review all online content including the internal material in China it would surely rise to #2.

    What can we take home from all of this?

    Although it is possible that these tendencies are just coincidence or bad data, it would seem that there is a real correlation between Hard Power plus the geopolitical landscape of the world we live in and the Soft Power/digital landscape.

    This could mean that if geopolitical victories in the traditional sense are reflected by the digital landscape then it could possibly be true that victories on the digital landscape should begin to affect the real traditional geopolitical map of the world. Meaning that the digital front should get no less attention and funding than the hard power physical front.

    It is important for the survival of the emerging great powers of Russia and China to understand that their Media/Digital presence is apparently just as crucial to their survival as their military one. If we look at the internet we see a slowly collapsing yet still Monopolar World with two rising key challengers (and a few other outliers with limited power but the desire for freedom). Shattering the Monopolar state of affairs is in theory far cheaper, easier and less risky in the digital space. If Russia and China truly want a Multipolar world, the key front is probably on the Grand Online Chessboard of Digital Media and that is exactly where they need invest in their futures. This investment must include everything from search engines, online TV/video content to even video games, programs and operating systems.

  • US Views Of China Growing Increasingly Unfavorable

    The Pew Research Center has released a new poll showing that U.S. public views of China have becoming increasingly unfavorable amid the ongoing trade war and continued geopolitical tensions in the South China Sea. Statista’s Niall McCarthy details that the poll comes as the Trump administration decided to backtrack on imposing new tariffs on a range of high-profile Chinese imports with some describing the move as a temporary ceasefire in the bitter trade war between the two nations.

    The research found that 47 percent of Americans had an unfavorable view of China in 2018 and that rose to 60 percent by spring 2019.

    Infographic: U.S. Views Of China Growing Increasingly Unfavorable | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    That’s the highest level ever recorded by Pew in the 14 years since they first asked the question. The lowest level was recorded back in 2006 when the share finding China unfavorable was just 29 percent. The polling also found that just under a quarter of Americans (24 percent) consider China a threat. That’s up on 2014 and 2007 when the share was 19 percent and 12 percent respectively.

    In terms of political affiliation, a majority of Democrats and Republicans view China in an unfavorable light. Negative views are more pronounced among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, 51 percent of whom held an unfavorable view in 2018. This year, that climbed dramatically to 70 percent. Unfavorability has also soared among Democrats, climbing from 49 percent in 2018 to 59 percent in 2019.

  • Killing Free Speech In Canada

    Authored by Judith Bergman via The Gatestinbe Institute,

    • As has become standard in such cases, the charter contains no definition of what constitutes “hate”, making it a catchall for whatever the Canadian government deems politically inopportune. This is all exhaustingly familiar by now: Germany already has legislation that requires social media platforms to censor their users. France is working on it.

    • The Conservative members of the committee… recommended instead that sanctions regarding hate crimes online or elsewhere should be dealt with under the appropriate sections of the Criminal Code. They also recommended that “The definition of ‘hate’ under the Criminal Code be limited to where a threat of violence, or incitement to violence, is directed against an identifiable group” and that “rather than attempting to control speech and ideas, the Government explore appropriate security measures to address all three elements of a threat: intent, capability and opportunity”.

    • “Sickening ideologies which encourage individuals to take the lives of their fellow human beings have faced a concerning proliferation both at home and around the world. Yet sadly, Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Members of this Committee have tried to use these troubling events as a way to bolster their political fortunes. They have tried to paint anyone who doesn’t subscribe to their narrow value set as an extremist.” – Conservative Party dissenting opinion in “Taking Action to End Online Hate”.

    In May, Canada launched a so-called Digital Charter, meant to promote “trust in a digital world”. The charter contains ten principles, three of which deal with “hate speech and disinformation”.

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    The charter, said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, will target fake news and hate speech online.

    “The platforms are failing their users, and they’re failing our citizens,” he said. “They have to step up in a major way to counter disinformation. And if they don’t, we will hold them to account and there will be meaningful financial consequences.”

    “The Government of Canada,” the charter says, “will defend freedom of expression and protect against online threats and disinformation designed to undermine the integrity of elections and democratic institutions. Canadians can expect that digital platforms will not foster or disseminate hate, violent extremism or criminal content.”

    “There will be clear, meaningful penalties,” it adds, “for violations of the laws and regulations that support these principles.”

    As has become standard in such cases, the charter contains no definition of what constitutes “hate”, making it a catchall for whatever the Canadian government deems politically inopportune. This is all exhaustingly familiar by now: Germany already has legislation that requires social media platforms to censor their users. Social media companies are obliged to delete or block any online “criminal offenses” within 24 hours of receipt of a user complaint; the German government can fine them up to 50 million euros for failing to comply with the law. France is working on it.

    The Digital Charter was launched the week after Canada signed the “Christchurch Call to Action — yet another government-led drive for more censorship in the name of fighting “terrorist and violent extremist content online”.

    Canada already has hate speech laws in its criminal code, according to which anyone who publicly “incites [or willfully promotes] hatred against any identifiable group” commits an indictable offence”. The “identifiable group “includes “any section of the public distinguished by colour, race, religion, national or ethnic origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or mental or physical disability.” Section 318 prohibits advocating or promoting genocide.

    To some, however, the criminal code on hate speech is apparently not enough. In June, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, in a report titled “Taking Action to End Online Hate,” recommended that the Canadian government establish a “civil remedy” for those who claim that their human rights have been violated. After hearing a large number of witnesses, the majority of the Committee suggested that Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act — or something similar to it — be reinstated.

    Section 13 was a very controversial provision, repealed in 2013 under the Stephen Harper government after being criticized by free-speech advocates for enabling censorship on the internet. Section 13 stated that it was discriminatory for people to communicate via computer or on the internet “any matter that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt by reason of the fact that that person or those persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination”. [Emphasis added]

    In its report, the House of Commons Committee also made a number of other recommendations to the Canadian government for the fight against “online hatred”, among them:

    Increasing funding for law enforcement, crown attorneys and judges to ensure sufficient training “on the importance, and the need to combat online hatred, including being sensitive to complainants”.

    Improving data collection, so that the government ensures that, “we have a more complete understanding of the extent of hatred in Canada, particularly hatred that is directed online”. This undertaking includes the establishment of “uniform pan-Canadian guidelines and standards for the collection and handling of hate crime data and hate incident data” and “a national database to retain and analyze hate crime and hate incident data”. To do this, the committee asks that the government address that “members of marginalized groups… feel more comfortable reporting hate incidents and hate crimes directly to civil society organizations which reflect their community rather than law enforcement officials… resources need to be allocated to assist in the collection of data, by both governmental institutions as well as civil society organizations”.

    Crucially, police forces and other “agents of the state” who work with hate crimes must “reflect the racial, religious, LGBTQ and general diversity of the populations they represent. Police forces, particularly their hate crimes units, must work collaboratively alongside civil society organizations…”

    A similar cooperative model with civil society organizations already exists in the UK, where the reportedly discredited civil society organization “Tell Mama”, for instance, has operated in cooperation with British police.

    Furthermore, in order to “prevent online hate”, the government “should educate the population as to what on the Internet constitutes hate”.

    Unlike many other such initiatives, the committee wants the government to formulate a definition of what constitutes “hate”, pointing out:

    “It is critical that this definition acknowledges persons who are disproportionately targeted by hate speech including but not limited to racial, indigenous, ethnic, linguistic, sexual orientation, gender identity, and religious groups”.

    Finally, and in line with European developments, the committee asks the government “to establish requirements for online platforms and Internet service providers with regards to how they monitor and address incidents of hate speech, and the need to remove all posts that would constitute online hatred in a timely manner”. As in Europe, the suggestion is that online platforms will be financially penalized if they fail to live up to the requirements:

    “Online platforms must have a duty to report regularly to users on data regarding online hate incidents (how many incidents were reported, what actions were taken/what content was removed, and how quickly the action was taken). Failure to properly report on online hate, must lead to significant monetary penalties for the online platform”.

    Not everyone, however, agrees with the proposed strategy for the Canadian government. The Conservative party wrote a dissenting opinion in the report, according to which:

    “… many of the suggestions would, if implemented, have the dual impact of stifling free speech of those acting in good faith, while also serving to further radicalize bad actors by driving their communication out of the public square… Driving reprehensible ideas underground will not end them. It will merely prevent them from being debated and debunked.”

    The Conservative members of the committee were against reintroducing the repealed section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act. They recommended instead that sanctions regarding hate crimes online or elsewhere should be dealt with under the appropriate sections of the Criminal Code. They also recommended that “The definition of ‘hate’ under the Criminal Code be limited to where a threat of violence, or incitement to violence, is directed against an identifiable group” and that “rather than attempting to control speech and ideas, the Government explore appropriate security measures to address all three elements of a threat: intent, capability and opportunity”.

    The Conservative members conclude:

    “Far too many innocent individuals have been impacted by extremist violence in recent years. Sickening ideologies which encourage individuals to take the lives of their fellow human beings have faced a concerning proliferation both at home and around the world. Yet sadly, Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Members of this Committee have tried to use these troubling events as a way to bolster their political fortunes. They have tried to paint anyone who doesn’t subscribe to their narrow value set as an extremist. This is dangerous. Conservatives believe that Canadian society is resilient precisely because it offers a big tent for all sort of views, but that we also must hold those accountable who distribute material that radicalizes individuals and leads to extremist violence”.

    If the government proves sympathetic to the recommendations of the committee, the prospects for free speech in Canada look increasingly bleak.

  • US Army Discloses New Details About Hypersonic Weapon

    The US Army has dramatically ramped up efforts to develop the next hypersonic weapon in a race with Russia and China. The goal is to have the new missile system deployed on the modern battlefield by 2023.

    Defense Blog reports that the Army Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office (RCCTO) disclosed new details of a ground-launched hypersonic missile system during last week’s 22nd Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama.

    Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) is a new weapon system that is being developed by PEO Missiles and Space and the Long Range Precision Fires Cross-Functional Team.

    The LRHW fires a new class of ultrafast, maneuverable, long-range missiles that travel at Mach 5 or greater. 

    According to Defense Blog, LRHW fires “a universal solid-propellant medium-range All-Up Round ballistic missile,” equipped with a hypersonic warhead of the Common Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB) that makes the flight trajectory to a target unpredictable.

    LRHW is being developed by the Sandia National Laboratory of the US Department of Energy and the US Missile Defense Agency. The hypersonic warhead will be used by all US armed forces (Army, Air Force, and Navy).

    “The AUR missile has a case diameter of 34.5 inches (887 mm). The missile will be launched from a transport and launch container with a length of about 10 m from a ground-based towed two-container mobile launcher with an Oshkosh M983A4 tractor unit (8×8). The launcher semi-trailer is a modified M870 semi-trailer of the Patriot SAM launcher. The missile system will use the standard American fire control system for missile forces and artillery AFATDS in version 7.0. The battery of the LRHW system will include four dual-container launchers and one Battery Operation Center,” Defense Blog wrote.

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    RCCTO officials told the military blog that one experimental LRHW prototype would be ready by 2023 for testing.

    Pentagon officials warn that Russia and China are outpacing the US in hypersonic missile technology.

    While Russia has already deployed hypersonic missiles into its arsenal and China continues to test the weapons, it seems the US is clearly behind in hypersonic weaponry development.

  • According To The Feds, 19 Million Acres Of Farmland Went Un-Planted With Crops This Year

    Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

    If that headline sounds really bad to you, that is because the situation that we are facing is really bad. 

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    Over the past few months, I have written article after articleabout the unprecedented crisis that U.S. farmers are facing this year.  In those articles, I have always said that “millions” of acres of farmland did not get planted this year, because I knew that we did not have a final number yet.  Well, now we do, and it is extremely troubling.  Of course there are some people out there that do not even believe that we are facing a crisis, and a few have even accused me of overstating the severity of the problems that U.S. farmers are currently dealing with.  Sadly, things are not as bad as I thought – the truth is that they are even worse.  According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, crops were not planted on 19.4 million acres of U.S. farmland this year.  The following comes directly from the official website of the USDA…

    Agricultural producers reported they were not able to plant crops on more than 19.4 million acres in 2019, according to a new report released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). This marks the most prevented plant acres reported since USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) began releasing the report in 2007 and 17.49 million acres more than reported at this time last year.

    So this is the largest number that the USDA has ever reported for a single year, and it is nearly 17.5 million acres greater than last year’s final tally of less than 2 million acres.

    If you have been following my articles on a regular basis, then you know exactly why this has happened.  The middle of the nation was absolutely pummeled by endless rain and unprecedented flooding throughout the first half of 2019, and this new USDA report shows that the vast majority of the acres that were not planted come from that area of the country…

    Of those prevented plant acres, more than 73 percent were in 12 Midwestern states, where heavy rainfall and flooding this year has prevented many producers from planting mostly corn, soybeans and wheat.

    “Agricultural producers across the country are facing significant challenges and tough decisions on their farms and ranches,” USDA Under Secretary for Farm Production and Conservation Bill Northey said. “We know these are challenging times for farmers, and we have worked to improve flexibility of our programs to assist producers prevented from planting.”

    Of course the 19.4 million acres that were not planted are only part of the story.

    Most farmers were able to get seeds in the ground despite the challenging conditions, but in much of the country the crops are not in good shape.

    In fact, according to the latest crop progress report only 57 percent of the corn is considered to be in “good” or “excellent” shape.

    Unfortunately, the nation’s soybean crop is in even worse shape.  At this point, only 54 percent of the soybeans are in “good” or “excellent” shape.

    In addition, only 8 percent of the U.S. spring wheat crop has been harvested so far.  That is “sharply below the 30% five-year average”.

    So what does all of this mean?

    Well, it means that we have a real crisis on our hands.  A lot less crops are being grown, and a substantial percentage of the crops that are being grown are not in good shape.  Yields are going to be way down across the board, and that means that U.S. agricultural production is going to be way, way below initial expectations.

    In other words, we are going to grow a lot less food than usual.

    One bad year is not going to be the end of the world, but what if things don’t bounce back next year?  As I keep telling my readers, our planet is becoming increasingly unstable in a whole bunch of different ways, and global weather patterns have been shifting dramatically.  Many experts are issuing very ominous warnings about what is ahead as weather patterns continue to shift, and some believe that what we have witnessed so far is just the very beginning of this crisis.

    Almost every day, there are new headlines about extreme weather and records being broken.  For example, one community in Colorado just got pummeled by hail the size of softballs…

    Monster hail fell from the sky and hammered areas of the central United States on Tuesday, shattering a state record. Earlier on Tuesday before the storms developed, AccuWeather Extreme Meteorologist Reed Timmer warned that Colorado’s state hail record could be in jeopardy given the intensity of the storms that he saw developing.

    His prediction came to fruition on Tuesday afternoon when a hailstone with a maximum diameter of 4.83″ fell in Bethune, Colorado, on Tuesday afternoon. The record was confirmedon Wednesday evening by the Colorado Climate Center and the National Weather Service office in Goodland, Kansas.

    For some of my readers, this freakish incident is going to set off major alarm bells.

    We are regularly seeing things happen that we have never seen before.  In other words, the seemingly impossible is happening so frequently that it has become mundane.

    Despite all of our advanced technology, we are still completely and utterly dependent on the weather.  If the weather does not cooperate, farmers cannot grow our food, and we will not eat.

    Hopefully harvest season will go smoothly, but even if that happens, food supplies will be a lot tighter in the months ahead and that means that prices will continue to rise steadily.

    This is a crisis that is going to affect all of us.  I wish that I could get everyone to understand this, but unfortunately there are still a lot of people out there that are not taking this seriously.

  • Chinese And Saudi Shoppers Are Ditching Beverly Hills Ritzy Boutique Stores

    The Hollywood Reporter is blaming a collapse in Chinese and Saudi tourist at Beverly Hills hospitality and shopping destinations on President Trump’s trade war and immigration policies.

    Fewer foreigners are showing up this year at world-renowned fashion houses and one-of-a-kind local boutiques at Rodeo Drive, a two-mile-long street packed with Prada, Gucci, Valentino, Armani, Dior, and Cartier stores.

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    According to the International Trade Administration, Chinese travelers to the US has plunged for the first time in 15 years, down -5.7% in 2018, likely to be a lot worse in 2019.

    The Hollywood Reporter blames the slowdown of tourist on “trade war-induced propaganda, with China issuing US travel alerts warning of shootings and robberies; and Trump administration visa restrictions.”

    Chinese and Saudi tourist account for a sizeable share of store sales in Beverly Hills. The LA’s Tourism & Convention Board reports Chinese travelers to LA spent the most money in the city, about $3.3 billion in 2018.

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    Rhys Edwards, an executive director of marketing at for the luxury Beverly Hills auto dealership O’Gara Coach Co., told the paper that he’s noticed “a little dip in our Chinese and Arabic clients this year,” adding, “I presume it has something to do with the travel visa issues.”

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    Lauren Santillana of the Beverly Hills Conference & Visitors Bureau said, “Our China business is down,” and tourist from the Persian Gulf sank in July, based on several conversations with luxury hotel managers.

    “Literally half of our Gulf region clients skipped coming to America this year to go to the Mediterranean,” said luxury personal shopper Nicole Pollard Bayme. “And it’s not because they can’t get into the United States; they can’t get visas for their staff because of what Trump’s doing. Hotels are dead. Just walking down the street, the demographic is different. There’ve been years when you might have thought you were in the Gulf, walking down Rodeo, and those days are gone.”

    A front end sales associate at the Coach store on Rodeo Drive said purchases by Chinese clients are down “maybe 40%” YoY this summer.

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    An associate at Salvatore Ferragamo said Chinese and Saudi business is down “maybe 30%” YoY.

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    At Ermenegildo Zegna, an employee said a “significant” drop in Chinese and Middle Eastern customers had been observed during the peak shopping season.

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    In a separate report by the Los Angeles Times, Chong Hing Jewelers, located in San Gabriel Square, has seen the amount of Chinese tourist plunge in the last two years.

    “I had days with literally hundreds [of Chinese tourists] coming through my stores,” said David Lee, chairman and chief executive of Hing Wa Lee Group. “That changed maybe one to two years ago, and now everyone is experiencing fewer.”

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    Another reason for the decline of Chinese tourism to LA is due to President Xi Jinping removal of tariffs on luxury goods last summer, allows the Chinese to purchase their favorite high-end foreign products domestically rather than traveling to the West.

    According to a report from Exane BNP Paribas, as recently as early 2017, luxury goods purchased in China cost 21% more than their global average. As of 2019, not anymore.

    Julie Wagner, CEO of the Beverly Hills Conference and Visitors Bureau, said, “You cannot sustain double-digit growth forever. When the retailers are looking at year-over-year numbers, it’s hard for them to get their head around that because it looks like it’s falling, but really it’s just a return to normal after those crazy times.”

    So maybe President Trump’s trade war and immigration policies, combined with China’s dismissal of luxury good tariffs, has created a bust cycle in Beverly Hills shopping industry that will continue to gain momentum into 2020.

  • The Great Switch Is Underway

    Authored by Alastair Crooke via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    Conflict is popping up everywhere: A major portion of the Turkish army stands ready to invade parts of Syria (though invasion may have been averted for now); PM Modi may just have ignited the next round of Kashmir wars with Pakistan with his Hindu ‘nationalist’ putsch to annex Muslim majority Jammu-Kashmir; Japan has started a mini trade war with South Korea; Turkey is bracing for a face-off with Greece and Cyprus over energy exploration in the East Mediterranean; the Yemen war is heating up with the war increasingly being fought inside southern Saudi Arabia; the US-Iran and the Syria conflicts simmer, and Hong Kong has boiled-over into violence.

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    What is going on? Is there some unifying thread connecting this sudden outbreak of widespread global tension? Of course all these conflicts have their separate background contexts. But why so many at the same time? Well, in a word, it’s all about change — about the recognition that we are at the cusp of major changes. The world is beginning to pre-position.

    Take, for example, the about-turn by the UAE (heretofore, a major agitator for an Iran confrontation) reaching out to Iran. Much of this Gulf State fervour for confrontation with Iran arose on the rebound from the Obama move to normalise with Iran (through the JCPOA). The Gulf States feared losing the umbrella of the US protection which, it was believed, inoculated these monarchies as much from repression of their internal reformists, as from Iran. Then, with the arrival of President Trump, the opportunity seemed to present itself again to lock-in that US ‘guarantee’ by inciting the new President, already obsessed with his notion of Iranian ‘malignity’ into action.

    But suddenly, the Gulf chimaera of Trump retarding a resurgent Iran through inflicting a couple of generations worth of missile damage on its infrastructure faded under the desert heat. When Iran took the initiative with its counter-pressures, the US finally did not react, either to Hormuz, or to the loss of its high-spec drone.

    It’s not over yet: Iran remains a grave flash-point, but in the region it is understood that the US neither has the political will, nor the capacity, for protracted military action (as opposed to a quick ‘one and done’, to which Iran has promised substantial retaliation). This sense of a ‘shift’ has been reinforced by Trump’s repeat last month of his call for withdrawal from Syria, and by his almost indecent haste in trying to exit Afghanistan. The omens are plain: America is on its way out from the Middle East.

    Gulf States need to re-position – and they are. They are repositioning into the security architecture being led by China and Russia. Ten days ago, via a document officially approved by the United Nations, the Russian Foreign Ministry advanced a new concept of collective security for the Persian Gulf. The Russian initiative should be interpreted as a sort of counterpart of, and mostly a complement to, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, writes Pepe Escobar.

    Add to this that China is toying with giving Chinese naval protection to its own vessels in the Gulf (from US or UK-style tanker hijacking); and that Russia and Iran have agreed to mount joint naval exercises in Hormuz (which will give Russia access to the Bandar-e-Bushehr and Chabahar naval facilities), to understand that the notion of a Russo-Chinese security architecture is assuming substance. It makes sense for Gulf States to seek out a new protector. And they are.

    So, how does this link to these other effusions of conflict? One aspect concerns the evolution of Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ thesis: Its lack of any major success to date has already been widely remarked. But the telling factor is that this ‘Art of the Deal’ approach lacks any means to metamorphose this US maximum ‘pressure’ into any meaningful political or strategic diplomatic path. It has attenuated down to ‘capitulate’, or we can make the pain worse. It is in short, the further radicalisation of US exceptionalism. John Bolton formulated it thus: “The greatest hope for freedom for mankind in history is the United States, and therefore protecting American national interest is the single best strategy for the world.” Or, in other words, your interests are irrelevant to me.

    What may have initiated as an Art of the Deal strategy has evolved over time from ‘great-power rivalry’, into unabashed new ‘Cold War’. The consequence of this ‘to the devil with yourinterests’ approach, is that most likely now, neither China, nor Iran, nor Turkey actively want a ‘deal’ with US.

    This has been particularly relevant in the case of Turkey. As a key NATO member, Turkey largely has been taken for granted in terms of the US pursuit of its own interests, but reciprocity has not recently been on offer: Turkey was simply assumed to have no interests that NATO or the United States felt duty bound to respect. NATO membership was in itself, accolade enough. And, with Turkey’s anger at the 2016 coup attempt, and with its dismay at Centcom’spursuit of its Kurdish autonomy project, NATO simply shifted to raising the NATO-positioning of (an all too willing) Greece – Turkey’s ancient nemesis. Thus, the single-minded pursuit of US interests (in Syria) has resulted in the setting-up of a new struggle between Turkey and Greece in the East Mediterranean, threatening too, to unstitch the precarious status of Greek-dominated Nicosia. Not surprisingly, Turkey is re-discovering its old role as a Eurasian power, with China and Russia according Turkey appropriate esteem. Like others, it seems to be embracing the Chinese-Russian architecture.

    This is not to imply that America’s beggar-my-neighbour trade and geo-political approach, nor its shying from wars, can alone account for the present crop of troubles. The radical leverage of US interests to the point of zero-tolerance of others’ interests however does raise the question: why is there no ‘plan B’ if China, Iran, Russia and North Korea refuse to capitulate?

    Is it then, that a pathway to a ‘deal’ was never what some in Washington wanted? Is it that the objective from the outset was to use tariffs to break Asian supply lines – and to force them, via tariffs, to be reconstructed in the US. Is it that a new ‘nuclear deal’ with Iran was never actively sought by certain DC constituencies: that it was always about regime change?

    The other, wider factor, accounting for this sense of a world in metamorphose precisely is the western cultural implosion, or ‘Great Switch’ (as the founder of the Rousseau Institute terms it). So little time ago, the western liberal, cultural and economic vision was at its apogee. It seemed inevitable. It seemed irrefutable. It stood as the western centre of gravity. But as President Putin recently observed, (so few years later), liberalism and the European so-called Enlightenment is viewed as ‘obsolete’ by much of the world. This quite sudden Great Shift has left the Liberal camp – that was partying ‘on top of the World’ – distraught, angry and apprehensive. In the polarised US and the UK, the antagonisms are causing people to eat each other alive.

    The ‘civil war’ within the western paradigm allows other (non-western) states new space to find their own path. Sometimes this path can be potentially destructive — as in Modi’s Hindu-nationalist annexation of Jammu-Kashmir (during the Bush Administration Modi was denied a visa on grounds that he supported Hindu extremism during anti-Muslim riots in 2002). But the reality is that there is no longer any need to pay obeisance to the western moralising Shibboleths, when they are being violently challenged within the liberal citadels themselves. In short, if the West is fighting over its values, what price these values as the basis for the western-led Global Order?

    We are indeed at a point of inflection. Some westerners may muse that the status quo ante is somehow recoverable (if only Trump is gone, and the ‘populists’ contained). That is delusional. The external world is transforming. China, Russia and Asia will replace US hegemony – not with another hegemony – but with a loose coalition of states espousing a different values and civilizational model. And with their values differing from the Protestant paradigm of the John Locke, John Hume and Adam Smith, they will arrive at other economic perspectives.

    And the status quo ante will not be available even domestically in the West. For, the western party political system itself is in irreversible transformation, too. Western politicians of all spectra are trying to adjust to a public life in which the old world is still around, whilst the new one is only emerging.

    The post-war party political system of family and community ties to either Centre-Left and Centre Right (with not a great difference between the two) is dying in western democracies.The Centre-Left is expiring because its original mission is no longer relevant to a large enough proportion of the electorate. What is the point of parties that existed to represent the interests of trade unions and the industrial proletariat when mass employment in heavy industry has come to an end? Post-industrial economies are a global phenomenon.

    “The popular conscience today is not exercised by the plight of great numbers of workers being exploited by factory owners. It is more concerned, if anything, by the prospect of factory closures. The old Left-wing battles over working conditions and pay are largely over. The new problem is much more subtle, and less amenable to socialist solutions: how to maintain an industrial sector which offers large-scale employment particularly to those with low (or no) skills. Globalisation has a great deal to do with this, but the decline of the factory-based economy is at the very heart of it” (as in Trump’s appeal to the ‘deplorables’ from a stance on the Nationalist-Right, rather than the Left, strongly suggests), writes Janet Daley.

    So here we are at the western dilemma: The moderate forces of Centre-Left and Centre Right are still hoping to represent the people they always have: middle class voters who want to display their decency by voting for a party that espouses some notion of ‘social concern’. But, as the preoccupations of the élite, metropolitan consciousness have turned to more specific ‘disadvantaged’ groups – ethnic minorities, women, and gender non-conformists – the less likely it is that they will give any regard or understanding to the everyday impact of failed mass immigration and multiculturism on the majority (the ‘Sixty-Percent’). And so the polarisation grows, with each group retreating into its enclave. And the Centre Parties wane, in line with a shrinking, economically-struggling Middle Class.

    Three major political forces are gathering strength in this political environment where global warming (for the former Centrists), and immigration (for the sixty per centers) are the new defining issues.

    • Nationalist right-wing parties, once marginal, are now a structural element of Europe’s political landscapes.

    • The Centre is struggling everywhere,

    • and the third force is becoming the Green movement. Its spectacular rise – as voters reject the traditional parties and press their leaders on the urgency to act against climate change – is mostly attributable to a mobilisation of the young.

    It is this cloistered élite ‘blind spot’ of discounting the adverse effects of globalisation on the ‘Sixty-Percenters’, in favour of pursuing their ephemeral identity preoccupations, that has become toxic for what remains of the old working class. Daley suggests this blind spot “probably cost Hillary Clinton the presidency: women in the depressed rust belt states were not worried about “glass ceilings”, they were worried about putting food on the table and whether their men would ever work again. What happened next? They voted, as the angry and disenfranchised are inclined to do, for a demagogue who did not regard them with contempt, and who gave voice to their frustration”.

    The status quo ante is no longer available – even domestically – in the West, let alone externally. The Great Switch is underway. Society has lost its cultural centre of gravity. The old way of life is fading, and is close to extinction.

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Aug 15

Today’s News 15th August 2019

  • Historic Berlin Airport Could Get Drive-In Sex Booths

    It’s being proposed as prostitution with the safety and convenience of an Uber. A historic airport in Berlin is the proposed site of “Verichtungsboxen” — or publicly available prostitution booths where sex workers can meet clients at what’s considered a relatively safe and regulated venue. 

    The mayor of Berlin’s central Mitte district is leading the initiative to turn the city’s former Tempelhof airport, which was famous for being a Nazi airfield in WWII and afterwards site of the Berlin airlift during the Cold War, into a “drive-in” prostitution site. 

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    The historic Tempelhof airport. Image source: Cairns Post

    According to CNN, the plans will include “drive-in booths, where customers can meet sex workers in their own vehicles.”

    Since going out of service in 2008, Tempelhof has since been turned into a sprawling public park and recreation area, but previously claimed the title of the world’s oldest operating commercial airport.

    The Green party mayor leading the initiative, Stephan von Dassel, says he wants to not only clean up Berlin’s streets, but provide a safer environment for sex workers, ultimately in a bid to improve the lives of “residents and sex workers” alike.

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    Via The Daily Mail

    “Residents and businesses have been calling for a ban on street prostitution for many years,” he said in a statement.

    He further described as the Berlin Senate refusing to take any regulatory action “because it fears a deterioration of the overall situation.”

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    The historic Tempelhof airport turned public park area. Image source: Getty via CNN.

    Tempelhof airport has often been referenced as “Hitler’s Airport” but has since 2008 been a popular public park and recreation area. 

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    Dassel also noted that providing Kurfürstenstrasse at the well-known and popular city site would hopefully prevent men “seeking sexual services at such a low price”. One of the problems, he explained, is that sex workers increasingly had to operate as a “bulk business in order to earn a basic income.”

    Germany legalized street prostitution in the early 2000’s, and especially over the last decade has seen the sex industry boom, with prostitutes enjoying “worker’s rights” the same as if they were in transportation or the food industry. Berlin has long been known as having among the world’s most liberal prostitution laws.

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    Verrichtungsboxen in Zürich-Altstetten, August 2013

    But similar to the situation the The Netherlands recently, there’s been a slow public backlash given the simultaneous sex worker health crisis, influx of drugs, pimps, human trafficking, and rampant unreported abuse of women. 

    One classic line of Mitte district’s mayor quoted by CNN is as follows:

    The visibility of pimps is having a “negative impact on the safety of residents,” he says.

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    Another example of regulated sex booths. Source: Uwe Weiser (Express)

    The drive-in sex booths idea has actually been implemented on a limited bases in places like Cologne, Zurich, and in The Netherlands.

    In practice they ideally include security features like cameras outside the booths and alarm buttons that a sex worker can push if they are under threat. 

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    But one significant roadblock the plan may run into is the fact that as a centrally located public park, where families can often be seen rollerblading or picnicking or having an early evening stroll, is that families may react angrily at the idea that Tempelhof could be partially transformed into a drive-in sex service. 

    This would of course, simply take the pimps and prostitutes off the streets and bring them to the recreation and “play” area of the landmark airport. 

  • The British Still Haven't Learned The Lessons Of The Troubles

    Authored by Patrick Cockburn via Counterpunch.org,

    Fifty years ago, the Battle of the Bogside in Derry between Catholics and police, combined with the attacks on Catholic areas of Belfast by Protestants, led to two crucial developments that were to define the political landscape for decades: the arrival of the British army and the creation of the Provisional IRA.

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    An eruption in Northern Ireland was always likely after half a century of undiluted Protestant and unionist party hegemony over the Catholics. But its extreme militarisation and length was largely determined by what happened in August 1969.

    An exact rerun of this violent past is improbable, but the next few months could be equally decisive in determining the political direction of Northern Ireland. The Brexit crisis is reopening all the old questions about the balance of power between Catholics and Protestants and relations with Britain and the Irish Republic that the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) of 1998 had provided answers with which everybody could live.

    The occasion which led to the battle of the Bogside came on 12 August when the Apprentice Boys, a fraternity memorialising the successful Protestant defence of Derry against Catholic besiegers in the 17th century, held their annual march. Tensions were already high in Derry and Belfast because the unionist government and its overwhelmingly Protestant police force was trying to reassert its authority, battered and under threat since the first civil rights marches in 1968.

    What followed was closer to an unarmed uprising than a riot as the people of the Bogside barricaded their streets and threw stones and petrol bombs to drive back attacks by hundreds of policemen using batons and CS gas. In 48 hours of fighting, a thousand rioters were treated for injuries and the police suffered unsustainable casualties, but they had failed to gain control of the Bogside.

    Its defenders called for protests in other parts of the North to show solidarity with their struggle and to overstretch the depleted Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). In Belfast, Protestants stormed into the main Catholic enclave in the west of the city, burning houses and forcing Catholics to flee. The RUC stood by or actively aided the attacks. The local MP Paddy Devlin estimated that 650 families were burned out in a single night, many taking refuge in the Irish Republic

    I was in Bombay Street, where all the houses were burned on the night of 14-15 August, earlier this year. The street was long ago rebuilt but still has a feeling of abnormality and menace because it is only a few feet from the “peace line” with its high wall and higher wire mesh to stop missiles being thrown over the top from the Protestant district next door.

    The most striking feature of Bombay Street is the large memorial garden, though it is more like a religious shrine, to martyrs both military and civilian from the district who have been killed by political violence since 1916. A high proportion of these were members of the Provisional IRA who died in the fighting during the 30 years of warfare after Bombay Street was burned.

    The memorial is a reminder of the connection between what many local people see as an anti-Catholic pogrom in 1969 and the rise of the Provisional IRA. It split away from what became known as the official IRA because the latter had failed to defend Catholic districts.

    Pictures of the ruins of Bombay Street on the morning of 15 August show local people giving British soldiers cups of tea. But this brief amity was never going to last because the unionist government in Stormont had asked the prime minister of day, Harold Wilson, to send in the troops not to defend Catholics but to reinforce its authority.

    It was the role the British army were to play in one way or another for the next 30 years. It was one which was bound not only to fail but to be counterproductive. So long as the soldiers were there in support of a Protestant and unionist political and military establishment, the IRA were always going to have enough popular support to stay in business.

    British governments at the time never got a grip on the political realities of the North. Soon after the troops were first sent there, the cabinet minister Richard Crossman blithely recorded in his diary that “we have now got ourselves into something which we can hardly mismanage”. But mismanage it they did and on a grotesque scale. The Provisionals were initially thin on the ground, but army raids and arrests acted as their constant recruiting sergeant. Internment without trial introduced on 9 August 1971, the anniversary of which falls today, was another boost as were the hunger strikes of 1981 which turned Sinn Fein into a significant political force.

    What are the similarities between the situation today and 50 years ago? In many respects, it is transformed because there is no Protestant unionist state backed by the British army. The Provisional IRA no longer exists. The GFA has worked astonishingly well in allowing Protestants and Catholics to have their separate identities and, on occasion though less effectively, to share power.

    Brexit and the Conservative Party dependence on the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) for its parliamentary majority since 2017 has thrown all these gains into the air. DUP activists admit privately that they want a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic because they have never liked the GFA and would like to gut it. Sinn Fein, which gets about 70 per cent of the Catholic/nationalist vote these days, is pleased that the partition of Ireland is once again at the top of the political agenda.

    “I am grappling with the idea of a hard border which I would call a Second Partition of Ireland,” Tom Hartley, a Sinn Fein veteran and former lord mayor of Belfast, told me. He is baffled by British actions that appear so much against their interests, saying that “they had parked the Irish problem, but now Ireland has moved once again into the centre of British politics”.

    Would Boris Johnson’s enthusiasm to get rid of “the backstop” evaporate if he wins or loses a general election and the Conservatives are no longer dependent on the DUP for their majority? Possibly, but his right-wing government has plenty of members who never liked the GFA and their speeches show them to be even more ignorant about Northern Ireland politics than their predecessors in Harold Wilson’s cabinet half a century ago.

    An example of this is their oft-declared belief that some magical gadget will be found to monitor the border by remote means. But any such device will be rapidly torn down and smashed where the border runs through nationalist majority parts of the border.

    Northern Ireland may be at peace, but in a border area like strongly Republican South Armagh, the police only move in convoys of three vehicles and carry rifles, even if they are only delivering a parking ticket.

    Catholics are no longer the victims of economic discrimination, though Derry still has the highest unemployment of any city in the UK. There has been levelling down as well as levelling up: Harland and Wolff, the great shipyard that once employed much of the population of Protestant east Belfast, went into administration this week.

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    Irish unity is being discussed as a practical, though highly polarising, proposition once again. Political and economic turmoil is back in a deeply divided and fragile society in which the binds holding it together are easily unstitched.

  • 7 Reasons To Stand Against Red Flag Guns Laws

    Authored by John Miltimore via The Foundation for Economic Education,

    The Associated Press reports Congress is seriously considering red flag gun laws.

    These laws, also called “extreme risk protection orders,” allow courts to issue orders allowing law enforcement to seize firearms from people who’ve committed no crime but are believed to be a danger to themselves or others.

    President Trump has signaled his backing of bipartisan Senate legislation sponsored by Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.

    “We must make sure that those judged to pose a grave risk to public safety do not have access to firearms and that if they do those firearms can be taken through rapid due process,” Trump said in a White House speech.

    Red flag laws have garnered support from several conservative intellectuals, as well, including David French of National Review and Ben Shapiro.

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    Here are seven reasons red flag laws should be opposed, particularly at the federal level.

    Most people haven’t heard of red flag laws until recently—if they have at all—but they aren’t new.

    Connecticut enacted the nation’s first red flag law in 1999, followed by Indiana (2005). This means social scientists have had decades to analyze the effectiveness of these laws. And what did they find?

    “The evidence,” The New York Times recently reported, “for whether extreme risk protection orders work to prevent gun violence is inconclusive, according to a study by the RAND Corporation on the effectiveness of gun safety measures.”

    The Washington Post reports that California’s red flag went basically unused for two years after its passage in 2016. Washington, D.C.’s law has gone entirely unused. Other states, such as Florida and Maryland, have gone the other direction, seizing hundreds of firearms from gun-owners. Yet it’s unclear if these actions stopped a shooting.   

    With additional states passing red flag laws, researchers will soon have much more data to analyze. But before passing expansive federal legislation that infringes on civil liberties, lawmakers should have clear and compelling empirical evidence that red flag laws actually do what they are intended to do.

    The Founding Fathers clearly enumerated the powers of the federal government in the Constitution. Among the powers granted in Article I, Section 8 are “the power to coin money, to regulate commerce, to declare war, to raise and maintain armed forces, and to establish a Post Office.”

    Regulating firearms is not among the powers listed in the Constitution (though this has not always stopped lawmakersfrom regulating them). In fact, the document expressly forbids the federal government from doing so, stating in the Second Amendment that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

    Unlike the federal government, whose powers, James Madison noted, are “few and defined,” states possess powers that “are numerous and indefinite.”

    Indeed, 17 states and the District of Columbia already have red flag laws, and many more states are in the process of adding them. This shows that the people and their representatives are fully capable of passing such laws if they choose. If red flag laws are deemed desirable, this is the appropriate place to pursue such laws, assuming they pass constitutional muster. But do they?

    The Constitution mandates that no one shall be “deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.”

    Seizing the property of individuals who have been convicted of no crime violates this provision. Gun control advocates claim due process is not violated because people whose firearms are taken can appeal to courts to reclaim their property. However, as economist Raheem Williams has observed, “this backward process would imply that the Second Amendment is a privilege, not a right.”

    Depriving individuals of a clearly established, constitutionally-guaranteed right in the absence of criminal charges or trial is an affront to civil liberties.

    In 2018, two Maryland police officers shot and killed 61-year-old Gary Willis in his own house after waking him at 5:17 a.m. The officers, who were not harmed during the shooting, had been ordered to remove guns from his home under the state’s red flag law, which had gone into effect one month prior to the shooting.

    While red flag laws are designed to reduce violence, it’s possible they could do the opposite by creating confrontations between law enforcement and gun owners like Willis, especially as the enforcement of red flag laws expands.

    In theory, red flag laws are supposed to target individuals who pose a threat to themselves or others. In practice, they can work quite differently.

    In a 14-page analysis, the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island explained that few people understand just how expansive the state’s red flag law is.

    “It is worth emphasizing that while a seeming urgent need for [the law] derives from recent egregious and deadly mass shootings, [the law’s] reach goes far beyond any efforts to address such extraordinary incidents,” the authors said. Individuals who find themselves involved in these proceedings often have no clear constitutional right to counsel.

    “As written, a person could be subject to an extreme risk protective order (ERPO) without ever having committed, or even having threatened to commit, an act of violence with a firearm.”

    Though comprehensive information is thin, and laws differ from state to state, anecdotal evidence suggests Rhode Island’s law is not unique. A University of Central Florida student, for example, was hauled into proceedings and received a year-long RPO (risk protection order) for saying “stupid” things on Reddit following a mass shooting, even though the student had no criminal history and didn’t own a firearm. (The student also was falsely portrayed as a “ticking time bomb” by police, Jacub Sullum reports.) Another man, Reason reports, was slapped with an RPO for criticizing teenage gun control activists online and sharing a picture of an AR-15 rifle he had built.

    Individuals who find themselves involved in these proceedings often have no clear constitutional right to counsel, civil libertarians point out.

    As I’ve previously observed, red flag laws are essentially a form of pre-crime, a theme explored in the 2002 Steven Spielberg movie Minority Report, based on a 1956 Philip K. Dick novel.

    I’m not the only writer to make the connection. In an articlethat appeared in Salon, Travis Dunn linked red flag laws “to the science fiction scenario of The Minority Report, in which precognitive police try to stop crimes before they’re committed.”

    That government can prevent crimes before they occur may sound like sci-fi fantasy (which it is), but the threat posed to civil liberties is quite real.

    If this sounds far-fetched, consider that the president recently called upon social media companies to collaborate with the Department of Justice to catch “red flags” using algorithmic technology.

    The idea that governments can prevent crimes before they occur may sound like sci-fi fantasy (which it is), but the threat such ideas pose to civil liberties is quite real.

    Compromising civil liberties and property rights to prevent acts of violence that have yet to occur are policies more suited for dystopian thrillers⁠ – and police states⁠ – than a free society.

    It’s clear that laws of this magnitude should not be passed as an emotional or political response to an event, even a tragic one.

  • 42% Of Americans Say They Can't Afford Vacation

    A staggering 42% of Americans surveyed by Bankrate say they chose to skip taking a vacation over the past year due to finances, while around a third reported that they are less able to afford one now versus five years ago (though 26% reported just the opposite), according to Bloomberg. 

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    More than two-thirds of U.S. adults opted out of a recreational activity due to the cost at some point in the past year, the study found.

    You can’t blame them. Trade tensions have economists projecting the likelihood of a recession in the next 12 months at 35 per cent.  U.S. student debt is over $1.5 trillion. Almost 40 per cent of Americans think the economy is “not so good” or “poor.” –Bloomberg

    Half of those surveyed said that the activities they skipped were too expensive to begin with or not a good value, 41% said they wanted to save money for other things, and 43% reported not having enough money in general after basic expenses were paid. 

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    Suffering the most? Parents – over three quarters of whom with children under the age of 18 reporting that they’ve skipped leisure time vs. 66% of non-parents. 

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    The survey of 2500 adults was conducted online in July. 

  • Mediation Is The Way Forward For Kashmir

    Authored by Brian Cloughley via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    It so happened that when the most recent Kashmir crisis broke on 5 August I was at a gathering of the UN Blue Berets of Kashmir. We served together in that beautiful but now chaotic region 39 years ago and have had a reunion almost every year since then. We have rarely been able to discuss good news about Kashmir, because there hasn’t been any.

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    The August decision by India’s ultra-nationalist Prime Minister to unilaterally change the status of the territory is only one of the many disasters to befall it in the seventy years since the Muslim majority state, the fiefdom of a Hindu Maharaja, was allocated to India by the colonial British who in 1947 had been forced to grant independence to India, resulting in creation of the separate nations of Pakistan and India which disagree about the status of the territory.

    Before examining the Indian government’s recent actions, a most important aspect of the Kashmir dispute has to be clarified.  It concerns the matter of bilateralism as interpreted by India. This was indicated, for example, by the newspaper the Chandigarh Tribunewhich stated on 8 August that “UN chief Antonio Guterres has recalled the Simla Agreement of 1972, a bilateral agreement between India and Pakistan that rejects third-party mediation in Kashmir after Islamabad asked him to play his ‘due role’ following New Delhi’s decision to revoke Jammu and Kashmir’s special status.”

    The Tribune is one of India’s best newspapers.  Its reports are usually factual, objective and well-written.  But it is flat wrong in its contention that the Simla Accord “rejects” third party mediation about Kashmir, because it most certainly does no such thing.

    The Tribune was retailing the policy of the Indian government whose External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar announced on 2 August that he had “conveyed to American counterpart Mike Pompeo, this morning in clear terms, that any discussion on Kashmir, if at all warranted, will only be with Pakistan and only bilaterally.” India has for decades insisted that involvement of any third party is not permissible and that there can be no mediation.

    It is obvious why India refuses to countenance mediation — because it is almost certain that any independent, objective mediator would make the point that UN Security Council agreements still apply to the territory, and that none of them, most notably the matter of a plebiscite, have been annulled or in any manner diluted.  As the BBC has noted, “In three resolutions, the UN Security Council and the United Nations Commission in India and Pakistan recommended that as already agreed by Indian and Pakistani leaders, a plebiscite should be held to determine the future allegiance of the entire state.”

    But it is India’s relentless and wilful misinterpretation of its existing accord with Pakistan that is the greatest blockage in the path to reconciliation.

    The Simla Agreement between India and Pakistan was signed by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and President Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto following the 1971 war between the countries, which resulted in creation of Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan.  It lays down that “the principles and purposes of the Charter of the United Nations shall govern the relations between the two countries” and “the two countries are resolved to settle their differences by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations or by any other peaceful means mutually agreed upon between them . . .”

    First, the mention of the United Nations, which is important because the UN Charter states in Paragraph 33 that “The parties to any dispute, the continuance of which is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, shall, first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice.”

    Mediation and arbitration are proposed, and the Simla Accord does not in any way discount or reject them. Its statement “That the two countries are resolved to settle their differences by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations or by any other peaceful means mutually agreed upon between them” is quite clear that by inclusion of the phrase “or by any other peaceful means” that mediation is not excluded.

    India is intent on becoming a permanent member of the UN Security Council, but this will be impossible if it continues to ignore the content of the UN Charter Chapter 1, Article 1, Paragraph 1, which says its aim is “To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace.”

    It is difficult to see how India’s inflexible opposition to international mediation can benefit India or — much more importantly — the twelve million inhabitants of Indian-administered Kashmir.  The decision by Prime Minister Modi to annul Article 370 of the Constitution and thus abolish the special status of Indian-administered Kashmir was simply a movement in his ultra-nationalist campaign to ensure supremacy of Hindus. Since 1948 the Article has meant that the territory’s citizens have their own Constitution, their own laws, and the right to property ownership, with non-Kashmiris not being permitted to buy land.  It is this last that is a major life-changer for the region, because southern Hindus will now be encouraged to by land and property, and gradually (or perhaps not-so-gradually) displace the Kashmiris themselves.

    Modi promised “new opportunity and prosperity to the people” — but if he thought, before he made the announcement about annulment of citizen’s rights, that this would be greeted with enthusiasm and that his policy would indeed benefit the people of the territory, then why did he send “tens of thousands of Indian troops . . . in addition to the half a million troops already stationed there”?  Why did the Central Government “shut off most communication with [the territory], including internet, cellphone and landline networks”?

    Obviously he was expecting resentment from every Kashmiri.  And he got it.

    Even the news outlet India Today was slightly bemused, and three days before the Modi decision was made public reported that “In the past one week, the Narendra Modi government has decided to send an additional 38,000 troops to the Kashmir Valley in two batches — 10,000 and 28,000. This follows a statement by the home ministry in Parliament that the situation has improved in Kashmir Valley.”  In other words the Central Government was well aware that the Constitution decision would provoke anger and bitterness on the part of Kashmiris and was well-prepared to take military action to crush any manifestation of discontent.

    The New York Times observed that “Clamping down on millions of people is an extraordinary step for the world’s largest democracy. . . As tensions have risen in recent days, groups of young men, full of years of pent-up frustration, have squared off with soldiers, hurling rocks and ducking buckshot. Security forces arrested more than 500 people and put them in makeshift detention centres.”

    On 9 August a reporter for the UK’s Guardian managed to find outthat because of the clampdown on communications “people cannot call relatives, or call ambulances if there is an emergency. Public transport is not running, which means those with health problems can only get to a hospital if they have a car – and even then they struggle to get far. Across the city, many roads are permanently blocked by loops of barbed wire. At checkpoints, people – including families with children – can be seen pleading with police to let them pass. Most people, nervous that tensions were building last week, had stocked up on food and essentials, but it’s not known how long the curfew will last.”

    On 10 August the BBC’s reporter filed that “Thousands of people took to the streets in Srinagar after Friday prayers, in the largest demonstration since a lockdown was imposed in Indian-administered Kashmir. The BBC witnessed the police opening fire and using tear gas to disperse the crowd. Despite that, the Indian government has said the protest never took place.”

    Welcome to the Occupied Territory of Kashmir.

    India and Pakistan continue to claim the whole of Kashmir, but neither government can seriously believe that any mediation tribunal would judge this to be appropriate. There would be compromise — the sort of compromise that India and Pakistan are incapable of reaching on their own.

    If ever mediation was needed, it is now, before there is eruption that could lead to nuclear war between India and Pakistan.

  • Ranking The Top 100 Websites In The World

    As a greater portion of the world begins to live more of their life online, the world’s top 100 websites continue to see explosive growth in their traffic numbers.

    However, as VisualCapitalist’s Nick Routley notes,  to claim even the 100th spot in this ranking, your website would need around 350 million visits in a single month. Using data from SimilarWeb, we’ve visually mapped out the top 100 biggest websites on the internet. Examining the ranking reveals a lot about how people around the world search for information, which services they use, and how they spend time online.

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    Note: This is a ranking of biggest websites, specifically. Brands that extend across platforms or serve the majority of their users through an app will not necessarily rank well on this list. As a result, you’ll notice the absence of companies like WeChat and Snapchat.

    The Top 100 Websites

    The 100 biggest websites generated a staggering 206 billion visits in June 2019. Google, YouTube, and Facebook took the top spots, followed by Baidu and Wikipedia. Below is the full ranking:

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    Search Reigns Supreme

    Search engines provide the connective tissue that binds the internet together, and they accounted for the majority of website traffic in the top 100 ranking.

    Google is the undisputed top website in nearly every country in the world. In fact, Alphabet’s 11 domains in the top 100 ranking – including YouTube and a number of international versions of Google – racked up an impressive 90 billion visits in a single month.

    Exceptions to Google’s dominance can be found in China (Baidu) and Russia (Yandex), where homegrown search engines have managed to capture the domestic market.

    One scrappy competitor, DuckDuckGo, is slowly gaining prominence as an alternative to Google. The search engine’s focus on user privacy appears to be resonating with internet users as the site’s traffic has surpassed 500 million visits per month.

    Full Stream Ahead

    Video streaming and sharing is another major driver of global internet traffic.

    Thanks to high-powered phones and bigger data plans, video is now a prominent portion of internet content consumption. This can take a few forms, from binge watching TV shows on Netflix to short-form video uploads on platforms like Douyin and Instagram.

    Live streaming is increasingly a bigger part of the mix. Twitch, which is focused on gaming, is now ranked 30th in the world in web traffic. The Amazon-owned platform is now so popular that on any given night, its viewership surpasses many of the major U.S. cable networks.

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    Of course, this category also includes adult content, which is well represented in this ranking. XNXX, XVideos, and PornHub all made the top 20, and the three websites combined for over nine billion visits in the most recent month of data available.

    Old Dogs, New Tricks

    Classic web portals such as MSN and Yahoo are still putting up impressive traffic numbers, but major players are increasingly staying relevant by acquiring rising internet stars.

    In the case of Microsoft, acquiring Github and Linkedin helped the company target new markets and grow their overall presence online. Amazon’s acquisition of Twitch proved to be a good bet, and Instagram continues to breathe new life into Facebook, which has seen a backlash focused on its original namesake social network.

    Google isn’t sitting still either. The company recently championed the open-source AMP Project to help improve the performance of mobile pages, which are increasingly bogged down by adware, unoptimized images, and JavaScript. In a short amount of time, the AMP Project has taken off to become one of the biggest websites in the world.

    The project is not without controversy though.

    Critics point out that cached AMP pages – which are hosted by Google – essentially cut out content creators, and that non-compliant pages may lose their ranking on mobile search results. As the project moves towards becoming a foundation, it remains to be seen how AMP will evolve and how much involvement Google will have in the future.

    The Geography of the Top 100 Websites

    The internet may be a global network, but many of the gatekeepers are still located in the United States. If international domain suffixes of companies like Amazon and Google are counted, 60 of the 100 websites in the ranking are American.

    Below is a breakdown of the Top 100 by country.

    China is a strong runner-up, with 14 websites in the Top 100. While most of these Chinese companies are focused on the sizable domestic market, some are also making global inroads through investment. Tencent has partially backed the fast-growing chat platform, Discord, and it also has double-digit stakes in Snapchat and Spotify.

    With the exception of Baidu, all of the biggest websites in the world have swelled in size by serving a global audience. As the tech market continues to mature in China, it remains to be seen whether Chinese companies can successfully move beyond the firewall to become the next Facebook or Google.

  • "Pesticide Cheerleader": EPA Rebukes California With Ban On Warning Labels For Bayer's Roundup

    Authored by Andrea Germanos via CommonDreams.org,

    President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency was accused of being a pesticide “cheerleader” last week after the agency said it would not approval labels that say that glyphosate — the active ingredient in Roundup and other weedkillers — is known to cause cancer.

    In a statement released Thursday announcing the move, the EPA dug in on its assertion that glyphosate does not cause cancer, though critics have said that is “an industry-friendly conclusion that’s simply not based on the best available science.”

    The new guidance takes aim at California’s 2017 move, in adherence with its Proposition 65, to add glyphosate to its list of chemicals known to cause cancer and require warning labels. The state cited the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer 2015 assessment that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

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    Image source: AFP/Getty

    The EPA, however, said those labels provided consumers with false information.

    “We will not allow California’s flawed program to dictate federal policy,” said EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler in the statement.

    The EPA also sent a letter to manufactures on Aug. 7 saying that “pesticide products bearing the Proposition 65 warning statement due to the presence of glyphosate are misbranded” under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA).

    The letter, signed by Michael Goodis, head of EPA’s registration division in its Office of Pesticide Programs, said EPA would not approve labeling with that warning, and that “EPA requests the submission of draft amended labeling that removes such language within ninety days of the date of this letter.”

    Brett Hartl, government affairs director for the Center for Biological Diversity, suggested the EPA wasn’t living up to its own name.

    “It’s a little bit sad the EPA is the biggest cheerleader and defender of glyphosate,” Hartl told The Associated Press.

    “It’s the Environmental Protection Agency, not the pesticide protection agency.”

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    California and the IARC weren’t alone in seeing a link between glyphosate and cancer.

    Three U.S. juries have found Roundup responsible for plaintiffs’ cancers, orderingMonsanto, which was acquired by the German pharmaceutical giant Bayer last year, to pay out tens of millions of dollars to victims. 

    Legal battles continue for the company. It’s appealing the verdicts, but thousands of other people are suing the company for similar damages.

  • US Army Inks Deal For Israel's Iron Dome In Historic First

    A landmark deal for US procurement of Israel’s Iron Dome anti-air missile defense systems was finalized this week. It became official when on Tuesday the US Defense Department announced it had formally signed a contract for two complete Iron Dome systems.

    Co-developed by Raytheon and Israeli defense firm Rafael, the system has been touted by Israeli leaders as the most advanced short to mid-range interceptor in the world with a proven track record, given that even within the past year it’s been engaged in dozens if not hundreds of Hamas rocket intercepts from Gaza.

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    Image via Jewish Policy Center

    “Now that the contract is set in stone, the Army will be able to figure out delivery schedules and details in terms of taking receipt of the systems,” a US missile systems analyst told Defense News of the future transfer.

    From a US perspective the Iron Dome represents an “interim” solution to close some existing gaps in the Army’s anti-air capabilities, as well as experiment with integration with other systems, according to Defense News:

    The Army was shifting around its pots of funding within its Indirect Fires Protection Capability (IFPC) program — under development to defend against rockets, artillery and mortars as well as unmanned aircraft and cruise missiles — to fill its urgent capability gap for cruise missile defense on an interim basis. Congress mandated the Army deploy two batteries by fiscal 2020 in the service’s fiscal 2019 budget.

    The US Army had announced last February when the impending deal was first revealed: “While Iron Dome has been in operational use by the Israeli Air Force since 2011 and proven effective in combat, it should be noted that the U.S. Army will assess a variety of options for its long-term IFPC solution,” according to the report. 

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    This week’s announcement marks the first time Israel has ever sold a stand alone weapons system to the United States. 

    Tel Aviv has recently cited the Iron Dome achieving an 86% shootdown rate when in May about 700 rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip over a period of a few days in the most recent major flare-up of hostilities. 

    Also, last month Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the successful test firing of Israel’s Arrow-3 ballistic missile shield over Alaska, tests previously considered secretive. Specifically the Arrow-3 is designed to take out advanced ballistic missiles in Iran and Syria’s arsenal, and is designed as the ‘top level’ of which the Iron Dome forms the base platform in the overall three-tiered system.

    The Arrow-3, once fully integrated with the Iron Dome and the medium-range ‘David’s Sling,’ will mark the longest range capability in Israel’s multi-tiered missile defense network.

  • US 30Y Yield Tumbles Below 2.00% For The First Time Ever

    From its highs on 10/26/81 (at 15.2%), the 30Y UST yield has collapsed to below 2.00% today.

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    Source: Bloomberg

    That’s quite a trend…

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    Source: Bloomberg

    And for the first time ever, the entire UST curve is below 2.00%…

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    Source: Bloomberg

    What a difference a year makes…

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    Source: Bloomberg

    And don’t forget the Effective Fed Funds Rate is 2.12% – above the entire curve – Well done Fed!!!

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