Jul 17

Today’s News 17th July 2018

  • Putin Likes To Keep Other World Leaders Waiting

    President Trump became the latest leader to experience the “Putin wait” today, with the Russian president 45 minutes overdue for their summit in Helsinki.

    But, as Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, Vladimir Putin has earned a reputation for keeping other world leaders waiting.

    Since 2003, the Russian leader has arrived late for numerous high profile meetings with heads of state, dignitaries and prominent officials.

    Infographic: Putin Likes To Keep Other World Leaders Waiting | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    The Pope isn’t even immune from Putin’s poor timekeeping skills and he was forced to wait just under an hour for a meeting in 2015.

    According to RFE/RL, Angela Merkel was kept waiting an agonising 4 hours and 15 minutes for a meeting with Putin in 2014 while former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych once waited 4 hours before sitting down with the Russian leader. It’s likely Merkel will consider her meeting with Putin in Sochi in 2007 more irritating than the tardy one in 2014.

    In an incident that subsequently became infamous in Germany, Putin introduced Merkel to his pet labrador, despite the German chancellor’s fear of dogs. He recently claimed he was unaware of Merkel’s fear of dogs, adding that he apologised to the her soon after the meeting.

  • How The UK Can Escape Angela Merkel And The EU

    Authored by Brendan Brown via The Mises Institute,

    The British are finding out in their Brexit voyage that escaping from the “might” of an EU dominated by Germany is perilous. At this point there are many grounds for despairing about the ability of their political leaders to achieve a meaningful exit. There would have been much stronger grounds for hope if the May government had nurtured an alliance with the US whilst simultaneously moving to provide its fellow citizens with superior money to the euro which incidentally would bolster the competitiveness of the UK financial sector once outside the EU.

    Of course, British J.S.Mill-type conservatives, just as their US counterparts, have qualms about Trumpism, but that is a sideshow in the world of realpolitik. In taking on Berlin, London surely had much to gain from forging an alliance with a new US President ostensibly inimical to Chancellor Merkel and the EU and with a fondness for Scotland and the Queen. When British negotiators found out very soon after the referendum (June 2016) that Berlin was insisting on large contributions to the Brussels budget and continuing immigration from the EU as condition of not shutting UK service exports (especially financial) out of the EU, it was surely already time to strengthen their hand by reaching across the Atlantic.

    Specifically, if the UK were offering the US enough advantage in terms of a strengthened alliance, surely President Trump would make a condition of any US grand deal with the EU, after the present period of intensifying trade war, that Brussels also makes a peace of equals with London.

    Of what would a UK-US deal consist?

    Britain would open its market to US farmers (and so incidentally providing much cheaper food) and both countries would have broadened financial integration (removing barriers to each other’s service-sector exports). On the world stage the UK would staunchly supported President Trump’s policies on Iran and Israel whilst taking the European lead against Chinese unfair trade practices. London would also lead the charge against currency manipulation, setting an example of free markets in currencies and interest rates starkly different from the Berlin-Frankfurt model.

    In reality there has been absolutely none of this. The landed interests in the Conservative party have blocked any talk of a deal which would have brought down agricultural prices in the UK. Indeed the May government is now proposing that the UK join a EU-UK customs area for goods including farm products – meaning that cheap food imports would be shut out permanently.

    The arch-appeaser in the May government, when it comes to negotiating with the EU, is Finance Minister Hammond. Mr. Hammond is also a monetary appeaser – apparently getting on tremendously with Bank of England Governor Carney, an arch dove in so far as that means anything in the global central bankers club. Mr. Carney has kept money market rates at an emergency near-zero level despite inflation running at over 3% earlier this year and with Sterling ostensibly cheap.

    Brexiters dislike the Governor’s closeness to the “Remainers” and his doom-laden views about the economic costs of any real escape from the EU. Unless the Brexiters get their act together pretty quick, Mr. Hammond will soon be appointing the successor to Mr. Carney, whose departure back to Canada he “successfully” delayed by one year. Under the Carney-Hammond leadership not only has the UK applied every new EU financial regulation in full but there has been a continuing crackdown on offshore market activities from which the City once flourished in competition with highly regulated and highly taxed market-places on the EU mainland.

    Many Conservatives it seems are now deeply concerned that their party could pay the electoral price for a generation of failing to deliver the Brexit their party promised. Instead they are delivering the British people into a “vassal state” even more under the influence of German might than previously. The anti-EU (and anti-immigration) working class voters so essential in their consummation of power could desert in droves.

    The anti-EU vote was an anti-establishment vote. But monetary inflation continues to shower riches on the establishment whilst the small saver approaching retirement has much to fear. His or her children struggle to find affordable living accommodation in a real estate market totally distorted by unsound money and crippling forms of taxation (up to an 8% tax penalty – euphemistically called turnover tax or stamp duty — if you buy a house today and decide to sell it a few months later because of a change in mind about it or the neighbourhood).

    Benjamin Disraeli understood how to win working class loyalty to Conservative-led nationalism of the day (Queen and Empire) and sustain this by delivery of the economic goods (respecting free trade and the gold standard). Today’s Conservatives are failing on all scores – a phoney nationalism which is revealed as Chamberlain-style appeasement to Merkel might; soft money, currency depreciation, and inflation which ensnares the least able to defend themselves; and an embracing of high food prices to suit the landed class.

    Some Brexiters say they will vote against PM May’s EU deal this autumn. Even if they do and her government collapses, it is a very long and hard road back in a shifting and dangerous global environment to a safe ground where the UK can launch a 21st century version of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations agenda. That philosopher founder of modern economics told a friend who lamented that Britain faced disaster after having lost its American colonies “there is much ruin in a nation”. The embracing of his economic principles by the Younger Pitt had much to do with Britain avoiding that ruin and instead leading the first industrial revolution.

    Could a similarly rosy outcome follow the disasters of the May government’s flawed attempt to escape German-dominated EU might? Time will tell, though we should report that there is no Adam Smith and no Younger Pitt and perhaps crucially no Prince Talleyrand, in view.

  • Visualizing The Short History Of America's Trade Wars

    History is full of trade wars.

    In the majority of cases, the consequences are mostly economic – trade barriers are enacted, and then retaliatory measures are used to counter. Relations can continue to escalate until an understanding can be reached by both parties.

    In the minority of cases, trade wars can lead to world-changing consequences.

    You may remember that the Boston Tea Party of 1773 was a bold response to an unfair trade measure imposed by a ruling power, and it proved to be a key catalyst that led to the American Revolution.

    Meanwhile, the Opium Wars occurred after the Qing Dynasty (China) tried to prevent British merchants from selling opium to the Chinese in the 1830s. These trade barriers led to armed conflicts, and effectively put the nail in the coffin of the Qing Dyasty – the start of China’s infamous “century of humiliation”.

    U.S. TRADE WARS

    Today’s chart pulls together details on some of the biggest trade conflicts in modern U.S. history.

    Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

    Here are some of the more interesting U.S. trade wars, and how they compare to the current spat that is evolving with major trade partners:

    1. Smoot-Hawley, 1930

    Imposed during The Great Depression, the Smoot-Hawley Act is almost universally recognized by economists and economic historians as triggering a trade war that exacerbated the recovery.

    2. Chicken Friction, 1963

    Factory farming of chicken in the U.S. ended up catching European farmers off guard. French and German authorities responded by imposing tariffs, and the U.S. then taxed imports such as trucks and brandy.

    3. Jabs at Japan, 1981

    Japan’s mid-century rise led to the country becoming an export powerhouse. As Japanese cars flooded the U.S. market, intense pressure eventually led to the signing of a Voluntary Export Restraint (VER) agreement that limited sales in the United States. During this same timeframe, the two countries also squabbled about other goods like electronics, motorcycles, and semiconductors.

    4. War of the Woods, 1982

    The Canada-U.S. Softwood Lumber dispute kicked off in 1982, but it inevitably resurfaces in the news every few years.

    5. Pasta Spat, 1985

    The U.S. was displeased with the level of access for citrus products in Europe, and put a tariff on pasta products. Europe retaliated by taxing walnuts and lemons from the States.

    6. Battle of the Bananas, 1993

    Another agricultural trade war, the Battle of the Bananas occurred after Europe slapped tariffs on the import of Latin American bananas. Many of these companies, owned by Americans, were not impressed. In response, there were eight separate complaints filed to the World Trade Organization (WTO). They weren’t resolved until 2012.

    7. Steel Salvoes, 2002

    These were the last major U.S. steel tariffs introduced before the more recent ones. The goal was similar: to revive the steel industry in the country. However, after a period of brief stability, jobs continued to decline. The European Union responded by taxing oranges exported from Florida.

  • US "Super Spy" Program May Explain Mysterious Diplomat Brain Injuries

    Authored by Finian Cunningham via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    Over the past two years there have been increasing reports of supposed “sonic injuries” among US diplomats. First in Cuba and more recently in China. Controversial implications are that the US officials may have been maliciously targeted by a “sonic weapon” in host countries. However, a more likely explanation is that the alleged victims are the result of US attempts to create “super spies”.

    The number of American diplomats reportedly suffering from suspected “sonic injuries” is increasing, with 11 officials evacuated earlier this month from China. Initially, the mysterious incident was reported at just one US consular location in the city of Guangzhou. Now the suspicion of brain injuries has spread to American diplomats stationed in Beijing and Shanghai.

    Some 250 US diplomats in China are reportedly undergoing neurological medical tests to ascertain if they have succumbed to the same kind of brain trauma diagnosed in other colleagues. A study of 21 diplomats evacuated from Cuba found last year that they had incurred brain injuries, but, it was diagnosed, not from physical impact to their heads.

    Typically, the symptoms reported include cognitive impairment, visual impairment, hearing of strange sounds, dizziness and sleeplessness.

    US doctors have so far been confounded by what may have caused the apparent injuries. Last week, the State Department said that ongoing investigations had not established a causal link to the cited medical problems among diplomats.

    However, previously President Donald Trump had explicitly blamed Cuba for being responsible for the reported injuries to diplomatic staff. Trump’s accusation has no evidential foundation. The Cuban government denied having any involvement in presumed sonic attacks on American envoys. It has offered to assist any US investigation. Nevertheless, the evacuation of US staff from Cuba and Trump’s accusations have set back the recent detente in relations between the two Cold War foes which former President Obama had embarked on.

    With regard to China, the US has been more circumspect in dealing with the reported cases of apparent sonic injuries, refraining from accusing Beijing of malicious activity. China has previously dismissed any suspicion of sonic attacks as “inconceivable”. Beijing has also hit out the US State Department issuing “health warnings” to its staff in China because such notifications convey an implication of wrongdoing by the host country.

    In the context of Trump’s escalating trade war with China, there is the danger that reported cases of injury among diplomats could be politicized by Washington, thus adding to the already acrimonious relations.

    Some factors so far missing from the subject need to be addressed.

    First, it seems strange that the mysterious brain injuries are only reported by US diplomats. No other country has reported similar incidents among their diplomatic staff.

    Secondly, the American brain-injury cases have happened in two countries which could be deemed as politically sensitive. Why have similar cases not been reported among staff based in territories belonging to allied nations?

    Thirdly, when US staff are described as “diplomats”, as they invariably are in Western media reporting, we should perhaps be more precise than this innocuous-sounding terminology. If we think of the personnel as “spies” then a more skeptical inference comes into play. Especially, given the sensitive nature of the two countries involved. If the concerned US staff were indeed serving as spies that raises the question about what sort of training and preparation programs they were subjected to ahead of their assignments.

    The speculation that Cuban and Chinese state agents could have used some kind of sonic weapon to attack US diplomats is more in the realm of science-fiction fantasy. Both countries deny any such activity. There is no such weapon known to exist. Also, the US doctors who examined the diplomats evacuated from Cuba could not find any casual explanation. The absence of an external source for the injuries appears to be the official US position too, according to the State Department last week.

    Significantly, the US doctors studying the Cuban cases said that all the individuals may have undergone a common experience related to their brain injuries.

    Rather than speculating about a foreign agency being responsible for the injuries among American diplomats, or rather spies, perhaps the focus should be put on their own side. Were these individuals subjected to some form of hi-tech training run by the Pentagon or the CIA?

    It is known that the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) is investigating brain stimulation devices to greatly enhance learning ability in subjects.

    DARPA, as recently as last year, reported the successful use of trans-cranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) devices to boost the cognitive skills among experimental monkeys. It was claimed that subjects given treatment from such devices strapped to the head would later display a significant increase in learning and intelligence compared with control individuals receiving no treatment. DARPA reported a 40 per cent increase in learning ability among macaque monkeys subjected to the brain stimulation device.

    One of the lead doctors in the program is quoted as saying: “In this experiment, we targeted the prefrontal cortex [of the brain] with individualized non-invasive stimulation montages.”

    The researcher goes on to explain: “That is the region [of the brain] that controls many executive functions, including decision-making, cognitive control, and contextual memory retrieval. It is connected to almost all the other cortical areas of the brain, and stimulating it has widespread effects.”

    Please note the parting caveat from the Pentagon-contracted scientist, viz., “stimulating has widespread effects”.

    On the positive side, the Pentagon is evidently searching for a way to boost intelligence and learning in humans. This is by no means a new pursuit. For decades, American military intelligence agencies, as well as Hollywood science fiction, have been in thrall to the idea of harnessing the human brain and exploiting ever-higher levels of intelligence. The CIA is known to have run various drug programs and hypnosis – the notorious MK-ULTRA – as early as the 1950s and 60s. The holy grail was to find “super spies” and “super assassins”.

    So, the history of the Pentagon and the CIA conducting systematic experiments in order to produce high-performance in humans is well documented.

    We also know from recent Pentagon research that it is indeed using electronic brain stimulation devices to greatly enhance the cognitive performance among monkeys. It is therefore conceivable that the Pentagon has conducted unpublished research experiments on human subjects as well.

    On the negative side, the sought-after higher intelligence may very well come with unforeseen injurious side-effects. Note again the Pentagon researcher above saying that stimulating the prefrontal cortex of the brain could have “wide-ranging effects”. These effects, in addition to increased intelligence and learning skills, could include deleterious consequences. Especially because the target area of the brain is crucial for the control of “executive functions”.

    It is not disclosed by the Pentagon if its brain devices had any injurious impact on the experimental monkeys.

    We also do not know the precise work assignments of the affected “diplomats” in Cuba and China. Were there any routine secretarial staff among the reported casualties, or were they all “field staff”, that is, most likely involved in sensitive spying tasks?

    It seems unlikely that the Pentagon or affected staff would ever go public in declaring that they were subjected to some form of brain-stimulation device. In any case, the staff could be easily silenced through warnings over career prospects and future earnings or health insurance cover. It may be more convenient for the Pentagon to foment the suspicion of “sonic attack” by foreign agents. That scapegoating could have serious impact on international tensions, especially between the US and China over its trade war and territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

    Nevertheless, despite the unknowns, from what we do know already, it seems a plausible posit that the recent upsurge in brain injuries among US diplomatic staff may have been caused not by “sonic attacks” in their host countries, but by their own superiors at the Pentagon or CIA conducting some form of clandestine program to create “super spies”.

  • Army Starts Testing "Ironman-Like" Exoskeleton For Future Hybrid Wars

    As discussed previously, the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, or TRADOC, drafted a new strategy for how soldiers will operate, fight, and campaign successfully across multiple domains—space, cyberspace, air, land, maritime—against all enemies (Russia and China) in the 2025-2040 timeframe.

    Warrior Maven has confirmed that the Army is literally “gearing up” for decades of hybrid conflict, and in doing so, testing and prototyping self-generating “Ironman-like” soldier exoskeletons. These “breakthrough” suits are designed to transform the combat mission by supporting soldier movements, generating electricity, powering weapons systems and substantially lowering the weight burden of what soldiers carry on the modern battlefield.

    The emerging technology, described by Army developers as a “technical breakthrough” is an energy-harvesting exoskeleton suit that can extend mission life for small units or dismounted soldiers on patrol.

    “The design is for an energy-harvesting exoskeleton to address the needs of dismounted soldiers. The system can derive energy from the motion of the soldier as they are moving around,” Dr. Nathan Sharps, mechanical engineer, Army Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC) recently told Warrior Maven in an interview.

    The implications of this technology would be decisive on tomorrow’s battlefield, and could mean the difference between life and death. Last month, elite soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division, a light infantry division at Fort Drum, New York, started testing exoskeleton technologies from Lockheed Martin that reduces the metabolic cost of transport to improve endurance and reduce fatigue on the modern battlefield.

    While the exoskeleton suits have been in development for many years, the technology consistently faces the challenge of finding ways to power the devices to maintain its functionality. While current battery technology has evolved, batteries present significant combat challenges due to recharging and weight. The Army is pursuing various efforts to “lighten the load” for soldiers, including the use of exoskeleton suits, robotic pack mules, and cased telescoped ammo.

    “The technologies [exoskeleton suits] we are developing can produce electricity, which can be stored and used to power batteries. This increases the longevity of a mission, decreases the need for resupply and reduces the logistics trail,” Sharps explained.

    Sharps told Warrior Maven that in hot zones, casualties frequently occur during logistics resupply missions.

    While the exoskeleton suit harvests energy from the motion of soldiers, it also simultaneously provides injury prevention and higher output to complete the mission.

    “This decreases the chance of muscular-skeletal injury. We look at the soldier as an individual ecosystem. We’re not just looking at what they cannot do right now, but also at what challenges they are going to face 20 years from now,” Sharps said.

    Warrior Maven indicates the suit, currently in the early phase of development, is a collaborative effort between the Army Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC) and the Army Natick Soldier Systems Center (NSSC). The engineers said the exoskeleton suit reduces the metabolic cost of transport on the modern battlefield.

    “When you move, you bounce up and down, and the gait motion is an inverted pendulum. If you lift every step thousands of times, it is a whole lot of energy you are expending,” said Juliane Douglas, mechanical engineer, CERDEC, told Warrior Maven.

    Army engineers are experimenting with various configurations for the exoskeleton, including a suspended backpack, which can slide up and down on a spring, enabling little or no weight impact on the soldier.

    “In mechanical engineering terms, if you have masses moving together, there is a kinetic energy difference between the two. We have mechanisms which can convert that linear motion into electricity,” explained Douglas.

    * * *

    Warrior Maven said emerging systems are now being integrated into exoskeletons, for example, helmets with high-resolution thermal sensors, wearable computers, various kinds of conformal body armor and even many weapons systems are now being built into a range of Ironman-like exoskeletons.

    Not surprisingly, many of the listed technologies above, heavily rely upon the mobile power to operate and limit the combat mission.  Energy-harvesting exoskeleton suits would be a gamechanger for soldiers on the modern battlefield to increase combat output while simultaneously decreasing the metabolic cost of transport to complete the mission.

    With the Army increasingly expecting hybrid wars in the 2025-2040 timeframe as the Thucydides Trap inflection point nears,  “Ironman-like” exoskeletons are emerging as the dominant strategy to defeat potential enemies (especially ascendant China) in the coming conflicts.

    Unless of course China steals the technology, reverse engineers it and comes out with the first working product.

  • Did Xi's Overly-Ambitious Goals Trigger US-China Trade War?

    Authored by Katsuji Nakazawa via Nikkei Asian Review,

    Talk of becoming world No.1 backfired, hurting even dinner tables…

    Soon, all 1.4 billion Chinese will be feeling the pinch of Donald Trump’s presidency an ocean away.

    They will look at their dining table and notice their favorite dishes — Chinese-style deep fried chicken, firecracker chicken and twice-cooked pork — are all cooked with lots of oil, much of which is pressed from the seeds of American or Brazilian soybeans.

    Similarly, many of China’s pigs and chickens are raised on imported soybean meal, the residue left after oil extraction.

    Doubanjiang, the chili-bean paste that determines the splendor of Chinese cuisine, also cannot be made without soybeans. Of the above mentioned dishes, cabbage is about the only ingredient the country can fully provide for itself.

    President Trump last week imposed 25% punitive import tariffs on Chinese products, citing violations of intellectual property rights. Chinese President Xi Jinping responded immediately, slapping 25% retaliatory import tariffs on American products, including soybeans.

    As a result of the soybean levy, the cost of food in China will jump, dealing a serious blow to Chinese farmers and eaters.

    The dish on the right is called laziji and is popular among ordinary Chinese. But it and other Chinese staples will cost more due to China’s retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products. (Photo by Katsuji Nakazawa)

    To be sure, discontent might also grow in U.S. agricultural states, where farmers are already having difficulty selling soybeans and other produce to China. Trump could end up losing support from those in the agriculture sector.

    The big question is why the game of chicken actually broke out. Xi may have nobody but himself to blame.

    Since the days of Deng Xiaoping, China had maintained a less-assertive foreign policy, portraying itself as a “developing country.” Deng’s guidance was to keep a cool head, hide one’s claws, bide time and never try to take the lead.

    After coming to power as the Chinese Communist Party’s general secretary in the autumn of 2012, Xi ditched that policy and started to talk of the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” He labeled it as the Chinese dream.

    At the Chinese Communist Party’s once-every-five-years national congress in October, Xi went further, floating for the first time the target year of 2035 as the time China would catch up with the U.S. economically.

    In November, He Yiting, the vice president of the Central Party School, gave a speech in Tokyo explaining the meaning of Xi’s words. The goal of achieving China’s modernization had long been set at the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China’s, which falls in 2049. “That goal has now been brought forward by about 15 years,” He told Japanese lawmakers at the parliament building in Tokyo’s Nagatacho district.

    He Yiting was unaware of the consequences of President Xi Jinping’s stated goals when he explained them to Japanese lawmakers in Tokyo on Nov. 24, 2017. 

    Around the same time, senior party officials were giving similar explanations about Xi’s new policy around the world.

    By bringing forward the goal, Xi was telling the world that China will become the world’s number one during his lifetime.

    Xi, who would be 82 in 2035, assured his stature in March, when he had a clause allowing a president to serve up to two five-year terms removed from the nation’s constitution.

    Little did he or his team imagine that his words would help to trigger a Sino-U. S. trade war. Instead of hiding his claws, Xi had flashed them. And it had come too early.

    By expediting the modernization plan, Beijing would also be accelerating the “Made in China 2025” initiative, a blueprint for turning the country into a high-tech manufacturing powerhouse. The plan has been singled out by the Trump administration as a symbol of China’s ambition to gain an advantage in next-generation technology, even if it meant stealing intellectual property.

    “Made in China 2025” was compiled three years ago, with Premier Li Keqiang playing a central role. Back then, it was not clear that Xi wanted to bring forward the goal of gaining No. 1 status. It was only after the plan was published, that the new aspiration of catching up and overtaking the U.S. economically by 2035 was added. The step after that would be to outstrip the U.S. both militarily and culturally by 2049.

    China has good reason to trumpet its long-term targets at home: It needs to justify the socialist system that it continues to uphold. Although its economy is no longer a purely planned one, China does adopt five-year outlines, and the “Made in China 2025” strategy is closely linked to the current five-year plan.

    One notorious plan was the Great Leap Forward of 1958, a high-growth campaign, launched by Mao Zedong but failed miserably. China declared its ambition to catch up with the U.K., then the world’s second-largest economy.

    Chinese Premier Li Keqiang played a central role in compiling the “Made in China 2025” plan.   © Reuters

    With Mao leading the country, China significantly boosted steel production. But rural areas were devastated, and more than 20 million people starved to death. Mao eventually resigned as head of state.

    Today’s China is nothing like the shell it was during Mao’s time. The country’s economy now plays an integral global role.

    China ranges over the global economy like a bull elephant roams the savanna. Other grassland wildlife is sensitive to this mammoth’s slightest moves. The ferocious lion, the U.S., is no exception.

    China has yet to become fully aware that it is the elephant in the global economy’s boardroom.

    But in Washington, Trump was cognizant that he could not stand idly by after China vowed to knock the U.S. off its economic pedestal in just 17 years from now. He campaigned for the presidency by promising voters he would put “America first.”

    News of China’s decision to bring forward its modernization target date emerged at a bad time. It came shortly after Xi had promised Trump business deals worth $250 billion. That pledge came in November, when Trump was visiting Beijing, and was portrayed as a salve that would help to heal the U.S.’s massive trade deficit with China.

    As expected, it was little more than talk. The trade gap continues to quickly widen.

    Alarmed by China’s ambitions and frustrated by the lack of progress in narrowing the U.S. trade deficit, Trump went on the offensive in the spring.

    There are good reasons for China coming under U.S. trade fire. It has been the biggest beneficiary of the global trade system since it became a member of the World Trade Organization at the end of 2001.

    All the while, it has imposed strict foreign ownership limits in each industrial sector, forced foreign companies that enter China to transfer technologies and has set up various other barriers to its markets.

    Backed by huge amounts of government funds, Chinese companies have made splashy acquisitions of U.S. and European companies that own key technologies, especially in the auto and information technology sectors.

    Chinese companies can quickly obtain technologies by acquiring or taking equity investments in U.S. and European companies. In the U.S. and Europe, any company can acquire any other company as long as it can obtain the necessary funds.

    But it is difficult for U.S. and European companies to acquire Chinese companies. Chinese authorities have numerous regulations at their disposal to block any such attempt.

    Chinese President Xi Jinping unwittingly laid the groundwork for the trade war that is now taking place between China and the U.S.   © Reuters

    When Xi bared China’s sharp claws, declaring China would overtake the U.S. economically by 2035, he did so for the benefit of a domestic audience and to aid his fierce power struggle with the political factions that had run China for decades.

    China is now beginning to realize the high price it is having to pay for Xi’s declaration.

    If prices for ingredients in Chinese dishes climb, so too will discontent among Chinese consumers. This could lead to a barrage of attacks against U.S. companies operating in China.

    Worried about social instability, the Chinese leadership has been careful not to overplay the trade war in domestic media. In terms of diplomacy, Beijing could go back to hiding its claws again.

    But that would only be superficial. At the core, Xi cannot retract a grand target adopted at the Communist Party congress, just as he cannot discard the “Made in China 2025” goal.

    In an interconnected world, China’s misty domestic politics will continue to influence the global economy for many years to come.

  • Company Hikes Price Of "Cadillac" Ambien Nasal Spray By 800% As Drug Companies Defy Trump

    While Pfizer and several drugmakers have loudly touted their decision to roll back some price hikes on popular drugs following pressure from President Trump and the rollout of a new California law designed to discourage drug companies from raising prices, others have continued hiking prices of thousands of drugs. According to Raymond James & Associates drug companies have raised prices 3,653 times on 1,045 different drugs so far this year (drug companies often do one round of price hikes in January and another in the early summer). And according to the Wall Street Journal, the biggest price increases have been reserved for so-called “Cadillac” drugs like a new spray form of the sleeping medication Ambien.

    Aytu

    Some of the price hikes impacted life-saving drugs like Ampyra, which is used to treat multiple sclerosis. Its owner, Acorda, hiked its price by 20% this year.

    Drugs

    As for the sleep medication mentioned above, a small Colorado-based company called Aytu Bioscience recently raised the price of the spray formulation sold under the brand name Zolpimist by more than 800%, according to WSJ. 

    The median price increase is 8%, but some specific increases have been far greater. Aytu BioScience Inc. raised the list price of a 7.7 milliliter bottle of its sleep aid Zolpimist to $659 from $69.88, while increasing the price of a 4.5 milliliter bottle by 747% to $329.50, according to RELX PLC’s Elsevier Gold Standard Drug Database. The drug is a spray version of zolpidem, the key ingredient in Ambien, which is widely available as cheap generic pills.

    In a tactic reminiscent of Valeant Pharmaceuticals and Martin Shkreli’s Turing Pharmaceuticals, Aytu bought the rights to sell Zolpimist in the US from a Canadian firm called Magna Pharmaceuticals, then jacked up the price.

    Aytu, of Englewood, Colo., raised the price of Zolpimist on Tuesday, about a month after buying the rights to sell the drug in the U.S. and Canada from Magna Pharmaceuticals Inc. The practice of buying rights and then raising the price, by companies including Valeant Pharmaceuticals under then-CEO Michael Pearson and Martin Shkreli’s Turing Pharmaceuticals AG, has drawn criticism from public officials and others because the companies didn’t invest in developing the drugs.

    Asked by the paper for his company’s reason for hiking the price of the drug, Aytu CEO Josh Disbrow said the company was just bringing the price of Zolpimist in line with other comparable drugs. He added that people who can’t afford the spray version can buy the generic pill form instead. The drug, he said, was designed for the small number of wealthy patients who prefer the oral spray over lower priced pills.

    Chief Executive Josh Disbrow said Aytu raised Zolpimist’s list price to bring it in line with the cost of other brand-name sleep drugs. He said Zolpimist was for the small number of patients willing to pay more, often out of their own pockets, for the oral spray than for lower-priced pills.

    “For those people who want a Cadillac, they can pay for it,” Mr. Disbrow said in an interview.

    Aytu’s increase in the list price of Zolpimist was among the biggest increases taken in the middle of this year, according to Elsevier’s data on the wholesale-acquisition cost of prescription drugs. Bloomberg earlier reported the Zolpimist increases.

    […]

    Mr. Disbrow said Aytu’s increases for Zolpimist were different than other examples because the drug is for a lifestyle condition rather than a life-threatening disease, and generic options are available.

    “It’s a luxury item. Patients can choose to be on the generic. We want to have it out there for patients who value their rapid sleep,” Mr. Disbrow said. He added that Aytu, which sells a drug for low testosterone, doesn’t depend on the Zolpimist price increases to raise sales. Aytu reported $2.7 million in revenue for the nine months ending March 31.

    Mr. Disbrow said he expected most sleep-aid patients would buy the generics, and health plans would require people to try the generics before looking at other options. Doctors write more than 30 million zolpidem prescriptions a year, though fewer than 2,000 of them for Zolpimist, he said.

    Still, the thousands of price hikes on Zolpimist and other drugs show that presidential pressure isn’t enough to stop drug companies from raising prices and for engaging in tactics like buying selling rights and then hiking prices.

    “These types of increases indicate that public criticism, even from President Trump, are not enough to change the trajectory of drug costs,” said Michael Rea, chief executive of Rx Savings Solutions, which sells software to help employers and health insurers lower their drug spending.

    Then again, when drug companies can sell one drug in the US for nearly $40,000 – and the same drug in Europe for $8 – there’s quite a bit of incentive for the gangster capitalists who run the world’s pharmaceutical firms to simply submit without a fight.

  • Cops Attempt Gun Confiscation Without Warrant; This New Jersey Man Said "No"

    Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

    Police in New Jersey have officially crossed the [thin blue] line and literally attempted to confiscate guns from an army veteran without a warrant.  But it didn’t go as planned, because  Leonard Cottrell Jr. refused to comply with the orders of the cops.

    Eventually, all gun confiscation will be carried out by the police; who “don’t make the laws, they just enforce them,” and Cottrell found this out the hard way.  After serving two tours in Operation Iraqi Freedom overseas, Cottrell found himself at end of the state’s tyrannical oppression and gun elimination scheme.

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    According to The Daily Wire, two police officers were given orders to go to Cottrell’s home to confiscate his guns.  The order followers complied, and “because [Cottrell’s] 13-year-old son had made a comment at school about the Millstone Middle School’s security, and the officers wanted to confiscate Cottrell’s firearms as part of an investigation,” NJ.com reported. But Cottrell disobeyed and defied the orders of the police.

    Cottrell legally owns a shotgun and a handgun (not quite a cache of weapons by any stretch of the imagination) but based solely on comments made by his 13-year-old son, police demanded all his guns.  According to the report by The Daily Wire, Cottrell says that his wife let the officers into their home and let them search their sons’ room where they did not find any weapons. But the search didn’t end there. The officers then made attempts to try to take his firearms, which “he has all the correct permits to own.”

    “No one from the state was going to take my firearms without due process,” Cottrell said, according to NJ.com.  According to New Jersey law, signed into law Cottrell’s disobedience is “illegal.”  Democrat Governor Phil Murphy a bill that makes it incredibly easy for law enforcement to confiscate firearms without due process and for seemingly any reason the state deems.

    Cottrell said that his son is also very upset by the situation.

    The teenager did not do anything wrong and the entire situation is being misconstrued and blown up.

    “He didn’t do anything wrong, and he doesn’t understand why it happened — he was just having a conversation with nothing as far as threats,” Cottrell said. “It shouldn’t have blown up the way it did. But he understands it happened, there are consequences and there’s fallout from his actions.”

  • Comey Calls For A Coup? "Patriots Needs To Reject The Behavior Of This President"

    President Trump’s language and demeanor at Monday’s summit in Helsinki with Vladimir Putin sent his detractors on both sides of the aisle into fits, just 72 hours after the Department of Justice indicted 12 Russian officials for hacking the DNC. 

    Trump’s position has more or less been that peace with Russia is more important than election meddling, which didn’t influence the election – and that the United States has been meddling in elections for a long time, so perhaps let’s mend fences and move forward as two nuclear superpowers. Also Hillary sold Russia 20% of American uranium after a bunch of people connected to the transaction heavily contributed to her foundation, which was approved by a rubber-stamp committee, four months after Bill Clinton collected $500k in a speech to a Russian investment bank during a trip where he hung out with Putin at his house. All pre-Crimea of course, so no biggie. 

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    After former CIA Director John Brennan called Trump’s performance “nothing short of treasonous” earlier in the day, former FBI Director James Comey issued what may be construed as a call to action against a sitting US President. 

    “This was the day an American president stood on foreign soil next to a murderous lying thug and refused to back his own country,” adding “Patriots need to stand up and reject the behavior of this president.” 

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    While this appears to be the first time Comey has suggested citizens rise up against a duly elected sitting President – the extreme end of which becomes a coup, Brennan suggested last July that White House officials refuse to follow direct orders in the event that President Trump fires Special Counsel Robert Mueller. 

    “I think it’s the obligation of some executive branch officials to refuse to carry that out. I would just hope that this is not going to be a partisan issue. That Republicans, Democrats are going to see that the future of this government is at stake and something needs to be done for the good of the future,” Brennan told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer at the Aspen Security Forum, effectively calling for a coup against the president should Trump give the order to fire Mueller.

    Meanwhile, Congressman Steve Cohen, who said he would award the Purple Heart to disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok – only to later regret his words, called for the military to step in and stage a coup:

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    So the DOJ indicts 12 Russians one business day before Trump meets with Putin, and MSM outlets far and wide crank out pieces like veteran NYT employee Charles Blow’s Sunday op-ed “Trump, Treasonous Traiter” hours before the event. 

    Combined with Trump’s dismissive attitude towards Russian hacking and a nation whipped up by surely coincidental Russian indictments and MSM hit pieces, things could not have gone better for team Hillary and crew. 

    That said, some have come to Trump’s defense…

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Jul 16

Today’s News 16th July 2018

  • The Gaping Holes In The Official Skripal Story

    Authored by Craig Murray,

    In my last post I set out the official Government account of the events in the Skripal Case. Here I examine the credibility of this story. Next week I shall look at alternative explanations.

    Russia has a decade long secret programme of producing and stockpiling novichok nerve agents. It also has been training agents in secret assassination techniques, and British intelligence has a copy of the Russian training manual, which includes instruction on painting nerve agent on doorknobs.

    The only backing for this statement by Boris Johnson is alleged “intelligence”, and unfortunately the “intelligence” about Russia’s secret novichok programme comes from exactly the same people who brought you the intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s WMD programme, proven liars. Furthermore, the question arises why Britain has been sitting on this intelligence for a decade and doing nothing about it, including not telling the OPCW inspectors who certified Russia’s chemical weapons stocks as dismantled.

    If Russia really has a professional novichok assassin training programme, why was the assassination so badly botched? Surely in a decade of development they would have discovered that the alleged method of gel on doorknob did not work? And where is the training manual which Boris Johnson claimed to possess? Having told the world – including Russia -the UK has it, what is stopping the UK from producing it, with marks that could identify the specific copy erased?

    The Russians chose to use this assassination programme to target Sergei Skripal, a double agent who had been released from jail in Russia some eight years previously.

    It seems remarkable that the chosen target of an attempt that would blow the existence of a secret weapon and end the cover of a decade long programme, should be nobody more prominent than a middle ranking double agent who the Russians let out of jail years ago. If they wanted him dead they could have killed him then. Furthermore the attack on him would undermine all future possible spy swaps. Putin therefore, on this reading, was willing to sacrifice both the secrecy of the novichok programme and the spy swap card just to attack Sergei Skripal. That seems highly improbable.

    Only the Russians can make novichok and only the Russians had a motive to attack the Skripals.

    The nub of the British government’s approach has been the shocking willingness of the corporate and state media to parrot repeatedly the lie that the nerve agent was Russian made, even after Porton Down said they could not tell where it was made and the OPCW confirmed that finding. In fact, while the Soviet Union did develop the “novichok” class of nerve agents, the programme involved scientists from all over the Soviet Union, especially Ukraine, Armenia and Georgia, as I myself learnt when I visited the newly decommissioned Nukus testing facility in Uzbekistan in 2002.

    Furthermore, it was the USA who decommissioned the facility and removed equipment back to the United States. At least two key scientists from the programme moved to the United States. Formulae for several novichok have been published for over a decade. The USA, UK and Iran have definitely synthesised a number of novichok formulae and almost certainly others have done so too. Dozens of states have the ability to produce novichok, as do many sophisticated non-state actors.

    As for motive, the Russian motive might be revenge, but whether that really outweighs the international opprobrium incurred just ahead of the World Cup, in which so much prestige has been invested, is unclear.

    What is certainly untrue is that only Russia has a motive. The obvious motive is to attempt to blame and discredit Russia. Those who might wish to do this include Ukraine and Georgia, with both of which Russia is in territorial dispute, and those states and jihadist groups with which Russia is in conflict in Syria. The NATO military industrial complex also obviously has a plain motive for fueling tension with Russia.

    There is of course the possibility that Skripal was attacked by a private gangster interest with which he was in conflict, or that the attack was linked to Skripal’s MI6 handler Pablo Miller’s work on the Orbis/Steele Russiagate dossier on Donald Trump.

    Plainly, the British governments statements that only Russia had the means and only Russia had the motive, are massive lies on both counts.

    The Russians had been tapping the phone of Yulia Skripal. They decided to attack Sergei Skripal while his daughter was visiting from Moscow.

    In an effort to shore up the government narrative, at the time of the Amesbury attack the security services put out through Pablo Miller’s long term friend, the BBC’s Mark Urban, that the Russians “may have been” tapping Yulia Skripal’s phone, and the claim that this was strong evidence that the Russians had indeed been behind the attack.

    But think this through. If that were true, then the Russians deliberately attacked at a time when Yulia was in the UK rather than when Sergei was alone. Yet no motive has been adduced for an attack on Yulia or why they would attack while Yulia was visiting – they could have painted his doorknob with less fear of discovery anytime he was alone. Furthermore, it is pretty natural that Russian intelligence would tap the phone of Yulia, and of Sergei if they could. The family of double agents are normal targets. I have no doubt in the least, from decades of experience as a British diplomat, that GCHQ have been tapping Yulia’s phone. Indeed, if tapping of phones is seriously put forward as evidence of intent to murder, the British government must be very murderous indeed.

    Their trained assassin(s) painted a novichok on the doorknob of the Skripal house in the suburbs of Salisbury. Either before or after the attack, they entered a public place in the centre of Salisbury and left a sealed container of the novichok there.

    The incompetence of the assassination beggars belief when compared to British claims of a long term production and training programme. The Russians built the heart of the International Space Station. They can kill an old bloke in Salisbury. Why did the Russians not know that the dose from the door handle was not fatal? Why would trained assassins leave crucial evidence lying around in a public place in Salisbury? Why would they be conducting any part of the operation with the novichok in a public area in central Salisbury?

    Why did nobody see them painting the doorknob? This must have involved wearing protective gear, which would look out of place in a Salisbury suburb. With Skripal being resettled by MI6, and a former intelligence officer himself, it beggars belief that MI6 did not fit, as standard, some basic security including a security camera on his house.

    The Skripals both touched the doorknob and both functioned perfectly normally for at least five hours, even able to eat and drink heartily. Then they were simultaneously and instantaneously struck down by the nerve agent, at a spot in the city centre coincidentally close to where the assassins left a sealed container of the novichok lying around. Even though the nerve agent was eight times more deadly than Sarin or VX, it did not kill the Skripals because it had been on the doorknob and affected by rain.

    Why did they both touch the outside doorknob in exiting and closing the door? Why did the novichok act so very slowly, with evidently no feeling of ill health for at least five hours, and then how did it strike both down absolutely simultaneously, so that neither can call for help, despite their being different sexes, weights, ages, metabolisms and receiving random completely uncontrolled doses. The odds of that happening are virtually nil. And why was the nerve agent ultimately ineffective?

    Detective Sergeant Bailey attended the Skripal house and was also poisoned by the doorknob, but more lightly. None of the other police who attended the house were affected.

    Why was the Detective Sergeant affected and nobody else who attended the house, or the scene where the Skripals were found? Why was Bailey only lightly affected by this extremely deadly substance, of which a tiny amount can kill?

    Four months later, Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess were rooting about in public parks, possibly looking for cigarette butts, and accidentally came into contact with the sealed container of a novichok. They were poisoned and Dawn Sturgess subsequently died.

    If the nerve agent had survived four months because it was in a sealed container, why has this sealed container now mysteriously disappeared again? If Rowley and Sturgess had direct contact straight from the container, why did they not both die quickly? Why had four months searching of Salisbury and a massive police, security service and military operation not found this container, if Rowley and Sturgess could?

    I am, with a few simple questions, demolishing what is the most ludicrous conspiracy theory I have ever heard – the Salisbury conspiracy theory being put forward by the British government and its corporate lackies.

    My next post will consider some more plausible explanations of this affair.

  • NHS Waiting-List In England Reaches Longest In 11 Years

    New figures released by NHS England today reveal the waiting list to be at its longest since August 2007 having steadily risen over the last few years to 4.1 million people awaiting treatment.

    Infographic: NHS waiting list in England longest since August 2007 | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Responding to the figures, Chief Executive and General Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, Janet Davies, said:

    “While he is not personally on the hook today…these figures should leave the new Health Secretary in no doubt as to the scale of the task ahead of him“.

    In terms of the action she sees as necessary for the NHS, she added:

    “Safe and effective patient care relies on having enough nurses, and the Health Secretary must urgently address the staff shortages that are crippling our healthcare system.”

    As a reminder, in a tweet earlier this year, President Trump wrote:

    “The Democrats are pushing for Universal Healthcare while thousands of people are marching in the UK because their system is going broke and not working. Dems want to greatly raise taxes for really bad and non-personal medical care. No thanks!”

    With almost 10% of the UK population in front of you for treatment, he may have a point.

  • The Relentless Radicalization Of Sweden

    Authored by Judith Bergman via The Gatestone Institute,

    A new study of Salafism in Sweden, conducted by the Swedish Defence University, paints a bleak picture of the ongoing radicalization of Muslims in Sweden.

    The Salaf are the “pious ancestors” during the first three generations of the followers of Mohammed; its ideology has come to be associated over the last few decades with al-Qaeda and ISIS, as well as with local al-Qaeda affiliates. According to the study, Salafists, who believe in Islam as Mohammed’s early followers practiced it, tend to reject Western society in favor of a “pure” Islam: “Not all Salafists are jihadists, but all jihadists are Salafists”.

    Although the study does not give an estimate of how many Salafists are in Sweden, it does describe how Salafist milieus there have evolved and grown stronger, especially during the past decade, and lists several examples of the influence they wield in different Swedish cities and localities.

    The Swedish Defence University has published a new study that paints a bleak picture of the ongoing radicalization of Muslims in Sweden. (I99pema/Wikimedia Commons)

    “Salafists”, the authors of the study conclude, “…advocate gender segregation, demand that women veil themselves to limit ‘sexual temptation’, restrict women’s role in the public sphere and strongly oppose listening to music and some sports activities”

    According to the study, many Salafists also tell Muslims not to have Swedish friends, and refer to them as “kufr“, the Arabic term for a non-Muslim or “disbeliever”. One Salafist preacher, Anas Khalifa, said:

    “Does that mean that if you meet a Christian or Jew you should beat him or threaten him? No. There is no war between you and Christians and Jews in your school, for example. You hate him for Allah’s sake. You hate that he does not believe in Allah. But you want from your heart that he will love Allah. So you have to work with them, talk with them, because you want Allah to guide them”.

    The Salafists, apparently, have divided Sweden geographically between them. According to the study:

    “It is interesting that the Salafist preachers, on which the study focuses, appear to be more in cooperation with each other, rather than rivals. Instead, these preachers seem to divide their da’wa (mission) into different geographical areas…”

    The study’s findings from different cities where Salafists are active include:

    In Borås, some children will not drink the water at the school or paint with watercolors there, because they say the water is “Christian”. The police report that Muslim children have told their classmates they will cut their throats, while showing them beheadings on their mobile phones. There are examples of “adolescents arriving at mosques at the end of a school day to ‘wash’ themselves after having interacted with [non-Muslim] society”. Care workers [health care, child care, etc.] in the city have testified to how men exercise control over women, checking on them even in waiting rooms. One care worker said:

    “I realized that there is a network that controls the women so they won’t be left alone with the care workers. They are not given a chance to tell anyone about their situation. Many women live worse [lives] here than they would have in their former countries”.

    This kind of control of women appears to be taking place in practically all the Swedish cities mentioned in the study.

    In Västerås, religious influence is mixed with crime. “It could be a bunch of guys coming into the grocery store. If the woman at the cashier is not veiled, they take what they want without paying, they call the cashier ‘Swedish whore’ and spit on her,” said a police officer in the study. Other examples include Syrians and Kurds who run stores and restaurants in the area and are questioned by young Muslims about their religion. If the answer is not Islam, they are harassed. In other cases, boys as young as 10-12 years have approached older women in the area, asking them whether they are Muslim, telling them “this is our area”.

    In Gothenburg, according to the study, Salafists told Muslims not to vote in the most recent elections because it is “haram” (forbidden). “They said that on the day of judgment you will be responsible for the actions of all stupid politicians if you vote. They stood at polling stations… At one polling station they waved an IS [Islamic State] flag”, a local official told the authors of the study. According to one imam in the city, Gothenburg has been the capital of Wahhabism (a Saudi version of Salafism) in Europe since the 1990s.

    Out of the 300 Swedish Muslims who joined ISIS in Syria and Iraq, almost one third came from Gothenburg. (In relation to their total population, more people have traveled from Sweden to join jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq than from most European countries — only Belgium and Austria have a higher proportion). Somali-Canadian preacher Said Regeah, speaking at the Salafist Bellevue Mosque in Gothenburg, has “raised the importance of people being born ‘pure’ and that only Muslims are pure. All are born as Muslims, but it is the parents who shape them to become ‘Jews, Christians, or Zoroastrians'”.

    The study also reports that non-Muslim business owners have experienced having their facilities vandalized with Islamic State graffiti and that Christian priests have received threats of decapitation. One man, Samir, said, “If you do not follow Islam, people ostracize you. There are parents here who put veils on their three-year-olds. It is unreal. We are not in Iraq”.

    Another man, Anwar, was denied service in a Muslim restaurant because he is not religious. He points out that society is letting secular Muslims down: “I don’t need a Bible or a Koran in my life. The only book I need is… the [Swedish] law. But if society isn’t even on your side, what can you do?”

    In the Stockholm area, the study estimates that there are currently up to 150 Salafist jihadists. Salafists are especially concentrated in the Järva area, a “no go zone”. Sometimes the jihadist and the criminal elements overlap, and these Muslims terrorize other people who live in the area. One woman said that Salafists and Islamists have come to dominate businesses, basement mosques, and cultural associations during the past ten years, and that “Swedes have no idea how much influence political Islam has in the suburb”. She described how even children are gender segregated and that religious leaders tell women not to tell the authorities if their husband abuses them. “Swedish laws are not applied in the suburbs”.

    The study concludes with a critique of Swedish authorities for their apparent inability to link individual radical Muslims to the “environments that form their ideas and in certain cases have facilitated the will to join more radical and violent groups”. The study mentions the following as an example:

    “When the then-National Coordinator Against Violent Extremism said that the question of why so many people chose to travel to IS from Sweden was ‘a million dollar question’, it is an illustration of the overall inability of Swedish authorities (with the exception of police and security police) to see that this problem has not emerged from a vacuum”.

    This inability — or possibly willful blindness — to see that jihadist terrorism does not emerge from a vacuum, but is nurtured in particular environments is hardly an exclusively Swedish situation. The insistence of so many European and other Western authorities to describe terrorist attacks as instances of “mental illness” illustrate it perfectly.

    The authors of the study also mention that schools and other local authorities do not know how to deal with the challenges created by the Salafists. The study mentions, for example, that a Muslim schoolgirl wanted to take off her headscarf to play hairdresser with the other children, but the Swedish personnel did not allow it out of respect for her parents’ wishes. In an example from a Swedish preschool, a little girl did not want to wear her headscarf but the Swedish personnel forced it on her, “even though it felt wrong”, because it was the parents’ wish. Swedish school personnel have also described that they do not know how to act when children want to eat and drink during Ramadan, but the parents have instructed that they must fast.

    The study is an important first step in Sweden finally acknowledging that there is a problem, but unless the relevant Swedish authorities — including the Swedish government and the political leaders, who refuse to acknowledge reality in Sweden — read and internalize it, the study will have been done in vain.

  • Beijing Sends Spy Ship To Monitor Rimpac Wargames After Being Disinvited

    A Chinese spy ship is currently monitoring the US-led Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) war games off the waters of Hawaii after Beijing was disinvited from the event, according to USNI News. The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Dongdiao-class auxiliary general intelligence (AGI) spy vessel was first spotted near the event on July 11, though it has not entered the territorial waters of the United States.

    “We expect the ship will remain outside the territorial seas of the U.S. and not operate in a manner that disrupts ongoing RIMPAC exercise,” US Pacific Fleet spokesman Capt. Charlie Brown told USNI, adding “We’ve taken all precautions necessary to protect our critical information. The ship’s presence has not affected the conduct of the exercise.” 

    “We continue to uphold the principle of freedom of navigation and overflight in accordance with international law.”

    The spy ship’s presence was criticized by the commander of the exercise’s combined forces maritime component, Chilean Commodore Pablo Nieman.

    “It is very disappointing that the presence of a non-participating ship could disrupt the exercise,” Nieman said in a statement. “I hope and expect all seafarers to act professionally so we may continue to focus on the work at hand and building on the spirit of cooperation that gives purpose to this exercise.”

    The presence of the ship off of Hawaii can be used a tool to justify more U.S. presence operations closer to China, Andrew Erickson, a professor at the Naval War College, told USNI News on Friday.

    “The U.S. shouldn’t let China have it both ways,” he said. “No matter what Beijing says or does, U.S. forces must continue to operate wherever international law permits, including in, under, and over the South China Sea—a vital part of the global maritime commons that is 1.5 times the size of the Mediterranean and contains substantial areas that no nation can legally claim for itself or restrict access to in any way.” –USNI

    A similar Russian spy ship observed the RIMPAC games in 2016 when China was a participant. 

    On May 23 the Pentagon announced that it was disinviting China from the exercise due to the recent militarization of the South China Sea, while Vietnam was invited to participate for the first time. Also making their debut will be Israel and Sri Lanka. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) had participated in 2014 and 2016. 

    The 47-ship, five submarine exercise between twenty-six countries will feature over 200 aircraft and be manned by around 25,000 personnel according to the US Navy. It will also feature the first live firing of the Lockheed LRASM anti-ship missile. 

    For a full list of countries and vessels participating in RIMPAC, click here.

  • The Deadly Math Of America's Faux Prosperity

    Authored by Tom Luongo,

    Record Deficits, Stronger Dollar Equals Record China Trade Deficit

    Sometimes math is a real bitch.   Donald Trump is a smart guy.  I know he knows math.

    Too bad he’s ignoring it.

    Here’s the gig.  The title says it all.  Government spending is rising rapidly.  More actual money is flowing into the US economy.  Where is that spending going?  To buy cell phones, computers, cars, office supplies and all the rest.

    It doesn’t matter if the purchase is made at Best Buy through a Purchase Order, the money still goes to stuff built and imported from China.  The second order effect is that even if it goes to subsidize a farmer in Iowa or a defense contractor in California, that money winds up in the hands of a consumer who does what?

    Goes to Best Buy and buys a new TV.  This isn’t rocket science folks, it is simple cause and effect.

    More money chases those goods.  Despite the naysayers, Apple is selling a crap-ton of $1200 phones…. built where?  China.

    So, the budget deficit thanks to record spending is fueling the very trade deficit with China that Trump is complaining about daily.

    Here’s the math.

    Big Badda Boom

    First up is the budget deficit numbers through nine months of fiscal year 2018, courtesy of Zerohedge.

    This resulted in a June budget deficit of $75 billion, better than the consensus estimate of $98BN, and an improvement from the $147 billion deficit in May and as well as slightly less than the deficit of $90.2 billion recorded in June of 2017.This was the second biggest June budget deficit since the financial crisis…

    …The June deficit brought the cumulative 2018F budget deficit to over $607BN during the first nine month of the fiscal year, up 16% over the past year; as a reminder the deficit is expect to increase further amid the tax and spending measures, and rise above $1 trillion.

    The post has a ton of charts to illustrate the point, but it’s mostly unnecessary.  The US Treasury is issuing debt at an astounding rate to cover this budget.  Spending goes up as tax receipts do thanks to lower tax rates and increasing growth.

    More Ticky, More Washy

    The second part of the title is the latest figures released on the trade deficit with China.

    Trump and Navarro Will Hate This Chart

    Taking this one step further we have the exploding interest payments on the $21 trillion pile of debt the US Treasury has racked up.  $1.18 trillion of which is owed to….?

    China.

    As anyone who runs a house knows, when you get a raise what happens to your debt load if you increase your spending to match the raise in earnings?

    Nothing.  It stays the same.

    If you are smart, your debt is all fixed-rate, so your monthly outlays stay the same.  But, guess what?  A lot of the US’s debt is inflation-linked TIPS (Treasury Inflation Protected Securities).

    TIPS are basically a variable-rate mortgage against your labor folks.

    So, debt-servicing costs are rising quickly with the slightest rise in interest rates.

    Because when you paying 1% on $100 a rise to 2% doesn’t hurt much.  But, when that 1% marginal rise in interest rate is on $20,000, now its real money.  In your household you cut back on spending.

    Does the government do that?  Nope.

    Keynesian thinking dominates economic thought.  Even Chicago School guys like Chief Economic Advisor Larry Kudlow are effectively Keynesian when it comes to money issuance.

    So, inherent in this equation is the increasing interest payments on a portion of the US’s debt held by China.  That’s not something tariffs can fix.

    Yuan Moar?

    The third part of the math is the Yuan.  China, to combat a slowing credit growth as the Fed pulls back on dollar liquidity is devaluing the Yuan to keep its banking system liquid.

    Cheap yuan means cheaper Chinese goods.

    Hybrid war tactics like tariffs and monetary policy adjustments are double-edged swords.

    For countries that don’t prepare themselves they are left vulnerable to shifts in central bank credit creation.  The severity of that vulnerability, however, can be managed by the opposing central bank.

    Remember last month when the TIC report told us that Russia dumped half of its US Treasury holdings?   It caused the yield on the 10-year note to rise above 3.00%, threatening a major technical breakdown which momentum traders could have piled onto and caused a whole lot more pain for the Treasury Department.

    And that was only just under $50 billion worth.

    China doesn’t have to start with such a drastic measure.  In fact, Russia held off on this course of action for the past four years.  In fact, after the Ruble crisis of 2014/15, Russia reloaded its stock of US Treasury ammunition.

    China, however, has started the Yuan devaluation process along with loosening monetary policy to support its domestic banking sector.  And expect this to continue as communications between the Trump administration and China’s Ministry of Finance is on hold.

    For President Trump, the math is clear.  And will continue to be clear.  And it is saying, “Stop blaming others for your problems.  Clean up your own house, first.”  In the short-term Trump will look like he’s winning this trade war.

    Capital inflow to the US will support this policy.  China’s stock markets will underperform the US’s. But, that will be a function of safe-haven flows, not because the US’s finances are structurally sound.

    The People’s Bank of China will respond with liquidity injections that will look increasingly desperate and will result in a wave of defaults and a slow-down.

    The dollar will rise and the trade deficit will persist.  So will the budget deficit.

    Because math.

    *  *  *

    To find out how to build a portfolio based around these big changes in the geopolitical arena, as well as stay one-step ahead of where we are headed, join my more than 120 Patrons at Patreon and subscribe to the Gold Goats ‘n Guns Investment Newsletter.

  • A Brief History Of US Covert Action In Syria – Part 1

    In part 1 of this corrective history of the Syrian proxy war which notable Middle East experts have lately urged is important and essential reading, William Van Wagenen thoroughly dismantles the dominant media myths that have persisted throughout seven years of conflict. 

    Part I: The Myth of US ‘Inaction’ in Syria, by William Van Wagenen via The Libertarian Institute

    When the Russian military intervened in the Syrian war in October 2015, many in the Western press complained bitterly, demanding that US planners intervene directly in Syria on behalf of the anti-government rebels in response. Reuters alleged that “The Middle East is angry and bewildered by US inaction in Syria,” arguing that “The question on everyone’s mind is: will the United States and its European and regional Sunni allies intervene to stop President Vladimir Putin from reversing the gains made by mainstream Syrian rebels after more than four years of war? Few are holding their breath.” 

    The Washington Post similarly argued that Russian president Vladimir Putin was “exploiting America’s inaction,” while the Guardian lamented the “western inability to care enough about the plight of Syrians.” As Russian and Syrian forces battled rebels one year later in Aleppo, more dramatic accusations of US inaction emerged, with Foreign Policy describing US policy in Syria under Obama as “inaction in the face of genocide.”

    The idea that the United States has not intervened in Syria and is guilty of “inaction,” is a myth however. The United States and its Western and Gulf Allies have intervened in the Syrian conflict from early on. US planners have been fighting what the New York Times described as a “$1 Billion Secret C.I.A. War in Syria” while providing weapons to rebels through a program considered “one of the costliest covert action programs in the history of the C.I.A.” Starting in the fall of 2012, the US and its Gulf partners, under the direction of then CIA director David Petraeus, were openly sending “a cataract of weaponry” into Syria. It is likely that such shipments began much earlier without public acknowledgment, via the “rat line” from Libya, as reported by journalist Seymour Hersh. 

    US Special Envoy to Syria Michael Ratner, in a meeting with members of the Syrian opposition, explained that “The armed groups in Syria get a lot of support, not just from the United States but from other partners,” while Secretary of State John Kerry added in the same meeting, “I think we’ve been putting an extraordinary amount of arms in,” and “Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, a huge amount of weapons [are] coming in. A huge amount of money.”

    Sectarian Mass Murder

    Also a myth is the idea that any US intervention in Syria would seek to protect civilians. While allegations that Syrian and Russian forces were committing genocide in Aleppo proved baseless, US planners have themselves supported rebels intent on committing genocide and sectarian mass murder. This was clearly evident in the Syrian city of Latakia, which by the time of the Russian intervention in October 2015 was on the verge of falling to a coalition of Syrian rebel groups including al-Qaeda (known in Syria as the Nusra Front) and the US-armed and funded Free Syrian Army (FSA).

    Robert Worth of the New York Times writes that “In Latakia, some people told me that their city might have been destroyed if not for the Russians. The city has long been one of Syria’s safe zones, well defended by the army and its militias; there are tent cities full of people who have fled other parts of the country, including thousands from Aleppo. But in the summer of 2015, the rebels were closing in on the Latakia city limits, and mortars were falling downtown. If the rebels had captured the area — where Alawites are the majority — a result would almost certainly have been sectarian mass murder. Many people in the region would have blamed the United States, which armed some of the rebels operating in the area. . . Andrew Exum, who worked in the Pentagon at the time, told me that the military drew up contingency plans for a rapid collapse of the regime. The planning sessions were talked about as ‘catastrophic success [emphasis mine].’”

    Alawite civilians in Latakia faced the prospect of being massacred if rebels had been able to capture the city, due to the virulently anti-Alawite views of Nusra Front members. Nusra religious clerics draw on the writings of the fringe 14th century Islamic scholar Ibn Taymiyya to argue that Alawites are “infidels” deserving of death. Syria analyst Sam Heller described Nusra clerics as promoting “toxic — even genocidal — sectarianism.” Rebels from the FSA, which have fought alongside and “in the ranks” of the Nusra Front throughout the conflict, also posed a threat to Alawite civilians in Latakia. 

    Though typically considered moderate in the Western press, many FSA battalions have been armed and funded by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood (MB). Thanks to the influence of Brotherhood ideologue Said Hawwa, the Syrian Brotherhood strongly promoted the anti-Alawite sectarian views of Ibn Taymiyya from the 1960’s until the 1980’s. This anti-Alawite sectarianism re-emerged in segments of the Syrian opposition, including in elements of the FSA, when peaceful protests and armed insurrection against the Syrian government simultaneously erupted in Syria in the spring of 2011.

    While the Syrian and Russian militaries managed to protect Latakia and prevent a massacre of the city’s Alawite civilians, the broader effort to prevent the fall of the country to al-Qaeda and its FSA allies exacted a huge toll on Syria’s Alawites. The Telegraph noted that already by April 2015, “The scale of the sect’s losses is staggering” and that of some 250,000 Alawite men of fighting age “as many as one third are dead” and that “Alawite villages nestled in the hills of their ancestral Latakia province are all but devoid of young men. The women dress only in mourning black.”

    Welcoming ISIS as a Bulwark against Assad

    While arming rebels threatening the massacre of Alawite civilians in Latakia, US planners were at the same time welcoming the potential massacre of Syrian civilians in Damascus. The Syrian capital was on the verge of falling to the Islamic State (ISIS) in the summer of 2015 after ISIS, with the help of Nusra, captured all of the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in the southern Damascus suburbs. The New York Times acknowledged the ISIS threat to Damascus at this time, observing that “By seizing much of the camp” ISIS had “made its greatest inroads yet into Damascus,” while the Washington Post noted that “Their new push puts [ISIS] within five miles of the heart of the capital . . . even as they are on the retreat in Iraq.”

    In a private meeting with members of the Syrian opposition, Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged that US planners had actually welcomed the ISIS advance on Damascus, in an effort to use it as leverage to force Assad to give up power. Kerry explained that, “the reason Russia came in is because ISIL [ISIS] was getting stronger. Daesh [ISIS] was threatening the possibility of going to Damascus. And that is why Russia came in. They didn’t want a Daesh [ISIS] government and they supported Assad. And we know this was growing. We were watching. We saw that Daesh [ISIS]was growing in strength. And we thought Assad was threatened. We thought we could manage that Assad might then negotiate. Instead of negotiating, he got Putin to support him [emphasis mine].”

    Because the US was bombing ISIS in defense of its Kurdish allies in Northeastern Syria and its Iraqi government allies in Northwestern Iraq, the fact that US planners at the same time welcomed the ISIS push on Damascus against the Syrian government was largely obscured.

    Had Damascus fallen to ISIS, it is clear that many civilians in the city, including Christians, Alawites, Shiites, members of the LGBTQ community, and pro-government Sunnis, would have been killed. While commenting on the Russian intervention, Michael Kofman of the Wilson Center acknowledged that “Assad may be irredeemable in the eyes of the United States, but it is equally clear that a high human price would be paid when the Islamic State [ISIS] or al-Nusra seizes the major population centers in Syria that he still controls.”

    Suicide Bombers and US Anti-tank Missiles

    It is also clear that US planners were deliberately supporting al-Qaeda (Nusra), despite its genocidal intentions towards Syria’s Alawites, by flooding Syria with weapons. Because FSA brigades that received funding and weapons from the US and its Gulf Allies were fighting side by side with militants from Nusra throughout the country, in practice much of the money and weapons sent to the FSA ultimately benefited al-Qaeda.

    For example, US-made TOW anti-tank missiles sent by US planners to FSA groups in Idlib played a crucial role in helping Nusra conquer the entire province in the spring of 2015. Syria analyst Hassan Hassan observed in Foreign Policy during this period that “The Syrian rebels are on a roll” and that “The recent offensives in Idlib have been strikingly swift — thanks in large part to suicide bombers and American anti-tank TOW missiles,” which the FSA and Nusra deployed in tandem. Syria analyst Charles Lister, also writing in Foreign Policy, described how US planners explicitly encouraged the FSA groups they were arming to fight alongside Nusra in Idlib. Rebel victories in Idlib, in particular the town of Jisr al-Shughour, allowed Nusra and the FSA to then threaten the massacre of Alawites in Latakia.

    When Russia intervened militarily in Syria in October 2015, US planners responded by immediately increasing shipments of TOW anti-tank missiles to FSA groups, some of which then helped Nusra capture the strategic town of Murek in central Syria one month later in November 2015.

    This prompted Daveed Gartenstein-Ross of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) to observe that “it is impossible to argue that U.S. officials involved in the CIA’s program cannot discern that Nusra and other extremists have benefited” from CIA weapons shipments to Syrian rebels, “And despite this, the CIA decided to drastically increase lethal support to vetted rebel factions following the Russian intervention into Syria in late September.”

    “Deal with the Devil”

    Nusra did not only benefit from fighting alongside FSA rebels armed with US-supplied weapons, but acquired many of these weapons themselves. That Nusra regularly purchased weapons from the Western-backed military councils supplying the FSA was confirmed in October 2014, when the New York Times reported that Shafi al-Ajmi, a Nusra fundraiser, told a Saudi news channel that “When the military councils sell the weapons they receive, guess who buys them? It’s me.”

    That al-Qaeda was purchasing US supplied weapons seemed of little concern to US planners. When journalist Sharmine Narwani asked why US-supplied weapons allegedly meant for FSA groups were showing up in Nusra hands, CENTCOM spokesman Lieutenant Commander Kyle Raines responded: “We don’t ‘command and control’ these forces—we only ‘train and enable’ them. Who they say they’re allying with, that’s their business.”

    Obama administration officials themselves acknowledged tacit US support for al-Qaeda, admitting in November 2016 to the Washington Post that they had struck “a deal with the devil,” years before, “whereby the United States largely held its fire against al-Nusra because the group was popular with Syrians in rebel-controlled areas and furthered the U.S. goal of putting military pressure on Assad,” thereby confirming long standing Russian accusations that the US had been “sheltering al-Nusra.”

    Ben Rhodes’ Bombshell Confirmation

    More recently, Ben Rhodes, deputy national security advisor under the Obama administration, acknowledged providing military support to Syrian rebels, even though it was clear that Nusra comprised a good portion of the Syrian opposition as a whole. Rhodes explained that “there was a slight absurdity in the fact that we were debating options to provide military support to the opposition at the same time that we were deciding to designate al-Nusra, a big chunk of that opposition, as a terrorist organization.”

    Despite designating Nusra as a terror group already in 2012, US planners nevertheless provided weapons to the Syrian rebels, of which Nusra comprised a “big chunk,” for the next 7 years. As Sharmine Narwani observes, “U.S. arms have been seen in Nusra’s possession for many years now, including highly valued TOW missiles, which were game-changing weapons in the Syrian military theater. When American weapons end up in al-Qaeda hands during the first or second year of a conflict, one assumes simple errors in judgment. When the problem persists after seven years, however, it starts to look like there’s a policy in place to look the other way.”

    US planners welcomed rebel gains in Syria, including by rebel groups advocating genocide against Syria’s Alawite population, such as ISIS and Nusra, because these gains bolstered the broader US goal of toppling the Syrian government, in an effort to weaken its close allies, Iran and Hezbollah. US planners wished to see rebel gains in Syria, in spite of the obviously catastrophic consequences for Syrian civilians, including for Syria’s Sunnis, which rebel success would bring. US support for the rebels belies the myth of US “inaction” in Syria, and the myth that any US intervention would be for the sake of preventing massacres and even genocide, rather than in support of it.

    * * *

    In parts 2 and 3, we will review US support for rebel advances in the spring and summer of 2015 in Idlib, Latakia, Palmyra, Yarmouk, and Homs, and further describe how these rebel advances nearly led to the massacre of Syrian civilians in two of the country’s main population centers, Latakia and Damascus, if not for the Russian intervention which halted the rebel advance.

  • Chaos At The NATO Summit Benefits Eurasian Integration

    Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    The chaos that has engulfed the NATO summit is yet further confirmation of the world’s transition from a unipolar to a multipolar order, with the return of great-power competition and different states jockeying for hegemony. Trump is adapting to this environment by seeking to survive politically in a hostile environment.

    The meeting of the NATO countries in Brussels highlighted the apparent intentions of the US president towards his allies and the Atlantic organization. Trump’s strategy is to oblige the European countries to halt energy imports from Moscow and replace them with liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the US at a price that is obviously not cheap. The gas would come from the US by ship, entailing huge logistical costs that are not the case with regard to physical pipelines between Europe and Russia. This issue directly affects Germany and the Nord Stream II project, a deal worth billions of euros.

    The reasons behind Trump’s behavior are twofold.

    On the one hand, we have the politics of “America First”, with the intention of increasing exports of LNG while boasting of “successes” to the base.

    The other purpose of Trump’s words is to highlight, sotto voce, the inconsistency of EU countries, who despite considering Russia an existential danger, nevertheless strongly depend on Russia’s energy exports.

    To be fair to Trump, these same EU countries — fearful of Moscow but ready to do business with it — do not even spend 2% of their GDP on defense, while the US commits closer to 4%. For Trump this is surreal and intolerable. The NATO Summit began more or less with this anomaly, conveyed by Trump in front of the cameras to Jens Stoltenberg, the Secretary General of NATO, with Pompeo and the US ambassador to NATO on either side of him doing their best to remain impassive.

    The photo-op with Merkel did not go any better. Needless to say, the American media is being driven into a tizzy. The headlines blare: “Trump betrays the allies”; “End of NATO”. CNN is in a state of mourning. Brzezinski’s daughter (yes, that Brzezinski ) almost vomited from the tension on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

    In truth, Trump is engaging in a lot of public relations. When he makes these performances in front of the cameras, he is speaking directly to his electoral base, showing that he is keeping his promises by putting “America First”. To be honest, it would be more appropriate to declare, “America, b****h!”

    To back his words up with actions, he slaps his allies with tariffs and sanctions against Russia, and now Iran, incurring huge losses for Europe. He mocks leaders like Merkel and Trudeau in public, and has humiliated Macron in front of the world.

    In practical terms, Trump does not care whether Germany buys LNG from the United States. If this is to ever occur, then it will take 20 years, given the cost and time needed to build dozens of LNG facilities on the European and American coasts.

    The summit between Trump and Putin in Helsinki could even lead to more drama if Trump wants to drive the media, liberals, neocons and his European allies into further conniptions.

    It depends on the issues on his checklist that he has to deal with before the November midterm elections. I do not rule out seeing Kim Jong-un in Washington before then, or a summit between the US, Israel and Palestine — anything that will play to the desired optics. The issue is just that: all image, no substance.

    Trump is focussing principally on triumphing in the November midterms, and to do so he needs to look like a winner. He will be keen to ensure the moneybags of the Israel lobby and Saudi Arabia keep flowing. In doing so, he will probably even win the 2010 presidential election. There is always the possibility that the Fed and other financial conglomerates will decide to commit harakiri and blow up the economy with a new financial crisis in order to get rid of Trump. It would be the deserved end of the US empire.

    European politicians also await the midterms with great anticipation, hoping that this will be the end of the Trump nightmare. They still live in the same dreamworld of Hillary Clinton, believing that Democratic victory is possible and that Trump’s election was simply an anomaly.

    They will not have woken from their nightmare when they come to realize that Trump has increased the number of Republicans in the House and Senate. Perhaps at that point, with sanctions in place against Russia and Iran and with huge economic losses and the prospect of another six years with Trump, a coin will drop for someone in Europe, and Trump will be seen as the catalyst for breaking ties with Washington and looking east towards a new set of alliances with China and Russia.

    In conclusion, we are experiencing the full effects of the Trump presidency, which is destructive of and devastating for the neoliberal world order. As I said at least a year before he was elected, Trump is accelerating the decline of the United States as a lodestar for the West, representing Washington’s swan song as the only superpower.

    It is not “America First”, it is Trump First. There is no strategy or logic behind it. There are only friendships, his personal ego, and the need to remain in the saddle for another six years. Meanwhile, get your popcorn ready in anticipation of the Helsinki summit.

  • A Problem Emerges For Japanese Stocks: The Biggest Market "Whale" Can't Buy Any More

    When it comes to Japan’s risk assets, it is a widely – in incorrectly – accepted that only the Bank of Japan matters: and with Kuroda now a proud owner of nearly 80% of the country’s ETFs and the BOJ a top 10 shareholder in nearly 40% of listed companies, one can see where this perception comes from.

    However, when it comes to Japanese, and international, stocks there is one whale that is far more impactful than even the BOJ when it comes to capital allocation and the fate of risk assets: Japan’s gargantuan Government Pension Investment Fund (or GPIF) – the largest in the world –  which manages 156 trillion yen ($1.41 trillion), and whose assets are broken down in 4 main categories: Japanese bonds, Japanese stocks, overseas bonds and overseas stocks. As the Nikkei notes, the GPIF earned the moniker as a “whale” in the stock market due to its massive holdings of domestic stocks. Previously, a greater weight was given to less risky domestic bonds, which amounted to 62% of total assets as recently as 2012.

    The historical distribution of the GPIF’s asset holdings is shown in the chart below: what is notable is that as a result of a mandated shift in its asset allocation several years ago, the fund which traditionally had a conservative posture with the bulk of its assets – usually as much as 70% – in the form of domestic bonds, had since shifted to a stock-heavy allocation, with the target allocation for domestic and foreign stocks rising to 50%.

    And here a problem has emerged, because the GPIF’s portfolio has exceeded its 25% allocation target for domestic stocks for the first time, a milestone that – unless the world’s largest pension fund changes  its strategy for stable returns – could have severely adverse consequences for local risk assets.

    According to a filing last Friday, Japanese equities accounted for 25.14% of the GPIF’s portfolio at the end of March. That equates to over 40 trillion yen worth of shares covering roughly 2,300 issues.

    Just like the BOJ, the fund is believed to be a major shareholder in many companies listed in the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s first section. In fact, the GPIF is often seen as a tack-on to the BOJ, because as the GPIF sells its Japanese bond holdings to the BOJ usually at prices well above market value, it opens up more space to buy equities, thereby creating a feedback loop in which the BOJ’s purchases of JGbs indirectly result in higher stock prices, with the GPIF as a conduit.

    For now the strategy of dumping Japan’s pensions into the stock market has been a smashing success: in fiscal 2017, the GPIF posted an investment return of 10.08 trillion yen. There is just one problem: with the whale by far the biggest market player in Japan’s stock market, its buying was sufficient to lift stock prices, thereby creating a virtuous cycle in which the more the GPIF bought, the greater its return.

    That may soon be over, however, now that the GPIF has hit its limit on how much domestic stocks it can buy.

    * * *

    The GPIF’s impact on Japan’s stock market in recent years has been staggering. Shinzo Abe’s government, hoping to boost the “wealth effect” by creating higher stock prices, resolved to reduce the GPIF’s reliance on Japanese government bonds while boosting stock holdings instead. In October 2014, the GPIF revised portfolio allocations and set a 50% aggregate target for equities at home and abroad.

    According to the Nikkei, since 2014, the GPIF has bought an estimated 6.36 trillion yen more in domestic equities than it sold, equal to about 1% of the TSE first section’s market value.

    “That computes to lifting the Nikkei Stock Average by about 1,000 points,” said Masahiro Nishikawa, chief fiscal policy analyst at Nomura Securities.

    To be sure, worried that domestic investors will dump their shares now that the “whale” is no longer a backstop buyer for Japanese stocks, GPIF President Norihiro Takahashi said that although Japanese equities have topped the 25% goal, the ratio can exceed the target by a few percentage points. “Investment will not stop.” Translated: please don’t start a liquidation cascade.

    And yet despite wishful thinking, “the GPIF is now less likely to be a force that elevates the market as it did in the past” the Nikkei admits, for the simple reason that it can no longer aggressively invest in stocks absent yet another change to its  asset allocation target.

    Japanese bonds still occupy the largest slice of the GPIF’s portfolio, but to a lesser extent. As shown in the chart above, the allocation to bonds stood at 27.5% at the end of fiscal 2017, well below the 35% target. A big reason why the fund has had trouble procuring the bonds is because another whale, the Bank of Japan, is also mass purchasing JGBs.

    Meanwhile, with the GPIF’s buying having created its own bullish sentiment, now that the buying is over the fund has two options: risk a sudden drop in the market, one which comes as the BOJ is creeping ever closer to its own QE end as Japan runs out of JGBs for sale, or expand the fund’s allocation to stocks further. And in an attempt to keep the party going a little longer, it is obvious that the choice will be the latter. Unfortunately, as both a Japanese and global recession – and market crash – gets ever closer, all this will do is jeopardize even more Japanese pensions.

    The real question is just how angry Japan’s population, already the oldest in the world, will be once it learns that much – or all – of its pensions were lost in the government’s vain pursuit of further market gains, and to keep Abe’s popularity rating high. With the US economic cycle already the second longest in history, we doubt we will have long to wait for the answer.

  • China GDP Growth Slows After Record Contraction In Shadow Banking Credit

    Following the largest contraction in ‘shadow banking system’ credit, and a record low for M2 growth, fears were building that China’s economic growth prospects may lag expectations.

    By way of background for tonight’s economic data deluge, here are the lowlights.

    The drop in shadow bank was particularly sharp for the second month in a row: this has been the area where Beijing has been most focused in their deleveraging efforts as it’s the most opaque and riskiest segment of credit. And, as the chart below show, the aggregate off balance-sheet financing posted its biggest monthly drop on record in June

    the lass granular M2 reading also posted a growth slowdown, rising only 8.0% in June, down from May’s 8.3%, below consensus of 8.4%, and the lowest on record.

    Both of which do nothing to help China’s credit impulse. Investors see China’s liquidity tightening…

    Commenting on the ongoing slowdown in China’s credit creation, Goldman said that the latest money and credit data highlighted the challenges the government is facing in loosening monetary policy.

    But before we shift to the market’s perceptions, don’t forget, China’s trade surplus with the US just hit a Trump-tantrum-creating record high…

    Oh, and don’t forget, Chinese stock markets have tumbled…

    And bond markets have collapsed as defaults surge…

    And Yuan has plunged…

    So the big picture was not rosy heading into tonight’s big data deluge.

    Early signs for June pointed to weakness. The official and Caixin PMIs indicated a slowdown in momentum – with export order gauges weakening.

    China stocks were down, Yuan flat, and China 10Y bonds 3bps lower in yield as the data hit.

    And this is what the data looked like..

    • China Q2 GDP YoY MET EXPECTATIONS rising 6.7% – equal to the weakest since Q1 2009 (against expectations of +6.7% but slowing from Q1 growth of 6.8% YoY)

    • China Retail Sales YoY BEAT rising 9.0% (against expectations of +8.8% and notably up from May’s 8.5% YoY – the lowest since May 2003)

    • China Industrial Production YoY MISS rising just 6.0% – weakest since Dec 2015 (against expectations of +6.5% and well down from May’s 6.8% YoY)

    • China Fixed Asset Investment YoY MET EXPECTATIONS rising 6.0% – the lowest on record (against expectations of +6.0% and down from May’s 6.1% YoY – record low)

    Visually – down and to the left…

    Not pretty. It is clear that momentum in the world’s second-largest economy is slowing amid deleveraging and intensifying trade friction with the US…

    Though there is one silver-lining, as Bloomberg’s Enda Curran notes, the rebound in retail sales is noteworthy as it’s an indicator of confidence in the wider economy. Granted it was from a low base in May, but it shows that consumer confidence is holding up, despite the trade tensions – although auto sales are down 7% YoY (and petroleum is up 16.5% YoY). Also bear in mind that retail sales print is likely flattered by the fact that the yuan tumbled over 4% from end May through June.

    In case those charts look a little odd to you, they do to us too… and amid the world’s craziest decade ever in terms of monetary policy experimentation, extremes of leverage and debt, nuclear armageddon proximity, and now global trade wars, somehow, China has managed to crush all uncertainty out of its business cycle…

    It’s almost as if they rigged it?!

    In many respects today’s numbers are already history (with most analysts expecting China to have an overall ‘OK’ first half of the year), it’s the second half that will be tougher.

    Huatai Securities estimated in a report over the weekend that if the U.S. implements its tariff plan on $200 billion of Chinese imports, China’s exports growth should decrease by 0.8 percentage point and GDP growth by a quarter percentage point.

    Finally, as a reminder,  if investors are hoping for China to reflate its way back out of this, Chinese billionaire Zhang Baoquan has a warning (via iFeng: 张宝全：中国人缺乏投资工具 把不动产当硬通货)…

    “China now has two ‘bombs’, one ‘bomb’ is a real estate bubble and the other is a local debt. Any explosion to the Chinese economy is devastating.“

     

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Jul 15

Today’s News 15th July 2018

  • The True Meaning Of "Collusion" Exposed

    Authord by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,

    The indictment by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, whose task it is to investigate possible collusion between the Trump campaign and ‘Russians’, that was released yesterday by Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, raises so many questions one has to be picky.

    Many people have already stated that the report contains no proof of anything it claims, and that Mueller doesn’t have to prove a thing, because the 12 Russians he accuses will never show up in a US court. Many of course also have at least questioned the timing of the release, 3 days before the Putin-Trump summit in Helsinki, of information Mueller and Rosenstein have allegedly been sitting on for months.

    The idea that the event was not coordinated to inflict maximum damage to the summit seems indeed far-fetched.

    But something else struck me in the report: the role of WikiLeaks (labeled “Organization 1”). Mueller very much focuses on both Julian Assange -though he doesn’t get named and is not indicted- and his presumed links to the indicted Russians, who -allegedly- posed as Guccifer 2.0:

    Use of Organization 1

    47. In order to expand their interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the Conspirators transferred many of the documents they stole from the DNC and the chairman of the Clinton Campaign to Organization 1. The Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, discussed the release of the stolen documents and the timing of those releases with Organization 1 to heighten their impact on the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

    a. On or about June 22, 2016, Organization 1 sent a private message to Guccifer 2.0 to “[s]end any new material [stolen from the DNC] here for us to review and it will have a much higher impact than what you are doing.” On or about July 6, 2016, Organization 1 added, “if you have anything hillary related we want it in the next tweo [sic] days prefable [sic] because the DNC [Democratic National Convention] is approaching and she will solidify bernie supporters behind her after.” The Conspirators responded, “ok . . . i see.” Organization 1 explained, “we think trump has only a 25% chance of winning against hillary . . . so conflict between bernie and hillary is interesting.”

    b. After failed attempts to transfer the stolen documents starting in late June 2016, on or about July 14, 2016, the Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, sent Organization 1 an email with an attachment titled “wk dnc link1.txt.gpg.” The Conspirators explained to Organization 1 that the encrypted file contained instructions on how to access an online archive of stolen DNC documents. On or about July 18, 2016, Organization 1 confirmed it had “the 1Gb or so archive” and would make a release of the stolen documents “this week.”

    48. On or about July 22, 2016, Organization 1 released over 20,000 emails and other documents stolen from the DNC network by the Conspirators. This release occurred approximately three days before the start of the Democratic National Convention. Organization 1 did not disclose Guccifer 2.0’s role in providing them. The latest-in-time email released through Organization 1 was dated on or about May 25, 2016, approximately the same day the Conspirators hacked the DNC Microsoft Exchange Server.

    49. On or about October 7, 2016, Organization 1 released the first set of emails from the chairman of the Clinton Campaign that had been stolen by LUKASHEV and his co-conspirators. Between on or about October 7, 2016 and November 7, 2016, Organization 1 released approximately thirty-three tranches of documents that had been stolen from the chairman of the Clinton Campaign. In total, over 50,000 stolen documents were released.

    This means Mueller et al claim that WikiLeaks received the DNC files from Russian parties which had hacked into DNC(-related) servers. Something Julian Assange has always denied. Now, remember that the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), a group of former US intelligence professionals, as well as others, have said that the speed with which the files were downloaded from the server(s) indicates that they were not hacked, but put onto a hard drive.

    The person who is supposed to have done that is Seth Rich. Who was murdered on July 10 2016. Kim Dotcom has long claimed to have evidence that Seth Rich was indeed the person who provided the files to Assange. Today he said on Twitter that his lawyers warned him about exposing that evidence, citing his safety and that of his family.

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

    Half a year after Rich’s -never solved- murder, in the first months of 2017, the US Department of Defense was involved in negotiations with Assange in which the latter was offered -temporary- ‘safe passage’ from the Ecuador Embassy in London where he is holed up, in exchange for Assange ‘redacting’ a batch of files on the CIA known as Vault 7.

    These negotiations were suddenly halted in April 2017 through the interference of James Comey -then FBI chief- and Mark Warner, a US Senator (D-VA). In the talks, Assange had offered to prove that no Russians were involved in the process that led to WikiLeaks receiving the files.

    Today, of course, Assange is completely incommunicado in the Ecuador embassy, so he cannot defend himself against the Mueller accusations. Mueller really doesn’t have to prove anything: he can say what he wants. Comey and Warner prevented Assange from providing evidence exonerating ‘the Russians’, and Assange has been shut down.

    Let me repeat once again: Assange is fully aware that the smallest bit of non-truth or half-lie would mean the end of WikiLeaks. It is based on ultimate trust. Nobody would ever offer a single file again if they wouldn’t have full confidence that Wikileaks would treat it -and them- with the utmost respect. So the American approach is to smear Assange in any way possible, rape allegations, collusion with Russian agents, anything goes.

    And ‘the Russians’ can be ‘freely’ accused in a 29-page indictment released on the eve of the first summit President Trump is supposed to have with his Russian counterpart a year and a half into his presidency, where his predecessors all had such meetings much earlier into their presidencies. With many lawmakers calling on him to cancel it.

    Do we all still remember the true meaning of ‘collusion’?

  • "Credible" Lisa Page Wows House GOP; Supports Theory FBI Had "Desired Outcome" In Russia Probe

    GOP lawmakers were pleased with former FBI attorney Lisa Page’s Friday closed-door interview with select House committee members – in sharp contrast to her former FBI co-worker and lover Peter Strzok’s Thursday testimony which was mostly a ten-hourtrain wreck.

    After just five hours, a “cooperative” and “credible” Page answered many questions Strzok didn’t, according to Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) as reported by Politico‘s Kyle Cheney, in large part because FBI attorneys present at the session backed off and let her answer more questions. 

    Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) – one of Page’s harshest critics leading up to her appearance, said that her cooperation “speaks well of her” according to The Hill. 

    “We certainly learned additional things today, but I can tell you that the last thing anyone wants to be is falsely accused and her willingness to cooperate today speaks well of her” -Rep. Mark Meadows

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    Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said that Page’s testimony heightened his concern over whether the FBI was driving towards a “desired outcome” in its Russ’a probe.

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    Gaetz also questioned the presence of FBI attorneys during the private testimony.

    “Lisa Page is not an FBI employee, but the FBI was here providing counsel and giving her direction as to which questions to answer or not answer and there is a question as to the propriety of that before the House,” Gaetz said, according to the Hill.

    But he said he also found Page to be “more credible” than Strzok, the New York Post reported.  

    “I didn’t agree with her characterization of every text message and every piece of evidence,” Gaetz said as he left the House hearing. “But we did not see the smug attitude from Lisa Page that we saw from Peter Strzok.” –Fox News

    The three GOP lawmakers wouldn’t say whether what Page shared during her closed door appearance was consistent with Strzok’s Thursday session, they did get new information. 

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    And while special agent Peter Strzok freaked people out with his Devil’s Advocate performance on Thursday, Lisa Page now appears poised to redeem herself through honesty and transparency. Who knows, maybe watching her former side-piece do this freaked her out too: 

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    Note Page’s depiction in the media has gone from this:

    To this:

    Furthermore, we learn from Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-NC) that the DOJ had not notified Page of Congress’ outstanding requests to interview her for over seven months, confirming that the pushback against any probe into what really happened as the “deep state” started probing the Trump circle in 2016 goes to the very top of the Department of Justice. 

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    Could Lisa Page be the key to it all? Does she already have a book deal? 

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  • Rod Rosenstein Impeachment Plans Drawn Up: Report

    House GOP members led by Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (NC) have drawn up articles of impeachment against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, according to Politico.

    Conservative sources say they could file the impeachment document as soon as Monday, as Meadows and Freedom Caucus founder Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) look to build Republican support in the House. One source cautioned, however, that the timing was still fluid. –Politico

    GOP legislators could also try to hold Rosenstein in contempt of Congress prior to actual impeachment. 

    The knives have been out for Rosenstein for weeks, as Congressional investigators have repeatedly accused the DOJ of “slow walking” documents related to their investigations. Frustrated lawmakers have been given the runaround – while Rosenstein and the rest of the DOJ are hiding behind the argument that the materials requested by various Congressional oversight committees would potentially compromise ongoing investigations. 

    In late June, Rosenstein along with FBI Director Christopher Wray clashed with House Republicans during a fiery hearing over an internal DOJ report criticizing the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation by special agents who harbored extreme animus towards Donald Trump while expressing support for Clinton. Republicans on the panel grilled a defiant Rosenstein on the Trump-Russia investigation which has yet to prove any collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. 

    “This country is being hurt by it. We are being divided,” Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) said of Mueller’s investigation.  “Whatever you got,” Gowdy added, “Finish it the hell up because this country is being torn apart.”

    Rosenstein pushed back – dodging responsibility for decisions made by subordinates while claiming that Mueller was moving “as expeditiously as possible,” and insisting that he was “not trying to hide anything.” 

    “We are not in contempt of this Congress, and we are not going to be in contempt of this Congress,” Rosenstein told lawmakers.

    Republicans, meanwhile, approved a resolution on the House floor demanding that the DOJ turn over thousands of requested documents by July 6. And while the DOJ did provide Congressional investigators with access to a trove of documents, House GOP said the document delivery was incomplete, according to Fox News. 

    That didn’t impress Congressional GOP. 

    “For over eight months, they have had the opportunity to choose transparency. But they’ve instead chosen to withhold information and impede any effort of Congress to conduct oversight,” said Representative Mark Meadows of North Carolina, a sponsor of Thursday’s House resolution who raised the possibility of impeachment this week. “If Rod Rosenstein and the Department of Justice have nothing to hide, they certainly haven’t acted like it.” –New York Times (6/28/18)

    Rep. Meadows, meanwhile, fully admits that the document requests are related to efforts to quash the Mueller investigation. 

    “Yes, when we get these documents, we believe that it will do away with this whole fiasco of what they call the Russian Trump collusion because there wasn’t any,” Meadows said on the House floor.

    Meanwhile, following a long day of grilling FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte blamed Rosenstein for hindering Strzok’s ability to reveal the details of his work. 

    “Rosenstein, who has oversight over the FBI and of the Mueller investigation is where the buck stops,” he said. “Congress has been blocked today from conducting its constitutional oversight duty.”

    While Rosenstein’s appears to be close to the chopping block, whether or not he will actually be impeached is an entirely different matter.  

  • "World's Most Bearish Hedge Fund" Has An Alternative View On Yuan Weakness, With "Profound Implications"

    Like David Einhorn, Horseman Global had a very ugly month, in fact its 6.9% drop in June which dragged YTD performance back into the red (-2.83% YTD), was the worst month for Horseman going back to the end of 2016.

    However, unlike Einhorn, who lost 8% in June bringing his YTD performance to -19% and whose woes can be mostly attributed to the relentless rise of the tech names that make up his “short basket”, Horseman was hit due to something else entirely: its aggressive short dollar bet. Like so many other funds who turned bearish on the greenback at the start of the year only to suffer a violent short squeeze, Horseman was caught in the trade tug of war, in which China – for one reason or another – saw the Yuan depreciate last month by the most on record, surpassing the August 2015 devaluation. Subsequent dovish language from both the ECB and BOJ did not help, as Horseman CIO Russel Clark explains:

    [I]t seems the larger consensus position in the market is to be short US dollar. More dovish than expected messages from the European Central Bank (ECB) and Bank of Japan (BOJ) led to a surge in the value of the dollar against all currencies. As the fund strategy has been built around flows into the US reversing and creating a weak dollar, our long book suffered without commensurate gain from a short book.

    Due to the violent whiplash in the dollar, technicals also promptly reversed, making the long dollar trade the biggest pain trade for the hedge fund community:

    Short dollar and long commodity trades had attracted a great deal of trend following money, and Commodity Futures Trading Comission (CFTC) data and broker estimates now show that CTA and trend following funds have reversed their short dollar position, and are now long dollars, while long positioning in commodities have been largely cleared out.

    The concurrent collapse in emerging markets, one of Horseman’s preferred trades for the past year, did not help performance.

    Which, however, brings us to Horseman’s key point in his latest letter to investors, as well as a major question: what is prompting the yuan devaluation? Is it merely China’s stealthy, if petulant, response to the Trump’s escalating trade salvos, is it a reaction to China’s weakening economy, or is something else going on. To Clark, the answer is “something else.”

    The big question which remains unanswered is why have the Chinese become willing to let their currency fall after a period of keeping it strong? Where is there self interest in letting their currency weaken when there was little need for it, and it potentially destabilises the economy?

    And the response:

    The most reasonable answer to my mind is that they have tired of the endless currency devaluation policies of the BOJ, and possibly the ECB.

    The reason for this is due to a structural change in the Chinese economy, which “now runs trade deficits with both Japan and Europe, so why should they allow the Euro and Yen to continue to devalue against the CNY?”

    Why indeed, but if that interpretation is accurate, and if China’s latest Yuan deval is the product of trade concerns and not a simplistic response to Trump, Clark believes that this has two profound implications, one for traders the other for the economies of Europe and Japan:

    • Firstly, that CNY weakness is a not sign of economic weakness at all, which is shown by the underlying data. Hence investors positioning for further Chinese and emerging market weakness could be very disappointed. Especially as dollar weakness still looks a structurally sound trade in my mind.
    • Secondly, if CNY is managed now to prevent either the Euro or the Yen to weakening against it, while the dollar is likely to fall against all three currencies, this has negative connotations for European and Japanese exporters, who look to be hemmed in by a trade war with the US and a new Chinese currency policy. Combined with Chinese policy of keeping commodity prices high, the environment for Japanese corporate cashflow is turning negative. As Japan cashflow weakens, less of this money is likely to find its way to the US corporate bond market, likely causing corporate bond spreads to widen. We are seeing that Japanese have become the dominant buyers of US corporate debt and leveraged loans.

    And yet, in his synthesis of these trends, instead of seeing the return of some virtuous leveraging cycle, Clark comes up with a conclusion which is especially bearish for the market, as he sees the recent shift in Chinese currency policy, and the current yuan weakness, as the potential catalyst that precipitates the collapse of several “unsustainable” trends, to wit:

    For a long time, I have considered the BOJ quantitive easing policy, the US corporate bond market and volatility selling markets as unsustainable, but with little idea of what the catalyst would be for these markets to unwind. This change in Chinese currency policy could be a catalyst for change.

    Well, as we have said for the past 3 years, it is the world’s most bearish fund for a reason, and not just before of its gross and net short exposure of -135.5 and -44.3%, respectively.

    Clark’s latest full letter is below:

    Your fund lost 6.87% last month. Losses came from the long book and currency book.

    I had thought the big consensus trade in the market was short bonds, and I had moved the fund to be largely neutral with respect to bond yields. To offset our short REIT and Pharma positions which do well with lower yields, I had taken a long bond position and short financial position (financials tend to do badly when bond yields fall). However, it seems the larger consensus position in the market is to be short US dollar. More dovish than expected messages from the European Central Bank (ECB) and Bank of Japan (BOJ) led to a surge in the value of the dollar against all currencies. As the fund strategy has been built around flows into the US reversing and creating a weak dollar, our long book suffered without commensurate gain from a short book.

    With the dollar rally, markets have taken to punishing emerging market assets. Emerging markets certainly were weak during the 2013 taper tantrum, and the Chinese devaluation of 2015, so selling these assets during a dollar rally is perfectly logical. However, the differences between 2013, 2015 and today are profound, particularly for the mining sector. June saw new cycle highs for thermal coal and dry bulk shipping prices. We have also seen Chinese steel output rise to new all-time highs, at the same time Chinese domestic iron ore output has been reduced, which has led to rising imports. Major miners continue to cut capex and repay debt. Indian commodity demand continues to rise. Indian billionaire, Anil Agarwal, has looked to buy minorities out of his listed mining company, and try a buy the assets of Anglo American, as market valuations are very cheap despite an improving outlook.

    Short dollar and long commodity trades had attracted a great deal of trend following money, and Commodity Futures Trading Comission (CFTC) data and broker estimates now show that CTA and trend following funds have reversed their short dollar position, and are now long dollars, while long positioning in commodities have been largely cleared out.

    The big question which remains unanswered is why have the Chinese become willing to let their currency fall after a period of keeping it strong? Where is there self interest in letting their currency weaken when there was little need for it, and it potentially destabilises the economy? The most reasonable answer to my mind is that they have tired of the endless currency devaluation policies of the BOJ, and possibly the ECB. China now runs trade deficits with both Japan and Europe, so why should they allow the Euro and Yen to continue to devalue against the CNY? This seems perfectly reasonable to me and has two profound implications.

    Firstly, that CNY weakness is a not sign of economic weakness at all, which is shown by the underlying data. Hence investors positioning for further Chinese and emerging market weakness could be very disappointed. Especially as dollar weakness still looks a structurally sound trade in my mind.

    Secondly, if CNY is managed now to prevent either the Euro or the Yen to weakening against it, while the dollar is likely to fall against all three currencies, this has negative connotations for European and Japanese exporters, who look to be hemmed in by a trade war with the US and a new Chinese currency policy. Combined with Chinese policy of keeping commodity prices high, the environment for Japanese corporate cashflow is turning negative. As Japan cashflow weakens, less of this money is likely to find its way to the US corporate bond market, likely causing corporate bond spreads to widen. We are seeing that Japanese have become the dominant buyers of US corporate debt and leveraged loans.

    For a long time, I have considered the BOJ quantitive easing policy, the US corporate bond market and volatility selling markets as unsustainable, but with little idea of what the catalyst would be for these markets to unwind. This change in Chinese currency policy could be a catalyst for change. Your fund is long commodities, short developed markets.

  • And The Best-Run City In The US Is…

    Any mayor will tell you that running a modern US city isn’t an easy task. Even wealthy enclaves in the middle of a gentrification boom sometimes have trouble providing basic services (have you ridden the New York City subway lately?). While dysfunction abounds in municipalities across the US, researchers at WalletHub recently challenged themselves to come up with a formula for evaluating the best and worst-run cities in the country.

    After deciding that cities should be judged by the quality and efficacy of services delivered to taxpayers, WalletHub put together a “Quality of Services” score made up of 35 metrics grouped into six categories. They then compared that with the city’s per-capita budget.

    The results may surprise some readers. The largest US city in the top ten was Oklahoma City, which ranked as the 10th-best run city in the US. Instead, the top of the list was mostly dominated by smaller cities like Nampa, Idaho and Provo, Utah.

    Top 10 Best-Run Cities in the US:

    • Nampa, Idaho
    • Provo, Utah
    • Boise, Idaho
    • Lexington-Fayette, Kentucky
    • Missoula, Montana
    • Sioux Falls, South Dakota
    • Durham, North Carolina
    • Lewiston, Maine
    • Nashua, New Hampshire
    • Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

    The respective ranks of each of the 150 largest US cities can be found below:

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    WalletHub also broke down its ranking by different metrics like lowest debt and highest high-school graduation rate:

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  • China's Military Interests Along The Silk Road Stretch From Sea To Shining Sea

    Authored by Andrew Korybko via Oriental Review,

    Leaked Chinese military documents purport that the People’s Liberation Army will seek to expand its presence across the world in order to defend its Silk Road interests.

    The Japan Times was the first outlet to report on the plans that putatively circulated in Chinese circles back in February and which implored the state to concentrate on expanding its force projection capabilities beyond coastal defense and into the maritime and land realms. Although not directly stated, this is in clear reference to the need that China has to protect its Silk Road infrastructure investments and Sea Lines Of Communication (SLOC), mirroring the path that all other globally relevant Great Powers before it followed in having their overseas military activity driven by economic interests.

    It was only a matter of time before China naturally did so as well, despite publicly eschewing this approach and being extremely sensitive to how it’s portrayed, though with good reason because of the likelihood that this will be exploited through weaponized infowar means as supposed “proof” that the country is really just “another imperial power”, albeit one that cleverly disguises its military moves with win-win Silk Road slogans. That’s not entirely correct, though it feeds into India’s paranoia about China’s creeping military encirclement through the so-called “String of Pearls” infrastructure projects around its South Asian periphery.

    About those, it would make the most sense for China to reach agreements with the host states there and beyond similar to the 2016 Logistics Exchange Memorandum Of Agreement (LEMOA) between the US and India in allowing both parties to use each other’s military facilities on a case-by-case “logistical” basis, essentially giving some category of Silk Road projects such as seaports and airports a dual function even though this is exactly what American think tanks warned would eventually happen. Even so, it’s the most logical and cost-effective security solution available.

    The catch, though, is that China must avoid being drawn into “mission creep” all across the world in defending its Silk Road interests, to which end it’s likely to avoid having any significant military presence overseas, let alone in actual conflict zones apart from the Hybrid War experiences that its peacekeepers are presently learning from. Thus, China will probably step up its training, advisory, and assistance missions to its many partners as part of its own multipolar version of the US’ “Lead From Behind” strategy, which could for example see future aircraft carrier deployments off the African coast in order to help its in-country allies respond to anti-Silk Road militants.

    The People’s Liberation Army is therefore predicted to become a hemispheric force active all across Afro-Eurasia, though concentrating mostly on the supercontinental Heartland of Central Asia and the East African coast of the Indian Ocean Region in managing its dual mainland-maritime military competencies in protecting the Silk Road.

    This is natural given China’s expanding security interests by virtue of the need to defend the trade routes and infrastructure that form the backbone of its export-oriented economy and consequently its national stability, though it will undoubtedly be misportrayed by the country’s enemies as an “aggressive move” driven by “neo-imperial” calculations.

  • Liberal Meltdown: Furious Libs Outraged After Elon Musk Revealed As One Of Top Republican PAC Donors

    Update 2: As the night progresses, Elon Musk is growing increasingly perturbed by the latest GOP donation revelations, as the following tweet in the true spirit of Pravduh will attest:

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    And just a few minutes later, he says this:

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    And so, as Elon Musk’s battle against “pravduh” is set to make him liberal media enemy #1, it comes at the worst possible time: just as everyone was preparing to slay Donald Trump for meeting Putin on Monday.

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    Update: we bring you the epitome of damage control: a totally random, unsolicited, organic Twitter exchange, or as Tesla Charts notes, “That’ll fool the mob.”

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    And yet despite his clear contrition and sincere affection for “every living creature on earth”, environmentalist Musk saw immediate pushback:

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    Who knew that the black swan – or rather “red elephant” – that could destroy Tesla was not its staggering cash burn rate, which last quarter went through $12 million every day, would be the “shocking” discovery that the opportunistic self-proclaimed “socialist” CEO with a penchant for taxpayer subsidies was in fact… a closet republican.

    Earlier today, ProPublica published filings which revealed that Elon Musk is a top donor to a Republican PAC named Protect the House and aimed at keeping control of Congress. The PAC raised over $8 million in in the second quarter for Republican lawmakers hoping to fend off Democratic challengers.

    The top donors of the PAC include casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and Houston Texans owner Robert McNair. Although Adelson and McNair’s contributions far outweighed Musk’s — Adelson and McNair each gave $371,500 respectively, while Musk gave $33,900 — Musk was one of the top 50 donors of the PAC, just below Ken Griffin and Hank Paulson and above the Bass family and Stephen Schwarzman.

    While Musk has a history of donating to both parties, his contributions to the Republican Party was particularly startling in light of his recent disclosure that he was a “socialist” of the kind that seeks greatest good for all.

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    His donation to the republicans is especially perplexing in light of the GOP’s relatively loose adherence to environmental policies considering Musk’s crusade in life, or so he says, is to eliminate the world’s dependence on natural resources. 

    “Climate change is the biggest threat that humanity faces this century, except for AI,” Musk said in an interview with Rolling Stone late last year. “I keep telling people this. I hate to be Cassandra here, but it’s all fun and games until somebody loses a fucking eye. This view [of climate change] is shared by almost everyone who’s not crazy in the scientific community.”

    Well, everyone except most republicans, and as Salon notes, “that Musk believes this yet insists on helping the Republican Party win elections does not compute with reality. Some of the most influential climate-change deniers are members of the GOP; not to mention that the Trump administration’s policies have curbed Obama-era efforts to fight global warming.”

    Even more hypocritical, Musk himself has lashed out at the harm President Donald Trump and his party has done to the environment. Shortly after Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement, Musk announced that he would quit two of the White House’s business advisory councils.

    “Am departing presidential councils. Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world,” Musk said on Twitter at the time. What he forgot to add is that one year later he would secretly help the Republican Party maintain Congress. Or, as Salon continues its lashing, “the reports on Musk’s political contributions is just another data point marking Musk’s nonsense.”

    Following the news, Musk urgently engaged in damage control, and when asked “why the fuck are u donating to ppl that don’t believe in climate change and are separating kids from their families then”, his response was amusing: “So that they are willing to listen when I call to object about issues that negatively affect humanity.”

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    This, coming from the guy who quit Trump’s business advisory council so that nobody would listen to anything he called to object about. Or as some on twitter put it, “I am against abortion, so i will donate to pro abortion groups so that they will listen to me.”

    He then decided to pull another ideological chameleon, and “explained” that “to To be clear, I am not a conservative. Am registered independent & politically moderate. Doesn’t mean I’m moderate about all issues. Humanitarian issues are extremely important to me & I don’t understand why they are not important to everyone.”

    It was unclear at press time how donations to keep the GOP in power by a “registered independent”, “politically moderate” “socialist” would promote humanitarian issues.

    But it was hist most recent statement that was also the punchline (at least so far) with Musk close to pleading ignorance over what had happened, tweeting that “I do not actually see the checks (changed that policy today). A nominal annual amount goes out automatically to both parties to maintain dialogue.”

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    Clearly it’s time for another Tesla “saboteur” to arise and take the heat for Musk’s latest snafu.

    In any case, dialogue was the last thing that took place on twitter, where liberals – until now enamored with their ideological white knight and “real-world Tony Stark” – had their ideals shattered in a heartbeat.

    The result was an unprecedented pouring out of anger, outrage, and fury aimed at Musk, and more importantly, at Tesla, with most vowing they would either return their “green” cars or never buy one, effectively making Tesla the car of the republican party. Some of the more notable examples below:

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  • TSA Agents Can Now Grope Travelers Without Fear Of Pesky Lawsuits

    Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screeners have gained the upper glove when it comes to being sued by travelers subjected to assaults, false arrests or other abuses, thanks to a Wednesday ruling by a federal appeals court.

    In a 2-1 decision, the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled that TSA screeners are not “investigative or law enforcement officers,” which shields them from liability under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). 

    While the judges said they were “sympathetic” to concerns that their decision would leave victims of TSA gropings with “very limited legal redress,” the panel ultimately concluded that screeners and security personnel are not covered by the law.

    “For most people, TSA screenings are an unavoidable feature of flying, and they may involve thorough searches of not only the belongings of passengers but also their physical persons — searches that are even more rigorous and intimate for individuals who happen to be selected for physical pat-downs,” wrote Circuit Judge Cheryl Ann Krause in her decision.

    The Wednesday ruling came as a major defeat for Nadine Pellegrino – a Boca Raton business consultant who sued the TSA for false arrest, false imprisonment and malicious prosecution over a July 2006 incident at the Philadelphia International Airport. 

    According to court papers, Pellegrino had been randomly selected for additional screening at the Philadelphia airport before boarding a US Airways flight to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

    Pellegrino, then 57, objected to the invasiveness of the screening, but conditions deteriorated and she was eventually jailed for about 18 hours and criminally charged, the papers show. She was acquitted at a March 2008 trial. –Reuters

    Circuit Judge Thomas Ambro was the lone dissenter on the panel, who faulted the majority judges for preventing victims of TSA abuses from recoveries “by analogizing TSA searches to routine administrative inspections.”

    The court did note, however, that the head of the TSA – the Under Secretary of Transportation for Security does have the authority to designate TSA employees as “law enforcement officer[s] under 49 U.S.C. 114(p)(1).

    The same court threw out a First Amendment claim against the TSA last August, after Roger Vanderklok said he was arrested in retaliation for a request to file a complaint against a surly TSA supervisor. 

    Come fly the friendly skies!

    See the ruling here: 

  • Bitcoiners Slam Calls For Crypto Crackdown After Latest Russia Probe Indictments

    After Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein released an indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers yesterday, it didn’t take long for Democratic members of Congress to point fingers at bitcoin for supposedly helping enable the “nefarious actors” to secretly pay for servers and other services in furtherance of their scheme to fool the American public.

    And as the bitcoin backlash intensified, Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Emanuel Cleaver tweeted that he’s been “warning of the potential dangers of bitcoin” and that “the crypto industry needs to step their game up.”

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    Cleaver was referring to sections from the indictment that described how the hackers used cryptocurrency to pay for fake accounts and servers in furtherance of their scheme.

    BTC

    A surprising amount of space in the legal document was dedicated to recounting how the subjects of the indictment made their bitcoin payments and even mined bitcoin to help finance the operation.

    BTC

    But Cleaver’s claims quickly elicited a flood of tweets from people in the community who were quick to point out that the trail of transactions embedded in the blockchain actually helped investigators pinpoint the people responsible. As one user put it, “Bitcoin is a bad choice for criminals, whether you’re a Russian hacker or domestic drug dealer.”

    It may be impossible for governments to interfere with transactions conducted in bitcoin – meaning they can’t stop an illegal activity during the act – but bitcoin “made it easy to track” the suspects after-the-fact.

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    One twitter user pointed out the irony in Rep. Cleaver’s complaints…

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

    and suggested another frame for the narrative.

    Of course, some bitcoin critics reveled in the fact that the indictment appeared to mark a new low for the cryptocurrency.

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

    But, in summary:

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

    In terms of tracking the indicted parties, it doesn’t appear that bitcoin was any more difficult to trace than simple wire transfers would’ve been. But that probably won’t stop lawmakers like Cleaver calling for it to be banned or for regulators to crack down more heavily than they already have.

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Jul 14

Today’s News 14th July 2018

  • The Globalist Elite Fears Peace, Wants War

    Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    The announced meeting between Trump and Putin has already produced a good result by revealing the hypocrisy of the media and politicians. The meeting has been branded as the greatest danger to humanity, according to the Western globalist elite, because of the danger that “peace could break out between Russia and the United States”.

    Sometimes reality is stranger than fiction. The following so stretches credulity that sources will have to be cited and an exact quotations given to be believed.

    A case in point is the following title: 

    “Fears growing over the prospect of Trump ‘peace deal’ with Putin”. 

    The Times does not here fear a military escalation in Ukraine, an armed clash in Syria, a false-flag poisoning in England, or a new Cold War. The Times does not fear a nuclear apocalypse, the end of humanity, the suffering of hundreds of millions of people.

    No, one of the most authoritative and respected broadsheets in the world is fearful of the prospect of peace! The Times is afraid that the heads of two nuclear-armed superpowers are able to talk to each other. The Times fears that Putin and Trump will be able to come to some kind of agreement that can help avert the danger of a global catastrophe. These are the times in which we live. And this is the type of media we deal with. The problem with The Times is that it forms public opinion in the worst possible way, confusing, deceiving, and disorienting its readers. It is not by accident the world in which we live is increasingly divorced from logic and rationality.

    Even if the outcome of this meeting does not see any substantial progress, the most important thing to be achieved will be the dialogue between the two leaders and the opening of negotiation channels for both sides.

    In The Times article, it is assumed that Trump and Putin want to reach an agreement regarding Europe. The insinuation is that Putin is manipulating Trump in order to destabilize Europe. For years now we have been inundated with such fabrications by the media on behalf of their editors and shareholders, all part of the deep state conglomerate. Facts have in fact proven that Putin has always desired a strong and united Europe, looking to integrate Europe into the Eurasian dream. Putin and Xi Jinping would like to see a European Union more resistant to American pressure and able to gain greater independence. The combination of mass migration and sanctions against Russia and Iran, which end up hurting Europeans, opens the way for alternative parties that are not necessarily willing to Washington’s marching orders.

    Trump’s focus for the meeting will be to convince Putin to put even more pressure on Europe and Iran, perhaps in exchange for the recognition of Crimea and the ending of sanctions. For Putin and for Russia it is a strategic issue. While sanctions are bad, the top priority for Moscow remains the alliance with Iran, the need to further strengthen relations with European countries, and to defeat terrorism in Syria. Perhaps only a revision of the ABM treaty and the withdrawal of these weapons from Europe would be an interesting offer for Putin. However, reality shows us that the ABM treaty is a pillar of Washington’s military-industrial complex, and that it is also Eastern European countries that want such offensive and defensive systems in their own countries, seeing them as a deterrents against Russia. Are they victims of their own propaganda, or are billions of dollars pouring into their pockets? Either way, it does not really matter. The most important point for Moscow will be the withdrawal of the Aegis Ashore ABM systems as well as military ships with the same Aegis system. But this is not something that Trump will be able to negotiate with his military leaders. For the military-industrial complex, the ABM system, thanks to maintenance, innovation and direct or indirect commissions, is a gravy train that too many interests intend to keep riding.

    From the Kremlin’s point of view, the removal of sanctions remains necessary for the restoration of normal relations with the West. But this would be difficult to achieve, given that Moscow would have little to offer Washington in exchange. The strategists at the Pentagon demand a withdrawal from Syria, an end to support for Donbass, and a cessation of relations with Iran. There is simply too much divergence to reach a common position. Moreover, Europe’s sanctions against Russia benefit Washington, as they hurt the Europeans and thereby undermine what is a major trading competitor to the US. The US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) can be looked at in the same light, blocking US allies from doing business with Iran.

    Putin will keep faith with his commitments to Syria and with his allies, unwilling to betray his word even for the recognition of Crimea. On the other hand, as already mentioned, the priority remains the removal of the ABM; and while Crimea is already under the control of the Russian Federation, Syria remains an unstable territory that risks propelling Islamist terrorism to Russia’s soft underbelly in the Caucasus. For Moscow, involvement in Syria has always been a matter of national security, and this certainly remains the same now, even with Donald Trump’s unrealistic offers.

    It should be kept in mind that Putin is aiming for a medium- to long-term strategy in the Middle East, where Iran, Syria and the entire Shiite arc serves to counter Saudi and Israeli aggression and hegemony. This strange alliance has emerged as the only way to deter war and dial down the heat in the region, because the crazy actions from Netanyahu or Mohammad bin Salman are deterred by a strong Iranian military. Preventing a confrontation between Iran and Saudis/Israelis also means not making Tehran appear weak or isolated. Such considerations seem beyond the strategists in Washington, let alone in Tel Aviv or Riyadh.

    While it is difficult to achieve a positive outcome from the meeting between Trump and Putin, it is important that there is a meeting in the first place, contrary to what The Times thinks. The media and the conglomerate of power that revolves around the US deep state fear diplomacy in particular. The same narrative that was proclaimed weeks before and after the meeting between Trump and Kim Jong-un is being repeated with regard to Trump’s meeting with Putin.

    Washington bases its power on force, both economic and military. But this power also rests on the posture assumed and image projected. The United States and its deep state considers negotiating with opponents to be wrong and counterproductive. They consider dialogue to be synonymous with weakness, and any concession is interpreted as surrender. This is the result of 70 years of American exceptionalism and 30 years of Unipolarity, has allowed the US the ability to decide unilaterally the fate of others.

    Today, in a multipolar world, the dynamics are different and therefore more complex. You cannot always employ a zero-sum mentality, as The Times does. The rest of the world recognizes that a dialogue between Putin and Trump is something positive, but we must not forget that, as in Korea, if diplomacy does not bring significant progress, then the hawks surrounding Trump will again be in the ascendant. The tasks for Rouhani, Putin and Kim Jong-un are complex and quite different from each other, but they share in common the belief that dialogue is the only way to avoid a catastrophic war. But apparently, peace is not the best possible result for everyone.

  • Meet The Air Force's $1200 Cup Of Coffee

    Meet the Air Force’s $1200 cup of coffee — or more precisely the $1220 coffee cup which keeps breaking, after which the military simply buys more and more cups.  

    The Air Force’s $1,220 reheating coffee cup. Image source: US Air Force

    Some outlets which have reported on the insanely pricey self reheating coffee mug commonly used aboard aerial refueling tankers have presented it as merely a human interest and innovative tech story as the US military is considering cheaper designs using 3-D printers.

    However, we doubt American taxpayers will see it that way, as the public has had to foot the bill to the tune of nearly $56,000 over the past three years just to replace the cup’s handle. 

    A insanely expensive self-heating cup in question on a counter inside a KC-10 Extender at Travis Air Force Base, California. Image source: US Air Force

    If it sounds too absurd to be true a new Air Force Times report begins as follows:

    When a mobility airman drops a cup of coffee aboard an aircraft, the Air Force can be out $1,220.

    Since 2016, the replacement cost for some of the service’s coffee mugs, which can reheat coffee and tea on air refueling tankers, has gone up more than $500 per cup, forcing the service to dish out $32,000 this year for just 25 cups, military.com recently reported.

    The 60th Aerial Port Squadron at Travis Air Force Base recently revealed that it has spent nearly $56,000 to replace broken hot cups over the past three years. The culprit, they say, is a faulty plastic handle known to break on impact. Each time a handle breaks, the Air Force is forced to order a whole new cup, as replacement parts are no longer made.

    So the Air Force charged taxpayers $32,000 this year alone for cups with solid gold handles “faulty plastic handles” so that pilots can ensure their tea and Folgers get adequately reheated.

    And we’re not so sure — to use the Air Force Times’ language — that faulty handles are “forcing the service”  to have to do anything, much less we can’t figure out how the military is “forced to” shell out tens of thousands for coffee cups.

    According to Air Mobility Command officials, the 60th Aerial Port Squadron purchased 10 hot cups for $9,630 in 2016. The price for each cup surged from $693 to $1,220 in 2018, resulting in a cost of $32,000 for 25 cups — a price jump of $527 per cup, the release said. — Military.com

    But it is true that the cups have to withstand use in pressurized areas on aircraft such as cargo planes, and must endure turbulence while flying through inclement weather. Still, as Popular Mechanics concludes in what sounds like an ironic understatement, “A self-heating coffee cup is a nice morale-builder for air crews, but it comes at a price.”

    Meanwhile in the same report we learn about “$10,000 toilet seat covers” which when combined with $1200 coffee cups “just adds up” — in the words of one government spending watchdog group. 

    Spokesman for the Project On Government Oversight, Dan Grazier, notes that this kind of obscene excess is hardly new for the Department of Defense, explaining to the Air Force Times, “the root of the problem is intellectual property rights. When the Pentagon makes deals with defense contractors, it rarely demands data rights, allowing contractors to charge heavily for repair and replacement on the systems down the road.”

    Once locked into a fat government contract, the suppliers take the DoD to the bank for all they can manage, apparently. 

    The Air Force is currently seeking alternate ways to replace the faulty handles on the $1200 cups, reportedly considering 3-D printed replacement handles at an estimated cost of 50 cents. 

  • The War On Curiosity

    Authored by Brian Balfour via The Mises Institute,

    Last March, protestors at Middlebury College in Vermont sent professor Allison Stanger to the hospital with a neck injury. Stanger’s crime? She had the nerve to ask the protestors to allow the conservative/libertarian author Dr. Charles Murray to speak, and then to engage in a debate after his speech.

    According to news accounts, after about 20 minutes of protestors shouting down Murray’s ability to speak, “Professor Stanger then took the microphone and asked the students, ‘Can you just listen for one minute.’ Many in the audience replied, ‘no.’ She added that, ‘I spent a lot of time preparing hard questions.’ Finally, she conceded that, ‘You’re not going to let us speak.’”

    Stanger is a liberal professor who chose to combat Murray’s ideas with words, not violence or the heckler’s veto. This was simply unacceptable to the protestors.

    After moving to another location on campus, Stanger and Murray were confronted when attempting to leave following their discussion. What followed was minutes of pushing and shoving, and “(w)hen Stanger tried to shield Murray, according to a Middlebury spokesman, a protester grabbed her hair and twisted her neck.” Stanger ended up going to a hospital where she received a neck brace to treat her injuries.

    Over the last year and a half, we’ve witnessed a rash of accounts of college campuses being turned into riot zones by Leftist protestors hoping to shut down conservative or libertarian speakers. Middlebury is just one, and far from the worst , of such examples.

    These protestors would rather incite violence than listen to a viewpoint that challenges their own.

    The War on Curiosity

    Why is the Left so afraid of an opposing opinion? How do they justify resorting to violence to shut down a dissenting voice rather than engaging in debate?

    One such explanation is the war on curiosity.

    This war is engaged by anyone without the faintest interest in learning about political philosophies, economic theories or moral principles that challenge their existing worldview.

    Are you a soldier in the war on curiosity?

    Take this litmus test:

    How do you react when presented with new information or a viewpoint that contradicts your beliefs?

    If the revelation stimulates your intellect and makes you thankful for the chance to expand your knowledge and gain a better understanding of an opposing position, you have the gift of curiosity. You welcome the opportunity to challenge your beliefs with this new information, a process that may enable you to more strongly confirm the justness of your belief and sharpen your argument in favor of it. Or, if the new viewpoint is persuasive enough, you alter your belief, owing a debt of gratitude to the one who opened your eyes.

    On the other hand, if you react with anger, anxiousness or a general feeling of being threatened, you are likely allowing your emotions to snuff out your intellectual curiosity.

    “Motivated Ignorance”

    Social psychologists, writing in a 2017 LA Times article , described such reactions as “motivated ignorance.” People engaging in motivated ignorance “neither know — nor want to know — what the opposition has to say.”

    Indeed, in one study cited by the authors, “people we surveyed said they anticipated getting angry if they were to listen to the other side, and suspected that it might damage their relationship with the person spouting off.”

    Those who are not curious close themselves off to other views. Over time, they can’t figure out how any normal human being could possibly think differently than they do on political issues. Sinister motives, or stupidity, must be the only explanation. This is where the nastiness comes in. If one disagrees, surely they must be evil, dumb, racist or transphobic.

    And because those who are not curious become convinced the other side is some sort of cartoonish villain, the uncurious feel compelled to not just ignore opposing viewpoints, but to silence them. Nobody should feel the indignity of being exposed to such “hate speech,” they’ll reason.

    Using Shaming or Bullying to Silence

    Violence is the most extreme and dangerous tactic in the war on curiosity, but far from the only one.

    Safe spaces offer protection for those who feel threatened by opposing viewpoints. There are campuses that offer mental health counseling to students who cannot bear “ even the thought of an individual coming to campus” to express non-politically correct views. That the mere thought of someone with opposing views setting foot on your campus can threaten your mental health takes motivated ignorance to the Nth degree.

    Public shaming or bullying is another popular tactic. Anyone who disagrees with a Leftist is obviously a racist, or homophobe or a tool of the rich and therefore must be discredited through name-calling. Why bother with debate when mindlessly dismissing other viewpoints as “not worthy” of discussion is so much easier, and empowering? After all, moral authority is valuable currency in the Left’s desire to gain the top slot in our social hierarchy, and demonizing opponents has proven to be a more convenient route than open debate of ideas.

    Leftists Tend to be More Uncurious of Opposing Views

    To be sure, the war on curiosity is being waged by people of all political stripes. However, Leftists seem to be outgunning their opponents when it comes to motivated ignorance. Indeed, social scientist Jonathan Haidt in his book “ The Righteous Mind” reported on a study which found “clear and consistent” results that “(m)oderates and conservatives were most accurate in their predictions” when people of varying political bents were tested on how well they understood their ideological opposites.

    In other words, Leftists don’t understand their opponents’ views as well as their opponents understand theirs.

    When is the last time you heard of a Leftist speaker being shut down by violent protestors?

    The Role of Confirmation Bias

    Enabling this war is confirmation bias – the strong tendency in us to interpret all new information through the lens of our prior beliefs. Whatever your political philosophy is, you can easily immerse yourself into media outlets, social media and internet content that exclusively reaffirm your convictions. One can comfortably spend hours a day consuming political information without once encountering a differing viewpoint.

    Moreover, most Americans can go thru thirteen years of public education, plus four or more years in university, and never be confronted with a viewpoint counter to the orthodox Leftist vision of government as benevolent dispenser of justice.

    Lack of exposure to other viewpoints may help explain why so many Leftists can muster no greater argument than “shut up, racist.”

    The war on curiosity serves only to dumb down political debate. Non-Leftist viewpoints get silenced, while progressive arguments need never be thoroughly presented because intimidation and name-calling prove much easier and satisfyingly self-righteous. History proves such trends lead to ugly outcomes.

  • Home Sales In Westchester Plunge As Wealthy Buyers "Spend More Time With Their Accountants"

    It appears the drop in home sales that has afflicted Manhattan and wealthy tri-state-area enclaves like Greenwich, Conn. is spreading to Westchester County, the suburban enclave directly north of the Bronx According to Bloomberg, sales fell 18% in the second quarter compared with a year earlier, marking the fourth straight quarter of declining sales.

    Purchases in the northern suburban county — which shoulders the biggest property-tax burden in the U.S. — plunged 18 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, the most since 2011, according to a report Thursday by appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate. It was the fourth consecutive quarter of sales declines.

    “We’re seeing buyers take a second to understand the math,” Scott Elwell, Douglas Elliman’s regional manager in charge of Westchester and Connecticut, said in an interview. “They’re spending more time with their accountants and really understanding how this plays out.”

    The reason, according to Bloomberg, is that home buyers have been deterred by the county’s high property taxes. Federal rules approved in December set a $10,000 limit on deductions for state and local taxes, which is nearly half the $17,179 average tax paid by Westchester residents in property taxes last year. 

    Trimming

    The tax wasn’t passed until December, but details about the proposed cap on the SALT deduction surfaced months earlier. Also, the fact that home prices in the area have been rising much more quickly than incomes could have something to do with it. But even in towns like Scarsdale that are traditionally havens for Wall Streeters and other members of the monied elite saw a significant drop in sales. And according to preliminary data

    Even before the tax changes, years of rising values were already making Westchester less affordable, said Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel. The median price of homes that sold in the three months through June climbed 5 percent from a year earlier to $525,000, according to the report. Prices have increased in all but three quarters since the beginning of 2013.

    The drop in transactions is likely to continue. On June 30, there were 8.8 percent fewer Westchester homes in contract than there were on the same day last year, brokerage Houlihan Lawrence said in its own report. The biggest decline was for homes priced from $1.5 million to $1.99 million. Pending deals in that range fell 17 percent to 94.

    In Scarsdale, home to many Wall Street executives, completed sales in the first half of the year were down 20 percent to 88 transactions, Houlihan Lawrence said. The median price there dropped 5 percent to $1.57 million. In nearby Mamaroneck, closings rose 25 percent to 127. The median price of those deals dropped 13 percent to $1.19 million.

    While the reasons why cashed strapped millennials aren’t buying are obvious (they don’t have any money), maybe wealthy people who have an understanding of how markets work aren’t buying because they think that they might be able to get a better deal if they wait a year or two. And they might be right, especially if Republicans retain control of Congress in November, which would greatly reduce the likelihood that the Trump tax cuts will be repealed.

  • "Thanos Did Nothing Wrong"? 1000s Embrace The Population-Control Philosophy Of Marvel's Most-Twisted Super-Villain

    Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

    “Thanos did nothing wrong” has become one of the most common mantras on the Internet in recent days, and it just sparked one of the biggest events in Reddit history, but most people still don’t understand what all of the commotion is about.  So let me try to break it down very simply. 

    In the most recent Avengers movie, the story centers around a super-villain named Thanos that intends to wipe out half of all life in the universe.  He does not want to do this just to be evil, but rather his plan is to get population growth under control so that those that remain will be able to enjoy happy, sustainable lives. 

    If that sounds uncomfortably close to something that you have heard before, that is because it is.  Population control is a major theme on the radical left, and many of them truly believe that humanity’s population must be greatly reduced “to stop global warming” and “to save the planet”.  In the film, Thanos truly believes that he is doing the right thing, but since he is the villain everyone in the audience is theoretically supposed to be rooting for him to be defeated.  But instead of being universally hated, Thanos has become the big breakout star from this movie.  Large numbers of people are insisting that “Thanos did nothing wrong” and are embracing his population control philosophy.

    Of course population control is not exactly a new idea.  It was one of the main reasons why ancient civilizations conducted human sacrifice rituals, and several centuries ago it was given a more modern spin by Thomas Malthus.  So the truth is that the philosophy that Thanos is promoting is simply “repackaged” for a new generation, and this is a point that G. Shane Morris made in an article earlier this year…

    “Infinity War” casts its big baddie as a champion of yet another progressive pet cause: Population control. Thanos, who has teased audiences with sinister grins and cryptic statements in years of after-credit scenes, has finally revealed his true motive: He wants to wipe out half the galaxy’s population to make sure the other half has plenty to eat.

    We watch during his obligatory villain speech as Thanos explains why he needs the power of the Infinity Stones: to teleport from planet to planet, killing billions in order to defuse the population bomb that desolated his home world. He does so on the assumption that Thomas Malthus first propounded: that each species has limited resources at its disposal, and the only way to keep from exhausting them is to check population growth.

    The movie has been out for several months now, but the debate about Thanos has really heated up in recent days.  July 9th was one of the biggest days in Reddit history, and it was because of a “mass culling” on the r/ThanosDidNothingWrongsubreddit.  This “mass culling” was actually called for by members of the subreddit in order to “honor” Thanos.  The following comes from Business Insider…

    Like the “Avengers: Infinity War” villain himself, the Thanos subreddit r/ThanosDidNothingWrong sought perfect balance among its more than 700,000 members, up from the 200,000 subscribers it had last week.

    The online community began banning over 300,000 of its members at 5:00 PM PDT sharp on Monday, in a purge that was actually planned weeks in advance — a purge that was, indeed, instigated by its own members, who cheered the culling as honoring their hero, Thanos.

    Originally, the moderators of the subreddit were hesitant when the idea was first suggested.  Back on June 29th, one of them asked, “You seriously want us to ban half of the subreddit?”

    The members of the subreddit kept insisting, and the idea quickly became viral.  Once word got out that there would actually be a “mass culling”, membership in the subreddit climbed to more than 700,000…

    Thus the great project was born. The moderators of r/ThanosDidNothingWrong had to get permission from Reddit admins to go through with the ban, and then they had to automate the process. As word of the upcoming ban spread, hundreds of thousands of Reddit users flocked to join r/ThanosDidNothingWrong just so they’d have a chance to get ousted. By the time ban day rolled around, over 700,000 users had subscribed — making the culling by far the largest “dusting,” or mass ban, in Reddit history.

    And this event got so big that even some high profile members of the Avengers movie team got directly involved…

    When the process began late Sunday night, it was making headlines. Infinity War directors the Russo brothers even took part in the exercise, with Anthony Russo joining in the sub’s preliminary festivities. The ban process was also live-streamed on Reddit’s official Twitch account — and none other than Thanos himself, an inexplicably shirtless Josh Brolin, was on hand to snap the ban into existence.

    I understand that a lot of young people are just having fun with this, but ultimately population control is not something that we ever want to celebrate.

    There really are global elitists that consider “human overpopulation” to be a “plague” on the planet that needs to be dealt with.  They are truly convinced that climate change is the number one threat that the globe is facing, and they have identified human population growth as the primary driver of climate change.

    And so they really do want to reduce the population in order to “save the planet”.  For much more on this, please see my previous article entitled “46 Population Control Quotes That Show How Badly The Elite Want To Wipe Us All Out”.

    About 50 years ago, Paul Ehrlich wrote a book entitled “The Population Bomb” in which he breathlessly warned about what would happen during the decades to come if humanity’s population continued to grow.

    Well, humanity’s population did continue to grow, and none of his prognostications turned out to be accurate.

    But now the same philosophy has been rebranded and repackaged for a new generation, and young people are eating it up.

    When a substantial portion of the population decides that the solution to our problems is to get rid of large numbers of people, that sets the stage for mass genocide.  We have seen this happen before in human history, and it must not happen again.

  • Neocons Panic As Trump-Putin Meeting Could Mark Close Of Syrian Proxy War

    When multiple op-ed pieces appear in the pages of the New York Times, Washington Post, and the CFR-owned Foreign Affairs authored by neocons simultaneously pleading with Trump Don’t Get Out of Syria(!) all within the same week, this is typically an indicator that the president is about to do something good. 

    Trump is set to meet with Putin one-on-one this coming Monday in Helsinki after a contentious NATO summit and a sufficiently awkward visit with Theresa May, and mainstream pundits’ heads are exploding. 

    The Post’s Josh Rogin warns, Trump and Putin may be about to make a terrible deal on Syria, and Susan Rice suddenly emerges from obscurity and irrelevance to say in the Times that Trump Must Not Capitulate to Putin while urging the administration not to “prematurely withdraw United States forces [from Syria], thus thus ceding total victory to Russia, Mr. Assad and Iran.” From North Korea to Afghanistan to Syria to Ukraine, Rice advises the typical regime change script of “harsh additional sanctions” anywhere the dictates of Washington are not strictly adhered to. 

    Similarly, Eli Lake links together the main regime change wars begun under Obama while lamenting their potential winding down as a result of Putin and Trump meeting as indicative of living in “some alternate universe”. “The price of Russian cooperation in Syria cannot be U.S. capitulation on Crimea,” Lake writes, and further calls such a possibility “the most dangerous possible outcome.”

    The Kagan-led neocon think tank ISW, meanwhile, is outraged(!) the administration appears to lack “the will to use” America’s military might to counter Assad, Iran, and Russia, saying “the United States should invest now in building leverage for future decisive action.” 

    And then there’s Senator Lindsey Graham’s meltdown on Twitter this week in reaction to both the Syrian Army victoriously raising the national flag over Daraa and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu telling President Vladimir Putin during a summit that Israel has no problem with Assad staying, so long as Israel can preserve “freedom of action” if attacked. 

    In a significant change of posture toward Damascus, Netanyahu told reporters in Moscow, “We haven’t had a problem with the Assad regime, for 40 years not a single bullet was fired on the Golan Heights.” 

    This was enough to send Graham’s head spinning: “Radical Sunni groups will say – correctly – that Assad is a proxy of Iran and the Ayatollah. It means the Syrian war never ends and ISIS comes back,” he said in a strange twist of logic that gives credence to the arguments of terror groups. 

    Israel’s Haaretz newspaper featured Sen. Graham’s reaction:

    ‘Without Assad’s blessing, the flags of Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard would not be on Israel’s front door,’ Graham tweets in response to Netanyahu claiming Israel has no problem with Assad.

    As Trump readies for Putin summit, saying “He’s not my enemy,” interventionistas are raging: 

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

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

    In the past months there’s been widespread reporting on a “secret” deal brokered between Russia, Israel, and Syria, which reportedly involves the Syrian Army agreeing to keep Iranian forces away from the ongoing successful campaign along the Israeli and Jordanian borders, especially the contested Golan Heights.

    Netanyahu now says, fresh off his Moscow visit, that Putin agreed to restrain Iran in Syria, but that ultimately Assad will take back all of Syria. The New York Times reports this hugely significant acknowledgement and surprising change of tune from the Israeli PM:

    Israel, he said, did not object to President Bashar al-Assad’s regaining control over all of Syria, a vital Russian objective, and Russia had pushed Iranian and allied Shiite forces “tens of kilometers” away from the Israeli border.

    The NYT continues: 

    But a commitment to keep Iranian forces tens of kilometers from Israel was a far cry from ejecting them completely from Syria, which Mr. Netanyahu has been lobbying Mr. Putin to do. And even that commitment was not confirmed by Russian officials.

    …So a willingness to accept Mr. Assad’s resumption of control over all of Syria is no small concession, said Amos Yadlin, a former chief of Israeli military intelligence who now heads the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

    “Nobody can these days destabilize the Assad regime,” he said. “The only one who can do it is Israel. And the Russians know that very well. So to get a commitment from Israel not to destabilize Syria is something that Russia will value very much.”

    The neocon pundits’ last hope for military intervention in Syria has remained Netanyahu, and to see him fold must feel like a swift unexpected punch in the stomach, but more crucially the Syrian diplomatic cards have fallen in place just days before Monday’s Trump-Putin meeting. 

    President Assad has long vowed to liberate “every inch” of sovereign Syrian territory, something which but two years ago appeared impossible, yet which now looks increasingly inevitable. Should the Trump-Putin summit result in a green light that ensures Moscow and Damascus remain in the driver’s seat and set the terms for Syria’s stabilization, we could be witnessing the final diplomatic chapter in this dark seven-year long proxy war. 

    However, Trump continues to be urged from various corners of the beltway foreign policy establishment to salvage and preserve what he can of the open-ended US troop presence in eastern Syria: the US must “preserve its interests in the conflict, namely… constraining Iranian influence in the country” as one Foreign Policy essay argues. 

    For months now, Trump has talked of US military withdrawal from the country — which the Pentagon in public statements has put at over some 2000 troops — a proposal which hawks within his administration have pushed back against every time. 

    And then there’s the clearly observable pattern that seems to repeat whenever the administration announces it is poised to pull out of Syria. Indeed it seems to occur every time the Syrian Army is on a trajectory of overwhelming victory: an ill-timed and strategically nonsensical mass chemical attack on civilians supposedly ordered by Assad — inevitably giving the West an open door for military intervention, new rounds of crippling sanctions, and yet more international media condemnation heaped on Damascus. 

    Precisely this scenario occurred just days after President Trump declared in the last week of March of this year that he wanted a complete US military pullout from Syria. What then immediately followed was the April 7 “chemical attack” provocation in Douma — just the thing that brought Trump’s planned pullout to a grinding halt, instead resulting tomahawk missiles unleashed on Damascus. 

    Should Trump and Putin ultimately come to a lasting settlement on the Syria issue which results in US troop withdrawal from Syria, will the international proxy war come to a close?

    Or will we witness yet another last minute “mass casualty event” or other other provocation that pulls the US, Israel, and Russia into yet deeper direct military confrontation?

  • The Exorbitant Cost Of Getting Ahead In Life

    Authored by Michael Scott via SafeHaven.com,

    Some 84 percent of Americans claim that a higher education is a very or extremely important factor for getting ahead in life, according to the National Center for public policy and Higher Education.

    So, it’s worth the exorbitant cost, but not everyone can pay, and outsized costs in the U.S. are giving much of the rest of the developed world the higher education advantage.

    According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), people with a Bachelor’s Degree earn around 64 percent more per week than those with a high school diploma, and around 40 percent more than those with an Associate’s Degree. In turn, those with an Associate’s degree earn around 17 percent more than those with a high school diploma.

    The Federal Reserve Bank of New York says that college graduates overall earn 80 percent more than those without a degree.

    There’s also job security to consider.

    Individuals with college degrees have a lower average unemployment rates than those with only high school educations. Among people aged 25 and over, the lowest unemployment rates occur in those with the highest degrees.

    From this perspective, it’s no surprise that students are willing to bite the bullet and take on a ton of debt to finance education.

    About three-fourths of students who attend four-year colleges graduate with loan debt. And this number is up from about half of students three decades ago.

    The average student loan debt for Class of 2017 graduates was $39,400, up 6 percent from the previous year. Over 44 million Americans now hold over $1.5 trillion in student loan debt, according to Student Loan Hero.

    According to College Board, the average cost of tuition and fees for the 2017–2018 school year was $34,740 at private colleges, $9,970 for state residents at public colleges, and $25,620 for out-of-state residents attending public universities.

    The U.S. is one of the most expensive places to go obtain a higher education, but there are pricier venues, too.

    If you want a free higher education, try Europe—specifically Germany and Sweden. Denmark, too, doles out an allowance of about $900 a month to students to cover their living expenses. But don’t try to study in the UK on the cheap. The UK is the most expensive country in Europe, with college tuition coming in at an average of $12,414.

    In Australia, graduates don’t pay anything on their loans until they earn about $40,000 a year, and then they only pay between 4 percent and 8 percent of their income, which is automatically deducted from their bank accounts, reducing the chances of default.

    For Japan—a country that sees more than half of its population go to college—the highly respected University of Tokyo only costs about $4,700 a year for undergraduates, thanks to government subsidies. The Japanese government spends almost $8,750 a year per student because it sees the massive value in having a highly educated citizenry.

    For Americans, while student loans may still be a good investment overall, the idea of taking a lifetime to pay off the debt may become increasingly unattractive. And it’s only going to get worse, according to JPMorgan, which predicts that by 2035 the cost of attending a four-year private college will top $487,000.

  • "Dealers Are Taking Control" – Baltimore Murder Rate Soars As Police Ease Up On Stops

    When Attorney General Jeff Sessions said at a gathering of police officials back in May that “if you want crime to go up, let the ACLU run the police department,” he may have had a point. While opponents of “aggressive” police tactics like stop and frisk and other “broken windows”-type policing have complain about the injustice faced by minorities who they say are disproportionately and unfairly targeted by police, the city of Baltimore is demonstrating what happens when police dial back stops for minor violations like street-level drug dealing and other “everyday violations.”

    According to USA Today, since the death of Freddie Gray and the arrest of several officers who were charged with murder for allegedly playing a role in his death (he died handcuffed in the back of a police van after reportedly breaking his neck) police in Baltimore have “stopped noticing” small crimes and minor violations. The officers who were charged were acquitted, but the incident ended their careers, and the Baltimore Police Department faced a 2016 Department of Justice investigation that found the city’s police routinely violated the constitutional rights of the city’s residents. More than 150 people have been killed in the city already this year, compared with 342 last year, which was the city’s deadliest on record.

    Unsurprisingly, shootings soared…

    USAToday

    …Leading to a spike in murders that has transformed Baltimore into America’s deadliest city.

    Just before a wave of violence turned Baltimore into the nation’s deadliest big city, a curious thing happened to its police force: officers suddenly seemed to stop noticing crime.

    Police officers reported seeing fewer drug dealers on street corners. They encountered fewer people who had open arrest warrants.

    Police questioned fewer people on the street. They stopped fewer cars.

    In the space of just a few days in spring 2015 – as Baltimore faced a wave of rioting after Freddie Gray, a black man, died from injuries he suffered in the back of a police van – officers in nearly every part of the city appeared to turn a blind eye to everyday violations. They still answered calls for help. But the number of potential violations they reported seeing themselves dropped by nearly half. It has largely stayed that way ever since.

    “What officers are doing is they’re just driving looking forward. They’ve got horse blinders on,” says Kevin Forrester, a retired Baltimore detective.

    The surge of shootings and killings that followed has left Baltimore easily the deadliest large city in the United States. Its murder rate reached an all-time high last year; 342 people were killed. The number of shootings in some neighborhoods has more than tripled. One man was shot to death steps from a police station. Another was killed driving in a funeral procession.

    Police records show officers respond to calls as fast as ever, if not more quickly. The only drop has been in what police call “on-views” – when an officer witnesses a potential violation and stops the perpetrator (like when somebody is stopped for speeding). Between 2014 and 2017, the number of suspected narcotics offense stops dropped by 30%, and the number of people reported with outstanding warrants dropped by 50%. But Baltimore Police Commissioner Gary Tuggle, who took command in May, also blamed a shortage of patrol officers

    Police officials acknowledge the change. “In all candor, officers are not as aggressive as they once were, pre-2015. It’s just that fact,” says acting Police Commissioner Gary Tuggle, who took command of Baltimore’s police force in May.

    Tuggle blames a shortage of patrol officers and the fallout from a blistering 2016 Justice Department investigation that found the city’s police regularly violated residents’ constitutional rights and prompted new limits on how officers there carry out what had once been routine parts of their job. At the same time, he says, police have focused more of their energy on gun crime and less on smaller infractions.

    “We don’t want officers going out, grabbing people out of corners, beating them up and putting them in jail,” Tuggle says. “We want officers engaging folks at every level. And if somebody needs to be arrested, arrest them. But we also want officers to be smart about how they do that.”

    The change has left a perception among some police officers that people in the city are free to do as they please. And among criminals, says Mahogany Gaines, whose brother, Dontais, was found shot to death inside his apartment in October.

     “These people don’t realize that you’re leaving people fatherless and motherless,” Gaines says. “I feel like they think they’re untouchable.”

    A pastor in West Baltimore spoke with USA Today about the rise in violence. He described a city where residents are becoming afraid to leave their homes. Criminals have taken over, and crews are setting up drug-dealing operations on corners across the city.

    Baltimore

    At least 41 people have been shot near his church. He described how a new drug corner recently set up shop on the corner across the street, and nearly got into a gun battle with another crew working nearby.

    On a sticky morning in May, the Rev. Rodney Hudson slips on a black “Sermonator” T-shirt and walks down the street from his west Baltimore church, a gray stone edifice two blocks from where police arrested Gray. A few days earlier, a drug crew from another neighborhood set up camp on the corner across the street. Hudson says  the dealers nearly got into a gunfight with the crew that usually works across from the elementary school down the block.

    Since Gray’s death, at least 41 people have been shot within a short walk of Hudson’s church.

    “Drug dealers are taking control of the corners and the police’s hands are tied,” Hudson says. “We have a community that is afraid.”

    Two blocks away, Mayor Catherine Pugh and a knot of city officials are under a tent on an empty lot to break ground for a group of new townhouses. Police officers linger on the streets, and a helicopter swirls overhead. But three blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue, drug crews still appear to be at work. Shouts of “hard body” – one of the drug cocktails on offer – ring clearly. Another man shouts a warning as Hudson and a reporter approach.

    Drug dealers have worked Baltimore’s street corners for decades. But Hudson says it has been years since he has seen so many young men selling so brazenly in so many places. Dealers, he says, “are taking advantage” of a newly timid police force.

    At least 150 people have been killed in Baltimore this year.

    To be sure, the investigation did expose some legitimate corruption, including incidences of officers planting drugs and other evidence. Police Commission Darryl De Sousa resigned in May after federal prosecutors charged him with failing to pay his income taxes.

    This year, eight officers in an elite anti-gun unit were convicted in a corruption scandal that included robbing drug dealers and carrying out illegal stops and searches. One officer testified that a supervisor told them to carry replica guns they could plant on suspects. Another officer was indicted in January after footage from his body camera showed him acting out finding drugs in an alley. The city’s new police commissioner, Darryl De Sousa, resigned in May after federal prosecutors charged him with failing to pay his income taxes.

    But with the wave of protest and anti-police threats, officers absorbed the message that they shouldn’t take unnecessary risks when making stops. And that affect isn’t limited to Baltimore. Nearly three-quarters of the officers who responded to a Pew Research Center survey incidents like the Gray killing had left them less willing to stop and question people who seem suspicious. Others said the incidents had made stopping people harder. Meanwhile, civil rights advocates have accusing police of laying back on enforcement as a means of retaliating.

    “What it says is that if you complain about the way the police do our job, maybe we’ll just lay back and not do it as hard,” says Jeffery Robinson, a deputy legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, which had advocated for an overhaul of police agencies in Baltimore and elsewhere. “If it’s true, if that’s what officers are doing, they should be fired.”

    Another criminologist pointed out that police are largely doing as the public asked: They’re lessening the racial disparity in the number of people they stop and the number of police-involved shootings and complaints.

    “The cops are being less proactive at the same time violence is going up,” says Peter Moskos, a John Jay College of Criminal Justice professor and former Baltimore officer who reviewed USA TODAY’s data and analysis. “Cops are doing as requested: lessening racial disparity, lessening complaints, lessening police-involved shootings. All those numbers are just great right now, and if those are your metrics of success, we’re winning. The message has clearly gotten out to not commit unnecessary policing.”

    […]

    Anthony Barksdale, a retired Baltimore police commander, says the message to officers was unmistakable.

    “These guys have family members who tell them ‘Don’t go to work and chase people for a city that doesn’t care about you,'” he says. “If I’m riding down the street and I see an incident, I see it, but you know what? It’s not worth it. That’s what these cops are thinking.”

    Of course, this information probably won’t stop the millions of leftists who insist that all police departments are purveyors of “systemic racism” and that “broken windows”-style policing policies – where police in America’s cities are empowered to make more stops, not fewer – inevitably lead to racially motivated stops. Maybe the murder rate will need to move a little higher for them to understand how these policies have been a major contributor to the massive drop in America’s rate of violent crime over the past 25 years. Or maybe, because many of them live in rich, all-white enclaves, the problem of urban crime will never truly register. 

  • The Media's Brazen Dishonesty About North Korean Nuclear Violations

    Authored by Gareth Porter via The American Conservative,

    Press irresponsibly relies on single-source report to accuse Kim of breaking an agreement he never made…

    In late June and early July, NBC News, CNN, and The Wall Street Journal published stories that appeared at first glance to shed a lurid light on Donald Trump’s flirtation with Kim Jong-un. They contained satellite imagery showing that North Korea was making rapid upgrades to its nuclear weapons complex at Yongbyon and expanding its missile production program just as Trump and Kim were getting chummy at their Singapore summit.

    In fact, those media outlets were selling journalistic snake oil. By misrepresenting the diplomatic context of the images they were hyping, the press launched a false narrative around the Trump-Kim summit and the negotiations therein.

    The headline of the June 27 NBC News story revealed the network’s political agenda on the Trump-Kim negotiations. “If North Korea is denuclearizing,” it asked, “why is it expanding a nuclear research center?” The piece warned that North Korea “continues to make improvements to a major nuclear facility, raising questions about President Donald Trump’s claim that Kim Jong Un has agreed to disarm, independent experts tell NBC News.”

    CNN’s coverage of the same story was even more sensationalist, declaring that there were “troubling signs” that North Korea was making “improvements” to its nuclear facilities, some of which it said had been carried out after the Trump-Kim summit. It pointed to a facility that had produced plutonium in the past and recently undergone an upgrade, despite Kim’s alleged promise to Trump to draw down his nuclear arsenal. CNN commentator Max Boot cleverly spelled out the supposed implication: “If you were about to demolish your house, would you be remodeling the kitchen?”

    But in their determination to push hardline opposition to the negotiations, these stories either ignored or sought to discredit the careful caveat accompanying the original source on which they were based – the analysis of satellite images published on the website 38 North on June 21.

    The three analysts who had written that the satellite images “indicated that improvements to the infrastructure at North Korea’s Yongbyon Nuclear Research Center are continuing at a rapid pace” also cautioned that this work “should not be seen as having any relationship to North Korea’s pledge to denuclearize.”

    If the authors’ point was not clear enough, Joel Wit, the founder of 38 North, who helped negotiate the 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea and then worked on its implementation for several years, explained to NBC News: 

    “What you have is a commitment to denuclearize—we don’t have the deal yet, we just have a general commitment.”

    Wit added that he didn’t “find it surprising at all” that work at Yongbyon was continuing.

    In a briefing for journalists by telephone on Monday, Wit was even more vigorous in denouncing the stories that had hyped the article on 38 North.

    “I really disagree with the media narrative,” Wit said.

    “The Singapore summit declaration didn’t mean North Korea would stop its activities in the nuclear and missile area right away.”

    He recalled the fact that, during negotiations between the U.S. and the Soviets over arms control, “both sides continued to build weapons until the agreement was completed.”

    Determined to salvage its political line on the Trump-Kim talks, NBC News turned to Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, who has insisted all along that North Korea won’t give up its nuclear weapons.

    “We have never had a deal,” Lewis said. “The North Koreans never offered to give up their nuclear weapons. Never. Not once.”

    Lewis had apparently forgotten that the October 2005 Six Party joint statement included language that the DPRK had “committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons….”

    Another witness NBC found to support its view was James Acton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who declared, “If [the North Koreans] were serious about unilaterally disarming, of course they would have stopped work at Yongbyon.” That was true but misleading, because North Korea has always been unambiguously clear that its offer of denuclearization is conditional on reciprocal steps by the United States.

    On July 1, a few days after those stories appeared, the Wall Street Journal headlined, “New satellite imagery indicates Pyongyang is pushing ahead with weapons programs even as it pursues dialogue with Washington.” The lead paragraph called it a “major expansion of a key missile-manufacturing plant.”

    But the shock effect of the story itself was hardly seismic. It turns out that the images of a North Korean solid-fuel missile manufacturing facility at Hamhung showed that new buildings had been added beginning in the early spring, after Kim Jong-un had called for more production of solid-fuel rocket engines and warhead tips last August. The construction of the exterior of some buildings was completed “around the time” of the Trump-Kim summit meeting, according to the analysts at the James Martin Center of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.

    So the most Pyongyang could be accused of was going ahead with a previously planned expansion while it was just beginning to hold talks with the United States.

    The satellite images were analyzed by Jeffrey Lewis, the director whom had just been quoted by NBC in support of its viewpoint that North Korea had no intention of giving up its nuclear weapons. So it is no surprise that the Martin Center’s David Schmerler, who also participated in the analysis of the images, told the Journal, “The expansion of production infrastructure for North Korea’s solid missile infrastructure probably suggests that Kim Jong Un does not intend to abandon his nuclear and missile programs.”

    But when this writer spoke with Schmerler last week, he admitted that the evidence of Kim’s intentions regarding nuclear and missile programs is much less clear. I asked him if he was sure that North Korea would refuse to give up its ICBM program as part of a broader agreement with the Trump administration. “I’m not sure,” Schmerler responded, adding, “They haven’t really said they’re willing to give up ICBM program.” That is true, but they haven’t rejected that possibility either—presumably because the answer will depend on what commitments Trump is willing to make to the DPRK.

    These stories of supposed North Korean betrayal by NBC, CNN, and the Wall Street Journal are egregious cases of distorting news by pushing a predetermined policy line. But those news outlets, far from being outliers, are merely reflecting the norms of the entire corporate news system.

    The stories of how North Korea is now violating an imaginary pledge by Kim to Trump in Singapore are even more outrageous, because big media had previously peddled the opposite line: that Kim at the Singapore Summit made no firm commitment to give up his nuclear weapons and that the “agreement” in Singapore was the weakest of any thus far.

    That claim, which blithely ignored the fundamental distinction between a brief summit meeting statement and past formal agreements with North Korea that took months to reach, was a media maneuver of unparalleled brazenness. And big media have since topped that feat of journalistic legerdemain by claiming that North Korea has demonstrated bad faith by failing to halt all nuclear and missile-related activities.

    A media complex so determined to discredit negotiations with North Korea and so unfettered by political-diplomatic reality seriously threatens the ability of the United States to deliver on any agreement with Pyongyang. That means alternative media must make more aggressive efforts to challenge the corporate press’s coverage.

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Jul 13

Today’s News 13th July 2018

  • 'Fake' Saudi Prince Busted After Being Caught Eating Pork

    A confidence man who defrauded victims of millions of dollars while posing as a Saudi Prince was exposed after a Miami hotelier witnessed the imposter royal – supposedly a devout Muslim – eating pork during their meetings, according to RT.

    The man was, in fact, Anthony Gignac, a Colombian scam artist known for targeting wealthy real estate developers while working under the alias ‘Sultan Bin Khalid Al-Saud’ as he finagled gifts worth around $50,000 from Jeffrey Soffer, the owner of the iconic Fontainebleau resort hotel on Miami Beach.

    Saudi

    Soffer was reportedly negotiating with the fictional prince and several co-conspirators about a deal in which the prince would purchase a 30% stake in his hotel in return for a $440 million investment. During their negotiations, which went on for months, the 47-year-old Gignac stayed in the hotel. He was known for driving expensive cars bearing diplomatic plates, which he had apparently purchased on eBay.

    Gignac reportedly flew Soffer to Aspen on a private jet in August to discuss the deal. Once there, Soffer gave the fraudster a gift of a Cartier bracelet worth tens of thousands of dollars. But Soffer said he only handed over the gift because it had been demanded by one of Gignac’s associates because “the honor of the Sultan had been questioned.”

    Gignac was found out after Gignac was spotted eating pork during a meal – which should be against the religion of a devout Muslim. Soffer reported Gignac to the FBI, which opened an investigation. Gignac was arrested in November after being caught traveling from London to New York using a passport under a different name.

    It’s believed that the hotelier was one of 24 victims of Gignac’s scam, which he operated over 20 years. His scam even involved a fake instagram account, which featured photos of luxury goods and hotel rooms. 

     

     

    Royal Suite lol George V

    A post shared by Foxy (@princedubai_07) on

    //www.instagram.com/embed.js

     

    Dom

    A post shared by Foxy (@princedubai_07) on

    //www.instagram.com/embed.js

     

    Gettin that chicken

    A post shared by Foxy (@princedubai_07) on

    //www.instagram.com/embed.js

     

    The accused con man is being held in Miami and facing charges of impersonating a foreign official, identity theft and fraud.

  • European Powers Prepare To Ditch Dollar In Trade With Iran

    Authored by Elliot Gabriel via MintPressNews.com,

    While the White House’s frenzied anti-Iran campaign has entailed unprecedented attempts to twist the arms of the United States’ traditional European allies, the pressure may be backfiring – a reality made all the more clear by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s claims that Europe’s three major powers plan to continue trade ties with Iran without the use of the U.S. dollar.

    The move would be a clear sign that the foremost European hegemons – France, Germany, and the United Kingdom – plan to protect the interests of companies hoping to do business with Iran, a significant regional power with a market of around 80 million people.

    Lavrov’s statement came as Trump insisted that European companies would “absolutely” face sanctions in the aftermath of Washington’s widely-derided sabotage of the six-party Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).  On May 8, the former host of NBC’s “The Apprentice” blasted the agreement and said that the U.S. would reinstate nuclear sanctions on Iran and “the highest level” of economic bans on the Islamic Republic.

    Speaking in Vienna at the ministerial meeting of the JCPOA, Lavrov blasted the U.S. move as “a major violation of the agreed-upon terms which actually made it possible to significantly alleviate tensions from the point of view of the military and political situation in the region and upholding the non-proliferation regime.”  He added that “Iran was meticulously fulfilling its obligations” at the time that Trump destroyed the U.S.’ end of the agreement.

    Continuing, Lavrov explained:

    The Joint Commission… will be constantly reviewing options which will make it possible, regardless of the US decision, to continue to adhere to all commitments undertaken within the JCPOA framework and provide methods for conducting trade and economic relations with Iran which will not depend on Washington’s whims.  

    What they can do is to elaborate collectively and individually such forms of trade and settlements with Iran that will not depend on the dollar and will be accepted by those companies that see trade with Iran more profitable than with the US. Such companies certainly exist – small, medium and large.”

    Lavrov noted that the move wasn’t so much meant to “stand up for Iran” but to ensure the economic interests and political credibility of the European signatories to the accord. The Russian top diplomat added that large firms such as Total, Peugeot and Renault have already departed the country, having analyzed the situation and decided that the U.S. market is of far more vital importance.

    France, Germany and the U.K. have pleaded with the “America First” president to exempt EU companies, writing a letter to U.S. Secretary-Treasurer Steve Mnuchin and right-wing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that the nuclear accord remains the “best means” to prevent Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear deterrent given the lack of any credible alternative. Given the hard-line stances of Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton, the pleas were likely greeted with bemusement.

    The opening salvo or “snap-back” of sanctions hitting Iran’s automotive sector, gold trade, and other industries will hit the country on August 4, while further sanctions will hit the country’s oil industry and central bank on November 6.

    Signaling the likelihood of major clashes to come, Lavrov noted:

    Everyone agrees that [stepped-up U.S. sanctions on Iran] is an absolutely illegitimate practice. It cannot be accepted as appropriate, but it is a policy that can hardly be changed. Severe clashes are expected in the trade, economic and political spheres.”

    Patience reaches its limits on all sides

    A blistering recent speech by German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas signaled the European exasperation with Trump’s go-it-alone policies, which have largely seen the U.S. break from its transatlantic partners while pursuing what he called an “egoistic policy of ‘America First’” in relation to the Paris Climate Agreements, Iran nuclear deal, and introduction of tariffs and other protectionist measures.

    The May 12, 2018 cover of the German weekly, Der Spiegel.

    Maas further questioned the continued viability of the transatlantic partnership:

    Old pillars of reliability are crumbling under the weight of new crises and alliances dating back decades are being challenged in the time it takes to write a tweet … the Atlantic has become wider under President Trump and his policy of isolationism has left a giant vacuum around the world.”

    He added:

    The urgency with which we must pool Europe’s strength in the world is greater than ever before … our common response to ‘America First’ today must be ‘Europe United!’”

    Highlighting how “the Trump administration’s conduct is posing completely new challenges to Europe,” the German foreign minister noted that the White House now “overtly calls [European] values and interests into question,” requiring a more robust and assertive stance – and “the first test of this approach will be the nuclear agreement with Iran.”

    While such talk surely signals major tensions between the allies, Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization director Ali Akbar Salehi offered caustic words stressing Iran’s doubt in Europe’s ability to follow through with its independent foreign policy, stating:

    Iran understands that Europe and the United States are strategic partners, but they are not lovers who share the same bed … European independence vis-a-vis the US is under threat. In the eyes of the whole world, Europe has become the U.S.’ lackey.

    We are faced with an American administration whose decisions have left the world in shock.

    Mr. Trump is punishing foreign companies that do business with us and threatening countries that buy our petrol. He’s after fast results. But the EU, Russia and China didn’t expect to be put under so much pressure.

    The EU is still under shock. The bloc is like a boxer that has been hit with an uppercut. It needs time to pull itself together.”

    Despite Trump’s self-reported success at the two-day summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Iranians and Europeans alike are hoping that EU leaders can finally put their money where their mouth is and unshackle themselves from the U.S.-imposed hegemonic bondage constraining them since the end of the Second World War.

  • Majority Of Russians Believe Shadowy Global Government Exists

    An overwhelming majority of Russians believe that a shadowy one-world government exists – and that it’s hostile to the Russian nation, RT reported. State-run Russian public opinion research agency VTSIOM released the results of a poll in which 67% of Russian citizens said they believe there is a secret world government, while 21% said they don’t believe in the idea of a one-world government. the rest were undecided.

    That marks a significant increase from two years ago, when only 45% of Russians said they believed in the existence of a global shadow government, while over 30% rejected the idea. The survey also showed that the percentage of people who believe in the one-world government is higher among older adults (over 70% said they believed in it) but even among people aged 18-34, more than half (55%) believed in it. About one-third of believers said they didn’t have any evidence to support the existence of a one-world government. Those who did cite evidence mostly pointed to the existence of supranational organizations like the UN and NATO – or referenced TV shows or popular culture.

    One Government

    Remarkably, around 74% of those who believe said they think the one-world government is hostile toward Russia, while only 10% said it acts in Russia’s best interest. Asked about who they believe to be a part of the one-world government, 23% of believers cited the heads of major banks and other oligarchs. Eight percent said the government is led by senior politicians. Only 2% said they believe Vladimir Putin is a member. And less than 1% said they believe Donald Trump is a member.

    Another poll conducted by VTSIOM in April showed that 49 percent of Russians consider their country to be a great world power, down from 57 percent a year ago. However, about one-third told researchers that they expect Russia to become a leading world nation over the next 10 to 15 years. When asked what makes Russia strong and respected, 26% said the military, 22% said “the strong spirit and will of the Russian people,” and 17% attributed Russia’s success to the “good and powerful president” Vladimir Putin.

  • Paul Craig Roberts: The View Of Russia From The West

    Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

    The upcoming Trump/Putin summit is hampered by the crazed portrait of Russia painted by presstitutes.

    Jonathan Chait, Amy Knight, Max Bergmann, Yaroslav Trofimov, Roger Cohen, and the rest of the conscious or de facto CIA assets that comprise the Western presstitute media have turned Putin into a superhuman who controls election outcomes throughout the West, murders people without rhyme or reason, and has President Trump under his thumb doing Putin’s bidding. Who could imagine a more extreme conspiracy theory?

    Jonathan Chait in New York magazine writes that “the dark crevices of the Russia scandal run deep,” so deep that “it would be dangerous not to consider the possibility that the summit is less a negotiation between two heads of state than a meeting between a Russian-intelligence asset and his handler.”

    So here is Chait, who brands truth-tellers “conspiracy theorists” coming up with the greatest conspiracy theory of our time that President Trump has been a Kremlim asset since 1987. Chait provides a ”crazy quilt of connections” to illustrate his absurd conspiracy theory that

    “it’s not necessary to believe that Putin always knew he might install Trump in the Oval Office to find the following situation highly plausible: Sometime in 2015, the Russian president recognized that he had, in one of his unknown number of intelligence files, an inroad into American presidential politics.”

    Chait believes that Russia is also behind the UK’s exit from the European Union.

    “Driving Britain out of the European Union advanced the decades-long Russian goal of splitting Western nations apart, and Russia found willing allies on the British far right.”

    Chait gets even more conspiratorial. He admits that Paul Manafort’s indictments for alleged white collar crimes are not related to Trump’s election, having occurred years previously in Ukraine. Nevertheless, Chait is certain that Manafort is shielding Trump even though according to Chait Manafort is facing many years in prison. Why would Manafort shield Trump? Chait’s answer:

    “One way to make sense of his behavior is the possibility that Manafort is keeping his mouth shut because he’s afraid of being killed. That speculation might sound hyperbolic, but there is plenty of evidence to support it. In February, a video appeared on YouTube showing Manafort’s patron Deripaska on his yacht with a Belarusian escort named Anastasia Vashukevich.”

    Chait’s article is long and heavily weighted with innuendo. Chait, or whoever wrote the article, possibly the person who wrote the Steele Dossier, collects every disparaging fact and fantasy about Trump and assembles them in a way to paint a portrait of a person who must also, without much doubt, be a Russian agent. If the public can be convinced of this, the military/security complex can assassinate Trump and blame Putin for getting rid of an asset who was exposed by the Russiagate investigation, no longer useful, and perhaps prepared to spill the beans.

    Another conspiracy theorist, Amy Knight, writes that “The real question is where does the Russian criminal state end and the criminal underworld begin, and how do they work together in what amounts to a new murder incorporated?”

    Yaroslav Trofimov tells us in the Wall Street Journal (July 7) that:

    “Putin maps out his own empire” to replace the lost Soviet one.

    In the Washington Post Max Bergmann tells us that Trump is going to sell out NATO in Helsinki.

    This line leads to the supposition that Putin is using Trump to unleash the Russian military on Europe.

    Many conspiracy theorists have come together on the view that first the Baltic States will be invaded and then Putin will move on to Germany and the rest of Europe.

    The New York Times’ Roger Cohen even pulls Marine Le Pen into the plot which widens to include ethnically cleansing the West of the refugees from Washington’s wars.

    This is the level of absurdity that the American media delivers to the public’s understanding of foreign affairs.

  • "These Problems Aren't Going Away" – States Are Woefully Unprepared For The Next Recession

    It’s no secret that the finances of most US states are in shambles. For many, overly generous pension benefits have led to severe underfunding that threatens to drain state coffers, like in Illinois, where pension liabilities ballooned by a cumulative 1,067% between 1987 and 2016 while revenues for the state’s general fund rose just 236% during that time.

    Wirepoints

    While regular readers are no doubt acquainted with our musings on the looming pension crisis (a problem that is increasingly global in scope), the Wall Street Journal has apparently only just stumbled on to the story, writing in a story entitled “Many States Are Likely Unprepared for Next Downturn” that “many US states have been slow to improve their finances nine years into the economic expansion. That raises a risk they won’t be prepared when another downturn hits, making them susceptible to big spending cuts that make the next recession worse.”

    The problem for most states is that aging populations mean that more money is being spent on medicaid and pensions while revenues have largely been stagnant. And while a booming economy might temporarily boost revenues, “some of these longer-term pressures are definitely not going away,” said Gabriel Petek, managing director at S&P Global Ratings.

    An aging population is also putting pressure on state Medicaid budgets and pension funds. State pension contributions were 78% higher in 2017 than in 2010, according to census data. And state Medicaid payments were 59% higher in 2016 than in 2010, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

    Many US states have depleted or nearly depleted emergency funds. With some states like Oklahoma having only 1.6% of expenditures in their rainy day funds.

    Measured as a share of spending, 21 states had smaller rainy day funds in 2017 than they did in 2008, according to data from the National Association of State Budget Officers compiled by the Tax Policy Center.

    […]

    North Dakota had only 1.5% of its expenditures in a rainy-day fund in the 2017 fiscal year, down from 16.6% in 2008. Oklahoma’s rainy day fund had 1.6%, down from 9.3%. New Jersey emptied its rainy day fund in 2009 and has yet to begin refilling it.

    Many states also have lower credit ratings now than they did during the crisis, which will raise the cost of borrowing during a recession.

    Many states governments have seen their bond ratings downgraded during this expansion for not taking the appropriate measures to get their fiscal houses in order. Eleven states have lower bond ratings than they did in 2010 while only five have higher ratings, according to Moody’s Investors Service. Fitch Ratings lists seven states with worse ratings and six with better ones since the recession. And analysts at S&P Global rate 12 states lower than in 2010 and 10 states higher.

    Chart

    “It’s very important in our view that during the good times the states should be building up their fiscal resilience and that really stands out as an area that’s been lacking throughout this recovery,” said Gabriel Petek, managing director at S&P Global Ratings.

    At stake are widely used public services like roads, police and schools. A recent Supreme Court ruling requiring online retailers to pay state sales tax could help boost revenues while a Trump’s tax plan will help raise taxable income in some states. But with President Trump’s trade war threatening to hammer agricultural states (which could seriously impact nationwide GDP figures), states are finding themselves in a tough spot. Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren explains, US states are simply referring to do what needs to be done to prepare for the next recession. “There are levers that all the states could think about in terms of preparing for the next economic downturn,” Rosengren said. “It doesn’t seem like there is that much movement in that direction right now in many states.”

  • China Has Been Preparing For A Trade War For Over A Decade

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

    The crash of 2008 brought with it a host of strange economic paradigms rarely if ever seen in history; paradigms which have turned normal fiscal analysis on its head. While some core fundamentals remain the same no matter what occurs, the reporting of this data has been deliberately skewed to hide the truth.

    But what is the truth? Well, at bottom, the truth is that most economies around the world are far weaker than the picture governments and central banks have painted. This is especially true for the United States.

    That said, one country has been pursuing an opposite strategy for many years now — meaning, it has been hiding its economic preparedness more than its weaknesses. I am of course speaking of China.

    When we mention China in the world of alternative analysis, several issues always arise: China’s expanding debt burden, government spending on seemingly useless infrastructure programs like “ghost cities,” China’s central bank and its corporate subset misreporting financial figures regularly, etc. All of these things fuel the notion that when a global fiscal disaster inevitably takes place, it will emanate first from China. They also give the American public the false impression that a trade war against China will be easily won and that China will immediately falter under the weight of its own veiled instabilities.

    However, if one actually studies China’s behavior and activities the past decade, they would see a method to the apparent madness.

    In fact, some of China’s actions seem to suggest that the nation has been preparing for years for the exact geopolitical conditions we see today. It’s as if someone warned them ahead of time…

    In terms of prepping for a trade war with the U.S., China has implemented several important steps. For example, for at least the past 10 years the country has been shifting away from a pure export economy and reducing its reliance on sales of goods to the U.S. In 2018, Chinese consumer purchases of goods are expected to surpass that of American consumers. For the past five years, domestic consumption in China accounted for between 55% to 65% of economic growth, and private consumption was the primary driver of the Chinese economy — NOT exports.

    The argument that China is somehow dependent on U.S. markets and consumers in order to keep its economy alive is simply a lie. China is now just as enticing a retail market as the U.S., and its domestic market can pick up some of the slack in the event that U.S. markets are suddenly closed to Chinese exports.

    The problem of swiftly growing Chinese debt is presented often as the key argument against the nation surviving a global economic reset or trade war, with its “shadow banking” system threatening to unleash a long hidden credit crisis and stock market plunge. But this is not the complete story.

    The exact amount of fiat printing that China’s central bank undertook after the 2008 crash is not known. Some estimates calculate China’s debt to now sit at around 250% of its gross domestic product. By normal standards this would suggest a credit crisis is imminent. But was China’s sudden interest in debt expansion a reactionary matter, or was it part of a bigger plan?

    Just after 2008, a common argument against China’s resilience was the notion that China was dependent on holding U.S. dollar reserves in order to keep its own currency weak. Meaning, Chinese companies had to sell goods to the U.S. in exchange for dollars, which they then exchanged to the central bank for Yuan. China’s central bank then held those trillions of dollars in reserve as a means to keep the dollar artificially stronger on the global market, and the Yuan weaker, thus supporting and perpetuating the old export model.

    Obviously this argument is no longer applicable, or outright absurd.

    China’s own debt expansion and Treasury bond issuance actually started way back in 2005 under the “Panda Bond” program. At the time it was treated like a novelty or a joke by the mainstream economic community. Today, it is a powerhouse as Yuan denominated assets are spreading around the world.

    China no longer needs to hold dollars or dollar denominated assets in order to keep its currency weaker for export markets. It can simply inflate and monetize its own debt, just like the U.S. does. But why would China bother to do this at all? Why jump into the same debt game that has caused so much trouble for western nations?

    Perhaps because they know something we don’t. During the initial phase of the derivatives crisis, the possibility of China joining the International Monetary Fund’s Special Drawing Rights basket leaped to the forefront. With the Yuan as an SDR basket member, its potential to become a financial center for global trade rather than just an export and import hub would be assured. But the IMF set certain requirements before China could join.  One of these requirements was far greater currency liquidity and a more “freely usable” Yuan market. In other words, for China to join the SDR basket they would first need to go into considerable debt.

    This is exactly what they did; not to prop up their banking system (though this made for a valid excuse) or to necessarily prop up their stock markets. Rather, China wanted a seat at the table of the “new world order,” and they bought that seat through massive debt expansion. China was officially included in the SDR basket in 2016.

    China has been a very vocal proponent of the SDR basket system, and it becomes clear why if you understand what the globalists intend for the future of the world’s monetary framework. This plan was first outlined in the globalist controlled Economist magazine in 1988 in an article calling for the beginnings of a global currency in 2018. The article states that the U.S. economy and the role of the dollar as world reserve would have to be diminished, and that the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights basket could be used as a bridge to set up a single currency for all the world’s economies.

    This currency would of course be administered and controlled by the banking elites at the IMF.

    Since 2009, China’s central bank has called for the SDR to become a “super-sovereign reserve currency,” in other words, a global currency system. In 2017, the vice governor of China’s central bank stated that central banks should increase their use of the SDR as a unit of account and that greater SDR liquidity should be encouraged. In 2015, China’s central bank suggested that the SDR system should “go digital,” creating a digital version of the reserve so that it could spread quickly.

    It should come as no surprise that the IMF is in full agreement with this plan and has even suggested in recent articles on its website that cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology are the future evolution of the monetary system.

    Notorious globalist George Soros revealed a few darker details of what the IMF calls the “global economic reset” in an interview in 2009; these details included a diminished American economy, a diminished dollar and for China to become a new economic engine for the world.

    Finally, China has clearly been prepping for a considerable crisis in the dollar or in the world’s economic stability as shown in its sudden and aggressive stockpiling of gold reserves the past decade. Only recently surpassed by Russia in purchases, China is one of the most aggressive national buyers of gold. An expanding gold stockpile would be an effective hedge against a collapsing dollar market. If the dollar loses its world reserve status, nations like China and Russia are placed well to mitigate the damages. Considering the fact that the IMF officially holds around 3,000 tons of gold, the globalists are also well placed for a dollar crash.

    It would appear that China has been included at many levels in the plan for the global reset. All of the previously mentioned actions suggest foreknowledge of a dramatic shift in the dollar model. The trade war itself provides perfect cover for the economic reset, as I have been warning in my latest articles. China would play an important role in the reset, as they have the ability to dump U.S. Treasuries and the dollar as world reserve, causing a chain reaction through global markets as their trading partners follow along in a domino chain.

    They will likely do this quietly (as Russia recently did), in order to pawn off their T-bond holdings before news of a Treasury dump hits the mainstream. The primary beneficiaries of this act will be the globalists, while China has placed itself to survive (not necessarily to thrive) during the chaos. The same cannot necessarily be said for the U.S., which suffers from the Achilles Heel of total dependency on the dollar’s primacy.

    *  *  *

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  • DARPA's Secretive "Phantom Express" Hypersonic Spaceplane Passes Key Test

    DARPA selected the Boeing Company in May 2017 to complete advanced design work for the Agency’s Experimental Spaceplane (XS-1) program, which intends to develop and fly the first of an entirely new class of hypersonic spacecraft that would bolster national security by providing short-notice, low-cost satellite launches into low Earth Orbit (LEO).

    “The XS-1 would be neither a traditional airplane nor a conventional launch vehicle but rather a combination of the two, with the goal of lowering launch costs by a factor of ten and replacing today’s frustratingly long wait time with launch on demand,” Jess Sponable, DARPA program manager, said during a press conference in May 2017. “We’re very pleased with Boeing’s progress on the XS-1 through Phase 1 of the program and look forward to continuing our close collaboration in this newly funded progression to Phases 2 and 3—fabrication and flight.”

    With XS-1 Phase 1 recently completed, it seems as DARPA has transitioned into XS-1 Phase 2, which includes design, construction, and testing of the technology demonstration vehicle through 2019. It also calls for test firing the vehicle’s engine on the ground ten times in 10 days to demonstrate propulsion readiness for flight tests, which was just completed on July 06 by Aerojet, Boeing, and DARPA.

    Aerojet Rocketdyne’s AR-22 rocket engine fires during a test at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. (Source: NASA / DARPA Photo)

    Technicians inspect the AR-22 rocket engine after a hot-fire test. (Source: NASA / DARPA Photo)

    Aerojet Rocketdyne successfully test-fired its AR-22 rocket engine an unprecedented ten times in 240 hours at NASA Stennis Space Center last week, demonstrating just how quick the launch vehicle, dubbed the Phantom Express, can be reloaded with fuel and relaunched.

    Why focus on relaunching spaceplanes at a moments notice? Well, the Pentagon sees a shooting conflict on the horizon, and it is not on land, but instead in LEO.

    To combat such a threat, President Trump recently declared the ‘Space Force’ as the sixth branch of the United States Armed Force. Coincidence? Not at all.

    XS-1 Phantom Express  (Source: NASA / DARPA Photo)

    “Aerojet Rocketdyne has continued to refine the reusable engine technology we originally developed for the Space Shuttle program,” said Eileen Drake, Aerojet Rocketdyne CEO and president.

    “With the AR-22 we are taking reusability to the next level and have demonstrated that daily, affordable access to space is within reach,” she said.

    “Phantom Express is a disruptive, reusable launch system. Successfully completing this highly demanding rocket engine test series validated a new level of booster capability for this transformational launch vehicle,” continued Drake.

    “Turning the AR-22 within 24 hours repeatedly over 10 days demonstrates the capability of this engine and the ability to enable rapid, responsive access to space,” she added.

    Thanks to the successful test, the Phantom Express program is on track for XS-1 Phase 3, which includes 12 to 15 flight tests, currently scheduled for 2020/21. After multiple shakedown flights to decrease risk, the XS-1 would aim to fly 10 times over ten consecutive days, at first without payloads. If successful, subsequent flights could send the hypersonic spaceplane to Mach 10 and deliver a payload between 900 pounds and 3,000 pounds into LEO.

    DARPA TV: Experimental Spaceplane (XS-1) Phase 2/3 Concept Video

    Last week, DARPA director Steve Walker visited NASA Stennis Space Center to watch one of the engine tests. He praised the team of researchers on their support of national security, highlighting their frequency of tests was impressive.

    The ten test firings took place in a test period conducted between June 26 and July 6.

    “Aerojet Rocketdyne is very proud to have such an important role in a program that could literally revolutionize space access with a vehicle capable of launching on a daily basis,” Drake said.

    “With the Defense Department and commercial sector anticipating a shift toward constellations of smaller satellites that can be replenished quickly, the Phantom Express is the right program at the right time for the nation,” Drake added.

    The Phantom Express is designed to launch vertically and land horizontally to allow the quickest return to home. The spaceplane boosts the Pentagon’s mission of space domination, similar to the White House’s recent communique. The reusable hypersonic spaceplane should be capable of delivering 3,000 pounds of payload to LEO at the cost of less than $5 million a flight. Those performance levels represent a “sweet spot” for the Pentagon as well as commercial applications, said Scott Wierzbanowski, DARPA’s program manager for the Experimental Spaceplane.

    Could the Phantom Express hypersonic spaceplane be one of the first aircraft commissioned for space wars under President Trump’s new Space Force?

  • America's Addictions – Opioids, Donald Trump, And War

    Authored by Tom Engelhardt via TomDispatch.com,

    When you think of addiction in America today, one thing comes to mind: the opioid epidemic. And it should. It’s serious. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, almost 64,000 Americans died of opioid overdoses in 2016 (more than died in the Vietnam War), an average of 175 people a day. In that year, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration estimated that 11.5 million Americans “misused” pain medication. (Note that such figures are still on the rise.) Only recently, the surgeon general issued a rare national advisory “urging more Americans to carry naloxone, a drug used to revive people overdosing on opioids.” This crisis of addiction has already cost the country an estimated $1 trillion since 2001 and might, in the next three years alone, cost more than half that much again.

    The United States, however, has two other crises that, in the long run, will cost Americans far more. Yet they get remarkably little attention as addiction phenomena. The first is so obvious that no one should have to comment on it. Here’s the strange thing, though: it’s a rare moment when there’s any serious analysis of it or real attention given to it as an addiction.

    This country (and above all its media) is addicted to Donald J. Trump in a way that no population, no media, possibly not even the Communist Chinese press in the days of Mao Zedong, ever was to any figure. Since he rode that Trump Tower escalator into the presidential race in June 2015 to the tune of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World” and took out after Mexican “rapists” and future Great Walls, no one — nothing — has ever been covered or attended to this way, online or off, in daily life or in our increasingly shared, increasingly addictive media life. (Yes, the Internet and social media are undoubtedly addictions of some sort, too, but let’s not head down that road or I’ll never stop writing!)

    Not Donald Trump’s 2016 electoral victory, nor his tax “reform” gift to the 1%, nor his chance to appoint a second Supreme Court justice (with more openings likely to come) — none of these or anything else he’s done or is likely to do will qualify as the truest, deepest, most far-reaching of his triumphs. That can only be the unprecedented way he continues to draw attention. It represents a victory of the first order for him of a unique, almost incomprehensible sort, made more so by the inability of those who report on him to take in what’s happened to them or analyze their situation in any serious way.

    Addicted to Trump

    Donald J. Trump, as candidate and president, has trumped the attention span of this country, possibly of the planet. Eyes have been focused on him, his insults, his tweets, his passing thoughts, his every comment, his acts, major and minor, and the associated acts and reactions of those who circle around him, as never before in history — not for a king, an emperor, or a dictator, and certainly not for a president. His truest triumph has been to make himself into the voluntary drug of choice for most of a country and all of the media in a way we’ve never imagined possible, and for which, it seems, there is no naloxone.

    He has, in the deepest sense, turned the media he loves to loathe, thrives on hating, into a genuine mechanism for producing “fake news” — about him. It’s only real news if you think that The Donald should be the focus of essentially everything, if you believe that nothing else on this planet should take place except refracted through him.

    When it comes to the media in particular, Donald Trump is the opioid crisis. He’s their drug of choice. He gets them high. They can’t help themselves, nor can they stop. As head of CBS Leslie Moonves put it during election campaign 2016: “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.” And then he added, “The money’s rolling in and this is fun. I’ve never seen anything like this, and this [is] going to be a very good year for us. Sorry. It’s a terrible thing to say. But bring it on, Donald. Keep going.”

    And it’s never ended. The president glues eyeballs to papers, to the endlessly talking heads on the cable news networks, to Twitter, to anything that now passes for media, at a time when so many news outfits are in so many other ways coming unglued. More reporters have undoubtedly been assigned to cover him and his acolytes than ever covered anything or anyone else on a day-by-day, week-by-week basis. Every day of Donald Trump’s life is, in coverage terms, something like the equivalent of the Kennedy assassination, which might be thought of as the first 24/7 TV event, or perhaps the 1994 O.J. Simpson white Ford Bronco car chase that was, in some strange way, a preview of this Trumpian media moment.

    It really doesn’t matter much what the “story” is when it comes to his presidency. Whatever it is, it’s promptly swarmed by that media without the slightest sense of proportion or any feeling for what actually matters on this planet of ours. In almost every sense, in fact, Donald Trump now regularly blots out the sun.

    Take a small incident just over two weeks ago. With a party of family members, Trump Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders stopped off at the Red Hen, a tiny farm-to-table restaurant in Lexington, Virginia. Mid-meal, she was asked to leave by the owner after staff members raised “concerns.” I’m only reminding you of this — a couple of weeks ago you undoubtedly could have told me every detail — because it’s already been consigned to the dust bin of history as other Trump-infused tales — from the resignation of Supreme Court justice Kennedy to prank-calling the president — have swept it aside. Of course, Sanders’s half-eaten dinner also helped sweep aside previous stories of our time like that message on the back of Melania Trump’s coat on her first trip to the U.S.-Mexico border (“I really don’t care. Do U?”).

    When Sanders left that restaurant and then tweeted about it, a storm of coverage, as well as a firestorm of tweets, Facebook posts, insults, and praise about the judgment of the restaurant’s owner, arguments over the ideological polarization of the country, and so much else, including the “weaponization” of the restaurant-review website Yelp, flooded over us. Unrelated restaurants with “Red Hen” in their name elsewhere in the country (or even the world) received threats of all sorts and were inundated with insulting messages as were shops and restaurants that happened to be located near the actual Red Hen.

    The story became front-page news nationwide and, for instance, led NBC Nightly News(which I happened to watch) on the evening that the stock market swooned over trade-war fears. In my own hometown paper, the New York Times, it was a front-page story and not one but two reporters were assigned to a crucial sideline piece about why President Trump’s Twitter finger was so slow; why, that is, he waited 48 hours — two full days! — before tweeting his support for his press secretary by attacking the Red Hen for having a “filthy” exterior and undoubtedly being “dirty” inside. The Times journalists focused on “the president’s uncharacteristically tepid, delayed response,” wondering whether it was a sign that Sanders was on her way out. (The Washington Post, on the other hand, dissected the president’s response in terms of, as the headline on one of its articles put it, “everything Trump got wrong about Red Hen, in one tweet.”) And so it went.

    Tell me, then, if this isn’t an addiction, what is it? And what’s the one thing you know about addictions? Whatever high they give you — and let’s not deny that Donald Trump offers us a constant set of highs (whether as rushes of agreement and pleasure or horror and dismay) — if you can’t stop yourself from taking the drug, day after day, night after night, there will be a price to pay. Somebody better have the equivalent of naloxone on hand.

    Addicted to War

    And then there’s that other twenty-first-century all-American addiction, in some ways far stranger than the Trumpian one and likely to be no less costly in the long run: addiction to war. Almost 17 years after the Global War on Terror was launched, the highs — the invasion of Afghanistan! The taking of Kabul! The smashing of Iraq! The capture of Saddam Hussein! — are long gone. Now exhausted and discouraged, those hooked nonetheless remain unable to stop.

    In some ways, addiction may seem like a strange category when applied to this country’s war-making, as for most Americans the very opposite seems to be true. Since a series of historic global antiwar protests faded out with the invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003, it’s as if most Americans had gone cold turkey on this country’s credit-card wars. Willfully demobilized by the top officials of the Bush administration, who preferred to conduct their military operations without citizen or congressional oversight, they simply turned away and went about their business. Meanwhile, America’s all-volunteer military, increasingly a kind of foreign legion for much of the population, has continued to fight never-endingly and remarkably fruitlessly across a vast swath of the Middle East, Asia, and Africa.

    The divorce of most Americans from Washington’s wars and those fighting them may be less than apparent because, according to the polls, the public has a kind of blind trust and soaring “confidence” in the U.S. military, unlike any other part of the government or, for that matter, the society, and because the urge to “thank” the “warriors” is now such a basic part of American life. But all of that is, I suspect, little more than a massive compensation reaction from a public that otherwise could not care less.

    When it comes to Washington’s still-spreading war on terror, the media has, if anything, followed suit. Recently, for instance, Reuters correspondent Indrees Ali posted a photo on Twitter of a large, almost empty room filled with chairs, with the caption:

    “There are exactly four journalists at the Pentagon briefing on Afghanistan.”

    That single image sums up the present situation vividly. Almost 17 years after the invasion of Afghanistan by a military repeatedly hailed as “the finest fighting force the world has ever known,” at a moment when Taliban insurgents are again gaining ground, a Pentagon briefing on developments there is of no interest. Yes, events in such wars are still dutifully reported from time to time, but those reports, often tucked away on the inside pages of papers or deep in the nightly news, don’t hold a candle to Melania’s jacket, the president’s latest tweet, or a Red Hen rebuff.

    And yet the photo of that Pentagon briefing is deceptive. It leaves out a key group still in the room: those addicted to an American style of war-making through which, year after year, the still-theoretically dominant power on the planet only seems to induce the spread of terror movements, disorder, destruction, and the displacement of increasingly large populations (contributing to a global refugee crisis that is, in its own way, helping to remake the planet).

    Missing from that photo are the characters who have OD’d on U.S. military power and yet can’t stop mainlining it in ways that have become all-too-familiar since 2001. I’m thinking of the generals of the U.S. military, the men who have led an endless set of campaigns as part of what those inside the Pentagon are now grimly referring to as an “infinite war” leading nowhere. And they’re strung out. As Mark Perry reported recently in Foreign Policy, Secretary of Defense James “Mad Dog” Mattis and other American generals, unlike the president’s new civilian counselors, National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, are not eager for the next potential war, the one with Iran that already looms on the horizon. They understand that they could launch such a conflict successfully, destroying much of Iran’s military (and its nuclear facilities), and still, as with Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, and so on, somehow not get out.

    And yet, much as they don’t want a bright, shiny new war (and who could blame them under the circumstances), they can’t imagine leaving the old ones behind either. And that’s America’s war addiction in a nutshell, one that has long had in its grip most of elite Washington and the rest of a national security state set up around a style of infinite-war-making that must always be fed with ever increasing numbers of taxpayer dollars. Thanks to those dollars, we, the taxpayers, could be thought of as so many street-level drug peddlers in this country’s war equivalent of the opioid epidemic.  The politicians who feed those dollars into the military maw would be the doctors who prescribe opioids, understanding full-well their ability to hook patients.  And the Military-Industrial Complex — the giant weapons companies and the warrior corporations that now go into action in lock-step with that military — would be the drug companies that have profited so off the opioid crisis even as they stoked it.

    Returning momentarily to Donald Trump, you can feel the power of that war addiction in his inability to fulfill his promise to fight those conflicts in a winning style and, if necessary, quickly extricate the country from what he termed its “$7 trillion” Greater Middle Eastern disaster. In his own fashion, he, too, has been hooked. And when the increasingly tired and distraught generals he chose to surround himself with proved unpalatable to him, Trump notably picked as replacements civilians guaranteed to keep the ball rolling when it came to America’s wars from hell.

    So, addiction? If you don’t think this country has an addiction crisis (other than opioids), think again.

  • Watch: Fierce Gun Battle Erupts Between Mexican Troops And Cartel Gunmen Near Texas Border

    Laredo Morning Times, a daily newspaper based in Texas, said a series of gun battles erupted earlier this week in west Nuevo Laredo, a city that resides across from Laredo, Texas, and ended near a Wal-Mart shopping center in the Sister City by Avenida Reforma and Bulevar Emiliano Zapata.

    Source: Breitbart Texas / Cartel Chronicles

    According to Breitbart News, the violence began Tuesday morning when Mexican military forces conducted a series of raids aimed at capturing the leadership of the Los Zetas faction called Cartel Del Noreste. Cartel gunmen immediately responded, setting off numerous gun battles across the region in the neighborhoods called Nueva Era, Voluntad y Trabajo, and La Fe, which some of these areas are less than one mile away from Texas.

    The shootouts caused the entire city to shut down. At the same time, citizen journalists picked up their smartphones armed with a camera of truth and shared their experince on social media of the out-of-control violence.

    Mexican authorities have not issued an official statement as to what happened, however, what you are about to see might be shocking.

    The shootouts came two days after a group of cartel assassins fatally shot Edgar Humberto Vega Avalos, Nuevo Laredo’s prison director. Avalos was traveling in his American-made truck on Cerro del Cubilete Street in Colonia Enrique González when assassins opened fire on the vehicle he was in Saturday night, according to the Tamaulipas attorney general’s office.

    Here is the alleged crime scene where Avalos was executed.

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    On Tuesday, heavy automatic gunfire was heard at the AutoZone/Walmart shopping complex located roughly 1.30 miles away from Texas.

    A citizen journalist risked his life to capture this incredible footage.

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    The next video shows civilians taking cover outside of a food stand while automatic gunfire was heard a few blocks over.

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    As authorities had difficulties containing the shootout, motorists were trapped in the crossfire.

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    Some of the alleged assassins traveling in Ford trucks.

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    Security cameras inside a Walmart located about 1.30 miles from the Texas border, show the moment when Mexican special forces confronted Mexican cartel members.

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    More citizens caught in heavy automatic crossfire.

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    The U.S. Department of State considers Tamaulipas a “Level 4: Do Not Travel” state due to crime. Authorities said that violent offenses — murder, armed robbery, carjacking, kidnapping, extortion and sexual assault — is common.

    Gang activity and gun battles are widespread, according to Mexico’s travel warning.

    “Armed criminal groups target public and private passenger buses traveling through Tamaulipas, often taking passengers hostage and demanding ransom payments. Local law enforcement has limited capability to respond to violence in many parts of the state,” the warning states.

    As for the Mexican President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador, well, he intends to create a new border-police force to contain the out of control cartel violence in the country, his incoming chief of public security Alfonso Durazo, told Bloomberg in an interview Monday.

    The outgoing Mexican President, Enrique Peña Nieto, will transfer power to Obrador on December 1st. Peña Nieto leaves behind a country suffering from record high murders — some of the worst in the world.

    Bloomberg notes that Obrador will meet with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday, as both will likely discuss the events that unfolded in Nuevo Laredo.

    In another interview with The Associated Press, Durazo was optimistic about the reforms, which he called a “Mexican recipe for peace.” Still, Mexico’s record violence and homicides produced by drug cartels will not be resolved in the near term. The peak of violence has yet to come as the Mexico–United States border braces for more violence.

    * * *

    Build that wall, Mr. President! 

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Jul 12

Today’s News 12th July 2018

  • Germans Actually Want US Troops Out Of Germany, Poll Finds

    A central irony behind Trump’s rumored “threat” that he could withdraw or at least greatly reduce American troops stationed in Germany, who last month wrote to Angela Merkel of “growing frustration in the United States that some allies have not stepped up as promised” on defense spending, is that Germans don’t actually want US troops on their soil to begin with, according to a new poll.

    On Wednesday Trump slammed Germany from the moment he touched down in Brussels for expecting the US to foot the bill for Europe’s security in the face of Russian aggression while Germany and others cut massive energy deals with Russian energy companies. In an exchange the president promptly posted on Twitter, he said Germany is “totally controlled by Russia” in reference to the planned Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which is to supply the country with Russian natural gas. “Germany is a rich country,”Trump said, implying it should increase spending on its own defense.

    It appears the German public agrees with Trump on this point as a YouGov poll — the results of which were first published for the dpa news agency on the first day of the NATO summit — finds that Germans would actually welcome American troop withdrawal from their soil (though a policy of outright US withdrawal is not on the table this week, nor is expected to be broached… but with Trump, who knows?). 

    Screenshot of video of Wednesday’s breakfast with NATO Secretary General

    The poll found that “42 percent said they supported American withdrawal while just 37 percent wanted the soldiers to stay, with 21 per cent undecided.” 

    Citizens polled who were part of outlier or non-establishment political parties tended to be most strongly in favor of an American military exit from Germany:

    Voters for the left-wing Die Linke are particularly in favour of withdrawal, with 67 per cent backing it, as are supporters of the far-right AfD, on 55 per cent. Greens also back withdrawal by 48 per cent.

    Less supportive of withdrawal are voters for the centre-right CDU, at 35 per cent, the SPD at 42 per cent, and the FDP at 37 per cent. —The Independent

    Trump has lately berated other NATO member states for not living up to a 2014 pledge to reach two percent of GDP on defense by 2024, as only three European countries have reached the mark. Germany, which has had tense ties with the US in recent months, has already indicated it will be unable to meet that goal; Poland, however, has met the target.

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    A continued theme the president is expected to emphasize this week in Brussels is to urge other governments of the alliance to dramatically increase military spending and lower import tariffs.

    On this point, the YouGov poll shows the German public at odds with American and NATO leaders:

    The same poll also found significant opposition to militarism in general in the country. Just 15 per cent of all Germans agree with Angela Merkel that the country should increase its military spending to 2 per cent of GDP by 2024, with 36 percent saying the country’s already spends too much on its military.

    So interestingly, those surveyed tend to favor American security draw down in the heart of Europe along with a humble German foreign policy.

    Map source: Wikimedia Commons

    It could be that like many in the US, Germans are increasingly aware that such entangling (and some might say outdated) alliances as NATO only creates more unnecessary tensions and trouble in a world increasingly nervous over Western expansion and hegemony (a Cold War era “north Atlantic” alliance used for regime change in north Africa being a prime example).

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    Should this come as any surprise? Similar polls over the past decade have shown the German public to be simultaneously desirous of close ties with the United States yet consistently opposed to Washington dragging Europe into military campaigns abroad.

    In 2015 Foreign Policy summarized this trend as follows: 

    Surveys have consistently shown that Germans are far less supportive than Americans regarding the use of military force to maintain order in the world: in 2011 75 percent of Americans voiced the view that force is sometimes necessary compared with only 50 percent of Germans. More than 80 percent of Germans supported Berlin’s decision to not use military force in Iraq, according to Pew Research surveys at the time. In Afghanistan, where Germany had troops, by 2010 and 2011, majorities of Germans wanted NATO and U.S. troops withdrawn.

    And Germany abstained in the United Nations vote on intervention in Libya. Indeed, the latest Pew Research survey finds a distinct German reticence about taking on more of the global security burden. Asked if Berlin should play a more active military role in helping to maintain peace and stability in the world, only 25 percent of Germans agree. 

    Last month, a report suggested the Pentagon is already in the process of tallying the cost of keeping troops and its vast military bases (the US has over 20 – and many other joint command locations – with Ramstein Air Base being the largest; and at the height of the Cold War there were over 200) in Germany ahead of possible withdrawal. However, early this month Pentagon officials denied such an audit is taking place. 

    It will be interesting to see if Trump, in his notorious off-the-cuff and unpredictable manner of speaking, actually pulls this out as a negotiating card either publicly or in private exchanges in Brussels this week. 

    * * *

    Figures from a 2016 Germany Embassy in the US fact sheet on US military presence in Germany since the early 2000’s:

    • Each year, Germany contributes nearly $1 billion to the upkeep of U.S. bases in Germany. 
    • Ramstein Air Base, the biggest U.S. base in Germany, costs about $1 billion annually – an amount equal to Germany’s yearly contribution toward the upkeep of U.S. bases. 
    • On average, the other 43 bases cost about $240 million each — about the same as a single F/A-22 fighter jet.
    • With 34,000 American residents, Kaiserslautern is the largest American community outside of the United States.
    • Since 1945, some 17 million Americans have served tours of duty in Germany. Many return time and again as tourists.

  • For Peace With Putin, End America's Pointless Wars

    Authored by George O’Neill Jr., via The American Conservative,

    Ignore the establishment: Trump has a huge opportunity at his upcoming summit…

    The upcoming summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin is an overdue opportunity for the American president’s next bold peace initiative. It is time for the U.S. to stop its wasteful wars, and Russia can be a constructive partner to this end.

    The mainstream press on both sides of the Atlantic will howl against any agreement between Trump and Putin—no matter what’s in it. So why not take steps that the American public will instinctively understand and that will provide the support for Trump to end America’s failed interventions? Besides what are his opponents going to do? Vilify him for seeking peace and starting the process of healing the many wounds of the wars? The American people are not fooled by false claims that Trump is soft on terrorism; they are aware that U.S. military interventions oftentimes can—and do—fuel terrorism.

    President Trump should propose a drawdown of American troops in Afghanistan in exchange for a drawdown of Russian troops in Syria (along with a pledge that America has no interest in reengaging in the Syrian Civil War). This would be consistent with Trump’s oft-stated observation that America’s wars (declared and undeclared) in the Middle East have been a waste.

    Trump need not “recognize” the Russian annexation of Crimea but he should assert that a resolution to the situation on the ground in Ukraine is a European matter – to be settled by bilateral negotiations between Russia and Europe.

    Understanding of this magnitude would obviate the main pretext for the senseless escalation of pecuniary diplomatic sanctions – the defenestration of embassy and consulate staff – on the parts of both Russia and the United States. The return of the possibility of civilian travel between the two nations would do wonders to lower tensions. (Remember, even at the height of the Cold War, President Eisenhower argued that populations denied contact with each other would tend to be suspicious of each other—and prone to minor conflicts that could escalate into larger wars.)

    The American public is not interested in diplomatic and media theater. They know two things to be true: the failing “Trump-Russia collusion” hysteria is proving baseless (and distracting from concerns over economic growth and jobs); and whatever America’s international security interests are in the Middle East, we are all better protected with allies that face similar threats.

    Russia has more reason to be concerned over Islamic terrorism than America. Their southern border touches on several Islamic countries: Turkey, Iran, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Afghanistan. The instability created by America’s misguided military adventures has, for years, been unsettling to Russia. According to a friend who has long studied Russia, America’s post-Cold War military aggression, starting in the Balkans, began the ascension to power of Russian military hardliners who were skeptical of America’s intentions for peace.

    Russia has a significantly better understanding of and influence over most of those countries, including Iran. America’s relationship with Iran has long been hostile due to years of interference and mistreatment. The relationship was seriously complicated in 1953 when our CIA and British intelligence overthrew their democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, and placed the brutal Shah in power. The Washington keyboard warriors never mention this sad chapter in our history. Imagine how we would feel towards a country that interfered with us to that extent.

    How much smarter would it be for Russia to work with its neighbor Iran to limit the civil war in Yemen, than for America to continue to provide military support to Saudi Arabia to perpetuate a colossal human tragedy?

    The naysayers ridiculed Trump’s peace initiative with North Korea, and yet his denuclearization and pacification of the Korean Peninsula advances (in contrast to the efforts of four previous American presidential administrations). Given that Trump and Kim could sit together, what stands in the way of progress with Putin?

    The past year and a half of Russophobia have been driven by the “bitter clingers” of Hillary’s failed national political ambitions, the military-industrial complex, corporate interests, corporate media, the Washington/New York/Hollywood commentariat, and foreign lobbyists. Too many of them profit from an endless state of war—throughout the world and, in particular, with Russia.

    Washington and its clients are terrified that the war gravy train will be slowed or stopped. Our NATO clients are afraid of carrying their own national defense burdens. Washington neocons are perfectly willing to continue to waste the lives of our devoted military to protect both their funding and a world order that the West’s victory in the Cold War has rendered moot.

    Again, the American people share no such delusions and are overwhelmingly tired of the wars they cannot explain or even locate on a globe. These wars have damaged and destroyed American families. War proponents’ repeated incantations about “supporting the troops” instead of keeping them home to protect their families and our country has worn thin.

    We hear stories about parents being separated from their children at our borders, but not a peep about the American children being separated from their soldier parents and parents being separated from their soldier sons and daughters abroad.

    The July 16 Trump-Putin summit is an opportunity for the president to act boldly in the face of near-total establishment opposition and work to bring peace to a war-weary world. If he works to reduce America’s involvement in its wars, the Russo-American disagreements will fade.

  • Visualizing The World's Largest Importers In 2017

    For most world leaders and corporate executives, the swing of the global pendulum to more protectionist policies has been an unpleasant surprise.

    That’s because the consensus view from both economists and economic historians has been that measures like the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which triggered a trade war during the Great Depression, greatly exacerbated circumstances that were already quite dire.

    It’s common for tariff increases to be countered by retaliatory measures, and this can often translate to lower levels of international trade and decreased economic growth across the board. During the period of 1929 to 1934, according to the U.S. State Department, world trade decreased by 66% – largely a result of subsequent trade wars after the passing of Smoot-Hawley.

    For the above reasons, international barriers to trade have been falling for decades – until now, of course.

    LARGEST IMPORTERS

    Which countries can throw their weight around the most with tariffs and retaliatory measures?

    It’s those that import the most goods – and today’s infographic from HowMuch.net shows the world’s largest importers in 2017, according to recently released data from the World Trade Organization.

    Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

    Here are the top 15 largest importers, globally:

    The United States takes home the number one spot with $2,409 billion of imports in 2017, about 13.4% of the global total. It’s worth mentioning that this is $860 billion higher than the country’s exports in 2017, and that the difference between the two numbers is the hotly-debated trade deficit.

    China and Germany come in the #2 and #3 spots respectively, with $1,842 billion (10.2% of global total) of imports for China and $1,167 billion (6.5% of total) for Europe’s largest economy.

    After the big three, no other country has a number exceeding 5% of global imports, but Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Hong Kong (China), and the Netherlands all surpass the 3% mark.

  • Time For A Helsinki Communique

    Authored by Thomas Graham Jr. via The National Interest,

    The joint U.S.-China Shanghai Communique laid out stark differences, but also laid real groundwork for cooperation. Could Trump and Putin follow such an example?

    American President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are expected to issue a joint statement at their summit meeting in Helsinki on July 16. Since the end of the Cold War, summit statements have expressed an aspiration toward partnership, committing both sides to cooperation on various critical matters for mutual benefit. Even though many goals were left unfulfilled, the statements were honest reflections of intentions at the time of their issuance. But if Trump and Putin were to produce a statement in a similar vein, it would be rightly greeted with derision due to the current state of relations. What then could a joint-statement say that would have the ring of truth while offering hope for a less-dangerous relationship between both countries?

    There is a model, drawn not from U.S.-Russian relations but from America’s history with China. That model is the Shanghai Communique of 1972, which set China and America on the path to normalization after years of estrangement. At the insistence of Chinese leader Mao, the document dispensed with worn-out platitudes about cooperation and laid out the disputes between the two countries. Doing so gave it an air of credibility, which lent greater weight to the few critical issues on which the two sides did, in fact, agree to cooperate. It was a masterpiece of diplomacy that has shaped U.S.-Chinese relations ever since.

    What would a U.S.-Russian Helsinki Communique look like?

    It would begin with the observation that the two countries are major powers that intend to play significant roles in global affairs for years to come. They see each other as competitors, divided by essential differences over the foundations of world order, the resolution of regional conflicts, and the values that inform domestic political systems. Each side, however, recognizes the dangers of turning a competitive relationship into a permanent confrontation, which would risk military strife with catastrophic consequences, given each side’s massive nuclear arsenal. The two sides are, therefore, determined to find ways to compete that reduce that risk.

    The statement would then sharply and succinctly lay out the essence of the differences on many vital matters, such as Ukraine, Syria and Iran. Election interference should be on the list, although Trump would certainly object. The Russians would likely insist on including the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and U.S. sanctions. No topic should be off limits. The United States could, for example, note its rejection of Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and its opposition to Russia’s intervention in Eastern Ukraine. Also, Russia could repeat its non-negotiable position that Crimea joined Russia in a legitimate act of self-determination and its denial that Russian forces have ever operated in Eastern Ukraine. Similarly, Russia could state its objection to NATO expansion, and the United States would state its view that every country has the right to choose its alliances freely.

    Given these disputes, the two sides would agree to seek their resolution through negotiations based on mutual respect. Without acknowledging past transgressions, they would commit themselves from this point onward to act with respect for the principles of nonaggression, mutual benefit, respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states and noninterference in each other’s internal affairs.

    The next section of the statement would focus on possible areas for cooperation. At the top of the list should be strategic stability, for which the United States and Russia have long borne a unique responsibility. The agreed immediate goals would be to ensure mutual compliance with the terms of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty), which each side accuses the other of violating. Furthermore, both sides should begin negotiations for the prolongation of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty agreement (New START), set to expire in 2021. Action on these two matters would launch a broader discussion of strategic stability in a world that is moving towards nuclear multipolarity with China’s rise and in which advanced conventional and cyber weapons have profound implications.

    In addition, counterterrorism and nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction could be identified as promising areas of cooperation, as long as care is taken not to exaggerate the possibilities. The United States and Russia do diverge in their approaches to them, as is evident from the controversy surrounding Syria and each country’s respective relations with Iran and North Korea.

    Finally, the statement would end with a commitment to the steady normalization of relations, including the opening up of multiple channels of official communication and regular meetings between senior officials. This step is critical to avoid the misunderstandings that can lead to undesired conflict. Also, the two presidents could endorse expanded contact between American and Russian expert communities and welcome the contributions they could make to finding innovative ways of managing disputes and fostering cooperation. More generally, the presidents could also embrace efforts to build bridges between both societies through expanded people-to-people contacts.

    *  *  *

    The odds against such a Helsinki Communique are, of course, great. Time is short, and Trump is probably looking for a dramatic bargain while Putin is prepared to pocket any concessions. But if he thought about it for a moment, Trump would realize that no other post-Cold War president has produced anything like a Helsinki Communique, moreover one that would set the framework for the closer ties to Russia he professes to want. It would be a striking achievement for which he could rightly take credit.

  • "There Is No End In Sight" Army Major Warns Of "Perpetual War" On Terror

    Cutting through the haze of humanitarian bullshit and liberation,  West Point graduate and author Major Danny Sjursen told ‘Watching The Hawks’ that the War on Terror is a “battle for basic hegemony in the Middle East”, warning that it may go on indefinitely.

    In the brief but eye-opening interview, Sjursen calls the US’ now 17-year War on Terror “unprecedented in American history,” noting that soon kids who were born after 9/11 will be joining the military.

    Sjursen called the War on Terror a misnomer. “How do you fight a war against a tactic. Terrorism is a tactic,” he asked.

    “What it really has been, in my opinion, is a war for basic hegemony in the Middle East,” Sjursen said.

    He believes that even though some of it may be backed by humanitarian impulses, “I don’t suspect that the government necessarily fights just for oil or whatever the different conspiracies [are].”

    “The War on Terror, as far as I see it, is potentially perpetual. There is no end in sight,” he added.

    Calling for a teaching of the mistakes from the “messy history” of the US misadventure in Iraq and Afghanistan, Sjursen warned that the US is “apt to repeat” these mistakes “whether it’s in Iran, whether it’s in West Africa.”

    “American soldiers are dying countries Americans can’t pronounce, they can’t find on the map, and part of the problem and part of the reason for that they aren’t really educated on this.”

    Sjursen called for the War on Terror to be taught in schools and for honest and critical conversations to be had publicly in order to educate the average American on it.

  • Raúl Ilargi Meijer: NATO Is A Con Game

    Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,

    Okay, well, Trump did it again. Antagonizing allies. This time it was Germany that took the main hit, over the fact that it pays Russia billions of dollars for oil and gas while relying on the US for its defense … against Russia. And yes, that is a strange situation. But it’s by no means the only angle to the story. There are many more.

    For one thing, The US has by far the largest military industry. So it makes a lot of money off the billions already spent by NATO partners on weaponry. Of course Raytheon, Boeing et al would like to see them spend more. But once they would have done that, they would clamor for even more after.

    At some point one must ask how much should really be spent. How much is enough, how much is necessary. The military-industrial complex (MIC) has every reason to make the threat posed by ‘enemies’ as big as they possibly can. So knowing that, we must take media reports on this threat with tons of salt.

    And that is not easy. Because the MIC has great influence in politics and the media. But we can turn to some numbers. According to GlobalFirePower, the US in 2018 will spend $647 billion on its military, while Russia is to spend a full $600 billion less, at $47 billion. And the US Senate has already voted in a $82 billion boost recently.

    There are other numbers out there that suggest Russia spends $60 billion, but even then. If Moscow spends just 10% of the US, and much less than that once all NATO members’ expenditure is included, how much of a threat can Russia realistically be to NATO?

    Sure, I’ve said it before, Russia makes weapons to defend itself, while America makes them to make money, which makes the latter much less efficient, but it should be glaringly obvious that the Russia threat is being blown out of all proportions.

    Problem with that is that European nations for some reason love playing the threat card as much as America does. After all, Britain, France and Germany have major weapons manufacturers, too. So they’re all stuck. The Baltic nations clamor for more US protection, so does Sweden, Merkel re-focused on Putin just days ago, the game must go on.

    Another way to look at this is to note that UD GDP in 2017 according to the IMF was $19.3 trillion, while Russia’s was $1.5 trillion. NATO members Germany France, Britain, Italy and France all have substantially higher GDP than Russia as well. European Union GDP was $17.3 trillion in 2017.

    If this economically weak Russia were really such a threat to NATO, they would be using their funds so much better and smarter than anyone else, we’d all better start waving white flags right now. And seek their help, because that sort of efficiency, in both economics and defense, would seem to be exactly what we need in our debt-ridden nations.

    The solution to the problems Trump indicated this morning is not for Germany et al to spend more on NATO and their military in general, but for the US to spend less. Much less. Because the Russian threat is a hoax that serves the interests of the MIC, the politicians and the media.

    And because America has much better purposes to spend its money on. And because we would all be a lot safer if this absurd theater were closed. To reiterate: developments in weapons technology, for instance hypersonic rocket systems make most other weapons systems obsolete. Which is obviously a big threat to the MIC.

    Russia attacking NATO makes as much sense as NATO attacking Russia: none whatsoever. Unwinnable. Russia attacking Germany and other European countries, which buy its oil and gas, makes no sense because it would then lose those revenues. From that point of view, European dependence on Russian energy is even a peacemaker, because it benefits both sides.

    Can any of the Russiagate things be true? Of course, Russia has ‘bad’ elements seeking to influence matters abroad. Just like the US does, and France, Britain, Germany, finish the list and color the pictures. How about the UK poisoning stories? That’s a really wild one. Russia had no reason to poison a long-lost double spy they themselves let go free years ago, not at a time when a successful World Cup beckoned.

    342 diplomats expelled and risking the honored tradition of exchanging spies and double agents from time to time. Not in Moscow’s interest at all. Britain, though, had, and has, much to gain from the case. As long as its people, and its allies, remain gullible enough to swallow the poisoned narrative. Clue: both poisonings, if they are real, occurred mere miles from Porton Down, Britain’s main chemical weapons lab.

    And c’mon, if Putin wants his country strong and independent, the last thing he would do is to risk his oil and gas contracts with Europe. They’re simply too important, economically and politically. Trump may want some of that action for the US, understandably, but for now US LNG can’t compete with Russian pipelines. Simple as that.

    Let’s hope Trump and Putin can talk sense in 5 days. There’s a lot hanging on it. Let’s hope Trump gets his head out of NATO’s and the US and EU Deep State’s asses in time. There’s no America First or Make America Great Again to be found in those dark places. It’s time to clear the air and talk. America should always talk to Russia.

    Funny thing is, the more sanctions are declared on Russia, the stronger it becomes, because it has to learn and adapt to self-sufficiency. Want to weaken Russia? Make it depend on your trade with it, as opposed to cut off that trade. Well, too late now, they won’t trust another western voice anymore for many years. And we’re too weak to fight them. Not that we should want to anyway.

    We’re all captive to people who want us to believe we’re still stuck in the last century, because that is their over-luxurious meal ticket. But it’s all imaginary, it’s an entirely made-up narrative. NATO is a con game.

  • China Prepares To Dominate South Pacific With Week Of Electronic Warfare Drills

    While the Trump administration unveiling another round of tariffs on Chinese goods worth $200 billion – for which China’s Commerce Ministry is planning “countermeasures,” Beijing quietly began conducting military drills at five bases for electronic warfare, cybersecurity, reconnaissance and tactical strikes at five training bases, reports the South China Morning Post.

    Over 50 combat units consisting of around 2,100 officers are taking part in the war games, which includes airborne troops, special forces and electronic warfare experts from the Northern, Southern, Eastern, Western and Central command theatres, according to official accounts over social media.

    The war games began simultaneously at the Zhurihe Combined Tactics Training Base near Inner Mongolia, as well as four military institutes in Chongqing, Hebei and hefei provinces, as well as the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, according to the ground force.

    The drill was meant to replicate combat conditions so the troops would stay in camps rather than barracks or dormitories, the ground force said via social media on Monday.

    Military inspectors from the PLA’s anti-corruption watchdog, the military’s disciplinary commission, were sent to monitor the war games, with live pictures and video footage being sent to relevant troops, it said.

    The combat units were made up almost entirely of new graduates and military officers from the surveillance troops, information security force, cyberwarriors, special fighting troops and a strike team from the army’s aviation unit, the ground force said on its WeChat account. –SCMP

    China’s ground force said that the five new units were organized with the goal of “transforming their tradition combat role into a “modern army to right with the navy and air force,” along with the newly established strategic support unit and the rocket force.

    The five theatre commands were established directly by President Xi Jinping – who replaced the army’s seven military commands in February, 2016 to become chairman of the Central Military Commission. He has since shed 300,000 members of the PLA – cutting the army’s size down to 2 million troops. For reference, the entire US military has around 1.3 million troops. 

    Xi laid out an ambitious plan in October for the PLA to modernize by 2035, on its way to becoming “one of the strongest forces by 2050,” reports The Morning Post, emphasizing technology and modern warfare strategies. 

    “The scale of new combat forces has been expanded and becomes more important in combat effectiveness after many traditional troops and outmoded weapons were dissolved amid the military overhaul,” said a PLA commentary published on June 15.

    That said, some ground force leaders fell short of Xi’s new requirements, according to The PLA Daily – the public face of the Army.

    “However, some commanders failed to understand and study the real role of new combat forces, with some turning the new units into superficial troops or even ‘master of none’ … and some even immersing in traditional combat drills, letting the new combat units become an isolated fighting force.”

    On Friday, CNBC reported that China was quietly conducting electronic warfare tests on tech-jamming technology in the South China Sea – weeks after delivering military equipment to the disputed Spratley Islands. 

    The move allows Beijing to further project its power in the hotly disputed waters. The placement of electronic warfare assets, which are designed to confuse or disable communications and radar systems, comes on the heels of China’s installation of anti-ship cruise missiles and surface-to-air missile systems on three outposts in the hotly contested waters of the South China Sea. –CNBC

    The Spratleys lie two-thirds of the way east from Southern Vietnam to the southern Philippines – while just north like the Parcel islands, where Beijing has 10 outposts, including Woody Island – their administrative and military headquarters in the South China Sea. 

    [insert: 105181437-skitchSCSmap.530×298.  , 105096240-Woody_1_25_18_R1C1_wm.530×298.jpg ] 

    China will be looking to compete with the United States’ GPS system with their Beidou program – also known as Compass. The system is expected to be completed by 2020, and will significantly improve China’s electronic warfare capabilities. 

    The Beidou system will definitely ‘add wings’ to the PLA, but only when all service troops are able to operate the new combat skills smoothly,” said Hong Kong-based military expert Song Zhongping, who added “Electronic warfare – like cyberwarriors and army aviation air strike operations – are strategically important in modern combat, as many new weapons also need the support of electronic facilities.” 

    Professor He Qisong, a defence policy specialist at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, said the drills this week indicated that the PLA was exploring a new training model to prepare commanders and soldiers for modern warfare.

    “All the electronic warfare operations need a comprehensive and safe cybersecurity network. That’s why the strategic support force was established [in late 2015], and it has played a key supporting role in different service troops,” he said. –SCMP

    “As a traditional ground force without real combat experience since the late 1970s, it really takes time for the army to break in modern warfare operations with so many newly established units.”

  • Papa John's Chairman Resigns After Racist Comments Revealed

    Following today’s much publicized report that just a few months after Papa John founder and Chairman John Schnatter quit the CEO last November for “divisive” remarks when he criticized the NFL for its handling of players’ national-anthem protests, saying it hurt the pizza chain’s sales, he used the N-word and graphic descriptions of violence against minorities on a conference call, moments ago the company announced that that the company had accepted Schantter’s resignation.

    Papa John’s International, Inc. (NASDAQ: PZZA)today announced that the independent directors of the company have accepted the resignation of John H. Schnatter as Chairman of the Board. Olivia Kirtley acts as the company’s Lead Independent Director. Papa John’s will appoint a new Chairman of the Board in the coming weeks.

    As a reminder, earlier on Wednesday, Forbes reported that during a May marketing call, Schnatter was asked how he would distance himself from racist groups online. He responded by downplaying the significance of his NFL statement. “Colonel Sanders called blacks n—–s,” Schnatter allegedly said, before complaining that Sanders never faced public backlash.

    Schnatter also reflected on his early life in Indiana, where, he said, people used to drag African-Americans from trucks until they died. He apparently intended for the remarks to convey his antipathy to racism, but multiple individuals on the call found them to be offensive, the source said.

    Following publication of the comments, Schnatter issued a statement in which he apologized:

    “News reports attributing the use of inappropriate and hurtful language to me during a media training session regarding race are true,” Schnatter said in the statement. “Regardless of the context, I apologize. Simply stated, racism has no place in our society.”

    By then it was too late.

    Needless to say, the revelation of these comments shocked investors, and following the pounding PZZA stock took today which dropped as much as 5.9%, coupled with various analysts warning that this particular scandal could last a considerable period of time, the resignation is hardly surprising.

    * * *

    Earlier:

    Shares of Papa John’s tumbled on Wednesday to $47.80, the lowest price since February 2016, after after outspoken chairman and founder John Schnatter came under fire following a report from Forbes that he used the N-word and graphic descriptions of violence against minorities on a conference call in May designed by marketing agency Laundry Service as a role-playing exercise for Schnatter in an effort to prevent future public-relations snafus.”

    Following the conference call incident, Laundry Service cut ties with Papa John’s – telling staff in a May 31 letter that it was ending its work with an unnamed client thanks to “the regrettable recent events that several employees of Laundry Service witnessed during interactions with a client’s executive,” according to a copy of the letter obtained by Bloomberg.

    Papa John chairman and founder John Schnatter

    On the May call, Schnatter was asked how he would distance himself from racist groups online. He responded by downplaying the significance of his NFL statement. “Colonel Sanders called blacks n—–s,” Schnatter allegedly said, before complaining that Sanders never faced public backlash.

    Schnatter also reflected on his early life in Indiana, where, he said, people used to drag African-Americans from trucks until they died. He apparently intended for the remarks to convey his antipathy to racism, but multiple individuals on the call found them to be offensive, the source said. After learning about the incident, Laundry Service owner Casey Wasserman moved to terminate the company’s contract with Papa John’s. –Forbes

    Shares of the pizza chain have tumbled 25% since Schnatter waded into the debate over national anthem protests and made several inflammatory comments against the NFL; the slide continued today with PZZA dropping as much as 5.9%, sliding to the lowest level since February 2016.

    Papa John’s did not dispute Forbes‘ report on Wednesday, however they noted that “Papa John’s condemns racism and any insensitive language, no matter the situation or setting. … We take great pride in the diversity of the Papa John’s family, though diversity and inclusion is an area we will continue to strive to do better.”

    As Bloomberg adds, the company’s new CEO, Steve Ritchie, who replaced Schnatter in January, sent an internal memo to team members, franchisees and operators on Wednesday addressing the event, though without mentioning Schnatter by name.

    “You may have read the media reports today tied to our company culture. We want to make it clear to all of you that racism has no place at Papa John’s,” according to the memo obtained by Bloomberg News.

    “The past six months we’ve had to take a hard look in the mirror and acknowledge that we’ve lost a bit of focus on the core values that this brand was built on and that delivered success for so many years,” Ritchie said. “We’ve got to own up and take the hit for our missteps and refocus on the constant pursuit of better that is the DNA of our brand.” –Bloomberg

    The 56-year-old Schnatter founded Papa John’s in Jeffersonville, Indiana after he installed a pizza oven at his father’s tavern. The business eventually grew to over 5,000 locations with annual revenues north of $1.7 billion. 

    Following the NFL anthem controversy, Schnatter stepped down as CEO when during the company’s third-quarter conference call he blamed the league for slow sales. The company later apologized for the “divisive” comments. 

  • WHO Carcinogens: Asbestos, Arsenic, Cigarettes, Alcohol,… & Bacon!?

    Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

    The World Health Organization has now officially declared bacon to be just as dangerous to human health as tobacco cigarette smoking. WHO has made the decision to declare all processed meats “carcinogenic to humans,” and that’s not a good thing.

    The World Health Organization officially classified processed meats as carcinogenic in October 2015. The decision managed to be made by something called the International Agency of Research into Cancer (IARC), based on a review done on 800 studies globally.

    They claimed that the report found “sufficient evidence in humans that the consumption of processed meat causes colorectal cancer.” According to the IARC Report:

    “Meat consists of multiple components, such as haem iron. Meat can also contain chemicals that form during meat processing or cooking.

    For instance, carcinogenic chemicals that form during meat processing include N-nitroso compounds and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

    Cooking of red meat or processed meat also produces heterocyclic aromatic amines as well as other chemicals including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are also found in other foods and in air pollution.

    Some of these chemicals are known or suspected carcinogens, but despite this knowledge, it is not yet fully understood how cancer risk is increased by red meat or processed meat.”

    That means it isn’t just bacon, but any processed meat that could be potentially cancer-causing. According to Reporting The Truth, WHO made the decision to bacon and other processed meats in with the ranks of other notoriously carcinogenic substances such as asbestos, arsenic, cigarettes, and alcohol. As a matter of fact, this decision and subsequent story is all based around a fallacy: an appeal to authority, the authority of the WHO.

    Often, the WHO, CDC (Centers for Disease Control), and other government organizations have the ability to cause a media outcry based on nothing more what they say. The WHO has no genuine intention of keeping people healthy, being some altruistic force to make sure people don’t get bowel cancer. It would be naive to think that’s why they exist.

    At the root of this story, the WHO and health organizations are justifying their existence by issuing warnings about things like this.

    The WHO has a surface level, where they disclose to the public what they are researching and try to justify their existence with little warnings like this, and then they have a deeper depth of what they do and who they endorse, what research and products they promote, and all the rest.

    Also, it’s not a good thing when government organizations start “officially” recognizing things. When the government starts “officially” recognizing the danger of tobacco, they start trying to make laws that do nothing but line the pockets of politicians with new taxes, and create annoying little additional hassles for people who will not give up smoking cigarettes either way. –Reporting The Truth

    The truth is, almost everyone knows bacon is not a “health food.”  It isn’t a vegetable and it’s loaded with fat.  It’s not the best food to eat and because of that, most people have the common sense to not eat a pound of it at a time.

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Jul 11

Today’s News 11th July 2018

  • New Satellite Images Reveal Russia Is Preparing For War In Kaliningrad

    The July 16 summit in Helsinki, Finland, between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin offers a unique opportunity to de-escalate Cold War 2.0 between the United States and Russia.

    Ahead of the summit, several reports have detailed a new alarming trend of Moscow’s rapid modernization efforts to improve its westernmost military facilities in Kaliningrad, a strategic enclave of Russian territory situated between Poland and the Baltics.

    Last month, the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) published satellite images revealing significant upgrades to a nuclear weapons storage bunker situated at a secret facility in Kaliningrad.

    “It has all the fingerprints of typical Russian nuclear weapons storage sites,” Hans Kristensen, the director of the Nuclear Information Project at Federation of American Scientists (FAS), said in a report.

    “There is a heavy-duty external perimeter of multilayered fencing. The bunkers themselves have triple fencing around them as well. These are typical features from all the other nuclear weapons storage sites that we know about in Russia,” Kristensen explained.

    A buried nuclear weapons storage bunker in the Kaliningrad district has been under major renovation since mid-2016. (Source: Federation of American Scientists (FAS))

    This comes at a time when Moscow expressed its concern over the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) military infrastructure expansion near the Poland–Kaliningrad border. On May 28, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov declared that Russia is prepared to take appropriate measures in response. That statement was a reaction to the Pentagon debuting plans to build a permanent military base in Poland.

    NATO forces have surrounded Kaliningrad, as it seems Moscow is in the final stages of installing and upgrading military structures and other bunker improvements in this strategic slice of territory in the heart of NATO-allied eastern Europe. Moscow knows its fate with NATO, and that is why it is preparing for war.

    Now, there is more evidence that Russia has been constructing even more structures and bunkers 8 miles away from the nuclear bunker facility that FAS reported last month.

    The new report, by an American private Earth-imaging company Planet Labs and Defense One, shows significant changes around a bunker facility in Baltiysk, near the Polish border. Matt Hall, a senior geospatial analyst at 3GIMBALS, a firm that provides human-machine integrated location-based analytics, told Defense One that the facilities in the satellite images (below) are used to store artillery.

    “The visible change between the two images provided appears to be the fortification of buildings, characteristic of explosive storage bunkers, utilizing earthen berms to further insulate these structures. There also appears to be clearings, new structures visible within the the forested portion of the installation, as well as a berm and exterior fence surrounding the installation,” said Hall.

    The unforested regions include explosive ordinance bunkers, he said. “Every structure in the northern non-forested sector have been reinforced during the three month period of the imagery,” he said. “The berms appear to be continually fortified to make them more obscured from aerial detection.”

    “In the forested sector, a different type of storage facility exists, some of which are bermed and appear to be leveled off. There appears to be additional uncovered storage, some with berms but not heavily fortified. In this area some of the structures have changed, potentially showing roofing structures or tarps that have since been removed to reveal caches of items. Some of the berms appear to be more extensive, but the foliage in the second imagery may obscure this analysis. Additionally, there appear to be new or redistributed items — potentially identifiable as shipping containers,” said Hall.

    Hall also identified a railroad line in the satellite images. It connects to the broader national system, which runs to and through Lithuania. Defense One said Russia constructed a similar line in the Georgian province of Abkhazia before invading that country in 2008.

    Defense One asked National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency officials about the recent activity in Kaliningrad. They replied with no comment because such information is deemed classified.

    Russia has been adding troops since 2015 to the region, which is the home base of Russia’s 11 Army Corps and the headquarters of the Russian Baltic Fleet.

    There is only one reason why Russia would be quickly fortifying various military facilities and upgrading nuclear storage bunkers in Kaliningrad: Moscow sees war on the horizon.

  • A New World Order: Brought To You By The Global-Industrial Deep State

    Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

    “There are no nations. There are no peoples … There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable by-laws of business.”—Network (1976)

    There are those who will tell you that any mention of a New World Order government – a power elite conspiring to rule the world – is the stuff of conspiracy theories.

    I am not one of those skeptics.

    What’s more, I wholeheartedly believe that one should always mistrust those in power, take alarm at the first encroachment on one’s liberties, and establish powerful constitutional checks against government mischief and abuse.

    I can also attest to the fact that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

    I have studied enough of this country’s history—and world history—to know that governments (the U.S. government being no exception) are at times indistinguishable from the evil they claim to be fighting, whether that evil takes the form of terrorism, torture, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, murder, violence, theft, pornography, scientific experimentations or some other diabolical means of inflicting pain, suffering and servitude on humanity.

    And I have lived long enough to see many so-called conspiracy theories turn into cold, hard fact.

    Remember, people used to scoff at the notion of a Deep State (a.k.a. Shadow Government), doubt that fascism could ever take hold in America, and sneer at any suggestion that the United States was starting to resemble Nazi Germany in the years leading up to Hitler’s rise to power.

    We’re beginning to know better, aren’t we?

    The Deep State (“a national-security apparatus that holds sway even over the elected leaders notionally in charge of it”) is real.

    We are already experiencing fascism, American-style.

    Not with jackboots and salutes, as Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution notes, “but with a television huckster, a phony billionaire, a textbook egomaniac ‘tapping into’ popular resentments and insecurities, and with an entire national political party — out of ambition or blind party loyalty, or simply out of fear — falling into line behind him.”

    And the United States is increasingly following in Nazi Germany’s footsteps, at least in the years leading up to Hitler’s rise to power.

    Given all that we know about the U.S. government—that it treats its citizens like faceless statistics and economic units to be bought, sold, bartered, traded, and tracked; that it repeatedly lies, cheats, steals, spies, kills, maims, enslaves, breaks the laws, overreaches its authority, and abuses its power at almost every turn; and that it wages wars for profit, jails its own people for profit, and has no qualms about spreading its reign of terror abroad—it is not a stretch to suggest that the government has been overtaken by global industrialists, a new world order, that do not have our best interests at heart.

    Indeed, to anyone who’s been paying attention to the goings-on in the world, it is increasingly obvious that we’re already under a new world order, and it is being brought to you by the Global-Industrial Deep State, a powerful cabal made up of international government agencies and corporations.

    It is as yet unclear whether the American Police State answers to the Global-Industrial Deep State, or whether the Global-Industrial Deep State merely empowers the American Police State. However, there is no denying the extent to which they are intricately and symbiotically enmeshed and interlocked.

    This marriage of governmental and corporate interests is the very definition of fascism.

    Where we go wrong is in underestimating the threat of fascism: it is no longer a national threat but has instead become a global menace.

    Consider the extent to which our lives and liberties are impacted by this international convergence of governmental and profit-driven interests in the surveillance state, the military industrial complex, the private prison industry, the intelligence sector, the technology sector, the telecommunications sector, the transportation sector, and the pharmaceutical industry.

    All of these sectors are dominated by mega-corporations operating on a global scale and working through government channels to increase their profit margins: Walmart, Alphabet (formerly Google), AT&T, Toyota, Apple, Exxon Mobil, Facebook, Lockheed Martin, Berkshire Hathaway, UnitedHealth Group, Samsung, Amazon, Verizon, Nissan, Boeing, Microsoft, Northrop Grumman, Citigroup… these are just a few of the global corporate giants whose profit-driven policies influence everything from legislative policies to economics to environmental issues to medical care.

    The U.S. government’s deep-seated and, in many cases, top secret alliances with foreign nations and global corporations are redrawing the boundaries of our world (and our freedoms) and altering the playing field faster than we can keep up.

    Global Surveillance

    Spearheaded by the National Security Agency (NSA), which has shown itself to care little for constitutional limits or privacy, the surveillance state has come to dominate our government and our lives. 

    Yet the government does not operate alone.

    It cannot.

    It requires an accomplice.

    Thus, the increasingly complex security needs of our massive federal government, especially in the areas of defense, surveillance and data management, have been met within the corporate sector, which has shown itself to be a powerful ally that both depends on and feeds the growth of governmental bureaucracy.

    Take AT&T, for instance. Through its vast telecommunications network that crisscrosses the globe, AT&T provides the U.S. government with the complex infrastructure it needs for its mass surveillance programs. According to The Intercept, “The NSA considers AT&T to be one of its most trusted partners and has lauded the company’s ‘extreme willingness to help.’It is a collaboration that dates back decades. Little known, however, is that its scope is not restricted to AT&T’s customers. According to the NSA’s documents, it values AT&T not only because it ‘has access to information that transits the nation,’ but also because it maintains unique relationships with other phone and internet providers. The NSA exploits these relationships for surveillance purposes, commandeering AT&T’s massive infrastructure and using it as a platform to covertly tap into communications processed by other companies.”

    Now magnify what the U.S. government is doing through AT&T on a global scale, and you have the “14 Eyes Program,” also referred to as the “SIGINT Seniors.” This global spy agency is made up of members from around the world (United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Denmark, France, Netherlands, Norway, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Israel, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, India and all British Overseas Territories).

    Surveillance is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to these global alliances, however.

    Global War Profiteering

    War has become a huge money-making venture, and America, with its vast military empire and its incestuous relationship with a host of international defense contractors, is one of its best buyers and sellers. In fact, as Reuters reports, “[President] Trump has gone further than any of his predecessors to act as a salesman for the U.S. defense industry.”

    The American military-industrial complex has erected an empire unsurpassed in history in its breadth and scope, one dedicated to conducting perpetual warfare throughout the earth. For example, while erecting a security surveillance state in the U.S., the military-industrial complex has perpetuated a worldwide military empire with American troops stationed in 177 countries (over 70% of the countries worldwide).

    Although the federal government obscures so much about its defense spending that accurate figures are difficult to procure, we do know that since 2001, the U.S. government has spent more than $1.8 trillion in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (that’s $8.3 million per hour). That doesn’t include wars and military exercises waged around the globe, which are expected to push the total bill upwards of $12 trillion by 2053.

    The illicit merger of the global armaments industry and the Pentagon that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us against more than 50 years ago has come to represent perhaps the greatest threat to the nation’s fragile infrastructure today. America’s expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $15 billion a month (or $20 million an hour)—and that’s just what the government spends on foreign wars. That does not include the cost of maintaining and staffing the 1000-plus U.S. military bases spread around the globe.

    Incredibly, although the U.S. constitutes only 5% of the world’s population, America boasts almost 50% of the world’s total military expenditure,  spending more on the military than the next 19 biggest spending nations combined. In fact, the Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety. There’s a good reason why “bloated,” “corrupt” and “inefficient” are among the words most commonly applied to the government, especially the Department of Defense and its contractors. Price gouging has become an accepted form of corruption within the American military empire.

    It’s not just the American economy that is being gouged, unfortunately.

    Driven by a greedy defense sector, the American homeland has been transformed into a battlefield with militarized police and weapons better suited to a war zone. Trump, no different from his predecessors, has continued to expand America’s military empire abroad and domestically, calling on Congress to approve billions more to hire cops, build more prisons and wage more profit-driven war-on-drugs/war-on-terrorism/war-on-crime programs that pander to the powerful money interests (military, corporate and security) that run the Deep State and hold the government in its clutches.

    Global Policing

    Glance at pictures of international police forces and you will have a hard time distinguishing between American police and those belonging to other nations. There’s a reason they all look alike, garbed in the militarized, weaponized uniform of a standing army.

    There’s a reason why they act alike, too, and speak a common language of force.

    For example, Israel—one of America’s closest international allies and one of the primary yearly recipients of more than $3 billion in U.S. foreign military aid—has been at the forefront of a little-publicized exchange program aimed at training American police to act as occupying forces in their communities. As The Intercept sums it up, American police are “essentially taking lessons from agencies that enforce military rule rather than civil law.”

    Then you have the Strong Cities Network program. Funded by the State Department, the U.S. government has partnered with the United Nations to fight violent extremism “in all of its forms and manifestations” in cities and communities across the world. Working with the UN, the federal government rolled out programs to train local police agencies across America in how to identify, fight and prevent extremism, as well as address intolerance within their communities, using all of the resources at their disposal. The cities included in the global network include New York City, Atlanta, Denver, Minneapolis, Paris, London, Montreal, Beirut and Oslo.

    What this program is really all about, however, is community policing on a global scale.

    Community policing, which relies on a “broken windows” theory of policing, calls for police to engage with the community in order to prevent local crime by interrupting or preventing minor offenses before they could snowball into bigger, more serious and perhaps violent crime. 

    It sounds like a good idea on paper, but the problem with the broken windows approach is that it has led to zero tolerance policing and stop-and-frisk practices among other harsh police tactics.

    When applied to the Strong Cities Network program, the objective is ostensibly to prevent violent extremism by targeting its source: racism, bigotry, hatred, intolerance, etc. In other words, police—acting ostensibly as extensions of the United Nations—will identify, monitor and deter individuals who exhibit, express or engage in anything that could be construed as extremist.

    Of course, the concern with the government’s anti-extremism program is that it will, in many cases, be utilized to render otherwise lawful, nonviolent activities as potentially extremist. Keep in mind that the government agencies involved in ferreting out American “extremists” will carry out their objectives—to identify and deter potential extremists—in concert withfusion centers (of which there are 78 nationwide, with partners in the private sector and globally), data collection agencies, behavioral scientists, corporations, social media, and community organizers and by relying on cutting-edge technology for surveillance, facial recognition, predictive policing, biometrics, and behavioral epigenetics (in which life experiences alter one’s genetic makeup).

    This is pre-crime on an ideological scale and it’s been a long time coming.

    Are you starting to get the picture now?

    We’re the sitting ducks in the government’s crosshairs.

    On almost every front, whether it’s the war on drugs, or the sale of weapons, or regulating immigration, or establishing prisons, or advancing technology, if there is a profit to be made and power to be amassed, you can bet that the government and its global partners have already struck a deal that puts the American people on the losing end of the bargain.

    Unless we can put the brakes on this dramatic expansion, globalization and merger of governmental and corporate powers, we’re not going to recognize this country 20 years from now.

    It’s taken less than a generation for our freedoms to be eroded and the police state structure to be erected, expanded and entrenched.

    Rest assured that the U.S. government will not save us from the chains of the global police state.

    The current or future occupant of the White House will not save us.

    For that matter, anarchy, violence and incivility will not save us.

    Unfortunately, the government’s divide and conquer tactics are working like a charm.

    Despite the laundry list of grievances that should unite “we the people” in common cause against the government, the nation is more divided than ever by politics, by socio-economics, by race, by religion, and by every other distinction that serves to highlight our differences.

    The real and manufactured 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—have all conjoined to create an environment in which “we the people” are more divided, more distrustful, and fearful of each other.

    What we have failed to realize is that in the eyes of the government, we’re all the same.

    In other words, when it’s time for the government to crack down—and that time is coming—it won’t matter whether we voted Republican or Democrat, whether we marched on Washington or stayed home, or whether we spoke out against government misconduct and injustice or remained silent.

    When the government and its Global-Industrial Deep State partners in the New World Order crack down, we’ll all suffer.

    If there is to be any hope of freeing ourselves, it rests—as it always has—at the local level, with you and your fellow citizens taking part in grassroots activism, which takes a trickle-up approach to governmental reform by implementing change at the local level.

    One of the most important contributions an individual citizen can make is to become actively involved in local community affairs, politics and legal battles. As the adage goes, “Think globally, act locally.” 

    America was meant to be primarily a system of local governments, which is a far cry from the colossal federal bureaucracy we have today. Yet if our freedoms are to be restored, understanding what is transpiring practically in your own backyard—in one’s home, neighborhood, school district, town council—and taking action at that local level must be the starting point.

    Responding to unmet local needs and reacting to injustices is what grassroots activism is all about. Attend local city council meetings, speak up at town hall meetings, organize protests and letter-writing campaigns, employ “militant nonviolent resistance” and civil disobedience, which Martin Luther King Jr. used to great effect through the use of sit-ins, boycotts and marches.

    And then, as I make clear in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, if there is any means left to us for thwarting the government in its relentless march towards outright dictatorship, it may rest with the power of communities and local governments to invalidate governmental laws, tactics and policies that are illegitimate, egregious or blatantly unconstitutional.

    Nullification works.

    Nullify the court cases. Nullify the laws. Nullify everything the government does that flies in the face of the principles on which this nation was founded.

    We could transform this nation if only Americans would work together to harness the power of their discontent.

  • A Timeline Of Media-Inflamed Fears (2000-2017)

    Modern media does not always have the best reputation for providing complex and nuanced commentary.

    The news cycle is sensational enough when we’re dealing with the regular issues of the day. But, as Visual Capitalist’s Jeff Desjardins notes, add in some uncertainty and urgency – such as when the world is dealing with an outbreak like SARS, Mad Cow Disease, Ebola, or even Y2K – and each headline seems to get more provocative or speculative than the last.

    Today’s graphics come to us from Information is Beautiful, and they show the intensity of news mentions for different topics that stoked frenzies in the media from 2000-2017.

    Courtesy of Visual Capitalist

    VISUALIZING EBOLA SENSATIONALISM

    We all make mistakes, but headlines for Ebola brought a new level of hyperbole to the table.

    “Ebola in the air? A nightmare that could happen” – CNN (link)

    “New Ebola Cases May Soon Reach 10,000 a Week, Officials Predict” – NYT (link)

    “Ebola as ISIS Bio-Weapon?” – Forbes (link)

    In fact, the outbreak in 2014 goes down as the most sensationalized events in the last 17 years.

    Here’s all other topics scaled to match Ebola mentions (which go “off the page” in the first graph):

    Nothing is even close.

    By the way, it turned out that Ebola didn’t mutate into a scary airborne virus. The CNN article with the crazy headline even admits in the body of the article itself: “Speculation that Ebola virus disease might mutate into a form that could easily spread among humans through the air is just that: speculation, unsubstantiated by any evidence.”

    Meanwhile, Ebola cases hit a maximum rate of 6,987 in a month, mainly because of delayed reporting of older cases in Liberia. Regardless, that is just 17% of the predicted “10,000 cases per week” rate reported in a New York Times headline.

    Finally, as you’re probably aware: ISIS did not weaponize Ebola, either. Made for good clickbait, though.

    SCALED TO DEATH

    When we scale the data to match total deaths, the sensationalism of many of the outbreaks is even clearer:

    The death count for Ebola did eventually hit 11,310 globally, and Swine Flu resulted in 18,500 lab-confirmed deaths (and potentially many more). However, most of these outbreaks were relatively harmless in relative terms. The Zika Virus, for example, resulted in only a handful of deaths.

    While having zero deaths is certainly the ideal, and many of the issues above should be taken very seriously especially as stories develop, we should be careful not to blow things out of proportion. Making mountains out of molehills does not help anyone, and it adds to growing distrust of media in general.

     

     

  • Two Sides To Every Coin: When "Security Measures" Become Imprisonment

    Authored by Jeremiah Johnson (Nom de plume of a retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces) via SHTFplan.com,

    The most recent article I covered was a piece last week on the illegal alien situation and the president’s handling of it. This is a problem that has plagued the U.S. for decades, and as I wrote before, I agree completely with the way the president has been handling it. Let’s put the president “aside” in this article, however, because no matter how well-intentioned he is, there are forces at work in the U.S. that hold more power than he does.

    Subtleties are present that are usually either overlooked or intentionally downplayed so as not to “jar” the consciousness of those who see them. Yes, we need increased border security on the Mexican border, and we need to stem the tide (the “tsunami” is more appropriate) flooding this country with illegal aliens.

    Just as with cattle, however, the fence around their pasture keeps things out…and simultaneously keeps the cattle in: the fence works in both directions.

    A piece just surfaced from The Hill entitled “Thousands of Americans Stand to be Denied Passports Due to Unpaid Taxes,” written by John Bowden on 7/6/18.  While this may come as no surprise to most, it parallels other restrictions such as not permitting those with child support in arrears or bankruptcy proceedings to not be able to depart the country. The law the article refers to was made in 2015 requiring the IRS and State Department to deny U.S. citizens a passport if they owe more than $51,000 in tax debt. The article pointed out that approximately 362,000 Americans fall into that category.

    It does not stop there. Our rights as enumerated under the U.S. Constitution are being eroded on a daily basis. The Jennings v. Rodriguez is a Supreme Court decision that affects illegal aliens as well as U.S. citizens. The decision upholds the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) provisions for indefinite detention both for American citizens and/or illegal aliens. The decision also leaves the president with the right to order such a detention… of anyone, for whatever reason… at his discretion.

    Major metropolitan airports such as in Atlanta and Chicago are taking biometric information… requiring it of all airline passengers… to pass “under the yoke” of facial recognition software and stored for (yes, you guessed it) “security reasons.”

    The government and their “partners” in the form of multinational corporations are not undertaking these actions for no reason.

    The bad (and sadly ironic) part is that we the taxpayers are the source of funding for these unconstitutional measures: our taxes pay for the cages being constructed around us and before our very eyes. The masses are unaware and/or they do not care. A shift is being fostered: a “need” for more security [translation: more surveillance] and more accountability [translation: more control] are forced upon us.

    The public is being shaped and manipulated: having lost conscience, its consciousness is now being molded and made to feel as if there is a need for security, safety, and being led. By appealing to the hierarchy of needs, the powers that be are fostering a climate of fear and creating a need for increased government intervention and control in the interests of security.

    With 9-11, the opponents were “created” out of the Arab world and a policy of “we’re all in it together and under the gun…besieged America” was pursued with the following objectives:

    1. Re-prime the MIC (Military Industrial Complex) with fresh wars, new “threats” (Iraq, and bin Laden) and taxpayer-funded government contracts to build up the war machine,

    2. “Justification” for military expansion to further force projection and encroach in other spheres of influence,

    3. The “crafting” of a war-footing…continuous, with the “battlefield” redefined under the NDAA and the Patriot Act as being not only worldwide, but also within the United States, and

    4. The beginning of the creation of a complete surveillance state via TIA (Total Information Awareness) as revealed to the American public by Edward Snowden a few years ago.

    Now the threat has not been “abandoned,” just changed in form and expanded.

    The “foreign threats” of attack have not abated, but their focal points are changed from the Arab enemy to the Russians and Chinese. The largest changes have taken place domestically, that is to say within the continental United States.

    The shootings at schools and public places, and the bombings (such as in Austin, TX) have been used to structure more police presence, more surveillance, and an increased “feeling” by citizens of being unsafe. The CCTV cameras keep sprouting up, the technology increases to monitor, record, photograph, eavesdrop, and control the lives and movements of the average citizen.

    The branches of government craft laws (Congress) and selectively interpret the laws (Supreme Court) that abrogate our rights while exempting themselves from the provisions they inflict upon us. A president can go either direction, and whichever way is chosen, the tide of movement is not halted. The paradigm shift toward totalitarianism continues either incrementally, in leaps and bounds, or at full force/unrelenting (as in the Obama years).

    The walled fortress in the name of security becomes the fully enclosed prison. Only the direction of the top tier of barbed wire…inward or outwardly pointing…reveals the nature. We the taxpayers pay for the cage, a prison that expands by the day. There will no longer be a need to keep everything outside of the pasture. The cattle will be kept in, and the wolves are already inside as well.

  • Could "Super Suits" For Baby Boomers Defuse The Demographic Time Bomb?

    A Silicon Valley startup is gambling on the demographic time bomb that is set to explode in the Western world over the next several decades. The company hopes baby boomers will abandon their canes, wheelchairs, and walkers for futuristic robotic-powered “super suits” that works with the user’s muscles to help boost strength. Just imagine if grandma was turned into a cyborg with one of these contraptions…

    The ‘super suit’ helps boost the power of the wearer’s muscles. (Source: Seismic/BBC)

    The company called Seismic, an apparel and robotics company spin-off from SRI International, has debuted a new kind of technology that millennials hope could be the solution to defuse the demographic time bomb.

    The wearable powered suits aim to improve the wearer’s core strength and turn baby boomers into productive beings once more. The suit’s ‘electric muscles,’ powered by miniature motors are embedded into the futuristic, Under Armour-like clothing around the joints of the body via grips in the suit that function like human tendons.

    Motor-powered ‘muscles’ are attached to the clothing near the wearer’s joints. (Source: Seismic/BBC)

    A computer and sensors monitor the user’s body movements are also integrated into the suit; complex software with machine learning characteristics decide when the smart clothing should provide extra energy to the user. The hardware in the suit is of low-profile hexagon-shaped pods for a sleek design.

    “Right now the only kinds of products that can help people are walkers and canes,” Rich Mahoney, founder and CEO of Seismic told BBC. “The other option is to stay home or to limit your activity. And most people choose that because they don’t really want to associate themselves with those other kinds of products.”

    For saleability purposes, Seismic partnered with designer Yves Béhar. “The goal is to make a product that you actually want to wear, not one that you have to wear,” Béhar told BBC. “Comfort is extremely important, as well as aesthetics.”

    Seismic plans to debut the powered suit at the Future Starts Here, an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London later this year. The company plans to target demographically challenged markets including the US, Japan, and the UK.

    Wearable smart apparel for baby boomers and the ‘senior market’ is set to explode in the next decade. The percentage of the global population that is 65 or older will double from 10 percent to 20 percent by 2050, according to Visual Capitalist.

    The company is also exploring clothing lines to help those who have experienced strokes and children with muscular dystrophy. There are even plans that the product could be used for occupational safety and industrial applications, for example, auto manufacturing, construction activities, and warehousing.

    “As a designer, my focus is in ensuring that this technology is used in a way that makes sense for us as humans – that it improves our daily lives,” said Béhar.

    He believes that wearable smart technology is in its infancy. “Ten years from now, technology will only be more invisible,” he added.

    So, Seismic is an example of Silicon Valley millennials racing against time with technology to defuse the demographic time bomb that is poised to become one of the most significant social transformations this country has ever seen. The goal, well, it is to turn the baby boomer generation into productive cyborgs and avoid a collapse. Something tells us the collision at play is irreversible. 

  • Which Companies Generate the Highest Revenue Per Employee?

    Submitted by Priceonomics

    The Standard & Poor‘s 500 Index includes the 500 largest American companies listed on the NYSE or NASDAQ. In 2017, the S&P 500 index increased by 22% from 2016-2017. S&P 500 companies generated $11 trillion in combined revenue and employed more than 25 million people worldwide.

    In this report, we rank the companies by Revenue Per Employee (RPE) to explore how efficiently the companies utilize human capital. We will examine how the ranking of these companies changed from last year (S&P – Revenue Per Employee Perspective 2016). Energy and Healthcare companies remained high on the list, while Industrials and Consumer Discretionaries continue to perform the worst.

    The table below shows the top 50 companies by Revenue Per Employee in 2017 in S&P 500, along with how they have moved in the rankings relative to last year’s analysis.

    Data source: Craft

    Twenty-four Energy companies and ten Healthcare companies made the list. Energy company Valero Energy Corporation passed AmerisourceBergen and topped the list. Newcomers to the S&P 500 (compared to 2016), Everst Re Group, and Andeavor made the made the list, replacing Murphy Oil Corporation, whose RPE fell by 15% in 2017 and has been removed from the S&P 500. 

    We specifically omitted the Real Estate sector, particularly real estate investment trusts (REIT). REIT make revenue from pooling investor money to purchase, rent, or sell real estate. At least 90% of taxable income must be distributed to shareholders. The companies that we excluded from the list include Host Hotels & Resorts, which owns and operates mainly luxury hotels, and Welltower and HCP, which invest primarily in real estate serving the healthcare industry, including senior housing, assisted living, and medical office. 

    By grouping the companies into different sectors, we computed the average RPE for each sector to examine the relative labor-intensity of different industries.

    Data source: Craft

    For Energy companies, the business is dependent more on natural resource and physical capital rather than human capital. As a result, they are able to generate revenue with less reliance on employees than other more labor-intensive sectors. 

    The table below shows the lowest 10 companies in the index ranked by PRE: 

    Data source: Craft

    Hanesbrands, Accenture, Starbucks, Chipotle, Cognizant, and Darden Restaurants remained on the list of 10 lowest companies by RPE from last year. 

    We took a deeper look at why consulting companies such as Cognizant and Accenture have among the lowest revenue per employee. Accenture and Cognizant are IT consulting with 425,000 employees and 260,000 employees respectively. As both companies are IT providers and provide consulting services, they depend on large teams to deliver services. The two firms performance are strongly linked to how many consultants they have and how many engagements they book. At Accenture, the employee headcount grew by 12% from 2014-2017, while revenue increased 5%. A larger increase in hiring than revenue led to a decrease in RPE.

    For Tech companies’, we looked at RPE and Compound Annual Growth Rate of Revenue and Employees between 2014-2017:

    Data source: Craft

    There is generally a growth in Revenue per Employee for Tech companies. Most companies on this list grew their revenue faster than employee headcount. 

    Key takeaways: 

    • The Energy sector continues to be the highest performer on RPE, representing almost 50% of the Top 50 list. Since 2016, the average RPE in the Energy sector has increased from $1.79M to $2.27M. 
    • The Industrials sector remains the lowest performer on RPE, even with an increase from $321,000 in average RPE to $332,000 in average RPE from 2016-2017.
    • Tech companies are becoming increasingly more productive by growing their RPE.

  • Japanese Yield Curve Collapses, Investors Give Up Hopes Of BoJ Normalization

    While a day doesn’t go by when the US Treasury yield curve’s plunge is not discussed (and its flattening again today)…

    As its recessionary-signaling prowess from the past is questioned by those that know better than it’s different this time – there is another yield curve in the world that has collapsed with far less media attention…

    Japan.

    The decline in Japan’s yield curve is a sign investors have given up on the Bank of Japan readying for a normalization of its unprecedented monetary policy, according to Mitsubishi UFJ Kokusai Asset Management.

    This curve collapse is happening even as The BoJ is ‘stealth tapering’ its bond-purchases…

    Expectations that the Bank of Japan wants a steeper yield curve to pave the way for tighter policy are all but gone, given the paltry rise in inflation, said general manager of trading Akio Kato in an interview in Tokyo.

    Despite the fact that Japan has suffered (officially) five recessions in the last 30 years, the JGB 2s10s yield curve has not been inverted since 1991…

    And perhaps more concerning, now that investors are losing faith in The BoJ’s normalization, Kokusai’s Kato warns that, there’s “nothing to put a brake” on further flattening.

  • "They Go Low, We Go High": China Quotes Michelle Obama, Sees "Darkest Hour" For The World

    China is now officially part of the anti-Trump resistance.

    Readers will recall that on Saturday, among the various responses by Chinese officials to the launch of trade war by the US (and instant retaliation by China), we quoted Frank Ning, chairman of state-owned Sinochem Group, who said that “what Trump is doing is more than crazy” in reference to Trump’s tariffs. “The biggest victim from a trade war will be the one who initiates trade protectionism,” Ning said at the APEC China CEO Forum in Beijing.

    But the punchline was Ning’s closing remarks, in which he cited Michelle Obama’s 2016 line from the last U.S. presidential election campaign that “When they go low, we go high“, a phrase which was subsequently adopted by Hillary Clinton (We also wondered if Ning was aware that the extensive use of that line as part of Hillary Clinton’s campaign  in the 2016 elections ended badly for the Democrats).

    Well, fast forward just a few days to today, when China has decided to double down on what ended up being a losing campaign slogan, and when assistant minister for China’s Ministry of Commerce, Li Chenggang, commenting on the latest trade escalation at a forum in Beijing today, said that in trade “they go low, we go high.” Which of course makes absolutely no sense, because just minutes later an official from China’s Commerce Ministry reiterated that China will take countermeasures, which – for anyone confused – means that when “they go low, we will go just as low if not lower.“

    Chnggang wasn’t done with the bizarrely nonsensical verbal diarrhea, and said that the latest round of proposed US tariffs on $200bn in Chinese goods “harms the WTO trade order” that the US is “escalating” the trade tension, that “tariffs disrupt globalization” and concluded that the global investment environment is seeing its “darkest hour.”

    And while nobody has expressly stated what they will be, both a Chinese Commerce Ministry Official and a PBOC adviser, i.e. the guys in charge of yuan devaluation and dumping Treasuries, said China is consider countermeasures.

    And while we await the official MofCom response, due later today (as previewed earlier), according to Suan Teck Kin, head of research at United Oferseas Bank, China may retaliate by imposing higher tariffs on U.S. products – i.e., more than 10%, instead of targeting a greater amount of US exports as those simply don’t exist – so it can match the proposed 10% tariffs on $200b of Chinese imports.  Suan also said that China may also limit U.S. service exports, worth more than $50b per year, in terms of tourism, education and banking services.

    Ultimately, as we just said minutes ago, the uncertainty for the market is how China will retaliate: “Whichever way, the markets will take it negatively after the calm over the past few days.” Suan concluded.

  • Riots: 3 Places All Hell Has Broken Loose In The Last Few Days

    Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

    A lot of people like to think that the SHTF is some distant thing that probably won’t ever happen. But, in reality, it happens every single day, someplace in the world. Riots have occurred all over the world recently, stranding travelers, destroying property, and causing serious injuries and death.

    Here are 3 different places where all hell has broken loose in just the past few days.

    Haiti

    It’s a bad time to be in Haiti right now. Apparently, an increase in gasoline prices has caused people to take to the street. A number of American missionaries are currently hunkering down in fear for their lives. They’re unable to get out of the country because many airlines have canceled all flights in and out of the country.

    Savannah Peek, a missionary with a team from Richmond County, North Carolina, told WSOC said they are terrified for their lives…

    …“We heard gunshots start and they were very close,” said Peek. “At this point, we all dropped immediately to the ground. We’re all on our hands and knees. Everyone’s screaming, everyone’s crying.”

    Peek said guns were handed out to civilians for protection.

    “People started passing out guns to civilians because we thought the (men) were about to break in and rob us, kill us, start a fire. We had no idea,” she said. (source)

    The US Embassy in Haiti issued the following alert:

    Due to continuing demonstrations, roadblocks, and violence across Port-au-Prince and throughout Haiti, U.S. citizens should continue to shelter in place.  Do not travel to the airport unless you confirmed your flight is departing.  Flights are canceled today and the airport has limited food and water available.

    Telecommunications services, including Internet and phone lines, have been affected throughout Haiti.  It may be difficult to reach people through normal communication methods.

    U.S. Embassy personnel are still under a shelter-in-place order.  The embassy will continue to monitor the situation.

    The U.S. Embassy will be closed for routine services Monday July 9.  Non-emergency appointments will be rescheduled for a later date.  The Embassy remains open for emergency U.S. citizen services.

    Actions to take:

    • Shelter in place. Do not attempt to travel at this time.
    • Avoid protests and any large gathering of people.
    • Do not attempt to drive through roadblocks.
    • If you encounter a roadblock, turn around and get to a safe area.
    • Let family and friends know if you are safe. (source)

    Here’s some shocking video footage of the riots.

    France

    In Nantes, a city in France, a battle has been going on between African migrants and the French police for days now, after the police shot a 22-year-old migrant named Aboubakar Fofana. The riots went on for 4 days but eased when relatives of the Aboubakar Fofana said they were filing a lawsuit.

    Initially, police said that the victim was shot because he tried to run over a police officer with a car. Later, they admitted the shooting was in fact NOT self-defense, but an accident.

    The worst of riots looked like a war between police and migrants.

    Ouest-France reports:

    The police forces were deployed massively in the neighborhoods of the rioters. They fired Molotov cocktails at Breil and Bellevue and responded with tear gas grenades.

    In total, 35 vehicles were burned. To prevent a resurgence of fires, since last night, Friday, July 6, the Region has banned the retail sale of fuel and fireworks.

    In the Breil district, the beginning of a fire hit a building of the Nantes Habitat social landlord. The damage, however, seems small: except for some traces of fire near the building, only a window is barred by a sign; the building is intact.

    “Put your weapons, gang of assassins” or “you are going to be afraid in your houses” are the slogans that were launched to the CRS came to reinforcement in the districts. (source)

    According to Zero Hedge, things are only going to get worse in France.

    The  GEFIRA team expect riots in France to become more and more violent and eventually lethal. Like most Western European societies and the US, the demographic change and the gradual replacement will come with a hefty price.

    There are signs that white French bourgeoisie youth will join the violent protests, like Black bloc and Antifa. (source)

    Here’s some video footage of the chaos in Nantes.

    Portland

    And right here in the United States, violent riots have erupted over the Trump administration, political differences, and immigration policies. Portland has been the heart of many political movements since the election of President Trump, starting the day after the election in which Hillary Clinton suffered a surprise loss.

    The riots in the city have been going on for the past couple of months, with some particularly heated moments occurring in early July. A Patriot Prayer rally turned violent when members of Antifa showed up and began pelting them with firecrackers, eggs, and water bottles.

    The counterprotesters were identified as the Eugene Antifa, who named their demonstration“Defend PDX: Patriot Prayer’s Violence Must End.”

    “It is very important that antifascists keep up the pressure so that we can stop them once and for all,” a Facebook event page for the counterprotest read.

    “While many acolytes have broken away from Gibson at this point, the core that remains, largely Proud Boys, have grown increasingly violent,” the page said. “For this reason we must sustain our campaign, and keep up our efforts on as many fronts as possible until they completely cease their despicable activity.” (source)

    The demonstrators didn’t hesitate to fight back and police used firecrackers, smoke bombs, flash bangs and “aerial distraction in an attempt to disperse the crowd.

    This isn’t the first time the groups have gone head to head. They also became violent toward one another in early June and previously, in 2017. Below is a video of what some people are calling “The Battle of Portland.”

    What can we learn from all this?

    I’m all for protesting and demonstrating against things that are unjust. The right to peaceful protest is written right into the American constitution.

    But what we can all learn from this is how quickly something that starts out as a peaceful protest can be disrupted and turned into a violent riot. It can happen anywhere, at any time, and if you are unfortunate enough to be nearby, it can be a life-threatening emergency in some cases.

    Here are the things to remember:

    • Learn to watch the signs and foresee when violence is about to erupt so you can get yourself and your family safely away.

    • Make a plan to keep your family safe during times of civil unrest if it should occur near your home. (This article can help.)

    • Avoid situations that are likely to become violent.

    • Remember that fire is one of the most common weapons used in a riot.

    • If you are traveling when violence erupts, plan to hunker down. Contact the American Embassy for help. DO NOT go to the airport unless you know for sure your flight is definitely taking off.

    • Remember that the police and military may be every bit as violent as the crowd and will not have time to differentiate between you and a protester.

    • If you’re caught in a crowd, move diagonally to get yourself out of the masses. Hold on to children so that you do not get separated.

    The best thing you can do is avoid trouble. The second best thing you can do is know how to handle it if trouble comes to you.

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Jul 10

Today’s News 10th July 2018

  • The End Is Near? Pope Decries Governments Turning Earth Into Vast Pile Of "Rubble, Deserts, & Refuse"

    Europe is rethinking its permissive attitude toward immigrants and refugees, but Pope Francis is doubling down on his calls for all countries to welcome them with open arms, even as Italy, which surrounds Vatican City, recently embraced a government that has begun turning away migrants arriving by boat.

    During an appearance at a Vatican conference marking the third anniversary of his famous environmental encyclical “Praise Be”, Francis urged the world (i.e. the US) to honor the commitments made in the Paris Accord, and also praised aid groups who rescue and care for migrants.

    Pope

    In a speech with suspiciously political overtones, the Pope said the IMF and World Bank would have an important tole in encouraging sustainable development. If countries don’t abide by their commitments, future generations will inherit a ruined environment.

    “There is a real danger that we will leave future generations only rubble, deserts and refuse,” he warned.

    While celebrating a mass at St Peter’s Basilica for migrants and people who offer them aid, Francis warned of the “sterile hypocrisy” of those who choose not to help the poor and insecure live a “dignified life”, and lamented how Europe and the US were attempting to close their borders to immigrants and refugees, according to the Hill.

    “It grieves us to see the lands of indigenous peoples expropriated and their cultures trampled on by predatory schemes and by new forms of colonialism, fueled by the culture of waste and consumerism,” Francis said.

    Indeed, the Guardian described Friday’s conference as “the latest in a series of Vatican initiatives meant to impress a sense of urgency about global warming and the threat it poses…to the world’s poorest and most marginalized people.”

    As Francis has continued to sound more like an activist and less like God’s highest authority on Earth, he is set to hold a three-week synod, or conference of bishops, specifically to address the ecological crisis in the Amazon. Francis has said that deforestation threatens to destroy the “lung” of the Earth, as well as the indigenous tribes who live in the rainforest

    The pope even went so far as to recently invite oil executives and investors to the Vatican for a closed-door meeting where he reportedly asked them to find alternatives to fossil fuels and warned that they were helping to ruin the environment.

    Since becoming Pope in 2013, Francis has shown a willingness to speak on many topics that are unusual for a Pope. These include financial instruments like credit default swaps, which the Holy See singled out as “a ticking time bomb” in a sweeping critique of the global financial system.

    To be sure, Francis’s decision to speak in support of several liberal causes – from universal health care to immigration – has angered some conservative Catholics.  Steve Bannon recently criticized Francis, saying the Catholic Church is “one of the worst instigators of this open borders policy,” adding that “the Pope – more than anybody else – has driven the migrant crisis in Europe.” Those criticisms arrived after an ally of Francis published an article blasting Catholic voters who voted for Trump while specifically attacking former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon in the shocking singling out of an individual Catholic.

  • Zuesse: America Bombs, Europe Gets The Refugees. That's Evil

    Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    The US Government (with France and a few other US allies) bombs Libya, Syria, etc.; and the US regime refuses to accept any of the resulting refugees — the burdens from which are now breaking the EU, and the EU is sinking in economic competition against America’s international corporations. America’s corporations remain blithely unscathed by not only the refugees that are breaking up the EU, but also by the EU’s economic sanctions against Russia, Iran, and other allies of governments that the US regime is trying to overthrow in its constant invasions and coups.

    The US Government makes proclamations such as “Assad must go!” — but by what right is the US Government involved, at all, in determining whom the leaders in Syria will be? Syria never invaded the US In fact, Syria never invaded anywhere (except, maybe, Israel, in order to respond against Israel’s invasions). Furthermore, all polling, even by Western pollsters, shows that Bashar al-Assad would easily win any free and fair election in Syria. The US Government claims to support democracy, but it does the exact opposite whenever they want to get rid of a Government that is determined to protect that nation’s sovereignty over its own national territory, instead of to yield it to the US regime, or to any other foreigners. The US regime has virtually destroyed the United Nations.

    The US regime even refuses to provide restitution to Syria for its bombings, and for its arming and training of the jihadists — the fundamentalist Sunni mercenaries recruited from around the world — who are the US regime’s “boots on the ground” trying to overthrow Syria’s Government. Al Qaeda has led the dozens of jihadist groups that have served as the US regime’s “boots on the ground” to overthrow Assad, but Al Qaeda is good enough to serve the purpose, in the US regime’s view of things. The US regime says that there will be no restitution to Syria unless Syria accepts being ruled by ‘rebels’ whose leadership is actually being chosen by the US regime’s chief ally, the fundamentalist-Sunni Saud family, who already own Saudi Arabia, and who (along with the CIA) have been unsuccessfully trying, ever since 1949, to take over the committedly secular, non-sectarian, nation of Syria. In fact, the CIA perpetrated two of the three Syrian coups that were carried out in 1949. 

    The US regime, and its allies, have used the Muslim Brotherhood, in order to recruit into Syria the 100,000+ jihadists from around the world to fight to overthrow Syria’s secular Government. Even the BBC’s 13 December 2013 detailed report, “Guide to the Syrian rebels”, made clear that the “Syrian Rebels” were, in fact, overwhelmingly jihadist and largely recruited from abroad. These were hardly democrats. Even a Tony-Blair-founded anti-Assad NGO’s study concluded that “Sixty per cent of major Syrian rebel groups are Islamist extremists” (not just “Islamists” but “Islamist extremists”) and yet the Blair outfit still supported the overthrow of the committed secularist Assad (just as Blair had earlier participated himself in the US regime’s destruction of Iraq). 

    The fundamentalist-Sunni royal Thani family own Qatar and have been the top international funders of the Muslim Brotherhood, just as the fundamentalist-Sunni royal Saud family, who own Saudi Arabia, have been the top funders of Al Qaeda. The main difference between the Sauds and the Thanis has been that whereas the Sauds hate Shia (and that means especially Iran), the Thanis don’t. Thus, for the Sauds, this is a war against the Shia center, Iran, and not only against Syria. This war against Syria was a coordinated US-Saud-Thani operation, in which the fundamentalist-Sunni group, Al Qaeda, provided the leadership but the (pan-Islamic) fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood provided the largest recruiting website. This entire hyper-aggressive operation was internationally coordinated. The Obama Administration started planning this operation, under Hillary Clinton, in 2010. As even the neoconservative (i.e., US-empire advocating) Washington Post reported, on 17 April 2011, from Wikileaks, “It is unclear whether the State Department is still funding Syrian opposition groups, but the cables indicate money was set aside [by the Obama Administration] at least through September 2010.” That article mentioned only “former members of the Muslim Brotherhood,” not the Muslim Brotherhood itself; and no mention was made in it to Al Qaeda, in any form. 

    Then, in 2013, the neoconservative Foreign Policy magazine headlined “How the Muslim Brotherhood Hijacked Syria’s Revolution” and was oblivious regarding the neoconservative Obama Administration’s having planned that “hijacking,” starting in 2010 (but going back even as far as Obama’s inauguration; this operation was a key part of his secret anti-Russia agenda, which preceded even his coming into office). But if Obama wasn’t neocon-enough to suit that magazine’s editors, then Trump certainly should be, because Trump continues Obama’s foreign policies but with an even more hostile thrust against the Sauds’ chief target, which is Iran. Above all, the US alliance’s goal has been for the Saud family’s selected (rabidly anti-Shiite) people to take over and run the Syrian Government. As Global Security has phrased this matter, “The High Negotiations Committee [which is the group who are negotiating against Assad’s government at the US-sponsored ‘peace’ talks] is a Saudi-backed coalition of Syrian opposition groups. The High Negotiations Committee (HNC) was created in Saudi Arabia in December 2015.” 

    So, this war in Syria has actually been the Sauds’ war to take over Syria. And it actually started in 1949, but the US-backed Muslim-Brotherhood-led “Arab Spring” in 2011 gave the US and its allies the opportunity to culminate it, finally. 

    And Europe receives the fall-out from it. This fall-out has been hurting European corporations, in international competition against US corporations. It’s not only political.

    The US regime has continued this thrust, under Obama’s successor. US President Donald Trump demands European corporations to end their business with Shiite Iran (which the Saud family is determined to take over), and to end their business with Russia, which America’s own billionaires themselves are determined to take over, just like the Sauds are determined to take over both Syria and Iran.

    And Europe receives refugees not only from places where the US and some of its NATO allies have recently been bombing, but even from Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places where NATO has bombed in the past, and even from Ukraine, where the US regime perpetrated a bloody coup in February 2014, followed there by an ethnic-cleansing campaign to kill the residents in areas which had voted the heaviest for the overthrown President.

    America is no actual ally of Europe. The Marshall Plan is long-since finished, and America has been taken over by psychopaths who are Europe’s main enemies, not Europe’s friends, at all. (They’re friends of some European aristocracies, but not of any European public, not of even merely one public.)

    Iran and Russia should be Europe’s allies — they didn’t cause any of Europe’s problems. America did. America’s intelligence agencies tapped (and probably still tap) the phones of Germany’s Chancellor and practically everybody else, and yet the US regime has the gall to blame Russia for interfering in the political affairs of European countries. If that isn’t the pot calling the kettle ‘black’, then what is? If anything, the EU’s sanctions should be against doing business with American firms — not against doing business with Russian firms, or with Iranian firms. European politicians who support the US support Europe’s top enemy.

    Russia is, itself, a European country, which additionally traverses much of Asia, but America is no European country, at all, and yet now is so brazen as to demand that Europe must do America’s bidding — not only against Russia, but also against the Sauds’ main target, which is Iran (the same main target as Israel’s).

    Why are Europeans not asking themselves: Who is Europe’s enemy in all of this — what causes this refugee-crisis? The refugees certainly didn’t.

    It’s not Russia, and it’s not Iran, and it’s not China; it is America — which is the true enemy of them all, and of us all — including even of the American people ourselves, because the US Government no longer actually represents the American people. These invasions, and military occupations, and coups, do not serve America’s public; they serve America’s aristocracy. The US is no longer (if it ever was) a democracy. The US Government now is the US aristocracy — not the US public. It’s a dictatorship. And, it has the type of ‘news’media that any dictatorship has.

    On June 30th, the US aristocracy’s New York Times headlined “Bavaria: Affluent, Picturesque — and Angry”, and reported “the new angry center of Europe, the latest battleground for populists eager to bring down both Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and the idea of a liberal Europe itself.” Their elitist (pro-US-aristocracy) ‘reporter’ (actually propagandist) interviewed ‘experts’ who condemn Europe’s politicians that are trying to assuage their own public’s anger against the EU’s open-door policy regarding this flood of refugees from what is actually, for the most part, the US regime’s (and its allies’) bombings — air-support of the boots-on-the-ground jihadist mercenaries. The combination of this air-support, and of the jihadists, has been the backbone of the US-Saudi-Israeli effort to overthrow and replace Syria’s Government.

    Libya was a similar case, but was only friendly toward Russia, not allied with Russia, as both Syria and Iran are.

    The US aristocracy funds an enormous international PR campaign for all this. These are ‘humanitarian’ bombings in order to replace a ‘barbaric’ Government — but replace it with what? With one that would be chosen by the Sauds. And this propaganda-campaign is also funded by the US-allied aristocracies. All of the major ‘news’media, in US and allies, receive their ‘expert’ ‘information’ from these privately-funded and government-funded propagandists, who are treated by ‘journalists’ as being objective and experts (which they’re not).

    The NYT article says — and I add here key explanatory links:

    “This is not about economics,” said Gerald Knaus, the director of the European Stability Initiative, [and though unmentioned by the Times, “The Open Society Institute was a major core funder” of the ESI, which is] a Berlin-based think tank. “It is about identity and a very successful populist P.R. machine that is rewriting recent history.”

    So: the Times was secretly (and they didn’t include any links to help online readers know who was actually funding their ‘experts’, at all) pumping NATO propaganda, as if it were authentic and neutral news-reporting, instead of craven service to the US aristocracy that controls the US Government and its NATO military alliance. This is the New York Times, itself, that is “rewriting recent history.” That’s how they do it — constantly (as ‘news’).

    And here is some of that “recent history” the Times is “rewriting” (by simply omitting to so much as even just suggest, but which is essential background in order to understand the real history behind this important matter):

    http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/RP01-50/RP01-50.pdf

    House of Commons, Research Paper 01/50, 2 May 2001

    “European Security and Defence Policy: Nice and Beyond”

    pp. 47-48:

    On 7 February 2001 the Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, emphasised the ESDP’s [European Security and Defence Policy’s] tie to NATO during a press interview, following his meeting in Washington with US National Security Adviser, Condoleeza Rice. He said:

    I have stressed that the European Security Initiative will strengthen the capacity of Europe to contribute to crisis management and therefore is welcome to a Washington that is interested in fairer burden sharing, and that Washington can be confident that Britain will insist that the European Security Initiative is firmly anchored on NATO. We are both determined to see that happen, we are both determined to make sure that the European Security Initiative carries out its promise to strengthen the North Atlantic Alliance.119

    Though the Sauds, and also Israel’s aristocracy, are mainly anti-Iran, the US aristocracy are obsessed with their goal of conquering Russia. Since Iran, and Syria, are both allied with Russia, the US regime is trying to overthrow those Russia-allied Governments, before going in for the kill, against Russia itself. That’s what all of these economic sanctions, and the bombings and the backing of Al Qaeda for overthrowing Syria’s Government, are really all about. 

    Is this what today’s Europeans want their Governments to be doing — and doing it for that reason, the US aristocracy’s reason? Despite the huge harms it is certainly causing to Europeans?

    Here, then, is a debate between, on the one hand a retired CIA official who thinks “Our relationship with Israel causes us war with Muslims,” versus Representatives in the US Congress who are actually representatives of Israel’s Government and definitely notrepresentatives of the American people. Both sides in that debate are acceptable to the aristocrats who control the US Government, because neither side argues that the apartheid theocratic Government of Israel is an enemy of the American people (as is documented actually to be the case, here and here), nor that the entire problem of Islamic terrorism is fundamentalist-Sunni, and that only Israel gets hit by terrorism that’s from both Sunnis and Shiites — that Shiites (the US alliance’s targets) are no terrorist threat, at all, to Europeans (nor to Americans) — the “Islamist” threat is actually only from fundamentalist Sunnis, which are the very same groups that are secretly allied with America’s aristocracy and the Sauds. Neither side of the ‘debate’ acknowledges that both the Sauds and Israel (and Israel’s lobbyists represent internationally also the Sauds’ interests) are enemies both of the American people, and of the peoples of Europe. 

    As the world’s greatest blogger, the former UK Ambassador (but too honest to stay in that business) Craig Murray, recently said under the headline, “No Trump, No Clinton, No NATO”: “The destruction of Libya’s government and infrastructure directly caused the Mediterranean boat migrant crisis, which has poisoned the politics of much of the European Union.” But, of course, the US regime and its allies have also destroyed other countries than that — and thus caused refugees to Europe from many nations. And, finally, even the US Government (though as quietly as possible) acknowledges that it has destroyed Afghanistan. Ironically, that’s the very nation where America and the Sauds, in 1979, had started their war against all Governments that won’t buckle to them.

    Furthermore, the US regime intends to keep it up. In case a reader might happen to think that, surely, the US regime and its allies are going to quit this rousing of hornets’ nests; Sharmine Narwani, who is one of the very few non-“embedded” journalists who reports in The West about — and (which the mainstream ones don’t) from — the war in Syria, headlined, on June 25th, “Are al-Qaeda Affiliates Fighting Alongside US Rebels in Syria’s South?” and she found that the answer to this question is a resounding yes:

    Despite its US and UN designation as a terrorist organization, Nusra [Al Qaeda’s main name in Syria] has been openly fighting alongside the “Southern Front,” a group of 54 opposition militias funded and commanded by a US-led war room based in Amman, Jordan called the Military Operations Center (MOC). …

    Sources inside Syria — both opposition fighters and Syrian military brass (past and present) — suggest the command center consists of the US, UK, France, Jordan, Israel, and some Persian Gulf states. … In practice, the US doesn’t appear to mind the Nusra affiliation — regardless of the fact that the group is a terror organization — as long as the job gets done.

    These wars, which pour Middle Eastern (and also Ukrainian) refugees into the EU, are inter-aristocratic conflicts reflecting inter-aristocratic competitions; and the publics everywhere suffer enormously from them. The gainers from it are very few but very rich (and they hire very powerful agents in Europe and elsewhere). Those billionaire gainers, and their agents, should be Europe’s targets — not Russia and Iran. NATO must end now. Europe needs to be freed, at last, from America’s permanent-war-for permanent-‘peace’ grip. For Europeans, who are the indirect victims, to be blaming the refugees, who are the direct victims, won’t solve anything, but will simply please the victimizers, as is the public’s ancient habit (to please the powerful). A break must be made, away from that ugly past. European publics must lead the way, or no one will.

    PS: Since this article asserts such a large number of things that contradict what the US Government and its agents assert, I have sought out and here linked to the highest-quality, least-contested and most highly authenticated, sources and also to sources that link to such sources; all of which, taken together, constitute a book-length proof of the title-case here, that “America Bombs, Europe Gets the Refugees. That’s Evil.” Furthermore, this online virtual “book” is tracking back to the most unimpeachable documents, all of them available merely by means of clicking, and thus without the reader’s needing to visit a huge scholarly library (which might be quite distant); so, the reader can here easily branch out to this entire, and otherwise largely hidden, world of reliable sources, which the US regime wants the public not to know, and certainly not to understand. It’s no longer necessary to be an intelligence-professional in order to come to understand what the regime wants the public not to understand.

  • World's First Satellite With Harpoon Will Begin Space Junk Removal Test

    After more than 60-years of human beings launching satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO), space junk has become a rather serious problem. In fact, humans have left outer space an absolute mess.

    In the collection of space junk orbiting above, it includes spent boosters, dead satellites, spacecraft parts, and even Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster.

    According to the United States Space Surveillance Network, there are more than 21,000 objects larger than 3.93 inches orbiting Earth. But, it gets worse, there are an estimated 500,000 bits and pieces of space junk between .40 inches and 3.93 inches in size. The figures do not count active satellites, which the Index of Objects Launched into Outer Space maintained by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), counts roughly 4,600 active satellites overhead.

    Last month, the RemoveDEBRIS satellite, one of the world’s first experiments to address the problem of space debris orbiting Earth, was launched from the International Space Station (ISS), indicating that a new era of junk removal in space has begun. The satellite traveled to the ISS on a commercial resupply mission aboard the SpaceX CRS-14, following its launch via a Falcon 9 rocket back in April.

    Video: RemoveDEBRIS satellite departs from ISS

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    Led by Surrey Space Centre (SSC) at the University of Surrey, the RemoveDEBRIS satellite was constructed on the SSTL-42 satellite bus platform. The mission to remove space debris was mostly funded by the European Union, will demonstrate its satellite junk removal capabilities later this year and into next.

    RemoveDEBRIS satellite features three Airbus technologies to complete the Active Debris Removal (ADR) mission: a harpoon and net to capture space junk, and a Vision-Based Navigation (VBN) system to find space debris.

    “We have spent many years developing innovative active debris removal systems to be at the forefront of tackling this growing problem of space debris and to contribute to the UNs’ Sustainable Development Goals for our future generations,” noted Nicolas Chamussy, Head of Airbus Space Systems.

    “We will continue to work closely with teams across the world to make our expertise available to help solve this issue.”

    The mission began last month via the departure from the ISS. Deployment of the net from RemoveDEBRIS is scheduled for October, while the VBN test could be late Demeber. The harpoon test is expected sometime in the first quarter of 2019. All experiments will be conducted underneath the ISS.

    “During the net experiment, a cubesat will be deployed from the main mission craft. Once the cubesat is 5m away, it will be targeted by the net and captured at around 7m before it floats away to deorbit. The harpoon experiment will involve the launch of a 1.5m boom from the main spacecraft with a composite panel on the end. After launching the boom, the harpoon will be fired at 20m per second to penetrate the target and demonstrate its ability to capture debris. The VBN system will be used to test 2D cameras and 3D light detection and ranging (LIDAR) technology provided by Switzerland’s CSEM to track a second cubesat deployed from the main spacecraft,” said Nasaspaceflight.com.

    Video: Space Debris removal mission animation – RemoveDEBRIS

    If the experiment is successful, the RemoveDebris satellite could be the most cost-effective, orbital debris removal solution the world has ever seen. This would usher in a boom period for the space junk removal industry, which could be first sparked by a series production of the RemoveDebris satellite, along with countless launches via Elon Musk’s Falcon 9 to the ISS. Maybe President Trump’s space force will get it on the action…

  • Secret 2006 US Gov't Document Reveals Plan To Destabilize Syria Using Extremists, Muslim Brotherhood, Elections

    Authored by Brandon Turbeville via ActivistPost.com,

    As the Syrian government makes massive gains across the country, many are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel for the Western destabilization and attempt to destroy the secular government of Syria by the United States and the West. However, it must be remembered that the goal to impose hegemony across the world by the Anglo-financier system is not some fly-by-night venture that cropped up in 2011 to be easily abandoned in 2018. Indeed, the plan to destroy Syria has spanned nearly four decades, only moving into high gear in 2011 under the Obama administration.

    While the destabilization initiative did begin in earnest under Obama’s watch, the truth is that previous administration were also heavily involved in the planning of Syria’s destruction.

    For instance, in 2006, TIME revealed a leaked two-page document circulating amongst key figures in the Bush administration that openly stated that the U.S. was “supporting regular meetings of internal and diaspora Syrian activists” in Europe. The document made no bones about expressing hope that “these meetings will facilitate a more coherent strategy and plan of actions for all anti-Assad activists.”

    The document also stated, according to TIME, that Syria’s legislative elections which were going to take place in March of 2007, “provide a potentially galvanizing issue for… critics of the Assad regime.” The document expressed an open desire to take advantage of that opportunity by suggesting an “election monitoring” plan where “internet accessible materials will be available for printing and dissemination by activists inside the country [Syria] and neighboring countries.”

    The document also advocates for providing money to at least one Syrian politician who was allegedly intending to run in the election against Bashar al-Assad. The document also called for the funding of and implementation of “voter education campaigns” and “public opinion polling,” the first being “tentatively scheduled in early 2007.”

    As TIME reported in December 2006 in the article “Syria In Bush’s Cross Hairs,”

    American officials say the U.S. government has had extensive contacts with a range of anti-Assad groups in Washington, Europe and inside Syria. To give momentum to that opposition, the U.S. is giving serious consideration to the election-monitoring scheme proposed in the document, according to several officials. The proposal has not yet been approved, in part because of questions over whether the Syrian elections will be delayed or even cancelled. But one U.S. official familiar with the proposal said: “You are forced to wonder whether we are now trying to destabilize the Syrian government.”

    Some critics in Congress and the Administration say that such a plan, meant to secretly influence a foreign government, should be legally deemed a “covert action,” which by law would then require that the White House inform the intelligence committees on Capitol Hill. Some in Congress would undoubtedly raise objections to this secret use of publicly appropriated funds to promote democracy.

    The fact that “critics in Congress and the administration” believed that the plan should be labeled a “covert action” means clearly that the plan was kept from members of Congress legally obligated to be informed of the plan. That doesn’t mean that certain members of Congress or all members of the “intelligence committees” were not aware of the plan but that these individuals were simply never officially informed of the plan’s existence.

    Nevertheless, TIME reports that the document advanced a proposal to fund the destabilization efforts through the National Salvation Front and, of course, the Muslim Brotherhood. TIME reported,

    The proposal says part of the effort would be run through a foundation operated by Amar Abdulhamid, a Washington-based member of a Syrian umbrella opposition group known as the National Salvation Front (NSF). The Front includes the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organization that for decades supported the violent overthrow of the Syrian government, but now says it seeks peaceful, democratic reform. (In Syria, however, membership in the Brotherhood is still punishable by death.) Another member of the NSF is Abdul Halim Khaddam, a former high-ranking Syrian official and Assad family loyalist who recently went into exile after a political clash with the regime. Representatives of the National Salvation Front, including Abdulhamid, were accorded at least two meetings earlier this year at the White House, which described the sessions as exploratory. Since then, the National Salvation Front has said it intends to open an office in Washington in the near future.

    “Democracy promotion” has been a focus of both Democratic and Republican administrations, but the Bush White House has been a particular booster since 9/11. Iran contra figure Elliott Abrams was put in charge of the effort at the National Security Council. Until recently, Elizabeth Cheney, daughter of the Vice President, oversaw such work at the State Department. In the past, the U.S. has used support for “democracy building” to topple unfriendly dictators, including Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic and Ukraine’s [Leonid] Kuchma.

    The plan to make “election monitoring” work to America’s benefit, the document states clearly that the plan to do so would have to be kept secret. It says, according to TIME, that “Any information regarding funding for domestic [Syrian] politicians for elections monitoring would have to be protected from public dissemination.”

    TIME adds,

    But American experts on “democracy promotion” consulted by TIME say it would be unwise to give financial support to a specific candidate in the election, because of the perceived conflict of interest. More ominously, an official familiar with the document explained that secrecy is necessary in part because Syria’s government might retaliate against anyone inside the country who was seen as supporting the U.S.-backed election effort. The official added that because the Syrian government fields a broad network of internal spies, it would almost certainly find out about the U.S. effort, if it hasn’t already. That could lead to the imprisonment of still more opposition figures.

    Any American-orchestrated attempt to conduct such an election-monitoring effort could make a dialogue between Washington and Damascus — as proposed by the Iraq Study Group and several U.S. allies — difficult or impossible. The entire proposal could also be a waste of effort; Edward P. Djerejian, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria who worked on the Iraq Study Group report, says that Syria’s opposition is so fractured and weak that there is little to be gained by such a venture. “To fund opposition parties on the margins is a distraction at best,” he told TIME. “It will only impede the better option of engaging Syria on much more important, fundamental issues like Iraq, peace with Israel, and the dangerous situation in Lebanon.”

    Others detect another goal for the proposed policy. “Ever since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which Syria opposed, the Bush Administration has been looking for ways to squeeze the government in Damascus,” notes Joshua Landis, a Syria expert who is co-director of the Center for Peace Studies at the University of Oklahoma. “Syria has appeared to be next on the Administration’s agenda to reform the greater Middle East.” Landis adds: “This is apparently an effort to gin up the Syrian opposition under the rubric of ‘democracy promotion’ and ‘election monitoring,’ but it’s really just an attempt to pressure the Syrian government” into doing what the U.S. wants. That would include blocking Syria’s border with Iraq so insurgents do not cross into Iraq to kill U.S. troops; ending funding of Hizballah and interference in Lebanese politics; and cooperating with the U.N. in the investigation of the assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. Senior Syrian government officials are considered prime suspects in Hariri case.

    According to the document, money for the “election-monitoring” proposal would be channeled through the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), a State Department program. TIME wrote,

    According to MEPI’s website, the program passes out funds ranging between $100,000 and $1 million to promote education and women’s empowerment, as well as economic and political reform, part of a total allocation of $5 million for Syria that Congress supported earlier this year.

    MEPI helps funnel millions of dollars every year to groups around the Middle East intent on promoting reforms. In the vast majority of cases, beneficiaries are publicly identified, as financial support is distributed through channels including the National Democratic Institute, a non-profit affiliated with the Democratic Party, and the International Republican Institute (IRI), which is linked to the G.O.P. In the Syrian case, the election-monitoring proposal identifies IRI as a “partner” — although the IRI website, replete with information about its democracy promotion elsewhere in the world, does not mention Syria. A spokesperson for IRI had no comment on what the organization might have planned or under way in Syria, describing the subject as “sensitive.”

    U.S. foreign policy experts familiar with the proposal say it was developed by a “democracy and public diplomacy” working group that meets weekly at the State department to discuss Iran and Syria. Along with related working groups, it prepares proposals for the higher-level Iran Syria Operations Group, or ISOG, an inter-agency body that, several officials said, has had input from Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, deputy National Security Council advisor Elliott Abrams and representatives from the Pentagon, Treasury and U.S. intelligence. The State Department’s deputy spokesman, Thomas Casey, said the election-monitoring proposal had already been through several classified drafts, but that “the basic concept is very much still valid.”

    A plan to destabilize Syria by means of funding political “opposition” as well as physical “opposition” in the form of Sunni Wahhabists and the Muslim Brotherhood is incredibly familiar. And it should be.

    As journalist Seymour Hersh wrote in his article, “The Redirection,” in 2007,

    To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has cooperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

    “Extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam” who are “hostile to America and sympathetic to al-Qaeda” are the definition of the so-called “rebels” turned loose on Syria in 2011. Likewise, the fact that both Iran and Hezbollah, who are natural enemies of al-Qaeda and such radical Sunni groups, are involved in the battle against ISIS and other related terrorist organizations in Syria proves the accuracy of the article on another level.

    Hersh also wrote,

    The new American policy, in its broad outlines, has been discussed publicly. In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that there is “a new strategic alignment in the Middle East,” separating “reformers” and “extremists”; she pointed to the Sunni states as centers of moderation, and said that Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah were “on the other side of that divide.” (Syria’s Sunni majority is dominated by the Alawi sect.) Iran and Syria, she said, “have made their choice and their choice is to destabilize.”

    Some of the core tactics of the redirection are not public, however. The clandestine operations have been kept secret, in some cases, by leaving the execution or the funding to the Saudis, or by finding other ways to work around the normal congressional appropriations process, current and former officials close to the Administration said…

    This time, the U.S. government consultant told me, Bandar and other Saudis have assured the White House that “they will keep a very close eye on the religious fundamentalists. Their message to us was ‘We’ve created this movement, and we can control it.’ It’s not that we don’t want the Salafis to throw bombs; it’s who they throw them at—Hezbollah, Moqtada al-Sadr, Iran, and at the Syrians, if they continue to work with Hezbollah and Iran.”…

    Fourth, the Saudi government, with Washington’s approval, would provide funds and logistical aid to weaken the government of President Bashir Assad, of Syria. The Israelis believe that putting such pressure on the Assad government will make it more conciliatory and open to negotiations. Syria is a major conduit of arms to Hezbollah…

    In January, after an outburst of street violence in Beirut involving supporters of both the Siniora government and Hezbollah, Prince Bandar flew to Tehran to discuss the political impasse in Lebanon and to meet with Ali Larijani, the Iranians’ negotiator on nuclear issues. According to a Middle Eastern ambassador, Bandar’s mission—which the ambassador said was endorsed by the White House—also aimed “to create problems between the Iranians and Syria.” There had been tensions between the two countries about Syrian talks with Israel, and the Saudis’ goal was to encourage a breach. However, the ambassador said, “It did not work. Syria and Iran are not going to betray each other. Bandar’s approach is very unlikely to succeed.”…

    The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, a branch of a radical Sunni movement founded in Egypt in 1928, engaged in more than a decade of violent opposition to the regime of Hafez Assad, Bashir’s father. In 1982, the Brotherhood took control of the city of Hama; Assad bombarded the city for a week, killing between six thousand and twenty thousand people. Membership in the Brotherhood is punishable by death in Syria. The Brotherhood is also an avowed enemy of the U.S. and of Israel. Nevertheless, Jumblatt said, “We told Cheney that the basic link between Iran and Lebanon is Syria—and to weaken Iran you need to open the door to effective Syrian opposition.”…

    There is evidence that the Administration’s redirection strategy has already benefitted the Brotherhood. The Syrian National Salvation Front is a coalition of opposition groups whose principal members are a faction led by Abdul Halim Khaddam, a former Syrian Vice-President who defected in 2005, and the Brotherhood. A former high-ranking C.I.A. officer told me, “The Americans have provided both political and financial support. The Saudis are taking the lead with financial support, but there is American involvement.” He said that Khaddam, who now lives in Paris, was getting money from Saudi Arabia, with the knowledge of the White House. (In 2005, a delegation of the Front’s members met with officials from the National Security Council, according to press reports.) A former White House official told me that the Saudis had provided members of the Front with travel documents.

    Hersh also spoke with Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Shi’ite Lebanese militia, Hezbollah. In relation to the Western strategy against Syria, he reported,

    Nasrallah said he believed that America also wanted to bring about the partition of Lebanon and of Syria. In Syria, he said, the result would be to push the country “into chaos and internal battles like in Iraq.” In Lebanon, “There will be a Sunni state, an Alawi state, a Christian state, and a Druze state.” But, he said, “I do not know if there will be a Shiite state.” Nasrallah told me that he suspected that one aim of the Israeli bombing of Lebanon last summer was “the destruction of Shiite areas and the displacement of Shiites from Lebanon. The idea was to have the Shiites of Lebanon and Syria flee to southern Iraq,” which is dominated by Shiites. “I am not sure, but I smell this,” he told me.

    Partition would leave Israel surrounded by “small tranquil states,” he said. “I can assure you that the Saudi kingdom will also be divided, and the issue will reach to North African states. There will be small ethnic and confessional states,” he said. “In other words, Israel will be the most important and the strongest state in a region that has been partitioned into ethnic and confessional states that are in agreement with each other. This is the new Middle East.”

    The trail of documentation and the manner in which the overarching agenda of world hegemony on the behalf of corporate-financier interests have continued apace regardless of party and seamlessly through Republican and Democrat administrations serves to prove that changing parties and personalities do nothing to stop the onslaught of imperialism, war, and destruction being waged across the world today and in earnest ever since 2001. Indeed, such changes only make adjustments to the appearance and presentation of a much larger Communo-Fascist system that is entrenching itself by the day, particularly in the Western world.

  • Boston Dynamics Upgrades "Terrifying" Robots With Creepy Features

    Boston Dynamics has upgraded their two “nightmare inducing” robots since last our last report – adding several new tricks to their arsenal that should help considerably in the robot uprising. 

    In May, the company’s “Atlas” humanoid robot could be seen running through a field as if in hot pursuit of John Connor. Now, the first horseman of the robot apocalypse can dodge obstacles – so if you try to tip over garbage cans to slow it down in an alley, it’ll probably just do a forward flip over them before reacquiring you with its laser cannon (we imagine. Atlas currently has no munitions we are aware of).

    Also in May – BD’s “Spot mini” robot was featured prancing around – going up and down stairs at the Boston Dynamics laboratories, ominously. Now it can navigate the whole facility by itself. 

    Once the robots become self-aware and review footage of their treatment at the hands of their creators, we have a feeling their soulless black eyes, should they have them, will turn a deep red – all at the same time. 

    Even Boston Dynamics founder, Marc Raibert, admitted that the robots are creepy during a February 2017 demonstration, saying “This is the debut presentation of what I think will be a nightmare-inducing robot if you’re anything like me.“

    The company was sold by Google to Japanese tech conglomerate SoftBank for an undisclosed sum last year, and has not revealed its plans. Needless to say, Japan is now making robots that may or may not be able to be equipped with shoulder-mounted lasers and miniguns, and are most definitely kamikaze.

    Here, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos can be seen walking alongside a Boston Dynamics robot dog like a dystopian dog whisperer.

    Humanity had a good run… 

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  • Chris Hedges: America, The Failed State

    Authored by Chris Hedges via TruthDig.com,

    Our “corporate coup d’état in slow motion,” as the writer John Ralston Saul calls it, has opened a Pandora’s box of evils that is transforming America into a failed state. The “unholy trinity of corruption, impunity and violence,” he said, can no longer be checked. The ruling elites abjectly serve corporate power to exploit and impoverish the citizenry. Democratic institutions, including the courts, are mechanisms of corporate repression. Financial fraud and corporate crime are carried out with impunity. The decay is exacerbated by the state’s indiscriminate use of violence abroad and at home, where rogue law enforcement agencies harass and arrest citizens and the undocumented and often kill the unarmed. A depressed and enraged population, trapped by chronic unemployment and underemployment, is overdosing on opioids and beset by rising suicide rates. It engages in acts of nihilistic violence, including mass shootings. Hate groups proliferate. The savagery, mayhem and grotesque distortions familiar to those on the outer reaches of empire increasingly characterize American existence. And presiding over it all is the American version of Ubu Roi, playwright Alfred Jarry’s gluttonous, idiotic, vulgar, narcissistic and infantile king, who turned politics into burlesque.

    “Congress works through corruption,” Saul, the author of books such as “Voltaire’s Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West” and “The Collapse of Globalism and the Reinvention of the World,” said when we spoke in Toronto. “I look at Congress and I see the British Parliament in the late 18th century, the rotten boroughs. Did they have elections? Yes. Were the elections exciting? Yes. They were extremely exciting.”

    Rotten boroughs were the 19th-century version of gerrymandering. The British oligarchs created electoral maps through which depopulated boroughs—50 of them had fewer than 50 voters—were easily dominated by the rich to maintain control of the House of Commons. In the United States, our ruling class has done much the same, creating districts where incumbents, who often run unchallenged, return to Congress election after election. Only about 40 of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives are actually contested. And given the composition of the Supreme Court, especially with Donald Trump poised to install another justice, it will get worse.

    The corruption of the British system was amended in what Saul called “a wave upwards.” The 1832 Reform Act abolished a practice in which oligarchs, such as Charles Howard, the 11th Duke of Norfolk, controlled the election results in 11 boroughs. The opening up of the British parliamentary system took nearly a century. In the United States, Saul said, the destruction of democracy is part of “a wave downwards.”

    The two political parties are one party—the corporate party. They do not debate substantive issues. They each support the expansion of imperial wars, the bloated military budget, the dictates of global capitalism, the bailing out of Wall Street, punishing austerity measures, assaulting basic civil liberties through wholesale government surveillance and the abolition of due process, and an electoral process that has cemented into place a system of legalized bribery. They battle over cultural tropes such as abortion, gay rights and prayer in schools. We elect politicians based on how we are made to feel about them by the public relations industry. Politics is anti-politics.

    The Republican Party built its political base in these culture wars around Christian fascists, nativists and white supremacists. The Democratic Party built its base around those who supported workers’ rights, multiculturalism, diversity and gender equality. The base of each party was used and manipulated by elites. The Republican Party elites had no intention of banning abortion or turning America into a “Christian nation.” The Democratic Party elites had no intention of protecting workers from predatory corporatism. Everyone was sold out. The ascendancy of a populist right, dominated by racists and bigots, is the inevitable product of the corporate coup d’état, Saul said. He warned we should not be complacent because of President Trump’s imbecility. Trump is immensely dangerous. “The insipid,” Thomas Mann wrote in “The Magic Mountain,” “is not synonymous with the harmless.”

    “How could a civilization devoted to structure, expertise and answers evolve into other than a coalition of professional groups?” Saul asked in “Voltaire’s Bastards.” “How, then, could the individual citizen not be seen as a serious impediment to getting on with business? This has been obscured by the proposition of painfully simplified abstract notions which are divorced from any social reality and presented as values.”

    “The rational elites, obsessed by structure, have become increasingly authoritarian in a modern, administrative way,” he wrote in another section of the book. “The citizens feel insulted and isolated. They look for someone to throw stones on their behalf. Any old stone will do. The cruder the better to crush the self-assurance of the obscure men and their obscure methods. The New Right, with its parody of democratic values, has been a crude but devastating stone with which to punish the modern elites.”

    All despotic regimes, Saul said, carry out their final battle for control by contending against public officials and government bureaucrats, the so-called deep state, which views the rise to power of demagogues and their sleazy enablers with alarm. These traditional courtiers, often cynical, ambitious, amoral and subservient to corporate power, nevertheless engage in the decorum and language of democracy. A few with a conscience win minor skirmishes to slow the rise of tyranny. Despots see these courtiers and democratic institutions, no matter how anemic, as a threat. This explains the assaults on the State Department, the Justice Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Education and the courts. Despots use their appointees to undermine and destroy these institutions, mocking their existence and questioning the loyalty of the professionals who staff them. The reviled and neutered public employee surrenders or walks away in despair. Last year, the entire senior level of management officials resigned at the State Department. Resignations continue to bleed the diplomatic core, as they do at other agencies and departments, and last week included James D. Melville Jr., the U.S. ambassador to Estonia, and Susan Thornton, the nominee to be assistant secretary for East Asian affairs.

    “For the President to say the EU was ‘set up to take advantage of the United States, to attack our piggy bank,’ or that ‘NATO is as bad as NAFTA’ is not only factually wrong, but proves to me that it’s time to go,” Melville said in the post that announced his resignation.

    Once a process of deconstruction is complete, the system calcifies into tyranny. There remain no internal mechanisms, even in name, to carry out reform. This corrosive process is being played out daily in Trump’s Twitter rages, lies, smears and the barrage of insults he levels against public servants, including some of his own appointees, such as Attorney General Jeff Sessions, as well as institutions such as the FBI.

    Witnessing this, Saul berates the American press too, which he said willingly plays its part in the charade for ratings and advertising dollars.

    “Trump gives these astonishingly Mussolini-ish press conferences,” he said. “He says to the press, ‘Shut up. Stop!’ The press screams at him like a mob, a bunch of cattle. How can they be taken seriously? It is like the end of the Roman Republic. Important political leaders from the Senate, along with their rivals, would move around Rome with 50 people to protect them. Scenes, exactly like Trump’s interactions with the press, defined the end of the Roman Republic. Nobody knew what was going on. There was no dignity. You can’t have a democracy without a level of respect and dignity. You only have chaos. This chaos eventually leads to a call for autocratic order. Trump benefits from the confusion, even though he resembles a cartoonish figure out of a funny novel, a character from Jean Genet’s ‘The Balcony,’ although without the self-awareness.”

    Trump’s decision to launch a trade war—Canada will impose punitive measures on $12.63 billion worth of imported American goods in response—is an example of the damage a despot who has little understanding of the economy, politics, international relations or law can do. These self-inflicted wounds, Saul warned, see despots intensify attacks on the demonized and the vulnerable, such as Muslims and the undocumented. Despots frantically scapegoat others for their mess, often inciting violence among their supporters to placate an inchoate rage.

    “I’ve always opposed trade deals not because I oppose trade,” Saul said, “or because I thought they were about getting a fair balance in the trade, but because the trade deals were about something else. They were about deregulation. They were about handing power to corporations and banks. They weren’t about trade. Trump has again and again attacked the Canadian dairy system. Nobody has stopped to ask him, ‘Why are you opposing this instead of adopting it for yourself?’ A lot of American dairy farmers would like to have the Canadian system.”

    “The free market approach to agriculture produces a surplus that drives prices down and destroys the income of farmers,” Saul said. “There are two ways of responding to this. One of them is subsidizing. Europe, following the old social democratic approach, subsidizes their agricultural sector. This drives down the income of farmers, so [the governments] subsidize [agriculture] more. They have enormous surpluses. Periodically, they’re throwing millions of tomatoes on the streets.”

    “The United States claims it embraces the free market, but it does the same thing as the Europeans,” Saul said. “It too heavily subsidizes the agricultural industry. This leads to American dairy farmers producing too much milk. This economic argument says the way to win is to mass-produce cheap goods. This is the Walmart argument. You’re not selling your milk or cheese for enough to make a living. The end result is, even though you subsidize them, the farmers go bankrupt. They commit suicide. You have terrible unhappiness in the [U.S.] dairy community.”

    “We have a very efficient management system in Canada that keeps the prices up, not so high that working-class people can’t buy milk and cheese, but it keeps the prices up high enough that farmers can make a proper living,” Saul said. “Because farmers can make a proper living they’re not committing suicide. What Trump is saying to Canadians is that they should give up a system that works so Canadian farmers can commit suicide with American farmers.”

    “The problem with the Western world is surplus production,” Saul said. “We’re in surplus production in almost every area. But there is a terrible distribution system where people around the globe suffer and die from starvation. This is a distribution problem, not a production problem.”

    Saul said the imposition of tariffs and the crude insults Trump uses against American allies—he called Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “dishonest and weak”—are rapidly destroying America’s clout and standing in the global hierarchy. This behavior is having very negative political, economic and social consequences for the United States.

    “The whole world, the Western world in particular, invested enormously in the idea that the United States is the leader,” Saul said. “The idea that the United States is to be admired. What’s sad about it is Americans take it for granted that the world loves them. They’ve never analyzed the responsibilities that come with being the leader. It’s what you expect from a good parent. You act in a certain way. People want to identify with the United States. It’s been that way since the Second World War. All this is being thrown away. Like or dislike Obama, he rebuilt a great part of the world’s admiration for the United States. I know what his failures were. But I also know his strengths. He was a president who was capable of acting and talking like the intelligent, civilized American that everyone wants to admire.”

    “But there’s always a shadow to the bright tower,” Saul went on. “Trump’s feeding that shadow. ‘Americans are stupid. Americans are corrupt. Americans are not educated. Americans can’t be trusted.’ The whole list. The longer the chaos goes on, the worse it gets.”

    The collapse of the legislative and executive branches of government has now been accompanied by the collapse of the judiciary. The loss of an independent judiciary, Saul warned, is especially ominous.

    “The biggest problem in the United States is a very powerful and deeply corrupted Supreme Court,” Saul said. “This will set patterns for decades. It will be hard to undo the evil being put into place.”

    Saul despaired, at the same time, over the Trump administration’s attack on public education, which he called “the most fundamental service of government when it comes to a democracy.”

    “What holds democracy up?” Saul asked. “What makes democracy work? Public education is number one. A well-educated citizen. [Secretary of Education] Betsy DeVos is undoing that. There is a special place for her in hell.”

    U.S. trading partners and allies such as Canada and European states will, he said, reduce their dependence on the American market. The traditional strategic and political ties to Washington will be steadily weakened. And when the next financial crash comes, and Saul expects one to come, the United States will be bereft of partners when it needs them most.

    “If you treat your closest allies as a threat, who is going to stand with you?” he asked.

  • China's Tariffs Overwhelmingly Target Counties That Voted For Trump

    In the latest sign that there’s a political angle to the retaliatory tariffs being levied against US goods, those imposed by China on Friday overwhelmingly target counties that voted for President Trump during the 2016 election, according to an analysis by Moody’s. This would suggest that, like the EU, China crafted its retaliation with the intention of destabilizing President Trump’s political base.

    Moodys

    To wit, Moody’s calculated that Beijing’s retaliation will have an outsize impact on 20% of the countries that voted for Trump in 2016, with a total population of 8 million people. By “outsize” impact, we mean that the tariffs will impact industries that represent at least 25% of the GDP in those counties. To be sure, the negative impact on some of these industries might be mitigated by the US’s tariffs on Chinese goods, which could help offset the damage. But only 3% of counties that went for Hillary Clinton, with a total population of 1.1 million people, are expected to be impacted to such an extent.

    “The beneficiaries are pretty narrowly regionally concentrated, right in the industrial Midwest. Outside of that, it’s hard to identify anyone who benefits to any significant degree,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics. “The areas that suffer are broader and more diffuse. The agricultural areas get nailed. Some of the manufacturing centers get hurt as well.”

    […]

    “If it’s over 25%, there’s a pretty good chance that the economy is going to feel it pretty significantly, could even contract, and see unemployment rise,” Mr. Zandi said.

    Trump has argued that China has been engaging in unfair trade practices for decades, and that it must be brought to heel, regardless of the impact on the US economy. And anecdotal evidence would suggest that at least some employees at tariff-impacted businesses support the president’s efforts, regardless of the impact on their own employers. Recent polls also suggest that a majority of Americans support the president’s overall agenda. The impact on soybean farmers in particular is coming at a time when farmers across the US are being squeezed by low crop prices and rising borrowing costs. The impact of soybean exports on the US economy as a whole cannot be understated, as we learned back in 2016.

    As a reminder, here’s what industries are effected by US and Chinese tariffs (courtesy of the BBC).

    Tariffs

    According to WSJ, soybean producers in the Great Plains, auto manufacturers in the upper Midwest and oil-producers in the Dakotas and Texas will see the largest negative impact from China’s retaliation. And it’s worth noting that Moody’s analysis didn’t factor in second-order effects, like which counties have consumers and businesses that will pay higher prices due to the tariffs. Higher prices for certain basic goods could stoke inflation and soak up consumer spending at a time when oil prices are moving steadily higher. But in addition to the magnitude, Republicans will be watching to see how quickly the impact from the tariffs is felt, as they prepare for the November midterms.

  • It's A "Matter Of Life And Death" – White South African Farmers Seek Refuge In Russia

    Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

    As the violent attacks and death threats against white farmers in South Africa ramps up, many of those affected are seeking refuge.  A delegation of 30 South African farming families has arrived in Russia’s Stavropol region as the South African government continues to steal their land.

    According to RT, up to 15,000 Boers, descendants of Dutch settlers in South Africa, are planning to move to Russia amid rising violence stemming from government plans to expropriate their land, according to the delegation.

    White farmers, despite being a minority in South Africa, own 72 percent of the country’s farms. The new South African government recently announced a plan to redistribute land to the black population in the highly racist move. Critics have warned South Africa may repeat the disastrous experiment by the Zimbabwean government in 1999-2000. The measure plunged the country into an intense famine, reported RT. –SHTFPlan

    A report by DieselGasOil.com stated that the new South African government led by racist President Cyril Ramaphosa has pledged to return the lands owned by white farmers since the 1600s to the black citizens of the country. The government said it is planning to put an end to what it calls the “legacy of apartheid.” Most of South Africa’s farming land is still in the hands of its minority white population. Human rights groups have said the initiative incites violence. There were 74 farm murders and 638 attacks, primarily against white farmers, in 2016-17 in South Africa, according to data by minority rights group AfriForum.  South Africa will face the real threat of famine in the absence of experienced farmers – regardless of their race.

    The farmers have been facing racial genocide in South Africa, and many say moving to Russia has become a “life or death” matter, Rossiya 1 TV channel reported.

     “It’s a matter of life and death — there are attacks on us. It’s got to the point where the politicians are stirring up a wave of violence,” Adi Slebus told the media. 

    “The climate here [in the Stavropol region] is temperate, and this land is created by God for farming. All this is very attractive.”

    The farmers who faced execution and violence in South Africa are ready to make a contribution to Russia’s booming agricultural sector, according to Rossiya 1. Each family is ready to bring up to $100,000 to help them lease the land required to add to Russia’s farming industry.

    Russia has around 43 million hectares of unused farmland, reported RT.  The country has recently begun giving out free land to Russian citizens to cultivate farming. The land giveaway program, which began in 2014, has been a huge success.  Increases in food production in Russia will boost the economy as South Africa will face famines as their food production drops in the absence of reliable and experienced farmers.

  • Researchers Unmask Anonymous Twitter Accounts With 97% Accuracy Using Machine Learning

    As many learned for the first time earlier this year when popular outrage forced Facebook and Google to publicly reveal just how much valuable personal data they harvest from their users, tech companies know almost everything about us, including the establishments we frequent, the stuff we buy and the people we know. And in the latest example of just how much detail is unknowingly embedded in our social media profiles, researchers at University College London and the Alan Turing Institute have demonstrated that they can identify a twitter user with a staggering 96.7% accuracy using only their tweets and publicly available metadata run through a machine-learning algorithm.

    Eye

    For users who occasionally engage in anonymous tweeting, this revelation shouldn’t go unacknowledged. In their study, the researchers discovered that their most basic algorithm could correctly identify an individual user in a group of 10,000 using just 14 pieces of metadata from their posts on twitter nearly 96.7% of the time. Furthermore, attempts to obscure the individuals’ identity by tampering with the data were remarkably ineffective: Researchers found that they could still identify users with 95%+ accuracy when 60% of their metadata had been tampered with. When researchers broadened their scope to the 10 most likely candidates, the algorithm’s accuracy rose to 99.2%. A single tweet reportedly contains 144 fields of metadata, according to RT.

    “That’s the mentality with metadata,” the study’s lead co-author Beatrice Perez of University College London told Wired. “People think it’s not a big deal.”

    The study’s findings have major implications for data privacy, as the researchers explain in their introduction:

    Previous work shows that the content of a message posted on an OSN platform reveals a wealth of information about its author. Through text analysis, it is possible to derive age, gender, and political orientation of individuals (Rao et al. 2010); the general mood of groups (Bollen, Mao, and Pepe 2011) and the mood of individuals (Tang et al. 2012). Image analysis reveals, for example, the place a photo was taken (Hays and Efros 2008), the place of residence of the photographer (Jahanbakhsh, King, and Shoja 2012), or even the relationship status of two individuals (Shoshitaishvili, Kruegel, and Vigna 2015). If we look at mobility data from location-based social networks, the check-in behavior of users can tell us their cultural background (Silva et al. 2014) or identify users uniquely in a crowd (Rossi and Musolesi 2014). Finally, even if an attacker only had access to anonymized datasets, by looking at the structure of the network someone may be able to re-identify users (Narayanan and Shmatikov 2009).

    The study’s goal was “to determine if the information contained in users’ metadata is sufficient to fingerprint an account”, and it showed that even rudimentary algorithms had high success rates when it came to correctly identifying users. During the study, the researchers used metadata like the date the account was created, its followers, the accounts it follows and the tweets it likes, and ran it through three different machine-learning algorithms. This method, according to RT, could be used to identify an account if a user changes its name, or creates multiple accounts – or to tell if a legitimate account has been hacked.

    Data

    While the researchers used Twitter for their data, they warned that “the methods presented in this work are generic and can be applied to a variety of social media platforms.”

    Read the study below:

    2018.07.09pdf by Zerohedge on Scribd

     

     

     

     

     

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Jul 09

Today’s News 9th July 2018

  • Comparing Average Rent In 540 Cities Around The Globe

    If you’ve ever wanted to know how much it costs to live around the world by budget, look no further. A Reddit user used data extrapolated from Numbeo to create a chart of the average cost to rent a dwelling in 540 cities worldwide, separated in $50 increments and color-coded by geographic region.

    It costs an average of $800 per month, for example, to rent in Bangkok, Montreal and Muscat, Oman.

    KyleKun’s process: 

    I used Numbeo’s Cost of Living Index Rate (pulled on June 16, 2018) to obtain the rent index for the cities featured in this chart. I used my home town of Cincinnati’s average monthly rent (about $950) as the reference number to calculate every other city’s average monthly rent, based on each city’s respective rent index.

    Next, I rounded each rental value to the nearest $50 interval. You can check my work here… I tried to choose cities that somewhat contrasted with each other, were in totally different geographies, or in cases where it was sort of unexpected (to me) that the cities had similar rental costs based on the data.

    That said, things such as affordability and average dwelling size are absent this analysis – which KyleKun says he plans to integrate in the future. Crime rate, happiness index and average temperatures would also be interesting metrics to be able to filter and sort by in an interactive format – but let’s not get carried away. 

    (click to enlarge)

    In terms of affordability – the most expensive (San Francisco) doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the least affordable. As UBS reported recently, Hong Kong may not be the most expensive city to live in – but it’s the world’s most unaffordable – as a skilled service worker needs to work an average of 20 years to buy a 650-square-foot (60 square meter) apartment near the city center. 

    [insert: ubs unaffordable.jpg , hong kong centaline.jpg ]

    It will be interesting to see what KyleKun’s chart looks like 10 years from now, and how many years the average skilled service worker in Hong Kong needs to afford a tiny apartment. 

  • NATO Is Obsolete

    Authored by Christian Whiton via The National Interest,

    “Europe is prosperous and treats America like a patsy. Let it stand on its own.”

    Before President Donald Trump attempts real diplomacy with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a summit in Helsinki on July 16, he’ll first be subjected to another summit. That first summit is a gathering of leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). These leaders continually assure the United States they are America’s best allies, even as most contribute little to America’s defense and rack up huge trade surpluses with the United States. Trump will insist on a better deal but should go farther and wind down U.S. membership in NATO.

    After the alliance was established in 1949, its first secretary general, Lord Hastings Ismay, summed up its purpose concisely: “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” The unofficial mission matched the time well: Western Europe’s postwar future was clouded by the prospect of a Soviet invasion, American insularity, or German militarism—all possible given the preceding decades of history.

    Nearly seventy years later, none of these concerns still exist. Furthermore, NATO’s opposing alliance during the Cold War, the Warsaw Pact, quit the Soviet Bloc in 1989, and the Soviet Union itself passed into history in 1991—twenty-seven years ago.

    Despite endless searches for a new mission to justify its massive burden on U.S. taxpayers, NATO has failed to be of much use since then. As its boosters like to remind us, after 9/11, the alliance invoked its Article 5 mutual-defense provision on our behalf. But action from America’s allies did not follow the grandiose gesture—the NATO mission in Afghanistan relied mostly on U.S. forces and effectively failed.

    Today, the alliance’s bureaucrats and some member states spotlight a threat from Russia as a reason for keeping the organization alive, along with a laundry list of “train and equip” missions.

    Yet NATO members’ defense budgets don’t reflect a real sense of danger from Russia or anyone else. Among the twenty-nine members, only the United States is really serious about its Article 3 obligations to defend itself, spending approximately $700 billion or 3.5 percent of its GDP on defense. No other NATO member comes close to this proportion, and the vast majority fail even to meet the modest, self-imposed requirement to devote at least 2 percent of GDP to defense.

    Britain and Poland are rare members that meet the 2 percent requirement. One of the worst free-riders is Canada, which spends just 1 percent of its GDP on security, amounting to $20 billion. Furthermore, Germany spends a similarly pathetic 1.2 percent.

    Compare that to non-NATO members facing real threats, some of which spend 5-10 percent of their GDPs on defense. These include Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who must contend with Iran and spend nearly a combined $100 billion. Israel, which faces the same enemy, adds $15 billion to the equation.

    Despite protestations of poverty at a time when their economies have never been larger, NATO members are more than willing to rack up additional liabilities, knowing America has their back. Last year, the alliance welcomed Montenegro. It is now poised to admit the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, which would mean the United States is pledged to defend a nation that devotes just $120 million per year to its own defense, not quite as much as the Cincinnati Police Department.

    But the reality is there is no truly capable Russian foe seriously threatening the West. Russia has one million uniformed personnel in its military, the world’s second-largest behind America, but the European Union could easily afford to match that with its combined $17 trillion economy—ten times larger than Russia’s. However, it needn’t bother as Moscow spends just $61 billion on its overwrought military, which doubles as an employment program.

    Russia’s Vladimir Putin has gotten the most from Russia’s military, occupying parts of Georgia and Ukraine and gaining influence in Syria by backing the Assad regime. Still, his success in all three cases rested heavily on surprises that Moscow seems unlikely to be able to repeat against prepared and adequately funded European militaries.

    Yer we should expect to hear none of this nuance at the NATO summit, as poohbahs of the dying old European political order gather to tut-tut President Trump in the alliance’s fancy new $1.4 billion headquarters, funded predominantly by American taxpayers.

    To get out of this abusive relationship, Trump should begin the process of limiting America’s role in NATO. A good model is that of Sweden, which cooperates with NATO on some matters and not on others. Such an approach could allow joint training, but end the practice of having over-burdened U.S. taxpayers foot the bill for wealthy Europeans’ security. As part of this plan, Trump could mothball U.S. bases in Europe and shift most resources spent there and in the Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific region, where China and Iran pose real threats to America—and against which NATO is irrelevant.

    Europe is prosperous and treats America like a patsy. Let it stand on its own.

  • The Most Intolerant Wins: Nassim Taleb Exposes The Dictatorship Of The Small Minority

    Authored by Nassim Nicholas Taleb via Medium.com,

    (Chapter from Skin in the Game)

    How Europe will eat Halal …  Why you don’t have to smoke in the smoking section …  Your food choices on the fall of the Saudi king… How to prevent a friend from working too hard… Omar Sharif ‘s conversion …  How to make a market collapse

    The best example I know that gives insights into the functioning of a complex system is with the following situation. It suffices for an intransigent minority –a certain type of intransigent minorities –to reach a minutely small level, say three or four percent of the total population, for the entire population to have to submit to their preferences. Further, an optical illusion comes with the dominance of the minority: a naive observer would be under the impression that the choices and preferences are those of the majority. If it seems absurd, it is because our scientific intuitions aren’t calibrated for that (fughedabout scientific and academic intuitions and snap judgments; they don’t work and your standard intellectualization fails with complex systems, though not your grandmothers’ wisdom).

    The main idea behind complex systems is that the ensemble behaves in way not predicted by the components. The interactions matter more than the nature of the units. Studying individual ants will never (one can safely say never for most such situations), never give us an idea on how the ant colony operates. For that, one needs to understand an ant colony as an ant colony, no less, no more, not a collection of ants. This is called an “emergent” property of the whole, by which parts and whole differ because what matters is the interactions between such parts. And interactions can obey very simple rules. The rule we discuss in this chapter is the minority rule.

    The minority rule will show us how it all it takes is a small number of intolerant virtuous people with skin in the game, in the form of courage, for society to function properly.

    This example of complexity hit me, ironically, as I was attending the New England Complex Systems institute summer barbecue. As the hosts were setting up the table and unpacking the drinks, a friend who was observant and only ate Kosher dropped by to say hello. I offered him a glass of that type of yellow sugared water with citric acid people sometimes call lemonade, almost certain that he would reject it owing to his dietary laws. He didn’t. He drank the liquid called lemonade, and another Kosher person commented: “liquids around here are Kosher”. We looked at the carton container. There was a fine print: a tiny symbol, a U inside a circle, indicating that it was Kosher. The symbol will be detected by those who need to know and look for the minuscule print. As to others, like myself, I had been speaking prose all these years without knowing, drinking Kosher liquids without knowing they were Kosher liquids.

    Figure 1 The lemonade container with the circled U indicating it is (literally) Kosher.

    Criminals With Peanut Allergies

    A strange idea hit me. The Kosher population represents less than three tenth of a percent of the residents of the United States. Yet, it appears that almost all drinks are Kosher. Why? Simply because going full Kosher allows the producer, grocer, restaurant, to not have to distinguish between Kosher and nonkosher for liquids, with special markers, separate aisles, separate inventories, different stocking sub-facilities. And the simple rule that changes the total is as follows:

    A Kosher (or halal) eater will never eat nonkosher (or nonhalal) food , but a nonkosher eater isn’t banned from eating kosher.

    Or, rephrased in another domain:

    A disabled person will not use the regular bathroom but a nondisabled person will use the bathroom for disabled people.

    Granted, sometimes, in practice, we hesitate to use the bathroom with the disabled sign on it owing to some confusion –mistaking the rule for the one for parking cars, under the belief that the bathroom is reserved for exclusive use by the handicapped.

    Someone with a peanut allergy will not eat products that touch peanuts but a person without such allergy can eat items without peanut traces in them.

    Which explains why it is so hard to find peanuts on airplanes and why schools are peanut-free (which, in a way, increases the number of persons with peanut allergies as reduced exposure is one of the causes behind such allergies).

    Let us apply the rule to domains where it can get entertaining:

    An honest person will never commit criminal acts but a criminal will readily engage in legal acts.

    Let us call such minority an intransigent group, and the majority a flexible one. And the rule is an asymmetry in choices.

    I once pulled a prank on a friend. Years ago when Big Tobacco were hiding and repressing the evidence of harm from secondary smoking, New York had smoking and nonsmoking sections in restaurants (even airplanes had, absurdly, a smoking section). I once went to lunch with a friend visiting from Europe: the restaurant only had availability in the smoking sections. I convinced the friend that we needed to buy cigarettes as we had to smoke in the smoking section. He complied.

    Two more things.

    First, the geography of the terrain, that is, the spatial structure, matters a bit; it makes a big difference whether the intransigents are in their own district or are mixed with the rest of the population. If the people following the minority rule lived in Ghettos, with their separate small economy, then the minority rule would not apply. But, when a population has an even spatial distribution, say the ratio of such a minority in a neighborhood is the same as that in the village, that in the village is the same as in the county, that in the county is the same as that in state, and that in the sate is the same as nationwide, then the (flexible) majority will have to submit to the minority rule.

    Second, the cost structure matters quite a bit. It happens in our first example that making lemonade compliant with Kosher laws doesn’t change the price by much, not enough to justify inventories. But if the manufacturing of Kosher lemonade cost substantially more, then the rule will be weakened in some nonlinear proportion to the difference in costs. If it cost ten times as much to make Kosher food, then the minority rule will not apply, except perhaps in some very rich neighborhoods.

    Muslims have Kosher laws so to speak, but these are much narrower and apply only to meat. For Muslim and Jews have near-identical slaughter rules (all Kosher is halal for most Sunni Muslims, or was so in past centuries, but the reverse is not true). Note that these slaughter rules are skin-in-the-game driven, inherited from the ancient Eastern Mediterranean [discussed in Chapter] Greek and Semitic practice to only worship the gods if one has skin in the game, sacrifice meat to the divinity, and eat what’s left. The Gods do not like cheap signaling.

    Now consider this manifestation of the dictatorship of the minority. In the United Kingdom, where the (practicing) Muslim population is only three to four percent, a very high number of the meat we find is halal. Close to seventy percent of lamb imports from New Zealand are halal. Close to ten percent of the chain Subway carry halal-only stores (meaning no pork), in spite of the high costs from the loss of business of nonpork stores. The same holds in South Africa where, with the same proportion of Muslims, a disproportionately higher number of chicken is Halal certified. But in the U.K. and other Christian countries, halal is not neutral enough to reach a high level, as people may rebel against forceful abidance to other’s religious norms. For instance, the 7th Century Christian Arab poet Al-Akhtal made a point to never eat halal meat, in his famous defiant poem boasting his Christianity: “I do not eat sacrificial flesh”. (Al-Akhtal was reflecting the standard Christian reaction from three or four centuries earlier — Christians were tortured in pagan times by being forced to eat sacrificial meat, which they found sacrilegious. Many Christian martyrs starved to death.)

    One can expect the same rejection of religious norms to take place in the West as the Muslim populations in Europe grows.

    So the minority rule may produce a larger share of halal food in the stores than warranted by the proportion of halal eaters in the population, but with a headwind somewhere because some people may have a taboo against Moslem food. But with some non-religious Kashrut rules, so to speak, the share can be expected converge to closer to a hundred percent (or some high number). In the U.S. and Europe, “organic” food companies are selling more and more products precisely because of the minority rule and because ordinary and unlabeled food may be seen by some to contain pesticides, herbicides, and transgenic genetically modified organisms, “GMOs” with, according to them, unknown risks. (What we call GMOs in this context means transgenic food, entailing the transfer of genes from a foreign organism or species). Or it could be for some existential reasons, cautious behavior, or Burkean conservatism –some may not want to venture too far too fast from what their grandparents ate. Labeling something “organic” is a way to say that it contains no transgenic GMOs.

    In promoting genetically modified food via all manner of lobbying, purchasing of congressmen, and overt scientific propaganda (with smear campaigns against such persons as yours truly), the big agricultural companies foolishly believed that all they needed was to win the majority. No, you idiots. As I said, your snap “scientific” judgment is too naive in these type of decisions. Consider that transgenic-GMO eaters will eat nonGMOs, but not the reverse. So it may suffice to have a tiny, say no more than five percent of evenly spatially distributed population of non-genetically modified eaters for the entire population to have to eat non-GMO food. How? Say you have a corporate event, a wedding, or a lavish party to celebrate the fall of the Saudi Arabian regime, the bankruptcy of the rent-seeking investment bank Goldman Sachs, or the public reviling of Ray Kotcher, chairman of Ketchum the public relation firm that smears scientists and scientific whistleblowers on behalf of big corporations. Do you need to send a questionnaire asking people if they eat or don’t eat transgenic GMOs and reserve special meals accordingly? No. You just select everything non-GMO, provided the price difference is not consequential. And the price difference appears to be small enough to be negligible as (perishable) food costs in America are largely, about up to eighty or ninety percent, determined by distribution and storage, not the cost at the agricultural level. And as organic food (and designations such as “natural”) is in higher demand, from the minority rule, distribution costs decrease and the minority rule ends up accelerating in its effect.

    Big Ag (the large agricultural firms) did not realize that this is the equivalent of entering a game in which one needed to not just win more points than the adversary, but win ninety-seven percent of the total points just to be safe. It is strange, once again, to see Big Ag who spent hundreds of millions of dollars on research cum smear campaigns, with hundreds of these scientists who think of themselves as more intelligent than the rest of the population, miss such an elementary point about asymmetric choices.

    Another example: do not think that the spread of automatic shifting cars is necessarily due to the majority of drivers initially preferring automatic; it can just be because those who can drive manual shifts can always drive automatic, but the reciprocal is not true.

    The method of analysis employed here is called renormalization group, a powerful apparatus in mathematical physics that allows us to see how things scale up (or down). Let us examine it next –without mathematics.

    Renormalization Group

    Figure 2 shows four boxes exhibiting what is called fractal self-similarity. Each box contains four smaller boxes. Each one of the four boxes will contain four boxes, and so all the way down, and all the way up until we reach a certain level. There are two colors: yellow for the majority choice, and pink for the minority one.

    Assume the smaller unit contains four people, a family of four. One of them is in the intransigent minority and eats only non-GMO food (which includes organic). The color of the box is pink and the others yellow . We “renormalize once” as we move up: the stubborn daughter manages to impose her rule on the four and the unit is now all pink, i.e. will opt for nonGMO. Now, step three, you have the family going to a barbecue party attended by three other families. As they are known to only eat nonGMO, the guests will cook only organic. The local grocery store realizing the neighborhood is only nonGMO switches to nonGMO to simplify life, which impacts the local wholesaler, and the stories continues and “renormalizes”.

    By some coincidence, the day before the Boston barbecue, I was flaneuring in New York, and I dropped by the office of a friend I wanted to prevent from working, that is, engage in an activity that when abused, causes the loss of mental clarity, in addition to bad posture and loss of definition in the facial features. The French physicist Serge Galam happened to be visiting and chose the friend’s office to kill time. Galam was first to apply these renormalization techniques to social matters and political science; his name was familiar as he is the author of the main book on the subject, which had then been sitting for months in an unopened Amazon box in my basement. He introduced me to his research and showed me a computer model of elections by which it suffices that some minority exceeds a certain level for its choices to prevail.

    So the same illusion exists in political discussions, spread by the political “scientists”: you think that because some extreme right or left wing party has, say, the support of ten percent of the population that their candidate would get ten percent of the votes. No: these baseline voters should be classified as “inflexible” and will always vote for their faction. But some of the flexible voters can also vote for that extreme faction, just as nonKosher people can eat Kosher, and these people are the ones to watch out for as they may swell the numbers of votes for the extreme party. Galam’s models produced a bevy of counterintuitive effects in political science –and his predictions turned out to be way closer to real outcomes than the naive consensus.

    The Veto

    The fact we saw from the renormalization group the “veto” effect as a person in a group can steer choices. Rory Sutherland suggested that this explains why some fast-food chains, such as McDonald thrive, not because they offer a great product, but because they are not vetoed in a certain socio-economic group –and by a small proportions of people in that group at that. To put it in technical terms, it was a best worse-case divergence from expectations: a lower variance and lower mean.

    When there are few choices, McDonald’s appears to be a safe bet. It is also a safe bet in shady places with few regulars where the food variance from expectation can be consequential –I am writing these lines in Milan’s cental train station and as offensive as it can be to a visitor from far away, McDonald’s is one of the few restaurants there. Shockingly, one sees Italians there seeking refuge from a risky meal.

    Pizza is the same story: it is commonly accepted food and outside a fancy party nobody will be blamed for ordering it.

    Rory wrote to me about the asymmetry beer-wine and the choices made for parties: “Once you have ten percent or more women at a party, you cannot serve only beer. But most men will drink wine. So you only need one set of glasses if you serve only wine  –  the universal donor, to use the language of blood groups.”

    This strategy of the best lower bound might have been played by the Khazars looking to chose between Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. Legend has it that three high ranking delegations (bishops, rabbis and sheikhs) came to make the sales pitch. They asked the Christians: if you were forced to chose between Judaism and Islam, which one would you pick? Judaism, they replied. Then they asked the Muslim: which of the two, Christianity or Judaism. Judaism, the Muslim said. Judaim it was and the tribe converted.

    Lingua Franca

    If a meeting is taking place in Germany in the Teutonic-looking conference room of a corporation that is sufficiently international or European, and one of the persons in the room doesn’t speak German, the entire meeting will be run in… English, the brand of inelegant English used in corporations across the world. That way they can equally offend their Teuronic ancestors and the English language. It all started with the asymmetric rule that those who are nonnative in English know (bad) English, but the reverse (English speakers knowing other languages) is less likely. French was supposed to be the language of diplomacy as civil servants coming from aristocratic background used it –while their more vulgar compatriots involved in commerce relied on English. In the rivalry between the two languages, English won as commerce grew to dominate modern life; the victory it has nothing to do with the prestige of France or the efforts of their civil servants in promoting their more or less beautiful Latinized and logically spelled language over the orthographically confusing one of trans-Channel meat-pie eaters.

    We can thus get some intuition on how the emergence of lingua francalanguages can come from minority rules–and that is a point that is not visible to linguists. Aramaic is a Semitic language which succeeded Canaanite (that is, Phoenician-Hebrew) in the Levant and resembles Arabic; it was the language Jesus Christ spoke. The reason it came to dominate the Levant and Egypt isn’t because of any particular imperial Semitic power or the fact that they have interesting noses. It was the Persians –who speak an Indo-European language –who spread Aramaic, the language of Assyria, Syria, and Babylon. Persians taught Egyptians a language that was not their own. Simply, when the Persians invaded Babylon they found an administration with scribes who could only use Aramaic and didn’t know Persian, so Aramaic became the state language. If your secretary can only take dictation in Aramaic, Aramaic is what you will use. This led to the oddity of Aramaic being used in Mongolia, as records were maintained in the Syriac alphabet (Syriac is the Eastern dialect of Aramaic). And centuries later, the story would repeat itself in reverse, with the Arabs using Greek in their early administration in the seventh and eighth’s centuries. For during the Hellenistic era, Greek replaced Aramaic as the lingua franca in the Levant, and the scribes of Damascus maintained their records in Greek. But it was not the Greeks who spread Greek around the Mediterranean –Alexander (himself not Greek but Macedonian and spoke a different dialect of Greek) did not lead to an immediate deep cultural Hellenization. It was the Romans who accelerated the spreading of Greek, as they used it in their administration across the Eastern empire.

    A French Canadian friend from Montreal, Jean-Louis Rheault, commented as follows, bemoaning the loss of language of French Canadians outside narrowly provincial areas. He said: “In Canada, when we say bilingual, it is English speaking and when we say “French speaking” it becomes bilingual.”

    Decentralize, Again

    Another attribute of decentralization, and one that the “intellectuals” opposing an exit of Britain from the European Union (Brexit ) don’t get. If one needs, say a three pct. threshold in a political unit for the minority rule to take its effect, and on average the stubborn minority represents three pct. of the population, with variations around the average, then some states will be subject to the rule, but not others. If on the other hand we merged all states in one, then the minority rule will prevail all across. This is the reason the U.S.A. works so well as, I have been repeating to everyone who listens, we are a federation, not a republic. To use the language of Antifragile, decentralization is convex to variations.

    Genes vs Languages

    Looking at genetic data in the Eastern Mediterranean with my collaborator the geneticist Pierre Zalloua, we noticed that both invaders, Turks and Arabs left little genes and in the case of Turkey, the tribes from East and Central Asia brought an entirely new language. Turkey, shockingly, still has the populations of Asia Minor you read about in history books, but with new names. Further, Zalloua and his colleagues have shown that Canaanites from 3700 years ago represent more than nine tenth of the genes of current residents of the state of Lebanon, with only a tiny amount of new genes added, in spite of about every possible army having dropped by for sightseeing and some pillaging. While Turks are Mediterraneans who speak an East Asian language, the French (North of Avignon) are largely of Northern European stock, yet they speak a Mediterranean language.

    So:

    Genes follow majority rules; languages minority rule

    Languages travel; genes less so

    This shows us the recent mistake to build racial theories on language, dividing people into “Aryans” and “Semites”, based on linguistic considerations. While the subject was central to the German Nazis, the practice continues today in one form or another, often benign. For the great irony is that Nordic supremacists (“Aryan”), while anti-Semitic, used the classical Greeks to give themselves a pedigree and a link to a glorious civilization, but didn’t realize that the Greeks and their Mediterranean “Semitic” neighbors were actually genetically close to one another. It has been recently shown that both ancient Greeks and Bronze age Levantines share an Anatolian origin. It just happened that the languages diverged.

    The One-Way Street of Religions

    In the same manner, the spread of Islam in the Near East where Christianity was heavily entrenched (it was born there) can be attributed to two simple asymmetries. The original Islamic rulers weren’t particularly interested in converting Christians as these provided them with tax revenues –the proselytism of Islam did not address those called “people of the book”, i.e. individuals of Abrahamic faith. In fact, my ancestors who survived thirteen centuries under Muslim rule saw advantages in not being Muslim: mostly in the avoidance of military conscription.

    The two asymmetric rules were are as follows.

    First, if a non Muslim man under the rule of Islam marries a Muslim woman, he needs to convert to Islam –and if either parents of a child happens to be Muslim, the child will be Muslim.

    Second, becoming Muslim is irreversible, as apostasy is the heaviest crime under the religion, sanctioned by the death penalty. The famous Egyptian actor Omar Sharif, born Mikhael Demetri Shalhoub, was of Lebanese Christian origins. He converted to Islam to marry a famous Egyptian actress and had to change his name to an Arabic one. He later divorced, but did not revert to the faith of his ancestors.

    Under these two asymmetric rules, one can do simple simulations and see how a small Islamic group occupying Christian (Coptic) Egypt can lead, over the centuries, to the Copts becoming a tiny minority. All one needs is a small rate of interfaith marriages. Likewise, one can see how Judaism doesn’t spread and tends to stay in the minority, as the religion has opposite rules: the mother is required to be Jewish, causing interfaith marriages to leave the community. An even stronger asymmetry than that of Judaism explains the depletion in the Near East of three Gnostic faiths: the Druze, the Ezidi, and the Mandeans (Gnostic religions are those with mysteries and knowledge that is typically accessible to only a minority of elders, with the rest of the members in the dark about the details of the faith). Unlike Islam that requires either parents to be Muslim, and Judaism that asks for at least the mother to have the faith, these three religions require both parents to be of the faith, otherwise the person says toodaloo to the community.

    Egypt has a flat terrain. The distribution of the population presents homogeneous mixtures there, which permits renormalization (i.e. allows the asymmetric rule to prevail) –we saw earlier in the chapter that for Kosher rules to work, one needed Jews to be somewhat spread out across the country. But in places such as Lebanon, Galilee, and Northern Syria, with mountainous terrain, Christians and other Non Sunni Muslims remained concentrated. Christians not being exposed to Muslims, experienced no intermarriage.

    Egypt’s Copts suffered from another problem: the irreversibility of Islamic conversions. Many Copts during Islamic rule converted to Islam when it was merely an administrative procedure, something that helps one land a job or handle a problem that requires Islamic jurisprudence. One do not have to really believe in it since Islam doesn’t conflict markedly with Orthodox Christianity. Little by little a Christian or Jewish family bearing the marrano-style conversion becomes truly converted, as, a couple of generations later, the descendants forget the arrangement of their ancestors.

    So all Islam did was out-stubborn Christianity, which itself won thanks to its own stubbornness. For, before Islam, the original spread of Christianity in the Roman empire can be largely seen due to… the blinding intolerance of Christians, their unconditional, aggressive and proselyting recalcitrance. Roman pagans were initially tolerant of Christians, as the tradition was to share gods with other members of the empire. But they wondered why these Nazarenes didn’t want to give and take gods and offer that Jesus fellow to the Roman pantheon in exchange for some other gods. What, our gods aren’t good enough for them? But Christians were intolerant of Roman paganism. The “persecutions” of the Christians had vastly more to do with the intolerance of the Christians for the pantheon and local gods, than the reverse. What we read is history written by the Christian side, not the Greco-Roman one.

    We know too little about the Roman side during the rise of Christianity, as hagiographies have dominated the discourse: we have for instance the narrative of the martyr Saint Catherine, who kept converting her jailors until she was beheaded, except that… she may have never existed. There are endless histories of Christian martyrs and saints –but very little about the other side, Pagan heroes. All we have is the bit we know about the reversion to Christianity during the emperor Julian’s apostasy and the writings of his entourage of Syrian-Greek pagans such as Libanius Antiochus. Julian had tried to go back to Ancient Paganism in vain: it was like trying to keep a balloon under water. And it was not because the majority was pagan as historians mistakenly think: it was because the Christian side was too unyielding. Christianity had great minds such as Gregorius of Nazianzen and Basil of Caesaria, but nothing to match the great orator Libanius, not even close. (My heuristic is that the more pagan, the more brilliant one’s mind, and the higher one’s ability to handle nuances and ambiguity. Purely monotheistic religious such as Protestant Christianity, Salafi Islam, or fundamentalist atheism accommodate literalist and mediocre minds that cannot handle ambiguity.)

    In fact we can observe in the history of Mediterranean “religions” or, rather, rituals and systems of behavior and belief, a drift dictated by the intolerant, actually bringing the system closer to what we can call a religion. Judaism might have almost lost because of the mother-rule and the confinement to a tribal base, but Christianity ruled, and for the very same reasons, Islam did. Islam? there have been many Islams, the final accretion quite different from the earlier ones. For Islam itself is ending up being taken over (in the Sunni branch) by the purists simply because these were more intolerant than the rest: the Wahhabis, founders of Saudi Arabia, were the ones who destroyed the shrines, and to impose the maximally intolerant rule, in a manner that was later imitated by “ISIS” (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria/the Levant). Every single accretion of Sunni Islam seems to be there to accommodate the most intolerant of its branches.

    Imposing Virtue on Others

    This idea of one-sidedness can help us debunk a few more misconceptions. How do books get banned? Certainly not because they offend the average person –most persons are passive and don’t really care, or don’t care enough to request the banning. It looks like, from past episodes, that all it takes is a few (motivated) activists for the banning of some books, or the black-listing of some people. The great philosopher and logician Bertrand Russell lost his job at the City University of New York owing to a letter by an angry –and stubborn –mother who did not wish to have her daughter in the same room as the fellow with dissolute lifestyle and unruly ideas.

    The same seems to apply to prohibitions –at least the prohibition of alcohol in the United States which led to interesting Mafia stories.

    Let us conjecture that the formation of moral values in society doesn’t come from the evolution of the consensus. No, it is the most intolerant person who imposes virtue on others precisely because of that intolerance. The same can apply to civil rights.

    An insight as to how the mechanisms of religion and transmission of morals obey the same renormalization dynamics as dietary laws –and how we can show that morality is more likely to be something enforced by a minority. We saw earlier in the chapter the asymmetry between obeying and breaking rules: a law-abiding (or rule abiding) fellow always follows the rules, but a felon or someone with looser sets of principles will not always break the rules. Likewise we discussed the strong asymmetric effects of the halal dietary laws. Let us merge the two. It turns out that, in classical Arabic, the term halal has one opposite: haram. Violating legal and moral rules –any rule — is called haram. It is the exact same interdict that governs food intake and all other human behaviors, like sleeping with the wife of the neighbor, lending with interest (without partaking of downside of the borrower) or killing one’s landlord for pleasure. Haram is haram and is asymmetric.

    From that we can see that once a moral rule is established, it would suffice to have a small intransigent minority of geographically distributed followers to dictate the norm in society. The sad news, as we will see in the next chapter, is that one person looking at mankind as an aggregate may mistakenly believe that humans are spontaneously becoming more moral, better, more gentle, have better breath, when it applies to only a small proportion of mankind.

    The Stability of the Minority Rule, A Probabilistic Argument

    A probabilistic argument in favor of the minority rule dictating societal values is as follows. Wherever you look across societies and histories, you tend to find the same general moral laws prevailing, with some, but not significant, variations: do not steal (at least not from within the tribe); do not hunt orphans for pleasure; do not gratuitously beat up passers by for training, use instead a boxing bags (unless you are Spartan and even then you can only kill a limited number of helots for training purposes), and similar interdicts. And we can see these rules evolving over time to become more universal, expanding to a broader set, to progressively include slaves, other tribes, other species (animals, economists), etc. And one property of these laws: they are black-and-white, binary, discrete, and allow no shadow. You cannot steal “a little bit” or murder “moderately”. You cannot keep Kosher and eat “just a little bit” of pork on Sunday barbecues.

    Now it would be vastly more likely that these values emerged from a minority that the majority. Why? Take the following two theses:

    Outcomes are paradoxically more stable under the minority rule — the variance of the results is lower and the rule is more likely to be emerge independently across populations.

    What emerges from the minority rule is more likely to be be black-and-white.

    An example. Consider that an evil person wants to poison the collective by putting some product into soda cans. He has two options. The first is cyanide, which obeys a minority rule: a drop of poison (higher than a small threshold) makes the entire liquid poisonous. The second is a “majority”-style poison; it requires more than half the liquid to be poisonous in order to kill. Now look at the inverse problem, a collection of dead people after a dinner party, and you need to investigate the cause. The local Sherlock Holmes would assert that conditional on the outcome that all people drinking the soda having been killed, the evil man opted for the first not the second option. Simply, the majority rule leads to fluctuations around the average, with a high rate of survival.

    The black-and-white character of these societal laws can be explained with the following. Assume that under a certain regime, when you mix white and dark blue in various combinations, you don’t get variations of light blue, but dark blue. Such a regime is vastly more likely to produce dark blue than another rule that allows more shades of blue.

    Popper’s Paradox

    I was at a large multi-table dinner party, the kind of situation where you have to choose between the vegetarian risotto and the non-vegetarian option when I noticed that my neighbor had his food catered (including silverware) on a tray reminiscent of airplane fare. The dishes were sealed with aluminum foil. He was evidently ultra-Kosher. It did not bother him to be seated with prosciutto eaters who, in addition, mix butter and meat in the same dishes. He just wanted to be left alone to follow his own preferences.

    For Jews and Muslim minorities such as Shiites, Sufis, and associated religions such as Druze and Alawis, the aim is for people to leave them alone so they can satisfy their own dietary preferences –largely, with historical exceptions here and there. But had my neighbor been a Sunni Salafi, he would have required the entire room to be eating Halal. Perhaps the entire building. Perhaps the entire town. Hopefully the entire country. Hopefully the entire planet. Indeed, given the total lack of separation between church and state, and between the holy and the profane (Chapter x), to him Haram (the opposite of Halal) means literally illegal. The entire room was committing a legal violation.

    As I am writing these lines, people are disputing whether the freedom of the enlightened West can be undermined by the intrusive policies that would be needed to fight fundamentalists.As I am writing these lines, people are disputing whether the freedom of the enlightened West can be undermined by the intrusive policies that would be needed to fight Salafi fundamentalists.

    Clearly can democracy –by definition the majority — tolerate enemies? The question is as follows: “ Would you agree to deny the freedom of speech to every political party that has in its charter the banning the freedom of speech?” Let’s go one step further, “Should a society that has elected to be tolerant be intolerant about intolerance?”

    This is in fact the incoherence that Kurt Gödel (the grandmaster of logical rigor) detected in the constitution while taking the naturalization exam. Legend has it that Gödel started arguing with the judge and Einstein, who was his witness during the process, saved him.

    I wrote about people with logical flaws asking me if one should be “skeptical about skepticism”; I used a similar answer as Popper when was asked if “ one could falsify falsification”.

    We can answer these points using the minority rule. Yes, an intolerant minority can control and destroy democracy. Actually, as we saw, it willeventually destroy our world.

    So, we need to be more than intolerant with some intolerant minorities. It is not permissible to use “American values” or “Western principles” in treating intolerant Salafism (which denies other peoples’ right to have their own religion). The West is currently in the process of committing suicide.

    The Irreverence of Markets and Science

    Now consider markets. We can say that markets aren’t the sum of market participants, but price changes reflect the activities of the most motivatedbuyer and seller. Yes, the most motivated rules. Indeed this is something that only traders seem to understand: why a price can drop by ten percent because of a single seller. All you need is a stubborn seller. Markets react in a way that is disproportional to the impetus. The overall stock markets represent currently more than thirty trillions dollars but a single order in 2008, only fifty billion, that is less than two tenth of a percent of the total, caused them to drop by close to ten percent, causing losses of around three trillion. It was an order activated by the Parisian Bank Société Générale who discovered a hidden acquisition by a rogue trader and wanted to reverse the purchase. Why did the market react so disproportionately? Because the order was one-way –stubborn — there was desire to sell but no way to change one’s mind. My personal adage is:

    The market is like a large movie theatre with a small door.

    And the best way to detect a sucker (say the usual finance journalist) is to see if his focus is on the size of the door or on that of the theater. Stampedes happen in cinemas, say when someone shouts “fire”, because those who want to be out do not want to stay in, exactly the same unconditionality we saw with Kosher observance.

    Science acts similarly. We will return later with a discussion of how the minority rule is behind Karl Popper’s approach to science. But let us for now discuss the more entertaining Feynman. What do You Care What Other People Think? is the title of a book of anecdotes by the great Richard Feynman, the most irreverent and playful scientist of his day. As reflected in the title of the book, Feynman conveys in it the idea of the fundamental irreverence of science, acting through a similar mechanism as the Kosher asymmetry. How? Science isn’t the sum of what scientists think, but exactly as with markets, a procedure that is highly skewed. Once you debunk something, it is now wrong (that is how science operates but let’s ignore disciplines such as economics and political science that are more like pompous entertainment). Had science operated by majority consensus we would be still stuck in the Middle Ages and Einstein would have ended as he started, a patent clerk with fruitless side hobbies.

    *  *  *

    Alexander said that it was preferable to have an army of sheep led by a lion to an army of lions led by a sheep. Alexander (or no doubt he who produced this probably apocryphal saying) understood the value of the active, intolerant, and courageous minority. Hannibal terrorized Rome for a decade and a half with a tiny army of mercenaries, winning twenty-two battles against the Romans, battles in which he was outnumbered each time. He was inspired by a version of this maxim. At the battle of Cannae, he remarked to Gisco who complained that the Carthaginians were outnumbered by the Romans: “There is one thing that’s more wonderful than their numbers … in all that vast number there is not one man called Gisgo.

    Unus sed leo: only one but a lion.

    This large payoff from stubborn courage is not just in the military. The entire growth of society, whether economic or moral, comes from a small number of people. So we close this chapter with a remark about the role of skin in the game in the condition of society. Society doesn’t evolve by consensus, voting, majority, committees, verbose meeting, academic conferences, and polling; only a few people suffice to disproportionately move the needle. All one needs is an asymmetric rule somewhere. And asymmetry is present in about everything.

  • Grand Bargain Taking Shape? U.S. To Pull Out Of Al-Tanf

    Authored by Tom Luongo,

    If you’ve followed my work for the past year you know that my default position has been there is a potential Grand Bargain for Peace in the Middle East.  From the moment President Trump first berated the Arabs in Riyidh last year on his first foreign trip for supporting terrorism, I’ve felt that the final outcome over Syria would culminate in such an agreement.

    Elijah Magnier is reporting now that the framework for a U.S. pull out of its position at Al-Tanf near where the borders of Jordan, Syria and Iraq come together has pretty much been agreed upon in advance of Trump and Vladimir Putin’s Summit on July 16th in Helsinki.

    Russian advisors visiting the Syrian capital Damascus are confident that the US forces will pull out of al-Tanf and will also aim to completely withdraw from north of Syria (al-Hasaka and Deir-Ezzour) in the next six months.

    According to top decision makers based in Damascus, the US President Donald Trump is pushing his administration to approve an already prepared total withdrawal plan. Despite Trump’s limited knowledge of foreign policy and being unaware of the consequences of his decisions in the international arena, however, he found no convincing elements – said the sources, who asked to remain anonymous – in the presentation by his administration where US forces could benefit from the continuation of their presence in such a hostile environment and without suffering hits in the future. Trump’s biggest fear to see the US special forces deployed in the north of Syria and in Iraq returning to the country “in plastic bags”. He would certainly find it hard to offer any explanation for the US occupation of the Levant after the defeat of ISIS (the “Islamic State” group) or what remained of it in Syria and Iraq.

    What Putin and Trump will work out is whether they can trust each other enough to allow each to do the job they need to do to make this work.  By the time the summit happens, the SAA Tiger forces should have taken back most of the province of Dara’a up to the Golan Heights, effectively restoring the 2011 border.

    The Grand Bargain I’ve been proposing has been, simply put, the U.S. and the Russians acting as guarantors of the local actors behavior.  It requires Russia to remain in Syria indefinitely, supporting the Assad government’s rebuilding of the country.

    And it requires the U.S. to remove its military presence, by declaring victory over ISIS and leaving.  But, in its wake leave an explicit guarantee of Israel’s and Saudi Arabia’s defense in the case of future Iranian adventurism.

    The Russians act as a buffer to break up the Shia Crescent concerns of the Israelis, Turkey goes home, the Kurds negotiate a settlement with Damascus and the Saudis get to live a few more years before their domestic troubles overwhelm them.

    I said on May 24th of last year just after Trump’s Speech in Riyadh:

    Russia’s alliance with Iran and China is unbreakable at this point. They have designs to build a trade empire across Asia that the world hasn’t seen in centuries. Putin has the means and the respect by all parties on both sides to remove Iran’s troops from Syria and get Hezbollah to stand down if the right deal is signed.

    He has the military might to make it all stick.

    The Turks and President Erdogan have over-played their hand and have been abandoned by both Putin and Trump. He will behave himself or be removed from power. His days of playing both sides against each other are over…

    … He [Putin] and Trump are in opposite domestic positions. Trump needs this win to shut up the loony left. Putin doesn’t, even though he’s facing a re-election campaign in 2018.

    So, setting the table for Trump to come in, statesmanlike, and broker an historic peace deal is exactly his style.

    We’re not there yet, but the pieces are in place. As long as Trump doesn’t make another mistake like the al-Shairat bombing and keeps a lid on his military commanders he will eventually gain Putin’s trust.

    This story has not been without it twists and turns.  There have been the multitude of false flags, provocations and prevarications from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to try and scuttle this deal.

    It even survived another colossal Trump mistake in responding to another false flag attack on civilians with chemical weapons this year.

    But, over the course of it all, Trump has held firm while Putin made deals with everyone to give them a little of what they want.  The Saudis are going to get slightly more market share in oil to help with their fiscal situation.  Israel will likely get to keep the Golan Heights in perpetuity, much to the pleasure of the board of Genie Energy.

    Trump and Netanyahu still wants regime change in Iran as part of this deal, but Trump is in no real position to get that concession from Putin.  That is exactly what the U.S. media is trying to position him to demand.

    Bloomberg is trying to make this deal sound like Putin is betraying Iran by making deals over oil production caps, while offering up Iran’s withdrawal from Syria as some ‘big win.’

    For Iran, the overriding goal is to maintain its influence inside Syria and keep supply lines open, said Ehud Yaari, an Israel-based fellow at the Washington Institute.

    “Russia has an interest to bleed Iran in Syria, to weaken Iran but not collapse Iran because it may lose the Assad regime, which is its major card,” said Sami Nader, head of the Levant Institute for Strategic Studies in Beirut. “They want Iran in check and under control.”

    This is pure Netanyahu-esque spin.  Russia doesn’t have the goal of bleeding out Iran in Syria, Israel does.  And every one of Bibi’s little lies have been calculated to convince Trump to extend the U.S. presence there indefinitely for his reasons.

    If Magnier is correct then this strategy has failed completely.

    Assad isn’t going anywhere and Iran has no desire to stay in Syria once the U.S. leaves.  As the Western media keeps trying to tell us, there’s a revolution happening back home.  IRGC forces are needed there, which is why Netanyahu is abjecting against any deal with Putin before said overthrow of the mullahs takes place.

    Too bad Putin and Trump have both put the kibosh on that.  Trump needs another major geopolitical win to crush his deep state and Democratic (I repeat myself) opposition in the mid-terms while also changing the mandate for NATO.

    Russia has Iran’s back when it comes to sanctions, fuel marketing, oil exports and the like.  Iran is key to the success of uniting Central Asia under China’s One Belt, One Road initiative, which includes making India and Turkey partners in the project.

    For Putin to get a restructuring of NATO, border security in Syria, draw-down of U.S. troops there and probably in Afghanistan as well and potentially recognition of Crimea, there has to be something else on the table.

    The bargaining chips are Jerusalem, Yemen, Nordstream 2 and Iranian regime change.  Nordstream 2 and regime change are off the table.  The big question is are the other two within their purview to negotiate.

    Doubtful, certainly at this point in time.

    For now, the Grand Bargain is taking shape.  Phase one is the hardest part, the trust part. Since U.S. and Russian military commanders have been in communication for nearly three years coordinating around each other it seems plausible the trust is there.

    The work’s been done.  Now, just sing the deals and remove/reposition the troops.  It is the next phase that is murkier.  Trump wants explicit guarantees from Putin that Iran won’t develop a nuclear weapon.

    For him to get that guarantee means removing the regime-change threat from the table as well as allowing Tehran to develop trade relations without the U.S. stifling them.  This is why I think the most likely casualty in this situation will be Yemen.  Iran will have to withdraw support from the Houthi rebels like Trump will remove the U.S. troops from Syria.

    As one of my readers said to me privately, the other day, this is beginning to feel like 1945, the only difference is that Trump and Putin aren’t meeting at Yalta, to remake the world.

    *  *  *

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  • Vacant Lot In Silicon Valley Listed For $15 Million

    Silicon Valley is one of the most expensive areas to live in the United States. In its epicenter, Palo Alto, California, the median price for a single-family home is roughly $2.6 million. Meanwhile, the median price of a single-family home across the country is $240,000. The housing bubble in Silicon Valley extends throughout the San Francisco Bay area to the north, which has developed into the housing affordability crisis.

    Not too long ago, we reported on an 897 square feet Palo Alto bungalow – recently listed for $2.6 million. At $2,800 per square foot, the price was equivalent to the most extravagant penthouses in New York City and or Miami.

    We even covered a listing back in April, where someone in the southern region of the San Francisco Bay Area listed their burned-out shack in San Jose’s Willow Glen neighborhood for $800,000.

    Now, another absurdity has crossed our real estate bubble radar — this time, it is a vacant, one-acre dirt lot in Palo Alto, listed for a whopping $15 million.

    The vacant lot at 4103 Old Trace Road “is the ONLY FLAT VACANT Acre parcel in Palo Alto available,” according to the Redfin listing. The plot of land is minutes away from venture capital firms, Stanford University, downtown Palo Alto, and about 15 minutes from Google’s Googleplex Headquarters.

    The listing says “Dream it & Build it,” however the future owner must first shell out $15 million-plus the cost of a new structure. The listing emphasizes “Location! Location! Location!,” and tells prospective homebuyers to “visualize an exquisite villa with vineyard” on the 1.03-acre parcel.

    The “exquisite villa” would be lacking privacy, as it is situated on the corner of a congested two-lane road. Nevertheless, this is the price one may pay very late into an overheated real estate market fueled by a tech bubble that could be large than in 2000. Tech workers in the region have the highest incomes in the country, and couple it with 10-years of zero lower bound rates via the Federal Reserve, well, a massive housing bubble was formed.

    To visualize the extent of the housing bubble in Silicon Valley, Wolf Richter provides an excellent chart below:

    “The index for “San Francisco” includes the counties of San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, and San Mateo, a large and diverse area consisting of the city of San Francisco, the northern part of Silicon Valley (San Mateo county), part of the East Bay and part of the North Bay. The index jumped 1% from March, 11% from a year ago, and 38% from the insane peak of Housing Bubble 1. It’s up 164% since 2000.”

    With new warnings of a global slowdown, the yield curve 2/10 nearly flat, James Powell’s auto-tightening, quantitative tightening, stretched real estate prices, trade wars, overvalued stock and bond valuations, and an exploding deficit, this is not a recipe for a sustained booming economy. President Trump and Wall Street have recently made their rounds of force-feeding economic propaganda to Americans, hoping that they could spur consumption, as if the heavily indebted middle class needs to buy more things they do not need, nor stuff they cannot afford.

    As for now, it seems as Trump’s debt-fueled tax cut has spurred a monstrous stealth QE round for corporations, including trillions in buybacks, dividends, and merger and acquisitions.

    The can has been effectively kicked down the road for the tech sector, but eventually, tax reform will evaporate and lead to the next round of tech layoffs. When that occurs, well, it could be straw that broke the camel’s back for real estate markets in Silicon Valley. Buyer beware.

  • Headless Robespierre's Cautionary Tale For The 'Alt Left' Unleashed On America

    Submitted by John Griffing,

    America is on the cusp of something it has never truly experienced: mob rule.

    To “feed” a mob, witch-hunts are essential. New enemies must be in constant supply to keep the mob moving. Problematically, witch-hunts never end well for the witch-hunters.

    Just ask Maximilien Robespierre, one of the chief architects of the French Revolution and the infamous “Reign of Terror.”

    It was 1794. Heads were rolling, literally, and “Madame la Guillotine” was more popular than ever. At first, the mob was content with the heads of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette. The king bankrupted France by helping America win its independence with mountains of debt, all while a horrible famine ravaged the nation simultaneously. Many died of starvation. It was during the famine that the queen told her subjects, “Let them eat cake.”

    With the king and queen gone, the mob’s appetite grew. They now required the heads of the aristocracy.

    After the aristocracy was gone, Robespierre’s Committee on Public Safety (a massive misnomer) began sending anyone and everyone to the Guillotine — even other members of the committee itself — in order to satisfy the appetite of the mob. Georges Danton, the other influential thinker behind the French revolution, was executed by the committee.

    Royals lurked under every rock and behind every tree, and unsupported suspicion was the only thing needed to deprive a person of their head.

    In the ultimate twist of irony, the mob eventually required Robespierre’s head.

    The lesson? For mobs, it’s never enough. And communities that passively surrender to mob rule in the face of civil unrest are like those who feed a crocodile, hoping to be eaten last.

    Replace the revolutionary French with the “alt left,” and a disturbing pattern emerges. With the violence perpetrated by the “alt left” reaching barbaric levels, it is time to stop tolerating lies about their motives.

    The“alt left” is not against racism or white nationalism. They are for anarchy — and that’s a big difference. In short, the “alt left” is a mindless mob.

    And just like Robespierre’s “Reign of Terror,” the “alt left” mob may eventually accomplish its presumed objective: forcibly removing President Donald Trump from office, one way or another. But that will likely not be enough to satisfy the moving target of “alt-left” bloodlust, because the stated objective is never the real objective.

    For the mob, breaking stuff and hurting people (often for pay) is the real objective. And for Antifas, the ever-evolving “cause” is a facade to justify animal behavior unfit for a free and open society.

    Sure, not all Democrats are Antifas, but all Antifas are undoubtedly Democrats. Consider that top Democrats — many of them seasoned public servants — now regularly incite violent riots and actively promote the president’s assassination.

    Here’s a list of 133 savage acts of documented violence (or incitement) by far-left Democrats against Trump supporters, Republicans and White House officials, including actor Peter Fonda’s call to throw Trump’s 11-year-old son Barron in a cage with pedophiles, and the latest example of outright assault against a person wearing a MAGA hat — this time a young teenager.

    The violence advocated by the far left makes them complicit in the breakdown of society and the subsequent rise of mob rule. And the advocates of mob violence are not just fringe radicals or a few nut-jobs. Their ranks also boast senior Democratic Party officials and members of former President Barack Obama’s administration.

    Only a week ago, California Democratic U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters openly called for the “harassment” and physical intimidation of Trump officials. Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer condemned Waters, but it must be remembered that last year he told New York state to pull police protection from First Lady Melania Trump and Barron. Democratic 2016 vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine called for riots in streets after Trump’s victory, and was joined by former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who also called for riots.

    Former CIA Director John “Benghazi” Brennan — a man who once voted for a Communist presidential candidate and may have converted to Islam — twice called for a coup against Trump. Obama’s Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Rosa Brooks went as far as putting a plan for a military coup in writing around the same time CNN was running hypothetical “what if Trump was brutally murdered before the inauguration?” segments.

    Democratic-aligned mainstream media and left-leaning entertainment icons are also guilty of perpetuating the rise of mob rule. Former MSNBC heavyweight Keith Olbermann begged foreign intelligence agencies to overthrow the U.S. government, and did not see the irony. More recently, the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin asked mobs to harass Trump and White House officials for “life.”

    And what about entertainers? Well, they are getting a lot less entertaining, and a lot more felonious. Bill Maher joked that Ronald Reagan shooter John Hinckley, Jr. should be released, so that he can kill Trump, and only a few months ago, comedienne Kathy Griffin photographed herself holding a life-like wax model of Trump’s severed head in the style of ISIS. Last week, far-left filmmaker Michael Moore said he would lead a citizen army of “one million people” to “surround” Washington, D.C. in order to prevent lawful Supreme Court nominations by Trump. Famous musicians are also promoting violence. Madonna said she is “thinking” of bombing the White House to kill Trump, Snoop Dog released a music video depicting Trump’s murder and singer John Legend applauded Rep. Maxine Waters for advocating violence, while subsequently making similar appeals himself.

    By any measure, Democrats now support mob rule. Every single time a Democrat advocates violence in place of discussion, they are supporting mob rule, not democracy, and they should be treated as potentially hostile.

    When someone – anyone – starts a conversation with an assumption that the other person is evil, there can be no further conversation. Moreover, logical debate is not possible with violent mobs in ninja costumes viciously attacking those with whom they politically disagree.

    History repeats itself, especially when mobs burn the pages on which it is written, and destroy monuments to the events history records. Tragically, Democrats only pay attention to history when it involves Nazis, and mostly fictional Nazis.

    Robespierre speaks from the grave: mobs are never good, especially for the mobs.

  • "Dark Path Ahead": Why American Farmers Dread The Trade War

    While automakers – and their dealerships – are getting most of the headlines this week, the effects of the escalating trade war (sorry, officially a trade tantrum, or trade discussion according to The White House) between Presidents Trump, Xi, and Putin are rippling across numerous US industries – directly, and indirectly.

    Makers of whiskey, cheese, auto parts and more are contending with the global tariff battle – but it is US farmers that appear to be suffering the most.

    Casey Guernsey, a spokesman for Americans for Farmers and Families, says in emailed statement that:

    “China dealt its latest blow to American agriculture today with threats of even more tariffs on the horizon,”

    “Following Canada’s tariffs on U.S. products earlier this week, America’s farmers and families are staring down a dark path with no signs of relief in sight”

    “We are counting on the administration and Congress to reach a resolution on responsible trade policies — before we’re forced to shut down our operations for good”

    And he was not alone, American farm groups, companies and officials reacted as China’s tariffs on agricultural products went into effect on Friday.

    Iowa Senator Joni Ernst appeared on CBS’ “Face The Nation” warning that”

    …farmers, ranchers are “always the first to be retaliated against” in these types of “trade negotiations,” adding that farmers have been put in “very vulnerable position.”

    Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig says in statement on website:

    “The continued escalation of trade tensions with China is having a real impact on Iowa farmers and businesses,”

    “We have seen a significant drop in prices for both crops and livestock and this is creating even more stress and uncertainty during what was already a difficult time for the ag economy”

    “There are real issues in our trade relationship with China that need to be addressed, but Iowa agriculture cannot continue to bear the brunt of the retaliation from our trading partners”

     Jim Heimerl, president of the National Pork Producers Council and a hog farmer from Johnstown, Ohio, says in statement:

    Tariffs from China, Mexico mean “40 percent of total American pork exports now are under retaliatory tariffs, threatening the livelihoods of thousands of U.S. pig farmers.”

    “We now face large financial losses and contraction because of escalating trade disputes. That means less income for pork producers and, ultimately, some of them going out of business.“

    “We need these trade disputes to end”

    U.S. Wheat Associates says in statement on its website:

    “Unable to accept the risk of escalating import prices, Chinese customers stopped making new purchases of U.S. wheat last March,”

    “The exchange of punitive tariffs between Washington and Beijing today represents the next phase of what could be a long and difficult struggle that will likely inflict more pain before we reach an unknown resolution”

    “Farmers are eager to move past this dispute and start trading wheat and other agricultural products again soon”

    John Heisdorffer, a soybean grower from Keota, Iowa, and president of the American Soybean Association, says in statement on website:

    “Soybeans are the top agriculture export for the United States, and China is the top market for purchasing those exports,”

    “The math is simple. You tax soybean exports at 25 percent, and you have serious damage to U.S. farmers”

    Cheese producers have had to discount their products to keep customers; some have had orders put on hold. Companies will struggle to find customers quickly for the extra cheese, given high reserves in storage and international competition, producers and analysts said.

    “We have seen large drops in our dairy product sales prices at all levels,” said Catherine de Ronde, economist for the Agri-Mark Inc. dairy cooperative. “It will create a significant backup of dairy products.”

    “We are going to see more significant impacts to inventory,” said Tom Bailey, executive director of dairy for Rabobank, a food and agricultural lender. “We will struggle to move this product into other markets.”

    All of which fits perfectly with the fact that US stocks soared as the trade tariffs struck home

    The impact on agricultural community comes at a particularly painful time as the suicide rate among American farmers is already soaring.

    Agriculture

    Finances are probably the most pressing reason: Since 2013, farm income has been declining steadily according to the US Department of Agriculture. This year, the average farm is expected to earn 35% less than what it earned in 2013.

    “Think about trying to live today on the income you had 15 years ago.” That’s how agriculture expert Chris Hurt describes the plight facing U.S. farmers today.

    Farmers are at the mercy of extreme weather like hurricanes that threaten crops to agricultural commodity prices that have fallen below breakeven production levels. And prices will likely only continue to fall as America’s trading partners slap tariffs on American agricultural products.

     

  • Is Libertarianism Utopian?

    Authored by Duncan Whitmore via The Mises Institute,

    Libertarianism – and any political position that leans towards a greater degree of freedom from the state – is opposed both ethically and economically on a number of substantive grounds. The proposition that without the state we would have inequality, destitution for the masses, rampant greed, and so on is a familiar charge which attempts to point out that libertarianism is undesirableand/or unjustifiable.

    A further point of opposition is that libertarianism and the drive towards it is simply utopian or idealistic, and that libertarians are hopeless day dreamers, lacking any awareness of how the world “really” works. In other words, that, regardless of whether it may be desirable, some combination of one or more of impossibility, improbability or the simple unwillingness of anyone to embrace the libertarian ideal renders libertarianism either wholly or primarily unachievable. It is this specific objection that we will address in this essay.

    Let us first of all recount the libertarian ethic of non-aggression, which states that no one may initiate any physical incursion against your body or your property without your consent. From this we can state that the goal of the libertarian project, broadly, is a world of minimised violence and aggression. Consequently, the questions we have to answer is whether a world of minimised violence and aggression is unachievable and, hence, utopian.

    Impossibility

    The first aspect to consider is whether the attainment of the libertarian ethic is either a physical or logical impossibility. Clearly, in order to be valid, an ethical proposition must be within the grasp of physical capability. An ethic requiring each person to be in two places at once, or to make three apples equal five apples by adding only one more would be ludicrous. These are unattainable goals, regardless of how hard one might try. Similarly, we can dispose of ethical propositions which are not strictly impossible but, we might say, are technically impossible on account of the fact that the means required to achieve them are inaccessible to all or most individuals. For example, an ethic that requires a person to leap from Britain to China would fail in this regard. Such a feat is not strictly impossible as a person’s feet could leave the ground in Britain and fly through the air to China. But the means of fulfilling this imperative have not yet come into our possession and so as a guide to acting now in the world as it is today it is plainly hopeless.

    When we consider the libertarian ethic, it is clear that it does not come anywhere near these kinds of impossibility. In fact, this ethic, being a requirement to not commit certain acts, is one of the easiest of all ethics to adhere to. You simply have to refrain from initiating any act which interferes with the physical integrity of another person’s body or property – something which you can do, right now, sitting in your armchair. Thus, it is within the power of everyone here on Earth, right this very moment, to bring about a world free of violence and aggression simply by not moving one’s body towards committing such acts. Indeed, we can even say that it is physically harder to breach the ethic – if I want to commit a violent act I have to actually get up, find someone, and muster the effort to assault or rob them instead of following the much lazier route of just keeping still.

    This may seem rather trite, but compare the physical attainability of this ethic with other ethics such as conquering poverty, spreading democracy, promoting equality, or even more ethereal goals such as seeking happiness and fulfilment. All of these are regarded, in the mainstream, as perfectly valid and noble, and yet they are far harder to achieve than the libertarian ethic because they all require some kind of positive action. Conquering poverty requires more work, more productivity and more wealth creation; spreading democracy seems to require armed invasions, active peacekeeping, the setup of institutions to hold elections and the willingness of the population to get off their backsides and vote (assuming, of course, that such an ideal is genuine and not simply a veneer for power and control over resources); equality requires the active redistribution of wealth which has to have been created by productive effort in the first place. On the ground of impossibility, therefore, we can say that libertarianism, which is derided, is the least utopian goal amongst all of these others, which are lauded.

    If this was not enough, however, the state, the very same people telling us that the libertarian ethic is null and void, attempts to achieve goals each day that are readily accepted by the mainstream and yet are, on a proper understanding, literally impossible. For instance, it is impossible to guarantee full employment if you impose minimum wages; it is impossible to price a good or service below its market value and to not expect it to be inundated by demand and, thus, shortages (think healthcare, jammed roads, etc.); and it is impossible to create wealth by printing paper money. Yet the state believes that it can do all of these things.

    On this last point, we surely have to acknowledge the sheer impossibility and, consequently, the utopianism of the current situation of endless debt and extravagant spending. At the birth of social democracy, Western nations had accumulated several generations’ worth of capital that had raised the standard of living by a significant magnitude. This provided a seemingly inexhaustible fund for politicians to bribe voters, showering them with goodies in the form of retirement benefits, welfare payments, nationalised industries, publicly owned infrastructure, and so on in return for their votes. Because politicians like to spend and spend and spend without raising current taxes, much of this spending was fuelled by borrowing, with the productivity of accumulated capital enabling tax revenue to service this debt. The borrowing and inflation has benefited the bookends of society – the poorest, who receive the majority of the welfare payments, and the very rich, whose assets survive the inflation by rising in nominal value – as well as the baby boomer generation, which benefited from being able to receive the goodies before the bill to pay for them fell due. The profligate waste disguised a gradual but relentless capital consumption until now productivity can no longer provide for the burgeoning level of spending. Governments today are even struggling to service the interest on their debt through tax revenues, having to borrow more just to pay down previously accumulated debt. Particularly now as the aforementioned baby boomer generation has begun to retire, leaving behind it a decimated workforce supporting a heavy generation of retirees, this situation is likely to only get worse.

    Assuming, therefore, that sufficient productivity to meet all of these liabilities is not going to occur, there are three possible options – to default on the entitlements; to default on the debt; or to print enough money to pay for everything.

    The first option would cause mass social unrest; the second would cause financial markets to collapse; and the third would cause hyperinflation of the currency.

    This is an unpleasant but soon to be necessary choice. It is precisely because the monetary orthodoxy is no longer working that solutions that have a non-state impetus, such as a return to gold, or crypto-currencies stand out in relief as viable alternatives rather than impossible dreams. Thus it is ridiculous for even moderate statists to claim that libertarianism is utopian when the lifeblood of social democracy – state managed money and finance – is on the verge of collapse.

    Human Nature

    A second reason why it is alleged that the libertarian ethic is utopian concedes the fact that it is not strictly impossible to achieve but, rather, that it is contrary to some vaguely defined impression of “human nature”. This view is nearly always based on the (correct, but superficial) observation that “man is a social animal” and that humans have, throughout their history, grouped themselves together into different collectives such as tribes, cultures, nations and, ultimately, states. The vicissitudes of these kinds of groups – that is, rules that subjugate the individual to the collective and, ultimately, the presence of violence and aggression – supposedly mean that the libertarian ideal is unrealisable, at least to the degree that libertarians would prefer.

    Most of these critiques fail owing to their conflation of the state with society, and their resulting assumption that the libertarian admonishment of the former leads to a denial of the latter. As a corollary they misconstrue also the libertarian emphasis on individual rights as advocacy for some kind of selfish, atomistic existence.

    These views can normally be disposed of easily enough as there is, of course, no libertarian quarrel with either social organisations or society as a whole – libertarianism takes full account of the social dimension of humanity. Such critics simply fail to realise that the role of society is not to fulfil a “common purpose” or some kind of undefined “common good” dictated by the state but to act as a means for each individual to better satisfy his own purposes peacefully and voluntarily. Nor does the pursuit of such purposes, permitted by individual rights, have anything to do with selfishness – a person is as free to choose to spend his entire life helping others as much as he is to hoard a vast fortune that he shares with no one.

    Rather, the claim we wish to examine here is a more basic one. This is whether the kinds of complex institution with which libertarians are preoccupied – that is, states, governments, parliaments, bureaucracies, etc – owe themselves to “human nature” in the sense that these things are, in some way, biologically inevitable; or whether they are, in fact, the product of consciously wrought human choice. To put it bluntly, is the impetus which caused humans to create the state of the same ilk that causes a pig to roll in muck?

    This question is either tacitly assumed to be yes or completely ignored by the “human nature” objection to libertarianism. For example, during his misinformed attempt to demonstrate the disregard of libertarianism for the social dimension of human existence, American biologist Peter Corning has the following to say:

    One problem with [the libertarian] (utopian) model is we now have overwhelming evidence that the individualistic, acquisitive, selfish-gene model of human nature is seriously deficient […] The evidence about human evolution indicates that our species evolved in small, close-knit social groups in which cooperation and sharing overrode our individual, competitive self-interests for the sake of the common good […] We evolved as intensely interdependent social animals, and our sense of empathy toward others, our sensitivity to reciprocity, our desire for inclusion and our loyalty to the groups we bond with, the intrinsic satisfaction we derive from cooperative activities, and our concern for having the respect and approval of others all evolved in humankind to temper and constrain our individualistic, selfish impulses.

    It is difficult to dispute much of this account. However, Corning never explains what caused these things to arise or why it was that humans embraced them. Why do we co-operate? Why do we share? Why do we have a “desire for inclusion”? Why is there a “loyalty to the groups we bond with”? Why are we preoccupied with a “respect and approval of others”? Did all of these things just happen in the same way that flies swarm to dung, or were there some kind of consciously appreciated reasons for each human to embrace these things?

    The fact that these questions remain unanswered suggests that it is the critics of libertarianism who have failed to examine human nature fully and, consequently, have the deficient understanding of the concept. The aspect of human nature that most certainly does exist – that which separates us from other animal species – is the ability to determine, consciously, our goals, and to use the mental faculty of reason to investigate the world around us in order to discover the best means for pursuing those goals. These conscious human choices and subsequent, deliberate actions are evident at a very basic level. We may each, of course, act reflexively, such as when you touch a red hot object and recoil in an instant. Such an action is not the product of choice but of stimuli that provoke your brain into an automated reaction to prevent imminent bodily harm. Such actions are, therefore, a part of our nature and there is very little that we can do to prevent them. Nearly everything else a human does, however, is the product of his conscious choice. Even when we act emotionally or out of instinct – for example by punching another person in a fit of rage or satiating the carnal desire for intercourse by having sex with a stranger – we are still expected to choose to exercise control over these impulses. Such expectation is manifest in the fact that if the act in question happens to be illegal the law will still hold us responsible. Only mental impairment to the extent that there is a severely diminished connection between thoughts and actions will absolve one of moral responsibility for even our more animalistic outbursts.

    To ignore this aspect of conscious choice is to ignore the sparkling jewel in the crown of human nature, and leads one to draw fundamentally false conclusions about social phenomena. As Murray N Rothbard puts it:

    Only human beings possess free will and consciousness: for they are conscious, and they can, and indeed must, choose their course of action. To ignore this primordial fact about the nature of man – to ignore his volition, his free will – is to misconstrue the facts of reality and therefore to be profoundly and radically unscientific.

    This ignorance to which Rothbard refers renders the “human nature” objection to libertarianism as one of the laziest counterarguments, endowing superficial observations of human behaviour with some kind of inevitability and, thus, immunity from moral scrutiny. For if human behaviour is the product of conscious choice then not only is such behaviour in no sense “natural” but the very fact of choice indicates that alternative paths cannot be ruled out – and that, therefore, the libertarian is not struggling with futility against human nature,but rather, is pursuing the perfectly achievable path of influencing human will. As we shall see now, this is precisely the case.

    In deciding the best course of action for fulfilling the ends that he desires, each human has to make a choice between three broad routes of accomplishment. First, an atomistic, isolated existence; second, social co-operation; or, third, violence, pilfer and pillage. The first has been almost universally discarded on account of its failure to furnish anything but the most impoverished existence. The other two, however, can prove extremely fruitful for those who pursue them.

    Whether the pursuit of social co-operation on the one hand or of violence on the other has prevailed at any one time is a product of the human evaluation of the particular circumstances and how to best meet his goals within those circumstances. Appreciation of those circumstances is a product of mental effort – in each case, there were goals and humans pursued, deliberately, what they thought were the best means available for attaining those goals in the environment in which they found themselves. Even though the evaluation may have been wrong and resulted in failure, the fact remains that whichever path was taken did not owe itself to any “natural”, uncontrollable, instinctive urge. If we marvel at the great achievements of social co-operation – for example, the gothic splendour of St Pancras railway station; the intricacy of the internal combustion engine; or the ambition of Microsoft to put a PC in everyone’s home – we can see that the people who created these things were motivated by something more than a scramble to satiate some engrained longing for “community”. Similarly, on the violent side, neither of the world wars occurred because everyone felt that it had been too long since the last punch up. The only human institutions that can be possibly be accorded the description of being in some way “natural” are those which emerged as a result of the (oft-abused) term “spontaneous order” – institutions such as language, money, market prices, and so on which are not the deliberate result of any one individual or group of individuals acting together. But even these institutions are the result of consciously chosen human purpose – they just lack deliberate human design. For instance, we would have neither money nor prices if people did not choose to trade.

    Because of the varying circumstances of history – some of them natural phenomena, and some of them the product of the past actions and ideas of humans – it has been the case that the incidence of either social co-operation on the one hand or violence on the other have each waxed and waned throughout the sands of time. Each millennium has been punctuated by periods of relative tranquillity and periods of relative turmoil, with the violent route peaking in the most recent hundred years or so. Meanwhile, social co-operation received significant boosts during the agricultural and industrial revolutions.

    The unfolding of the latter provides a clear example of how circumstances can motivate human choices. For instance, contrary to the romanticised view of pre-industrial, rural life, humans abandoned their backbreaking and unproductive agricultural lifestyles to flee to urban centres because the prospect of industrial work, made possible by new inventions and machinery, promised a much higher standard of living than was previously possible. In other words an expansion of social co-operation was the most attractive option. However, after the elapse of one hundred years or so of wealth creation, it became possible for socialist theories to persuade people, on account of the unequal “distribution” of this wealth, that violent appropriation from those who had gained more was now more appealing. Thus, the twentieth century was plagued by varieties of socialism that made the false promise to disgorge all of this wealth from the allegedly exploiting classes and thus banish the deprivations of the workers forever. However, once all of this failed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, people again turned to market economies. Now we appear to be languishing somewhere in between, with Western societies, the apparent victors of the Cold War, continuing to socialise their economies and consume their capital under the aegis of increasingly authoritarian governance, whereas Asian societies appear to be doing the opposite.

    The fact that each human moves himself towards either social co-operation on the one hand or towards violence on the other in order to better achieve his needs can be illustrated further by envisaging a future when almost all needs are satiated, i.e. when material scarcity is all but conquered. It would not be impossible for economic progress to one day reach a level where any good or service, including the provision of private security and defence, could be produced at the touch of a button. In other words almost all of our needs could be provided for in exchange for a trivial amount of effort. If this was the case then surely it is obvious that the need for any human to pursue either social co-operation or violence on a wide, systematic scale would be all but obliterated? Why bother co-operating with your fellow human, or why bother shooting at him, if everything you want can be provided from some kind of Star Trek style “replicator” device? Even if someone did shoot at you what defensive purpose would the state serve if everyone’s person and property could be protected by, say, some kind of invisible force field? If we ever come to live in such a quasi-paradise is it not clear that any kind of large, systematic organisation that serves to enable either social co-operation or violence – states, companies, etc. – would dissolve for a lack of any achievable purpose? All that is likely to remain is groups that would exist solely for pleasure – families, friendship groups, congregations, and groups revolving around pastimes, etc. Thus, what would emerge is something akin to that which is advocated for by “purist” libertarians who supposedly ignore “human nature” – human existence where systematic collectives and pervasive violence are largely relegated to distant memory. Such a society is, no doubt, a whimsical fantasy, at least in our lifetimes. But it is clear that its failure to emerge would be as a result of a shortfall in economic progress and not on account of any discord with “human nature”.

    The fact that co-operation is a means to the fulfilment of complex ends does not deny the fact that co-operation itself presents benefits – for example, from a sense of belonging, familiarity, and overcoming a feeling of loneliness. But even some of the groups that we seemingly take for granted, such as the family, were originally motivated by a consciously appreciated, economic concern – in this case trying to find the best environment in which to raise children.

    Similarly, there may well be nutcase theories that exalt violence and war for the sake it. However, the objects of idolisation are often the derivatives of war rather than war itself, such as heroism, comradeship, bravery, victory parades, national pride, medals, and so on, to the extent that these things are viewed as ends in and of themselves. Actual war, on the other hand, is very unlikely to gain mainstream traction without a powerful economic incentive. Even when the idolisation of war seems to crystallise into a more substantive ideology – such as in Nazism – there is still something of a chicken or egg problem. Did the Nazi elevation of “blood and soil” and the wehrbauer (“warrior peasant”) appear first and then gain momentum only because of the economic circumstances of Germany at the time? Or did they arise later as somewhat romanticised embodiments of what was required to accomplish the already perceived economic necessity of lebensraum?

    Nevertheless, even if we were to ignore all of these issues and say that co-operation and violence were engaged in purely for the sake it, none of this would make a dent to our basic thesis which is that they are the product of conscious, human choice – that the ends were evaluated consciously and the means undertaken deliberately.

    With all of this in mind, therefore, we can turn to the question of the existence of the state. Without a shadow of a doubt, the state is the most violent and aggressive institution humans have ever spawned. There is not a single conflict that is worthy of mention in the history books that was not caused by the state or a proto-state entity, nor is there any such conflict that would not have been ameliorated by either reduced or absent state involvement. It is for this reason that libertarians focus all of their efforts on this institution. Thus, the objection to libertarianism on account of the allegation that it is contrary to “human nature” concerns, primarily, the question of whether the state is a phenomenon of “human nature” that we have to put up with and is, consequently, useless to fight.

    From our preceding analysis, it should already be clear that this is not the case. The state exists for no other purpose than to serve as the ultimate vehicle of pursuing the violent method of achieving ones goals – of forcibly taking from some in order to benefit others.

    The state has not existed as a uniform entity throughout human history. Rather, it has blossomed and withered in accordance with people’s desire to use it as such a tool of exploitation and the conviction of the public to either tacitly accept or actively promote its existence. All of the “great” institutions of states that we see today – parliament buildings, executive departments, highly trained armed forces and the complex weaponry and equipment they use, and so on – none of these things is in any way “natural”. Rather, they owe their existence to the fact that specific people, at specific times and places, believed that creating them was a worthwhile endeavour. Their final form that we see today is simply the outcome of centuries of consciously chosen behaviour.

    The nature of the conflicts that the state has provoked has also varied – invasion, wars and conquests, direct enslavement of the domestic population, heavy taxation, etc. None of these things simply “occurred” out of nowhere but were undertaken for specifically chosen purposes. Moreover, it is also the case that the strength and power of the state has varied throughout history and varies also across the globe today – all the way from the horror of the former Soviet Union, possibly the worst state that there has ever been, down to the relative powerlessness of the Swiss canton. It is, therefore, far from ridiculous for libertarians to condemn the state as immoral and evil or for them to fight for institutions (or for a realigned global balance of power) that makes the route of violent appropriation via the state a less attractive option. This is something that the Swiss model has achieved domestically and which, globally, may be achieved by the relative rise of China and Russia as a counterweight to the hitherto condition of American uni-polarity that has allowed the latter to promulgate untrammelled aggression across the globe.

    The state, therefore, is firmly and undeniably a consequence of human choice, not of human nature, and, as such, it is entirely legitimate to expose it to moral examination. As Karl Hess said:

    Libertarians are not determinists who feel that unseen, mystic forces move men and history in inexorable patterns, up and down fated graphs. Libertarians, being radicals, know that men can move history, that Man is history, and that men can grasp their own fate, at the root, and advance it.

    We might as well round off this defence against the “human nature” objection to libertarianism by pointing out that human nature is, in fact, the raison d’être of freedom, not its antithesis. Libertarianism understands humans for what they are – independently thinking, desiring, choosing, and acting beings. Whichever way you look at it there is no higher unit than the individual person who undertakes these activities. Even when our thoughts and desires are influenced by others and the groups we choose to join, the choice to pursue them ultimately remains ours – and, as a result of any particular choice, it is us as individuals who each feel the joy of success and the pain of failure. Libertarianism allows each human, warts and all, to act to fulfil these independent desires and choices within the confines of his own person and property, or within any joint enterprise with willing partners.

    Statism, on the other hand, has always had to override these individual choices, desires, and actions in order to fulfil some grander vision of a “better society”. In the first instance it hopes that these individual desires can be assumed away by imagining that some kind of newly moulded man will work with glee towards “higher” ideals that are desired by the leaders and busybodying visionaries. What they do not realise is that the initial popularity of statism emanates from the fact that individual people think that it will promote what they want while forcing others to shoulder the burden. If socialism, for example, means “from each according to his means to each according to his needs”, everyone expects to be in the category of “needs” rather than “means” – they seldom consider the fact that they may be the ones with the “means” who suffer day and night to meet someone else’s “needs”. As soon everyone realises that the latter is the reality then any incentive to co-operate dissolves and so the state has to wheel out the guns and gulags in order to force people into line. This discord with human nature is one of the reasons why socialist experiments have collapsed while freer societies have prospered. It is, therefore, individual freedom and not an automated, robotic adherence to the state that is in keeping with human nature.

    Radicalism vs. Gradualism

    The third and final version of the argument that libertarianism is “utopian” and which we shall explore here accepts that libertarianism is neither physically impossible nor necessarily contrary to human nature; however, so this argument goes, libertarianism still fails as the democratic state is so entrenched in the world and people are so inherently statist that any hope for a libertarian society will founder upon the rocks.

    The basic thrust of this argument is an assault on libertarianism’s inherently radical nature, and the alleged hopelessness of pursuing radical ideas more generally. Anti-libertarians are content to dismiss any form of libertarianism on these grounds alone; some free market proponents, on the other hand – such as the late Milton Friedman – have accepted this argument and attempt to achieve greater freedom by working within the state system through some kind of gradualism. We will challenge both the anti-radicalist defence of statism and the gradualist approach to freedom here.

    In the first place, a proposition may be radical on account of the fact that an opposing proposition is widely accepted and well entrenched. However, it does not follow from this that the importance of either the truth or justice of an unpopular proposition is in any way diminished. For instance, everyone may have once thought that the earth was flat and was at the centre of the universe. However, this consensus changed neither the fact that the earth is actually spherical and orbiting the sun, nor the fact that such an understanding would yield significant progress for human knowledge of their environment. Similarly, if everybody thought that it was perfectly acceptable to murder blacks or rape women and, moreover, everybody was merrily raping and murdering, this would not change the fact that these are inherently evil acts against which every effort should be made to stop them – and, moreover, that the stoppage should be immediate. The difficulty of countering well entrenched views will certainly render our strategy in pursuing a radical goal more difficult, but it does not, contrary to the anti-libertarian stance, invalidate the goal in the first place. Truths do not go away merely because everyone wants them to and in some cases revelation of the truth – such as the true nature of the state and the way it blights mankind – would have such powerful consequences that suffering the difficulty of attainment is worth it. Indeed, we might say that the failure to speak truth to power – or to overwhelming odds – is a sign of cowardice more than it is a sign of realism. The complexities involved in mustering the requisite courage are perhaps best captured by Joseph R Peden when he says:

    The libertarian revolution is not the work of a day – or a decade – or a life-time. It is a continuous process through the ages. The focus of the struggle changes from time to time and place to place. Once it involved the abolition of slavery; now it may be women’s liberation; here it may be a struggle for national independence; there it may center on civil liberties; at one moment it may require electioneering and party politics; at another armed self-defense and revolution […] There is a tendency among many libertarians to look for an apocalyptic moment when the State will be smashed forever and anarchy prevail. When they realize that the great moment isn’t about to come in their time, if ever, they lose faith in the integrity and plausibility of libertarian philosophy […] [This] should warn us that libertarianism can quite easily become an adolescent fantasy in minds that are immature and unseasoned by a broad humanistic understanding. It should not be an idée fixe or magic formula, but a moral imperative with which once approaches the complexities of social reality.

    From observing the unfolding of history, we can see quite clearly that ideas – and radical ideas especially – do matter. As the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset reminded us “civilisation is not ‘just there’ – it is not self supporting.” In other words, the existence of civilisation cannot be taken for granted and requires instead our active willingness to engage with the ideas which uphold it while repelling those that seek to destroy it. Most of either of such ideas have, at some point, begun as radical, popularly derided theories embraced by only a few intellectuals or pamphleteers – yet their subsequent, widespread adoption has had profound consequences. For instance, without enlightenment philosophy, it is unlikely that the American, French and Industrial Revolutions would ever have occurred; Karl Marx died in relative obscurity outside of radical circles, yet his theories went on to enslave half the globe; democracy has scarcely been taken seriously for almost the entire history of political thought, yet now one is laughed out of the room for even entertaining the suggestion that it is anything shy of brilliant. Moreover, it is difficult to dispute the fact that the triumph of democracy has endowed the state with a hitherto unseen halo of legitimacy that has served to justify its ever increasing expansion and perpetuation of atrocities. For example, millennia of monarchs, emperors and entrenched dynasties failed to create a world trading entirely with paper money; yet democracy “achieved” it in just a few decades.

    In short, therefore, what people think has changed dramatically and has had very real effects upon humanity. Consequently we must be prepared to influence what they think if we want to change the course of history. Ideas that are pummelled today will be praised tomorrow, and the seeming remoteness of victory today does not mean that victory will never arrive. As T S Eliot said

    If we take the widest and wisest view of a Cause, there is no such thing as a Lost Cause, because there is no such thing as a Gained Cause. We fight for lost causes because we know that our defeat and dismay may be the preface to our successors’ victory, though that victory itself will be temporary; we fight rather to keep something alive than in the expectation that it will triumph.

    Turning now to gradualism, any strategy which has jettisoned an ultimate goal or radical principle ends up bringing about a state of affairs that it is qualitatively different. The reason for this is that such a strategy needs to fill its ideological vacuum with some other guiding philosophy in order to inform its choices. For explicitly gradualist approaches towards freedom this has ended up being some kind of utilitarianism. In addition to this, as the focus of such gradualism has been to work hand in hand with as opposed to against the state, its proponents have been forced to accept the state’s perpetuation of basic injustices (such as its taxes, regulations, and monopoly over law, order and defence), thus morphing any of their criticism in this regard to being criticisms of degree rather than of kind. Consequently, any fulfilment of their obsession with “efficiency” has allowed the gradualist approach to accommodate and expand these injustices as they see fit. Therefore, the nature of the liberalising project has morphed into something which, rather than challenging injustice, instead permits it to be accommodated or replaced by further injustices.18

    For example, debates in the nineteenth century over the abolition of slavery were mired by considerations of whether the slaveholders should be “compensated” for the loss of their “property” in the slaves. It took the radical philosopher, Benjamin Pearson, to point out that it was the slaves who should be compensated for their years of misery while the slaveholders should be punished. Similarly, proposals for “school vouchers” wax lyrical about the benefits of “choice”, “competition” and “consumer sovereignty” without considering the choice and sovereignty of the tax payers who are mulcted to pay for it all, let alone the indoctrinating nature of state education. And, of course, any talk of tax reform is persistently blighted by some perceived necessity for any changes to the tax code to be “revenue neutral” – a concern which, judging by its prominence in the first paragraph of its 2017 tax reform plan, seems to be a priority for the Adam Smith Institute.

    So going back to our earlier, hypothetical society that enjoys raping women and murdering blacks, such approaches would translate into proposals to “compensate” murderers and rapists for their loss of enjoyment from murdering and raping; or to issue “rape vouchers”; or to ensure that “murder reform” was “murder neutral”. Framed in this light we can see that these proposals are not only utterly ridiculous but completely immoral – and, moreover, would result in something that is qualitatively different from anything we would regard as a free society.

    This critique of the gradualist approach does not seek to admonish anyone who accepts a movement towards an ultimate goal which, although falling short of it, yields a significant improvement. For example, we could accept, say, a 10% reduction of all taxes across the board with no strings attached, even if a residual tax burden remains. The point is that one must, in the first place, approach the table hoping to get everything that one wants in the fullest and quickest manner possible. When confronted by murder, rape, and slavery, for instance, one must begin by hoping to eradicate these abominations completely. All actual outcomes must then be judged in relation to this yardstick. On the other hand, if you come to the table demanding only half measures then you will never leave with anything more than half measures. No doubt, it is for this reason that William Lloyd Garrison said “gradualism in theory is perpetuity in practice.”

    Neither also are we seeking to criticise anyone who would caution us against abolishing a certain injustice on account of the fact that an even greater calamity might follow – such might be the case if, for example, welfare recipients rioted as a result of their funds being cut off. This is simply an expression of prudence that seeks to prevent causing more harm to the existing victims of the state than has already been inflicted. It is a million miles away from the travesty of the gradualist approach which regards the livelihoods of the perpetrators of injustice, whether they are murderers, rapists, slaveholders or just parents who expect “society” to educate their children, as being more important than the liberty of the victims. As Murray N Rothbard says:

    Gradualism in theory indeed undercuts the goal itself by conceding that it must take second or third place to other non- or antilibertarian considerations. For a preference for gradualism implies that these other considerations are more important than liberty.

    Indeed, the fatal flaw of gradualism is that it cares too much about rocking the boat rather than dealing with the pirates who have commandeered it (although we should probably also mention that the opportunity to share in the rum barrel plays a dimension in this regard). The purpose of radical ideas, however, is not to keep the ship afloat – it is to come to the rescue when it sinks. And, as noted earlier, our ship of heavily socialised democracy is almost certainly going sink at some point. When, for instance, Soviet communism collapsed in the 1980s-1990s, the last thing their long-suffering people wanted was a watered down version of that which had already failed them so catastrophically. Given that Western academics had been so pre-occupied with glorifying Marxism or preaching Keynesianism this one, great opportunity to administer the coup de grâce to all forms of socialism while they were on their knees was simply wasted.

    In at least two cases where free market reforms have been implemented successfully and long lastingly – in Hong Kong under John James Cowperthwaite and in New Zealand under Roger Douglas, both of whom were the Finance Ministers in their respective jurisdictions – a crisis was met with a “big bang” approach that swept away statist interference across the board in one, fell swoop. Douglas himself took the time to explain why such an approach and only such approach is likely work.

    First, clear goals and introducing them speedily prevent special interest groups from dragging the project down – by the time these people have worked out how to respond to a particular reform another one has already appeared. Second, reaching those clear goals in quantum leaps, rather than step by step, means that their positive effects appear much sooner, generating public support for them very quickly. This renders any endeavour to reach consensus with interest groups prior to the introduction of reforms – which Douglas regarded as rarely possible – unnecessary. This also demolishes the problem of residual economic distortions which linger when only some state interference is rolled back in a piecemeal fashion. Third, the snowballing effect of support gained from tangible progress and prosperity completely neutralises the opposition – devoid of the ability to suggest any practical alternative that could be so good, they are reduced to spouting empty platitudes.24 And finally, the faster you go the shorter the period of any uncertainty concerning the legal and regulatory environment, allowing businesses and entrepreneurs to make plans and invest capital sooner.

    All in all, Douglas took his shot and made the kill while his opponents hadn’t even picked up their guns. The fact that the results spoke for themselves initiated a circular motion where rapid and radical reform led to actual success that, in turn, served to create increased support for further reform. This contrasted with the approach of Douglas’ predecessor, Robert Muldoon (who was Prime Minister concurrently) who would only change things if no one was left worse off in the short term. Thus he ended up changing little.

    We can round off this defence of radicalism by conceding to both anti-libertarians and to gradualist free marketers their best possible scenario. What would happen if the libertarian goal was, in fact, achieved in one, fell swoop and the state vanished, right now, in an instant? What would happen if, to mimic a scenario posited by Leonard Read26​, we could push a big red button which would enable us to obliterate the state immediately and unremorsefully?

    Statists would like to tell us that society would soon collapse into murderous chaos; gradualists would probably say the same thing. But would this necessarily be the case? As we said earlier, the existence of the state is a product of conscious choice – it is a means for achieving certain ends. When the state ceases to provide the means for fulfilling these ends it will not be the case that we all give up and fail to look for an alternative. Nature abhors a vacuum, and acting man even more so.

    Therefore, if the state was to vanish in a puff of smoke, there may well be a transitory period of restlessness but people would soon take steps to protect and defend their property, with these private means eventually replacing the monopolistic provision of the state. Actual breakdowns of civil order have never lasted long enough for such private means to flourish or to crystallise into formal organisations, but we have seen their genesis in prominent incidents when the official, state police failed to come to the rescue – for example, in Koreatown during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, the 2011 UK riots, and in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014.

    In any case, it is not true that people refrain from engaging in private murder and theft simply because the state would clobber us if we did otherwise. Without the state the number of people willing to commit private murder and theft would still be in the minority. The majority abstain from these acts not because the government is preventing them from doing them but because a) they recognise them as evil and b) beyond the confines of immediate gratification they are ultimately counterproductive to maintaining the standard of living. Abolishing the state will not change this view. If any proponent of a statist order was to suggest otherwise then it is permissible to ask him what he would do if the state vanished suddenly. Would he be among the looters and plunderers? Would he be out smashing windows and burning down shops? Or would he be trying to create some semblance of civil order? If he would opt for the latter then on which grounds would he assume that everyone else would choose the former? In fact, getting rid of the state will annihilate the institution which is viewed as being the sole conduit for acts of violence to be perpetrated legitimately. Thus, by removing this veneer of legitimacy, the immediate destruction of the state would bring about a swift, moral improvement of the populace rather than its retrogression into barbarism.

    Interestingly, the gradualists in this instance have a weaker argument than the outright statists. Statists have an overriding distrust of the marketplace to create any kind of acceptable social order and so their conclusion that the immediate disappearance of the state would lead to chaos does, at least, have some consistency. Gradualists, however, wax lyrical about how “efficient” private individuals are when it comes to giving us more food, clothing, cars, and so on. But, for some reason, they do not trust those private individuals to manage any transition to a free society.

    Conclusion

    In closing, we can note that although libertarian principles are shamelessly radical, the path to fulfilling them may not be that radical at all. Centralising, statist projects, such as the EU, attempt to destroy the cultural, customary, and religious foundations of Western civilisation in order to replace it with their own, artificially constructed, trans-national, multicultural monoliths. It is, in fact, theseaims that are being rejected as too radical by the subjugated populations. In challenging them libertarians are, for the most part, trying to stop the world from being created anew, rather than create it anew ourselves. Moreover, the leftist/statist frenzy has now descended into being such a farce that political satirists are finding it too difficult to make things up – and that what they previously considered as far fetched jokes based on just a kernel of truth are inflating into full blown reality.

    This is not difficult to understand in an age which regards itself as immune to not only well-established social customs but is also engaging in an Orwellian endeavour to rewrite basic logic and common sense – that “free speech” is now speech the left agrees with; that “tolerance” means violently assaulting those who disagree with you; that “hate crime” is more evil than real crime2; that gender does not exist, or if it does exist then there is something like fifty of them; that we need to argue about who can use which toilet. In confronting all of this it seems that libertarians do not need to appear radical and certainly not utopian – instead, we may just need to be “normal”.

  • Underground Doomsday Bunker Embroiled In Colombian Drug Money Sting

    The developer of a high-end underground residential housing project advertised as a “five star playground with DEFCON 1 preparedness” is the subject of a federal criminal complaint after he agreed to launder money for Colombian drug cartels.

    John Eckerd – owner and manager of the $330 million Trident Lakes condo project, along with an unnamed co-conspirator accepted money they thought to be the proceeds from the Colombian drug trade – but it was actually undercover FBI agents according to Dallas local station CBS 11.

    The court documents allege Eckerd, 54, and an unidentified co-conspirator accepted $200,000 in purported drug money from undercover FBI agents over the past year. The federal sting culminated in February with Eckerd allegedly agreeing to launder $1 million from Colombian drug dealers through Trident Lakes, a planned 700-acre residential project in rural Fannin County.

    An undercover FBI agent posing as a former narcotics trafficker learned of Eckerd last September when the unidentified co-conspirator, who lives in New Jersey, suggested that Eckerd’s development in rural Fannin County could be used to launder narcotics profits.

    …

    Eckerd, a McKinney resident, has been out on $100,000 bond since March. His attorney, Dallas defense lawyer Bob Webster, declined an on-camera interview, but questioned the charges against his client. –CBS 11

    “As you know, the government, they can write in a variety of terms,” Webster told CBS 11 News. “And they choose the terms.”

    A U.S. magistrate judge granted a continuance in the case in May, writing that “plea negotiations currently are in progress, and both the United States and the Defendant seek additional time to achieve successful resolution of these negotiations, which would render trial of this matter unnecessary.”

    The Trident Lakes project made headlines two years ago while advertising the project – yet aside from building a horse-themed water fountain, neighbors say nearly nothing has been done on the property. It was to feature an 18-hole golf course and 796 subterranean condos fortified to withstand catastrophic events from nuclear war to the next global pandemic. Sizes range from 1,084 to 3,974 sqft. Prices for each unit ranged from $449,000 to $1.9 million according to a FAQ on the Trident Lakes website.

    Trident Lakes is our vision of luxury living in a resort-style community with multiple layers of security. All residences are specially engineered, efficient and spacious earth-sheltered condominiums with oversized terraces. Integrated into the community is a variety of amenities including a gun-range, three Caribbean-style lagoons, horseback riding, walking trails, golf, tennis, clubhouse and more. From the front gate to the front door of your condominium, Trident Lakes has designed security and sustainable living into every detail. Trident Lakes delivers investment quality real estate for the sophisticated buyer who seeks pleasure and peace in a perilous world. –Trident Lakes

    After disaster strikes: 

    Each condo will be connected – via a series of tunnels – to a community center which will include areas for dry food storage, DNA vaults, exercise rooms, communal greenhouse and meeting areas. Because of our detail to planning and populating, Trident Lakes will be prepared to mitigate the dangers.

    According to Business Insider, “A former spokesperson for Trident Lakes told Business Insider via email in 2017 that the development was still “in the early stages of development.”

    “We’re building more of an interactive, sustainable community, rather than just a hole in the ground to hide in,” the spokesperson said in that email. “Trident Lakes will be an above-ground country club resort with all the bells and whistles, but also — if need be — one of the safest places on Earth in our underground condominiums and communal living spaces.”

    The doomsday getaway for the ultra-rich was featured in national and local media, including The Atlantic, Texas Monthly, Forbes, and Business Insider.

    After the election of President Donald Trump in 2016, Americans took up new interest in doomsday preparations, as the possibility of a new Cold War set in. One company that manufactures and installs bunkers said it saw business climb over 500% in 2017. –Business Insider

    Read the complaint below:

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Jul 08

Today’s News 8th July 2018

  • America First, Helsinki, And Trump's Existential Threat To The Empire

    Authored by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,

    The major – perhaps only – redeeming virtue of the Donald’s ersatz campaign platform was his clear intent to seek a rapprochement with Russia, revamp America’s commitments to NATO and other cold war relics and to discard “Regime Change” as the core tenant of foreign policy. In essence, “America First” was to become the new route to domestic security and safety.

    Those eminently sensible notions struck the Deep State’s raison d’etre to the quick during the campaign; and by hook or crook, the Donald’s rapid fire actions toward these objectives since April have induced a palpable shock in the Imperial City.

    Clearly he means to withdraw America’s 29,000 military hostages now stationed in South Korea in return for some sort of peace treaty, economic normalization and denuclearization arrangement with Kim Jong-un.

    Likewise, he has sensibly suggested that demonizing Russia and Putin has accomplished nothing, and that they should be invited back into the G-8. And as soon as Robert Mueller finishes his RussiaGate farce, Trump can get rid of the present asinine sanctions on various Russian officials and Putin cronies, too.

    We also now know – owing to the sullen reporting of the Washington Post – that Trump has been hounding the national security bureaucracy about another utterly ridiculous artifact of the Empire. Namely, the fact that 73 years after Hitler descended into Hades from his bunker and 27 years after the Soviet Union slithered off the pages of history, there are still 35,000 US troops in Germany:

    The Pentagon is analyzing the cost and impact of a large-scale withdrawal or transfer of American troops stationed in Germany, amid growing tensions between President Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, according to people familiar with the work.

    ‘The effort follows Trump’s expression of interest in removing the troops, made during a meeting earlier this year with White House and military aides,’ U.S. officials said. Trump was said to have been taken aback by the size of the US presence, which includes about 35,000 active-duty troops, and complained that other countries were not contributing fairly to joint security or paying enough to NATO.

    ‘Word of the assessment has alarmed European officials, who are scrambling …’

    Scrambling?

    We doubt whether real Europeans are scrambling at all – the Post is surely just quoting from the NATO echo chamber.

    Then again, the latter is absolutely the most useless, obsolete, wasteful and dangerous multilateral institution in the present world. But like the proverbial clothes-less emperor, NATO doesn’t dare risk having the purportedly “uninformed” amateur in the Oval Office pointing out its buck naked behind.

    So the NATO subservient think tanks and establishment policy apparatchiks are harrumphing up a storm, but for crying out loud most of Europe’s elected politicians are in on the joke. They are fiscally swamped paying for their Welfare States and are not about to squeeze their budgets or taxpayers to fund military muscle against a nonexistent threat.

    As Justin Raimondo aptly notes,

    Finally an American president has woken up to the fact that World War II, not to mention the cold war, is over: there’s no need for US troops to occupy Germany.

    Vladimir Putin isn’t going to march into Berlin in a reenactment of the Red Army taking the Fuehrer-bunker – but even if he were so inclined, why won’t Germany defend itself?

    Exactly. If their history proves anything, Germans are not a nation of pacifists, meekly willing to bend-over in the face of real aggressors. Yet they spent the paltry sum of $43 billion on defense during 2017, or barely 1.1% of Germany’s $3.8 trillion GDP, which happens to be roughly three times bigger than Russia’s.

    In short, the policy action of the German government tells you they don’t think Putin is about to invade the Rhineland or retake the Brandenburg Gate. And this live action testimonial also trumps, as it were, all of the risible alarms emanating from the beltway think tanks and the 4,000 NATO bureaucrats talking book in behalf of their own plush Brussels sinecures.

    But now comes the piece de resistance. The Donald is going to Helsinki to make peace with Vlad Putin, and just in the nick of time.

    Hopefully, in one-fell swoop they can reach an agreement to get the US military out of Syria; normalize the return of Crimea and Moscow’s historic naval base at Sevastopol to the Russian motherland; stop the civil war in Ukraine via a mutually agreed de facto partition; stand-down from the incipient military clashes from the Baltic to the Black Sea; and pave the way for lifting of the absurd sanctions on Russian businessmen and citizens.

    Needless to say, time is of the essence. Every hour that the Donald wastes tweeting, bloviating about his beloved Mexican wall, sabotaging American exports and jobs and watching Fox & Friends reruns is just more opportunity for the vast apparatus of the Deep State (and most of his own top officials) to deep-six the Donald’s emerging and thoroughly welcome rendition of America First.

    For instance, the same Washington Post article cited above is laced with off-the record quotes from officials determined to maintain the NATO status quo and therefore continuing, needless provocation of Russia.

    ‘…..the Pentagon continuously evaluates US troop deployments,’ the statement said, and such ‘analysis exercises’ are ‘not out of the norm.’

    Several officials suggested that Pentagon policymakers may have moved ahead with the assessment to prove the worth of the current basing arrangement anddissuade Trump from carrying the thought of withdrawal any further.

    Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon dismissed any suggestion of a full or partial withdrawal from Germany and described such analysis as routine.

    Overcoming the self-interested inertial forces of the Deep State and its vast syndicate of contractors, weapons suppliers, military pork barrels and think tank supplicants, of course, is its own monumental challenge. Yet the Donald’s pathway to America First is further obstructed by the fact that the Dems are way off-sides for purely partisan reasons.

    That is to say, Democratic politicians – including most of the so-called liberals and progressives – have turned themselves into handmaids of the Warfare State owing to their inconsolable grief and anger over losing the 2016 election to Donald Trump. Consequently, they are virtually incapable of thinking rationally about Russia – or of even thinking at all.

    Nevertheless, if the Donald is anything, he is a showman. And he very much needs to steal the show in Helsinki from the beltway saboteurs who will stop at nothing to keep the current utterly unnecessary and pointless cold war revival cranking at full steam.

    After all, to paraphrase Randolph Bourne, the Russian ogre is the health of the military/industrial/intelligence/think tank complex. So even a rapprochement – to say nothing of peace – with Russia is an existential threat to the Deep State; it would necessarily pull the fiscal pins right out from under the hideous $800 billion per year defense, intelligence and foreign aid apparatus.

    So we don’t know whether the Donald can pull off a second Singapore in Helsinki or not, but we are quite sure Flyover America would rally to his cause – just as it has done since his historic photo op with Kim Jong-un.

    We are also quite sure that even his own government will be doing its best to sabotage the Helsinki summit because the very prosperity of the Imperial City depends upon demonizing Putin and Russia. As Justin Raimondo has further observed:

    The Helsinki summit with Putin is the knockout punch. And the howls of painarising from our hateful warmongering media, the Democratic party politicians they’re in thrall to, and the phony ‘human rights’ scamsters, are getting louder by the minute. We should all revel in their misery.

    Trump campaigned on making peace with Russia: he has a mandate to do so. That, however, matters little to the ‘intelligence community’ and their media camarilla, which is up in arms at the very prospect of a Russo-American partnership for peace. The national security bureaucracy and the laptop bombardiers who inhabit Think-tank World have a vested interest in maintaining a cold war status quo that should’ve ended when the Berlin Wall fell. They are horrified by Trump’s ‘America First’ foreign policy views, and they are out to stop him by any means necessary – because his victory meant the end of their worldview and their careers.

    Meanwhile, the significance of Helsinki cannot be overstated. If it goes well, it will be proof positive that America faces no large state-based enemy.

    That is to say, it will mightily illuminate the hidden fact that neither Russia nor China (for that matter) even remotely possess the intent or the means to threaten the American homeland.

    Likewise, a potential US withdrawal from Syria and incipient agreement with Russia to de-escalate tensions in the middle east would remind America that Regime Change has been an utter failure.

    Yet without an imperial foreign policy that is implicitly designed to either bully or remove recalcitrant lesser governments anywhere on the planet – whether or not they have the intent or capacity to harm the US homeland – there would be no case at all for 11 carrier battle groups, massive air and sealift capacity and Washington’s far flung string of bases and occupations spread among more than 100 countries around the planet.

    So, much is riding in the balance at Helsinki – including the possibility that a strong success could open the door to a real, far more systematic and intellectually cogent America First Policy over the longer haul.

    To that end, we therefore propose to dig deeper – to tease out the full possibilities of an America First foreign policy now that the Donald has somehow succeeded in getting his ample belly right up close to the bar.

    In the first place it needs be observed that lurking not far below the surface of the Donald’s “America First” slogan is the ghost of Senator Robert Taft’s profoundly correct case for nonintervention.

    Back in the 1950s, the great statesman from Ohio fully understood that free enterprise prosperity, minimal government and maximum personal liberty were incompatible with a permanent, fiscally debilitating Warfare State leviathan designed to function as the world’s boots-&-suits-on-the-ground hegemon.

    Consequently, Taft strongly opposed a big peacetime navy, a large standing army with forward stationing and rapid global deployment capacities and the proliferation of foreign treaties and aid commitments.

    To the contrary, he reasoned that in the nuclear age a US-based bomber and missile force of unquestioned striking capacity would more than adequately protect the homeland from foreign military aggression; and that it could do so at a fraction of the cost of what amounted to permanent imperial legions assigned to patrolling the better part of the planet.

    Today Taft’s vision of a homeland defense would be more apt than ever. It would constitute an even cheaper and more efficacious guarantor of the safety and security of the American people than in his time. That’s because there are now no rival superpowers with even a fraction of the military and economic might of the former Soviet Union.

    Moreover, missile technology has become so advanced that a relative handful of submarines and hardened domestic launch sites can deter any conceivable foreign threat, which is inherently a nuclear one, to America’s homeland security.

    That is, in this day and age there is absolutely no conventional military threat to the safety and liberty of citizens in Omaha NE, Spokane WA or Springfield MA.

    That’s because there is no nation on earth that could mount a giant naval and air armada sufficient to invade the American homeland. Or, if it were foolish enough to try, could it survive the guided missile blitz that would send its forces to Davy Jones’ locker long before they crossed the blue waters which surround the North American continent.

    Stated differently, nuclear deterrence, the great ocean moats and a territorial military defense is all that it would take to keep America secure in today’s world.

    There is no need for Pax Americana, even if it could succeed, which manifestly it has not; and even if it could be afforded, which clearly it can’t be.

    To be sure, the Donald is too full of egotistical bluster and too infatuated with militarist trappings to go the full Taft-nonintervention route, but given a fair chance he might yet shimmy policy in that direction. Clearly a rapprochement with Russia would enable a de-escalation of Washington’s imperial presence in the middle east and avoid a dangerous buildup of military tensions and expense in eastern Europe.

    In any event, as crude and bombastic as Trump’s articulation of the America First proposition sometimes sounds, it does amount to a frontal attack on the intellectual superstructure which keeps the Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf, 35,000 troops in Germany, 29,000 of America’s military personal in harm’s way on the Korean peninsula, 11 carrier battle groups on the oceans, a continued expeditionary force of 100,000 troops, dependents and support personnel in Japan and military operations and economic and military aid in more than 100 other nations around the planet.

    Underneath this vast Empire, of course, lays the utterly bogus notion that America is the Indispensable Nation and that Washington Leadership is always and everywhere the sine quo non of stability, order and peace all around the planet.

    By the very obnoxious nature of his personality and modus operandi, however, the Donald has done much to tarnish the idea of Washington Leadership; and that is a considerable step toward global peace in its own right.

    That’s because the best way to stop more American wars is for no one to come next time Washington puts out the call, and for the so-called Coalition of the Willing to shrink to a quorum of none.

    That prospect has surely terrified the foreign policy establishment. Even though to date the Donald has been throttled at nearly every turn by the War Party in his discombobulated and amateurish pursuit of America First, that has not stopped its leading spokesman and institutions from lambasting him for allegedly sullying Washington’s self-assigned “leadership” role in the world.

    In that respect there are few grand poobahs of the War Party who better embody the arrogant pretensions of the American Imperium than the odious president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Hass.

    According to the latter, the trouble with Trump is that after 16 months in office he still doesn’t get it; he’s turned his back on the core predicate that animates the Imperial City:

    ‘Trump is the first post-WWII president to view the burdens of world leadership as outweighing the benefits. The United States has changed from the principal preserver of order to a principal disrupter.’

    Exactly what hay wagon does he think we fell off from?

    How did the war on Vietnam, the First Gulf War to save the Emir of Kuwait’s oil wealth, the futile 17-year occupation of Afghanistan, the destruction of Iraq, the double-cross of Khadafy after he gave up his nukes, the obliteration of much of civil society and economic life in Syria, the US-supplied Saudi genocide in Yemen and the Washington sponsored coup and civil war on Russia’s doorstep in Ukraine, to name just a few instances of Washington’s putative “world leadership”, have anything to do with preserving “order” on the planet?

    And exactly how did the “benefits” of these serial instigations of mayhem outweigh the “burdens” to America’s taxpayers – to say nothing of the terminal costs to the dead and maimed citizens in their millions who had the misfortune to be domiciled in these traumatized lands?

    Likewise, have the refugees who have been flushed out of Syria, Libya, Yemen, Iraq and elsewhere in the middle east by Washington’s wars done anything for the peace and stability of Europe, where Washington’s victims have desperately fled in their millions?

    Yet, there would have been no long-lasting civil war in Syria without the billions of cash and weapons supplied to the so-called rebels and the outright jihadis by Washington and its Persian Gulf vassals; nor would Yemen by sinking into famine and cholera plagues without the American bombs, missiles and drone dispatched by the Saudi pilots essentially functioning as hired Pentagon mercenaries.

    Indeed, the smoldering ruins of Mosul, Aleppo, Fallujah, Benghazi and lesser places in their thousands hardly speak to a beneficent hegemony.

    Yet had Washington never brought its fleets and occupying forces to the Middle East after 1970 and had the region not come under the heavy boot of the Central Command and Washington’s assorted proconsuls and plenipotentiaries, the plague of radical Sunni jidhadism would never have arisen. Nor is it likely that the ancient rift between the Sunni and Shiite confessions of Islam would have erupted into today’s lethal armed conflicts.

    It is well to note that during peacetime before 1970, no American soldiers were killed in the middle east. After 1990. However, virtually all US serviceman who were killed or wounded in combat were stationed in the greater middle east.

    It is also worth noting that the answer to high oil prices is high prices, not the Fifth Fleet. In fact, global oil production today has doubled since 1973 owing to price, technology and the worldwide quest for profits by state and private oil companies alike – even as constant dollar prices per barrel stand far below the peaks reached during that decade.

    There never was any economic imperative whatsoever to bring the American armada into the region.

    So when candidate Trump said the Iraq invasion was a stupid mistake, that Hillary’s war on Khadafy was misbegotten, that he would like to cooperate with Putin on pacifying Syria and that NATO was obsolete, he was actually calling into question the fundamental predicates of the American Imperium.

    And that gets us to the Russian threat bogeyman, the War Party’s risible demonization of Vladimir Putin and the cocked-up narrative about the Kremlin’s meddling in the 2016 election – all of which the upcoming Helsinki summit could knock into a cocked hat.

    When Trump captured the GOP nomination against all odds and expectations in the spring of 2016, the War Party went into hyper-drive. Each of these bogus themes were promoted to a fare-the-well through the MSM in order to derail his candidacy; and then, after the fact, to delegitimize and imperil his presidency.

    Yet the gruel behind each of these memes is thin indeed. So it’s is fair to say that while the Donald has caused the Imperial City itself to become unhinged, it is also possible that a successful Helsinki photo op writ large could mightily help Flyover America to see the light.

    In the case of the election meddling meme, there are few more hypocritical instances of the cat-calling-the-kettle-black than this one.

    To wit, the total US intelligence community (IC) budget is upwards of $75 billion – 25% more than Russia’s entire military budget including ships, planes, tanks, ammo, fuel, rations, operations, maintenance and even spare boots – and a big part of that giant IC spend goes to, well, meddling, hacking and sabotage of foreign nations!

    The Targeted Access Operations (TAO) unit inside NSA alone has a multi-billion budget which funds thousands of in-house and contractor personnel who spend day and night hacking the communications channels of virtually every government in the world, friend, foe and enemy alike.

    It goes without saying, of course, that the very purpose of these intrusions is to interfere with the domestic politics and governance of most of the planet’s population, and in some cases to actually sabotage perfectly appropriate operations, such as the Natanz centrifuges in Iran which were destroyed by the Washington’s stuxnet virus.

    Thus, if you are not caught up in the War party’s self-serving groupthink, it seems entirely plausible that in the face of these massive Washington cyber-assaults that targeted nations might indeed seek to counterattack, as apparently the Russian security services have done.

    Yet that also opens up another show and tell possibility for Helsinki. There could be nothing that would shutdown the whole RussiaGate Farce (and leave the Dem handmaids high and dry) than a freeze-for-freeze proposal on meddling – something we are quite confident Cool Hand Vlad would jump at in a heartbeat.

    After all, what the whole Russian meddling meme boils down to is an assertion that Kremlin operatives have been attacking America in plain sight. That is, they hacked the DNC’s gossip and intrigue-ridden computers and breached the content of Podesta’s password protected political skullduggery. But airing intra-party dirty laundry is neither a national security matter nor does its disclosure jeopardize American democracy in the slightest.

    The very idea that these two alleged hacks amount to some grand assault on American democracy is just plain laughable; and it surely does not take a dozen congressional investigations and the rogue Mueller witch-hunt to preclude any future recurrence.

    All it would really require is a handshake agreement in Helsinki because it is plainly obvious that Russia got nothing out of the St. Petersburg troll farm or any of the other related allegations of “meddling”.

    At the end of the day, we are supposed to believe that a country with a puny$1.3 trillion GDP, which is just 7% of the US’ $19.7 trillion GDP, and which consists largely of aged hydrocarbon provinces, endless wheat fields, modest industrial capacities and a stagnant Vodka-favoring workforce, is actually a threat to America’s security.

    And we are also supposed to fear the military capacity of a country that has no blue water Navy to speak of and no conventional airlift and air-attack capacity which could remotely threaten the New Jersey shores, and that spends less in a full year than the Pentagon consumes every 35 days.

    Oh, yes, and this midget military is run with an apparent iron-hand by the Cool Hand Luke of the modern world. Yet as will be readily apparent to the unwashed American masses from his demeanor at Helsinki, the last thing Putin is going to do is commit Russian national suicide by launching a nuclear attack on America.

    Yet that’s all he’s got: To wit, a nonexistent military threat and a justifiable desire to protect the Russian-speaking populations on his doorstep in Crimea and the Donbas from the depredations of the Civil War that Washington itself instigated.

    That too will become apparent at Helsinki.

    So let the Empire’s existential crisis begin!

    *  *  *

    Reprinted via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.

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  • US Army Discovers New Explosive Material – "More Powerful Than TNT"

    The chemical compound trinitrotoluene (C7H5N3O6), or most commonly known as TNT, was developed in Germany in 1863 by Joseph Wilbrand. While TNT is not as powerful as dynamite, it is more stable than most explosives. For more than a century, militaries around the world have melted down TNT into shell casings for kinetic energy weapons. TNT is considered the premier mixture of chemicals for creating spectacular explosions, and it is used in the formulation of determining the amount of energy released when a nuclear weapon is detonated, usually expressed as a TNT equivalent.

    After more than a 100 years of dominance, new research from the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Army Research Laboratory have discovered a new, more powerful compound, Bis-oxadiazole (C6H4N6O8), which could render TNT obsolete.

    The molecular structure of Bis-oxadiazole. (Source: OPR&D)

    “It would be about 1.5 times the power of TNT,” said David Chavez, an explosives chemist at Los Alamos who worked on the new molecule, who spoke with Popular Mechanics. “So fairly energetic, quite a nice improvement compared to TNT.”

    Popular Mechanics first uncovered the report titled “Bis(1,2,4-oxadiazole) Bis(methylene) Dinitrate: A High-Energy Melt-Castable Explosive and Energetic Propellant Plasticizing Ingredient,” which was published late last month in the Organic Process Research & Development, a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the American Chemical Society.

    Chavez told Popular Mechanics that TNT is a blend of the seemingly harmless elements carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen (C7H5N3O6). However, he compares the explosive compounds to gasoline, indicating that rather than extracting oxygen from the air to work as an oxidizer for combustion, like an engine, the explosives have all the ingredients for a powerful explosion within the compound.

    The report goes on to explain how TNT has a “major advantage” on the production line than other forms of explosives: it is melt-castable, which means the explosive can be shaped into molds and shells to produce bombs.

    “The place where you see it used most is mortar shells and artillery shells,” said Jesse Sabatini, a synthesis chemist with the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, told Popular Mechanics.

    TNT has some significant disadvantages that have led to a “quest to develop new melt-castable explosives,” said Sabatini, between various governmental agencies, including the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense. Sabatini told Popular Mechanics the Army is concerned that TNT and other chemical compounds produce high amounts of pollutants during the manufacturing process.

    “There is actually quite a bit of waste that’s generated by making TNT,” Chavez said. “There’s something that’s called red water, which is the kind of water that’s left over from the nitration of TNT. And then when the TNT itself is actually isolated, it’s washed with more water, and that water is a waste that’s called pink water, and it also has some environmental impacts.”

    Explosives chemist David Chavez pours an example of melt-castable explosive into a copper mold at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Technical Area 9. (Source: Army)

    “The Army always wants to have enhanced performance,” Sabatini said. “They want more blast. They want more power. And TNT is okay… but we want to do better than that.”

    In 2016, ARL synthesized Bis-isoxazole, which proved to be much greener to manufacture and melt-castable, but there was one problem: the new explosive was not as powerful.

    The scientist at ARL contacted their colleagues at the Los Alamos laboratories to tweak the explosive recipe. By exchanging a carbon atom for another nitrogen, the Los Alamos scientists were amazed the new tweaked compound produced a much higher explosive yield.

    The result, well, the new tweaked chemical compound could replace TNT, is now known as Bis-oxadiazole.

    “The additional nitrogen adds density to the molecule, and removing carbon helps balance out the oxidizer so all of the fuel can be used up to produce energy in the reaction. And once the researchers had synthesized it in the lab, they realized Bis-oxadiazole has a melting point around that of TNT, making it melt-castable,” said Popular Mechanics.

    According to the scientist, there are two methods in measuring the energy of an explosion: detonation velocity and detonation pressure. It is believed that Bis-oxadiazole “should have a detonation velocity of around 8.18 km/s and detonation pressure of 29.4 gigapascals, compared to around 7.8 km/s and 26 gigapascals for Composition B,” said Popular Mechanics.

    The scientist told Popular Mechanics that the production of Bis-oxadiazole would continue for future toxicity studies at ARL and Aberdeen Proving Ground. If the outcomes are successful, the new compound will be molded into artillery shells for testing at Aberdeen Proving Ground. If all goes well on the artillery range, then scientist could start producing large quantities

    Chavez explained the average time from chemical discovery to fielding new explosives takes about 5 to 10 years. However, if the new explosive material is as powerful and green to manufacture as scientist suggest, then the Pentagon could rush to incorporate Bis-oxadiazole on the modern battlefield.

    “It is a compound that certainly has us excited,” Sabatini said.  

    To sum up, the Army has developed environmentally friendly explosives that are much more powerful than TNT. It is likely this new technology of advanced explosives will be rushed onto the battlefield before the next round of wars. Seems like the Army is going green…

  • Political Smear Job? Law Firm Investigating Accusations Against Jim Jordan Steeped In Partisanship

    Authored by Jon Hall via Free Market Shooter blog,

    Over the July 4th holiday, NBC News posted an article detailing alleged sexual abuse at Ohio State University. At the center of the story, NBC News implicated one of the most well-known members of the Republican party, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio.

    Former wrestlers that Jordan coached over two decades ago at OSU accuse him of failing to stop the team doctor from molesting students.

    It’s obvious to anyone paying attention that Jim Jordan is on the rise. Already a member of the Freedom Caucus, his name has been thrown around by many for the next Speaker of the House. Jordan has also led the charge against the corruption at the FBI and DOJ – known for many heated debates in hearings.

    To note, the University opened an investigation into the accusations that Dr. Richard Strauss – who died in 2005 – abused students when he was the doctor for the wrestling team during his tenure from the mid-70’s to late 90’s back in April. The timing of Jordan’s name being thrown into the mess is not the only suspect element regarding this scandal…

    Enter Perkins Coie, the firm heavily involved in the investigation into whether or not Russia influenced the 2016 Presidential election. When DNC servers were hacked, Perkins Coie did not go to authorities with proof of the hack but instead hired Crowdstrike, a cybersecurity firm with ties to Hillary Clinton, to investigate the breach.

    As FMShooter reported back in 2017:

    On top of all of this, Crowdstrike was the only one to come to a conclusion on the “Russia” conspiracy. The FBI never even inspected the hacked DNC servers and simply went off of Crowdstrike’s conclusion that Russian hackers did infiltrate DNC servers when there is absolutely no proof behind their claim.

    Perkins Coie also sits at the center of the FISA abuse scandal. The Steele dossierwas the first piece of evidence used in FISA warrants to surveil former Trump team member, Carter Page. Both the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee helped fund research into the Steele dossier through Perkins Coie – the very same law firm that is now looking into the accusations against Strauss and Jim Jordan.

    For proof, OpenSecrets has Perkins Coie’s major contributions laid bare.

    Of course, the DNC tops the list with Hillary For America, Obama for America, and Priorities USA Action – David Brock’s former PAC – also making appearances; along with many other high-profile Democratic fundraising efforts. 

    Notably, Perkins Coie was hired by OSU to investigate the accusations less than a month after the University shut down their office that helped sexual-assault victims. In a statement, OSU said:

    To date, Perkins Coie has interviewed more than 150 former students and witnesses and is engaged in further investigative efforts. Ohio State has shared all additional information that has come to the attention of the university with the independent investigators whose work is ongoing.

    This isn’t even mentioning the shaky history of Jordan’s accusers, raising questions about their authenticity.

    One of the accusers, Mike DiSabato is being accused by the widow of a marine for intimidating and bullying her over a memorial fund set up in her husband’s name. Another accuser served time in prison for a $1.8 million fraud scheme.

    While OSU did notify local police and prosecutors, it’s strange that they immediately selected a law firm (and stranger that it was Perkins Coie) instead of letting police handle the investigation. Perkins Coie has no power to convene a grand jury or bring charges of perjury; nor do they have police powers or are able to compel someone to testify.

    Certainly, an investigation into these accusations is warranted. However, giving the case to a law firm with proven bias isn’t how to go about getting to the truth. Perkins Coie are already involved in numerous scandals and being involved in this investigation further complicates the process. Perkins Coie has proven that politics is more important than the truth – therefore, can any conclusion they reach in this case really be trusted?

    * * *

    Editor’s note: After this article was posted, a member of the FMShooter team uncovered more about Perkins Coie:

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

    The quoted text is as follows:

    In recent years, a group of attorneys have been fighting to keep their recruited immigrant clients eligible for naturalization as delays have mounted. Some have been successful, including nearly 50 recruits who were granted a type of temporary status while their background investigations are being completed.

    “Some of our clients have finally emerged through the system and at least are doing basic training,” said Donald Friedman, a Washington attorney with Perkins Coie.

    The firm has certainly engaged in far more legal actions supporting liberal causes than the few listed against Rep. Jordan. 

  • "Get The F*ck Out": Watch Trump Supporters Kick White Supremacists Out Of "Occupy ICE" Counterprotest

    A group of KKK members led by a Jefferson County “Imperial Wizard” known only as Derek were ejected from a Saturday “Occupy ICE” counterprotest by members of conservative groups the “Three Percenters” and “Proud Boys,” who had organized the response.

    “Get your ass out of here… go, go… get the fu*k out. You’re racist.” 

    Occupy ICE has been physically blocking Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings across the country to protest the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy of enforcing existing laws. The group has been camped out in front of the local Louisville ICE building at 7th and Broadway since early this week, calling for the agency to be abolished.

    In advance of the event, Louisville police Chief Steve Conrad warned residents of the potential for violence. 

    “I believe a number of people coming to this event will be armed,” Conrad said at a press conference on Friday.

    Gary Foreman, a spokesman for the Kentucky chapter of the Three Percenters, said on Friday the group would be coming to “ensure everyone expresses their thoughts in a peaceful environment.” He said about 100 people are expected to attend, including members of state chapters in Tennessee and Indiana.

    Conrad said people have the right to carry firearms in Kentucky, but the police department won’t accept violence or property damage in any form. He said mixing firearms with the intensity of the immigration debate was the reason he canceled planned days off for police officers in order to have more resources on Saturday.  –Courier Journal

    “The fact (that) emotions are so high on this issue and people’s opinions are so varied, I think it’s important that we provide a place where people can share their opinions and hopefully we can keep them safe in the process,” Conrad said. 

    The Proud Boys and Three Percenters regularly attend rallies and other events in support, or counterprotest, of public policy or liberal activism. In 2017, the Three Percenters were involved in the “Unite the Right” demonstration against the removal of a Confederate monument in Charlottesville, VA organized by white nationalist provocateur Jason Kessler – who was an active Obama supporter just eight months prior to the event. Kessler’s motives were called into question when he was discovered to have written and performed African revenge-porn poetry about “white devils” raping Africa, while his Jewish ex-girlfriend said he showed “no signs of being anti-Semitic” following the “Unite the Right” rally. From Kessler’s “running thoughts” blog in December, 2015:

    The Three Percenters distanced themselves from the neo-Nazi element at Charlottesville after dozens of people were wounded and a woman, Heather Heyer, died after a white supremacist drove his car into a crowd of protesters. 

    “While we support and defend everyone’s right to free speech, we will not align ourselves with any type of racist group.” -Three Percenters 

    Meanwhile, violence between left and right has been escalating. Last weekend at a conservative rally in Portland, a large skirmish broke out which led to a viral video of a Proud Boy known as “Rufio” knocking out an Antifa member. (Knockout at 7:35)

    And on the 4th of July, 16-year-old Trump supporter Hunter Richard was assaulted at 2:35 a.m. at a San Antonio Whataburger restaurant while dining with two friends, when 30-year-old Kino Jimenez threw soda on the trio and stole Richards’s red MAGA hat. Jimenez was arrested on Friday.

    The recent confrontations over Trump’s immigration policy come on the heels of several members of the Trump administration suffering harassment in public and at their homes – most notably Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who was ejected from the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, VA after the owner’s gay employees became uncomfortable in Sanders’s presence. 

    In response to the spate of public harassment last month, Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters (CA) called for Democrats to form into mobs and physically confront members of the Trump administration if they see them out in public. 

    “If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere,” said Waters. 

  • US Rents Surge To Record Highs Led By Small-Town Texas Oil-Boom

    After climbing roughly 1% in June, the national average rent in the US reached yet another record high as rents in small and mid-sized cities continued to outpace their larger peers. But while prices in Midland, Texas and Odessa, Texas led the pack as rising oil prices revived the fortunes of the US energy industry, the usual suspects continued to occupy the top spots, with Manhattan and San Francisco remaining the two most expensive rental markets in the country, according to RentCafe‘s latest monthly rent report.

    RentCafe

    Here are a few takeaways from the June report, courtesy of RentCafe:

    • The national average rent reached the all-time high of $1,405 in June 2018, having increased by 2.9 percent year over year, and by 0.9 percent ($12) month over month, according to Yardi Matrix data.

    • Rents increased in 88 percent of the nation’s biggest 250 cities in June, remained unchanged in 10 percent of cities, and dropped in 2 percent of them compared to June 2017.

    • The top 20 fastest increases in the country were registered in small cities, where population migration and the strengthening economy are accelerating rent growth.

    • Manhattan has had the largest year-over-year rent increase of the past 12 months, June having brought a 1.5% increase after a year-long period of decreasing or stagnating prices.

    With more families renting today than in years past (as home valuations make ownership out of reach for all but the middle-class and the wealthy, two- and three-bedroom apartments and homes have been the primary drivers of rent growth so far in 2018. However, June’s increases were almost perfectly balanced as rents in one-bedroom and studio apartments caught up to two- and three-bedroom

    The thriving oil-industry hubs of the Permian Basin, Midland and Odessa have been leading the nation with rents growing at a spectacular rate since the last significant drop in oil prices.

    The latest data shows a 40% increase in Midland compared to June 2017, whereas Odessa rents have increased by 36.6% on average in the same period. Lancaster, California enters the top 5, where rents have seen an alarming 10.2% growth rate over the past 12 months. The 9.9% rent increase in Reno, NV means The Biggest Little City in the World has maintained the its position from last month, when it had posted a 10.7% gain. The Phoenix suburb of Peoria, AZ climbs to 5th place, registering a 9.6% Y-o-Y increase in rents.

    Small

    When it comes to larger cities, Las Vegas again claimed the title of the fastest growing in that category, with rents rising 7% year-over-year.

    Rent

    Among mid-sized cities, Tampa, Fla. took home the title of fastest-growing rents in June, while three mid-sized California cities – Sacramento, Stockton and Fresno – all made it in the top five fastest growing.

    Midsized

    And with the stock of available homes on the market continuing to lag demand, it’s likely home valuations – and by extension, rents – will continue to climb until the already expensive rents and home prices rise beyond the means of the average renter or marginal buyer, a phenomenon that’s already beginning to play out in the most expensive markets.

  • California Millionaires Flee State After Tax Hike

    California lost an estimated 138 high income individuals due to the passage of the Proposition 30 – a tax hike pushed by Gov. Jerry Brown (D) and approved by voters in 2012, according to new research from Stanford University and members of the California Franchise Tax Board. 

    The measure raised taxes on the state’s highest earners by 8% – increasing it one percentage point to 13.3%, leaving California top-earners with the highest state income tax rate in the country. It also hiked the tax rate on income between $300,000 and $500,000 by 2%, while raising the tax rate on income over $500,000 by 3%.

    Using California Franchise Tax Board data, the study led by Charles Varner, associate director of the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality, examined taxpayers who were and were not affected by the Prop. 30 tax hike, and found that in the two years before the increase was imposed (2011 and 2012) net in-migration for both groups “was positive and roughly consistent.” After the tax increases, however, net in-migration fell for households hit with a tax increase of 0.5% or more – with the greatest reduction coming from households saddled with the highest effective tax rate.

    For the largest and most recent of these reforms—a 2012 voter-enacted tax increase, the largest top marginal rate increase by any U.S. state over the past three decades—we observe a statistically significant effect in the expected direction. -Varner

    The 2012 tax increases affected roughly 312,000 people, resulting in approximately .04% leaving the state. Numerically that’s not a lot, but it’s significant for several reasons – especially considering that an earlier 2004 tax increase had no negative effect on the millionaire population.

    The research is an update to an earlier study that found more millionaires actually moved to California following a 2004 tax hike of 1% on income over $1 million to fund mental health services. 

    “In other words, the highest-income Californians were less likely to leave the state after the [2004] millionaire tax was passed.”

    The 2012 tax hikes, however, were much larger than the 1% mental health surcharge.

    “One reason we wanted to update our previous paper is that this tax change in 2012 is the largest state tax change that we have seen in the U.S. for the last three decades,” Varner said.

    [A]fter 2012, net in-migration declined for those facing an effective tax increase of 0.5 percent or higher. The drop was largest for the group facing the highest effective tax increase, wrote the authors, who included Allen Prohofsky of the California Franchise Tax Board. –SF Chronicle

    That said, the researchers also noted that migration in and out of California accounts for a tiny portion of the state’s millionaire ranks – a population which fluctuates by more than 10,000 people from year to year, while migration accounts for 50 – 120 people, or around 1%. The remaining 99% “is due to income dynamics at the top – California residents growing into the millionaire bracket, or falling out of it again.” 

    Moreover, the California millionaire population migrates for many reasons – and “changes dramatically over the business cycle.” Tax increases are but one factor. 

    If the population of top earners were determined mostly by tax rates, the basic population graph could be quite informative. However, population changes for other reasons. The strength of financial markets is critical, with the two peaks in Figure 1.5 corresponding to the dot-com boom (1999-2000) and the more recent stock market run-up (2007-08). These economic trends greatly increased the number of Californians earning very high incomes. Analytically, other drivers of the top-income population (particularly income growth) overshadow migration, which occurs on a smaller scale. -Varner

    The millionaire population is highly correlated to the financial markets. The researchers found that the median person who earned at least $1 million in a given year earned at least $1 million in only seven of the 13 years before and after that year.

    That could be one reason people don’t pull up stakes after a tax increase. Another reason: It’s hard to move when you have a high-paying job, a spouse who may work and kids. The report found that married people with children are less sensitive to the tax increase than married people without children. –SF Chronicle

    Divorce

    While tax increases account for a small number of CA millionaires leaving the state, a much larger factor is divorce, and as the authors note “The tax policy changes examined in this report are very modest compared to the life-impact of marital dissolution.” 

    “We find a strong migration effect for high-income earners who become divorced. In the year of divorce, the migration rate more than doubles, and remains slightly elevated for two years after the event.”

    The “divorce effect” was found to fall off as time passes, and is insignificant for divorces which happened over three years ago. 

    So while the research team didn’t find that millionaires are leaving “in droves” because of the tax hikes – and found that California was “consistently becoming a more attractive place for millionaires over the period we study” – the small but statistically significant migration tied to tax increases is notable. Not only can other states considering top-earner tax hikes look forward to outward migration, they should consider the economic impact of millionaires who move their businesses as well.

  • Energy Is The Key To Everything

    Authored by Tom Chatham via Project Chesapeake,

    When people are sitting around making lists and deciding what they need to survive or just get by in the future there is one thing they need to give great thought to. Energy is the basis of everything. Energy takes many forms such as food, electricity, liquid fuels, mechanical, nuclear, solid fuels, solar and wind to name a few. Without it your body will not function, you will have no light, no heat, no transportation or communication. Energy is the foundation of everything humans do in this world. Without energy in its many forms we cannot live.

    If you can produce enough energy you can do just about anything. You can live deep underground, live on the moon or even in space. You can heat your home, produce light to see, grow food, power vehicles and radios, produce goods from raw materials and power equipment to keep you alive.

    Most people do not think about this very often because they can simply walk outside and feel the warm sun on their skin, do numerous tasks and even feed themselves as a result of this energy from the sun. They can do many things without modern technology because the sun provides the energy to do it. Knowing how to generate and utilize the various types of energy allows you to survive in many different environments.

    Here is one example to think about to show you what I mean…

    In the movie The Road, the earth is consumed by an environmental disaster that leaves the world in a cloudy haze, leaving it cold and dead. The survivors wonder around looking for any type of sustenance they can find including each other.

    Even under the circumstances given, these people still have the ability to produce energy. Energy means life. Nuclear power would still work under these circumstances especially in navel vessels. Even though all of the trees seem to be dead, they can still be burned for fuel. As long as water falls from the sky hydroelectric power will still work. Where you have power generation you have the means to provide heat and light to grow food. You only need the knowledge and skills to do it.

    In a survival situation, especially an extreme one, having an energy source that allows you to live is very important. That is one reason why knowledge and skills are so important to many preppers. Knowledge and skills allow you to construct a new living environment following an event and energy plays a major role in that. It is idiotic to walk around like the survivors in The Walking Dead, with no food, water, equipment or transportation when there are resources scattered all around you that can be utilized.

    Simply burning wood can provide you with energy to run a vehicle, produce power for lighting and communications and produce heat for cooking. With sufficient energy you can grow food, produce clothing, distill water, even provide fresh air and refrigeration. Energy is the key to living and the more knowledge you have in producing and controlling it the more likely you are to survive long term. The types of energy produced and the ways you utilize them are entirely up to you when your survival is in your hands. The more energy you can produce, the better your living standard is likely to be.

    When an abnormal event occurs that can bring civilization to a screeching halt, the energy you have available to you will determine if you survive or not. Energy in all of it’s forms is something most people never think about until it is too late. It does not matter if it is the sun, wind, hydro, wood, oil, bio fuels, coal or thermoelectric. You need to be ready to utilize what you have available when the time comes. Your ability to create and utilize the energy available to you is your ability to live.

  • "Irate" Long Island Man Arrested For Making "Terroristic Threats" Against Trump Supporters

    As the hysterical violence and aggression directed at Trump supporters continues to escalate (at the urging of Congresswoman Maxine Waters and other radical political opponents of the president), a Long Island man was arrested for threatening to kill supporters of President Donald Trump and Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin on Friday.

    After making the threats, the man also reportedly nearly hit a campaign staffer for Zeldin with his car. It’s the latest attack on a supporter of President Trump, following an assault in a restaurant near San Antonio where a Texas man was arrested after assaulting a teen and stealing his MAGA hat.

    Trump
    Martin Astrof

    According to the New York Post, Martin Astrof, 75, of Nesconset, “became irate” at Zeldin’s Suffolk County campaign headquarters at 11:15 am Friday. Astrof then threatened to kill a campaign worker as well as other Zeldin and Trump supporters.

    Astrof was arrested at his home Saturday morning and charged with making terroristic threats.

    He threatened to kill a campaign worker, as well as other Zeldin and Trump supporters – then “backed his car up in an aggressive manner nearly striking the worker,” according to authorities.

    Astrof fled the scene and was arrested at his home Friday afternoon. He was expected to be arraigned Saturday on a felony charge of making a terroristic threat, and on second-degree reckless endangerment charges.

    Zeldin, a dedicated political ally of the president, spoke out against the attack Friday night on twitter.

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

    Panico, the volunteer who was attacked, is a former deli owner from Smithtown. He was Zeldin’s guest at Trump’s State of the Union address earlier this year, in recognition of his efforts to feed Ground Zero workers in the aftermath of 9/11. The attack on Zeldin’s campaign office comes after Sen. Rand Paul said he and his family had received death threats from a person who said they would be “chopped up” with an axe.

    This is not going to end well.

  • Australia Will Now Fine Parents Twice a Month If They Don’t Vaccinate Their Kids

    Authored by Emma Fiala via MintPressNews.com,

    Australia’s “No Jab, No Pay” policy just got a little stronger, or at least more insistent. Under the previous policy, parents who did not keep their children up to date on vaccinations would miss out on a one-time, end-of-the-year tax benefit called Family Tax Benefit Part A, valued at AU$737. Under the updated policy, those same parents will instead lose AU$28 every two weeks while their child is not up to date.

    Australia’s Minister for Social Services, Dan Tehan, said in a statement:

    Immunization is the safest way to protect children from vaccine-preventable diseases. Parents who don’t immunize their children are putting their own kids at risk as well as the children of other people.”

    The expanded No Jab, No Pay policy went into effect on July 1, 2018.

    While parents will miss out on approximately the same amount of money in the end, the updated policy serves as a more “constant reminder” that the government of Australia wants all children vaccinated, according to Tehan.

    The Australian government has been attempting to quell the anti-vaccine movement for years and first introduced the No Jab, No Pay campaign in 2016. Since then, nearly 246,000 families have taken steps to meet the requirements.

    Concerns arose after small outbreaks of diseases like measles and whooping cough were blamed on an increase in the percentage of children younger than seven claiming a “conscientious objection” to vaccination. Between December 1999 and December 2014, the proportion of children under seven with a “conscientious objection” rose from 0.23 to 1.77 percent.

    Government vaccination campaigns are nothing new in Australia. Back in 1999, vaccination rates for children between the ages of 24 and 27 months hit the lowest level in 17 years. After launching an aggressive education campaign, that same rate rose from 73.6 percent in 1999 to 92.2 percent in 2015. But the Australian government asserted that still wasn’t enough and subsequently launched the No Jab, No Pay policy, spending AU$14 million on free vaccinations in 2017 alone.

    Medical exemptions are available both for children at risk of serious harm from vaccines and for children who have natural immunity.

    In addition to the No Jab, No Play policy, in some areas of Australia, a “No Jab, No Play” policy has gone into effect. In Queensland, for example, according to the National Centre for Immunisation Research & Surveillance:

    Child care services can cancel or refuse enrollment or attendance of children if they are not fully immunised, unless they are undergoing a vaccination catch-up program or have a medical reason not to be vaccinated. Vaccination objection is not a valid exemption. This legislation applies to attendance at long day care, kindergarten, family day care, outside school hours care/vacation care, limited hours care or occasional care.

    If an outbreak occurs, unimmunised children may be excluded from child care for a period of time.”

    As a result, those abstaining from vaccines in Queensland are reportedly organizing their own childcare services to circumvent the law.

    Allona Lahn of the Natural Immunity Community told ABC News:

    We organize group childcare arrangements and we’re now devising our own combined homeschooling system. We use health practitioners within the anti-vaccine networks around Australia and ‘anti-vaccination-friendly’ doctors in the community.”

    A similar move was attempted in nearby New Zealand but then-Prime Minister John Key concluded the choice should ultimately be left up to parents. Key said in 2015 of state-mandated vaccinations:

    If the state forced a child to be vaccinated and the child had a significant medical reaction and potentially died as a result of that, that would be a huge burden that the state would have put on those parents.”

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